Chapter 11
"I attempted to get out of Peters just how he made the leap--whether with the legs, or the arms, or both as an impelling force; but it was no use. I believe that he does not himself know--he did it by an animal instinct, and that is all there is to be said. The old fellow does not really know his age, but I should place it, at the present time, at from seventy-eight to eighty years, which, if correct, would indicate that he was twenty-eight or thirty at the time he was in Hili-li. He must have been as strong generally as three average men, and in the arms as strong as five or six such men. You remember telling me yourself how he twisted that iron poker, and broke the oak pole; and that was the act of an invalid nearly eighty years of age. Oh, he must have been a Samson at twenty-eight, and as agile as a tiger. What I could draw out of him concerning the leap, reminded me of descriptions I have read of the _Simiidae_--particularly of the Borneo orang-outang.
"But to return: The party separated from Medosus, who, when about two hundred feet away, shouted back, 'You'd better stay with us, Diregus. We do not here have to hide away when we play--or at--' (mentioning the names of two very rough games prohibited by law on all the islands of the Hili-li Kingdom--games corresponding to our foot-ball and our wrestling). The party continued up the mountain-side, resting as they felt the need of rest. No preparation for the darkness of night was necessary; for here the crater-light was very bright--in some unshaded spots it was even painfully brilliant.
"After several hours of laborious ascent, the small party of four (Diregus had taken with them only one of the boatmen) came within plain sight of the rim of Crater Lake, half a mile ahead of them, and almost perpendicularly above, though nearly two miles away measured along the shortest route that travellers might pursue. It was not at the time known, and therefore never will be known, whether or not Lilama had caught a glimpse of her approaching friends; but at that moment a piercing scream rang through the air from above. Peters thinks that Lilama saw some of the party, because the quality of the scream was not such as to convey an impression that she was in instant danger. The signal, if signal it was, was not repeated, nor did the party wait for a repetition. They all hurried onward with renewed vigor; and, in a short time, considering the severity of the ascent, had reached a point near which they supposed the scream must have been uttered.
"The party had scattered, and were searching among the mammoth lava-bowlders, and in the small side valleys and fissures; Peters, however, as he then always instinctively did, keeping by the side of Pym. The two had separated to quite a distance from the others, when, being then quite close to the edge of the great chasm, they heard a deep though penetrating voice say the one word (of course in the Hili-li language), 'Well?'
"Looking in the direction from which the voice came, they saw on the opposite side of the chasm a young and handsome man, dressed much as was the exile, Medosus. There could not for a moment be any doubt in the minds of Pym and Peters concerning the identity of this young man; but if there had been, it would immediately have been dispelled.
"'Well, gentlemen?' the voice further said.
"Pym and Peters had stepped up close to the edge of the abyss, which here was, as it was throughout the upper third of its length, from forty-five to fifty-five feet in width (Peters thinks that at this part of its course it was fully fifty feet broad).
"'Well, gentlemen: why are you two, strangers to me, and to my people, also, I think--why are you here?'
"The speaker would have seemed very far from insane, had it not been for his large black eyes, shifting and glittering in the bright volcanic light.
"At last Pym spoke:
"'Sir,' he said, very calmly, 'we came to assist our friends of the neighboring island--friends who have been very kind to us--to search for a maiden who by some strange mischance has been lost from her people--from her people and her friends, who grieve sorely over their loss.'
"'Ah, ha,' said Ahpilus--for it was he--'very good. And they grieve, do they? Curse them, let them grieve! And a certain lover--and curse him, too--does he grieve? He would better! Ah, ha, ha, ha'--the voice rising with each syllable, until the last was almost shrieked at Pym--'Kind to you, were they? Well, there is one of them near by--on this side the chasm, curse you--who won't be kind to you again. Yes, and you may see her, too.' Then Ahpilus stepped off behind some thick, stunted bushes of a variety of evergreen, whence, in a moment, he returned, leading by the wrist Lilama. 'Great Jove above! Girl, do you see your lover over there? You have no love for me--you never had; but never again in time or in eternity shall I lie with burning brain, thinking of those snowy arms about the stranger's neck--aye, as once I saw them in the palace grounds. Curse you all, and may you all alike be d----d. Why should a stranger come through ten thousand perils to add to all my untold agonies.' Here for a moment his voice softened, almost to a gentle whisper. 'Ah, Lilama, once, only once, you shall, of your own free will, clasp those arms around me--if not in love, then in terror. A moment more, and over this abyss together we shall go!' With terror in his eyes, Pym glanced at Peters; and even the phlegmatic Peters was startled. 'Yes, for one moment in each other's arms; and then for me, the everlasting darkness of Tartarus, or of endless oblivion.'
"As he talked, he had dropped the wrist of Lilama, and she crouched upon the ground with her hands before her face, whilst Ahpilus continued to rave, and to pace from the chasm's edge away and back again, in maniac strides, until he had almost beaten where he paced a pathway. There was not the slightest necessity for Ahpilus to guard Lilama, for the awful chasm was more than twice the width that any sane and normal man, even an athlete, would dare attempt to leap, even to preserve his own life; and the distance to be traversed to gain a point in the chasm so narrow that an ordinary man would dare attempt to leap it, was several miles down the mountain-side; so that Lilama was at least ten miles beyond the reach of Pym, though less than eighty feet away.
"The mental strain on poor Pym was almost enough to make him a madman. There strode the maniac, to and from the edge of the abyss, rhythmically, rarely varying the distance by a yard--twenty yards off, then back again, then away. On every third or fourth approach he stepped literally to the edge of the chasm, and glanced down, ten thousand feet to where the stream below looked like the finest silver thread, lighted by the dazzling light from the giant crater, reflected into every smallest fissure. Now and again the madman would lash himself into a fury, and stop for a moment to gaze at Lilama, who never moved from her crouching position some ten feet from the canyon's brink. Even Peters, the stoic, was moved--but moved to anger rather than to grief or fear. He inwardly chafed, and madly raved, by turns, at the impotency of his position; whilst Pym seemed frozen into statuesque despair. How much longer would this scene of terror last? Oh, the thought of that awful leap into space! The maniac might any moment end the scene--each time as he approached in that wild rush backward and forward might be the last. The slightest move, the slightest sound, might precipitate the dire calamity--and Lilama as well as Pym and Peters seemed to feel this truth. The madman, like the wild beast, appears to need an extraneous stimulus, be it ever so slight, to suggest an initiative: the crooking of a finger, the whispering of a word, may be sufficient, but it must be something.--Ah! Has the moment come? Has the insane man caught some sound inaudible to the others? He pauses. Yes, he is going to act.
"'Oh! friend,' wailed Pym to Peters, in a low voice, 'save her, save her, or where she goes, there go I.'
"Then Peters looks across the chasm, down upon the scene beyond. The opposite brink at this point is ten or twelve feet lower than the spot where Pym and Peters stand, which gives them an excellent view of Lilama and Ahpilus. It is impossible to say just why, but it is obvious that the time which they dread has come. Ahpilus stands looking at the beautiful maiden who crouches in front of him; and as he gazes his powerful form seems to swell, as does that of a wild animal that has determined to spring upon its prey. His arms move forward to grasp her. He has no fear of interruption--he has for the moment forgotten the strangers. He slightly alters his position--his back is toward the chasm--his hands touch the person of his prey. Lilama partly raises her head. She glances past the maniac for a last look at her lover. She does not scream, even as those vise-like hands close upon her, and slowly, oh, so slowly, but steadily, draw her within that iron embrace--slowly, slowly, as might a maniac devotee move in the desecration of his idol.
"But why does she not scream? Why are her eyes fastened--not on her lover--not on the madman, but upon another object? What is that object? Is it a man? Can any man move as that thing moves? Surely that cannot be a man, that streak of drab color--yonder thing that casts to the ground a garment, then shoots backward twenty feet from the abyss--swifter than a panther, as silent as death, with two balls of living fire glaring from--from a face? Surely not a human face! Yes, it is a human face. She does not see the pallid face, the wild eyes of her lover, looking, too, at that thing--that human embodiment of animal agility. No: she has not time to look, for though the human eye is quick, that thing is quicker; and if she take her eye from it for half a second, her gaze will lose it. She cannot take from it her gaze--she is fascinated. Within the past second of time an heroic resolve has been formed, and a drama has begun; in the next two seconds an act in the drama will be completed; in sixty seconds more, a whole tragedy will be added to the list of human sorrows.
"No tongue can tell what cannot quite be seen. A rush of color toward that awful gap; it reaches the edge; it rises in the air and shoots out over that gulf that might indeed have been the portal of Tartarus. Fifty feet as flies the bird. It is in the air--it is half-way over--and yet the maniac has seen it not. But the maniac is turning with his victim in his arms. The streak of drab has passed forty feet--ten feet further if it is to reach the other brink--ten thousand if it fails to reach it; and it has already sunk ten feet in space--with ten feet more of horizontal distance to cover, it is already on a level with the edge of the abyss which it must safely reach, or--The maniac has turned; and the streak of drab has reached the brink--but, ah! below the surface. The form is that of Peters--the only man who could be in such a situation yet live on. One of those invincible arms is thrown upon the surface above the chasm, and those long fingers fasten upon the immovable lava. And now the madman sees the danger that menaces his design--but too late, for Peters the unconquerable stands erect between him and the chasm. Then Ahpilus quickly sets on the ground his living burden; and Peters, the human bird of passage, risks again his life.
"But, for a man like Peters, such a contest was scarcely a risk. Had Ahpilus been less savage in his baffled rage, Peters would have spared the madman; but it was not to be. There was scarcely a man in all Hili-li that could physically cope with Ahpilus; but he was no match for Peters. For a few moments the sailor protected himself without any act of aggression; but it soon became apparent that he would be obliged to destroy his adversary, or himself be destroyed. Ahpilus had pushed Peters, or Peters had carelessly allowed himself to shift his own position, to within dangerously close proximity to the chasm, and at the moment when Peters noticed this circumstance, he also saw that he was between Ahpilus and the abyss: and Ahpilus, in all his furious madness, also observed his advantage. Peters had in his possession a very long and keen knife, but, as he afterward said in talking over this incident, he had never yet seen the time when he was compelled to use an artificial weapon in an encounter with a single combatant; and particularly would he never have used a knife, even though his adversary were a maniac, if a maniac without an artificial weapon. Peters saw that Diregus had found Pym, and, as was also the boatman, he and Pym were, of course, viewing the struggle. I should not, however, have included Pym in the party of observers; for he knew too well how the combat would end to be much absorbed in it. He had no eyes for anything but Lilama.--But to return: As Ahpilus saw his advantage, by a supreme effort he summoned all his great muscular strength, and aided by that invincible motor, the will of a madman, he endeavored to force Peters over the brink. At that precise moment the sailor had his right hand closed on the top of Ahpilus's left shoulder, and his left hand just beneath Ahpilus's right arm on the side of the exile's chest. He quickly shifted his left hand to the side of the hip; and then those great gorilla arms raised from the ground the body of the madman, swung it overhead as another man might swing the body of a three-year-old child, as he did so bringing the back of his adversary downward; and then came a movement of Herculean power in which the long arms approximated with a twisting, bending effect; two vertebras in Ahpilus's back at the point of least resistance separated, the spine was dislocated, and a mass of helpless, vibrating human flesh fell at the feet of the victor. Peters, whilst his brute instinct was in full possession of him, might, instead of dropping Ahpilus to the ground, have thrown the body into the abyss; but Diregus had anticipated such an action, and called to Peters not to injure the poor insane fellow more than was necessary to prevent him from injuring others. Ahpilus was not dead--that is, he was not dead over his entire body: the hips and all below were as nerveless as the body of a corpse; but above the hips, the same old vigor remained--and so it would be though he lived for yet a hundred years."
Here Doctor Bainbridge ceased to speak. Doctor Castleton had entered the room two or three minutes before, and, keeping silent, had heard the last three or four hundred words, which described the close of that brief but terrible combat.
The FIFTEENTH Chapter
"Well," said Doctor Castleton, as Bainbridge closed. "Peters could, when he was fifty years younger, have done that very thing to any living man weighing not more than a hundred and eighty or a hundred and ninety pounds. I myself have seen him throw to the ground a powerful horse, and the little giant must have been older than sixty at the time. Then again, he possesses that wonderful instinct of certainty in action which belongs to purely animal life. It is said that the tiger when it strikes never misses its aim; and that our American panther makes the most unusual leaps without ever making an attempt beyond its powers. I have many times observed that even our comparatively degenerate domestic cat very rarely indeed, if ever, fails to accomplish the purpose of a stroke. Peters possesses, or did possess, that instinct."
"Yes," said Bainbridge, "you are right. Peters says that on almost every vessel he ever shipped on he was called 'the baboon'--because of his great physical power and agility, he says; but as we know, rather because of his extremely short stature, his large mouth--in fact, his resemblance in many striking ways to the gorilla, or the orang-outang; and perhaps, also, in part, to his habit, mentioned in Pym's description of him, of feigning mental aberration--assuming to be 'simple.'"
"This won't do," said Castleton, with that peculiar look on his face which always appeared when he was about to deflect from the serious to the humorous. "Whilst I should not object to hearing my old friend Peters called a gorilla, I draw the line at gorilla. I should object to the appellation orang-outang, and I should resent with emphasis that of baboon. But gorilla I will accept, for in many ways the gorilla is, or at least once was, the superior of man. Even if we limit the source of our deductions to the skeleton of the animal, the truth of my last assertion is strongly evidenced. In the first place, the gorilla is more sedate and less pettily curious than man; this is proved by his having only three, instead of four, bones in the last division of his spine, giving him a shorter caudal appendage than man's, and proving the animal to be farther from the monkey than are we; then in the second place, the gorilla has thirteen ribs, which would seem to be rational evidence that, whatever the present gorilla may be, his ancestors of by-gone ages were handsomer than man; because in the gorilla's first search for a wife the field of operations was not limited to his own chest."
"That will do very well, doctor; but don't you think you are a little severe on Adam?" I said.
"I have no sympathies with Adam. Not that I ever blamed him for his weakness in the apple incident; but I do blame him for his garrulity, and his paltry cowardice in exposing Eve. Eve was an instinctive agnostic--and she didn't purpose to be anybody's slave. If Adam decided to keep up with the procession, as he at first did decide to do, he had no business to whine over the outcome. I'd wager freely that Eve earned the living after the pair left paradise. Cain took after his mother; and I hazard the opinion that Eve was in sympathy with Cain in the Abel episode--that is, after the tragedy. Eve and Cain had the best of everything all the way through, for they acted in harmony with their feelings; whilst poor old feeble, vacillating Adam tried to use his worthless old brain-box, and the natural consequence ensued. His feelings, which constituted the strongest part of his mind, were always in conflict with his intellect, which was just strong enough to get him into trouble when a pure out-and-out unreasoning animal would have been safe; and he never had enough will properly to correct an error when he did see it."
We laughed over this conceit of Castleton's, and Bainbridge said:
"Speaking of biblical characters, I have thought that Moses would, with even slight literary training, have far surpassed the modern writer of adventure-fiction. His style may be open to adverse criticism, but his originality is beyond question. If he left any material for a purely original story, I fail to detect it. He gave to literature the sea-story, the war-story, and the love-story--stories that hinge on all the human passions, and stories of the supernatural in all its phases. He first presented to a world innocent of fiction-literature the giant and the dwarf; the brave man, the strong man, and the man of supreme fortitude; the honest man, the truthful king, and the woman that knows how to wait for the man she loves; voices in the air, signs in the sky--in short, everything. Even poor old Aesop wasn't in time to grasp a reputation for originality. The modern story-teller may combine, extend, and elaborate; but all opportunity for a display of invention seems to be forever barred."
"By the bye, doctor," said Castleton, evidently impatient at his enforced silence whilst another spoke, "do any of your volcanoes or mountains in Hili-li blow up?"
"No, sir," answered Bainbridge, with dignity.
"Well, if I had been Pym I should have blown those mountains into the Antarctic Ocean," said Castleton. "I understand from the words that I caught this evening as I entered here that your heroine is safe; but if I had been Pym, I should have taken no risks. I should have sent your madman word to return the girl, or take the consequences--the consequences being that I should have blown him and the entire mountain into the mighty deep. 'Sir,' I should have said, 'return the lady, or I will annihilate you.' And so I should have done, if a hair of her head had been harmed.--By the bye, gentlemen, I believe you never heard of my invention for stopping war, did you?" We intimated that we had thus far been deprived of that pleasure. I saw that one of his peculiar outbursts was at hand--one of those apparently serious, though, I thought, intentionally humorous sallies, so puzzling coming from a man of Castleton's intellectual attainments, and the mental _primum mobile_ of which I had already been much interested in trying to determine.
"Well, gentlemen," he continued, "it was about fourteen years ago, during the dark days of The War"--he referred to the great rebellion in the United States, which began in 1861, and which it required the existing government about four years to suppress. "It was during the period when our great President was most worried. I had thought the matter over--as I always do think over vast questions, from the standpoint of true greatness. 'Why not,' I mentally soliloquized, 'why not end this matter at a blow? 'As I drove about through our retired roads and lanes, I gave the subject my very best attention. I thought to myself how the present system of the universe depends upon what we term the luminiferous ether; of the perfect elasticity and inexpansibility of that ether; of what its nature must be. I concluded that no ultimate particle of it--as with matter no atom--is ever added to or removed from the universe. Now, if we could succeed in removing from this inexpansible, universal ocean of ether even the most ultimate portion, there would be a literal vacuum with nothing to fill it, and the equilibrium of the universe would be destroyed. Now, gentlemen, is or is not this supposition logical?"
We admitted our inability to deny its truth.
"'Well, then,' I reasoned, looking at the subject on the reverse side, 'could an additional portion of ether be created, there would be in space no place to receive it; the universe in its present state--a state in which what we term matter or substance exists--would just simply cease to exist--instantly, and within the compass of every star and planet.'
"But how to create that particle of ether--that was what occupied my mind for weeks. I would seem to grasp the hint that came and went within the recesses of a brain which--so say my friends--has perhaps never had its equal for variety of conception and rapid response to the slightest external or internal stimulus. Now, many physicists suppose matter to be simply a form of ether--plainly, that matter originated out of ether--was made from ether; so that, after all, the universe was created from nothing--that is, nothing if we correctly define matter. It was but a step for me, then, to the end: remove all radiant energy from a fixed gas--a gas without the property of condensation to another form of matter, _i.e._, to a fluid or a solid--and the thing, I said to myself, is done. I am positive that I know of such a gas, and within a few years all physicists will recognize it. At present the method of procuring it is my secret, as I may still wish to experiment with what is now but a theoretical discovery, though certain to unfold in practice exactly as I have explained it. You understand, of course, that I remove from my gas, by artificial cold and compression, the last vestige of heat, my gas becomes ether, there is no place for it in the universal ocean of inexpansible ether, the balance of the universe as it now exists is destroyed, all matter instantly ceases to exist, and we just sit back and wait for a few billions of trillions of cycles of time, until another system of nature is formed."