VIII.
THE LORD OF THE DYNAMOS.
The chief attendant of the three dynamos that buzzed and rattled atCamberwell, and kept the electric railway going, came out of Yorkshire,and his name was James Holroyd. He was a practical electrician, but fondof whisky, a heavy, red-haired brute with irregular teeth. He doubted theexistence of the Deity, but accepted Carnot's cycle, and he had readShakespeare and found him weak in chemistry. His helper came out of themysterious East, and his name was Azuma-zi. But Holroyd called himPooh-bah. Holroyd liked a nigger help because he would stand kicking--ahabit with Holroyd--and did not pry into the machinery and try to learnthe ways of it. Certain odd possibilities of the negro mind brought intoabrupt contact with the crown of our civilisation Holroyd never fullyrealised, though just at the end he got some inkling of them.
To define Azuma-zi was beyond ethnology. He was, perhaps, more negroidthan anything else, though his hair was curly rather than frizzy, and hisnose had a bridge. Moreover, his skin was brown rather than black, and thewhites of his eyes were yellow. His broad cheekbones and narrow chin gavehis face something of the viperine V. His head, too, was broad behind, andlow and narrow at the forehead, as if his brain had been twisted round inthe reverse way to a European's. He was short of stature and still shorterof English. In conversation he made numerous odd noises of no knownmarketable value, and his infrequent words were carved and wrought intoheraldic grotesqueness. Holroyd tried to elucidate his religious beliefs,and--especially after whisky--lectured to him against superstition andmissionaries. Azuma-zi, however, shirked the discussion of his gods, eventhough he was kicked for it.
Azuma-zi had come, clad in white but insufficient raiment, out of thestoke-hole of the _Lord Clive_, from the Straits Settlements andbeyond, into London. He had heard even in his youth of the greatness andriches of London, where all the women are white and fair, and even thebeggars in the streets are white, and he had arrived, with newly-earnedgold coins in his pocket, to worship at the shrine of civilisation. Theday of his landing was a dismal one; the sky was dun, and a wind-worrieddrizzle filtered down to the greasy streets, but he plunged boldly intothe delights of Shadwell, and was presently cast up, shattered in health,civilised in costume, penniless, and, except in matters of the direstnecessity, practically a dumb animal, to toil for James Holroyd, and to bebullied by him in the dynamo shed at Camberwell. And to James Holroydbullying was a labour of love.
There were three dynamos with their engines at Camberwell. The two thathave been there since the beginning are small machines; the larger one wasnew. The smaller machines made a reasonable noise; their straps hummedover the drums, every now and then the brushes buzzed and fizzled, and theair churned steadily, whoo! whoo! whoo! between their poles. One was loosein its foundations and kept the shed vibrating. But the big dynamo drownedthese little noises altogether with the sustained drone of its iron core,which somehow set part of the ironwork humming. The place made thevisitor's head reel with the throb, throb, throb of the engines, therotation of the big wheels, the spinning ball-valves, the occasionalspittings of the steam, and over all the deep, unceasing, surging note ofthe big dynamo. This last noise was from an engineering point of view adefect, but Azuma-zi accounted it unto the monster for mightiness andpride.
If it were possible we would have the noises of that shed always about thereader as he reads, we would tell all our story to such an accompaniment.It was a steady stream of din, from which the ear picked out first onethread and then another; there was the intermittent snorting, panting, andseething of the steam engines, the suck and thud of their pistons, thedull beat on the air as the spokes of the great driving wheels came round,a note the leather straps made as they ran tighter and looser, and afretful tumult from the dynamos; and, over all, sometimes inaudible, asthe ear tired of it, and then creeping back upon the senses again, wasthis trombone note of the big machine. The floor never felt steady andquiet beneath one's feet, but quivered and jarred. It was a confusing,unsteady place, and enough to send anyone's thoughts jerking into oddzigzags. And for three months, while the big strike of the engineers wasin progress, Holroyd, who was a blackleg, and Azuma-zi, who was a mereblack, were never out of the stir and eddy of it, but slept and fed in thelittle wooden shanty between the shed and the gates.
Holroyd delivered a theological lecture on the text of his big machinesoon after Azuma-zi came. He had to shout to be heard in the din. "Look atthat," said Holroyd; "where's your 'eathen idol to match 'im?" AndAzuma-zi looked. For a moment Holroyd was inaudible, and then Azuma-ziheard: "Kill a hundred men. Twelve per cent, on the ordinary shares," saidHolroyd, "and that's something like a Gord."
Holroyd was proud of his big dynamo, and expatiated upon its size andpower to Azuma-zi until heaven knows what odd currents of thought that andthe incessant whirling and shindy set up within the curly black cranium.He would explain in the most graphic manner the dozen or so ways in whicha man might be killed by it, and once he gave Azuma-zi a shock as a sampleof its quality. After that, in the breathing-times of his labour--it washeavy labour, being not only his own, but most of Holroyd's--Azuma-ziwould sit and watch the big machine. Now and then the brushes wouldsparkle and spit blue flashes, at which Holroyd would swear, but all therest was as smooth and rhythmic as breathing. The band ran shouting overthe shaft, and ever behind one as one watched was the complacent thud ofthe piston. So it lived all day in this big airy shed, with him andHolroyd to wait upon it; not prisoned up and slaving to drive a ship asthe other engines he knew--mere captive devils of the British Solomon--hadbeen, but a machine enthroned. Those two smaller dynamos Azuma-zi by forceof contrast despised; the large one he privately christened the Lord ofthe Dynamos. They were fretful and irregular, but the big dynamo wassteady. How great it was! How serene and easy in its working! Greater andcalmer even than the Buddhas he had seen at Rangoon, and yet notmotionless, but living! The great black coils spun, spun, spun, the ringsran round under the brushes, and the deep note of its coil steadied thewhole. It affected Azuma-zi queerly.
Azuma-zi was not fond of labour. He would sit about and watch the Lord ofthe Dynamos while Holroyd went away to persuade the yard porter to getwhisky, although his proper place was not in the dynamo shed but behindthe engines, and, moreover, if Holroyd caught him skulking he got hit forit with a rod of stout copper wire. He would go and stand close to thecolossus, and look up at the great leather band running overhead. Therewas a black patch on the band that came round, and it pleased him somehowamong all the clatter to watch this return again and again. Odd thoughtsspun with the whirl of it. Scientific people tell us that savages givesouls to rocks and trees,--and a machine is a thousand times more alivethan a rock or a tree. And Azuma-zi was practically a savage still; theveneer of civilisation lay no deeper than his slop suit, his bruises, andthe coal grime on his face and hands. His father before him had worshippeda meteoric stone, kindred blood, it may be, had splashed the broad wheelsof Juggernaut.
He took every opportunity Holroyd gave him of touching and handling thegreat dynamo that was fascinating him. He polished and cleaned it untilthe metal parts were blinding in the sun. He felt a mysterious sense ofservice in doing this. He would go up to it and touch its spinning coilsgently. The gods he had worshipped were all far away. The people in Londonhid their gods.
At last his dim feelings grew more distinct, and took shape in thoughts,and at last in acts. When he came into the roaring shed one morning hesalaamed to the Lord of the Dynamos, and then, when Holroyd was away, hewent and whispered to the thundering machine that he was its servant, andprayed it to have pity on him and save him from Holroyd. As he did so arare gleam of light came in through the open archway of the throbbingmachine-shed, and the Lord of the Dynamos, as he whirled and roared, wasradiant with pale gold. Then Azuma-zi knew that his service was acceptableto his Lord. After that he did not feel so lonely as he had done, and hehad indeed been very much alone in London. And even when his work-time wasover, which was rare, he loitered abo
ut the shed.
Then, the next time Holroyd maltreated him, Azuma-zi went presently to theLord of the Dynamos and whispered, "Thou seest, O my Lord!" and the angrywhirr of the machinery seemed to answer him. Thereafter it appeared to himthat whenever Holroyd came into the shed a different note came into thesounds of the dynamo. "My Lord bides his time," said Azuma-zi to himself."The iniquity of the fool is not yet ripe." And he waited and watched forthe day of reckoning. One day there was evidence of short circuiting, andHolroyd, making an unwary examination--it was in the afternoon--got arather severe shock. Azuma-zi from behind the engine saw him jump off andcurse at the peccant coil.
"He is warned," said Azuma-zi to himself. "Surely my Lord is verypatient."
Holroyd had at first initiated his "nigger" into such elementaryconceptions of the dynamo's working as would enable him to take temporarycharge of the shed in his absence. But when he noticed the manner in whichAzuma-zi hung about the monster he became suspicious. He dimly perceivedhis assistant was "up to something," and connecting him with the anointingof the coils with oil that had rotted the varnish in one place, he issuedan edict, shouted above the confusion of the machinery, "Don't 'ee go nighthat big dynamo any more, Pooh-bah, or a'll take thy skin off!" Besides,if it pleased Azuma-zi to be near the big machine, it was plain sense anddecency to keep him away from it.
Azuma-zi obeyed at the time, but later he was caught bowing before theLord of the Dynamos. At which Holroyd twisted his arm and kicked him as heturned to go away. As Azuma-zi presently stood behind the engine andglared at the back of the hated Holroyd, the noises of the machinery tooka new rhythm, and sounded like four words in his native tongue.
It is hard to say exactly what madness is. I fancy Azuma-zi was mad. Theincessant din and whirl of the dynamo shed may have churned up his littlestore of knowledge and big store of superstitious fancy, at last, intosomething akin to frenzy. At any rate, when the idea of making Holroyd asacrifice to the Dynamo Fetich was thus suggested to him, it filled himwith a strange tumult of exultant emotion.
That night the two men and their black shadows were alone in the shedtogether. The shed was lit with one big arc light that winked andflickered purple. The shadows lay black behind the dynamos, the ballgovernors of the engines whirled from light to darkness, and their pistonsbeat loud and steady. The world outside seen through the open end of theshed seemed incredibly dim and remote. It seemed absolutely silent, too,since the riot of the machinery drowned every external sound. Far away wasthe black fence of the yard with grey shadowy houses behind, and above wasthe deep blue sky and the pale little stars. Azuma-zi suddenly walkedacross the centre of the shed above which the leather bands were running,and went into the shadow by the big dynamo. Holroyd heard a click, and thespin of the armature changed.
"What are you dewin' with that switch?" he bawled in surprise. "Han't Itold you----"
Then he saw the set expression of Azuma-zi's eyes as the Asiatic came outof the shadow towards him.
In another moment the two men were grappling fiercely in front of thegreat dynamo.
"You coffee-headed fool!" gasped Holroyd, with a brown hand at his throat."Keep off those contact rings." In another moment he was tripped andreeling back upon the Lord of the Dynamos. He instinctively loosened hisgrip upon his antagonist to save himself from the machine.
The messenger, sent in furious haste from the station to find out what hadhappened in the dynamo shed, met Azuma-zi at the porter's lodge by thegate. Azuma-zi tried to explain something, but the messenger could makenothing of the black's incoherent English, and hurried on to the shed.The machines were all noisily at work, and nothing seemed to bedisarranged. There was, however, a queer smell of singed hair. Then he sawan odd-looking crumpled mass clinging to the front of the big dynamo, and,approaching, recognised the distorted remains of Holroyd.
The man stared and hesitated a moment. Then he saw the face, and shut hiseyes convulsively. He turned on his heel before he opened them, so that heshould not see Holroyd again, and went out of the shed to get advice andhelp.
When Azuma-zi saw Holroyd die in the grip of the Great Dynamo he had beena little scared about the consequences of his act. Yet he felt strangelyelated, and knew that the favour of the Lord Dynamo was upon him. His planwas already settled when he met the man coming from the station, and thescientific manager who speedily arrived on the scene jumped at the obviousconclusion of suicide. This expert scarcely noticed Azuma-zi, except toask a few questions. Did he see Holroyd kill himself? Azuma-zi explainedhe had been out of sight at the engine furnace until he heard a differencein the noise from the dynamo. It was not a difficult examination, beinguntinctured by suspicion.
The distorted remains of Holroyd, which the electrician removed fromthe machine, were hastily covered by the porter with a coffee-stainedtable-cloth. Somebody, by a happy inspiration, fetched a medical man. Theexpert was chiefly anxious to get the machine at work again, for seven oreight trains had stopped midway in the stuffy tunnels of the electricrailway. Azuma-zi, answering or misunderstanding the questions of thepeople who had by authority or impudence come into the shed, was presentlysent back to the stoke-hole by the scientific manager. Of course a crowdcollected outside the gates of the yard--a crowd, for no known reason,always hovers for a day or two near the scene of a sudden death inLondon--two or three reporters percolated somehow into the engine-shed,and one even got to Azuma-zi; but the scientific expert cleared them outagain, being himself an amateur journalist.
Presently the body was carried away, and public interest departed with it.Azuma-zi remained very quietly at his furnace, seeing over and over againin the coals a figure that wriggled violently and became still. An hourafter the murder, to any one coming into the shed it would have lookedexactly as if nothing remarkable had ever happened there. Peepingpresently from his engine-room the black saw the Lord Dynamo spin andwhirl beside his little brothers, and the driving wheels were beatinground, and the steam in the pistons went thud, thud, exactly as it hadbeen earlier in the evening. After all, from the mechanical point of view,it had been a most insignificant incident--the mere temporary deflectionof a current. But now the slender form and slender shadow of thescientific manager replaced the sturdy outline of Holroyd travelling upand down the lane of light upon the vibrating floor under the strapsbetween the engines and the dynamos.
"Have I not served my Lord?" said Azuma-zi inaudibly, from his shadow, andthe note of the great dynamo rang out full and clear. As he looked at thebig whirling mechanism the strange fascination of it that had been alittle in abeyance since Holroyd's death resumed its sway.
Never had Azuma-zi seen a man killed so swiftly and pitilessly. The bighumming machine had slain its victim without wavering for a second fromits steady beating. It was indeed a mighty god.
The unconscious scientific manager stood with his back to him, scribblingon a piece of paper. His shadow lay at the foot of the monster.
Was the Lord Dynamo still hungry? His servant was ready.
Azuma-zi made a stealthy step forward; then stopped. The scientificmanager suddenly ceased his writing, walked down the shed to the endmostof the dynamos, and began to examine the brushes.
Azuma-zi hesitated, and then slipped across noiselessly into the shadow bythe switch. There he waited. Presently the manager's footsteps could beheard returning. He stopped in his old position, unconscious of the stokercrouching ten feet away from him. Then the big dynamo suddenly fizzled,and in another moment Azuma-zi had sprung out of the darkness upon him.
First, the scientific manager was gripped round the body and swung towardsthe big dynamo, then, kicking with his knee and forcing his antagonist'shead down with his hands, he loosened the grip on his waist and swunground away from the machine. Then the black grasped him again, putting acurly head against his chest, and they swayed and panted as it seemed foran age or so. Then the scientific manager was impelled to catch a blackear in his teeth and bite furiously. The black yelled hideously.
They ro
lled over on the floor, and the black, who had apparently slippedfrom the vice of the teeth or parted with some ear--the scientific managerwondered which at the time--tried to throttle him. The scientific managerwas making some ineffectual efforts to claw something with his hands andto kick, when the welcome sound of quick footsteps sounded on the floor.The next moment Azuma-zi had left him and darted towards the big dynamo.There was a splutter amid the roar.
The officer of the company who had entered stood staring as Azuma-zicaught the naked terminals in his hands, gave one horrible convulsion, andthen hung motionless from the machine, his face violently distorted.
"I'm jolly glad you came in when you did," said the scientific manager,still sitting on the floor.
He looked at the still quivering figure. "It is not a nice death to die,apparently--but it is quick."
The official was still staring at the body. He was a man of slowapprehension.
There was a pause.
The scientific manager got up on his feet rather awkwardly. He ran hisfingers along his collar thoughtfully, and moved his head to and froseveral times.
"Poor Holroyd! I see now." Then almost mechanically he went towards theswitch in the shadow and turned the current into the railway circuitagain. As he did so the singed body loosened its grip upon the machine andfell forward on its face. The core of the dynamo roared out loud andclear, and the armature beat the air.
So ended prematurely the worship of the Dynamo Deity, perhaps the mostshort-lived of all religions. Yet withal it could at least boast aMartyrdom and a Human Sacrifice.