Chapter XVI
The Cavern
In the evening Mr. Trelawny took again the whole party into the study.When we were all attention he began to unfold his plans:
"I have come to the conclusion that for the proper carrying out of whatwe will call our Great Experiment we must have absolute and completeisolation. Isolation not merely for a day or two, but for as long aswe may require. Here such a thing would be impossible; the needs andhabits of a great city with its ingrained possibilities ofinterruption, would, or might, quite upset us. Telegrams, registeredletters, or express messengers would alone be sufficient; but the greatarmy of those who want to get something would make disaster certain.In addition, the occurrences of the last week have drawn policeattention to this house. Even if special instructions to keep an eyeon it have not been issued from Scotland Yard or the District Station,you may be sure that the individual policeman on his rounds will keepit well under observation. Besides, the servants who have dischargedthemselves will before long begin to talk. They must; for they have,for the sake of their own characters, to give some reason for thetermination of a service which has I should say a position in theneighbourhood. The servants of the neighbours will begin to talk, and,perhaps the neighbours themselves. Then the active and intelligentPress will, with its usual zeal for the enlightenment of the public andits eye to increase of circulation, get hold of the matter. When thereporter is after us we shall not have much chance of privacy. Even ifwe were to bar ourselves in, we should not be free from interruption,possibly from intrusion. Either would ruin our plans, and so we musttake measures to effect a retreat, carrying all our impedimenta withus. For this I am prepared. For a long time past I have foreseen sucha possibility, and have made preparation for it. Of course, I had noforeknowledge of what has happened; but I knew something would, ormight, happen. For more than two years past my house in Cornwall hasbeen made ready to receive all the curios which are preserved here.When Corbeck went off on his search for the lamps I had the old houseat Kyllion made ready; it is fitted with electric light all over, andall the appliances for manufacture of the light are complete. I hadperhaps better tell you, for none of you, not even Margaret, knowsanything of it, that the house is absolutely shut out from publicaccess or even from view. It stands on a little rocky promontorybehind a steep hill, and except from the sea cannot be seen. Of old itwas fenced in by a high stone wall, for the house which it succeededwas built by an ancestor of mine in the days when a great house faraway from a centre had to be prepared to defend itself. Here, then, isa place so well adapted to our needs that it might have been preparedon purpose. I shall explain it to you when we are all there. Thiswill not be long, for already our movement is in train. I have sentword to Marvin to have all preparation for our transport ready. He isto have a special train, which is to run at night so as to avoidnotice. Also a number of carts and stone-wagons, with sufficient menand appliances to take all our packing-cases to Paddington. We shallbe away before the Argus-eyed Pressman is on the watch. We shall todaybegin our packing up; and I dare say that by tomorrow night we shall beready. In the outhouses I have all the packing-cases which were usedfor bringing the things from Egypt, and I am satisfied that as theywere sufficient for the journey across the desert and down the Nile toAlexandria and thence on to London, they will serve without failbetween here and Kyllion. We four men, with Margaret to hand us suchthings as we may require, will be able to get the things packed safely;and the carrier's men will take them to the trucks.
"Today the servants go to Kyllion, and Mrs. Grant will make sucharrangements as may be required. She will take a stock of necessarieswith her, so that we will not attract local attention by our dailyneeds; and will keep us supplied with perishable food from London.Thanks to Margaret's wise and generous treatment of the servants whodecided to remain, we have got a staff on which we can depend. Theyhave been already cautioned to secrecy, so that we need not fear gossipfrom within. Indeed, as the servants will be in London after theirpreparations at Kyllion are complete, there will not be much subjectfor gossip, in detail at any rate.
"As, however, we should commence the immediate work of packing at once,we will leave over the after proceedings till later when we haveleisure."
Accordingly we set about our work. Under Mr. Trelawny's guidance, andaided by the servants, we took from the outhouses great packing-cases.Some of these were of enormous strength, fortified by many thicknessesof wood, and by iron bands and rods with screw-ends and nuts. Weplaced them throughout the house, each close to the object which it wasto contain. When this preliminary work had been effected, and therehad been placed in each room and in the hall great masses of new hay,cotton-waste and paper, the servants were sent away. Then we set aboutpacking.
No one, not accustomed to packing, could have the slightest idea of theamount of the amount of work involved in such a task as that in whichin we were engaged. For my own part I had had a vague idea that therewere a large number of Egyptian objects in Mr. Trelawny's house; butuntil I came to deal with them seriatim I had little idea of eithertheir importance, the size of some of them, or of their endless number.Far into the night we worked. At times we used all the strength whichwe could muster on a single object; again we worked separately, butalways under Mr. Trelawny's immediate direction. He himself, assistedby Margaret, kept an exact tall of each piece.
It was only when we sat down, utterly wearied, to a long-delayed supperthat we began to realised that a large part of the work was done. Onlya few of the packing-cases, however, were closed; for a vast amount ofwork still remained. We had finished some of the cases, each of whichheld only one of the great sarcophagi. The cases which held manyobjects could not be closed till all had been differentiated and packed.
I slept that night without movement or without dreams; and on ourcomparing notes in the morning, I found that each of the others had hadthe same experience.
By dinner-time next evening the whole work was complete, and all wasready for the carriers who were to come at midnight. A little beforethe appointed time we heard the rumble of carts; then we were shortlyinvaded by an army of workmen, who seemed by sheer force of numbers tomove without effort, in an endless procession, all our preparedpackages. A little over an hour sufficed them, and when the carts hadrumbled away, we all got ready to follow them to Paddington. Silviowas of course to be taken as one of our party.
Before leaving we went in a body over the house, which looked desolateindeed. As the servants had all gone to Cornwall there had been noattempt at tidying-up; every room and passage in which we had worked,and all the stairways, were strewn with paper and waste, and markedwith dirty feet.
The last thing which Mr. Trelawny did before coming away was to takefrom the great safe the Ruby with the Seven Stars. As he put it safelyinto his pocket-book, Margaret, who had all at once seemed to growdeadly tired and stood beside her father pale and rigid, suddenlybecame all aglow, as though the sight of the Jewel had inspired her.She smiled at her father approvingly as she said:
"You are right, Father. There will not be any more trouble tonight.She will not wreck your arrangements for any cause. I would stake mylife upon it."
"She--or something--wrecked us in the desert when we had come from thetomb in the Valley of the Sorcerer!" was the grim comment of Corbeck,who was standing by. Margaret answered him like a flash:
"Ah! she was then near her tomb from which for thousands of years herbody had not been moved. She must know that things are different now."
"How must she know?" asked Corbeck keenly.
"If she has that astral body that Father spoke of, surely she mustknow! How can she fail to, with an invisible presence and an intellectthat can roam abroad even to the stars and the worlds beyond us!" Shepaused, and her father said solemnly:
"It is on that supposition that we are proceeding. We must have thecourage of our convictions, and act on them--to the last!"
Margaret took his hand and held
it in a dreamy kind of way as we filedout of the house. She was holding it still when he locked the halldoor, and when we moved up the road to the gateway, whence we took acab to Paddington.
When all the goods were loaded at the station, the whole of the workmenwent on to the train; this took also some of the stone-wagons used forcarrying the cases with the great sarcophagi. Ordinary carts andplenty of horses were to be found at Westerton, which was our stationfor Kyllion. Mr. Trelawny had ordered a sleeping-carriage for ourparty; as soon as the train had started we all turned into our cubicles.
That night I slept sound. There was over me a conviction of securitywhich was absolute and supreme. Margaret's definite announcement:"There will not be any trouble tonight!" seemed to carry assurance withit. I did not question it; nor did anyone else. It was onlyafterwards that I began to think as to how she was so sure. The trainwas a slow one, stopping many times and for considerable intervals. AsMr. Trelawny did not wish to arrive at Westerton before dark, there wasno need to hurry; and arrangements had been made to feed the workmen atcertain places on the journey. We had our own hamper with us in theprivate car.
All that afternoon we talked over the Great Experiment, which seemed tohave become a definite entity in our thoughts. Mr. Trelawny becamemore and more enthusiastic as the time wore on; hope was with himbecoming certainty. Doctor Winchester seemed to become imbued withsome of his spirit, though at times he would throw out some scientificfact which would either make an impasse to the other's line ofargument, or would come as an arresting shock. Mr. Corbeck, on theother hand, seemed slightly antagonistic to the theory. It may havebeen that whilst the opinions of the others advanced, his own stoodstill; but the effect was an attitude which appeared negative, if notwholly one of negation.
As for Margaret, she seemed to be in some way overcome. Either it wassome new phase of feeling with her, or else she was taking the issuemore seriously than she had yet done. She was generally more or lessdistraite, as though sunk in a brown study; from this she would recoverherself with a start. This was usually when there occurred some markedepisode in the journey, such as stopping at a station, or when thethunderous rumble of crossing a viaduct woke the echoes of the hills orcliffs around us. On each such occasion she would plunge into theconversation, taking such a part in it as to show that, whatever hadbeen her abstracted thought, her senses had taken in fully all that hadgone on around her. Towards myself her manner was strange. Sometimesit was marked by a distance, half shy, half haughty, which was new tome. At other times there were moments of passion in look and gesturewhich almost made me dizzy with delight. Little, however, of a markednature transpired during the journey. There was but one episode whichhad in it any element of alarm, but as we were all asleep at the timeit did not disturb us. We only learned it from a communicative guard inthe morning. Whilst running between Dawlish and Teignmouth the trainwas stopped by a warning given by someone who moved a torch to and froright on the very track. The driver had found on pulling up that justahead of the train a small landslip had taken place, some of the redearth from the high bank having fallen away. It did not however reachto the metals; and the driver had resumed his way, none too wellpleased at the delay. To use his own words, the guard thought "therewas too much bally caution on this 'ere line!'"
We arrived at Westerton about nine o'clock in the evening. Carts andhorses were in waiting, and the work of unloading the train began atonce. Our own party did not wait to see the work done, as it was inthe hands of competent people. We took the carriage which was inwaiting, and through the darkness of the night sped on to Kyllion.
We were all impressed by the house as it appeared in the brightmoonlight. A great grey stone mansion of the Jacobean period; vast andspacious, standing high over the sea on the very verge of a high cliff.When we had swept round the curve of the avenue cut through the rock,and come out on the high plateau on which the house stood, the crashand murmur of waves breaking against rock far below us came with aninvigorating breath of moist sea air. We understood then in an instanthow well we were shut out from the world on that rocky shelf above thesea.
Within the house we found all ready. Mrs. Grant and her staff hadworked well, and all was bright and fresh and clean. We took a briefsurvey of the chief rooms and then separated to have a wash and tochange our clothes after our long journey of more than four-and-twentyhours.
We had supper in the great dining-room on the south side, the walls ofwhich actually hung over the sea. The murmur came up muffled, but itnever ceased. As the little promontory stood well out into the sea,the northern side of the house was open; and the due north was in noway shut out by the great mass of rock, which, reared high above us,shut out the rest of the world. Far off across the bay we could seethe trembling lights of the castle, and here and there along the shorethe faint light of a fisher's window. For the rest the sea was a darkblue plain with an occasional flicker of light as the gleam ofstarlight fell on the slope of a swelling wave.
When supper was over we all adjourned to the room which Mr. Trelawnyhad set aside as his study, his bedroom being close to it. As weentered, the first thing I noticed was a great safe, somewhat similarto that which stood in his room in London. When we were in the roomMr. Trelawny went over to the table, and, taking out his pocket-book,laid it on the table. As he did so he pressed down on it with the palmof his hand. A strange pallor came over his face. With fingers thattrembled he opened the book, saying as he did so:
"Its bulk does not seem the same; I hope nothing has happened!"
All three of us men crowded round close. Margaret alone remained calm;she stood erect and silent, and still as a statue. She had a far-awaylook in her eyes, as though she did not either know or care what wasgoing on around her.
With a despairing gesture Trelawny threw open the pouch of thepocket-book wherein he had placed the Jewel of Seven Stars. As he sankdown on the chair which stood close to him, he said in a hoarse voice:
"My God! it is gone. Without it the Great Experiment can come tonothing!"
His words seemed to wake Margaret from her introspective mood. Anagonised spasm swept her face; but almost on the instant she was calm.She almost smiled as she said:
"You may have left it in your room, Father. Perhaps it has fallen outof the pocket-book whilst you were changing." Without a word we allhurried into the next room through the open door between the study andthe bedroom. And then a sudden calm fell on us like a cloud of fear.
There! on the table, lay the Jewel of Seven Stars, shining andsparkling with lurid light, as though each of the seven points of eachthe seven stars gleamed through blood!
Timidly we each looked behind us, and then at each other. Margaret wasnow like the rest of us. She had lost her statuesque calm. All theintrospective rigidity had gone from her; and she clasped her handstogether till the knuckles were white.
Without a word Mr. Trelawny raised the Jewel, and hurried with it intothe next room. As quietly as he could he opened the door of the safewith the key fastened to his wrist and placed the Jewel within. Whenthe heavy doors were closed and locked he seemed to breathe more freely.
Somehow this episode, though a disturbing one in many ways, seemed tobring us back to our old selves. Since we had left London we had allbeen overstrained; and this was a sort of relief. Another step in ourstrange enterprise had been effected.
The change back was more marked in Margaret than in any of us. Perhapsit was that she was a woman, whilst we were men; perhaps it was thatshe was younger than the rest; perhaps both reasons were effective,each in its own way. At any rate the change was there, and I washappier than I had been through the long journey. All her buoyancy,her tenderness, her deep feeling seemed to shine forth once more; nowand again as her father's eyes rested on her, his face seemed to lightup.
Whilst we waited for the carts to arrive, Mr. Trelawny took us throughthe house, pointing out and explaining where the objects which we hadbrought with us we
re to be placed. In one respect only did he withholdconfidence. The positions of all those things which had connectionwith the Great Experiment were not indicated. The cases containing themwere to be left in the outer hall, for the present.
By the time we had made the survey, the carts began to arrive; and thestir and bustle of the previous night were renewed. Mr. Trelawny stoodin the hall beside the massive ironbound door, and gave directions asto the placing of each of the great packing-cases. Those containingmany items were placed in the inner hall where they were to be unpacked.
In an incredibly short time the whole consignment was delivered; andthe men departed with a douceur for each, given through their foreman,which made them effusive in their thanks. Then we all went to our ownrooms. There was a strange confidence over us all. I do not thinkthat any one of us had a doubt as the the quiet passing of theremainder of the night.
The faith was justified, for on our re-assembling in the morning wefound that all had slept well and peaceably.
During that day all the curios, except those required for the GreatExperiment, were put into the places designed for them. Then it wasarranged that all the servants should go back with Mrs. Grant to Londonon the next morning.
When they had all gone Mr. Trelawny, having seen the doors locked, tookus into the study.
"Now," said he when we were seated, "I have a secret to impart; but,according to an old promise which does not leave me free, I must askyou each to give me a solemn promise not to reveal it. For threehundred years at least such a promise has been exacted from everyone towhom it was told, and more than once life and safety were securedthrough loyal observance of the promise. Even as it is, I am breakingthe letter, if not the spirit of the tradition; for I should only tellit to the immediate members of my family."
We all gave the promise required. Then he went on:
"There is a secret place in this house, a cave, natural originally butfinished by labour, underneath this house. I will not undertake to saythat it has always been used according to the law. During the BloodyAssize more than a few Cornishmen found refuge in it; and later, andearlier, it formed, I have no doubt whatever, a useful place forstoring contraband goods. 'Tre Pol and Pen', I suppose you know, havealways been smugglers; and their relations and friends and neighbourshave not held back from the enterprise. For all such reasons a safehiding-place was always considered a valuable possession; and as theheads of our House have always insisted on preserving the secret, I amin honour bound to it. Later on, if all be well, I shall of coursetell you, Margaret, and you too, Ross, under the conditions that I ambound to make."
He rose up, and we all followed him. Leaving us in the outer hall, hewent away alone for a few minutes; and returning, beckoned us to followhim.
In the inside hall we found a whole section of an outstanding anglemoved away, and from the cavity saw a great hole dimly dark, and thebeginning of a rough staircase cut in the rock. As it was not pitchdark there was manifestly some means of lighting it naturally, sowithout pause we followed our host as he descended. After some fortyor fifty steps cut in a winding passage, we came to a great cave whosefurther end tapered away into blackness. It was a huge place, dimlylit by a few irregular slits of eccentric shape. Manifestly these werefaults in the rock which would readily allow the windows be disguised.Close to each of them was a hanging shutter which could be easily swungacross by means of a dangling rope. The sound of the ceaseless beat ofthe waves came up muffled from far below. Mr. Trelawny at once beganto speak:
"This is the spot which I have chosen, as the best I know, for thescene of our Great Experiment. In a hundred different ways it fulfilsthe conditions which I am led to believe are primary with regard tosuccess. Here, we are, and shall be, as isolated as Queen Tera herselfwould have been in her rocky tomb in the Valley of the Sorcerer, andstill in a rocky cavern. For good or ill we must here stand by ourchances, and abide by results. If we are successful we shall be ableto let in on the world of modern science such a flood of light from theOld World as will change every condition of thought and experiment andpractice. If we fail, then even the knowledge of our attempt will diewith us. For this, and all else which may come, I believe we areprepared!" He paused. No one spoke, but we all bowed our headsgravely in acquiescence. He resumed, but with a certain hesitancy:
"It is not yet too late! If any of you have a doubt or misgiving, forGod's sake speak it now! Whoever it may be, can go hence without let orhindrance. The rest of us can go on our way alone!"
Again he paused, and looked keenly at us in turn. We looked at eachother; but no one quailed. For my own part, if I had had any doubt asto going on, the look on Margaret's face would have reassured me. Itwas fearless; it was intense; it was full of a divine calm.
Mr. Trelawny took a long breath, and in a more cheerful, as well as ina more decided tone, went on:
"As we are all of one mind, the sooner we get the necessary matters intrain the better. Let me tell you that this place, like all the restof the house, can be lit with electricity. We could not join the wiresto the mains lest our secret should become known, but I have a cablehere which we can attach in the hall and complete the circuit!" As hewas speaking, he began to ascend the steps. From close to the entrancehe took the end of a cable; this he drew forward and attached to aswitch in the wall. Then, turning on a tap, he flooded the whole vaultand staircase below with light. I could now see from the volume oflight streaming up into the hallway that the hole beside the staircasewent direct into the cave. Above it was a pulley and a mass of strongtackle with multiplying blocks of the Smeaton order. Mr. Trelawny,seeing me looking at this, said, correctly interpreting my thoughts:
"Yes! it is new. I hung it there myself on purpose. I knew we shouldhave to lower great weights; and as I did not wish to take too manyinto my confidence, I arranged a tackle which I could work alone ifnecessary."
We set to work at once; and before nightfall had lowered, unhooked, andplaced in the positions designated for each by Trelawny, all the greatsarcophagi and all the curios and other matters which we had taken withus.
It was a strange and weird proceeding, the placing of those wonderfulmonuments of a bygone age in that green cavern, which represented inits cutting and purpose and up-to-date mechanism and electric lightsboth the old world and the new. But as time went on I grew more andmore to recognise the wisdom and correctness of Mr. Trelawny's choice.I was much disturbed when Silvio, who had been brought into the cave inthe arms of his mistress, and who was lying asleep on my coat which Ihad taken off, sprang up when the cat mummy had been unpacked, and flewat it with the same ferocity which he had previously exhibited. Theincident showed Margaret in a new phase, and one which gave my heart apang. She had been standing quite still at one side of the caveleaning on a sarcophagus, in one of those fits of abstraction which hadof late come upon her; but on hearing the sound, and seeing Silvio'sviolent onslaught, she seemed to fall into a positive fury of passion.Her eyes blazed, and her mouth took a hard, cruel tension which was newto me. Instinctively she stepped towards Silvio as if to interfere inthe attack. But I too had stepped forward; and as she caught my eye astrange spasm came upon her, and she stopped. Its intensity made mehold my breath; and I put up my hand to clear my eyes. When I had donethis, she had on the instant recovered her calm, and there was a lookof brief wonder on her face. With all her old grace and sweetness sheswept over and lifted Silvio, just as she had done on former occasions,and held him in her arms, petting him and treating him as though hewere a little child who had erred.
As I looked a strange fear came over me. The Margaret that I knewseemed to be changing; and in my inmost heart I prayed that thedisturbing cause might soon come to an end. More than ever I longed atthat moment that our terrible Experiment should come to a prosperoustermination.
When all had been arranged in the room as Mr. Trelawny wished he turnedto us, one after another, till he had concentrated the intelligence ofus all upon him.
Then he said:
"All is now ready in this place. We must only await the proper time tobegin."
We were silent for a while. Doctor Winchester was the first to speak:
"What is the proper time? Have you any approximation, even if you arenot satisfied as to the exact day?" He answered at once:
"After the most anxious thought I have fixed on July 31!"
"May I ask why that date?" He spoke his answer slowly:
"Queen Tera was ruled in great degree by mysticism, and there are somany evidences that she looked for resurrection that naturally shewould choose a period ruled over by a God specialised to such apurpose. Now, the fourth month of the season of Inundation was ruledby Harmachis, this being the name for 'Ra', the Sun-God, at his risingin the morning, and therefore typifying the awakening or arising. Thisarising is manifestly to physical life, since it is of the mid-world ofhuman daily life. Now as this month begins on our 25th July, theseventh day would be July 31st, for you may be sure that the mysticQueen would not have chosen any day but the seventh or some power ofseven.
"I dare say that some of you have wondered why our preparations havebeen so deliberately undertaken. This is why! We must be ready inevery possible way when the time comes; but there was no use in havingto wait round for a needless number of days."
And so we waited only for the 31st of July, the next day but one, whenthe Great Experiment would be made.