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Title: The Garotters
Author: William D. Howells
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I have wrought my simple plan
If I give one hour of joy
To the boy who's half a man,
Or the man who's half a boy.
The Lost World
COPYRIGHT, 1912
Foreword
Mr. E. D. Malone desires to state that
both the injunction for restraint and the
libel action have been withdrawn unreservedly
by Professor G. E. Challenger, who, being
satisfied that no criticism or comment in
this book is meant in an offensive spirit,
has guaranteed that he will place no
impediment to its publication and circulation.
Contents
CHAPTER
I. "THERE ARE HEROISMS ALL ROUND US"
II. "TRY YOUR LUCK WITH PROFESSOR CHALLENGER"
III. "HE IS A PERFECTLY IMPOSSIBLE PERSON"
IV. "IT'S JUST THE VERY BIGGEST THING IN THE WORLD"
V. "QUESTION!"
VI. "I WAS THE FLAIL OF THE LORD"
VII. "TO-MORROW WE DISAPPEAR INTO THE UNKNOWN"
VIII. "THE OUTLYING PICKETS OF THE NEW WORLD"
IX. "WHO COULD HAVE FORESEEN IT?
X. "THE MOST WONDERFUL THINGS HAVE HAPPENED"
XI. "FOR ONCE I WAS THE HERO"
XII. "IT WAS DREADFUL IN THE FOREST"
XIII. "A SIGHT I SHALL NEVER FORGET"
XIV. "THOSE WERE THE REAL CONQUESTS"
XV. "OUR EYES HAVE SEEN GREAT WONDERS"
XVI. "A PROCESSION! A PROCESSION!"
THE LOST WORLD
The Lost World
CHAPTER I
"There Are Heroisms All Round Us"
Mr. Hungerton,
her father,
really was the most tactless person upon earth,--a fluffy,
feathery,
untidy cockatoo of a man,
perfectly good-natured,
but absolutely centered upon his own silly self.
If anything could have driven me from Gladys,
it would have been the thought of such a father-in-law.
I am convinced that he really believed in his heart that I came round
to the Chestnuts three days a week
for the pleasure of his company,
and very especially
to hear his views upon bimetallism,
a subject upon which he was by way of being an authority.
For an hour or more that evening I listened
to his monotonous chirrup about bad money driving out good,
the token value of silver,
the depreciation of the rupee,
and the true standards of exchange.
"Suppose,"
he cried
with feeble violence,
"that all the debts in the world were called up simultaneously,
and immediate payment insisted upon,--what under our present conditions would happen then?"
I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man,
upon which he jumped from his chair,
reproved me
for my habitual levity,
which made it impossible
for him
to discuss any reasonable subject in my presence,
and bounced off out of the room
to dress
for a Masonic meeting.
At last I was alone
with Gladys,
and the moment of Fate had come! All that evening I had felt like the soldier who awaits the signal which will send him on a forlorn hope;
hope of victory and fear of repulse alternating in his mind.
She sat
with that proud,
delicate profile of hers outlined against the red curtain.
How beautiful she was! And yet how aloof! We had been friends,
quite good friends;
but never could I get beyond the same comradeship which I might have established
with one of my fellow-reporters upon the Gazette,--perfectly frank,
perfectly kindly,
and perfectly unsexual.
My instincts are all against a woman being too frank and at her ease
with me.
It is no compliment
to a man.
Where the real sex feeling begins,
timidity and distrust are its companions,
heritage from old wicked days when love and violence went often hand in hand.
The bent head,
the averted eye,
the faltering voice,
the wincing figure-- these,
and not the unshrinking gaze and frank reply,
are the true signals of passion.
Even in my short life I had learned as much as that--or had inherited it in that race memory which we call instinct.
Gladys was full of every womanly quality.
Some judged her
to be cold and hard;
but such a thought was treason.
That delicately bronzed skin,
almost oriental in its coloring,
that raven hair,
the large liquid eyes,
the full but exquisite lips,--all the stigmata of passion were there.
But I was sadly conscious that up
to now I had never found the secret of drawing it forth.
However,
come what might,
I should have done
with suspense and bring matters
to a head to-night.
She could but refuse me,
and better be a repulsed lover than an accepted brother.
So far my thoughts had carried me,
and I was about
to break the long and uneasy silence,
when two critical,
dark eyes looked round at me,
and the proud head was shaken in smiling reproof.
"I have a presentiment that you are going
to propose,
Ned.
I do wish you wouldn't;
for things are so much nicer as they are."
I drew my chair a little nearer.
"Now,
how did you know that I was going
to propose?"
I asked in genuine wonder.
"Don't women always know?
Do you suppose any woman in the world was ever taken unawares?
But--oh,
Ned,
our friendship has been so good and so pleasant! What a pity
to spoil it! Don't you feel how splendid it is that a young man and a young woman should be able
to talk face
to face as we have talked?"
"I don't know,
Gladys.
You see,
I can talk face
to face with--
with the station-master."
I can't imagine how that official came into the matter;
but in he trotted,
and set us both laughing.
"That does not satisfy me in the least.
I want my arms round you,
and your head on my breast,
and--oh,
Gladys,
I want----"
She had sprung from her chair,
as she saw signs that I proposed
to demonstrate some of my wants.
"You've spoiled everything,
Ned,"
she said.
"It's all so beautiful and natural until this kind of thing comes in! It is such a pity! Why can't you control yourself?"
"I didn't invent it,"
I pleaded.
"It's nature.
It's love."
"Well,
perhaps if both love,
it may be different.
I have never felt it."
"But you must--you,
with your beauty,
with your soul! Oh,
Gladys,
you were made
for love! You must love!"
"One must wait till it comes."
"But why can't you love me,
Gladys?
Is it my appearance,
or what?"
She did unbend a little.
She put forward a hand--such a gracious,
stooping attitude it was--and she pressed back my head.
Then she looked into my upturned face
with a very wistful smile.
"No it isn't that,"
she said at last.
"You're not a conceited boy by nature,
and so I can safely tell you it is not that.
It's deeper."
"My character?"
She nodded severely.
"What can I do
to mend it?
Do sit down and talk it over.
No,
really,
I won't if you'll only sit down!"
She looked at me
with a wondering distrust which was much more
to my mind than her whole-hearted confidence.
How primitive and bestial it looks when you put it down in black and white!--and perhaps after all it is only a feeling peculiar
to myself.
Anyhow,
she sat down.
"Now tell me what's amiss
with me?"
"I'm in love
with somebody else,"
said she.
It was my turn
to jump out of my chair.
"It's nobody in particular,"
she explained,
laughing at the expression of my face:
"only an ideal.
I've never met the kind of man I mean."
"Tell me about him.
What does he look like?"
"Oh,
he might look very much like you."
"How dear of you
to say that! Well,
what is it that he does that I don't do?
Just say the word,--teetotal,
vegetarian,
aeronaut,
theosophist,
superman.
I'll have a try at it,
Gladys,
if you will only give me an idea what would please you."
She laughed at the elasticity of my character.
"Well,
in the first place,
I don't think my ideal would speak like that,"
said she.
"He would be a harder,
sterner man,
not so ready
to adapt himself
to a silly girl's whim.
But,
above all,
he must be a man who could do,
who could act,
who could look Death in the face and have no fear of him,
a man of great deeds and strange experiences.
It is never a man that I should love,
but always the glories he had won;
for they would be reflected upon me.
Think of Richard Burton! When I read his wife's life of him I could so understand her love! And Lady Stanley! Did you ever read the wonderful last chapter of that book about her husband?
These are the sort of men that a woman could worship
with all her soul,
and yet be the greater,
not the less,
on account of her love,
honored by all the world as the inspirer of noble deeds."
She looked so beautiful in her enthusiasm that I nearly brought down the whole level of the interview.
I gripped myself hard,
and went on
with the argument.
"We can't all be Stanleys and Burtons,"
said I;
"besides,
we don't get the chance,--at least,
I never had the chance.
If I did,
I should try
to take it."
"But chances are all around you.
It is the mark of the kind of man I mean that he makes his own chances.
You can't hold him back.
I've never met him,
and yet I seem
to know him so well.
There are heroisms all round us waiting
to be done.
It's
for men
to do them,
and
for women
to reserve their love as a reward
for such men.
Look at that young Frenchman who went up last week in a balloon.
It was blowing a gale of wind;
but because he was announced
to go he insisted on starting.
The wind blew him fifteen hundred miles in twenty-four hours,
and he fell in the middle of Russia.
That was the kind of man I mean.
Think of the woman he loved,
and how other women must have envied her! That's what I should like
to be,--envied
for my man."
"I'd have done it
to please you."
"But you shouldn't do it merely
to please me.
You should do it because you can't help yourself,
because it's natural
to you,
because the man in you is crying out
for heroic expression.
Now,
when you described the Wigan coal explosion last month,
could you not have gone down and helped those people,
in spite of the choke-damp?"
"I did."
"You never said so."
"There was nothing worth bucking about."
"I didn't know."
She looked at me
with rather more interest.
"That was brave of you."
"I had to.
If you want
to write good copy,
you must be where the things are."
"What a prosaic motive! It seems
to take all the romance out of it.
But,
still,
whatever your motive,
I am glad that you went down that mine."
She gave me her hand;
but
with such sweetness and dignity that I could only stoop and kiss it.
"I dare say I am merely a foolish woman
with a young girl's fancies.
And yet it is so real
with me,
so entirely part of my very self,
that I cannot help acting upon it.
If I marry,
I do want
to marry a famous man!"
"Why should you not?"
I cried.
"It is women like you who brace men up.
Give me a chance,
and see if I will take it! Besides,
as you say,
men ought
to MAKE their own chances,
and not wait until they are given.
Look at Clive--just a clerk,
and he conquered India! By George! I'll do something in the world yet!"
She laughed at my sudden Irish effervescence.
"Why not?"
she said.
"You have everything a man could have,--youth,
health,
strength,
education,
energy.
I was sorry you spoke.
And now I am glad--so glad--if it wakens these thoughts in you!"
"And if I do----"
Her dear hand rested like warm velvet upon my lips.
"Not another word,
Sir! You should have been at the office
for evening duty half an hour ago;
only I hadn't the heart
to remind you.
Some day,
perhaps,
when you have won your place in the world,
we shall talk it over again."
And so it was that I found myself that foggy November evening pursuing the Camberwell tram
with my heart glowing within me,
and
with the eager determination that not another day should elapse before I should find some deed which was worthy of my lady.
But who--who in all this wide world could ever have imagined the incredible shape which that deed was
to take,
or the strange steps by which I was led
to the doing of it?
And,
after all,
this opening chapter will seem
to the reader
to have nothing
to do
with my narrative;
and yet there would have been no narrative without it,
for it is only when a man goes out into the world
with the thought that there are heroisms all round him,
and
with the desire all alive in his heart
to follow any which may come within sight of him,
that he breaks away as I did from the life he knows,
and ventures forth into the wonderful mystic twilight land where lie the great adventures and the great rewards.
Behold me,
then,
at the office of the Daily Gazette,
on the staff of which I was a most insignificant unit,
with the settled determination that very night,
if possible,
to find the quest which should be worthy of my Gladys! Was it hardness,
was it selfishness,
that she should ask me
to risk my life
for her own glorification?
Such thoughts may come
to middle age;
but never
to ardent three-and-twenty in the fever of his first love.
CHAPTER II
"Try Your Luck
with Professor Challenger"
I always liked McArdle,
the crabbed,
old,
round-backed,
red-headed news editor,
and I rather hoped that he liked me.
Of course,
Beaumont was the real boss;
but he lived in the rarefied atmosphere of some Olympian height from which he could distinguish nothing smaller than an international crisis or a split in the Cabinet.
Sometimes we saw him passing in lonely majesty
to his inner sanctum,
with his eyes staring vaguely and his mind hovering over the Balkans or the Persian Gulf.
He was above and beyond us.
But McArdle was his first lieutenant,
and it was he that we knew.
The old man nodded as I entered the room,
and he pushed his spectacles far up on his bald forehead.
"Well,
Mr. Malone,
from all I hear,
you seem
to be doing very well,"
said he in his kindly Scotch accent.
I thanked him.
"The colliery explosion was excellent.
So was the Southwark fire.
You have the true descreeptive touch.
What did you want
to see me about?"
"To ask a favor."
He looked alarmed,
and his eyes shunned mine.
"Tut,
tut! What is it?"
"Do you think,
Sir,
that you could possibly send me on some mission
for the paper?
I would do my best
to put it through and get you some good copy."
"What sort of meesion had you in your mind,
Mr. Malone?"
"Well,
Sir,
anything that had adventure and danger in it.
I really would do my very best.
The more difficult it was,
the better it would suit me."
"You seem very anxious
to lose your life."
"To justify my life,
Sir."
"Dear me,
Mr. Malone,
this is very--very exalted.
I'm afraid the day
for this sort of thing is rather past.
The expense of the `special meesion'
business hardly justifies the result,
and,
of course,
in any case it would only be an experienced man
with a name that would command public confidence who would get such an order.
The big blank spaces in the map are all being filled in,
and there's no room
for romance anywhere.
Wait a bit,
though!"
he added,
with a sudden smile upon his face.
"Talking of the blank spaces of the map gives me an idea.
What about exposing a fraud--a modern Munchausen--and making him rideeculous?
You could show him up as the liar that he is! Eh,
man,
it would be fine.
How does it appeal
to you?"
"Anything--anywhere--I care nothing."
McArdle was plunged in thought
for some minutes.
"I wonder whether you could get on friendly--or at least on talking terms
with the fellow,"
he said,
at last.
"You seem
to have a sort of genius
for establishing relations
with people--seempathy,
I suppose,
or animal magnetism,
or youthful vitality,
or something.
I am conscious of it myself."
"You are very good,
sir."
"So why should you not try your luck
with Professor Challenger,
of Enmore Park?"
I dare say I looked a little startled.
"Challenger!"
I cried.
"Professor Challenger,
the famous zoologist! Wasn't he the man who broke the skull of Blundell,
of the Telegraph?"
The news editor smiled grimly.
"Do you mind?
Didn't you say it was adventures you were after?"
"It is all in the way of business,
sir,"
I answered.
"Exactly.
I don't suppose he can always be so violent as that.
I'm thinking that Blundell got him at the wrong moment,
maybe,
or in the wrong fashion.
You may have better luck,
or more tact in handling him.
There's something in your line there,
I am sure,
and the Gazette should work it."
"I really know nothing about him,"
said I.
I only remember his name in connection
with the police-court proceedings,
for striking Blundell."
"I have a few notes
for your guidance,
Mr. Malone.
I've had my eye on the Professor
for some little time."
He took a paper from a drawer.
"Here is a summary of his record.
I give it you briefly:--
"`Challenger,
George Edward.
Born:
Largs,
N.
B.,
1863.
Educ.:
Largs Academy;
Edinburgh University.
British Museum Assistant,
1892.
Assistant-Keeper of Comparative Anthropology Department,
1893.
Resigned after acrimonious correspondence same year.
Winner of Crayston Medal
for Zoological Research.
Foreign Member of'--well,
quite a lot of things,
about two inches of small type--`Societe Belge,
American Academy of Sciences,
La Plata,
etc.,
etc.
Ex-President Palaeontological Society.
Section H,
British Association'--so on,
so on!--`Publications:
"Some Observations Upon a Series of Kalmuck Skulls";
"Outlines of Vertebrate Evolution";
and numerous papers,
including
"The underlying fallacy of Weissmannism,"
which caused heated discussion at the Zoological Congress of Vienna.
Recreations:
Walking,
Alpine climbing.
Address:
Enmore Park,
Kensington,
W.'
"There,
take it
with you.
I've nothing more
for you to-night."
I pocketed the slip of paper.
"One moment,
sir,"
I said,
as I realized that it was a pink bald head,
and not a red face,
which was fronting me.
"I am not very clear yet why I am
to interview this gentleman.
What has he done?"
The face flashed back again.
"Went
to South America on a solitary expedeetion two years ago.
Came back last year.
Had undoubtedly been
to South America,
but refused
to say exactly where.
Began
to tell his adventures in a vague way,
but somebody started
to pick holes,
and he just shut up like an oyster.
Something wonderful happened--or the man's a champion liar,
which is the more probable supposeetion.
Had some damaged photographs,
said
to be fakes.
Got so touchy that he assaults anyone who asks questions,
and heaves reporters doun the stairs.
In my opinion he's just a homicidal megalomaniac
with a turn
for science.
That's your man,
Mr. Malone.
Now,
off you run,
and see what you can make of him.
You're big enough
to look after yourself.
Anyway,
you are all safe.
Employers'
Liability Act,
you know."
A grinning red face turned once more into a pink oval,
fringed
with gingery fluff;
the interview was at an end.
I walked across
to the Savage Club,
but instead of turning into it I leaned upon the railings of Adelphi Terrace and gazed thoughtfully
for a long time at the brown,
oily river.
I can always think most sanely and clearly in the open air.
I took out the list of Professor Challenger's exploits,
and I read it over under the electric lamp.
Then I had what I can only regard as an inspiration.
As a Pressman,
I felt sure from what I had been told that I could never hope
to get into touch
with this cantankerous Professor.
But these recriminations,
twice mentioned in his skeleton biography,
could only mean that he was a fanatic in science.
Was there not an exposed margin there upon which he might be accessible?
I would try.
I entered the club.
It was just after eleven,
and the big room was fairly full,
though the rush had not yet set in.
I noticed a tall,
thin,
angular man seated in an arm-chair by the fire.
He turned as I drew my chair up
to him.
It was the man of all others whom I should have chosen--Tarp Henry,
of the staff of Nature,
a thin,
dry,
leathery creature,
who was full,
to those who knew him,
of kindly humanity.
I plunged instantly into my subject.
"What do you know of Professor Challenger?"
"Challenger?"
He gathered his brows in scientific disapproval.
"Challenger was the man who came
with some cock-and-bull story from South America."
"What story?"
"Oh,
it was rank nonsense about some queer animals he had discovered.
I believe he has retracted since.
Anyhow,
he has suppressed it all.
He gave an interview
to Reuter's,
and there was such a howl that he saw it wouldn't do.
It was a discreditable business.
There were one or two folk who were inclined
to take him seriously,
but he soon choked them off."
"How?"
"Well,
by his insufferable rudeness and impossible behavior.
There was poor old Wadley,
of the Zoological Institute.
Wadley sent a message:
`The President of the Zoological Institute presents his compliments
to Professor Challenger,
and would take it as a personal favor if he would do them the honor
to come
to their next meeting.'
The answer was unprintable."
"You don't say?"
"Well,
a bowdlerized version of it would run:
`Professor Challenger presents his compliments
to the President of the Zoological Institute,
and would take it as a personal favor if he would go
to the devil.'
"
"Good Lord!"
"Yes,
I expect that's what old Wadley said.
I remember his wail at the meeting,
which began:
`In fifty years experience of scientific intercourse----'
It quite broke the old man up."
"Anything more about Challenger?"
"Well,
I'm a bacteriologist,
you know.
I live in a nine-hundred-diameter microscope.
I can hardly claim
to take serious notice of anything that I can see
with my naked eye.
I'm a frontiersman from the extreme edge of the Knowable,
and I feel quite out of place when I leave my study and come into touch
with all you great,
rough,
hulking creatures.
I'm too detached
to talk scandal,
and yet at scientific conversaziones I HAVE heard something of Challenger,
for he is one of those men whom nobody can ignore.
He's as clever as they make
'em--a full-charged battery of force and vitality,
but a quarrelsome,
ill-conditioned faddist,
and unscrupulous at that.
He had gone the length of faking some photographs over the South American business."
"You say he is a faddist.
What is his particular fad?"
"He has a thousand,
but the latest is something about Weissmann and Evolution.
He had a fearful row about it in Vienna,
I believe."
"Can't you tell me the point?"
"Not at the moment,
but a translation of the proceedings exists.
We have it filed at the office.
Would you care
to come?"
"It's just what I want.
I have
to interview the fellow,
and I need some lead up
to him.
It's really awfully good of you
to give me a lift.
I'll go
with you now,
if it is not too late."
Half an hour later I was seated in the newspaper office
with a huge tome in front of me,
which had been opened at the article
"Weissmann versus Darwin,"
with the sub heading,
"Spirited Protest at Vienna.
Lively Proceedings."
My scientific education having been somewhat neglected,
I was unable
to follow the whole argument,
but it was evident that the English Professor had handled his subject in a very aggressive fashion,
and had thoroughly annoyed his Continental colleagues.
"Protests,"
"Uproar,"
and
"General appeal
to the Chairman"
were three of the first brackets which caught my eye.
Most of the matter might have been written in Chinese
for any definite meaning that it conveyed
to my brain.
"I wish you could translate it into English
for me,"
I said,
pathetically,
to my help-mate.
"Well,
it is a translation."
"Then I'd better try my luck
with the original."
"It is certainly rather deep
for a layman."
"If I could only get a single good,
meaty sentence which seemed
to convey some sort of definite human idea,
it would serve my turn.
Ah,
yes,
this one will do.
I seem in a vague way almost
to understand it.
I'll copy it out.
This shall be my link
with the terrible Professor."
"Nothing else I can do?"
"Well,
yes;
I propose
to write
to him.
If I could frame the letter here,
and use your address it would give atmosphere."
"We'll have the fellow round here making a row and breaking the furniture."
"No,
no;
you'll see the letter--nothing contentious,
I assure you."
"Well,
that's my chair and desk.
You'll find paper there.
I'd like
to censor it before it goes."
It took some doing,
but I flatter myself that it wasn't such a bad job when it was finished.
I read it aloud
to the critical bacteriologist
with some pride in my handiwork.
"DEAR PROFESSOR CHALLENGER,"
it said,
"As a humble student of Nature,
I have always taken the most profound interest in your speculations as
to the differences between Darwin and Weissmann.
I have recently had occasion
to refresh my memory by re-reading----"
"You infernal liar!"
murmured Tarp Henry.
--"by re-reading your masterly address at Vienna.
That lucid and admirable statement seems
to be the last word in the matter.
There is one sentence in it,
however--namely:
`I protest strongly against the insufferable and entirely dogmatic assertion that each separate id is a microcosm possessed of an historical architecture elaborated slowly through the series of generations.'
Have you no desire,
in view of later research,
to modify this statement?
Do you not think that it is over-accentuated?
With your permission,
I would ask the favor of an interview,
as I feel strongly upon the subject,
and have certain suggestions which I could only elaborate in a personal conversation.
With your consent,
I trust
to have the honor of calling at eleven o'clock the day after to-morrow
(Wednesday)
morning.
"I remain,
Sir,
with assurances of profound respect,
yours very truly,
EDWARD D.
MALONE."
"How's that?"
I asked,
triumphantly.
"Well if your conscience can stand it----"
"It has never failed me yet."
"But what do you mean
to do?"
"To get there.
Once I am in his room I may see some opening.
I may even go the length of open confession.
If he is a sportsman he will be tickled."
"Tickled,
indeed! He's much more likely
to do the tickling.
Chain mail,
or an American football suit--that's what you'll want.
Well,
good-bye.
I'll have the answer
for you here on Wednesday morning--if he ever deigns
to answer you.
He is a violent,
dangerous,
cantankerous character,
hated by everyone who comes across him,
and the butt of the students,
so far as they dare take a liberty
with him.
Perhaps it would be best
for you if you never heard from the fellow at all."
CHAPTER III
"He is a Perfectly Impossible Person"
My friend's fear or hope was not destined
to be realized.
When I called on Wednesday there was a letter
with the West Kensington postmark upon it,
and my name scrawled across the envelope in a handwriting which looked like a barbed-wire railing.
The contents were as follows:--
"ENMORE PARK,
W.
"SIR,--I have duly received your note,
in which you claim
to endorse my views,
although I am not aware that they are dependent upon endorsement either from you or anyone else.
You have ventured
to use the word `speculation'
with regard
to my statement upon the subject of Darwinism,
and I would call your attention
to the fact that such a word in such a connection is offensive
to a degree.
The context convinces me,
however,
that you have sinned rather through ignorance and tactlessness than through malice,
so I am content
to pass the matter by.
You quote an isolated sentence from my lecture,
and appear
to have some difficulty in understanding it.
I should have thought that only a sub-human intelligence could have failed
to grasp the point,
but if it really needs amplification I shall consent
to see you at the hour named,
though visits and visitors of every sort are exceeding distasteful
to me.
As
to your suggestion that I may modify my opinion,
I would have you know that it is not my habit
to do so after a deliberate expression of my mature views.
You will kindly show the envelope of this letter
to my man,
Austin,
when you call,
as he has
to take every precaution
to shield me from the intrusive rascals who call themselves `journalists.'
"Yours faithfully,
"GEORGE EDWARD CHALLENGER."
This was the letter that I read aloud
to Tarp Henry,
who had come down early
to hear the result of my venture.
His only remark was,
"There's some new stuff,
cuticura or something,
which is better than arnica."
Some people have such extraordinary notions of humor.
It was nearly half-past ten before I had received my message,
but a taxicab took me round in good time
for my appointment.
It was an imposing porticoed house at which we stopped,
and the heavily-curtained windows gave every indication of wealth upon the part of this formidable Professor.
The door was opened by an odd,
swarthy,
dried-up person of uncertain age,
with a dark pilot jacket and brown leather gaiters.
I found afterwards that he was the chauffeur,
who filled the gaps left by a succession of fugitive butlers.
He looked me up and down
with a searching light blue eye.
"Expected?"
he asked.
"An appointment."
"Got your letter?"
I produced the envelope.
"Right!"
He seemed
to be a person of few words.
Following him down the passage I was suddenly interrupted by a small woman,
who stepped out from what proved
to be the dining-room door.
She was a bright,
vivacious,
dark-eyed lady,
more French than English in her type.
"One moment,"
she said.
"You can wait,
Austin.
Step in here,
sir.
May I ask if you have met my husband before?"
"No,
madam,
I have not had the honor."
"Then I apologize
to you in advance.
I must tell you that he is a perfectly impossible person--absolutely impossible.
If you are forewarned you will be the more ready
to make allowances."
"It is most considerate of you,
madam."
"Get quickly out of the room if he seems inclined
to be violent.
Don't wait
to argue
with him.
Several people have been injured through doing that.
Afterwards there is a public scandal and it reflects upon me and all of us.
I suppose it wasn't about South America you wanted
to see him?"
I could not lie
to a lady.
"Dear me! That is his most dangerous subject.
You won't believe a word he says--I'm sure I don't wonder.
But don't tell him so,
for it makes him very violent.
Pretend
to believe him,
and you may get through all right.
Remember he believes it himself.
Of that you may be assured.
A more honest man never lived.
Don't wait any longer or he may suspect.
If you find him dangerous--really dangerous--ring the bell and hold him off until I come.
Even at his worst I can usually control him."
With these encouraging words the lady handed me over
to the taciturn Austin,
who had waited like a bronze statue of discretion during our short interview,
and I was conducted
to the end of the passage.
There was a tap at a door,
a bull's bellow from within,
and I was face
to face
with the Professor.
He sat in a rotating chair behind a broad table,
which was covered
with books,
maps,
and diagraMs. As I entered,
his seat spun round
to face me.
His appearance made me gasp.
I was prepared
for something strange,
but not
for so overpowering a personality as this.
It was his size which took one's breath away--his size and his imposing presence.
His head was enormous,
the largest I have ever seen upon a human being.
I am sure that his top-hat,
had I ever ventured
to don it,
would have slipped over me entirely and rested on my shoulders.
He had the face and beard which I associate
with an Assyrian bull;
the former florid,
the latter so black as almost
to have a suspicion of blue,
spade-shaped and rippling down over his chest.
The hair was peculiar,
plastered down in front in a long,
curving wisp over his massive forehead.
The eyes were blue-gray under great black tufts,
very clear,
very critical,
and very masterful.
A huge spread of shoulders and a chest like a barrel were the other parts of him which appeared above the table,
save
for two enormous hands covered
with long black hair.
This and a bellowing,
roaring,
rumbling voice made up my first impression of the notorious Professor Challenger.
"Well?"
said he,
with a most insolent stare.
"What now?"
I must keep up my deception
for at least a little time longer,
otherwise here was evidently an end of the interview.
"You were good enough
to give me an appointment,
sir,"
said I,
humbly,
producing his envelope.
He took my letter from his desk and laid it out before him.
"Oh,
you are the young person who cannot understand plain English,
are you?
My general conclusions you are good enough
to approve,
as I understand?"
"Entirely,
sir--entirely!"
I was very emphatic.
"Dear me! That strengthens my position very much,
does it not?
Your age and appearance make your support doubly valuable.
Well,
at least you are better than that herd of swine in Vienna,
whose gregarious grunt is,
however,
not more offensive than the isolated effort of the British hog."
He glared at me as the present representative of the beast.
"They seem
to have behaved abominably,"
said I.
"I assure you that I can fight my own battles,
and that I have no possible need of your sympathy.
Put me alone,
sir,
and
with my back
to the wall.
G.
E.
C.
is happiest then.
Well,
sir,
let us do what we can
to curtail this visit,
which can hardly be agreeable
to you,
and is inexpressibly irksome
to me.
You had,
as I have been led
to believe,
some comments
to make upon the proposition which I advanced in my thesis."
There was a brutal directness about his methods which made evasion difficult.
I must still make play and wait
for a better opening.
It had seemed simple enough at a distance.
Oh,
my Irish wits,
could they not help me now,
when I needed help so sorely?
He transfixed me
with two sharp,
steely eyes.
"Come,
come!"
he rumbled.
"I am,
of course,
a mere student,"
said I,
with a fatuous smile,
"hardly more,
I might say,
than an earnest inquirer.
At the same time,
it seemed
to me that you were a little severe upon Weissmann in this matter.
Has not the general evidence since that date tended to--well,
to strengthen his position?"
"What evidence?"
He spoke
with a menacing calm.
"Well,
of course,
I am aware that there is not any what you might call DEFINITE evidence.
I alluded merely
to the trend of modern thought and the general scientific point of view,
if I might so express it."
He leaned forward
with great earnestness.
"I suppose you are aware,"
said he,
checking off points upon his fingers,
"that the cranial index is a constant factor?"
"Naturally,"
said I.
"And that telegony is still sub judice?"
"Undoubtedly."
"And that the germ plasm is different from the parthenogenetic egg?"
"Why,
surely!"
I cried,
and gloried in my own audacity.
"But what does that prove?"
he asked,
in a gentle,
persuasive voice.
"Ah,
what indeed?"
I murmured.
"What does it prove?"
"Shall I tell you?"
he cooed.
"Pray do."
"It proves,"
he roared,
with a sudden blast of fury,
"that you are the damnedest imposter in London--a vile,
crawling journalist,
who has no more science than he has decency in his composition!"
He had sprung
to his feet
with a mad rage in his eyes.
Even at that moment of tension I found time
for amazement at the discovery that he was quite a short man,
his head not higher than my shoulder--a stunted Hercules whose tremendous vitality had all run
to depth,
breadth,
and brain.
"Gibberish!"
he cried,
leaning forward,
with his fingers on the table and his face projecting.
"That's what I have been talking
to you,
sir--scientific gibberish! Did you think you could match cunning
with me--you
with your walnut of a brain?
You think you are omnipotent,
you infernal scribblers,
don't you?
That your praise can make a man and your blame can break him?
We must all bow
to you,
and try
to get a favorable word,
must we?
This man shall have a leg up,
and this man shall have a dressing down! Creeping vermin,
I know you! You've got out of your station.
Time was when your ears were clipped.
You've lost your sense of proportion.
Swollen gas-bags! I'll keep you in your proper place.
Yes,
sir,
you haven't got over G.
E.
C.
There's one man who is still your master.
He warned you off,
but if you WILL come,
by the Lord you do it at your own risk.
Forfeit,
my good Mr. Malone,
I claim forfeit! You have played a rather dangerous game,
and it strikes me that you have lost it."
"Look here,
sir,"
said I,
backing
to the door and opening it;
"you can be as abusive as you like.
But there is a limit.
You shall not assault me."
"Shall I not?"
He was slowly advancing in a peculiarly menacing way,
but he stopped now and put his big hands into the side-pockets of a rather boyish short jacket which he wore.
"I have thrown several of you out of the house.
You will be the fourth or fifth.
Three pound fifteen each--that is how it averaged.
Expensive,
but very necessary.
Now,
sir,
why should you not follow your brethren?
I rather think you must."
He resumed his unpleasant and stealthy advance,
pointing his toes as he walked,
like a dancing master.
I could have bolted
for the hall door,
but it would have been too ignominious.
Besides,
a little glow of righteous anger was springing up within me.
I had been hopelessly in the wrong before,
but this man's menaces were putting me in the right.
"I'll trouble you
to keep your hands off,
sir.
I'll not stand it."
"Dear me!"
His black moustache lifted and a white fang twinkled in a sneer.
"You won't stand it,
eh?"
"Don't be such a fool,
Professor!"
I cried.
"What can you hope for?
I'm fifteen stone,
as hard as nails,
and play center three-quarter every Saturday
for the London Irish.
I'm not the man----"
It was at that moment that he rushed me.
It was lucky that I had opened the door,
or we should have gone through it.
We did a Catharine-wheel together down the passage.
Somehow we gathered up a chair upon our way,
and bounded on
with it towards the street.
My mouth was full of his beard,
our arms were locked,
our bodies intertwined,
and that infernal chair radiated its legs all round us.
The watchful Austin had thrown open the hall door.
We went
with a back somersault down the front steps.
I have seen the two Macs attempt something of the kind at the halls,
but it appears
to take some practise
to do it without hurting oneself.
The chair went
to matchwood at the bottom,
and we rolled apart into the gutter.
He sprang
to his feet,
waving his fists and wheezing like an asthmatic.
"Had enough?"
he panted.
"You infernal bully!"
I cried,
as I gathered myself together.
Then and there we should have tried the thing out,
for he was effervescing
with fight,
but fortunately I was rescued from an odious situation.
A policeman was beside us,
his notebook in his hand.
"What's all this?
You ought
to be ashamed"
said the policeman.
It was the most rational remark which I had heard in Enmore Park.
"Well,"
he insisted,
turning
to me,
"what is it,
then?"
"This man attacked me,"
said I.
"Did you attack him?"
asked the policeman.
The Professor breathed hard and said nothing.
"It's not the first time,
either,"
said the policeman,
severely,
shaking his head.
"You were in trouble last month
for the same thing.
You've blackened this young man's eye.
Do you give him in charge,
sir?"
I relented.
"No,"
said I,
"I do not."
"What's that?"
said the policeman.
"I was
to blame myself.
I intruded upon him.
He gave me fair warning."
The policeman snapped up his notebook.
"Don't let us have any more such goings-on,"
said he.
"Now,
then! Move on,
there,
move on!"
This
to a butcher's boy,
a maid,
and one or two loafers who had collected.
He clumped heavily down the street,
driving this little flock before him.
The Professor looked at me,
and there was something humorous at the back of his eyes.
"Come in!"
said he.
"I've not done
with you yet."
The speech had a sinister sound,
but I followed him none the less into the house.
The man-servant,
Austin,
like a wooden image,
closed the door behind us.
CHAPTER IV
"It's Just the very Biggest Thing in the World"
Hardly was it shut when Mrs. Challenger darted out from the dining-room.
The small woman was in a furious temper.
She barred her husband's way like an enraged chicken in front of a bulldog.
It was evident that she had seen my exit,
but had not observed my return.
"You brute,
George!"
she screamed.
"You've hurt that nice young man."
He jerked backwards
with his thumb.
"Here he is,
safe and sound behind me."
She was confused,
but not unduly so.
"I am so sorry,
I didn't see you."
"I assure you,
madam,
that it is all right."
"He has marked your poor face! Oh,
George,
what a brute you are! Nothing but scandals from one end of the week
to the other.
Everyone hating and making fun of you.
You've finished my patience.
This ends it."
"Dirty linen,"
he rumbled.
"It's not a secret,"
she cried.
"Do you suppose that the whole street--the whole of London,
for that matter---- Get away,
Austin,
we don't want you here.
Do you suppose they don't all talk about you?
Where is your dignity?
You,
a man who should have been Regius Professor at a great University
with a thousand students all revering you.
Where is your dignity,
George?"
"How about yours,
my dear?"
"You try me too much.
A ruffian--a common brawling ruffian-- that's what you have become."
"Be good,
Jessie."
"A roaring,
raging bully!"
"That's done it! Stool of penance!"
said he.
To my amazement he stooped,
picked her up,
and placed her sitting upon a high pedestal of black marble in the angle of the hall.
It was at least seven feet high,
and so thin that she could hardly balance upon it.
A more absurd object than she presented cocked up there
with her face convulsed
with anger,
her feet dangling,
and her body rigid
for fear of an upset,
I could not imagine.
"Let me down!"
she wailed.
"Say `please.'
"
"You brute,
George! Let me down this instant!"
"Come into the study,
Mr. Malone."
"Really,
sir----!"
said I,
looking at the lady.
"Here's Mr. Malone pleading
for you,
Jessie.
Say `please,'
and down you come."
"Oh,
you brute! Please! please!"
"You must behave yourself,
dear.
Mr. Malone is a Pressman.
He will have it all in his rag to-morrow,
and sell an extra dozen among our neighbors.
`Strange story of high life'--you felt fairly high on that pedestal,
did you not?
Then a sub-title,
`Glimpse of a singular menage.'
He's a foul feeder,
is Mr. Malone,
a carrion eater,
like all of his kind--porcus ex grege diaboli-- a swine from the devil's herd.
That's it,
Malone--what?"
"You are really intolerable!"
said I,
hotly.
He bellowed
with laughter.
"We shall have a coalition presently,"
he boomed,
looking from his wife
to me and puffing out his enormous chest.
Then,
suddenly altering his tone,
"Excuse this frivolous family badinage,
Mr. Malone.
I called you back
for some more serious purpose than
to mix you up
with our little domestic pleasantries.
Run away,
little woman,
and don't fret."
He placed a huge hand upon each of her shoulders.
"All that you say is perfectly true.
I should be a better man if I did what you advise,
but I shouldn't be quite George Edward Challenger.
There are plenty of better men,
my dear,
but only one G.
E.
C.
So make the best of him."
He suddenly gave her a resounding kiss,
which embarrassed me even more than his violence had done.
"Now,
Mr. Malone,"
he continued,
with a great accession of dignity,
"this way,
if YOU please."
We re-entered the room which we had left so tumultuously ten minutes before.
The Professor closed the door carefully behind us,
motioned me into an arm-chair,
and pushed a cigar-box under my nose.
"Real San Juan Colorado,"
he said.
"Excitable people like you are the better
for narcotics.
Heavens! don't bite it! Cut--and cut
with reverence! Now lean back,
and listen attentively
to whatever I may care
to say
to you.
If any remark should occur
to you,
you can reserve it
for some more opportune time.
"First of all,
as
to your return
to my house after your most justifiable expulsion"--he protruded his beard,
and stared at me as one who challenges and invites contradiction--"after,
as I say,
your well-merited expulsion.
The reason lay in your answer
to that most officious policeman,
in which I seemed
to discern some glimmering of good feeling upon your part--more,
at any rate,
than I am accustomed
to associate
with your profession.
In admitting that the fault of the incident lay
with you,
you gave some evidence of a certain mental detachment and breadth of view which attracted my favorable notice.
The sub-species of the human race
to which you unfortunately belong has always been below my mental horizon.
Your words brought you suddenly above it.
You swam up into my serious notice.
For this reason I asked you
to return
with me,
as I was minded
to make your further acquaintance.
You will kindly deposit your ash in the small Japanese tray on the bamboo table which stands at your left elbow."
All this he boomed forth like a professor addressing his class.
He had swung round his revolving chair so as
to face me,
and he sat all puffed out like an enormous bull-frog,
his head laid back and his eyes half-covered by supercilious lids.
Now he suddenly turned himself sideways,
and all I could see of him was tangled hair
with a red,
protruding ear.
He was scratching about among the litter of papers upon his desk.
He faced me presently
with what looked like a very tattered sketch-book in his hand.
"I am going
to talk
to you about South America,"
said he.
"No comments if you please.
First of all,
I wish you
to understand that nothing I tell you now is
to be repeated in any public way unless you have my express permission.
That permission will,
in all human probability,
never be given.
Is that clear?"
"It is very hard,"
said I.
"Surely a judicious account----"
He replaced the notebook upon the table.
"That ends it,"
said he.
"I wish you a very good morning."
"No,
no!"
I cried.
"I submit
to any conditions.
So far as I can see,
I have no choice."
"None in the world,"
said he.
"Well,
then,
I promise."
"Word of honor?"
"Word of honor."
He looked at me
with doubt in his insolent eyes.
"After all,
what do I know about your honor?"
said he.
"Upon my word,
sir,"
I cried,
angrily,
"you take very great liberties! I have never been so insulted in my life."
He seemed more interested than annoyed at my outbreak.
"Round-headed,"
he muttered.
"Brachycephalic,
gray-eyed,
black-haired,
with suggestion of the negroid.
Celtic,
I presume?"
"I am an Irishman,
sir."
"Irish Irish?"
"Yes,
sir."
"That,
of course,
explains it.
Let me see;
you have given me your promise that my confidence will be respected?
That confidence,
I may say,
will be far from complete.
But I am prepared
to give you a few indications which will be of interest.
In the first place,
you are probably aware that two years ago I made a journey
to South America--one which will be classical in the scientific history of the world?
The object of my journey was
to verify some conclusions of Wallace and of Bates,
which could only be done by observing their reported facts under the same conditions in which they had themselves noted them.
If my expedition had no other results it would still have been noteworthy,
but a curious incident occurred
to me while there which opened up an entirely fresh line of inquiry.
"You are aware--or probably,
in this half-educated age,
you are not aware--that the country round some parts of the Amazon is still only partially explored,
and that a great number of tributaries,
some of them entirely uncharted,
run into the main river.
It was my business
to visit this little-known back-country and
to examine its fauna,
which furnished me
with the materials
for several chapters
for that great and monumental work upon zoology which will be my life's justification.
I was returning,
my work accomplished,
when I had occasion
to spend a night at a small Indian village at a point where a certain tributary--the name and position of which I withhold--opens into the main river.
The natives were Cucama Indians,
an amiable but degraded race,
with mental powers hardly superior
to the average Londoner.
I had effected some cures among them upon my way up the river,
and had impressed them considerably
with my personality,
so that I was not surprised
to find myself eagerly awaited upon my return.
I gathered from their signs that someone had urgent need of my medical services,
and I followed the chief
to one of his huts.
When I entered I found that the sufferer
to whose aid I had been summoned had that instant expired.
He was,
to my surprise,
no Indian,
but a white man;
indeed,
I may say a very white man,
for he was flaxen-haired and had some characteristics of an albino.
He was clad in rags,
was very emaciated,
and bore every trace of prolonged hardship.
So far as I could understand the account of the natives,
he was a complete stranger
to them,
and had come upon their village through the woods alone and in the last stage of exhaustion.
"The man's knapsack lay beside the couch,
and I examined the contents.
His name was written upon a tab within it--Maple White,
Lake Avenue,
Detroit,
Michigan.
It is a name
to which I am prepared always
to lift my hat.
It is not too much
to say that it will rank level
with my own when the final credit of this business comes
to be apportioned.
"From the contents of the knapsack it was evident that this man had been an artist and poet in search of effects.
There were scraps of verse.
I do not profess
to be a judge of such things,
but they appeared
to me
to be singularly wanting in merit.
There were also some rather commonplace pictures of river scenery,
a paint-box,
a box of colored chalks,
some brushes,
that curved bone which lies upon my inkstand,
a volume of Baxter's `Moths and Butterflies,'
a cheap revolver,
and a few cartridges.
Of personal equipment he either had none or he had lost it in his journey.
Such were the total effects of this strange American Bohemian.
"I was turning away from him when I observed that something projected from the front of his ragged jacket.
It was this sketch-book,
which was as dilapidated then as you see it now.
Indeed,
I can assure you that a first folio of Shakespeare could not be treated
with greater reverence than this relic has been since it came into my possession.
I hand it
to you now,
and I ask you
to take it page by page and
to examine the contents."
He helped himself
to a cigar and leaned back
with a fiercely critical pair of eyes,
taking note of the effect which this document would produce.
I had opened the volume
with some expectation of a revelation,
though of what nature I could not imagine.
The first page was disappointing,
however,
as it contained nothing but the picture of a very fat man in a pea-jacket,
with the legend,
"Jimmy Colver on the Mail-boat,"
written beneath it.
There followed several pages which were filled
with small sketches of Indians and their ways.
Then came a picture of a cheerful and corpulent ecclesiastic in a shovel hat,
sitting opposite a very thin European,
and the inscription:
"Lunch
with Fra Cristofero at Rosario."
Studies of women and babies accounted
for several more pages,
and then there was an unbroken series of animal drawings
with such explanations as
"Manatee upon Sandbank,"
"Turtles and Their Eggs,"
"Black Ajouti under a Miriti Palm"--the matter disclosing some sort of pig-like animal;
and finally came a double page of studies of long-snouted and very unpleasant saurians.
I could make nothing of it,
and said so
to the Professor.
"Surely these are only crocodiles?"
"Alligators! Alligators! There is hardly such a thing as a true crocodile in South America.
The distinction between them----"
"I meant that I could see nothing unusual--nothing
to justify what you have said."
He smiled serenely.
"Try the next page,"
said he.
I was still unable
to sympathize.
It was a full-page sketch of a landscape roughly tinted in color--the kind of painting which an open-air artist takes as a guide
to a future more elaborate effort.
There was a pale-green foreground of feathery vegetation,
which sloped upwards and ended in a line of cliffs dark red in color,
and curiously ribbed like some basaltic formations which I have seen.
They extended in an unbroken wall right across the background.
At one point was an isolated pyramidal rock,
crowned by a great tree,
which appeared
to be separated by a cleft from the main crag.
Behind it all,
a blue tropical sky.
A thin green line of vegetation fringed the summit of the ruddy cliff.
"Well?"
he asked.
"It is no doubt a curious formation,"
said I
"but I am not geologist enough
to say that it is wonderful."
"Wonderful!"
he repeated.
"It is unique.
It is incredible.
No one on earth has ever dreamed of such a possibility.
Now the next."
I turned it over,
and gave an exclamation of surprise.
There was a full-page picture of the most extraordinary creature that I had ever seen.
It was the wild dream of an opium smoker,
a vision of delirium.
The head was like that of a fowl,
the body that of a bloated lizard,
the trailing tail was furnished
with upward- turned spikes,
and the curved back was edged
with a high serrated fringe,
which looked like a dozen cocks'
wattles placed behind each other.
In front of this creature was an absurd mannikin,
or dwarf,
in human form,
who stood staring at it.
"Well,
what do you think of that?"
cried the Professor,
rubbing his hands
with an air of triumph.
"It is monstrous--grotesque."
"But what made him draw such an animal?"
"Trade gin,
I should think."
"Oh,
that's the best explanation you can give,
is it?"
"Well,
sir,
what is yours?"
"The obvious one that the creature exists.
That is actually sketched from the life."
I should have laughed only that I had a vision of our doing another Catharine-wheel down the passage.
"No doubt,"
said I,
"no doubt,"
as one humors an imbecile.
"I confess,
however,"
I added,
"that this tiny human figure puzzles me.
If it were an Indian we could set it down as evidence of some pigmy race in America,
but it appears
to be a European in a sun-hat."
The Professor snorted like an angry buffalo.
"You really touch the limit,"
said he.
"You enlarge my view of the possible.
Cerebral paresis! Mental inertia! Wonderful!"
He was too absurd
to make me angry.
Indeed,
it was a waste of energy,
for if you were going
to be angry
with this man you would be angry all the time.
I contented myself
with smiling wearily.
"It struck me that the man was small,"
said I.
"Look here!"
he cried,
leaning forward and dabbing a great hairy sausage of a finger on
to the picture.
"You see that plant behind the animal;
I suppose you thought it was a dandelion or a Brussels sprout--what?
Well,
it is a vegetable ivory palm,
and they run
to about fifty or sixty feet.
Don't you see that the man is put in
for a purpose?
He couldn't really have stood in front of that brute and lived
to draw it.
He sketched himself in
to give a scale of heights.
He was,
we will say,
over five feet high.
The tree is ten times bigger,
which is what one would expect."
"Good heavens!"
I cried.
"Then you think the beast was---- Why,
Charing Cross station would hardly make a kennel
for such a brute!"
"Apart from exaggeration,
he is certainly a well-grown specimen,"
said the Professor,
complacently.
"But,"
I cried,
"surely the whole experience of the human race is not
to be set aside on account of a single sketch"--I had turned over the leaves and ascertained that there was nothing more in the book--"a single sketch by a wandering American artist who may have done it under hashish,
or in the delirium of fever,
or simply in order
to gratify a freakish imagination.
You can't,
as a man of science,
defend such a position as that."
For answer the Professor took a book down from a shelf.
"This is an excellent monograph by my gifted friend,
Ray Lankester!"
said he.
"There is an illustration here which would interest you.
Ah,
yes,
here it is! The inscription beneath it runs:
`Probable appearance in life of the Jurassic Dinosaur Stegosaurus.
The hind leg alone is twice as tall as a full-grown man.'
Well,
what do you make of that?"
He handed me the open book.
I started as I looked at the picture.
In this reconstructed animal of a dead world there was certainly a very great resemblance
to the sketch of the unknown artist.
"That is certainly remarkable,"
said I.
"But you won't admit that it is final?"
"Surely it might be a coincidence,
or this American may have seen a picture of the kind and carried it in his memory.
It would be likely
to recur
to a man in a delirium."
"Very good,"
said the Professor,
indulgently;
"we leave it at that.
I will now ask you
to look at this bone."
He handed over the one which he had already described as part of the dead man's possessions.
It was about six inches long,
and thicker than my thumb,
with some indications of dried cartilage at one end of it.
"To what known creature does that bone belong?"
asked the Professor.
I examined it
with care and tried
to recall some half- forgotten knowledge.
"It might be a very thick human collar-bone,"
I said.
My companion waved his hand in contemptuous deprecation.
"The human collar-bone is curved.
This is straight.
There is a groove upon its surface showing that a great tendon played across it,
which could not be the case
with a clavicle."
"Then I must confess that I don't know what it is."
"You need not be ashamed
to expose your ignorance,
for I don't suppose the whole South Kensington staff could give a name
to it."
He took a little bone the size of a bean out of a pill-box.
"So far as I am a judge this human bone is the analogue of the one which you hold in your hand.
That will give you some idea of the size of the creature.
You will observe from the cartilage that this is no fossil specimen,
but recent.
What do you say
to that?"
"Surely in an elephant----"
He winced as if in pain.
"Don't! Don't talk of elephants in South America.
Even in these days of Board schools----"
"Well,
I interrupted,
"any large South American animal--a tapir,
for example."
"You may take it,
young man,
that I am versed in the elements of my business.
This is not a conceivable bone either of a tapir or of any other creature known
to zoology.
It belongs
to a very large,
a very strong,
and,
by all analogy,
a very fierce animal which exists upon the face of the earth,
but has not yet come under the notice of science.
You are still unconvinced?"
"I am at least deeply interested."
"Then your case is not hopeless.
I feel that there is reason lurking in you somewhere,
so we will patiently grope round
for it.
We will now leave the dead American and proceed
with my narrative.
You can imagine that I could hardly come away from the Amazon without probing deeper into the matter.
There were indications as
to the direction from which the dead traveler had come.
Indian legends would alone have been my guide,
for I found that rumors of a strange land were common among all the riverine tribes.
You have heard,
no doubt,
of Curupuri?"
"Never."
"Curupuri is the spirit of the woods,
something terrible,
something malevolent,
something
to be avoided.
None can describe its shape or nature,
but it is a word of terror along the Amazon.
Now all tribes agree as
to the direction in which Curupuri lives.
It was the same direction from which the American had come.
Something terrible lay that way.
It was my business
to find out what it was."
"What did you do?"
My flippancy was all gone.
This massive man compelled one's attention and respect.
"I overcame the extreme reluctance of the natives--a reluctance which extends even
to talk upon the subject--and by judicious persuasion and gifts,
aided,
I will admit,
by some threats of coercion,
I got two of them
to act as guides.
After many adventures which I need not describe,
and after traveling a distance which I will not mention,
in a direction which I withhold,
we came at last
to a tract of country which has never been described,
nor,
indeed,
visited save by my unfortunate predecessor.
Would you kindly look at this?"
He handed me a photograph--half-plate size.
"The unsatisfactory appearance of it is due
to the fact,"
said he,
"that on descending the river the boat was upset and the case which contained the undeveloped films was broken,
with disastrous results.
Nearly all of them were totally ruined--an irreparable loss.
This is one of the few which partially escaped.
This explanation of deficiencies or abnormalities you will kindly accept.
There was talk of faking.
I am not in a mood
to argue such a point."
The photograph was certainly very off-colored.
An unkind critic might easily have misinterpreted that dim surface.
It was a dull gray landscape,
and as I gradually deciphered the details of it I realized that it represented a long and enormously high line of cliffs exactly like an immense cataract seen in the distance,
with a sloping,
tree-clad plain in the foreground.
"I believe it is the same place as the painted picture,"
said I.
"It is the same place,"
the Professor answered.
"I found traces of the fellow's camp.
Now look at this."
It was a nearer view of the same scene,
though the photograph was extremely defective.
I could distinctly see the isolated,
tree-crowned pinnacle of rock which was detached from the crag.
"I have no doubt of it at all,"
said I.
"Well,
that is something gained,"
said he.
"We progress,
do we not?
Now,
will you please look at the top of that rocky pinnacle?
Do you observe something there?"
"An enormous tree."
"But on the tree?"
"A large bird,"
said I.
He handed me a lens.
"Yes,"
I said,
peering through it,
"a large bird stands on the tree.
It appears
to have a considerable beak.
I should say it was a pelican."
"I cannot congratulate you upon your eyesight,"
said the Professor.
"It is not a pelican,
nor,
indeed,
is it a bird.
It may interest you
to know that I succeeded in shooting that particular specimen.
It was the only absolute proof of my experiences which I was able
to bring away
with me."
"You have it,
then?"
Here at last was tangible corroboration.
"I had it.
It was unfortunately lost
with so much else in the same boat accident which ruined my photographs.
I clutched at it as it disappeared in the swirl of the rapids,
and part of its wing was left in my hand.
I was insensible when washed ashore,
but the miserable remnant of my superb specimen was still intact;
I now lay it before you."
From a drawer he produced what seemed
to me
to be the upper portion of the wing of a large bat.
It was at least two feet in length,
a curved bone,
with a membranous veil beneath it.
"A monstrous bat!"
I suggested.
"Nothing of the sort,"
said the Professor,
severely.
"Living,
as I do,
in an educated and scientific atmosphere,
I could not have conceived that the first principles of zoology were so little known.
Is it possible that you do not know the elementary fact in comparative anatomy,
that the wing of a bird is really the forearm,
while the wing of a bat consists of three elongated fingers
with membranes between?
Now,
in this case,
the bone is certainly not the forearm,
and you can see
for yourself that this is a single membrane hanging upon a single bone,
and therefore that it cannot belong
to a bat.
But if it is neither bird nor bat,
what is it?"
My small stock of knowledge was exhausted.
"I really do not know,"
said I.
He opened the standard work
to which he had already referred me.
"Here,"
said he,
pointing
to the picture of an extraordinary flying monster,
"is an excellent reproduction of the dimorphodon,
or pterodactyl,
a flying reptile of the Jurassic period.
On the next page is a diagram of the mechanism of its wing.
Kindly compare it
with the specimen in your hand."
A wave of amazement passed over me as I looked.
I was convinced.
There could be no getting away from it.
The cumulative proof was overwhelming.
The sketch,
the photographs,
the narrative,
and now the actual specimen--the evidence was complete.
I said so--I said so warmly,
for I felt that the Professor was an ill-used man.
He leaned back in his chair
with drooping eyelids and a tolerant smile,
basking in this sudden gleam of sunshine.
"It's just the very biggest thing that I ever heard of!"
said I,
though it was my journalistic rather than my scientific enthusiasm that was roused.
"It is colossal.
You are a Columbus of science who has discovered a lost world.
I'm awfully sorry if I seemed
to doubt you.
It was all so unthinkable.
But I understand evidence when I see it,
and this should be good enough
for anyone."
The Professor purred
with satisfaction.
"And then,
sir,
what did you do next?"
"It was the wet season,
Mr. Malone,
and my stores were exhausted.
I explored some portion of this huge cliff,
but I was unable
to find any way
to scale it.
The pyramidal rock upon which I saw and shot the pterodactyl was more accessible.
Being something of a cragsman,
I did manage
to get half way
to the top of that.
From that height I had a better idea of the plateau upon the top of the crags.
It appeared
to be very large;
neither
to east nor
to west could I see any end
to the vista of green-capped cliffs.
Below,
it is a swampy,
jungly region,
full of snakes,
insects,
and fever.
It is a natural protection
to this singular country."
"Did you see any other trace of life?"
"No,
sir,
I did not;
but during the week that we lay encamped at the base of the cliff we heard some very strange noises from above."
"But the creature that the American drew?
How do you account
for that?"
"We can only suppose that he must have made his way
to the summit and seen it there.
We know,
therefore,
that there is a way up.
We know equally that it must be a very difficult one,
otherwise the creatures would have come down and overrun the surrounding country.
Surely that is clear?"
"But how did they come
to be there?"
"I do not think that the problem is a very obscure one,"
said the Professor;
"there can only be one explanation.
South America is,
as you may have heard,
a granite continent.
At this single point in the interior there has been,
in some far distant age,
a great,
sudden volcanic upheaval.
These cliffs,
I may remark,
are basaltic,
and therefore plutonic.
An area,
as large perhaps as Sussex,
has been lifted up en bloc
with all its living contents,
and cut off by perpendicular precipices of a hardness which defies erosion from all the rest of the continent.
What is the result?
Why,
the ordinary laws of Nature are suspended.
The various checks which influence the struggle
for existence in the world at large are all neutralized or altered.
Creatures survive which would otherwise disappear.
You will observe that both the pterodactyl and the stegosaurus are Jurassic,
and therefore of a great age in the order of life.
They have been artificially conserved by those strange accidental conditions."
"But surely your evidence is conclusive.
You have only
to lay it before the proper authorities."
"So in my simplicity,
I had imagined,"
said the Professor,
bitterly.
"I can only tell you that it was not so,
that I was met at every turn by incredulity,
born partly of stupidity and partly of jealousy.
It is not my nature,
sir,
to cringe
to any man,
or
to seek
to prove a fact if my word has been doubted.
After the first I have not condescended
to show such corroborative proofs as I possess.
The subject became hateful
to me--I would not speak of it.
When men like yourself,
who represent the foolish curiosity of the public,
came
to disturb my privacy I was unable
to meet them
with dignified reserve.
By nature I am,
I admit,
somewhat fiery,
and under provocation I am inclined
to be violent.
I fear you may have remarked it."
I nursed my eye and was silent.
"My wife has frequently remonstrated
with me upon the subject,
and yet I fancy that any man of honor would feel the same.
To-night,
however,
I propose
to give an extreme example of the control of the will over the emotions.
I invite you
to be present at the exhibition."
He handed me a card from his desk.
"You will perceive that Mr. Percival Waldron,
a naturalist of some popular repute,
is announced
to lecture at eight-thirty at the Zoological Institute's Hall upon `The Record of the Ages.'
I have been specially invited
to be present upon the platform,
and
to move a vote of thanks
to the lecturer.
While doing so,
I shall make it my business,
with infinite tact and delicacy,
to throw out a few remarks which may arouse the interest of the audience and cause some of them
to desire
to go more deeply into the matter.
Nothing contentious,
you understand,
but only an indication that there are greater deeps beyond.
I shall hold myself strongly in leash,
and see whether by this self-restraint I attain a more favorable result."
"And I may come?"
I asked eagerly.
"Why,
surely,"
he answered,
cordially.
He had an enormously massive genial manner,
which was almost as overpowering as his violence.
His smile of benevolence was a wonderful thing,
when his cheeks would suddenly bunch into two red apples,
between his half-closed eyes and his great black beard.
"By all means,
come.
It will be a comfort
to me
to know that I have one ally in the hall,
however inefficient and ignorant of the subject he may be.
I fancy there will be a large audience,
for Waldron,
though an absolute charlatan,
has a considerable popular following.
Now,
Mr. Malone,
I have given you rather more of my time than I had intended.
The individual must not monopolize what is meant
for the world.
I shall be pleased
to see you at the lecture to-night.
In the meantime,
you will understand that no public use is
to be made of any of the material that I have given you."
"But Mr. McArdle--my news editor,
you know--will want
to know what I have done."
"Tell him what you like.
You can say,
among other things,
that if he sends anyone else
to intrude upon me I shall call upon him
with a riding-whip.
But I leave it
to you that nothing of all this appears in print.
Very good.
Then the Zoological Institute's Hall at eight-thirty to-night."
I had a last impression of red cheeks,
blue rippling beard,
and intolerant eyes,
as he waved me out of the room.
CHAPTER V
"Question!"
What
with the physical shocks incidental
to my first interview
with Professor Challenger and the mental ones which accompanied the second,
I was a somewhat demoralized journalist by the time I found myself in Enmore Park once more.
In my aching head the one thought was throbbing that there really was truth in this man's story,
that it was of tremendous consequence,
and that it would work up into inconceivable copy
for the Gazette when I could obtain permission
to use it.
A taxicab was waiting at the end of the road,
so I sprang into it and drove down
to the office.
McArdle was at his post as usual.
"Well,"
he cried,
expectantly,
"what may it run to?
I'm thinking,
young man,
you have been in the wars.
Don't tell me that he assaulted you."
"We had a little difference at first."
"What a man it is! What did you do?"
"Well,
he became more reasonable and we had a chat.
But I got nothing out of him--nothing
for publication."
"I'm not so sure about that.
You got a black eye out of him,
and that's
for publication.
We can't have this reign of terror,
Mr. Malone.
We must bring the man
to his bearings.
I'll have a leaderette on him to-morrow that will raise a blister.
Just give me the material and I will engage
to brand the fellow
for ever.
Professor Munchausen--how's that
for an inset headline?
Sir John Mandeville redivivus--Cagliostro--all the imposters and bullies in history.
I'll show him up
for the fraud he is."
"I wouldn't do that,
sir."
"Why not?"
"Because he is not a fraud at all."
"What!"
roared McArdle.
"You don't mean
to say you really believe this stuff of his about mammoths and mastodons and great sea sairpents?"
"Well,
I don't know about that.
I don't think he makes any claims of that kind.
But I do believe he has got something new."
"Then
for Heaven's sake,
man,
write it up!"
"I'm longing to,
but all I know he gave me in confidence and on condition that I didn't."
I condensed into a few sentences the Professor's narrative.
"That's how it stands."
McArdle looked deeply incredulous.
"Well,
Mr. Malone,"
he said at last,
"about this scientific meeting to-night;
there can be no privacy about that,
anyhow.
I don't suppose any paper will want
to report it,
for Waldron has been reported already a dozen times,
and no one is aware that Challenger will speak.
We may get a scoop,
if we are lucky.
You'll be there in any case,
so you'll just give us a pretty full report.
I'll keep space up
to midnight."
My day was a busy one,
and I had an early dinner at the Savage Club
with Tarp Henry,
to whom I gave some account of my adventures.
He listened
with a sceptical smile on his gaunt face,
and roared
with laughter on hearing that the Professor had convinced me.
"My dear chap,
things don't happen like that in real life.
People don't stumble upon enormous discoveries and then lose their evidence.
Leave that
to the novelists.
The fellow is as full of tricks as the monkey-house at the Zoo.
It's all bosh."
"But the American poet?"
"He never existed."
"I saw his sketch-book."
"Challenger's sketch-book."
"You think he drew that animal?"
"Of course he did.
Who else?"
"Well,
then,
the photographs?"
"There was nothing in the photographs.
By your own admission you only saw a bird."
"A pterodactyl."
"That's what HE says.
He put the pterodactyl into your head."
"Well,
then,
the bones?"
"First one out of an Irish stew.
Second one vamped up
for the occasion.
If you are clever and know your business you can fake a bone as easily as you can a photograph."
I began
to feel uneasy.
Perhaps,
after all,
I had been premature in my acquiescence.
Then I had a sudden happy thought.
"Will you come
to the meeting?"
I asked.
Tarp Henry looked thoughtful.
"He is not a popular person,
the genial Challenger,"
said he.
"A lot of people have accounts
to settle
with him.
I should say he is about the best-hated man in London.
If the medical students turn out there will be no end of a rag.
I don't want
to get into a bear-garden."
"You might at least do him the justice
to hear him state his own case."
"Well,
perhaps it's only fair.
All right.
I'm your man
for the evening."
When we arrived at the hall we found a much greater concourse than I had expected.
A line of electric broughams discharged their little cargoes of white-bearded professors,
while the dark stream of humbler pedestrians,
who crowded through the arched door-way,
showed that the audience would be popular as well as scientific.
Indeed,
it became evident
to us as soon as we had taken our seats that a youthful and even boyish spirit was abroad in the gallery and the back portions of the hall.
Looking behind me,
I could see rows of faces of the familiar medical student type.
Apparently the great hospitals had each sent down their contingent.
The behavior of the audience at present was good-humored,
but mischievous.
Scraps of popular songs were chorused
with an enthusiasm which was a strange prelude
to a scientific lecture,
and there was already a tendency
to personal chaff which promised a jovial evening
to others,
however embarrassing it might be
to the recipients of these dubious honors.
Thus,
when old Doctor Meldrum,
with his well-known curly-brimmed opera-hat,
appeared upon the platform,
there was such a universal query of
"Where DID you get that tile?"
that he hurriedly removed it,
and concealed it furtively under his chair.
When gouty Professor Wadley limped down
to his seat there were general affectionate inquiries from all parts of the hall as
to the exact state of his poor toe,
which caused him obvious embarrassment.
The greatest demonstration of all,
however,
was at the entrance of my new acquaintance,
Professor Challenger,
when he passed down
to take his place at the extreme end of the front row of the platform.
Such a yell of welcome broke forth when his black beard first protruded round the corner that I began
to suspect Tarp Henry was right in his surmise,
and that this assemblage was there not merely
for the sake of the lecture,
but because it had got rumored abroad that the famous Professor would take part in the proceedings.
There was some sympathetic laughter on his entrance among the front benches of well-dressed spectators,
as though the demonstration of the students in this instance was not unwelcome
to them.
That greeting was,
indeed,
a frightful outburst of sound,
the uproar of the carnivora cage when the step of the bucket-bearing keeper is heard in the distance.
There was an offensive tone in it,
perhaps,
and yet in the main it struck me as mere riotous outcry,
the noisy reception of one who amused and interested them,
rather than of one they disliked or despised.
Challenger smiled
with weary and tolerant contempt,
as a kindly man would meet the yapping of a litter of puppies.
He sat slowly down,
blew out his chest,
passed his hand caressingly down his beard,
and looked
with drooping eyelids and supercilious eyes at the crowded hall before him.
The uproar of his advent had not yet died away when Professor Ronald Murray,
the chairman,
and Mr. Waldron,
the lecturer,
threaded their way
to the front,
and the proceedings began.
Professor Murray will,
I am sure,
excuse me if I say that he has the common fault of most Englishmen of being inaudible.
Why on earth people who have something
to say which is worth hearing should not take the slight trouble
to learn how
to make it heard is one of the strange mysteries of modern life.
Their methods are as reasonable as
to try
to pour some precious stuff from the spring
to the reservoir through a non-conducting pipe,
which could by the least effort be opened.
Professor Murray made several profound remarks
to his white tie and
to the water-carafe upon the table,
with a humorous,
twinkling aside
to the silver candlestick upon his right.
Then he sat down,
and Mr. Waldron,
the famous popular lecturer,
rose amid a general murmur of applause.
He was a stern,
gaunt man,
with a harsh voice,
and an aggressive manner,
but he had the merit of knowing how
to assimilate the ideas of other men,
and
to pass them on in a way which was intelligible and even interesting
to the lay public,
with a happy knack of being funny about the most unlikely objects,
so that the precession of the Equinox or the formation of a vertebrate became a highly humorous process as treated by him.
It was a bird's-eye view of creation,
as interpreted by science,
which,
in language always clear and sometimes picturesque,
he unfolded before us.
He told us of the globe,
a huge mass of flaming gas,
flaring through the heavens.
Then he pictured the solidification,
the cooling,
the wrinkling which formed the mountains,
the steam which turned
to water,
the slow preparation of the stage upon which was
to be played the inexplicable drama of life.
On the origin of life itself he was discreetly vague.
That the germs of it could hardly have survived the original roasting was,
he declared,
fairly certain.
Therefore it had come later.
Had it built itself out of the cooling,
inorganic elements of the globe?
Very likely.
Had the germs of it arrived from outside upon a meteor?
It was hardly conceivable.
On the whole,
the wisest man was the least dogmatic upon the point.
We could not--or at least we had not succeeded up
to date in making organic life in our laboratories out of inorganic materials.
The gulf between the dead and the living was something which our chemistry could not as yet bridge.
But there was a higher and subtler chemistry of Nature,
which,
working
with great forces over long epochs,
might well produce results which were impossible
for us.
There the matter must be left.
This brought the lecturer
to the great ladder of animal life,
beginning low down in molluscs and feeble sea creatures,
then up rung by rung through reptiles and fishes,
till at last we came
to a kangaroo-rat,
a creature which brought forth its young alive,
the direct ancestor of all mammals,
and presumably,
therefore,
of everyone in the audience.
("No,
no,"
from a sceptical student in the back row.)
If the young gentleman in the red tie who cried
"No,
no,"
and who presumably claimed
to have been hatched out of an egg,
would wait upon him after the lecture,
he would be glad
to see such a curiosity.
(Laughter.)
It was strange
to think that the climax of all the age-long process of Nature had been the creation of that gentleman in the red tie.
But had the process stopped?
Was this gentleman
to be taken as the final type--the be-all and end-all of development?
He hoped that he would not hurt the feelings of the gentleman in the red tie if he maintained that,
whatever virtues that gentleman might possess in private life,
still the vast processes of the universe were not fully justified if they were
to end entirely in his production.
Evolution was not a spent force,
but one still working,
and even greater achievements were in store.
Having thus,
amid a general titter,
played very prettily
with his interrupter,
the lecturer went back
to his picture of the past,
the drying of the seas,
the emergence of the sand-bank,
the sluggish,
viscous life which lay upon their margins,
the overcrowded lagoons,
the tendency of the sea creatures
to take refuge upon the mud-flats,
the abundance of food awaiting them,
their consequent enormous growth.
"Hence,
ladies and gentlemen,"
he added,
"that frightful brood of saurians which still affright our eyes when seen in the Wealden or in the Solenhofen slates,
but which were fortunately extinct long before the first appearance of mankind upon this planet."
"Question!"
boomed a voice from the platform.
Mr. Waldron was a strict disciplinarian
with a gift of acid humor,
as exemplified upon the gentleman
with the red tie,
which made it perilous
to interrupt him.
But this interjection appeared
to him so absurd that he was at a loss how
to deal
with it.
So looks the Shakespearean who is confronted by a rancid Baconian,
or the astronomer who is assailed by a flat- earth fanatic.
He paused
for a moment,
and then,
raising his voice,
repeated slowly the words:
"Which were extinct before the coming of man."
"Question!"
boomed the voice once more.
Waldron looked
with amazement along the line of professors upon the platform until his eyes fell upon the figure of Challenger,
who leaned back in his chair
with closed eyes and an amused expression,
as if he were smiling in his sleep.
"I see!"
said Waldron,
with a shrug.
"It is my friend Professor Challenger,"
and amid laughter he renewed his lecture as if this was a final explanation and no more need be said.
But the incident was far from being closed.
Whatever path the lecturer took amid the wilds of the past seemed invariably
to lead him
to some assertion as
to extinct or prehistoric life which instantly brought the same bulls'
bellow from the Professor.
The audience began
to anticipate it and
to roar
with delight when it came.
The packed benches of students joined in,
and every time Challenger's beard opened,
before any sound could come forth,
there was a yell of
"Question!"
from a hundred voices,
and an answering counter cry of
"Order!"
and
"Shame!"
from as many more.
Waldron,
though a hardened lecturer and a strong man,
became rattled.
He hesitated,
stammered,
repeated himself,
got snarled in a long sentence,
and finally turned furiously upon the cause of his troubles.
"This is really intolerable!"
he cried,
glaring across the platform.
"I must ask you,
Professor Challenger,
to cease these ignorant and unmannerly interruptions."
There was a hush over the hall,
the students rigid
with delight at seeing the high gods on Olympus quarrelling among themselves.
Challenger levered his bulky figure slowly out of his chair.
"I must in turn ask you,
Mr. Waldron,"
he said,
"to cease
to make assertions which are not in strict accordance
with scientific fact."
The words unloosed a tempest.
"Shame! Shame!"
"Give him a hearing!"
"Put him out!"
"Shove him off the platform!"
"Fair play!"
emerged from a general roar of amusement or execration.
The chairman was on his feet flapping both his hands and bleating excitedly.
"Professor Challenger--personal--views-- later,"
were the solid peaks above his clouds of inaudible mutter.
The interrupter bowed,
smiled,
stroked his beard,
and relapsed into his chair.
Waldron,
very flushed and warlike,
continued his observations.
Now and then,
as he made an assertion,
he shot a venomous glance at his opponent,
who seemed
to be slumbering deeply,
with the same broad,
happy smile upon his face.
At last the lecture came
to an end--I am inclined
to think that it was a premature one,
as the peroration was hurried and disconnected.
The thread of the argument had been rudely broken,
and the audience was restless and expectant.
Waldron sat down,
and,
after a chirrup from the chairman,
Professor Challenger rose and advanced
to the edge of the platform.
In the interests of my paper I took down his speech verbatim.
"Ladies and Gentlemen,"
he began,
amid a sustained interruption from the back.
"I beg pardon--Ladies,
Gentlemen,
and Children--I must apologize,
I had inadvertently omitted a considerable section of this audience"
(tumult,
during which the Professor stood
with one hand raised and his enormous head nodding sympathetically,
as if he were bestowing a pontifical blessing upon the crowd),
"I have been selected
to move a vote of thanks
to Mr. Waldron
for the very picturesque and imaginative address
to which we have just listened.
There are points in it
with which I disagree,
and it has been my duty
to indicate them as they arose,
but,
none the less,
Mr. Waldron has accomplished his object well,
that object being
to give a simple and interesting account of what he conceives
to have been the history of our planet.
Popular lectures are the easiest
to listen to,
but Mr. Waldron"
(here he beamed and blinked at the lecturer)
"will excuse me when I say that they are necessarily both superficial and misleading,
since they have
to be graded
to the comprehension of an ignorant audience."
(Ironical cheering.)
"Popular lecturers are in their nature parasitic."
(Angry gesture of protest from Mr. Waldron.)
"They exploit
for fame or cash the work which has been done by their indigent and unknown brethren.
One smallest new fact obtained in the laboratory,
one brick built into the temple of science,
far outweighs any second-hand exposition which passes an idle hour,
but can leave no useful result behind it.
I put forward this obvious reflection,
not out of any desire
to disparage Mr. Waldron in particular,
but that you may not lose your sense of proportion and mistake the acolyte
for the high priest."
(At this point Mr. Waldron whispered
to the chairman,
who half rose and said something severely
to his water-carafe.)
"But enough of this!"
(Loud and prolonged cheers.)
"Let me pass
to some subject of wider interest.
What is the particular point upon which I,
as an original investigator,
have challenged our lecturer's accuracy?
It is upon the permanence of certain types of animal life upon the earth.
I do not speak upon this subject as an amateur,
nor,
I may add,
as a popular lecturer,
but I speak as one whose scientific conscience compels him
to adhere closely
to facts,
when I say that Mr. Waldron is very wrong in supposing that because he has never himself seen a so-called prehistoric animal,
therefore these creatures no longer exist.
They are indeed,
as he has said,
our ancestors,
but they are,
if I may use the expression,
our contemporary ancestors,
who can still be found
with all their hideous and formidable characteristics if one has but the energy and hardihood
to seek their haunts.
Creatures which were supposed
to be Jurassic,
monsters who would hunt down and devour our largest and fiercest mammals,
still exist."
(Cries of
"Bosh!"
"Prove it!"
"How do YOU know?"
"Question!"
)
"How do I know,
you ask me?
I know because I have visited their secret haunts.
I know because I have seen some of them."
(Applause,
uproar,
and a voice,
"Liar!"
)
"Am I a liar?"
(General hearty and noisy assent.)
"Did I hear someone say that I was a liar?
Will the person who called me a liar kindly stand up that I may know him?"
(A voice,
"Here he is,
sir!"
and an inoffensive little person in spectacles,
struggling violently,
was held up among a group of students.)
"Did you venture
to call me a liar?"
("No,
sir,
no!"
shouted the accused,
and disappeared like a jack-in-the-box.)
"If any person in this hall dares
to doubt my veracity,
I shall be glad
to have a few words
with him after the lecture."
("Liar!"
)
"Who said that?"
(Again the inoffensive one plunging desperately,
was elevated high into the air.)
"If I come down among you----"
(General chorus of
"Come,
love,
come!"
which interrupted the proceedings
for some moments,
while the chairman,
standing up and waving both his arms,
seemed
to be conducting the music.
The Professor,
with his face flushed,
his nostrils dilated,
and his beard bristling,
was now in a proper Berserk mood.)
"Every great discoverer has been met
with the same incredulity--the sure brand of a generation of fools.
When great facts are laid before you,
you have not the intuition,
the imagination which would help you
to understand them.
You can only throw mud at the men who have risked their lives
to open new fields
to science.
You persecute the prophets! Galileo! Darwin,
and I----"
(Prolonged cheering and complete interruption.)
All this is from my hurried notes taken at the time,
which give little notion of the absolute chaos
to which the assembly had by this time been reduced.
So terrific was the uproar that several ladies had already beaten a hurried retreat.
Grave and reverend seniors seemed
to have caught the prevailing spirit as badly as the students,
and I saw white-bearded men rising and shaking their fists at the obdurate Professor.
The whole great audience seethed and simmered like a boiling pot.
The Professor took a step forward and raised both his hands.
There was something so big and arresting and virile in the man that the clatter and shouting died gradually away before his commanding gesture and his masterful eyes.
He seemed
to have a definite message.
They hushed
to hear it.
"I will not detain you,"
he said.
"It is not worth it.
Truth is truth,
and the noise of a number of foolish young men--and,
I fear I must add,
of their equally foolish seniors--cannot affect the matter.
I claim that I have opened a new field of science.
You dispute it."
(Cheers.)
"Then I put you
to the test.
Will you accredit one or more of your own number
to go out as your representatives and test my statement in your name?"
Mr. Summerlee,
the veteran Professor of Comparative Anatomy,
rose among the audience,
a tall,
thin,
bitter man,
with the withered aspect of a theologian.
He wished,
he said,
to ask Professor Challenger whether the results
to which he had alluded in his remarks had been obtained during a journey
to the headwaters of the Amazon made by him two years before.
Professor Challenger answered that they had.
Mr. Summerlee desired
to know how it was that Professor Challenger claimed
to have made discoveries in those regions which had been overlooked by Wallace,
Bates,
and other previous explorers of established scientific repute.
Professor Challenger answered that Mr. Summerlee appeared
to be confusing the Amazon
with the Thames;
that it was in reality a somewhat larger river;
that Mr. Summerlee might be interested
to know that
with the Orinoco,
which communicated
with it,
some fifty thousand miles of country were opened up,
and that in so vast a space it was not impossible
for one person
to find what another had missed.
Mr. Summerlee declared,
with an acid smile,
that he fully appreciated the difference between the Thames and the Amazon,
which lay in the fact that any assertion about the former could be tested,
while about the latter it could not.
He would be obliged if Professor Challenger would give the latitude and the longitude of the country in which prehistoric animals were
to be found.
Professor Challenger replied that he reserved such information
for good reasons of his own,
but would be prepared
to give it
with proper precautions
to a committee chosen from the audience.
Would Mr. Summerlee serve on such a committee and test his story in person?
Mr. Summerlee:
"Yes,
I will."
(Great cheering.)
Professor Challenger:
"Then I guarantee that I will place in your hands such material as will enable you
to find your way.
It is only right,
however,
since Mr. Summerlee goes
to check my statement that I should have one or more
with him who may check his.
I will not disguise from you that there are difficulties and dangers.
Mr. Summerlee will need a younger colleague.
May I ask
for volunteers?"
It is thus that the great crisis of a man's life springs out at him.
Could I have imagined when I entered that hall that I was about
to pledge myself
to a wilder adventure than had ever come
to me in my dreams?
But Gladys--was it not the very opportunity of which she spoke?
Gladys would have told me
to go.
I had sprung
to my feet.
I was speaking,
and yet I had prepared no words.
Tarp Henry,
my companion,
was plucking at my skirts and I heard him whispering,
"Sit down,
Malone! Don't make a public ass of yourself."
At the same time I was aware that a tall,
thin man,
with dark gingery hair,
a few seats in front of me,
was also upon his feet.
He glared back at me
with hard angry eyes,
but I refused
to give way.
"I will go,
Mr. Chairman,"
I kept repeating over and over again.
"Name! Name!"
cried the audience.
"My name is Edward Dunn Malone.
I am the reporter of the Daily Gazette.
I claim
to be an absolutely unprejudiced witness."
"What is YOUR name,
sir?"
the chairman asked of my tall rival.
"I am Lord John Roxton.
I have already been up the Amazon,
I know all the ground,
and have special qualifications
for this investigation."
"Lord John Roxton's reputation as a sportsman and a traveler is,
of course,
world-famous,"
said the chairman;
"at the same time it would certainly be as well
to have a member of the Press upon such an expedition."
"Then I move,"
said Professor Challenger,
"that both these gentlemen be elected,
as representatives of this meeting,
to accompany Professor Summerlee upon his journey
to investigate and
to report upon the truth of my statements."
And so,
amid shouting and cheering,
our fate was decided,
and I found myself borne away in the human current which swirled towards the door,
with my mind half stunned by the vast new project which had risen so suddenly before it.
As I emerged from the hall I was conscious
for a moment of a rush of laughing students--down the pavement,
and of an arm wielding a heavy umbrella,
which rose and fell in the midst of them.
Then,
amid a mixture of groans and cheers,
Professor Challenger's electric brougham slid from the curb,
and I found myself walking under the silvery lights of Regent Street,
full of thoughts of Gladys and of wonder as
to my future.
Suddenly there was a touch at my elbow.
I turned,
and found myself looking into the humorous,
masterful eyes of the tall,
thin man who had volunteered
to be my companion on this strange quest.
"Mr. Malone,
I understand,"
said he.
"We are
to be companions--what?
My rooms are just over the road,
in the Albany.
Perhaps you would have the kindness
to spare me half an hour,
for there are one or two things that I badly want
to say
to you."
CHAPTER VI
"I was the Flail of the Lord"
Lord John Roxton and I turned down Vigo Street together and through the dingy portals of the famous aristocratic rookery.
At the end of a long drab passage my new acquaintance pushed open a door and turned on an electric switch.
A number of lamps shining through tinted shades bathed the whole great room before us in a ruddy radiance.
Standing in the doorway and glancing round me,
I had a general impression of extraordinary comfort and elegance combined
with an atmosphere of masculine virility.
Everywhere there were mingled the luxury of the wealthy man of taste and the careless untidiness of the bachelor.
Rich furs and strange iridescent mats from some Oriental bazaar were scattered upon the floor.
Pictures and prints which even my unpractised eyes could recognize as being of great price and rarity hung thick upon the walls.
Sketches of boxers,
of ballet-girls,
and of racehorses alternated
with a sensuous Fragonard,
a martial Girardet,
and a dreamy Turner.
But amid these varied ornaments there were scattered the trophies which brought back strongly
to my recollection the fact that Lord John Roxton was one of the great all-round sportsmen and athletes of his day.
A dark-blue oar crossed
with a cherry-pink one above his mantel-piece spoke of the old Oxonian and Leander man,
while the foils and boxing-gloves above and b