CHAPTER II
How long that wild rush lasted I have no means of judging. It may havebeen an hour, a day, or many days, for I was throughout in a state ofsuspended animation, but presently my senses began to return and withthem a sensation of lessening speed, a grateful relief to a heavypressure which had held my life crushed in its grasp, withoutdestroying it completely. It was just that sort of sensation thoughmore keen which, drowsy in his bunk, a traveller feels when he isaware, without special perception, harbour is reached and a voyagecomes to an end. But in my case the slowing down was for a long timecomparative. Yet the sensation served to revive my scattered senses,and just as I was awakening to a lively sense of amazement, anincredible doubt of my own emotions, and an eager desire to know whathad happened, my strange conveyance oscillated once or twice, undulatedlightly up and down, like a woodpecker flying from tree to tree, andthen grounded, bows first, rolled over several times, then steadiedagain, and, coming at last to rest, the next minute the infernal rugopened, quivering along all its borders in its peculiar way, andhumping up in the middle shot me five feet into the air like a cattossed from a schoolboy's blanket.
As I turned over I had a dim vision of a clear light like the shine ofdawn, and solid ground sloping away below me. Upon that slope wasranged a crowd of squatting people, and a staid-looking individual withhis back turned stood nearer by. Afterwards I found he was lecturingall those sitters on the ethics of gravity and the inherent propertiesof falling bodies; at the moment I only knew he was directly in my lineas I descended, and him round the waist I seized, giddy with the lightand fresh air, waltzed him down the slope with the force of my impetus,and, tripping at the bottom, rolled over and over recklessly with himsheer into the arms of the gaping crowd below. Over and over we wentinto the thickest mass of bodies, making a way through the people,until at last we came to a stop in a perfect mound of writhing formsand waving legs and arms. When we had done the mass disentangleditself and I was able to raise my head from the shoulder of someone onwhom I had fallen, lifting him, or her--which was it?--into a sittingposture alongside of me at the same time, while the others rose aboutus like wheat-stalks after a storm, and edged shyly off, as well asthey might.
Such a sleek, slim youth it was who sat up facing me, with a flush ofgentle surprise on his face, and dapper hands that felt cautiouslyabout his anatomy for injured places. He looked so quaintly rueful yetwithal so good-tempered that I could not help bursting into laughter inspite of my own amazement. Then he laughed too, a sedate, musicalchuckle, and said something incomprehensible, pointing at the same timeto a cut upon my finger that was bleeding a little. I shook my head,meaning thereby that it was nothing, but the stranger with gracefulsolicitude took my hand, and, after examining the hurt, deliberatelytore a strip of cloth from a bright yellow toga-like garment he waswearing and bound the place up with a woman's tenderness.
Meanwhile, as he ministered, there was time to look about me. Wherewas I? It was not the Broadway; it was not Staten Island on a Saturdayafternoon. The night was just over, and the sun on the point ofrising. Yet it was still shadowy all about, the air being marvellouslytepid and pleasant to the senses. Quaint, soft aromas like the breathof a new world--the fragrance of unknown flowers, and the dewy scent ofnever-trodden fields drifted to my nostrils; and to my ears came asound of laughter scarcely more human than the murmur of the wind inthe trees, and a pretty undulating whisper as though a great concourseof people were talking softly in their sleep. I gazed about scarcelyknowing how much of my senses or surroundings were real and how muchfanciful, until I presently became aware the rosy twilight wasbroadening into day, and under the increasing shine a strange scene wasfashioning itself.
At first it was an opal sea I looked on of mist, shot along its uppersurface with the rosy gold and pinks of dawn. Then, as that soft,translucent lake ebbed, jutting hills came through it, black andcrimson, and as they seemed to mount into the air other lower hillsshowed through the veil with rounded forest knobs till at last thebrightening day dispelled the mist, and as the rosy-coloured gauzyfragments went slowly floating away a wonderfully fair country lay atmy feet, with a broad sea glimmering in many arms and bays in thedistance beyond. It was all dim and unreal at first, the mountainsshadowy, the ocean unreal, the flowery fields between it and me vacantand shadowy.
Yet were they vacant? As my eyes cleared and day brightened stillmore, and I turned my head this way and that, it presently dawned uponme all the meadow coppices and terraces northwards of where I lay, allthat blue and spacious ground I had thought to be bare and vacant, werealive with a teeming city of booths and tents; now I came to look moreclosely there was a whole town upon the slope, built as might be in anight of boughs and branches still unwithered, the streets and ways ofthat city in the shadows thronged with expectant people moving ingroups and shifting to and fro in lively streams--chatting at thestalls and clustering round the tent doors in soft, gauzy,parti-coloured crowds in a way both fascinating and perplexing.
I stared about me like a child at its first pantomime, dimlyunderstanding all I saw was novel, but more allured to the colour andlife of the picture than concerned with its exact meaning; and while Istared and turned my finger was bandaged, and my new friend had beenlisping away to me without getting anything in turn but a shake of thehead. This made him thoughtful, and thereon followed a curious incidentwhich I cannot explain. I doubt even whether you will believe it; butwhat am I to do in that case? You have already accepted the episode ofmy coming, or you would have shut the covers before arriving at thispage of my modest narrative, and this emboldens me. I may strengthenmy claim on your credulity by pointing out the extraordinary marvelswhich science is teaching you even on our own little world. To quote asingle instance: If any one had declared ten years ago that it wouldshortly be practicable and easy for two persons to converse from shoreto shore across the Atlantic without any intervening medium, he wouldhave been laughed at as a possibly amusing but certainly extravagantromancer. Yet that picturesque lie of yesterday is amongst theaccomplished facts of today! Therefore I am encouraged to ask yourindulgence, in the name of your previous errors, for the following andany other instances in which I may appear to trifle with strictveracity. There is no such thing as the impossible in our universe!
When my friendly companion found I could not understand him, he lookedserious for a minute or two, then shortened his brilliant yellow toga,as though he had arrived at some resolve, and knelt down directly infront of me. He next took my face between his hands, and putting hisnose within an inch of mine, stared into my eyes with all his might.At first I was inclined to laugh, but before long the most curioussensations took hold of me. They commenced with a thrill which passedall up my body, and next all feeling save the consciousness of the loudbeating of my heart ceased. Then it seemed that boy's eyes were insidemy head and not outside, while along with them an intangible somethingpervaded my brain. The sensation at first was like the application ofether to the skin--a cool, numbing emotion. It was followed by acurious tingling feeling, as some dormant cells in my mind answered tothe thought-transfer, and were filled and fertilised! My otherbrain-cells most distinctly felt the vitalising of their companions,and for about a minute I experienced extreme nausea and a headache suchas comes from over-study, though both passed swiftly off. I presumethat in the future we shall all obtain knowledge in this way. TheProfessors of a later day will perhaps keep shops for the sale ofmiscellaneous information, and we shall drop in and be inflated withlearning just as the bicyclist gets his tire pumped up, or the motoristis recharged with electricity at so much per unit. Examinations willthen become matters of capacity in the real meaning of that word, andwe shall be tempted to invest our pocket-money by advertisements of "Acheap line in Astrology," "Try our double-strength, two-minute courseof Classics," "This is remnant day for Trigonometry and Metaphysics,"and so on.
My friend did not get as far as that. With him the process did nottake more than
a minute, but it was startling in its results, andreduced me to an extraordinary state of hypnotic receptibility. Whenit was over my instructor tapped with a finger on my lips, utteringaloud as he did so the words--
"Know none; know some; know little; know morel" again and again; andthe strangest part of it is that as he spoke I did know at first alittle, then more, and still more, by swift accumulation, of his speechand meaning. In fact, when presently he suddenly laid a hand over myeyes and then let go of my head with a pleasantly put question as tohow I felt, I had no difficulty whatever in answering him in his owntongue, and rose from the ground as one gets from a hair-dresser'schair, with a vague idea of looking round for my hat and offering himhis fee.
"My word, sir!" I said, in lisping Martian, as I pulled down my cuffsand put my cravat straight, "that was a quick process. I once heard ofa man who learnt a language in the moments he gave each day to havinghis boots blacked; but this beats all. I trust I was a docile pupil?"
"Oh, fairly, sir," answered the soft, musical voice of the strangebeing by me; "but your head is thick and your brain tough. I couldhave taught another in half the time."
"Curiously enough," was my response, "those are almost the very wordswith which my dear old tutor dismissed me the morning I left college.Never mind, the thing is done. Shall I pay you anything?"
"I do not understand."
"Any honorarium, then? Some people understand one word and not theother." But the boy only shook his head in answer.
Strangely enough, I was not greatly surprised all this time either atthe novelty of my whereabouts or at the hypnotic instruction in a newlanguage just received. Perhaps it was because my head still spun toogiddily with that flight in the old rug for much thought; perhapsbecause I did not yet fully realise the thing that had happened. But,anyhow, there is the fact, which, like so many others in my narrative,must, alas! remain unexplained for the moment. The rug, by the way,had completely disappeared, my friend comforting me on this score,however, by saying he had seen it rolled up and taken away by one whomhe knew.
"We are very tidy people here, stranger," he said, "and everythingfound Lying about goes back to the Palace store-rooms. You will laughto see the lumber there, for few of us ever take the trouble to reclaimour property."
Heaven knows I was in no laughing mood when I saw that enchanted webagain!
When I had lain and watched the brightening scene for a time, I got up,and having stretched and shaken my clothes into some sort of order, westrolled down the hill and joined the light-hearted crowds that twinedacross the plain and through the streets of their city of booths. Theywere the prettiest, daintiest folk ever eyes looked upon, well-formedand like to us as could be in the main, but slender and willowy, sodainty and light, both the men and the women, so pretty of cheek andhair, so mild of aspect, I felt, as I strode amongst them, I could haveplucked them like flowers and bound them up in bunches with my belt.And yet somehow I liked them from the first minute; such a happy,careless, light-hearted race, again I say, never was seen before. Therewas not a stain of thought or care on a single one of those whiteforeheads that eddied round me under their peaked, blossom-like caps,the perpetual smile their faces wore never suffered rebuke anywhere;their very movements were graceful and slow, their laughter was low andmusical, there was an odour of friendly, slothful happiness about themthat made me admire whether I would or no.
Unfortunately I was not able to live on laughter, as they appeared tobe, so presently turning to my acquaintance, who had told me his namewas the plain monosyllabic An, and clapping my hand on his shoulder ashe stood lost in sleepy reflection, said, in a good, hearty way,"Hullo, friend Yellow-jerkin! If a stranger might set himself athwartthe cheerful current of your meditations, may such a one ask how far'tis to the nearest wine-shop or a booth where a thirsty man may get amug of ale at a moderate reckoning?"
That gilded youth staggered under my friendly blow as though the hammerof Thor himself had suddenly lit upon his shoulder, and ruefullyrubbing his tender skin, he turned on me mild, handsome eyes, answeringafter a moment, during which his native mildness struggled with thepain I had unwittingly given him--
"If your thirst be as emphatic as your greeting, friend Heavy-fist, itwill certainly be a kindly deed to lead you to the drinking-place. Myshoulder tingles with your good-fellowship," he added, keeping twoarms'-lengths clear of me. "Do you wish," he said, "merely to cleansea dusty throat, or for blue or pink oblivion?"
"Why," I answered laughingly, "I have come a longish journey sinceyesterday night--a journey out of count of all reasonable mileage--andI might fairly plead a dusty throat as excuse for a beginning; but asto the other things mentioned, those tinted forgetfulnesses, I do noteven know what you mean."
"Undoubtedly you are a stranger," said the friendly youth, eyeing mefrom top to toe with renewed wonder, "and by your unknown garb one fromafar."
"From how far no man can say--not even I--but from very far, in truth.Let that stay your curiosity for the time. And now to bench andale-mug, on good fellow!--the shortest way. I was never so thirsty asthis since our water-butts went overboard when I sailed the southernseas as a tramp apprentice, and for three days we had to damp our blacktongues with the puddles the night-dews left in the lift of ourmainsail."
Without more words, being a little awed of me, I thought, the boy ledme through the good-humoured crowd to where, facing the main road tothe town, but a little sheltered by a thicket of trees covered withgigantic pink blossoms, stood a drinking-place--a cluster of tables setround an open grass-plot. Here he brought me a platter of some lightinefficient cakes which merely served to make hunger moreself-conscious, and some fine aromatic wine contained in atriple-bodied flask, each division containing vintage of a separatehue. We broke our biscuits, sipped that mysterious wine, and talked ofmany things until at last something set us on the subject of astronomy,a study I found my dapper gallant had some knowledge of--which was notto be wondered at seeing he dwelt under skies each night set thickabove his curly head with tawny planets, and glittering constellationssprinkled through space like flowers in May meadows. He knew whatworlds went round the sun, larger or lesser, and seeing this I began toquestion him, for I was uneasy in my innermost mind and, you willremember, so far had no certain knowledge of where I was, only a dim,restless suspicion that I had come beyond the ken of all men'sknowledge.
Therefore, sweeping clear the board with my sleeve, and breaking thewafer cake I was eating, I set down one central piece for the sun, and,"See here!" I said, "good fellow! This morsel shall stand for that sunyou have just been welcoming back with quaint ritual. Now stretch yourstarry knowledge to the utmost, and put down that tankard for a moment.If this be yonder sun and this lesser crumb be the outermost one of ourrevolving system, and this the next within, and this the next, and soon; now if this be so tell me which of these fragmentary orbs isours--which of all these crumbs from the hand of the primordial wouldbe that we stand upon?" And I waited with an anxiety a light mannerthinly hid, to hear his answer.
It came at once. Laughing as though the question were too trivial, andmore to humour my wayward fancy than aught else, that boy circled hisrosy thumb about a minute and brought it down on the planet Mars!
I started and stared at him; then all of a tremble cried, "You triflewith me! Choose again--there, see, I will set the symbols and namethem to you anew. There now, on your soul tell me truly which thisplanet is, the one here at our feet?" And again the boy shook hishead, wondering at my eagerness, and pointed to Mars, saying gently ashe did so the fact was certain as the day above us, nothing wasmarvellous but my questioning.
Mars! oh, dreadful, tremendous, unexpected! With a cry of affright,and bringing my fist down on the table till all the cups upon it leapt,I told him he lied--lied like a simpleton whose astronomy was as rottenas his wit--smote the table and scowled at him for a spell, then turnedaway and let my chin fall upon my breast and my hands upon my lap.
And yet, a
nd yet, it might be so! Everything about me was new andstrange, the crisp, thin air I breathed was new; the lukewarm sunshinenew; the sleek, long, ivory faces of the people new! Yesterday--was ityesterday?--I was back there--away in a world that pines to know ofother worlds, and one fantastic wish of mine, backed by a hideous,infernal chance, had swung back the doors of space and shot me--if thatboy spoke true--into the outer void where never living man had beenbefore: all my wits about me, all the horrible bathos of my earthlyclothing on me, all my terrestrial hungers in my veins!
I sprang to my feet and swept my hands across my eyes. Was that adream, or this? No, no, both were too real. The hum of my farawaycity still rang in my ears: a swift vision of the girl I had loved; ofthe men I had hated; of the things I had hoped for rose before me,still dazing my inner eye. And these about me were real people, too;it was real earth; real skies, trees, and rocks--had the infernal godsindeed heard, I asked myself, the foolish wish that started from mylips in a moment of fierce discontent, and swept me into anothersphere, another existence? I looked at the boy as though he couldanswer that question, but there was nothing in his face but vacuouswonder; I clapped my hands together and beat my breast; it was true; mysoul within me said it was true; the boy had not lied; the djins hadheard; I was just in the flesh I had; my common human hungers stillunsatisfied where never mortal man had hungered before; and scarcelyknowing whether I feared or not, whether to laugh or cry, but with allthe wonder and terror of that great remove sweeping suddenly upon me Istaggered back to my seat, and dropping my arms upon the table, leantmy head heavily upon them and strove to choke back the passion whichbeset me.