_The Man Who Found Out_
(A Nightmare)
1
Professor Mark Ebor, the scientist, led a double life, and the onlypersons who knew it were his assistant, Dr. Laidlaw, and his publishers.But a double life need not always be a bad one, and, as Dr. Laidlaw andthe gratified publishers well knew, the parallel lives of thisparticular man were equally good, and indefinitely produced wouldcertainly have ended in a heaven somewhere that can suitably containsuch strangely opposite characteristics as his remarkable personalitycombined.
For Mark Ebor, F.R.S., etc., etc., was that unique combination hardlyever met with in actual life, a man of science and a mystic.
As the first, his name stood in the gallery of the great, and as thesecond--but there came the mystery! For under the pseudonym of "Pilgrim"(the author of that brilliant series of books that appealed to so many),his identity was as well concealed as that of the anonymous writer ofthe weather reports in a daily newspaper. Thousands read the sanguine,optimistic, stimulating little books that issued annually from the penof "Pilgrim," and thousands bore their daily burdens better for havingread; while the Press generally agreed that the author, besides being anincorrigible enthusiast and optimist, was also--a woman; but no one eversucceeded in penetrating the veil of anonymity and discovering that"Pilgrim" and the biologist were one and the same person.
Mark Ebor, as Dr. Laidlaw knew him in his laboratory, was one man; butMark Ebor, as he sometimes saw him after work was over, with rapt eyesand ecstatic face, discussing the possibilities of "union with God" andthe future of the human race, was quite another.
"I have always held, as you know," he was saying one evening as hesat in the little study beyond the laboratory with his assistant andintimate, "that Vision should play a large part in the life of theawakened man--not to be regarded as infallible, of course, but to beobserved and made use of as a guide-post to possibilities--"
"I am aware of your peculiar views, sir," the young doctor put indeferentially, yet with a certain impatience.
"For Visions come from a region of the consciousness where observationand experiment are out of the question," pursued the other withenthusiasm, not noticing the interruption, "and, while they should bechecked by reason afterwards, they should not be laughed at or ignored.All inspiration, I hold, is of the nature of interior Vision, and allour best knowledge has come--such is my confirmed belief--as a suddenrevelation to the brain prepared to receive it--"
"Prepared by hard work first, by concentration, by the closest possiblestudy of ordinary phenomena," Dr. Laidlaw allowed himself to observe.
"Perhaps," sighed the other; "but by a process, none the less, ofspiritual illumination. The best match in the world will not light acandle unless the wick be first suitably prepared."
It was Laidlaw's turn to sigh. He knew so well the impossibility ofarguing with his chief when he was in the regions of the mystic, but atthe same time the respect he felt for his tremendous attainments was sosincere that he always listened with attention and deference, wonderinghow far the great man would go and to what end this curious combinationof logic and "illumination" would eventually lead him.
"Only last night," continued the elder man, a sort of light coming intohis rugged features, "the vision came to me again--the one that hashaunted me at intervals ever since my youth, and that will not bedenied."
Dr. Laidlaw fidgeted in his chair.
"About the Tablets of the Gods, you mean--and that they lie somewherehidden in the sands," he said patiently. A sudden gleam of interest cameinto his face as he turned to catch the professor's reply.
"And that I am to be the one to find them, to decipher them, and to givethe great knowledge to the world--"
"Who will not believe," laughed Laidlaw shortly, yet interested in spiteof his thinly-veiled contempt.
"Because even the keenest minds, in the right sense of the word, arehopelessly--unscientific," replied the other gently, his face positivelyaglow with the memory of his vision. "Yet what is more likely," hecontinued after a moment's pause, peering into space with rapt eyes thatsaw things too wonderful for exact language to describe, "than thatthere should have been given to man in the first ages of the world somerecord of the purpose and problem that had been set him to solve? In aword," he cried, fixing his shining eyes upon the face of his perplexedassistant, "that God's messengers in the far-off ages should have givento His creatures some full statement of the secret of the world, of thesecret of the soul, of the meaning of life and death--the explanation ofour being here, and to what great end we are destined in the ultimatefullness of things?"
Dr. Laidlaw sat speechless. These outbursts of mystical enthusiasm hehad witnessed before. With any other man he would not have listened toa single sentence, but to Professor Ebor, man of knowledge and profoundinvestigator, he listened with respect, because he regarded thiscondition as temporary and pathological, and in some sense a reactionfrom the intense strain of the prolonged mental concentration of manydays.
He smiled, with something between sympathy and resignation as he met theother's rapt gaze.
"But you have said, sir, at other times, that you consider the ultimatesecrets to be screened from all possible--"
"The _ultimate_ secrets, yes," came the unperturbed reply; "but thatthere lies buried somewhere an indestructible record of the secretmeaning of life, originally known to men in the days of their pristineinnocence, I am convinced. And, by this strange vision so oftenvouchsafed to me, I am equally sure that one day it shall be given to meto announce to a weary world this glorious and terrific message."
And he continued at great length and in glowing language to describe thespecies of vivid dream that had come to him at intervals since earliestchildhood, showing in detail how he discovered these very Tablets of theGods, and proclaimed their splendid contents--whose precise nature wasalways, however, withheld from him in the vision--to a patient andsuffering humanity.
"The _Scrutator_, sir, well described 'Pilgrim' as the Apostle ofHope," said the young doctor gently, when he had finished; "and now, ifthat reviewer could hear you speak and realize from what strange depthscomes your simple faith--"
The professor held up his hand, and the smile of a little child brokeover his face like sunshine in the morning.
"Half the good my books do would be instantly destroyed," he said sadly;"they would say that I wrote with my tongue in my cheek. But wait," headded significantly; "wait till I find these Tablets of the Gods! Waittill I hold the solutions of the old world-problems in my hands! Waittill the light of this new revelation breaks upon confused humanity, andit wakes to find its bravest hopes justified! Ah, then, my dearLaidlaw--"
He broke off suddenly; but the doctor, cleverly guessing the thought inhis mind, caught him up immediately.
"Perhaps this very summer," he said, trying hard to make the suggestionkeep pace with honesty; "in your explorations in Assyria--your diggingin the remote civilization of what was once Chaldea, you may find--whatyou dream of--"
The professor held up his hand, and the smile of a fine old face.
"Perhaps," he murmured softly, "perhaps!"
And the young doctor, thanking the gods of science that his leader'saberrations were of so harmless a character, went home strong in thecertitude of his knowledge of externals, proud that he was able to referhis visions to self-suggestion, and wondering complaisantly whether inhis old age he might not after all suffer himself from visitations ofthe very kind that afflicted his respected chief.
And as he got into bed and thought again of his master's rugged face,and finely shaped head, and the deep lines traced by years of work andself-discipline, he turned over on his pillow and fell asleep with asigh that was half of wonder, half of regret.