"I was quite aware of that." I remarked tersely. "But what has either the Cholo or the burro to do with this confounded prism going to pieces with its customary accompaniments, but without producing any result?"
Ramon burst into a wild, maniacal roar of high-pitched laughter. "Result!" he reiterated. "Result! That was it, that was the result!"
"Look here." I cried impatiently, "can't you stop talking in riddles or utter nonsense and explain what you are driving at? What was the result?"
"That burro, amigo mio!" replied Ramon, suppressing his hysterical outburst. "When the note of the violin sounded the prism responded and acted on the donkey."
"Have you gone completely crazy?" I ejaculated, involuntarily glancing about as if expecting to see a burro of titanic proportions in the vicinity. "If that is the case, where's the enlarged donkey?"
"No, I'm not as crazy as yourself." Ramon shot back. "I don't know where the burro is, but he's not far away. Perhaps under your feet! Enlarged! No— just the opposite—he's been reduced. He—why it's as plain, as simple as the nose on your face, amigo, the donkey was in line with the prism, in focus, so to say, with the wrong end of it. And instead of the agitated prism enlarging the dove, it reversed the process and reduced the donkey! Don't you understand? Can't you see?"
"By Jove!" I exclaimed, as his meaning dawned upon me. "You mean—but no, that can't be. In the first place we've stood—I've stood— behind the prisms time and time again when you produced the note, and I haven't been affected. And why wasn't the dove magnified? If the confounded thing works on one animal, it must work on another. I can see, or at least I can conceive that it might be possible for the properties of the prism to reverse matters and reduce a normal sized object to microscopic size, but if it did so, then, at the same time, it would also have enlarged the dove. No, no, Ramon, your reasoning is wrong."
"Is it?" he queried, a note of sarcasm in his tones. “Very well, I'll believe it when you show me that donkey."
Ramon had me there. There was no doubt that the burro had vanished. But I had a card up my sleeve, so to speak. "And," I informed him, "I'll believe you are right when you can show me the donkey in reduced form or can reduce some other creature."
"I might be able to do both," he retorted, "but to find a microscopic and probably terrified burro in this waste of sand is a lot harder than to reduce another one. Just as soon as I can fix up another lens, I'll prove I'm right. And—" he became very serious— "And, amigo, if it works, as it surely will, I shall have found a way to join Kora. I cannot transform her to normal size, but I can and I shall transform myself to her proportions!"
"No!" I almost yelled. "No, Ramon! You'll do nothing of the sort. Why, do you realize what it means? Even if it works, even if by some magic it is possible to reduce a living creature without injury, and you do this thing, you will be dead to the world, to all your friends! You might just as well commit suicide and lie done with it. And, even assuming you could do it, think of the risk you take. You cannot control, do not know the powers of the Manabinite. You might reduce yourself to the size of an atom—to a size that would be as invisible to the princess as she is to ordinary mortals."
"All very true," replied Ramon calmly. "Nevertheless, I shall take the chance. If I die, if I lose in any way, I shall be no worse off. Without Kora I shall not care to live. With her, my friends, my world, would be well lost."
As he spoke, a sudden thought came to me and I laughed. "You say you will." I remarked. "But," I asked, "how can you do it? Who's going to produce the proper note to reduce you? I can't, that's certain."
"What is to prevent me from doing it myself?" he countered. "I shall stand back of the prism, in focus with it, and play the note myself."
"Hmm, possibly," I remarked. "But before we come to loggerheads over the ultimate sacrifice of yourself, wouldn't it be a good idea to make some tests to prove your theory, and, what is of more importance, to prove whether or not a living creature still lives after its reduction? If you were to be reduced to a miniature corpse, it wouldn't do much good either to yourself or to Kora."
"Of course I shall experiment," he declared. "And you will find I am right. To-morrow we will make a test on another burro."
"You will do nothing of that sort, Ramon," I informed him. "We have no burros to waste. Even the loss of one will hamper us when we pack out of here. Moreover, even if you did reduce another donkey you could prove nothing. He, too, would be forever lost in this place. No, you will have to experiment on something else, on some creature that you can place in your hut. Then, provided you can figure out the spot at which the reduced creature will be delivered, we can determine not only if it is reduced, but whether or not it survives."
"You win," smiled Ramon. "I admit you have more common sense than I have. But we cannot test it on a dove. It would be reduced to such small size, we never could find it. How about a dog? There are two or three mangy curs over at the Cholos' camp."
"A dog should answer your purpose very well," I replied. "But I doubt it you will ever see him after the test is made. In my opinion, the burro was not reduced in size but was absolutely destroyed, shattered into its atomic parts. Now, Ramon, promise me, swear to me, one thing. Promise on your oath that unless we can prove conclusively that a living creature can be reduced without the slightest injury or harm, and that the extent of the reduction can be controlled, you will not insist on carrying out your mad scheme."
For a time he hesitated. Then: "Very well," he said at last. "I will not make that promise. And now I'm off to make another prism."
At the time it did not occur to me, but later, as I thought over the past and remembered our conversation and our behavior, I realized that the calm matter-of-fact manner in which we discussed the whole affair was really most remarkable. But it only goes to prove how we had come to regard the amazing events we had witnessed. One astonishing thing had followed so closely upon another, that we had grown blasé, accustomed to phenomena, that, at any other time, would have seemed incredible. Ever since Ramon first discovered the properties of Manabinite everything had moved along by an almost unbroken chain, so to speak, each link of the chain being some new and more astonishing event than those that had preceded it. First there was the lapis idol, then the discovery of the Manabinite about the meteorite; then the lens with its truly marvelous magnifying powers; then the chance discovery of the prism form with its stupendous magnification; then Ramon's clever device for focussing, his building up of a super-prism, and the sight of atoms. Following close upon that came our discovery of the microscopic people. Then the discovery that when, actuated by a certain note, the image of an object became the actual object itself; the fact that animal life did not respond to this action, and finally the vanishing burro. Any one of these marvels would, by itself, have left us awed, rather incredulous, perhaps in doubt of our own senses. But scarcely had we been thunderstruck at one when something still more astounding followed. Thus by comparison—and nearly everything in life is comparative, as Einstein proved by his Relativity theory—thus by comparison, I repeat, each previous marvel seemed to us almost ordinary and commonplace. Two or three days' earlier we had regarded the bodily enlargement of an object as a miracle, as almost magical, as being akin to the supernatural. But now we had become so accustomed to that, so familiar with it, that it seemed nothing very extraordinary, and even the idea of the prism having the power to reduce an object to infinitesimal size did not, once the first surprise was over, seem either preposterous or miraculous. In fact we took it rather as a matter of course, and went about our preparations for the tests as calmly and deliberately as we would go about any other scientific experiments.
But our interest was indescribable. In fact our interests in the properties of the Manabinite and our desire to determine its limits had become an obsession with us both. I had completely neglected my own work, my notes lay uncompleted where I had dropped them on that evening when Ramon burst into my hut with his amazing discovery.
So engrossed had we become, that we scarcely gave any time to watching Kora's people. Each day, to be sure, we took a peep at them. Once or twice, too, I looked out of my hut at dawn to see Ramon at the prism and—perhaps unconsciously, prostrating himself and muttering the prayers and chants in unison with the people whom he was watching through the prism as they made their daily obeisance to their sun-god. Once or twice, also, we had caught glimpses of Kora, but evidently she seldom appeared in public, and I was glad of that, for each time we saw her ravishing face and figure Ramon was almost beside himself and, for hours afterwards, was miserable, depressed, morbid and blue beyond words.
Perhaps most significant of all, as proving our overwhelming interest in our experiments, was-the fact that we were remaining at the spot despite the imminent danger of the heavy rains setting in. Before we had discovered the little people, I had been impatient to get away. I had insisted upon it, in fact. And yet, here was I, never giving a second thought to the rains, staying on day after day, and quite forgetting that, should the rains come on suddenly, we might be completely cut off, might find the rivers and ravines flooded and impassable, and might be forced to remain in this or some other equally bad spot for six months, or until the next dry season. That may not sound like such a very great catastrophe. But unless one has experienced a tropical rainy season on an exposed, unsheltered, restricted spot where there are no resources, no game, no inhabitants, one cannot fully realize just what it means. Of course, if we had planned to stop through the rainy months, and had prepared for such an extended stay, we could have been fairly safe and comfortable. We could have erected permanent, durable houses raised above the ground on posts; we could have provided ourselves with mosquito netting or wire screens for doors and windows; we could have stocked up with provisions and supplies; and all would have been well enough. But I had planned to remain only until the end of the dry season. In rainy weather, excavatory work was impossible, and I had not foreseen anything else to keep me there. Hence we had not brought any suitable equipment or supplies to last over. So, as I have said, if the rains burst upon us, we would find ourselves in rather desperate circumstances. Yet I do not think that our danger, or even our possible discomfort once entered my head after we discovered the village of the little princess. And, very fortunately for us, nature was most kind. It rained off and on to be sure—often heavily—but the rains were merely showers, and in every case, they came on in the late afternoon or evening and cleared up after sunrise the next morning. And they were not the precursors of the seasonal rains by any means. I had lived long enough in the tropics to recognize these when they appeared; to know the difference between the short, vicious downpours of great blood-warm drops and the steadily-descending deluge, like a solid wall of water, that falls without cessation or let up for day after day, night after night. But even had these torrential rains arrived—and they were long past due and might put in an appearance at any time—even had they arrived, I say, I doubt if I could have forced myself to leave as long as Ramon's experiments were uncompleted.
But our Cholos held other views. They were impatient, nervous, sulky and insistent. Over and over again they demanded that we clear out, and I had begun to fear open rebellion, or at least desertion, when, happily, the incident of the burro - completely altered matters. I shall never know precisely what the Cholo who had witnessed the thing told his fellows. No doubt he exaggerated tremendously. Very probably he averred, and swore by all the saints, that he actually saw the devil in person as he seized the donkey and whisked him away. But even if he adhered strictly to the truth and to facts, his story would have been enough. As I have said, the Cholos regarded our scientific work as a form of witchcraft and they probably— in fact, undoubtedly, looked upon us as exponents of the black-art; but as long as nothing particularly terrifying occurred, and they were well paid, well fed and were not molested, they were quite content to work for men who might be in league with the devil, provided the devil did not approach their hut, which was some distance from ours. But they were not sufficiently superstitious or awed by our supposedly-occult powers to prevent them from becoming a bit threatening when they found themselves facing a danger that was real, and with which they were thoroughly familiar. But when the terrified Cholo reported what he had seen, they changed their minds. Here were white men who, by merely playing on a fiddle, could cause a donkey to vanish before their eyes—and there was ample evidence that, the burro had vanished. And, so they reasoned, if playing a fiddle could whisk a burro from sight, was it unreasonable to think that, if the white men so desired, they could do the same with a Cholo? The result was that from that day on, the Cholos were as subservient, as humble and as deferential as anyone could wish, and never so much as mentioned the question of leaving.
But I am forgetting myself. I am wandering from my account of what took place. I must confine myself to the account of those events that had a direct bearing upon the ultimate outcome and Professor Amador's fate.
However, I thought it wise to mention the matter of the rains and of the men in order that my readers might understand how it was that, having been so intent upon leaving before the rains commenced, I stayed on now quite willingly.
But to return to my story. The supply of Manabinite was now getting very low and it was becoming increasingly difficult to obtain a fragment large enough for a prism. In fact, by the time of the disappearance of the burro, Ramon declared that in order to produce a prism that would be practical, he would have to build one up, much as he had constructed the one through which we viewed the miniature Indians. This, by the way, remained where we had placed it when we had first seen the Indians, for we feared that if we moved it or altered it in any way, we might never again be able to locate the village. Also we had made one or two somewhat important discoveries. We had found that the twanging sound I have described was due to the abrupt disruption of the Manabinite, and Ramon advanced the theory that it was the responsive musical note aroused by the vibration produced by his notes. I do not know if I can make my meaning wholly clear, for I am not a musician and musical terms are as Greek—or worse, for I can read Greek— as far as I am concerned. But from what I could gather from Ramon's somewhat technical exposition of the matter, every musical note has its responsive note. For example, if a tuning-fork is struck and placed near a stringed instrument, a faint responsive note will emanate from the strings. It is, in fact, a sort of vibratory echo, but instead of the echo being an exact reproduction of the original sound, as in the case of ordinary echoes, the responsive note may be quite different in tone.
To continue: Ramon's theory was that the twang was the responsive note, and that it was this sudden, terrific vibration of the crystal, this abrupt exertion, this throe of the atomic structure, that disrupted the mineral itself and that, in its disruption, the atoms or molecules or electrons reformed themselves—together with those in the object exposed before the prism—in the precise form of the magnified image. In other words, the vibratory waves that—according to Ramon, for I am quoting him and make no claim to a profound knowledge of physics myself—the vibratory waves, that controlled the atomic structure of both the crystal and the object before it, were so altered in the speed of their vibrations that they vibrated in unison with the vibratory waves that produced the magnified image, and thus solidified it. Perhaps I may, in a manner, compare it to filling some thin receptacle, even a transparent object, such as a toy balloon, with water and then freezing it. Of course that is not an exact simile, but the result was more or less the same.
Professor Amador, however, went much further, much deeper than this. He possessed a most profound, almost an uncanny knowledge of physics, and he evolved many theories as he labored at the new prism. But to me most of these were totally incomprehensible, being involved and dependent upon the most abstruse problems and equations in the highest mathematics, and which I never could master, being, I confess, a very poor hand at even the simplest mathematics.
But I could understan
d how, regardless of the physical phenomena involved, the process of the prism could be reversed, and an object reduced. But even Ramon could not offer any lucid or satisfactory theory as to why the prism should act backward—if I may use the term—on living tissues, and refused to act in the other direction.
We had also proved conclusively that the fine dust which I mentioned we had found on Ramon's table, was the visible remains of the prism, a residue that, for some reason, was not transferred to the magnified body produced. This, it also developed, was the cause of the peculiar haze or cloud that invariably appeared when the transformation of an object took place. We were both rather curious to learn what the material was and Ramon wasted some time in attempting to analyze it. But his efforts were without definite results.
"Possibly," he suggested, with a grin, "If we could manage to enlarge a pile of this powder, we might create a piece of Manabinite."
But we had no intention of trying it, and devoted our energies to making the prism which meant so much to both Ramon and myself.
If it worked, if it actually reduced a living, warm-blooded creature—one of the stray curs at the Cholos' camp for instance— and if, after its reduction, the dog remained unharmed, then I knew I was fated to lose my dear friend forever. But if it failed, if the dog was not reduced or if, when reduced, it was killed or injured, or if it completely vanished, then would hold Ramon to his promise. And despite my sympathy for him and my real desire to see him happy, even if in a microscopic way, yet I hoped and even prayed that the experiment might prove an utter failure.
Several times, as we worked, Professor Amador tried to induce me to join him on his mad venture. He argued that I would never have such another opportunity; that I would be able to study the habits, the lives, the religion of the miniature Manabis; that I would be content and happy; that I would have the companionship of himself, of Kora and of the high priest, and that, after all, it makes little difference where or how one lives, provided one is content and has an interest in life, Naturally, I declined. I do not value my life more highly than others; I have many times risked it for the sake of my favorite sciences, but I had no desire to run such a risk as he suggested, even if the advantages he pictured were alluring. It was quite a different matter with him. In the first place, his disposition was very distinctly different from mine. He had the aborigines' utter contempt for life or for danger, and he was as thorough a fatalist as any pure-blooded Quicha. Also, he was absolutely convinced that he was fated to possess Kora, the princess, and his strange and truly remarkably vivid sensation of having met and loved her in some past existence, only made him the more convinced of this. And I could well understand that, with such a prize of loveliness and of love as a reward, he felt that the step he proposed to take, that life itself, was of little importance.
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