The Germ Growers: An Australian story of adventure and mystery by Robert Potter (best historical fiction books of all time .txt) 📖

That night we lay both of us in the outer chamber, partly for company, and partly because neither of us wished to be within sight of the light which lay all night before the door, and which could be seen from the window of the inner chamber. There was nothing, indeed, strange or ugly about the light itself; it was very bright, and, under other circumstances, might have been pleasant. But to us, guessing whence it was and what was its purpose, it had come to have a weird look of doom about it.

We lay still, scarcely speaking. Only from time to time a word or two passed between us, either suggestive of preparation, or of some topic of encouragement. By and by we lapsed into silence, and thence into an imperfect sleep. There was no artificial light in our chamber, we had no occasion for any, although day and [203] night were nearly of equal length. Sometime in the evening before dusk we used to take a second bath (if one may use the consuetudinal for so short a period), and then to throw off our hats and sandals and to exchange the long robe, which was our only other garment, for another of the same sort, was the whole of our preparation for the night.

I do not know how long I had been sleeping, but it could not have been very long, when I woke up with a start. Surely there was a light in the room? Yes, there was, and it was growing slowly brighter. I looked over to the couch where Jack lay; it was very near my own, but not near enough to permit me to touch him without rising.

I sat up and put on my sandals. The light had now become so much brighter that I could see Jack plainly. He was awake and watching as I was. The light was now increasing much more quickly, and in a few minutes the room was quite brilliantly illuminated, and there was a sort of core of brightness beginning to appear in the centre of the light. This presently assumed a wavering aspect, and by-and-by became a bubbling fluid. I was prepared to expect the appearance of a form of human similitude, for I had witnessed as you will remember, the same thing twice already. [204] The same, and yet not the same, for the dark vapour which I had seen in the former cases was replaced in this case by a bright rose-coloured light. I suppose it was partly because of this obvious difference that I felt now no fear, but hope. I began to think that help was coming, and that we were not going to be left to fight out a desperate battle alone.

As I looked, the bubbling fluid became consolidated and assumed, as I had expected, a human form. A man of, it might be middle age, stood before us. I should have said much under middle age only that his expression indicated, as I thought, a ripeness of experience and a calm wisdom seldom seen in very young men. There was a stately beauty and benignity in his features and demeanour, a mingled tone of love and command and entreaty; all the direct reverse of what we had seen in Signor Davelli and his men. He wore a flowing robe of much the same pattern as ours, but it was of a very bright, indeed of a luminous material, and it had somehow a strange air of being part of his body. His head was uncovered; his hair was brown, short, and slightly curled, and his eyes were blue.

We both started to our feet, and made, almost involuntarily, a profound salutation.

“Friends,” he said, “you are in urgent danger, and [205] I come to inform and counsel and help you.” He spoke the English language with a very sweet and firm intonation, and yet his accent was in some way suggestive of an outland or foreign origin. “I am a friend,” he said, “and in some sort a guide of men. It was my mission long ages ago to warn your first father of the designs of an enemy of the same order as this one of yours, but far mightier than he. Later on in the plains of Assyria, under the name and form of a man, I baffled the designs of another of the same evil race. And many times in more modern days I have rendered help of which no record remains to man and to the friends of man. Speak to me freely; you may call me Leäfar.”

I was meditating whether or not I should begin with a confession of my own faults, when Jack stepped forward, prevented me, and spoke.

“Sir Leäfar,” he said, “tell us first of all who these men are into whose power we seem to have fallen, and from whom we desire to escape.”

“Yes,” answered he who called himself Leäfar, “it is best that you should have information first; counsel and help will follow.

“These men and I have one thing in common. We are inhabitants not of earth, but of ether; as they have themselves told you, we are dwellers in space. But [206] they are not, as they would have you think, a fair sample of the race which inhabits the ether, for although very many as compared with the inhabitants of earth, they are very few in comparison of those who hold with me.”

“How is it possible,” said I, “that you and they, although dwellers in space, or inhabitants of the ether, can assume as you do the form of men, and at least in some measure their nature?”

“I cannot,” he replied, “unfold the matter to you in full detail, for you have not the faculties needful to enable you so to apprehend it; but if you will attend I will try to show you by analogies how it is possible for us to pass from our world to yours. But sit down,” he said; “you will be weary, for I have much to say, and there is no time to lose.”

Hereupon he sat down, having first indicated to us with a gracious air where we were to sit. We both sat in front of him, but each one a little to one side. Then he began. “The material,” he said, “of your world and of such worlds as yours is limited. The material of our world envelops and pervades it all, and extends to immeasurable distances, as I believe to infinity, but the knowledge of infinity is reserved to the Infinite One Himself.

[207] “The material of our world is the basis of the material of yours. The latter is made out of the former by a simple process of agglomeration. All the material of worlds like yours is resolvable ultimately into extremely minute particles, each of which is just a little twist of the ether. You may compare these particles to knots that you make upon a cord. Just as the parts of the cord in the knot act upon one another in a way in which they could not act if they remained in one continuous line, so the knotted or twisted ether becomes capable of a great variety of interactions which are not possible to it in its original state, and as the knots increase in complexity these possible interactions are multiplied. The motion by which the first agglomeration of ether is formed generates the various processes which are known to you as heat, magnetism, electricity, and the different chemical affinities, and so the matter of your world is built up. The bodies of the dwellers in ether are composed of ether in the simple state, and by a process which is simple enough although not fully explicable to you, we can transform them into the material of which your bodies are made and retransform them again.

“Two analogies, one mechanical and one chemical, may help you, if not to understand the process at least to see how it is possible. Suppose a string of immense [208] length so thin as to be quite invisible; and suppose it to be knitted and woven and re-woven until it be formed into a piece of cloth, compact but very small. Suppose the process of knitting or weaving to be performed very quickly, and then suppose the web so formed to be as rapidly unravelled again. In that case the piece of cloth would appear and disappear just as you have seen our bodies do.

“Or suppose two vast masses of oxygen and hydrogen in the proportions in which they exist together as water. Suppose them to be brought together and subjected to the chemical process which is needed in order to make them combine: what happens? A small quantity of water suddenly appears. Reverse the process and it disappears.

“By means roughly analogous to these we are able to assume terrestrial bodies and to pass into the ether again. But while our bodies are in terrestrial form they are subject to the same laws as yours; we need food and sleep, and we are subject to the various accidents and conditions of humanity.”

Here he paused for a moment and Jack spoke.

“But you are not subject to death as we are. Any cause that would kill us only resolves your material bodies into their ethereal form.”

[209] “That is the case,” he said; “but the difference is not such as you suppose. All the material of your bodies is ultimately resolved into ethereal matter, but not all of it is essential to your being, and that which is essential is resolved by a much speedier process.

“But to speak of ourselves: while we remain in our own world we have instruments of sensation fitted to our condition and analogous to yours, just as hearing is analogous to seeing. But I cannot explain to you any more exactly our means of sensation, just as you could not explain sight to a man born blind.

“But our sensations are throughout strictly analogous to yours and pass into yours when we assume terrestrial bodies.”

Here he paused again, and I asked, “Can you see our worlds from yours?”

“No,” he replied. “The ether as far as we know pervades the universe and passes freely through worlds like yours, and we, while dwelling in the ether, have no more cognisance of your world than you of ours.

“But there are certain links,” he added, “which bind both worlds together, and two of these are known to you as light and gravity. Our world is for ever in motion; motion is of the essence of its being, and it [210] communicates its motion to all that is formed out of it and continued by it as your worlds are. Such motion is communicated in exact proportion to the vastly varied complexities of the matter of your worlds, and out of this proportionate communication arise the movements and the laws of movement of all the stars and planets, all of which movements and laws of movement are amenable to calculation. Much of this is already known to you, and the day will probably come when your men of science will be able to calculate the proper motion of the remotest star that your instruments can discover with as much precision as they now calculate the motions of your moon.

“Light is another link between your worlds and ours. And light is the one means which we have of detecting from our world the presence of yours. Not that we see light as you see it. The sort of perception that you have by means of light we have in our world by analogous but higher means. The presence of light is known to us when in our own world only by a slight shuddering motion of the ether. Just as you perceive a difference in the mode of motion when you travel on land and on the water or in the air; just so we perceive an analogous difference when we pass to the regions of light from the [211] regions where light is not. A shuddering motion of the material of our world warns that we are where your worlds are. And just as for you sometimes the motion of the air or water passes into a hurricane or a whirlpool, so to us a vastly increased movement of the ether (not the regular movement which is the cause of gravity, but a quivering movement) indicates the presence of one of the secular outbursts of conflagration which form part of the process by which your worlds