The Mystery by Samuel Hopkins Adams (books to get back into reading TXT) 📖

of cussedness, when he should get it out of the volcano.

"In the first seven months he puttered around the little fumers, with an occasional excursion up to the main crater. It was my duty to follow on and drag him away when he fell unconscious. Sometimes I would try to get him before he was quite gone. Then he would become indignant, and fight me. Perhaps that helped to lose me his confidence. More and more he withdrew into himself. There were days when he spoke no word to me. It was lonely. Do you know why I used to visit you at the beach, Slade? I suppose you thought I was keeping watch on you. It wasn't that, it was loneliness. In a way, it hurt me, too: for one couldn't help but be fond of the old boy; and at times it seemed as if he weren't quite himself. Pardon me, if I may trouble you for the matches? Thanks....

"Matters went very wrong at times: the doctor fumed like his little craters; growled out long-winded, exhaustive German imprecations: wouldn't even eat. Then again the demon of work would drive him with thong and spur: he would rush to his craters, to his laboratories, to his ledger for the purpose of entering unintelligible commentaries. He had some peculiar contrivance, like a misshapen retort, with which he collected gases from the craterlets. Whenever I'd hear one of those smash, I knew it was a bad day.

"Meantime, the volcano also became--well, what you might call temperamental.

"It got to be a year and a quarter--a year and a half. I wondered whether we should ever get away. My tobacco was running short. And the bearing of the men was becoming fidgetty. My visits to the beach became quite interesting--to me. One day the doctor came running out of his laboratory with so bright a face that I ventured to ask him about departure.

"'Not so long, now, Percy,' he said, in his old, kind manner. 'Not so long. The first real success. It iss made. We have yet under-entire- control to bring it, but it iss made.'

"'And about time, sir,' said I. 'If we don't do something soon we may have trouble with the men.'

"'So?' said he in surprise. 'But they could do nothing. Nothing.' He wagged his great head confidently. 'We are armed.'

"'Oh, yes, armed. So are they.'

"'We are armed,' he repeated obstinately. 'Such as no man was ever armed, are we armed.'

"He checked himself abruptly and walked away. Well, I've since wondered what would have happened had the men attacked us. It would have been worth seeing, and--and surprising. Yes: I'm quite certain it would have been surprising. Perhaps, too, I might have learned more of the Great Secret ... and yet, I don't know. It's all dark ... a hint here ... theory ... mere glints of light.... Where did I put.... Ah, thank you."

IX THE ACHIEVEMENT

For some moments Darrow sat gazing fixedly at the table before him. His cigarette tip glowed and failed. Someone suggested drinks. The captain asked Darrow what he would have, but the question went unnoted.

"How I passed the next six months I could hardly tell you," he began again, quite abruptly. "At times I was bored--fearfully bored. Yet the element of mystery, of uncertainty, of underlying peril, gave a certain zest to the affair. In the periods of dulness I found some amusement in visiting the lower camp and baiting the Nigger. Slade will have told you about him; he possessed quite a fund of bastard Voodooism: he possessed more before I got through with him. Yes; if he had lived to return to his country, I fancy he would have added considerably to Afro-American witch- lore. You remember the vampire bats, Slade? And the devil-fires? Naturally I didn't mention to you that the devil-fire business wasn't altogether as clear to me as I pretended. It wasn't, though. But at the time it served very well as an amusement. All the while I realised that my self- entertainment was not without its element of danger, too: I remember glances not altogether friendly but always a little doubtful, a little awed. Even Handy Solomon, practical as he was, had a scruple or two of superstition in his make-up, on which one might work. Only Eagen--Slade, I mean--was beyond me there. You puzzled me not a little in those days, Slade. Well....

"Did I say that I was sometimes annoyed by the doctor's attitude? Yes: it seemed that he might have given me a little more of his confidence; but one can't judge such a man as he was. Among the ordinary affairs of life he had relied on me for every detail. Now he was independent of me. Independent! I doubt if he remembered my existence at times. Even in his blackest moods of depression he was sufficient unto himself. It was strange.... How he did rage the day the chemicals from Washington went wrong! I was washing my shirt in the hot water spring when he came bolting out of the laboratory and keeled me over. I came out pretty indignant. Apologise? Not at all. He just sputtered. His nearest approach to coherence seemed to indicate a desire that I should go back to Washington at once and destroy a perfectly reputable firm of chemists. Finally he calmed down and took it out in entering it in his daily record. He was quite proud of that daily record and remembered to write in it on an average of once a week.

"Then the chest went wrong. Whether it had rusted a bit, or whether the chemicals had got in their work on the hinges, I don't know; but one day the Professor, of his own initiative, recognised my existence by lugging his box out in the open and asking me to fix it. Previously he had emptied it. It was rather a complicated thing, with an inner compartment over which was a hollow cover, opening along one rim. That, I conjectured, was designed to hold some chemical compound or salt. There were many minor openings, too, each guarded by a similar hollow door. My business was with the heavy top cover.

"'It should shut and open softly, gently,' explained the Professor. 'So. Not with-a-grating-sound-to-be-accompanied,' he added, with his curious effect of linked phraseology.

"Half a day's work fixed it. The lid would stand open of itself until tipped at a considerable angle, when it would fall and lock. Only on the outer shell was there a lock: that one was a good bit of craftsmanship.

"'So, Percy, my boy,' said the doctor kindly. 'That will with-sufficient- safety guard our treasure. When we obtain it, Percy. When it entirely- finished-and-completed shall be.'

"'And when will that be?' I asked.

"'God knows,' he said cheerfully. 'It progresses.'

"Whenever I went strolling at night, he would produce his curious lights. Sometimes they were fairly startling. One fact I made out by accident, looking down from a high place. They did not project from the laboratory. He always worked in the open when the light was to be produced. Once the experiment took a serious turn. The lights had flickered and gone. Dr. Schermerhorn had returned to his laboratory. I came up the arroyo as he flung the door open and rushed out. He was a grotesque figure, clad in an undershirt and a worn pair of trousers, fastened with an old bit of tarred rope in lieu of his suspenders, which I had been repairing. About his waist flickered a sort of aura of radiance which was extinguished as he flung himself headforemost into the cold spring. I hauled him out. He seemed dazed. To my questions he replied only by mumblings, the burden of which was:

"'I do not understand. It is a not-to-be-comprehended accident.' It appears that he didn't quite know why he had taken to the water. Or if he did, he didn't want to tell.

"Next day he was as good as new. Just as silent as before, but it was a smiling, satisfied silence. So it went for weeks, for months, with the accesses of depression and anger always rarer. Then came an afternoon when, returning from a stalk after sheep, I heard strange and shocking noises from the laboratory. Strict as was the embargo which kept me outside the door, I burst in, only to be seized in a suffocating grip. Of a sudden I realised that I was being embraced. The doctor flourished a hand above my head and jigged with ponderous steps. The dismal noises continued to emanate from his mouth. He was singing. I wish I could give you a notion of the amazement, the paralysing wonder with which.... No, you did not know Dr. Schermerhorn: you would not understand....

"We polkaed into the open. There he cast me loose. He stopped singing and burst into a rhapsody of disjointed words. Mostly German, it was--a wondrous jumble of the scientific and poetic. 'Eureka' occurred at intervals. Then he would leap in the air. It was weird, it was distressing. Crazy? Oh, quite. For the time, you understand. If any of us should suddenly become the most potent individual in the world, wouldn't he be apt to lose balance temporarily? One must make allowances. There was excuse for the doctor. He had reached the goal.

"'Percy, you shall be rewarded,' he said. 'You haf like-a-trump-card stuck by me. You shall haf riches, gold, what you will. You are young; your blood runs red. With such riches nothing is beyond you. You could the ancient-tombs-of-Egypt explore. It is open to you such collections-as- have-never-been-gathered to make. What shall it be? Scarabs? Missals? Prehistoric implements? Amuse yourself, mein kind. We shall be able the- bills-with-usurious-interest to pay. What will you haf?'

"I said I'd like a vacation, if convenient.

"'Presently,' he replied. 'There yet remains the guardianship to be perfected. Then to-a-world-astonished-and-respectful we return. To-night we celebrate. I play you a rubber of pinochle.'

"We played. With the greatest secret of science resting at our elbows, we played. The doctor won; my mind was not strictly on the game. In the morning the doctor sang once more.... I shall never hear its like again. Was it a week, or a month, after that?... I cannot remember. I fancy I was excited. Then, too, there was something in the atmosphere about the laboratory ... I don't know; imagination, possibly. Once we had a little manifestation: the night that the Nigger and Slade were terrified by the rock fires. Days of excitement and pleasant work, with the little volcano grumbling more sulkily all the time ... I have spent worse days.

"Such indifference as the doctor displayed toward the volcano I have never known. If I ventured to warn him he would assure me that there was no cause for alarm. I think he regarded that little hell's kitchen as merely a feed-spout for his vast enterprise. He felt a sort of affection toward it; he was tolerant of its petty fits of temper. That he completed his work before the destruction came was sheer luck. Nothing else. The day before the outburst he came to me with a tiny phial of complicated design.

"'Percy, I will at-a-reasonable-price sell this to you,' he said.

"'How much?' I inquired, responding to his playfulness.

"'A bargain,' he cried gaily. 'Five millions dollars. No! Shall I upon-a- needy-friend hard-press? Never. One million. One little million dollars.'

"'I haven't that amount with me,' I began.

"'Of no account,' he declared airily. 'Soon we shall haf many more times as that. Gif me your C.O. D.'

"'My I. O. U.?' I inquired.

"'It makes no matter. See. I will gif it to you gratis.'

"He handed me the metal contrivance. It was closed.

"'Inside iss a little, such a very little. Not yet iss it arranged the motive-power to give-forth. One more change-to-be-made that shall require. But the other phenomena are all in this little half-grain comprised. Later I shall tell you more. Take it. It iss without price.'