Part 7

“There you are all wrong again, you have gone right off the proper path. Why, your passenger vessels actually float on the _surface_ of the sea, instead of fathoms below it; consequently you have both wind and waves to contend with, which is absurdly and palpably wrong to any one who gives the least reflection to the matter.

“Set your inventive faculties to work, control and compress your air--by the way, see that you get it pure, sea air is always best and safest--sink your hermetically-sealed ship by hydraulic arrangements, pitch your great thumping steam monsters overboard, and propel your vessel with civilized and cleanly electric force, and there you are! America in twenty-four hours! India in three days! China in five! and Australia in a week!!

“This speed should have been attained years since; but your engineers are so in love with great smoky furnaces, steel monsters, and grimy coal and grease, that it will take some time before they get off with the ugly old love (steam) and on with the elegant new one (electric force).”

I nodded approval, and put another query. “Can we do anything more to improve the locomotive engine both as to safety and speed? Of course I gather from what you have just said that electricity could be made to take the place of steam, and then we should get a much quicker and safer service of trains than at present.”

“Quicker service of trains?” he echoed, and looked at me in feigned amazement. “Trains and locomotives, did you say? Why, my dear friend, you astonish me. To improve your service, gather up all your network of iron rails, but leave your stations intact for the present, and pitch both the rails and the horrid shrieking engines into the midst of the Atlantic, not into the North Sea, for that is so shallow that the immense pile of old iron would cause an obstruction to submarine navigation, and quite spoil the fishing-ground, though it would be an excellent iron tonic to the fish.

“Then, having done that, invent a neat little electric aërostat--it can and has been done by us--and simply fly from point to point, from station to station if you will, noiselessly and expeditiously. Edinburgh or Dublin in three hours, or St. Petersburg in ten, would be a fair speed. What are they made of, do you say? Well, there is that bothering bond that seals my lips, or I would willingly make a sketch and give you a specification with pleasure.

“You know that certain chemicals produce certain gases. Gas is a power: it may be converted into a motive power. Do you follow?”

I bowed.

“For the fabric: do you know that six goose quills will support a man?--if not, I can assure you they will; there is lightness and strength for you! What can, with equal economy, be beaten thinner or is lighter than aluminium?--a new metal with you, I find. For propelling mechanism, study the wing of the swift-flying birds, created by our Great Spirit; you cannot _improve_ on that, but you can modify and adapt it to your particular purpose.”

Then casting his eye upon my umbrella, which was lying open beside me (for I had used it to keep the sun off), he bade me observe its form, which I did.

“In that worm-produced fabric,” said he, pointing to the silk shade, “you have the form of the best sustainer (parachute) that even we have yet discovered. There! I have mentioned your principal materials, now set to work, and do not longer disfigure your beautiful islands with iron webs, rabbit burrows, and crawling beetles, for such, I am told, your railway systems appear to the inhabitants of your satellite the Moon, who have very powerful telescopes, and are fond of gazing at their big brother the Earth.

“Really, when I come to reflect upon the condition of you mortals, your whole system seems strange; here, six centuries after I have left the earth, you are actually eating and drinking just as when I was among you (and I was no mean connoisseur of a bottle of Sack or Malmsey), and, consequently, you are always ill and ailing. It therefore follows, as a matter of course, that half of you die before there is any necessity for you to do so.

“For the first thousand or two years after the Creation, people knew what was good for them, and partook of everything fresh and good, and lived for centuries; but now it appears to me that you have a system in vogue among you called adulteration, by which one half of the community seeks to partially poison the other half, simply to gather together as many pieces of gold as they can hoard in a few years, and when they die they leave these gold coins to some one else to scatter to the four winds and the Evil One, for their so-called amusement. All very nice, I dare say, but why do you not do as I did--work, and discover the Philosopher’s Stone and Elixir Vitæ! Then, having discovered them, you could be as rich as you pleased, and live as long as you had any desire to.”

“Interrupting you,” I ventured, “would it be against your bond to impart to me, a mortal, the secret of those two great discoveries you claim to have made when on earth? Would you be induced by anything I could offer you, or do for you, to divulge the component parts of your Elixir Vitæ?”

The jolly little man laughed till his sides vibrated like a blanc-mange, at the very idea of _my_ being able to do anything for _him_, or offer him any equivalent for his priceless secret of continued life.

“Ha! ha! Ho! ho! My friend, you would be the death of me if it were possible to kill a spirit; I declare I feel quite a curious feeling just where my ribs ought to be, by indulging in such hearty laughter as I have not experienced for quite a century.

“My friend, I will give you the recipe for the Elixir of Life with pleasure, as it was my own discovery _previous_ to my death, so that I may divulge it to any one I choose. The ingredients are so simple that it is a wonder scores of alchemists did not discover it as I did, but doubtless it was the simplicity of the various items that caused them to miss the mark. They searched for curious and complex mixtures, for crystals and ores, powders and nostrums, distillations and subtle gases, and other things of a complex nature, when the real articles were right under their very noses, and _in everyday use_!

“Here is the solution to the buried secret; for buried it was when they laid me in the grave six centuries agone, for I told it to no man, nor did I take advantage of it to prolong my own life, as I had worked so hard that I longed for a thorough rest, and am now enjoying it, for we spirits never tire.

“Take one ounce of acetic acid, it is a preventive of frivolity; one pound of pure alcohol, which gives spirit and vigour whenever used; of laudanum three drams, as a soporific giving a quiet and steady demeanour; and add two drams of ground cloves, for spice is very preserving to the body.

“Next you add three pints of distilled water, which is a very cleansing agent, and with it put in a few twigs of birch, which is a capital corrective, and every man requires somewhat of the kind at times.

“Then you take a few--but I am sure you will forget all these things, so, if you will lend me a piece of paper and a pencil (which are things we lacked in our day), I will write down the various ingredients and quantities for you, and you can get them made up at any chemist’s; here are twenty-seven ingredients in all, each good for something; miss one, and you spoil the harmony of the whole, and the prescription is useless. Everything must be absolutely free from adulteration, or only a partial success will be the result.”

Then for a quarter of an hour he scribbled away, occasionally pausing, and cocking his head upon one side to recollect things which he had stored in his busy memory centuries ago.

His smoky brain revolved at a great rate as I watched him write the formula.

“There,” said he at last, as he handed me the wonderful secret, which was to make me live to see ships float under water, people fly through the air, and electricity the great motive power of the world, “I think you will find that correct, and I shall be glad to meet you here this day one hundred years hence, to see how matters are going with you. By the way, what is the time?”

I now perceived that it was grown quite dark, and the stars were twinkling through the trees, a fact which I had not before noted, so absorbed had I been with the strange conversation of my visitor.

I looked at my watch.

“It is five minutes past ten o’clock,” I said.

“Goodness me!” said the friar; “how I shall have to hurry. I should have left at seven o’clock, as I am due at Mars not later than midnight, or I forfeit my liberty for one generation; and thirty years without a fly to some planet or other is no joke. Ta, ta!”

And as I looked at my jolly friend he scared me by suddenly becoming perfectly incandescent; he glowed for an instant like a furnace at white heat, then with a whizz and a flash he was gone so quickly that the eye could only follow him for a trice, and then he disappeared into space; at least his bodily form disappeared by apparently transforming itself into a star, which grew smaller and less brilliant, till it was entirely lost amid the myriads of others which studded the sky.

I smelt for brimstone, but there was not even a sign of it that I could detect.

I felt dizzy, and stiff, and stupid, but gathering my umbrella, books, and flask together (the latter quite empty, by the by, possibly upset), I made for Minehead, but found it a long and difficult walk. Sitting so long in one position had cramped and affected my legs to such a degree, that it was with much meandering and uncertainty that I reached my apartments near the little pier.

My wife, good soul, was waiting up for me, and as I entered she pointed to the clock, which was then striking twelve.

Thinking of Friar Bacon, I exclaimed half aloud--“I wonder if he reached home in time? What a flight, thirty-five million miles in less than three hours!”

At this my wife shook her head, and remarked that bed was the best place for me; and as she kindly assisted me to undress, I did not contradict her.

When I awoke next morning I felt in a very unsettled state of mind, and collecting my wandered senses, I endeavoured to account to my wife for my absence of the previous day, by telling her of my adventure with the monk in Horner Woods. She was moved when I told her that the paper in my waistcoat pocket would _prove_ what I asserted to be true.

“Kindly feel in the right-hand pocket of my waistcoat, get out the paper, and read for yourself,” I remarked quietly but triumphantly.

She felt as directed.

Nothing was there save a large hole!

I had lost the paper; and with it my character for veracity and the knowledge of “How to Live for Ever” into the bargain.

AFTER CONCLUSION OF STORY.

I hardly like to say it, but I verily believe my guest had been drinking heavily, and that he was suffering from _delirium tremens_, or, as it is commonly called for conciseness, “the blues”; anyway, when he left the caravan he was mumbling to himself, casting furtive glances to right and left, and gesticulating very much as he walked down the road. I am afraid I did the poor man a great wrong in giving him so much raw spirit; but then I console myself with the knowledge that I was only indirectly to blame, having merely placed the decanter upon the table, as I would for any other visitor, and expressed a wish that he would help himself; with which suggestion he complied by diminishing my spirit store more rapidly than I had intended. The following day I sent him a pamphlet upon temperance, as a set-off against my ill-timed hospitality, and trust that he read it with profit.

My guest was such a confirmed believer in spirits that he would have made a capital medium for any professional spiritualist. He was familiar with almost every spirit nameable, and had been at one time or other possessed of them all, knowing where to find both the best and the worst of them.

V.

INTRODUCTION TO “BARBE ROUGE.”

The gentleman to whom I am indebted for the story of the old pirate, “Barbe Rouge,” is now a well-known artist and author, and as I knew him to be the hero of several adventures, I was anxious to obtain a story from him. Having gained an introduction to him, I put myself in his way when passing through Norwich. After a long chat, he expressed a wish to inspect my caravan, which I had left at Thorpe, the prettiest village in Norfolk, so we strolled down to it together.

Being of a roving and adventurous disposition, he showed great delight at my house on wheels and its comfortable internal arrangements, and having friends at Lynn whom he wished to visit, he begged to be allowed to accompany me on my journey as far as the borders of the county. I readily acquiesced, and found him such a companionable fellow, that our roundabout journey to Lynn--distant some fifty miles by the nearest road from Norwich--actually took us _three weeks_ to accomplish. My comrade was delighted with the gipsy life, and but that his leisure time was at an end, he would have accompanied me further on my progress through the fens of Lincolnshire.

We met with several adventures while we were together, one of which I must relate.

Harry Nilford (such was my friend’s name) strolled out one evening to indulge in a bath, while I stayed in to cook the supper, it being my day for _chef_ duty; and as we were camped within a mile of the sea, between Blakeney and Morston, I expected him back in about an hour or rather more, but it was upwards of two hours before he returned, looking very excited. He had taken my gun with him, thinking it very probable that he might come across a stray rabbit for the pot, and I naturally inferred, from his sparkling eyes, that he had been successful in his quest.

“What do you think I’ve shot, old fellow?”

“Rabbits?”

“No; guess again. Something bigger and rarer.”

“Well, then, a hare?”

“No--bigger and rarer still,” said he, smiling at my puzzled look.

I guessed all kinds of things, but was every time wrong, so I asked the question--

“Is it fish, fowl, or fur?” I have heard of large fish being shot, so included it in my query.

“Well,” said my friend, “it is fur, and I might almost say fish also, for it is a splendid swimmer.”

I puzzled over the riddle for some time, and then, after having failed in guessing an otter, gave it up as something beyond me.

“Then if you cannot guess, or even get near it, I will tell you. It was _a seal_--a very rare visitor to this coast indeed, in fact, such a thing has not been seen for many years along the hundred miles of coast which bounds the county of Norfolk.”

He had shot the seal as it flippered itself along the yielding sand, upon which it had been basking, to make its escape to the sea. Both barrels, however, did not suffice to kill it, and the animal got to the water, and would have made its escape, although severely wounded, had not Harry rushed into the sea and given the soft-eyed seal its quietus with the butt of the gun.

It was too heavy for him to bring away, and was, moreover, covered with blood, so he dug a shallow trench in the sand, and placing the body in it, covered it up and left it.

We arranged to go down to the beach early in the morning and bring our prize back in triumph; accordingly, about seven o’clock next day, we went, but to our astonishment the seal was gone!

Could it have revived and made its escape?

We searched about for signs.

We noticed footmarks leading down to the water’s edge, and also the prints of a dog’s paws in the sand, and, lower down still, we saw where the keel of a boat had cut its way when rowed ashore and beached.

We put these things together, and came to the conclusion that my friend had been watched and the seal stolen after his departure. Anyway it was gone; and although we inquired at both Blakeney and Morston, and offered a reward, we could learn no tidings of the missing animal.

We went sorrowfully on our way, and two days after were at Burnham Thorpe (Nelson’s birthplace), when we heard at the village inn of a hairy mermaid being exhibited at Brancaster. We took no notice of the news but when we reached the village with a Roman name, we found the people quite excited over the wonderful mermaid, and with numerous other visitors paid our pennies to go in and see the curiosity--when behold, it was Harry’s seal!

Of course Harry demanded it, but the men would not give it up, and as Brancaster does not contain a policeman, force had to be resorted to. My friend was a big, strong fellow, and I being scarcely less in size or strength, we made a good fight of it, and placed the seal in my van and made off. The villagers became very abusive and threatening, and many missiles were thrown at us, but we got away as quickly as possible, I handling the reins, and Harry keeping off the crowd with a gun in one hand and a whip, which he used pretty freely, in the other.

We had three panes of glass broken, sundry cuts and bruises, and a black eye, which latter fell to my lot, on our side. We could not quite tell the number of the evening’s casualties; all we knew was that more than one bloody nose and contused cheek were to be seen.

The seal was skinned and dressed in Lynn, and Harry had a waistcoat made for himself, and a fine lappet cap for me, which has been a great comfort in winter travelling, when the easterly winds are blowing.

The following story of “Barbe Rouge” he kindly touched up, at my request, after I had written it, as I received it from his lips while in a mesmeric state, for, being a story within a story, it is rather difficult of interpretation. The case stands thus: “Barbe Rouge,” a piratical sea dog of the eighteenth century, enacted a tragedy, of which he left a record, which record, a hundred odd years later, was found by my friend, Harry Nilford, on the Isle of Jethou, one of the Channel Isles. The story of the tragedy he committed to memory, and in a hypnotic state recounted to me.[A] Being a complex story I have, as I mention above, requested him to touch it up here and there. This he has done with the following result.

[A] Those of my readers who would like to read the adventures of Harry Nilford should obtain _Jethou, or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles_, published by Messrs. Jarrold and Sons, 10 and 11, Warwick Lane, London, E.C.

BARBE ROUGE.

Visitors to Guernsey will remember that opposite the entrance to the Harbour of St. Peter Port, at a distance of about three miles, lies a curiously-shaped island called Jethou, which rises from the sea in a graceful curve, and looks at first sight like an immense turtle, or a huge floating dish-cover. It is a small island, probably not more than a third of a mile long and a quarter of a mile broad, but is so steep, that in the centre it reaches an altitude approaching three hundred feet.

It is a solid granite island, covered in most parts with bracken and furze, which makes it a very paradise for the rabbits with which it abounds. There are two small stone-built houses upon it, around one of which is a prolific fruit and vegetable garden. There are out-buildings attached, and at a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile from the white house is an apology for a harbour.

It is a remarkably nice place for a holiday--sunny, healthy, quiet, and not too far from aid in case of sickness or accident; but it is not a resort for the general public, being private property.

It was on this island that in 186-- a young Norfolk gentleman elected to spend twelve months as a recluse, or as he was pleased to term it--a Crusoe.

He went to the island for two reasons; one of which was the anticipation of a happy and adventurous time, and the other the winning of a wager (that he would not leave the island before twelve months had expired). In neither object was he disappointed.

While papering the walls of his little sitting-room, he had the good fortune to find a parchment, hidden away in a niche in the wall, which had hitherto been concealed by the thick covering of wall-paper, of which he peeled off no less than five layers. He had read Edgar Allen Poe’s story of “The Golden Beetle,” and finding a parchment covered with hieroglyphics, he surmised that if he could only decipher it there might be as thrilling a sequel as followed on the solution of the cryptogram in Poe’s story.

Unfortunately he was not so clever as the man in the story, and failed--unassisted--in discovering the secret of the parchment.

The puzzling document was a list of some sort which the finder could not understand, as it was in French; beneath it was a drawing of a square with a human skull in the centre, from which radiated lines ending in certain letters, and having figures upon the rays.

The solution was discovered, however, after the young Crusoe had been on the island for upwards of twelve months (he stayed eighteen months in all), and in a most unexpected manner.

Being a Crusoe, it was not at all a surprising matter that he should have a man Friday, and one day during a storm a Friday really did appear, in the form of a French sailor, whose little vessel was wrecked upon the hostile granite shores of Jethou. The man saved, the sole survivor of a crew of four, was at once christened Monday, from the day on which he was saved. This man (Alec Ducas) spoke very fair English, and the two young men soon became fast friends.

One day the young Englishman, whose name was Harry Nilford, bethought him of his curious parchment, and producing it from his box, asked his friend if he could decipher it. The first part of the document was quickly read, and no doubt astonished the finder. It was as follows--

“THIS IS THE LAST WILL of Jean Tussaud (sometimes known as Barbe Rouge), Master Mariner, of C----.

“The person who is lucky enough to find my treasure-house, I hereby declare to be my heir, and whatsoever he finds shall be his, and for his sole benefit.

“My chief mate, William Trefry, a Cornishman, wished to become my heir before my death, but we could not agree upon that point, although I gave him possession of my _petites fées_ (little fairies) and a key, also a valuable knife, for an inheritance. The bearings of my treasure-house are these.”

Then followed the curious drawing with the death’s-head centre, followed by the words--“The lucky one will find the following property.”

Here followed a long list of the articles stowed away; winding up with the words--“and my box of pretty _petites fées_.”

* * * * *

“I leave Jethou to-night to make a voyage to the West Indies, to see what business can be done there. I leave this paper so that, should I never return, the goods I have so industriously, and at such risk, gathered together, may be of service to the person who may have skill enough to discover their whereabouts.

“Signed, JEAN TUSSAUD (Barbe Rouge), “_February 19, 17--_.”

For weeks the two young men puzzled their wits over the document; but to abbreviate this narrative,[B] they ultimately succeeded in discovering the place of concealment.

[B] The unravelling of the enigma may be found in _Jethou_.

It was in the centre of the garden, at the rear of the house, and after great toil in digging they came upon the skeleton of a man, and were about to fill up the large hole they had made, imagining, in their horror, that they had come upon a grave instead of a treasure-house, when one of them saw a glittering something protruding from the sternum of the skeleton, which proved to be the jewelled haft of a dagger, which had undoubtedly given the death-blow to the tenant of the grave, being driven in with immense force, up to the hilt, quite through the breast-bone. Clearing the bony relic, they found, suspended around the neck, by a length of silver chain, which was much oxidized, a couple of rusty keys.