Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “As commander of this expedition,” she said, somewhat out of breath, “I desire to be the first living creature who has ever set foot behind the Graham Glacier. Kindly step aside, young sir!”

  “Madam,” said I, rigid with disappointment, “my guide, William Spike, entered that unknown land a year ago.”

  “He says he did,” sneered Professor Smawl.

  “As you like,” I replied; “but it is scarcely generous to forestall the person whose stupidity gave you the clew to this unexplored region.”

  “You mean yourself?” she asked, with a stony stare.

  “I do,” said I, firmly.

  Her little, hard eyes grew harder, and she clutched her umbrella until the steel ribs crackled.

  “Young man,” she said, insolently; “if I could have gotten rid of you I should have done so the day I was appointed president. But Professor Farrago refused to resign unless your position was assured, subject, of course, to your good behavior. Frankly, I don’t like you, and I consider your views on science ridiculous, and if an opportunity presents itself I will be most happy to request your resignation. Kindly collect your mules and follow me.”

  Mortified beyond measure, I collected my mules and followed my president into the strange country behind the Hudson Mountains — I who had aspired to lead, compelled to follow in the rear, driving mules.

  The journey was monotonous at first, but we shortly ascended a ridge from which we could see, stretching out below us, the wilderness where, save the feet of William Spike, no human feet had passed.

  As for me, tingling with enthusiasm, I forgot my chagrin, I forgot the gross injustice, I forgot my mules. “Excelsior!” I cried, running up and down the ridge in uncontrollable excitement at the sublime spectacle of forest, mountain, and valley all set with little lakes.

  “Excelsior!” repeated an excited voice at my side, and Professor Van Twiller sprang to the ridge beside me, her eyes bright as stars.

  Exalted, inspired by the mysterious beauty of the view, we clasped hands and ran up and down the grassy ridge.

  “That will do,” said Professor Smawl, coldly, as we raced about like a pair of distracted kittens. The chilling voice broke the spell; I dropped Professor Van Twiller’s hand and sat down on a bowlder, aching with wrath.

  Late that afternoon we halted beside a tiny lake, deep in the unknown wilderness, where purple and scarlet bergamot choked the shores and the spruce-partridge strutted fearlessly under our very feet. Here we pitched our two tents. The afternoon sun slanted through the pines; the lake glittered; acres of golden brake perfumed the forest silence, broken only at rare intervals by the distant thunder of a partridge drumming.

  Professor Smawl ate heavily and retired to her tent to lie torpid until evening. William drove the unloaded mules into an intervale full of sun-cured, fragrant grasses; I sat down beside Professor Van Twiller.

  The wilderness is electric. Once within the influence of its currents, human beings become positively or negatively charged, violently attracting or repelling each other.

  “There is something the matter with this air,” said Professor Van Twiller. “It makes me feel as though I were desperately enamoured of the entire human race.”

  She leaned back against a pine, smiling vaguely, and crossing one knee over the other.

  Now I am not bold by temperament, and, normally, I fear ladies. Therefore it surprised me to hear myself begin a frivolous causerie, replying to her pretty epigrams with epigrams of my own, advancing to the borderland of badinage, fearlessly conducting her and myself over that delicate frontier to meet upon the terrain of undisguised flirtation.

  It was clear that she was out for a holiday. The seriousness and restraints of twenty-two years she had left behind her in the civilized world, and now, with a shrug of her young shoulders, she unloosened her burden of reticence, dignity, and responsibility and let the whole load fall with a discreet thud.

  “Even hares go mad in March,” she said, seriously. “I know you intend to flirt with me — and I don’t care. Anyway, there’s nothing else to do, is there?”

  “Suppose,” said I, solemnly, “I should take you behind that big tree and attempt to kiss you!”

  The prospect did not appear to appall her, so I looked around with that sneaking yet conciliatory caution peculiar to young men who are novices in the art. Before I had satisfied myself that neither William nor the mules were observing us, Professor Van Twiller rose to her feet and took a short step backward.

  “Let’s set traps for a dingue,” she said, “will you?”

  I looked at the big tree, undecided. “Come on,” she said; “I’ll show you how.” And away we went into the woods, she leading, her kilts flashing through the golden half-light.

  Now I had not the faintest notion how to trap the dingue, but Professor Van Twiller asserted that it formerly fed on the tender tips of the spruce, quoting Darwin as her authority.

  So we gathered a bushel of spruce-tips, piled them on the bank of a little stream, then built a miniature stockade around the bait, a foot high. I roofed this with hemlock, then laboriously whittled out and adjusted a swinging shutter for the entrance, setting it on springy twigs.

  “The dingue, you know, was supposed to live in the water,” she said, kneeling beside me over our trap.

  I took her little hand and thanked her for the information.

  “Doubtless,” she said, enthusiastically, “a dingue will come out of the lake to-night to feed on our spruce-tips. Then,” she added, “we’ve got him.”

  “True!” I said, earnestly, and pressed her fingers very gently.

  Her face was turned a little away; I don’t remember what she said; I don’t remember that she said anything. A faint rose-tint stole over her cheek. A few moments later she said: “You must not do that again.”

  It was quite late when we strolled back to camp. Long before we came in sight of the twin tents we heard a deep voice bawling our names. It was Professor Smawl, and she pounced upon Dorothy and drove her ignominiously into the tent.

  “As for you,” she said, in hollow tones, “you may explain your conduct at once, or place your resignation at my disposal.”

  But somehow or other I appeared to be temporarily lost to shame, and I only smiled at my infuriated president, and entered my own tent with a step that was distinctly frolicsome.

  “Billy,” said I to William Spike, who regarded me morosely from the depths of the tent, “I’m going out to bag a mammoth to-morrow, so kindly clean my elephant-gun and bring an axe to chop out the tusks.”

  That night Professor Smawl complained bitterly of the cooking, but as neither Dorothy nor I knew how to improve it, she revenged herself on us by eating everything on the table and retiring to bed, taking Dorothy with her.

  I could not sleep very well; the mosquitoes were intrusive, and Professor Smawl dreamed she was a pack of wolves and yelped in her sleep.

  “Bird, ain’t she?” said William, roused from slumber by her weird noises.

  Dorothy, much frightened, crawled out of her tent, where her blanket-mate still dreamed dyspeptically, and William and I made her comfortable by the camp-fire.

  It takes a pretty girl to look pretty half asleep in a blanket.

  “Are you sure you are quite well?” I asked her.

  To make sure, I tested her pulse. For an hour it varied more or less, but without alarming either of us. Then she went back to bed and I sat alone by the camp-fire.

  Towards midnight I suddenly began to feel that strange, distant vibration that I had once before felt. As before, the vibration grew on the still air, increasing in volume until it became a sound, then died out into silence.

  I rose and stole into my tent.

  William, white as death, lay in his corner, weeping in his sleep.

  I roused him remorselessly, and he sat up scowling, but refused to tell me what he had been dreaming.

  “Was it about that third thing you saw—” I began. But he snarled up
at me like a startled animal, and I was obliged to go to bed and toss about and speculate.

  The next morning it rained. Dorothy and I visited our dingue-trap but found nothing in it. We were inclined, however, to stay out in the rain behind a big tree, but Professor Smawl vetoed that proposition and sent me off to supply the larder with fresh meat.

  I returned, mad and wet, with a dozen partridges and a white hare — brown at that season — and William cooked them vilely.

  “I can taste the feathers!” said Professor Smawl, indignantly.

  “There is no accounting for taste,” I said, with a polite gesture of deprecation; “personally, I find feathers unpalatable.”

  “You may hand in your resignation this evening!” cried Professor Smawl, in hollow tones of passion.

  I passed her the pancakes with a cheerful smile, and flippantly pressed the hand next me. Unexpectedly it proved to be William’s sticky fist, and Dorothy and I laughed until her tears ran into Professor Smawl’s coffee-cup — an accident which kindled her wrath to red heat, and she requested my resignation five times during the evening.

  The next day it rained again, more or less. Professor Smawl complained of the cooking, demanded my resignation, and finally marched out to explore, lugging the reluctant William with her. Dorothy and I sat down behind the largest tree we could find.

  I don’t remember what we were saying when a peculiar sound interrupted us, and we listened earnestly.

  It was like a bell in the woods, ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! — a low, mellow, golden harmony, coming nearer, then stopping.

  I clasped Dorothy in my arms in my excitement.

  “It is the note of the dingue!” I whispered, “and that explains its name, handed down from remote ages along with the names of the behemoth and the coney. It was because of its bell-like cry that it was named! Darling!” I cried, forgetting our short acquaintance, “we have made a discovery that the whole world will ring with!”

  Hand in hand we tiptoed through the forest to our trap. There was something in it that took fright at our approach and rushed panic-stricken round and round the interior of the trap, uttering its alarm-note, which sounded like the jangling of a whole string of bells.

  I seized the strangely beautiful creature; it neither attempted to bite nor scratch, but crouched in my arms, trembling and eying me.

  Delighted with the lovely, tame animal, we bore it tenderly back to the camp and placed it on my blanket. Hand in hand we stood before it, awed by the sight of this beast, so long believed to be extinct.

  “It is too good to be true,” sighed Dorothy, clasping her white hands under her chin and gazing at the dingue in rapture.

  “Yes,” said I, solemnly, “you and I, my child, are face to face with the fabled dingue — Dingus solitarius! Let us continue to gaze at it, reverently, prayerfully, humbly—”

  Dorothy yawned — probably with excitement.

  We were still mutely adoring the dingue when Professor Smawl burst into the tent at a hand-gallop, bawling hoarsely for her kodak and note-book.

  Dorothy seized her triumphantly by the arm and pointed at the dingue, which appeared to be frightened to death.

  “What!” cried Professor Smawl, scornfully; “that a dingue? Rubbish!”

  “Madam,” I said, firmly, “it is a dingue! It’s a monodactyl! See! It has but a single toe!”

  “Bosh!” she retorted; “it’s got four!”

  “Four!” I repeated, blankly.

  “Yes; one on each foot!”

  “Of course,” I said; “you didn’t suppose a monodactyl meant a beast with one leg and one toe!”

  But she laughed hatefully and declared it was a woodchuck.

  We squabbled for a while until I saw the significance of her attitude. The unfortunate woman wished to find a dingue first and be accredited with the discovery.

  I lifted the dingue in both hands and shook the creature gently, until the chiming ding-dong of its protestations filled our ears like sweet bells jangled out of tune.

  Pale with rage at this final proof of the dingue’s identity, she seized her camera and note-book.

  “I haven’t any time to waste over that musical woodchuck!” she shouted, and bounced out of the tent.

  “What have you discovered, dear?” cried Dorothy, running after her.

  “A mammoth!” bawled Professor Smawl, triumphantly; “and I’m going to photograph him!”

  Neither Dorothy nor I believed her. We watched the flight of the infatuated woman in silence.

  And now, at last, the tragic shadow falls over my paper as I write. I was never passionately attached to Professor Smawl, yet I would gladly refrain from chronicling the episode that must follow if, as I have hitherto attempted, I succeed in sticking to the unornamented truth.

  I have said that neither Dorothy nor I believed her. I don’t know why, unless it was that we had not yet made up our minds to believe that the mammoth still existed on earth. So, when Professor Smawl disappeared in the forest, scuttling through the underbrush like a demoralized hen, we viewed her flight with unconcern. There was a large tree in the neighborhood — a pleasant shelter in case of rain. So we sat down behind it, although the sun was shining fiercely.

  It was one of those peaceful afternoons in the wilderness when the whole forest dreams, and the shadows are asleep and every little leaflet takes a nap. Under the still tree-tops the dappled sunlight, motionless, soaked the sod; the forest-flies no longer whirled in circles, but sat sunning their wings on slender twig-tips.

  The heat was sweet and spicy; the sun drew out the delicate essence of gum and sap, warming volatile juices until they exhaled through the aromatic bark.

  The sun went down into the wilderness; the forest stirred in its sleep; a fish splashed in the lake. The spell was broken. Presently the wind began to rise somewhere far away in the unknown land. I heard it coming, nearer, nearer — a brisk wind that grew heavier and blew harder as it neared us — a gale that swept distant branches — a furious gale that set limbs clashing and cracking, nearer and nearer. Crack! and the gale grew to a hurricane, trampling trees like dead twigs! Crack! Crackle! Crash! Crash!

  Was it the wind?

  With the roaring in my ears I sprang up, staring into the forest vista, and at the same instant, out of the crashing forest, sped Professor Smawl, skirts tucked up, thin legs flying like bicycle-spokes. I shouted, but the crashing drowned my voice. Then all at once the solid earth began to shake, and with the rush and roar of a tornado a gigantic living thing burst out of the forest before our eyes — a vast shadowy bulk that rocked and rolled along, mowing down trees in its course.

  Two great crescents of ivory curved from its head; its back swept through the tossing tree-tops. Once it bellowed like a gun fired from a high bastion.

  The apparition passed with the noise of thunder rolling on towards the ends of the earth. Crack! crash! went the trees, the tempest swept away in a rolling volley of reports, distant, more distant, until, long after the tumult had deadened, then ceased, the stunned forest echoed with the fall of mangled branches slowly dropping.

  That evening an agitated young couple sat close together in the deserted camp, calling timidly at intervals for Professor Smawl and William Spike. I say timidly, because it is correct; we did not care to have a mammoth respond to our calls. The lurking echoes across the lake answered our cries; the full moon came up over the forest to look at us. We were not much to look at. Dorothy was moistening my shoulder with unfeigned tears, and I, afraid to light the fire, sat hunched up under the common blanket, wildly examining the darkness around us.

  Chilled to the spinal marrow, I watched the gray lights whiten in the east. A single bird awoke in the wilderness. I saw the nearer trees looming in the mist, and the silver fog rolling on the lake.

  All night long the darkness had vibrated with the strange monotone which I had heard the first night, camping at the gate of the unknown land. My brain seemed to echo that subtle harmony which ri
ngs in the auricular labyrinth after sound has ceased.

  There are ghosts of sound which return to haunt long after sound is dead. It was these voiceless spectres of a voice long dead that stirred the transparent silence, intoning toneless tones.

  I think I make myself clear.

  It was an uncanny night; morning whitened the east; gray daylight stole into the woods, blotting the shadows to paler tints. It was nearly mid-day before the sun became visible through the fine-spun web of mist — a pale spot of gilt in the zenith.

  By this pallid light I labored to strike the two empty tents, gather up our equipments and pack them on our five mules. Dorothy aided me bravely, whimpering when I spoke of Professor Smawl and William Spike, but abating nothing of her industry until we had the mules loaded and I was ready to drive them, Heaven knows whither.

  “Where shall we go?” quavered Dorothy, sitting on a log with the dingue in her lap.

  One thing was certain; this mammoth-ridden land was no place for women, and I told her so.

  We placed the dingue in a basket and tied it around the leading mule’s neck. Immediately the dingue, alarmed, began dingling like a cow-bell. It acted like a charm on the other mules, and they gravely filed off after their leader, following the bell. Dorothy and I, hand in hand, brought up the rear.

  I shall never forget that scene in the forest — the gray arch of the heavens swimming in mist through which the sun peered shiftily, the tall pines wavering through the fog, the preoccupied mules marching single file, the foggy bell-note of the gentle dingue in its swinging basket, and Dorothy, limp kilts dripping with dew, plodding through the white dusk.

  We followed the terrible tornado-path which the mammoth had left in its wake, but there were no traces of its human victims — neither one jot of Professor Smawl nor one solitary tittle of William Spike.

  And now I would be glad to end this chapter if I could; I would gladly leave myself as I was, there in the misty forest, with an arm encircling the slender body of my little companion, and the mules moving in a monotonous line, and the dingue discreetly jingling — but again that menacing shadow falls across my page, and truth bids me tell all, and I, the slave of accuracy, must remember my vows as the dauntless disciple of truth.