Collected works of j s f.., p.902
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 902
On Thurston’s left hand stood the spirit-lamp, the kettle, the decanter, the glass! now and then he turned to these things and mixed the drug. On his right hand there gradually accumulated a pile of closely-written manuscript. Above him, the amethyst eyes grew purple in the lamplight, the ivory god stared into the gloom beyond the writer’s head.
The grey light stole through the cracks and crannies of the shutters, and found Thurston still writing. Much later, the old woman who acted as bedmaker and charwoman knocked loudly at the outer door. Thurston shouted to her to go away and leave him alone; and his pen travelled on and on as if it would never stop.
It was about three days after this that a famous publisher, with whom Thurston was acquainted in slight fashion, was somewhat astonished to find the latter waiting for him in his private room. He stared at Thurston curiously, noting with the keen eye of a practical man of the world that his visitor wore a strange expression, and seemed to be wrapped in an atmosphere of mystery.
He was shaved and washed, and wore his best garments; but there was a strange pallor on his face, a strange light in his eyes, and his voice was as unnaturally steady as the cold, almost lifeless hand which he placed within the publisher’s palm.
The publisher, who had never been able to understand Thurston’s strangeness of manner, reverted to an earlier suspicion, and wondered if his visitor had been drinking; but he failed to perceive either twitch or tremor in face or hand, and his visitor’s voice was even and firm to the verge of monotony.
“Some time ago,” said Thurston, “you were good enough to suggest to me that I should write a romance of Eastern life. It seemed to you that I possessed the necessary knowledge of the East to attempt such a book.”
“Quite so,” said the other. “I don’t know any man better fitted. You’ve been working in that direction all your life, haven’t you? In fact, it’s been a wonder to me that you never thought of the thing yourself.”
Thurston produced a parcel of manuscript.
“I have here,” he said, “a considerable portion of such a work. There is much that I might say to you about it, but at present I prefer not to say anything. Yes, it is not ordinary work, and I should like some assurance from you that it shall be read for you by some one competent to judge of its merits.”
“I’ll give it to Flintford to read,” said the publisher. “How does his name strike you? He’s about the best man I can think of.”
“I am quite prepared to accept Mr. Flintford’s judgment,” replied Thurston. “Indeed, I intended suggesting his name to you. Then I will leave this portion of the manuscript with you?”
“Do,” answered the publisher. “I’ll send it on to Flintford by special messenger at once, and ask him to read it. About the rest of the book, now — —”
“The remaining portion,” said Thurston, “will be delivered to you when it is written.” And with that and a frigid shaking of the publisher’s outstretched hand he went away, walking through the outer office, as one of the clerks said, like a ghost.
The next morning Flintford walked into the publisher’s office, looking very much excited.
“I say!” he exclaimed. “Where did you get that manuscript which you sent me yesterday? And have you got the rest?”
“Well, what of it?” asked the publisher, ignoring the second part of the question. “Is it good stuff? Will it do? Would it sell?”
“Good! My dear sir, it is the most wonderful piece of imaginative work I ever read in my life. It is amazing, stupendous — quite confusing in its brilliance. I began it last night. I went on reading it until breakfast-time this morning,” answered Flintford. “I never read anything quite like it. Indeed, I wouldn’t have believed that we had a brain amongst us that could have imagined such a work. Look here! You know I am by no means an enthusiastic person. Well, this book, if it keeps up that level all through, is the biggest find of the last half-century. For sheer imagination the man beats Poe hollow!”
“You think it will make a hit?” inquired the publisher.
“It is the greatest thing I ever had put before me,” answered the critic. “I cannot understand the power in it. Who is the man? How does he come to be able to re-create Hindu life as it must have been thousands of years ago? Where did he get such an overwhelming imagination? There’s something that’s almost unholy, unearthly, about the whole thing. It is a great book — a rare book. I should like to see the author.”
“I will try to get him here at three this afternoon,” said the publisher. “Come in after lunch. I may tell you that he is a strange person — never done anything but an occasional article in the heavy reviews, but, I fancy, cram full of the East.”
“That,” said the critic, “is evident. I’ll come at three.”
At three o’clock Thurston was shown into the publisher’s private room, and introduced to the great critic. Thurston, if possible, was more ghostlike than ever; more emotionless; more insensible to any outward influence. He sat with fixed passionless eyes, listening, while the critic praised his work and asked questions. It was not until all this had been said that he spoke.
“I think I may take you both into my confidence,” he said. “I conclude, Mr. Mayne, that you will publish this book, and therefore I see no reason why you and Mr. Flintford should be kept in ignorance as to its real history. I may tell you that the story is not mine at all: it is being dictated to me. The circumstances are peculiar; but I feel sure that Mr. Flintford, with his knowledge of the East, will quite understand. I recently came into possession of an image of the god Ganesha, wonderfully wrought in ivory and adorned with amethyst eyes. The story of which you have read some portion is being dictated to me by this image, or, more probably, by this god represented by it. I think you will understand,” he said, turning to Flintford with an air which had something appealing in it.
“Yes,” said Flintford quietly, “I quite understand.”
“I felt the influence of the god,” continued Thurston, “as soon as I saw the image. It is a strange, a very fascinating influence. It impelled me to write against my will; and then I found that I was but a mouthpiece. Everything has been put into my lips — I should say, pen. Clearly, what I have written is the story of the image.”
“And when,” asked Flintford kindly, “when do you suppose the end of this story will be reached, Mr. Thurston?”
Thurston produced another packet of manuscript. He laid it on the publisher’s desk.
“I believe,” he said, “I believe the end will come to-night. If” — here he glanced from one face to the other— “if you would like to see the ivory statue, and could call to-morrow morning about noon, I will show it to you. It is certain that it possesses a strange influence.”
When Thurston had gone away the two men looked at each other.
“Mad as a hatter!” said the publisher.
The critic shook his head.
“It seems strange,” he said; “but, really, I don’t think so. Does he drink?”
“I used to think he did,” replied the publisher. “He has done work for me now and then, and he sometimes came here with all the symptoms of intoxication upon him, and yet he was always clear-headed and capable, if incoherent of speech. What I don’t understand just now is the frightful deliberation with which he speaks, the sort of unearthly coldness and composure of his manner. But — I say! — to tell us that the book is being dictated to him by an ivory statue: surely that is an evidence of insanity!”
“Oh, but then genius and insanity are closely allied,” said Flintford. “Well, let us call upon him to-morrow. In the meantime I’ll take the manuscript he left with you. I expect it will cost me another sleepless night. You can’t get away from it when you once begin — it’s a live thing, Mayne.”
“Come round about noon to-morrow,” said Mayne.
It was half-past twelve next day when they climbed the stairs to Thurston’s rooms. They knocked for some time at the outer door and evoked no answer; then Flintford climbed another flight of stairs and discovered the bedmaker woman, who resided nearer the sky, and appeared from a feast wherein onions had played a principal part.
“Mr. Thurston, sir? And indeed I ‘aven’t set eyes on ’im this morning, sir. Which ’is conduck ‘ave of late been most extrornary — me not being able to make no beds, nor nothink,” said she. “A lit’ry gent, sir, which from long ixperience is very trying to anybody to deal with. You might knock again, sir; and if so as he doesn’t answer, why, I must open the door with my key, and see if the poor gentleman isn’t well, for never a word did he give me at ten o’clock.”
When the door was opened at last, they found Thurston quite dead. His arms were crossed over the final page of his manuscript; his head was bowed upon them, as if, tired out with his long spell of labour, he had laid it down there and gone to sleep. Above him, the ivory god looked out of its amethyst eyes into the shadowy corner of the silent room.
THE END
The New Sun
CONTENTS
I.
II. — The Refugee
III. — Out of the Illimitable
I.
FROM THE TIME that he had taken up the study of astronomy as a pleasant means of spending his newly acquired leisure, and had built himself a small but well-equipped observatory as an adjunct to his house, which stood on one of the highest slopes of Leith Hill, Mequillen had formed the habit of rising from his bed every two or three hours of a cloudy night to see if the sky had cleared. To some men such a habit would have been highly inconvenient, for many obvious reasons. But Mequillen was in a lucky position. He was unmarried; he possessed much more than ample means; he had therefore no business or profession to attend to, and accordingly no train to catch of a morning in order to keep office hours. He could sleep at any time of the day he chose; and if he did jump out of bed at two o’clock in the morning, to find that the sky was still cloudy, he could jump back and go to sleep again on the instant. And he was, moreover, an enthusiast of the first order.
On a certain night in the February of 19 — , Mequillen, who had gone to bed at ten o’clock, suddenly awoke, switched on the electric light at the side of his bed, and, seeing that it was then ten minutes past twelve, sprang out, shuffled himself into his thickly padded dressing-gown, and hurried up the winding stair which led to the observatory. One glance into the night showed him a perfectly clear sky. From the vast dome of heaven, wondrously blue, the stars shone out like points of fire. And Mequillen, with a sigh of satisfaction, began his work at the telescope, comparing the sky, field by field, with his star chart, on the chance of finding new variable stars. After his usual fashion, he was immediately absorbed, and the sky remaining clear, he went on working, unconscious of time, until a deep-toned clock in the room beneath struck the hour of three. Then Mequillen started, and realised that he had been so absorbed that he had not noticed the striking of one or two, and he leaned back from the telescope in a suddenly assumed attitude of relaxation, stretching his arms, and casting up his eyes to the still clear vault above him. The next instant he became rigid; the next he began to tremble with excitement; the next he could have shouted for joy. For there, in the constellation which astronomers have named Andromeda, Mequillen detected a new star!
He knew as he gazed and gazed, intoxicated with the delight and wonder of his discovery, that the burning and glittering object at which he was looking had never shown its light to man before. There was no need to turn to his star charts. Mequillen, being a rich man, was always equipped with the latest information from all the great observatories of the world. That star, burning with such magnificence, was on no chart. Nay, he himself had taken a photograph of that particular field in the heavens only twenty-four hours previously, wherein were stars to the twelfth magnitude; but the star at which he gazed was not amongst them. It had suddenly blazed up and as he watched he saw it visibly, plainly, increase in brightness and magnitude.
“A new star!” he murmured mechanically. “A new star! I wonder who else has seen it?”
Mequillen continued to watch until, as the February dawn drew near, the clouds spread great curtains between him and the heavens, and sky and stars were blotted out. Then he went to his bed, and, in spite of his excitement, he slept soundly until ten o’clock in the morning.
When Mequillen woke and looked out across the Surrey hills and vales, the entire landscape was being rapidly blotted out by a curious mist, or fog, which seemed to come from nowhere. A vast, mighty blanket of yellow seemed to be dropped between him and everything as he looked. At one moment he saw the summit of a hill many miles away; the next he could not even see his own garden beneath his windows. And when he went downstairs, half an hour later, the fog had become of the colour of grey ash, and the house was full of it, and the electric light was turned on everywhere, and to little effect.
Mequillen’s sister, Adela, who kept house for him — with the assistance of a housekeeper and several female servants — came to him in his study, looking scared.
“Dan,” she said, “isn’t there something queer about this fog? It’s — it’s getting worse.”
Mequillen laid down a bundle of letters which he had just taken up, and walked out to the front door and into the garden. He looked all around him, and he sniffed.
“H’m! It certainly does seem queer, Addie,” he said. “We’ve certainly never had a fog like this in these parts since we knew them.”
The girl sniffed too.
“Dan,” she said, “it’s like as if it were the very finest dust. And — look there!”
She had been wiping her hand with a tiny wisp of a handkerchief as she spoke, and now she held the handkerchief out to Mequillen.
“Look!” she repeated.
Mequillen looked down, and saw a curious stain — a species of smudge or smear of a faint grey colour. Without making any remark he ran the tip of his finger along the nearest object, an espalier. The same smudge or smear appeared on his finger.
“It’s on everything,” whispered the girl. “See, it’s on my cheek! It is some sort of dust, Dan. What’s the matter?”
But Mequillen made no answer. He asked for breakfast, and they went in together. By that time the interior of the house was as full of the fog as the exterior was hidden by it, and everything that they touched — plate, china, linen — gave off the grey smear. And by noon everything was wrapped in an ashen-grey atmosphere, and the electrical lights had no power beyond a very limited compass.
“This is vexatious,” said Mequillen. “I was going to have the motor out and take you across to Greenwich. I wanted to make an inquiry at the Observatory. Do you know, Addie, I found a new star last night!”
“A new star!” she said wonderingly. “But you won’t go, Dan?”
“Won’t go?” he said, laughing. “I should like to see anybody go anywhere in this, though it may be only local. By George! Weren’t the Cockerlynes coming out to dine and sleep to-night?”
Addie nodded.
“Well, I hope they won’t run into this,” continued Mequillen.
“Ah! I’ll ring Dick Cockerlyne up, and ask him what the weather’s like in town. And then I’ll ring up the Observatory.”
He went off to the small room in which the telephone was placed. His sister followed him, and as they passed close beneath the cluster of lights in the hall Mequillen saw that the girl’s face was drawn and pallid. He stopped sharply.
“Why, Addie,” he said; “frightened?”
She laid her hand on his arm, and he felt it trembling.
“Dan,” she whispered. “I’m — I’m horribly frightened! What — what is this? You know, there’s never been anything like this before — in our time. What’s happened?”
Mequillen laughed, and patted the hand that lay on his arm.
“Come, come, Addie!” he said soothingly. “This isn’t like you. I think this fog is uncommon, and I can’t account for it, but I’ve no doubt it can be accounted for. Now, let me ring up Cockerlyne. I’ve a notion we shall hear they’ve got a bright morning there in London.”
The girl shook her head, made as if she would follow him to the telephone, and then suddenly turned away. In the silence a woman’s shrill scream rang out.
“That’s cook — in hysterics,” said Addie. “I shall have to be brave for the sake of the servants, Dan. They’re all as frightened as — as I am.”
Nearly an hour later Mequillen came out of the little room, and called his sister into the study. He closed the door, and beckoned her into the arc of the electric light.
“This is queer!” he said, in a whisper. “I’ve been talking to Cockerlyne and to the Observatory. Dick says this fog struck London at ten o’clock. It’s just there as it is here, and everything’s at a standstill. Dick hasn’t the remotest notion how he’s going to get away from the city. But — that’s nothing. Addie, it’s all over Europe.”
The girl made a little inarticulate sound of horror in her throat, and her face whitened.
“All over Europe, so they say at Greenwich,” continued Mequillen. “From Lisbon to Moscow, and from Inverness to Constantinople! Land and sea — it’s everywhere. It — well, it’s something unexplainable. Such a thing has never been known before. But it’s no use getting frightened, Addie; you must be brave. It’s no doubt some natural phenomena that will be accounted for. And — phew, how very hot this room is!”
The girl went close to her brother, and laid her hand on his arm.
“Dan,” she said, “it isn’t the room. See, the fire’s very low, and the ventilating fan’s working. It’s the same everywhere. Come into the garden.”
