Kitabı oku: «The Argosy. Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891», sayfa 3
"I saw a good deal of hard fighting in the East, although not on any large scale." Ducie was beginning to get restive. He was not the sort of man to quietly allow himself to be catechised by a stranger.
"I, too, know something of the East," said Platzoff. "Three of the happiest years of my life were spent in India. While out there I became acquainted with several gentlemen of your profession. With Colonel Leslie I was particularly intimate. I had been stopping with the poor fellow only a few days before that gallant affair at Ruckapore, in which he came by his death."
"I remember the affair you speak of," said Ducie. "I was in one of the other Presidencies at the time it happened."
"There was another officer in poor Leslie's regiment with whom I was also on very intimate terms. He died of cholera a little later on, and I attended him in his last moments. I allude to a Captain Charles Chillington. Did you ever meet with him in your travels?"
Captain Ducie's swarthy cheek deepened its hue. He paused to blow a speck of cigar ash off his sleeve before he spoke. "I did not know your Captain Charles Chillington," he said, in slow, deliberate accents. "Till the present moment I never heard of his existence."
Captain Ducie pulled his Glengarry over his brows, folded his arms, and shut his eyes. He had evidently made up his mind for a quiet snooze. Platzoff regarded him with a silent snigger. "Something I have said has pricked the gallant Captain under his armour," he muttered to himself. "Is it possible that he and Chillington were acquainted with each other in India? But what matters it to me if they were?"
When M. Platzoff had smoked his meerschaum to the last whiff, he put it carefully away, and disposed himself to follow Ducie's example in the matter of sleep. He rearranged his wraps, folded the arms, shut his eyes, and pressed his head resolutely against his cushion; but at the end of five minutes he opened his eyes, and seemed just as wakeful as before. "These beef-fed Englishmen seem as if they can sleep whenever and wherever they choose. Enviable faculty! I daresay the heifers on which they gorge possess it in almost as great perfection."
Hidden away among his furs was a small morocco-covered despatch-box. This he now proceeded to unlock, and to draw from it a folded paper which, on being opened, displayed a closely-written array of figures, as though it were the working out of some formidable problem in arithmetic. Platzoff smiled, and his smile was very different from his cynical snigger, as his eyes ran over the long array of figures. "I must try and get this finished as soon as I am back at Bon Repos," he muttered to himself. "I am frightened when I think what would happen if I were to die before its completion. My great secret would die with me, and perhaps hundreds of years would pass away before it would be brought to light. What a discovery it would be! To those concerned it would seem as though they had found the key-note of some lost religion—as though they had penetrated into some temple dedicated to the gods of eld."
His soliloquy was suddenly interrupted by three piercing shrieks from the engine, followed by a terrible jolting and swaying of the carriage, which made it almost impossible for those inside to keep their seats. Captain Ducie was alive to the danger in a moment. One glance out of the window was enough. "We are off the line? Hold fast!" he shouted to Platzoff, drawing up his legs, and setting his teeth, and looking very fierce and determined. M. Platzoff tried to follow his English friend's example. His yellow complexion faded to a sickly green. With eyes in which there was no room now for anything save anguish and terror unspeakable, he yet snarled at the mouth and showed his teeth like a wolf brought hopelessly to bay.
The swaying and jolting grew worse. There was a grinding and crunching under the wheels of the carriage as though a thousand huge coffee-mills were at work. Suddenly the train parted in the middle, and while the forepart, with the engine, went ploughing through the ballast till brought up in safety a few hundred yards further on, the carriage in which were Ducie and Platzoff, together with the hinder part of the train, went toppling over a high embankment, and crashing down the side, and rolling over and over, came to a dead stand at the bottom, one huge mass of wreck and disaster.
(To be continued.)
SONNET
Yes, I have heard it oft: a few brief years
True life comprise. The rest is but a dream:
What though to thee like life it vainly seem.
Fool, trust it not; 'tis not what it appears.
We live but once. We die before the shears
Of Atropos the thread have clipped. True life
Is when with ardent youth's and passion's strife
We suffer and we feel. 'Tis when wild tears
Can flow and hearts can break, or 'neath the gaze
Of loved eyes beat. 'Tis when on eager wing
Of Hope we soar, and Past and Future bring
Within the Present's grasp. Ay, we live then,
But when that cup is quaffed what doth remain?
The dregs of days that follow upon days!
Julia Kavanagh.
MEDIUMS AND MYSTERIES
By Narissa Rosavo
So long as the world lasts, no doubt a large portion of its inhabitants will run after that which the Scotch expressively term "uncanny." The absence of accurate knowledge and the impossibility of thorough scientific investigation, of separating the chaff from the wheat, the true from the counterfeit, becomes at one and the same time the charm and the counterblast to diligent searchers.
For the most part, these are persons of inferior mental calibre, of somewhat unrefined instincts; but, on the other hand, I have known mighty intellects lose themselves in this maze, where no firm clue can be seized by which to go forward safely, to advance at all, while the return journey must be made with certain loss. Persistent endeavour brings weakened faith in God, in place of that certainty spiritualists talk of when they say their arts are beneficial, proving a hereafter—a spiritual world.
It is not thus we get on firm footing. We but advance into sloughs of despond, led by wills of the wisp; and the girl mediums, the so-called clairvoyantes, invariably lose mental health and physical strength. It is but a matter of time, and they become hysteria patients or inhabitants of lunatic asylums. I have known a clever clergyman of the Church of England determine to find out the truth, if any, on this path. He made use of his own daughter in the search. The coil of delusion led him on until it became a choice of death or madness for the tender instrument with which he felt his way into the unseen world.
There is something along this road, call it odic force, or what you will. Science has not, perhaps cannot, ever get firm footing here; but the result of long and careful observation as yet only enables us to strike a sort of average. Experiments pursued for years with table-turning, planchettes, mediums, clairvoyantes, come to this. You do get answers, strange messages, unaccountable communications; but nothing is ever told, in any séance, which does not lie perdu in the breast of someone of the company. There is often no willing deception; peradventure, no fooling at all: but as you cannot draw water from a dry well, neither can you get a message except the germ of it broods within some soul with which you have some present contact.
And then, things being so, what advance can we make?
Many people seem to be unaware that to search after necromancers and soothsayers is forbidden by the English law. Consequently—let us say—a great number of cultivated ladies and gentlemen do, even in this intelligent age, resort to the homes of such folk; aye, and consult them, too, eagerly, at the most critical junctures in their lives.
I know of a London washerwoman by trade who makes vastly more money by falling into trances than by her legitimate calling, to which she adds the letting of lodgings.
On one occasion she was commissioned to comment, in her swoon, on the truth or constancy of a girl's lover; an unopened letter from him being placed in her hands as she slept. She did comment on him, and truly. She said he was not true: that he did not love the girl really, that it was all a sham. Well, the power by which that clairvoyante spoke was the lurking distrust within the mind of the girl who stood by with an aching heart, listening to her doom. Also, perhaps, some virtue we know not of transfused itself subtilely from the paper upon which that perfidious one had breathed and written. Who can tell? But in any case the thing is all a snare and a delusion, and after much observation I can honestly say—I repeat this—that he or she who dabbles in these mysteries loses faith in God, and is apt to become a prey to the power of Evil.
And then the delusions, collusions, and hopeless entanglement of deceit mixed up with Spiritualism! How many tales I could tell—an I would!
There was a certain rich old gentleman in a great centre of trade and finance. The mediums had hope and every prospect he would make a will, or had made one, in their favour—endowing them and theirs with splendid and perpetual grants. This credulous searcher had advanced to the stage when doubt was terrible. He was ardent to convert others, and thereby strengthen his own fortress. He prevailed upon two clear-headed business men, brothers, to attend his séances. With reluctance, to do him a favour, they, after much difficulty, were induced to yield. Their host only wanted them, he said, to give the matter the unprejudiced attention they bestowed on—say—pig-iron.
There was no result whatever at the first sitting. The spirits were out of temper, obstinate, would not work. The disappointment was great, even to the novices, who had expected some fun at least. However, it was only an adjournment. The fun came next night.
All present sat round a table in a dark room, touching hands, with extended finger points. When the gas was turned up it was discovered that one of the unbelievers actually had a large bangle on his wrist. It had not been there before. Of course the spirits had slipped it on. He let this pass then. He had not the discourtesy to explain that a very pretty girl at his side had gently manœuvred it into its place. Her taper fingers were very soft and worked as spirits might.
This had gone off well, and better followed. Again the lights were lowered to the faintest glimmer. Soft music played. Forms floated through the air, now here, now there, plucking at a tambourine—touching a sweet chord on the open piano. At last, in evil moment, the most angelic, sylph-like form came all too near our friend who wore the bangle. The temptation was too great for mortal man. He extended his arms and took firm, substantial, desperate hold of the nymph, at the same instant shouting wildly to his brother, "Turn up the gas, Jim."
The vulgar light revealed that the panting figure struggling from his grasp was that of his pretty neighbour who had slipped the bangle on his wrist. Strange to say, the giver of this spiritual feast never forgave those two brothers for their discourtesy.
But there are, as Hamlet says, real mysteries in this dull, prosaic life of ours. One or two true tales may not come amiss. I am quite ready to give any member of the Psychical Society chapter and verse and authorities, and every available data, if desired.
A certain barrister lost his wife a few years since. He was left with two little children to care for alone. London was no longer what it had been to him. He wished to make a home in the suburbs for his little boy and girl, and at last found one to his mind. He bought a villa near the river, in a pretty, country-like locality. The house was in bad repair, and he set workmen at it without delay. One day he took his children down with him while affairs were still in progress. They played about, while he sat writing in what was to be the library. Presently they ran to him. "Oh, papa! Mamma is out here!"
"Oh, no, my dears! Mamma is not there," he replied.
"But she is; indeed she is," they persisted. "She is at the end of the long passage. We saw her; but she would not let us go on. She waved us back."
To satisfy the children he must go with them. They led him to a long, dark corridor leading to back premises. "Ah, she is gone!" they cried in great disappointment. "Quite gone! But she was there, papa. She would not let us go on. Come, let us look for her."
"No, children; you wait here," he cried, moved by some sudden, cautious instinct. He went into the dusky passage, and, after a few steps, discovered that a trap-door leading to a deep cellar had been left open. Had the children run along here their destruction would have been almost certain.
Again, a tale of the late Bishop Wilberforce. So many tales of him have been current, but I do not believe that this has ever before gone abroad.
In early days he had a close friend, a school chum, a college companion; but about the time young Wilberforce took orders these two had a bitter and hopeless falling out. They never got over the disunion, and fell utterly apart. The chum became an extensive landowner, and was master of a charming house in the South of England.
Time passed on, and he grew elderly. He thought of making his will. Being a great man, not only his solicitor but the solicitor's son arrived on the scene for the event. All three gentlemen were assembled in the library, a long room, with many windows running down almost to the ground. Suddenly the young man present saw a gentleman go by the first of these windows. The elder lawyer raised his head as the figure went by the second opening. Last of all the master of the house looked up.
"Why, that is Wilberforce," he exclaimed. "How many years it is since we fell out, and I dared him ever again to seek me out."
So saying, he ran to the hall-door to welcome his guest, towards whom no bitter feeling now remained in his mind. Strange to say, the Bishop was not at the door, nor could he be found within the grounds. At the moment of his appearance he had fallen from his horse in this neighbourhood and had been instantly killed.
ENLIGHTENMENT
It was not in the lovely morning time
When dew lies bright on silent meadow-ways;
It was not in the splendid noon's high prime,
When all the lawns with sunlight are ablaze;
But in the tender twilight—ere the light
Of the broad moon made beautiful the night.
It was not in the freshness of my youth,
Nor when my manhood laughed in perfect power,
That first I tasted of immortal truth
And plucked the buds of the immortal flower.
But when my life had passed its noon, I found
The path that leads to the enchanted ground.
It was not love nor passion that made dear
That hour now memorable to us two;
Nothing was said the whole world might not hear,
Only—our souls touched, and for me and you,
Trees, flowers and sunshine, and the hearts of men,
Are better to be understood since then.
E. Nesbit.
THE SILENT CHIMES
PLAYING AGAIN
It could not be said the Church Leet chimes brought good when they rang out that night at midnight, as the old year was giving place to the new. Mrs. Carradyne, in her superstition, thought they brought evil. Certainly evil set in at the same time, and Captain Monk, with all his scoffing obstinacy, could not fail to see it. That fine young lad, his son, fell through the window listening to them; and in the self-same hour the knowledge reached him that Katherine, his eldest and dearest child, had flown from his roof in defiant disobedience, to set up a home of her own.
Hubert was soon well of his bruises; but not of the cold induced by lying in the snow, clad only in his white nightshirt. In spite of all Mr. Speck's efforts, rheumatic fever set in, and for some time Hubert hovered between life and death. He recovered; but would never again be the strong, hearty lad he had been—though indeed he had never been very physically strong. The doctor privately hoped that the heart would be found all right in future, but he would not have answered for it.
The blow that told most on Captain Monk was that inflicted by Katherine. And surely never was disobedient marriage carried out with the impudent boldness of hers. Church Leet called it "cheek." Church Leet (disbelieving the facts when they first oozed out) could talk of nothing else for weeks. For Katherine had been married in the church hard by, that same night.
Special licenses were very uncommon things in those days; they cost too much; but the Reverend Thomas Dancox had procured one. With Katherine's money: everybody guessed that. She had four hundred a-year of her own, inherited from her dead mother, and full control over it. So the special license was secured, and their crafty plans were laid. The stranger who had presented himself at the Hall that night (by arrangement), asking for Mr. Dancox, thus affording an excuse for his quitting the banquet-room, was a young clergyman of Worcester, come over especially to marry them. When tackled with his deed afterwards, he protested that he had not been told the marriage was to be clandestine. Tom Dancox went out to him from the banquet; Katherine, slipping on a bonnet and shawl, joined them outside; they hastened to the rectory and thence into the church. And while the unconscious master of Leet Hall was entertaining his guests with his good cheer and his stories and his hip, hip, hurrah, his Vicar and Katherine Monk were made one until death should them part. And death, as it proved, intended to do that speedily.
At first Captain Monk, in his unbounded rage, was for saying that a marriage celebrated at ten o'clock at night by the light of a solitary tallow candle, borrowed from the vestry, could not hold good. Re-assured upon this point, he strove to devise other means to part them. Foiled again, he laid the case before the Bishop of Worcester, and begged his lordship to unfrock Thomas Dancox. The Bishop did not do as much as that; though he sent for Tom Dancox and severely reprimanded him. But that, as Church Leet remarked, did not break bones. Tom had striven to make the best of his own cause to the Bishop, and the worst of Captain Monk's obdurate will; moreover, stolen marriages were not thought much of in those days.
An uncomfortable state of things was maintained all the year, Hall Leet and the Parsonage standing at daggers drawn. Never once did Captain Monk appear at church. If he by cross-luck met his daughter or her husband abroad, he struck into a good fit of swearing aloud; which perhaps relieved his mind. The chimes had never played again; they pertained to the church, and the church was in ill-favour with the Captain. As the end of the year approached, Church Leet wondered whether he would hold the annual banquet; but Captain Monk was not likely to forego that. Why should he? The invitations went out for it; and they contained an intimation that the chimes would again play.
The banquet took place, a neighbouring parson saying grace at it in the place of Tom Dancox. While the enjoyment was progressing and Captain Monk was expressing his marvel for the tenth time as to what could have become of Speck, who had not made his appearance, a note was brought in by Rimmer—just as he had brought in one last year. This also was from Mrs. Carradyne.
"Please come out to me for one moment, dear Godfrey. I must say a word to you."
Captain Monk's first impulse on reading this was to send Rimmer back to say she might go and be hanged. But to call him from the table was so very extreme a measure, that on second thoughts he decided to go to her. Mrs. Carradyne was standing just outside the door, looking as white as a sheet.
"Well, this is pretty bold of you, Madam Emma," he began angrily. "Are you out of your senses?"
"Hush, Godfrey! Katherine is dying."
"What?" cried the Captain, the words confusing him.
"Katherine is dying," repeated his sister, her teeth chattering with emotion.
In spite of Katherine's rebellion, Godfrey Monk loved her still as the apple of his eye; and it was only his obstinate temper which had kept him from reconciliation. His face took a hue of terror, and his voice a softer tone.
"What have you heard?"
"Her baby's born; something has gone wrong, I suppose, and she is dying. Sally ran up with the news, sent by Mr. Speck. Katherine is crying out for you, saying she cannot die without your forgiveness. Oh, Godfrey, you will go, you will surely go!" pleaded Mrs. Carradyne, breaking down with a burst of tears. "Poor Katherine!"
Never another word spoke he. He went out at the hall-door there and then, putting on his hat as he leaped down the steps. It was a wretched night; not white, clear, and cold as the last New Year's Eve had been, or mild and genial as the one before it; but damp, raw, misty.
"You think I have remained hard and defiant, father," Katherine whispered to him, "but I have many a time asked God's forgiveness on my bended knees; and I longed—oh, how I longed!—to ask yours. What should we all do with the weight of sin that lies on us when it comes to such an hour as this, but for Jesus Christ—for God's wonderful mercy!"
And, with one hand in her father's and the other in her husband's, both their hearts aching to pain, and their eyes wet with bitter tears, poor Katherine's soul passed away.
After quitting the parsonage, Captain Monk was softly closing the garden gate behind him—for when in sorrow we don't do things with a rush and a bang—when a whirring sound overhead caused him to start. Strong, hardened man though he was, his nerves were unstrung to-night in company with his heartstrings. It was the church clock preparing to strike twelve. The little doctor, Speck, who had left the house but a minute before, was standing at the churchyard fence close by, his arms leaning on the rails, probably ruminating sadly on what had just occurred. Captain Monk halted beside him in silence, while the clock struck.
As the last stroke vibrated on the air, telling the knell of the old year, the dawn of the new, another sound began.
Ring, ring, ring! Ring, ring, ring!
The chimes! The sweet, soothing, melodious chimes, carolling forth the Bay of Biscay. Very pleasant were they in themselves to the ear. But—did they fall pleasantly on Captain Monk's? It may be, not. It may be, a wish came over him that he had never thought of instituting them. But for doing that, the ills of his recent life had never had place. George West's death would not have lain at his door, or room been made by it for Tom Dancox, and Katherine would not be lying as he had now left her—cold and lifeless.
"Could nothing have been done to save her, Speck?" he whispered to the doctor, whose arms were still on the churchyard railings, listening to the chimes in silence—though indeed he had asked the same question indoors before.
"Nothing; or you may be sure, sir, it would have been," answered Mr. Speck. "Had all the medical men in Worcestershire been about her, they could not have saved her any more than I could. These unfortunate cases happen now and then," sighed he, "showing us how powerless we really are."
Well, it was grievous news wherewith to startle the parish. And Mrs. Carradyne, a martyr to belief in ghosts and omens, grew to dread the chimes with a nervous and nameless dread.
