"What"s that light out at sea--far out? It looks like the moon!"
"It is the sun," coolly replied his companion. They saw arise from the waters a majestic, glowing sphere of light, apparently the size of the sun. It flooded the country with its glare, and after sailing nearly in front of the house it shrank into a scarlet cross not larger than a man"s hand. Then in a shower of sparks it ceased, its absence making the blackness almost corporeal. Instinctively the hands of the two indulged in a long pressure, and Mila quickly adjusted the lamp. But Gerald still stood at the window a prey to astonishment, terror, stupefaction.
Karospina entered. His face was slightly flushed and in his eyes there burned the sombre fire of the fanatic. Triumphantly he regarded his young friend.
"That was only a little superfluous gas--nothing I cared to show you.
Read the newspapers to-morrow, and you will learn that a big meteor burst off the north coast the night before, and fell into the sea." Then he moved closer and whispered:--
"The time is at hand. Within three weeks--not later than the middle of October--I shall make my first public test. "Thus saith the Lord G.o.d to the mountains and to the hills, to the rivers and to the valleys: Behold, I, _even_ I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places.""
His voice rose in pa.s.sion, his face worked in anger, and he shook his clenched fists at an imaginary universe. So this man of peace was a destroyer, after all! Gerald aroused him. Again he asked pardon. Mila was nowhere to be seen, and with a sinking at the heart new to his buoyant temperament, Gerald bade the magician good night. It was arranged that he would leave the next day, for, like Milton, he was haunted by "the ghost of a linen decency." But that night he did not sleep, and no sound of music came to his ears from Mila"s chamber. Once he tried to open his window. It was nailed down.
A gray day greeted his tired eyes. In an hour he was bidding his friends good-by and thanking them for their hospitality. He had hoped that Mila would accompany him a few steps on his long journey, but she made no sign beyond a despairing look at her uncle, who was surly, as if he had felt the reaction from too prolonged a debauch of the spirit. Gerald lit his pipe, kissed the hand of Mila with emphasis, and parted from them.
He had not gone a hundred yards before he heard soft footsteps tracking him. He turned and was disappointed to see that it was only Karospina, who came up to him, breathing heavily, and in his catlike eyes the fixed expression of monomania. He stuttered, waving his arms aloft.
"The time is at hand and the end of all things shall be accomplished.
You shall return for the great night. You shall hear of it in the world.
Tell K. that I said _no!_ He must be with us at the transfiguration of all things, when mankind shall go up the spiral road of perfection."
Gerald Shannon fairly ran to escape knowing more about the universal panacea. And when he turned for the last time the sea and tower and man were blotted out by wavering mists of silver.
III
THE FIERY CHARIOT
The young man soon heard of Karospina"s project. A week before the event the newspapers began describing the experiments of the new Russian wonder-worker, but treated the matter with calm journalistic obliviousness to any but its most superficial aspects. A scientific pyrotechnist was a novelty, particularly as the experimentings were to be given with the aid of a newly discovered gas. Strange rumours of human levitations, of flying machines seen after dark at unearthly heights, were printed. This millionnaire, who had expended fortunes in trying to accomplish what Maxim and Langley had failed in achieving, was a good peg upon which to hang thrilling gossip. He promised to convince the doubting ones that at last man would come into the empire of the air, and by means of fireworks. In searching carefully all the published reports Gerald was relieved not to encounter the name of Mila.
That celebrated afternoon he found himself, after the distressingly crowded cars, in company with many thousands, all clamouring and jostling on the road to the tower. This time there were vehicles and horses, though not in any degree commensurate with the crowd; but the high tax imposed by the speculators gave him an opportunity of securing a seat with a few others in a carriage drawn by four horses. Gingerly they made their way down the narrow road--time was not gained, for the packed ma.s.s of humans refused to separate. Fuming at the delay, he was forced to console himself with smoking and listening to the stories told of Karospina and his miracles. They were exaggerated. Karospina here, Karospina there--the name of this modern magician was hummed everywhere in the brisk October air. A little man who occupied the seat with Shannon informed him that he knew some one who had worked for Karospina.
He declared that it was no uncommon sight for the conjurer--he was usually called by that name--to float like a furled flag over his house when the sun had set. Also he had been seen driving in the sky a span of three fiery horses in a fiery chariot across the waters of the bay, while sitting by his side was the star-crowned Woman of the Apocalypse clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet. Gerald held his counsel; but the grandeur of the spectacle he had witnessed still shook his soul--if he had not been the victim of a hallucination! The journey seemed endless.
At last the strand came into view with the squat tower, the rusting machinery, and the reservoir back of the house. There were, however, changes in the scene. Within a quarter of a mile of the beach tents were set and booths erected. Seemingly all the city had rushed to this place, and the plain, with its swampy surfaces, was dotted by ma.s.ses of noisy men and women. Gerald, finding that approach to the house was impossible from the land side, made a wide detour, and on reaching the sh.o.r.e he was gratified to find it empty. The local constabulary, powerless to fight off the mob near the house, had devoted their energies to clearing the s.p.a.ce about the gas retorts. After much bother, and only by telling his name, did he pa.s.s the police cordon. Once inside, he rushed to the back door and found, oh! great luck--Mila. Dressed in white, to his taste she was angelic. He had great difficulty in keeping his arms pinioned to his side; but his eyes shone with the truth beating at the bars of his bosom, and Mila knew it. He felt this and was light-headed in his happiness.
They greeted. Mila"s face wore a serious expression.
"I"m very glad you have come down. I think uncle will be glad also. I am _happy_ to see you again; I have missed you these past weeks. But my happiness is nothing just now, Gerald! [He started.] My uncle, you must speak with him. From brooding so much over the Holy Scriptures, and the natural excitement of his discoveries--they are so extraordinary, dear friend, that he means always to keep them to himself, for he rightly believes that the governments of the world would employ them for wicked purposes, war, the destruction of weaker nations--he has become overwrought. You may not know it, he has a very strong, sane head on his shoulders; but this scheme for lifting up the ma.s.ses, I suspect, may upset his own equilibrium. And his constant study of the Apocalypse and the Hebraic revelations--it has filled him with strange notions.
Understand me: a man who can swim in the air like a fish in the sea is apt to become unstrung. He has begun to identify himself with the prophets. He insists on showing biblical pictures,--worse still, appearing in them himself."
"How "appearing in them"?" asked Gerald, wonderingly.
"In actual person. I, too, have promised to go with him."
"In a transparency of fire, you mean? Isn"t it dangerous?" She hung her head.
"No, in mid air, in a fiery chariot," she murmured.
"The Woman of the Apocalypse!" he cried. "Oh! Princess Mila, dearest Mila Georgovics, promise me that you will not risk such a crazy experiment." Gerald pressed his fingers to his throbbing temples.
"It is no experiment at all," she said, in almost inaudible tones; _"last night we flew over the house."_ He stared at her, his hands trembling, and no longer able to play the incredulous.
"But, dear friend, I fear one other thing; the gas which uncle has discovered is so tenuous that it is a million times lighter than air; but it is ever at a terrible tension--I mean it is dangerous if not carefully treated. Last summer, one afternoon, a valve broke and a large quant.i.ty escaped from the reservoir, luckily on the ocean side. It caused a storm and water-spouts, and destroyed a few vessels. The coruscating gas creates a vacuum into which the air rushes with incredible velocity. So promise me that while we are flying you will stay with the police at the gas machines and keep off the crowd.
Promise!"
"But I shan"t permit you to go up with this renegade to the revolutionary cause--" he began impetuously. She put warning fingers to her lips. In the white flowing robes of an antique priest, Karospina came out to them and took Gerald by the hand. He was abstracted and haggard, and his eyes glared about him. He chanted in a monotone:--
"The time is at hand. Soon you will see the Angels of the Seals. I shall show the mult.i.tude Death on the Pale Horse and the vision of Ezekiel.
And you shall behold the star called Wormwood, the great star of the third angel, which shall fall like a burning lamp upon the waters and turn them bitter. And at the last you will see the chariot of Elijah caught up to heaven in a fiery whirlwind. In it will be seated the Princess Mila--we, the conquerors of the wicked world."
"Yes, but only as an image, an illusion," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the unhappy lover, "not in reality."
"As she is," imperiously answered Karospina, and seizing Mila by the arm, said, "Come!" She threw a kiss to Gerald and in her eyes were tears. He saw them and could have wept himself. He followed the sacrificial pair as far as the reservoir, muttering warnings in which were mixed the fates of Phaethon and Simon Magus--that heretic who mimicked the miracles of the apostles.
It was now dark; the order to extinguish all lights on the moor had been obeyed. Only a panting sound as if from a wilderness of frightened animals betrayed the presence of thousands. As long as the sun shone there had been a babel of sound; at the disappearance of our parent planet, a hushed awe had fallen with the night. Gone the rude joking and wrangling, the crying of children, and the shrill laughter of the women.
A bitter breeze swept across from the waters, and the stars were mere twinkling points.
Then from the vault of heaven darted a ribbon of emerald fire. It became a luminous spiral when it touched the sea of gla.s.s, which was like unto a floor of crystal. This was the sign of Karospina"s undertaking, his symbol of the road to moral perfection. Gerald recalled Whistler"s pyrotechnical extravaganzas. Following this came a pale moon which emerged from the north; a second, a third, a fourth, started up from the points of the compa.s.s, and after wabbling in the wind like gigantic balloons, merged overhead in an indescribable disk which a.s.sumed the features of Michael Angelo"s Moses. Here is a new technique, indeed, thought Gerald; yet he could not detect its moral values.
A golden landscape was projected on land and sea. A central aisle of waters, paved by the golden rays of a lyric sun high overhead, was embellished on either side by the marmoreal splendours of stately palaces. An ilex inclined its graceful head to its liquid image; men moved the blocks that made famous in the mouth of the world Queen Dido"s Carthage. Clouds of pearl-coloured smoke encircled the enchanting picture. And the galleys came and went in this symphonic, glittering spectacle.
"Turner would have died of envy," said Gerald aloud. There was a remarkable vibration of life, not as he had seen it in mechanical bioscopes, but the vivid life of earth and sunshine.
The scenes that succeeded were many: episodes from profane and sacred histories; simulacra of the great saints. A war between giants and pygmies was shown with all its accompanying horrors. The firmament dripped crimson. The four cryptic creatures of Ezekiel"s vision came out of the north, a great cloud of "infolding fire" and the colour was amber. A cyclopean and dazzling staircase thronged by moving angelic shapes, harping mute harps, stretched from sea to sky, melting into the milky way like the tail of a starry serpent. Followed the opening of the dread prophetic seals; but, after an angel had descended from heaven, his face as the sun and at his feet pillars of fire, the people, prostrate like stalks of corn beaten by a tempest, worshipped in fear.
These things were supernatural. The heavens were displaying the glory of G.o.d.
Not knowing whether the signs in the skies might be construed as blasphemous, and lost in fathomless admiration for the marvellous power of the wizard, Gerald sought to get closer to Karospina and Mila. But wedged in by uniformed men, and the darkness thick as an Egyptian plague, he despairingly awaited the apotheosis. His eyes were sated by the miracles of harmonies--noiseless harmonies. It _was_ a new art, and one for the peoples of the earth. Never had the hues of the universe been so a.s.sembled, grouped, and modulated. And the human eye, adapting itself to the new synthesis of arabesque and rhythm, evoked order and symbolism from these novel chords of colour. There were solemn mountains of opalescent fire which burst and faded into flaming colonnades, and in an enchanting turquoise effervescence became starry spears and scimiters and sparkling shields, and finally the whole ma.s.s would reunite and evaporate into brilliant violet auroras or seven-tailed, vermilion-coloured comets. There were gleaming rainbows of unknown tints--strange scales of chromatic pigments; "a fiery snow without wind;" and once a sun, twice the size of our own, fell into the ocean; and Gerald could have sworn that he felt a wave of heated air as if from a furnace; that he heard a seething sound, as if white-hot metal had come in contact with icy water. Consumed by anxiety for Mila"s safety, he wished that these soundless girandoles, this apocalypse of architectural fire and weaving flame, would end.
He had not long to wait. A shrewd hissing apprised him that something unusual was about to occur. Like the flight of a great rocket a black object quickly mounted to the zenith. It did not become visible for several seconds; Gerald"s nerves crisped with apprehension. The apparition was an incandescent chariot; in it sat Karospina, and beside him--oh! the agony of her lover--Mila Georgovics. As the fiery horses swooped down, he could see her face in a radiant nimbus of meteors, which encircled the equipage. Karospina proudly directed its course over the azure route, and once he pa.s.sed Gerald at a dangerously low curve earthward, shouting:--
"The Spiral! The Spiral!"
It was his last utterance; possibly through some flaw in the mechanism, the chariot zig-zagged and then drove straight upon the reservoir. To the reverberation of smashed steel and blinding fulguration the big sphere was split open and Mila with Karospina vanished in the nocturnal gulf.
Gerald, stunned by the catastrophe, threw himself down, expecting a mighty explosion; the ebon darkness was appalling after the scintillating rain of fire. But the liberated gas in the guise of an elongated cloud had rushed seaward, and there gathering density and strength, a.s.sumed the shape of a terrific funnel, an inky spiral, its gyrating sides streaked with intermittent flashes. Its volcanic roaring and rapid return to land was a signal for vain flight--the miserable lover knew it to be the flamboyant ether of the pyromaniac transformed into a trumpeting tornado. And he hoped that it would not spare him, as this phantasm twirled and ululated in the heavens, a grim portent of the iron wrath of the Almighty. In a twinkling it had pa.s.sed him, high in the dome of heaven, only to erase in a fabulous blast the moaning mult.i.tude. And p.r.o.ne upon the strand between the stormy waters and the field of muddy dead, Gerald Shannon prayed for a second cataclysm which might bring oblivion to him alone.
VI
A MOCK SUN
Where are the sins of yester-year?
I