2
It was in February, nine months later, when Dr. Laidlaw made his way toCharing Cross to meet his chief after his long absence of travel andexploration. The vision about the so-called Tablets of the Gods hadmeanwhile passed almost entirely from his memory.
There were few people in the train, for the stream of traffic was nowrunning the other way, and he had no difficulty in finding the man hehad come to meet. The shock of white hair beneath the low-crowned felthat was alone enough to distinguish him by easily.
"Here I am at last!" exclaimed the professor, somewhat wearily, claspinghis friend's hand as he listened to the young doctor's warm greetingsand questions. "Here I am--a little older, and _much_ dirtier than whenyou last saw me!" He glanced down laughingly at his travel-stainedgarments.
"And _much_ wiser," said Laidlaw, with a smile, as he bustled about theplatform for porters and gave his chief the latest scientific news.
At last they came down to practical considerations.
"And your luggage--where is that? You must have tons of it, I suppose?"said Laidlaw.
"Hardly anything," Professor Ebor answered. "Nothing, in fact, but whatyou see."
"Nothing but this hand-bag?" laughed the other, thinking he was joking.
"And a small portmanteau in the van," was the quiet reply. "I have noother luggage."
"You have no other luggage?" repeated Laidlaw, turning sharply to see ifhe were in earnest.
"Why should I need more?" the professor added simply.
Something in the man's face, or voice, or manner--the doctor hardly knewwhich--suddenly struck him as strange. There was a change in him, achange so profound--so little on the surface, that is--that at first hehad not become aware of it. For a moment it was as though an utterlyalien personality stood before him in that noisy, bustling throng. Here,in all the homely, friendly turmoil of a Charing Cross crowd, a curiousfeeling of cold passed over his heart, touching his life with icyfinger, so that he actually trembled and felt afraid.
He looked up quickly at his friend, his mind working with startled andunwelcome thoughts.
"Only this?" he repeated, indicating the bag. "But where's all the stuffyou went away with? And--have you brought nothing home--no treasures?"
"This is all I have," the other said briefly. The pale smile that wentwith the words caused the doctor a second indescribable sensation ofuneasiness. Something was very wrong, something was very queer; hewondered now that he had not noticed it sooner.
"The rest follows, of course, by slow freight," he added tactfully, andas naturally as possible. "But come, sir, you must be tired and in wantof food after your long journey. I'll get a taxi at once, and we can seeabout the other luggage afterwards."
It seemed to him he hardly knew quite what he was saying; the change inhis friend had come upon him so suddenly and now grew upon him more andmore distressingly. Yet he could not make out exactly in what itconsisted. A terrible suspicion began to take shape in his mind,troubling him dreadfully.
"I am neither very tired, nor in need of food, thank you," the professorsaid quietly. "And this is all I have. There is no luggage to follow. Ihave brought home nothing--nothing but what you see."
His words conveyed finality. They got into a taxi, tipped the porter,who had been staring in amazement at the venerable figure of thescientist, and were conveyed slowly and noisily to the house in thenorth of London where the laboratory was, the scene of their labours ofyears.
And the whole way Professor Ebor uttered no word, nor did Dr. Laidlawfind the courage to ask a single question.
It was only late that night, before he took his departure, as the twomen were standing before the fire in the study--that study where theyhad discussed so many problems of vital and absorbing interest--thatDr. Laidlaw at last found strength to come to the point with directquestions. The professor had been giving him a superficial and desultoryaccount of his travels, of his journeys by camel, of his encampmentsamong the mountains and in the desert, and of his explorations among theburied temples, and, deeper, into the waste of the pre-historic sands,when suddenly the doctor came to the desired point with a kind ofnervous rush, almost like a frightened boy.
"And you found--" he began stammering, looking hard at the other'sdreadfully altered face, from which every line of hope and cheerfulnessseemed to have been obliterated as a sponge wipes markings from aslate--"you found--"
"I found," replied the other, in a solemn voice, and it was the voice ofthe mystic rather than the man of science--"I found what I went to seek.The vision never once failed me. It led me straight to the place like astar in the heavens. I found--the Tablets of the Gods."
Dr. Laidlaw caught his breath, and steadied himself on the back of achair. The words fell like particles of ice upon his heart. For thefirst time the professor had uttered the well-known phrase without theglow of light and wonder in his face that always accompanied it.
"You have--brought them?" he faltered.
"I have brought them home," said the other, in a voice with a ring likeiron; "and I have--deciphered them."
Profound despair, the bloom of outer darkness, the dead sound of ahopeless soul freezing in the utter cold of space seemed to fill in thepauses between the brief sentences. A silence followed, during which Dr.Laidlaw saw nothing but the white face before him alternately fade andreturn. And it was like the face of a dead man.
"They are, alas, indestructible," he heard the voice continue, with itseven, metallic ring.
"Indestructible," Laidlaw repeated mechanically, hardly knowing what hewas saying.
Again a silence of several minutes passed, during which, with a creepingcold about his heart, he stood and stared into the eyes of the man hehad known and loved so long--aye, and worshipped, too; the man who hadfirst opened his own eyes when they were blind, and had led him to thegates of knowledge, and no little distance along the difficult pathbeyond; the man who, in another direction, had passed on the strength ofhis faith into the hearts of thousands by his books.
"I may see them?" he asked at last, in a low voice he hardly recognizedas his own. "You will let me know--their message?"
Professor Ebor kept his eyes fixedly upon his assistant's face as heanswered, with a smile that was more like the grin of death than aliving human smile.
"When I am gone," he whispered; "when I have passed away. Then youshall find them and read the translation I have made. And then, too, inyour turn, you must try, with the latest resources of science at yourdisposal to aid you, to compass their utter destruction." He pauseda moment, and his face grew pale as the face of a corpse. "Untilthat time," he added presently, without looking up, "I must askyou not to refer to the subject again--and to keep my confidencemeanwhile--_ab--so--lute--ly_."