The Plague, Pestilence & Apocalypse MEGAPACK™

by Robert Reed

  and there were smugglers and gipsies, and what not, about . And so

  he began to improve the breed in quite another direction . He se-

  lected the fierce and snappish pups and bred exclusively from them.

  Leopold . And so from one ancestral pair of, say, a hundred or a

  hundred and fifty years ago, you have Tommy there, with his won-

  derful mixture of gentleness and pluck, and his intelligence all but

  human, and your cousin has a kennel of unintelligent and blood-

  thirsty brutes, that have to be caged and chained as if they were wild

  beasts .

  Furniss . Just so, but I don’t quite see what you are driving at .

  Leopold . Wait a minute . Do you suppose the germs of cow-pox

  and small-pox to be of the same breed?

  Furniss. Well, yes; you know that I hold them to be specifically

  identical . I see what you are at now .

  Leopold. But one of them fulfils some obscure function in the

  physique of the cow, some function certainly harmless and probably

  beneficent, and the other is the malignant small-pox of the London

  hospitals .

  Furniss . So you mean to infer that in the latter case the germ has

  been cultivated downwards by intelligent purpose .

  Leopold . What if I do?

  Furniss . You think, then, that there is a secret guild of malignant

  men of medicine sworn to wage war against their fellow-men, that

  they are spread over all the world and have existed since before the

  dawn of history . I don’t believe that there are any men as bad as that,

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  and if there were, I should call them devils and hunt them down like

  mad dogs .

  Leopold . I don’t wish to use misleading words, but I will say

  that I believe there are intelligences, not human, who have access

  to realms of nature that we are but just beginning to explore; and

  I believe that some of them are enemies to humanity, and that they

  use their knowledge to breed such things as malignant small-pox or

  the red sickness out of germs which were originally of a harmless or

  even of a beneficent nature.

  Furniss . Just as my cousins have bred those wild beasts of theirs

  out of such harmless creatures as poor Tommy’s ancestors .

  Leopold . Just so .

  Furniss . And you think that we can contend successfully against

  such enemies .

  Leopold . Why not? They can only have nature to work upon . And

  very likely their only advantage over us is that they know more of

  nature than we do . They cannot go beyond the limits of nature to do

  less or more . As long as we sought after spells and enchantments

  and that sort of nonsense we were very much at their mercy . But we

  are now learning to fight them with their own weapons, which con-

  sist of the knowledge of nature . Witness vaccination, and witness

  also our little victory over the red sickness .

  Furniss . You’re a queer mixture, Leopold, but we must get back

  to the picnic people .

  And so they got up and went back together to the dancers, nod-

  ding to me as they went . I sat there for awhile, going over and over

  the conversation in my mind and putting together my own thoughts

  and Mr . Leopold’s .

  Then I joined the company and was merry as the merriest for the

  remainder of the day . But that night I dreamt; of strange-looking

  clouds and of the shadows of invisible cars, and of demons riding in

  the cars and sowing the seeds of pestilence on the earth and catching

  away such evil specimens of humanity as James Redpath to rein-

  force the ranks of their own malignant order .

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  CHAPTER III

  AT SEA

  It is my purpose to pass briefly over everything in my own history

  which does not concern the tale that I have to tell, and there is very

  little therefore for me to say about the seven or eight years which

  followed upon the events at Penruddock which I have just recorded .

  I went in due course to Oxford, where I stayed the usual time . I

  did not make any great failures there, nor did I gain much distinc-

  tion . I was a diligent reader, but much of my reading was outside

  the regulation lines . The literature of my own country, the poetry of

  mediaeval Italy, and the philosophy of modern Germany, more than

  divided my attention with classics and mathematics . Novels, mostly

  of the sensational type, amused me in vacations and on holidays, but

  very seldom found their way into my working days .

  I travelled over most of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and spent

  some time in some of the principal cities of the Continent . I became

  a fair linguist, speaking German, French, and Italian, with some flu-

  ency, although my accent always betrayed me . I took a second class

  in classics, bade adieu to Oxford, and began to make up my mind

  as to what I should do with my life . I had thought of the various

  professions in turn, and had decided against them all; and, finally,

  as I had no taste for idleness, and as I had some money, I resolved

  to invest it in sheep or cattle farming in some of the new countries .

  I thought successively of New Zealand, the United States, Canada,

  and Australia, and I was determined in favour of Australia by falling

  in with Jack Wilbrahmn . He and I had gone into residence at Oxford

  about the same time, but not at the same college, and we took our

  degrees in the same year; but we hardly belonged to the same set .

  Jack was more of a sporting than a reading man, and I was not much

  of either, at least as either was understood at the University . So Jack

  and I, although we heard of one another occasionally, did not meet

  until a few months before we left Oxford .

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  Then we became fast friends, and, as he had already determined

  to go to Australia, I made up my mind to go with him . We took our

  passage of course in the same ship . It was not yet the day of the great

  steamers and the canal was not yet open . We sailed from Liverpool

  in a clipper ship and we went round the Cape . But I think that we

  were quire as comfortable and as well taken care of as we should

  be now in the best of the Orient or Peninsular boats . Our voyage

  was altogether without disaster . Indeed it was like a picnic of ninety

  days’ duration, and I do not know that I had ever enjoyed any three

  months of my life as much . But there were no details that I need

  mention except the fact that we formed-an acquaintance (Jack and I)

  which determined our immediate course on our arrival in Australia,

  and so led us on to the mysterious experience of which I have to tell .

  Not indeed that our new acquaintance was one who might fairly

  be expected to introduce us to anything mysterious . Mr . Fetherston,

  as I shall call him here, was a thoroughly good fellow, and proved

  himself to be a staunch friend, but he was utterly destitute of imagi-

  nation, and he had the greatest contempt for what he used to call

  “queer stories”; he used queer in a special sense; he meant simply

  mysteriou
s, or savouring of what is commonly called the supernatu-

  ral .One bright evening in the tropics some such stories were going

  round . The air was delicious, and the moon and stars were just be-

  ginning to shine. The first mate, myself, and Mr. Fetherston were the

  principal talkers, but we had a good many listeners. The first mate

  began the conversation by telling two or three stories of the type

  I have mentioned; one of them especially took my fancy . I cannot

  remember it in detail, but I know that it was provokingly mysteri-

  ous, and seemed to admit of no solution but a supernatural one . The

  main incident was something like this . A farmer who lived about

  twelve miles from Bristol left home one evening with the intention

  of spending the night in that city in order to transact some business

  there at an early hour in the morning . He had to stop at a station

  about half-way to see some one who lived near there, and then to

  take another train in . He got out all right at the half-way station and

  THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 437

  walked towards the man’s house whom he wanted to see . A stranger

  met him on the way and drew him into conversation . As they came

  to certain cross roads the stranger turned, looked him in the face and

  said very deliberately, “Go home by next train, you will be just in

  time .” Then he walked away quickly down one of the cross roads .

  The farmer stood like one stunned for a minute or two, and then hur-

  ried after the stranger intending to stop him . But he could see him

  no more . There were several houses and gardens about and he might

  have passed into one of them, but anyhow he was lost Go sight . The

  farmer did as he was told and hurried home . He arrived just in time

  to save his house from being burned to the ground, and more than

  that, for his wife and children and servants were in bed and asleep .

  When the story was told, Mr . Fetherston gave his opinion of it

  very freely . I never saw contempt more effectually expressed . He

  spoke without the least atom of temper . Men who get angry and

  denounce that sort of thing are usually afraid of believing it, or at

  least of seeming to believe it . Nothing was further from Mr . Fether-

  ston’s thought . But you saw plainly that such stories were for him

  on a level with the most senseless of nursery rhymes and nothing

  better than mere idiot’s chatter . He did not say so in as many words

  nor at all offensively, but he made it quite clear nevertheless that he

  felt himself to be looking down from the platform of a mysterious

  intelligence on some very contemptible folly .

  I felt as if reproach were in the air, and I knew that if it were

  deserved I was one of hose who deserved it . So, although it would

  have been pleasanter to be silent, I felt that I was bound to speak .

  So I said, Mr . Fetherston, isn’t it all a matter of evidence?”

  Fetherston . Evidence! And pray on what evidence would you

  believe such a story as that which we have just heard?

  Easterley . Upon the statement on the honour of any sane man

  that I knew and trusted: how I might account for it is another matter .

  Fetherston . If a man whom I knew and trusted told me such a

  story on his honour I should trust him no longer, and I should be-

  lieve him to be either insane or dishonest .

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  Easterley . Suppose that ten men whom you knew and trusted

  agreed in telling you the same story?

  Fetherston (with a slight laugh) . Then I should begin to suspect

  that I had gone mad myself, but I should never believe it .

  Easterly . Yet you believe a story which is nearly two thousand

  years old and which is full of mystery from beginning to end: the

  story of a man who was born mysteriously, who exercised mysteri-

  ous powers during his life, and after death by violence lived again

  mysteriously, and at last left this world mysteriously . [Now you must

  know I spoke here knowing what I was about, for Fetherston was

  an enthusiastic churchman, and in company with a clergyman who

  was one of us he had organized a regular Sunday service, and, on the

  very last Sunday, was one of a small number to whom the clergyman

  had administered the sacrament .] It seems to me, Mr . Fetherston, I

  went on to say, that you, like some people I have met, can believe

  a thing with one side of your head and disbelieve it with the other .

  Fetherston . You are certainly like some people I have met . You

  throw the Christian religion overboard and then you take to believ-

  ing a lot of puerile absurdities .

  Easterly . Softly now, you must not say that I throw the Christian

  religion overboard . It may be that I do not accept it in quite the same

  sense as you, still I accept it . And as for the supernatural, if I said

  that I believed in it or that I did not believe in it, I should most likely

  to some extent deceive you .

  Fetherston . You mean that you could not answer with a plain

  “yes” or “no .”

  Easterly . Not quite that; but I could not answer as you do with

  “yes” and “no .” I should have to distinguish .

  Fetherston . Distinguish then, please .

  Easterley . Well, when you say that you don’t believe in the su-

  pernatural, I reply that what I don’t believe in is the natural .

  Fetherston . I am afraid I must ask you to explain your explana-

  tion . Easterley . What I mean is this . I believe that there is nothing

  at all, from a bucket of saltwater to the head on your shoulders, of

  THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 439

  which a full account can be given by any man . You go further and

  further back until you can get no further, but still you see hat you

  are not at the end . Every natural thing implies a principle which is

  outside nature .

  Fetherston . But you believe that there is a law for everything?

  Easterly . I believe that order prevails everywhere, and that every-

  thing has its place in that order; you may if you like call that order

  nature . Then I say that if there be ghosts they are part of nature;

  they have their place in nature as well as we . And we as well as the

  ghosts, and the air and the water as well as we, imply something that

  is not nature . Everything is natural and everything is supernatural .

  Fetherston . Easterly, I am afraid you are a philosopher . Come

  with me to Central Australia and we’ll knock the philosophy out of

  you and make you a practical man .

  Easterley . Are you going to Central Australia?

  Fetherston . Yes; I am to have charge of a company of surveyors

  who are to be engaged about the laying of the overland line to Port

  Darwin .

  Easterley . I’ll think of it . I rather think I should like it . I suppose

  we shall see no ghosts there, Fetherston?

  Fetherston . I don’t know about that . I dare say we may, for we

  shall often have to live on salt junk and damper .

  So there our talk ended . I had heard of Mr . Fetherston’s business

  before, and even I believe of his destination; but I had forgotten

  the p
articulars, and certainly it never had struck me that I should

  care to go with him . But now I thought I should like to talk it over

  with Jack . So I went in search of him . I found him by himself at the

  farthest aft part of the ship, standing just above the companion with

  his back against a rail . He had been chatting with two or three of the

  ladies, and they had just gone below . He came at once to meet me,

  and we both went forward and lit our pipes and stocked some time

  in silence . Then Jack spoke . “I see that you have something to say,

  Bob; what is it?”

  THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 440

  “Fetherston,” said I, “is going with a survey party to assist in lay-

  ing the overland wire to Port Darwin: he proposes that we should go

  with him; he was only in jest, but I think I should like it .”

  Jack thought it would be a very good beginning: we should see

  much of the country, we should get experience, and have something

  to talk about . Poor Jack! if he had only known! We have never

  ventured to talk much about that journey, not much to one another,

  and not at all to anyone else; but I must not anticipate . We both

  took a fancy to the scheme . There would be much of the interest

  of exploring without any of the special risks . We would, no doubt,

  have some hardships to put up with, but there would be depôts at

  intervals along the way, and our communication would be kept open

  all through . So I spoke to Fetherston a few days later . “Fetherston,”

  I said, “will you take two volunteers with you on your survey party

  northward? We shall pay our own expenses, but we shall want your

  guidance and protection, and we shall have nothing to give you in

  return but our company .”

  Fetherston said that he thought it might on such terms be easily

  managed, and it was managed accordingly .

  CHAPTER IV

  OVERLAND

  Jack and I had intended to go on to Melbourne and thence to Syd-

  ney, but upon our arrival at Adelaide we found that arrangements

  had been made which required that Mr . Fetherston should start

  northward as soon as possible . We had, therefore, little enough time

  to make preparation for the journey, and so we had to give up for the

  present all thought of making acquaintance with the great Australian

  cities . Mr . Fetherston, although he was but little over thirty years

  old, was a veteran Australian explorer; for about ten years before he