Travel and Adventures
OF
LITTLE BARON TRUMP
AND
His amazing dog Bulger

Short account of one of the little Baron’s most celebrated ancestors, called “The Armless Knight.” His wonderful strength and bravery. How he followed Cœur de Lion to the Orient. His brilliant exploits on the battle-field, under the walls of Joppa. His marriage in the presence of Saladin and Cœur de Lion.

I come from one of the most ancient and honorable families of North Germany—famous for its valor and love of adventure.

One of my ancestors, when just entering the twenties heard at his father’s table one morning, that England’s great King Cœur de Lion was about to lead an army against the infidels.

“Gracious parent,” cried the young man starting up from his seat, his eyes on fire, his cheeks ablaze, “May I join the Crusaders and aid in the destruction of the enemies of our holy religion?” “Alas, poor boy!” replied his father, casting a pitying glance at the youth, who, through some strange freak of nature had been born armless, “thou wert not intended for terrible conflicts such as await our cousin Cœur de Lion. Thou 8lackest every means of wielding the battle sword, of couching the lance. ’Twould be murder to set thy defenceless body before the uplifted cimeter of the merciless Moslem! My dear son, banish such thoughts from thy mind and turn thee to poesy and philosophy, thou shalt add new lustre to our family name by thy learning.” “Nay gracious parent, hear me!” urged the youth with eloquent eye: “true, nature has denied me arms, but she has not been so cruel as might be supposed for, as compensation, she has given a giant’s strength to my lower limbs. Dost not remember how last month, I slew a wild boar with one blow from the heel of my hunting-boot?” “I do,” answered the grim old Baron with a smile, “but—” “Pardon my interruption noble father” came from the young man, “I shall go into battle doubly armed, for to each stirrup shall I affix a sword and woe betide the Mussulman who dares meet me on the battle-field.”

“Go then my son!” cried the old Baron as the tears trickled down his battle-scarred cheeks, “go, join our royal cousin Cœur de Lion and if thou, armless, canst withstand the fury of the infidel, another glory will be added to the name of Trump, and in this ancestral hall shall hang a portrait of the ‘Armless Knight,’ upon which for all time the lovers of valiant deeds shall rest their wondering eyes.”

The joy of my young ancestor knew no bounds.

Scarcely staying to make needful preparations for his journey, with a handful of trusty retainers, he rode from the castle yard amid the plaudits of thousands of fair women who had gathered from the neighboring city to wish God speed to the “Armless Knight.”

’Twas not until the famous battle under the walls of Joppa that my ancestor had an opportunity to give an exhibition of his bravery, his extraordinary strength, and the resistless fury of his onslaughts.

Not one, not five, not ten common soldiers dared face the “Armless Knight.”

Whole squadrons recoiled in terror before this mysterious avenger of the wrongs of Christendom, who, without hands, 9struck down the Moslem warriors, as the grain falls before the blast.

Again and again, Saladin sent the flower of his men against the “Armless Knight,” whose strength and valor had already made his name a terror to the superstitious soldiery. Little realizing the terrible fate awaiting him, the Moslem warrior would rush upon my ancestor with uplifted cimeter, when with one blow of his sword-armed stirrup the “Armless Knight” would cleave the breast of his foeman’s horse, and then trample the infidel to death as he rolled upon the ground.

It was now high noon.

Upon an eminence, Saladin, watching the tide of battle, saw with anxious eye the appalling slaughter of the very flower of his army.

Already the name, rank, and nationality of my young ancestor had been made known to the Moslem leader.

“La, il la! Mahomed ul Becullah!” he cried, stroking his beard. “Blessed is the man who can call that Christian warrior his son! How many of the Prophet’s children has he slain this day?”

“Six hundred and fifty-nine!” was the answer given.

“Six hundred and fifty-nine,” echoed Saladin, “and it is but noonday!” When nightfall came the number had been increased to one thousand and seven.

Upon hearing of the terrible day’s work of the “Armless Knight,” Saladin’s great heart bled, and yet he could not withhold his admiration for such wondrous skill and bravery.

“Go!” cried the magnanimous infidel Chieftain, “go, take from my household that beauteous slave Kohilât, her with orbs of lustrous black, the very blossom of grace and flower of queenly beauty. Lead her to the “Armless Knight,” with royal greeting from Saladin; his valor makes him my brother, Giaour though he be! Away!”

When the beautiful Kohilât was led into the presence of my young ancestor, and the announcement made to him that Saladin had sent her as a present to him, the “Armless Knight,” with royal greeting as a token of his respect for one so young, and yet so valiant, the first thought of the Christian youth was to wave her indignantly from his presence.

10At that moment, however, Kohilât raised her large and lustrous eyes, and fixed them full upon the young man’s face.

It was more than human heart could stand.

Motioning her retinue to leave his tent, he advanced to her side, with respectful mien, and said:

“Kohilât, a strange fate has sent thee to me. The messenger of the great Saladin imparts to me knowledge of thy goodness, thy amiability, and thy gifted mind, which holds within its store most delightful imagery and useful knowledge as well. He informs me that thou standest in the direct line of descent from that famed princess of your land, Scheherezada, who for a thousand and one nights held the thoughts of the Sultan of the Indies so enthralled by the play of her brilliant fancy, as to turn him aside from his terrible project of vengeance. Dost think, Kohilât, that thou canst forget thy false god and love only the true one?”

“Ay, my lord,” murmured the gentle Kohilât, “if such be my lord’s pleasure.”

A smile spread over the handsome face of my young ancestor. He would fain have met with more resistance in converting the fair infidel to the true faith, but though he searched that beautiful face long and closely for any sign of subtility, yet saw he none.

“’Tis well, Kohilât,” he continued, “and now answer me, and speak from thy heart. Art thou willing to become my wife, according to the rites of the Christian church and the laws of my native land?”

Again the beautiful Kohilât replied:

“Ay, my lord; if such be thy pleasure.”

The following day a truce was proclaimed, and in the presence of the two great leaders of the opposing armies, Cœur de Lion and Saladin, both surrounded by the most glorious retinue, my young ancestor and the princess Kohilât were joined together as man and wife by the royal confessor, the “Armless Knight” towering above the surrounding multitude in his glittering coat of mail like a column of burnished silver. When he advanced to meet his dark-eyed bride, with the marriage ring 11held between his lips, a mighty shout went up from both armies.

Saladin stroked his beard. Cœur de Lion made the sign of the cross. In a short half hour the leaders had returned to their camps, and war had resumed its awful work of destruction.

To this union of my renowned ancestor, the “Armless Knight,” with the Moslem maid, I attribute my possession of an almost Oriental exuberance of fancy.

The elder Baron uncertain as to the exact locality of my birth. Reasons why will be given later. My parents traveling in Africa at this time. The elder Baron’s remarkable ascent of the Mountains of the Moon. Miraculous escape from the impenetrable fog. How accomplished. In the land of the Melodious Sneezers. All that happened there. How the King of the Melodious Sneezers conducted my parents in great honor to his palace, and how they were treated by him.

While it lies within my power to gratify the curiosity of my readers as to what part of the world it was in which I first saw darkness—for I was born in the night—yet, as to the nature of the immediate spot on which I was born, unfortunately I am able to do more than repeat my father’s words when questioned as to this point.

“My son, if I were on my death-bed I could only say that thou wert either born in the centre in a great lake, on an island, upon a peninsula or on the top of a very high mountain, as I have often explained to thee.”

Let it suffice, then, gentle reader, for the present, for me to inform you that at the time of my birth, my parents were traveling in Africa; that my father had just successfully accomplished one of the most wonderful feats in mountain climbing, namely, the ascent of the loftiest peak of the Mountains of the Moon; that his guides had abandoned him upon his reaching a particularly dangerous spot in the ascent; but that he had pushed forward without them, and reached the summit after several days of terrible privation, suffering both hunger 13and thirst,—it being a peculiarity of the atmosphere after passing a certain height that the muscles of the face and throat became paralyzed and the unfortunate traveler either perishes from hunger or thirst while in the very presence of delicious fruit and cool, limpid water.

Upon rejoining my mother, who had accompanied him as far up the mountain side as the best-trained and most surefooted mules could find a foot-hold, they proceeded to make their way, as they supposed, to the valley from which they had first set out.

An impenetrable fog now shut them in and they soon found themselves hopelessly and helplessly wandering about.

On the morning of the third day the fog had even increased in thickness, closing around them like a pall, almost shutting out the light of day.

While groping about my father had come into contact with the two beasts of burden which had served him in the easier parts of the ascent. They were quietly and unconcernedly browsing upon the sweet and tender shrubs which grew on the mountain side.

Suddenly an idea came to my father. It was born of that desperation which makes a man think long and hard before lying down to die.

It was thus he reasoned: If these animals are permitted to eat their fill whenever their appetites demand, they will be quite willing to stay where they are, especially when they find themselves surrounded by such excellent pastures, and, in addition thereto, quite relieved from all toil. Let them, however, feel the pangs of hunger, or better yet, starvation’s tooth at their vitals and their thoughts will at once revert to their homes, their masters, their feeding-troughs and they will lose no time in setting out for the village where they belong. With the energy of despair, my father hurriedly bound a piece of canvass over their mouths so that they could neither graze nor drink and awaited the results of his experiment, with bated breath, for the tears and groans of my poor mother, whose strength was fast ebbing away, smote him to the very soul.

14After a few hours the animals rose to their feet and became very restive, and in another hour their hunger had so increased that they were making frantic efforts to feed, as my father could easily tell from the jerking of the line which he had been careful to attach to their headstalls.

After the fourth hour there was a long silence, during which the animals seemed to be deliberating as to what course they should pursue.

The fifth hour came.

My mother had sunk to rest, weak and weary, in my father’s arms. Suddenly there was a tightening of the guiding lines. Gently my father aroused his sleeping mate, whispering a few words of comfort.

Again the lines tightened.

My parents were now on their feet, peering into the depths of the impenetrable fog which shrouded them about and made them even invisible to each other.

Hist! the animals move again! with a sudden impulse, as if their minds had at last solved the problem which had been bewildering them for several hours, the beasts, with violent snortings turned from the spot, pushing through the shrubbery and causing my parents to face quite about.

Evidently there was a complete accord between the conclusions reached by their intelligence or instinct, for not once did they pull apart or come to a halt, except when restrained by my father. And thus my dear parents were saved! All that day and part of the next did they pursue their dreary way. The fog at last lifted, and it was at once apparent to my father that, although the animals were guiding them towards human habitations, yet it was not the land he had quitted upon starting out upon the journey to the mountain peak. The path now became so plainly visible that my father removed the improvised muzzles from the two animals and allowed them to satisfy their hunger, which they proceeded to do with the keenest relish. So worn out was my mother that she sank helpless to the ground. Refreshing her with a draught of spring-water and the juice of some wild grapes, my father 15hastily prepared a bed of soft foliage, upon which they were both glad to throw themselves after their long and weary tramp.

They had soon fallen into a deep and most delightful sleep. How long they lay on their leafy bed, wrapt in their refreshing slumber, they knew not.

It certainly was for many a long hour; for when they awoke, hunger was gnawing at their stomachs. Fain would they have at once proceeded to gather fruit, had not their ears been suddenly saluted with most extraordinary noises. They rubbed their eyes and looked about and at each other, deeming themselves the sport of some merry jack-a-dreamer.

But, no; they were wide awake and in full possession of their senses. Again the strange sounds are heard and this time they are nearer and clearer.

There is a rise and a fall, a swelling out and then a dying away.

The sounds are jerky and snappy like and there is a singular music in them.

Nearer and still nearer they come. Louder and still louder they grow. “Wild beasts?” whispered my mother half inquiringly.

“Nay!” falls from my father’s lips. “Not unless human beings may be so wild as to merit the name of beasts.”

“Hark again!” murmured my mother.

There was no mistaking the sounds any longer, for, like a chorus of many voices, shrill and piping, deep and grumbling, soft and musical, harsh and guttural, yet all in a sort of rude and wild harmony, mingling in one mighty strain, now low and scarcely audible and now breaking out with a fierce and seemingly threatening vigor, the singers, chanters, howlers or what they might be, rushed into the valley below us in a wild and yet half regulated disorder.

They were human beings in savage garb, with painted faces and clubs swung lightly across their shoulders. Whether pausing or advancing they still kept up their wild and mysterious chant, choppy, jerky and snappy for all the world like a thousand people who had just drawn plentifully from a thousand snuff boxes.

16“Save me, husband!” cried my mother with pallid face. “We shall be put to some awful torture by these wild children of the forest.” A smile so gentle, and yet so calm, that it could not fail to be reassuring spread over my father’s features.

“Never fear!” said he, “I know them, I’ve been seeking them! What has been denied many a traveler stronger and bolder than I, has been accorded to a member of the Trump family in the most miraculous manner. When we return to Europe every Monarch, every learned society, will hasten to bind a medal on my breast, for, dear wife, your husband is the first white man to enter the land of the—”

“The—?” echoed my mother leaning forward and grasping her husband’s arm.

“Melodious Sneezers!”

“Melodious Sneezers?” repeated my mother with wide-opened eye, and amusement seated in every feature.

“Melo—”

But she could get no further. To my father’s infinite amusement, she fell a-sneezing most violently. In such rapid succession did the sneezes flow that it sounded exactly like a diminutive engine under full headway.

At last the fit seemed to have passed. “Melo—” but in vain; she could not reach the second syllable.

And now, in his turn, my father started off, slow at first but going faster and faster.

Strange to say their sneezing soon began to catch the ways of the country and blended thoroughly, keeping time in spite of their efforts to check it.

“Know then, dear wife,” cried my father pantingly when his fit was over, “that those strange people stretched on the greensward below are the “Melodious Sneezers;” that they are not only perfectly harmless, but gentle, kind and peaceable to an astonishing degree. Fear them not! Their clubs are only for game.” “But why—?” asked my mother warily lest another fit should take her.

“I understand thee,” was the reply. “Listen. Know, that in this valley and in the greater ones below, the air is always 17filled with myriads upon myriads of insects of infinitesimal size; only the strongest microscope can give proof to your sight of their actual existence. For countless generations, these peaceable barbarians here have been subjected to the tickling sensations which you and I have—”

Again my poor parent fell a-sneezing in regular and musical cadences, up and down, deep and shrill, now fast and faster, now slow and slower until silence reigned again.

“Just experienced,” resumed my father, “until it has rendered the effort of sneezing quite as easy as breathing, and taking advantage of results which they soon discerned could not be avoided, these children of nature were not slow to lay aside their usual speech and literally talk by sneezes!”

“With them, a sneeze is capable of so many intonations, so many inflections, that they find no difficulty in expressing all the necessary feelings and sensations,—at least necessary for them in their simple lives, as you shall see later on.”

Fain would my poor mother here express her passing wonder but she dare not open her mouth. “Come, dearest mate,” cried my father gayly. “Courage! Let us descend into this beautiful valley, for as yet we are only standing upon the borders of the “Land of the Melodious Sneezers” called in their soft and musical tongue Lâ-aah-chew-lâ.”

The pronunciation of this word again threw my poor parents into a perfect whirlwind of sneezes; but nothing daunted, they advanced to meet the natives, who at first sight fell prostrate on their faces and for several moments kept up a low plaintive hum of sneezes, with their noses thrust into the grass.

By degrees however, my father succeeding in convincing them that he was quite as peaceably inclined as they were.

Whereupon the Melodious Sneezers performed a most singular and withal pleasing dance of joy, their feet keeping perfect time with their chorus of sneezing.

As my father afterwards learned, the dance was to express their intense gratitude to the “white spirits” for not having eaten them alive.

The march homeward was now entered upon, my father 18walking hand in hand with the King Chew-chew-lô, and my mother escorted by a score or more of his wives, the favorite of the royal house being named Chew-lâ-â-â-â-â and each successive one according as she occupied a less lofty place in the King’s affections having a shorter name until at last Chew-lâ signified little better than a mere serving maid.

My father found that the villages of the Melodious Sneezers, on account of the frequency and the violence of inundations from the network of rivers which completely shut in their land, consisted of houses or habitations built in the trees or upon lofty piles.

He and my mother were lodged in one of the most commodious of the royal dwellings and so many slaves and attendants were assigned to care for their wants that there was little or no room to move about.

To their great sorrow, my father proceeded to dismiss several hundred in order that he might get close enough to my mother to converse without holloaing and then sent word to King Chew-chew-lô that both he and my mother would need at least a week of perfect rest and quiet to regain their health and strength after their terrible sufferings on the slopes of the Mountains of the Moon.

My birth. The elder Baron reads my horoscope. Birth of Bulger. The elder Baron puts on mud-shoes and goes out for a walk. What he discovers. My wonderful precocity. My love for Bulger. My terrible fall into the lake of mud. How the Melodious Sneezers in their mud-shoes attempted to rescue me. Their failure. Bulger comes to their assistance. How I was dug out and restored to my mother. Remarkable effect of the warm mud on my head and brain. The Melodious Sneezers are afraid of me. My fondness for arithmetic and languages. Our farewell to the Melodious Sneezers, and return home. How I discharged my tutors, and how the elder Baron forced them to pay for the instruction I had given them.

At this point my hand trembles and the ink flows unsteadily from my pen.

I am about to record certain events which, I feel assured the reader will agree with me in considering to be the most interesting of my strange and varied life. Possibly I should say interesting to me; for, gentle reader, one of these “certain events” above referred to is a no less important occurrence than my birth into this grand and beautiful world—a world which has proven to be full of wonderful things and of more wonderful beings, as you shall see as I go on with my story.

I was born in midsummer. It was the night season.

Ten thousand stars twinkled over the cradle of that wretched, little, helpless, lump of clay; but brighter than all, like a crimson torch flaming in the skies, Sirius, the dog star, shone down upon me!

20My father looked up at the heavens and smiling, murmured: “Little stranger, thou shalt ever be a lover of dogs. Thy smile shall be joy to them, thy words music and in some four-footed beast of their race shalt thou find thy best, thy faithfulest, thy truest friend.”

As if to set the very stamp of truth upon my father’s words at that very instant a cry of a mother dog was heard in an adjoining room and one of the Royal household Chew-lâ-â came running into my presence with a basket of tiny puppies. My father laughingly seized the wicker cradle of this newly arrived family and holding it up to me, cried out:

“Choose, little baron, choose thee a friend and companion.” I put out my tiny baby hand and it rested upon one with a particularly large head. “Ha! ha!” laughed my father, “thou hast well chosen, little baron, for him thou hast chosen hath so much brain that his head doth fairly bulge with it.”

And when my infant tongue came to wrestle with that word, it was twisted into “Bulger.” And thus it was that Bulger and I started out on life’s journey at almost the same moment! Upon the following day my father made discovery that the waters had begun to recede in the night, and as he looked down from our lofty dwelling, he saw that it now stood apparently in the centre of quite an extensive island. After breakfast, in accordance with the custom of the country, my father put on a pair of King Chew-chew-lô’s wooden shoes which were worn by all of the Melodious Sneezers when attempting to move about on the surface of the soft mud occasioned by the inundation.

These wooden shoes are extremely light although quite as long and as broad as snow shoes. The soles being polished, the wearer is enabled to glide over the mud which, from the nature of the soil is very oily, with the same rapidity as a runner upon snow shoes.

After an excursion of several hours up hill and down dale my father returned with this piece of strange intelligence, namely, that their habitation had undoubtedly, prior to the falling of the waters been situated in a lake; but that by degrees, as 21the waters had receded, an island had been formed, which somewhat later had been transformed into a peninsula, which in its turn by a still further sinking of the waters, had been changed into the crown of a mountain with gently sloping sides so that, as he reported to my mother, to his dying day it would be impossible for him to say whether his son had been born in a lake, on an island, upon a peninsula or on a mountain top, a fact which pained him extremely, for, like all the members of his family, he took the greatest pride in recording important events with scrupulous exactitude, even to the smallest detail.

Unlike most babes, who seem content to pass the first half year or so of their lives eating, sleeping and crying, I from the very outset displayed a most astonishing precocity.

When only a few weeks old, although I could not talk, yet I had learned to whistle for Bulger, whose development in mind and body seemed to keep even pace with mine and who passed most of his time looking up into my childish face with an expression which meant only too plainly:

“Oh, I shall be so glad when that little tongue is unloosed so that you may call me Bulger and bid me do your will.”

Nor had he long to wait.

The one thing, which, at this early period of my life gave me most joy, was the sunlight.

Within doors, I was fretful, peevish, irritable, but once out in the open air, my whole nature changed. I drank in the soft, balmy atmosphere with a vigor and a satisfaction that delighted my father. My face brightened, my eyes traveled from valley to hill, from mountain-top to sky.

Into such an ecstacy of pleasure did this sight of the great world throw me, that my mother became anxious lest it presaged some great evil that was to happen unto me.

But the stately Baron only smiled. “Fear nothing, wife, it only means that within that little head dwells a most wonderfully active mind for a child of its months.”

Whenever Bulger heard his little master crying out in joyful tones at sight of the beautiful world, he was sure to be 22seized with a fit of violent barking, during which he sprang around about me with the wildest and most extravagant manifestations of sympathy.

Without a doubt, there was a wonderful bond of affection between us.

To my mother’s-I had almost said horror, I, one day while she was walking with me in her arms, upon the broad veranda, which encircled Chewchewlô’s palaces, attempted to throw myself from her arms, crying out in German: Los! Los! (Let me go! Let me go!) I was but two months old and the loud and vigorous tone in which I pronounced this first word which I had spoken in my mother’s tongue fairly startled her.

I had, up to that time, apparently been more interested in the soft and musical language of my royal nurse, Chewlâ, in which I could make myself understood very easily. About this time an accident happened to me which, although it did not bring about, it greatly hastened the release from parently restraint, so ardently desired, both by Bulger and by me, for from my very entrance into this world something told me that I should be a famous child, not a mere, precocious youth who is made use of by his parents at social gatherings to bore people already in poor spirits, by mounting upon chair or table and declaiming verses, parrotlike, with half a dozen woodeny, jerky gestures; but a genuine hero, a real traveler, not afraid to brave a tempest, face a wild beast or bully a barbarous people into doing as he wanted them to do.

It was my mother’s custom in the cool of the day to sit with me on the broad veranda while she darned my father’s stockings; for, although of gentle birth, she had been so accustomed when a girl to exercise German thrift in all things that now, even though she had become the wife of a real baron, she could not forego the pleasure of doing things in those good old ways.

And thus she saved my father many a pfennig which the good man bestowed upon the worthy poor and went down to the grave loaded with their blessings.

At such a time it was that a sudden fit of sneezing seized my mother and to her unspeakable horror she let me slip from her 23arms. Down, down I fell, striking in the soft mud and disappearing from sight.

The poor woman dropped to the floor like lead.

The stately baron rose to his feet and the color fled from his manly cheek.

But Chew-chew-lô, who fortunately was paying a visit to my father, only smiled.

“Unfeeling barbarian!” roared the great baron, “hast no respect for a father’s tears, a mother’s anguish? Out upon thee! Would to heaven I had never entered thy domain!” Chew-chew-lô spake not a word. Turning with imperious mien and right royal manner towards a crowd of retainers, he waved his hand.

Quicker than thought the band of Melodious Sneezers sprang to their wooden shoes.

Away, away, they darted like black bats on the wing.

The baron saw that in his terrible grief he had let his better judgment slip away, and with pallid face and bended head stood supporting the fainting form of his wife.

He felt, he knew, that his presence among the Melodious Sneezers at this moment would only disconcert them, impede their progress, and possibly so confuse them that all their efforts might be in vain. They, from their childhood, were so accustomed to wear those huge wooden shoes, to move about on the surface of this treacherous mud, that if it were possible for human hands to restore his son to his arms, theirs would do it.

And so he spoke a few words of encouragement in my mother’s ear, and continued to stand like a statue, with his gaze riveted upon the long files of Melodious Sneezers, as they wound around the crest of the mountain to gain the spot where, as they judged, I had disappeared.

Armed with their light, broad, wooden shovels, their dusky arms rose and fell with wonderful precision and regularity, keeping time with the musical notes of their sneezing; now soft and low, now breaking out into a wild and galloping measure.

Down! Down! Down!

25And yet they delved in vain!

No sign of me was there to gladden the hearts of my poor, grief-stricken parents.

But hark!

What is that shrill cry?

It is not human!

No; for it is Bulger’s bark, or rather it is Bulger’s yelp.

He had been watching the band of Melodious Sneezers, as their white shovels rose and fell all in vain, with his head thrust through the railings of the veranda.

No one was there with mind and heart enough to catch the meaning of that poor yelp.

Chew-chew-lô saw that his men were standing, leaning on their shovels, with looks of doubt and hesitation in their eyes.

The King was silent.

It was the great baron who spoke:

“Oh, let them not give o’er! My life, my wealth, my all, are thine, good, kind Chew-Chew——”

A fit of sneezing cut short his appeal.

Again Bulger’s cry was raised, and this time the King heeded it.

An attendant saw the royal nod, and hastening to bind broad wooden cups upon the dog’s feet, he was turned loose upon the surface of the mud.

What is man, with his boasted intelligence?

They were ten paces or more distant from the point where I had disappeared.

Yelping, barking, and whining by turns, my dear Bulger hurried to the spot where his unerring scent told him that his beloved little master had gone down.

Again the band of Melodious Sneezers set to work with renewed vigor, their white shovels flashing with strange effect against the inky blackness of the mud.

Bulger encouraged them with loud and joyful barkings.

Suddenly a clear, ringing, melodious “chew” rent the air.

They had caught sight of me!

With rare foresight for one of my months, I had closed my 26nostrils with one hand before reaching the mud, and had thus saved my lungs from filling up.

But how useless would have been this precaution, had not my faithful Bulger come to my rescue!

His joy now knew no bounds.

I thought that I caught a glimpse of a smile on the old baron’s tear-stained cheek, as his boy was borne to the veranda, more like an animated lump of earth than aught else, for the air had revived me. My eyes were not only wide open, but they were the only clean place on my whole body.

Utterly regardless of my filthy condition, my fond mother clasped me convulsively to her breast, and I verily believe that she would have pressed her lips upon my mud-covered head and face, had she not seen the baron’s broad palm held in suspicious proximity, while her mother’s heart was emptying itself out in words. A few basins of warm water, and I was myself again.

No, I was never myself again. My bath in the warm mud of Lâ-aah-chew-lâ effected a most remarkable change in me; it checked the growth of my body and turned all my strength upwards into my head and brain.

In one short month my head almost doubled in size.

My baby face and expression were gone!

And ere another moon had filled her horns I had grown to be a living wonder!

Not only was the size of my head something remarkable, but from my eyes beamed an astonishing intelligence.

The poor women of Lâ-aah-chew-lâ Land crouched in front of me as if I were a being from another world and then tapping their foreheads they approached my mother and whispered:

“Most gracious Chew-lâ-â-â-â-â-â the Great Spirit has made a mistake and put two souls in there instead of one!”

And then they bent their graceful bodies till their foreheads touched my mother’s feet and withdrew, going out backwards like the best regulated court ladies, each leveling her finger at me and opening wide her eyes as she disappeared through the door.

27The whole scene was so grotesque that I burst out into a shout of laughter.

Upon hearing which, the poor creatures tumbled headlong over each other in their mad efforts to get outside of the house, shrieking at the top of their voices:

“Save us! save us! He will bewitch us!”

“Little Baron!” said my father in a tone of mock anger, “you should not have frightened the ladies of King Chew-chew-lô’s Court!”

Chew-pâ! Chew-pâ! (Idiots! Idiots!) I replied, looking up from my slate upon which I was working out an example in arithmetic, for I was very fond of figures.

In fact, my father had already taught me addition by showing me how to trade off worthless glass beads for valuable ivory, and division, by taking away ninety cents from every dollar I made. Long before I could read or write, I knew the letters of several languages by name, and could spell any word which had no silent letter in it. No one took more delight in my wonderful accomplishments than Bulger.

He seemed to know instinctively that his little master was no ordinary being and respected him accordingly. We now bade adieu to the Land of Lâ-aah-chew-lâ and the Melodious Sneezers.

King Chew-chew-lô with a mighty band of retainers accompanied us to his frontier, making the forests resound with their melodious chew-chew-a-ing. Standing on the old baron’s shoulders, I waved them a last goodbye to which they answered with such a perfect whirlwind of Chew-chew-â’s that Bulger fairly howled with delight.

Any special honor paid to his master was always a personal matter to him. The elder baron had intended to penetrate still further into the heart of Africa; but the fact is, that the continual growth of my mind was so wonderful that it engrossed his attention from morn till night. He endeavored to hide this from me; but all to no purpose.

Before I was two years old my brain had grown so heavy that my mother was obliged to sew pieces of lead in the soles 28of my shoes to keep me right end upwards, and yet, in spite of this precaution, I was often found standing upon my head working out difficult mathematical problems by making use of my toes, as the Chinese do their counting machines.

The first thing which my father did upon reaching home was to take me to a phrenologist in order to have a chart made of my head.

The examination lasted a month.

At length, upon the completion of the chart, it was found that I possessed thirty-two distinct bumps.

Well-developed ones, too!

It was, therefore, at once determined to engage thirty-two learned tutors, each tutor to have charge of a separate bump and to do his utmost to enlarge it even if it grew to be a horn.

My father was resolved to leave nothing undone in order to develop my mental powers to the utmost limit. I said nothing either for or against the scheme.

In one short year I had learned all that the thirty-two tutors could teach me, and, what is more, I had taught each one of them fifty things which he had not known before, and which I had learned while traveling in foreign lands with my parents.

One fine morning to the great surprise of my thirty-two tutors I discharged the whole of them.

The elder baron at my suggestion now sent a bill to each tutor for services rendered him by me.

Each tutor refused to pay.

The elder baron, at my suggestion, now caused legal process to be served upon each one of them.

The court upon hearing my testimony rendered an opinion which covered five thousand pages of legal cap paper and required a whole week to read, in which they held that each thing which I had taught to each one of my thirty-two tutors was so remarkably strange and peculiar that in the eye of the law it was worth at least one hundred dollars. That made the bill of each tutor amount to five thousand dollars, or one hundred and sixty thousand dollars in all.

29The court then adjourned for a year, all three judges being so worn out mentally and physically as to need a twelve months’ rest before taking up any other business.

How the elder Baron lost flesh worrying about the investment of my money. Effect of his anxiety on the rest of the household. I take the matter in hand and devise ways to increase my fortune. I become extremely wealthy. When eight years of age I am seized with an uncontrollable desire to visit far-away lands, and begin to pack up. The elder Baron objects. How I set to work to get his consent. Wild doings of my playfellows. How we stormed the castle, broke up the hawking, ruined the fox hunt, summoned the ten doctors, and set fire to the neighboring fields. The elder Baron grows weary of my doings and consents to let me go. My delight and Bulger’s joy.

The question which now occupied my father’s mind to the exclusion of all other thoughts was how to invest this large sum of money, so that upon my attaining my twenty-first year I would be provided with a sufficiently large income to live as a baron should—particularly when he belonged to so famous a family as ours.

The fact of the matter is, my father permitted this question to prey upon his peace of mind to such an extent that he lost flesh perceptibly.

My mother, too, seeing his lamentable condition began to fret and worry to such a degree, that she likewise became greatly emaciated. With their loss of flesh naturally their appetites dwindled and little or no food was provided; or, anyway, no more than was just sufficient to satisfy Bulger’s and my wants.

Whereupon the servants began to lose flesh, both the indoor and outdoor ones; and in their desperate attempt to keep body and soul together, the horses and cattle were fed upon short rations, and the consequence was, they, too, soon began to fall away.

31So it grew to be quite a serious sight to see my poor father and mother reduced to mere skin and bones, driven about the country by mere shadows for coachman and footman, and drawn by four horses whose bones fairly rattled under their skins when they were coaxed or beaten into a lazy trot.

Bulger and I alone retained our plumpness and good spirits. At length I determined to interfere and put a speedy end to this deplorable state of affairs. I exacted from the elder baron a solemn promise that he would follow my directions to the letter and not raise any objections, no matter how wild or unreasonable they might appear to him, or to my mother.

Then bidding him to partake of some good, succulent food, retire early and get a nice long sleep, I saluted him respectfully and said:

32“Baron, until to-morrow morning!”

I had scarcely finished my breakfast when my door opened and the elder baron walked into the room.

He looked much refreshed. The color had returned to his cheek, the gleam to his eye.

He was already a different man.

“Here, gracious Sir,” I began, handing him a parchment roll, “is a list of all the best known almanac makers in our land. Have interviews with them at once and purchase from them the right to furnish weather prognostications for the coming year!”

The elder baron began to expostulate. “Baron!” I remarked sternly, raising my hand, “a true Knight has but one word to give!”

He was silent and motioned me to continue.

I did so as follows:

“Respected parent, when you have secured this right from each of them, return to me.”

In a few days my father had accomplished his mission.

He entered my room and put into my hands the needful concessions from every noted almanac maker in the land.

Again I bade him refresh himself thoroughly, get a good night’s rest and see me in the morning.

As Bulger and I were returning from breakfast the elder baron presented himself at the door of my apartments.

He looked strong and well. His face had filled out again and his step had recovered its old-time elasticity.

Again I placed a roll of parchment in his hands, and said to him:

“Scatter the contents of that parchment evenly and plentifully throughout each almanac, on the pages devoted to the months of November, December, January, and February.”

He looked at me inquiringly, and his lips began to move.

“Noble Sir!” said I, ere a sound had issued from his mouth, “in our family, knights have always been without fear and without reproach.” He bent his lofty form in silence and withdrew.

33Possibly the reader may have a little curiosity to know the contents of the parchment roll which I placed in the hands of the elder baron on this occasion.

If brevity be the soul of wit, it was witty. If a fair round hand be the garb of truth, it was truthful. Be this as it may choose to be, the words which my pen had traced on that parchment roll, read as follows:

“All signs point to an extremely cold Winter.” “Indications are that the coming Winter will be the severest for half a century.” “Forecasts all give the same answer—a Winter of exceptional length and bitter coldness.” “Most skilled prognosticators agree in predicting a degree of low temperature rarely reached in these latitudes.” “About this time expect unusual cold.” “Protect plants.” “Now look well to your winter vegetables.” “Secure them from the extreme frost.” “Double your supply of winter fuel.” “Now look for fierce snow-storms.” “Expect bitter cold weather during all this month.” “Prepare for most unusual hail storms.” “Be on your guard for sudden and penetrating north winds.” “House cattle warmly for all this month.” “Beware of deadly blizzards, they will come with a furious onset.”

After a few days’ absence, my father returned to the manor house. His arrival was duly announced to me by Bulger, to whom I said: “Go, good Bulger, and conduct the Baron to my apartment.”

Away he bounded with many a sportive leap and bark, and soon returned, ushered in the elder baron with the joyous manner so common to him when active in serving me.

“I have obeyed thee, my son!” murmured the elder baron with a stately arc in his bending form.

“’Tis well!” I replied, motioning him to be seated.

“And now honored guide of my childhood’s uncertain feet, give heed to my words: Our task is almost done. In a few days the investment of this money, which has occasioned thee so much anxiety, fairly robbing thee of thy heart’s service, will be complete; ay, complete; and, what is better still, so fortunately invested that thou shalt be enabled to call thyself the father of one of the richest children in the Kingdom.”

34“Hearken, Baron. Go now into the leading markets of the land and put every fur merchant under written contract to deliver unto thee in early Autumn all the pelts, dressed, undressed, or on the backs of the owners, of which they will guarantee the delivery under their hands and seals.”

The words had scarcely fallen from my lips ere the elder baron had risen from his chair and caught me warmly to his breast.

“My son!” he cried as he stroked my protuberant brow, “it is a master stroke! It is worthy of a governor of a province! I long to begin the good work. Permit me to set out this very night!” “Wait baron!” said I, leading him to his chair and gently constraining him to be seated. “Wait, Baron; there is somewhat yet to be said. When thou hast completed the purchase of all the pelts, which are expected to enter the Kingdom this year, expend the rest of the money in purchasing all the wood, coal and peat thou canst find, not that I would draw profit from the poor man’s slender store; but simply to keep others from wronging him by combining against him, as they would surely do upon the first publication of the weather predictions.” “Ah, little Baron!” exclaimed my father, “how thoughtful; for, as thou sayest, we must not lay a burden on the poor man’s shoulders!”

Such was the diligence with which my father carried my plans to completion, that in a single month I had bought and sold again the entire product of the fur market, at a small advance, it is true, but large enough to make me an extremely rich man.

It was so gently and skillfully done, that no one ever suspected the clever ruse by which I was enabled to acquire riches enough to set out upon my travels just as my inclination might prompt, and to know that were I to be captured and held for ransom by the most grasping freebooters, my bankers would have gold enough to ransom me.

Upon the completion of my eighth year I was seized with an uncontrollable desire to enter at once upon the fulfillment of my long cherished plans, to visit far-away lands inhabited 35by strange and curious people. My own home, my own language, my own people, wearied me and wore upon me.

In my sleep I paced the deck of staunch vessels, shouted my orders, crowding sail in calm and reefing in threatening weather. I passed my time from morn till night, packing cases with suitable articles for traffic with the savages, so that I might be able to penetrate into interiors never visited by civilized man, and ascend rivers closed since the world began to the white-winged messengers of trade and commerce. But, strange to say, my father urged thereto, possibly, by the entreaties of my mother, firmly and resolutely set his face against my project of leaving home.

I was beside myself with disappointment. I entreated, I implored, I threatened. For the first time in my life—it pains me even now to make the confession—I was guilty of a certain disrespect to the authors of my being.

Bulger, after studying the situation for several days, reached the conclusion that the elder baron was in some way the cause of my unhappiness, and it required, at times, my sternest command to restrain him from setting his teeth in the calves of the elder baron’s legs as he quitted my apartment after some stormy interview.

“What!” cried I, in tones tremulous with grief, “am I doomed to waste the splendid gifts with which nature has endowed me, shut within the walls of this petty town, whose most boisterous scenes are the brawls of its market places, whose people never witness a grander pageant than the passing of a royal troop of horse? It must not, it shall not be. Thou hast said, thyself, that I am no ordinary child to be amused with ball and top, and entertained with picture books.”

But the elder baron had hardened his heart, and all my pleading was to no purpose.

And yet I did not despair of gaining my point in the end.

The continual dropping of water finally wore away the rock. I made up my mind now to move the elder baron to acquiesce in my project of leaving home by resorting to entirely different tactics. Said I to myself:

36“He wishes me to be a child: I’ll be one!” And forthwith I set about making friends with every mischievous little rogue in the town.

Not a single juvenile ne’er-do-well escaped my attentions.

The more rampant, active, and tireless his power of mischief, the closer I wrapped him in my affections.

From gray dawn to dewy eve these chums and boon companions of mine flocked about the castle. They worshipped me as their leader and yielded an implicit obedience to my commands as were I possessed of some mastery over them.

The elder baron saw the gathering cloud and bent his head as if to meet the coming storm with better chance of resisting it.

Came there a dinner party, the choicest Burgundy was found to have been spirited away and the bottles filled with common claret. Did the elder baron meet his friends in the fields for a trial with the hawks, it was only to discover that they had been so overfed as to sit stupidly placid when the hood was removed. Let the cook be told that guests were expected, and that he must be careful to have the little dumplings of his soup extra delicate, to the elder baron’s horror, a cherry stone would be found in the centre of each little dumpling.

One of my coadjutors was venturesome enough to pilfer the elder baron’s snuff box and fill it with pepper. The result may be imagined. Another took good care to pour water into all the tinder boxes before the guests called for their pipes. Upon attempting to rise from the table, here and there a queue would be found securely tied to the back of the chair.

One of my favorite exploits was to station myself on the first landing of the stairway and “hold the bridge like Horatius Cocles of old,” my wild band of two dozen young barbarians rushing madly up the staircase with screams, yells and vociferations which would have done credit to any horde of real savages I have ever visited, while I, with my wooden sabre, beat down their sticks, occasionally rapping too bold a youngster on the knuckles and sending him bawling to the foot of the stairway, to Bulger’s infinite amusement, as he always insisted upon taking part in the fray and gloried in my prowess.

37At last to my great joy, I noticed that the elder baron showed signs of surrender.

Like a prudent general I ordered an attack all along the line.

There was to be a fox hunt the next day. I directed one of my trusted lieutenants to feed the hounds all the raw meat they could swallow, about an hour before the start.

Ten others, most fleet-footed and glib-tongued, I dispatched to the houses of the ten leading physicians and surgeons of the town and its immediate neighborhood, with the same message to each, namely, that every man, woman and child at the manor house had been taken violently ill, and that the greatest haste must be made to come with their medicine chests so that the epidemic might be checked.

The ten doctors galloped into the courtyard at nearly the same moment, only to find the elder baron and his friends gathered on the platform and holding a whispered consultation over the strange actions of the hounds. The angry disciples of Galen refused to prescribe for the poor animals, and galloped away again with their well-filled holsters thumping against their legs.

Meanwhile I had not been idle.

To the claws of a score or more of the elder baron’s fowls I tied a kind of fuzee of my own invention, so inflammable that the slightest friction would cause it to burst into flame, and then I turned them loose in the fields and garden adjoining the family hall.

38They had been cooped up all the Summer, and were overjoyed at the prospect of a good, comfortable scratching time ’mid the dry leaves and stubble of the open fields.

The gamekeepers by this time had succeeded in arousing the hounds somewhat from their stupor, when the cry of “fire! fire!” went up. The hunting party hastily dismounted and joined the servants in the mad rush for buckets of water.

I was sitting calmly in my apartment, with Bulger by my side, when the alarm was raised.

The elder baron at first was inclined to think that although my workmanship was plainly visible in the fabrics of mischief, which consisted in overfeeding the hounds and summoning the ten doctors to the manor house on a wild goose chase, yet the breaking out of the fire in the neighboring gardens and fields was really something with which I had nothing to do. The return of a venerable old Dominick rooster, which had been either too feeble or too lazy to explode the fuzees attached to his claws, settled the matter, however.

The elder baron’s mind was now clear as to who had conceived the crime in which his poor fowls had so unwittingly become the accomplices.

That night Bulger and I went to bed with light hearts.

The elder baron had at last consented to let us set out on our first journey in quest of strange adventures among the curious people of far-away lands.

Preparations for my first voyage. The elder Baron selects the port from which I am to sail. Description of port No Man’s Port. How I escaped its quicksands, Whirlpool and Thor’s Hammer. Becalmed on the Southern Seas, I rescue my ship in a wonderful way. Land ho! Something about a beautiful Island. I leave my ship and start for the interior. How I fell in with some most extraordinary beings. Description of them. They leave me to go and request permission of their chief to present me at his court. How I thought myself attacked by a band of gigantic beings. My strange mistake. They prove to be the same beings I had met the day before. What had caused the transformation. The land of the Wind Eaters. I am conducted to the court of Ztwish-Ztwish. More about the curious people. The Chief’s affection for me. The bursting of the babies. Go-Whizz becomes my enemy. I grow thin. Queen Phew-yoo wants me to marry Princess Pouf-fâh. To regain my flesh I teach the Wind Eaters to catch fish. Terrible accident resulting from a fire I had kindled. Go-Whizz demands my death. Ztwish-Ztwish refuses. The furious brawler tries to slay the Chief and is himself slain, by Ztwish-Ztwish. To avoid the marriage with Pouf-fâh, I send Bulger back to the ship, and then escape in the night. Too weak to bear the fatigue, I am overtaken. Enmeshed in the nets of the Wind Eaters and nearly beaten to death. Bulger rescues me. The relief party from my ship come up with me. I reach the coast, and after a short rest, sail for home.

I threw myself now heart and soul into the task of making ready for my first voyage.

Bulger was not slow to understand what all the hurry-skurry meant.

He was delighted at the prospect of a trip to distant lands where life had less monotony about it. By the hour he would sit and watch me at my labors and, from time to time, to please him, I pointed out articles lying here and there about the room and bade him fetch them, which he invariably did, with many manifestations of pleasure at being permitted to help his little master.

40In fact, everybody lent a hand most kindly, so that, to my great satisfaction, I was left more time for the study of navigation.

My poor mother, the gracious baroness, would not permit anyone else to mark my clothing. With her own slender, white fingers she worked the crest and initials of my wardrobe.

There was a matter which I turned over in my thoughts for several days, to wit: What national garb I should adopt.

After long and mature deliberation I resolved to attire myself in Oriental dress. I did so for several reasons. It had been a favorite garb of mine.

Its picturesque grace appealed to my love of the beautiful, while on the other hand, its ease and lightness made it very agreeable to one of extreme suppleness of limb and elasticity of step. While the old manor house was being literally turned topsy-turvy and everybody, from cook to chambermaid, set by the ears, the elder baron was by no means idle. He took good care, among other things, that I was well provided with wholesome reading matter, and brought me several books of maxims, precepts, reflections, thoughts and studies, which he requested me to thrust into the empty corners of my chests, “for,” said he, and that, too, with a great show of reason, “thou wilt have many idle hours on thy hands in calm weather. It behooves thee to feed thy mind lest its wonderful development be checked and thou become as an ordinary child, with no thoughts above games and picture books.” My poor mother, the gracious baroness, added to this stock of good literature by presenting me with a small volume entitled: “The Straight Road to Good Health; or, Everybody His Own Doctor.” As to my medicine chest, I gave that my personal supervision, for I was always skilled in the art of reading all kinds of symptoms and was gifted with the rare faculty of knowing almost instinctively what remedy to give for a certain ailment, without first experimenting upon the patient by trying one thing after another, as is the custom with most people who pretend to heal sickness.

42Everything was going well now, and I was in the best of spirits, when the elder baron came to me with a proposal which, for some reason, I can hardly tell why, displeased me, although it would seem that it ought to have had the opposite effect. He proposed to precede me, by a week or ten days, to the North Sea, in some port of which I intended to purchase and fit out a swift, staunch vessel, purchase the vessel himself, give his personal attention to fitting her out and shipping a crew of picked men.

What could I do?

If I refused his offer, it would have been tantamount to a confession of distrust on my part.

Can he have in mind any project to thwart my scheme?

O, perish the thought!

But I must confess that I did not accept his proffered services without serious misgivings.

This sudden anxiety on the part of the elder baron to hurry my departure, after having opposed it so long and so vigorously, made me a little uneasy in my mind.

Before setting out for the North Sea to purchase a ship for me, the elder baron entered my apartment, and spoke as follows:

“Pardon me, little baron, for interrupting thy labors, for I perceive that thou art deep in the study of navigation.”

“Speak, Baron,” said I, looking up, with a mischievous smile, “that right belongs to thee.”

“I have a last request to make,” he continued, in his usual calm manner, “nor is it a matter of very great importance. Rather is it a whim, more than aught else. Thou knowest from my lips, and from the perusal of our family chronicles, that we were in ancient time very large land owners on the coast of the North Sea. We controlled several ports, were extensively engaged in trade, sending out at least a score of ships in a twelvemonth. One of the ports of our domain was a famous one, famous for the extraordinary character of its inlet and outlet currents, channel, etc. It was said of this port that it was more dangerous than the open sea, that vessels were really safer out of it than in it. I know not how much of truth may be in all this, but I do know that one 43man, an ancestor of ours, not only sailed into it, but safely out again, for thou must know that the channel by which a vessel gained admission to this port could not be used to leave it again, as the irresistible current always flowed the one way, namely, from the sea into this mysterious basin. To leave it, the bold mariner must trust his bark to another channel, and therein lurked the danger.

“It would gratify me greatly, little baron, if thou couldst prove to the world that, no matter how difficult, other captains once found, and now find it, to sail out of this port, yet to thee it offered no insurmountable obstacles, and therefore, am I come to ask thee to set sail from this port!”

“It is called?” I asked carelessly, as I turned to a chart of the North Sea.

“Port No Man’s Port,” replied the baron.

“I like its name,” said I. “Order my ship to await me there!”

The elder baron arose, and bending his body with stately grace, withdrew. I accompanied him to the door and dismissed him with most respectful obeisance.

“Port No Man’s Port,” I answered. “Ah, here is the chart!” The descriptive text reads as follows:

“Abandoned for many years; ingress easy; egress so dangerous as to mean fatal injury, if not destruction, to sailing craft; outer channel blocked by a fearful whirlpool and swinging rock called “Thor’s Hammer;” inner basin extremely dangerous from constantly shifting sands; closed by order of the Royal Ministry of Commerce and Marine.” Upon finishing the reading of these words I sprang up and began to pace the floor, wildly and half unconsciously.

The blood rushed in upon my brain. I was obliged to halt and cling to the back of a tall oak chair, or I should have staggered and fallen to the ground.

Bulger was greatly alarmed and sent up a suppressed howl of grief. I spoke to him as calmly as I could to comfort him.

After a few moments the vertigo passed off and my mind cleared up completely.

44“Nay, it is impossible,” I whispered, “the elder baron could not be guilty of bad faith to me! Away with such a thought! He errs through thoughtlessness and lack of experience. He little knows the terribly dangerous character of the task he is setting me. To him, the talks of shipwreck and death within Port No Man’s Port are but the legends of old-time sailor-life. He has not the faintest suspicion that his request, so lightly made, exposes his only child, son and heir to a princely fortune and honored name, either to be engulfed by these shifting sands, sucked down to destruction by this fearful whirlpool, or crushed by a blow from Thor’s Hammer.

“And yet why murmur?

“It is too late to protest. Already the elder baron has proclaimed to the world the, to him proud piece of news, that his son was about to renew the old-time glories of his family! I must do one of two things: Face these dangers like a man of cool, calm courage, or condemn myself to a life of dull and listless activity, the magnate of a province and not the hero of two worlds!

“No! the die is cast!

“I have said it and it is as good as done!

“My ship sails from Port No Man’s Port, or this little body feeds its fish that day!”

Doubtless my eyes brightened, and my cheeks took on a glow of crimson hue, for Bulger, who had been listening to my soliloquy with a most pained expression on his face, as he vainly tried to get at the meaning of my words, now broke out into a very lively succession of barks, bounding and springing about the room in the wildest merriment. He knew only too well that some terrible struggle had been going on in my mind.

Now he realized that all was well. Faithful creature, if he could only tell his love, how he would put all human lovers to blush!

As the hour drew near for me to bid adieu to the baronial hall, that good lady, the gracious baroness, my mother, suddenly thought of a thousand and one things which she deemed of the very greatest importance to me. She warned me that I 45was not to sleep in a draught; not to partake of freshly-baked bread; not to drink cold water while overheated; not to cut my finger nails too short; not to sleep with my mouth open; not to wear my underclothing longer than one week; not to neglect to brush my teeth; not to fail to have my hair cut with the new moon; not to strain my eyes reading by a poor light not to swallow my food without thoroughly chewing it; not to laugh while I had food in my mouth; not to attempt to stop a sneeze; not to neglect to pare my corns; not to pick my teeth with a metal point; not to examine the end of my nose without a looking-glass; not to eat meat without pepper, or vegetables without salt; not to exert myself after a hearty meal; not to stand upon my leg while it was asleep; not to walk so fast as to get a pain in my side; not to go to sleep until I had first rested on my right side; not to fail to take a pill if I saw flashes in the dark; not to neglect to tie a stocking around my neck in case my throat felt sore, etc., etc., etc. When the moment came to take leave of the gracious baroness, my good mother, I was deeply moved. All the servants and retainers, from indoors and out, filed in front of me, kissed my hand and showered blessings on me.

I may safely say that the only being present not moved to tears was Bulger. He was so anxious to get under way that he passed an hour or so racing from the manor house to the carriage and back again in a piteous endeavor to get the procession started.

Start we did, at last.

A hundred hands waved us a fond farewell.

The stately trees that shut in the baronial hall swayed solemnly. I was glad when we rolled out of the court yard for I needed rest and quiet.

My nerves had been on such a stretch for the past month that a change of scene brought me balm and relaxation.

My journey to the North Sea was quiet and uneventful.

I found my ship safely anchored in Port No Man’s Port, and the elder baron there in charge of her. He introduced me to the sailing-master, pressed me in his own loving arms, and 46with a gracious smile and stately wave of the hand, seated himself in the family coach. His only adieu was:

“My son, thy wisdom comes to thee by inheritance. Thou couldst not have acquired it. Therefore, make a noble use of so noble a gift. Farewell!”

I bent my head in silence. The carriage rolled away. I stood alone. Nay, a true and loving friend was there. He looked up with his large, lustrous eyes, as if to say:

“Don’t be sad, little master. No matter who goes, I’ll stay by thee forever!”

Turning to my sailing-master, I ordered the ship’s launch to be manned, and began at once a survey of the mysterious port in which my ship lay anchored.

I found it to be a roomy basin, shut in by a rock-bound shore. In places the waters slept beneath black and glassy surfaces; in others, all was movement and commotion. Its waves came boiling and bubbling against the launch with swirling masses of white sand, shifting hither and thither, as if condemned to perpetual unrest.

The fact that my men, while fishing in different parts of the bay, often caught deep-sea fish, proved to me that Port No Man’s Port was traversed by a channel from four to six fathoms in depth.

The only difficulty would be to fix the boundaries of this constantly shifting path long enough to sail across the basin.

I next turned my attention to the whirlpool. It marked the junction of the outer channel with the basin of Port No Man’s Port.

Having purchased a number of condemned hulks for the purpose of testing the strength and fury of the whirlpool, I caused a strong hawser to be rigged to a capstan on shore, and was in this way enabled to let the launch approach within a ship’s length of the whirlpool with perfect safety. In truth, it was, when roused to the full measure of its fury by the intrusion of any large floating body, a sight to strike terror to the stoutest heart!

With a deep booming and rumble, its waters rose in tumultuous 47commotion, boiling, bubbling, seething, till snow-white foam covered the pool like a mantle of bleached linen, then lifting the intruder, which in this case was one of the hulks that I had ordered to be launched upon them, these angered waters whirled it completely around. In an instant, as if exhausted by this tremendous effort, a mysterious calm sank upon the pool. The foam-sheet, broken in shreds, danced gently on the rippling bosom of the waters. All was peace, save that the hulk still lay trembling like an affrighted being in the lap of this resting monster!

For, look! It is aroused again. Faster and faster it whirls its prey. Deeper and deeper its now wide-opened jaws draw down the ill-fated hulk!

A terrible roar tells that the end is near!

’Tis gone!

Ay, but wait! It will give up its prey again!

Even now bits of plank float seaward, dancing on the rushing waters.

Soon the crumpled, broken, crushed remnants of that strong hulk will follow.

This watery monster doth not feed upon what he swallows! He destroys for the mere love of destruction. Night had come now. I returned to my ship. The shifting sands and the whirlpool had uncovered their horrors. But I feared them no more! Like the horse-tamer when he has at last succeeded in thrusting the steel bit between the champing and gnashing teeth of the wild young steed, I now felt that they were conquered.

“And now for Thor’s Hammer!” was my cry, as I sat down beside Bulger for a brief moment’s reflection.

The first streak of gray light in the east found me on deck.

“Thor’s Hammer” was a huge shaft of black, flinty rock, projecting about twenty feet out of the water and ending in a hammer-shaped head. It guarded the channel where it reached the sea, standing exactly in the middle, thus forcing a vessel to pass on one side or the other of it.

Beneath the waters, this dread sentinel must have ended 48in a gigantic ball, which, in the flight of time had worn a socket for itself in the bed rock of the channel; for it swung loose and free, moved by every powerful billow from side to side, threatening swift destruction to any passing craft.

To speak frankly, the sight of this terrible engine of destruction appalled me! How shall I escape the vigilance of this gigantic sentinel, who knows no sleep, no rest, whose blows fall with like fury on friend or foe? How shall I lull him to repose for a few brief moments?

Determined to study closely the strength, the rapidity, and the character of the blows struck by “Thor’s Hammer,” I caused several huge structures of plank and timber to be erected near the position of this mighty sentinel of rock. One after the other I ordered them to be thrown into the channel.

At first, I was fairly paralyzed upon discovering that even the slight vortex caused by the drifting by of one of these wooden structures set the swinging rock in violent vibration and always towards the passing object.

Judging from the effect of Thor’s Hammer upon these floating masses of plank and timber, a single blow would suffice to crush the very life out of my ship in spite of her unusual staunchness.

I stood transfixed with dread forebodings. I could feel the beads of perspiration break from my forehead and trickle down my cheeks. Must I give up and return home, broken in spirits, humiliated, the butt of ridicule, the target of village wit, the subject of mirth and laughter in every peasant’s cottage?

Oh, no! It can not, it must not be!

Like a flash of lightning, a thought flamed across the dark horizon of my mind.

Am I not dreaming? Was it really so?

One of the wooden structures still remained. Controlling my emotion with great difficulty, I ordered it thrown into the channel and took up a favorable position to watch once again the wrath of the towering sentinel! In a few moments “Thor’s Hammer” felt the coming of the craft and bent itself in impotent rage beating the air with blows which fell faster and 49faster! Ay, I was right! When once Thor’s Hammer had begun its labor of death and ruin, it turned not from its task, so long as there remained any object for it to spend its fury upon!

Nor was there any escape for the ill-fated craft until it had been pounded into flinders! Hanging over it, blow followed blow with fearful clash and clamor. Not until the poor remnant had drifted seaward, did that black and flinty shaft cease its furious swinging.

Turning to my sailing-master, who stood with his wondering eyes fixed full upon me, I called out in a calm and careless tone: “In three days, skipper, if the weather is clear, we leave Port No Man’s Port!”

A lump rose up in his throat, but he gulped it down, and cried out merrily:

“Ay, ay, sir.”

And what three busy days they were, too! My men were not long in catching something of the indomitable spirit of their new commander. I worked them hard, but I fed them well, served out grog with a liberal, but wise hand, and saw that all their wants were satisfied. In turn, their wonderment became admiration, and their admiration affection.

The first day all the hands that could be spared were set to work making fishing lines, with a good, stout hook at one end and a cork float at the other. The lines were cut about three fathoms in length, and the floats were painted a bright crimson. I then gave orders to rig three jury-masts, one midships, and one fore and aft.

My men set to work with a will, but I caught them several times in the act of tapping their foreheads and exchanging significant glances. But if this last order threw them into a brown study, my next had the effect of a bombshell exploding in their midst.

Sailing-master and all, they stood staring at me as if they were only waiting for me to annihilate them.

My order was to rig a steering gear under the figure-head. A coasting vessel, which I had sent for, now came sailing 50leisurely into Port No Man’s Port. I directed the skipper to pay her crew three months’ extra wages, and discharge them.

This done, my men were ordered to lash the coaster on our starboard side.

I verily believe that my whole plan, so carefully studied out, was at this point only saved from utter failure by the wisdom of my faithful Bulger.

The coaster had no sooner been lashed to our side than he sprang lightly over the railing, and began to amuse himself by gamboling up and down the clear deck. Suddenly he paused near one of the hatches and broke out into a most furious barking. I called to one of my officers to look sharp and see what the matter was. He reported in a few moments that one of the discharged seamen had been found concealed in the hold. When I threatened to put him in irons, he confessed that his design had been to cut the coaster loose as soon as our ship had drawn near to the whirlpool.

It was a narrow escape.

Dear, faithful Bulger, how much we owe thee for that discovery!

The third day dawned bright and fair.

The wind was most favorable, blowing strong off shore.

At the first glimmer of light, my men were astir and on the lookout for my appearance.

They greeted Bulger and me with three hearty cheers.

They had made up their minds that what I didn’t know, Bulger did! At last all was ready!

I nodded to the sailing-master, and in a moment or so the capstan began to revolve, and the merry “Yo, heave O!” of the men told me that the anchor had been started. Hundreds of the lines and floats, well-baited, were now cast overboard. Standing on the taffrail, glass in hand, I watched them closely and anxiously.

Imagine my joy at seeing several of these crimson floats disappear like a flash, rise again, and again vanish for an instant.

“The first point is gained,” I cried out. “I have found the channel!”

51Passing word quickly to the sailing-master who was in charge of the steering gear, my good vessel moved slowly out of Port No Man’s Port, stern first. Again and again the baited lines with their crimson floats were thrown overboard. The deep water fish that swarmed the ever-shifting channel kept steadily at work. As our ship advanced, they tugged at the lines and thus kept the tortuous course plainly marked out. Glass in hand, I watched the successful working of this part of my plan, with tingling veins and a bounding heart. A loud huzza from my men tell me that we have cleared the shifting sands. Ay, true it is! We have crossed the basin of Port No Man’s Port! Its dreaded quicksands swirl and roll in vain. It was not fated that they should engulf the Little Baron’s ship!

But see! The channel narrows! The waters grow black, and troubled. And hark!

Didn’t you hear that dull roar? I spring down from the taffrail! I pass among my men and drop here and there a word of encouragement. My perfect calmness impresses them. No merry “ay, ay, Sir!” goes up, but I see a response in their faces. It is: “We trust you little captain, speak!” The dull roar grows louder and louder.

The rapids catch us up and bear us along like chips on the foaming tide of a mountain stream. Our staunch vessel rocks like a toy boat. The coaster lashed to one side creaks and groans in its wild efforts to break away.

Calling Bulger to me I pass the line around him and lash him firmly to the main-mast, for I was fearful lest a sudden lurch might hurl him overboard. On, on, we speed through the frightened waters. The roar is deafening. I glance at my seamen. Their bronzed faces are blanched. They cling to the shrouds and stays. Their eyes are riveted upon me.

Look! the fearful whirlpool is dead ahead of us. It opens its foam-flecked jaws like some terrible monster. We leap into its very mouth. Are we lost? How can it be otherwise? As if our staunch vessel were a nutshell, the swirling, raging, whirling, battling, boiling waiters catch her up in their encircling arms, lift her high above the sea level, turn her completely 52around and drop her with such terrific force that great walls of water rise on all sides and threaten to engulf the frail wooden thing. But most wondrous change; mark how she floats upon a glassy pool! The foam dances in the sunlight on the rippling waves. All is peace where but a moment before nature raged with demoniac fury. Quick as thought I leap into the mizzen shrouds: “Cut away the jury-masts!” They fall overboard with a crash. My men work with a mad earnestness. They know too well that every instant may be their last. Our mainsail already hoisted is sheeted home without a word or a cry. We are too near death to sing! See! See! The wind fills the great sail! We move. The waters seem to scent our escape. They are awaking to new fury. A deep rumble from the very bowels of the earth calls upon them to arouse from their lethargy.

They reach out for us.

Too late! too late!

We sweep out of their reach. We are saved! We are saved! A shout goes up from two score throats, from which Fear now takes her hand!

Look back! As if robbed of its prey, the whirlpool awakes with redoubled fury.

A hundred arm-like streams of water gush forth and pour around our good ship in vain effort to draw her back into that terrible vortex.

We are drenched with clouds of spray and mist, as we slowly but steadily keep on our course. Would that we were safe upon the swelling tide of the open sea, for there is still another danger to be met.

Our channel suddenly narrows. I could toss a biscuit to the rocky wall, which shuts us in on both sides.

Again a deep silence falls upon ship and crew, broken only by a strange sound of rushing waters, bursting out and dying away as regularly as the swing of a pendulum. ’Tis Thor’s Hammer, beating the frightened waters into foam, as it sways from side to side.

In spite of my effort to appear calm, I can feel my heart beat faster.

53A cold chill benumbs my hands. A glance ahead startles me like a blow from an unseen hand. There, with the morning sun resting on its hammer-shaped crest, swings that dreaded shaft of flinty rock, threatening instant destruction to any ship bold enough to attempt to pass it.

In accordance with my orders, every sail on the coaster had been set, and her helm lashed, so as to pass to the right of Thor’s Hammer.

“Courage, men!” I cried. “Stand by, all! Cut away the lashings! Cast off the tender!”

Then waving my hand to the skipper, our mainsail came down with a run. Everything worked like a charm. Our ship slowed up, while the coaster shot ahead to her destruction. See, how gallantly the doomed craft speeds on her way; for the breeze had freshened, and several gay streamers and flags, which my men had run up to the topmast, fluttered in the crisp morning air.

There! Did you not hear that crash?

Thor’s Hammer has struck her!

Blow follows blow!

Crash! Crash! Crash!

Now is our time, or never!

I was not caught napping. The moment we were clear of the coaster, I had ordered sails enough to be set to hold our ship steady on her course.

Already we drew near to Thor’s Hammer, which is fast battering the coaster to a shapeless mass. The sea is filled with bits of plank and broken timber. Thor’s Hammer bends to its dread work of destruction, unmindful of our presence.

What could withstand its terrible fury?

Those sturdy timbers yield like twigs.

Another minute, and we have the monster and his victim in our wake!

Now, now, we’re passing him! Our sails tremble from the very force of his breath! Our deck is strewn with splinters! The roar and crash are deafening. Thor’s Hammer bends for one last blow at the ribs and keel of its broken and disjointed victim!

54Hurrah! Hurrah!

Our good ship dips to the deep roll of the ocean’s breast! We are on the open sea! Port No Man’s Port, farewell!

As my men looked back at the rocky gateway and the grim sentinel of Port No Man’s Port, they tossed their caps into the air and sent up cheer after cheer.

Bulger bounded about the deck, doing his best by most vigorous barking, to testify his admiration for his little master.

The sailing-master drew near; and, touching his cap and scratching the deck with the toe of his shoe, cried out gayly:

“Bravo! little Baron. That was splendidly done! I was sure we should never get through the shifting sands. And when they were passed, I was ready to swear the whirlpool would make short work of us. But when we sailed safely out of that, I drew near the tail rail ready to jump overboard, for I felt that nothing could save us from a blow from Thor’s Hammer. I’ve grown wrinkled and gray facing the storms of Neptune’s domain, but I never felt I had a master until now.”

I nodded and smiled, and quickly turned the conversation to some other topic.

“By the way, skipper,” said I, “remember, the very moment we clear the English Channel, turn her head southward!”

“Ay! ay! little Baron!” was the reply. Calling Bulger to me I now went below. I wanted to be alone. The fact of the matter is, I needed rest. The terrible strain on my nerves caused by the hopes and fears of the past few days, began to tell upon me.

Throwing myself upon a canopy, I fell into a deep sleep from which I was awakened by Bulger’s whining and crying.

The sailing-master was anxiously feeling my pulse.

I had slept three days and three nights. All this time Bulger had absolutely refused to leave my side or partake of food, although the skipper had tempted him with the daintiest morsels.

His joys knew no bounds as I sprang up and shook myself into shape.

55“Where are we, master?” I cried.

“On the broad Atlantic, headed dead south, little Baron!” was the answer.

“Good! send me a rasher of bacon and some hard-tack. The Atlantic breeze has given me an appetite and, skipper,” I added, “a little broiled fowl for Bulger.”

“And now, for the land of warmth and sunshine!” I murmured, “now for the home of the orange and the palm! Cold winds like me not, I am a child of the tropics, born in a land where nature works and man plays. No chill blast ever whistled its sad tune over my cradle! Let those who will, spend one-half their lives waiting for mother Earth to wake from her Winter sleep! Freeze the body and you freeze the brain. I am of those who love flowers better than snowflakes. Glorious South land! I greet thee, thy child comes again to thy arms, oh, take him up kindly and lovingly!”

Southward, ever southward my good ship sped along. By day I paced the deck to watch the dolphins at play or to observe Bulger’s amazement when a stray flying fish fell fluttering on deck; by night, with my eyes fixed upon the blazing Southern Cross, I longed for the time to come when I should set foot upon some beautiful strand decked out with coral branch and shells of pearl, in whose limpid waters golden fish nestle mid sea plants of not less brilliant hue.

It was now three weeks since the last murmur of Thor’s Hammer had fallen on our ears.

My chronometer marked high noon. Every sail was set and our good ship careened as gracefully as a swallow that bent in its flight to touch the cool waters of some glassy lake. All of a sudden the wind fell, our ship stood still on the motionless sea, my pennant hung like a string. There was not air enough to lift the smoke from our galley fire. A strange mysterious stillness weighed upon the ship and sea. I knew too well what it betokened. One of those dreaded calms, more feared by the seamen that the buffeting gale, had overtaken us.

Our ship stood like one moored to a marble wharf!

56And as the thought flashed across my mind that days, ay even weeks might pass ere the winds would lift themselves again to bear us on our way, a feeling of utter listlessness came over me. It required a great exertion for me to throw it off.

I dared not let my men see aught of discouragement in my face.

And yet, it was a hard task. Had I not been made of stern stuff, I would have wept to see my progress stayed at the very moment victory was almost within my grasp.

Again, as was the case, when the terrors of Port No Man’s Port rose, like demons of malignant might, to shut me forever in that rock-encircled basin, did my thoughts revert to home—to the elder baron and his gracious consort, my dear mother; to the servants and retainers of the baronial hall; to the villagers and tenantry. How, oh how should I be able to face them all, if I were forced to return home with the humiliating confession that my voyage had been a failure?

Bulger was the first to catch a glimpse of the shadow on my brow. He turned his dark lustrous eyes full upon me so pleadingly as if to say: “Oh, little master, what aileth thee? May I not do aught to drive the dark melancholy from thy face? Thou knowest how I love thee. Teach me to help thee. My life is thine. Thy grief weighs like lead on my heart. Speak to me little master!” Tenderly and lovingly I stroked his head, and spoke in softest tones to him. He was rejoiced, but still he sat and watched me, for it was impossible to deceive him by feigning to be lighthearted and unconcerned.

The second week found us lying like a log in a millpond, our sails unvisited by the faintest breath of air; the sea sunken into a sleep that seemed like death. Despair sat on the faces of my men. “Rouse thee, little baron!” I murmured to myself as I paced my cabin floor, “where is thy boasted cunning? Where is thy vaunted wisdom? Nevermore say that thou art a man of projects, quick to devise, and quick to perform! Thou hast lost thy hold on the spoke of fortune’s wheel!”

“Thinkest thou so?” cried I in answer to my own thoughts.

“Follow me, we shall see!” With a bound I cleared the gang 57way. The sailing-master lay asleep on the deck. The men in groups, here and there, looked the very picture of despair. Rousing the skipper with a vigorous tug at his belt, aided by Bulger’s frantic outburst of barking, I called out:

“Avast! there, skipper. Asleep from overwork? Pipe all hands on deck!” The men came up in lively fashion, greatly amused by my cut at the sailing-master, who stood rubbing his eyes, half dazed by my sudden outburst. “Send me the ships carpenter!” I continued; and catching up a piece of chalk I drew the plan of a large box or chest, nearly as long as our ship’s breadth of beam, and gave the carpenter directions to build it of the strongest planks to be had on board. He and his assistants were soon at work.

Turning then to the cook I ordered him to kill the pigs and fowls we had shipped for our own supply of fresh meat, bidding him to be careful and not lose a drop of the blood.

These orders fairly drove my men wild with curiosity.

The sailing-master drew near and attempted to get some explanation from me but in vain. I was too deep in thought to speak.

The long box was ready in a few hours. Word now went up that I was about to abandon the ship and strive to reach land by rowing, and that this long box was to hold the provisions.

The sailing-master again fixed his gaze inquiringly upon me. I pretended not to notice his beseeching looks. The cook by this time had the fresh meat in readiness. Under my directions it was all transferred to the long chest, the blood poured over it, and the box securely closed with a heavy plate-glass lid, made up of several pieces shipped for the purpose of restoring broken lights. By this time the men had grown so excited over this mysterious box and its still more mysterious contents, that I was obliged to order them to fall back so that the carpenter and his assistants might go on with their work without interruption.

The next step was to weight the long chest with lead and to attach hoisting tackle to each end by strong iron rings. When all was ready I called out to my men to stand by and lower it 58over the stern rail. Stationed so that I could watch the lowering of the long box, I was careful to sink it about three feet under water and then lash it firmly to the ship’s stern. I had scarcely given the word to lower away on all the sails when the ship began to move! The effect on my men was indescribable. Some turned pale and stood as if transfixed with fear. Others laughed in a wild maniac-like way. Others, who had their wits about them, rushed to the stern taffrail to fathom the mystery.

A glance was enough!

It was a simple thing after all.

Gradually the others recovered their reason, and hastened to join their companions and gaze down into the waters where I had lashed the long box, with its glass lid and strange contents. Meanwhile our good ship moved faster and faster through the sluggish, listless waters. A ringing cheer, three times repeated, went up when the mystery was fully solved.

Mystery?

Hear then what this mystery consisted of!

In the first days of this dead calm, which settled like a terrible blanket spread over us by the hands of some unseen monster, to check our advance, I had noticed that the waters swarmed with sharks of extraordinary length; that these fierce demons of the deep hung about our vessel in shoals of countless numbers, attracted by the garbage thrown overboard, and, doubtless, too, by the odor of the many living beings on board the ship.

When, at times, a particularly large supply of garbage fell into the water, so fierce was the onslaught of these ravenous monsters, that they actually jarred the ship as they struck against its sides or stern, locked together like advancing cohorts of trained soldiery.

Upon this hint I acted. If, as I reasoned, I can only control this now wild force, why may I not make use of it to rescue my ship from a worse danger than raging storm? For far better would it be to face the howling blast and foam-crested wave than to perish from thirst, chained to the open sea by this breathless calm.

59Now, however, all was changed.

On, on, our good ship went, with ever-increasing speed, gliding noiselessly and swiftly through the mirror-like waters. My device worked far better than I had dared to dream, for, as the fresh blood began to trickle through the crevices of the long box, the ravenous sea monsters were almost maddened by its smell and taste. The largest and fiercest pressed forward in serried ranks, tossing their smaller companions high in the air, as they took up their places with wild and eager search for prey which lured them on, ever so near them, and still ever beyond their reach.

No sooner did the foremost ranks of this army of myrmidons of the deep show signs of fatigue than long lines of fresh and eager recruits darted forward, hurling their exhausted fellows right and left, like bits of cork, and took up the task of following the ever-retreating prey, which, although giving out its life blood, and plainly visible to them, yet seemed to know no tiring, and sped onward, and ever onward before the wild, tumultuous attack of their pushing, plunging cohorts!

The moon now shone like a plate of burnished silver on the blue walls of heaven, and the deep silence of the sleeping waters was broken by the splash of those mighty bodies, glistening in her light, as they toiled and struggled to urge our vessel on its way.

I could not sleep.

Wrapped in a woolen cloak, to shield me from the insidious dews of the tropics, I threw myself on deck, with Bulger’s head pillowed on my lap.

Something whispered to me that if those hunger-stricken marauders of the deep would only keep to their task till the morning sun streaked the east, my cheek would feel the breath of coming winds.

And so it turned out. With the first glimmer of daylight I caught sight of a ripple on the lake-like bosom of the ocean. At that very moment, too, I noticed that our ship was slowing up. I sprang up on the taffrail. Lo! our allies had abandoned us. Not a single follower of that riotous camp was in sight! 60Ah, little did they dream how they had saved ship and crew! How limitless is man’s selfishness! The beasts of the field, the monsters of the deep must minister to his pleasure, obey his commands. I had pointed out the ripple in the water and when the first sturdy breath of wind reached us we were in readiness to receive it. Every sail was set.

My heart leaped with joy as our ship drew up to the wind, obeying her helm like a thing of life!

And that was the way I saved my ship and crew from a worse danger than storm-lashed billows. From this time on, all went well. Scarcely a week had gone by when I was startled by a cry which sounded sweeter to my ears than voice of monarch to courtier.

“Land ho! Dead ahead!”

Seizing my glass I sprang up into the main-shrouds, and turned my gaze in the direction indicated. Ay, true it was! There it lay before us, rising from the ocean with gentle slope, its heights crowned with trees of many-colored foliage, its shores ending in long stretches of snow-white beach.

Above the unknown land hung a purple mist of a deep rich tint, like the cheek of a ripe plum. As we drew near a landlocked harbor seemed to welcome us. Not a sound or sign of life, however, came to break the deep repose which enveloped the bay and shore.

Slowly and in stately bearing our good ship sailed into the harbor and cast anchor. The radiant beauty of the land now burst upon me. Ten thousand shells of pearly tints and hues glistened on the white sands, while in the limpid waters, sea-flowers and foliage of deepest crimson swayed gently with the tide. Up the sloping banks nature seemed to be holding high carnival. No shrub or bush or tree was content to wear simple green. Each waved some blossom of richest radiance in the soft and balmy air. Here and there, a brooklet came tumbling down the hillside, rippling, purling and splashing over the moss-grown rocks in its bed. The air was heavy with the fragrance of this vast garden so beautiful and yet so silent and deserted.

61The next day, leaving my sailing-master in command, I set out on a tramp, accompanied solely by my faithful Bulger. My idea was to see if this island, for such I thought it to be, contained anything quaint and curious. The further I advanced into the interior of this fair land of bright flowers, purling brooks, clear skies and perfumed air, the more was I astonished to find that neither vine, shrub, brush, nor tree bore any berry or fruit to feed upon; and though it was just such a land of brooks, flowers and balmy air as some dweller of the far-away North might dream about; yet was it untrodden by the foot of man, for, rare indeed is it that the people of the tropics are willing to prepare any other food for themselves than that which nature spreads before them.

I now began to be thankful that I had supplied myself plentifully with dried fruits before leaving my ship to set out for a tour of the island, for such it seemed to me to be.

At this moment Bulger halted, and raising his nose in the air, sniffed hard and long, and then fixed his dark eyes on me as much as to say: “Take care, little master, some sort of living creatures are approaching!” I had hardly time to draw one of my pistols and give a hasty glance at its priming when with strange cries and stranger movements a dozen or more beings of the human species sprang out of the thicket with noiseless steps, and surrounded us. I raised the fire-arm, which I held grasped in my right hand, ready to stop the advance of this band of most curious creatures, by slaying their leader; for, judging by the forbidding aspect of their faces and the terrible condition of their bodies, apparently reduced by the dread pangs of hunger, to mere sacks of skin hung on frames of bone, which methought rattled at every step they took, I anticipated an instant attempt on their part to strike us down and eat us.

63But I was very quickly reassured. First, by the fact that they bore no weapons of any kind; and second, by the softness of their voices and the walkingbeam-like motions of their bodies, which I interpreted to mean a sort of welcome mingled with a desire to make friends with a human being so different from themselves. Although I gave them to understand, or tried to do so, by imitating the ducking motion of their heads, followed by an attempt to equal their performance in making a large number of very low bows, so graceful and easy that they would have done credit to a French dancing master, that they had nothing to fear, yet they continued to back away from me as fast as I advanced. Bulger was somewhat surprised at my eagerness to make friends with such a starved-out looking set of creatures and kept up a furious growling, eying them suspiciously as they continued the walkingbeam motion of their bodies all the while backing away from me.

I now found myself in front of a group of umbrella shaped bamboo huts into which most of them had retreated. With no little difficulty was it that I finally succeeded in coaxing them forth and convincing them that my intentions were perfectly peaceful. For a quarter of an hour or more, they circled about me in silent wonder, while I, on my part, gazed in speechless astonishment at these extraordinary looking specimens of our race. What they thought of me, you will learn as my story goes on, but how shall I ever describe them to you so as to give you even a faint idea of their wonderful appearance.

Imagine skeletons of rather small stature walking about, with collapsed meal bags hung upon them, skin hanging down in folds everywhere, flapping about at every step and you’ll have some faint conception of the utterly ridiculous and grotesque look of these beings.

Almost every bone in their bodies was visible beneath this thin covering. Their cheeks hung like two empty pouches on each side of their faces, their noses stuck out like knife-blades. Deep wrinkles and creases crossed and criss-crossed their faces, giving them a look of terrible melancholy and utter wretchedness.

With their skeleton fingers ever and anon they grasped a fold of skin and smoothed it out or pushed it elsewhere as one might a loosely fitting garment. And yet, utterly wretched and melancholy as these creatures seemed to be to the eye of the looker-on, their voices were light and gay, and soft as flute notes. 64They chatted and laughed among themselves, were full of mischief and pointed their pencil fingers at different parts of Bulger’s and my body with evident enjoyment at the sight of things so new and strange to them. Several times while gazing upon these mournful and woebegone looking faces and at the same time listening to their happy and childlike chatter, I broke out into a peal of laughter which was not only very ill-bred, but which invariably had the effect of causing them to fall back in disorder.

Gradually, however, they grew bolder, and by means of a kind of sign language, gave me to understand that they desired to touch me. By recourse to the same common language of mankind, I informed them that I should be only too happy to gratify their requests and proceeded to lay bare my breast and roll up the sleeves of my coat. They half repented of their foolhardiness, and crowding together, interlocked their arms and legs in such a manner that, to save my life, I couldn’t tell where one commenced and the other ended.

But after a few moment’s coaxing, I succeeded in persuading them to advance and lay their hands upon me.

Loud outcries followed exclamations of wonder and astonishment. As I afterwards learned the words they uttered meant: “Lump!” “Chunk!” “Stone!” “Hard!” “Solid!” At this moment, feeling a little bit hungry, I opened my sack of dried fruit and thrust several pieces into my mouth.

And now came a still more furious outburst of wonder, mingled with cries of horror and disgust. Again they retreated and tied themselves into a knot.

Can it be, I asked myself, that these creatures never touch solid food?

Observing now that they were consulting among themselves as to what course to pursue in regard to me, and being afraid that they might take it into their heads to escape into the thicket, for they were as quick in their movements as sprites and phantoms, I lost no time in making them understand that I desired to be led into the presence of their King or ruler.

This seemed to please them. But with many duckings of 65their heads, they withdrew a short distance, and held a sort of pow-wow. After which, one of their number, who seemed to be a sort of leader among them, and whose name, as I afterwards learned, was Go-Whizz, advanced toward me with numerous low-bendings of his body, and succeeded in informing me that their chief lived at a great distance from where we were, and that it would be necessary for me to remain here while they returned to their ruler to ask his permission to conduct me to him.

I readily consented to such an arrangement.

Go-Whizz then led me to one of their dwellings, pointed out a bed of nice dry rushes, and invited me to make myself comfortable until he should come again to conduct me into the presence of their chief, Ztwish-Ztwish, as was the name he bore.

Bulger and I didn’t wait for a second bidding, for we were tired to the bone after our long tramp. With half a dozen or more bows, quite as low as those made by Go-Whizz and his companions, I began to make ready for a night’s rest.

For a moment or so, I stood watching the retreating figures of these extraordinary people who, in single file, swiftly and noiselessly, like so many phantoms, had flitted away from the spot. Then throwing myself down on the bed of rushes, called out to Bulger to lie down by me. But he was not so trustful as I, and after caressing my hands, took up his position at the door of the dwelling, so as to save his little master from any treachery on the part of the phantom people.

Day now went out suddenly, like a lamp quenched by the wind.

Bulger refused to sleep.

But I, sheltered from the night dews by this thickly-thatched roof, soon fell into a deep and refreshing sleep, out of which Bulger found it difficult to arouse me, for I have a faint recollection of having felt him scratching at my arm for several moments, ere I could shake off the fetters of sleep, which held me bound so tightly.

Sitting up hastily, I discovered that Bulger was patrolling 66the floor in a state of great excitement, pausing ever and anon to sniff the morning air, which, it was plain to be seen, brought him a warning of some kind. Instantly it occurred to me that wild beasts were prowling about in the neighborhood. I examined the priming of my fire-arms. Bulger looked well pleased to see that I was thoroughly aroused as to the threatening danger.

He now grew bolder, and springing out into the open air, made a circuit of the dwelling, only to return with bristling hair, and growling out his suspicion that all was not right.

His ever-increasing anxiety now began to cause me genuine alarm. I was upon the very point of making a hasty retreat to my vessel, when the thought flashed through my mind: “What! escape these swift-footed phantoms? It were idle to attempt it!” So I determined to take my chances, come what might.

The hut was strongly built and its roof would at least protect us from a flight of poisoned arrow’s.

While I was occupied in making a hasty survey of the place, a loud outcry from Bulger startled me. I gave one look and a shiver of fear zigzagged through my body.

An armed band was full in sight.

With fierce shouts, deep and rumbling, they came nearer and nearer. Their massive forms swayed from side to side. Their huge limbs, moved like walking oaks. Their arms seemed the sturdy branches ending in hands which, in the dim morning light, took the shape of gnarled and knotted knobs; terrific strength was shadowed forth by their broad and heavy shoulders. One blow from a hand of such sledge hammer weight would lay a frail creature like me helpless in the dust!

Bulger, brave as he was, quailed at the sight. In an instant I collected my thoughts and breathed a last goodbye to the elder baron and to the gentle baroness, my mother, in their far-away home beneath the northern skies.

Now they had reached the very doorway, and stood beating their huge chests and giving forth deep rumbling sounds.

Instinctively I unsheathed my poniard and brandished it in the air.

67The effect was astounding!

With terrific cries, groans and shouts they fell back in the wildest terror, rolling over each other, bounding asunder like gigantic footballs, striking the earth and bounding into an erect position.

When at last these human air-bags settled down into something like rest, one of their number broke out into the most plaintive and beseeching speech which, I afterwards learned, had about the following meaning: “O, Master: O, Magician! O, Mysterious Lump! O, Impenetrable Chunk! put away that dread instrument! Prick us not with its awful point, pierce not our delicate skins. The slightest touch from that frightful blade would cause our bodies to burst like pricked balloons! Fear us not. We are thy friends. We come to conduct thee to our great chief, Ztwish-Ztwish. I am Go-Whizz, thy slave.”

Suddenly the truth broke in upon my wondering mind. There was no falsehood in the speaker’s words. It was Go-Whizz! The others were his companions—the wretched woebegone bags of bones who had parted with me only the day before.

With a smile and gentle wave of the hand, I hastily returned my dagger to its sheath and gave Go-Whizz to understand that he had nothing to fear from me. Half crazed with curiosity I now advanced to take a closer look at Go-Whizz and his companions. Sober fact is it when I tell you that they were, man for man, the self same beings I first fell in with on my starting out to explore the island.

But this wonderful change you ask? How had they in one short night grown to such herculean build—arms and limbs as massive as those of Japanese wrestlers.

I reply it was all air! When I first met these gentlemen they had not dined. Now they had just come from a hearty meal. For, you must know that I was now in the land of the wonderful Wind Eaters! When the air is calm and the winds asleep, these curious people are obliged to fast, and, their skins hang in wrinkled bags as I have described; but when the wind starts up for a mad frolic or even a gentle puff and blow, these 68strange creatures at once begin to increase in size, and not long is it before every wrinkle and crease disappear like magic.

As Go-Whizz and his companion stood before me, I was struck by the ridiculous contrast between their voices and the expression of their faces. Yesterday, with their fierce and forbidding faces their voices were soft and flute-like; to-day, their voices were terrible, deep and rumbling, while their faces now puffed out smooth and round seemed wreathed in smiles and good humor.

As I stood lost in wonder at the sight of these strangely-transformed beings, Go-Whizz rumbled out something which I easily understood to be a request that I should permit him to conduct me to the residence of his great chief, Ztwish-Ztwish.

I smiled assent and set about gathering up my traps.

Bulger was completely nonplussed and fixed his lustrous eyes upon me as much as to say:

“Dear little master, how canst thou trust thyself to these huge mountains of flesh, a single one of whom could crush thy frail body as easily as I would a mouse?”

I gave him a few caresses and stroked his silken coat, to let him know I was sure that I was right. Go-Whizz and his band, clumsy as they seemed, were by no means slow of pace. They moved forward at a brisk rate for the air was calm and they had little to carry. Now and then, upon bumping together, they bounded apart like rubber balls. It was a difficult thing for me to keep from laughing, especially when I saw Bulger’s look of utter perplexity. He rolled his eyes up at me in the most comical manner. However, at last we entered the village of the Wind Eaters, where the great chief, Ztwish-Ztwish held his court.

He too was puffed out pretty round, although, as I afterwards learned, the laws of the land did not allow him to eat as heartily as his subjects. Here and there a wrinkle was visible. His face and arms didn’t have that look of puffy tightness common to his people after a hearty meal. He had already been fully informed of my arrival on his island, and of my extraordinary weight and hardness for my size.

69It took about fifteen of the Wind Eaters to balance me in the scales.

Chief Ztwish-Ztwish received Bulger and me with the greatest kindness. I was at once presented to his ministers of state and to the members of his family. Queen Phew-yoo was a very stately dame, dignified and reserved in her manners; but the little princess Pouf-fâh charmed me with her childlike curiosity.

Their excellencies, the ministers of state, stood behind their master and seemed intent upon giving him far more advice than he was willing to listen to. Their names were Hiss-sah, Whirr-Whirr and Sh-Boom.

You may well imagine the excitement created in the home of chief Ztwish-Ztwish by my arrival. From the highest to the lowest, from chief to serving-man, everyone begged and implored to be allowed to feel of me.

Anxious to make a favorable impression upon the strange people so that I might have a good opportunity to study them at my ease, I submitted good-naturedly for an hour or more, to being patted, pinched, prodded, rubbed, and stroked.

It were vain for me to attempt to give you any idea of the thousand and one outcries of surprise, delight, wonder, fear, anxiety, and dread which went up from this multitude of strange beings, who were, although they didn’t seem to think so, quite as great curiosities to me as I to them.

My stock of dried fruit was now quite exhausted and I began to feel the gnawings of hunger.

I was always blest with a splendid appetite and the pure bracing air of this island only added to it. Bulger, too, I could see, was casting inquiring glances about in search of some signs of kitchen arrangements. I made known to chief Ztwish-Ztwish, as well as I could, the state of affairs, and he at once summoned Hiss-sah, Whirr-Whirr and Sh-Boom to his side for a consultation.

They held a most animated discussion and one too, which ran from quarter hour to quarter hour without any sign of coming to an end.

All this time my poor stomach was wondering what had cut off the customary supplies.

70Like rulers the world over, chief Ztwish-Ztwish was impatient and self-willed. Finally he lost his temper completely and moved about so vigorously that his three ministers were kept continually on the bounce, so to speak.

If you can only wait long enough every thing comes to an end. I was finally bidden to approach the chief, who asked me whether I had, since my arrival on his island, seen anything which I could eat?

I was obliged to confess that I had not. Whereupon there was another consultation, which ended in Ztwish-Ztwish seizing his corkwood club and sending each one of his ministers in a different direction, with three quick smart blows. The sight was so ludicrous that I would willingly have let my dinner go for a chance at the bat myself.

Suddenly an idea came to me. I could see that this settlement of the Wind Eaters was not far from the seashore. So, as best I could, I made chief Ztwish-Ztwish comprehend that I could eat the oysters and other shell fish, of which I had noticed vast quantities lying on the white sands of the ocean.

When the thing was made thoroughly plain to them that I proposed to satisfy my hunger by devouring such horrid and disgusting creatures as lived between these shells, I was really alarmed at the consternation it caused.

Queen Phew-yoo and princess Pouf-fâh were taken ill and withdrew to their apartments in great haste, while one and all, even including the fierce Go-Whizz, were seized with symptoms of nausea. By degrees, however, they recovered and orders were issued to half a dozen serving-men who, not being gorged, were in good marching condition to set out for the shore, and bring a supply of the shell-fish to appease my hunger, which, by this time had really set its teeth in my vitals.

Meanwhile Bulger and I were conducted to a neat bamboo dwelling with an umbrella-shaped roof, and left to ourselves until the supply of food should arrive.

I was too hungry to sleep. And, Bulger, too, was in the same condition. But he was patience itself, as he always is, when he knows that his little master is suffering.

71I threw myself down on a heap of dried rushes and my loving companion came and pillowed his head on my arm.

After a tedious wait of an hour or so a great outcry told me that something unusual had happened in the village of the Wind Eaters.

It was the arrival of the serving-men bringing the supply of oysters.

I could hardly restrain myself until chief Ztwish-Ztwish should summon me to break my long fast.

When I reached the chief’s quarters I found a vast crowd of people assembled to see the “Lump Man” put solid things down his throat.

Chief Ztwish-Ztwish and his court occupied front seats.

As you know by this time the voice of a Wind Eater depends upon the condition he is in. If he has just eaten and his body is rounded out like a well-filled balloon, his voice is deep and rumbling; if, on the other hand, he has not taken food for a day or so and his skin hangs in folds and wrinkles on his framework of bones, he speaks with a soft, flute-like tone.

As I stepped to the front, followed by Bulger, and took my place beside the heap of oysters, a deafening outcry went up, in which the deep roars of the inflated Wind Eaters were mingled with the soft flute-like tones of the fasting ones. Not noticing any instrument at hand with which to pry the shells open I thoughtlessly drew my poniard from its sheath. In an instant a terrible panic seized upon the assembled multitude. Queen Phew-yoo and princess Pouf-fâh fell into a swoon. Chief Ztwish-Ztwish being in a fasting condition darted away to his apartments like a phantom. The ministers of state, Iliss-sah, Whirr-Whirr and Sh-Boom, being puffed up to their fullest capacity, struck the ground with their feet and rolled out of the way like huge footballs.

Quick as thought I sheathed my dagger, the sight of whose glittering point had brought about all this consternation; and, profiting by the lessons given me at our first meeting by Go-Whizz and his companions, I began a series of head-duckings and walkingbeam motions of my body, which soon restored confidence in my peaceful intentions and brought my scattered 72audience back to their seats. Go-Whizz, who had run the farthest, was now loudest in his boasts that he had not been the least frightened. Chief Ztwish-Ztwish resumed his seat with considerable nerve, but I noticed that he kept his eyes fastened on the place where I had hidden my dagger in my belt. Although the sight of the toothsome oysters only served to whet my appetite, yet was I now terribly perplexed to know how I should pry the shells open, for the laws of the land of the Wind Eaters visited the death penalty upon any one found with a sharp-pointed instrument in his possession.

In earliest childhood the finger-nails are kept pared down to the flesh, until they lose their power to grow hard, and their place is taken by a piece of tough skin.

Teeth—the Wind Eaters have none; or, more correctly speaking, their teeth do not grow above their gums. Nature seemed to have gradually ceased taking the trouble to supply these people with something for which they had absolutely no use.

You must bear in mind that these curious people had not always been satisfied with such thin diet. In ancient times—so chief Ztwish-Ztwish informed me, their ancestors had been fruit-eaters; the fruits, however, failing, they had been forced to have recourse to the gums which flowed from the trees, and as these gradually dried up, they made discovery that the various winds which blew across the island were filled with some invisible germs or particles, which had the power of sustaining life.

To resume: Observing a flint hatchet lying on the ground, I laid hold of it and set to work opening one of the largest oysters. A deep silence settled upon the assemblage. With a skilful twist, I wrenched the upper shell off, and, raising the lower one, upon which the fat and luscious creature lay unmindful of his impending fate, I opened my mouth and gracefully let the dainty morsel slip out of sight! A hundred cries of half horror, half wonder broke like a great chorus from the surrounding crowds of Wind Eaters. Again and again this outburst died away, only to break forth once more with redoubled vigor.

73Many of the lookers-on were made so seriously ill by this—to them—most extraordinary spectacle, that they hastily left the place before I was able to take a second mouthful.

You may fancy how they felt. About as you would were I to begin gulping down bits of stone and iron.

Queen Phew-yoo clung timorously to her husband’s arm; but the princess Pouf-fâh stepped boldly nearer to me, so that she might have a better view of the “little man solid all through.” Again I raised one of the largest shells and let its occupant slip noiselessly down my throat, not forgetting each time to loosen the white muscle which held the shells together for Bulger’s share of the feast.

Gradually the qualms of the Wind Eaters, at sight of a human being swallowing food in lumps, gave place to a devouring curiosity on their part to draw nearer and get a better view of my manner of satisfying hunger.

I could understand enough to know that many of the Wind Eaters had serious doubts that I really swallowed the oysters.

To them, I was little less than some sort of a sleight-of-hand man or doer of tricks.

The little princess Pouf-fâh mounted upon one of the benches, and the instant the oyster disappeared down my throat insisted upon my opening my mouth to its greatest width, in order that she might take a look for herself and see if the oyster were not hidden away under my tongue or in my cheek somewhere.

A sudden scream of terror startled the lookers-on as much as it did me.

The little princess was carried away in a swoon.

It was my teeth! They had frightened the gentle Pouf-fâh half to death.

For a moment all was confusion. Encouraged by Go-Whizz, many of the Wind Eaters seized their clubs and pressed forward with murderous intent. The reappearance of princess Pouf-fâh, bright and smiling, set everything right again.

Now the crowd was seized with unconquerable curiosity to draw near and take a look for themselves at the terrible thing which had thrown Pouf-fâh into a swoon.

74My jaws soon began to ache from stretching my mouth wide enough open to give each one of them a glance at my double row of ivory cutters and grinders, and if I do say it myself, I had in those days one of the finest sets of teeth that ever cut their way through a slice of Nienburg biscuit, or ground up a piece of German roast goose.

From now on, these childlike and simple-minded people became pretty thoroughly convinced that the “Little Man Thick All Through” was a kind and peaceful creature and every way perfectly harmless.

The children flocked about me, and encouraged by my smiles and head-duckings soon made friends with me.

I was glad of this, for I was anxious to make a close study of the Wind Eaters young and old.

You may judge of my surprise when I saw a bevy of these children—animated puff-balls that they were—engaged in the to them, novel sport of rushing full tilt at me and bouncing off like rubber balls from a board fence.

Well, I suppose you are bursting with curiosity to hear something more definite about these strange people.

To me they were not entirely unknown. I had read here and there ancient books of travel by Arabian authors, of some such a race; whose bodies were so frail that they were unable to partake of any stronger and heavier food than the sweet gums which flowed from the trees and whose skins were so transparent that they were called “glass-bodied,” the beating of their little hearts being plainly visible to the eye of the beholder. I have no doubt that these authors referred to the dwellers of this wonderful island, on which no fruits, berries or edible roots were to be found, and whose ancestors, as I was informed by chief Ztwish-Ztwish, did, in former ages, thus sustain their lives. But I must confess that the fact that there were in existence human beings who literally lived upon air; or, more correctly speaking, upon winds laden with some invisible particles of life-sustaining matter, was a little more than I had ever dared to dream out, even in the most active workings of my imagination. You may judge then of my delight upon finding 75myself among these extraordinary people, and upon discovering them to be such true children of nature, mild-mannered and peacefully-inclined.

And yet I was not long in making a discovery which proved to be quite an important one to me.

It was this. I learned that although the truth was as I have stated it, that the Wind Eaters are as a rule, a race of peace-loving creatures, gentle in their dispositions and averse to wrong-doing, yet there were exceptions to this general rule. Strange to say, it depended on what wind they fed upon.

All the women, for instance, were gentleness itself. They fed upon the soft zephyrs of the south. But the great majority of these people contented themselves with satisfying their hunger by resorting to the strong and wholesome west wind; while a goodly number, from some idea that it had a sweeter and more delicate flavor, a sort of heavy, nut-like taste, preferred the fitful, irregular east wind. It was however not considered wholesome diet by the best physicians of the nation and they contended that those who made a habit of feeding upon this wind were never as hale and hearty as those who restricted themselves entirely to the nutritious and bracing west wind.

A few there were—as in every land there are those who delight in strong, rich food, who insisted upon feeding on the rugged, gusty north-west wind, claiming that it was best suited to their wants, and that nature had intended man to partake of a wind powerful and strong-bodied, in order to fit them for the battle of life. There were even some—a very few, be it said to the honor of these mild-mannered and peace-loving people, who, contrary to the laws of the land and the express commands of chief Ztwish-Ztwish, welcomed the blowing of the angry whistling, boisterous north-wind, and drank in the dangerous fluid until their better natures were completely changed; and from being gentle, timorous and peace-loving, they became rough, and quarrelsome.

To this ilk belonged Captain Go-Whizz. In fact, as I was told by Whirr-Whirr, chief Ztwish-Ztwish himself showed signs of fear when he saw Go-Whizz come swaggering into the 76village, his eyes inflamed, his steps unsteady, his speech indistinct after a heavy meal upon the rude and buffeting wind of the north. While in this condition Go-Whizz lost the slight control he had over himself and had, upon one occasion, so far forgotten himself as to breathe out threats and defiance against chief Ztwish-Ztwish, driving that ruler out of his own apartments, by advancing upon him with a bit of flint which he had ground to a dangerously sharp point.

Such were the curious people among whom I now found myself sojourning and on terms of pleasant intimacy with their ruler.

A few days after my arrival at the village of the Wind Eaters, I was, unfortunately the innocent cause of rather a grave accident, which, for a while had the effect of making me somewhat unpopular at the court of chief Ztwish-Ztwish.

It all came about in this way:

I’ve already told you how quick the children were to discover the solidity of my body and what delight they took in throwing themselves against me full tilt, in order to have the sport of bouncing off again like so many rubber balls.

Now you must keep in mind the fact that even after a hearty meal, a whole dozen of these babies weighed about one good pound.

I used to encourage them to play about me, in order the better to observe their curious tricks and ways, one of which was to lock arms and legs and thus form a chain of human links, one of which being fastened to a peak of the roof and the other possibly to some high staff or pole, at times even extending across the street and ending on the roof of the opposite dwelling. Thus festooned they spent hours swaying to and fro in the cool of the day, often swinging themselves to sleep. And it was not at all an unusual thing to see one of the mothers in search of her child come bustling along, halt, take down the line of living links, unhook her baby, replace the line and hurry away home.

While seated, one day, on the balcony of one of chief Ztwish-Ztwish’s cottages, a dozen or more of the children set to work 77to form such a chain, one end of it being fastened to one of my earrings which, like a good sailor, I took pleasure in wearing at times, and the other reaching nearly to the ground, passing over the high rail of the balcony.

Scrambling, pushing and squirming, uttering the queerest cries, shouts and squeals, these tiny Wind Eaters were half wild with joy, when suddenly one of those nearest me swung against the point of a needle which I had, doubtlessly, thrust into the lapel of my coat the last time I had been doing some mending, for, like a true sailor, I was skilled in the use of needle and thread.

I was aroused from my dreamy contemplation of these fantastic beings by a sharp crack like that made by the bursting of a toy balloon.

Again and again the same sharp noise rang in my ear.

A glance was sufficient to explain it all. I could feel my hair bristling up with horror as I saw the living links of this chain snap asunder, one after the other, and disappear into thin air. Exploded by coming into contact with the needle point, the force of the explosion of the first of these tiny puff-balls of humanity had been sufficient to burst the baby next in the line and so on to the end of the chain!

A dozen of them gone in less than as many seconds and not so much as a lock of hair to carry home to the heart broken mothers!

In a few moments, the news of the accident had spread to every quarter of the village. The weeping, shrieking mothers, howling for vengeance, gathered quickly about the dwelling into the interior of which Bulger and I had retreated.

Now you may believe me when I say, that I would not have stood in the least dread of an army of the Wind Eaters, when they were fully inflated after a hearty meal, but it so happened that the air had been calm for a day or so, and that many of them were now shrunken to the living skeleton size in which I had first met them. In this condition they were foes not to be despised, for, moving as they did, with almost lightning rapidity, their mode of fighting was to entangle their enemy in fine nets, woven of bamboo fibre and then beat them to death with their clubs.

78True, these clubs were made of corkwood, and a score of them weighed less than a pound; yet, this fact would only make death slower and more painful; for, while a few blows might suffice to put one of their own kind out of his misery, it would, most surely, have required a whole day for them to beat the life out of such a solid enemy as I was.

Before I had chance to collect my thoughts, Go-Whizz was at the door with his band, their nets coiled to throw over me, while behind the net-throwers stood a row of club-bearers, anxiously awaiting their turn to begin proceedings. Thought I to myself: “This is serious business. If chief Ztwish-Ztwish is not at hand, they will entangle me in their nets and try to beat the life out of me before he returns, for they well know his affection for me.” But, worse than all, was the fact that Go-Whizz had just returned from a distant part of the island, whither he and a few of his chums had made a secret journey, in order to gorge themselves on the rude and boisterous north-west wind. He was full of swagger and ire! I had never seen him swollen to such a size. His voice sounded like the deep bellowing of some fierce animal.

He whirled his net in the air, and called out in thundering tones for his men to follow him.

I felt now that the moment had arrived for me to make a desperate effort to save my life and Bulger’s, too, for, with his four feet twisted up in one of their nets, he would fall an easy prey to Go-Whizz and his band. I felt, too, that it would be worse than useless to appeal to Go-Whizz for mercy, influenced, as he was, by long and deep draughts of the fierce and raging north-west gale.

There he stood, puffing, blowing, blustering, swaggering, as round and round his head he swung the fatal web, which, the moment I should attempt to take my back from the wall, he intended to cast over me as a fowler would entrap a bird.

Suddenly I bethought myself of the little instrument which had brought me to this dangerous strait.

Before drawing it, however, from its hiding-place, I determined to play the bully and swagger a little myself.

79Now, the heaviest Wind Eater weighs about six pounds; and, as you may imagine, my weight, nearly a hundred pounds, was a source of great dread to them. They stood in constant fear that I might accidentally tread upon one of the toes of a Wind Eater and explode him.

Before they would allow me to venture out upon one of their balconies, or to inhabit an upper story of one of their dwellings, they proceeded to strengthen it with the stoutest bamboo poles they could find. So, I now began to give the valiant Go-Whizz a few gentle reminders of my weight and solidity.

Leaping high into the air, I landed upon the bamboo flooring with such a thump that everything creaked and trembled.

At first there was a general stampede of Go-Whizz’s followers, and that blustering leader was the only one left to face Bulger and me.

He stood his ground pretty bravely, although I could see that he was half inclined to heed the cries of his men and make his way out of the dwelling before I succeeded in wrecking it. But, after a few more of my jumps, seeing that the flooring withstood all my efforts to break it down, Go-Whizz succeeded in rallying his band.

Again, and now more furious than ever, they surrounded us, shrieking and howling like mad, their uplifted right hands bearing the dangerous nets, with which they hoped to entangle Bulger and me, and then dispatch us.

Now, it was high time for me to fall back on my reserves.

I did so. The effect was simply astounding. The needle proved to be one of the kind used for darning; very long and bright, and exceedingly sharp-pointed. My dagger point was bad enough. It had thrown them into a wild and panicky fear. But, this little instrument, as I brandished it in front of them, threw them into fits of rigid terror.

They stood rooted to the ground, their bulging eyes riveted upon the needle-point as if they, one and all, expected it to prick them to death if they stirred an inch.

At last, making a mighty effort, Go-Whizz broke away from the spot, uttering a deep and rumbling cry of horror, his men 80rolling after him, in the wildest terror. When they saw the tumultuous manner in which the valiant Go-Whizz and his followers retreated from my presence, the assembled men and women, with frightful cries, took to their heels as if a legion of demons were pursuing them.

In a few moments Bulger and I stood alone on the battle field. He had not budged from my side during the time that death threatened me.

“Come!” said I, as I stooped and stroked his head. “Come, thou faithful friend and companion, let us go to chief Ztwish-Ztwish and lay the matter before him!”

The chief had just awoke from a noonday nap. He had calmly slept through the whole conflict, and so it was necessary for me to give him a full account of the unfortunate accident which resulted in exploding an entire string of babies, and of Go-Whizz’s attempt to slay me. He listened with great calmness and most patiently too. He then begged to be excused for a few moments as an attendant had just informed him that a very soft and sweet south wind had begun to blow.

He stepped out on the balcony; and after he had taken about a dozen mouthfuls of the pure, refreshing breeze, returned looking a little plumper and, like all men after enjoying a meal of favorite food, was still more amiable and kindly in his manner than before.

The news that a dozen of the smallest subjects had been so unceremoniously popped out of existence didn’t seem to worry him very much. What moved him most of all, was the fact which, apparently, up to that hour had never entered into his mind, namely, that a point so fine, so delicate, so deadly, so nearly invisible, could be created by the hand of man!

I assured him that it was that very moment hidden in the stuff of my garb, right in front of his eyes.

He trembled.

I strove to reassure him, by explaining to him that I would as soon think of plunging my poniard into my own heart as of turning this almost invisible and yet deadly point against his life.

81He tried to smile, but it ended in a shudder.

“Thinkest thou, little man thick-all-through,” asked chief Ztwish-Ztwish with a trembling tongue, “that I may look upon it and not fall into a swoon?”

“O, most assuredly, great chief:” was my reply. “In fact, most light and buoyant Ztwish-Ztwish,” I continued, “I can rob this dreaded instrument of all its power to injure thee and place it in thy hand like any harmless bit of wood. Is it thy will that I should thus deliver to thee this dreaded point?”

With a slight shiver, chief Ztwish-Ztwish made answer:

“Ay, great and learned little master, I think I can bear the sight of it now. I am, indeed, very brave, but thou knowest a single prick of that deadly point would instantly end the life of the sturdiest Wind Eater.”

I again assured him that there was really nothing to dread so long as he followed my directions. So saying I drew the darning needle from its hiding place.

Chief Ztwish-Ztwish closed his eyes at first, but gradually grew bold enough to gaze upon the glittering point.

Stooping down I picked up one of the cork clubs and breaking off a bit of the smaller end thrust the needle point into it.

Chief Ztwish-Ztwish watched my movements with a sort of painful curiosity.

“There, great chief of the Wind Eaters,” I exclaimed, “now thou mayest toy with it, hide it in the rushes of thy bed, it cannot injure thee! It is as harmless as a pebble rounded by the sportive, sparkling waters of one of thy mountain brooks. Take it! it may serve thee some day, in case of a sudden attack upon thy illustrious person.”

“At such a moment, fear naught! seize it firmly, draw its dreaded point from its hiding place in this bit of cork. So small is it that it will be invisible in thy hand, and while thine enemy stands before thee in fancied safety, pierce him to death; for, thou are ruler and it is fitting that death should strike him who attempts to rob thy people of their chief!”

Chief Ztwish-Ztwish took the needle with trembling hand, and hid the bit of cork which held it under the thatch of the 82roof. Then, calling out, he summoned one of his serving-men and bade him bring from a neighboring apartment a certain small bamboo chest, from which he drew a string of rare jewels somewhat of the nature of amber, only a thousand times more brilliant. With this beautiful gift he dismissed me, issuing orders to his ministers that no harm should be allowed to come to me for the accident which exploded the string of little Wind Eaters.

Go-Whizz could with difficulty hide his anger at seeing me once more an honored guest at the court of chief Ztwish-Ztwish.

I did not relax my vigilance in the least, however. Every night I barred the windows with my own hands, and placed Bulger’s mat of rushes in front of the door, so that it would be impossible for the wrathful leader to surprise me.

Now that the explosion of the babies was quite forgotten, my sojourn among the Wind Eaters would have continued to be extremely pleasant, had not a new difficulty arisen to cause me anxiety.

The rather thin diet upon which I had been existing, since my arrival among these curious people, while it appeased my hunger, robbed me of that plump and well-fed look which I had always had, I found myself losing flesh at an alarming rate. Chief Ztwish-Ztwish and queen Phew-yoo were delighted, for as they expressed it, “the little man thick-all-through was rapidly becoming in appearance at least, a genuine Wind Eater.”

Bulger, too, fell away dreadfully.

Now and then I surprised him with his dark, lustrous eyes fixed upon me with as much as to say: “O, little master, what is the matter with us? We eat, and yet we grow thin. Are we really turning to Wind Eaters?”

And another bad phase of the matter was, that while my ever-increasing leanness was causing me so much anxiety, it was carrying joy to the heart of queen Phew-yoo who, it seems, had formed the plan of keeping me for the rest of my life in the service of her lord and master by bestowing upon me the hand of the fair princess Pouf-fâh.

83Queen Phew-yoo’s explanation of my ever-increasing thinness was, that it was the effect of the wonderful atmosphere of their island; that it mattered very little how thick and solid a man might be, if he lived long enough among them, he would gradually lose it and become, if not a genuine Wind Eater, at least almost as light and airy a being as they were.

As I learned of these views from others before hearing them from the queen’s own lips, it was not at all a surprise for me, one day to receive a message from the stately Phew-yoo summoning me to present myself before her.

She accorded me a very gracious reception, and princess Pouf-fâh too, showed great delight at seeing me under her mother’s roof. She bounced hither and thither like a toy balloon, now shaking perfume from dried flowers, now holding up strings of the curious gems, which I have already mentioned, and making them glisten in front of my face.

I amused her by holding her out on the palm of my hand and tossing her up and catching her, as I would a rubber ball.

Queen Phew-yoo looked on in mute satisfaction.

When Princess Pouf-fâh had grown weary of play, the queen spoke as follows:

“O, little man thick-all-through, I have to say to thee that which will gladden thy heart. The great chief, my husband, and I have noticed with joy that day by day thou art growing thinner and thinner. Know then, that this is the magical effect of the air thou breathest. When our forefathers landed on this island, they, like thee were solid all through. Therefore, be not alarmed when, a few months hence, thou findest thyself completely changed. Thou wilt, ere long, lose this heavy load of useless flesh, which thou hast been for so long a time condemned to carry about with thee, and become light and buoyant, like us. And, O beloved Lump, that thou mayest hasten the change from thy present solid form and become a graceful and hollow being like one of us, I do, with the chief Ztwish-Ztwish’s counsel and consent, accord thee permission to eat with us each day. This very hour shalt thou make thy first meal upon the sweet and wholesome wind of the 84South. The very moment, little Chunk, that thou hast become thin enough to suit the great chief, he will give thee the fair princess Pouf-fâh for thy wife.”

At these words, the princess, who really seemed to be very fond of me, clapped her hands joyfully, and bounced between her mother and me like a toy football.

“But, little Man-Lump,” continued queen Phew-yoo, “before we set out to dine on the sweet wind which blows over Banquet Hill, there are two things which the great chief Ztwish-Ztwish said I must be very particular to mention to you, the two conditions upon which he is willing to honor you above all men, by bestowing the hand of the beautiful princess Pouf-fâh upon thee.”

“Name them, gracious queen!” I cried, for I was too wise to raise any objections at this point. I knew only too well that a single word from chief Ztwish-Ztwish would hand me over to the tender mercies of the fierce Go-Whizz.

“They are,” resumed queen Phew-yoo, puffing out her cheeks and tapping them playfully with the backs of her thumbs, “they are, little man thick-all-through, that thou shalt file thy teeth down even with thy gums and keep thy nails always pared down to the flesh.”

“It shall be, gracious queen, as thou desirest,” I replied, with several low bendings of my body.

“Then,” answered queen Phew-yoo gayly, “there remains nothing for thee to do but to begin at once to accustom thyself to our food; so let us set out for Banquet Hill without delay, for the sweet south wind is blowing fresh and strong!”

I accompanied queen Phew-yoo and princess Pouf-fâh to the place indicated. It was a beautiful knoll, from which I could look far away to southward over a valley, enchantingly fair.

She and the princess at once began to inhale the soft, sweet air, and encouraged me to do the same.

They were delighted with my efforts. In fact, the motherly Phew-yoo seemed a little bit anxious lest I should overeat myself.

85After the princess had taken a few deep draughts, I was surprised to see an attendant approach her and place about her throat a necklace of beads, strung upon an elastic cord. This was a precaution to prevent the princess from eating too heartily, were she so inclined. Well, as you may imagine, I returned to my apartments from dining with queen Phew-yoo and princess Pouf-fâh on Banquet Hill a very hungry man; if that were possible, hungrier than I was before, for the pure, fresh air and many deep breaths had fairly made me ravenous.

Once more alone with Bulger, I set to work thinking out some scheme to get hold of more food; and, by checking my alarming loss of flesh, put an end to queen Phew-yoo’s plan of transforming me into a genuine Wind Eater and giving me the princess Pouf-fâh for a wife.

It occurred to me that possibly I might catch some fish in one of the arms of the sea nearest to the village and broil it on live embers, for I had my tinder box in my pocket.

This plan worked to a charm. I soon succeeded in teaching several of the serving-men to rig up a number of their war-nets as a sort of seine, and was overjoyed the first time I cast it to make a haul of a dozen or more fine sea-bass.

Bulger entered into the sport with great zeal, seizing a rope in his mouth and tugging away for dear life, as we began to haul in.

The next thing was to gather some dry leaves and wood, and start a suitable fire to make a bed of embers. Crowds of the Wind Eaters gathered about me and watched my movements with a sort of mixture of wonder, fear and pleasure.

When at last the smoke began to curl up, and the flame showed itself, cries of consternation broke forth, and a wild stampede ensued.

Chief Ztwish-Ztwish was hastily summoned; but, I had no difficulty in convincing him that I intended no injury to anyone, that the red tongues which he saw darting forth were perfectly harmless if they did not come in contact with one’s flesh; that it would only be necessary for him to issue a command forbidding 86the people to approach too near to the tongues of crimson which darted from the black clouds of smoke.

By the time the live embers had formed I was ready with a dressed sea-bass of about two pounds’ weight, and the cooking began.

It is needless for me to assure you that Bulger and I sat down to a delightful meal, really the first satisfactory one since my arrival among the Wind Eaters.

From this time on all went well. Every day my oyster gatherers and my fishermen made their visit to the shore to keep my larder supplied. Upon their return, I was always in readiness with a fine bed of embers. So things went on for a week or so. I was delighted to find Bulger and myself gaining flesh in splendid style. And still, every now and then I was obliged to accept queen Phew-yoo’s invitation to dine with her and the princess Pouf-fâh at Banquet Hill, where I pretended to enjoy a meal on the soft and perfumed south wind quite as much as they did themselves. Queen Phew-yoo insisted that my complexion was growing clearer and more transparent every day, and that, beyond all doubt, in a few months I would be able entirely to give up a “swallowing stones” as she called it.

While I was quietly pursuing my studies of these curious people, another unfortunate occurrence took place, and this time it turned out to be a very grave and serious matter.

The Wind Eaters were not long in getting accustomed to the, to them, at first, startling sight of “crimson tongues darting from the mouths of black clouds.” In fact, they soon learned to like the odor of the delicate morsels as they lay broiling on the embers, and when the air was chilly, didn’t hesitate to form a circle around Bulger and me as we sat eating our dinner and enjoy the warmth, and to them, curious spectacle at the same time. It so happened that one evening, I had left a deeper bed of embers than I had imagined. The ashes collected over them and they continued to glow till nightfall. A band of roysterers belonging to the Go-Whizz faction, by the merest chance, returned homeward that night from a trip to the north shore of the island, where they had gorged themselves upon the boisterous wind of that quarter. Attracted by the glow of the remaining embers, they made haste to gather a lot of wood, threw it upon the smoldering fire, and, as the flames began to thrust out their red tongues here and there, ranged themselves in a circle to enjoy the warmth, for the night was damp and chilly.

88So pleasant did they find the effects of the warmth that they resolved to pass the night there and threw themselves down on the ground as close to the fire as they deemed it prudent to go.

About midnight a gentle scratching on my arm from Bulger’s paw, told me that something unusual had happened, for he never awakened me unless he was quite sure that the matter was serious enough to warrant him in disturbing me.

I found the village in the wildest state of alarm. Ear-piercing screams from the women mingled with the deep rumbling outcries of the men.

You have no doubt, already guessed what had happened. The facts were simply these: In the night, the cold had increased, and several of the Wind Eaters, half asleep, and half stupefied by the deep draughts of the boisterous north-west wind, had approached closer and closer to the fire, when suddenly the vast quantity of cold air which they had swallowed began to expand and four of them exploded with a terrific noise.

In quicker time than it takes to tell it, my dwelling was surrounded by a screaming, shrieking, howling mob of Wind Eaters, demanding my instant death.

It required all of chief Ztwish-Ztwish’s influence with his people to save me from being entangled in their fatal nets and beaten to death on the spot.

To make matters a thousand times worse, the bully and swaggerer, Go-Whizz, entered the village at this very moment, with a pack of his quarrelsome hangers-on at his heels. He had been away on a secret trip to the farthest northern point of the island, where the north wind howls and roars its maddest. I had never seen him puffed up so to the very bursting point with his favorite food.

When he heard of the fate which had overtaken his four 89comrades, his fury knew no bounds. He and his followers pounded their chests until the air quivered with deep and rumbling sounds, while ever and anon they broke out into the wildest lamentations for their dead companions. He openly and boldly charged chief Ztwish-Ztwish with having betrayed his people and given over their once happy island to certain ruin at the hands of the “little monster thick-all-through,” who, by his dread magic and foul mysteries, would soon bring their people to feed upon stones like himself.

Day now began to break; and with the coming light, the confusion in the village seemed to take on new strength. So sure was I that death was about to strike me that I wrote out several messages to the elder baron and to the gentle baroness, my mother, on the leaves of my note-book, and left directions with one of the chief’s serving-men that, in case of my death, it was my wish that he should send them to my people, whom he would find on my ship in the beautiful bay on the distant shore of the island.

I said nothing about Bulger, for I knew only too well that he would die by my side.

I prepared for the worst. I examined the primings of my pocket-pistols, and concealed my dagger under my coat at the back of my neck, where I would be better able to reach it, if it came to close quarters.

This done, I proceeded to cut my finger-nails to as sharp points as I could, for I was determined to sell my life as dearly as possible.

While I felt confident of chief Ztwish-Ztwish’s affection for me, yet I couldn’t tell at what moment he might lose courage and turn me over to the mob, in order to save himself.

Bulger watched all my preparations with wide-opened and intelligent eyes, occasionally giving utterance to a low, nervous whine, as the howling, shrieking, roaring mob surged back and forth in front of chief Ztwish-Ztwish’s dwelling.

By the law of the land, the common people were prohibited from entering the inner enclosure of the chief’s abode, but Go-Whizz, being one of the nobles or minor chiefs, was 90entitled to advance into the chief’s presence and state his wrongs or make his requests.

So now, the raging Go-Whizz, parting from his followers, who never ceased crying out for vengeance upon the “little demon Lump,” who, on two different occasions, had spread death and destruction among their people, strode into the presence of chief Ztwish-Ztwish.

The chief was calm. He had not partaken of food for four and twenty hours, and stood up, wrinkled, creased and seamed, as the Wind Eaters always look when fasting. Near him sat queen Phew-yoo and princess Pouf-fâh, while directly behind him were ranged his three councillors, Hiss-sah, Whirr-Whirr, and Sh-Boom. They were well-rounded out by recent draughts of the strong and wholesome west wind, and hence, looked as contented and smiling as Ztwish-Ztwish looked sad and solemn. I stood in an adjoining apartment, concealed behind a bamboo screen, with my faithful Bulger by my side. I was so placed that I could see all, without being seen myself. Chief Ztwish-Ztwish knew of my presence there.

As Bulger caught a glimpse of the raging and bellowing Go-Whizz, he grew so nervous that I was obliged to stoop and stroke his head to let him know I feared nothing. But the fact of the matter is, great dangers always exert a subduing influence upon me.

I face them cooly, but sadly, for my thoughts in such moments go back to the elder baron and to the gentle baroness, my mother, in the far-away home ’neath the skies of the beloved fatherland.

Like a huge football impelled by the kick of some gigantic foot, Go-Whizz landed in the audience chamber of chief Ztwish-Ztwish. He shook his arms violently, and bounded up and down with inward fury, for he was still too much beside himself with rage to utter any other sound than a deep rumbling growl or mutter.

From my place behind the bamboo screen I followed, with all the keenness of sight for which I am so justly famous, every movement of the furious Go-Whizz, as well as the actions 91and demeanor of chief Ztwish-Ztwish and of his councillors, for I was determined not to be caught napping in case any signs of treachery should be visible. At the very first glance I saw that the rebellious Go-Whizz had something hidden in his girdle, and from the shape and length I knew at once that it was a flint knife. Quick as thought, I beckoned a serving man to my side and sent a message to the chief, telling the attendant to appear to be engaged in waving the branches of perfumed leaves as was his duty while he whispered it in the chief’s ear.

It was as follows:

“Be on thy guard! O, Chief. The brawler hath a flint knife hidden in his girdle. He will attempt to slay thee. Be careful! Be calm!”

Go-Whizz had now quieted down a little; but, with a voice of thunder, he began his tirade. He pictured the long years of peace and happiness on their island, the blessings they had enjoyed under the long and glorious line of rulers of which Ztwish-Ztwish was the worthy descendant. He thundered out defiance against all the enemies of the Wind Eaters and as softly as possible roared his own praises telling of the many deeds of valor he had performed in Ztwish-Ztwish’s service and ended by declaring himself ready and willing to die for his beloved chief.

When Go-Whizz had spoken, the chief bowed his head for a few moments in silence and then made answer: “Thou hast spoken truly and wisely, O Go-Whizz! Thou art brave. Thou hast the right to demand favor at my hands! Speak, Go-Whizz, what may Ztwish-Ztwish do for thee?”

At these words of Ztwish-Ztwish, all the former fury of Go-Whizz broke forth once more. Pounding his chest and striding up and down the audience chamber, he roared out:

“That thou givest into my hands this very hour, the ‘Solid Demon,’ the dreaded ‘Man-Lump,’ the monster ‘Thick-All-Through’ who hath brought all this death and ruin into our peaceful land!”

Chief Ztwish-Ztwish was silent for a few moments.

92Need I tell you that my very heart listened for the reply?

I could hear nothing but the deep, coarse, grating sound of Go-Whizz’s breath as I leaned forward to catch the first word which should fall from the chief’s lips.

It seemed a lifetime. At length Ztwish-Ztwish spoke:

“My brother, thou art inflamed with the deep draughts of the fierce and raging north wind! Thou art beside thyself. Thou seest not clearly! I must not adjudge death except when the decree will rest on the laws of our fathers. True, the ‘Little Man-Thick-All-Through’ hath been the cause of great misfortune to our people, but the innocent cause. He hath not striven or desired to harm us. He is a lover of peace, a friend of his kind. My followers were warned of the danger of the crimson tongues. The ‘Man Lump’ did not seek their death. And full well too, thou knowest that the laws of our fathers bid us to hold the lives of our guests as sacred as the texture of our skin. Go thy way, therefore, Go-Whizz, I cannot doom the ‘Man Lump’ to death.

“Is this,” roared the disappointed leader, “the kind of justice which thou givest to my people?”

“Ay, is it, thou brawler!” replied chief Ztwish-Ztwish, now fast losing control over himself. “Hold thy peace and depart, lest in my wrath at thy frequent wrong doing I give thee over to merited punishment!”

“Have a care, Ztwish-Ztwish!” roared Go-Whizz, boiling over with rage, “have a care lest thy people rise in their might and cast thee out, thou unjust ruler!”

“Begone, I say!” was Ztwish-Ztwish’s calm but stern reply.

“Go thou first, then, traitor to thy people!” thundered out Go-Whizz, springing forward with the flint knife raised high in the air.

Cries of terror burst from those gathered in the audience chamber. But chief Ztwish-Ztwish calmly put forth his hand and touched the would-be assassin.

With a deafening crack the body of the raging Go-Whizz flew into a thousand pieces, like a huge balloon seized by the hands of the tempest and whirled against the spear-like branches of some shattered oaken monarch of the plain.

93Queen Phew-yoo and princess Pouf-fâh, bewildered and terror-stricken, clung to each other, while silent fear sat on the faces of those around the chief. But he was calm, and spoke a few words in a mild and steady voice to the queen and the princess.

When the people learned of Go-Whizz’s attempt to slay their ruler and how the brawler, at the very instant he lifted the flint knife to strike, had been mysteriously stricken dead at Ztwish-Ztwish’s feet, they sent up loud huzzas, for the fierce Go-Whizz was more feared than loved, even by his followers.

It required several days for the village of the Wind Eaters to quiet down and take on its every-day look, after the mysterious death of Go-Whizz; but, with his disappearance vanished all opposition to chief Ztwish-Ztwish’s rule.

The people firmly believed that it was the avenging spirits of the air who had touched the brawler with their sword points when he raised his hand against their ruler.

I need hardly tell you that the chief’s gratitude to me knew no bounds. No gifts were too beautiful or too costly to be offered me. And the fact that I declined them all, only seemed to strengthen his affection for me.

But how could I, how dared I reject the gift of the hand of the fair princess Pouf-fâh?

To do this would be to undo all that I have done, to make Ztwish-Ztwish my enemy, to transform his love into hate, his confidence into suspicion—possibly to write my own death warrant.

There was but one course left for me to pursue. And that was escape!

And escape, too, it must be at once, before I had lost the chief’s confidence. One of Ztwish-Ztwish’s first acts after his rescue from the flint knife of the murderous Go-Whizz, was to restore to me the tiny instrument with the invisible point.

This done, a terrible load seemed to be lifted from his mind. He became himself again. And with his returning happiness and content, came a still stronger desire to hasten my marriage with the princess Pouf-fâh.

94With the greatest caution, I made this and that excuse, in order to gain time to collect my thoughts and settle upon some sure plan of escape, for recapture I knew meant death, or worse than death—imprisonment until I should consent to give up all desire to leave the island of the Wind Eaters, and pledge myself to become, so far as nature would permit, one of their people.

Cautious as I was, my excuses awakened suspicion.

The first proof of this was to find that orders had been given to cut off my supply of fish.

Queen Phew-yoo was afraid that so long as I was permitted to have all the solid food I wanted, I would not grow thin enough to be content with air diet, and, therefore, not satisfied to make my home among them for the rest of my life.

The next thing to happen to me was to find my supply of oysters and mussels reduced one-half by orders of Phew-yoo. This meant yield or starve!

It struck me like a bolt out of a clear sky!

But it has always been just such blows as this which have, throughout my life, aroused me to calm, quick, intelligent action.

I hesitated no longer. My plan reached perfection in a single moment. When nightfall came I hastily scrawled a few lines addressed to my sailing-master, telling him of the fate which threatened to overtake me and bidding him arm a few trusty men and hasten to my rescue. This I tied to the collar of my loved and faithful Bulger. He covered my hand with caresses and I held him clasped in my arms for an instant while the tears fell hot and fast. Then I softly opened the door of my bamboo lodge.

The night was bright and glorious. “Away, my beloved Bulger!” I whispered, stooping and pressing my lips for the last time on his silken ears and shapely head. “To the ship! Away!” He paused, looked into my face, gave a low whine as if to say: “Ay, ay, little master, I understand!” And away he sprang like the wind. For an instant I could follow him as with a long and sturdy bound he sped along! And then he was gone!

95The next morning, to my utter astonishment, I was informed that all the preparations for the marriage of the princess Pouf-fâh and the “little man thick-all-through,” were completed and that the feasting and merrymaking would begin the day following.

This piece of news, startling as it was, I received with perfect calmness. I completely disarmed all suspicion by my apparent satisfaction with the bright prospect of becoming the son-in-law of the great chief Ztwish-Ztwish. I searched my pockets for trinkets to bestow upon the light and airy Pouf-fâh.

Queen Phew-yoo was not visible. So great had been the joy of her mother’s heart that in a moment of weakness she had partaken too greedily of the rich, but unwholesome east wind and was now suffering from a fearful attack of dyspepsia.

This was a most fortunate thing for me, for I am quite certain that queen Phew-yoo would never have consented to allow me to return to my own apartments that night. There was now but one thing left for me to do and that was to make for the distant sea-coast, where I had left my ship and crew.

And start, too, that very night. As ill luck would have it, chief Ztwish-Ztwish, noticing that a delightfully strong west wind had begun to blow insisted upon having a sort of preliminary feast about sundown.

I was invited to join the party.

Not daring to refuse, I set out with the merry-makers and not only tired myself out by making frantic efforts to fill myself with their invisible food but it was nearly midnight before the village grew perfectly quiet and everybody seemed to have closed the doors and windows of his dwelling. But, after all, the rioting of the Wind Eaters was a fortunate thing for me. They went to bed so gorged with many and deep draughts of the hearty and filling west wind, that they slept like logs, if you will allow me to compare puff-balls to solid wood.

I waited until the rumbling of the voices had died away as the last group of roysterers broke up and the solitary Wind Eaters, scattered along the streets, disappeared one by one into their bamboo dwellings.

96Leaving my door fastened on the inside, I sprang lightly through the window, and under cover of the deep shadows made my way unnoticed to the outskirts of the town. Here I broke into a sharp run, for at very most I would have but six hours’ start of the Wind Eaters and that was far too little; for, as I have already told you, they flit along like phantoms when in a fasting condition, and even when pretty well filled, are very swift of foot—more especially if the air be quiet so as not to impede their advance.

On, on, I sped with a desperate resolve to make such a good use of my start as to make it impossible for them to overtake me.

To my horror, after about an hour’s run I noticed that my legs were beginning to tire.

This was a terrible blow to me. For a few moments I staggered along half unconscious of where I was, whither I was hastening and of the awful danger threatening me. All at once the truth of the matter broke upon me.

I was but the wreck of my former self. The long months of fish diet had robbed my muscles of that wonderful strength and elasticity which was once my pride and my chief dependence in moments of peril.

Frail as I had grown, my legs now bent beneath me.

Slower and slower grew my pace. My heart seemed to swell and shut out the very breath of life.

On, ever onward, I toiled with a desperate effort to escape my pursuers, whose rumbling voices it half seemed to me were faintly booming in the distance.

But Nature would do no more!

I reeled, I staggered, I stopped, I fell!

How long I lay there I know not. But when I came to myself, I could plainly feel that change in the air which tells of the coming day. The rippling of a brook fell on my ear. I dragged my aching body in the direction the sound came from. A deep pull at the cool, clear water of the brook refreshed me somewhat. I attempted to rise; but, O, new loss of hope—to discover that my joints had stiffened while sleeping on the ground, uncovered, yes, even ill-clad, for I had left one piece 97of my clothing hanging on the window-sill of my lodge in the village, to quiet any suspicion which might arise in the minds of the serving-men.

Thoughts of home, however, of the elder baron, of the gentle baroness, my mother, of my loved Bulger, flitted through my fevered brain, and prompted me to make one more effort to regain my feet and escape death at the hands of chief Ztwish-Ztwish’s enraged people, who would soon be bounding along, up hill and down dale, like spirits of the wind, as they were.

A groan escaped my lips as I rose to my feet, so like knife-points in my joints were the pains which shot through my frame.

But I must try to be up and away, even though the effort cost me a thousand agonizing twinges.

I owe it to the loved ones at home to push on till I fall utterly broken, till, like a stricken beast, robbed of the power to stand, I should topple and fall at the feet and at the mercy of my pursuers.

Such were the thoughts which oppressed my poor, reeling brain.

A terrible mystery, a torturing dream weighed me down.

I still had my mind. I could see. I could feel. I could hear. And why should I not rise and move onward, and away from the certain death which hovered over me?

Crazed by such thoughts, I struggled to my feet and staggered along, sending forth a groan with every step!

But I had steeled myself to the task, and dragged myself along, still oppressed by some strange and mysterious power, which gave to every pebble the rock’s size, and widened every gully to a yawning chasm, on the brink of which I paused in sickening fear of plunging into some black abyss. And yet, oh joy! gradually the films faded from my eyes, the mysterious power lifted its spell from my brain. I felt more like myself.

I saw clearer. My step grew firmer. Now, at last, thought I, all is going well!

When, suddenly, a long, blue-gray streak of light flashed along over the heads of the hills in the far distant eastern sky. It was the signal of morning!

98Again, with a groan I sank on my knees, caught myself, rose half-dazed, pressed on again, slowly, slowly, every step jarring on my heated brain like a hammer’s blow; but still onward, onward!

A terrible grip as of some giant hand—palm of iron and fingers of steel—set itself on my very vitals. The thought that even now my escape was known to my enemies, that the phantom Wind Eaters, armed with their nets and clubs, were flitting out of the streets of chief Ztwish-Ztwish’s village, charged to carry me back alive to a worse death than death itself, or slay me for having broken faith and set the face of honesty over my fraud and deceit, seemed to paralyze my limbs and rob me of the little strength I had left.

Still on and ever onward I struggled, like one in the dull stupor of the wine cup. Fast! ah, too fast that streak of gray dawn lengthened and widened and the orb of day shot up through the morning shadows a messenger of light here and there, now weak and fitful, now stronger and farther reaching.

I saw them, ay, I felt them, for in my dread of them they seemed to flash toward me and strike my half closed eyes, as if knocking at the windows of my soul and rousing me to move out of death’s harm.

For a brief moment I halted as if expecting some fond, familiar voice to ring in my ears.

It came.

It was the gentle baroness, my mother! Gently, softly, sweetly, that well-known voice came floating on the morning air bidding me take heart, calling me by name just as in childhood’s days, and saying: “My baby! my boy! my son! my darling! Rouse thee! Press on! Press on quickly!” And then I took heart.

The fearful clamp set on my breast relaxed its hold.

I could feel my strength returning. But oh, so slowly, so slowly! Still, it was on its way back at last! I could feel my feet grow lighter. With some effort I quickened my pace almost to a run.

On, on, I sped, now every instant giving me new strength, 99every motion sending the warm blood tingling to my fingers’ ends.

The spell had been lifted! I was myself again!

Swifter, and swifter my pace quickened until I flew along as in days of old, when with ease I left all comers far behind me!

Methought I could almost hear the plash of the waves on the snow-white sands of that beautiful harbor where my good ship lay.

On, and ever onward, I sped with a new and mysterious strength. I was astounded at my own deeds. I was almost afraid, so fast I was bounding along, lest again some demon of the air should touch my limbs and stay my course.

But hark! Didn’t you hear that deep rumble?

The sky is clear. It cannot have been the voice of the storm fiend.

Ha! again, deeper and clearer than before, that hoarse, low, muttering rumble, half-roar, half-growl comes borne along on the wings of the awakened breeze.

Lost! Lost! Lost!

It is the cry of the pursuers, it is the voice of the enemy!

Those children of the air are on my track. They follow me with leap and jump. What madness to think to outrun them. Let me halt and die like a man! Look how they bound along over the plain!

Swift and noiseless are their steps, phantoms that they are!

I halt. I turn. I grasp my fire-arm! Too late! A score of entangling nets envelope me! I struggle only to entwine myself the more, arms, hands, legs, feet, are twisted in wretched confusion.

I sway, fall, roll over, wrapped ’round and ’round in that dreadful tangle!

And now down upon my defenceless body comes a rain of sharp, stinging blows. Deep rumbling cries fill the air and keep time in a wild way with the showers of blows rained on my face and head and hands.

As they continue they seem to increase in strength.

The pain, bearable at first, now becomes excruciating.

100The light goes out of my eyes, swollen shut as they are beneath this cruel pelting.

A thousand ringing sounds assail my ears.

My brain reels—I am going—going—dying—

When, hark again!

You can not hear it! Your ears would not know it! But mine do! Mine do!

’Tis Bulger’s bark and I am saved! Faster and faster the Wind Eaters ply their clubs.

I do not heed them. I do not feel them now, for nearer and nearer comes that joyous music.

’Tis here!

I’m strong again. I rise half up—my lips move—I speak—I cry out: “Quick, good Bulger, or all is lost!” A single glance at the terrible plight of his little master tells him all. With a howl of rage, his dark eyes shooting flame, he throws himself upon the heels of the Wind Eaters. His sharp teeth pierce like needles!

Crack!

Again and again he sends his fangs through the skin of a Wind Eater.

Crack! Crack!

Their clubs cease swinging. A cry of horror goes up, as for the fourth time good Bulger’s teeth pierces the heel of a Wind Eater and sends his body with a loud report to vanish into thin air.

They turn; they break away in wild dismay; they fly for their lives, casting away their clubs and abandoning their victim. I could see no more.

It grew black, a vertigo seized me. I tried to free my hands to touch my loved Bulger, for death, I thought, had come!

When life came back Bulger was licking my hands and face and whining piteously. He had gnawed the netting free from the limbs of his little master.

With a cry of joy and a brust of tears, I caught that faithful, loving creature to my breast.

101At that instant, distant shouts came floating over the hills. They came from my sailing-master and his relief party.

I could not answer. But Bulger raised his head and sent forth a few sharp barks to tell them where we were.

In a short half hour they were at my side.

102After my bruised face and hands had been bathed in cool water and I had swallowed a few mouthfuls of wine, I felt strong enough to get on my feet and move slowly forward.

Bulger walked proudly by my side, pausing ever and anon to look me in the face, meaning to ask:

“How goes it with thee, little master?” Once on shipboard, strengthened by good food and cheered by the comforts of my cabin, I was not long in getting my health back again. After a week’s rest, I gave orders to weigh anchor and turn our good ship’s head northward, for I was anxious, very anxious to see the elder baron and the gentle baroness, my mother, and tell them all about the wonderful things I had seen.

How the elder Baron and the Baroness received Bulger and me upon our return from our first voyage. I am decorated by the Emperor with the grand cross of the Crimson Cincture. The elder Baron presents me with a copy of an ancient Roman newspaper. I read of the murder of the beautiful Paula, and the banishment by Cæsar of the Seven Sculptors to a far-away island in the southern seas. I resolved to set out in search of the Island. My departure. Trouble with crew. My sailing-master loses his reason. I hear the cry, Land ho! It is the Sculptors’ Island. Description of it. I go ashore. Paula’s statue. Adventures on the Island. Bulger makes a wonderful discovery. Something about the strange people who inhabit the Island. Their habits, their pleasures, their characters. I am overtaken by an alarming melancholy. My awful dread at thought of becoming as one of the dwellers on the Sculptors’ Isle. I learn of the existence of Antonius. I seek him. Vain endeavor to grasp his hand. Our interview. The strange and moving history of the Seven Sculptors and their descendants. How they were transformed into the Slow Movers. Bulger and I propose to leave the Island. Extraordinary conduct of a bust of the great Cæsar. Our farewell to the Slow Movers. Their adieu. Our good ship sails away.

Upon my return from my first journey to far away lands, the elder baron and his faithful spouse, my beloved mother, followed by all the retainers of the household, met Bulger and me at the outer gate and welcomed us home with that wild and boisterous joy which only German hearts are capable of.

The elder baron threw his arms around my neck, and, forgetful of the fact that I was only half his size, lifted me completely off the ground in the unreasoning joy of a father’s heart, nearly throttling me.

I kicked vigorously, but, the soft felt soles of my oriental shoes prevented me from giving him to understand that he was fast choking me to death.

104At last my thoughtful mother noticed that I was growing black in the face, and laying hold of my legs, pulled me downward out of the dangerous embrace in which the elder baron had wrapped me. Not, however, until my father’s Nuremberg egg had bored painfully into my protuberant brow, adding another bump to that already bumpy territory. Upon noticing which the elder baron dispatched an attendant to his apartment with orders to search his medicine chest for a bottle of volatile liniment. In his eagerness to undo the harm he had inflicted, he poured a stream of acrid liquid into my eyes, causing me intense suffering. This red and inflamed condition of my eyes, however, the tenants, and retainers attributed to my emotion upon entering the baronial hall once more, after so long an absence.

I didn’t regret this little accident at all, for while I am opposed to that ready-made style of emotion which some people always keep on hand, I have no objections to a noble and dignified use of tears.

It is needless to say that every body was delighted to see Bulger. They all found that he had increased in size, beauty and intelligence.

He received all this homage with a dignity that was charming to behold.

To impress the crowd with a due sense of that discipline and self-control which he acquired as the constant companion and confidant of his master, he absolutely refused to touch the many tid-bits and dainty morsels which the retainers offered him, and gazed with the utmost indifference at the other dogs in their mad scramblings for the food which he had declined.

I was very proud of him.

In a few days everything had settled down to its wonted quiet again beneath the baronial roof. Evenings I passed giving accounts of the many wonderful things I had seen while abroad.

To these sittings, a few of the older and more confidential household servants were admitted.

My good mother arranged them in a semi-circle behind the chairs of the elder baron and his guests. I, with Bulger by 105my side, occupied a dais, either seated by the side of a table holding my curiosities or standing in front of my auditors in an easy position, while I held them spell-bound by my narration.

There was one thing that worried me, and it was this: How will the elder baron receive the announcement of my intention to leave home again, ere many moons?

To my great surprise and delight he didn’t even wait for me to make known my intentions.

While seated in my library, one day, poring over a very rare book of travels which I had just purchased, a gentle tap at the door caused Bulger to raise his head and give a low growl.

“Come in!” said I.

It was the elder baron.

“I disturb you!” he began.

“You have that right, baron,” I replied, with a gracious smile; “be seated, pray.”

And saying this, I arranged the pelt of a very beautiful and rare animal which I had killed while abroad, so as to make a comfortable seat for the elder baron on the canopy.

“My son!” said the baron, “I come to bring thee this little token from our gracious master, the Emperor.”

I looked up.

He held in his hand the insignia of the Grand Cross of the Crimson Cincture.

I laid the bauble on the table.

“Little baron,” continued my father, “I am well pleased with thee.”

I made a low obeisance.

“Thy marvelous adventures fill all mouths. Thou hast set a new lustre on the family name, and I come to rouse thee from thy apparent sloth. Thou must be up and doing. Thou must shake off this indolence which will gain an increased power over thee each passing hour. New triumphs await thee. Go forth once more. Turn aside out of the beaten paths. Seek the wonderful and marvelous. But ere thou settest forth, ponder the contents of this parchment roll. Many years ago, when the down of manhood first came upon my cheek, and 106before life’s burdens had come to lie heavily on my soul, I found it in the damp and noisome vaults of an ancient Roman Convent, which the pestilential air of an encroaching marsh had emptied of its inmates. It may turn thy footsteps toward something strange and interesting!”

Concealing with difficulty the joy occasioned by my father’s words and my earnestness to know the contents of the parchment roll, I returned the elder baron’s salutation with marked respect, and he withdrew.

I need not assure the reader of the almost breathless anxiety with which I unrolled the volume.

It was in the Latin tongue, and was the work of a scribe.

The ink had faded somewhat, but, even in places where it had entirely disappeared, I could by the aid of a strong lens readily trace out the words by the lines scratched into the parchment by the point of the reed pen.

It was a copy of an ancient Roman newspaper or Acta Diurna, and bore a date corresponding to our forty-fifth year before the present era.

Cæsar was at the height of his power.

Peace reigned, the arts flourished. Rome, the centre of the world, was the home of a glory and magnificence far beyond anything the eyes of man had yet gazed upon.

The contents of this copy of the Acta Diurna were largely made up of detailed accounts of a famous trial just completed at Rome, in which seven noted sculptors had been found guilty of poisoning a beautiful maid named Paula, after they had each completed a statue of her, in order that no other sculptors should ever be able to make use of her for the same purpose.

The judges had pronounced the sentence of death upon them, but in consideration of their splendid services in beautifying the imperial city, Cæsar had changed their punishment from death to life-long exile.

The seven sculptors had been transported in an imperial galley to a far-away island in the Southern Seas. As stated in this copy of the Acta Diurna it was the most remote piece of land belonging to the Roman Empire lying to the Southward:

107“Ad insulam remotissimam imperii romani medianorum.”

As an additional act of the imperial clemency the wives and children of the condemned sculptors had been graciously accorded permission to follow their husbands and fathers into their terrible exile.

When I had finished reading all the minute details of this strange crime and its awful results, I found that my blood was coursing through my veins with a mad violence. I paced the floor with such a quick and nervous step and with agitation so plainly visible in my looks, that I was aroused from my reverie by the anxious whining of Bulger, who was following me about the room close upon my heels.

Why not go in quest of this far-away isle to which these seven sculptors and their families were transported by command of great Cæsar?

Perchance in that far-distant isle dwells a race of beings who, forgetting the world, and forgotten by it, will, by their strange habits and peculiar customs so interest me as to repay me for all the dangers I may run in crossing untracked seas and turning aside from ocean paths.

Perchance their descendants may be living yet?

This idea now took possession of my whole being.

Sleep was impossible.

Far into the night I pored over ancient charts.

While deepest silence enwrapped the baronial halls, I worked out in my mind, or, rather, let my mind work out, the course which I should pursue.

For it was always a custom of mine never to attempt to solve the unsolvable. In fact, I early made the discovery that any interference on my part with the mysterious workings of my mind tended rather to impede its action.

So I waited calmly for light.

It came at last.

Closing my eyes, with my inner sight I could see a map of the eastern world traced in glowing, shimmering lines upon an inky background.

And there, too, could I see my course marked out in dotted lines of fire.

108With a loud, ringing cry of joy I sprang to my feet and exclaimed: “I shall find this wonderful isle! I shall unlock the portals of the Southern seas! I shall gaze upon the descendants of Paula’s murderers!

“Come, Bulger! Away! Away!”

Hastily bidding adieu to my parents, I swung myself into the saddle, and, with Bulger securely strapped en croupe, dashed madly away towards the shores of the Mediterranean.

“The baron’s mad son is off again!” cried the peasants, as I galloped past their farm houses.

In three days I stood upon the deck of my vessel.

In obedience to my orders, the captain’s hand literally rested upon the helm.

All that day he had been standing with his eyes riveted upon the shore, for something told him that I could not be far away.

Everything was in readiness, even to the last biscuit.

As Bulger and I leaped over the rail, my good ship rounded to the wind, and darted away like a thing of life.

The blood tingled in my veins at sight of the blue waves and white bellying sails.

Bulger gave vent to his satisfaction in mad gambols and ear-piercing barks.

It was certainly an auspicious beginning.

Leaving the command of the ship to the mate, the captain joined me in the cabin, where I unfolded to him my project of sailing in the Southern seas in quest of a long-forgotten island.

He made haste to unroll his chart and adjust his spectacles, in order to fix the location of the island when I should give him the latitude and longitude.

Fancy his almost consternation when I told him that the only proof I had of the existence of such an island was the brief mention in the ancient Roman newspaper.

Was I mad?

Did I care no more for life than to throw it away in such a foolhardy undertaking?

109Had I no idea of the rage of the terrible typhoon, the treachery of the hidden reef, the weight of the watery mountains which would topple on our deck?

Could I expect seamen to go where there was no record that the most adventurous sailors of past centuries had ever ploughed the water?

I smiled.

“Master,” said I, after a moment’s silence, “this ship is mine, and you have sworn to serve me like a true seaman, but if your courage has failed you, you shall be put ashore at the first port we make. Go!”

“Nay, little baron,” cried the skipper, “I was only testing your resolution. If you have the courage to sail into unknown seas, I have the courage to follow you, come bright skies and calm waters or come storm clouds and thunderbolt!”

I shook the old man’s hand, and bade him go on deck, for at last sleep had come to my wakeful eyes—the first time in three whole weeks—and I wanted to be alone.

In a few days we passed the Straits of Gibraltar and turned southward, keeping the African coat in sight.

I passed my time perfecting myself in the Latin language, and often called forth very vigorous protestations from Bulger by addressing him in that tongue, and making use of him as a sort of audience before which I delivered my speeches after I had rounded them and polished them.

The only stops we made now were for water or provisions.

By daylight and starlight my staunch ship bounded along on her course as if some friendly nereids were pushing at her stern. In the long watches of the night I lay in my hammock and pictured to myself that Roman galley as it bore those seven exiles with kith and kin away from their beloved land forever.

Ere another moon had bent her crescent in the evening sky we had reached the Cape, and came to anchor with intent to overhaul our ship most thoroughly before going farther southward.

This occupied several days.

I chafed under the delay.

110Ten times a day I summoned the ship’s master to my cabin and urged him to make greater haste. He bore with me most patiently. My heart gave a leap, when, at last, I heard the master order the crew to set the sails.

The seamen were singing and tugging away at the main-sheets as I stepped upon the deck.

“How shall I head her, little Baron?” asked the master, raising his hand to his cap.

“Dead to the southward!” I replied.

He stood transfixed.

He had thought that we would round the Cape and follow the usual course to the Indies.

His lips move as if to protest.

I cut him short, however, with an imperious wave of the hand.

Several of the sailors, noticing the pallor which had overspread the captain’s face, drew near and stood gazing upon us, half wonderingly, half inquiringly.

“Captain!” said I calmly, but quite loud enough to be overheard by the men standing in a group near by, “my pistols were made by the Emperor’s armorer. They never miss fire. Let me find you changing this vessel’s course a single point east or west of south and I’ll kill you in your tracks!”

Saying this I walked away.

From that moment all went well.

The ship’s master saw that I was determined to have my way, even if I lost my life in consequence, and he yielded.

Turning around to the group of sailors, I called out:

“A thousand ducats to the man who first sights land!”

A hearty cheer rent the air, and calling to Bulger to follow me, I went below to think.

That night I not only took the precaution to hang a lanthorn so that I could lie in my hammock and see a ship’s compass at any time I might awake, but, fearful lest some treachery might be attempted, I ordered my faithful Bulger to sleep with his back against the door so that the least vibration would arouse him.

111Night after night these precautions were followed out most strictly. During the day, too, my pistols were always in my belt.

Bulger felt the danger I was in, and he, by his vigilance gave me the advantage of eyes in the back of my head.

A low growl warned me of the approach of the master or one of the crew.

Thus protected and guarded, I felt that nothing save a general mutiny need be feared. And this I knew to be almost impossible, for a number of the crew were too devoted to me to listen to any traitorous proposals. They would have slain the master in cold blood had he dared to breathe the word mutiny!

Things went very well for about ten days when I saw that a terrible struggle was going on in the captain’s mind.

I began to fear that he might lose his reason and throw himself into the sea.

His face took on a yellow-greenish hue.

He was literally dying of fright.

One morning he threw himself upon his knees in front of me, and with tear-stained cheeks implored me to put back to the African coast again.

I did all I could to quiet him, but in vain.

His reason was slowly but surely giving way.

Calling the mate to me, I put him in command of the vessel, and directed him to confine the captain in his cabin and place a guard over him.

It cut me to the heart to be obliged to do this, for the poor fellow begged like a dog to be left in command of his ship.

But I was deaf to his entreaties.

I felt that now all trouble was at an end.

The wind was blowing fifteen knots an hour.

Every stitch of sail had been crowded on.

We fairly leapt out of the water like a thing of life, half flying half swimming.

Ever and anon I glanced at the compass.

She was headed dead south.

My cheeks tingled and I could feel the flow of warm blood through every vein in my body.

112The moon went up like a shield of burnished gold. The sea glittered like liquid fire. Anon, a porpoise leaped into the air and sent a thousand ripples circling away as he plunged into the water again

Our good ship cleft the glassy bosom of the sea like some huge black monster of the deep, and left a trail of fire in her wake as far as the eye could reach.

Towards midnight I went to rest.

But neither rest nor sleep was possible.

Half undressing, I threw myself into my hammock, and Bulger took his accustomed place at the door.

The lanthorn was not strong enough to overcome the light of the full moon. It streamed through the bull’s eyes in weird, fantastic rays, and crowded my cabin with strange and mysterious forms.

They were seven!

Their faces and figures were godlike, so white, so beautiful were they.

There was an indescribable sadness in their full dark eyes.

They spake not a word.

Suddenly the paneling of the cabin ceiling parted, and disclosed a staircase wrapped in dim, uncertain light.

Adown these steps came a most gracious being, so white and fair and lovely that I gazed with bated breath.

Down, down it came, nearer and nearer.

She needed but wings to be an angel!

But, oh! her fair face was so filled with sorrow!

Her lips were parted, her long black hair fell in confused tresses on her shoulders.

She stepped into the cabin. And then, with a quick, dread look, her gaze fell upon the seven bowed figures.

“Paula!” they cried, and drew their white robes over their heads.

“Land ho! Land ho!”

What! Could I believe my ears?

113“Land ho! Land ho!”

With a bound I sprang from my hammock and rushed upon deck.

Ay, it was true! There, half a mile ahead of us, was a sight that stunned me like the blow of a bludgeon.

Land it was, but not such a land as in my wildest dreams I had hoped to find.

Ten thousand lights glimmered on that mysterious shore, and illumined the front of a Roman temple whiter than milk. A marble staircase of the same hue led down to the very water’s edge.

A sacrifice was in progress.

From the highest terrace a column of black smoke curled slowly upward.

No sound reached my ear.

I stood almost bereft of my senses.

At last, my power of speech returned. I ordered anchor to be cast, and clinging to the shrouds of my good ship, gazed long and joyfully upon the entrancing scene.

The land rose in natural terraces from the seashore, and no matter in what direction you looked, your eye caught glimpses of a graceful statue or group of statuary gleaming in the white moonlight, amid the dark foliage, like white-robed figures astray in a wood.

“It must be!” I murmured to myself.

“I have found it! This Roman temple, this marble stairway, these groups of statuary, all point to the glorious success of my voyage of discovery. This is the Sculptors’ Isle!”

How long I stood there gazing upon this beautiful shore I know not. Some one pulling gently at my sleeve roused me from my reverie.

It was Bulger.

I stooped and stroked his head for a few moments.

Suddenly I awoke to a sense of great weariness, and casting another glance toward that mysterious shore, I turned and descended to the cabin.

I soon fell into a deep sleep.

114The terrible strain upon my nerves since leaving the Cape, caused by the half mutiny of the crew, the insanity of the ship’s master, and the long watches through which I had lain and listened for the cry of land, had at last told upon me.

The sun was several hours high when I sprang out of my hammock and rushed upon deck.

Could it all have been a dream? Should I find the noble temple, staircase of marble, and all the towering statues melted away into thin air?

Ah no!

That beautiful shore was still there, unrolled before my wondering eyes like some fair picture full of light and grace and delicious coloring.

“Man the launch!” I called out and in quicker time than it takes to tell it, I was on my way to the shore of the Sculptors’ Isle.

Faithful Bulger sat beside me, his eyes bright and expressive as he gazed into my face.

Landing at the foot of the marble stairway, I sprang lightly out of the launch, followed by Bulger, and bounded up the marble steps.

There were three landings before I reached the level of the temple, from each of which the outlook grew more and more delightful. In truth, it was a glorious approach to produce which art and nature had fairly outdone themselves. At length I cleared the last flight of steps, and with a throbbing heart crossed the tessellated court and paused in front of the entrance to the temple.

The embers were still smouldering on the altar, around which stood several white-robed priests with low-bowed heads and averted faces. Unwilling to break in upon their solemn office, I turned and followed a broad way, paved with marble and shaded by most graceful trees and trailing vines.

At every step my eyes fell upon some statue of ravishing beauty—now nymphs; now goddess; now Jove himself; now the great Cæsar; now the fair Graces; now terrible Pluto; now smiling Ceres; now the crescent-crowned Diana, accoutered 115for the chase; now dancing satyrs; now goat-footed Pan; now some Roman hero or statesman; and ever and anon, came the figure of a maiden, wondrously fair, but with an unutterable look of sadness upon her beautiful face. So often did the same figure meet my gaze that I was led at last to approach its pedestal in hopes of finding some explanation. I gave a cry of pleasure as my eyes fell upon the name sculptured there.

It was Paula.

Now every doubt was dissipated.

I had indeed found the Sculptors’ Isle

Broad winding paths, leading right and left, now lured my footsteps. No fairy land could be more beautiful.

Golden fruit glistened ’mid the dark green leaves.

Flowers of countless hues bloomed on every side, sending forth the most delicate perfumes. Trailing vines hung in graceful festoons or twined around the pedestals of the statues, carrying their white blossoms to the whiter hands of these silent and motionless inhabitants of this region of loneliness. I say inhabitants, for as yet my eye had seen no living creature, save the priests grouped about the altar.

Have I landed upon the shores of an island, upon which nature, with a lavish hand, has bestowed stately forests, placid lakes, purling brooks, trees laden with delicious fruits, plants waving their flowery tassels and plumes in the perfumed air, vines trailing their richly variegated foliage from tree to tree, a radiant sky above, a soil clad with velvety verdure beneath, only to find it abandoned, deserted of man; a thing of beauty and yet loneliness, a mere polished and painted shell, out of which all life has gone forever?

Such was the train of thought which busied my mind as I strolled along through these winding paths paved with marble shut in by a leafy roof, through which ever and anon the sunlight burst to light up the masterpieces of the sculptor’s art, around whose pedestals climbed and clambered scores of flowering vines, some carrying in their curved laps clusters of berries, brighter in hue than burnished gold, others holding out to the passer-by bunches of grapes deeper in purple than the Lydian dye.

116As I pursued my way through this enchanted garden, in which the swaying lily stalks bent their perfumed-filled cups down to my cheeks and the trees dropped their gold and purple fruit at my feet, while deep in the bosky thicket of red-leaved shrubs and silken-tufted pine, the melancholy nightingale warbled his liquid melody in slow and plaintive measure, my heart yearned for the sound of a human voice.

“Would that some living being,” I cried, “no matter how bent and twisted in figure, or how discordant in voice, might come forth to meet me in this beautiful solitude.”

I noticed now that my path was ascending a gently sloping hillock. I quickened my pace, for I was anxious to stand upon some elevation, so that I could command a more extensive view of the outlying country.

As I gained the summit of the hillock, a scene of indescribable beauty met my gaze.

As far as the eye could reach I saw unrolled beneath me a landscape of such surpassing loveliness that I paused spell-bound. Imagine a valley shut in by wooded heights, through which a silvery stream courses tranquilly; here a forest giant spreads its far-reaching limbs, and there a clump of fruit trees display their load of golden treasures in the sunlight; on this side flowering shrubs shine white as ivory against the dark greensward, on that with trailing vines and trimmed copses, man’s hand has built many a shady bower of fantastic outline; to this add scores of statues posed in every conceivable attitude of grace and beauty—here a group, there a single figure, and farther on by twos and threes, standing, reclining, sitting, at play, in meditation, listening, reading, thrumming stringed instruments, in attitudes of the chase, casting the quoit, or reaching up to pluck fruit or flowers.

“Is this a dream?” I murmured. “Am I not the sport of some mischievous spirit of the place?”

From this deep reverie the loud barking of Bulger aroused me with shock-like violence.

I looked in the direction of the sound.

Poor, foolish dog, he was gamboling about one of the statues and amusing himself in waking the echoes with his voice.

117I was a little nettled by the interruption, and called to him to cease his barking.

It seemed to me almost a sacrilege to disturb the deep repose of this fair valley.

Again the barking broke forth. This time Bulger’s strange antics were wilder than before.

He seemed fairly beside himself bounding around and around the statue which was that of a young man in the act of reaching aloft for fruit or flowers—and giving vent to a sort of half anger, half mischief, in a series of barks, growls and whinings. Rare indeed was it that Bulger did not give heed to my wishes, no matter how faintly expressed, but now, not even a threatening tone of voice seemed to have the slightest effect upon him.

He continued his mad gamboling and sharp, angry barking. Determined to reproach him most severely for his disobedience, I strode angrily toward him.

I drew near.

I looked! I saw!

Ashes of my forefathers, what? The statue had wide-opened eyes. The statue had the blush of life on its cheeks.

Motion, movement, even to a hair’s breadth, there was none! And yet these fair blue eyes were bent upon Bulger in half-inquisitive, half-wondering gaze.

I rubbed my eyes and looked again.

I took a step forward.

Suddenly a wave of fear crept over me like the flow of icy water. Would the living marble, as it warmed to life, moved by some long pent-up passions, raise its hand and strike me dead?

Gathering myself together, I glanced toward a group of maidens at play beneath the shade of a leafy roof of arched branches and interlacing vines.

Quicker than it takes to tell it, I sprang forward and fixed my gaze upon their faces.

Death could not hold the human form in attitude more motionless than theirs.

And yet their eyes were filled with strange light.

118Upon their fair faces the red tint of life glowed, bright and warm!

Where was I?

A strange feeling of half dread, half delight, now swept over me.

And still I dared not speak. My voice will break the spell by which all these breathing children of earth’s flinty breast keep their hold on life, and they will fade away to nothingness.

And now the eyes of her nearest me—of deeper black than polished coal, appeared bent full upon me. I could see, I thought, the glisten of those ebon orbs, as if a tear had broken over them.

Her hand was outstretched.

What if I touch it, thought I, to see if it have the warmth of life within it, or whether it be not in truth a thing of stone, and I the sport of some mischievous spirit of the island?

I’ll do it, if I’m slain like a poor worm, which, warmed by an approaching flame crawls to meet it.

I touched its finger-tips!

O, wondrous thing!

They were not of stone, but of softest, warmest flesh!

I staggered back, expecting to see the group vanish in thin air.

But no; it moved not.

It stood as motionless as before!

And now I felt my limbs grow strong beneath me.

I determined to speak, come evil or come good!

Fixing my gaze upon their fair young faces, I uncovered and addressed them thus:

“O, strange and mysterious beings, resent not this bold intrusion of a puny mortal upon your sacred repose! Speak to me! If ye so will, let me take my feet off the soil of your fair island. But ere I go, speak to me, let me know whether ye be not the creations of some spirit of this isle, or whether ye are really living, breathing beings!”

No sound issued from those rosy lips, parted as if in the very act of speaking.

119No movement, no tremor, came to break the marble-like pose of these fair figures.

A whole minute elapsed.

To me it seemed an eternity.

I stood riveted to the ground in most anxious suspense.

The minutes dragged their heavy bodies along one after another.

But joy unutterable!

Their lips begin to move.

A smile, almost imperceptible at first, spreads slowly, slowly, over their faces.

The crimson of their cheeks takes on a deeper hue.

Their eyes bend a most sweet and friendly look upon me.

The word “we” falls gently on my ear.

Another pause!

I lean forward, in most painful suspense, to catch the next faint syllable.

It came at last.

“Live!”

“They live!” I cried in a loud and joyous voice, “they live! I am not the sport of any strange divinity. These figures are not cold and senseless marble, but warm-blooded, breathing, thinking, living beings!”

I cannot tell you the depth of my satisfaction that this discovery was made by my loved Bulger. He saw the terrible perplexity which had come upon his master, and hastened to his rescue; not frowning face, not threatening voice was sufficient to turn him from his purpose of letting light in upon my darkened mind. In my deep contrition, I could scarcely bring myself to speak his name.

I felt how unworthy of his love I was.

But he pardoned me with a nobility of character more than human and spake his forgiveness by covering my hands with caresses and uttering a series of soft low barks.

With Bulger by my side, I now mingled with these flesh and blood companions of the island’s marble dwellers, passing from one group to another in speechless wonderment. Ay, in good 120faith they were alive, but not more so than the flowers, the shrubs, the trees, the vines which helped to make up the lovely scene of which they were the brightest and fairest ornaments.

The vines moved from place to place more rapidly than they, the flowers oped their buds more quickly than the maidens did their lips. Like beautiful figures of wax, moved by the slow uncoiling of some hidden spring, these living statues passed hours, nay days, in rising to their feet or sinking down upon the velvety greensward.

For several hours I stood watching the white hand of a maiden as it reached forward, with imperceptible motion to pluck a red-cheeked peach which hung beside her. A full hour went by ere those delicate fingers were clasped around the peach, another ere it had been carried to her lips. There, all day long, she held it pressed, but as the sun went down behind the wooded hills, it fell from her loosened grasp and rolled towards my feet. I slowly stooped, for I was not long in discovering that my quick movements pained these animated statues, and picked it up. I could feel that some of the pulp had been drawn from the luscious fruit, but the skin was hardly broken, so gently had she fed upon it.

At this moment, seeing a smile upon the face of one of the maiden’s I turned to find upon whom she bent her gaze.

It was a handsome youth, who stood, perhaps fifty feet distant, with his eyes fixed beamingly upon the maiden’s.

“Surely” thought I, “affection will, as in other lands, quicken their movements; they will advance toward each other somewhat rapidly now.”

But no, the long twilight yielded little by little to the deeper shadows; night came; the moon set her glowing disc in the heavens, and yet that youth was not near enough to clasp the hand of the maiden he loved.

From the first coming of the twilight, smiles had been slowly gathering upon the faces of the other youths and maidens, whose eyes were turned upon the lovers.

At this moment a gentle “ha!” fell upon my ear, and, after the lapse of half an hour, another and louder “ha!” followed 121it, to be, after a still longer pause, followed by still another “ha!” This last “ha!” was lengthened out into a clear and ringing note which lasted several seconds. Then it grew fainter and fainter, and died away like a spent echo. Their mirth was over.

As I was threading my way among these living statues, one morning, I came upon a group of children at play.

At first I could not see that they had noticed my coming at all, but after the lapse of a quarter of an hour I discovered that their large beautifully clear eyes were slowly turning toward me, so I determined to sit down near by and observe them. Fancy my delight upon finding that a delicate thread-like flowering vine had twined around and around the body of a little golden-haired maid of about seven, encircled her neck with its many colored leaves and coral berries, and coiled itself like a crown of gold and crimson upon her soft ringlets, dropping its blossoms and tendrils gently down around her head and shoulders.

Seeing my astonishment, and hearing my words of delight, a mild-faced woman seated near me slowly, slowly raised her hands and extended her fingers to make me understand that these little cherubs had been ten days at play there upon the ground.

“This beautiful vine,” thought I, “has joined in their sport. As much alive as they, it is in truth one of their playmates, and has wound itself lovingly around the child seated nearest to it.”

I looked again. Lo! a tree loaded with delicious nuts was swinging in the breeze and shaking them into the laps of these children at play, while on the other side, a tall, graceful plant bearing cup-shaped flowers of sunny whiteness, each of which I noticed was filled with limpid water, drops of which sparkled in the sunlight like polished gems, gently brushed against the cheek of a smiling boy, as if to say:

“Drink, dear little brother!”

“Wonderful!” cried I, “these happy creatures, these trees and flowers, these fruits and vines are all children of the same family. No storms ever come to darken these fair skies. Eternal 122spring reigns here. By daylight, starlight and moonlight their lives flow gently along like some broad, silvery stream, whose motion is too slow for human eye to note it. Mysterious people! How shall I fathom the wonderful secret of your existence? How shall I read the history of a people whose only books are speechless brooks and silent groves, whose tongues have so lost their power to interpret thought that months might go by and yet the mystery remain unsolved!”

After a sojourn of a few days among the “Slow Movers,” as I shall call them, I made a discovery which alarmed me greatly.

I found that this mysterious silence, this strange fate which cast me among living creatures with whom converse was next to impossible, this utter inability to distinguish the living statues from the marble ones, was beginning to prey upon my mind.

Bulger noticed my ever-increasing melancholy, and exerted himself to amuse and comfort me.

I responded but poorly to his thousand and one cunning tricks and laughable antics.

In fact, I felt that my mind was gradually yielding to some dread influence which pervaded the very air, and which, even hour by hour, so gained in strength that I realized the necessity of making a superhuman effort to break away from the power it had already acquired over me, or else become myself a living statue and brother to the forms of flesh and marble which inhabited this wonderland.

I will not weary my readers with minute details of the plan which I had conceived to end the danger which threatened me, to snatch myself from the living death which I could already feel creeping over me.

In my despair I determined to apply to the oldest of the Slow Movers, and throw myself upon his mercy, so to speak, to tell him of my longing to escape from the terrible fate threatening me, to return home to my beloved parents, who would go down in sorrow to their graves if I, their sole child, their pride and their hope, should never come again to gladden their old age.

But more than this, I determined if possible, to learn the history 123of the island and its mysterious folk, and to that end I resolved to beseech him to indicate to me where I might find some record of their past, some book or parchment, so that I might not go through life burdened with the brain-racking thought that I had been powerless to solve this mystery—a thought, which, if it did not shorten my days, would most surely embitter them.

As I have already explained, in attempting to converse with the Slow Movers I was confronted with a two-fold difficulty. In the first place, though I might burst with impatience, yet must I preserve a perfectly calm and placid exterior, and, in the second place, when, after the long and wearying delay, it came my turn to make reply, that reply must not exceed the snail’s pace of the Slow Movers’ speech, else their bright eyes clouded up and they seemed absolutely paralyzed by the rapidity of my utterance. Their eye-lids sank slowly down and they seemed to fall into a deep slumber, out of which it took hours to arouse them.

At the first streak of dawn I sought out the aged Slow Mover, whom I had often noted in his leafy temple, seated on a marble pediment his eyes fixed on the silent stream which bathed the very roots of the trees, whose wide-spreading branches helped to roof over his habitation.

All that day and the starry night which followed it, I sat at his feet.

Picture to yourself my utter despair at learning that not a word or a line, not a leaf or a parchment, was in existence, which, might end my fearful anxiety. I say fearful, for stronger and stronger, hour by hour, grew the impulse to put an end to this life of useless, senseless activity and join the throng of living statues into whose heart no vain regrets came to darken their placid dream-life.

On the morning of the second day a thought burst upon my mind. It was this:

Perchance there may dwell, somewhere on this isle, some one living creature, who, unlike his brothers, may possess the power of rapid speech, whose tongue, for some reason or other, may have stayed loosened.

124I reasoned thus: In every land there were opposites, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, graceful and awkward, swift and slow. Surely on this isle must live such contrasts as these. True, it may be an exception; but it would be most wonderful if it did not exist.

All that day I spent in imparting unto the aged Slow Mover my train of thought.

It was deep in the twilight ere I had succeeded in putting the question to him: Whether there was not some living creature dwelling on this island whose powers of speech were more like mine, and to whom I might, in my ever increasing dread of transformation into a Slow Mover, flee for refuge from myself, for satisfaction of the irresistible longing pressing on my very soul.

But the shades of evening were not so deep that I could not note the darker shadow which began to gather on the face of the aged Slow Mover when I had completed my question.

I was startled.

So violent were the beatings of my heart that they sounded loud, though muffled, above the sighing of the zephyr, the rustle of the leaves, the plaintive warbling of the nightingale.

As this shadow went on growing, ever deeper and deeper, on the old man’s visage, I felt that I had touched some ancient wound, which, though long-forgotten, now bled afresh.

His lips parted, his head sank slowly, slowly, a sigh came forth, so full of meaning, so like a tale-bearer of some long hidden sorrow, that I feared for the worst.

My limbs stiffened.

I could feel the blood lessen its pace in my veins and go groping along as if uncertain of its way.

I pressed the tips of my fingers to my cheeks. They were cold as polished marble.

I essayed to speak. The words would not come.

At last I made a violent effort—

“Bulger!” I whispered.

Poor dog, he slept at my feet.

I struggled to escape the spell for one brief moment, that I might stoop to give my faithful friend a farewell caress.

125Hist!

The Slow Mover spoke.

“Son!”

I was saved!

He had aught to say to me.

The spell was broken.

My heart began to beat again; the warm blood ran tingling through my veins.

It was a narrow escape.

Already my finger tips had cooled.

Another moment and I would have joined the throng of Slow Movers, and become a brother to the marble dwellers on the Sculptors’ Isle.

All that night the aged Slow Mover talked to me. And when the sun went up I knew all. I knew the secret which had so darkened his placid countenance. I knew the cave in which dwelt the hermit of the Sculptors’ Isle—an outcast, a prisoner, shut in between the narrow walls of a cavern by the sea, for no fault of his, for no sin, for no wrong.

Nature had so willed it.

Why, the aged Slow Mover knew not.

Antonius was the name which the hermit bore.

When morning came I sought him out.

I found him seated by his cavern’s portal, looking out upon the glory of the eastern sky.

This was the secret of his exile:

Some cruel fate had, in his youth, visited him with a dread disease, not unlike that which is known as St. Vitus’ dance. When the fit was upon him, not only did he lose all control over his limbs, so that his feet bore him whither he willed not to go, and that, too, with extreme rapidity, but his arms likewise executed the most rapid and vigorous gestures, now in apparent anger, now entreaty, now wonder. You will readily understand why ill-fated Antonius came to be banished from the midst of the Slow Movers.

Although their brother, and deeply beloved of them, his lightning-like rapidity of motion, his violent gestures, his almost 126ceaseless change of attitude, not only offended the Slow Movers, it dazed them; it shocked them; it checked the sluggish flow of life blood within their veins, and threatened them all with slow but certain death.

He must go!

He did!

Antonius was banished to the cavern by the sea, where never came sound, save the ocean’s roar when lashed by the demons of the gale, or its sad murmur and ceaseless break and splash in its moments of slumber and rest.

But, most terrible of all the manifestations of the unfortunate Antonius’ fearful ailment was the utterly wild and ungovernable rapidity of his speech.

Like maddened steeds, tongue and lips rushed along!

To the eyes and ears of the Slow Movers, such a violently expressive face, such mad rapidity of utterance, were death itself!

Not one brief month would have found a living statue in that home of flinty hearts, had Antonius not gone!

Antonius was thankful for that dread decree, which housed him forever in the cavern by the sea!

He saw the sufferings of his people, and though his eyes in that brief time wept more tears than all his brethren ever had shed in their sluggish lives, yet were they but a poor proof of the awful grief he felt.

Antonius turned towards me as I approached the spot where he sat wrapped in deep meditation. A sad, but withal kindly smile flitted about his lips, like the quick but faint glimmer of the lightning in the distant sky.

He rose.

I paused to await his bidding to approach him.

He spake not a word, but stretched out his hand.

I bounded forward to clasp it and press it to my lips.

At that instant the fit fell on him.

I could see the look of pain which flashed across his face.

Away he glided, now backward, now forward, now sidewise, now obliquely, his hand outstretched in a desperate effort to 127reach me, who, with equal desperation, advanced and retreated in a mad endeavor to grasp what constantly eluded me.

Bulger utterly unable to comprehend this wild dance among the rocks of that cavernous shore, followed my heels barking furiously.

I could take no time to quiet him.

Away, away, sped Antonius with redoubled speed, his right hand extended toward me as if with a pitiful prayer to grasp it and thus end the fit which was shaking his limbs so furiously.

Pausing to catch my breath, I again pursued the flitting figure with a determination to overtake it or perish in the attempt.

At last it seemed to circle in smaller and ever smaller rings.

Now was my time!

I sprang upon that whirling form, with a sort of mad desperation, to seize and hold its outstretched hand.

At length I held it.

But no!

His body had come to a rest, but now high over my head, now at my feet, now flashing up one side, now down the other, now whizzing in front of my eyes, now encircling my head like a bird in swift flight that hand went on, ever on, in its wild and mysterious course!

My strength was failing me!

Shall I ever be able to grasp it!

Antonius, too, showed signs of yielding to the awful power of the dread disease which tormented him!

His face took on a strange pallor! His breast heaved convulsively. With one last despairing effort I succeeded in catching his hand in its flight around my head!

I clung to it with desperate vigor!

My touch dispelled the venom from his veins.

He seemed to awake as from some awful dream. He passed his hand across his eyes.

He smiled.

Still clinging to his hand, I gently forced him to be seated upon a rocky bench, over which the ocean had woven a velvety covering of sea-grass and weeds.

128“Antonius!” I cried, “peace come upon thee! Forget thy suffering. Be as thou once wert! My touch can give thee rest at least for a brief respite!”

He pressed my hand. A deep sigh lifted his breast. It was the last gasp of the demon which oppressed him.

He was now at rest.

To me his utterance was rapid but not more so than that of many quick thinkers with whom I had conversed.

“What wouldst thou?” said he, in a low but strangely sweet, mild voice.

I unfolded to him the object of my coming.

I went back to the finding of the Roman newspaper and my departure from home.

All, all; I told him all; how I had come into the home of the Slow Movers, how I had mistaken them for marble like the rest of the figures about the island, how I longed to have the mystery cleared up.

All that day Antonius and I sat by the sea in most delightful converse.

Only once, at high noon, did he set a brief limit to his tale while we passed into his cavern to partake of food and drink.

With a high-bounding heart, I listened to his story of the landing of the Seven Sculptors upon the isle. Their first task had been to rear the glorious temple with its long flight of marble steps leading down to the sea. Then they, and, later, their sons, and their sons’ sons, had set to work to people this beautiful island with almost countless figures of the rarest grace and finish.

In the forests, by the river’s banks, through the valley, on the hillside, adown the terraces, to the very water’s edge, rose the faultless statues in wondrous beauty and profusion.

Here, there and everywhere, forms of matchless grace gleamed, snow-white amid the leafy bowers or tangled underwood.

A mysterious ardor burned within the hearts of these exiled artists. It would seem that theirs was a wild sort of hope to rear on that far-distant isle another Rome—an infant 129daughter, but fairer and whiter in her marble magnificence than the glorious mother who sate upon her seven hills!

Times and times again, aye, thrice three score and ten, the wretched Paula arose out of the quarried blocks, ever fair and ever fairer, now bent in awful grief, now putting the very skies to shame with the entrancing beauty of her upturned, pleading, sweet and pitiful face.

Here and there, too, stood great Cæsar, never to be forgotten for his godlike clemency in snatching the sculptors from terrible death.

As the second century of the exile dawned upon the little Roman Kingdom, far away beneath the Southern skies, at the very moment when the colony was waxing strong and vigorous a strange and mysterious thing happened to the dwellers in this island home of sweet content.

No more male children were born!

The seven sculptors, now bent with age, and their faces hollowed by the sharp chisels of remorse, went, one after the other to the dark realm of Death.

Their sons, too, came into ripe manhood. And their sons grew up, happy in the possession of that glorious talent which had peopled the isle with such matchless forms of beauty.

But now the race had reached the end of its long reign in the world of art.

Decade after decade slipped away, and still there came not one male child to gladden a sculptor’s home.

A sort of blank despair sank upon the colony.

The elder sculptors laid their chisels down in utter hopelessness.

Even the younger wrought less and less.

Still there came no boy to wake the old-time song and laughter of that once joyous island home.

Fingers cunning in art grew stiff with age.

Hearts full of glorious inspiration waxed dull and spiritless! One by one they all went the way which mortal feet must tread.

A terrible, a wonderful change came over the people.

130Weighed down by this leaden grief, surrounded day and night by these speechless, motionless marble forms, which, although silent as the very clod itself, yet cried out unceasingly: “Give us more companions in these solitudes!” these unfortunate people almost turned to marble itself.

They became, in good sooth, brothers and sisters to the marble dwellers on this island.

At length the end came!

The last sculptor was laid upon the carved bier of the great white temple by the sea!

A silence so long, so deep, so dreadful, fell upon the people that it almost seemed their speech was lost forever.

Within the dark grottoes and bosky underwood, they crawled to hide away from the very light of day.

Their limbs, once so supple and elastic, ever ready to bear their owners over hill and across plain, delighting in the dance, inured to the race, now became heavy and slow.

They seemed almost about to turn to stone, and join the silent company around them.

In good sooth, such a fate was imminent, when the happening of a joyful event averted it.

A year had passed since the last sculptor had gone to join the shadowy caravan which moves forever across the desert of Eternal Silence, when his seven sad-faced daughters were fairly startled by an infant’s cry.

But look!

Their widowed mother stands before them with a babe nestled in her arms.

It is a son!

The joyful tidings can only creep from family to family.

Alas! it was too late to call them back to old-time customs and habits, too late to start their blood again in old-time bounding, leaping course through their veins.

They were a changed people!

True, their happiness came again, but it was not the same. They could smile and laugh, but it was scarcely more than faces of marble moved by some mysterious power. They could talk, but so slowly fell the words that it almost seemed some statue spoke amid the leafy coverts of the island. They could move, but snail or tortoise outstripped them with ease.

132Ay, they were changed indeed; fated henceforth to people their beautiful island home with living statues.

For years in long flight sped away, till one century followed another, and yet the wondrous talent came back no more.

It was lost forever!

Long, long ago, too, the people forgot the story of their fathers.

It is kept alive in the hearts of a few chosen ones, and they hand it down, each quarter century, to younger keepers selected for the purpose.

To Antonius the secret had been thus confided.

And such was the tale he told to me!

With a light heart, now that its weight of doubt and uncertainty had been lifted from it, I bade Antonius farewell, and, followed by Bulger wended my way back to the abodes of the Slow Movers.

As I passed through one of the groves peopled with marble forms, I paused, I hardly knew why, in front of an admirable bust of the great Cæsar.

Bulger joined me, and there we stood, children of this late day, with our eyes uplifted to the face of him whose smallest word was once copied down on waxen tablet as if it were the utterance of a god.

I had always liked Cæsar.

We resembled each other in many ways.

We were both men of action.

I felt sorry for him now, that he should be forced to live, even in the shape of marble, among such dull and inactive people as the Slow Movers.

I told him so.

“And yet, Julius,” said I, “called of men the Great Cæsar, what a fortunate thing it is that thou art not living now, for thou wouldst be overcome with shame at finding everybody reading my adventures while the book which thou wrotest 133concerning Gaul lies mouldy and dust-covered on the shelves of the libraries!”

The following day, in passing that way again, and glancing up at great Cæsar’s face, I noticed that a smile had just started in the right corner of his mouth. So stolid had he become through his long residence among the Slow Movers that he had just begun to be amused by the remark I had made on the previous day.

Thoughts of home now arose in my mind.

The fact is that shortly after my interview with Antonius in his cavern by the sea, Bulger had commenced to show unmistakable signs of home-sickness. So I dispatched him with a note to the officer of my vessel to begin preparations at once for the return voyage.

Bulger made haste to execute the commission.

He proceeded to the foot of the marble staircase, and then by loud barking attracted the attention of the officer whom I had left in command.

He sent a boat ashore and Bulger met it with my letter in his mouth.

To tell the truth, I would have fain lingered for a week or so longer among the Slow Movers, but it was plain to be seen that they were growing restive at my presence.

On the cheeks of many of them all signs of ruddy peach-bloom had disappeared.

Day by day they grew more and more like their marble brethren.

My quick movements so wearied their eyes that after a few hours’ stay in their midst I found myself surrounded by a company of deep sleepers.

Nor dared I speak.

For no matter how I softened my voice, or how slowly I uttered my words, they jarred upon the delicate ears of the Slow Movers, and signs of suffering gradually passed over their faces.

My resolution was therefore quickly formed.

With a snail’s pace I passed from group to group, from bower 134to bower, from grove to grove, saying in a soft and measured tone: “Fare——well! Fare——well!”

Then I directed my steps toward the white temple by the sea, for I knew my boat’s crew were waiting for me at the foot of the marble staircase.

As I passed in front of Great Cæsar’s statue I turned to wave a last adieu.

What saw I, think you?

Why, that same smile which had begun in the right corner of his mouth several days ago, had crossed over to the other side of his face and was just at the left corner of his mouth.

On the right side, whence it had come, all was as stern and calm as when he sat enthroned at Rome, and ruled the world.

Several hours later, as we were busy setting the sails of my good ship there fell upon my ear in a soft, echo-like tone, the word.

“Fare!”

The Slow Movers had begun to speak their adieu. The winds were favorable.

The sails filled.

As the sun went down, pouring a flood of golden light upon the beautiful marble staircase, the great white temple and the many snowy statues which gleamed so bright and fair amid the dark foliage of the trees and vines upon the terraces of that mysterious island I threw myself upon the deck with intent to keep my eyes fixed upon the lovely scene as long as possible.

My good ship sailed away in deepest silence. For I had given orders that no one should speak above a whisper.

Now the Sculptors’ Isle had faded to a mere speck in the horizon, and now, in the gathering shades of night, it was swallowed up, and lost forever!

My heart grew heavy.

Bulger nestled his head in my lap, with his loving eyes fixed full upon me.

Sleep overcame us both.

The sky was star-studded when we awoke.

135The cool night wind had refreshed me.

I sprang up with the intention of going below. At that instant there came floating along on the evening breeze, like a mountain echo nearly spent, a soft mysterious sound.

My ear caught it! It was:

“W—e l—l!”

The Slow Movers had finished speaking their adieu.

Once more I grow tired of the quiet pleasures of home. The elder Baron opposes my leaving the land. His reasons. How I freed the ancestral estates from the pests of moles, meadow-mice and ground-squirrels; and how I set out for the Indies with my faithful Bulger. I enter a wild and untrodden territory. Wonderful transformation of day into night, and night into day. The huge fire-flies. My capture of one and what it brought forth. How I reached the borders of Palin-mâ-Talin, the Great Gloomy Forest. Benè-agâ the blind guide. My sojourn in his cave. I enter Palin-mâ-Talin under his guidance. Strange adventures in the Great Gloomy Forest. Benè-agâ takes leave of me. My advance is blocked by Bōga-Drappa, the Dread Staircase. My flight down its treacherous steps. I enter the land of the Umi-Lobas, or Man-Hoppers. Am carried a prisoner to their king. Something about him and his people. King Gâ-roo’s affection for me. His gift to me of copies of all the books in the royal library—All about the princess Hoppâ-Hoppâ. I am condemned to a life-long imprisonment among the Umi-Lobas. I plan an escape. How it was done. Efforts of King Gâ-roo to capture me. Farewell of little princess Hoppâ-Hoppâ. How I sailed away from the land of the Umi-Lobas, and made my way back across India. My return home.

Like all lovers of a roving life, I was not long in growing tired of the quiet ways and simple pursuits of the inmates of the old baronial hall.

At times, I felt like an intruder, when I caught myself sitting with eyes riveted upon the pages of some musty, old volume of strange adventure in far-away lands, while the elder baron, the gracious baroness, my loving mother, and several cousins from the neighboring estate, gave themselves up to the sweet pleasures of the fireside, feasting upon honey-cake, drinking hot spiced wine, playing at draughts, dominoes, or cards, now chatting 137in the most animated manner of the trivial things of every-day life, now bursting out into uproarious laughter at some unexpected victory won at cards or at some fireside game.

Silently closing my book, and still more silently stealing away, I sought the quiet of my apartments, where, with no other companions, save faithful Bulger, I gave myself up to unrestrained indulgence in waking dreams of life in a storm-rocked ship, landings on strange shores, parleyings with curious beings, battling with the wild-visaged typhoon, or hurrying with sails close-reefed and hatches battened down, to gain a safe port ere the storm king’s ebon chargers could rattle their hoofs over our heads.

My dear mother, the gracious baroness, made extraordinary exertions to drive away my low spirits.

Knowing my fondness for coffee cake, she suffered no one to make it for me excepting herself. And at dinner she took care to place a professor or, some learned person beside me, so that I might not find myself condemned to silence for the want of a gifted mind to measure mental swords with.

But all to no purpose. I grew daily more taciturn, absent-minded, and plunged into meditation. With my eyes fixed upon vacancy, I sat like one with unbalanced mind amidst the lightest-hearted merry-makers. In vain the company besought me to relate past adventures, to tell them tales already thrice told. I only shook my head with a mournful smile, and made good my escape from scenes which were painful to me.

Bulger felt that his little master was suffering, and coaxed with plaintive whining to have me make known to him the cause of my grief.

His joy was wild and boisterous when he saw my body-servant enter my apartments, bearing an empty traveling chest upon his shoulders.

To tell the truth, life at the baronial hall pleased Bulger not a whit more than it did me.

The house dogs annoyed him with their attentions, and he was wont to retire from the dining hall with a look of utter disgust upon his face, when one of the family cats, in the 138most friendly spirit, drew near and tasted a bit of his dinner.

All caresses, too, from other hands than mine were distasteful to him; and, although for my sake he would permit the gracious baroness to stroke his silken ears, yet any familiarity on the part of the elder baron was firmly, but respectfully, declined.

The very moment I saw my chests placed here and there in my apartments, my spirits rose. I became like another being. The color returned to my cheeks, the gleam to my eye, the old-time ring to my voice.

From lip to lip, the word was passed: “The little baron is making ready for another journey!”

From early morn to deepening shadows of twilight, I busied myself with superintending the packing of my boxes. It was a labor of love with me.

I never was born for a calm life beneath the time-stained tiles of paternal halls! My heart was filled with redder, warmer blood than ordinary mortals. My brain never slept. Night and day, shadowy forms of men and things, strange and curious, swept along before me in never-ending files.

One morning, while at work with my boxes, a low knock at my chamber door fell upon my ear. Bulger, scenting an enemy, gave a low growl. I swung the door open. It was the elder baron.

“Honored father,” I cried gayly, “act as if thou wert master here! Be sad, be gay; sit, stand, drink, eat, or fast!”

“Little baron,” began my father in a solemn voice, “I beseech thee give over thy jesting. When thou hast heard the object of my visit, grief will chase every vestige of mirth from thy light heart.”

“Speak baron!”

“Art thou a dutiful and loving son?” asked my father, fixing his dark, mournful eyes full upon me.

“I am!”

“’Tis well!” he replied, “then arrest this making ready to abandon thy parents in their hour of misfortune. Put an end to all this unseemly hurlyburly, and to thy longing to be gone from beneath the paternal roof.”

139The clouded face, trembling and tear-filled eyes of the elder baron shocked me. I could feel the blood leaving my cheeks, where, till then, it had bloomed like the glow of ripening fruit.

But I checked myself; and, motioning the baron to be seated, said in a calm—though spite of me—trembling voice:

“Noble father, it is thine to command; mine to obey! Speak, I pray thee, and speak too, plainly—if need be, harshly. Bare thy most secret thoughts. What aileth thee? What sends these dark shadows to rest on that calm, smooth brow?”

“Thanks, little baron,” was my father’s reply, “for thy promise of obedience. This is the weight which presses on my heart: Since thou hast taken up this rambling, roving life, robbed of thy counsel and co-operation, I have seen our ancestral estate hastening to ruin. Last year our tenantry scarcely harvested enough to keep body and soul together. This year promises to turn out worse yet. Desolation sits upon the broad acres once the prize of our family! Crops fail, grass withers, trees turn yellow! The poor cattle moan for sustenance as they winder about in the dried-up pastures. I look upon all this wreck and ruin, but am helpless as a babe to stay it! Speak, my son; wilt thou, hast thou the heart, canst thou be so cruel as to turn thy back upon these pitiful scenes without raising thy hand to avert the impending doom?”

“Baron!” I interposed mildly, but firmly, “facts first! eloquence thereafter! Impart unto me, in plain, King’s speech, the cause of all this ruin! What hath wrought it? What hath desolated our fair fields? What hath carried this rapine among our flocks and herds? Speak!”

“I will, little baron, give attentive ear!” rejoined my father with stately bend of the body:

“As ancient Egypt was visited with scourge and plague, so have been our ancestral acres! In pasture and grain fields, myriads of moles feed upon the tender rootlets; in grass lands, swarms of meadow-mice fatten on the herbage; in orchards and nurseries, countless numbers of ground-squirrels spread destruction far and near! Such are the terrible scourges now laying waste our once fair estates, your pride and mine, and the envy of all beholders!

140“Little baron, I feel, I know that thou canst help me; that somewhere in the vast storehouse of thy mind, rest plans and devices potent enough to restore these broad lands to all their former beauty and productiveness.”

“Baron!” was my reply, “when was there a time that thou foundst me wanting in my duty to thee or lacking in power to assist thee?”

“Never!” ejaculated the elder baron with great emphasis.

“Then, betake thee to my gentle mother—the baroness—thy consort, comfort her. Bid her take heart! Say I will not go abroad until these pests are driven from our ancestral domain!”

The elder baron rose. I accompanied him to the door, then, we saluted each other with dignity and he withdrew to bear the glad message of my promised assistance to my sorrowing mother.

Alone in my apartments, a terrible feeling of disappointment came over me. I felt that it would be useless to continue in my preparations to leave home in the face of these dire misfortunes now threatening my family. For, as I reasoned—and I think with great clearness—the name of our family would dwindle to a shadow, were we robbed of these broad acres of pasture and meadow-land, forest and orchard.

To me, a landless nobleman had something very ludicrous about him; and I fully made up my mind that I would either save my ancestral estate from ruin, or lay aside forever my title of baron, as a gem which had lost its radiance, even as a pearl, which the stolid rustic ruins for the sake of a meal of victuals!

That night I partook of no food, so that I might lie down with unclouded mind.

Bulger noticing this, concluded that his little master was ailing, and likewise refused to touch food, although I ordered his favorite dish—roasted cocks’ combs—to be prepared.

Till midnight I lay awake in deepest thought over the arduous task which confronted me. At the stroke of twelve from the old clock on the stair, I determined to let my mind work out the problem itself, and turned over and went to sleep.

The baron and baroness entered the breakfast-room with 141unclouded brows the next morning. I greeted them very cordially. The conversation was enlivened by one or two of the elder baron’s ancient anecdotes which he furbished up for the occasion with several new characters and an entirely new ending. I laughed heartily—as I was in duty bound to do.

Breakfast over Bulger and I sallied forth to begin work. I resolved to attack the moles first.

To get rid of pest number one was not at all a difficult matter for me, when once I set about thinking it over. In fact, I may say right here, that this task, set me by the elder baron, would have been an impossible one had it not been for my intimate acquaintance with the natures, habits and peculiarities of animal life. Always a close student of natural history there was little about the four-footed tenants of the fields which had escaped my observation.

Accompanied by Bulger; armed with a pair of short, wooden tongs; and carrying a basket, I set out for the grain fields.

Bulger was in high glee for he had already made up his mind that there was sport ahead for him.

In less than an hour, with him to point out their hiding places and to unearth them, I had captured a hundred moles. Returning to the overseer’s lodge, with his help I cut off the nails of each mole’s fore feet close to the flesh and then gave orders to have the lot carried back to the grain fields and released. Turning my attention now to the meadow-mice, I realized at once that to get rid of pest number two would be the most difficult task of all.

The unthinking reader has doubtless already cried out in thought: “Why not turn a troop of cats into the meadows, and let them make short work of the destructive little creatures?”

Ah how easy it is to plan, how difficult to execute! Know then, my clever friend, that the meadows were wet and that though often tried the cats absolutely refused to enter them.

The merest tyro in natural history is aware of a cat’s aversion to wetting its fur; and, above all, of stepping into water. Even moisture is disagreeable to a cat’s feet and she will willingly walk a mile rather than cross a plot of dew-moistened green 142sward. However, I determined to begin my operations at once.

Knowing the wonderful changes which the pangs of hunger will work in an animal’s nature, forcing the meat-eaters to turn to the herbage of the field for sustenance—I hoped for favorable results.

Selecting half a dozen vigorous young cats from the cottages of our tenantry, and providing myself with a lot of India rubber caps used for drawing down over the necks of bottles, in order to make them air-tight, I proceeded to encase the legs of each cat in these coverings, cutting a hole in each one, however, so as to allow the paws to pass through. I wished to accustom them to these leggings before covering the feet entirely. My next step was to subject the cats to twenty-four hours fast. After which, I caused some of their favorite food—broiled fish to be placed at the other end of a long room, covering the intervening space with long-napped rugs, which I had first dipped into water.

In spite of their hunger, they absolutely refused to cross the dripping rugs.

Advancing to the edge, they tested the condition of the obstacles which blocked their advance upon the savory food feeling here and there for a dry spot; and then retreating with piteous mewing, as they shook the wet from their feet.

Drawing the rubber caps completely over the feet of one of the cats, I now placed her on the wet rug, encouraging her to remain there by feeding her a few dainty bits of the fish. Finding that her feet did not get wet, she consented to walk here and there over the wet surface, in order to secure toothsome bits of food. I made the same experiment with the other cats, and everything went as well as I could wish.

The next day I continued my instruction, and to my great joy, succeeded in schooling the whole lot, not only to make no objection to having their feet encased in the rubber boots, but even to wade through an inch or more of water, in order to secure a particularly dainty bit of food.

I was now ready to make a practical test of my trained hunters.

143The day preceding the trial they were again subjected to a prolonged fast.

I must frankly confess that my heart beat rather nervously as I, with the overseer and two other assistants set out for the low lands, carrying the trained mousers—already shod in their rubber boots—in three baskets.

We advanced cautiously upon the meadow-land, but so far as the mice were concerned, our caution was useless, for they ran about under our very feet.

As I stood gazing over the long stretch of devastated meadow-land, once so famous for its thick, velvety grass, the tears gathered in my eyes and my voice choked. Now or never, thought I, must the attempt be made to save these fair fields from utter ruin. At a wave of my hand, my assistants stooped and released the somewhat startled cats. They were not long, however, in collecting their wits and getting ready for business.

Sharp hunger is an excellent sauce! As the six monsters leaped among those troops of tiny creatures—till that moment nibbling, playing or teasing one another, without a thought of harm or danger—the wildest consternation seized upon them.

Not only near by us, but as far as the eye could reach, panic and disorder spread among these, till then peaceful little beings. Those which sought safety in their holes were hurled back by others rushing frantically out into the open air.

The cats kept at their work like avenging furies. They killed for the mere pleasure of killing, passing like a death-dealing blast here and there over the meadows.

After the work of destruction had been kept up for half an hour, I directed that the trained six should be carried back to their quarters, for I was too good a general to let my troops get their fill of sack and plunder.

The next day another attack was made upon the enemy. The trained six, if anything, spread death right and left with greater fury than at first. The wet lands no longer had any terrors for them. They splashed through the puddles like mischievous boys through roadside brooks and ponds.

I now bethought me of turning my attention to the ground 144squirrels. My first step was to send to town for several bushels of the smallest marbles that could be purchased. Then, having, with the assistance of my ever-faithful and loving friend and helper—my dear, dumb brother Bulger—located the whereabouts of several hundred burrows of the ground-squirrels, I gave orders to have a half-dozen or more of the marbles rolled down into each one of those holes.

These labors completed, I withdrew to my apartments and set about amusing myself in several ways, while awaiting a report from the overseer.

Many of the tenants who had watched my operations against the moles, meadow-mice and ground-squirrels, even ventured openly to denounce them as “wild whims”, “a dreamer’s ideas” “silly workings of a diseased mind.”

Poor creatures! They had lost their all. They had seen the labor of long weary months ruined by these pests. They were embittered and skeptical. I had not the heart to notice their rather impertinent utterances. While awaiting the developments, I plunged into the delights of some tales of a bold traveler written in the ancient Assyrian tongue in the wedge-shaped letter.

Three days went by and no news from the superintendent!

Two more, made five full days!

On the sixth came nothing.

At last, with the dawn of the seventh I was awakened by loud and long continued cheering beneath my windows. Springing from my bed and drawing aside the curtains, I was astonished to see long lines of our tenantry, men, women and children bearing banners, wreaths, garlands, etc.

One company of children carried long, thin rods from the end of which dangled dead moles, meadow-mice and ground-squirrels.

The moment I presented myself at the window, there was an outburst of cheering, so sturdy that the windows rattled before it. A tap at my door called me in another direction. It was the elder baron!

“Haste! little baron!” he cried eagerly “descend to the castle platform, the people are beside themselves with joy! Canst 145thou catch their cries? Not a mole, nor a mouse, nor a squirrel is alive on the broad acres of thy estate. I say “thy” because it is justly thine! Thou hast saved it from utter ruin. Henceforth for the few years which kind Providence may will that I should tarry with thee, let it be as thy guest.”

“Nay, nay, baron!” I replied laughingly, “that may not be! Till thou sleepest with the noble dead of our long and honored line, thou art master here!”

I pressed his hand reverently to my lips and sent him to talk to the people until I should be ready to take my place at his side.

I can well fancy how impatient the reader is to hear something more about the manner in which I rid my ancestral estate of these noisome pests. With regard to the meadow-mice that needs no explanation, but, the disappearance of the moles and ground-squirrels seems somewhat mysterious.

Well and good. I’ll make it clear! Gentle reader, if you had been as close a student of the natures and habits of these animals as I, you could have done the same thing yourself. You must know, then, that the mole’s body bears about the same relation to his forefeet, as a boiler does to a steam engine, which is admirably adjusted in all its parts, working smoothly and noiselessly, like a thing of life—polished and beautiful in all its bearings and put together so skillfully that no human thought could better it. That is to say, the only wonderful thing about a mole is his hand.

That is a delight to a student of natural history.

I have sat for hours and studied the marvelous shape of this hand. And strange though it may seem to you, no one knows better than the mole himself, that therein lies his hold on life.

You’ll bear in mind, that I caused the nails to be clipped off the forefeet of the hundred moles, close to the flesh, and then turned them loose. In other words, without absolutely destroying their marvellous hands, I completely destroyed their usefulness.

Now another thing you must be taught, that in the busy communities of these little animals, there are no sluggards. Every one must work. Only one thing stops him from using his hands.

146That is death. When a mole sees his fellow stop work, he knows what has happened.

Upon the return of the hundred captives to their burrows, there was joy mingled with terror!

Whose turn might come next?

But, when the moment arrived to fall into line and set to work, there was consternation!

What! alive, and not able to dig?

Immediately, the wildest panic seizes upon the community. They abandon their homes! With frantic haste, they pierce new burrows in every direction, leaving their ill-fated companions behind them to die a lingering death—literally buried alive. Weeks, months will elapse ere they recover from this wild fear. Then they will be miles away.

And the ground-squirrels, you ask. The ground-squirrel is as conceited, inquisitive, persistent and hard-headed as he is hard-toothed. If he knew that the world was round he would claim that it was simply a huge nut and wish that he were big enough to get at its kernel.

When the marbles first came rolling down his burrow, he was pleased. They were so smooth, so round! He rolled them hither and thither, as content as a child with a new toy. Then he stored them away for another day’s amusement. Pretty soon he began to tire of them. They were dreadfully in his way. They annoyed him greatly. And yet, he couldn’t bear to think of parting with them. Finally the question arose in his mind: What are they, anyway? Surely they must have a kernel! And so he set to work gnawing upon them. They were terribly hard, but he was determined to get at the pit. Day after day, he kept at the thankless task, gnawing, gnawing, until, one fine morning, he awoke to make the awful discovery that his teeth were gone!

Now, a ground-squirrel may be said to consist of four teeth, and nothing else. These gone there is no way to keep the other part alive.

True, he may, after infinite labor struggle through a nutshell, but it is too slow work to keep up his strength. Every nut becomes a harder task.

147And so it was with the vast colony in our orchards. The first few days quite a number made their appearance as usual. Then, fewer and fewer came out of their holes, and they looked thin and feeble and showed no inclination to gambol and chatter. At the end of the week, the work was done. They had wrought their own destruction. The entire colony had perished from starvation.

Thus it was, I restored the fair lands of our family to their old-time productiveness and removed all the obstacles which stood between me and my immediate departure from home.

In a few days all was ready.

The elder baron and the gracious baroness, my mother, parted from me with a gentle rain of tears, and a refreshing shower of blessings. Accompanied by my dumb brother—the ever faithful Bulger—and one trusty servant, I set out by extra post for Vienna.

Thence at break-neck speed, I journeyed to Buda-Pesth and reached the Black Sea via Bucharest.

Traversing that body of water in a swift vessel, commanded by an old sailing-master of mine, I skirted the foot hills of the Caucasus Mountains, and made my way to Teheran.

Here I tarried several days, long enough to purchase a few camels and horses and join a caravan, soon to leave that city on a trading expedition.

The proprietor of the trading company renewed his welcome in heartier terms when he was informed that I had brought a goodly collection of European trinkets with me.

To clinch his good will—so to speak—I gave him a pair of fine German pistols.

We were now sworn friends.

I remained with the expedition until it reached Cabul. The proprietor was astounded to learn that I did not contemplate returning westward with him. After a whole day spent in eloquent pleadings, he gave in, fell upon my neck, wept, and wished me good speed.

I was glad to be rid of him, for I was in no humor to form friendships with men whose souls never rose above a sharp 148bargain. Attended only by my faithful Bulger and a single guide, I set out from Cabul; crossed northern Hindoostan, and entered Thibet to the north of the Himalayas.

This was the land of which I had long dreamed—a land absolutely unknown to the outside world.

I never had any inclination to pass over beaten tracks. By nature and education, a lover of the strange and marvellous, my soul expanded beneath the skies of this far-away and curious land, like a flower beneath the sunlight of a warm May morning.

Scarcely had I penetrated more than a dozen leagues into this wild untrodden territory than I made the astonishing discovery that the sun’s light was obscured the entire day; while the sky, by night, was flooded with a soft, mysterious light, quite bright enough to enable me to read the finest print with perfect ease. In other words, the natural order of things was exactly reversed. So, I—always quick to accommodate myself to existing circumstances—made use of the dark days for rest and sleep, and pursued my journey by night.

One morning, however, the mystery was explained. The impenetrable clouds, which had been veiling the heavens like a pall, suddenly sank earthward; and, to my almost unspeakable astonishment, I discovered that this blanket of inky blackness was made up of living creatures—gigantic fire-flies, quite as large as our ordinary bat, and far blacker in both body and wing.

When night came, this living tissue was changed into a robe of sparkling, shimmering glow, mantling the heavens like a garment of burnished gold spangles, upon which a burst of soft light, as if from ten times ten thousand waxen tapers, fell in dazzling effulgence. It was something to see and die for. Bulger’s poor startled mind made him look up, half in dread, half in wonder at this mysterious fire, which enveloped everything in its flame, and yet consumed nothing. I had but one thought. It was to capture several of these huge fire-flies. Night after night I watched patiently for an opportunity.

It came at last.

149I was preparing some coffee, and my back was turned. Suddenly, I was startled by a piteous outburst, half whine, half bark, from poor Bulger. A cluster of these living stars had fallen at his very feet. Quicker than thought, I sprang forward and threw my blanket over them. Then, with the greatest care, I transferred them to one of my wicker hampers.

Bulger, upon seeing this basket on fire and yet feeling no heat, was most painfully nonplused. He walked round and round the improvised cage, keeping at a safe distance, however, now sniffing the air, now looking up to me with a most imploring glance—as if to say:

“Dear little master, do explain this thing to me! Why doesn’t it burn up?”

To my great disappointment, the three captives died after a few days’ imprisonment, not, however, until they had laid a number of eggs—about the size of robins’ eggs—which I packed away most carefully in my boxes of specimens.

I may say, right here, that, upon my return home, I subjected these eggs to a gentle warmth and was charmed to see emerge from each one of them a larva about the size of a pipe-stem; but, to my delight—and to Bulger’s absolute terror—this pipe-stem affair had, inside twenty-four hours, become as large round as a Frankfort sausage.

In due time, they passed into the chrysalis state. But this apparent death seemed to become a real one.

Weeks went by and there were no signs of a metamorphosis.

I was cruelly disappointed.

More important matters, however, arose to occupy my thoughts. The sleeping fire-flies of the Orient were quite forgotten, when, one evening, the women servants of the manor house, with blanched faces and piercing shrieks came literally tumbling headlong down the main stairway.

Fortunately I was sitting on the first terrace of the park. With a bound I gained the hall-way, and snatching down a brace of fire-arms from the wall, throw myself in front of the wildly shrieking troop of women, calling out in stentorian tones, for silence.

150“Has murder been committed?” I cried, “Is there revolt among the tenantry? Has blood been shed?”

“No! no! little baron!” they exclaimed, with wild eyes and clasped hands, “but the castle is on fire! Your rooms are in flames! Your treasures will be consumed! Quick! little baron; save them! save us! save the gracious lady and venerable master!”

Quicker than it takes to tell it, I laid hold of the rope of the alarm bell and set it pealing.

The retainers answered with a will. A score of them burst into the hall-way ready for the word of command.

“Seize the fire-buckets, my lads!” I called out calmly, but in a tone of sufficient dignity to inspire perfect confidence.

“Man ladders to the windows of my apartments.”

By this time another gang of the tenantry came rushing in upon the scene. I met them with an order to unhang the portraits in the baronial dining-hall, and store them in a place of safety. Then, having spoken a few words of comfort to the gracious baroness, my mother, I seized a fire-bucket and led the line up the stairway. Laying my shoulder against the door of my apartments, I burst it open; and, with head lowered before the blaze of light dashed in, followed by the bucket-bearers.

“Halt!” I cried.

It was too late! some of my finest hangings and rugs were spoiled by half a dozen buckets of water emptied upon them.

The mystery was solved! The blaze of light that fairly flooded my apartments proceeded from the huge fire-flies which had hatched out without being noticed by me. But I didn’t begrudge my ruined hangings.

There was my recompense clinging to the walls.

I need hardly say, that the giant fire-flies were the wonder of their day, and brief as it was it sufficed to cover my name with a glory as resplendent, as their mysterious fire.

152I caused a huge lamp of exquisite oriental pattern to be constructed, and having placed the light-bearers beneath its dome of polished glass, passed several nights in the most perfect happiness, seated in its soft, white light, poring over musty volumes of travel, written in tongues long-forgotten, save by a few of the most learned scholars. But, my delight was short-lived. The gigantic fire-flies absolutely refused to eat anything, although I tempted them with a hundred different kinds of food. Little by little, their mysterious flame lost its bright effulgence—burning lower and lower until it went out in death.

To resume the thread of my story:

I was growing impatient to reach the table-lands of the Himalayas, and taxed the powers of endurance of my guide to their uttermost.

In our bivouacs at times he would encircle my slender ankle-joints with his thumb and index finger and exclaim: “All the gods helped make thee, little baron!” meaning that there dwelt great will-power and strength in my small body.

The skies now cleared up. The living pall rolled backward, toward the horizon, and naught remained to tell of the mighty flood of light which so lately overran the heavens save a faint shimmering streak of fire in far distant Western sky.

Soon it went out altogether. Thus far, our journey had been through an open country, with here and there a clump of forest trees which, at last grew so frequent that I felt sure we must be approaching the confines of some extensive piece of woodland.

In this I was not mistaken.

As we reached the summit of a range of hills, I could see in the distance a long, dark line of forests. My guide, who had pushed on ahead, in search of water, came galloping wildly back.

I paid no particular attention to him, until I noticed that he had dismounted in great haste and was running towards me.

“Turn back! turn back! little master!” he exclaimed, throwing himself at my feet, and clasping my legs with his arms!

“Enter not in the Palin-mâ-Talin! (Home of Darkness.) A hundred pilgrims have laid their bones in the moss-grown depths of the Great Gloomy Forest! It is as pathless as the 153ocean! It is as silent as death. It is as limitless as the heavens! Nor man nor beast can breathe its cool, moist air, and live! Turn back! I beseech thee, little baron; tempt not the Palin-mâ-Talin!”

“Palin-mâ-Talin! Palin-mâ-Talin!” I repeated, as if awakening from a dream, “why, it must be—ay, there can be no doubt of it—the Great Aryan Forest, in which, countless centuries ago, the human race having abandoned their holes in the clay banks, first learned to hunt the wild beast, feed on his flesh and clothe themselves in his skins.”

In my joy at this discovery I threw a handful of gold pieces into the lap of my astonished guide.

Bulger, always ready to share my happiness, came bounding to my side, barking loud and shrill. To my infinite surprise, the answering bark of a dog came floating on the morning breeze.

“Hark!” I exclaimed, in a whisper. This time it was unmistakable.

“’Tis one of Benè-agâ’s dogs!” was my guide’s reply. “Come, little master, let me lead thee to his cave. It is beneath the very shadow of the Great Gloomy Forest. He can tell thee of its dangers, for he hath crossed it!”

“And come safely back?” I asked.

“While life lasts he will sit in the gloom of Palin-mâ-Talin!” murmured the man.

“What meanest thou?” I cried.

“I mean, that the noonday sun cannot chase the shadows from his eyes.”

“He is blind?”

“Ay, little master, blind!” was the guide’s reply, “and yet save this blind hermit, there lives no human creature who can lead thee safely through the Great Gloomy Forest!”

“Have done with thy jesting!” I cried.

“Nay, little master!” was the man’s answer. “I speak in all truth and reverence, for Benè-agâ is a holy man, and in him dwells such a radiant spirit, that his path is illumined and his footsteps are sure when other men would walk to their destruction!”

154“O, lead me to him!” I exclaimed with ill-concealed joy. “A thousand pieces of gold are thine, if the blind hermit consents to be my guide.”

“A thousand pieces of gold!” repeated the guide with a gleam in his dark eyes. “Ah, little baron, no one can earn that princely reward, excepting thee thyself! Who am I, poor, miserable, ignorant slave that I am, that I should attempt to move this saintly and learned man in thy behalf? He would heed the cry of one of his dogs far more quickly than he would my chatter!”

“Is he so unlike his kind,” I asked, as we rode slowly along, “as not to love gold?”

“Ay, little baron! if every dried leaf in his forest path were a coin of burnished gold, he would not stoop to pick one up!”

“Are his ears closed to flattery?”

“As closed as his eyes are to the sun’s rays.”

“Loves he not some savory dish?”

“Fruits and berries content him!”

“Surely a draught of rare old wine, mellow with age, fragrant as crushed roses, purple within the beaker, would warm his heart to quicker beating, and incline him to serve me!”

“Nay, nay, little baron! a gourd full of water from the sparkling rill near his home in the rocks, is sweeter to him than any nectar ever distilled by the hands of man!”

“They say he is learned! Then shall my gift be a score of rare old books, priceless parchments filled with thoughts so noble, so deep, so subtle, that, to read therein, means to live a thousand years in one!”

“Ah, little master,” replied my guide, with a mournful smile, “thou art still astray. This dweller ’mid the rocks, this lover of solitude, the measure of whose life, they say, is full three hundred years, knows no other books than the pages of his own soul! On these he has turned his thoughts so long and so diligently, that the foolish outpourings of so-called authors seem like the merest prattle of childhood.”

“But look, little master, we are drawing near the home of the blind hermit.”

155I turned my eyes in the direction indicated.

A rocky ledge, wild, craggy, broken, seamed and twisted, crowned with a growth of pine trees having knotted, gnarled and fantastically-shaped trunks and boughs, shut in our view. As we drew near the entrance to Benè-agâ’s cave, a troop of dogs, of various ages and species, came bounding forward with loud barkings.

Bulger advanced to meet them boldly, after first glancing at my face to see whether I objected or not.

It was a long while since he had met any of the members of his race, and then again, he doubtless wished to get a good look at these residents of such a distant land.

The feeling seemed to be mutual, for in an instant the barking ceased, and the hermit’s dogs gathered about Bulger in silent wonderment.

After a series of salutations, which plainly ended in the best of fellowships, the hermit’s dogs endeavored to lure Bulger away for a run in the forest and fields, but in this they were, I need scarcely say, entirely unsuccessful. Bulger gave them to understand in very decided terms that he would talk with them, and even romp with them, but that it must all be done under the eyes of his master.

We now halted and dismounted.

“This is the place,” said my guide in a low tone. “Through that deep fissure in the rocks thou wilt find a path that leads to Benè-agâ’s cave. Enter it boldly, little master. At the entrance to the cave thou wilt find a dried gourd hanging on the rocky wall. Seize it! When shaken, its seeds will give forth a loud, rattling sound. This done, move not, though the shadows of evening find thee still standing at the door of Benè-agâ’s cave. Farewell, little master; Heaven make good to thee tenfold thy kindness to me! I will await thee three days. If by that time I do not hear thy voice calling me to serve thee again, I shall return to my kindred!”

Advancing to the cleft in the rocky wall, I found the gourd hanging by a leathern thong.

The loud rattling of the seeds, as it broke the deep silence 156of this wild and lonely place—fit vestibule to a temple devoted to silence, solitude and meditation—startled me painfully.

Restoring the gourd to its place, I leaned forward to catch the faintest sound of the hermit’s voice which might reach my ear.

It came not.

The silence grew more oppressive than before.

The broken, twisted rocks, overhanging and surrounding me, took on fantastic forms.

In every dark cavity I saw some misshapen creature stirring about.

A dreadful feeling of loneliness crept over me.

No sound came, save the loud throbbing of my own heart.

A half hour went by!

Benè-agâ spake not a word.

“Perhaps he sleeps!” I whispered to myself.

My words awakened the echoes of the rocky recesses, and the word “sleeps” came back to my ears in a hundred different tones, now loud and hissing, now soft and sibilant.

At last a full hour had now gone by since I had rattled the seeds of the dried gourd, and yet the blind hermit spake no word.

Again the death-like stillness sank upon the place, and the gathering shadows grew deeper and deeper.

Could the guide have played me false? I asked myself.

Nay, that cannot be!

And yet why comes there no sound from Benè-agâ’s cave?

Shall I summon him once more? May he not have gone forth to gather food?

Am I doomed to be turned back when I have reached the very threshold of my long-wished-for desire?

These and a hundred other questions flitted through my mind as I stood in the dark and gloomy corridor that led to Benè-agâ’s cave.

By the shadows on the rocky wall I could see that I had now been standing at least two hours awaiting summons to draw nearer.

But hush!

157He speaks at last!

My heart bounded joyfully, and yet as if with a leaden weight upon it.

“Who is it that disturbs my meditation?” were the hermit’s words.

“A stranger! A brother! One who needs thy guidance!” I replied in a firm, yet humble tone.

“No human creature is stranger to me! Thou art too young to be my brother! The light that is left me shines only for my own feet!” came slowly from the hermit’s cave in a full, deep, rich voice.

“True, great master,” I replied, “but then, may I not be thy son, and follow thy footsteps?”

“Thou art very wise for thy years,” spake Benè-agâ.

“Not so wise, great master,” was my reply, “as I shall be when I have sat at thy feet.”

“Come somewhat closer; thy child-voice sounds like an echo,” continued the blind hermit. “And yet thou art not a child! Some great spirit plays in sportive mood behind thy face! I see that thou art blue-eyed and flaxen-haired. Thine eyes are set wide asunder, and above them towers a dome of thought. Thy home is in the land of the Norseman. At least thy fathers dwelt there. On thy cheek glows the crimson which, in the peach and apple-land, stains the autumn foliage!”

As I had not yet even stepped within Benè-agâ’s cave, these words of the blind hermit caused a strange feeling, half of fear, half of dread fascination, to creep over me.

My heart throbbed violently.

His ear, far keener than birds’ or beasts’, caught the sound.

“Fear not, little one!” said he, in deep, rich tones, full and swelling like the voice of organ pipes, “if thou canst content thyself with a handful of berries when thou art hungry, with a draught from the neighboring rill when thou art thirsty; if thy young limbs are sturdy enough to wrest repose from a rocky couch, then art thou welcome! If not, go thy way! For twenty years I’ve been busy with a certain problem, and have no time to stop and spread a more bountiful repast!”

158“But season thy frugal fare with thy wisdom, great master,” I returned, “and it will be sweeter to my palate than stall-fed ox and mellow wine.”

“Come somewhat nearer, little traveler, so that I may see thee better!” spake the blind hermit, kindly and gently.

I did not wait for further summons, but stepped boldly into Benè-agâ’s cave.

It was, in truth, little more than a lofty cleft in the rocks, with several deeper recesses, in which the shadows lay undisturbed. Its roof of jagged, broken and blackened masses of stone, was arched and lofty. In and about it, flocks of small swallow-like birds nested, and at times broke out in musical twitterings. Barren, gloomy and utterly forlorn as the place was, without chair, mat, bed or blanket, every thought of its awful loneliness and abject surroundings vanished from my mind, as I fixed my eyes upon its occupant.

As I had stepped within the limit of Benè-agâ’s cave, he had slowly risen from his bench of stone, and now stood erect before me. Of powerful build, tall and majestic, with long snow-white hair and snowy beard, he towered like a statue of Parian marble in the dim twilight, to which now, however, my eyes had become accustomed.

I gazed upon him, half in fear, half in delight.

I could feel my breath coming fast and faster, as I riveted my gaze upon his wonderful face, so full of love, patience, courage and contentment.

Had he bent his eyes upon me, I would never have believed him blind, for they were unclouded, full and lustrous. And yet, on second look, I saw that their gleam was like the brightness of the polished gem, that lacks the softness of living, sensitive orbs.

Benè-agâ was clad in a rude garb of dried skins, from which the hair had been skilfully scraped. Tossed back from his broad and massive brow, his white locks hung in heavy ringlets on his broad shoulders, while his wonderful beard, as white and glistening as spun glass—around his body twice entwined—clung like a snow-wreath twisted about a sturdy oak by the circling gale.

160So, like a mighty son of earth he towered, rude, yet noble; untaught yet learned, human yet godlike that I stood transfixed. My tongue forgot its tricks of speech. I felt that I should turn to stone, if he did not speak to me.

While standing thus speechless, robbed of power to move a limb, Bulger broke the spell!

At Benè-agâ’s feet lay a sick dog, infirm thro’ age and not ailment; blind like his master, his head pillowed on some soft dry leaves—the only semblance of bed within the hermit’s cave.

Bulger’s gaze fell upon this pitiful spectacle. With cautious step, outstretched neck, and wide-opened eyes, he approached his sick brother, sniffed him over, licked his face and ears, whined piteously and then fixed a pleading look upon me as if to ask: “Dear little master, canst thou do nothing to help my poor, sick brother? Canst thou not make him well again, so that I may coax him out into the warm sunshine to play with him?”

Benè-agâ spake: “I see that thou art not alone, little wanderer, thou bringest a companion with thee. He is welcome. His tenderness and sympathy will carry joy and gladness to the heart of my suffering friend, whose head I’ve pillowed upon some soft grass! I, too, love dogs! Thou seest they are my sole companions. Their love is less exacting than human love. They require no pledge or promise. They understand my silence, read my thoughts and are content!”

“But, come! little traveler, time presses. Speak! What brings thee to Benè-agâ’s cave? If it be idle curiosity, depart! But, if thou seekest counsel; if thou comest with honest intent to ask my advice in some arduous matter, I am ready to serve thee!”

“I thank thee, great master!” I replied, humbly. “Know then that I would traverse the Great Gloomy Forest and that report hath reached mine ear that thou alone, of all human beings, canst guide me through its never-lifting shadows, shield me from its poisonous vapors and let me not follow my own foot-prints in ever-widening circles, until reason itself feels the dreaded spell of that vast, trackless, pathless wilderness!”

161“’Tis true!” gave answer Benè-agâ in deep, sad tones. “I can perform the service thou askest! But, O, my son! thou must know that a most sacred vow holds me in its mysterious power, securely locked, that I should lead no fellow-creature through that pathless wood, save on certain conditions!”

“Name them, great master!” I cried.

“That he who asks this service,” continued Benè-agâ, “shall tarry thirty days and nights with me in my rocky home, to inure him to the burden of awful gloom and silence; that he, in all that time, taste of no food save the berries, on which I feed; slake his thirst with no draught other than that which I bring him from the neighboring rill and sleep on the bare rock, even as I do! Reflect! the apprenticeship is severe. Deem it not dishonorable, nor weak, to shrink from so hard a task! Pause, reflect, ere thou answerest. I’ll resume my meditations for an hour and then question thee again!”

“Be it so, great master!” I made answer; and, Benè-agâ’s sightless eyes seem to turn to the shrunken form of the dying dog.

Silence filled the cave, and feeble twilight struggled against the gathering gloom. My thoughts turned homewards! I could hear the gentle voice of the baroness, my mother. The castle windows were lighted, and the tall lindens shook a rich perfume from their blossoming boughs. All seemed so sweet and peaceful. My mother’s voice reached me—I caught its every word: “Set forth my son’s repast!” said she in soft, mild tones. “See that his favorite dishes are kept warm. Choose none but the choicest wine for him; and, take good care that his bed be soft and even, and his pillow’s smooth!” My breath came only with painful effort as these words rang in my ears.

I started up with a bound. In spite of myself, I took a step toward the portal of Benè-agâ’s cave, where the last rays of the setting sun tipped the angry, jagged, broken rocks with gold.

“Well, my son!” spake the blind hermit. “Art thou still resolute?”

“Ay, great master!” I cried, turning back and drawing near to him.

162“Fear naught! Though puny in body, yet was I born with the strength of steel in my limbs, and the will power of a score of common men.”

“Lead thou on! I will follow thee.”

A faint smile spread over the noble countenance of the blind hermit, as he replied:

“I have not told thee all, my son! Till we pass from these walls of stone, and stand in the open air, thou must not speak a word aloud. Nay, nor in a whisper, either. I will set thy food and drink before thee, and that,” he continued, pointing to a projecting shelf of rock, “shall be thy bed! On its bare surface, rest thy limbs when nature bids thee sleep. Art thou still resolute?”

“Ay, great master!” I replied with loud and buoyant voice, “I will do thy bidding!”

“’Tis well!” said Benè-agâ. “I like thy brave and steadfast soul! But hold me not hard of heart in condemning thee to this gloom and silence! Temper the bitterness of thy fate by giving thyself over to deep and earnest meditation, during the few brief hours that it shall last. Forget the so-called world—a bubble that bursts when thou thinkest to grasp it; a shadow, which thou pursuest with eager pace, and yet canst never overtake; a mirage, rising before the weary traveler’s gaze, with visions of delicious gardens, watered by limpid rills and cooled by sparkling fountains, only to melt away and leave him more weak and fainting than before. Look within thyself! Thou art the temple of an immortal soul! Enter its portals! Fix thine eyes on the mysterious writings there unrolled! Grow not weary and discouraged if thou canst not decipher their meaning as easily as thou wouldst the books of man! And O, my son, should the gloom and silence of Benè-agâ’s cave weigh too heavily on thy young soul, raise thine eyes to some one of the many lines which I have carved upon these rocky walls, in my hours of recreation. They will guide thee back to sweet contentment; give thee strength to persevere unto the end! And now, my son, farewell! Though with thee, near thee, even by thy side, yet remember, I am far 163from thee. Ay, farther than earthly staff can measure! Be hopeful, be strong, and thou wilt conquer! Again, farewell!”

“Farewell, great master, farewell!” I exclaimed; and, as my words echoed through the vast, rocky chamber, the last ray of light fled before the thickening gloom, and all was inky blackness.

I had noticed, ere the darkness came, that I was standing near the projecting shelf of rock which was to serve me as a bed, when nature called me to rest.

Turning now softly, I groped my way toward it and stretched myself at full length on its bare surface. For a few moments all went well. Such a conflict of thought was raging in the chambers of my mind, that I took no note of the chill which this couch of stone sent creeping through my limbs. I closed my eyes, thinking to coax sleep to them, and thus forget the ever-increasing pang!

In vain! It seemed as if death itself had seized my feet between his icy palms!

Sharp pains leapt from one joint to another, and wherever my body came into contact with that couch of stone, it seemed as if a thousand needles pricked my flesh. Half-crazed by the ever-increasing agony, I tossed from side to side, like one in delirium. At times I sat up to escape from stupefying dizziness which caught me in its swift, encircling whirl! My heated pulse beat at the thin walls of my temple, until it seemed as if I should go mad! A rushing, soughing, gurgling sound of many waters roared in my ears, while strange, fantastic forms, in lines of fire on inky background, flitted to and fro before my eyes, until I began to fear I should soon be doomed to sit in eternal gloom like Benè-agâ himself.

And now heat and cold held alternate sway within my tired and broken frame. Vainly I strove to wet my parched lips with my tongue! The fever had dried it to a chip. For a few brief moments the torture ceased!

I breathed more freely!

My limbs, thought I, are getting used to their couch of stone! I shall full asleep and forget my sufferings!

164But no! With redoubled fury they came back to their work.

I dared not cry out so soon to Benè-agâ, for mercy, for release from the cruel conditions he had imposed upon me! Rather death than yield so quickly; shrink so like a coward who stands motionless and trembling on the battle field, as a spent ball strikes his breast.

I slept at last!

But O, what a broken, fevered sleep it was! A sleep with unclosed eyes, full of dark and dismal sights. I could stand no more. I yielded and longed for death. In thought, I kissed my parents’ hands and felt their soft caresses on my brow and face. And then, it seemed the gracious baroness, my mother, caught my hand in hers and pressed it fervently on her lips. The kiss was so warm, so tender, so life-like, that I started up like one awakening from a long delirium. It cannot be a dream, I murmured, I am awake!

Tossing my racked form over on its side, so that I could touch my right hand—the one on which I had felt the kiss, with my left the mystery was explained.

’T was Bulger!

He was beside my couch of stone. It was he who had licked my cold, numb hand and turned my thoughts homeward. I caressed his head and ears and sought to make him lie down lest the rustle might disturb the blind hermit. He refused to obey, altho’ I thrice let him know my wishes. It was his first act of disobedience and for an instant drove all thoughts of pain from my mind. To all my suffering now came this new grief.

Aroused from my stupor at last, by his persistent refusal to obey I collected my thoughts sufficiently to realize that he was bent upon leaping on my couch. His forefeet were already resting upon its edge. I dared not resist lest he should break the solemn stillness of Benè-agâ’s cave by giving vent to some sound of entreaty. No sooner had he sprung upon the rocky shelf than I felt him crouching on its edge, and reaching down as if in the act of seizing something in his teeth, something so heavy, too, that it called for violent exertion. Whatever it was, I was not slow in discovering that he was endeavoring to drag it 165upon my rocky couch. Half rising, I stretched out my hand to solve the mystery.

O beloved Bulger!

In an outburst of affection I pressed my lips repeatedly upon his body. He took no note of my caresses, but only tugged the harder at the thing he held within his teeth. It was my blanket!

Taught in his early years to fetch my slippers, my gloves, my cap to me, when he found them lying here or there, he had never forgotten to render me these petty services. And thus, noticing that my blanket had, apparently, been forgotten, he seized it, heavy as it was and dragged it to his little master’s bed.

Regardless of Benè-agâ’s ire; unmindful of the fact that to accept Bulger’s gift was plainly an open breach of the compact between the blind hermit and me, I wrapped my bruised and aching body in the thick, warm covering and fell into a long refreshing sleep.

Such was my first night in Benè-agâ’s cave. The next day was bright and clear and the rocky chamber seemed less dismal to me. My eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom.

From morn till night, I shunned that bed of torture, passing my time studying out the hidden meaning of the words which Benè-agâ has carved on the rocky walls; watching the birds as they flitted in with food for their nestlings or standing near the blind hermit with my gaze riveted upon his noble features, thick, clustering hair and far-flowing beard!

From this time forth all went well. I soon forgot the long hours of that terrible night of silence and despair. Indeed, I was astounded to find how swiftly the time sped along when one gives himself up to deep and all-absorbing meditation.