by H. G. Wells
Produced by Chris Curnow, Lindy Walsh, Stephen Blundelland the Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net
Tales of Space and Time
Tales of Space and Time
_By_ H. G. WELLS, _Author of "When the Sleeper Wakes" "The War of the Worlds" etc._
[Device]
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS LONDON AND NEW YORK 1900
Copyright, 1899, by HARPER & BROTHERS
_All rights reserved_
Transcriber's Note:
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Dialect and variant spellings have been retained. The oe ligature is shown as {oe}, whilst the Greek letter _theta_ is represented by {th}.
Contents
PAGE THE CRYSTAL EGG 1
THE STAR 35
A STORY OF THE STONE AGE 59
A STORY OF THE DAYS TO COME 165
THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES 325
THE CRYSTAL EGG
There was, until a year ago, a little and very grimy-looking shop nearSeven Dials, over which, in weather-worn yellow lettering, the name of"C. Cave, Naturalist and Dealer in Antiquities," was inscribed. Thecontents of its window were curiously variegated. They comprised someelephant tusks and an imperfect set of chessmen, beads and weapons, abox of eyes, two skulls of tigers and one human, several moth-eatenstuffed monkeys (one holding a lamp), an old-fashioned cabinet, aflyblown ostrich egg or so, some fishing-tackle, and an extraordinarilydirty, empty glass fish-tank. There was also, at the moment the storybegins, a mass of crystal, worked into the shape of an egg andbrilliantly polished. And at that two people, who stood outside thewindow, were looking, one of them a tall, thin clergyman, the other ablack-bearded young man of dusky complexion and unobtrusive costume. Thedusky young man spoke with eager gesticulation, and seemed anxious forhis companion to purchase the article.
While they were there, Mr. Cave came into his shop, his beard stillwagging with the bread and butter of his tea. When he saw these men andthe object of their regard, his countenance fell. He glanced guiltilyover his shoulder, and softly shut the door. He was a little old man,with pale face and peculiar watery blue eyes; his hair was a dirty grey,and he wore a shabby blue frock coat, an ancient silk hat, and carpetslippers very much down at heel. He remained watching the two men asthey talked. The clergyman went deep into his trouser pocket, examined ahandful of money, and showed his teeth in an agreeable smile. Mr. Caveseemed still more depressed when they came into the shop.
The clergyman, without any ceremony, asked the price of the crystal egg.Mr. Cave glanced nervously towards the door leading into the parlour,and said five pounds. The clergyman protested that the price was high,to his companion as well as to Mr. Cave--it was, indeed, very much morethan Mr. Cave had intended to ask, when he had stocked the article--andan attempt at bargaining ensued. Mr. Cave stepped to the shop-door, andheld it open. "Five pounds is my price," he said, as though he wishedto save himself the trouble of unprofitable discussion. As he did so,the upper portion of a woman's face appeared above the blind in theglass upper panel of the door leading into the parlour, and staredcuriously at the two customers. "Five pounds is my price," said Mr.Cave, with a quiver in his voice.
The swarthy young man had so far remained a spectator, watching Cavekeenly. Now he spoke. "Give him five pounds," he said. The clergymanglanced at him to see if he were in earnest, and, when he looked at Mr.Cave again, he saw that the latter's face was white. "It's a lot ofmoney," said the clergyman, and, diving into his pocket, began countinghis resources. He had little more than thirty shillings, and he appealedto his companion, with whom he seemed to be on terms of considerableintimacy. This gave Mr. Cave an opportunity of collecting his thoughts,and he began to explain in an agitated manner that the crystal was not,as a matter of fact, entirely free for sale. His two customers werenaturally surprised at this, and inquired why he had not thought of thatbefore he began to bargain. Mr. Cave became confused, but he stuck tohis story, that the crystal was not in the market that afternoon, thata probable purchaser of it had already appeared. The two, treating thisas an attempt to raise the price still further, made as if they wouldleave the shop. But at this point the parlour door opened, and the ownerof the dark fringe and the little eyes appeared.
She was a coarse-featured, corpulent woman, younger and very much largerthan Mr. Cave; she walked heavily, and her face was flushed. "Thatcrystal _is_ for sale," she said. "And five pounds is a good enoughprice for it. I can't think what you're about, Cave, not to take thegentleman's offer!"
Mr. Cave, greatly perturbed by the irruption, looked angrily at her overthe rims of his spectacles, and, without excessive assurance, assertedhis right to manage his business in his own way. An altercation began.The two customers watched the scene with interest and some amusement,occasionally assisting Mrs. Cave with suggestions. Mr. Cave, harddriven, persisted in a confused and impossible story of an enquiry forthe crystal that morning, and his agitation became painful. But he stuckto his point with extraordinary persistence. It was the young Orientalwho ended this curious controversy. He proposed that they should callagain in the course of two days--so as to give the alleged enquirer afair chance. "And then we must insist," said the clergyman, "Fivepounds." Mrs. Cave took it on herself to apologise for her husband,explaining that he was sometimes "a little odd," and as the twocustomers left, the couple prepared for a free discussion of theincident in all its bearings.
Mrs. Cave talked to her husband with singular directness. The poorlittle man, quivering with emotion, muddled himself between his stories,maintaining on the one hand that he had another customer in view, and onthe other asserting that the crystal was honestly worth ten guineas."Why did you ask five pounds?" said his wife. "_Do_ let me manage mybusiness my own way!" said Mr. Cave.
Mr. Cave had living with him a step-daughter and a step-son, and atsupper that night the transaction was re-discussed. None of them had ahigh opinion of Mr. Cave's business methods, and this action seemed aculminating folly.
"It's my opinion he's refused that crystal before," said the step-son, aloose-limbed lout of eighteen.
"But _Five Pounds_!" said the step-daughter, an argumentative youngwoman of six-and-twenty.
Mr. Cave's answers were wretched; he could only mumble weak assertionsthat he knew his own business best. They drove him from his half-eatensupper into the shop, to close it for the night, his ears aflame andtears of vexation behind his spectacles. "Why had he left the crystal inthe window so long? The folly of it!" That was the trouble closest inhis mind. For a time he could see no way of evading sale.
After supper his step-daughter and step-son smartened themselves up andwent out and his wife retired upstairs to reflect upon the businessaspects of the crystal, over a little sugar and lemon and so forth inhot water. Mr. Cave went into the shop, and stayed there until late,ostensibly to make ornamental rockeries for goldfish cases but reallyfor a private purpose that will be better explained later. The next dayMrs. Cave found that the crystal had been removed from the window, andwas lying behind some second-hand books on angling. She replaced it in aconspicuous position. But she did not argue further about it, as anervous headache disinclined her from debate. Mr. Cave was alwaysdisinclined. The day passed disagreeably. Mr. Cave was, if anything,more absent-minded than usual, and uncommonly irritable withal. In theafternoon, when his wife was taking her customary sleep, he removed thecrystal from the window again.
The next day Mr. Cave had to deliver a consignment of dog-fish at one ofthe hospital schools, where they were needed for d
issection. In hisabsence Mrs. Cave's mind reverted to the topic of the crystal, and themethods of expenditure suitable to a windfall of five pounds. She hadalready devised some very agreeable expedients, among others a dress ofgreen silk for herself and a trip to Richmond, when a jangling of thefront door bell summoned her into the shop. The customer was anexamination coach who came to complain of the non-delivery of certainfrogs asked for the previous day. Mrs. Cave did not approve of thisparticular branch of Mr. Cave's business, and the gentleman, who hadcalled in a somewhat aggressive mood, retired after a brief exchange ofwords--entirely civil so far as he was concerned. Mrs. Cave's eye thennaturally turned to the window; for the sight of the crystal was anassurance of the five pounds and of her dreams. What was her surprise tofind it gone!
She went to the place behind the locker on the counter, where she haddiscovered it the day before. It was not there; and she immediatelybegan an eager search about the shop.
When Mr. Cave returned from his business with the dog-fish, about aquarter to two in the afternoon, he found the shop in some confusion,and his wife, extremely exasperated and on her knees behind the counter,routing among his taxidermic material. Her face came up hot and angryover the counter, as the jangling bell announced his return, and sheforthwith accused him of "hiding it."
"Hid _what_?" asked Mr. Cave.
"The crystal!"
At that Mr. Cave, apparently much surprised, rushed to the window."Isn't it here?" he said. "Great Heavens! what has become of it?"
Just then, Mr. Cave's step-son re-entered the shop from the innerroom--he had come home a minute or so before Mr. Cave--and he wasblaspheming freely. He was apprenticed to a second-hand furniture dealerdown the road, but he had his meals at home, and he was naturallyannoyed to find no dinner ready.
But, when he heard of the loss of the crystal, he forgot his meal, andhis anger was diverted from his mother to his step-father. Their firstidea, of course, was that he had hidden it. But Mr. Cave stoutly deniedall knowledge of its fate--freely offering his bedabbled affidavit inthe matter--and at last was worked up to the point of accusing, first,his wife and then his step-son of having taken it with a view to aprivate sale. So began an exceedingly acrimonious and emotionaldiscussion, which ended for Mrs. Cave in a peculiar nervous conditionmidway between hysterics and amuck, and caused the step-son to behalf-an-hour late at the furniture establishment in the afternoon. Mr.Cave took refuge from his wife's emotions in the shop.
In the evening the matter was resumed, with less passion and in ajudicial spirit, under the presidency of the step-daughter. The supperpassed unhappily and culminated in a painful scene. Mr. Cave gave way atlast to extreme exasperation, and went out banging the front doorviolently. The rest of the family, having discussed him with the freedomhis absence warranted, hunted the house from garret to cellar, hoping tolight upon the crystal.
The next day the two customers called again. They were received by Mrs.Cave almost in tears. It transpired that no one _could_ imagine allthat she had stood from Cave at various times in her marriedpilgrimage.... She also gave a garbled account of the disappearance. Theclergyman and the Oriental laughed silently at one another, and said itwas very extraordinary. As Mrs. Cave seemed disposed to give them thecomplete history of her life they made to leave the shop. Thereupon Mrs.Cave, still clinging to hope, asked for the clergyman's address, sothat, if she could get anything out of Cave, she might communicate it.The address was duly given, but apparently was afterwards mislaid. Mrs.Cave can remember nothing about it.
In the evening of that day, the Caves seem to have exhausted theiremotions, and Mr. Cave, who had been out in the afternoon, supped in agloomy isolation that contrasted pleasantly with the impassionedcontroversy of the previous days. For some time matters were very badlystrained in the Cave household, but neither crystal nor customerreappeared.
Now, without mincing the matter, we must admit that Mr. Cave was a liar.He knew perfectly well where the crystal was. It was in the rooms of Mr.Jacoby Wace, Assistant Demonstrator at St. Catherine's Hospital,Westbourne Street. It stood on the sideboard partially covered by ablack velvet cloth, and beside a decanter of American whisky. It is fromMr. Wace, indeed, that the particulars upon which this narrative isbased were derived. Cave had taken off the thing to the hospital hiddenin the dog-fish sack, and there had pressed the young investigator tokeep it for him. Mr. Wace was a little dubious at first. Hisrelationship to Cave was peculiar. He had a taste for singularcharacters, and he had more than once invited the old man to smoke anddrink in his rooms, and to unfold his rather amusing views of life ingeneral and of his wife in particular. Mr. Wace had encountered Mrs.Cave, too, on occasions when Mr. Cave was not at home to attend to him.He knew the constant interference to which Cave was subjected, andhaving weighed the story judicially, he decided to give the crystal arefuge. Mr. Cave promised to explain the reasons for his remarkableaffection for the crystal more fully on a later occasion, but he spokedistinctly of seeing visions therein. He called on Mr. Wace the sameevening.
He told a complicated story. The crystal he said had come into hispossession with other oddments at the forced sale of another curiositydealer's effects, and not knowing what its value might be, he hadticketed it at ten shillings. It had hung upon his hands at that pricefor some months, and he was thinking of "reducing the figure," when hemade a singular discovery.
At that time his health was very bad--and it must be borne in mind that,throughout all this experience, his physical condition was one ofebb--and he was in considerable distress by reason of the negligence,the positive ill-treatment even, he received from his wife andstep-children. His wife was vain, extravagant, unfeeling, and had agrowing taste for private drinking; his step-daughter was mean andover-reaching; and his step-son had conceived a violent dislike for him,and lost no chance of showing it. The requirements of his businesspressed heavily upon him, and Mr. Wace does not think that he wasaltogether free from occasional intemperance. He had begun life in acomfortable position, he was a man of fair education, and he suffered,for weeks at a stretch, from melancholia and insomnia. Afraid to disturbhis family, he would slip quietly from his wife's side, when histhoughts became intolerable, and wander about the house. And aboutthree o'clock one morning, late in August, chance directed him into theshop.
The dirty little place was impenetrably black except in one spot, wherehe perceived an unusual glow of light. Approaching this, he discoveredit to be the crystal egg, which was standing on the corner of thecounter towards the window. A thin ray smote through a crack in theshutters, impinged upon the object, and seemed as it were to fill itsentire interior.
It occurred to Mr. Cave that this was not in accordance with the laws ofoptics as he had known them in his younger days. He could understand therays being refracted by the crystal and coming to a focus in itsinterior, but this diffusion jarred with his physical conceptions. Heapproached the crystal nearly, peering into it and round it, with atransient revival of the scientific curiosity that in his youth haddetermined his choice of a calling. He was surprised to find the lightnot steady, but writhing within the substance of the egg, as though thatobject was a hollow sphere of some luminous vapour. In moving about toget different points of view, he suddenly found that he had come betweenit and the ray, and that the crystal none the less remained luminous.Greatly astonished, he lifted it out of the light ray and carried it tothe darkest part of the shop. It remained bright for some four or fiveminutes, when it slowly faded and went out. He placed it in the thinstreak of daylight, and its luminousness was almost immediatelyrestored.
So far, at least, Mr. Wace was able to verify the remarkable story ofMr. Cave. He has himself repeatedly held this crystal in a ray of light(which had to be of a less diameter than one millimetre). And in aperfect darkness, such as could be produced by velvet wrapping, thecrystal did undoubtedly appear very faintly phosphorescent. It wouldseem, however, that the luminousness was of some exceptional sort, andnot equally visible to all eyes; for Mr. Harbi
nger--whose name will befamiliar to the scientific reader in connection with the PasteurInstitute--was quite unable to see any light whatever. And Mr. Wace'sown capacity for its appreciation was out of comparison inferior to thatof Mr. Cave's. Even with Mr. Cave the power varied very considerably:his vision was most vivid during states of extreme weakness and fatigue.
Now, from the outset this light in the crystal exercised a curiousfascination upon Mr. Cave. And it says more for his loneliness of soulthan a volume of pathetic writing could do, that he told no human beingof his curious observations. He seems to have been living in such anatmosphere of petty spite that to admit the existence of a pleasurewould have been to risk the loss of it. He found that as the dawnadvanced, and the amount of diffused light increased, the crystal becameto all appearance non-luminous. And for some time he was unable to seeanything in it, except at night-time, in dark corners of the shop.
But the use of an old velvet cloth, which he used as a background for acollection of minerals, occurred to him, and by doubling this, andputting it over his head and hands, he was able to get a sight of theluminous movement within the crystal even in the daytime. He was verycautious lest he should be thus discovered by his wife, and he practisedthis occupation only in the afternoons, while she was asleep upstairs,and then circumspectly in a hollow under the counter. And one day,turning the crystal about in his hands, he saw something. It came andwent like a flash, but it gave him the impression that the object hadfor a moment opened to him the view of a wide and spacious and strangecountry; and, turning it about, he did, just as the light faded, seethe same vision again.
Now, it would be tedious and unnecessary to state all the phases of Mr.Cave's discovery from this point. Suffice that the effect was this: thecrystal, being peered into at an angle of about 137 degrees from thedirection of the illuminating ray, gave a clear and consistent pictureof a wide and peculiar countryside. It was not dream-like at all: itproduced a definite impression of reality, and the better the light themore real and solid it seemed. It was a moving picture: that is to say,certain objects moved in it, but slowly in an orderly manner like realthings, and, according as the direction of the lighting and visionchanged, the picture changed also. It must, indeed, have been likelooking through an oval glass at a view, and turning the glass about toget at different aspects.
Mr. Cave's statements, Mr. Wace assures me, were extremelycircumstantial, and entirely free from any of that emotional qualitythat taints hallucinatory impressions. But it must be remembered thatall the efforts of Mr. Wace to see any similar clarity in the faintopalescence of the crystal were wholly unsuccessful, try as he would.The difference in intensity of the impressions received by the two menwas very great, and it is quite conceivable that what was a view to Mr.Cave was a mere blurred nebulosity to Mr. Wace.
The view, as Mr. Cave described it, was invariably of an extensiveplain, and he seemed always to be looking at it from a considerableheight, as if from a tower or a mast. To the east and to the west theplain was bounded at a remote distance by vast reddish cliffs, whichreminded him of those he had seen in some picture; but what the picturewas Mr. Wace was unable to ascertain. These cliffs passed north andsouth--he could tell the points of the compass by the stars that werevisible of a night--receding in an almost illimitable perspective andfading into the mists of the distance before they met. He was nearer theeastern set of cliffs, on the occasion of his first vision the sun wasrising over them, and black against the sunlight and pale against theirshadow appeared a multitude of soaring forms that Mr. Cave regarded asbirds. A vast range of buildings spread below him; he seemed to belooking down upon them; and, as they approached the blurred andrefracted edge of the picture, they became indistinct. There were alsotrees curious in shape, and in colouring, a deep mossy green and anexquisite grey, beside a wide and shining canal. And something great andbrilliantly coloured flew across the picture. But the first time Mr.Cave saw these pictures he saw only in flashes, his hands shook, hishead moved, the vision came and went, and grew foggy and indistinct. Andat first he had the greatest difficulty in finding the picture againonce the direction of it was lost.
His next clear vision, which came about a week after the first, theinterval having yielded nothing but tantalising glimpses and some usefulexperience, showed him the view down the length of the valley. The viewwas different, but he had a curious persuasion, which his subsequentobservations abundantly confirmed, that he was regarding this strangeworld from exactly the same spot, although he was looking in a differentdirection. The long facade of the great building, whose roof he hadlooked down upon before, was now receding in perspective. He recognisedthe roof. In the front of the facade was a terrace of massiveproportions and extraordinary length, and down the middle of theterrace, at certain intervals, stood huge but very graceful masts,bearing small shiny objects which reflected the setting sun. The importof these small objects did not occur to Mr. Cave until some time after,as he was describing the scene to Mr. Wace. The terrace overhung athicket of the most luxuriant and graceful vegetation, and beyond thiswas a wide grassy lawn on which certain broad creatures, in form likebeetles but enormously larger, reposed. Beyond this again was a richlydecorated causeway of pinkish stone; and beyond that, and lined withdense _red_ weeds, and passing up the valley exactly parallel with thedistant cliffs, was a broad and mirror-like expanse of water. The airseemed full of squadrons of great birds, man{oe}uvring in statelycurves; and across the river was a multitude of splendid buildings,richly coloured and glittering with metallic tracery and facets, among aforest of moss-like and lichenous trees. And suddenly something flappedrepeatedly across the vision, like the fluttering of a jewelled fan orthe beating of a wing, and a face, or rather the upper part of a facewith very large eyes, came as it were close to his own and as if on theother side of the crystal. Mr. Cave was so startled and so impressed bythe absolute reality of these eyes, that he drew his head back from thecrystal to look behind it. He had become so absorbed in watching that hewas quite surprised to find himself in the cool darkness of his littleshop, with its familiar odour of methyl, mustiness, and decay. And, ashe blinked about him, the glowing crystal faded, and went out.
Such were the first general impressions of Mr. Cave. The story iscuriously direct and circumstantial. From the outset, when the valleyfirst flashed momentarily on his senses, his imagination was strangelyaffected, and, as he began to appreciate the details of the scene hesaw, his wonder rose to the point of a passion. He went about hisbusiness listless and distraught, thinking only of the time when heshould be able to return to his watching. And then a few weeks after hisfirst sight of the valley came the two customers, the stress andexcitement of their offer, and the narrow escape of the crystal fromsale, as I have already told.
Now, while the thing was Mr. Cave's secret, it remained a mere wonder, athing to creep to covertly and peep at, as a child might peep upon aforbidden garden. But Mr. Wace has, for a young scientific investigator,a particularly lucid and consecutive habit of mind. Directly the crystaland its story came to him, and he had satisfied himself, by seeing thephosphorescence with his own eyes, that there really was a certainevidence for Mr. Cave's statements, he proceeded to develop the mattersystematically. Mr. Cave was only too eager to come and feast his eyeson this wonderland he saw, and he came every night from half-past eightuntil half-past ten, and sometimes, in Mr. Wace's absence, during theday. On Sunday afternoons, also, he came. From the outset Mr. Wace madecopious notes, and it was due to his scientific method that the relationbetween the direction from which the initiating ray entered the crystaland the orientation of the picture were proved. And, by covering thecrystal in a box perforated only with a small aperture to admit theexciting ray, and by substituting black holland for his buff blinds, hegreatly improved the conditions of the observations; so that in a littlewhile they were able to survey the valley in any direction they desired.
So having cleared the way, we may give a brief account of this visionaryworld within the crystal
. The things were in all cases seen by Mr. Cave,and the method of working was invariably for him to watch the crystaland report what he saw, while Mr. Wace (who as a science student hadlearnt the trick of writing in the dark) wrote a brief note of hisreport. When the crystal faded, it was put into its box in the properposition and the electric light turned on. Mr. Wace asked questions, andsuggested observations to clear up difficult points. Nothing, indeed,could have been less visionary and more matter-of-fact.
The attention of Mr. Cave had been speedily directed to the bird-likecreatures he had seen so abundantly present in each of his earliervisions. His first impression was soon corrected, and he considered fora time that they might represent a diurnal species of bat. Then hethought, grotesquely enough, that they might be cherubs. Their headswere round, and curiously human, and it was the eyes of one of them thathad so startled him on his second observation. They had broad, silverywings, not feathered, but glistening almost as brilliantly as new-killedfish and with the same subtle play of colour, and these wings were notbuilt on the plan of bird-wing or bat, Mr. Wace learned, but supportedby curved ribs radiating from the body. (A sort of butterfly wing withcurved ribs seems best to express their appearance.) The body was small,but fitted with two bunches of prehensile organs, like long tentacles,immediately under the mouth. Incredible as it appeared to Mr. Wace, thepersuasion at last became irresistible, that it was these creatureswhich owned the great quasi-human buildings and the magnificent gardenthat made the broad valley so splendid. And Mr. Cave perceived that thebuildings, with other peculiarities, had no doors, but that the greatcircular windows, which opened freely, gave the creatures egress andentrance. They would alight upon their tentacles, fold their wings to asmallness almost rod-like, and hop into the interior. But among them wasa multitude of smaller-winged creatures, like great dragon-flies andmoths and flying beetles, and across the greensward brilliantly-colouredgigantic ground-beetles crawled lazily to and fro. Moreover, on thecauseways and terraces, large-headed creatures similar to the greaterwinged flies, but wingless, were visible, hopping busily upon theirhand-like tangle of tentacles.
Allusion has already been made to the glittering objects upon masts thatstood upon the terrace of the nearer building. It dawned upon Mr. Cave,after regarding one of these masts very fixedly on one particularlyvivid day, that the glittering object there was a crystal exactly likethat into which he peered. And a still more careful scrutiny convincedhim that each one in a vista of nearly twenty carried a similar object.
Occasionally one of the large flying creatures would flutter up to one,and, folding its wings and coiling a number of its tentacles about themast, would regard the crystal fixedly for a space,--sometimes for aslong as fifteen minutes. And a series of observations, made at thesuggestion of Mr. Wace, convinced both watchers that, so far as thisvisionary world was concerned, the crystal into which they peeredactually stood at the summit of the endmost mast on the terrace, andthat on one occasion at least one of these inhabitants of this otherworld had looked into Mr. Cave's face while he was making theseobservations.
So much for the essential facts of this very singular story. Unless wedismiss it all as the ingenious fabrication of Mr. Wace, we have tobelieve one of two things: either that Mr. Cave's crystal was in twoworlds at once, and that, while it was carried about in one, it remainedstationary in the other, which seems altogether absurd; or else that ithad some peculiar relation of sympathy with another and exactly similarcrystal in this other world, so that what was seen in the interior ofthe one in this world was, under suitable conditions, visible to anobserver in the corresponding crystal in the other world; and _viceversa_. At present, indeed, we do not know of any way in which twocrystals could so come _en rapport_, but nowadays we know enough tounderstand that the thing is not altogether impossible. This view of thecrystals as _en rapport_ was the supposition that occurred to Mr. Wace,and to me at least it seems extremely plausible....
And where was this other world? On this, also, the alert intelligence ofMr. Wace speedily threw light. After sunset, the sky darkenedrapidly--there was a very brief twilight interval indeed--and the starsshone out. They were recognisably the same as those we see, arranged inthe same constellations. Mr. Cave recognised the Bear, the Pleiades,Aldebaran, and Sirius: so that the other world must be somewhere in thesolar system, and, at the utmost, only a few hundreds of millions ofmiles from our own. Following up this clue, Mr. Wace learned that themidnight sky was a darker blue even than our midwinter sky, and that thesun seemed a little smaller. _And there were two small moons!_ "like ourmoon but smaller, and quite differently marked" one of which moved sorapidly that its motion was clearly visible as one regarded it. Thesemoons were never high in the sky, but vanished as they rose: that is,every time they revolved they were eclipsed because they were so neartheir primary planet. And all this answers quite completely, althoughMr. Cave did not know it, to what must be the condition of things onMars.
Indeed, it seems an exceedingly plausible conclusion that peering intothis crystal Mr. Cave did actually see the planet Mars and itsinhabitants. And, if that be the case, then the evening star that shoneso brilliantly in the sky of that distant vision, was neither more norless than our own familiar earth.
For a time the Martians--if they were Martians--do not seem to haveknown of Mr. Cave's inspection. Once or twice one would come to peer,and go away very shortly to some other mast, as though the vision wasunsatisfactory. During this time Mr. Cave was able to watch theproceedings of these winged people without being disturbed by theirattentions, and, although his report is necessarily vague andfragmentary, it is nevertheless very suggestive. Imagine the impressionof humanity a Martian observer would get who, after a difficult processof preparation and with considerable fatigue to the eyes, was able topeer at London from the steeple of St. Martin's Church for stretches, atlongest, of four minutes at a time. Mr. Cave was unable to ascertain ifthe winged Martians were the same as the Martians who hopped about thecauseways and terraces, and if the latter could put on wings at will. Heseveral times saw certain clumsy bipeds, dimly suggestive of apes, whiteand partially translucent, feeding among certain of the lichenous trees,and once some of these fled before one of the hopping, round-headedMartians. The latter caught one in its tentacles, and then the picturefaded suddenly and left Mr. Cave most tantalisingly in the dark. Onanother occasion a vast thing, that Mr. Cave thought at first was somegigantic insect, appeared advancing along the causeway beside the canalwith extraordinary rapidity. As this drew nearer Mr. Cave perceived thatit was a mechanism of shining metals and of extraordinary complexity.And then, when he looked again, it had passed out of sight.
After a time Mr. Wace aspired to attract the attention of the Martians,and the next time that the strange eyes of one of them appeared close tothe crystal Mr. Cave cried out and sprang away, and they immediatelyturned on the light and began to gesticulate in a manner suggestive ofsignalling. But when at last Mr. Cave examined the crystal again theMartian had departed.
Thus far these observations had progressed in early November, and thenMr. Cave, feeling that the suspicions of his family about the crystalwere allayed, began to take it to and fro with him in order that, asoccasion arose in the daytime or night, he might comfort himself withwhat was fast becoming the most real thing in his existence.
In December Mr. Wace's work in connection with a forthcoming examinationbecame heavy, the sittings were reluctantly suspended for a week, andfor ten or eleven days--he is not quite sure which--he saw nothing ofCave. He then grew anxious to resume these investigations, and, thestress of his seasonal labours being abated, he went down to SevenDials. At the corner he noticed a shutter before a bird fancier'swindow, and then another at a cobbler's. Mr. Cave's shop was closed.
He rapped and the door was opened by the step-son in black. He at oncecalled Mrs. Cave, who was, Mr. Wace could not but observe, in cheap butample widow's weeds of the most imposing pattern. Without any verygreat surprise Mr. Wace learnt that Cave was d
ead and already buried.She was in tears, and her voice was a little thick. She had justreturned from Highgate. Her mind seemed occupied with her own prospectsand the honourable details of the obsequies, but Mr. Wace was at lastable to learn the particulars of Cave's death. He had been found dead inhis shop in the early morning, the day after his last visit to Mr. Wace,and the crystal had been clasped in his stone-cold hands. His face wassmiling, said Mrs. Cave, and the velvet cloth from the minerals lay onthe floor at his feet. He must have been dead five or six hours when hewas found.
This came as a great shock to Wace, and he began to reproach himselfbitterly for having neglected the plain symptoms of the old man'sill-health. But his chief thought was of the crystal. He approached thattopic in a gingerly manner, because he knew Mrs. Cave's peculiarities.He was dumbfoundered to learn that it was sold.
Mrs. Cave's first impulse, directly Cave's body had been taken upstairs,had been to write to the mad clergyman who had offered five pounds forthe crystal, informing him of its recovery; but after a violent hunt inwhich her daughter joined her, they were convinced of the loss of hisaddress. As they were without the means required to mourn and bury Cavein the elaborate style the dignity of an old Seven Dials inhabitantdemands, they had appealed to a friendly fellow-tradesman in GreatPortland Street. He had very kindly taken over a portion of the stock ata valuation. The valuation was his own and the crystal egg was includedin one of the lots. Mr. Wace, after a few suitable consolatoryobservations, a little off-handedly proffered perhaps, hurried at onceto Great Portland Street. But there he learned that the crystal egg hadalready been sold to a tall, dark man in grey. And there the materialfacts in this curious, and to me at least very suggestive, story comeabruptly to an end. The Great Portland Street dealer did not know whothe tall dark man in grey was, nor had he observed him with sufficientattention to describe him minutely. He did not even know which way thisperson had gone after leaving the shop. For a time Mr. Wace remained inthe shop, trying the dealer's patience with hopeless questions, ventinghis own exasperation. And at last, realising abruptly that the wholething had passed out of his hands, had vanished like a vision of thenight, he returned to his own rooms, a little astonished to find thenotes he had made still tangible and visible upon his untidy table.
His annoyance and disappointment were naturally very great. He made asecond call (equally ineffectual) upon the Great Portland Street dealer,and he resorted to advertisements in such periodicals as were likely tocome into the hands of a _bric-a-brac_ collector. He also wrote lettersto _The Daily Chronicle_ and _Nature_, but both those periodicals,suspecting a hoax, asked him to reconsider his action before theyprinted, and he was advised that such a strange story, unfortunately sobare of supporting evidence, might imperil his reputation as aninvestigator. Moreover, the calls of his proper work were urgent. Sothat after a month or so, save for an occasional reminder to certaindealers, he had reluctantly to abandon the quest for the crystal egg,and from that day to this it remains undiscovered. Occasionally,however, he tells me, and I can quite believe him, he has bursts ofzeal, in which he abandons his more urgent occupation and resumes thesearch.
Whether or not it will remain lost for ever, with the material andorigin of it, are things equally speculative at the present time. Ifthe present purchaser is a collector, one would have expected theenquiries of Mr. Wace to have reached him through the dealers. He hasbeen able to discover Mr. Cave's clergyman and "Oriental"--no other thanthe Rev. James Parker and the young Prince of Bosso-Kuni in Java. I amobliged to them for certain particulars. The object of the Prince wassimply curiosity--and extravagance. He was so eager to buy, because Cavewas so oddly reluctant to sell. It is just as possible that the buyer inthe second instance was simply a casual purchaser and not a collector atall, and the crystal egg, for all I know, may at the present moment bewithin a mile of me, decorating a drawing-room or serving as apaper-weight--its remarkable functions all unknown. Indeed, it is partlywith the idea of such a possibility that I have thrown this narrativeinto a form that will give it a chance of being read by the ordinaryconsumer of fiction.
My own ideas in the matter are practically identical with those of Mr.Wace. I believe the crystal on the mast in Mars and the crystal egg ofMr. Cave's to be in some physical, but at present quite inexplicable,way _en rapport_, and we both believe further that the terrestrialcrystal must have been--possibly at some remote date--sent hither fromthat planet, in order to give the Martians a near view of our affairs.Possibly the fellows to the crystals in the other masts are also on ourglobe. No theory of hallucination suffices for the facts.