A Strange Discovery by Charles Romyn Dake
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Charles Romyn Dake >> A Strange Discovery
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"Young man, you will soon be returning to England, that lordly nation to
whose hind-quarters the sun is kinder than to its head-quarters. When
you get home tell your countrymen of the discoveries you have here made.
Tell them of the wonders of Hili-li--but be careful. This fellow
Bainbridge is a romantic youth, and he is liable to lead you astray in
some important respects. Tell your noble countrymen of the central
crater--that, no doubt, Peters saw; as to the Hili-lites being
descendants of the pure stock of ancient Rome, that, too, I believe. But
do not repeat this foolish theory about love which he introduces into
Peters' narrative. The wise, practical, and puissant residents of that
Corinthian Capital of Brains--I refer to London--will know better. Oh,
yes; women are true!--very true! Better than wealth--pshaw! better than
empire--pooh! That nonsense will pass at twenty-five; at forty a man has
some brains. The 'constancy' of women--that gets me! Why, sir, I once
loved three women at the same time, and not one of the three was true to
me--yet Bainbridge talks of a woman's constancy, single-heartedness, and
such chimerical stuff--the kind of stuff, that, with youth, takes the
place of the recently discarded nursery fiction. I think of the hundreds
of women that I have loved, beginning in my early boyhood, passing
through my adolescence to the acme of my powers, and even now as I stand
on the verge of my desuetude! Surely some one of these many women would
have been constant, if women have any constancy in their make-up. Show
me a woman howling out her life on _my_ grave, and then I'll believe
Bainbridge. But I know all about Bainbridge. I know where he goes the
evenings that he doesn't come here. Never mind--I'm silent as the grave.
I don't need to tell a man of your superlative acumen what Bainbridge's
talk implies. He mustn't talk to me though about woman's constancy and
single-heartedness till he's ten years older; let him tell that stuff to
Peters and the other mariners."
After some further talk, Castleton remarked:
"It seems, then, according to Bainbridge, that we moderns owe about all
we have to the Jew and the Dago! Now, men less intelligent than you and
I, after looking at the average Jew and Dago as seen to-day in the
United States, would doubt this assertion. I cannot dispute it, however;
for through the ancient Jew certainly came Christianity, and through the
ancients in Greece and Italy our art."
He paused for a moment, and then continued:
"A delightfully euphonious set of names those Hili-lites possess. The
name _Hi_li-_li_ is not bad itself: _Hi_li-_li_, _Hi_li-_lite_,
_Hi_li-_li_land--pretty good. _Li_-la-ma, Ah-_pe_-lus, Di-_re_-gus,
Me-_do_-sus, Ma-_su_-se-_li_-la--all pretty fair. I have no doubt that
Bainbridge would spell them so as to produce a Latin appearance. And
this reminds me of a certain name not Latin."
I saw that the doctor was about to recount a "personal experience." He
continued:
"One day a stranger came to our town--a plain, clean-looking, blue-eyed
sort of scientific fellow from somewhere so far out in the suburbs of
Europe that the name of his country or province has wholly slipped my
memory--a mighty rare thing, by the by, and it always galls me when I
forget anything. This chap came here to look at coal, or to hammer
rocks, or to look for curiosities. Well, he ran up against me. Don't ask
me his name--I believe he spelled it S-c-h-w-o-j-k-h-h-j-z-y-t-y-h-o
B-j-h-z-o-w-h-j-u-g-h-s-c-h-k-j. One day he asked me to introduce him to
a certain Bellevue capitalist. The fellow had pleased me, and I agreed
to do the introducing--partly, I admit, to see whether a man that
gutteralled his words out of his stomach could swindle one of our own
sharpers that talked through his nose. But now came the rub: how was I
to introduce a man when I couldn't utter his name? I used to practice at
pronouncing that name as I rode around in my buggy, but it was no go. At
last the day came when I was to introduce the fellow with a surplus of
knowledge, to the fellow with a surplus of cash. That morning I awoke
with the worst sorethroat of my life. I felt as if I had two boiled
potatoes in my throat. The passage from my nose to my windpipe was
closed for repairs, and that from my mouth to my throat was
seven-eighths closed. Pretty soon, just from recent habit, I began to
practise on the scientific chap's name. Great Scott! I could pronounce
it better than its owner could. There were certain grunts and sneezes in
the name--particularly one syllable between a grunt and a sneeze--that I
suppose no Anglo-Saxon had ever before or has ever since uttered
correctly; but they were nothing to me, so long as my sorethroat
lasted."
Then Castleton rushed from the room; calling back from the head of the
stairs, and in tones intentionally audible to every man and woman on
that floor of the hotel:
"It's coming, sir, depend upon it--the genuine yellow fever--evaded the
New Orleans quarantine three weeks ago--three cases at Shreveport and
two at Memphis reported--talk, too, of a case in St. Louis. Heavens! but
I hope a beneficent Creator will not allow some other doctor to get the
first case, when, happily, it shall have reached Bellevue."
The last sentence was uttered _sotto voce_, as he descended the stairs.
The EIGHTEENTH Chapter
"It appears," continued Bainbridge, on the following evening, "that
Hili-li was subject to the recurrence about once in forty-seven years of
a strange thermic phenomenon, the mean duration of which was about fifty
hours. This change had occurred twenty-one times in the preceding
thousand years; its duration had once been as brief as thirty hours, and
at another time had lasted one hundred and twenty hours. The interval
between two of its visitations had once been somewhat less than eight
years; whilst at the period of Pym and Peters' presence in Hili-li, it
had not occurred for eighty-six years and some months. For some reason
that could not be conjectured, at these times the wind-currents,
generally varying but slightly in force and duration, changed, the wind
coming from a point of the compass almost diametrically opposite to its
usual direction, and increasing in velocity and force to that of a
tempest or blizzard. The result was, that in a very few hours the
temperature of Hili-li fell to about zero Fahrenheit, if in December or
January; to 60 deg. or 70 deg. Fahrenheit below freezing, if in July or August.
During the first few hours of the change, owing to the extremely moist
state of the atmosphere for many miles in all directions from the crater
of Hili-li, there occurred a heavy snowfall--which, however, diminished
as the temperature fell, until at somewhat above the zero point it
ceased.
"The government of Hili-li, by laws and by the encouragement of custom,
did much to prevent damage from these storms--which, as I have
intimated, were a combination of hurricane and snow-storm, with a very
sudden and rapid fall of temperature; and when the interval between two
of them was not greater than twenty years, the provisions made by the
state were ample to prevent loss of life. By the law of the land,
residence houses had to be built in such a manner that at least one room
in each house could be warmed by a fire. Fire for purposes of warmth was
never in Hili-li required, except during these storms; and all cooking
was done on a peculiar stove made chiefly of gold, the fuel of which was
either fish oil, or another oil termed by the boatmen who sold it
'continent oil'--or, rather, by a name corresponding in the Hili-li
language to those words in the English. The law further provided that on
the premises of each home wood should be kept, ready for use, in chests
of a size convenient for two persons to carry into the room in which it
was to be burned. By this means, the worst that could happen to a family
was that its members might suddenly at any time be confined to a single
room, comfortably warmed, for from thirty to a hundred hours, or
thereabouts. Even if there should be very little food in any one home,
or if the wood supply should be neglected, the next door neighbor could
be relied upon for succor.
"Ninety-four years prior to the summer that now concerns us, a cold
spell had occurred after an interval of eighty-one years, which lasted a
hundred and ten hours, and during which one-third of the inhabitants of
Hili-li, between hunger and cold, lost their lives. Not more than one
hundred persons remembered the last preceding storm, and they must have
been very young children when it occurred; and even they felt no alarm
on the subject, as the storm preceding it had happened about sixteen
years earlier, and, though a light one, was sufficient to alarm both the
rulers and the masses, and resulted in a state of preparedness for the
next storm. But now, the middle-aged men knew of these cold spells only
as matters of history, to which they gave little practical attention;
and from the lips of their grandparents, who, as I have said, had never
personally known one of them to cause serious distress or loss of life.
"On the morning of February 17, 1829, there was not on the Island of
Hili-li a single residence which had the wood-supply contemplated by the
forgotten statute relating to that subject; there were few homes that
had in store food sufficient for more than forty-eight hours use; and,
though most families were in possession of some oil, their cook-stoves
were not constructed for heating, and were connected with flues in
outbuildings; and, further, there was not enough oil on the island to
have warmed the city at such a time for twenty-four hours.
"It must also be remembered that the Hili-lites were accustomed to a
temperature, all the year through, year in and year out, of 90 deg. to 108 deg.
Fahrenheit scale; and that for a resident of England, or of the United
States above the latitude of Washington City, a temperature of ten
degrees below zero would be quite as well borne as would a temperature
of thirty degrees above zero by these islanders. There was little
physical and mental inurement to cold, and the lightest of clothing was
worn. A resident of Hili-li, when business compelled him to visit an
island on which the temperature was cold enough to freeze water,
prepared himself personally for the journey as would a Swede or
Norwegian for a journey of exploration to the North Pole.
"In the night between February 16th and 17th, Peters, who was in the
habit in Hili-li of sleeping _in puris naturalibus_, awoke in a shiver.
He arose, and closing his window-sash began to look around his room for
bed-covering; but he found only a sheet, and a very fine wool bedspread,
which he drew over him as he once more assumed a recumbent position. He
again fell asleep; but in an hour awoke, shivering harder than before.
He then dressed, and lighting his pipe, walked up and down the floor.
Then he looked from the window, and saw that a fine snow was falling,
the separately almost invisible flakes whirling in sharp spirals as they
fell. The sailor instinct--the aptitude of the navigator--instantly told
him what this thermic change meant for Hili-li. Others in the house were
now moving about, and Peters sought them out. Pym did not seem at once
to realize the danger; and Lilama said she had heard of these storms,
but did not think that they lasted long. All except Peters were wrapped
in shawl-like garments, and some of the servants had about their forms
light rugs which they had taken from the floors. Soon, however, all
except Pym and Peters were shivering; and every article of covering
obtainable was in use. Lilama told a maid to bring out her dresses and
wrappers, which she divided among the servants, each donning several
garments. Peters, stoical, but always on the alert, called Pym aside,
and explained to him that this change meant nothing less than the
devastation of Hili-li--that the temperature was steadily falling, the
wind increasing, and that the storm was only beginning. Pym could not
but perceive that the cold was due to a pronounced alteration in the
direction of wind-currents; and that under the circumstances the cold
would of necessity increase to the point of normal antarctic
temperature--no doubt below zero--unless the wind should before then
change. Quickly his mind grasped the circumstances in which they were
placed. They were on an island, situated in water navigable at all
seasons and hours, with the chief food-supply on near-by islands, and
each day brought to Hili-li for that day's consumption; they were in a
city practically without fuel; the inhabitants were accustomed to heat,
and wholly unused to cold; the houses were built without protection
against cold, because, except occasionally for a few hours at a time,
there were no climatic conditions demanding such a construction.
Further, the climate being very warm, there was not--except in the
possession of a hundred men whose business took them on visits to
islands lying outside of the crater-warmed air-currents--a heavy wrap of
any kind, such as overcoat, cloak, or shawl, in the entire city. Carpets
were not known in Hili-li, so it would be impossible for the
hard-pressed people to retire to bed, where, covering the body with a
few sheets and some clothing, they might add the carpets, and, in hunger
but in safety, remain protected against those freezing blasts till the
wind should change. Pym comprehended the terrible position in which
Lilama and the other Hili-lites stood; the extremity of desolation which
must soon prevail standing out before him like a vivid picture, and for
a moment overawing even his brave, true soul. He did not doubt that
Peters and himself could withstand the cold, though they might not be
able to obtain more than a flimsy shelter from the biting antarctic
winds. He scarcely thought of himself--he thought only of Lilama, and,
in a measure, of the other residents of the beautiful, stricken city.
Exposure to danger had made Pym in times of trouble a rapid thinker, and
the thoughts which I have mentioned passed through his mind in less than
a minute of time. Then he turned to Lilama, and asked if there was
beneath the house a cellar. Fortunately there was--the house was one of
the few in Hili-li beneath a portion of which a cellar was constructed
as a depository, and as a protection against heat for certain articles
of food, most of the residents not caring to construct cellars; articles
of food easily destructible by heat being twice daily brought to the
city and distributed to the houses, and ice costing only the expense of
shipping it by water some six or eight hours' sailing distance.
"Pym and Peters moved about the house, making certain arrangements so
rapidly as to startle the languid Hili-lites. In ten or fifteen minutes
they had removed to the cellar all the necessary furniture of a
comfortable room, including a bedstead for Lilama, and another for her
two maids. Three lamps were taken to the cellar, lighted, and oil
sufficient for a week's consumption placed conveniently near. The house
contained enough food to sustain Lilama, and the women servants, for
from six to eight days. Within twenty minutes of the time Peters had
suggested to Pym the danger of freezing to be apprehended, Lilama and
her maids were safely placed in the cellar, and were making merry over
their strange surroundings and attire. Then Pym and Peters hastened from
the house, to see what could be done for others.
"And now was witnessed the influence on man, of heredity and
environment, and the insurmountable difficulties in the way, even under
the most pressing need, of overcoming such influence. The Hili-lites in
more than a thousand years had fought only one battle, and that five
hundred years before; nor had they found necessary any struggle for
food, or against rigorous climate. They were a brainy people, and were
almost superhumanly perceptive in every sense organ and in every nerve.
But they were wanting in that quality possessed by most European peoples
and by Americans, which takes practical cognizance of the fact that
prompt action and fearlessness is the true protection against danger. In
the face of this great calamity among the Hili-lites, even the leading
men seemed paralyzed. Not that they displayed a particle of fear--it was
simply not in them to move rapidly, and to face joyfully great dangers.
With them, when mental processes failed to subdue, there was not much
left. They could have conquered a modern warship, provided they could
have come in contact with its officers, by controlling in some strange
way the minds of those men; but against a storm, or the course of
inanimate nature in any other direction, they were as powerless as any
other people, and their sense of powerlessness was paralyzing to them.
On the other hand, Pym and Peters had sprung from races that had in the
past thousand years gone through hundreds of struggles, amid every kind
of danger, for existence; and Peters, on the mother's side, she being an
American Indian, belonged to a race which had gone through what was
infinitely worse than a barbarian invasion--namely, a 'civilized' and
'enlightened' invasion. These two men seemed to court danger--to revel
in it; but in reality they pursued the course which exposed them to the
least risk of injury consistent with the performance of their full duty.
The question was one of method in procedure to save the greatest number
of lives; and they hastened first to the residence of Lilama's uncle and
cousin--to the home of the Duke and Diregus."
The NINETEENTH Chapter
Arriving there, they found the Duke and Diregus quite actively
engaged--for Hili-lites; still, very much valuable time was being
wasted. Already the snow had ceased to fall, and the temperature, Peters
thinks, must have reached ten degrees below freezing, and was rapidly
falling. In the ducal palace there were, in two or three rooms, hearths,
and flue-openings for carrying off smoke; but as there was no wood ready
for burning, and as there seemed to be no dry wood in sight, the Duke
and his son were at the end of their resources as soon as they had
gathered together into a safe place food sufficient to last for a week
or ten days. Fortunately the palace was unusually well stocked with
edibles.
When Pym and Peters arrived, their cool manner and prompt action
exhaling confidence with every look and movement, the Duke and Diregus
were soon enlivened, as in fact were all others who came in contact with
these two active and intrepid strangers.
Pym glanced about him, compassing at a look all possible resources. Then
he issued his orders, himself working with the others, and, so to speak,
'setting the pace.' In ten minutes a large outbuilding--similar to our
summer-houses, or Anglo-Saxon kiosks--was razed to the ground, broken in
pieces, and placed in the rooms, in which fires were soon glowing and
crackling. In twenty minutes, those whom Pym and Peters had found
half-frozen and wholly discouraged, were cheerful, comfortable, and out
of danger.
The two men hastened forth through the city, giving assistance and
advice, and infusing confidence. The smaller residences, as well as many
of those of medium size, were constructed of wood. Pym went rapidly
through the city, ordering that one house in each square be demolished,
and the wood divided--but haste! haste! The temperature was rapidly
declining to a point at which a Hili-lite, even when actively at work,
could not exist.
Pym and Peters might, unaided, have reached one-tenth of the people of
Hili-li, and have shown them the way to safety. As many more, possibly,
might have found other means of saving themselves. It seems improbable
that more than one-fourth of the people of Hili-li would have survived
this terrible storm, had Pym and Peters not been reinforced.
"Let no man, in his finite weakness, ever question the methods of
Infinite Wisdom, which is Infinite Goodness. At the very time when every
moment gained by Pym and Peters meant the saving of a hundred more
lives--at the very moment when two additional men, hardy and inured to
danger, would have doubled the life-saving force, four hundred of the
'Exiles of Olympus' arrived in the city. They had left behind them
warmth and safety, and sailing across thirty miles of tempestuous sea,
had come, headed by Medosus, to try to save their fellow-countrymen.
These four hundred men, young and vigorous, comprised the real
enterprise and daring of Hili-li. They had been promised their liberty,
and their visits, individually, to Hili-li had recently been not only
allowed but even encouraged by those in authority; but the final act
permitting them to return had been, by the formalities of state,
delayed.
"Pym, Peters, and Medosus consulted for a moment, and then the exiles
divided into a hundred parties of four each, and systematically
scattered through the city, doing the work of giants. Finally the exiles
established a hundred stations, selecting for the purpose large rooms,
in which they built hearths of lava-blocks taken from the streets, in
most of the houses the hearths being placed in the centre of an upper
room, and an opening directly above cut through the roof. At each of
these stations one exile at a time took charge of the fire, whilst the
other three of the party in charge scoured the neighborhood for persons
that might in the first desultory search have been overlooked. Then,
when all seemed provided for, the exiles, protecting their bodies with
such additional clothing as those now cared for could spare, went forth
in search of food, to the deserted houses, and to such depots of supply
as the city possessed.
"The work of rescue being thoroughly inaugurated, Pym had a moment in
which his mind might roam from the work immediately in hand; and he
thought of the aged mystic, Masusaelili. The old man resided in a spot so
retired that the various rescue parties might easily have overlooked
him; and the temperature was now probably fifty degrees below freezing.
Fortunately, at the instant he thought of the old philosopher, he and
Peters were near the city limits, and within a third of a mile of
Masusaelili's home; and starting off at a brisk run, the two were five
minutes later in the old man's house, standing outside his laboratory
door. As the two had hurried along, Peters would continue to murmur
against the project: 'What's the use,' he would growl; 'we'll only find
the old fellow roasting himself in front of a magic fire of burning snow
or ice. _He's_ all right, and we'd better be saving human people.'
"As several raps, increasing from the gentlest to the most vigorous,
elicited no response, Pym opened the laboratory door, and with Peters
entered. But the old man was nowhere to be seen. Pym hastily returned to
the hallway, and discovering a stair leading to a small cellar, he
descended. The cellar was filled with _debris_, two small window
casements opening to the exterior air were broken and decayed to the
last degree of dilapidation, and the icy wind whistled through the
rubbish of the doleful spot. He ran back to the laboratory, where Peters
was hunting about, hoping to find Masusaelili alive, yet fearing to find
his emaciated form lying lifeless amid the mass of chemical and
mechanical appliances which littered the room. Several of the large
vase-like objects before alluded to stood here and there; and as the
smaller of them might have hidden the body of a large-sized man, the
searchers even glanced into them. Each vase sat apart upon the floor,
flaring upward like a giant lily to a height of four or five feet; and
from each of them projected, within an inch of the floor, a faucet of
rude construction, through which passed a very primitive spigot. One of
these enormous vases, large enough to have secreted two small men, stood
inverted; and Pym, with no particular object in view, but simply because
he could not think of anything else to do, gave the vase a push, in such
a way as to raise for an inch or two from the floor its large rim,
flaring out to a diameter of probably four feet.
"'Put that down,' came a hollow and stridulous voice, so unexpected and
startling to Pym that he withdrew his hand, allowing the vase to drop
back to the floor with a resounding thud.
"'If thou hast aught of importance to impart, 'continued the voice--that
of Masusaelili--still stridulous, but now having also the quality
possessed by a voice heard through a speaking-tube, 'put thy mouth near
to the spigot-hole, and disclose thine errand.'
"Pym placed his lips within an inch of the open faucet, which was only
an inch or two lower than his mouth as he stood beside the vase, and
from the opening of which came a fog-like vapor, similar in appearance
to that exhaled from the mouth and nostrils on a very cold day, and
said:
"'We came, sir, to offer our help--to procure for you wood, and, if
possible, food; or, if you should so prefer, to remove you in safety to
comfortable quarters.'
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