"THE STOLEN BACILLUS\n\n\n\"This again,\" said the Bacteriologist, slipping a glass slide under\nthe microscope, \"is a preparation of the celebrated Bacillus of\ncholera--the cholera germ.\"\n\nThe pale-faced man peered down the microscope. He was evidently not\naccustomed to that kind of thing, and held a limp white hand over his\ndisengaged eye. \"I see very little,\" he said.\n\n\"Touch this screw,\" said the Bacteriologist; \"perhaps the microscope\nis out of focus for you. Eyes vary so much. Just the fraction of a\nturn this way or that.\"\n\n\"Ah! now I see,\" said the visitor. \"Not so very much to see after all.\nLittle streaks and shreds of pink. And yet those little particles,\nthose mere atomies, might multiply and devastate a city! Wonderful!\"\n\nHe stood up, and releasing the glass slip from the microscope, held\nit in his hand towards the window. \"Scarcely visible,\" he said,\nscrutinising the preparation. He hesitated. \"Are these--alive? Are\nthey dangerous now?\"\n\n\"Those have been stained and killed,\" said the Bacteriologist. \"I\nwish, for my own part, we could kill and stain every one of them in\nthe universe.\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" the pale man said with a slight smile, \"that you scarcely\ncare to have such things about you in the living--in the active\nstate?\"\n\n\"On the contrary, we are obliged to,\" said the Bacteriologist. \"Here,\nfor instance--\" He walked across the room and took up one of several\nsealed tubes. \"Here is the living thing. This is a cultivation of the\nactual living disease bacteria.\" He hesitated, \"Bottled cholera, so to\nspeak.\"\n\nA slight gleam of satisfaction appeared momentarily in the face of the\npale man.\n\n\"It's a deadly thing to have in your possession,\" he said, devouring\nthe little tube with his eyes. The Bacteriologist watched the morbid\npleasure in his visitor's expression. This man, who had visited\nhim that afternoon with a note of introduction from an old friend,\ninterested him from the very contrast of their dispositions. The lank\nblack hair and deep grey eyes, the haggard expression and nervous\nmanner, the fitful yet keen interest of his visitor were a novel\nchange from the phlegmatic deliberations of the ordinary scientific\nworker with whom the Bacteriologist chiefly associated. It was perhaps\nnatural, with a hearer evidently so impressionable to the lethal\nnature of his topic, to take the most effective aspect of the matter.\n\nHe held the tube in his hand thoughtfully. \"Yes, here is the\npestilence imprisoned. Only break such a little tube as this into a\nsupply of drinking-water, say to these minute particles of life that\none must needs stain and examine with the highest powers of the\nmicroscope even to see, and that one can neither smell nor taste--say\nto them, 'Go forth, increase and multiply, and replenish the\ncisterns,' and death--mysterious, untraceable death, death swift and\nterrible, death full of pain and indignity--would be released upon\nthis city, and go hither and thither seeking his victims. Here he\nwould take the husband from the wife, here the child from its mother,\nhere the statesman from his duty, and here the toiler from his\ntrouble. He would follow the water-mains, creeping along streets,\npicking out and punishing a house here and a house there where they\ndid not boil their drinking-water, creeping into the wells of the\nmineral-water makers, getting washed into salad, and lying dormant in\nices. He would wait ready to be drunk in the horse-troughs, and by\nunwary children in the public fountains. He would soak into the soil,\nto reappear in springs and wells at a thousand unexpected places. Once\nstart him at the water supply, and before we could ring him in, and\ncatch him again, he would have decimated the metropolis.\"\n\nHe stopped abruptly. He had been told rhetoric was his weakness.\n\n\"But he is quite safe here, you know--quite safe.\"\n\nThe pale-faced man nodded. His eyes shone. He cleared his throat.\n\"These Anarchist--rascals,\" said he, \"are fools, blind fools--to use\nbombs when this kind of thing is attainable. I think--\"\n\nA gentle rap, a mere light touch of the finger-nails was heard at the\ndoor. The Bacteriologist opened it. \"Just a minute, dear,\" whispered\nhis wife.\n\nWhen he re-entered the laboratory his visitor was looking at his\nwatch. \"I had no idea I had wasted an hour of your time,\" he said.\n\"Twelve minutes to four. I ought to have left here by half-past three.\nBut your things were really too interesting. No, positively I cannot\nstop a moment longer. I have an engagement at four.\"\n\nHe passed out of the room reiterating his thanks, and the\nBacteriologist accompanied him to the door, and then returned\nthoughtfully along the passage to his laboratory. He was musing on the\nethnology of his visitor. Certainly the man was not a Teutonic type\nnor a common Latin one. \"A morbid product, anyhow, I am afraid,\" said\nthe Bacteriologist to himself. \"How he gloated on those cultivations\nof disease-germs!\" A disturbing thought struck him. He turned to the\nbench by the vapour-bath, and then very quickly to his writing-table.\nThen he felt hastily in his pockets, and then rushed to the door. \"I\nmay have put it down on the hall table,\" he said.\n\n\"Minnie!\" he shouted hoarsely in the hall.\n\n\"Yes, dear,\" came a remote voice.\n\n\"Had I anything in my hand when I spoke to you, dear, just now?\"\n\nPause.\n\n\"Nothing, dear, because I remember--\"\n\n\"Blue ruin!\" cried the Bacteriologist, and incontinently ran to the\nfront door and down the steps of his house to the street.\n\nMinnie, hearing the door slam violently, ran in alarm to the\nwindow. Down the street a slender man was getting into a cab. The\nBacteriologist, hatless, and in his carpet slippers, was running and\ngesticulating wildly towards this group. One slipper came off, but\nhe did not wait for it. \"He has gone _mad_!\" said Minnie; \"it's that\nhorrid science of his\"; and, opening the window, would have called\nafter him. The slender man, suddenly glancing round, seemed struck\nwith the same idea of mental disorder. He pointed hastily to the\nBacteriologist, said something to the cabman, the apron of the cab\nslammed, the whip swished, the horse's feet clattered, and in a moment\ncab, and Bacteriologist hotly in pursuit, had receded up the vista of\nthe roadway and disappeared round the corner.\n\nMinnie remained straining out of the window for a minute. Then she\ndrew her head back into the room again. She was dumbfounded. \"Of\ncourse he is eccentric,\" she meditated. \"But running about London--in\nthe height of the season, too--in his socks!\" A happy thought struck\nher. She hastily put her bonnet on, seized his shoes, went into the\nhall, took down his hat and light overcoat from the pegs, emerged upon\nthe doorstep, and hailed a cab that opportunely crawled by. \"Drive\nme up the road and round Havelock Crescent, and see if we can find a\ngentleman running about in a velveteen coat and no hat.\"\n\n\"Velveteen coat, ma'am, and no 'at. Very good, ma'am.\" And the cabman\nwhipped up at once in the most matter-of-fact way, as if he drove to\nthis address every day in his life.\n\nSome few minutes later the little group of cabmen and loafers that\ncollects round the cabmen's shelter at Haverstock Hill were startled\nby the passing of a cab with a ginger-coloured screw of a horse,\ndriven furiously.\n\nThey were silent as it went by, and then as it receded--\"That's 'Arry\n'Icks. Wot's _he_ got?\" said the stout gentleman known as Old Tootles.\n\n\"He's a-using his whip, he is, _to_ rights,\" said the ostler boy.\n\n\"Hullo!\" said poor old Tommy Byles; \"here's another bloomin' loonatic.\nBlowed if there aint.\"\n\n\"It's old George,\" said old Tootles, \"and he's drivin' a loonatic,\n_as_ you say. Aint he a-clawin' out of the keb? Wonder if he's after\n'Arry 'Icks?\"\n\nThe group round the cabmen's shelter became animated. Chorus: \"Go it,\nGeorge!\" \"It's a race.\" \"You'll ketch 'em!\" \"Whip up!\"\n\n\"She's a goer, she is!\" said the ostler boy.\n\n\"Strike me giddy!\" cried old Tootles. \"Here! _I'm_ a-goin' to begin\nin a minute. Here's another comin'. If all the kebs in Hampstead aint\ngone mad this morning!\"\n\n\"It's a fieldmale this time,\" said the ostler boy.\n\n\"She's a followin' _him_,\" said old Tootles. \"Usually the other way\nabout.\"\n\n\"What's she got in her 'and?\"\n\n\"Looks like a 'igh 'at.\"\n\n\"What a bloomin' lark it is! Three to one on old George,\" said the\nostler boy. \"Nexst!\"\n\nMinnie went by in a perfect roar of applause. She did not like it but\nshe felt that she was doing her duty, and whirled on down Haverstock\nHill and Camden Town High Street with her eyes ever intent on the\nanimated back view of old George, who was driving her vagrant husband\nso incomprehensibly away from her.\n\nThe man in the foremost cab sat crouched in the corner, his arms\ntightly folded, and the little tube that contained such vast\npossibilities of destruction gripped in his hand. His mood was a\nsingular mixture of fear and exultation. Chiefly he was afraid of\nbeing caught before he could accomplish his purpose, but behind this\nwas a vaguer but larger fear of the awfulness of his crime. But his\nexultation far exceeded his fear. No Anarchist before him had ever\napproached this conception of his. Ravachol, Vaillant, all those\ndistinguished persons whose fame he had envied dwindled into\ninsignificance beside him. He had only to make sure of the water\nsupply, and break the little tube into a reservoir. How brilliantly\nhe had planned it, forged the letter of introduction and got into the\nlaboratory, and how brilliantly he had seized his opportunity! The\nworld should hear of him at last. All those people who had sneered at\nhim, neglected him, preferred other people to him, found his company\nundesirable, should consider him at last. Death, death, death! They\nhad always treated him as a man of no importance. All the world had\nbeen in a conspiracy to keep him under. He would teach them yet what\nit is to isolate a man. What was this familiar street? Great Saint\nAndrew's Street, of course! How fared the chase? He craned out of the\ncab. The Bacteriologist was scarcely fifty yards behind. That was bad.\nHe would be caught and stopped yet. He felt in his pocket for money,\nand found half-a-sovereign. This he thrust up through the trap in the\ntop of the cab into the man's face. \"More,\" he shouted, \"if only we\nget away.\"\n\nThe money was snatched out of his hand. \"Right you are,\" said the\ncabman, and the trap slammed, and the lash lay along the glistening\nside of the horse. The cab swayed, and the Anarchist, half-standing\nunder the trap, put the hand containing the little glass tube upon the\napron to preserve his balance. He felt the brittle thing crack, and\nthe broken half of it rang upon the floor of the cab. He fell back\ninto the seat with a curse, and stared dismally at the two or three\ndrops of moisture on the apron.\n\nHe shuddered.\n\n\"Well! I suppose I shall be the first. _Phew_! Anyhow, I shall be a\nMartyr. That's something. But it is a filthy death, nevertheless. I\nwonder if it hurts as much as they say.\"\n\nPresently a thought occurred to him--he groped between his feet. A\nlittle drop was still in the broken end of the tube, and he drank that\nto make sure. It was better to make sure. At any rate, he would not\nfail.\n\nThen it dawned upon him that there was no further need to escape the\nBacteriologist. In Wellington Street he told the cabman to stop, and\ngot out. He slipped on the step, and his head felt queer. It was rapid\nstuff this cholera poison. He waved his cabman out of existence, so to\nspeak, and stood on the pavement with his arms folded upon his breast\nawaiting the arrival of the Bacteriologist. There was something tragic\nin his pose. The sense of imminent death gave him a certain dignity.\nHe greeted his pursuer with a defiant laugh.\n\n\"Vive l'Anarchie! You are too late, my friend. I have drunk it. The\ncholera is abroad!\"\n\nThe Bacteriologist from his cab beamed curiously at him through his\nspectacles. \"You have drunk it! An Anarchist! I see now.\" He was about\nto say something more, and then checked himself. A smile hung in the\ncorner of his mouth. He opened the apron of his cab as if to descend,\nat which the Anarchist waved him a dramatic farewell and strode off\ntowards Waterloo Bridge, carefully jostling his infected body against\nas many people as possible. The Bacteriologist was so preoccupied with\nthe vision of him that he scarcely manifested the slightest surprise\nat the appearance of Minnie upon the pavement with his hat and shoes\nand overcoat. \"Very good of you to bring my things,\" he said,\nand remained lost in contemplation of the receding figure of the\nAnarchist.\n\n\"You had better get in,\" he said, still staring. Minnie felt\nabsolutely convinced now that he was mad, and directed the cabman home\non her own responsibility. \"Put on my shoes? Certainly dear,\" said\nhe, as the cab began to turn, and hid the strutting black figure,\nnow small in the distance, from his eyes. Then suddenly something\ngrotesque struck him, and he laughed. Then he remarked, \"It is really\nvery serious, though.\"\n\n\"You see, that man came to my house to see me, and he is an Anarchist.\nNo--don't faint, or I cannot possibly tell you the rest. And I wanted\nto astonish him, not knowing he was an Anarchist, and took up a\ncultivation of that new species of Bacterium I was telling you of,\nthat infest, and I think cause, the blue patches upon various monkeys;\nand like a fool, I said it was Asiatic cholera. And he ran away with\nit to poison the water of London, and he certainly might have made\nthings look blue for this civilised city. And now he has swallowed it.\nOf course, I cannot say what will happen, but you know it turned\nthat kitten blue, and the three puppies--in patches, and the\nsparrow--bright blue. But the bother is, I shall have all the trouble\nand expense of preparing some more.\n\n\"Put on my coat on this hot day! Why? Because we might meet Mrs\nJabber. My dear, Mrs Jabber is not a draught. But why should I wear a\ncoat on a hot day because of Mrs--. Oh! _very_ well.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE FLOWERING OF THE STRANGE ORCHID\n\n\nThe buying of orchids always has in it a certain speculative flavour.\nYou have before you the brown shrivelled lump of tissue, and for\nthe rest you must trust your judgment, or the auctioneer, or your\ngood-luck, as your taste may incline. The plant may be moribund or\ndead, or it may be just a respectable purchase, fair value for your\nmoney, or perhaps--for the thing has happened again and again--there\nslowly unfolds before the delighted eyes of the happy purchaser, day\nafter day, some new variety, some novel richness, a strange twist\nof the labellum, or some subtler colouration or unexpected mimicry.\nPride, beauty, and profit blossom together on one delicate green\nspike, and, it may be, even immortality. For the new miracle of Nature\nmay stand in need of a new specific name, and what so convenient as\nthat of its discoverer? \"Johnsmithia\"! There have been worse names.\n\nIt was perhaps the hope of some such happy discovery that made\nWinter-Wedderburn such a frequent attendant at these sales--that hope,\nand also, maybe, the fact that he had nothing else of the slightest\ninterest to do in the world. He was a shy, lonely, rather ineffectual\nman, provided with just enough income to keep off the spur of\nnecessity, and not enough nervous energy to make him seek any exacting\nemployments. He might have collected stamps or coins, or translated\nHorace, or bound books, or invented new species of diatoms. But, as it\nhappened, he grew orchids, and had one ambitious little hothouse.\n\n\"I have a fancy,\" he said over his coffee, \"that something is going to\nhappen to me to-day.\" He spoke--as he moved and thought--slowly.\n\n\"Oh, don't say _that_!\" said his housekeeper--who was also his remote\ncousin. For \"something happening\" was a euphemism that meant only one\nthing to her.\n\n\"You misunderstand me. I mean nothing unpleasant ... though what I do\nmean I scarcely know.\n\n\"To-day,\" he continued, after a pause, \"Peters' are going to sell a\nbatch of plants from the Andamans and the Indies. I shall go up and\nsee what they have. It may be I shall buy something good, unawares.\nThat may be it.\"\n\nHe passed his cup for his second cupful of coffee.\n\n\"Are these the things collected by that poor young fellow you told me\nof the other day?\" asked his cousin as she filled his cup.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, and became meditative over a piece of toast.\n\n\"Nothing ever does happen to me,\" he remarked presently, beginning\nto think aloud. \"I wonder why? Things enough happen to other people.\nThere is Harvey. Only the other week; on Monday he picked up sixpence,\non Wednesday his chicks all had the staggers, on Friday his cousin\ncame home from Australia, and on Saturday he broke his ankle. What a\nwhirl of excitement!--compared to me.\"\n\n\"I think I would rather be without so much excitement,\" said his\nhousekeeper. \"It can't be good for you.\"\n\n\"I suppose it's troublesome. Still ... you see, nothing ever happens\nto me. When I was a little boy I never had accidents. I never fell in\nlove as I grew up. Never married.... I wonder how it feels to have\nsomething happen to you, something really remarkable.\n\n\"That orchid-collector was only thirty-six--twenty years younger than\nmyself--when he died. And he had been married twice and divorced once;\nhe had had malarial fever four times, and once he broke his thigh. He\nkilled a Malay once, and once he was wounded by a poisoned dart. And in\nthe end he was killed by jungle-leeches. It must have all been\nvery troublesome, but then it must have been very interesting, you\nknow--except, perhaps, the leeches.\"\n\n\"I am sure it was not good for him,\" said the lady, with conviction.\n\n\"Perhaps not.\" And then Wedderburn looked at his watch. \"Twenty-three\nminutes past eight. I am going up by the quarter to twelve train,\nso that there is plenty of time. I think I shall wear my alpaca\njacket--it is quite warm enough--and my grey felt hat and brown shoes.\nI suppose--\"\n\nHe glanced out of the window at the serene sky and sunlit garden, and\nthen nervously at his cousin's face.\n\n\"I think you had better take an umbrella if you are going to London,\"\nshe said in a voice that admitted of no denial. \"There's all between\nhere and the station coming back.\"\n\nWhen he returned he was in a state of mild excitement. He had made a\npurchase. It was rare that he could make up his mind quickly enough to\nbuy, but this time he had done so.\n\n\"There are Vandas,\" he said, \"and a Dendrobe and some Palaeonophis.\"\nHe surveyed his purchases lovingly as he consumed his soup. They were\nlaid out on the spotless tablecloth before him, and he was telling his\ncousin all about them as he slowly meandered through his dinner. It\nwas his custom to live all his visits to London over again in the\nevening for her and his own entertainment.\n\n\"I knew something would happen to-day. And I have bought all these.\nSome of them--some of them--I feel sure, do you know, that some of\nthem will be remarkable. I don't know how it is, but I feel just\nas sure as if someone had told me that some of these will turn out\nremarkable.\n\n\"That one\"--he pointed to a shrivelled rhizome--\"was not identified.\nIt may be a Palaeonophis--or it may not. It may be a new species,\nor even a new genus. And it was the last that poor Batten ever\ncollected.\"\n\n\"I don't like the look of it,\" said his housekeeper. \"It's such an\nugly shape.\"\n\n\"To me it scarcely seems to have a shape.\"\n\n\"I don't like those things that stick out,\" said his housekeeper.\n\n\"It shall be put away in a pot to-morrow.\"\n\n\"It looks,\" said the housekeeper, \"like a spider shamming dead.\"\n\nWedderburn smiled and surveyed the root with his head on one side. \"It\nis certainly not a pretty lump of stuff. But you can never judge of\nthese things from their dry appearance. It may turn out to be a very\nbeautiful orchid indeed. How busy I shall be to-morrow! I must see\nto-night just exactly what to do with these things, and to-morrow I\nshall set to work.\"\n\n\"They found poor Batten lying dead, or dying, in a mangrove swamp--I\nforget which,\" he began again presently, \"with one of these very\norchids crushed up under his body. He had been unwell for some days\nwith some kind of native fever, and I suppose he fainted. These\nmangrove swamps are very unwholesome. Every drop of blood, they say,\nwas taken out of him by the jungle-leeches. It may be that very plant\nthat cost him his life to obtain.\"\n\n\"I think none the better of it for that.\"\n\n\"Men must work though women may weep,\" said Wedderburn with profound\ngravity.\n\n\"Fancy dying away from every comfort in a nasty swamp! Fancy being ill\nof fever with nothing to take but chlorodyne and quinine--if men were\nleft to themselves they would live on chlorodyne and quinine--and no\none round you but horrible natives! They say the Andaman islanders are\nmost disgusting wretches--and, anyhow, they can scarcely make good\nnurses, not having the necessary training. And just for people in\nEngland to have orchids!\"\n\n\"I don't suppose it was comfortable, but some men seem to enjoy that\nkind of thing,\" said Wedderburn. \"Anyhow, the natives of his party\nwere sufficiently civilised to take care of all his collection until\nhis colleague, who was an ornithologist, came back again from the\ninterior; though they could not tell the species of the orchid and had\nlet it wither. And it makes these things more interesting.\"\n\n\"It makes them disgusting. I should be afraid of some of the malaria\nclinging to them. And just think, there has been a dead body lying\nacross that ugly thing! I never thought of that before. There! I\ndeclare I cannot eat another mouthful of dinner.\"\n\n\"I will take them off the table if you like, and put them in the\nwindow-seat. I can see them just as well there.\"\n\nThe next few days he was indeed singularly busy in his steamy little\nhothouse, fussing about with charcoal, lumps of teak, moss, and all\nthe other mysteries of the orchid cultivator. He considered he was\nhaving a wonderfully eventful time. In the evening he would talk about\nthese new orchids to his friends, and over and over again he reverted\nto his expectation of something strange.\n\nSeveral of the Vandas and the Dendrobium died under his care, but\npresently the strange orchid began to show signs of life. He was\ndelighted and took his housekeeper right away from jam-making to see\nit at once, directly he made the discovery.\n\n\"That is a bud,\" he said, \"and presently there will be a lot of leaves\nthere, and those little things coming out here are aërial rootlets.\"\n\n\"They look to me like little white fingers poking out of the brown,\"\nsaid his housekeeper. \"I don't like them.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"I don't know. They look like fingers trying to get at you. I can't\nhelp my likes and dislikes.\"\n\n\"I don't know for certain, but I don't _think_ there are any orchids I\nknow that have aërial rootlets quite like that. It may be my fancy, of\ncourse. You see they are a little flattened at the ends.\"\n\n\"I don't like 'em,\" said his housekeeper, suddenly shivering and\nturning away. \"I know it's very silly of me--and I'm very sorry,\nparticularly as you like the thing so much. But I can't help thinking\nof that corpse.\"\n\n\"But it may not be that particular plant. That was merely a guess of\nmine.\"\n\nHis housekeeper shrugged her shoulders. \"Anyhow I don't like it,\" she\nsaid.\n\nWedderburn felt a little hurt at her dislike to the plant. But that\ndid not prevent his talking to her about orchids generally, and this\norchid in particular, whenever he felt inclined.\n\n\"There are such queer things about orchids,\" he said one day;\n\"such possibilities of surprises. You know, Darwin studied their\nfertilisation, and showed that the whole structure of an ordinary\norchid-flower was contrived in order that moths might carry the pollen\nfrom plant to plant. Well, it seems that there are lots of orchids\nknown the flower of which cannot possibly be used for fertilisation in\nthat way. Some of the Cypripediums, for instance; there are no insects\nknown that can possibly fertilise them, and some of them have never be\nfound with seed.\"\n\n\"But how do they form new plants?\"\n\n\"By runners and tubers, and that kind of outgrowth. That is easily\nexplained. The puzzle is, what are the flowers for?\n\n\"Very likely,\" he added, \"_my_ orchid may be something extraordinary\nin that way. If so I shall study it. I have often thought of making\nresearches as Darwin did. But hitherto I have not found the time, or\nsomething else has happened to prevent it. The leaves are beginning to\nunfold now. I do wish you would come and see them!\"\n\nBut she said that the orchid-house was so hot it gave her the\nheadache. She had seen the plant once again, and the aërial rootlets,\nwhich were now some of them more than a foot long, had unfortunately\nreminded her of tentacles reaching out after something; and they got\ninto her dreams, growing after her with incredible rapidity. So that\nshe had settled to her entire satisfaction that she would not see that\nplant again, and Wedderburn had to admire its leaves alone. They were\nof the ordinary broad form, and a deep glossy green, with splashes and\ndots of deep red towards the base. He knew of no other leaves quite\nlike them. The plant was placed on a low bench near the thermometer,\nand close by was a simple arrangement by which a tap dripped on the\nhot-water pipes and kept the air steamy. And he spent his afternoons\nnow with some regularity meditating on the approaching flowering of\nthis strange plant.\n\nAnd at last the great thing happened. Directly he entered the little\nglass house he knew that the spike had burst out, although his great\n_Palaeonophis Lowii_ hid the corner where his new darling stood.\nThere was a new odour in the air, a rich, intensely sweet scent, that\noverpowered every other in that crowded, steaming little greenhouse.\n\nDirectly he noticed this he hurried down to the strange orchid. And,\nbehold! the trailing green spikes bore now three great splashes of\nblossom, from which this overpowering sweetness proceeded. He stopped\nbefore them in an ecstasy of admiration.\n\nThe flowers were white, with streaks of golden orange upon the petals;\nthe heavy labellum was coiled into an intricate projection, and a\nwonderful bluish purple mingled there with the gold. He could see at\nonce that the genus was altogether a new one. And the insufferable\nscent! How hot the place was! The blossoms swam before his eyes.\n\nHe would see if the temperature was right. He made a step towards the\nthermometer. Suddenly everything appeared unsteady. The bricks on the\nfloor were dancing up and down. Then the white blossoms, the green\nleaves behind them, the whole greenhouse, seemed to sweep sideways,\nand then in a curve upward.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt half-past four his cousin made the tea, according to their\ninvariable custom. But Wedderburn did not come in for his tea.\n\n\"He is worshipping that horrid orchid,\" she told herself, and waited\nten minutes. \"His watch must have stopped. I will go and call him.\"\n\nShe went straight to the hothouse, and, opening the door, called his\nname. There was no reply. She noticed that the air was very close, and\nloaded with an intense perfume. Then she saw something lying on the\nbricks between the hot-water pipes.\n\nFor a minute, perhaps, she stood motionless.\n\nHe was lying, face upward, at the foot of the strange orchid. The\ntentacle-like aërial rootlets no longer swayed freely in the air, but\nwere crowded together, a tangle of grey ropes, and stretched tight\nwith their ends closely applied to his chin and neck and hands.\n\nShe did not understand. Then she saw from under one of the exultant\ntentacles upon his cheek there trickled a little thread of blood.\n\nWith an inarticulate cry she ran towards him, and tried to pull him\naway from the leech-like suckers. She snapped two of these tentacles,\nand their sap dripped red.\n\nThen the overpowering scent of the blossom began to make her head\nreel. How they clung to him! She tore at the tough ropes, and he and\nthe white inflorescence swam about her. She felt she was fainting,\nknew she must not. She left him and hastily opened the nearest door,\nand, after she had panted for a moment in the fresh air, she had a\nbrilliant inspiration. She caught up a flower-pot and smashed in the\nwindows at the end of the green-house. Then she re-entered. She tugged\nnow with renewed strength at Wedderburn's motionless body, and brought\nthe strange orchid crashing to the floor. It still clung with the\ngrimmest tenacity to its victim. In a frenzy, she lugged it and him\ninto the open air.\n\nThen she thought of tearing through the sucker rootlets one by one,\nand in another minute she had released him and was dragging him away\nfrom the horror.\n\nHe was white and bleeding from a dozen circular patches.\n\nThe odd-job man was coming up the garden, amazed at the smashing of\nglass, and saw her emerge, hauling the inanimate body with red-stained\nhands. For a moment he thought impossible things.\n\n\"Bring some water!\" she cried, and her voice dispelled his fancies.\nWhen, with unnatural alacrity, he returned with the water, he found\nher weeping with excitement, and with Wedderburn's head upon her knee,\nwiping the blood from his face.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" said Wedderburn, opening his eyes feebly, and\nclosing them again at once.\n\n\"Go and tell Annie to come out here to me, and then go for Doctor\nHaddon at once,\" she said to the odd-job man so soon as he brought the\nwater; and added, seeing he hesitated, \"I will tell you all about it\nwhen you come back.\"\n\nPresently Wedderburn opened his eyes again, and, seeing that he was\ntroubled by the puzzle of his position, she explained to him, \"You\nfainted in the hothouse.\"\n\n\"And the orchid?\"\n\n\"I will see to that,\" she said.\n\nWedderburn had lost a good deal of blood, but beyond that he had\nsuffered no very great injury. They gave him brandy mixed with some\npink extract of meat, and carried him upstairs to bed. His housekeeper\ntold her incredible story in fragments to Dr Haddon. \"Come to the\norchid-house and see,\" she said.\n\nThe cold outer air was blowing in through the open door, and the\nsickly perfume was almost dispelled. Most of the torn aërial rootlets\nlay already withered amidst a number of dark stains upon the bricks.\nThe stem of the inflorescence was broken by the fall of the plant, and\nthe flowers were growing limp and brown at the edges of the petals.\nThe doctor stooped towards it, then saw that one of the aërial\nrootlets still stirred feebly, and hesitated.\n\nThe next morning the strange orchid still lay there, black now and\nputrescent. The door banged intermittently in the morning breeze, and\nall the array of Wedderburn's orchids was shrivelled and prostrate.\nBut Wedderburn himself was bright and garrulous upstairs in the glory\nof his strange adventure.\n\n\n\n\nIN THE AVU OBSERVATORY\n\n\nThe observatory at Avu, in Borneo, stands on the spur of the mountain.\nTo the north rises the old crater, black at night against the\nunfathomable blue of the sky. From the little circular building, with\nits mushroom dome, the slopes plunge steeply downward into the black\nmysteries of the tropical forest beneath. The little house in which\nthe observer and his assistant live is about fifty yards from the\nobservatory, and beyond this are the huts of their native attendants.\n\nThaddy, the chief observer, was down with a slight fever. His\nassistant, Woodhouse, paused for a moment in silent contemplation of\nthe tropical night before commencing his solitary vigil. The night\nwas very still. Now and then voices and laughter came from the native\nhuts, or the cry of some strange animal was heard from the midst of\nthe mystery of the forest. Nocturnal insects appeared in ghostly\nfashion out of the darkness, and fluttered round his light. He\nthought, perhaps, of all the possibilities of discovery that still\nlay in the black tangle beneath him; for to the naturalist the virgin\nforests of Borneo are still a wonderland full of strange questions and\nhalf-suspected discoveries. Woodhouse carried a small lantern in his\nhand, and its yellow glow contrasted vividly with the infinite series\nof tints between lavender-blue and black in which the landscape was\npainted. His hands and face were smeared with ointment against the\nattacks of the mosquitoes.\n\nEven in these days of celestial photography, work done in a purely\ntemporary erection, and with only the most primitive appliances in\naddition to the telescope, still involves a very large amount of\ncramped and motionless watching. He sighed as he thought of the\nphysical fatigues before him, stretched himself, and entered the\nobservatory.\n\nThe reader is probably familiar with the structure of an ordinary\nastronomical observatory. The building is usually cylindrical in\nshape, with a very light hemispherical roof capable of being turned\nround from the interior. The telescope is supported upon a stone\npillar in the centre, and a clockwork arrangement compensates for the\nearth's rotation, and allows a star once found to be continuously\nobserved. Besides this, there is a compact tracery of wheels and\nscrews about its point of support, by which the astronomer adjusts it.\nThere is, of course, a slit in the movable roof which follows the eye\nof the telescope in its survey of the heavens. The observer sits or\nlies on a sloping wooden arrangement, which he can wheel to any part\nof the observatory as the position of the telescope may require.\nWithin it is advisable to have things as dark as possible, in order to\nenhance the brilliance of the stars observed.\n\nThe lantern flared as Woodhouse entered his circular den, and the\ngeneral darkness fled into black shadows behind the big machine, from\nwhich it presently seemed to creep back over the whole place again as\nthe light waned. The slit was a profound transparent blue, in which\nsix stars shone with tropical brilliance, and their light lay, a\npallid gleam, along the black tube of the instrument. Woodhouse\nshifted the roof, and then proceeding to the telescope, turned first\none wheel and then another, the great cylinder slowly swinging into a\nnew position. Then he glanced through the finder, the little\ncompanion telescope, moved the roof a little more, made some further\nadjustments, and set the clockwork in motion. He took off his jacket,\nfor the night was very hot, and pushed into position the uncomfortable\nseat to which he was condemned for the next four hours. Then with a\nsigh he resigned himself to his watch upon the mysteries of space.\n\nThere was no sound now in the observatory, and the lantern waned\nsteadily. Outside there was the occasional cry of some animal in alarm\nor pain, or calling to its mate, and the intermittent sounds of the\nMalay and Dyak servants. Presently one of the men began a queer\nchanting song, in which the others joined at intervals. After this it\nwould seem that they turned in for the night, for no further sound\ncame from their direction, and the whispering stillness became more\nand more profound.\n\nThe clockwork ticked steadily. The shrill hum of a mosquito explored\nthe place and grew shriller in indignation at Woodhouse's ointment.\nThen the lantern went out and all the observatory was black.\n\nWoodhouse shifted his position presently, when the slow movement of\nthe telescope had carried it beyond the limits of his comfort.\n\nHe was watching a little group of stars in the Milky Way, in one of\nwhich his chief had seen or fancied a remarkable colour variability.\nIt was not a part of the regular work for which the establishment\nexisted, and for that reason perhaps Woodhouse was deeply interested.\nHe must have forgotten things terrestrial. All his attention was\nconcentrated upon the great blue circle of the telescope field--a\ncircle powdered, so it seemed, with an innumerable multitude of stars,\nand all luminous against the blackness of its setting. As he watched\nhe seemed to himself to become incorporeal, as if he too were floating\nin the ether of space. Infinitely remote was the faint red spot he was\nobserving.\n\nSuddenly the stars were blotted out. A flash of blackness passed, and\nthey were visible again.\n\n\"Queer,\" said Woodhouse. \"Must have been a bird.\"\n\nThe thing happened again, and immediately after the great tube\nshivered as though it had been struck. Then the dome of the\nobservatory resounded with a series of thundering blows. The stars\nseemed to sweep aside as the telescope--which had been undamped--swung\nround and away from the slit in the roof.\n\n\"Great Scott!\" cried Woodhouse. \"What's this?\"\n\nSome huge vague black shape, with a flapping something like a wing,\nseemed to be struggling in the aperture of the roof. In another moment\nthe slit was clear again, and the luminous haze of the Milky Way shone\nwarm and bright.\n\nThe interior of the roof was perfectly black, and only a scraping\nsound marked the whereabouts of the unknown creature.\n\nWoodhouse had scrambled from the seat to his feet. He was trembling\nviolently and in a perspiration with the suddenness of the occurrence.\nWas the thing, whatever it was, inside or out? It was big, whatever\nelse it might be. Something shot across the skylight, and the\ntelescope swayed. He started violently and put his arm up. It was\nin the observatory, then, with him. It was clinging to the roof,\napparently. What the devil was it? Could it see him?\n\nHe stood for perhaps a minute in a state of stupefaction. The beast,\nwhatever it was, clawed at the interior of the dome, and then\nsomething flapped almost into his face, and he saw the momentary\ngleam of starlight on a skin like oiled leather. His water-bottle was\nknocked off his little table with a smash.\n\nThe sense of some strange bird-creature hovering a few yards from his\nface in the darkness was indescribably unpleasant to Woodhouse. As his\nthought returned he concluded that it must be some night-bird or large\nbat. At any risk he would see what it was, and pulling a match from\nhis pocket, he tried to strike it on the telescope seat. There was a\nsmoking streak of phosphorescent light, the match flared for a moment,\nand he saw a vast wing sweeping towards him, a gleam of grey-brown\nfur, and then he was struck in the face and the match knocked out of\nhis hand. The blow was aimed at his temple, and a claw tore sideways\ndown to his cheek. He reeled and fell, and he heard the extinguished\nlantern smash. Another blow followed as he fell. He was partly\nstunned, he felt his own warm blood stream out upon his face.\nInstinctively he felt his eyes had been struck at, and, turning over\non his face to protect them, tried to crawl under the protection of\nthe telescope. He was struck again upon the back, and he heard his\njacket rip, and then the thing hit the roof of the observatory. He\nedged as far as he could between the wooden seat and the eyepiece of\nthe instrument, and turned his body round so that it was chiefly his\nfeet that were exposed. With these he could at least kick. He was\nstill in a mystified state. The strange beast banged about in the\ndarkness, and presently clung to the telescope, making it sway and the\ngear rattle. Once it flapped near him, and he kicked out madly and\nfelt a soft body with his feet. He was horribly scared now. It must be\na big thing to swing the telescope like that. He saw for a moment the\noutline of a head black against the starlight, with sharply-pointed\nupstanding ears and a crest between them. It seemed to him to be as\nbig as a mastiff's. Then he began to bawl out as loudly as he could for\nhelp.\n\nAt that the thing came down upon him again. As it did so his hand\ntouched something beside him on the floor. He kicked out, and the\nnext moment his ankle was gripped and held by a row of keen teeth. He\nyelled again, and tried to free his leg by kicking with the other.\nThen he realised he had the broken water-bottle at his hand, and,\nsnatching it, he struggled into a sitting posture, and feeling in the\ndarkness towards his foot, gripped a velvety ear, like the ear of a\nbig cat. He had seized the water-bottle by its neck and brought it\ndown with a shivering crash upon the head of the strange beast. He\nrepeated the blow, and then stabbed and jobbed with the jagged end of\nit, in the darkness, where he judged the face might be.\n\nThe small teeth relaxed their hold, and at once Woodhouse pulled his\nleg free and kicked hard. He felt the sickening feel of fur and bone\ngiving under his boot. There was a tearing bite at his arm, and he\nstruck over it at the face, as he judged, and hit damp fur.\n\nThere was a pause; then he heard the sound of claws and the dragging\nof a heavy body away from him over the observatory floor. Then there\nwas silence, broken only by his own sobbing breathing, and a sound\nlike licking. Everything was black except the parallelogram of the\nblue skylight with the luminous dust of stars, against which the end\nof the telescope now appeared in silhouette. He waited, as it seemed,\nan interminable time. Was the thing coming on again? He felt in his\ntrouser-pocket for some matches, and found one remaining. He tried\nto strike this, but the floor was wet, and it spat and went out. He\ncursed. He could not see where the door was situated. In his struggle\nhe had quite lost his bearings. The strange beast, disturbed by the\nsplutter of the match, began to move again. \"Time!\" called Woodhouse,\nwith a sudden gleam of mirth, but the thing was not coming at him\nagain. He must have hurt it, he thought, with the broken bottle. He\nfelt a dull pain in his ankle. Probably he was bleeding there. He\nwondered if it would support him if he tried to stand up. The night\noutside was very still. There was no sound of any one moving. The\nsleepy fools had not heard those wings battering upon the dome, nor\nhis shouts. It was no good wasting strength in shouting. The monster\nflapped its wings and startled him into a defensive attitude. He hit\nhis elbow against the seat, and it fell over with a crash. He cursed\nthis, and then he cursed the darkness.\n\nSuddenly the oblong patch of starlight seemed to sway to and fro. Was\nhe going to faint? It would never do to faint. He clenched his fists\nand set his teeth to hold himself together. Where had the door got\nto? It occurred to him he could get his bearings by the stars visible\nthrough the skylight. The patch of stars he saw was in Sagittarius and\nsouth-eastward; the door was north--or was it north by west? He tried\nto think. If he could get the door open he might retreat. It might be\nthe thing was wounded. The suspense was beastly. \"Look here!\" he said,\n\"if you don't come on, I shall come at you.\"\n\nThen the thing began clambering up the side of the observatory, and\nhe saw its black outline gradually blot out the skylight. Was it in\nretreat? He forgot about the door, and watched as the dome shifted and\ncreaked. Somehow he did not feel very frightened or excited now. He\nfelt a curious sinking sensation inside him. The sharply-defined patch\nof light, with the black form moving across it, seemed to be growing\nsmaller and smaller. That was curious. He began to feel very thirsty,\nand yet he did not feel inclined to get anything to drink. He seemed\nto be sliding down a long funnel.\n\nHe felt a burning sensation in his throat, and then he perceived it\nwas broad daylight, and that one of the Dyak servants was looking at\nhim with a curious expression. Then there was the top of Thaddy's face\nupside down. Funny fellow, Thaddy, to go about like that! Then he\ngrasped the situation better, and perceived that his head was on\nThaddy's knee, and Thaddy was giving him brandy. And then he saw the\neyepiece of the telescope with a lot of red smears on it. He began to\nremember.\n\n\"You've made this observatory in a pretty mess,\" said Thaddy.\n\nThe Dyak boy was beating up an egg in brandy. Woodhouse took this and\nsat up. He felt a sharp twinge of pain. His ankle was tied up, so were\nhis arm and the side of his face. The smashed glass, red-stained,\nlay about the floor, the telescope seat was overturned, and by the\nopposite wall was a dark pool. The door was open, and he saw the grey\nsummit of the mountain against a brilliant background of blue sky.\n\n\"Pah!\" said Woodhouse. \"Who's been killing calves here? Take me out of\nit.\"\n\nThen he remembered the Thing, and the fight he had had with it.\n\n\"What _was_ it?\" he said to Thaddy--\"The Thing I fought with?\"\n\n\"_You_ know that best,\" said Thaddy. \"But, anyhow, don't worry\nyourself now about it. Have some more to drink.\"\n\nThaddy, however, was curious enough, and it was a hard struggle\nbetween duty and inclination to keep Woodhouse quiet until he was\ndecently put away in bed, and had slept upon the copious dose of\nmeat-extract Thaddy considered advisable. They then talked it over\ntogether.\n\n\"It was,\" said Woodhouse, \"more like a big bat than anything else in\nthe world. It had sharp, short ears, and soft fur, and its wings were\nleathery. Its teeth were little, but devilish sharp, and its jaw could\nnot have been very strong or else it would have bitten through my\nankle.\"\n\n\"It has pretty nearly,\" said Thaddy.\n\n\"It seemed to me to hit out with its claws pretty freely. That\nis about as much as I know about the beast. Our conversation was\nintimate, so to speak, and yet not confidential.\"\n\n\"The Dyak chaps talk about a Big Colugo, a Klang-utang--whatever\nthat may be. It does not often attack man, but I suppose you made it\nnervous. They say there is a Big Colugo and a Little Colugo, and a\nsomething else that sounds like gobble. They all fly about at night.\nFor my own part I know there are flying foxes and flying lemurs about\nhere, but they are none of them very big beasts.\"\n\n\"There are more things in heaven and earth,\" said Woodhouse--and\nThaddy groaned at the quotation--\"and more particularly in the forests\nof Borneo, than are dreamt of in our philosophies. On the whole, if\nthe Borneo fauna is going to disgorge any more of its novelties upon\nme, I should prefer that it did so when I was not occupied in the\nobservatory at night and alone.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRIUMPHS OF A TAXIDERMIST\n\n\nHere are some of the secrets of taxidermy. They were told me by the\ntaxidermist in a mood of elation. He told me them in the time between\nthe first glass of whisky and the fourth, when a man is no longer\ncautious and yet not drunk. We sat in his den together; his library it\nwas, his sitting and his eating-room--separated by a bead curtain, so\nfar as the sense of sight went, from the noisome den where he plied\nhis trade.\n\nHe sat on a deck chair, and when he was not tapping refractory bits of\ncoal with them, he kept his feet--on which he wore, after the manner\nof sandals, the holy relics of a pair of carpet slippers--out of the\nway upon the mantel-piece, among the glass eyes. And his trousers,\nby-the-by--though they have nothing to do with his triumphs--were a\nmost horrible yellow plaid, such as they made when our fathers wore\nside-whiskers and there were crinolines in the land. Further, his hair\nwas black, his face rosy, and his eye a fiery brown; and his coat was\nchiefly of grease upon a basis of velveteen. And his pipe had a bowl\nof china showing the Graces, and his spectacles were always askew, the\nleft eye glaring nakedly at you, small and penetrating; the right,\nseen through a glass darkly, magnified and mild. Thus his discourse\nran: \"There never was a man who could stuff like me, Bellows, never. I\nhave stuffed elephants and I have stuffed moths, and the things have\nlooked all the livelier and better for it. And I have stuffed human\nbeings--chiefly amateur ornithologists. But I stuffed a nigger once.\n\n\"No, there is no law against it. I made him with all his fingers out\nand used him as a hat-rack, but that fool Homersby got up a quarrel\nwith him late one night and spoilt him. That was before your time. It\nis hard to get skins, or I would have another.\n\n\"Unpleasant? I don't see it. Seems to me taxidermy is a promising\nthird course to burial or cremation. You could keep all your dear ones\nby you. Bric-à-brac of that sort stuck about the house would be as\ngood as most company, and much less expensive. You might have them\nfitted up with clockwork to do things.\n\n\"Of course they would have to be varnished, but they need not shine\nmore than lots of people do naturally. Old Manningtree's bald head....\nAnyhow, you could talk to them without interruption. Even aunts. There\nis a great future before taxidermy, depend upon it. There is fossils\nagain....\"\n\nHe suddenly became silent.\n\n\"No, I don't think I ought to tell you that.\" He sucked at his pipe\nthoughtfully. \"Thanks, yes. Not too much water.\n\n\"Of course, what I tell you now will go no further. You know I have\nmade some dodos and a great auk? No! Evidently you are an amateur at\ntaxidermy. My dear fellow, half the great auks in the world are about\nas genuine as the handkerchief of Saint Veronica, as the Holy Coat of\nTreves. We make 'em of grebes' feathers and the like. And the great\nauk's eggs too!\"\n\n\"Good heavens!\"\n\n\"Yes, we make them out of fine porcelain. I tell you it is worth\nwhile. They fetch--one fetched £300 only the other day. That one was\nreally genuine, I believe, but of course one is never certain. It is\nvery fine work, and afterwards you have to get them dusty, for no one\nwho owns one of these precious eggs has ever the temerity to clean the\nthing. That's the beauty of the business. Even if they suspect an egg\nthey do not like to examine it too closely. It's such brittle capital\nat the best.\n\n\"You did not know that taxidermy rose to heights like that. My boy, it\nhas risen higher. I have rivalled the hands of Nature herself. One of\nthe _genuine_ great auks\"--his voice fell to a whisper--one of the\n_genuine_ great auks _was made by me_.\"\n\n\"No. You must study ornithology, and find out which it is yourself.\nAnd what is more, I have been approached by a syndicate of dealers\nto stock one of the unexplored skerries to the north of Iceland with\nspecimens. I may--some day. But I have another little thing in hand\njust now. Ever heard of the dinornis?\n\n\"It is one of those big birds recently extinct in New Zealand. 'Moa'\nis its common name, so called because extinct: there is no moa now.\nSee? Well, they have got bones of it, and from some of the marshes\neven feathers and dried bits of skin. Now, I am going to--well, there\nis no need to make any bones about it--going to _forge_ a complete\nstuffed moa. I know a chap out there who will pretend to make the find\nin a kind of antiseptic swamp, and say he stuffed it at once, as it\nthreatened to fall to pieces. The feathers are peculiar, but I have\ngot a simply lovely way of dodging up singed bits of ostrich plume.\nYes, that is the new smell you noticed. They can only discover the\nfraud with a microscope, and they will hardly care to pull a nice\nspecimen to bits for that.\n\n\"In this way, you see, I give my little push in the advancement of\nscience.\n\n\"But all this is merely imitating Nature. I have done more than that\nin my time. I have--beaten her.\"\n\nHe took his feet down from the mantel-board, and leant over\nconfidentially towards me. \"I have _created_ birds,\" he said in a low\nvoice. \"_New_ birds. Improvements. Like no birds that was ever seen\nbefore.\"\n\nHe resumed his attitude during an impressive silence.\n\n\"Enrich the universe; _rath_-er. Some of the birds I made were new\nkinds of humming birds, and very beautiful little things, but some of\nthem were simply rum. The rummest, I think, was the _Anomalopteryx\nJejuna. Jejunus-a-um_--empty--so called because there was really\nnothing in it; a thoroughly empty bird--except for stuffing. Old\nJavvers has the thing now, and I suppose he is almost as proud of it\nas I am. It is a masterpiece, Bellows. It has all the silly clumsiness\nof your pelican, all the solemn want of dignity of your parrot,\nall the gaunt ungainliness of a flamingo, with all the extravagant\nchromatic conflict of a mandarin duck. _Such_ a bird. I made it out\nof the skeletons of a stork and a toucan and a job lot of feathers.\nTaxidermy of that kind is just pure joy, Bellows, to a real artist in\nthe art.\n\n\"How did I come to make it? Simple enough, as all great inventions\nare. One of those young genii who write us Science Notes in the papers\ngot hold of a German pamphlet about the birds of New Zealand, and\ntranslated some of it by means of a dictionary and his mother-wit--he\nmust have been one of a very large family with a small mother--and he\ngot mixed between the living apteryx and the extinct anomalopteryx;\ntalked about a bird five feet high, living in the jungles of the North\nIsland, rare, shy, specimens difficult to obtain, and so on. Javvers,\nwho even for a collector, is a miraculously ignorant man, read these\nparagraphs, and swore he would have the thing at any price. Raided\nthe dealers with enquiries. It shows what a man can do by\npersistence--will-power. Here was a bird-collector swearing he would\nhave a specimen of a bird that did not exist, that never had existed,\nand which for very shame of its own profane ungainliness, probably\nwould not exist now if it could help itself. And he got it. _He got\nit_.\"\n\n\"Have some more whisky, Bellows?\" said the taxidermist, rousing\nhimself from a transient contemplation of the mysteries of will-power\nand the collecting turn of mind. And, replenished, he proceeded to\ntell me of how he concocted a most attractive mermaid, and how an\nitinerant preacher, who could not get an audience because of it,\nsmashed it because it was idolatry, or worse, at Burslem Wakes. But\nas the conversation of all the parties to this transaction,\ncreator, would-be preserver, and destroyer, was uniformly unfit for\npublication, this cheerful incident must still remain unprinted.\n\nThe reader unacquainted with the dark ways of the collector may\nperhaps be inclined to doubt my taxidermist, but so far as great auks'\neggs, and the bogus stuffed birds are concerned, I find that he has\nthe confirmation of distinguished ornithological writers. And the note\nabout the New Zealand bird certainly appeared in a morning paper of\nunblemished reputation, for the Taxidermist keeps a copy and has shown\nit to me.\n\n\n\n\nA DEAL IN OSTRICHES\n\n\n\"Talking of the prices of birds, I've seen an ostrich that cost three\nhundred pounds,\" said the Taxidermist, recalling his youth of travel.\n\"Three hundred pounds!\"\n\nHe looked at me over his spectacles. \"I've seen another that was\nrefused at four.\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"it wasn't any fancy points. They was just plain\nostriches. A little off colour, too--owing to dietary. And there\nwasn't any particular restriction of the demand either. You'd have\nthought five ostriches would have ruled cheap on an East Indiaman. But\nthe point was, one of 'em had swallowed a diamond.\n\n\"The chap it got it off was Sir Mohini Padishah, a tremendous swell, a\nPiccadilly swell you might say up to the neck of him, and then an ugly\nblack head and a whopping turban, with this diamond in it. The blessed\nbird pecked suddenly and had it, and when the chap made a fuss it\nrealised it had done wrong, I suppose, and went and mixed itself with\nthe others to preserve its _incog_. It all happened in a minute. I was\namong the first to arrive, and there was this heathen going over his\ngods, and two sailors and the man who had charge of the birds laughing\nfit to split. It was a rummy way of losing a jewel, come to think of\nit. The man in charge hadn't been about just at the moment, so that he\ndidn't know which bird it was. Clean lost, you see. I didn't feel half\nsorry, to tell you the truth. The beggar had been swaggering over his\nblessed diamond ever since he came aboard.\n\n\"A thing like that goes from stem to stern of a ship in no time. Every\none was talking about it. Padishah went below to hide his feelings.\nAt dinner--he pigged at a table by himself, him and two other\nHindoos--the captain kind of jeered at him about it, and he got very\nexcited. He turned round and talked into my ear. He would not buy the\nbirds; he would have his diamond. He demanded his rights as a British\nsubject. His diamond must be found. He was firm upon that. He would\nappeal to the House of Lords. The man in charge of the birds was one\nof those wooden-headed chaps you can't get a new idea into anyhow. He\nrefused any proposal to interfere with the birds by way of medicine.\nHis instructions were to feed them so-and-so and treat them so-and-so,\nand it was as much as his place was worth not to feed them so-and-so\nand treat them so-and-so. Padishah had wanted a stomach-pump--though\nyou can't do that to a bird, you know. This Padishah was full of bad\nlaw, like most of these blessed Bengalis, and talked of having a lien\non the birds, and so forth. But an old boy, who said his son was a\nLondon barrister, argued that what a bird swallowed became _ipso\nfacto_ part of the bird, and that Padishah's only remedy lay in\nan action for damages, and even then it might be possible to show\ncontributory negligence. He hadn't any right of way about an ostrich\nthat didn't belong to him. That upset Padishah extremely, the more so\nas most of us expressed an opinion that that was the reasonable view.\nThere wasn't any lawyer aboard to settle the matter, so we all talked\npretty free. At last, after Aden, it appears that he came round to the\ngeneral opinion, and went privately to the man in charge and made an\noffer for all five ostriches.\n\n\"The next morning there was a fine shindy at breakfast. The man hadn't\nany authority to deal with the birds, and nothing on earth would\ninduce him to sell; but it seems he told Padishah that a Eurasian\nnamed Potter had already made him an offer, and on that Padishah\ndenounced Potter before us all. But I think the most of us thought it\nrather smart of Potter, and I know that when Potter said that he'd\nwired at Aden to London to buy the birds, and would have an answer at\nSuez, I cursed pretty richly at a lost opportunity.\n\n\"At Suez, Padishah gave way to tears--actual wet tears--when Potter\nbecame the owner of the birds, and offered him two hundred and fifty\nright off for the five, being more than two hundred per cent. on what\nPotter had given. Potter said he'd be hanged if he parted with a\nfeather of them--that he meant to kill them off one by one and find\nthe diamond; but afterwards, thinking it over, he relented a little.\nHe was a gambling hound, was this Potter, a little queer at cards, and\nthis kind of prize-packet business must have suited him down to the\nground. Anyhow, he offered, for a lark, to sell the birds separately\nto separate people by auction at a starting price of £80 for a bird.\nBut one of them, he said, he meant to keep for luck.\n\n\"You must understand this diamond was a valuable one--a little Jew\nchap, a diamond merchant, who was with us, had put it at three or\nfour thousand when Padishah had shown it to him--and this idea of an\nostrich gamble caught on. Now it happened that I'd been having a\nfew talks on general subjects with the man who looked after these\nostriches, and quite incidentally he'd said one of the birds was\nailing, and he fancied it had indigestion. It had one feather in its\ntail almost all white, by which I knew it, and so when, next day, the\nauction started with it, I capped Padishah's eighty-five by ninety.\nI fancy I was a bit too sure and eager with my bid, and some of the\nothers spotted the fact that I was in the know. And Padishah went for\nthat particular bird like an irresponsible lunatic. At last the Jew\ndiamond merchant got it for £175, and Padishah said £180 just after\nthe hammer came down--so Potter declared. At any rate the Jew merchant\nsecured it, and there and then he got a gun and shot it. Potter made a\nHades of a fuss because he said it would injure the sale of the other\nthree, and Padishah, of course, behaved like an idiot; but all of us\nwere very much excited. I can tell you I was precious glad when that\ndissection was over, and no diamond had turned up--precious glad. I'd\ngone to one-forty on that particular bird myself.\n\n\"The little Jew was like most Jews--he didn't make any great fuss over\nbad luck; but Potter declined to go on with the auction until it was\nunderstood that the goods could not be delivered until the sale was\nover. The little Jew wanted to argue that the case was exceptional,\nand as the discussion ran pretty even, the thing was postponed until\nthe next morning. We had a lively dinner-table that evening, I can\ntell you, but in the end Potter got his way, since it would stand to\nreason he would be safer if he stuck to all the birds, and that we\nowed him some consideration for his sportsmanlike behaviour. And the\nold gentleman whose son was a lawyer said he'd been thinking the thing\nover and that it was very doubtful if, when a bird had been opened and\nthe diamond recovered, it ought not to be handed back to the\nproper owner. I remember I suggested it came under the laws of\ntreasure-trove--which was really the truth of the matter. There was a\nhot argument, and we settled it was certainly foolish to kill the bird\non board the ship. Then the old gentleman, going at large through his\nlegal talk, tried to make out the sale was a lottery and illegal,\nand appealed to the captain; but Potter said he sold the birds _as_\nostriches. He didn't want to sell any diamonds, he said, and didn't\noffer that as an inducement. The three birds he put up, to the best of\nhis knowledge and belief, did _not_ contain a diamond. It was in the\none he kept--so he hoped.\n\n\"Prices ruled high next day all the same. The fact that now there were\nfour chances instead of five of course caused a rise. The blessed\nbirds averaged 227, and, oddly enough, this Padishah didn't secure one\nof 'em--not one. He made too much shindy, and when he ought to have\nbeen bidding he was talking about liens, and, besides, Potter was a\nbit down on him. One fell to a quiet little officer chap, another to\nthe little Jew, and the third was syndicated by the engineers. And\nthen Potter seemed suddenly sorry for having sold them, and said he'd\nflung away a clear thousand pounds, and that very likely he'd draw a\nblank and that he always had been a fool, but when I went and had a\nbit of a talk to him, with the idea of getting him to hedge on his\nlast chance, I found he'd already sold the bird he'd reserved to a\npolitical chap that was on board, a chap who'd been studying Indian\nmorals and social questions in his vacation. That last was the three\nhundred pounds bird. Well, they landed three of the blessed creatures\nat Brindisi--though the old gentleman said it was a breach of the\nCustoms regulations--and Potter and Padishah landed too. The Hindoo\nseemed half mad as he saw his blessed diamond going this way and\nthat, so to speak. He kept on saying he'd get an injunction--he had\ninjunction on the brain--and giving his name and address to the chaps\nwho'd bought the birds, so that they'd know where to send the diamond.\nNone of them wanted his name and address, and none of them would give\ntheir own. It was a fine row I can tell you--on the platform. They all\nwent off by different trains. I came on to Southampton, and there\nI saw the last of the birds, as I came ashore; it was the one the\nengineers bought, and it was standing up near the bridge, in a kind of\ncrate, and looking as leggy and silly a setting for a valuable diamond\nas ever you saw--if it _was_ a setting for a valuable diamond.\n\n\"_How did it end_? Oh! like that. Well--perhaps. Yes, there's one more\nthing that may throw light on it. A week or so after landing I was\ndown Regent-street doing a bit of shopping, and who should I see\narm-in-arm and having a purple time of it but Padishah and Potter. If\nyou come to think of it--\n\n\"Yes. _I've_ thought that. Only, you see, there's no doubt the diamond\nwas real. And Padishah was an eminent Hindoo. I've seen his name\nin the papers--often. But whether the bird swallowed the diamond\ncertainly is another matter, as you say.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHROUGH A WINDOW\n\n\nAfter his legs were set, they carried Bailey into the study and put\nhim on a couch before the open window. There he lay, a live--even a\nfeverish man down to the loins, and below that a double-barrelled\nmummy swathed in white wrappings. He tried to read, even tried to\nwrite a little, but most of the time he looked out of the window.\n\nHe had thought the window cheerful to begin with, but now he thanked\nGod for it many times a day. Within, the room was dim and grey, and\nin the reflected light the wear of the furniture showed plainly. His\nmedicine and drink stood on the little table, with such litter as the\nbare branches of a bunch of grapes or the ashes of a cigar upon a\ngreen plate, or a day old evening paper. The view outside was flooded\nwith light, and across the corner of it came the head of the acacia,\nand at the foot the top of the balcony-railing of hammered iron. In\nthe foreground was the weltering silver of the river, never quiet and\nyet never tiresome. Beyond was the reedy bank, a broad stretch of\nmeadow land, and then a dark line of trees ending in a group of\npoplars at the distant bend of the river, and, upstanding behind them,\na square church tower.\n\nUp and down the river, all day long, things were passing. Now a string\nof barges drifting down to London, piled with lime or barrels of beer;\nthen a steam-launch, disengaging heavy masses of black smoke, and\ndisturbing the whole width of the river with long rolling waves; then\nan impetuous electric launch, and then a boatload of pleasure-seekers,\na solitary sculler, or a four from some rowing club. Perhaps the river\nwas quietest of a morning or late at night. One moonlight night some\npeople drifted down singing, and with a zither playing--it sounded\nvery pleasantly across the water.\n\nIn a few days Bailey began to recognise some of the craft; in a week\nhe knew the intimate history of half-a-dozen. The launch _Luzon_, from\nFitzgibbon's, two miles up, would go fretting by, sometimes three or\nfour times a day, conspicuous with its colouring of Indian-red and\nyellow, and its two Oriental attendants; and one day, to Bailey's vast\namusement, the house-boat _Purple Emperor_ came to a stop outside, and\nbreakfasted in the most shameless domesticity. Then one afternoon, the\ncaptain of a slow-moving barge began a quarrel with his wife as they\ncame into sight from the left, and had carried it to personal violence\nbefore he vanished behind the window-frame to the right. Bailey\nregarded all this as an entertainment got up to while away his\nillness, and applauded all the more moving incidents. Mrs Green,\ncoming in at rare intervals with his meals, would catch him clapping\nhis hands or softly crying, \"Encore!\" But the river players had other\nengagements, and his encore went unheeded.\n\n\"I should never have thought I could take such an interest in things\nthat did not concern me,\" said Bailey to Wilderspin, who used to come\nin in his nervous, friendly way and try to comfort the sufferer by\nbeing talked to. \"I thought this idle capacity was distinctive of\nlittle children and old maids. But it's just circumstances. I simply\ncan't work, and things have to drift; it's no good to fret and\nstruggle. And so I lie here and am as amused as a baby with a rattle,\nat this river and its affairs.\n\n\"Sometimes, of course, it gets a bit dull, but not often.\n\n\"I would give anything, Wilderspin, for a swamp--just one swamp--once.\nHeads swimming and a steam launch to the rescue, and a chap or so\nhauled out with a boat-hook.... There goes Fitzgibbon's launch! They\nhave a new boat-hook, I see, and the little blackie is still in the\ndumps. I don't think he's very well, Wilderspin. He's been like that\nfor two or three days, squatting sulky-fashion and meditating over the\nchurning of the water. Unwholesome for him to be always staring at the\nfrothy water running away from the stern.\"\n\nThey watched the little steamer fuss across the patch of sunlit river,\nsuffer momentary occultation from the acacia, and glide out of sight\nbehind the dark window-frame.\n\n\"I'm getting a wonderful eye for details,\" said Bailey: \"I spotted\nthat new boat-hook at once. The other nigger is a funny little chap.\nHe never used to swagger with the old boat-hook like that.\"\n\n\"Malays, aren't they?\" said Wilderspin.\n\n\"Don't know,\" said Bailey. \"I thought one called all that sort of\nmanner Lascar.\"\n\nThen he began to tell Wilderspin what he knew of the private affairs\nof the houseboat, _Purple Emperor_. \"Funny,\" he said, \"how these\npeople come from all points of the compass--from Oxford and Windsor,\nfrom Asia and Africa--and gather and pass opposite the window just\nto entertain me. One man floated out of the infinite the day before\nyesterday, caught one perfect crab opposite, lost and recovered a\nscull, and passed on again. Probably he will never come into my life\nagain. So far as I am concerned, he has lived and had his little\ntroubles, perhaps thirty--perhaps forty--years on the earth, merely\nto make an ass of himself for three minutes in front of my window.\nWonderful thing, Wilderspin, if you come to think of it.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Wilderspin; \"_isn't_ it?\"\n\nA day or two after this Bailey had a brilliant morning. Indeed,\ntowards the end of the affair, it became almost as exciting as any\nwindow show very well could be. We will, however, begin at the\nbeginning.\n\nBailey was all alone in the house, for his housekeeper had gone into\nthe town three miles away to pay bills, and the servant had her\nholiday. The morning began dull. A canoe went up about half-past nine,\nand later a boat-load of camping men came down. But this was mere\nmargin. Things became cheerful about ten o'clock.\n\nIt began with something white fluttering in the remote distance where\nthe three poplars marked the river bend. \"Pocket-handkerchief,\" said\nBailey, when he saw it \"No. Too big! Flag perhaps.\"\n\nHowever, it was not a flag, for it jumped about. \"Man in whites\nrunning fast, and this way,\" said Bailey. \"That's luck! But his whites\nare precious loose!\"\n\nThen a singular thing happened. There was a minute pink gleam among\nthe dark trees in the distance, and a little puff of pale grey that\nbegan to drift and vanish eastward. The man in white jumped and\ncontinued running. Presently the report of the shot arrived.\n\n\"What the devil!\" said Bailey. \"Looks as if someone was shooting at\nhim.\"\n\nHe sat up stiffly and stared hard. The white figure was coming along\nthe pathway through the corn. \"It's one of those niggers from the\nFitzgibbon's,\" said Bailey; \"or may I be hanged! I wonder why he keeps\nsawing with his arm.\"\n\nThen three other figures became indistinctly visible against the dark\nbackground of the trees.\n\nAbruptly on the opposite bank a man walked into the picture. He was\nblack-bearded, dressed in flannels, had a red belt, and a vast grey\nfelt hat. He walked, leaning very much forward and with his hands\nswinging before him. Behind him one could see the grass swept by the\ntowing-rope of the boat he was dragging. He was steadfastly regarding\nthe white figure that was hurrying through the corn. Suddenly he\nstopped. Then, with a peculiar gesture, Bailey could see that he began\npulling in the tow-rope hand over hand. Over the water could be heard\nthe voices of the people in the still invisible boat.\n\n\"What are you after, Hagshot?\" said someone.\n\nThe individual with the red belt shouted something that was inaudible,\nand went on lugging in the rope, looking over his shoulder at the\nadvancing white figure as he did so. He came down the bank, and the\nrope bent a lane among the reeds and lashed the water between his\npulls.\n\nThen just the bows of the boat came into view, with the towing-mast\nand a tall, fair-haired man standing up and trying to see over the\nbank. The boat bumped unexpectedly among the reeds, and the tall,\nfair-haired man disappeared suddenly, having apparently fallen back\ninto the invisible part of the boat. There was a curse and some\nindistinct laughter. Hagshot did not laugh, but hastily clambered into\nthe boat and pushed off. Abruptly the boat passed out of Bailey's\nsight.\n\nBut it was still audible. The melody of voices suggested that its\noccupants were busy telling each other what to do.\n\nThe running figure was drawing near the bank. Bailey could now see\nclearly that it was one of Fitzgibbon's Orientals, and began to\nrealise what the sinuous thing the man carried in his hand might\nbe. Three other men followed one another through the corn, and the\nforemost carried what was probably the gun. They were perhaps two\nhundred yards or more behind the Malay.\n\n\"It's a man hunt, by all that's holy!\" said Bailey.\n\nThe Malay stopped for a moment and surveyed the bank to the right.\nThen he left the path, and, breaking through the corn, vanished in\nthat direction. The three pursuers followed suit, and their heads and\ngesticulating arms above the corn, after a brief interval, also went\nout of Bailey's field of vision.\n\nBailey so far forgot himself as to swear. \"Just as things were getting\nlively!\" he said. Something like a woman's shriek came through the\nair. Then shouts, a howl, a dull whack upon the balcony outside that\nmade Bailey jump, and then the report of a gun.\n\n\"This is precious hard on an invalid,\" said Bailey.\n\nBut more was to happen yet in his picture. In fact, a great deal more.\nThe Malay appeared again, running now along the bank up stream.\nHis stride had more swing and less pace in it than before. He was\nthreatening someone ahead with the ugly krees he carried. The blade,\nBailey noticed, was dull--it did not shine as steel should.\n\nThen came the tall, fair man, brandishing a boat-hook, and after him\nthree other men in boating costume, running clumsily with oars.\nThe man with the grey hat and red belt was not with them. After an\ninterval the three men with the gun reappeared, still in the corn,\nbut now near the river bank. They emerged upon the towing-path,\nand hurried after the others. The opposite bank was left blank and\ndesolate again.\n\nThe sick-room was disgraced by more profanity. \"I would give my life\nto see the end of this,\" said Bailey. There were indistinct shouts up\nstream. Once they seemed to be coming nearer, but they disappointed\nhim.\n\nBailey sat and grumbled. He was still grumbling when his eye caught\nsomething black and round among the waves. \"Hullo!\" he said. He looked\nnarrowly and saw two triangular black bodies frothing every now and\nthen about a yard in front of this.\n\nHe was still doubtful when the little band of pursuers came into sight\nagain, and began to point to this floating object. They were talking\neagerly. Then the man with the gun took aim.\n\n\"He's swimming the river, by George!\" said Bailey.\n\nThe Malay looked round, saw the gun, and went under. He came up so\nclose to Bailey's bank of the river that one of the bars of the\nbalcony hid him for a moment. As he emerged the man with the gun\nfired. The Malay kept steadily onward--Bailey could see the wet hair\non his forehead now and the krees between his teeth--and was presently\nhidden by the balcony.\n\nThis seemed to Bailey an unendurable wrong. The man was lost to him\nfor ever now, so he thought. Why couldn't the brute have got himself\ndecently caught on the opposite bank, or shot in the water?\n\n\"It's worse than Edwin Drood,\" said Bailey.\n\nOver the river, too, things had become an absolute blank. All seven\nmen had gone down stream again, probably to get the boat and follow\nacross. Bailey listened and waited. There was silence. \"Surely it's\nnot over like this,\" said Bailey.\n\nFive minutes passed--ten minutes. Then a tug with two barges went up\nstream. The attitudes of the men upon these were the attitudes of\nthose who see nothing remarkable in earth, water, or sky. Clearly the\nwhole affair had passed out of sight of the river. Probably the hunt\nhad gone into the beech woods behind the house.\n\n\"Confound it!\" said Bailey. \"To be continued again, and no chance this\ntime of the sequel. But this is hard on a sick man.\"\n\nHe heard a step on the staircase behind him and looking round saw the\ndoor open. Mrs Green came in and sat down, panting. She still had her\nbonnet on, her purse in her hand, and her little brown basket upon her\narm. \"Oh, there!\" she said, and left Bailey to imagine the rest.\n\n\"Have a little whisky and water, Mrs Green, and tell me about it,\"\nsaid Bailey.\n\nSipping a little, the lady began to recover her powers of explanation.\n\nOne of those black creatures at the Fitzgibbon's had gone mad, and\nwas running about with a big knife, stabbing people. He had killed\na groom, and stabbed the under-butler, and almost cut the arm off a\nboating gentleman.\n\n\"Running amuck with a krees,\" said Bailey. \"I thought that was it.\"\n\nAnd he was hiding in the wood when she came through it from the town.\n\n\"What! Did he run after you?\" asked Bailey, with a certain touch of\nglee in his voice.\n\n\"No, that was the horrible part of it,\" Mrs Green explained. She had\nbeen right through the woods and had _never known he was there_. It\nwas only when she met young Mr Fitzgibbon carrying his gun in the\nshrubbery that she heard anything about it. Apparently, what upset\nMrs Green was the lost opportunity for emotion. She was determined,\nhowever, to make the most of what was left her.\n\n\"To think he was there all the time!\" she said, over and over again.\n\nBailey endured this patiently enough for perhaps ten minutes. At last\nhe thought it advisable to assert himself. \"It's twenty past one, Mrs\nGreen,\" he said. \"Don't you think it time you got me something to\neat?\"\n\nThis brought Mrs Green suddenly to her knees.\n\n\"Oh Lord, sir!\" she said. \"Oh! don't go making me go out of this room,\nsir, till I know he's caught. He might have got into the house, sir.\nHe might be creeping, creeping, with that knife of his, along the\npassage this very--\"\n\nShe broke off suddenly and glared over him at the window. Her lower\njaw dropped. Bailey turned his head sharply.\n\nFor the space of half a second things seemed just as they were. There\nwas the tree, the balcony, the shining river, the distant church\ntower. Then he noticed that the acacia was displaced about a foot to\nthe right, and that it was quivering, and the leaves were rustling.\nThe tree was shaken violently, and a heavy panting was audible.\n\nIn another moment a hairy brown hand had appeared and clutched the\nbalcony railings, and in another the face of the Malay was peering\nthrough these at the man on the couch. His expression was an\nunpleasant grin, by reason of the krees he held between his teeth,\nand he was bleeding from an ugly wound in his cheek. His hair wet to\ndrying stuck out like horns from his head. His body was bare save for\nthe wet trousers that clung to him. Bailey's first impulse was to\nspring from the couch, but his legs reminded him that this was\nimpossible.\n\nBy means of the balcony and tree the man slowly raised himself until\nhe was visible to Mrs Green. With a choking cry she made for the door\nand fumbled with the handle.\n\nBailey thought swiftly and clutched a medicine bottle in either\nhand. One he flung, and it smashed against the acacia. Silently and\ndeliberately, and keeping his bright eyes fixed on Bailey, the Malay\nclambered into the balcony. Bailey, still clutching his second bottle,\nbut with a sickening, sinking feeling about his heart, watched first\none leg come over the railing and then the other.\n\nIt was Bailey's impression that the Malay took about an hour to get\nhis second leg over the rail. The period that elapsed before the\nsitting position was changed to a standing one seemed enormous--days,\nweeks, possibly a year or so. Yet Bailey had no clear impression of\nanything going on in his mind during that vast period, except a vague\nwonder at his inability to throw the second medicine bottle. Suddenly\nthe Malay glanced over his shoulder. There was the crack of a rifle.\nHe flung up his arms and came down upon the couch. Mrs Green began a\ndismal shriek that seemed likely to last until Doomsday. Bailey stared\nat the brown body with its shoulder blade driven in, that writhed\npainfully across his legs and rapidly staining and soaking the\nspotless bandages. Then he looked at the long krees, with the reddish\nstreaks upon its blade, that lay an inch beyond the trembling brown\nfingers upon the floor. Then at Mrs Green, who had backed hard against\nthe door and was staring at the body and shrieking in gusty outbursts\nas if she would wake the dead. And then the body was shaken by one\nlast convulsive effort.\n\nThe Malay gripped the krees, tried to raise himself with his left\nhand, and collapsed. Then he raised his head, stared for a moment\nat Mrs Green, and twisting his face round looked at Bailey. With a\ngasping groan the dying man succeeded in clutching the bed clothes\nwith his disabled hand, and by a violent effort, which hurt Bailey's\nlegs exceedingly, writhed sideways towards what must be his last\nvictim. Then something seemed released in Bailey's mind and he brought\ndown the second bottle with all his strength on to the Malay's face.\nThe krees fell heavily upon the floor.\n\n\"Easy with those legs,\" said Bailey, as young Fitzgibbon and one of\nthe boating party lifted the body off him.\n\nYoung Fitzgibbon was very white in the face. \"I didn't mean to kill\nhim,\" he said.\n\n\"It's just as well,\" said Bailey.\n\n\n\n\nTHE TEMPTATION OF HARRINGAY\n\n\nIt is quite impossible to say whether this thing really happened. It\ndepends entirely on the word of R.M. Harringay, who is an artist.\n\nFollowing his version of the affair, the narrative deposes that\nHarringay went into his studio about ten o'clock to see what he could\nmake of the head that he had been working at the day before. The\nhead in question was that of an Italian organ-grinder, and Harringay\nthought--but was not quite sure--that the title would be the \"Vigil.\"\nSo far he is frank, and his narrative bears the stamp of truth. He\nhad seen the man expectant for pennies, and with a promptness that\nsuggested genius, had had him in at once.\n\n\"Kneel. Look up at that bracket,\" said Harringay. \"As if you expected\npennies.\"\n\n\"Don't _grin_!\" said Harringay. \"I don't want to paint your gums. Look\nas though you were unhappy.\"\n\nNow, after a night's rest, the picture proved decidedly\nunsatisfactory. \"It's good work,\" said Harringay. \"That little bit in\nthe neck ... But.\"\n\nHe walked about the studio and looked at the thing from this point and\nfrom that. Then he said a wicked word. In the original the word is\ngiven.\n\n\"Painting,\" he says he said. \"Just a painting of an organ-grinder--a\nmere portrait. If it was a live organ-grinder I wouldn't mind. But\nsomehow I never make things alive. I wonder if my imagination is\nwrong.\" This, too, has a truthful air. His imagination _is_ wrong.\n\n\"That creative touch! To take canvas and pigment and make a man--as\nAdam was made of red ochre! But this thing! If you met it walking\nabout the streets you would know it was only a studio production. The\nlittle boys would tell it to 'Garnome and git frimed.' Some little\ntouch ... Well--it won't do as it is.\"\n\nHe went to the blinds and began to pull them down. They were made of\nblue holland with the rollers at the bottom of the window, so that you\npull them down to get more light. He gathered his palette, brushes,\nand mahl stick from his table. Then he turned to the picture and put a\nspeck of brown in the corner of the mouth; and shifted his attention\nthence to the pupil of the eye. Then he decided that the chin was a\ntrifle too impassive for a vigil.\n\nPresently he put down his impedimenta, and lighting a pipe surveyed\nthe progress of his work. \"I'm hanged if the thing isn't sneering at\nme,\" said Harringay, and he still believes it sneered.\n\nThe animation of the figure had certainly increased, but scarcely in\nthe direction he wished. There was no mistake about the sneer. \"Vigil\nof the Unbeliever,\" said Harringay. \"Rather subtle and clever that!\nBut the left eyebrow isn't cynical enough.\"\n\nHe went and dabbed at the eyebrow, and added a little to the lobe of\nthe ear to suggest materialism. Further consideration ensued. \"Vigil's\noff, I'm afraid,\" said Harringay. \"Why not Mephistopheles? But that's\na bit _too_ common. 'A Friend of the Doge,'--not so seedy. The armour\nwon't do, though. Too Camelot. How about a scarlet robe and call him\n'One of the Sacred College'? Humour in that, and an appreciation of\nMiddle Italian History.\"\n\n\"There's always Benvenuto Cellini,\" said Harringay; \"with a clever\nsuggestion of a gold cup in one corner. But that would scarcely suit\nthe complexion.\"\n\nHe describes himself as babbling in this way in order to keep down an\nunaccountably unpleasant sensation of fear. The thing was certainly\nacquiring anything but a pleasing expression. Yet it was as certainly\nbecoming far more of a living thing than it had been--if a sinister\none--far more alive than anything he had ever painted before. \"Call it\n'Portrait of a Gentleman,'\" said Harringay;--\"A Certain Gentleman.\"\n\n\"Won't do,\" said Harringay, still keeping up his courage. \"Kind of\nthing they call Bad Taste. That sneer will have to come out. That\ngone, and a little more fire in the eye--never noticed how warm his\neye was before--and he might do for--? What price Passionate Pilgrim?\nBut that devilish face won't do--_this_ side of the Channel.\n\n\"Some little inaccuracy does it,\" he said; \"eyebrows probably too\noblique,\"--therewith pulling the blind lower to get a better light,\nand resuming palette and brushes.\n\nThe face on the canvas seemed animated by a spirit of its own. Where\nthe expression of diablerie came in he found impossible to discover.\nExperiment was necessary. The eyebrows--it could scarcely be the\neyebrows? But he altered them. No, that was no better; in fact, if\nanything, a trifle more satanic. The corner of the mouth? Pah! more\nthan ever a leer--and now, retouched, it was ominously grim. The eye,\nthen? Catastrophe! he had filled his brush with vermilion instead of\nbrown, and yet he had felt sure it was brown! The eye seemed now to\nhave rolled in its socket, and was glaring at him an eye of fire. In a\nflash of passion, possibly with something of the courage of panic, he\nstruck the brush full of bright red athwart the picture; and then a\nvery curious thing, a very strange thing indeed, occurred--if it _did_\noccur.\n\n_The diabolified Italian before him shut both his eyes, pursed his\nmouth, and wiped the colour off his face with his hand_.\n\nThen the _red eye_ opened again, with a sound like the opening of\nlips, and the face smiled. \"That was rather hasty of you,\" said the\npicture.\n\nHarringay states that, now that the worst had happened, his\nself-possession returned. He had a saving persuasion that devils were\nreasonable creatures.\n\n\"Why do you keep moving about then,\" he said, \"making faces and all\nthat--sneering and squinting, while I am painting you?\"\n\n\"I don't,\" said the picture.\n\n\"You _do_,\" said Harringay.\n\n\"It's yourself,\" said the picture.\n\n\"It's _not_ myself,\" said Harringay.\n\n\"It _is_ yourself,\" said the picture. \"No! don't go hitting me with\npaint again, because it's true. You have been trying to fluke an\nexpression on my face all the morning. Really, you haven't an idea\nwhat your picture ought to look like.\"\n\n\"I have,\" said Harringay.\n\n\"You have _not_,\" said the picture: \"You _never_ have with your\npictures. You always start with the vaguest presentiment of what you\nare going to do; it is to be something beautiful--you are sure of\nthat--and devout, perhaps, or tragic; but beyond that it is all\nexperiment and chance. My dear fellow! you don't think you can paint a\npicture like that?\"\n\nNow it must be remembered that for what follows we have only\nHarringay's word.\n\n\"I shall paint a picture exactly as I like,\" said Harringay, calmly.\n\nThis seemed to disconcert the picture a little. \"You can't paint a\npicture without an inspiration,\" it remarked.\n\n\"But I _had_ an inspiration--for this.\"\n\n\"Inspiration!\" sneered the sardonic figure; \"a fancy that came from\nyour seeing an organ-grinder looking up at a window! Vigil! Ha, ha!\nYou just started painting on the chance of something coming--that's\nwhat you did. And when I saw you at it I came. I want a talk with\nyou!\"\n\n\"Art, with you,\" said the picture,--\"it's a poor business. You potter.\nI don't know how it is, but you don't seem able to throw your soul\ninto it. You know too much. It hampers you. In the midst of your\nenthusiasms you ask yourself whether something like this has not been\ndone before. And ...\"\n\n\"Look here,\" said Harringay, who had expected something better than\ncriticism from the devil. \"Are you going to talk studio to me?\" He\nfilled his number twelve hoghair with red paint.\n\n\"The true artist,\" said the picture, \"is always an ignorant man. An\nartist who theorises about his work is no longer artist but critic.\nWagner ... I say!--What's that red paint for?\"\n\n\"I'm going to paint you out,\" said Harringay. \"I don't want to hear\nall that Tommy Rot. If you think just because I'm an artist by trade\nI'm going to talk studio to you, you make a precious mistake.\"\n\n\"One minute,\" said the picture, evidently alarmed. \"I want to make\nyou an offer--a genuine offer. It's right what I'm saying. You lack\ninspirations. Well. No doubt you've heard of the Cathedral of Cologne,\nand the Devil's Bridge, and--\"\n\n\"Rubbish,\" said Harringay. \"Do you think I want to go to perdition\nsimply for the pleasure of painting a good picture, and getting it\nslated. Take that.\"\n\nHis blood was up. His danger only nerved him to action, so he says.\nSo he planted a dab of vermilion in his creature's mouth. The Italian\nspluttered and tried to wipe it off--evidently horribly surprised. And\nthen--according to Harringay--there began a very remarkable struggle,\nHarringay splashing away with the red paint, and the picture wriggling\nabout and wiping it off as fast as he put it on. \"_Two_ masterpieces,\"\nsaid the demon. \"Two indubitable masterpieces for a Chelsea artist's\nsoul. It's a bargain?\" Harringay replied with the paint brush.\n\nFor a few minutes nothing could be heard but the brush going and the\nspluttering and ejaculations of the Italian. A lot of the strokes he\ncaught on his arm and hand, though Harringay got over his guard often\nenough. Presently the paint on the palette gave out and the two\nantagonists stood breathless, regarding each other. The picture was\nso smeared with red that it looked as if it had been rolling about\na slaughterhouse, and it was painfully out of breath and very\nuncomfortable with the wet paint trickling down its neck. Still, the\nfirst round was in its favour on the whole. \"Think,\" it said, sticking\npluckily to its point, \"two supreme masterpieces--in different styles.\nEach equivalent to the Cathedral...\"\n\n\"_I_ know,\" said Harringay, and rushed out of the studio and along the\npassage towards his wife's boudoir.\n\nIn another minute he was back with a large tin of enamel--Hedge\nSparrow's Egg Tint, it was, and a brush. At the sight of that\nthe artistic devil with the red eye began to scream. \"_Three_\nmasterpieces--culminating masterpieces.\"\n\nHarringay delivered cut two across the demon, and followed with\na thrust in the eye. There was an indistinct rumbling. \"_Four_\nmasterpieces,\" and a spitting sound.\n\nBut Harringay had the upper hand now and meant to keep it. With rapid,\nbold strokes he continued to paint over the writhing canvas, until at\nlast it was a uniform field of shining Hedge Sparrow tint. Once the\nmouth reappeared and got as far as \"Five master--\" before he filled\nit with enamel; and near the end the red eye opened and glared at him\nindignantly. But at last nothing remained save a gleaming panel of\ndrying enamel. For a little while a faint stirring beneath the surface\npuckered it slightly here and there, but presently even that died away\nand the thing was perfectly still.\n\nThen Harringay--according to Harringay's account--lit his pipe and sat\ndown and stared at the enamelled canvas, and tried to make out clearly\nwhat had happened. Then he walked round behind it, to see if the back\nof it was at all remarkable. Then it was he began to regret he had not\nphotographed the Devil before he painted him out.\n\nThis is Harringay's story--not mine. He supports it by a small canvas\n(24 by 20) enamelled a pale green, and by violent asseverations. It is\nalso true that he never has produced a masterpiece, and in the opinion\nof his intimate friends probably never will.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FLYING MAN\n\n\nThe Ethnologist looked at the _bhimraj_ feather thoughtfully. \"They\nseemed loth to part with it,\" he said.\n\n\"It is sacred to the Chiefs,\" said the lieutenant; \"just as yellow\nsilk, you know, is sacred to the Chinese Emperor.\"\n\nThe Ethnologist did not answer. He hesitated. Then opening the topic\nabruptly, \"What on earth is this cock-and-bull story they have of a\nflying man?\"\n\nThe lieutenant smiled faintly. \"What did they tell you?\"\n\n\"I see,\" said the Ethnologist, \"that you know of your fame.\"\n\nThe lieutenant rolled himself a cigarette. \"I don't mind hearing about\nit once more. How does it stand at present?\"\n\n\"It's so confoundedly childish,\" said the Ethnologist, becoming\nirritated. \"How did you play it off upon them?\"\n\nThe lieutenant made no answer, but lounged back in his folding-chair,\nstill smiling.\n\n\"Here am I, come four hundred miles out of my way to get what is left\nof the folk-lore of these people, before they are utterly demoralised\nby missionaries and the military, and all I find are a lot of\nimpossible legends about a sandy-haired scrub of an infantry\nlieutenant. How he is invulnerable--how he can jump over\nelephants--how he can fly. That's the toughest nut. One old gentleman\ndescribed your wings, said they had black plumage and were not quite\nas long as a mule. Said he often saw you by moonlight hovering over\nthe crests out towards the Shendu country.--Confound it, man!\"\n\nThe lieutenant laughed cheerfully. \"Go on,\" he said. \"Go on.\"\n\nThe Ethnologist did. At last he wearied. \"To trade so,\" he said, \"on\nthese unsophisticated children of the mountains. How could you bring\nyourself to do it, man?\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" said the lieutenant, \"but truly the thing was forced upon\nme. I can assure you I was driven to it. And at the time I had not the\nfaintest idea of how the Chin imagination would take it. Or curiosity.\nI can only plead it was an indiscretion and not malice that made me\nreplace the folk-lore by a new legend. But as you seem aggrieved, I\nwill try and explain the business to you.\n\n\"It was in the time of the last Lushai expedition but one, and Walters\nthought these people you have been visiting were friendly. So, with an\nairy confidence in my capacity for taking care of myself, he sent me\nup the gorge--fourteen miles of it--with three of the Derbyshire men\nand half a dozen Sepoys, two mules, and his blessing, to see what\npopular feeling was like at that village you visited. A force of\nten--not counting the mules--fourteen miles, and during a war! You saw\nthe road?\"\n\n\"_Road_!\" said the Ethnologist.\n\n\"It's better now than it was. When we went up we had to wade in\nthe river for a mile where the valley narrows, with a smart stream\nfrothing round our knees and the stones as slippery as ice. There it\nwas I dropped my rifle. Afterwards the Sappers blasted the cliff with\ndynamite and made the convenient way you came by. Then below, where\nthose very high cliffs come, we had to keep on dodging across the\nriver--I should say we crossed it a dozen times in a couple of miles.\n\n\"We got in sight of the place early the next morning. You know how\nit lies, on a spur halfway between the big hills, and as we began to\nappreciate how wickedly quiet the village lay under the sunlight, we\ncame to a stop to consider.\n\n\"At that they fired a lump of filed brass idol at us, just by way of a\nwelcome. It came twanging down the slope to the right of us where the\nboulders are, missed my shoulder by an inch or so, and plugged the\nmule that carried all the provisions and utensils. I never heard such\na death-rattle before or since. And at that we became aware of a\nnumber of gentlemen carrying matchlocks, and dressed in things like\nplaid dusters, dodging about along the neck between the village and\nthe crest to the east.\n\n\"'Right about face,' I said. 'Not too close together.'\n\n\"And with that encouragement my expedition of ten men came round and\nset off at a smart trot down the valley again hitherward. We did not\nwait to save anything our dead had carried, but we kept the second\nmule with us--he carried my tent and some other rubbish--out of a\nfeeling of friendship.\n\n\"So ended the battle--ingloriously. Glancing back, I saw the valley\ndotted with the victors, shouting and firing at us. But no one was\nhit. These Chins and their guns are very little good except at a\nsitting shot. They will sit and finick over a boulder for hours taking\naim, and when they fire running it is chiefly for stage effect.\nHooker, one of the Derbyshire men, fancied himself rather with the\nrifle, and stopped behind for half a minute to try his luck as we\nturned the bend. But he got nothing.\n\n\"I'm not a Xenophon to spin much of a yarn about my retreating army.\nWe had to pull the enemy up twice in the next two miles when he became\na bit pressing, by exchanging shots with him, but it was a fairly\nmonotonous affair--hard breathing chiefly--until we got near the place\nwhere the hills run in towards the river and pinch the valley into\na gorge. And there we very luckily caught a glimpse of half a dozen\nround black heads coming slanting-ways over the hill to the left of\nus--the east that is--and almost parallel with us.\n\n\"At that I called a halt. 'Look here,' says I to Hooker and the other\nEnglishmen; 'what are we to do now?' and I pointed to the heads.\n\n\"'Headed orf, or I'm a nigger,' said one of the men.\n\n\"'We shall be,' said another. 'You know the Chin way, George?'\n\n\"'They can pot every one of us at fifty yards,' says Hooker, 'in the\nplace where the river is narrow. It's just suicide to go on down.'\n\n\"I looked at the hill to the right of us. It grew steeper lower down\nthe valley, but it still seemed climbable. And all the Chins we had\nseen hitherto had been on the other side of the stream.\n\n\"'It's that or stopping,' says one of the Sepoys.\n\n\"So we started slanting up the hill. There was something faintly\nsuggestive of a road running obliquely up the face of it, and that we\nfollowed. Some Chins presently came into view up the valley, and I\nheard some shots. Then I saw one of the Sepoys was sitting down\nabout thirty yards below us. He had simply sat down without a word,\napparently not wishing to give trouble. At that I called a halt again;\nI told Hooker to try another shot, and went back and found the man was\nhit in the leg. I took him up, carried him along to put him on the\nmule--already pretty well laden with the tent and other things which\nwe had no time to take off. When I got up to the rest with him, Hooker\nhad his empty Martini in his hand, and was grinning and pointing to a\nmotionless black spot up the valley. All the rest of the Chins were\nbehind boulders or back round the bend. 'Five hundred yards,' says\nHooker, 'if an inch. And I'll swear I hit him in the head.'\n\n\"I told him to go and do it again, and with that we went on again.\n\n\"Now the hillside kept getting steeper as we pushed on, and the road\nwe were following more and more of a shelf. At last it was mere cliff\nabove and below us. 'It's the best road I have seen yet in Chin Lushai\nland,' said I to encourage the men, though I had a fear of what was\ncoming.\n\n\"And in a few minutes the way bent round a corner of the cliff. Then,\nfinis! the ledge came to an end.\n\n\"As soon as he grasped the position one of the Derbyshire men fell\na-swearing at the trap we had fallen into. The Sepoys halted quietly.\nHooker grunted and reloaded, and went back to the bend.\n\n\"Then two of the Sepoy chaps helped their comrade down and began to\nunload the mule.\n\n\"Now, when I came to look about me, I began to think we had not been\nso very unfortunate after all. We were on a shelf perhaps ten yards\nacross it at widest. Above it the cliff projected so that we could not\nbe shot down upon, and below was an almost sheer precipice of perhaps\ntwo or three hundred feet. Lying down we were invisible to anyone\nacross the ravine. The only approach was along the ledge, and on that\none man was as good as a host. We were in a natural stronghold, with\nonly one disadvantage, our sole provision against hunger and thirst\nwas one live mule. Still we were at most eight or nine miles from the\nmain expedition, and no doubt, after a day or so, they would send up\nafter us if we did not return.\n\n\"After a day or so ...\"\n\nThe lieutenant paused. \"Ever been thirsty, Graham?\"\n\n\"Not that kind,\" said the Ethnologist.\n\n\"H'm. We had the whole of that day, the night, and the next day of it,\nand only a trifle of dew we wrung out of our clothes and the tent.\nAnd below us was the river going giggle, giggle, round a rock in mid\nstream. I never knew such a barrenness of incident, or such a quantity\nof sensation. The sun might have had Joshua's command still upon it\nfor all the motion one could see; and it blazed like a near furnace.\nTowards the evening of the first day one of the Derbyshire men said\nsomething--nobody heard what--and went off round the bend of the\ncliff. We heard shots, and when Hooker looked round the corner he was\ngone. And in the morning the Sepoy whose leg was shot was in delirium,\nand jumped or fell over the cliff. Then we took the mule and shot\nit, and that must needs go over the cliff too in its last struggles,\nleaving eight of us.\n\n\"We could see the body of the Sepoy down below, with the head in the\nwater. He was lying face downwards, and so far as I could make out was\nscarcely smashed at all. Badly as the Chins might covet his head, they\nhad the sense to leave it alone until the darkness came.\n\n\"At first we talked of all the chances there were of the main body\nhearing the firing, and reckoned whether they would begin to miss us,\nand all that kind of thing, but we dried up as the evening came on.\nThe Sepoys played games with bits of stone among themselves, and\nafterwards told stories. The night was rather chilly. The second day\nnobody spoke. Our lips were black and our throats afire, and we lay\nabout on the ledge and glared at one another. Perhaps it's as well\nwe kept our thoughts to ourselves. One of the British soldiers began\nwriting some blasphemous rot on the rock with a bit of pipeclay, about\nhis last dying will, until I stopped it. As I looked over the edge\ndown into the valley and saw the river rippling I was nearly tempted\nto go after the Sepoy. It seemed a pleasant and desirable thing to\ngo rushing down through the air with something to drink--or no more\nthirst at any rate--at the bottom. I remembered in time, though, that\nI was the officer in command, and my duty to set a good example, and\nthat kept me from any such foolishness.\n\n\"Yet, thinking of that, put an idea into my head. I got up and looked\nat the tent and tent ropes, and wondered why I had not thought of it\nbefore. Then I came and peered over the cliff again. This time the\nheight seemed greater and the pose of the Sepoy rather more painful.\nBut it was that or nothing. And to cut it short, I parachuted.\n\n\"I got a big circle of canvas out of the tent, about three times the\nsize of that table-cover, and plugged the hole in the centre, and I\ntied eight ropes round it to meet in the middle and make a parachute.\nThe other chaps lay about and watched me as though they thought it was\na new kind of delirium. Then I explained my notion to the two British\nsoldiers and how I meant to do it, and as soon as the short dusk had\ndarkened into night, I risked it. They held the thing high up, and I\ntook a run the whole length of the ledge. The thing filled with air\nlike a sail, but at the edge I will confess I funked and pulled up.\n\n\"As soon as I stopped I was ashamed of myself--as well I might be in\nfront of privates--and went back and started again. Off I jumped this\ntime--with a kind of sob, I remember--clean into the air, with the big\nwhite sail bellying out above me.\n\n\"I must have thought at a frightful pace. It seemed a long time before\nI was sure that the thing meant to keep steady. At first it heeled\nsideways. Then I noticed the face of the rock which seemed to be\nstreaming up past me, and me motionless. Then I looked down and saw in\nthe darkness the river and the dead Sepoy rushing up towards me. But\nin the indistinct light I also saw three Chins, seemingly aghast at\nthe sight of me, and that the Sepoy was decapitated. At that I wanted\nto go back again.\n\n\"Then my boot was in the mouth of one, and in a moment he and I were\nin a heap with the canvas fluttering down on the top of us. I fancy I\ndashed out his brains with my foot. I expected nothing more than to be\nbrained myself by the other two, but the poor heathen had never heard\nof Baldwin, and incontinently bolted.\n\n\"I struggled out of the tangle of dead Chin and canvas, and looked\nround. About ten paces off lay the head of the Sepoy staring in the\nmoonlight. Then I saw the water and went and drank. There wasn't a\nsound in the world but the footsteps of the departing Chins, a faint\nshout from above, and the gluck of the water. So soon as I had drunk\nmy full I started off down the river.\n\n\"That about ends the explanation of the flying man story. I never met\na soul the whole eight miles of the way. I got to Walters' camp by ten\no'clock, and a born idiot of a sentinel had the cheek to fire at me\nas I came trotting out of the darkness. So soon as I had hammered my\nstory into Winter's thick skull, about fifty men started up the valley\nto clear the Chins out and get our men down. But for my own part I had\ntoo good a thirst to provoke it by going with them.\n\n\"You have heard what kind of a yarn the Chins made of it. Wings as\nlong as a mule, eh?--And black feathers! The gay lieutenant bird!\nWell, well.\"\n\nThe lieutenant meditated cheerfully for a moment. Then he added, \"You\nwould scarcely credit it, but when they got to the ridge at last, they\nfound two more of the Sepoys had jumped over.\"\n\n\"The rest were all right?\" asked the Ethnologist.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the lieutenant; \"the rest were all right, barring a\ncertain thirst, you know.\"\n\nAnd at the memory he helped himself to soda and whisky again.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DIAMOND MAKER\n\n\nSome business had detained me in Chancery Lane until nine in the\nevening, and thereafter, having some inkling of a headache, I was\ndisinclined either for entertainment or further work. So much of the\nsky as the high cliffs of that narrow cañon of traffic left visible\nspoke of a serene night, and I determined to make my way down to\nthe Embankment, and rest my eyes and cool my head by watching the\nvariegated lights upon the river. Beyond comparison the night is the\nbest time for this place; a merciful darkness hides the dirt of the\nwaters, and the lights of this transition age, red, glaring orange,\ngas-yellow, and electric white, are set in shadowy outlines of every\npossible shade between grey and deep purple. Through the arches of\nWaterloo Bridge a hundred points of light mark the sweep of the\nEmbankment, and above its parapet rise the towers of Westminster, warm\ngrey against the starlight. The black river goes by with only a rare\nripple breaking its silence, and disturbing the reflections of the\nlights that swim upon its surface.\n\n\"A warm night,\" said a voice at my side.\n\nI turned my head, and saw the profile of a man who was leaning over\nthe parapet beside me. It was a refined face, not unhandsome, though\npinched and pale enough, and the coat collar turned up and pinned\nround the throat marked his status in life as sharply as a uniform. I\nfelt I was committed to the price of a bed and breakfast if I answered\nhim.\n\nI looked at him curiously. Would he have anything to tell me worth the\nmoney, or was he the common incapable--incapable even of telling his\nown story? There was a quality of intelligence in his forehead and\neyes, and a certain tremulousness in his nether lip that decided me.\n\n\"Very warm,\" said I; \"but not too warm for us here.\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, still looking across the water, \"it is pleasant enough\nhere ... just now.\"\n\n\"It is good,\" he continued after a pause, \"to find anything so restful\nas this in London. After one has been fretting about business all day,\nabout getting on, meeting obligations, and parrying dangers, I do not\nknow what one would do if it were not for such pacific corners.\" He\nspoke with long pauses between the sentences. \"You must know a little\nof the irksome labour of the world, or you would not be here. But\nI doubt if you can be so brain-weary and footsore as I am ... Bah!\nSometimes I doubt if the game is worth the candle. I feel inclined to\nthrow the whole thing over--name, wealth, and position--and take to\nsome modest trade. But I know if I abandoned my ambition--hardly as\nshe uses me--I should have nothing but remorse left for the rest of my\ndays.\"\n\nHe became silent. I looked at him in astonishment. If ever I saw a man\nhopelessly hard-up it was the man in front of me. He was ragged and he\nwas dirty, unshaven and unkempt; he looked as though he had been left\nin a dust-bin for a week. And he was talking to _me_ of the irksome\nworries of a large business. I almost laughed outright. Either he was\nmad or playing a sorry jest on his own poverty.\n\n\"If high aims and high positions,\" said I, \"have their drawbacks of\nhard work and anxiety, they have their compensations. Influence,\nthe power of doing good, of assisting those weaker and poorer than\nourselves; and there is even a certain gratification in display....\"\n\nMy banter under the circumstances was in very vile taste. I spoke on\nthe spur of the contrast of his appearance and speech. I was sorry\neven while I was speaking.\n\nHe turned a haggard but very composed face upon me. Said he: \"I forget\nmyself. Of course you would not understand.\"\n\nHe measured me for a moment. \"No doubt it is very absurd. You will not\nbelieve me even when I tell you, so that it is fairly safe to tell\nyou. And it will be a comfort to tell someone. I really have a big\nbusiness in hand, a very big business. But there are troubles just\nnow. The fact is ... I make diamonds.\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" said I, \"you are out of work just at present?\"\n\n\"I am sick of being disbelieved,\" he said impatiently, and suddenly\nunbuttoning his wretched coat he pulled out a little canvas bag that\nwas hanging by a cord round his neck. From this he produced a brown\npebble. \"I wonder if you know enough to know what that is?\" He handed\nit to me.\n\nNow, a year or so ago, I had occupied my leisure in taking a London\nscience degree, so that I have a smattering of physics and mineralogy.\nThe thing was not unlike an uncut diamond of the darker sort, though\nfar too large, being almost as big as the top of my thumb. I took it,\nand saw it had the form of a regular octahedron, with the curved faces\npeculiar to the most precious of minerals. I took out my penknife and\ntried to scratch it--vainly. Leaning forward towards the gas-lamp, I\ntried the thing on my watch-glass, and scored a white line across that\nwith the greatest ease.\n\nI looked at my interlocutor with rising curiosity. \"It certainly is\nrather like a diamond. But, if so, it is a Behemoth of diamonds. Where\ndid you get it?\"\n\n\"I tell you I made it,\" he said. \"Give it back to me.\"\n\nHe replaced it hastily and buttoned his jacket. \"I will sell it you\nfor one hundred pounds,\" he suddenly whispered eagerly. With that my\nsuspicions returned. The thing might, after all, be merely a lump\nof that almost equally hard substance, corundum, with an accidental\nresemblance in shape to the diamond. Or if it was a diamond, how came\nhe by it, and why should he offer it at a hundred pounds?\n\nWe looked into one another's eyes. He seemed eager, but honestly\neager. At that moment I believed it was a diamond he was trying to\nsell. Yet I am a poor man, a hundred pounds would leave a visible gap\nin my fortunes and no sane man would buy a diamond by gaslight from a\nragged tramp on his personal warranty only. Still, a diamond that size\nconjured up a vision of many thousands of pounds. Then, thought I,\nsuch a stone could scarcely exist without being mentioned in every\nbook on gems, and again I called to mind the stories of contraband and\nlight-fingered Kaffirs at the Cape. I put the question of purchase on\none side.\n\n\"How did you get it?\" said I.\n\n\"I made it.\"\n\nI had heard something of Moissan, but I knew his artificial diamonds\nwere very small. I shook my head.\n\n\"You seem to know something of this kind of thing. I will tell you\na little about myself. Perhaps then you may think better of the\npurchase.\" He turned round with his back to the river, and put his\nhands in his pockets. He sighed. \"I know you will not believe me.\"\n\n\"Diamonds,\" he began--and as he spoke his voice lost its faint flavour\nof the tramp and assumed something of the easy tone of an educated\nman--\"are to be made by throwing carbon out of combination in a\nsuitable flux and under a suitable pressure; the carbon crystallises\nout, not as black-lead or charcoal-powder, but as small diamonds. So\nmuch has been known to chemists for years, but no one yet has hit upon\nexactly the right flux in which to melt up the carbon, or exactly the\nright pressure for the best results. Consequently the diamonds made by\nchemists are small and dark, and worthless as jewels. Now I, you know,\nhave given up my life to this problem--given my life to it.\n\n\"I began to work at the conditions of diamond making when I was\nseventeen, and now I am thirty-two. It seemed to me that it might take\nall the thought and energies of a man for ten years, or twenty years,\nbut, even if it did, the game was still worth the candle. Suppose one\nto have at last just hit the right trick, before the secret got out\nand diamonds became as common as coal, one might realise millions.\nMillions!\"\n\nHe paused and looked for my sympathy. His eyes shone hungrily. \"To\nthink,\" said he, \"that I am on the verge of it all, and here!\n\n\"I had,\" he proceeded, \"about a thousand pounds when I was twenty-one,\nand this, I thought, eked out by a little teaching, would keep my\nresearches going. A year or two was spent in study, at Berlin chiefly,\nand then I continued on my own account. The trouble was the secrecy.\nYou see, if once I had let out what I was doing, other men might have\nbeen spurred on by my belief in the practicability of the idea; and I\ndo not pretend to be such a genius as to have been sure of coming in\nfirst, in the case of a race for the discovery. And you see it was\nimportant that if I really meant to make a pile, people should not\nknow it was an artificial process and capable of turning out diamonds\nby the ton. So I had to work all alone. At first I had a little\nlaboratory, but as my resources began to run out I had to conduct my\nexperiments in a wretched unfurnished room in Kentish Town, where I\nslept at last on a straw mattress on the floor among all my apparatus.\nThe money simply flowed away. I grudged myself everything except\nscientific appliances. I tried to keep things going by a little\nteaching, but I am not a very good teacher, and I have no university\ndegree, nor very much education except in chemistry, and I found I had\nto give a lot of time and labour for precious little money. But I got\nnearer and nearer the thing. Three years ago I settled the problem of\nthe composition of the flux, and got near the pressure by putting\nthis flux of mine and a certain carbon composition into a closed-up\ngun-barrel, filling up with water, sealing tightly, and heating.\"\n\nHe paused.\n\n\"Rather risky,\" said I.\n\n\"Yes. It burst, and smashed all my windows and a lot of my apparatus;\nbut I got a kind of diamond powder nevertheless. Following out the\nproblem of getting a big pressure upon the molten mixture from\nwhich the things were to crystallise, I hit upon some researches of\nDaubrée's at the Paris _Laboratorie des Poudres et Salpêtres_. He\nexploded dynamite in a tightly screwed steel cylinder, too strong to\nburst, and I found he could crush rocks into a muck not unlike the\nSouth African bed in which diamonds are found. It was a tremendous\nstrain on my resources, but I got a steel cylinder made for my purpose\nafter his pattern. I put in all my stuff and my explosives, built up\na fire in my furnace, put the whole concern in, and--went out for a\nwalk.\"\n\nI could not help laughing at his matter-of-fact manner. \"Did you not\nthink it would blow up the house? Were there other people in the\nplace?\"\n\n\"It was in the interest of science,\" he said, ultimately. \"There was a\ncostermonger family on the floor below, a begging-letter writer in the\nroom behind mine, and two flower-women were upstairs. Perhaps it was a\nbit thoughtless. But possibly some of them were out.\n\n\"When I came back the thing was just where I left it, among the\nwhite-hot coals. The explosive hadn't burst the case. And then I had\na problem to face. You know time is an important element in\ncrystallisation. If you hurry the process the crystals are small--it\nis only by prolonged standing that they grow to any size. I resolved\nto let this apparatus cool for two years, letting the temperature go\ndown slowly during that time. And I was now quite out of money; and\nwith a big fire and the rent of my room, as well as my hunger to\nsatisfy, I had scarcely a penny in the world.\n\n\"I can hardly tell you all the shifts I was put to while I was making\nthe diamonds. I have sold newspapers, held horses, opened cab-doors.\nFor many weeks I addressed envelopes. I had a place as assistant to\na man who owned a barrow, and used to call down one side of the road\nwhile he called down the other. Once for a week I had absolutely\nnothing to do, and I begged. What a week that was! One day the fire\nwas going out and I had eaten nothing all day, and a little chap\ntaking his girl out, gave me sixpence--to show-off. Thank heaven for\nvanity! How the fish-shops smelt! But I went and spent it all on\ncoals, and had the furnace bright red again, and then--Well, hunger\nmakes a fool of a man.\n\n\"At last, three weeks ago, I let the fire out. I took my cylinder and\nunscrewed it while it was still so hot that it punished my hands, and\nI scraped out the crumbling lava-like mass with a chisel, and hammered\nit into a powder upon an iron plate. And I found three big diamonds\nand five small ones. As I sat on the floor hammering, my door opened,\nand my neighbour, the begging-letter writer, came in. He was\ndrunk--as he usually is. ''Nerchist,' said he. 'You're drunk,' said I.\n''Structive scoundrel,' said he. 'Go to your father,' said I, meaning\nthe Father of Lies. 'Never you mind,' said he, and gave me a cunning\nwink, and hiccuped, and leaning up against the door, with his other\neye against the door-post, began to babble of how he had been prying\nin my room, and how he had gone to the police that morning, and how\nthey had taken down everything he had to say--''siffiwas a ge'm,' said\nhe. Then I suddenly realised I was in a hole. Either I should have\nto tell these police my little secret, and get the whole thing blown\nupon, or be lagged as an Anarchist. So I went up to my neighbour\nand took him by the collar, and rolled him about a bit, and then I\ngathered up my diamonds and cleared out. The evening newspapers called\nmy den the Kentish-Town Bomb Factory. And now I cannot part with the\nthings for love or money.\n\n\"If I go in to respectable jewellers they ask me to wait, and go and\nwhisper to a clerk to fetch a policeman, and then I say I cannot wait.\nAnd I found out a receiver of stolen goods, and he simply stuck to\nthe one I gave him and told me to prosecute if I wanted it back. I am\ngoing about now with several hundred thousand pounds-worth of diamonds\nround my neck, and without either food or shelter. You are the first\nperson I have taken into my confidence. But I like your face and I am\nhard-driven.\"\n\nHe looked into my eyes.\n\n\"It would be madness,\" said I, \"for me to buy a diamond under the\ncircumstances. Besides, I do not carry hundreds of pounds about in my\npocket. Yet I more than half believe your story. I will, if you like,\ndo this: come to my office to-morrow....\"\n\n\"You think I am a thief!\" said he keenly. \"You will tell the police. I\nam not coming into a trap.\"\n\n\"Somehow I am assured you are no thief. Here is my card. Take that,\nanyhow. You need not come to any appointment. Come when you will.\"\n\nHe took the card, and an earnest of my good-will.\n\n\"Think better of it and come,\" said I.\n\nHe shook his head doubtfully. \"I will pay back your half-crown with\ninterest some day--such interest as will amaze you,\" said he. \"Anyhow,\nyou will keep the secret?... Don't follow me.\"\n\nHe crossed the road and went into the darkness towards the little\nsteps under the archway leading into Essex Street, and I let him go.\nAnd that was the last I ever saw of him.\n\nAfterwards I had two letters from him asking me to send\nbank-notes--not cheques--to certain addresses. I weighed the matter\nover, and took what I conceived to be the wisest course. Once he\ncalled upon me when I was out. My urchin described him as a very thin,\ndirty, and ragged man, with a dreadful cough. He left no message. That\nwas the finish of him so far as my story goes. I wonder sometimes what\nhas become of him. Was he an ingenious monomaniac, or a fraudulent\ndealer in pebbles, or has he really made diamonds as he asserted? The\nlatter is just sufficiently credible to make me think at times that\nI have missed the most brilliant opportunity of my life. He may of\ncourse be dead, and his diamonds carelessly thrown aside--one, I\nrepeat, was almost as big as my thumb. Or he may be still wandering\nabout trying to sell the things. It is just possible he may yet emerge\nupon society, and, passing athwart my heavens in the serene altitude\nsacred to the wealthy and the well-advertised, reproach me silently\nfor my want of enterprise. I sometimes think I might at least have\nrisked five pounds.\n\n\n\n\nAEPYORNIS ISLAND\n\n\nThe man with the scarred face leant over the table and looked at my\nbundle.\n\n\"Orchids?\" he asked.\n\n\"A few,\" I said.\n\n\"Cypripediums,\" he said.\n\n\"Chiefly,\" said I.\n\n\"Anything new? I thought not. _I_ did these islands\ntwenty-five--twenty-seven years ago. If you find anything new\nhere--well it's brand new. I didn't leave much.\"\n\n\"I'm not a collector,\" said I.\n\n\"I was young then,\" he went on. \"Lord! how I used to fly round.\" He\nseemed to take my measure. \"I was in the East Indies two years, and in\nBrazil seven. Then I went to Madagascar.\"\n\n\"I know a few explorers by name,\" I said, anticipating a yarn. \"Whom\ndid you collect for?\"\n\n\"Dawsons. I wonder if you've heard the name of Butcher ever?\"\n\n\"Butcher--Butcher?\" The name seemed vaguely present in my memory; then I\nrecalled _Butcher_ v. _Dawson_. \"Why!\" said I, \"you are the man who sued\nthem for four years' salary--got cast away on a desert island ...\"\n\n\"Your servant,\" said the man with the scar, bowing. \"Funny case,\nwasn't it? Here was me, making a little fortune on that island, doing\nnothing for it neither, and them quite unable to give me notice. It\noften used to amuse me thinking over it while I was there. I did\ncalculations of it--big--all over the blessed atoll in ornamental\nfiguring.\"\n\n\"How did it happen?\" said I. \"I don't rightly remember the case.\"\n\n\"Well.... You've heard of the Aepyornis?\"\n\n\"Rather. Andrews was telling me of a new species he was working on\nonly a month or so ago. Just before I sailed. They've got a thigh\nbone, it seems, nearly a yard long. Monster the thing must have been!\"\n\n\"I believe you,\" said the man with the scar. \"It _was_ a monster.\nSinbad's roc was just a legend of 'em. But when did they find these\nbones?\"\n\n\"Three or four years ago--'91, I fancy. Why?\"\n\n\"Why? Because _I_ found 'em--Lord!--it's nearly twenty years ago. If\nDawsons hadn't been silly about that salary they might have made a\nperfect ring in 'em.... _I_ couldn't help the infernal boat going\nadrift.\"\n\nHe paused, \"I suppose it's the same place. A kind of swamp about\nninety miles north of Antananarivo. Do you happen to know? You have\nto go to it along the coast by boats. You don't happen to remember,\nperhaps?\"\n\n\"I don't. I fancy Andrews said something about a swamp.\"\n\n\"It must be the same. It's on the east coast. And somehow there's\nsomething in the water that keeps things from decaying. Like creosote\nit smells. It reminded me of Trinidad. Did they get any more eggs?\nSome of the eggs I found were a foot-and-a-half long. The swamp goes\ncircling round, you know, and cuts off this bit. It's mostly salt,\ntoo. Well.... What a time I had of it! I found the things quite by\naccident. We went for eggs, me and two native chaps, in one of those\nrum canoes all tied together, and found the bones at the same time. We\nhad a tent and provisions for four days, and we pitched on one of the\nfirmer places. To think of it brings that odd tarry smell back even\nnow. It's funny work. You go probing into the mud with iron rods, you\nknow. Usually the egg gets smashed. I wonder how long it is since\nthese Aepyornises really lived. The missionaries say the natives have\nlegends about when they were alive, but I never heard any such stories\nmyself.[A] But certainly those eggs we got were as fresh as if they\nhad been new laid. Fresh! Carrying them down to the boat one of my\nnigger chaps dropped one on a rock and it smashed. How I lammed into\nthe beggar! But sweet it was, as if it was new laid, not even smelly,\nand its mother dead these four hundred years, perhaps. Said a\ncentipede had bit him. However, I'm getting off the straight with the\nstory. It had taken us all day to dig into the slush and get these\neggs out unbroken, and we were all covered with beastly black mud, and\nnaturally I was cross. So far as I knew they were the only eggs that\nhave ever been got out not even cracked. I went afterwards to see the\nones they have at the Natural History Museum in London; all of them\nwere cracked and just stuck together like a mosaic, and bits missing.\nMine were perfect, and I meant to blow them when I got back. Naturally\nI was annoyed at the silly duffer dropping three hours' work just on\naccount of a centipede. I hit him about rather.\"\n\n[Footnote A: No European is known to have seen a live Aepyornis,\nwith the doubtful exception of MacAndrew, who visited Madagascar in\n1745.--H.G.W.]\n\nThe man with the scar took out a clay pipe. I placed my pouch before\nhim. He filled up absent-mindedly.\n\n\"How about the others? Did you get those home? I don't remember--\"\n\n\"That's the queer part of the story. I had three others. Perfectly\nfresh eggs. Well, we put 'em in the boat, and then I went up to\nthe tent to make some coffee, leaving my two heathens down by the\nbeach--the one fooling about with his sting and the other helping him.\nIt never occurred to me that the beggars would take advantage of\nthe peculiar position I was in to pick a quarrel. But I suppose the\ncentipede poison and the kicking I had given him had upset the one--he\nwas always a cantankerous sort--and he persuaded the other.\n\n\"I remember I was sitting and smoking and boiling up the water over a\nspirit-lamp business I used to take on these expeditions. Incidentally\nI was admiring the swamp under the sunset. All black and blood-red it\nwas, in streaks--a beautiful sight. And up beyond the land rose grey\nand hazy to the hills, and the sky behind them red, like a furnace\nmouth. And fifty yards behind the back of me was these blessed\nheathen--quite regardless of the tranquil air of things--plotting\nto cut off with the boat and leave me all alone with three days'\nprovisions and a canvas tent, and nothing to drink whatsoever, beyond\na little keg of water. I heard a kind of yelp behind me, and there\nthey were in this canoe affair--it wasn't properly a boat--and,\nperhaps, twenty yards from land. I realised what was up in a moment.\nMy gun was in the tent, and, besides, I had no bullets--only duck\nshot. They knew that. But I had a little revolver in my pocket, and I\npulled that out as I ran down to the beach.\n\n\"'Come back!' says I, flourishing it.\n\n\"They jabbered something at me, and the man that broke the egg jeered.\nI aimed at the other--because he was unwounded and had the paddle, and\nI missed. They laughed. However, I wasn't beat. I knew I had to keep\ncool, and I tried him again and made him jump with the whang of it.\nHe didn't laugh that time. The third time I got his head, and over\nhe went, and the paddle with him. It was a precious lucky shot for a\nrevolver. I reckon it was fifty yards. He went right under. I don't\nknow if he was shot, or simply stunned and drowned. Then I began to\nshout to the other chap to come back, but he huddled up in the canoe\nand refused to answer. So I fired out my revolver at him and never got\nnear him.\n\n\"I felt a precious fool, I can tell you. There I was on this rotten,\nblack beach, flat swamp all behind me, and the flat sea, cold after\nthe sunset, and just this black canoe drifting steadily out to sea. I\ntell you I damned Dawsons and Jamrachs and Museums and all the rest\nof it just to rights. I bawled to this nigger to come back, until my\nvoice went up into a scream.\n\n\"There was nothing for it but to swim after him and take my luck with\nthe sharks. So I opened my clasp-knife and put it in my mouth, and\ntook off my clothes and waded in. As soon as I was in the water I lost\nsight of the canoe, but I aimed, as I judged, to head it off. I hoped\nthe man in it was too bad to navigate it, and that it would keep on\ndrifting in the same direction. Presently it came up over the horizon\nagain to the south-westward about. The afterglow of sunset was well\nover now and the dim of night creeping up. The stars were coming\nthrough the blue. I swum like a champion, though my legs and arms were\nsoon aching.\n\n\"However, I came up to him by the time the stars were fairly out.\nAs it got darker I began to see all manner of glowing things in the\nwater--phosphorescence, you know. At times it made me giddy. I hardly\nknew which was stars and which was phosphorescence, and whether I was\nswimming on my head or my heels. The canoe was as black as sin, and\nthe ripple under the bows like liquid fire. I was naturally chary of\nclambering up into it. I was anxious to see what he was up to first.\nHe seemed to be lying cuddled up in a lump in the bows, and the stern\nwas all out of water. The thing kept turning round slowly as it\ndrifted--kind of waltzing, don't you know. I went to the stern, and\npulled it down, expecting him to wake up. Then I began to clamber in\nwith my knife in my hand, and ready for a rush. But he never stirred.\nSo there I sat in the stern of the little canoe, drifting away over\nthe calm phosphorescent sea, and with all the host of the stars above\nme, waiting for something to happen.\n\n\"After a long time I called him by name, but he never answered. I was\ntoo tired to take any risks by going along to him. So we sat there. I\nfancy I dozed once or twice. When the dawn came I saw he was as dead\nas a doornail and all puffed up and purple. My three eggs and the\nbones were lying in the middle of the canoe, and the keg of water and\nsome coffee and biscuits wrapped in a Cape _Argus_ by his feet, and a\ntin of methylated spirit underneath him. There was no paddle, nor, in\nfact, anything except the spirit-tin that one could use as one, so\nI settled to drift until I was picked up. I held an inquest on him,\nbrought in a verdict against some snake, scorpion, or centipede\nunknown, and sent him overboard.\n\n\"After that I had a drink of water and a few biscuits, and took a\nlook round. I suppose a man low down as I was don't see very far;\nleastways, Madagascar was clean out of sight, and any trace of land at\nall. I saw a sail going south-westward--looked like a schooner, but\nher hull never came up. Presently the sun got high in the sky and\nbegan to beat down upon me. Lord! It pretty near made my brains boil.\nI tried dipping my head in the sea, but after a while my eye fell on\nthe Cape _Argus_, and I lay down flat in the canoe and spread this\nover me. Wonderful things these newspapers! I never read one through\nthoroughly before, but it's odd what you get up to when you're alone,\nas I was. I suppose I read that blessed old Cape _Argus_ twenty times.\nThe pitch in the canoe simply reeked with the heat and rose up into\nbig blisters.\n\n\"I drifted ten days,\" said the man with the scar. \"It's a little thing\nin the telling, isn't it? Every day was like the last. Except in the\nmorning and the evening I never kept a look-out even--the blaze was so\ninfernal. I didn't see a sail after the first three days, and those\nI saw took no notice of me. About the sixth night a ship went by\nscarcely half a mile away from me, with all its lights ablaze and its\nports open, looking like a big firefly. There was music aboard. I\nstood up and shouted and screamed at it. The second day I broached one\nof the Aepyornis eggs, scraped the shell away at the end bit by bit,\nand tried it, and I was glad to find it was good enough to eat. A bit\nflavoury--not bad, I mean--but with something of the taste of a duck's\negg. There was a kind of circular patch, about six inches across, on\none side of the yolk, and with streaks of blood and a white mark like\na ladder in it that I thought queer, but I did not understand what\nthis meant at the time, and I wasn't inclined to be particular. The\negg lasted me three days, with biscuits and a drink of water. I chewed\ncoffee berries too--invigorating stuff. The second egg I opened about\nthe eighth day, and it scared me.\"\n\nThe man with the scar paused. \"Yes,\" he said, \"developing.\"\n\n\"I dare say you find it hard to believe. _I_ did, with the thing\nbefore me. There the egg had been, sunk in that cold black mud,\nperhaps three hundred years. But there was no mistaking it. There was\nthe--what is it?--embryo, with its big head and curved back, and its\nheart beating under its throat, and the yolk shrivelled up and great\nmembranes spreading inside of the shell and all over the yolk. Here\nwas I hatching out the eggs of the biggest of all extinct birds, in a\nlittle canoe in the midst of the Indian Ocean. If old Dawson had known\nthat! It was worth four years' salary. What do _you_ think?\n\n\"However, I had to eat that precious thing up, every bit of it, before\nI sighted the reef, and some of the mouthfuls were beastly unpleasant.\nI left the third one alone. I held it up to the light, but the shell\nwas too thick for me to get any notion of what might be happening\ninside; and though I fancied I heard blood pulsing, it might have been\nthe rustle in my own ears, like what you listen to in a seashell.\n\n\"Then came the atoll. Came out of the sunrise, as it were, suddenly,\nclose up to me. I drifted straight towards it until I was about half a\nmile from shore, not more, and then the current took a turn, and I had\nto paddle as hard as I could with my hands and bits of the Aepyornis\nshell to make the place. However, I got there. It was just a common\natoll about four miles round, with a few trees growing and a spring in\none place, and the lagoon full of parrot-fish. I took the egg ashore\nand put it in a good place well above the tide lines and in the sun,\nto give it all the chance I could, and pulled the canoe up safe, and\nloafed about prospecting. It's rum how dull an atoll is. As soon as I\nhad found a spring all the interest seemed to vanish. When I was a kid\nI thought nothing could be finer or more adventurous than the Robinson\nCrusoe business, but that place was as monotonous as a book of\nsermons. I went round finding eatable things and generally thinking;\nbut I tell you I was bored to death before the first day was out.\nIt shows my luck--the very day I landed the weather changed. A\nthunderstorm went by to the north and flicked its wing over the\nisland, and in the night there came a drencher and a howling wind slap\nover us. It wouldn't have taken much, you know, to upset that canoe.\n\n\"I was sleeping under the canoe, and the egg was luckily among the\nsand higher up the beach, and the first thing I remember was a sound\nlike a hundred pebbles hitting the boat at once, and a rush of water\nover my body. I'd been dreaming of Antananarivo, and I sat up and\nholloaed to Intoshi to ask her what the devil was up, and clawed out\nat the chair where the matches used to be. Then I remembered where I\nwas. There were phosphorescent waves rolling up as if they meant to\neat me, and all the rest of the night as black as pitch. The air was\nsimply yelling. The clouds seemed down on your head almost, and the\nrain fell as if heaven was sinking and they were baling out the waters\nabove the firmament. One great roller came writhing at me, like a\nfiery serpent, and I bolted. Then I thought of the canoe, and ran down\nto it as the water went hissing back again; but the thing had gone. I\nwondered about the egg then, and felt my way to it. It was all right\nand well out of reach of the maddest waves, so I sat down beside it\nand cuddled it for company. Lord! what a night that was!\n\n\"The storm was over before the morning. There wasn't a rag of cloud\nleft in the sky when the dawn came, and all along the beach there were\nbits of plank scattered--which was the disarticulated skeleton, so to\nspeak, of my canoe. However, that gave me something to do, for, taking\nadvantage of two of the trees being together, I rigged up a kind of\nstorm-shelter with these vestiges. And that day the egg hatched.\n\n\"Hatched, sir, when my head was pillowed on it and I was asleep. I\nheard a whack and felt a jar and sat up, and there was the end of the\negg pecked out and a rum little brown head looking out at me. 'Lord!'\nI said, 'you're welcome'; and with a little difficulty he came out.\n\n\"He was a nice friendly little chap, at first, about the size of a\nsmall hen--very much like most other young birds, only bigger. His\nplumage was a dirty brown to begin with, with a sort of grey scab that\nfell off it very soon, and scarcely feathers--a kind of downy hair. I\ncan hardly express how pleased I was to see him. I tell you, Robinson\nCrusoe don't make near enough of his loneliness. But here was\ninteresting company. He looked at me and winked his eye from the front\nbackwards, like a hen, and gave a chirp and began to peck about at\nonce, as though being hatched three hundred years too late was just\nnothing. 'Glad to see you, Man Friday!' says I, for I had naturally\nsettled he was to be called Man Friday if ever he was hatched, as\nsoon as ever I found the egg in the canoe had developed. I was a bit\nanxious about his feed, so I gave him a lump of raw parrot-fish at\nonce. He took it, and opened his beak for more. I was glad of that,\nfor, under the circumstances, if he'd been at all fanciful, I should\nhave had to eat him after all. You'd be surprised what an interesting\nbird that Aepyornis chick was. He followed me about from the very\nbeginning. He used to stand by me and watch while I fished in the\nlagoon, and go shares in anything I caught. And he was sensible, too.\nThere were nasty green warty things, like pickled gherkins, used to\nlie about on the beach, and he tried one of these and it upset him. He\nnever even looked at any of them again.\n\n\"And he grew. You could almost see him grow. And as I was never much\nof a society man his quiet, friendly ways suited me to a T. For nearly\ntwo years we were as happy as we could be on that island. I had no\nbusiness worries, for I knew my salary was mounting up at Dawsons'. We\nwould see a sail now and then, but nothing ever came near us. I\namused myself, too, by decorating the island with designs worked in\nsea-urchins and fancy shells of various kinds. I put AEPYORNIS ISLAND\nall round the place very nearly, in big letters, like what you see\ndone with coloured stones at railway stations in the old country, and\nmathematical calculations and drawings of various sorts. And I used to\nlie watching the blessed bird stalking round and growing, growing; and\nthink how I could make a living out of him by showing him about if I\never got taken off. After his first moult he began to get handsome,\nwith a crest and a blue wattle, and a lot of green feathers at the\nbehind of him. And then I used to puzzle whether Dawsons had any right\nto claim him or not. Stormy weather and in the rainy season we lay\nsnug under the shelter I had made out of the old canoe, and I used to\ntell him lies about my friends at home. And after a storm we would go\nround the island together to see if there was any drift. It was a kind\nof idyll, you might say. If only I had had some tobacco it would have\nbeen simply just like Heaven.\n\n\"It was about the end of the second year our little paradise went\nwrong. Friday was then about fourteen feet high to the bill of him,\nwith a big, broad head like the end of a pickaxe, and two huge brown\neyes with yellow rims, set together like a man's--not out of sight\nof each other like a hen's. His plumage was fine--none of the\nhalf-mourning style of your ostrich--more like a cassowary as far as\ncolour and texture go. And then it was he began to cock his comb at me\nand give himself airs, and show signs of a nasty temper....\n\n\"At last came a time when my fishing had been rather unlucky, and he\nbegan to hang about me in a queer, meditative way. I thought he might\nhave been eating sea-cucumbers or something, but it was really just\ndiscontent on his part. I was hungry too, and when at last I landed a\nfish I wanted it for myself. Tempers were short that morning on both\nsides. He pecked at it and grabbed it, and I gave him a whack on the\nhead to make him leave go. And at that he went for me. Lord!...\n\n\"He gave me this in the face.\" The man indicated his scar. \"Then he\nkicked me. It was like a cart-horse. I got up, and seeing he hadn't\nfinished, I started off full tilt with my arms doubled up over my\nface. But he ran on those gawky legs of his faster than a racehorse,\nand kept landing out at me with sledge hammer kicks, and bringing his\npickaxe down on the back of my head. I made for the lagoon, and went\nin up to my neck. He stopped at the water, for he hated getting his\nfeet wet, and began to make a shindy, something like a peacock's, only\nhoarser. He started strutting up and down the beach. I'll admit I felt\nsmall to see this blessed fossil lording it there. And my head and\nface were all bleeding, and--well, my body just one jelly of bruises.\n\n\"I decided to swim across the lagoon and leave him alone for a bit,\nuntil the affair blew over. I shinned up the tallest palm-tree, and\nsat there thinking of it all. I don't suppose I ever felt so hurt\nby anything before or since. It was the brutal ingratitude of the\ncreature. I'd been more than a brother to him. I'd hatched him,\neducated him. A great gawky, out-of-date bird! And me a human\nbeing--heir of the ages and all that.\n\n\"I thought after a time he'd begin to see things in that light\nhimself, and feel a little sorry for his behaviour. I thought if I\nwas to catch some nice little bits of fish, perhaps, and go to him\npresently in a casual kind of way, and offer them to him, he might do\nthe sensible thing. It took me some time to learn how unforgiving and\ncantankerous an extinct bird can be. Malice!\n\n\"I won't tell you all the little devices I tried to get that bird\nround again. I simply can't. It makes my cheek burn with shame even\nnow to think of the snubs and buffets I had from this infernal\ncuriosity. I tried violence. I chucked lumps of coral at him from a\nsafe distance, but he only swallowed them. I shied my open knife at\nhim and almost lost it, though it was too big for him to swallow. I\ntried starving him out and struck fishing, but he took to picking\nalong the beach at low water after worms, and rubbed along on that.\nHalf my time I spent up to my neck in the lagoon, and the rest up the\npalm-trees. One of them was scarcely high enough, and when he caught\nme up it he had a regular Bank Holiday with the calves of my legs.\nIt got unbearable. I don't know if you have ever tried sleeping up a\npalm-tree. It gave me the most horrible nightmares. Think of the shame\nof it, too! Here was this extinct animal mooning about my island like\na sulky duke, and me not allowed to rest the sole of my foot on the\nplace. I used to cry with weariness and vexation. I told him straight\nthat I didn't mean to be chased about a desert island by any damned\nanachronisms. I told him to go and peck a navigator of his own age.\nBut he only snapped his beak at me. Great ugly bird--all legs and\nneck!\n\n\"I shouldn't like to say how long that went on altogether. I'd have\nkilled him sooner if I'd known how. However, I hit on a way of\nsettling him at last. It is a South American dodge. I joined all my\nfishing-lines together with stems of seaweed and things and made\na stoutish string, perhaps twelve yards in length or more, and I\nfastened two lumps of coral rock to the ends of this. It took me some\ntime to do, because every now and then I had to go into the lagoon or\nup a tree as the fancy took me. This I whirled rapidly round my head,\nand then let it go at him. The first time I missed, but the next time\nthe string caught his legs beautifully, and wrapped round them again\nand again. Over he went. I threw it standing waist-deep in the lagoon,\nand as soon as he went down I was out of the water and sawing at his\nneck with my knife ...\n\n\"I don't like to think of that even now. I felt like a murderer while\nI did it, though my anger was hot against him. When I stood over him\nand saw him bleeding on the white sand, and his beautiful great legs\nand neck writhing in his last agony ... Pah!\n\n\"With that tragedy loneliness came upon me like a curse. Good Lord!\nyou can't imagine how I missed that bird. I sat by his corpse and\nsorrowed over him, and shivered as I looked round the desolate, silent\nreef. I thought of what a jolly little bird he had been when he was\nhatched, and of a thousand pleasant tricks he had played before he\nwent wrong. I thought if I'd only wounded him I might have nursed him\nround into a better understanding. If I'd had any means of digging\ninto the coral rock I'd have buried him. I felt exactly as if he was\nhuman. As it was, I couldn't think of eating him, so I put him in the\nlagoon, and the little fishes picked him clean. I didn't even save the\nfeathers. Then one day a chap cruising about in a yacht had a fancy to\nsee if my atoll still existed.\n\n\"He didn't come a moment too soon, for I was about sick enough of the\ndesolation of it, and only hesitating whether I should walk out into\nthe sea and finish up the business that way, or fall back on the green\nthings....\n\n\"I sold the bones to a man named Winslow--a dealer near the British\nMuseum, and he says he sold them to old Havers. It seems Havers didn't\nunderstand they were extra large, and it was only after his death they\nattracted attention. They called 'em Aepyornis--what was it?\"\n\n\"_Aepyornis vastus_,\" said I. \"It's funny, the very thing was\nmentioned to me by a friend of mine. When they found an Aepyornis,\nwith a thigh a yard long, they thought they had reached the top of\nthe scale, and called him _Aepyornis maximus_. Then someone turned\nup another thighbone four feet six or more, and that they called\n_Aepyornis Titan_. Then your _vastus_ was found after old Havers died,\nin his collection, and then a _vastissimus_ turned up.\"\n\n\"Winslow was telling me as much,\" said the man with the scar. \"If they\nget any more Aepyornises, he reckons some scientific swell will go\nand burst a bloodvessel. But it was a queer thing to happen to a man;\nwasn't it--altogether?\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE REMARKABLE CASE OF DAVIDSON'S EYES\n\n\nThe transitory mental aberration of Sidney Davidson, remarkable enough\nin itself, is still more remarkable if Wade's explanation is to\nbe credited. It sets one dreaming of the oddest possibilities of\nintercommunication in the future, of spending an intercalary five\nminutes on the other side of the world, or being watched in our most\nsecret operations by unsuspected eyes. It happened that I was the\nimmediate witness of Davidson's seizure, and so it falls naturally to\nme to put the story upon paper.\n\nWhen I say that I was the immediate witness of his seizure, I mean\nthat I was the first on the scene. The thing happened at the Harlow\nTechnical College, just beyond the Highgate Archway. He was alone in\nthe larger laboratory when the thing happened. I was in a smaller\nroom, where the balances are, writing up some notes. The thunderstorm\nhad completely upset my work, of course. It was just after one of the\nlouder peals that I thought I heard some glass smash in the other\nroom. I stopped writing, and turned round to listen. For a moment\nI heard nothing; the hail was playing the devil's tattoo on the\ncorrugated zinc of the roof. Then came another sound, a smash--no\ndoubt of it this time. Something heavy had been knocked off the bench.\nI jumped up at once and went and opened the door leading into the big\nlaboratory.\n\nI was surprised to hear a queer sort of laugh, and saw Davidson\nstanding unsteadily in the middle of the room, with a dazzled look on\nhis face. My first impression was that he was drunk. He did not notice\nme. He was clawing out at something invisible a yard in front of his\nface. He put out his hand, slowly, rather hesitatingly, and then\nclutched nothing. \"What's come to it?\" he said. He held up his hands\nto his face, fingers spread out. \"Great Scot!\" he said. The thing\nhappened three or four years ago, when everyone swore by that\npersonage. Then he began raising his feet clumsily, as though he had\nexpected to find them glued to the floor.\n\n\"Davidson!\" cried I. \"What's the matter with you?\" He turned round in\nmy direction and looked about for me. He looked over me and at me\nand on either side of me, without the slightest sign of seeing me.\n\"Waves,\" he said; \"and a remarkably neat schooner. I'd swear that was\nBellows' voice. _Hullo_!\" He shouted suddenly at the top of his voice.\n\nI thought he was up to some foolery. Then I saw littered about his\nfeet the shattered remains of the best of our electrometers. \"What's\nup, man?\" said I. \"You've smashed the electrometer!\"\n\n\"Bellows again!\" said he. \"Friends left, if my hands are gone.\nSomething about electrometers. Which way _are_ you, Bellows?\" He\nsuddenly came staggering towards me. \"The damned stuff cuts like\nbutter,\" he said. He walked straight into the bench and recoiled.\n\"None so buttery that!\" he said, and stood swaying.\n\nI felt scared. \"Davidson,\" said I, \"what on earth's come over you?\"\n\nHe looked round him in every direction. \"I could swear that was\nBellows. Why don't you show yourself like a man, Bellows?\"\n\nIt occurred to me that he must be suddenly struck blind. I walked\nround the table and laid my hand upon his arm. I never saw a man more\nstartled in my life. He jumped away from me, and came round into an\nattitude of self-defence, his face fairly distorted with terror. \"Good\nGod!\" he cried. \"What was that?\"\n\n\"It's I--Bellows. Confound it, Davidson!\"\n\nHe jumped when I answered him and stared--how can I express it?--right\nthrough me. He began talking, not to me, but to himself. \"Here in\nbroad daylight on a clear beach. Not a place to hide in.\" He looked\nabout him wildly. \"Here! I'm _off_.\" He suddenly turned and ran\nheadlong into the big electro-magnet--so violently that, as we found\nafterwards, he bruised his shoulder and jawbone cruelly. At that he\nstepped back a pace, and cried out with almost a whimper, \"What, in\nheaven's name, has come over me?\" He stood, blanched with terror and\ntrembling violently, with his right arm clutching his left, where that\nhad collided with the magnet.\n\nBy that time I was excited and fairly scared. \"Davidson,\" said I,\n\"don't be afraid.\"\n\nHe was startled at my voice, but not so excessively as before. I\nrepeated my words in as clear and firm a tone as I could assume.\n\"Bellows,\" he said, \"is that you?\"\n\n\"Can't you see it's me?\"\n\nHe laughed. \"I can't even see it's myself. Where the devil are we?\"\n\n\"Here,\" said I, \"in the laboratory.\"\n\n\"The laboratory!\" he answered, in a puzzled tone, and put his hand to\nhis forehead. \"I _was_ in the laboratory--till that flash came, but\nI'm hanged if I'm there now. What ship is that?\"\n\n\"There's no ship,\" said I. \"Do be sensible, old chap.\"\n\n\"No ship!\" he repeated, and seemed to forget my denial forthwith. \"I\nsuppose,\" said he, slowly, \"we're both dead. But the rummy part is I\nfeel just as though I still had a body. Don't get used to it all at\nonce, I suppose. The old shop was struck by lightning, I suppose.\nJolly quick thing, Bellows--eigh?\"\n\n\"Don't talk nonsense. You're very much alive. You are in the\nlaboratory, blundering about. You've just smashed a new electrometer.\nI don't envy you when Boyce arrives.\"\n\nHe stared away from me towards the diagrams of cryohydrates. \"I must\nbe deaf,\" said he. \"They've fired a gun, for there goes the puff of\nsmoke, and I never heard a sound.\"\n\nI put my hand on his arm again, and this time he was less alarmed. \"We\nseem to have a sort of invisible bodies,\" said he. \"By Jove! there's a\nboat coming round the headland. It's very much like the old life after\nall--in a different climate.\"\n\nI shook his arm. \"Davidson,\" I cried, \"wake up!\"\n\n\nII.\n\nIt was just then that Boyce came in. So soon as he spoke Davidson\nexclaimed: \"Old Boyce! Dead too! What a lark!\" I hastened to explain\nthat Davidson was in a kind of somnambulistic trance. Boyce was\ninterested at once. We both did all we could to rouse the fellow out\nof his extraordinary state. He answered our questions, and asked\nus some of his own, but his attention seemed distracted by his\nhallucination about a beach and a ship. He kept interpolating\nobservations concerning some boat and the davits and sails filling\nwith the wind. It made one feel queer, in the dusky laboratory, to\nhear him saying such things.\n\nHe was blind and helpless. We had to walk him down the passage, one\nat each elbow, to Boyce's private room, and while Boyce talked to\nhim there, and humoured him about this ship idea, I went along the\ncorridor and asked old Wade to come and look at him. The voice of our\nDean sobered him a little, but not very much. He asked where his hands\nwere, and why he had to walk about up to his waist in the ground. Wade\nthought over him a long time--you know how he knits his brows--and\nthen made him feel the couch, guiding his hands to it. \"That's a\ncouch,\" said Wade. \"The couch in the private room of Professor Boyce.\nHorsehair stuffing.\"\n\nDavidson felt about, and puzzled over it, and answered presently that\nhe could feel it all right, but he couldn't see it.\n\n\"What _do_ you see?\" asked Wade. Davidson said he could see nothing\nbut a lot of sand and broken-up shells. Wade gave him some other\nthings to feel, telling him what they were, and watching him keenly.\n\n\"The ship is almost hull down,\" said Davidson, presently, _apropos_ of\nnothing.\n\n\"Never mind the ship,\" said Wade. \"Listen to me, Davidson. Do you know\nwhat hallucination means?\"\n\n\"Rather,\" said Davidson.\n\n\"Well, everything you see is hallucinatory.\"\n\n\"Bishop Berkeley,\" said Davidson.\n\n\"Don't mistake me,\" said Wade. \"You are alive and in this room of\nBoyce's. But something has happened to your eyes. You cannot see; you\ncan feel and hear, but not see. Do you follow me?\"\n\n\"It seems to me that I see too much.\" Davidson rubbed his knuckles\ninto his eyes. \"Well?\" he said.\n\n\"That's all. Don't let it perplex you. Bellows, here, and I will take\nyou home in a cab.\"\n\n\"Wait a bit.\" Davidson thought. \"Help me to sit down,\" said he,\npresently; \"and now--I'm sorry to trouble you--but will you tell me\nall that over again?\"\n\nWade repeated it very patiently. Davidson shut his eyes, and pressed\nhis hands upon his forehead. \"Yes,\" said he. \"It's quite right. Now my\neyes are shut I know you're right. That's you, Bellows, sitting by me\non the couch. I'm in England again. And we're in the dark.\"\n\nThen he opened his eyes, \"And there,\" said he, \"is the sun just\nrising, and the yards of the ship, and a tumbled sea, and a couple of\nbirds flying. I never saw anything so real. And I'm sitting up to my\nneck in a bank of sand.\"\n\nHe bent forward and covered his face with his hands. Then he opened\nhis eyes again. \"Dark sea and sunrise! And yet I'm sitting on a sofa\nin old Boyce's room! ... God help me!\"\n\n\nIII.\n\nThat was the beginning. For three weeks this strange affection of\nDavidson's eyes continued unabated. It was far worse than being blind.\nHe was absolutely helpless, and had to be fed like a newly-hatched\nbird, and led about and undressed. If he attempted to move he fell\nover things or stuck himself against walls or doors. After a day or\nso he got used to hearing our voices without seeing us, and willingly\nadmitted he was at home, and that Wade was right in what he told him.\nMy sister, to whom he was engaged, insisted on coming to see him, and\nwould sit for hours every day while he talked about this beach of his.\nHolding her hand seemed to comfort him immensely. He explained that\nwhen we left the College and drove home--he lived in Hampstead\nvillage--it appeared to him as if we drove right through a\nsandhill--it was perfectly black until he emerged again--and through\nrocks and trees and solid obstacles, and when he was taken to his own\nroom it made him giddy and almost frantic with the fear of falling,\nbecause going upstairs seemed to lift him thirty or forty feet above\nthe rocks of his imaginary island. He kept saying he should smash all\nthe eggs. The end was that he had to be taken down into his father's\nconsulting room and laid upon a couch that stood there.\n\nHe described the island as being a bleak kind of place on the whole,\nwith very little vegetation, except some peaty stuff, and a lot of\nbare rock. There were multitudes of penguins, and they made the rocks\nwhite and disagreeable to see. The sea was often rough, and once there\nwas a thunderstorm, and he lay and shouted at the silent flashes. Once\nor twice seals pulled up on the beach, but only on the first two or\nthree days. He said it was very funny the way in which the penguins\nused to waddle right through him, and how he seemed to lie among them\nwithout disturbing them.\n\nI remember one odd thing, and that was when he wanted very badly to\nsmoke. We put a pipe in his hands--he almost poked his eye out with\nit--and lit it. But he couldn't taste anything. I've since found it's\nthe same with me--I don't know if it's the usual case--that I cannot\nenjoy tobacco at all unless I can see the smoke.\n\nBut the queerest part of his vision came when Wade sent him out in a\nbath-chair to get fresh air. The Davidsons hired a chair, and got that\ndeaf and obstinate dependent of theirs, Widgery, to attend to it.\nWidgery's ideas of healthy expeditions were peculiar. My sister, who\nhad been to the Dogs' Home, met them in Camden Town, towards King's\nCross, Widgery trotting along complacently, and Davidson evidently\nmost distressed, trying in his feeble, blind way to attract Widgery's\nattention.\n\nHe positively wept when my sister spoke to him. \"Oh, get me out of\nthis horrible darkness!\" he said, feeling for her hand. \"I must get\nout of it, or I shall die.\" He was quite incapable of explaining what\nwas the matter, but my sister decided he must go home, and presently,\nas they went up hill towards Hampstead, the horror seemed to drop from\nhim. He said it was good to see the stars again, though it was then\nabout noon and a blazing day.\n\n\"It seemed,\" he told me afterwards, \"as if I was being carried\nirresistibly towards the water. I was not very much alarmed at first.\nOf course it was night there--a lovely night.\"\n\n\"Of course?\" I asked, for that struck me as odd.\n\n\"Of course,\" said he. \"It's always night there when it is day here....\nWell, we went right into the water, which was calm and shining under\nthe moonlight--just a broad swell that seemed to grow broader and\nflatter as I came down into it. The surface glistened just like a\nskin--it might have been empty space underneath for all I could tell\nto the contrary. Very slowly, for I rode slanting into it, the water\ncrept up to my eyes. Then I went under and the skin seemed to break\nand heal again about my eyes. The moon gave a jump up in the sky and\ngrew green and dim, and fish, faintly glowing, came darting round\nme--and things that seemed made of luminous glass, and I passed\nthrough a tangle of seaweeds that shone with an oily lustre. And so I\ndrove down into the sea, and the stars went out one by one, and the\nmoon grew greener and darker, and the seaweed became a luminous\npurple-red. It was all very faint and mysterious, and everything\nseemed to quiver. And all the while I could hear the wheels of the\nbath-chair creaking, and the footsteps of people going by, and a man\nin the distance selling the special _Pall Mall_.\n\n\"I kept sinking down deeper and deeper into the water. It became inky\nblack about me, not a ray from above came down into that darkness,\nand the phosphorescent things grew brighter and brighter. The snaky\nbranches of the deeper weeds flickered like the flames of spirit\nlamps; but, after a time, there were no more weeds. The fishes came\nstaring and gaping towards me, and into me and through me. I never\nimagined such fishes before. They had lines of fire along the sides\nof them as though they had been outlined with a luminous pencil. And\nthere was a ghastly thing swimming backwards with a lot of twining\narms. And then I saw, coming very slowly towards me through the gloom,\na hazy mass of light that resolved itself as it drew nearer into\nmultitudes of fishes, struggling and darting round something that\ndrifted. I drove on straight towards it, and presently I saw in the\nmidst of the tumult, and by the light of the fish, a bit of splintered\nspar looming over me, and a dark hull tilting over, and some glowing\nphosphorescent forms that were shaken and writhed as the fish bit at\nthem. Then it was I began to try to attract Widgery's attention.\nA horror came upon me. Ugh! I should have driven right into those\nhalf-eaten--things. If your sister had not come! They had great holes\nin them, Bellows, and ... Never mind. But it was ghastly!\"\n\n\nIV.\n\nFor three weeks Davidson remained in this singular state, seeing what\nat the time we imagined was an altogether phantasmal world, and stone\nblind to the world around him. Then, one Tuesday, when I called I met\nold Davidson in the passage. \"He can see his thumb!\" the old gentleman\nsaid, in a perfect transport. He was struggling into his overcoat. \"He\ncan see his thumb, Bellows!\" he said, with the tears in his eyes. \"The\nlad will be all right yet.\"\n\nI rushed in to Davidson. He was holding up a little book before his\nface, and looking at it and laughing in a weak kind of way.\n\n\"It's amazing,\" said he. \"There's a kind of patch come there.\" He\npointed with his finger. \"I'm on the rocks as usual, and the penguins\nare staggering and flapping about as usual, and there's been a whale\nshowing every now and then, but it's got too dark now to make him out.\nBut put something _there_, and I see it--I do see it. It's very dim\nand broken in places, but I see it all the same, like a faint spectre\nof itself. I found it out this morning while they were dressing me.\nIt's like a hole in this infernal phantom world. Just put your hand by\nmine. No--not there. Ah! Yes! I see it. The base of your thumb and a\nbit of cuff! It looks like the ghost of a bit of your hand sticking\nout of the darkling sky. Just by it there's a group of stars like a\ncross coming out.\"\n\nFrom that time Davidson began to mend. His account of the change, like\nhis account of the vision, was oddly convincing. Over patches of his\nfield of vision, the phantom world grew fainter, grew transparent, as\nit were, and through these translucent gaps he began to see dimly\nthe real world about him. The patches grew in size and number, ran\ntogether and spread until only here and there were blind spots left\nupon his eyes. He was able to get up and steer himself about, feed\nhimself once more, read, smoke, and behave like an ordinary citizen\nagain. At first it was very confusing to him to have these two\npictures overlapping each other like the changing views of a lantern,\nbut in a little while he began to distinguish the real from the\nillusory.\n\nAt first he was unfeignedly glad, and seemed only too anxious to\ncomplete his cure by taking exercise and tonics. But as that odd\nisland of his began to fade away from him, he became queerly\ninterested in it. He wanted particularly to go down into the deep sea\nagain, and would spend half his time wandering about the low lying\nparts of London, trying to find the water-logged wreck he had seen\ndrifting. The glare of real daylight very soon impressed him so\nvividly as to blot out everything of his shadowy world, but of a night\ntime, in a darkened room, he could still see the white-splashed rocks\nof the island, and the clumsy penguins staggering to and fro. But even\nthese grew fainter and fainter, and, at last, soon after he married my\nsister, he saw them for the last time.\n\n\nV.\n\nAnd now to tell of the queerest thing of all. About two years after\nhis cure I dined with the Davidsons, and after dinner a man named\nAtkins called in. He is a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and\na pleasant, talkative man. He was on friendly terms with my\nbrother-in-law, and was soon on friendly terms with me. It came out\nthat he was engaged to Davidson's cousin, and incidentally he took\nout a kind of pocket photograph case to show us a new rendering of\n_fiancée_. \"And, by-the-by,\" said he, \"here's the old _Fulmar_.\"\n\nDavidson looked at it casually. Then suddenly his face lit up. \"Good\nheavens!\" said he. \"I could almost swear--\"\n\n\"What?\" said Atkins.\n\n\"That I had seen that ship before.\"\n\n\"Don't see how you can have. She hasn't been out of the South Seas for\nsix years, and before then--\"\n\n\"But,\" began Davidson, and then, \"Yes--that's the ship I dreamt of,\nI'm sure that's the ship I dreamt of. She was standing off an island\nthat swarmed with penguins, and she fired a gun.\"\n\n\"Good Lord!\" said Atkins, who had now heard the particulars of the\nseizure. \"How the deuce could you dream that?\"\n\nAnd then, bit by bit, it came out that on the very day Davidson was\nseized, H.M.S. _Fulmar_ had actually been off a little rock to\nthe south of Antipodes Island. A boat had landed overnight to get\npenguins' eggs, had been delayed, and a thunderstorm drifting up, the\nboat's crew had waited until the morning before rejoining the ship.\nAtkins had been one of them, and he corroborated, word for word, the\ndescriptions Davidson had given of the island and the boat. There is\nnot the slightest doubt in any of our minds that Davidson has really\nseen the place. In some unaccountable way, while he moved hither and\nthither in London, his sight moved hither and thither in a manner\nthat corresponded, about this distant island. _How_ is absolutely a\nmystery.\n\nThat completes the remarkable story of Davidson's eyes. It's perhaps\nthe best authenticated case in existence of a real vision at a\ndistance. Explanation there is none forthcoming, except what Professor\nWade has thrown out. But his explanation invokes the Fourth Dimension,\nand a dissertation on theoretical kinds of space. To talk of there\nbeing \"a kink in space\" seems mere nonsense to me; it may be because\nI am no mathematician. When I said that nothing would alter the fact\nthat the place is eight thousand miles away, he answered that two\npoints might be a yard away on a sheet of paper and yet be brought\ntogether by bending the paper round. The reader may grasp his\nargument, but I certainly do not. His idea seems to be that Davidson,\nstooping between the poles of the big electro-magnet, had some\nextraordinary twist given to his retinal elements through the sudden\nchange in the field of force due to the lightning.\n\nHe thinks, as a consequence of this, that it may be possible to live\nvisually in one part of the world, while one lives bodily in another.\nHe has even made some experiments in support of his views; but, so\nfar, he has simply succeeded in blinding a few dogs. I believe that is\nthe net result of his work, though I have not seen him for some weeks.\nLatterly I have been so busy with my work in connection with the Saint\nPancras installation that I have had little opportunity of calling to\nsee him. But the whole of his theory seems fantastic to me. The facts\nconcerning Davidson stand on an altogether different footing, and I\ncan testify personally to the accuracy of every detail I have given.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LORD OF THE DYNAMOS\n\n\nThe chief attendant of the three dynamos that buzzed and rattled\nat Camberwell, and kept the electric railway going, came out of\nYorkshire, and his name was James Holroyd. He was a practical\nelectrician, but fond of whisky, a heavy, red-haired brute with\nirregular teeth. He doubted the existence of the deity, but accepted\nCarnot's cycle, and he had read Shakespeare and found him weak in\nchemistry. His helper came out of the mysterious East, and his name\nwas Azuma-zi. But Holroyd called him Pooh-bah. Holroyd liked a nigger\nhelp because he would stand kicking--a habit with Holroyd--and did not\npry into the machinery and try to learn the ways of it. Certain odd\npossibilities of the negro mind brought into abrupt contact with the\ncrown of our civilisation Holroyd never fully realised, though just at\nthe end he got some inkling of them.\n\nTo define Azuma-zi was beyond ethnology. He was, perhaps, more negroid\nthan anything else, though his hair was curly rather than frizzy, and\nhis nose had a bridge. Moreover, his skin was brown rather than black,\nand the whites of his eyes were yellow. His broad cheek-bones and\nnarrow chin gave his face something of the viperine V. His head, too,\nwas broad behind, and low and narrow at the forehead, as if his brain\nhad been twisted round in the reverse way to a European's. He was\nshort of stature and still shorter of English. In conversation he made\nnumerous odd noises of no known marketable value, and his infrequent\nwords were carved and wrought into heraldic grotesqueness. Holroyd\ntried to elucidate his religious beliefs, and--especially after\nwhiskey--lectured to him against superstition and missionaries.\nAzuma-zi, however, shirked the discussion of his gods, even though he\nwas kicked for it.\n\nAzuma-zi had come, clad in white but insufficient raiment, out of the\nstoke-hole of the _Lord Clive_, from the Straits Settlements, and\nbeyond, into London. He had heard even in his youth of the greatness\nand riches of London, where all the women are white and fair, and\neven the beggars in the streets are white, and he had arrived, with\nnewly-earned gold coins in his pocket, to worship at the shrine of\ncivilisation. The day of his landing was a dismal one; the sky was\ndun, and a wind-worried drizzle filtered down to the greasy streets,\nbut he plunged boldly into the delights of Shadwell, and was presently\ncast up, shattered in health, civilised in costume, penniless, and,\nexcept in matters of the direst necessity, practically a dumb animal,\nto toil for James Holroyd and to be bullied by him in the dynamo shed\nat Camberwell. And to James Holroyd bullying was a labour of love.\n\nThere were three dynamos with their engines at Camberwell. The two\nthat have been there since the beginning are small machines; the\nlarger one was new. The smaller machines made a reasonable noise;\ntheir straps hummed over the drums, every now and then the brushes\nbuzzed and fizzled, and the air churned steadily, whoo! whoo! whoo!\nbetween their poles. One was loose in its foundations and kept the\nshed vibrating. But the big dynamo drowned these little noises\naltogether with the sustained drone of its iron core, which somehow\nset part of the ironwork humming. The place made the visitor's head\nreel with the throb, throb, throb of the engines, the rotation of the\nbig wheels, the spinning ball-valves, the occasional spittings of\nthe steam, and over all the deep, unceasing, surging note of the\nbig dynamo. This last noise was from an engineering point of view a\ndefect, but Azuma-zi accounted it unto the monster for mightiness and\npride.\n\nIf it were possible we would have the noises of that shed always\nabout the reader as he reads, we would tell all our story to such\nan accompaniment. It was a steady stream of din, from which the\near picked out first one thread and then another; there was the\nintermittent snorting, panting, and seething of the steam engines, the\nsuck and thud of their pistons, the dull beat on the air as the spokes\nof the great driving-wheels came round, a note the leather straps made\nas they ran tighter and looser, and a fretful tumult from the dynamos;\nand over all, sometimes inaudible, as the ear tired of it, and then\ncreeping back upon the senses again, was this trombone note of the big\nmachine. The floor never felt steady and quiet beneath one's feet, but\nquivered and jarred. It was a confusing, unsteady place, and enough to\nsend anyone's thoughts jerking into odd zigzags. And for three months,\nwhile the big strike of the engineers was in progress, Holroyd, who\nwas a blackleg, and Azuma-zi, who was a mere black, were never out of\nthe stir and eddy of it, but slept and fed in the little wooden shanty\nbetween the shed and the gates.\n\nHolroyd delivered a theological lecture on the text of his big machine\nsoon after Azuma-zi came. He had to shout to be heard in the din.\n\"Look at that,\" said Holroyd; \"where's your 'eathen idol to match\n'im?\" And Azuma-zi looked. For a moment Holroyd was inaudible, and\nthen Azuma-zi heard: \"Kill a hundred men. Twelve per cent, on the\nordinary shares,\" said Holroyd, \"and that's something like a Gord!\"\n\nHolroyd was proud of his big dynamo, and expatiated upon its size and\npower to Azuma-zi until heaven knows what odd currents of thought that\nand the incessant whirling and shindy set up within the curly black\ncranium. He would explain in the most graphic manner the dozen or so\nways in which a man might be killed by it, and once he gave Azuma-zi a\nshock as a sample of its quality. After that, in the breathing-times\nof his labour--it was heavy labour, being not only his own, but most\nof Holroyd's--Azuma-zi would sit and watch the big machine. Now and\nthen the brushes would sparkle and spit blue flashes, at which Holroyd\nwould swear, but all the rest was as smooth and rhythmic as breathing.\nThe band ran shouting over the shaft, and ever behind one as one\nwatched was the complacent thud of the piston. So it lived all day in\nthis big airy shed, with him and Holroyd to wait upon it; not prisoned\nup and slaving to drive a ship as the other engines he knew--mere\ncaptive devils of the British Solomon--had been, but a machine\nenthroned. Those two smaller dynamos, Azuma-zi by force of contrast\ndespised; the large one he privately christened the Lord of the\nDynamos. They were fretful and irregular, but the big dynamo was\nsteady. How great it was! How serene and easy in its working! Greater\nand calmer even than the Buddahs he had seen at Rangoon, and yet not\nmotionless, but living! The great black coils spun, spun, spun, the\nrings ran round under the brushes, and the deep note of its coil\nsteadied the whole. It affected Azuma-zi queerly.\n\nAzuma-zi was not fond of labour. He would sit about and watch the Lord\nof the Dynamos while Holroyd went away to persuade the yard porter to\nget whiskey, although his proper place was not in the dynamo shed but\nbehind the engines, and, moreover, if Holroyd caught him skulking he\ngot hit for it with a rod of stout copper wire. He would go and stand\nclose to the colossus and look up at the great leather band running\noverhead. There was a black patch on the band that came round, and it\npleased him somehow among all the clatter to watch this return again\nand again. Odd thoughts spun with the whirl of it. Scientific people\ntell us that savages give souls to rocks and trees--and a machine is\na thousand times more alive than a rock or a tree. And Azuma-zi was\npractically a savage still; the veneer of civilisation lay no deeper\nthan his slop suit, his bruises, and the coal grime on his face and\nhands. His father before him had worshipped a meteoric stone, kindred\nblood it may be had splashed the broad wheels of Juggernaut.\n\nHe took every opportunity Holroyd gave him of touching and handling\nthe great dynamo that was fascinating him. He polished and cleaned it\nuntil the metal parts were blinding in the sun. He felt a mysterious\nsense of service in doing this. He would go up to it and touch its\nspinning coils gently. The gods he had worshipped were all far away.\nThe people in London hid their gods.\n\nAt last his dim feelings grew more distinct, and took shape in\nthoughts and at last in acts. When he came into the roaring shed one\nmorning he salaamed to the Lord of the Dynamos, and then, when Holroyd\nwas away, he went and whispered to the thundering machine that he\nwas its servant, and prayed it to have pity on him and save him from\nHolroyd. As he did so a rare gleam of light came in through the open\narchway of the throbbing machine-shed, and the Lord of the Dynamos, as\nhe whirled and roared, was radiant with pale gold. Then Azuma-zi knew\nthat his service was acceptable to his Lord. After that he did not\nfeel so lonely as he had done, and he had indeed been very much alone\nin London. And even when his work time was over, which was rare, he\nloitered about the shed.\n\nThen, the next time Holroyd maltreated him, Azuma-zi went presently to\nthe Lord of the Dynamos and whispered, \"Thou seest, O my Lord!\" and\nthe angry whirr of the machinery seemed to answer him. Thereafter it\nappeared to him that whenever Holroyd came into the shed a different\nnote came into the sounds of the dynamo. \"My Lord bides his time,\"\nsaid Azuma-zi to himself. \"The iniquity of the fool is not yet ripe.\"\nAnd he waited and watched for the day of reckoning. One day there\nwas evidence of short circuiting, and Holroyd, making an unwary\nexamination--it was in the afternoon--got a rather severe shock.\nAzuma-zi from behind the engine saw him jump off and curse at the\npeccant coil.\n\n\"He is warned,\" said Azuma-zi to himself. \"Surely my Lord is very\npatient.\"\n\nHolroyd had at first initiated his \"nigger\" into such elementary\nconceptions of the dynamo's working as would enable him to take\ntemporary charge of the shed in his absence. But when he noticed the\nmanner in which Azuma-zi hung about the monster he became suspicious.\nHe dimly perceived his assistant was \"up to something,\" and connecting\nhim with the anointing of the coils with oil that had rotted the\nvarnish in one place, he issued an edict, shouted above the confusion\nof the machinery, \"Don't 'ee go nigh that big dynamo any more,\nPooh-bah, or a'll take thy skin off!\" Besides, if it pleased Azuma-zi\nto be near the big machine, it was plain sense and decency to keep him\naway from it.\n\nAzuma-zi obeyed at the time, but later he was caught bowing before the\nLord of the Dynamos. At which Holroyd twisted his arm and kicked him\nas he turned to go away. As Azuma-zi presently stood behind the\nengine and glared at the back of the hated Holroyd, the noises of the\nmachinery took a new rhythm, and sounded like four words in his native\ntongue.\n\nIt is hard to say exactly what madness is. I fancy Azuma-zi was mad.\nThe incessant din and whirl of the dynamo shed may have churned up his\nlittle store of knowledge and big store of superstitious fancy, at\nlast, into something akin to frenzy. At any rate, when the idea of\nmaking Holroyd a sacrifice to the Dynamo Fetich was thus suggested to\nhim, it filled him with a strange tumult of exultant emotion.\n\nThat night the two men and their black shadows were alone in the shed\ntogether. The shed was lit with one big arc light that winked and\nflickered purple. The shadows lay black behind the dynamos, the ball\ngovernors of the engines whirled from light to darkness, and their\npistons beat loud and steady. The world outside seen through the open\nend of the shed seemed incredibly dim and remote. It seemed absolutely\nsilent, too, since the riot of the machinery drowned every external\nsound. Far away was the black fence of the yard with grey shadowy\nhouses behind, and above was the deep blue sky and the pale little\nstars. Azuma-zi suddenly walked across the centre of the shed above\nwhich the leather bands were running, and went into the shadow by\nthe big dynamo. Holroyd heard a click, and the spin of the armature\nchanged.\n\n\"What are you dewin' with that switch?\" he bawled in surprise. \"Han't\nI told you--\"\n\nThen he saw the set expression of Azuma-zi's eyes as the Asiatic came\nout of the shadow towards him.\n\nIn another moment the two men were grappling fiercely in front of the\ngreat dynamo.\n\n\"You coffee-headed fool!\" gasped Holroyd, with a brown hand at his\nthroat. \"Keep off those contact rings.\" In another moment he\nwas tripped and reeling back upon the Lord of the Dynamos. He\ninstinctively loosened his grip upon his antagonist to save himself\nfrom the machine.\n\nThe messenger, sent in furious haste from the station to find out what\nhad happened in the dynamo shed, met Azuma-zi at the porter's lodge by\nthe gate. Azuma-zi tried to explain something, but the messenger could\nmake nothing of the black's incoherent English, and hurried on to the\nshed. The machines were all noisily at work, and nothing seemed to be\ndisarranged. There was, however, a queer smell of singed hair. Then\nhe saw an odd-looking crumpled mass clinging to the front of the big\ndynamo, and, approaching, recognised the distorted remains of Holroyd.\n\nThe man stared and hesitated a moment. Then he saw the face, and shut\nhis eyes convulsively. He turned on his heel before he opened them, so\nthat he should not see Holroyd again, and went out of the shed to get\nadvice and help.\n\nWhen Azuma-zi saw Holroyd die in the grip of the Great Dynamo he had\nbeen a little scared about the consequences of his act. Yet he felt\nstrangely elated, and knew that the favour of the Lord Dynamo was upon\nhim. His plan was already settled when he met the man coming from the\nstation, and the scientific manager who speedily arrived on the scene\njumped at the obvious conclusion of suicide. This expert scarcely\nnoticed Azuma-zi, except to ask a few questions. Did he see Holroyd\nkill himself? Azuma-zi explained he had been out of sight at the\nengine furnace until he heard a difference in the noise from the\ndynamo. It was not a difficult examination, being untinctured by\nsuspicion.\n\nThe distorted remains of Holroyd, which the electrician removed from\nthe machine, were hastily covered by the porter with a coffee-stained\ntablecloth. Somebody, by a happy inspiration, fetched a medical man.\nThe expert was chiefly anxious to get the machine at work again, for\nseven or eight trains had stopped midway in the stuffy tunnels of\nthe electric railway. Azuma-zi, answering or misunderstanding the\nquestions of the people who had by authority or impudence come into\nthe shed, was presently sent back to the stoke-hole by the scientific\nmanager. Of course a crowd collected outside the gates of the yard--a\ncrowd, for no known reason, always hovers for a day or two near the\nscene of a sudden death in London--two or three reporters percolated\nsomehow into the engine-shed, and one even got to Azuma-zi; but the\nscientific expert cleared them out again, being himself an amateur\njournalist.\n\nPresently the body was carried away, and public interest departed with\nit. Azuma-zi remained very quietly at his furnace, seeing over and\nover again in the coals a figure that wriggled violently and became\nstill. An hour after the murder, to anyone coming into the shed it\nwould have looked exactly as if nothing remarkable had ever happened\nthere. Peeping presently from his engine-room the black saw the Lord\nDynamo spin and whirl beside his little brothers, and the driving\nwheels were beating round, and the steam in the pistons went thud,\nthud, exactly as it had been earlier in the evening. After all,\nfrom the mechanical point of view, it had been a most insignificant\nincident--the mere temporary deflection of a current. But now the\nslender form and slender shadow of the scientific manager replaced the\nsturdy outline of Holroyd travelling up and down the lane of light\nupon the vibrating floor under the straps between the engines and the\ndynamos.\n\n\"Have I not served my Lord?\" said Azuma-zi inaudibly, from his shadow,\nand the note of the great dynamo rang out full and clear. As he looked\nat the big whirling mechanism the strange fascination of it that had\nbeen a little in abeyance since Holroyd's death resumed its sway.\n\nNever had Azuma-zi seen a man killed so swiftly and pitilessly. The\nbig humming machine had slain its victim without wavering for a second\nfrom its steady beating. It was indeed a mighty god.\n\nThe unconscious scientific manager stood with his back to him,\nscribbling on a piece of paper. His shadow lay at the foot of the\nmonster.\n\n\"Was the Lord Dynamo still hungry? His servant was ready.\"\n\nAzuma-zi made a stealthy step forward; then stopped. The scientific\nmanager suddenly stopped writing, and walked down the shed to the\nendmost of the dynamos, and began to examine the brushes.\n\nAzuma-zi hesitated, and then slipped across noiselessly into the\nshadow by the switch. There he waited. Presently the manager's\nfootsteps could be heard returning. He stopped in his old position,\nunconscious of the stoker crouching ten feet away from him. Then the\nbig dynamo suddenly fizzled, and in another moment Azuma-zi had sprung\nout of the darkness upon him.\n\nFirst, the scientific manager was gripped round the body and swung\ntowards the big dynamo, then, kicking with his knee and forcing his\nantagonist's head down with his hands, he loosened the grip on his\nwaist and swung round away from the machine. Then the black grasped\nhim again, putting a curly head against his chest, and they swayed and\npanted as it seemed for an age or so. Then the scientific manager was\nimpelled to catch a black ear in his teeth and bite furiously. The\nblack yelled hideously.\n\nThey rolled over on the floor, and the black, who had apparently\nslipped from the vice of the teeth or parted with some ear--the\nscientific manager wondered which at the time--tried to throttle him.\nThe scientific manager was making some ineffectual efforts to claw\nsomething with his hands and to kick, when the welcome sound of quick\nfootsteps sounded on the floor. The next moment Azuma-zi had left him\nand darted towards the big dynamo. There was a splutter amid the roar.\n\nThe officer of the company who had entered, stood staring as Azuma-zi\ncaught the naked terminals in his hands, gave one horrible convulsion,\nand then hung motionless from the machine, his face violently\ndistorted.\n\n\"I'm jolly glad you came in when you did,\" said the scientific\nmanager, still sitting on the floor.\n\nHe looked at the still quivering figure. \"It is not a nice death to\ndie, apparently--but it is quick.\"\n\nThe official was still staring at the body. He was a man of slow\napprehension.\n\nThere was a pause.\n\nThe scientific manager got up on his feet rather awkwardly. He ran his\nfingers along his collar thoughtfully, and moved his head to and fro\nseveral times.\n\n\"Poor Holroyd! I see now.\" Then almost mechanically he went towards\nthe switch in the shadow and turned the current into the railway\ncircuit again. As he did so the singed body loosened its grip upon the\nmachine and fell forward on its face. The core of the dynamo roared\nout loud and clear, and the armature beat the air.\n\nSo ended prematurely the Worship of the Dynamo Deity, perhaps the most\nshort-lived of all religions. Yet withal it could at least boast a\nMartyrdom and a Human Sacrifice.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HAMMERPOND PARK BURGLARY\n\n\nIt is a moot point whether burglary is to be considered as a sport, a\ntrade, or an art. For a trade, the technique is scarcely rigid enough,\nand its claims to be considered an art are vitiated by the mercenary\nelement that qualifies its triumphs. On the whole it seems to be most\njustly ranked as sport, a sport for which no rules are at present\nformulated, and of which the prizes are distributed in an extremely\ninformal manner. It was this informality of burglary that led to the\nregrettable extinction of two promising beginners at Hammerpond Park.\n\nThe stakes offered in this affair consisted chiefly of diamonds and\nother personal _bric-à-brac_ belonging to the newly married Lady\nAveling. Lady Aveling, as the reader will remember, was the only\ndaughter of Mrs Montague Pangs, the well-known hostess. Her marriage\nto Lord Aveling was extensively advertised in the papers, the quantity\nand quality of her wedding presents, and the fact that the honeymoon\nwas to be spent at Hammerpond. The announcement of these valuable\nprizes created a considerable sensation in the small circle in which\nMr Teddy Watkins was the undisputed leader, and it was decided that,\naccompanied by a duly qualified assistant, he should visit the village\nof Hammerpond in his professional capacity.\n\nBeing a man of naturally retiring and modest disposition, Mr Watkins\ndetermined to make this visit _incog_., and after due consideration of\nthe conditions of his enterprise, he selected the rôle of a landscape\nartist and the unassuming surname of Smith. He preceded his assistant,\nwho, it was decided, should join him only on the last afternoon of his\nstay at Hammerpond. Now the village of Hammerpond is perhaps one of\nthe prettiest little corners in Sussex; many thatched houses still\nsurvive, the flint-built church with its tall spire nestling under the\ndown is one of the finest and least restored in the county, and the\nbeech-woods and bracken jungles through which the road runs to\nthe great house are singularly rich in what the vulgar artist and\nphotographer call \"bits.\" So that Mr Watkins, on his arrival with\ntwo virgin canvases, a brand-new easel, a paint-box, portmanteau, an\ningenious little ladder made in sections (after the pattern of the\nlate lamented master Charles Peace), crowbar, and wire coils, found\nhimself welcomed with effusion and some curiosity by half-a-dozen\nother brethren of the brush. It rendered the disguise he had chosen\nunexpectedly plausible, but it inflicted upon him a considerable\namount of aesthetic conversation for which he was very imperfectly\nprepared.\n\n\"Have you exhibited very much?\" said Young Porson in the bar-parlour\nof the \"Coach and Horses,\" where Mr Watkins was skilfully accumulating\nlocal information on the night of his arrival.\n\n\"Very little,\" said Mr Watkins, \"just a snack here and there.\"\n\n\"Academy?\"\n\n\"In course. _And_ the Crystal Palace.\"\n\n\"Did they hang you well?\" said Porson.\n\n\"Don't rot,\" said Mr Watkins; \"I don't like it.\"\n\n\"I mean did they put you in a good place?\"\n\n\"Whadyer mean?\" said Mr Watkins suspiciously. \"One 'ud think you were\ntrying to make out I'd been put away.\"\n\nPorson had been brought up by aunts, and was a gentlemanly young man\neven for an artist; he did not know what being \"put away\" meant, but\nhe thought it best to explain that he intended nothing of the sort. As\nthe question of hanging seemed a sore point with Mr Watkins, he tried\nto divert the conversation a little.\n\n\"Do you do figure-work at all?\"\n\n\"No, never had a head for figures,\" said Mr Watkins, \"my miss--Mrs\nSmith, I mean, does all that.\"\n\n\"She paints too!\" said Porson. \"That's rather jolly.\"\n\n\"Very,\" said Mr Watkins, though he really did not think so, and,\nfeeling the conversation was drifting a little beyond his grasp,\nadded, \"I came down here to paint Hammerpond House by moonlight.\"\n\n\"Really!\" said Porson. \"That's rather a novel idea.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mr Watkins, \"I thought it rather a good notion when it\noccurred to me. I expect to begin to-morrow night.\"\n\n\"What! You don't mean to paint in the open, by night?\"\n\n\"I do, though.\"\n\n\"But how will you see your canvas?\"\n\n\"Have a bloomin' cop's--\" began Mr Watkins, rising too quickly to the\nquestion, and then realising this, bawled to Miss Durgan for another\nglass of beer. \"I'm goin' to have a thing called a dark lantern,\" he\nsaid to Porson.\n\n\"But it's about new moon now,\" objected Porson. \"There won't be any\nmoon.\"\n\n\"There'll be the house,\" said Watkins, \"at any rate. I'm goin', you\nsee, to paint the house first and the moon afterwards.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Porson, too staggered to continue the conversation.\n\n\"They doo say,\" said old Durgan, the landlord, who had maintained a\nrespectful silence during the technical conversation, \"as there's no\nless than three p'licemen from 'Azelworth on dewty every night in\nthe house--'count of this Lady Aveling 'n her jewellery. One'm won\nfower-and-six last night, off second footman--tossin'.\"\n\nTowards sunset next day Mr Watkins, virgin canvas, easel, and a\nvery considerable case of other appliances in hand, strolled up the\npleasant pathway through the beech-woods to Hammerpond Park, and\npitched his apparatus in a strategic position commanding the house.\nHere he was observed by Mr Raphael Sant, who was returning across the\npark from a study of the chalk-pits. His curiosity having been fired\nby Porson's account of the new arrival, he turned aside with the idea\nof discussing nocturnal art.\n\nMr Watkins was apparently unaware of his approach. A friendly\nconversation with Lady Hammerpond's butler had just terminated, and\nthat individual, surrounded by the three pet dogs which it was his\nduty to take for an airing after dinner had been served, was receding\nin the distance. Mr Watkins was mixing colour with an air of great\nindustry. Sant, approaching more nearly, was surprised to see the\ncolour in question was as harsh and brilliant an emerald green as it\nis possible to imagine. Having cultivated an extreme sensibility to\ncolour from his earliest years, he drew the air in sharply between his\nteeth at the very first glimpse of this brew. Mr Watkins turned round.\nHe looked annoyed.\n\n\"What on earth are you going to do with that _beastly_ green?\" said\nSant.\n\nMr Watkins realised that his zeal to appear busy in the eyes of the\nbutler had evidently betrayed him into some technical error. He looked\nat Sant and hesitated.\n\n\"Pardon my rudeness,\" said Sant; \"but really, that green is altogether\ntoo amazing. It came as a shock. What _do_ you mean to do with it?\"\n\nMr Watkins was collecting his resources. Nothing could save the\nsituation but decision. \"If you come here interrupting my work,\" he\nsaid, \"I'm a-goin' to paint your face with it.\"\n\nSant retired, for he was a humourist and a peaceful man. Going down\nthe hill he met Porson and Wainwright. \"Either that man is a genius\nor he is a dangerous lunatic,\" said he. \"Just go up and look at his\ngreen.\" And he continued his way, his countenance brightened by a\npleasant anticipation of a cheerful affray round an easel in the\ngloaming, and the shedding of much green paint.\n\nBut to Porson and Wainwright Mr Watkins was less aggressive, and\nexplained that the green was intended to be the first coating of his\npicture. It was, he admitted in response to a remark, an absolutely\nnew method, invented by himself. But subsequently he became more\nreticent; he explained he was not going to tell every passer-by the\nsecret of his own particular style, and added some scathing remarks\nupon the meanness of people \"hanging about\" to pick up such tricks of\nthe masters as they could, which immediately relieved him of their\ncompany.\n\nTwilight deepened, first one then another star appeared. The rooks\namid the tall trees to the left of the house had long since lapsed\ninto slumbrous silence, the house itself lost all the details of its\narchitecture and became a dark grey outline, and then the windows of\nthe salon shone out brilliantly, the conservatory was lighted up, and\nhere and there a bedroom window burnt yellow. Had anyone approached\nthe easel in the park it would have been found deserted. One brief\nuncivil word in brilliant green sullied the purity of its canvas.\nMr Watkins was busy in the shrubbery with his assistant, who had\ndiscreetly joined him from the carriage-drive.\n\nMr Watkins was inclined to be self-congratulatory upon the ingenious\ndevice by which he had carried all his apparatus boldly, and in the\nsight of all men, right up to the scene of operations. \"That's the\ndressing-room,\" he said to his assistant, \"and, as soon as the maid\ntakes the candle away and goes down to supper, we'll call in. My! how\nnice the house do look, to be sure, against the starlight, and with\nall its windows and lights! Swopme, Jim, I almost wish I _was_ a\npainter-chap. Have you fixed that there wire across the path from the\nlaundry?\"\n\nHe cautiously approached the house until he stood below the\ndressing-room window, and began to put together his folding ladder.\nHe was much too experienced a practitioner to feel any unusual\nexcitement. Jim was reconnoitring the smoking-room. Suddenly, close\nbeside Mr Watkins in the bushes, there was a violent crash and a\nstifled curse. Someone had tumbled over the wire which his assistant\nhad just arranged. He heard feet running on the gravel pathway beyond.\nMr Watkins, like all true artists, was a singularly shy man, and\nhe incontinently dropped his folding ladder and began running\ncircumspectly through the shrubbery. He was indistinctly aware of two\npeople hot upon his heels, and he fancied that he distinguished the\noutline of his assistant in front of him. In another moment he had\nvaulted the low stone wall bounding the shrubbery, and was in the open\npark. Two thuds on the turf followed his own leap.\n\nIt was a close chase in the darkness through the trees. Mr Watkins was\na loosely-built man and in good training, and he gained hand-over-hand\nupon the hoarsely panting figure in front. Neither spoke, but, as Mr\nWatkins pulled up alongside, a qualm of awful doubt came over him. The\nother man turned his head at the same moment and gave an exclamation\nof surprise. \"It's not Jim,\" thought Mr Watkins, and simultaneously\nthe stranger flung himself, as it were, at Watkin's knees, and they\nwere forthwith grappling on the ground together. \"Lend a hand, Bill,\"\ncried the stranger as the third man came up. And Bill did--two hands\nin fact, and some accentuated feet. The fourth man, presumably Jim,\nhad apparently turned aside and made off in a different direction. At\nany rate, he did not join the trio.\n\nMr Watkins' memory of the incidents of the next two minutes is\nextremely vague. He has a dim recollection of having his thumb in the\ncorner of the mouth of the first man, and feeling anxious about\nits safety, and for some seconds at least he held the head of the\ngentleman answering to the name of Bill, to the ground by the hair. He\nwas also kicked in a great number of different places, apparently by a\nvast multitude of people. Then the gentleman who was not Bill got his\nknee below Mr Watkins' diaphragm, and tried to curl him up upon it.\n\nWhen his sensations became less entangled he was sitting upon the\nturf, and eight or ten men--the night was dark, and he was rather too\nconfused to count--standing round him, apparently waiting for him\nto recover. He mournfully assumed that he was captured, and would\nprobably have made some philosophical reflections on the fickleness of\nfortune, had not his internal sensations disinclined him for speech.\n\nHe noticed very quickly that his wrists were not handcuffed, and then\na flask of brandy was put in his hands. This touched him a little--it\nwas such unexpected kindness.\n\n\"He's a-comin' round,\" said a voice which he fancied he recognised as\nbelonging to the Hammerpond second footman.\n\n\"We've got 'em, sir, both of 'em,\" said the Hammerpond butler, the man\nwho had handed him the flask. \"Thanks to _you_.\"\n\nNo one answered this remark. Yet he failed to see how it applied to\nhim.\n\n\"He's fair dazed,\" said a strange voice; \"the villains half-murdered\nhim.\"\n\nMr Teddy Watkins decided to remain fair dazed until he had a better\ngrasp of the situation. He perceived that two of the black figures\nround him stood side-by-side with a dejected air, and there was\nsomething in the carriage of their shoulders that suggested to his\nexperienced eye hands that were bound together. Two! In a flash\nhe rose to his position. He emptied the little flask and\nstaggered--obsequious hands assisting him--to his feet. There was a\nsympathetic murmur.\n\n\"Shake hands, sir, shake hands,\" said one of the figures near him.\n\"Permit me to introduce myself. I am very greatly indebted to you.\nIt was the jewels of my wife, Lady Aveling, which attracted these\nscoundrels to the house.\"\n\n\"Very glad to make your lordship's acquaintance,\" said Teddy Watkins.\n\n\"I presume you saw the rascals making for the shrubbery, and dropped\ndown on them?\"\n\n\"That's exactly how it happened,\" said Mr Watkins.\n\n\"You should have waited till they got in at the window,\" said Lord\nAveling; \"they would get it hotter if they had actually committed the\nburglary. And it was lucky for you two of the policemen were out by\nthe gates, and followed up the three of you. I doubt if you could have\nsecured the two of them--though it was confoundedly plucky of you, all\nthe same.\"\n\n\"Yes, I ought to have thought of all that,\" said Mr Watkins; \"but one\ncan't think of everythink.\"\n\n\"Certainly not,\" said Lord Aveling. \"I am afraid they have mauled you\na little,\" he added. The party was now moving towards the house. \"You\nwalk rather lame. May I offer you my arm?\"\n\nAnd instead of entering Hammerpond House by the dressing-room window,\nMr Watkins entered it--slightly intoxicated, and inclined now to\ncheerfulness again--on the arm of a real live peer, and by the\nfront door. \"This,\" thought Mr Watkins, \"is burgling in style!\" The\n\"scoundrels,\" seen by the gaslight, proved to be mere local amateurs\nunknown to Mr Watkins, and they were taken down into the pantry and\nthere watched over by the three policemen, two gamekeepers with loaded\nguns, the butler, an ostler, and a carman, until the dawn allowed of\ntheir removal to Hazelhurst police-station. Mr Watkins was made much\nof in the saloon. They devoted a sofa to him, and would not hear of\na return to the village that night. Lady Aveling was sure he was\nbrilliantly original, and said her idea of Turner was just such\nanother rough, half-inebriated, deep-eyed, brave, and clever man. Some\none brought up a remarkable little folding-ladder that had been picked\nup in the shrubbery, and showed him how it was put together. They also\ndescribed how wires had been found in the shrubbery, evidently placed\nthere to trip-up unwary pursuers. It was lucky he had escaped these\nsnares. And they showed him the jewels.\n\nMr Watkins had the sense not to talk too much, and in any\nconversational difficulty fell back on his internal pains. At last he\nwas seized with stiffness in the back, and yawning. Everyone suddenly\nawoke to the fact that it was a shame to keep him talking after his\naffray, so he retired early to his room, the little red room next to\nLord Aveling's suite.\n\nThe dawn found a deserted easel bearing a canvas with a green\ninscription, in the Hammerpond Park, and it found Hammerpond House\nin commotion. But if the dawn found Mr Teddy Watkins and the Aveling\ndiamonds, it did not communicate the information to the police.\n\n\n\n\nA MOTH--GENUS NOVO\n\n\nProbably you have heard of Hapley--not W.T. Hapley, the son, but the\ncelebrated Hapley, the Hapley of _Periplaneta Hapliia_, Hapley the\nentomologist. If so you know at least of the great feud between Hapley\nand Professor Pawkins. Though certain of its consequences may be\nnew to you. For those who have not, a word or two of explanation is\nnecessary, which the idle reader may go over with a glancing eye, if\nhis indolence so incline him.\n\nIt is amazing how very widely diffused is the ignorance of such really\nimportant matters as this Hapley-Pawkins feud. Those epoch-making\ncontroversies, again, that have convulsed the Geological Society, are,\nI verily believe, almost entirely unknown outside the fellowship of\nthat body. I have heard men of fair general education even refer to\nthe great scenes at these meetings as vestry-meeting squabbles. Yet\nthe great Hate of the English and Scotch geologists has lasted now\nhalf a century, and has \"left deep and abundant marks upon the body of\nthe science.\" And this Hapley-Pawkins business, though perhaps a more\npersonal affair, stirred passions as profound, if not profounder. Your\ncommon man has no conception of the zeal that animates a scientific\ninvestigator, the fury of contradiction you can arouse in him. It is\nthe _odium theologicum_ in a new form. There are men, for instance,\nwho would gladly burn Professor Ray Lankester at Smithfield for\nhis treatment of the Mollusca in the Encyclopaedia. That fantastic\nextension of the Cephalopods to cover the Pteropods ... But I wander\nfrom Hapley and Pawkins.\n\nIt began years and years ago, with a revision of the Microlepidoptera\n(whatever these may be) by Pawkins, in which he extinguished a new\nspecies created by Hapley. Hapley, who was always quarrelsome, replied\nby a stinging impeachment of the entire classification of Pawkins[A].\nPawkins, in his \"Rejoinder[B],\" suggested that Hapley's microscope\nwas as defective as his powers of observation, and called him an\n\"irresponsible meddler\"--Hapley was not a professor at that time.\nHapley, in his retort[C], spoke of \"blundering collectors,\" and\ndescribed, as if inadvertently, Pawkins' revision as a \"miracle of\nineptitude.\" It was war to the knife. However, it would scarcely\ninterest the reader to detail how these two great men quarrelled, and\nhow the split between them widened until from the Microlepidoptera\nthey were at war upon every open question in entomology. There were\nmemorable occasions. At times the Royal Entomological Society meetings\nresembled nothing so much as the Chamber of Deputies. On the whole, I\nfancy Pawkins was nearer the truth than Hapley. But Hapley was skilful\nwith his rhetoric, had a turn for ridicule rare in a scientific man,\nwas endowed with vast energy, and had a fine sense of injury in the\nmatter of the extinguished species; while Pawkins was a man of dull\npresence, prosy of speech, in shape not unlike a water-barrel,\nover-conscientious with testimonials, and suspected of jobbing museum\nappointments. So the young men gathered round Hapley and applauded\nhim. It was a long struggle, vicious from the beginning, and growing\nat last to pitiless antagonism. The successive turns of fortune, now\nan advantage to one side and now to another--now Hapley tormented by\nsome success of Pawkins, and now Pawkins outshone by Hapley, belong\nrather to the history of entomology than to this story.\n\n[Footnote A: \"Remarks on a Recent Revision of Microlepidoptera.\"\n_Quart. Journ. Entomological Soc_. 1863.]\n\n[Footnote B: \"Rejoinder to certain Remarks,\" &c. _Ibid_. 1864.]\n\n[Footnote C: \"Further Remarks,\" &c. _Ibid_.]\n\nBut in 1891 Pawkins, whose health had been bad for some time,\npublished some work upon the \"mesoblast\" of the Death's Head Moth.\nWhat the mesoblast of the Death's Head Moth may be, does not matter a\nrap in this story. But the work was far below his usual standard, and\ngave Hapley an opening he had coveted for years. He must have worked\nnight and day to make the most of his advantage.\n\nIn an elaborate critique he rent Pawkins to tatters--one can fancy the\nman's disordered black hair, and his queer dark eyes flashing as\nhe went for his antagonist--and Pawkins made a reply, halting,\nineffectual, with painful gaps of silence, and yet malignant. There\nwas no mistaking his will to wound Hapley, nor his incapacity to\ndo it. But few of those who heard him--I was absent from that\nmeeting--realised how ill the man was.\n\nHapley had got his opponent down, and meant to finish him. He followed\nwith a simply brutal attack upon Pawkins, in the form of a paper upon\nthe development of moths in general, a paper showing evidence of a\nmost extraordinary amount of mental labour, and yet couched in a\nviolently controversial tone. Violent as it was, an editorial note\nwitnesses that it was modified. It must have covered Pawkins with\nshame and confusion of face. It left no loophole; it was murderous in\nargument, and utterly contemptuous in tone; an awful thing for the\ndeclining years of a man's career.\n\nThe world of entomologists waited breathlessly for the rejoinder from\nPawkins. He would try one, for Pawkins had always been game. But when\nit came it surprised them. For the rejoinder of Pawkins was to catch\nthe influenza, to proceed to pneumonia, and to die.\n\nIt was perhaps as effectual a reply as he could make under the\ncircumstances, and largely turned the current of feeling against\nHapley. The very people who had most gleefully cheered on those\ngladiators became serious at the consequence. There could be no\nreasonable doubt the fret of the defeat had contributed to the death\nof Pawkins. There was a limit even to scientific controversy, said\nserious people. Another crushing attack was already in the press and\nappeared on the day before the funeral. I don't think Hapley exerted\nhimself to stop it. People remembered how Hapley had hounded down his\nrival, and forgot that rival's defects. Scathing satire reads ill over\nfresh mould. The thing provoked comment in the daily papers. This it\nwas that made me think that you had probably heard of Hapley and this\ncontroversy. But, as I have already remarked, scientific workers live\nvery much in a world of their own; half the people, I dare say, who go\nalong Piccadilly to the Academy every year, could not tell you where\nthe learned societies abide. Many even think that Research is a kind\nof happy-family cage in which all kinds of men lie down together in\npeace.\n\nIn his private thoughts Hapley could not forgive Pawkins for dying.\nIn the first place, it was a mean dodge to escape the absolute\npulverisation Hapley had in hand for him, and in the second, it left\nHapley's mind with a queer gap in it. For twenty years he had worked\nhard, sometimes far into the night, and seven days a week, with\nmicroscope, scalpel, collecting-net, and pen, and almost entirely with\nreference to Pawkins. The European reputation he had won had come as\nan incident in that great antipathy. He had gradually worked up to a\nclimax in this last controversy. It had killed Pawkins, but it had\nalso thrown Hapley out of gear, so to speak, and his doctor advised\nhim to give up work for a time, and rest. So Hapley went down into a\nquiet village in Kent, and thought day and night of Pawkins, and good\nthings it was now impossible to say about him.\n\nAt last Hapley began to realise in what direction the pre-occupation\ntended. He determined to make a fight for it, and started by trying to\nread novels. But he could not get his mind off Pawkins, white in the\nface, and making his last speech--every sentence a beautiful opening\nfor Hapley. He turned to fiction--and found it had no grip on him.\nHe read the \"Island Nights' Entertainments\" until his \"sense of\ncausation\" was shocked beyond endurance by the Bottle Imp. Then\nhe went to Kipling, and found he \"proved nothing,\" besides being\nirreverent and vulgar. These scientific people have their limitations.\nThen unhappily, he tried Besant's \"Inner House,\" and the opening\nchapter set his mind upon learned societies and Pawkins at once.\n\nSo Hapley turned to chess, and found it a little more soothing. He\nsoon mastered the moves and the chief gambits and commoner closing\npositions, and began to beat the Vicar. But then the cylindrical\ncontours of the opposite king began to resemble Pawkins standing up\nand gasping ineffectually against Check-mate, and Hapley decided to\ngive up chess.\n\nPerhaps the study of some new branch of science would after all be\nbetter diversion. The best rest is change of occupation. Hapley\ndetermined to plunge at diatoms, and had one of his smaller\nmicroscopes and Halibut's monograph sent down from London. He thought\nthat perhaps if he could get up a vigorous quarrel with Halibut, he\nmight be able to begin life afresh and forget Pawkins. And very soon\nhe was hard at work, in his habitual strenuous fashion, at these\nmicroscopic denizens of the way-side pool.\n\nIt was on the third day of the diatoms that Hapley became aware of\na novel addition to the local fauna. He was working late at the\nmicroscope, and the only light in the room was the brilliant little\nlamp with the special form of green shade. Like all experienced\nmicroscopists, he kept both eyes open. It is the only way to avoid\nexcessive fatigue. One eye was over the instrument, and bright and\ndistinct before that was the circular field of the microscope, across\nwhich a brown diatom was slowly moving. With the other eye Hapley saw,\nas it were, without seeing[A]. He was only dimly conscious of the\nbrass side of the instrument, the illuminated part of the table-cloth,\na sheet of note-paper, the foot of the lamp, and the darkened room\nbeyond.\n\n[Footnote A: The reader unaccustomed to microscopes may easily\nunderstand this by rolling a newspaper in the form of a tube and\nlooking through it at a book, keeping the other eye open.]\n\nSuddenly his attention drifted from one eye to the other. The\ntable-cloth was of the material called tapestry by shopmen, and rather\nbrightly coloured. The pattern was in gold, with a small amount of\ncrimson and pale blue upon a greyish ground. At one point the pattern\nseemed displaced, and there was a vibrating movement of the colours at\nthis point.\n\nHapley suddenly moved his head back and looked with both eyes. His\nmouth fell open with astonishment.\n\nIt was a large moth or butterfly; its wings spread in butterfly\nfashion!\n\nIt was strange it should be in the room at all, for the windows were\nclosed. Strange that it should not have attracted his attention when\nfluttering to its present position. Strange that it should match the\ntable-cloth. Stranger far that to him, Hapley, the great entomologist,\nit was altogether unknown. There was no delusion. It was crawling\nslowly towards the foot of the lamp.\n\n\"_Genus novo_, by heavens! And in England!\" said Hapley, staring.\n\nThen he suddenly thought of Pawkins. Nothing would have maddened\nPawkins more.... And Pawkins was dead!\n\nSomething about the head and body of the insect became singularly\nsuggestive of Pawkins, just as the chess king had been.\n\n\"Confound Pawkins!\" said Hapley. \"But I must catch this.\" And, looking\nround him for some means of capturing the moth, he rose slowly out\nof his chair. Suddenly the insect rose, struck the edge of the\nlampshade--Hapley heard the \"ping\"--and vanished into the shadow.\n\nIn a moment Hapley had whipped off the shade, so that the whole room\nwas illuminated. The thing had disappeared, but soon his practised eye\ndetected it upon the wall paper near the door. He went towards it,\npoising the lamp-shade for capture. Before he was within striking\ndistance, however, it had risen and was fluttering round the room.\nAfter the fashion of its kind, it flew with sudden starts and turns,\nseeming to vanish here and reappear there. Once Hapley struck, and\nmissed; then again.\n\nThe third time he hit his microscope. The instrument swayed, struck\nand overturned the lamp, and fell noisily upon the floor. The lamp\nturned over on the table and, very luckily, went out. Hapley was left\nin the dark. With a start he felt the strange moth blunder into his\nface.\n\nIt was maddening. He had no lights. If he opened the door of the\nroom the thing would get away. In the darkness he saw Pawkins quite\ndistinctly laughing at him. Pawkins had ever an oily laugh. He swore\nfuriously and stamped his foot on the floor.\n\nThere was a timid rapping at the door.\n\nThen it opened, perhaps a foot, and very slowly. The alarmed face of\nthe landlady appeared behind a pink candle flame; she wore a night-cap\nover her grey hair and had some purple garment over her shoulders.\n\"What _was_ that fearful smash?\" she said. \"Has anything--\" The\nstrange moth appeared fluttering about the chink of the door. \"Shut\nthat door!\" said Hapley, and suddenly rushed at her.\n\nThe door slammed hastily. Hapley was left alone in the dark. Then in\nthe pause he heard his landlady scuttle upstairs, lock her door and\ndrag something heavy across the room and put against it.\n\nIt became evident to Hapley that his conduct and appearance had been\nstrange and alarming. Confound the moth! and Pawkins! However, it was\na pity to lose the moth now. He felt his way into the hall and found\nthe matches, after sending his hat down upon the floor with a noise\nlike a drum. With the lighted candle he returned to the sitting-room.\nNo moth was to be seen. Yet once for a moment it seemed that the thing\nwas fluttering round his head. Hapley very suddenly decided to give up\nthe moth and go to bed. But he was excited. All night long his sleep\nwas broken by dreams of the moth, Pawkins, and his landlady. Twice in\nthe night he turned out and soused his head in cold water.\n\nOne thing was very clear to him. His landlady could not possibly\nunderstand about the strange moth, especially as he had failed to\ncatch it. No one but an entomologist would understand quite how he\nfelt. She was probably frightened at his behaviour, and yet he failed\nto see how he could explain it. He decided to say nothing further\nabout the events of last night. After breakfast he saw her in her\ngarden, and decided to go out to talk to her to reassure her. He\ntalked to her about beans and potatoes, bees, caterpillars, and the\nprice of fruit. She replied in her usual manner, but she looked at him\na little suspiciously, and kept walking as he walked, so that there\nwas always a bed of flowers, or a row of beans, or something of\nthe sort, between them. After a while he began to feel singularly\nirritated at this, and to conceal his vexation went indoors and\npresently went out for a walk.\n\nThe moth, or butterfly, trailing an odd flavour of Pawkins with it,\nkept coming into that walk, though he did his best to keep his mind\noff it. Once he saw it quite distinctly, with its wings flattened out,\nupon the old stone wall that runs along the west edge of the park,\nbut going up to it he found it was only two lumps of grey and yellow\nlichen. \"This,\" said Hapley, \"is the reverse of mimicry. Instead of\na butterfly looking like a stone, here is a stone looking like a\nbutterfly!\" Once something hovered and fluttered round his head, but\nby an effort of will he drove that impression out of his mind again.\n\nIn the afternoon Hapley called upon the Vicar, and argued with him\nupon theological questions. They sat in the little arbour covered with\nbriar, and smoked as they wrangled. \"Look at that moth!\" said Hapley,\nsuddenly, pointing to the edge of the wooden table.\n\n\"Where?\" said the Vicar.\n\n\"You don't see a moth on the edge of the table there?\" said Hapley.\n\n\"Certainly not,\" said the Vicar.\n\nHapley was thunderstruck. He gasped. The Vicar was staring at him.\nClearly the man saw nothing. \"The eye of faith is no better than the\neye of science,\" said Hapley, awkwardly.\n\n\"I don't see your point,\" said the Vicar, thinking it was part of the\nargument.\n\nThat night Hapley found the moth crawling over his counterpane. He sat\non the edge of the bed in his shirt-sleeves and reasoned with himself.\nWas it pure hallucination? He knew he was slipping, and he battled\nfor his sanity with the same silent energy he had formerly displayed\nagainst Pawkins. So persistent is mental habit, that he felt as if it\nwere still a struggle with Pawkins. He was well versed in psychology.\nHe knew that such visual illusions do come as a result of mental\nstrain. But the point was, he did not only _see_ the moth, he had\nheard it when it touched the edge of the lampshade, and afterwards\nwhen it hit against the wall, and he had felt it strike his face in\nthe dark.\n\nHe looked at it. It was not at all dreamlike, but perfectly clear and\nsolid-looking in the candle-light. He saw the hairy body, and the\nshort feathery antennae, the jointed legs, even a place where the down\nwas rubbed from the wing. He suddenly felt angry with himself for\nbeing afraid of a little insect.\n\nHis landlady had got the servant to sleep with her that night, because\nshe was afraid to be alone. In addition she had locked the door, and\nput the chest of drawers against it. They listened and talked in\nwhispers after they had gone to bed, but nothing occurred to alarm\nthem. About eleven they had ventured to put the candle out, and had\nboth dozed off to sleep. They woke up with a start, and sat up in bed,\nlistening in the darkness.\n\nThen they heard slippered feet going to and fro in Hapley's room. A\nchair was overturned, and there was a violent dab at the wall. Then a\nchina mantel ornament smashed upon the fender. Suddenly the door of\nthe room opened, and they heard him upon the landing. They clung to\none another, listening. He seemed to be dancing upon the staircase.\nNow he would go down three or four steps quickly, then up again, then\nhurry down into the hall. They heard the umbrella stand go over, and\nthe fanlight break. Then the bolt shot and the chain rattled. He was\nopening the door.\n\nThey hurried to the window. It was a dim grey night; an almost\nunbroken sheet of watery cloud was sweeping across the moon, and the\nhedge and trees in front of the house were black against the pale\nroadway. They saw Hapley, looking like a ghost in his shirt and white\ntrousers, running to and fro in the road, and beating the air. Now he\nwould stop, now he would dart very rapidly at something invisible, now\nhe would move upon it with stealthy strides. At last he went out of\nsight up the road towards the down. Then, while they argued who should\ngo down and lock the door, he returned. He was walking very fast, and\nhe came straight into the house, closed the door carefully, and went\nquietly up to his bedroom. Then everything was silent.\n\n\"Mrs Colville,\" said Hapley, calling down the staircase next morning.\n\"I hope I did not alarm you last night.\"\n\n\"You may well ask that!\" said Mrs Colville.\n\n\"The fact is, I am a sleep-walker, and the last two nights I have been\nwithout my sleeping mixture. There is nothing to be alarmed about,\nreally. I am sorry I made such an ass of myself. I will go over the\ndown to Shoreham, and get some stuff to make me sleep soundly. I ought\nto have done that yesterday.\"\n\nBut half-way over the down, by the chalk pits, the moth came upon\nHapley again. He went on, trying to keep his mind upon chess problems,\nbut it was no good. The thing fluttered into his face, and he struck\nat it with his hat in self-defence. Then rage, the old rage--the rage\nhe had so often felt against Pawkins--came upon him again. He went\non, leaping and striking at the eddying insect. Suddenly he trod on\nnothing, and fell headlong.\n\nThere was a gap in his sensations, and Hapley found himself sitting on\nthe heap of flints in front of the opening of the chalkpits, with a\nleg twisted back under him. The strange moth was still fluttering\nround his head. He struck at it with his hand, and turning his head\nsaw two men approaching him. One was the village doctor. It occurred\nto Hapley that this was lucky. Then it came into his mind, with\nextraordinary vividness, that no one would ever be able to see the\nstrange moth except himself, and that it behoved him to keep silent\nabout it.\n\nLate that night, however, after his broken leg was set, he was\nfeverish and forgot his self-restraint. He was lying flat on his bed,\nand he began to run his eyes round the room to see if the moth was\nstill about. He tried not to do this, but it was no good. He\nsoon caught sight of the thing resting close to his hand, by the\nnight-light, on the green table-cloth. The wings quivered. With a\nsudden wave of anger he smote at it with his fist, and the nurse woke\nup with a shriek. He had missed it.\n\n\"That moth!\" he said; and then, \"It was fancy. Nothing!\"\n\nAll the time he could see quite clearly the insect going round the\ncornice and darting across the room, and he could also see that the\nnurse saw nothing of it and looked at him strangely. He must keep\nhimself in hand. He knew he was a lost man if he did not keep himself\nin hand. But as the night waned the fever grew upon him, and the very\ndread he had of seeing the moth made him see it. About five, just as\nthe dawn was grey, he tried to get out of bed and catch it, though his\nleg was afire with pain. The nurse had to struggle with him.\n\nOn account of this, they tied him down to the bed. At this the moth\ngrew bolder, and once he felt it settle in his hair. Then, because he\nstruck out violently with his arms, they tied these also. At this the\nmoth came and crawled over his face, and Hapley wept, swore, screamed,\nprayed for them to take it off him, unavailingly.\n\nThe doctor was a blockhead, a half-qualified general practitioner, and\nquite ignorant of mental science. He simply said there was no moth.\nHad he possessed the wit, he might still, perhaps, have saved Hapley\nfrom his fate by entering into his delusion and covering his face with\ngauze, as he prayed might be done. But, as I say, the doctor was a\nblockhead, and until the leg was healed Hapley was kept tied to his\nbed, and with the imaginary moth crawling over him. It never left him\nwhile he was awake and it grew to a monster in his dreams. While he\nwas awake he longed for sleep, and from sleep he awoke screaming.\n\nSo now Hapley is spending the remainder of his days in a padded room,\nworried by a moth that no one else can see. The asylum doctor calls\nit hallucination; but Hapley, when he is in his easier mood, and can\ntalk, says it is the ghost of Pawkins, and consequently a unique\nspecimen and well worth the trouble of catching.\n\n\n\n\nTHE TREASURE IN THE FOREST\n\n\nThe canoe was now approaching the land. The bay opened out, and a gap\nin the white surf of the reef marked where the little river ran out to\nthe sea; the thicker and deeper green of the virgin forest showed its\ncourse down the distant hill slope. The forest here came close to\nthe beach. Far beyond, dim and almost cloudlike in texture, rose the\nmountains, like suddenly frozen waves. The sea was still save for an\nalmost imperceptible swell. The sky blazed.\n\nThe man with the carved paddle stopped. \"It should be somewhere here,\"\nhe said. He shipped the paddle and held his arms out straight before\nhim.\n\nThe other man had been in the fore part of the canoe, closely\nscrutinising the land. He had a sheet of yellow paper on his knee.\n\n\"Come and look at this, Evans,\" he said.\n\nBoth men spoke in low tones, and their lips were hard and dry.\n\nThe man called Evans came swaying along the canoe until he could look\nover his companion's shoulder.\n\nThe paper had the appearance of a rough map. By much folding it was\ncreased and worn to the pitch of separation, and the second man held\nthe discoloured fragments together where they had parted. On it one\ncould dimly make out, in almost obliterated pencil, the outline of the\nbay.\n\n\"Here,\" said Evans, \"is the reef and here is the gap.\" He ran his\nthumb-nail over the chart.\n\n\"This curved and twisting line is the river--I could do with a drink\nnow!--and this star is the place.\"\n\n\"You see this dotted line,\" said the man with the map; \"it is a\nstraight line, and runs from the opening of the reef to a clump of\npalm-trees. The star comes just where it cuts the river. We must mark\nthe place as we go into the lagoon.\"\n\n\"It's queer,\" said Evans, after a pause, \"what these little marks down\nhere are for. It looks like the plan of a house or something; but what\nall these little dashes, pointing this way and that, may mean I can't\nget a notion. And what's the writing?\"\n\n\"Chinese,\" said the man with the map.\n\n\"Of course! _He_ was a Chinee,\" said Evans.\n\n\"They all were,\" said the man with the map.\n\nThey both sat for some minutes staring at the land, while the canoe\ndrifted slowly. Then Evans looked towards the paddle.\n\n\"Your turn with the paddle now, Hooker,\" said he.\n\nAnd his companion quietly folded up his map, put it in his pocket,\npassed Evans carefully, and began to paddle. His movements were\nlanguid, like those of a man whose strength was nearly exhausted.\nEvans sat with his eyes half closed, watching the frothy breakwater of\nthe coral creep nearer and nearer. The sky was like a furnace now, for\nthe sun was near the zenith. Though they were so near the Treasure he\ndid not feel the exaltation he had anticipated. The intense excitement\nof the struggle for the plan, and the long night voyage from the\nmainland in the unprovisioned canoe had, to use his own expression,\n\"taken it out of him.\" He tried to arouse himself by directing his\nmind to the ingots the Chinamen had spoken of, but it would not rest\nthere; it came back headlong to the thought of sweet water rippling\nin the river, and to the almost unendurable dryness of his lips and\nthroat. The rhythmic wash of the sea upon the reef was becoming\naudible now, and it had a pleasant sound in his ears; the water washed\nalong the side of the canoe, and the paddle dripped between each\nstroke. Presently he began to doze.\n\nHe was still dimly conscious of the island, but a queer dream texture\ninterwove with his sensations. Once again it was the night when he and\nHooker had hit upon the Chinamen's secret; he saw the moonlit\ntrees, the little fire burning, and the black figures of the three\nChinamen--silvered on one side by moonlight, and on the other\nglowing from the firelight--and heard them talking together in\npigeon-English--for they came from different provinces. Hooker had\ncaught the drift of their talk first, and had motioned to him to\nlisten. Fragments of the conversation were inaudible and fragments\nincomprehensible. A Spanish galleon from the Philippines hopelessly\naground, and its treasure buried against the day of return, lay in\nthe background of the story; a shipwrecked crew thinned by disease,\na quarrel or so, and the needs of discipline, and at last taking to\ntheir boats never to be heard of again. Then Chang-hi, only a year\nsince, wandering ashore, had happened upon the ingots hidden for two\nhundred years, had deserted his junk, and reburied them with infinite\ntoil, single-handed but very safe. He laid great stress on the\nsafety--it was a secret of his. Now he wanted help to return and\nexhume them. Presently the little map fluttered and the voices sank.\nA fine story for two stranded British wastrels to hear! Evans' dream\nshifted to the moment when he had Chang-hi's pigtail in his hand. The\nlife of a Chinaman is scarcely sacred like a European's. The cunning\nlittle face of Chang-hi, first keen and furious like a startled snake,\nand then fearful, treacherous and pitiful, became overwhelmingly\nprominent in the dream. At the end Chang-hi had grinned, a most\nincomprehensible and startling grin. Abruptly things became very\nunpleasant, as they will do at times in dreams. Chang-hi gibbered and\nthreatened him. He saw in his dream heaps and heaps of gold, and\nChang-hi intervening and struggling to hold him back from it. He took\nChang-hi by the pigtail--how big the yellow brute was, and how he\nstruggled and grinned! He kept growing bigger, too. Then the bright\nheaps of gold turned to a roaring furnace, and a vast devil,\nsurprisingly like Chang-hi, but with a huge black tail, began to feed\nhim with coals. They burnt his mouth horribly. Another devil was\nshouting his name: \"Evans, Evans, you sleepy fool!\"--or was it Hooker?\n\nHe woke up. They were in the mouth of the lagoon.\n\n\"There are the three palm-trees. It must be in a line with that clump\nof bushes,\" said his companion. \"Mark that. If we go to those bushes\nand then strike into the bush in a straight line from here, we shall\ncome to it when we come to the stream.\"\n\nThey could see now where the mouth of the stream opened out. At the\nsight of it Evans revived. \"Hurry up, man,\" he said, \"Or by heaven I\nshall have to drink sea water!\" He gnawed his hand and stared at the\ngleam of silver among the rocks and green tangle.\n\nPresently he turned almost fiercely upon Hooker. \"Give _me_ the\npaddle,\" he said.\n\nSo they reached the river mouth. A little way up Hooker took some\nwater in the hollow of his hand, tasted it, and spat it out. A little\nfurther he tried again. \"This will do,\" he said, and they began\ndrinking eagerly.\n\n\"Curse this!\" said Evans, suddenly. \"It's too slow.\" And, leaning\ndangerously over the fore part of the canoe, he began to suck up the\nwater with his lips.\n\nPresently they made an end of drinking, and, running the canoe into a\nlittle creek, were about to land among the thick growth that overhung\nthe water.\n\n\"We shall have to scramble through this to the beach to find our\nbushes and get the line to the place,\" said Evans.\n\n\"We had better paddle round,\" said Hooker.\n\nSo they pushed out again into the river and paddled back down it to\nthe sea, and along the shore to the place where the clump of bushes\ngrew. Here they landed, pulled the light canoe far up the beach, and\nthen went up towards the edge of the jungle until they could see the\nopening of the reef and the bushes in a straight line. Evans had\ntaken a native implement out of the canoe. It was L-shaped, and the\ntransverse piece was armed with polished stone. Hooker carried the\npaddle. \"It is straight now in this direction,\" said he; \"we must push\nthrough this till we strike the stream. Then we must prospect.\"\n\nThey pushed through a close tangle of reeds, broad fronds, and young\ntrees, and at first it was toilsome going, but very speedily the trees\nbecame larger and the ground beneath them opened out. The blaze of the\nsunlight was replaced by insensible degrees by cool shadow. The trees\nbecame at last vast pillars that rose up to a canopy of greenery far\noverhead. Dim white flowers hung from their stems, and ropy creepers\nswung from tree to tree. The shadow deepened. On the ground, blotched\nfungi and a red-brown incrustation became frequent.\n\nEvans shivered. \"It seems almost cold here after the blaze outside.\"\n\n\"I hope we are keeping to the straight,\" said Hooker.\n\nPresently they saw, far ahead, a gap in the sombre darkness where\nwhite shafts of hot sunlight smote into the forest. There also was\nbrilliant green undergrowth, and coloured flowers. Then they heard the\nrush of water.\n\n\"Here is the river. We should be close to it now,\" said Hooker.\n\nThe vegetation was thick by the river bank. Great plants, as yet\nunnamed, grew among the roots of the big trees, and spread rosettes of\nhuge green fans towards the strip of sky. Many flowers and a creeper\nwith shiny foliage clung to the exposed stems. On the water of the\nbroad, quiet pool which the treasure seekers now overlooked there\nfloated big oval leaves and a waxen, pinkish-white flower not unlike\na water-lily. Further, as the river bent away from them, the water\nsuddenly frothed and became noisy in a rapid.\n\n\"Well?\" said Evans.\n\n\"We have swerved a little from the straight,\" said Hooker. \"That was\nto be expected.\"\n\nHe turned and looked into the dim cool shadows of the silent forest\nbehind them. \"If we beat a little way up and down the stream we should\ncome to something.\"\n\n\"You said--\" began Evans.\n\n\"_He_ said there was a heap of stones,\" said Hooker.\n\nThe two men looked at each other for a moment.\n\n\"Let us try a little down-stream first,\" said Evans.\n\nThey advanced slowly, looking curiously about them. Suddenly Evans\nstopped. \"What the devil's that?\" he said.\n\nHooker followed his finger. \"Something blue,\" he said. It had come\ninto view as they topped a gentle swell of the ground. Then he began\nto distinguish what it was.\n\nHe advanced suddenly with hasty steps, until the body that belonged to\nthe limp hand and arm had become visible. His grip tightened on the\nimplement he carried. The thing was the figure of a Chinaman lying on\nhis face. The _abandon_ of the pose was unmistakable.\n\nThe two men drew closer together, and stood staring silently at this\nominous dead body. It lay in a clear space among the trees. Near by\nwas a spade after the Chinese pattern, and further off lay a scattered\nheap of stones, close to a freshly dug hole.\n\n\"Somebody has been here before,\" said Hooker, clearing his throat.\n\nThen suddenly Evans began to swear and rave, and stamp upon the\nground.\n\nHooker turned white but said nothing. He advanced towards the\nprostrate body. He saw the neck was puffed and purple, and the hands\nand ankles swollen. \"Pah!\" he said, and suddenly turned away and went\ntowards the excavation. He gave a cry of surprise. He shouted to\nEvans, who was following him slowly.\n\n\"You fool! It's all right It's here still.\" Then he turned again and\nlooked at the dead Chinaman, and then again at the hole.\n\nEvans hurried to the hole. Already half exposed by the ill-fated\nwretch beside them lay a number of dull yellow bars. He bent down in\nthe hole, and, clearing off the soil with his bare hands, hastily\npulled one of the heavy masses out. As he did so a little thorn\npricked his hand. He pulled the delicate spike out with his fingers\nand lifted the ingot.\n\n\"Only gold or lead could weigh like this,\" he said exultantly.\n\nHooker was still looking at the dead Chinaman. He was puzzled.\n\n\"He stole a march on his friends,\" he said at last. \"He came here\nalone, and some poisonous snake has killed him ... I wonder how he\nfound the place.\"\n\nEvans stood with the ingot in his hands. What did a dead Chinaman\nsignify? \"We shall have to take this stuff to the mainland piecemeal,\nand bury it there for a while. How shall we get it to the canoe?\"\n\nHe took his jacket off and spread it on the ground, and flung two or\nthree ingots into it. Presently he found that another little thorn had\npunctured his skin.\n\n\"This is as much as we can carry,\" said he. Then suddenly, with a\nqueer rush of irritation, \"What are you staring at?\"\n\nHooker turned to him. \"I can't stand ... him.\" He nodded towards the\ncorpse. \"It's so like--\"\n\n\"Rubbish!\" said Evans. \"All Chinamen are alike.\"\n\nHooker looked into his face. \"I'm going to bury _that_, anyhow, before\nI lend a hand with this stuff.\"\n\n\"Don't be a fool, Hooker,\" said Evans. \"Let that mass of corruption\nbide.\"\n\nHooker hesitated, and then his eye went carefully over the brown soil\nabout them. \"It scares me somehow,\" he said.\n\n\"The thing is,\" said Evans, \"what to do with these ingots. Shall we\nre-bury them over here, or take them across the strait in the canoe?\"\n\nHooker thought. His puzzled gaze wandered among the tall tree-trunks,\nand up into the remote sunlit greenery overhead. He shivered again\nas his eye rested upon the blue figure of the Chinaman. He stared\nsearchingly among the grey depths between the trees.\n\n\"What's come to you, Hooker?\" said Evans. \"Have you lost your wits?\"\n\n\"Let's get the gold out of this place, anyhow,\" said Hooker.\n\nHe took the ends of the collar of the coat in his hands, and Evans\ntook the opposite corners, and they lifted the mass. \"Which way?\" said\nEvans. \"To the canoe?\"\n\n\"It's queer,\" said Evans, when they had advanced only a few steps,\n\"but my arms ache still with that paddling.\"\n\n\"Curse it!\" he said. \"But they ache! I must rest.\"\n\nThey let the coat down. Evans' face was white, and little drops of\nsweat stood out upon his forehead. \"It's stuffy, somehow, in this\nforest.\"\n\nThen with an abrupt transition to unreasonable anger: \"What is the\ngood of waiting here all the day? Lend a hand, I say! You have done\nnothing but moon since we saw the dead Chinaman.\"\n\nHooker was looking steadfastly at his companion's face. He helped\nraise the coat bearing the ingots, and they went forward perhaps a\nhundred yards in silence. Evans began to breathe heavily. \"Can't you\nspeak?\" he said.\n\n\"What's the matter with you?\" said Hooker.\n\nEvans stumbled, and then with a sudden curse flung the coat from\nhim. He stood for a moment staring at Hooker, and then with a groan\nclutched at his own throat.\n\n\"Don't come near me,\" he said, and went and leant against a tree. Then\nin a steadier voice, \"I'll be better in a minute.\"\n\nPresently his grip upon the trunk loosened, and he slipped slowly down\nthe stem of the tree until he was a crumpled heap at its foot. His\nhands were clenched convulsively. His face became distorted with pain.\nHooker approached him.\n\n\"Don't touch me! Don't touch me!\" said Evans in a stifled voice. \"Put\nthe gold back on the coat.\"\n\n\"Can't I do anything for you?\" said Hooker.\n\n\"Put the gold back on the coat.\"\n\nAs Hooker handled the ingots he felt a little prick on the ball of\nhis thumb. He looked at his hand and saw a slender thorn, perhaps two\ninches in length.\n\nEvans gave an inarticulate cry and rolled over.\n\nHooker's jaw dropped. He stared at the thorn for a moment with dilated\neyes. Then he looked at Evans, who was now crumpled together on the\nground, his back bending and straitening spasmodically. Then he looked\nthrough the pillars of the trees and net-work of creeper stems, to\nwhere in the dim grey shadow the blue-clad body of the Chinaman was\nstill indistinctly visible. He thought of the little dashes in the\ncorner of the plan, and in a moment he understood.\n\n\"God help me!\" he said. For the thorns were similar to those the\nDyaks poison and use in their blowing-tubes. He understood now\nwhat Chang-hi's assurance of the safety of his treasure meant. He\nunderstood that grin now.\n\n\"Evans!\" he cried.\n\nBut Evans was silent and motionless now, save for a horrible spasmodic\ntwitching of his limbs. A profound silence brooded over the forest.\n\nThen Hooker began to suck furiously at the little pink spot on the\nball of his thumb--sucking for dear life. Presently he felt a strange\naching pain in his arms and shoulders, and his fingers seemed\ndifficult to bend. Then he knew that sucking was no good.\n\nAbruptly he stopped, and sitting down by the pile of ingots, and\nresting his chin upon his hands and his elbows upon his knees, stared\nat the distorted but still stirring body of his companion. Chang-hi's\ngrin came in his mind again. The dull pain spread towards his throat\nand grew slowly in intensity. Far above him a faint breeze stirred the\ngreenery, and the white petals of some unknown flower came floating\ndown through the gloom."