A Strange Discovery Part 8

There strode the maniac, to and from the edge of the abyss, rhythmically, rarely varying the distance by a yard--twenty yards off, then back again, then away. On every third or fourth approach he stepped literally to the edge of the chasm, and glanced down, ten thousand feet to where the stream below looked like the finest silver thread, lighted by the dazzling light from the giant crater, reflected into every smallest fissure. Now and again the madman would lash himself into a fury, and stop for a moment to gaze at Lilama, who never moved from her crouching position some ten feet from the canyon's brink. Even Peters, the stoic, was moved--but moved to anger rather than to grief or fear.

He inwardly chafed, and madly raved, by turns, at the impotency of his position; whilst Pym seemed frozen into statuesque despair. How much longer would this scene of terror last? Oh, the thought of that awful leap into s.p.a.ce! The maniac might any moment end the scene--each time as he approached in that wild rush backward and forward might be the last.

The slightest move, the slightest sound, might precipitate the dire calamity--and Lilama as well as Pym and Peters seemed to feel this truth. The madman, like the wild beast, appears to need an extraneous stimulus, be it ever so slight, to suggest an initiative: the crooking of a finger, the whispering of a word, may be sufficient, but it must be something.--Ah! Has the moment come? Has the insane man caught some sound inaudible to the others? He pauses. Yes, he is going to act.

"'Oh! friend,' wailed Pym to Peters, in a low voice, 'save her, save her, or where she goes, there go I.'

"Then Peters looks across the chasm, down upon the scene beyond. The opposite brink at this point is ten or twelve feet lower than the spot where Pym and Peters stand, which gives them an excellent view of Lilama and Ahpilus. It is impossible to say just why, but it is obvious that the time which they dread has come. Ahpilus stands looking at the beautiful maiden who crouches in front of him; and as he gazes his powerful form seems to swell, as does that of a wild animal that has determined to spring upon its prey. His arms move forward to grasp her.

He has no fear of interruption--he has for the moment forgotten the strangers. He slightly alters his position--his back is toward the chasm--his hands touch the person of his prey. Lilama partly raises her head. She glances past the maniac for a last look at her lover. She does not scream, even as those vise-like hands close upon her, and slowly, oh, so slowly, but steadily, draw her within that iron embrace--slowly, slowly, as might a maniac devotee move in the desecration of his idol.

"But why does she not scream? Why are her eyes fastened--not on her lover--not on the madman, but upon another object? What is that object?

Is it a man? Can any man move as that thing moves? Surely that cannot be a man, that streak of drab color--yonder thing that casts to the ground a garment, then shoots backward twenty feet from the abyss--swifter than a panther, as silent as death, with two b.a.l.l.s of living fire glaring from--from a face? Surely not a human face! Yes, it is a human face. She does not see the pallid face, the wild eyes of her lover, looking, too, at that thing--that human embodiment of animal agility. No: she has not time to look, for though the human eye is quick, that thing is quicker; and if she take her eye from it for half a second, her gaze will lose it. She cannot take from it her gaze--she is fascinated. Within the past second of time an heroic resolve has been formed, and a drama has begun; in the next two seconds an act in the drama will be completed; in sixty seconds more, a whole tragedy will be added to the list of human sorrows.

"No tongue can tell what cannot quite be seen. A rush of color toward that awful gap; it reaches the edge; it rises in the air and shoots out over that gulf that might indeed have been the portal of Tartarus. Fifty feet as flies the bird. It is in the air--it is half-way over--and yet the maniac has seen it not. But the maniac is turning with his victim in his arms. The streak of drab has pa.s.sed forty feet--ten feet further if it is to reach the other brink--ten thousand if it fails to reach it; and it has already sunk ten feet in s.p.a.ce--with ten feet more of horizontal distance to cover, it is already on a level with the edge of the abyss which it must safely reach, or--The maniac has turned; and the streak of drab has reached the brink--but, ah! below the surface. The form is that of Peters--the only man who could be in such a situation yet live on. One of those invincible arms is thrown upon the surface above the chasm, and those long fingers fasten upon the immovable lava.

And now the madman sees the danger that menaces his design--but too late, for Peters the unconquerable stands erect between him and the chasm. Then Ahpilus quickly sets on the ground his living burden; and Peters, the human bird of pa.s.sage, risks again his life.

"But, for a man like Peters, such a contest was scarcely a risk. Had Ahpilus been less savage in his baffled rage, Peters would have spared the madman; but it was not to be. There was scarcely a man in all Hili-li that could physically cope with Ahpilus; but he was no match for Peters. For a few moments the sailor protected himself without any act of aggression; but it soon became apparent that he would be obliged to destroy his adversary, or himself be destroyed. Ahpilus had pushed Peters, or Peters had carelessly allowed himself to shift his own position, to within dangerously close proximity to the chasm, and at the moment when Peters noticed this circ.u.mstance, he also saw that he was between Ahpilus and the abyss: and Ahpilus, in all his furious madness, also observed his advantage. Peters had in his possession a very long and keen knife, but, as he afterward said in talking over this incident, he had never yet seen the time when he was compelled to use an artificial weapon in an encounter with a single combatant; and particularly would he never have used a knife, even though his adversary were a maniac, if a maniac without an artificial weapon. Peters saw that Diregus had found Pym, and, as was also the boatman, he and Pym were, of course, viewing the struggle. I should not, however, have included Pym in the party of observers; for he knew too well how the combat would end to be much absorbed in it. He had no eyes for anything but Lilama.--But to return: As Ahpilus saw his advantage, by a supreme effort he summoned all his great muscular strength, and aided by that invincible motor, the will of a madman, he endeavored to force Peters over the brink. At that precise moment the sailor had his right hand closed on the top of Ahpilus's left shoulder, and his left hand just beneath Ahpilus's right arm on the side of the exile's chest. He quickly shifted his left hand to the side of the hip; and then those great gorilla arms raised from the ground the body of the madman, swung it overhead as another man might swing the body of a three-year-old child, as he did so bringing the back of his adversary downward; and then came a movement of Herculean power in which the long arms approximated with a twisting, bending effect; two vertebras in Ahpilus's back at the point of least resistance separated, the spine was dislocated, and a ma.s.s of helpless, vibrating human flesh fell at the feet of the victor. Peters, whilst his brute instinct was in full possession of him, might, instead of dropping Ahpilus to the ground, have thrown the body into the abyss; but Diregus had antic.i.p.ated such an action, and called to Peters not to injure the poor insane fellow more than was necessary to prevent him from injuring others. Ahpilus was not dead--that is, he was not dead over his entire body: the hips and all below were as nerveless as the body of a corpse; but above the hips, the same old vigor remained--and so it would be though he lived for yet a hundred years."

Here Doctor Bainbridge ceased to speak. Doctor Castleton had entered the room two or three minutes before, and, keeping silent, had heard the last three or four hundred words, which described the close of that brief but terrible combat.

The FIFTEENTH Chapter

"Well," said Doctor Castleton, as Bainbridge closed. "Peters could, when he was fifty years younger, have done that very thing to any living man weighing not more than a hundred and eighty or a hundred and ninety pounds. I myself have seen him throw to the ground a powerful horse, and the little giant must have been older than sixty at the time. Then again, he possesses that wonderful instinct of certainty in action which belongs to purely animal life. It is said that the tiger when it strikes never misses its aim; and that our American panther makes the most unusual leaps without ever making an attempt beyond its powers. I have many times observed that even our comparatively degenerate domestic cat very rarely indeed, if ever, fails to accomplish the purpose of a stroke. Peters possesses, or did possess, that instinct."

"Yes," said Bainbridge, "you are right. Peters says that on almost every vessel he ever shipped on he was called 'the baboon'--because of his great physical power and agility, he says; but as we know, rather because of his extremely short stature, his large mouth--in fact, his resemblance in many striking ways to the gorilla, or the orang-outang; and perhaps, also, in part, to his habit, mentioned in Pym's description of him, of feigning mental aberration--a.s.suming to be 'simple.'"

"This won't do," said Castleton, with that peculiar look on his face which always appeared when he was about to deflect from the serious to the humorous. "Whilst I should not object to hearing my old friend Peters called a gorilla, I draw the line at gorilla. I should object to the appellation orang-outang, and I should resent with emphasis that of baboon. But gorilla I will accept, for in many ways the gorilla is, or at least once was, the superior of man. Even if we limit the source of our deductions to the skeleton of the animal, the truth of my last a.s.sertion is strongly evidenced. In the first place, the gorilla is more sedate and less pettily curious than man; this is proved by his having only three, instead of four, bones in the last division of his spine, giving him a shorter caudal appendage than man's, and proving the animal to be farther from the monkey than are we; then in the second place, the gorilla has thirteen ribs, which would seem to be rational evidence that, whatever the present gorilla may be, his ancestors of by-gone ages were handsomer than man; because in the gorilla's first search for a wife the field of operations was not limited to his own chest."

"That will do very well, doctor; but don't you think you are a little severe on Adam?" I said.

"I have no sympathies with Adam. Not that I ever blamed him for his weakness in the apple incident; but I do blame him for his garrulity, and his paltry cowardice in exposing Eve. Eve was an instinctive agnostic--and she didn't purpose to be anybody's slave. If Adam decided to keep up with the procession, as he at first did decide to do, he had no business to whine over the outcome. I'd wager freely that Eve earned the living after the pair left paradise. Cain took after his mother; and I hazard the opinion that Eve was in sympathy with Cain in the Abel episode--that is, after the tragedy. Eve and Cain had the best of everything all the way through, for they acted in harmony with their feelings; whilst poor old feeble, vacillating Adam tried to use his worthless old brain-box, and the natural consequence ensued. His feelings, which const.i.tuted the strongest part of his mind, were always in conflict with his intellect, which was just strong enough to get him into trouble when a pure out-and-out unreasoning animal would have been safe; and he never had enough will properly to correct an error when he did see it."

We laughed over this conceit of Castleton's, and Bainbridge said:

"Speaking of biblical characters, I have thought that Moses would, with even slight literary training, have far surpa.s.sed the modern writer of adventure-fiction. His style may be open to adverse criticism, but his originality is beyond question. If he left any material for a purely original story, I fail to detect it. He gave to literature the sea-story, the war-story, and the love-story--stories that hinge on all the human pa.s.sions, and stories of the supernatural in all its phases.

He first presented to a world innocent of fiction-literature the giant and the dwarf; the brave man, the strong man, and the man of supreme fort.i.tude; the honest man, the truthful king, and the woman that knows how to wait for the man she loves; voices in the air, signs in the sky--in short, everything. Even poor old Aesop wasn't in time to grasp a reputation for originality. The modern story-teller may combine, extend, and elaborate; but all opportunity for a display of invention seems to be forever barred."

"By the bye, doctor," said Castleton, evidently impatient at his enforced silence whilst another spoke, "do any of your volcanoes or mountains in Hili-li blow up?"

"No, sir," answered Bainbridge, with dignity.

"Well, if I had been Pym I should have blown those mountains into the Antarctic Ocean," said Castleton. "I understand from the words that I caught this evening as I entered here that your heroine is safe; but if I had been Pym, I should have taken no risks. I should have sent your madman word to return the girl, or take the consequences--the consequences being that I should have blown him and the entire mountain into the mighty deep. 'Sir,' I should have said, 'return the lady, or I will annihilate you.' And so I should have done, if a hair of her head had been harmed.--By the bye, gentlemen, I believe you never heard of my invention for stopping war, did you?" We intimated that we had thus far been deprived of that pleasure. I saw that one of his peculiar outbursts was at hand--one of those apparently serious, though, I thought, intentionally humorous sallies, so puzzling coming from a man of Castleton's intellectual attainments, and the mental _primum mobile_ of which I had already been much interested in trying to determine.

"Well, gentlemen," he continued, "it was about fourteen years ago, during the dark days of The War"--he referred to the great rebellion in the United States, which began in 1861, and which it required the existing government about four years to suppress. "It was during the period when our great President was most worried. I had thought the matter over--as I always do think over vast questions, from the standpoint of true greatness. 'Why not,' I mentally soliloquized, 'why not end this matter at a blow? 'As I drove about through our retired roads and lanes, I gave the subject my very best attention. I thought to myself how the present system of the universe depends upon what we term the luminiferous ether; of the perfect elasticity and inexpansibility of that ether; of what its nature must be. I concluded that no ultimate particle of it--as with matter no atom--is ever added to or removed from the universe. Now, if we could succeed in removing from this inexpansible, universal ocean of ether even the most ultimate portion, there would be a literal vacuum with nothing to fill it, and the equilibrium of the universe would be destroyed. Now, gentlemen, is or is not this supposition logical?"

We admitted our inability to deny its truth.

"'Well, then,' I reasoned, looking at the subject on the reverse side, 'could an additional portion of ether be created, there would be in s.p.a.ce no place to receive it; the universe in its present state--a state in which what we term matter or substance exists--would just simply cease to exist--instantly, and within the compa.s.s of every star and planet.'

"But how to create that particle of ether--that was what occupied my mind for weeks. I would seem to grasp the hint that came and went within the recesses of a brain which--so say my friends--has perhaps never had its equal for variety of conception and rapid response to the slightest external or internal stimulus. Now, many physicists suppose matter to be simply a form of ether--plainly, that matter originated out of ether--was made from ether; so that, after all, the universe was created from nothing--that is, nothing if we correctly define matter. It was but a step for me, then, to the end: remove all radiant energy from a fixed gas--a gas without the property of condensation to another form of matter, _i.e._, to a fluid or a solid--and the thing, I said to myself, is done. I am positive that I know of such a gas, and within a few years all physicists will recognize it. At present the method of procuring it is my secret, as I may still wish to experiment with what is now but a theoretical discovery, though certain to unfold in practice exactly as I have explained it. You understand, of course, that I remove from my gas, by artificial cold and compression, the last vestige of heat, my gas becomes ether, there is no place for it in the universal ocean of inexpansible ether, the balance of the universe as it now exists is destroyed, all matter instantly ceases to exist, and we just sit back and wait for a few billions of trillions of cycles of time, until another system of nature is formed."

For a time we all kept silence: Doctor Bainbridge, I suppose, like myself, marvelling at the peculiarities of our strange companion. At last I said:

"And how about the war, doctor?"

"Now comes the humiliation!" he replied. "Oh, must genius ever grovel at the feet of mere physical power--insolent official power! Why are great men so difficult of access! Why, in 1453, did not Constantine in his day of trouble listen to your brainy countryman, and save Europe from the inroads of the Turk? Well, I hastened to Washington City, determined that no ear other than the President's own should hear the secret; and that no power on earth should draw it from me. I went to the White House. I admit that war-times are busy times--but those infernal White House flunkies kept me waiting in the reception-rooms for four hours! I told my plans to the ushers, to a waiting soldier or two, and to a foreign diplomat with whom I struck up a talk. All of them acted suspiciously, and I believe were jealous of my wisdom. When, for the third time, an usher took my card--or pretended to take my card--to the President, his secretary came down to me. At first I told him that my secret was for the President's ear alone; but at last I gave him a clew to the nature of my business. He left me, but he did not return. Such is reflected political power. But I thought of my power--aye, and physical power, too--the only real power. I never blamed the President--I to this day believe that that fellow H---- never told Lincoln of my visit to the White House."

After an appreciative murmur and movement on the part of Bainbridge and myself--for we felt like laughing, and yet sighs of wonderment were expected by Castleton--and after a grunt from Arthur in his corner, I asked, for want of something better to say,

"Were you ever in the army, doctor?"

"Well--ah--no--yes--no, sir; not exactly," Castleton replied. "But I had a younger brother who beat the drum for a whole week in an enlisting-office tent in Chicago. Poor boy! he died of brain fever in 1869--always a genius--great brain.--And this talk reminds me that I am getting no pension from the United States Government on that poor, neglected, sacrificed boy. Curse my thoughtlessness! Yes, and--but no: I belong to the old school of patriots--I will not curse my country."

As Castleton uttered the last sentence, he approached the door of exit to the hall. He had as usual been pacing the floor; and with the closing word he shot into the hall and was gone. And as the sound of his footsteps rang through the corridors of the hotel, Arthur remarked, from his corner:

"It's a pity he didn't sit down on his boomerang infernal-machine, and then set it a-going: he might a been on the moon by this time, where the fool belongs, with the other lunatics. If he ever comes into my new ice-cream parlor--(twelve by sixteen, gas-lights, three tables, and six chairs; two spoons furnished with one saucer if desired, and a napkin for your lady free; ten cents a saucer, and ginger-bread thrown in)--why out he goes, too quick. Oh, he's a daisy, he is! If you ever want to remind me of him, anybody, ask me to lend you a dime; and when I shake my head and my teeth rattle, I'll remember the lunkhead, sure enough."

I frowned down the youngster, for he had promised not to obtrude his opinion in the presence of Bainbridge. But as his words did not refer in any manner to the story that Bainbridge was telling us, I should not have objected to them, but that with Arthur it was necessary to be cautious in creating precedents, which, as I have intimated, in his case almost immediately congealed into vested rights; and our agreement had obligated him to observe complete silence on the subject of Peters'

story, and, if I correctly remember--though Arthur denied this latter--on all other subjects, in the presence of Doctor Bainbridge.

As Bainbridge appeared to have nothing further to say, and was making those slight occasional movements which I knew presaged his departure, I began to talk of Peters' leap; and in the most guarded manner--for with Bainbridge any question of the facts of his narrative required tact and delicacy to avoid the giving of offence--to discuss the subject of leaping in general, the facts and probabilities relating to distance, and the laws and conditions that might govern and regulate the running-leap.

"Do you not think," I finally asked, "that Peters somewhat overestimates the distance of his marvelous leap? I am aware that Peters was, both in strength and in agility, almost preterhuman; but fifty feet or thereabouts! That seems scarcely possible. Our best athletes, I believe, have never, on level ground, made a running leap of much more than half that distance. Now forty feet, under all the circ.u.mstances, would not strike me as impossible, though thirty-five would better chime with my ideas of the probable, and thirty would remove all possibility of any draft on my credulity."

"It is not a question of ideas or of credulity," answered Bainbridge, "but one of fact. However, we will look at the incident from the stand-point of reason and experience. Now let us a.s.sume that a running leap of twenty-five feet on level ground would not be beyond the ability of a trained athlete. I think you will allow to Peters a natural advantage of seven feet over an ordinary athlete, when you consider the superiority of his form, so well adapted to leaping--a form that gives to him the advantage of an orang-outang, without the disadvantage of hand-like feet, so poorly suited to flat surfaces. From the fullest information I could obtain from Peters, I believe that in leaping he obtains more impetus from his arms than from his legs; but even with his preternatural strength he does not get quite as much impulse-force from his legs as would an ordinary athlete. I myself think that the use of his arms in making this leap gave him an advantage of one-third over another man of equal strength. However, I ask you to allow him from all advantage of form, in the leap alone, seven feet, or twenty-eight per cent."

To this proposition I a.s.sented.

"Then," continued Bainbridge, "it must be remembered that so far as the actual leap is concerned, he missed the opposite edge of the abyss--for he did miss it, and any other man would have gone to the bottom of the chasm. It was only the length of his arm, with its excessive strength, and the iron grip of that enormous hand, which prevented complete failure. As a matter of fact, the walls of the abyss being fifty feet apart, Peters leaped only forty-seven feet. Am I correct?"

Again I a.s.sented.

"Then," said Bainbridge, "we have brought within the limits of reason thirty-five of the fifty feet, and fifteen feet remain to be accounted for. Now let us recall to your memory the fact that the edge of the abyss toward which he leaped was twelve feet lower than the edge from which he sprung; and that, in his progress across the chasm he fell, in addition to this twelve feet, his own height--which, according to Pym's diary was, at that period, four feet and eight inches. If Peters could have covered thirty-five feet on level ground, could he have covered fifty feet with the advantage of a drop of nearly seventeen feet?

a.s.suming a certain weight for Peters, we could calculate the number of foot-pounds of energy, or the initial velocity, necessary to make a leap of thirty-five feet on level ground, and how many foot-pounds it would require to make a leap of fifty feet with a drop of sixteen feet and eight inches taken into the conditions. But as most of the equations in our calculation are approximative, I prefer that the element of gravitation should be handled in a general way. If a leaper were to impel himself horizontally only, he would, in the shortest leap, fall below a level. This fall may be met to the extent of about two feet, by drawing up the legs--that is, by 'hunkering' as the leap progresses, and alighting on his feet with the body to that extent lower than when the spring began. In a leap of twenty-five feet, however, the leaper is compelled to project himself upward as well as forward; and an instinctive sense of just how little energy may be expended in raising himself, and how much may be left for the forward impulse, is one of the chief elements of his proficiency. Peters did not have to raise his body at all."

"I begin to comprehend," said I.

"Yes," replied Bainbridge, "the more you think of it, the more convinced will you become that Peters made the leap as he states. Of course he could not have sprung fifty feet, or even forty feet, on a level; for, in a leap of only forty feet, one would have to raise himself more than twelve feet into the air, and (except for a possible small advantage of position in leaping) it requires the same amount of force to raise a body ten feet on an incline, as it does to raise the same body ten feet perpendicularly into s.p.a.ce--an impossible feat, even to Peters at twenty-eight or thirty years of age."

"I quite believe that he did it," I said, "and when we consider that he claims to have measured the distance only mentally, and that he might therefore honestly have mistaken it to the extent of a few feet, I am willing to say that my confidence in his intended veracity is unshaken--even if he is an old sailor."

"Yes," said Bainbridge, "and we must not overlook the fact that a man's mental state at the time of performing a physical feat is a very important determining factor in the result of the performance. A powerful but lackadaisical fellow might, with only a few dollars at stake, make a very poor showing; yet to preserve his life he might make a really wonderful leap. What effect, then, did mental condition exert on a man like Peters under the circ.u.mstances attending this unparalleled leap? Think of the enormous muscular power developed by the message received through the nerves from a mind thus affected! His own life, and that of another, if not of two others, depended upon the success of his effort. Under such circ.u.mstances muscular power would either be paralyzed, or else intensified beyond our common conception of such force. Peters positively a.s.serts, that when a boy of sixteen he frequently leaped from the flat upper deck of a boat--that is, from a height of twenty feet--into the surrounding water, habitually covering a distance of from forty to forty-five feet; whilst other boys, under the same conditions, rarely covered twenty-five feet, and never thirty."

A moment later Bainbridge arose to depart; but he lingered for a moment, standing, and with his left hand resting on the centre table, began to speak in a general way of the great antarctic crater and its surrounding wonders. It was my habit to make full notes of the actual facts stated by him in the more formal parts of these evening recitals, and sometimes even of his comments; and I regret that I did not do so at the particular moment to which I am now alluding. It was not until the following morning that I made a few memoranda of the closing incident of the evening. With the help of these notes and a fairly good memory, I hope to be able at this late day to describe for the reader an episode that I should dislike entirely to omit from this narrative.

He spoke for several minutes of the wonderful power of nature to accomplish certain ends--the force that accomplishes which, he termed a _purpose_ in nature; and he made some remarks along the line of a contention, that the development of all matter into higher forms was what he called an unconscious intention, explaining that there was no paradox in the expression "unconscious intention"; for, he said, even men, individual men, are constantly performing a thousand acts that have an unconscious purpose or intention--as, for instance, the automatic action of winding a watch without the slightest exercise of will, and without remembering the action. This unconscious motive-force, he said, is inherent in vegetables as well as in animals, and that in fact it exists, though relatively of very slow and feeble action, in all matter, the power being an attribute of all molecules, and even of elemental atoms. He, however, claimed no originality for any of the views which he expressed.