He turned and hurried away, while the drivers started the horses. The sledge, sliding easily over the slippery stones, followed him. We passed dark passages between blank walls, doorways, porches, and staircases leading to higher terraces, where columns rose upon columns in the mist. I saw a multitude of loose objects, scattered in pools of water, or half-buried in sand. There were places gloomy and terrible, where a greenish-black scum covered everything. Here and there were bright openings that glowed with color.
Under the blankets that covered it, I felt the object behind me roll heavily, while two of the men, grasping the boards at my side, guided us around and over masses of loose stones and rubbish.
For a long time the count said nothing to me. He seemed to be in a desperate hurry and, despite his lameness, sprang over fallen columns, or dashed through pools of water and mud. When we came to obstructions, where fallen walls or pillars blocked the way, he ran ahead, to direct the men or pull away stones with his own hands.
Finally, seizing the edge of the sledge, and following close beside me, he spoke.
“Look!—at the treasures! Saved by salt water. Treasures! Who knows what! About to be plundered by vandals. The vandals are here.”
“But this,” he shouted, as he laid his hand upon the thing covered with blankets, beside me in the sledge, “—this belongs to me. The villains have mutilated it; but they shall not have it! It is mine!”
He stopped suddenly, then sprang ahead as we turned a corner and came into a wider street. There, descending a steep slope, we reached a gateway, where a sharp current of air met us, and we caught sight of the sea.
xi
The sledge had stopped at a signal from the count, who went ahead under the opening, halted, and looked beyond. As he again walked forward, I felt strong enough to get out and follow him across a beach, where a high wall faced the water. He had reached a corner and had leaned close against the stones. Then, turning, he beckoned me to his side.
“There!” he whispered. “Look! Do you see it? Do you understand now?”
The air was clear. The unobstructed view beyond showed a long reach of wall, following the beach, which here extended outward in the form of a tongue of pebbles. No human being was in sight.
Not a hundred yards from us, and close to the water’s edge, a massive glittering statue, apparently made of brass, in human form, stood erect in the sand. Seen only for about six feet, from the waist upward, the figure, nearly twice the size of life, seemed to be deeply planted in the earth.
“They have left it here,” he continued, in a low voice, “—left it here and gone back to finish their work. Do you see what they have done to it!”
I failed to understand him. “I see,” said I, “that the statue is holding a snake. It is half-buried in the sand.”
“It is not buried,” he whispered fiercely; “what stands there is only the upper part. The barbarians have sawed it in half.”
We had reached the figure as he spoke. Leaving me, he stepped quickly back to the corner of the wall behind us and beckoned to his men. Then, returning, he stood for a moment looking at the thing, walked around it, in quick, jerking steps, and several times drew back after reaching out his hands toward the folds of the reptile coiled upon one of the arms. At length he turned toward me. His face shone with intense excitement.
“Pausanius is wrong. Do you see?” he exclaimed. “There is no ivory.”
Again I failed to grasp his meaning. “Has it been scoured?” I asked. “The brass is so yellow.”
My words seemed to enrage him. “Brass!” he shouted with contempt. “This is not brass. This is gold,—solid gold!”
He paused while I stood staring at it. The figure was slightly bent. I saw the erect head of the serpent and a vase grasped in one of the hands.
“The great Æsculapius, the masterpiece of Agathocles of Paros.”
His voice had failed. I scarcely heard him as I continued to look at the statue. “Two thousand years ago! Two thousand years!” He repeated the words as if talking to himself. “Since then it has risen and sunk—risen and sunk!”
Suddenly, looking directly at me, he exclaimed; “I discovered it. I traced it here. By the law of earthquakes, I knew it would rise again. I waited. The time has come. The villains have broken the marble base, with its inscription. They have dared to saw it in half—because it was too heavy to carry. Shall they rob me of it at the last moment?”
“Where are they?” I asked, still unable to comprehend his wild words.
He continued as if he had not heard me: “They have gone back to finish their damnable work—to get the other piece.—But the other piece is here. We have brought it with us in that sledge.”
While he spoke, the horses dragged their burden around the corner of the wall.
Until now, unlikely as it may seem, no thought of my recent experiences had connected itself with the events of this terrible day. But as the count paused, reviving memories of the past weeks confused themselves in my mind with what I saw and heard.
“Look!” said he in a voice quivering with emotion, and pointing at the figure. “Look! Do you feel the power? The tremendous power of thought—concentrated for centuries—upon the mastery of disease.”
A cloak, falling from one shoulder of the statue, partly obscured the body. The head was upturned. The short curling hair rose in ringlets. But the figure, bright and dark in spots, appeared to have been recently rubbed. For a time this conflict of light and shadow exaggerated a peculiar contorted expression of the face. Then, while I went nearer, the wrinkles of the forehead and the compressed outlines about the mouth, in the full light, brightened into a look of masterful triumph,—a beauty radiant, unearthly, indescribable, which took complete possession of me.
The count pointed across the beach with his staff. “There is their boat,” he shouted, “I ought to destroy it, and put an end to the whole damnable business; but there is no time.”
In the rapidly changing light, new gleams had crept upon the glorious figure. The sun was setting under fiery clouds. The wind came and went in gusts.
The men and horses stopped. The former, at a word from the count, approached the statue, leaned forward, and, clasping the body and the folds of the serpent, tried to lift it. But, though resting only on the level of its sawed-off section, as I now saw, it resisted their efforts. For some unaccountable reason, it appeared to be solidly fixed in the earth. The beach under foot was very slippery, and while the men tugged in vain, it gradually became evident that the freshly-cut base of the statue was held fast in a stratum of fine white clay. The air in the hollow casting, rarefied by the sun, had produced a resistant suction.
The count knelt down and examined the ground. He had drawn his knife and was excavating the surface of the clay, close to the lower rim of metal, when, suddenly, a loud report, with a deafening noise as of escaping steam, shook the whole surrounding earth. He sprang to his feet, while a yellow column of vapor shot over us from just within the city wall.
I saw the horses rear and plunge. The sledge rose at one end and upset, rolling its contents upon the beach. The rope snapped, and in a moment the frightened animals, breaking away from their drivers, had disappeared around the corner of the wall.
While the men, with loud shouts, pursued by the count, followed the animals, I tried to run after the fugitives; but, in spite of the brandy I had drunk, I was too weak to go far, and soon stopped. Dazed and trembling, I watched their retreating figures grow dim in the drifting vapor.
Behind me, between the standing statue and the gateway just beyond, the sledge lay upon the sand, runners upward, and near it, among the blankets and the scattered bags of straw, the slanting sunbeams flashed upon the thing we had brought with us. I saw for the first time the sawed-off lower half of the statue, and walked toward it until, as the glowing legs and s
andalled feet showed clearly, with their projecting dowel-pins, a sudden swirl of hot grey vapor hid everything from sight. I heard shouts; and then, when the cloud lifted, saw a crowd of men rapidly gathering round the prostrate figure. One of them, gigantic, grotesque in the misty light, was brandishing a pistol. It was Debaclo. Without a hat, his soaked clothes clung to his body. Under his mud-splashed forehead and crest of grizzled hair, his diabolical goggles seemed to scatter sparks of fire.
“What, signor; you here!” he roared. “Can it be possible that you would undertake to—— Oh no; not you, but the count. Don’t explain the snake theory. I understand that.”
Swaying with ogreish laughter, he pranced like a huge satyr around the golden legs, and kicked several bags of straw into the air. Then, at length checking himself, he walked towards the standing statue. Pointing at it with his pistol, he turned to his men.
“There is no more danger,” said he. “Lift this up and put it into the boat.”
The men stepped forward. Grasping the arms and neck of the thing, they pulled it and rocked it, as the two others had done, but without success.
“What’s the matter? Pull!” shouted Debaclo, while Underbridge, who had been staring at me, ran forward and helped them.
Then, thrusting the pistol into his belt and joining his followers, Debaclo seized a fold of the golden cloak and pulled with all his might. The statue swayed, but stood firm.
“The thing is buried in the mud!” he exclaimed. “We must dig it out. Bring me——”
A terrific explosion drowned his further words. I felt the ground rise and rock under my feet, with a grinding noise, which, gradually increasing, charged the air with electrical terror.
The men sprang away. Debaclo drew back. A dense hot smoke again enveloped us.
As his colossal form disappeared in the cloud, I heard, despite the dreadful noise, the confused voices of the men, interrupted by his loud commands. For several seconds all was hidden. Then, in the swirl of the mist, I saw the head and shoulders of another man,—a face furious but triumphant, projecting from the vapor close to the statue. Count Seismo,—his right hand lifted high above his head, clenched his cane, and above the hissing of steam came the ring of his fierce shout:
“Too late!”
For some time I could see nothing more, until, when a cool draught had cleared the air, I saw that he had disappeared.
The group of men had scattered. Some stood knee-deep in a pool of water that now extended between them and the city wall. Another watery band, from the right, reflecting the fiery colors of the sky, had nearly reached my feet. The whole sand-bar was sinking. I saw the moored boat in the distance; and as the men, followed by Debaclo and Underbridge, started to wade toward it, I ran after them.
Splashing through the water, I reached the boat in time to jump in, just as Debaclo drew a knife and cut the rope.
Four of the men picked up oars and tried to row. But they pulled at first with wild, irregular strokes. Debaclo, in the stern, held the short wooden tiller in one hand.
The bow had veered toward the beach, and I expected to see it turn seaward; but Debaclo steered steadily in the direction of the erect shining figure.
For a time, though the men rowed furiously, we could have made no progress; for the beach ahead, which had rapidly narrowed, seemed to be retiring from us. Glittering sheets of water had reached the walls of the city in several places. Now they crept close around the statue. One of the men stopped rowing.
“For the love of our Holy Mother, signor,” he cried, standing up, “turn us around!”
Debaclo pointed his pistol at the speaker. “Sit down, you coward!” he shouted.
The man obeyed and began to pull again; but a strong current was driving us backwards, in spite of the rowers.
Now entirely surrounded by water, the figure, illumed in the sunset, was rapidly sinking. For a while, whether because of my slightly changing angle of vision or the gathering shadows, the face of the god seemed to distort itself into a repulsive caricature,—a frightful yellow mask that rose and fell upon the waves. But as the rising tide submerged the head and folds of the serpent, the features recovered their expression of triumphant matchless beauty. As I looked, I felt an irresistible longing, overwhelming all other conscious impressions,—then a dizziness. In the gathering darkness, the heavens and sea seemed to revolve and blend together in magnificent colors, till suddenly the upturned golden head, flashing back the last beams of day, blazed like a ball of fire, and I lost consciousness.
xii
I remember nothing of what followed this, but infer a long period of dreamless sleep. I was awakened by a severe shock, followed by blows. Shivering with cold, I saw by the dim light of a swinging lantern that I had fallen from a berth in the small cabin of a ship and was rolling in the water flooding its floor. The door was open. I could see daylight in a passage outside and hear a noise of distant shouting.
With difficulty I climbed back into the berth and, chilled and trembling, held fast to an angle of the panelling, as the water rushed in and out the open door. Then, after a while, when the pitching slowly ceased, I climbed down and, wading outward along the passage, got up a stairway and into the bright sunlight.
The deck of the yacht upon which I looked out was covered with wreckage, which several sailors were busy in clearing away. We lay in comparatively smooth water, in a small harbor, land-locked with cliffs, and had escaped, I learned, a tremendous storm, by several lucky chances and the skill of one of the Greek sailors. At a critical moment he had cut loose the lashings of a diving-bell that had nearly swamped us.
Several boats were rowing about us. In one of them I saw Debaclo, Underbridge, and the owner of the lost apparatus, who presently came on board, gave me brandy and dry clothes, and soon after landed me in the neighboring town. Two days later they left me, to wait a fortnight in the place, and finally to join my own ship at the Port of L——.
In the few conversations I had with my rescuers I learned little more than they chose to tell me directly of several accidents that had delayed too long Debaclo’s clever use of the diving-bell. Whether his unscrupulous study of the count’s notes had prepared him for the earthquake, I could not learn, though it appeared that, when held by a contrary wind in full view of the risen city, he had at once fearlessly taken advantage of the situation. In spite of his jealousy, he admitted that events had proved the count’s theory. But he gave no hint of the process, whether of original research or of plagiarism, that had led him to his own discovery of the lost statue.
It is well known that during the convulsion, which lasted several days, and before the treasure-hunters had dared invade the dangerous place, the whole new coastal area sank again; but slowly, at intervals, and, luckily, without the disaster of a tidal-wave.
The palace of the count, at Ragusa, though destroyed, had not caught fire. Hence the latter, who had previously removed most of his collection, saved the rest by digging later in the ruins. But the narrow escape of my friend, the librarian, who was wounded in trying to rescue a crippled monk, was a great and pleasing surprise to me. Otherwise, the effects of the terrible earthquake of 18— upon the city and the surrounding country are well known.
Rather than overload my story with technicalities, I have omitted the details of the remarkable theory of The Procession of Earthquakes, which, as Count Seismo’s original incentive, might better have accounted for his researches. For this, I refer the reader to the full text of his noted thesis, in the published Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the University of B——.
I have nothing more to say, except that my own difficulties and dangers ended when the preservation of all my specimens, notes, and apparatus, enabled me to prove to the Consolidated Mining Companies of L—— the complete success of my labors at Borsowitz.
THE WELL OF MONTE CORBO
My association with the following singular incidents began during one of the gay but momentous summers of the late sixties, when awaiting examination for my Doctor’s degree at Bonn, I had taken a short holiday. It was at Frankfort-on-the-Main, where one afternoon, in the smoking room of the then newly built Hotel Solms, I had been glancing through the visitors’ list in the last copy of Galignani. But it was getting too dark to read, and I was about to drop the newspaper on the disordered writing table, when my eye caught the noted name of my old friend, Theodoric Barron.
Knowing the eccentric habits which had grown upon him with his fame, and the peculiar fancy for secluded research, which, in spite of his great wealth, and convivial tastes, had made him a recluse, I was not surprised to learn that he had not been heard of at the hotel, and soon realized that it would be a difficult matter to find him. So it proved next day, when after a long search, I ran him down at last in a very picturesque, but decidedly second class inn, in one of the distant suburbs.
He greeted me warmly, but seemed surprised that I had discovered him in what he described as a rare relic of the middle ages, a house, built in the time of Charles the Bold, where in sumptuous style, he had cleaned up one of the upper wings, to establish himself in a rambling suite of high-windowed rooms overlooking the river.
He pointed through an open casement at some distant misty steeples, marking, he said, the birthplace of Offenbach, and in the agreeable talk which followed, told me that the famous composer, on a recent visit, had so admired the mediæval details around us, that he intended to reproduce them in one of his opera-settings.
The great vaulted-gallery was still in disorder, and as we talked on of our summer plans, I entertained myself looking about the floor and table at piles of books and maps, half unpacked surveying instruments, and finally at a display of unframed prints roughly tacked upon the whitewashed walls. Among these, but under glass, as if of special importance, Barron called my attention to a quite small pen and ink sketch in a flat black frame.
November Night Tales Page 19