Part 6

Keeping my eyes on the companion way, I popped into the galley, and fished a huge junk of salt beef out of the boiler in which I had seen the cook place it the night before, for the purpose of soaking it to remove some of the super-abundant salt with which it was saturated. A bucket of doubtfully clean water stood in a corner; I tasted it, and found it was fresh, poured it into a large stone bottle, spilling half of it in my hurry, rammed a dirty cloth into the neck by way of cork, and put bottle and beef into the boat.

I hastened to lower the jolly-boat from the davits, but before she touched the water one of the falls jammed, the forward one luckily, and, as I lowered away on the aft one, the stern rested in the water, while the bows remained a couple of feet above it, in a dangerous position. This is not at all an uncommon occurrence, but my nerves were so shaken by the terrible ordeal I had passed through, that I fancied I heard the noise of feet on deck, so seizing my knife I cut away like a madman, making a dozen random cuts where one well-directed one would have sufficed. The boat swung round before I could unhook the other fall, and I was within an ace of meeting a watery grave when she righted, and bumped against the brig’s black side.

From the taffrail, as I swept past, depended a thin line, which I mechanically clutched and held, but as the ship was going some three knots an hour the boat rapidly dropped astern. I still held on as fathom after fathom paid out over the taffrail, till quite twenty fathoms hung in the water; then came a jerk, which threw me on my face, but I still hung on, and made the end fast round the forward thwart, as the other end was evidently fast on the _Ladybird_.

I sat in the bows for what seemed like hours, knife in hand, ready to cut myself adrift on the first signs of a human being appearing on deck. I saw the moon set and the night grow inky dark, and the volume of smoke from the fo’castle increase, and then I saw the glow of the extending fire reflected on the sails, but no human form was visible. Then I heard a crash and a subdued roar, and saw tongues of flame shoot up above the deck, catching the foresail and setting it in a blaze; then up and up it mounted till the whole suite of sails on the foremast were ablaze, and as I sat there I remember thinking to myself how pretty it looked. I felt secure, and my nerves were soothed by the sight before me, and I looked on calmly from my seat in the bows at the gallant ship, which from being my home had nearly become my tomb. Could I but have looked at the men in the strong-room, then, come what might, I am afraid I must have released them, for evidently they were still prisoners, and my sympathetic heart would have been my body’s ruin. I tried to find some mode for their release and my own safety, but although I racked my brain, I could devise no practical plan; beside, by this time they were probably suffocated.

While thus cogitating, the flames took hold upon the sails of the mizzen-mast, and they too were soon destroyed, leaving the yards and masts blazing. The air grew hotter and hotter; the deck was in a blaze, and great pieces of burning wood and tarry rope began to fall in and around the boat, and although I wished to hang on to witness the last of the _Ladybird_, I was at last compelled to cut the rope and drop quietly astern, as the heat, smoke, and fiery drift had become quite unbearable.

The good ship was now alight from stem to stern, and without her sails made very little progress through the water, but drifted gradually before the faint breeze, so slowly, in fact, that with the paddles I could manage to keep up with her. She presented a splendid appearance as, clothed in fire, she rose and fell on the roll of the sea; her reflection, mirrored in the waves, made the water glow with an incandescent lustre that riveted my boyish attention as intently as the finest pyrotechnic display could possibly have done.

Day at last began to dawn, and when light fairly broke, I was alone on the ocean; for the poor old hull with its stumpy black masts swerved from side to side, and, with a sidelong movement, sank like a tea-saucer, sending up, with a sudden puff, a great cloud of vapour, and leaving many charred fragments floating in the swirling waters where she disappeared. I pulled in all directions, to see if perchance the bodies of any of the villainous trio might float to the surface, but nothing met my eyes but broken and burnt wood, and the usual flotsam from a scuttled vessel.

And that was the last I ever saw of the good ship _Ladybird_.

Now that should really be the end of my yarn, for I am not going to tell you how I drifted about for three days, wet to the skin, and unable to protect myself from the pouring rain; and I need not tell you how I cut my raw salt beef in strips and washed it down with the dirty water I had in the bottle. Suffice it to say that on the evening of the third day I was picked up, more dead than alive, by a brig bound to Rekiavick, in Iceland; and from thence was given a passage to Hull, from which port I walked home to Yarmouth.

When I quietly entered the bar of the “Jolly Waggoner,” I nearly frightened my father out of his senses at my unexpected appearance.

But to tell of that would make my yarn too long.

What I want to wind up with is the proof of its truth; and this is how I vouch for its accuracy, by quoting the following extract, taken from the columns of the _Daily Telegraph_ (London).

Look up that newspaper for Monday, January 15th, 1894, and on page 3, near the bottom of the 6th column, you will find this paragraph:--

“A STRANGE DISCOVERY.--A Plymouth correspondent telegraphs that advices have been received of the arrival in Galveston of the Norwegian barque _Elsa Anderson_, having in tow the hull of an English-built brig, which had apparently been burned at sea more than fifty years ago, and which appeared on the surface of the ocean after a submarine disturbance off the Faroe Islands. The hull of the strange derelict was covered with sea-shells, but the hold and under decks contained very little water. In the captain’s cabin were found several iron-bound chests, the contents of which had been reduced to pulp except a leather bag, which required an axe to open it. In it were guineas bearing date 1809, and worth over £1000. There were also several watches and a stomacher of pearls blackened and rendered valueless by the action of the water. Three skeletons were also found, one of a man about seven feet high.”

There, that is my yarn, and I may just add that my first experience of the sea was my last, for my maiden voyage contained enough excitement during its very brief duration to last for the term of my natural life.

“What do you ask? How came the pearl stomacher and the watches in the hands of the miscreants?”

Well, that I must leave, for I did not see them in their possession, but doubtless they were the proceeds of robberies ashore.

IV.

INTRODUCTION TO “A VISITOR FROM MARS.”

The narrator of the following quaint story was a little man, very soberly dressed, and very timid in his demeanour. He appeared to be greatly in awe of his wife, of whom he spoke with due, or perhaps I might say undue, humility and deference. If his habiliments were sober, I am much afraid his habits were the reverse; his nose was very rubicund, and its bright colouring contrasted oddly with his coat, once black, but now tinged with a disreputable greenish hue.

He sat in an awkward position on the very edge of the seat, acquiesced in everything I said, and was of such a feeble, backboneless character, that after he had consumed half a tumbler of whiskey at a gulp, I had no trouble in hypnotizing him (without even asking his consent) as he lolled back on the chair in a very drowsy condition.

Slight hope was mine of eliciting anything like a story from this intemperate little gentleman, and it was an agreeable surprise, therefore, when he reeled off the following, which I will call “A Visitor from Mars.”

A VISITOR FROM MARS.

That a spirit could visit this earth from such a distant planet as Mars, my wife would not believe for a moment, explain it how I would.

She required a proof, and proof I could have given her had she only attended to her household duties and kept my pockets in proper repair, instead of prying into things that did not concern her; beside, was not the verbal description of my shadowy visitor and his extraordinary conversation sufficient to convince any one but an obstinate woman that what I spoke was solid truth?

Why should she imagine that the inordinately hot weather of the past summer had had such a soporific effect upon me, that, in wooing Morpheus, I simply _dreamed_ of my visitor?

Why should she think that because I had my spirit flask with me during my afternoon ramble that I----?--but allow me, my intelligent reader, to lay my story before _you_, and I think you will bear me out that there is a foundation in it.

To begin at the beginning.

It was a hot, dreamy day in the middle of August, and I was staying at the old-fashioned, out-of-the-world, under-the-hill town of Minehead in Somersetshire. The atmosphere being too hot for sitting indoors, and the water much too clear for fishing, I thought I would take a stroll to Horner Woods, which lie under the great hills, just this side of Stoke Pero, and in the immediate neighbourhood of Dunkery Beacon, which is precisely one-third of a mile high.

Opening my umbrella and using it as a sunshade, I wandered listlessly along the two or three miles which intervene between Minehead and my haunt, and took a long time in reaching the recumbent tree upon which I loved to sit and sketch or read. A more charming or solitary spot cannot be found in all the West Country.

The walk leads up a narrow valley, skirted on either side by hills rising abruptly to a height of many hundred feet, culminating in the giant Dunkery Beacon, whose bald head, as I have said, breaks the horizon seventeen hundred feet above sea level. The feet of these giant hills are clad in trees and underwood of such an impenetrable nature, that as one walks in the valley and looks up the acclivities, one can see but a few score yards, and then the mass of wood and foliage becomes so black and dense that the eye cannot penetrate it.

Of course, as in all western valleys, a bubbling, murmuring trout stream flows through it towards the sea, into which it falls at the pretty village of Porlock, some miles distant; and as it twists and falls from and among the great boulders with which the bed of the stream is thickly strewn, it is easy to fancy one hears persons conversing at no great distance, so peculiar is the murmuring noise of the waters. Perhaps the water has its familiar spirits! Why not? We know that spirits and water are frequently very intimate with each other, and produce much talk and idle chatter, and possibly they are spirit voices that we hear, although we cannot make much sense of them.

It was a fairy spot I had selected, and as I sat on my comfortable seat on the mossy old fallen monarch of the woods, with my back resting comfortably against a bough, which gave it the support of an arm-chair, I could not help imagining that such a spot would just have suited Robin Hood and his merry men. In fact, I amused myself by peopling the glade in my imagination.

There--under that great branching oak might rest several mighty casks of ale, round which the men in Lincoln green would cluster, lying in various picturesque attitudes, with their bows and arrows hanging from the branches of surrounding trees, ready to be snatched down at a moment’s notice in case of any alarm. There--where that patch of yellow-green grass crept out from the withered oak, I would have a party of dancers tripping it to pipe and tabour; and down yonder precipitous path should come the lofty Little John, with a fine deer across his broad shoulders; while in the arbour formed by those three hawthorn trees, I could imagine the sturdy form and graceful figure of Robin himself and the fair Maid Marian. Then Friar Tuck must be among them; yes, he should have a large horn of ale and----thud!!

“Why, where in the name of fortune came you from?” I cried, as a little fat man in cassock and hood plumped down on the soft turf beside me. “Have I the pleasure of addressing his reverence, Friar Tuck?”

“Friar Tuck! No, my friend--never heard of that gentleman. _My_ name is Friar Bacon.”

“Friar Bacon!” I exclaimed. “Why, surely _you_ never had anything to do with this jovial company--Robin Hood and his merry men?”

But as I swept my arm round to give emphasis to my speech, I perceived, to my astonishment, that nought but trees and rocks met my view on every side, my foresters had vanished, and I found myself in the presence of a short, stout, rubicund monk, who should have been dust these six hundred years.

“Bacon,” I murmured, looking doubtingly at my visitor; “why, how is it possible that you, who died, if my memory serves me rightly, ere the close of the thirteenth century, can be here before me at the end of the nineteenth? You are joking with me, my friend.”

“Oh no,” replied my visitor, “it is extremely simple. You must know that I, with many other learned men, have formed a scientific colony, so to speak, in the planet Mars. We have many among us known to you by repute. St. Dunstan, Newton, Archimedes, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Euclid, and many others, are of our company, and right harmoniously we live together. Live, I say, but of course you will understand I mean exist, for we have for many ages passed from the flesh, and are now simply etherealized bodies, or, if you will, spirits!

“You would ask how came we in Mars?

“Well, let it suffice if I inform you, that by the sanction of the Great Spirit, we, Advancers of Mankind, are allowed a special parole, as a recompense for our toil on earth, and there in Mars we exist, instead of perambulating this dense earth of yours, in a spirit form, till we are required ‘At the Last.’

“Just place your hand upon my breast.”

I did so, but my fingers meeting no resistance, I extended my arm, and could see my hand emerge beyond the figure as the jolly friar remarked:

“There, you see, I am pure spirit, double distilled, and I trust highly rectified.

“Well,” he continued, “I have not long to stay, so I will have a short chat with you, and then, heigh presto! back to my cosy planet. You see it is only once in two years we get very close to your earth, that is, at a certain time we are only 35 millions of miles from you, whilst at another time we are as much as 244 millions of miles away. Therefore as we travel fast I must not linger long, or I shall be late at our monthly scientific meeting, which takes place to-morrow.”

I could not refrain from asking him what the planet Mars was like, and he very civilly informed me that it was prettier than the earth, and its climate milder; “beside which,” said he--

“The genial seasons are longer; we have a spring of 192 days, and a summer of 180; whilst the autumn is of 150, and the winter of 147 days’ duration only. A longish year, as you will observe, nearly 690 days; but then we are so busy and so happy that we do not notice the flight of time. Time is an object to you mortals, but we philosophers totally disregard it. If you visited our planet you would find one thing in particular very trying to you in your present gross form--we have no atmosphere to speak of.

“We neither eat, drink, nor sleep; require no clothing, that is no _renewal_ of clothing, for this cassock is the shade of the last costume I wore when on earth, and will probably last me till the Crack of Doom; consequently we are enabled to employ the whole of our time in scientific research.”

“Might I venture to inquire into the nature of your scientific studies?” I timidly inquired.

“Why certainly,” he replied, rubbing his forehead reflectively; and as he drew his hand across the noble expanse of his frontal bone, I could see a rush of little sparks follow his shadowy fingers. This set me to gaze more intently at his phenomenal person, and as I did so I was surprised to find that I could see quite through what should have been the frontal bone, and there, in the cavity of the cranium, I beheld his brain at work thinking. It simply appeared like revolving smoke curling this way and that, and taking fantastic forms; halting, and then moving on again in complex but orderly movement.

Seeing my utter astonishment, he good-naturedly enlightened me as to the strange appearance.

“The brain,” said he, “is _the man_, it never dies, and in our case is the only part which does not entirely become spirit, that is, _transparent_ spirit. It always remains a foggy, cloudy kind of ether, visible to mortals; and they are constantly walking through and sitting surrounded by it, though they know it not.

“You probably do not believe in ghosts or spirits, yet you are surrounded by them day and night, and when, by a variety of accidental causes, one becomes materialized you see it, and immediately write off to a newspaper about it as something wonderful. Ha! ha! If I could only open your eyes and show you the number of ghosts in this silent and solitary spot you would scarcely believe your eyes; there are thousands!”

Then looking at me with his peculiar, luminous eyes he inquired, “Did you ever notice a kind of mist floating over graveyards during certain days of damp, muggy weather?”

“Yes,” I replied, “often; but what of that?”

“What of that!--why,” continued Bacon, “that is the spirit, the soul, _the brain_ of disembodied mortals, which floats till the Final Day just above the ground, the rock, the sea, or wherever the body was buried.”

I marvelled at this, whereupon my communicative friend went further, and said:--

“Do you not know that these spirits may be conversed with by mortals? You have a certain control over electricity, you have the phonograph, the electrophone, and the telephone--trifles in comparison to what we have invented in Mars--but with these you have only to proceed in this way. You simply----”

But ere he uttered another word a wind swept through the wood with a crackling sound, at which the Friar bowed his head and quietly uttered the words “I obey!” It was evident by his uneasy movements and facial expression that he had been stayed from enlightening me further by some unseen spirits, so, to turn the subject, I said:--

“What is there appertaining to this earth in which we might advance our knowledge, by invention or otherwise?”

The little monk looked at me with a mirthful face, putting his jolly head on one side, and with a look in his eyes as if he would say, “Don’t you wish you may pump me?” said:--

“I must tell you plainly, that by our bond we are forbidden to tell to mortals the secrets we possess, but I will just give you a little idea or two that you may experimentalize upon, and see what you are clever enough to make of notions that _we_ have already established as practical scientific facts.

“Electricity with you is only in its infancy, it is but just born--yet you have taken several steps in the right direction; you have the phonograph, the electrophone, and the telephone, all of which are very well in their way, but you must go further with them. If you are clever enough you can make the phonograph convey _thought_ as well as speech, so that you and I, being a mile apart, could, with the help of an improved phonograph, convey our _thoughts_ to each other. With a certain instrument conversation with departed spirits might be held and the very secrets of the grave revealed, and the great----” But here the wind again sighed through the valley, and the monk again bowed and meekly crossed himself, having evidently ventured too far beyond the bounds of his suggestions.

“The electrophone,” said he, “may easily be improved, so that in combination with a certain machine which I may tell you is _on the eve of being invented_ in America, will not only give you the voice of the person speaking at a distance, but also his or her likeness with every line of the features expressing the individuality of the person under notice.

“Electricians of the Nineteenth Century! why, you have only reached ‘A’ in the alphabet of electrical possibilities. How absurd of you to use horseflesh to draw loads, and raise or lower heavy masses, and to use steam--noisy, bulky steam--for locomotives and marine engines, and to write with ink and even use hand-power to sew with, when everything could be done quicker, easier, cheaper, and cleaner by the _touchstone of all future motion_--electricity!

“There, get along, ye mortals of to-day!” and the little man rolled about with laughter, “ye laggards, why, if half-a-dozen of our company in Mars had had _your_ scientific instruments and delicate machinery in _our_ day we should have made an entirely different world of this earth. Why, my old friend Archimedes would have obtained a fulcrum for his lever long before now, and if no one had prevented him would have attempted to hurl the earth right out of the planetary system into space. Oh, he is even now a most mischievous fellow, though you would not think it to look at him; his ambition is boundless, and his scientific pranks are at times very reprehensible. Only last week, just for the fun of the thing, he blew Sir Isaac Newton nearly to the sun, and when the poor fellow returned to Mars after several days’ absence we scarcely knew him, he had become so sunburnt with his visit to the suburbs of the great luminary. It was beyond a joke, you know.” Then the little man went off into another paroxysm of laughter at the thought of poor Sir Isaac’s burnt spirit-face.

“What,” queried I, “can you tell me of ships and navigation? Have we reached the limit of speed in the merchant service, and the zenith of offensive and defensive power in the Navy?”

These questions sent the little man off into a fresh fit of laughter, and he looked at me as much as to say, “You ignoramus, you type of mortal feebleness and conceit.” Presently having calmed down he proceeded:--

“I must tell you that Nelson is with us in spirit, and has turned out a capital inventor. He follows eagerly all that takes place, navally, in the little dots on the globe called Great Britain, and you will scarcely believe it when I tell you, that he has invented a _wooden_ ship that would in one brief hour destroy your entire navy.”

“How could it be done?” said I.

“Ah! there you are! I cannot _tell_ you, I can only give you an idea. My lord’s ship is of wood, compressed india-rubber, and cork! The only thing you have to discover is how to place your caoutchouc so that when a shot is fired at your ship it passes clean through it and the hole immediately closes, just as the water closes after it is cloven by the ship’s hull. Firing at Nelson’s ship would have the same effect as if you thrust your walking-stick through me or through your own shadow.”

“But,” I asked eagerly, “how would he destroy our navy in an hour?”

“Why,” said the Friar, “he and Sir Humphrey Davy have invented an explosive of such vast power, that a single pound weight would destroy the strongest ironclad afloat, and he can fire it from an ordinary shoulder gun, with which he delights to practise at the mountains of Mars. He can chip a thousand-ton mountain top off with a single shot; we have to stop him at it, for he quite spoils the scenery, and alters it so completely that we are in danger of losing ourselves. He calls his destructive agent ‘infernite,’ and it really is quite diabolical.”

“And of speed in merchant vessels,” I remarked, “what of that?”