Out of the Dark

by Robert W. Chambers

  Burke, ghastly white, straightened up, quivering in every limb; the Tracer, as pale as he, laid his hand on the secret panel.

  ‘If – if you dare say it – the phrase is this: “O Ket Samaris, Nehes!” – “O Little Samaris, awake!”’

  ‘I – dare. In Heaven’s name, open that door!’

  Then, averting his head, the Tracer of Lost Persons swung open the panel.

  A flood of sunshine flashed on Burke’s face; he entered; and the paneled door closed behind him without a sound.

  Minute after minute passed; the Tracer stood as though turned to stone, gray head bent.

  Then he heard Burke’s voice ring out unsteadily:

  ‘O Ket Samaris – Samaris! O Ket Samaris – Nehes!’

  And again: ‘Samaris! Samaris! O beloved, awake!’

  And once more: ‘Nehes! O Samaris!’

  Silence, broken by a strange, sweet, drowsy plaint – like a child awakened at midnight by a dazzling light.

  ‘Samaris!’

  Then, through the stillness, a little laugh, and a softly tremulous voice.

  ‘Ari un aha, O Entuk sen!’

  IN SEARCH OF THE GREAT AUK

  I

  Because it all seems so improbable – so horribly impossible to me now, sitting here safe and sane in my own library – I hesitate to record an episode which already appears to me less horrible than grotesque. Yet, unless this story is written now, I know I shall never have the courage to tell the truth about the matter – not from fear of ridicule, but because I myself shall soon cease to credit what I now know to be true. Yet scarcely a month has elapsed since I heard the stealthy purring of what I believed to be the shoaling undertow – scarcely a month ago, with my own eyes, I saw that which, even now, I am beginning to believe never existed. As for the harbour-master – and the blow I am now striking at the old order of things— But of that I shall not speak now, or later; I shall try to tell the story simply and truthfully, and let my friends testify as to my probity and the publishers of this book corroborate them.

  On the 29th of February I resigned my position under the government and left Washington to accept an offer from Professor Farrago – whose name he kindly permits me to use – and on the first day of April I entered upon my new and congenial duties as general superintendent of the water-fowl department connected with the Zoological Gardens then in course of erection at Bronx Park, New York.

  For a week I followed the routine, examining the new foundations, studying the architect’s plans, following the surveyors through the Bronx thickets, suggesting arrangements for water-courses and pools destined to be included in the enclosures for swans, geese, pelicans, herons, and such of the waders and swimmers as we might expect to acclimatise in Bronx Park.

  It was at that time the policy of the trustees and officers of the Zoological Gardens neither to employ collectors nor to send out expeditions in search of specimens. The society decided to depend upon voluntary contributions, and I was always busy, part of the day, in dictating answers to correspondents who wrote offering their services as hunters of big game, collectors of all sorts of fauna, trappers, snarers, and also to those who offered specimens for sale, usually at exorbitant rates.

  To the proprietors of five-legged kittens, mangy lynxes, moth-eaten coyotes, and dancing bears I returned courteous but uncompromising refusals – of course, first submitting all such letters together with my replies, to Professor Farrago.

  One day, towards the end of May, however, just as I was leaving Bronx Park to return to town, Professor Lesard, of the reptilian department, called out to me that Professor Farrago wanted to see me a moment; so I put my pipe into my pocket again and retraced my steps to the temporary wooden building occupied by Professor Farrago, general superintendent of the Zoological Gardens. The professor, who was sitting at his desk before a pile of letters and replies, submitted for approval by me, pushed his glasses down and looked over them at me with a whimsical smile that suggested amusement, impatience, annoyance, and perhaps a faint trace of apology.

  ‘Now, here’s a letter,’ he said, with a deliberate gesture towards a sheet of paper impaled on a file – ‘a letter that I suppose you remember.’ He disengaged the sheet of paper and handed it to me.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I replied, with a shrug; ‘of course, the man is mistaken – or—’

  ‘Or what?’ demanded Professor Farrago tranquilly, wiping his glasses.

  ‘Or a liar,’ I replied.

  After a silence he leaned back in his chair and bade me read the letter to him again, and I did so with a contemptuous tolerance for the writer, who must have been either a very innocent victim or a very stupid swindler. I said as much to Professor Farrago, but, to my surprise, he appeared to waver.

  ‘I suppose,’ he said, with his near-sighted, embarrassed smile, ‘that nine hundred and ninety-nine men in a thousand would throw that letter aside and condemn the writer as a liar or a fool?’

  ‘In my opinion,’ said I, ‘he’s one or the other.’

  ‘He isn’t – in mine,’ said the professor placidly.

  ‘What!’ I exclaimed. ‘Here is a man living all alone on a strip of rock and sand between the wilderness and the sea, who wants you to send somebody to take charge of a bird that doesn’t exist!’

  ‘How do you know,’ asked Professor Farrago, ‘that the bird in question does not exist?’

  ‘It is generally accepted,’ I replied sarcastically, ‘that the great auk has been extinct for years. Therefore I may be pardoned for doubting that our correspondent possesses a pair of them alive.’

  ‘Oh, you young fellows,’ said the professor, smiling wearily, ‘you embark on a theory for destinations that don’t exist.’

  He leaned back in his chair, his amused eyes searching space for the imagery that made him smile.

  ‘Like swimming squirrels, you navigate with the help of Heaven and a stiff breeze, but you never land where you hope to – do you?’

  Rather red in the face, I said: ‘Don’t you believe the great auk to be extinct?’

  ‘Audubon saw the great auk.’

  ‘Who has seen a single specimen since?’

  ‘Nobody – except our correspondent here,’ he replied, laughing.

  I laughed too, considering the interview at an end, but the professor went on coolly—

  ‘Whatever it is that our correspondent has – and I am daring to believe that it is the great auk itself – I want you to secure it for the society.’

  When my astonishment subsided my first conscious sentiment was one of pity. Clearly, Professor Farrago was on the verge of dotage – ah, what a loss to the world!

  I believe now that Professor Farrago perfectly interpreted my thoughts, but he betrayed neither resentment nor impatience. I drew a chair up beside his desk – there was nothing to do but to obey, and this fool’s errand was none of my conceiving.

  Together we made out a list of articles necessary for me and itemized the expenses I might incur, and I set a date for my return, allowing no margin for a successful termination to the expedition.

  ‘Never mind that,’ said the professor. ‘What I want you to do is to get those birds here safely. Now, how many men will you take?’

  ‘None,’ I replied bluntly; ‘it’s a useless expense, unless there is something to bring back. If there is I’ll wire you, you may be sure.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Professor Farrago good-humouredly, ‘you shall have all the assistance you may require. Can you leave tonight?’

  The old gentleman was certainly prompt. I nodded half-sulkily, aware of his amusement.

  ‘So,’ I said, picking up my hat, ‘I am to start north to find a place called Black Harbor, where there is a man named Halyard who possesses, among other household utensils, two extinct great auks—’

  We were both laughing by this time. I asked him why on earth he credited the assertion of a man he had never before heard of.

  ‘I suppose,’ he replied, with the same half-apo
logetic, half-humorous smile, ‘it is instinct. I feel, somehow, that this man Halyard has got an auk – perhaps two. I can’t get away from the idea that we are on the eve of acquiring the rarest of living creatures. It’s odd for a scientist to talk as I do; doubtless you’re shocked – admit it, now!’

  But I was not shocked; on the contrary, I was conscious that the same strange hope that Professor Farrago cherished was beginning, in spite of me, to stir my pulses too.

  ‘If he has—’ I began, then stopped.

  The professor and I looked hard at each other in silence.

  ‘Go on,’ he said, encouragingly.

  But I had nothing more to say, for the prospect of beholding with my own eyes a living specimen of the great auk produced a series of conflicting emotions within me which rendered speech profanely superfluous.

  As I took my leave Professor Farrago came to the door of the temporary wooden office and handed me the letter written by the man Halyard. I folded it and put it into my pocket, as Halyard might require it for my own identification.

  ‘How much does he want for the pair?’ I asked.

  ‘Ten thousand dollars. Don’t demur – if the birds are really—’

  ‘I know,’ I said hastily, not daring to hope too much.

  ‘One thing more,’ said Professor Farrago gravely; ‘you know, in that last paragraph of his letter, Halyard speaks of something else in the way of specimens – an undiscovered species of amphibious biped. Just read that paragraph again, will you?’

  I drew the letter from my pocket and read as he directed –

  ‘When you have seen the two living specimens of the great auk, and have satisfied yourself that I tell the truth, you may be wise enough to listen without prejudice to a statement I shall make concerning the existence of the strangest creature ever fashioned. I will merely say, at this time, that the creature referred to is an amphibious biped, and inhabits the ocean near this coast. More I cannot say, for I personally have not seen the animal, but I have a witness who has, and there are many who affirm that they have seen the creature. You will naturally say that my statement amounts to nothing; but when your representative arrives, if he be free from prejudice, I expect his reports to you concerning this sea-biped will confirm the solemn statements of a witness I know to be unimpeachable.

  ‘Yours truly,

  ‘BURTON HALYARD.

  ‘BLACK HARBOR.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, after a moment’s thought, ‘here goes for the wild-goose chase.’

  ‘Wild auk, you mean,’ said Professor Farrago, shaking hands with me. ‘You will start to-night, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but Heaven knows how I’m ever going to land in this man Halyard’s door-yard. Good-bye!’

  ‘About that sea-biped—’ began Professor Farrago shyly.

  ‘Oh, don’t!’ I said; ‘I can swallow the auks, feathers and claws, but if this fellow Halyard is hinting he’s seen an amphibious creature resembling a man—’

  ‘Or a woman,’ said the professor cautiously.

  I retired disgusted, my faith shaken in the mental vigour of Professor Farrago.

  II

  The three days’ voyage by boat and rail was irksome. I bought my kit at Sainte Croix, on the Central Pacific Railroad, and on June 1 I began the last stage of my journey via the Sainte Isole broad-gauge, arriving in the wilderness by daylight. A tedious forced march by blazed trail, freshly spotted on the wrong side, of course, brought me to the northern terminus of the rusty, narrow-gauge lumber railway which runs from the heart of the hushed pine wilderness to the sea.

  Already a long train of battered flat-cars, piled with sluice-props and roughly hewn sleepers, was moving slowly off into the brooding forest gloom, when I came in sight of the track; but I developed a gratifying and unexpected burst of speed, shouting all the while. The train stopped; I swung myself aboard the last car, where a pleasant young fellow was sitting on the rear brake, chewing spruce and reading a letter.

  ‘Come aboard, sir,’ he said, looking up with a smile; ‘I guess you’re the man in a hurry.’

  ‘I’m looking for a man named Halyard,’ I said, dropping rifle and knapsack on the fresh-cut, fragrant pile of pine. ‘Are you Halyard?’

  ‘No, I’m Francis Lee, bossing the mica pit at Port-of-Waves,’ he replied, ‘but this letter is from Halyard, asking me to look out for a man in a hurry from Bronx Park, New York.’

  ‘I’m that man,’ said I, filling my pipe and offering him a share of the weed of peace, and we sat side by side smoking very amiably, until a signal from the locomotive sent him forward and I was left alone, lounging at ease, head pillowed on both arms, watching the blue sky fly through the branches overhead.

  Long before we came in sight of the ocean I smelled it; the fresh, salt aroma stole into my senses, drowsy with the heated odour of pine and hemlock, and I sat up, peering ahead into the dusky sea of pines.

  Fresher and fresher came the wind from the sea, in puffs, in mild, sweet breezes, in steady, freshening currents, blowing the feathery crowns of the pines, setting the balsam’s blue tufts rocking.

  Lee wandered back over the long line of flats, balancing himself nonchalantly as the cars swung around a sharp curve, where water dripped from a newly propped sluice that suddenly emerged from the depths of the forest to run parallel to the railroad track.

  ‘Built it this spring,’ he said, surveying his handiwork, which seemed to undulate as the cars swept past. ‘It runs to the cove – or ought to—’ He stopped abruptly with a thoughtful glance at me. ‘So you’re going over to Halyard’s?’ he continued, as though answering a question asked by himself.

  I nodded.

  ‘You’ve never been there – of course?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘and I’m not likely to go again.’

  I would have told him why I was going if I had not already begun to feel ashamed of my idiotic errand.

  ‘I guess you’re going to look at those birds of his,’ continued Lee placidly.

  ‘I guess I am,’ I said sulkily, glancing askance to see whether he was smiling.

  But he only asked me, quite seriously, whether a great auk was really a very rare bird; and I told him that the last one ever seen had been found dead off Labrador in January 1870. Then I asked him whether these birds of Halyard’s were really great auks, and he replied, somewhat indifferently, that he supposed they were – at least, nobody had ever before seen such birds near Port-of-Waves.

  ‘There’s something else,’ he said, running a pine-sliver through his pipe-stem – ‘something that interests us all here more than auks, big or little. I suppose I might as well speak of it, as you are bound to hear about it sooner or later.’

  He hesitated, and I could see that he was embarrassed, searching for the exact words to convey his meaning.

  ‘If,’ said I, ‘you have anything in this region more important to science than the great auk, I should be very glad to know about it.’

  Perhaps there was the faintest tinge of sarcasm in my voice, for he shot a sharp glance at me and then turned slightly. After a moment, however, he put his pipe into his pocket, laid hold of the brake with both hands, vaulted to his perch aloft, and glanced down at me.

  ‘Did you ever hear of the harbor-master?’ he asked maliciously.

  ‘Which harbor-master?’ I inquired.

  ‘You’ll know before long,’ he observed, with a satisfied glance into perspective.

  This rather extraordinary observation puzzled me. I waited for him to resume, and, as he did not, I asked him what he meant.

  ‘If I knew,’ he said, ‘I’d tell you. But, come to think of it, I’d be a fool to go into details with a scientific man. You’ll hear about the harbor-master – perhaps you will see the harbor-master. In that event I should be glad to converse with you on the subject.’

  I could not help laughing at his prim and precise manner, and, after a moment, he also laughed, saying—

  ‘It hurts a man’s vanity to know he kno
ws a thing that somebody else knows he doesn’t know. I’m damned if I say another word about the harbor-master until you’ve been to Halyard’s!’

  ‘A harbor-master,’ I persisted, ‘is an official who superintends the mooring of ships – isn’t he?’

  But he refused to be tempted into conversation, and we lounged silently on the lumber until a long, thin whistle from the locomotive and a rush of stinging salt-wind brought us to our feet. Through the trees I could see the bluish-black ocean, stretching out beyond black headlands to meet the clouds; a great wind was roaring among the trees as the train slowly came to a stand-still on the edge of the primeval forest.

  Lee jumped to the ground and aided me with my rifle and pack, and then the train began to back away along a curved side-track which, Lee said, led to the mica pit and company stores.

  ‘Now what will you do?’ he asked pleasantly. ‘I can give you a good dinner and a decent bed tonight, if you like; and I’m sure Mrs Lee would be very glad to have you stop with us as long as you choose.’

  I thanked him, but said that I was anxious to reach Halyard’s before dark, and he very kindly led me along the cliffs and pointed out the path.

  ‘This man Halyard,’ he said, ‘is an invalid. He lives at a cove called Black Harbor, and all his truck goes through to him over the company’s road. We receive it here, and send a pack-mule through once a month. I’ve met him; he’s a bad-tempered hypochondriac, a cynic at heart, and a man whose word is never doubted. If he says he has a great auk, you may be satisfied he has.’

  My heart was beating with excitement at the prospect; I looked out across the wooded headlands and tangled stretches of dune and hollow, trying to realize what it might mean to me, to Professor Farrago, to the world, if I should lead back to New York a live auk.

  ‘He’s a crank,’ said Lee; ‘frankly, I don’t like him. If you find it unpleasant there, come back to us.’

  ‘Does Halyard live alone?’ I asked.