a rough night at sea,—but the skies were clear, and the great worlds of god, which we call stars, throbbed in the heavens like lustrous lamps, all the more brilliantly for there being no moon to eclipse their glory. a high gale was blowing, and the waves dashed up on the coast of ilfracombe with an organ-like thud and roar as they broke in high jets of spray, and then ran swiftly back again with a soft swish and ripple suggestive of the downward chromatic scale played rapidly on well-attuned strings. there was freshness and life in the dancing wind;—the world seemed well in motion;—and, standing aloft among the rocks, and looking down at the tossing sea, one could realise completely the continuous whirl of the globe beneath one’s feet, and the perpetual movement of the planet-studded heavens. high above the shore, on a bare jutting promontory, a solitary house faced seaward;—it was squarely built and surmounted with a tower, wherein one light burned fitfully, its pale sparkle seeming to quiver with fear as the wild wind fled past joyously, with a swirl and cry like some huge sea-bird on the wing. it looked a dismal residence at its best, even when the sun was shining,—but at night its aspect was infinitely more dreary. it was an old house, and it enjoyed the reputation of being haunted,—a circumstance which had enabled its present owner to purchase the lease of it for a very moderate sum. he it was who had built the tower, and, whether because of this piece of extravagance or for other unexplained reasons, he had won for himself personally almost as uncanny a reputation as the house had possessed before he occupied it. a man who lived the life of a recluse,—who seemed to have no relations with the outside world at all,—who had only one servant (a young german, whom the shrewder gossips declared was his “keeper”)—who lived on such simple fare as certainly would never have contented a modern hodge earning twelve shillings a week, and who seemed to purchase nothing but strange astronomical and geometrical instruments,—surely such a queer personage must either be mad, or in league with some evil “secret society,”—the more especially that he had had that tower erected, into which, after it was finished, no one but himself ever entered, so far as the people of the neighbourhood could tell. under all these suspicious circumstances, it was natural he should be avoided; and avoided he was by the good folk of ilfracombe, in that pleasantly diverting fashion which causes provincial respectability to shudder away from the merest suggestion of superior intelligence.
and yet poor old dr. kremlin was a being not altogether to be despised. his appearance was perhaps against him inasmuch as his clothes were shabby, and his eyes rather wild,—but the expression of his meagre face was kind and gentle, and a perpetual compassion for everything and everybody seemed to vibrate in his voice and reflect itself in his melancholy smile. he was deeply occupied—so he told a few friends in russia, where he was born—in serious scientific investigations,—but the “friends,” deeming him mad, held aloof till those investigations should become results. if the results proved disappointing, there would be no need to notice him any more,—if successful, why then, by a mystic process known only to themselves, the “friends” would so increase and multiply that he would be quite inconveniently surrounded by them. in the meantime, nobody wrote to him, or came to see him, except el-râmi; and it was el-râmi now, who, towards ten o’clock in the evening, knocked at the door of his lonely habitation and was at once admitted with every sign of deference and pleasure by the servant karl.
“i’m glad you’ve come, sir,”—said this individual cheerfully,—“the herr doctor has not been out all day, and he eats less than ever. it will do him good to see you.”
“he is in the tower as usual, at work?” inquired el-râmi, throwing off his coat.
karl assented, with rather a doleful look,—and, opening the door of a small dining-room, showed the supper-table laid for two.
el-râmi smiled.
“it’s no good, karl!” he said kindly—“it’s very well meant on your part, but it’s no good at all. you will never persuade your master to eat at this time of night, or me either. clear all these things away,—and make your mind easy,—go to bed and sleep. to-morrow morning prepare as excellent a breakfast as you please—i promise you we’ll do justice to it! don’t look so discontented—don’t you know that over-feeding kills the working capacity?”
“and over-starving kills the man,—working capacity and all”—responded karl lugubriously—“however, i suppose you know best, sir!”
“in this case i do”—replied el-râmi—“your master expects me?”
karl nodded,—and el-râmi, with a brief “good-night,” ascended the staircase rapidly and soon disappeared. a door banged aloft—then all was still. karl sighed profoundly, and slowly cleared away the useless supper.
“well! how wise men can bear to starve themselves just for the sake of teaching fools, is more than i shall ever understand!” he said half aloud—“but then i shall never be wise—i am an ass and always was. a good dinner and a glass of good wine have always seemed to me better than all the science going,—there’s a shameful confession of ignorance and brutality together, if you like. ‘where do you think you will go to when you die, karl?’ says the poor old herr doctor. and what do i say? i say—‘i don’t know, mein herr—and i don’t care. this world is good enough for me so long as i live in it.’ ‘but afterwards, karl,—afterwards?’ he says, with his gray head shaking. and what do i say? why, i say—‘i can’t tell, mein herr! but whoever sent me here will surely have sense enough to look after me there!’ and he laughs, and his head shakes worse than ever. ah! nothing can ever make me clever, and i’m very glad of it!”
he whistled a lively tune softly, as he went to bed in his little side-room off the passage, and wondered again, as he had wondered hundreds of times before, what caused that solemn low humming noise that throbbed so incessantly through the house, and seemed so loud when everything else was still. it was a grave sound,—suggestive of a long-sustained organ-note held by the pedal-bass;—the murmuring of seas and rivers seemed in it, as well as the rush of the wind. karl had grown accustomed to it, though he did not know what it meant,—and he listened to it, till drowsiness made him fancy it was the hum of his mother’s spinning-wheel, at home in his native german village among the pine-forests, and so he fell happily asleep.
meanwhile el-râmi, ascending to the tower, knocked sharply at a small nail-studded door in the wall. the mysterious murmuring noise was now louder than ever,—and the knock had to be repeated three or four times before it was attended to. then the door was cautiously opened, and the “herr doctor” himself looked out, his wizened, aged, meditative face illumined like a rembrandt picture by the small hand-lamp he held in his hand.
“ah!—el-râmi!” he said in slow yet pleased tones—“i thought it might be you. and like ‘bernardo’—you ‘come most carefully upon your hour.’”
he smiled, as one well satisfied to have made an apt quotation, and opened the door more widely to admit his visitor.
“come in quickly,”—he said—“the great window is open to the skies, and the wind is high,—i fear some damage from the draught,—come in—come in!”
his voice became suddenly testy and querulous,—and el-râmi stepped in at once without reply. dr. kremlin shut to the door carefully and bolted it—then he turned the light of the lamp he carried full on the dark handsome face and dignified figure of his companion.
“you are looking well—well,”—he muttered,—“not a shade older—always sound and strong! just heavens!—if i had your physique, i think, with archimedes, that i could lift the world! but i am getting very old,—the life in me is ebbing fast,—and i have not done my work— ... god! ... god! i have not done my work!”
he clenched his hands, and his voice quavered down into a sound that was almost a groan. el-râmi’s black beaming eyes rested on him compassionately.
“you are worn out, my dear kremlin,”—he said gently—“worn out and exhausted with long toil. you shall sleep to-night. i have come according to my promise, and i will do what i can for you. trust me—you shall not lose the reward of your life’s work by want of time. you shall have time,—even leisure to complete your labours,—i will give you ‘length of days’!”
the elder man sank into a chair trembling, and rested his head wearily on one hand.
“you cannot;”—he said faintly—“you cannot stop the advance of death, my friend! you are a very clever man—you have a far-reaching subtlety of brain,—but your learning and wisdom must pause there—there at the boundary-line of the grave. you cannot overstep it or penetrate beyond it—you cannot slacken the pace of the on-rushing years;—no, no! i shall be forced to depart with half my discovery uncompleted.”
el-râmi smiled,—a slightly derisive smile.
“you, who have faith in so much that cannot be proved, are singularly incredulous of a fact that can be proved;”—he said—“anyway, whatever you choose to think, here i am in answer to your rather sudden summons—and here is your saving remedy;—” and he placed a gold-stoppered flask on the table near which they sat—“it is, or might be called, a veritable distilled essence of time,—for it will do what they say god cannot do, make the days spin backward!”
dr. kremlin took up the flask curiously.
“you are so positive of its action?”
“positive. i have kept one human creature alive and in perfect health for six years on that vital fluid alone.”
“wonderful!—wonderful!”—and the old scientist held it close to the light, where it seemed to flash like a diamond,—then he smiled dubiously—“am i the new faust, and you mephisto?”
“bah!” and el-râmi shrugged his shoulders carelessly—“an old nurse’s tale!—yet, like all old nurses’ tales and legends of every sort under the sun, it is not without its grain of truth. as i have often told you, there is really nothing imagined by the human brain that is not possible of realisation, either here or hereafter. it would be a false note and a useless calculation to allow thought to dwell on what cannot be,—hence our airiest visions are bound to become facts in time. all the same, i am not of such superhuman ability that i can make you change your skin like a serpent, and blossom into youth and the common vulgar lusts of life, which to the thinker must be valueless. no. what you hold there will simply renew the tissues, and gradually enrich the blood with fresh globules—nothing more,—but that is all you need. plainly and practically speaking, as long as the tissues and the blood continue to renew themselves, you cannot die except by violence.”
“cannot die!” echoed kremlin, in stupefied wonder—“cannot die?”
“except by violence—” repeated el-râmi with emphasis, “well!—and what now? there is nothing really astonishing in the statement. death by violence is the only death possible to any one familiar with the secrets of nature, and there is more than one lesson to be learned from the old story of cain and abel. the first death in the world, according to that legend, was death by violence. without violence, life should be immortal, or at least renewable at pleasure.”
“immortal!” muttered dr. kremlin—“immortal! renewable at pleasure! my god!—then i have time before me—plenty of time!”
“you have, if you care for it—” said el-râmi with a tinge of melancholy in his accents—“and if you continue to care for it. few do, nowadays.”
but his companion scarcely heard him. he was balancing the little flask in his hand in wonderment and awe.
“death by violence?” he repeated slowly. “but, my friend, may not god himself use violence towards us? may he not snatch the unwilling soul from its earthly tenement at an unexpected moment,—and so, all the scheming and labour and patient calculation of years be ended in one flash of time?”
“god—if there be a god, which some are fain to believe there is,—uses no violence—” replied el-râmi—“deaths by violence are due to the ignorance, or brutality, or long-inherited foolhardiness and interference of man alone.”
“what of shipwreck?—storm?—lightning?”—queried dr. kremlin, still playing with the flask he held.
“you are not going to sea, are you?” asked el-râmi smiling—“and surely you, of all men, should know that even shipwrecks are due to a lack of mathematical balance in shipbuilding. one little trifle of exactitude, which is always missing, unfortunately,—one little delicate scientific adjustment, and the fiercest storm and wind could not prevail against the properly poised vessel. as for lightning—of course people are killed by it if they persist in maintaining an erect position like a lightning-rod or conductor, while the electrical currents are in full play. if they were to lie flat down, as savages do, they could not attract the descending force. but who, among arrogant stupid men, cares to adopt such simple precautions? any way, i do not see that you need fear any of these disasters.”
“no, no,”—said the old man meditatively, “i need not fear,—no, no! i have nothing to fear.”
his voice sank into silence. he and el-râmi were sitting in a small square chamber of the tower,—very narrow, with only space enough for the one tiny table and two chairs which furnished it,—the walls were covered with very curious maps, composed of lines and curves and zigzag patterns, meaningless to all except kremlin himself, whose dreamy gaze wandered to them between-whiles with an ardent yearning and anxiety. and ever that strange deep, monotonous humming noise surged through the tower as of a mighty wheel at work, the vibration of the sound seemed almost to shake the solid masonry, while mingling with it now and again came the wild sea-bird cry of the wind. el-râmi listened.
“and still it moves?” he queried softly, using almost the words of galileo,—“e pur si muove.”
dr. kremlin looked up, his pale eyes full of a sudden fire and animation.
“ay!—still it moves!” he responded with a touch of eager triumph in his tone—“still it moves—and still it sounds! the music of the earth, my friend!—the dominant note of all nature’s melody! hear it!—round, full, grand, and perfect!—one tone in the ascending scale of the planets,—the song of one star,—our star—as it rolls on its predestined way! come!—come with me!” and he sprang up excitedly—“it is a night for work;—the heavens are clear as a mirror,—come and see my dial of the fates,—you have seen it before, i know, but there are new reflexes upon it now,—new lines of light and colour,—ah, my good el-râmi, if you could solve my problem, you would be soon wiser than you are! your gift of long life would be almost valueless compared to my proof of what is beyond life——”
“yes—if the proof could be obtained—” interposed el-râmi.
“it shall be obtained!” cried kremlin wildly—“it shall! i will not die till the secret is won! i will wrench it out from the holy of holies—i will pluck it from the very thoughts of god!”
he trembled with the violence of his own emotions,—then passing his hand across his forehead, he relapsed into sudden calm, and, smiling gently, said again—
“come!”
el-râmi rose at once in obedience to this request,—and the old man preceded him to a high narrow door which looked like a slit in the wall, and which he unbarred and opened with an almost jealous care. a brisk puff of wind blew in their faces through the aperture, but this subsided into mere cool freshness of air as they entered and stood together within the great central chamber of the tower,—a lofty apartment, where the strange work of kremlin’s life was displayed in all its marvellous complexity,—a work such as no human being had ever attempted before, or would be likely to attempt again.
