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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Times, 1909-10-07, Page 7TW W1NCeil4.M TIMES, OCTOBER 7 lJi1v THE MYSTERY Bp STEWART EDWARD WHITE And SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS COPYRIGHT. 1907. BY McCLURE. PHILLIPS & CO. ,,oratory. I came up the arreyo as he flung the door open and rushed out. Ile was a grotesque figure, clad in an undershirt and a worn pair of trou- •eers fastened with an old bit of tarred rope in lieu of his suspenders, which I had been repairing. About his waist flickered a sort of aura of radiance which was extinguished as he flung himself headforemost into the cold spring. I hauled him out. He seemed • dazed. To my questions he replied on- ly by ,mumblings, the burden of which was: "'I do not understand. It is a not to be enmprehended accident.' It appears tb:i• se didn't quite know why he had t.^ to the water, or if he did he di want to tell. • • • set day he was as good as new, ju .ts silent as before, but it was a snu.Lug, satisfied silence. So it went for weeks, for mouths, with the ac- •cesses of depression and anger always e, rarer. Then came an afternoon when .� returning from a stalk after sheep 1 .heard strange and shocking noises from the laboratory. Strict as was the embargo which kept me outside the door, I burst in, only to be seized in a suffocating grip. Of a sudden I real- ized that I was being embraced. The doctor flourished a hand above my head and jigged with ponderous steps. The dismal noises continued to emanate from his mouth. He was singing. I' wish I could give you a notion of the amazement, the paralyzing wonder with which— No, you did not know Dr. Schermerhorn. You would not under- stand. "We polkaed into the open. There he cast me loose. He stopped singing .and burst into a rhapsody of disjoint- -ed words. Mostly German, it was a wondrous jumble of the scientific and poetic. 'Eureka' occurred at intervals. Then he would leap in the air. It was weird; it was distressing. Crazy? Oh, • quite! For the time, you understand. If any of us should suddenly become •the most potent Individual in the world, wouldn't he be apt to lose bal- ance temporarily? One must make al- lowances. There was excuse for the doctor. He had reached the goal. " Percy, you shall be rewarded,' he .said. 'You haf like a trump card 'stuck by me. You shall haf riches, •gold, what you will. You are young; your blood runs red. With such riches nothing is beyond you. You could the ancient tombs of Egypt explore. It is •open to you such collections as have never been gathered to make. What shall it be—scarabs, missals, pre- historic implements? Amuse yourself, mein kind. We shall be able the bills "with usurious interest to pay. What will you haf?'. "I said I'd like a vacation if con- venient. "'Presently,' he replied. 'There yet remains the guardianship to be per- fected. Then to a world astonished and respectful we return. Tonight we -celebrate. I play you a rubber of pin- • ochle.' "We played. With the greatest se- cret of science resting at our elbows we played. The doctor won. My .mind was not strictly on the game. .In the morning the doctor sang once more. I shall never hear its like again. 'Was it a week or a month after that? if cannot remember. I fancy I was ex- cited. Then, too, there was something in the atmosphere about the laboratory. I don't know; imagination possibly. Once we had a little manifestation— the night that the nigger and Slade were terrified by the rock fires. Days of excitement and pleasant work, with the little valcano grumbling more sulk- ily all the time. I have spent worse ,days. "Such indifference as the doctor dis- ;played toward the volcano I have nev- er known. If I ventured to warn him he would assure me that there was no .cause for alarm. I think he regarded .that little hell's kitchen as merely a feed spout for his vast enterprise. He felt a sort of affection toward it. He was tolerant of its petty fits of temper. The eason why We Feel Tired 'The system Is overloaded with poison- ous waste matter. You expect to be tired when you :have been working hard, for the activ- ities ,),f the muscles or brain cause a ;breaking down of cells, or burnineu up, milsay, and after while the becomes clogged with this waste matter or ashes and you got tired. But you are often tired when you have not been working hard and in this case the conditions are much the Braine but the presence of the poisonous waste matter is due to the derangements of the excrct;ary organs—the liver, kidneys and bowels. tinder suet circumstances you cannot possibly do better than use Dr. Chase's Kidney -Liver Pills for they have a di- rect, specific and combined action on the liver, kidneys and bowels, thoroughly •cleansing the excretory system and re- storing healthful digestion. There is no medicine of more fre- .gnent or effective use in the family than Dr. Chase's Kidney -Liver Pills for they 'have no equal as a tete` for constipation, biliousness, liver troubles and kidney derangements. One pill it dose, 25 cents s, box, at all dealers of Edmanson, Bate* A Co., Toronto. That he completed his work before the destruction came was sheer luck— nothing else. The day before the out- burst he came to me with a tiny vial of complicated design. "Percy, I will at a reasonable price sell this to you,' he said. "'How much?' I inquired, respond- ing to his playfulness. "'A bargain!' he cried gaily. Five millions dollars! No! Shall I upon a needy friend hard press? Never! One million! One little million dollars!' "'I haven't that amount with me,' I began. "'Of no account,' he declared airily. 'Soon we shall haf many more times as that. Gif me your C. O. D.' "'My I 0 II?' I inquired. "'It makes no matter. Seel I will gif it to you gratis.' "He handed me the metal contri- vance. It was closed. "'Inside iss a little, such a very lit- tle. Not yet iss it arranged the motive power to give forth. One more change to be made that shall require. But the other phenomena are all in this little half grain comprised. Later I shall tell you more. Take it. It iss without price.' He ]aid his hand on my shoul- der. 'Like the love of friends,' he said gently." Feeling in his upper waistcoat pock- et, Darrow brought out a vial, So tiny that it rolled in the palm of his hand. He contemplated it, lost in thought. "Radium?" queried Barnett, with the keen interest of the scientist. "God knows what it is!" said Dar- row, rousing himself. "Not the per- fected product. The doctor said that when he gave it to me. If I could re- member oke -tenth of what he told me thatnight! It is like a disordered dream, a phantasmagoria of monstrous pow- ers, lit up with an intolerable, almost an inferrt5tl radiance. This much I did gather—that Dr. Schermerhorn had achieved what the greatest minds be- fore him had barely outlined. Yes, and more. Becquerel, the Curies, Rutherford—they were playing with the letters of the Greek alphabet, Al- phas, Gammas and Rhos, while the simple, gentle old boy that I served had read the secret. From the molten eruptions of the racked earth he had taken gases and potencies that are nameless. By what methods of combi- nation and refining I do not know, he produced something that was to be the final word of ,power. Control—control —that ,was all that lacked. "Reduced to its simplest terms It meant this: The doctor had something as much greater than radium as radi- um adium is greater than the pitchblende of which a thousand tons are melted down to the one ounce of extract. And the incredible energies of this he pro- posed to divide into departments of ac- tivity. One manifestation should be light—a light that would illuminate the world. Another was to make mo- tive power so cheap that the work of the world could be done in an hour out of the day. Some idea he had of heal- ing properties. Yes. He was to cure mankind; or kill, hill as no man had ever killed, did he choose. The armies and navies of the powers would be at his mercy. Magnetism was to be his slave. Aerial navigation, transmu- tation of metals, the screening of grav- ity --does this sound like delirium? Sometimes I think it was. "That night he turned over to me the key of the large chest and his ledger. The latter he bade me read. It was a complete jumble. You have seen it. We were up a good part of the night with our pet volcano. It was suffer- ing from internal disturbances. 'So,' the doctor would say indulgently, when a particularly active rock came bounding down our way.' 'Little play - antics -to -exhibit now that the work iss finished.' "In the morning he insisted on my leaving him alone and going down to give the orders. I took the ledger, in- tending to send it aboard. It saved my life possibly. Solomon's bullet de- flected slightly, I think, in passing through the heavy paper. Slade 'has told you about my flight. I ought to have gone straight up the arroyo, yet I could hardly have made it. I did not see him again—the doctor. My last glimpse—the old man—I remember now how the gray had spread through his beard—he was growing old—it had been aging labor. He stood there at his Laboratory door, and the mountain spouted and thundered behind. "'We will a mime to suit properly gif it,' be saki as I left him. 'It shall make us as the gods. We will call it celestium.' "1 left him there sinning—smiling hapPtly. The greatest forcu of his age —if he had lived. Very wise, very Mm. ple—a kind old child. May I trouble you for a light? Thanks. CIIAPTEft XXXV. "011 OTHING remained but to search for his body. I was sura they had killed hurt and taken the chest: I had little expectation of finding him, dead or alive. None after I saw the stream of lava pouring into the sea. One savee his own life by instinct. I suppose. There I was, I had to live. It did not tnatter 'hitch, but 1 continued to do it by Various shifts. That Inst day on the headland the fumes Clearly got.me_ You' may have noted the rather excited scrawl in the back of the ledger? Yes, I thought I was gone that time, but I got to the cave. It was low tide. Then the earthquake, and I was walled in. Air. Barrett's very accurate explosives —Slade's insistence --your risking your lives as you did, mites on the crust of n redhot .cheese --i. hope you know how 1 feel about it all. One can't thank a man properly for the life— "Oh, the pirates! Necessarily it must be a matter of theory, but I think we have it right. Slade and I built it up. For what it's worth here it is, Let me see, you sighted the glow .on the night of the 2d. Next day came the desert- ed ship. It must have puzzled you outrageously." "It did," said Captain Parkinson dryly. "Not an easy problem even with all the data at hand. You, of course, had none. On Slade's showing, Handy Sol- omon and his worthy associates thought they had a chest full of riches when they got the doctor's treasure — be- lieved they owned the machinery for making diamonds or gold or what not of ready to hand wealth. It's fair to assume a certain eagerness on their part. Disturbed weather keeps them busy until they're well out from the island. Then to the chest. Opening it isn't so easy. I had the key, you know." He brought a curious and delicately wrought skeleton from his pocket. "Tipped with platinum," he observed. "Rather a gem of a key, 1 think. You see, there must have been some action even through the keyhole or lie wouldn't have used a metal of this kind. But the crew was rich in certain qualities, it seems, which I failed stupidly to recognize in my ac- quaintance with them. Both Pulz and Perdosa appear to have been handy men where locks were concerned. FIrst Pulz sneaks down and bus his turn at the chest. He gets it open. Small profit for him in that. The next we know of him he is scandalizing Iiandy Solomon by having a fit on the deck." "That is what I couldn't figure out to save my life," said Slade eagerly. "If you recollect, I told you of the professor's plunge in the cold spring in a sort of piaroxysm one day," said Darrow. "That was the physiological action of the celestium. At other times I have seen him come out and deliberately roll in the creek, head un- der. Once he explained that the me- dium he worked in caused a kind of uncontrollable longing for water, some- thing having none of the qualities of burning or thirst, but an irresistible temporary mania. ' It worried him a good deal. He didn't understand it. That, then, was what ailed Pulz. When he opened the chest there was, as I surmise, a trifling quantity of this stuff lying in the inner lid. It wasn't the celestium itself, as I im- agine, but a sort of byproduct with the physiological and radiant effects of the real thing, and it had beeu set there on guard, a discouragement to the spirit of investigation, as it were. - So when the top was lifted our little guardian gets in its' work, producing the light phenomenon that so puzzled Slade and inspiring Pulz with a pas• sion for the rolling wave, which Is only Interrupted by Handy Solomon's tac- kling him. As he fled he must have pulled clown the cover." "He did," said Slade. "I heard the clang. But I saw the radiance on the clouds, and the whole thickness of a solid oak deck was in between the sky and the chest." "Oh, a little thing like au oak deck wouldn't interrupt the kind of rays the doctor used. He had his own method of screening, you understand. How- ever, this inconsiderable guardian af- fair must have used itself up, which true celestium wouldn't have done. So when Perdosa sets his genius for lock *king to the task the inner box, full of the genuine article, has no warning signpost, so to speak. Every- thing's peaceful until they raise the compound filled hollow layer of the in- ner cover, which serves to interrupt the action. Then comes the general exit and the superior fireworks." "That's when the rays ran through The Dangers of Summer. Many dangerous and distressing dis- eased prevail in summer and fall, and as they occur suddenly, often terminate fatally before aid can be had. Complaints, such as Diarrhoea, Dy- sentery, Colic, Cramps, Cholera, Morus, Cholera Infantum, Summer Complaints, etc., are quickly cured. This wonderful bowel complaint DR. FOWLER'S remedyhas been EST. OF WILD ♦ on thmarket for STRAWBERRY ha years and it has been used in thousands of homes throughout the country during this time. You do not experiment when you buy an old and tried remedy like this. Asir your druggist for Dr, Fowler's, and insist on getting whet you ask for. Do not take some substitute which the unprin- cipled druggist says is "just as good." These cheap imitations are dangerous to your health. Mrs. Jeff Flaherty, Belfountain, Ont., writes:—"%n the month of September, last, my youngest child took Summer Complaint and the doctor had very little hopes for her. M_ y neighbor told me to bet Dr. Fowler's Extract of Wild Straw- rry, so that night I sent my' daughter .to get it, end when she tame home I bove the baby one dose, and in half an ur there was a change for the.,better, Ind after the third dose she was Coin- pletely cure!. We feel it is fir and be- yond any other remedy for Summer Complaint and besides it saves paying a doctor. Y advise everyone to use it. Don't aceept a substitute for Dr. Fawkes. The original and only Fowler's Extract Of Wild Strawberry is manufactured only by The T. Milburn Co., Limited, Teton* Qat'., Price 35 conte. 7 HER DEATH WAS HOURLY EXPECTED Enterprise, Ont., Oct, xst, reo8. "For seven years I suffered with what physicians called a "Water Tumor." I could neither sit, stand, nor lie down. Hypodermics of morphia had to be given me to ease the pain. MRS. JAMES FENWICK My cure seemed hopeless, and my friends hourly expected my death. I was so bad that I wanted to die, and it was during one of these very bad spells that a family friend brought a box of "Fruit-a-tives" to the house. After much persuation I commenced to take them, but I was so bad that it was only when I had taken nearly two boxes that I commenced to experience relief. I kept up the treatment, however, and after taking five boxes I was cured, and when I, appeared on the street my friends said. 'The dead has come to life,' and this seemed literally true, because I certainly was at death's door." (Signed) MRS. JAMES FENWICrC. "Fruit -a -fives" are sold by all dealers at 5oc a box -6 for $2.So, or trial box, 25c, or sent post-paid on receipt of nrice by Fruit-a-tives Limited. Ottawa. the ship," said Slade. "It seemed to follow the deck lines." "The stuff had a strange affinity for tar," said Darrow. "I told you of the circle of fire about Professor Schermer - horn's waist the day he gave me such a scare. That was the celestium work- ing on the tarred rope he wore for a belt. It made a livid circle on his skin. Did I tell you of his experi- ments with pitch? It doesn't matter. Where was I?" "At the place where we all jumped," said Slade. "Oh, yes. And you dove into the small boat, trying to reach the wa- ter." "Wait a bit," said Barnett. "If that was the exhibition of radiance we saw, it died out in a few minutes. How was that? Did they close the chest before they ran?" "Probably not," replied Darrow. "Slade spoke of Pulz taking to the maintop and being shaken out by the sudden shock of a wave. That may have been a volcanic billow. What- ever it was, it undoubtedly heeledthe ship sufficiently to bring down both lids, which were rather delicately bal- anced." "Yes, for Billy Edwards found the chest closed and locked," said Barnett. "Of course. It was a spring lock. You sent Mr. Edwards"and his men aboard. No such experts as Pulz or Perdosa were in your crew. Conse- quently it took louger to get the chest open. When at length the lid was raised there was a repetition of the tragedy. Mr. Edwards and his men leaped. Probably they were paralyzed almost before they struck the water. Your bo's'n, whom Slade picked up, was the only one who had time even to grab a life preserver before the im- pulse toward water became irresisti- ble. There was no element of fright you understand—no desertion of their post. They were dragged as by the sweep of a tornado." Darrow spoke direct to Captain Parkinson. "If there is any feeling among you other than sorrow for their death, it is unjust and unworthy." "'Thank you, Mr. Darrow," returned the captain quietly. "We found the chest closed again when the empty ship came back," ob- served Barnett. "Being masterless, the schooner be- gan to yaw," continued Darrow. "The first time she came about would have heeled her enough to shut the chest \ow carne the turn of your other men." "Ives and McGuire," said the captain as Darrow paused. "The glow came again that night, and the next day we picked up Slade," said Barnett. "You know what the glow meant for your companions," said Darrow. "But the ship! The Laughing Lass, man! She's vanished. No one has seen her since." "You are wrong there," said Darrow. "I have seen her." In a common impelso the little circle leaned to him. "Yes, I ilave seen her. I wish I had not. Let me bring my story back to the cave on the island. After the vol- canic gases had driven me to the ref- uge I sat near the mouth bf the cave, looking out into the darkness. That was the night of the 7th, the night you saw the last glow. It was very dark, except for occasional bursts of fire from the crater. nudge of my in- credulous amazement when in an ac- cess of this illumination I saw plainly a schooner hardly a mile offshore, coin- ing in under bare poles." "Veda. bare poles?" cried Slade. "The halliards must have disinte- grated froth sorne slow action of the celestium. It could be destructive, ter- rifically destructive. You shall judge. There was the schooner, naked 011 sour. hand. l?ossibly I might have thoughtit , a hallucination but for what came aft- er. Darkness fell again. I supposed Hien that handy Solomon's crew' were managing—or mismanaging -the Laughing Lass without the aid of their leader, whom I had satisfactorily bur- ied. I hoped they would come ashore on the rocks. Yes, I was vengeful then, "0f a sudden there Sprang from the darkness a ship of light. You have all seen those great electric effects at ex- positions. Some ono touches a button, you know. It was like that, only that the piercingly brilliant jeweled wonder of a ship teas set in the midst of a swirl of varicolored radiance such as I can't begin to describe. You saw it from a distance. Imagine what it was, coming close upon you that way, dead on, out of the night—a living glory, a living terror." IIis voice sank. With a shaking hand, he fumbled amid his cigarette papem i "It came on. A human figure, glow- I tug like a cliamoud ablaze, leaped out from it; another shot down from the The little craft dissolved to a glow of radiance. foremast. I don't know how many I saw go. It was like a theatric effect, unreal, unconvincing, incredible. The end fitted it." Darrow's eye roved. It fell upon it quaintly modeled ship hung above the door. "What's that?" he cried. "Fool thing some Malay gave me," grunted Trendon. "Pretended to be grateful because I cut his foot off. No good. Go on with the story." "No good? You don't care what hap- pens to it?" "Meant to heave it overboard before now," growled the other. Some one handed it down to Darrow. "If I had something to hold enough water," muttered he. "I'd like to float it. I'd like to see for myself how it worked out. I'd like to see that devil work in action." He spoke feverishly. "Boy, fill the portable rubber tub in Mr. Forsythe's cabin and bring It here," ordered the captain. "That will do," said Darrow, recov- ering himself. He floated the model in the tub. "Now, I don't know how this will come out," he said. "Nor do I know why the Laughing Lass met her fate under Ives and McGuire and not be- fore. Perhaps the chest lay open lon- ger—long enough, anyway. We'll try it" From his pocket he took a curious small vial. "Is that what Dr. Schermerhorn gave you?" asked Slade. "Yes," said Darrow. He set it care- fully inside the little model and slip- ped a lever. Slade quietly turned down the light. A faint glow shot up. It grew bright and eddied in lovely variant colors. As if set to a powder train, it ran through the ship. The pale faces of the spectators shone ghastly in its ra- diance. From some one burst a sud- den gasp. "There is not enough for danger,", said Darrow quietly. "As a point of Interest," grunted Trendon. Every one looked at his outstretched hand. A. little pocket compass lay in the palm. The needle spun madly, projecting blue, vivid sparklings. "My Godi" cried Slade and covered his eyes for a moment. He snatched away his hands as a suppressed cry went up from the oth- ers. "As I• expected," said Darrow quietly. The little craft opened out It dis- integrated. All that radiance dissolved, and with its going the substance upon which it shaped n itself p e vanished. The last glow showed a formless pulp, spreading upon the water. "So passed the Laughing Lass," said Darrow solemnly. "And the chest is tit the bottom of the sea," said Barnett. "Good place for it," muttered Wen - don. "In all probability it closed as the ship dissolved around it," saki Darrow. "Otherwise we should see the effects in the water." "It might be recovered," cried Slade excitedly. "Could you chart it, Dar- row? Think o1' the possibilities" -- "Let it Ile," said the captain. "ilea it not cost enough? Let it lie." The water in the tub fumed and Sparkled faintly and was still. Dark- ness 'narkness fell except where Darrow's o!ge, arette point glllwed and faded. tnit 1' : Tito Kiiul You nave Always Ilouglxt, and which leas 'been in use for over 30 years, has borne the signature of r...- and has been made under his per- . 67fwive: � acral lnupeo inion since its infancy, Aliosv no one to deceivo yore ixx this. 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