by Bram Stoker
Adam was naturally somewhat surprised by this effusive epistle, but he determined to say nothing of it to Sir Nathaniel until he should have thought it well over.
CHAPTER XXIII
AN ENEMY IN THE DARK
When Adam Salton met Sir Nathaniel de Salis at breakfast, he was glad that he had taken the time to turn things over in his mind. The result had been that not only was he familiar with the facts of everything, but he had already so far differentiated them that he was now able to arrange them in his own mind according to their values. Thus he was in a position to form his own opinions, and to accept any fact or any reading of it if at all credible; whatever was mysterious, or seemed to be mysterious, he frankly accepted as such, and held it apart in his own mind for future investigation and discussion. The utility of this course was apparent to him when he began to talk to Sir Nathaniel, which was so soon as breakfast was over and they had withdrawn to the study. They were alone, for Mr Salton was not expected home till noon. Breakfast had been a silent function, so it did not interfere in any way with the process of thought.
So soon as the door was closed, Sir Nathaniel began:
‘I see, Adam, that much has occurred, and that you have much to tell me and to consult about.’
‘That is so, sir. I suppose I had better begin by telling you all I know – all that has happened since I left you last evening?’
‘Quite right. Tell me all. It will be time enough to look for meanings when we know facts – that is, know them as we understand them to be.’
Accordingly Adam began, and gave him details of all that had been during the previous evening. He confined himself rigidly to the narration of circumstances, taking care not to colour events, even impliedly, by any comment of his own, or any opinion of the meaning of things which he did not fully understand. At first, Sir Nathaniel seemed disposed to ask some questions, but shortly gave this over when he recognised that the narration was well thought over, concise and self-explanatory. Thenceforth, he contented himself with quick looks and glances, easily interpreted or by some acquiescent motions of his hands, when such could be convenient, to emphasise his idea of the correctness of inference. He was so evidently en rapport1 with Adam, that the latter was helped and emboldened when the time came for his statement of beliefs or inferences as to the meanings of things. This suited Adam exactly – and also Sir Nathaniel came to a quicker, more concise, and more thorough understanding than he could otherwise have done. Until Adam ceased speaking, having evidently come to an end of what he had to say with regard to this section of his story, the elder man made absolutely no comment whatever, remaining silent, except on a very few occasions asking an elucidatory question now and then. Even when Adam, having finished the purely narrative part of what he had seen and heard, took from his pocket Lady Arabella’s letter, with manifest intention of reading it, he did not make any comment. Finally, when Adam folded up the letter and put it, in its envelope, back in his pocket, as an intimation that he had now quite finished, the old diplomatist carefully made a few notes in his pocket-book. After a careful reconsideration of these, he spoke:
‘That, my dear Adam, is altogether admirable. It is a pity that your duty in life does not call for your writing either political or military despatches or judicial reports. For in all of these branches of work you would probably make a name for yourself. I think I may now take it that we are both well versed in the actual facts, and that our further conference had better take the shape of mutual exchange of ideas. Let us both ask questions as they may arise; and I do not doubt that we shall arrive at some enlightening conclusions.’
‘Carried nem. con.2 Will you kindly begin, sir? and then we shall have all in order. I do not doubt that with your experience you will be able to dissipate some of the fog which envelops certain of the things which we have to consider.’
‘I hope so, my dear boy. For the beginning, then, let me say that Lady Arabella’s letter makes clear some things which she intended – and also some things which she did not intend. But, before I begin to comment and draw deductions, let me ask you a few, a very few questions. I know that this is not necessary; but as two men of full age, talking of matters of a peculiarly intimate kind and which may bring in considerations of other persons, it will be as well to have a thorough understanding, leaving nothing to chance or accident!’
‘Good again, sir! Please ask away what you will. I shall keep nothing back.’
‘Right, my boy. That is the spirit in which to begin a true conference, if it is to have any result.’
The old man pondered a few moments, and then asked a question which had manifestly been troubling him all along, and which he had made up his mind to ask:
‘Adam, are you heart-whole, quite heart-whole, in the matter of Lady Arabella?’
He answered at once, each looking the other straight in the eyes during question and answer:
‘Lady Arabella, sir, is a very charming woman, and I have hitherto deemed it a privilege to meet her – to talk to her – even – since I am in the confessional – to flirt a little with her. But if you mean to ask if my affections are in any way engaged, I can emphatically answer “No!” – as indeed you will understand when presently I give you the reason.’
‘Could you – would you mind giving me the reason now? It will help us to understand what is before us in the way of difficulty, and what to rely on.’
‘Certainly, sir. I can speak at once – should like to. My reason, on which I can fully depend, is that I love another woman!’
‘That clinches it. May I offer my good wishes, and, I hope, my congratulations?’
‘I am proud of your good wishes, sir, and I thank you for them. But, it is too soon for congratulations – the lady does not even know my wishes yet. Indeed, I hardly knew them myself, as definite, till this moment. Under the circumstances, it may be wiser to wait a little.’
‘Quite so. A very wise precaution. There can never be any harm in such delay. It is not a check, remember, but only wise forethought. I take it then, Adam, that at the right time I may be allowed to know who the lady is?’
Adam laughed a low, sweet laugh, such as ripples from a happy heart.
‘In the matter there need not be an hour’s, a minute’s delay. I shall be glad to share my little secret with you, sir. We two are, I take it, tiled.3 So that there come no wrong or harm to anyone else in the enlargement of the bounds of our confidence!’
‘None. As for me, I promise absolute discretion and, unless with your own consent, silence.’
Both men smiled and bowed.
‘The lady, sir, whom I am so happy as to love and in whom my dreams of life-long happiness are centred, is Mimi Watford!’
‘Then, my dear Adam, I need not wait to offer hopes and congratulations. She is indeed a very charming lady. I do not think I ever saw a girl who united in such perfection the qualities of strength of character and sweetness of disposition. With all my heart, I congratulate you. Then I may take it that my question as to your heart-wholeness is answered in the affirmative?’
‘Yes; and now, sir, may I ask in turn why the question?’
‘Certainly! I asked because it seems to me that we are coming to a point where such questions would be painful – impossible, no matter how great friends we may be.’
Adam smiled.
‘You will now understand why I spoke so positively. It is not merely that I love Mimi, but I have reason to look on Lady Arabella as her enemy!’
‘Her enemy?’
‘Yes. A rank and unscrupulous enemy who is bent on her destruction.’
Sir Nathaniel paused.
‘Adam, this grows worse and worse. I do not contradict you; do not doubt. I only want to be sure.’
He went on with an infinite sadness in his tone. ‘I wish to God, my dear young friend, that I could disagree with you. I wish also that she or you – if not both – could be kept completely outside this question. But that, I fear, is impossible. Now for a moment let
me hark back to your story of last night. It is better that we clear up an important matter right here; we can then get on more easily.’
Adam said nothing, but he looked interrogatively.
The other went on: ‘It is about Lady Arabella’s letter in connection with last night. And indeed, I almost fear to approach it – not on her account, but on yours and Mimi’s.’ Adam, when his friend mentioned Mimi so familiarly, felt his heart warm at once from the chill that accompanied the ominous opening of his speech. Sir Nathaniel saw the look and smiled. Then he went over to the door, looked outside it and returned, locking it carefully behind him.
CHAPTER XXIV
METABOLISM
‘Am I looking grave?’ asked Sir Nathaniel inconsequently when he re-entered the room.
‘You certainly are, sir.’
‘Yes. I ought to be. I feel as if I had on the Black Cap!’ Then he went on more calmly: he felt that he should remain calm if he could. Calmness was a necessary condition of what he had to say. ‘This is in reality a black-cap affair. We little thought the day we met, only a few days ago, that we should be drawn into such a vortex. Already we are mixed up in robbery, manslaughter, and probably murder, but, a thousand times worse than all the crimes in the calendar, in an affair of gloom and mystery which has no bottom and no end – with magic and demonology, and even with forces of the most unnerving kind, which had their origin in an age when the world was different from the world which we know. We are going back to the origin of superstition – to the age when dragons of the prime tore each other in their slime.1 I shall come back to all these things presently. We must fear nothing – no conclusion, however improbable, almost impossible it may be. Life and death is at the present moment hanging on our judgment. Life and death not only for ourselves, but for others whom we love. Therefore we must think accurately, go warily, and act boldly. Remember, I count on you as I hope you count on me.’
‘I do, with all confidence.’
‘Then, ’ said Sir Nathaniel, ‘let us think justly and boldly and fear nothing, however terrifying it may seem. I suppose I am to take as exact in every detail your account of all the strange things which happened whilst you were in Diana’s Grove?’
‘So far as I know, yes. Of course I may be mistaken in recollection or appreciation, at the time, of some detail or another, but I am certain that in the main what I have said is correct.’
‘Then you will not be offended if I ask you, if occasion demands it, to reiterate?’
‘I am altogether at your service, sir, and proud to serve.’
‘We have one account of what happened from an eye-witness whom we do believe and trust – that is you. We have also another account written by Lady Arabella under her own hand. These two accounts do not agree. Therefore we must take it that one of the two is lying.’
‘Apparently, sir.’
‘And Lady Arabella is the liar!’
‘Apparently – as I am not.’
‘We must, therefore, try to find a reason for her lying. She has nothing to fear from Oolanga, who is dead. Therefore the only reason which could actuate her would be to convince someone else that she was blameless. This “someone” could not be you, for you had the evidence of your own eyes. There was no one else present; therefore it must have been an absent person.’
‘That seems beyond dispute, sir.’
‘There is only one other person whose good opinion she could wish to keep – that person we know to be Edgar Caswall. He is the only one who fills the bill.’
The old man smiled and went on:
‘Her lies point to other things besides the death of the African. She evidently wanted it to be accepted that Oolanga had killed the mongoose, but that his falling into the well was his own act. I cannot suppose that she expected to convince you, the eye-witness; but if she wished later on to spread the story, it was at least wise of her to try to get your acceptance of it.’
‘That is so!’
Again Sir Nathaniel smiled. He felt that his argument was convincing.
‘Then there were other matters of untruth. That, for instance, of the ermine collar embroidered with emeralds. If an understandable reason be required for this, it would be to draw attention away from the green lights which were seen in the room, and especially in the well-hole. Any unprejudiced person would accept the green lights to be the eyes of a great snake such as tradition pointed to living in the well-hole. In fine, 2 therefore, Lady Arabella wanted the general belief to be that there was no snake of the kind in Diana’s Grove. Let us consider this. For my own part, I don’t believe in a partial liar. This art does not deal in veneer; a liar is a liar right through. Self-interest may prompt falsity of the tongue; but if one prove to be a liar, nothing that he says can ever be believed. This leads us to the conclusion that because she said or inferred that there was no snake, we should look for one – and expect to find it, too.
‘Now let me here digress. I live, and have for many years lived, in Derbyshire, a county more celebrated for its caves than any other county in England. I have been through them all, and am familiar with every turn of them; as also with other great caves in Kentucky, 3 in France, in Germany, and a host of places – with all, in fact, of these very deep caves of narrow aperture which are so valued by intrepid explorers, who descend narrow gullets of abysmal depth and sometimes never return. In many of the caverns in the Peak I am convinced that some of the smaller passages were used in primeval times as the lairs of some of the great serpents of legend and tradition. It may have been that such caverns were formed in the usual geologic way – bubbles or flaws in the earth’s crust – which were later used by the monsters of the period of the young world. It may have been, of course, that some of them at least were worn originally by water; but in time they all found a use when suitable for living monsters. Such may be – I only give it as a suggestion for thought.
‘This brings us to another point more difficult to accept and understand than any other requiring belief in a base not usually accepted or indeed entered on: whether such abnormal growths, as must have been in the case of the earlier inhabitants, could have ever changed in their nature. Some day the study of metabolism may progress so far as to enable us to accept structural changes proceeding from an intellectual or moral base. If such ever be probable, we may lean towards a belief that great animal strength may be a sound base for changes of all sorts. If this be so, what could be a more fitting subject than primeval monsters whose strength was such as to allow a survival of thousands of years? Mind, I do not assert, but only suggest it as a subject for thought. We do not know yet if brain can increase and develop independently of other parts of living structure. This again I only suggest as a subject for thought. My reason for doing so will be presently touched on.
‘After all, the mediæval belief in the Philosopher’s Stone which could transmute metals has its counterpart in the accepted theory of metabolism which changes living tissue. Why, the theory has been put forward by a great scientist that the existence of radium and its products proves the truth of the theory of transmutation of metal.4 In an age of investigation like our own, when we are returning to science as the base of wonders – almost of miracles, – we should be slow to refuse to accept facts, however impossible they may seem to be. We are apt to be hide-bound as to theory when we begin to learn. In a more enlightened age, when the base of knowledge has not only been tested but broadened, perhaps we shall come to an understanding of that marvellous definition of “faith” by St Paul: “the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things unseen.”5
‘Now, my dear Adam, pardon these digressions into matters which are as far from that with which we are concerned as are the Poles from each other; but even these may help us to accept, even if they cannot help to elucidate. We are in a quagmire, my boy, as vast and as deep as that in which the monsters of the geologic age found shelter and perhaps advance.
‘Now, I think we have talked enough for the present of many things ha
rd to understand. It will be better, perhaps, if we lay them aside for the present. When you and I resume this chat we shall be more clear-headed to accept evident deductions, more resolute and better satisfied to act on them. Let us adjourn till to-morrow.’
CHAPTER XXV
THE DECREE
When after breakfast the next morning Sir Nathaniel and Adam met, the elder man, after inquiring how his companion had slept, and satisfying him as to his own experiences in the same matter, said:
‘I think we may take it that we are both calm of nerve and brain, and that we are fit to resume so momentous a subject as that deferred. Suppose we begin by taking a problematical case of fact based on our conclusions of yesterday. Let us suppose a monster of the early days of the world – a dragon of the prime – of vast age running into thousands of years, to whom had been conveyed in some way – it matters not – a brain of even the most rudimentary kind – some commencement, however small, just sufficient for the beginning of growth. Suppose the monster to be of incalculable size and of a strength quite abnormal – a veritable incarnation of animal strength. Suppose this animal was allowed to remain in one place, thus being removed from accidents of interrupted development: might not, would not this creature in process of time – ages, if necessary – have that rudimentary intelligence developed? There is no impossibility in all this. It is only the natural process of evolution; not taken from genii and species, 1 but from individual instances. Atmosphere, which is the condition of life – vegetable and animal, – is an immediate product of size. In the beginning, the instincts of animals are confined to alimentation, self-protection, and the multiplication of their species. As time goes on and the needs of life become more complex, power follows need. Here let me make another digression. We are prepared already for abnormal growth – it is the corollary of normal growth. We have been long accustomed to consider growth as applied almost exclusively to size in its various aspects. But Nature, who has no doctrinaire ideas, may equally apply it to concentration. A developing thing may expand in any given way or form. Now, it is a scientific law that increase implies gain and loss of various kinds; what a thing gains in one direction it may lose in another. In mechanics direction is a condition of the increase or limitation of speed or force. Why not apply this more widely? May it not be that Mother Nature may deliberately encourage decrease as well as increase – that it may be an axiom that what is gained in concentration is lost in size? Take, for instance, monsters tradition has accepted and localised, such as the Worm of Lambton or that of Spindleston Heugh. If such a one were, by its own process of metabolism, to change much of its bulk for a little intellectual growth, we should at once arrive at a new class of creature, more dangerous, perhaps, than the world has ever had any experience of – a force which can think, which has no soul and no morals, and therefore no acceptance of responsibility. A worm or snake would be a good illustration of this, for it is cold-blooded2 and therefore removed from the temptations which often weaken or restrict warm-blooded creatures. If, for instance, the Worm of Lambton – if such ever existed – were guided to its own ends by an organised intelligence capable of expansion, what form of creature could we imagine which would equal it in potentialities of evil? Why, such a being would devastate a whole country. Now, all these things require much thought, and we want to apply the knowledge usefully, and we should therefore be exact. Would it not be well to have another “easy, ” and resume the subject later in the day?’