by J J Astor
"It is the old story," said Bearwarden, "of Columbus and the egg. Schopenhouer and his predecessors appear to have tried every idea but the right one, and even Darwin and Huxley fell short in their reasoning, because they tried to obtain more or less than four by putting two with two."
Thus they sat and talked while the night wore on. Neither thought of sleeping, hoping all the while that Ayrault might walk in as he had the night before.
At last the dawn began to tint the east, and the growing light showed them that the storm had passed. The upper strata of Saturn's atmosphere being filled with infinitesimal particles of dust, as a result of its numerous volcanoes, the conditions were highly favourable to beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Soon coloured streaks extended far into the sky, and though they knew that when the sun's disc appeared it would seem small, it filled the almost boundless eastern horizon with the most variegated and gorgeous hues. Turning away from the welcome sight--for their minds were ill at ease--they found the light strong enough for their search to begin. Writing on a sheet of paper, in a large hand,
"Have gone to the Callisto to look for you; shall afterwards return here," they pinned this in a conspicuous place and set out due west, keeping about a hundred yards apart. The ground was wet and slippery, but overhead all was clear, and the sun soon shone brightly. Looking to right and left, and occasionally shouting and discharging their revolvers, they went on for half an hour.
"I have his tracks," called Bearwarden, and Cortlandt hastened to join him. In the soft ground, sure enough, they saw Ayrault's footprints, and, from the distance between them, concluded that he must have been running or walking very fast; but the rain had washed down the edges of the incision. The trail ascended a gentle slope, where they lost it; but on reaching the summit they saw it again with the feet together, as though Ayrault had paused, and about it were many other impressions with the feet turned in, as if the walkers or standers had surrounded Ayrault, who was in the centre.
"I hope," said Cortlandt, "these are nothing more than the footprints we have seen formed about ourselves."
"See," said Bearwarden, "Dick's trail goes on, and the others vanish. They cannot have been made by savages or Indians, for they seem to have had weight only while standing." They then resumed their march, firing a revolver shot at intervals of a minute. Suddenly they came upon a tall, straight tree, uprooted by the wind and lying diagonally across their path. Following with their eyes the direction in which it lay, they saw a large, hollow trunk, with the bark stripped off, and charred as if struck by lightning. Obliged to pass near this by the uprooted tree-whose thick trunk, upheld by the branches at the head, lay raised about two feet from the ground--both searchers gave a start, and stood still as if petrified. Inside the great trunk they saw a head, and, on looking more closely, descried Ayrault's body. Grasping it by the arms, they drew it out. The face was pale and the limbs were stiff. Instantly Cortlandt unfastened the collar, while Bearwarden applied a flask to the lips. But they soon found that their efforts were vain.
"The spirit!" ejaculated Cortlandt. "Dick may be in a trance, in which case he can help us. Let us will hard and long."
Accordingly, they threw themselves on their faces, closing their eyes, that nothing might distract their concentration. Minutes, which seemed like ages, passed, and there was no response.
"Now," said Bearwarden, "will together, hard."
Suddenly the stillness was broken by the spirit's voice, which said:
"I felt more than one mind calling, but the effect was so slight I thought first I was mistaken. I will help you in what you want, for the young man is not dead, neither is he injured."
Saying which, he stretched himself upon Ayrault, worked his lungs artificially, and willed with an intensity the observers could feel where they stood. Quickly the colour returned to Ayrault's cheeks, and with the spirit's assistance he sat up and leaned against the tree that had protected him from the storm.
"Your promise was realized," he said, addressing the spirit. "I have seen what I shall never forget, and lest the anguish--the vision of which I saw--come true, let us return to the earth, and not leave it till I have tasted in reality the joys that in the spirit I seemed to have missed. I have often longed in this life to be in the spirit, but never knew what longing was, till I experienced it as a spirit, to be once more in the flesh."
"You see the mercy of God," said the spirit, "in not ordinarily allowing the spirits of the departed to revisit earth until they are prepared--that is, until they are sufficiently advanced to go there unaided--by which time they have come to understand the wisdom of God's laws. In your case the limiting laws were partially suspended, so that you were able to return at once, with many of the faculties and senses of spirits, but without their accumulated experience. It speaks well for your state of preparation that, without having had those disguised blessings, illness or misfortune, you were not utterly crushed by what you saw when temporarily released. While in the trance you were not in hell, but experienced the feelings that all mortals would if allowed to return immediately. Thus no lover can return to earth till his fiancee has joined him here, or till, perceiving the benevolence of God's ways, he is not distressed at what he sees, and has the companionship of a host of kindred spirits.
"The spirits you saw in the cemetery were indeed in hell, but had become sufficiently developed to revisit the earth, though doing so did not relieve their distress; for neither the development of their senses, which intensifies their capacity for remorse and regret, nor their investigations into God's boundless mercies, which they have deliberately thrown away, can comfort them.
"Some of your ancestors are on Cassandra, and others are in purgatory here. Though a few faintly felt your prayer, none were able to return and answer beside their graves. It was at your request and prayer that He freed your spirit, but you see how unhappy it made you."
"I see," replied Ayrault, "that no man should wish to anticipate the workings of the Almighty, although I have been unspeakably blessed in that He made an exception--if I may so call it--in my favour, since, in addition to revealing the responsibilities of life, it has shown me the inestimable value and loyalty of woman's love. I fear, however, that my return to earth greatly distressed the waterer of the flowers you showed me."
"She already sleeps," replied the spirit, "and I have comforted her by a dream in which she sees that you are well."
"When shall we start?" asked Bearwarden.
"As soon as you can get ready," replied Ayrault. "I would not risk running short of enough current to generate the apergy needed to get us back. I dare say when I have been on earth a few years, and have done something for the good of my soul--which, as I take it, can be accomplished as well by advancing science as in any other way--I shall pine for another journey in space as I now do to return."
"How I wish I were engaged," said Bearwarden, glancing at Cortlandt, and overjoyed at Ayrault's recovery.
Accordingly, they resumed their march in the direction in which they had been going when they found Ayrault, and were soon beside the Callisto. Cortlandt worked the combination lock of the lower entrance, through which they crawled. Going to the second story, they opened a large window and let down a ladder, on which the spirit ascended at their invitation.
Bearwarden and Ayrault immediately set about combining the chemicals that were to produce the force necessary to repel them from Saturn. Bubbles of hydrogen were given off from the lead and zinc plates, and the viscous primary batteries quickly had the wires passing through a vacuum at a white heat.
"I see you are nearly ready to start," said the spirit, "so I must say farewell."
"Will you not come with us?" asked Ayrault.
"No," replied the spirit. "I do not wish to be away as long as it will take you to reach the earth. The Callisto's atmosphere could not absorb my body, so that, should I leave you before your arrival, you would be burdened with a corpse. I may visit you in the spirit, though the desire and effort for c
ommunion with spirits, to be of most good, must needs come from the earth. Ere long, my intuition tells me, we shall meet again.
"The vision of your own grave," he continued, addressing Cortlandt, "may not come true for many years, but however long your lives may be, according to earthly reckoning, remember that when they are past they will seem to have been hardly more than a moment, for they are the personification of frailty and evanescence." He held up his hands and blessed them; and then repeating, "Farewell and a happy return!" descended as he had come up.
The air was filled with misty shadows, and the pulsating hearts, luminous brains, and centres of spiritual activity quivered with motion. They surrounded the incarnate spirit of the bishop and set up the soft, musical hum the travellers had heard so often since their arrival on Saturn.
"I now understand," thought Ayrault, "why the spirits I met kept repeating that I should be happy. They perceived I was to be translated, and though they doubtless knew what suffering it would cause, they also knew I should be awakened to a sense of great realities, of which I understood but little."
They drew up the ladder and turned on the current, and the Callisto slowly began to rise, while the three friends crowded the window.
"Good-bye!" called the spirit's pleasant voice, to which the men replied in chorus. The sun had set on the surface of the planet while they made their preparations; but as the Callisto rose higher, it seemed to rise again, making the sides of their car shine like silver, and, carefully closing the two open windows, they watched the fast-receding world, so many times larger and more magnificent than their own.
Mother Earth
"There is something sad," said Cortlandt, "about the end of everything, but I am more sorry to leave Saturn than I have ever been in taking leave of any other place." When beyond the limits of the atmosphere they applied the full current, and were soon once more cleaving the ether at cometary speed, their motion towards the sun being aided by that great body itself.
They quickly passed beyond the outer edge of the vast silvery rings, and then crossed one after another the orbits of the moons, from the last of which, Iapetus, they obtained their final course in the direction of the earth. They had an acute feeling of homesickness for the mysterious planet on which, while yet mortal, they had found paradise, and had communed with spirits as no modern men ever did.
Without deviating from their almost straight line, they passed within a million miles of Jupiter, which had gained in its smaller orbit on Saturn, and a few days later crossed the track of Mars.
As the earth had completed nearly half a revolution in its orbit since their departure, they here turned somewhat to the right by attracting the ruddy planet, in order to avoid passing too near the sun.
"On some future expedition," said Ayrault, "and when we have a supply of blue glasses, we can take a trip to Venus, if we can find a possible season in her year. Compared with this journey, it would be only like going round the block."
Two days later they had rounded the sun, and laid their course in pursuit of the earth. That the astronomers in the dark hemisphere were at their posts and saw them, was evident; for a brilliant beam of light again flashed forth, this time from a point a little south of the arctic circle, and after shining one minute, telegraphed this message:
"Rejoiced to see you again. Hope all are well."
Since they were not sufficiently near the moon's shadow, they directed their light-beam into their own, which trailed off on one side, and answered: "All well, thank you. Have wonderful things to relate."
The men at the telescopes then, as before, read the message, and telephoned the light this next question: "When are you coming down, that we may notify the newspapers?"
"We wish one more sight of the earth from this height, by daylight. We are now swinging to get between it and the sun."
"We have erected a monument in Van Cortlandt Park, and engraved upon it, 'At this place James Bearwarden, Henry Chelmsford Cortlandt, and Richard Rokeby Ayrault left earth, December 21, A. D. 2000, to visit Jupiter.'"
"Add to it, 'They returned on the 10th of the following June.'" Soon the Callisto came nearly between the earth and the sun, when the astronomers could see it only through darkened glasses, and it appeared almost as a crescent. The sight the travellers then beheld was superb. It was about 11 A. M. in London, and Europe was spread before them like a map. All its peninsulas and islands, enclosed blue seas, and bays came out in clear relief. Gradually Russia, Germany, France, the British Isles, and Spain moved towards the horizon, as in grand procession, and at the same time the Western hemisphere appeared. The hour of day at the longitude above which they hung was about the same as when they set out, but the sun shone far more directly upon the Northern hemisphere than then, and instead of bleak December, this was the leafy month of June.
They were loath to end the lovely scene, and would fain have remained where they were while the earth revolved again; but, remembering that their friends must by this time be waiting, they shut off the repulsion from the earth.
"We need not apply the apergy to the earth until quite near," said Ayrault, "since a great part of the top speed will be taken off by the resistance of the atmosphere, especially as we go in base first. We have only to keep a sufficiently strong repulsion on the dome to prevent our turning over, and to see that our speed is not great enough to heat the car." When about fifty miles from the surface they felt the expected check, and concluded they had reached the upper limits of the atmosphere. And this increased, notwithstanding the decrease in their speed, showing how quickly the air became dense.
When about a mile from the earth they had the Callisto well in hand, and allowed it to descend slowly. The ground was already black with people, who, having learned where the Callisto was to touch, had hastened to Van Cortlandt Park.
"I am overjoyed to see you," said Sylvia, when she and Ayrault met. "I had the most dreadful presentiment that something had gone wrong with you. One afternoon and evening I was so perplexed, and during the night had a series of nightmares that I shall never forget. I really believed you were near me, but your nature seemed to have changed, for, instead of its making me happy, I was frightfully distressed. The next day I was very ill, and unable to get up; but during the morning I fell asleep and had another dream, which was intensely realistic and made me believe--yes, convinced me--that you were well. After that dream I soon recovered; but oh, the anguish of the first!" Ayrault did not tell her then that he had been near her, and of his unspeakable suffering, of which hers had been but the echo.
Three weeks later a clergyman tied the knot that was to unite them forever. While Sylvia and Ayrault were standing up to receive the congratulations of their friends, Bearwarden, in shaking his hand, said:
"Remember, we have been to neither Uranus, nor Neptune, nor Cassandra, which may be as interesting as anything we have seen. Should you want to take another trip, count me as your humble servant." And Cortlandt, following behind him, said the same thing. Shortly after this, Sylvia went up-stairs to change her dress, and when she came down she and Ayrault set out on their journey together through life, amid a chorus of cheers and a shower of rice.
Cortlandt then returned to his department at Washington, and Bearwarden resumed his duties with the Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company, in the presidential chair.
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