XIX.
THE CRYSTAL EGG.
There was, until a year ago, a little and very grimy-looking shop nearSeven Dials, over which, in weather-worn yellow lettering, the name of "C.Cave, Naturalist and Dealer in Antiquities," was inscribed. The contentsof its window were curiously variegated. They comprised some elephanttusks and an imperfect set of chessmen, beads and weapons, a box of eyes,two skulls of tigers and one human, several moth-eaten stuffed monkeys(one holding a lamp), an old-fashioned cabinet, a fly-blown ostrich eggor so, some fishing-tackle, and an extraordinarily dirty, empty glassfish-tank. There was also, at the moment the story begins, a mass ofcrystal, worked into the shape of an egg and brilliantly polished. And atthat two people who stood outside the window were looking, one of them atall, thin clergyman, the other a black-bearded young man of duskycomplexion and unobtrusive costume. The dusky young man spoke with eagergesticulation, and seemed anxious for his companion to purchase thearticle.
While they were there, Mr. Cave came into his shop, his beard stillwagging with the bread and butter of his tea. When he saw these men andthe object of their regard, his countenance fell. He glanced guiltily overhis shoulder, and softly shut the door. He was a little old man, with paleface and peculiar watery blue eyes; his hair was a dirty grey, and he worea shabby blue frock-coat, an ancient silk hat, and carpet slippers verymuch down at heel. He remained watching the two men as they talked. Theclergyman went deep into his trouser pocket, examined a handful of money,and showed his teeth in an agreeable smile. Mr. Cave seemed still moredepressed when they came into the shop.
The clergyman, without any ceremony, asked the price of the crystal egg.Mr. Cave glanced nervously towards the door leading into the parlour, andsaid five pounds. The clergyman protested that the price was high, to hiscompanion as well as to Mr. Cave--it was, indeed, very much more than Mr.Cave had intended to ask when he had stocked the article--and an attemptat bargaining ensued. Mr. Cave stepped to the shop door, and held it open."Five pounds is my price," he said, as though he wished to save himselfthe trouble of unprofitable discussion. As he did so, the upper portion ofa woman's face appeared above the blind in the glass upper panel of thedoor leading into the parlour, and stared curiously at the two customers."Five pounds is my price," said Mr. Cave, with a quiver in his voice.
The swarthy young man had so far remained a spectator, watching Cavekeenly. Now he spoke. "Give him five pounds," he said. The clergymanglanced at him to see if he were in earnest, and when he looked at Mr.Cave again, he saw that the latter's face was white. "It's a lot ofmoney," said the clergyman, and, diving into his pocket, began countinghis resources. He had little more than thirty shillings, and he appealedto his companion, with whom he seemed to be on terms of considerableintimacy. This gave Mr. Cave an opportunity of collecting his thoughts,and he began to explain in an agitated manner that the crystal was not, asa matter of fact, entirely free for sale. His two customers were naturallysurprised at this, and inquired why he had not thought of that before hebegan to bargain. Mr. Cave became confused, but he stuck to his story,that the crystal was not in the market that afternoon, that a probablepurchaser of it had already appeared. The two, treating this as an attemptto raise the price still further, made as if they would leave the shop.But at this point the parlour door opened, and the owner of the darkfringe and the little eyes appeared.
She was a coarse-featured, corpulent woman, younger and very much largerthan Mr. Cave; she walked heavily, and her face was flushed. "That crystal_is_ for sale," she said. "And five pounds is a good enough price forit. I can't think what you're about, Cave, not to take the gentleman'soffer!"
Mr. Cave, greatly perturbed by the irruption, looked angrily at her overthe rims of his spectacles, and, without excessive assurance, asserted hisright to manage his business in his own way. An altercation began. The twocustomers watched the scene with interest and some amusement, occasionallyassisting Mrs. Cave with suggestions. Mr. Cave, hard driven, persisted ina confused and impossible story of an inquiry for the crystal thatmorning, and his agitation became painful. But he stuck to his point withextraordinary persistence. It was the young Oriental who ended thiscurious controversy. He proposed that they should call again in the courseof two days--so as to give the alleged inquirer a fair chance. "And thenwe must insist," said the clergyman. "Five pounds." Mrs. Cave took it onherself to apologise for her husband, explaining that he was sometimes "alittle odd," and as the two customers left, the couple prepared for a freediscussion of the incident in all its bearings.
Mrs. Cave talked to her husband with singular directness. The poor littleman, quivering with emotion, muddled himself between his stories,maintaining on the one hand that he had another customer in view, and onthe other asserting that the crystal was honestly worth ten guineas. "Whydid you ask five pounds?" said his wife. "_Do_ let me manage mybusiness my own way!" said Mr. Cave.
Mr. Cave had living with him a step-daughter and a step-son, and at supperthat night the transaction was re-discussed. None of them had a highopinion of Mr. Cave's business methods, and this action seemed aculminating folly.
"It's my opinion he's refused that crystal before," said the step-son, aloose-limbed lout of eighteen.
"But _Five Pounds_!" said the step-daughter, an argumentative youngwoman of six-and-twenty.
Mr. Cave's answers were wretched; he could only mumble weak assertionsthat he knew his own business best. They drove him from his half-eatensupper into the shop, to close it for the night, his ears aflame and tearsof vexation behind his spectacles. Why had he left the crystal in thewindow so long? The folly of it! That was the trouble closest in his mind.For a time he could see no way of evading sale.
After supper his step-daughter and step-son smartened themselves up andwent out and his wife retired upstairs to reflect upon the businessaspects of the crystal, over a little sugar and lemon and so forth in hotwater. Mr. Cave went into the shop, and stayed there until late,ostensibly to make ornamental rockeries for gold-fish cases, but reallyfor a private purpose that will be better explained later. The next dayMrs. Cave found that the crystal had been removed from the window, andwas lying behind some second-hand books on angling. She replaced it in aconspicuous position. But she did not argue further about it, as a nervousheadache disinclined her from debate. Mr. Cave was always disinclined. Theday passed disagreeably. Mr. Cave was, if anything, more absent-mindedthan usual, and uncommonly irritable withal. In the afternoon, when hiswife was taking her customary sleep, he removed the crystal from thewindow again.
The next day Mr. Cave had to deliver a consignment of dog-fish at one ofthe hospital schools, where they were needed for dissection. In hisabsence Mrs. Cave's mind reverted to the topic of the crystal, and themethods of expenditure suitable to a windfall of five pounds. She hadalready devised some very agreeable expedients, among others a dress ofgreen silk for herself and a trip to Richmond, when a jangling of thefront door bell summoned her into the shop. The customer was anexamination coach who came to complain of the non-delivery of certainfrogs asked for the previous day. Mrs. Cave did not approve of thisparticular branch of Mr. Cave's business, and the gentleman, who hadcalled in a somewhat aggressive mood, retired after a brief exchange ofwords--entirely civil, so far as he was concerned. Mrs. Cave's eye thennaturally turned to the window; for the sight of the crystal was anassurance of the five pounds and of her dreams. What was her surprise tofind it gone!
She went to the place behind the locker on the counter, where she haddiscovered it the day before. It was not there; and she immediately beganan eager search about the shop.
When Mr. Cave returned from his business with the dogfish, about a quarterto two in the afternoon, he found the shop in some confusion, and hiswife, extremely exasperated and on her knees behind the counter, routingamong his taxidermic material. Her face came up hot and angry over thecounter, as the jangling bell announced his return, and she forthwithaccused him of "hiding it."
"Hid _what_?" asked Mr. Cave.
r /> "The crystal!"
At that Mr. Cave, apparently much surprised, rushed to the window. "Isn'tit here?" he said. "Great Heavens! what has become of it?"
Just then Mr. Cave's step-son re-entered the shop from, the inner room--hehad come home a minute or so before Mr. Cave--and he was blasphemingfreely. He was apprenticed to a second-hand furniture dealer down theroad, but he had his meals at home, and he was naturally annoyed to findno dinner ready.
But when he heard of the loss of the crystal, he forgot his meal, and hisanger was diverted from his mother to his step-father. Their first idea,of course, was that he had hidden it. But Mr. Cave stoutly denied allknowledge of its fate, freely offering his bedabbled affidavit in thematter--and at last was worked up to the point of accusing, first, hiswife and then his stepson of having taken it with a view to a privatesale. So began an exceedingly acrimonious and emotional discussion, whichended for Mrs. Cave in a peculiar nervous condition midway betweenhysterics and amuck, and caused the step-son to be half-an-hour late atthe furniture establishment in the afternoon. Mr. Cave took refuge fromhis wife's emotions in the shop.
In the evening the matter was resumed, with less passion and in a judicialspirit, under the presidency of the step-daughter. The supper passedunhappily and culminated in a painful scene. Mr. Cave gave way at last toextreme exasperation, and went out banging the front door violently. Therest of the family, having discussed him with the freedom his absencewarranted, hunted the house from garret to cellar, hoping to light uponthe crystal.
The next day the two customers called again. They were received by Mrs.Cave almost in tears. It transpired that no one _could_ imagine allthat she had stood from Cave at various times in her married pilgrimage.... She also gave a garbled account of the disappearance. The clergymanand the Oriental laughed silently at one another, and said it was veryextraordinary. As Mrs. Cave seemed disposed to give them the completehistory of her life they made to leave the shop. Thereupon Mrs. Cave,still clinging to hope, asked for the clergyman's address, so that, if shecould get anything out of Cave, she might communicate it. The address wasduly given, but apparently was afterwards mislaid. Mrs. Cave can remembernothing about it.
In the evening of that day the Caves seem to have exhausted theiremotions, and Mr. Cave, who had been out in the afternoon, supped in agloomy isolation that contrasted pleasantly with the impassionedcontroversy of the previous days. For some time matters were very badlystrained in the Cave household, but neither crystal nor customerreappeared.
Now, without mincing the matter, we must admit that Mr. Cave was a liar.He knew perfectly well where the crystal was. It was in the rooms of Mr.Jacoby Wace, Assistant Demonstrator at St. Catherine's Hospital,Westbourne Street. It stood on the sideboard partially covered by a blackvelvet cloth, and beside a decanter of American whisky. It is from Mr.Wace, indeed, that the particulars upon which this narrative is based werederived. Cave had taken off the thing to the hospital hidden in thedog-fish sack, and there had pressed the young investigator to keep it forhim. Mr. Wace was a little dubious at first. His relationship to Cave waspeculiar. He had a taste for singular characters, and he had more thanonce invited the old man to smoke and drink in his rooms, and to unfoldhis rather amusing views of life in general and of his wife in particular.Mr. Wace had encountered Mrs. Cave, too, on occasions when Mr. Cave wasnot at home to attend to him. He knew the constant interference to whichCave was subjected, and having weighed the story judicially, he decided togive the crystal a refuge. Mr. Cave promised to explain the reasons forhis remarkable affection for the crystal more fully on a later occasion,but he spoke distinctly of seeing visions therein. He called on Mr. Wacethe same evening.
He told a complicated story. The crystal he said had come into hispossession with other oddments at the forced sale of another curiositydealer's effects, and not knowing what its value might be, he had ticketedit at ten shillings. It had hung upon his hands at that price for somemonths, and he was thinking of "reducing the figure," when he made asingular discovery.
At that time his health was very bad--and it must be borne in mind that,throughout all this experience, his physical condition was one of ebb--andhe was in considerable distress by reason of the negligence, the positiveill-treatment even, he received from his wife and step-children. His wifewas vain, extravagant, unfeeling, and had a growing taste for privatedrinking; his step-daughter was mean and over-reaching; and his step-sonhad conceived a violent dislike for him, and lost no chance of showing it.The requirements of his business pressed heavily upon him, and Mr. Wacedoes not think that he was altogether free from occasional intemperance.He had begun life in a comfortable position, he was a man of faireducation, and he suffered, for weeks at a stretch, from melancholia andinsomnia. Afraid to disturb his family, he would slip quietly from hiswife's side, when his thoughts became intolerable, and wander about thehouse. And about three o'clock one morning, late in August, chancedirected him into the shop.
The dirty little place was impenetrably black except in one spot, where heperceived an unusual glow of light. Approaching this, he discovered it tobe the crystal egg, which was standing on the corner of the countertowards the window. A thin ray smote through a crack in the shutters,impinged upon the object, and seemed as it were to fill its entireinterior.
It occurred to Mr. Cave that this was not in accordance with the laws ofoptics as he had known them in his younger days. He could understand therays being refracted by the crystal and coming to a focus in its interior,but this diffusion jarred with his physical conceptions. He approached thecrystal nearly, peering into it and round it, with a transient revival ofthe scientific curiosity that in his youth had determined his choice of acalling. He was surprised to find the light not steady, but writhingwithin the substance of the egg, as though that object was a hollow sphereof some luminous vapour. In moving about to get different points of view,he suddenly found that he had come between it and the ray, and that thecrystal none the less remained luminous. Greatly astonished, he lifted itout of the light ray and carried it to the darkest part of the shop. Itremained bright for some four or five minutes, when it slowly faded andwent out. He placed it in the thin streak of daylight, and itsluminousness was almost immediately restored.
So far, at least, Mr. Wace was able to verify the remarkable story of Mr.Cave. He has himself repeatedly held this crystal in a ray of light (whichhad to be of a less diameter than one millimetre). And in a perfectdarkness, such as could be produced by velvet wrapping, the crystal didundoubtedly appear very faintly phosphorescent. It would seem, however,that the luminousness was of some exceptional sort, and not equallyvisible to all eyes; for Mr. Harbinger--whose name will be familiar to thescientific reader in connection with the Pasteur Institute--was quiteunable to see any light whatever. And Mr. Wace's own capacity for itsappreciation was out of comparison inferior to that of Mr. Cave's. Evenwith Mr. Cave the power varied very considerably: his vision was mostvivid during states of extreme weakness and fatigue.
Now, from the outset, this light in the crystal exercised a curiousfascination upon Mr. Cave. And it says more for his loneliness of soulthan a volume of pathetic writing could do, that he told no human being ofhis curious observations. He seems to have been living in such anatmosphere of petty spite that to admit the existence of a pleasure wouldhave been to risk the loss of it. He found that as the dawn advanced, andthe amount of diffused light increased, the crystal became to allappearance non-luminous. And for some time he was unable to see anythingin it, except at night-time, in dark corners of the shop.
But the use of an old velvet cloth, which he used as a background for acollection of minerals, occurred to him, and by doubling this, and puttingit over his head and hands, he was able to get a sight of the luminousmovement within the crystal even in the day-time. He was very cautiouslest he should be thus discovered by his wife, and he practised thisoccupation only in the afternoons, while she was asleep upstairs, and thencircumspectly in a hollow under the counter. And one d
ay, turning thecrystal about in his hands, he saw something. It came and went like aflash, but it gave him the impression that the object had for a momentopened to him the view of a wide and spacious and strange country; andturning it about, he did, just as the light faded, see the same visionagain.
Now it would be tedious and unnecessary to state all the phases of Mr.Cave's discovery from this point. Suffice that the effect was this: thecrystal, being peered into at an angle of about 137 degrees from thedirection of the illuminating ray, gave a clear and consistent picture ofa wide and peculiar country-side. It was not dream-like at all: itproduced a definite impression of reality, and the better the light themore real and solid it seemed. It was a moving picture: that is to say,certain objects moved in it, but slowly in an orderly manner like realthings, and, according as the direction of the lighting and visionchanged, the picture changed also. It must, indeed, have been like lookingthrough an oval glass at a view, and turning the glass about to get atdifferent aspects.
Mr. Cave's statements, Mr. Wace assures me, were extremely circumstantial,and entirely free from any of that emotional quality that taintshallucinatory impressions. But it must be remembered that all the effortsof Mr. Wace to see any similar clarity in the faint opalescence of thecrystal were wholly unsuccessful, try as he would. The difference inintensity of the impressions received by the two men was very great, andit is quite conceivable that what was a view to Mr. Cave was a mereblurred nebulosity to Mr. Wace.
The view, as Mr. Cave described it, was invariably of an extensive plain,and he seemed always to be looking at it from a considerable height, as iffrom a tower or a mast. To the east and to the west the plain was boundedat a remote distance by vast reddish cliffs, which reminded him of thosehe had seen in some picture; but what the picture was Mr. Wace was unableto ascertain. These cliffs passed north and south--he could tell thepoints of the compass by the stars that were visible of a night--recedingin an almost illimitable perspective and fading into the mists of thedistance before they met. He was nearer the eastern set of cliffs; on theoccasion of his first vision the sun was rising over them, and blackagainst the sunlight and pale against their shadow appeared a multitude ofsoaring forms that Mr. Cave regarded as birds. A vast range of buildingsspread below him; he seemed to be looking down upon them; and as theyapproached the blurred and refracted edge of the picture they becameindistinct. There were also trees curious in shape, and in colouring adeep mossy green and an exquisite grey, beside a wide and shining canal.And something great and brilliantly coloured flew across the picture. Butthe first time Mr. Cave saw these pictures he saw only in flashes, hishands shook, his head moved, the vision came and went, and grew foggy andindistinct. And at first he had the greatest difficulty in finding thepicture again once the direction of it was lost.
His next clear vision, which came about a week after the first, theinterval having yielded nothing but tantalising glimpses and some usefulexperience, showed him the view down the length of the valley. The viewwas different, but he had a curious persuasion, which his subsequentobservations abundantly confirmed, that he was regarding the strange worldfrom exactly the same spot, although he was looking in a differentdirection. The long facade of the great building, whose roof he had lookeddown upon before, was now receding in perspective. He recognised the roof.In the front of the facade was a terrace of massive proportions andextraordinary length, and down the middle of the terrace, at certainintervals, stood huge but very graceful masts, bearing small shiny objectswhich reflected the setting sun. The import of these small objects did notoccur to Mr. Cave until some time after, as he was describing the scene toMr. Wace. The terrace overhung a thicket of the most luxuriant andgraceful vegetation, and beyond this was a wide grassy lawn on whichcertain broad creatures, in form like beetles but enormously larger,reposed. Beyond this again was a richly decorated causeway of pinkishstone; and beyond that, and lined with dense red weeds, and passing up thevalley exactly parallel with the distant cliffs, was a broad andmirror-like expanse of water. The air seemed full of squadrons of greatbirds, manoeuvring in stately curves; and across the river was a multitudeof splendid buildings, richly coloured and glittering with metallic traceryand facets, among a forest of moss-like and lichenous trees. And suddenlysomething flapped repeatedly across the vision, like the fluttering of ajewelled fan or the beating of a wing, and a face, or rather the upperpart of a face with very large eyes, came as it were close to his own andas if on the other side of the crystal. Mr. Cave was so startled and soimpressed by the absolute reality of these eyes that he drew his head backfrom the crystal to look behind it. He had become so absorbed in watchingthat he was quite surprised to find himself in the cool darkness of hislittle shop, with its familiar odour of methyl, mustiness, and decay. Andas he blinked about him, the glowing crystal faded and went out.
Such were the first general impressions of Mr. Cave. The story iscuriously direct and circumstantial. From the outset, when the valleyfirst flashed momentarily on his senses, his imagination was strangelyaffected, and as he began to appreciate the details of the scene he saw,his wonder rose to the point of a passion. He went about his businesslistless and distraught, thinking only of the time when he should be ableto return to his watching. And then a few weeks after his first sight ofthe valley came the two customers, the stress and excitement of theiroffer, and the narrow escape of the crystal from sale, as I have alreadytold.
Now, while the thing was Mr. Cave's secret, it remained a mere wonder, athing to creep to covertly and peep at, as a child might peep upon aforbidden garden. But Mr. Wace has, for a young scientific investigator, aparticularly lucid and consecutive habit of mind. Directly the crystal andits story came to him, and he had satisfied himself, by seeing thephosphorescence with his own eyes, that there really was a certainevidence for Mr. Cave's statements, he proceeded to develop the mattersystematically. Mr. Cave was only too eager to come and feast his eyes onthis wonderland he saw, and he came every night from half-past eight untilhalf-past ten, and sometimes, in Mr. Wace's absence, during the day. OnSunday afternoons, also, he came. From the outset Mr. Wace made copiousnotes, and it was due to his scientific method that the relation betweenthe direction from which the initiating ray entered the crystal and theorientation of the picture were proved. And, by covering the crystal in abox perforated only with a small aperture to admit the exciting ray, andby substituting black holland for his buff blinds, he greatly improved theconditions of the observations; so that in a little while they were ableto survey the valley in any direction they desired.
So having cleared the way, we may give a brief account of this visionaryworld within the crystal. The things were in all cases seen by Mr. Cave,and the method of working was invariably for him to watch the crystal andreport what he saw, while Mr. Wace (who as a science student had learntthe trick of writing in the dark) wrote a brief note of his report. Whenthe crystal faded, it was put into its box in the proper position and theelectric light turned on. Mr. Wace asked questions, and suggestedobservations to clear up difficult points. Nothing, indeed, could havebeen less visionary and more matter-of-fact.
The attention of Mr. Cave had been speedily directed to the bird-likecreatures he had seen so abundantly present in each of his earliervisions. His first impression was soon corrected, and he considered for atime that they might represent a diurnal species of bat. Then he thought,grotesquely enough, that they might be cherubs. Their heads were round andcuriously human, and it was the eyes of one of them that had so startledhim on his second observation. They had broad, silvery wings, notfeathered, but glistening almost as brilliantly as new-killed fish andwith the same subtle play of colour, and these wings were not built on theplan of bird-wing or bat, Mr. Wace learned, but supported by curved ribsradiating from the body. (A sort of butterfly wing with curved ribs seemsbest to express their appearance.) The body was small, but fitted with twobunches of prehensile organs, like long tentacles, immediately under themouth. Incredible as it appeared to Mr. Wace, the per
suasion at lastbecame irresistible that it was these creatures which owned the greatquasi-human buildings and the magnificent garden that made the broadvalley so splendid. And Mr. Cave perceived that the buildings, with otherpeculiarities, had no doors, but that the great circular windows, whichopened freely, gave the creatures egress and entrance. They would alightupon their tentacles, fold their wings to a smallness almost rod-like, andhop into the interior. But among them was a multitude of smaller-wingedcreatures, like great dragon-flies and moths and flying beetles, andacross the greensward brilliantly-coloured gigantic ground-beetles crawledlazily to and fro. Moreover, on the causeways and terraces, large-headedcreatures similar to the greater winged flies, but wingless, were visible,hopping busily upon their hand-like tangle of tentacles.
Allusion has already been made to the glittering objects upon masts thatstood upon the terrace of the nearer building. It dawned upon Mr. Cave,after regarding one of these masts very fixedly on one particularly vividday that the glittering object there was a crystal exactly like that intowhich he peered. And a still more careful scrutiny convinced him that eachone in a vista of nearly twenty carried a similar object.
Occasionally one of the large flying creatures would flutter up to one,and folding its wings and coiling a number of its tentacles about themast, would regard the crystal fixedly for a space,--sometimes for as longas fifteen minutes. And a series of observations, made at the suggestionof Mr. Wace, convinced both watchers that, so far as this visionary worldwas concerned, the crystal into which they peered actually stood at thesummit of the end-most mast on the terrace, and that on one occasion atleast one of these inhabitants of this other world had looked into Mr.Cave's face while he was making these observations.
So much for the essential facts of this very singular story. Unless wedismiss it all as the ingenious fabrication of Mr. Wace, we have tobelieve one of two things: either that Mr. Cave's crystal was in twoworlds at once, and that while it was carried about in one, it remainedstationary in the other, which seems altogether absurd; or else that ithad some peculiar relation of sympathy with another and exactly similarcrystal in this other world, so that what was seen in the interior of theone in this world was, under suitable conditions, visible to an observerin the corresponding crystal in the other world; and _vice versa_. Atpresent, indeed, we do not know of any way in which two crystals could socome _en rapport_, but nowadays we know enough to understand that thething is not altogether impossible. This view of the crystals as _enrapport_ was the supposition that occurred to Mr. Wace, and to me atleast it seems extremely plausible...
And where was this other world? On this, also, the alert intelligence ofMr. Wace speedily threw light. After sunset, the sky darkened rapidly--there was a very brief twilight interval indeed--and the stars shone out.They were recognisably the same as those we see, arranged in the sameconstellations. Mr. Cave recognised the Bear, the Pleiades, Aldebaran, andSirius; so that the other world must be somewhere in the solar system,and, at the utmost, only a few hundreds of millions of miles from our own.Following up this clue, Mr. Wace learned that the midnight sky was adarker blue even than our midwinter sky, and that the sun seemed a littlesmaller. _And there were two small moons!_ "like our moon butsmaller, and quite differently marked," one of which moved so rapidly thatits motion was clearly visible as one regarded it. These moons were neverhigh in the sky, but vanished as they rose: that is, every time theyrevolved they were eclipsed because they were so near their primaryplanet. And all this answers quite completely, although Mr. Cave did notknow it, to what must be the condition of things on Mars.
Indeed, it seems an exceedingly plausible conclusion that peering intothis crystal Mr. Cave did actually see the planet Mars and itsinhabitants. And if that be the case, then the evening star that shone sobrilliantly in the sky of that distant vision was neither more nor lessthan our own familiar earth.
For a time the Martians--if they were Martians--do not seem to have knownof Mr. Cave's inspection. Once or twice one would come to peer, and goaway very shortly to some other mast, as though the vision wasunsatisfactory. During this time Mr. Cave was able to watch theproceedings of these winged people without being disturbed by theirattentions, and although his report is necessarily vague and fragmentary,it is nevertheless very suggestive. Imagine the impression of humanity aMartian observer would get who, after a difficult process of preparationand with considerable fatigue to the eyes, was able to peer at London fromthe steeple of St. Martin's Church for stretches, at longest, of fourminutes at a time. Mr. Cave was unable to ascertain if the winged Martianswere the same as the Martians who hopped about the causeways and terraces,and if the latter could put on wings at will. He several times saw certainclumsy bipeds, dimly suggestive of apes, white and partially translucent,feeding among certain of the lichenous trees, and once some of these fledbefore one of the hopping, round-headed Martians. The latter caught one inits tentacles, and then the picture faded suddenly and left Mr. Cave mosttantalisingly in the dark. On another occasion a vast thing, that Mr. Cavethought at first was some gigantic insect, appeared advancing along thecauseway beside the canal with extraordinary rapidity. As this drew nearerMr. Cave perceived that it was a mechanism of shining metals and ofextraordinary complexity. And then, when he looked again, it had passedout of sight.
After a time Mr. Wace aspired to attract the attention of the Martians,and the next time that the strange eyes of one of them appeared close tothe crystal Mr. Cave cried out and sprang away, and they immediatelyturned on the light and began to gesticulate in a manner suggestive ofsignalling. But when at last Mr. Cave examined the crystal again theMartian had departed.
Thus far these observations had progressed in early November, and then Mr.Cave, feeling that the suspicions of his family about the crystal wereallayed, began to take it to and fro with him in order that, as occasionarose in the daytime or night, he might comfort himself with what was fastbecoming the most real thing in his existence.
In December Mr. Wace's work in connection with a forthcoming examinationbecame heavy, the sittings were reluctantly suspended for a week, and forten or eleven days--he is not quite sure which--he saw nothing of Cave. Hethen grew anxious to resume these investigations, and, the stress of hisseasonal labours being abated, he went down to Seven Dials. At the cornerhe noticed a shutter before a bird fancier's window, and then another at acobbler's. Mr. Cave's shop was closed.
He rapped and the door was opened by the step-son in black. He at oncecalled Mrs. Cave, who was, Mr. Wace could not but observe, in cheap butample widow's weeds of the most imposing pattern. Without any very greatsurprise Mr. Wace learnt that Cave was dead and already buried. She was intears, and her voice was a little thick. She had just returned fromHighgate. Her mind seemed occupied with her own prospects and thehonourable details of the obsequies, but Mr. Wace was at last able tolearn the particulars of Cave's death. He had been found dead in his shopin the early morning, the day after his last visit to Mr. Wace, and thecrystal had been clasped in his stone-cold hands. His face was smiling,said Mrs. Cave, and the velvet cloth from the minerals lay on the floor athis feet. He must have been dead five or six hours when he was found.
This came as a great shock to Wace, and he began to reproach himselfbitterly for having neglected the plain symptoms of the old man'sill-health. But his chief thought was of the crystal. He approached thattopic in a gingerly manner, because he knew Mrs. Cave's peculiarities. Hewas dumfounded to learn that it was sold.
Mrs. Cave's first impulse, directly Cave's body had been taken upstairs,had been to write to the mad clergyman who had offered five pounds for thecrystal, informing him of its recovery; but after a violent hunt, in whichher daughter joined her, they were convinced of the loss of his address.As they were without the means required to mourn and bury Cave in theelaborate style the dignity of an old Seven Dials inhabitant demands, theyhad appealed to a friendly fellow-tradesman in Great Portland Street. Hehad very kindly taken over a portion of the stock at a valua
tion. Thevaluation was his own, and the crystal egg was included in one of thelots. Mr. Wace, after a few suitable condolences, a little off-handedlyproffered perhaps, hurried at once to Great Portland Street. But there helearned that the crystal egg had already been sold to a tall, dark man ingrey. And there the material facts in this curious, and to me at leastvery suggestive, story come abruptly to an end. The Great Portland Streetdealer did not know who the tall dark man in grey was, nor had he observedhim with sufficient attention to describe him minutely. He did not evenknow which way this person had gone after leaving the shop. For a time Mr.Wace remained in the shop, trying the dealer's patience with hopelessquestions, venting his own exasperation. And at last, realising abruptlythat the whole thing had passed out of his hands, had vanished like avision of the night, he returned to his own rooms, a little astonished tofind the notes he had made still tangible and visible upon, his untidytable.
His annoyance and disappointment were naturally very great. He made asecond call (equally ineffectual) upon the Great Portland Street dealer,and he resorted to advertisements in such periodicals as were lively tocome into the hands of a _bric-a-brac_ collector. He also wroteletters to _The Daily Chronicle_ and _Nature_, but both thoseperiodicals, suspecting a hoax, asked him to reconsider his action beforethey printed, and he was advised that such a strange story, unfortunatelyso bare of supporting evidence, might imperil his reputation as aninvestigator. Moreover, the calls of his proper work were urgent. So thatafter a month or so, save for an occasional reminder to certain dealers,he had reluctantly to abandon the quest for the crystal egg, and from thatday to this it remains undiscovered. Occasionally, however, he tells me,and I can quite believe him, he has bursts of zeal, in which he abandonshis more urgent occupation and resumes the search.
Whether or not it will remain lost for ever, with the material and originof it, are things equally speculative at the present time. If the presentpurchaser is a collector, one would have expected the enquiries of Mr.Wace to have reached him through the dealers. He has been able to discoverMr. Cave's clergyman and "Oriental"--no other than the Rev. James Parkerand the young Prince of Bosso-Kuni in Java. I am obliged to them forcertain particulars. The object of the Prince was simply curiosity--andextravagance. He was so eager to buy because Cave was so oddly reluctantto sell. It is just as possible that the buyer in the second instance wassimply a casual purchaser and not a collector at all, and the crystal egg,for all I know, may at the present moment be within a mile of me,decorating a drawing-room or serving as a paper-weight--its remarkablefunctions all unknown. Indeed, it is partly with the idea of such apossibility that I have thrown this narrative into a form that will giveit a chance of being read by the ordinary consumer of fiction.
My own ideas in the matter are practically identical with those of Mr.Wace. I believe the crystal on the mast in Mars and the crystal egg of Mr.Cave's to be in some physical, but at present quite inexplicable, way_en rapport_, and we both believe further that the terrestrialcrystal must have been--possibly at some remote date--sent hither fromthat planet, in order to give the Martians a near view of our affairs.Possibly the fellows to the crystals on the other masts are also on ourglobe. No theory of hallucination suffices for the facts.