the singular object that at once caught and fixed the eye in fascinated amazement, and something of terror, was a huge disc, suspended between ceiling and floor by an apparently inextricable mesh and tangle of wires. it was made of some smooth glittering substance like crystal, and seemed from its great height and circumference to occupy nearly the whole of the lofty tower-room. it appeared to be lightly poised and balanced on a long steel rod,—a sort of gigantic needle which hung from the very top of the tower. the entire surface of the disc was a subdued blaze of light,—light which fluctuated in waves and lines, and zigzag patterns like a kaleidoscope, as the enormous thing circled round and round, as it did, with a sort of measured motion, and a sustained solemn buzzing sound. here was the explanation of the mysterious noise that vibrated throughout the house,—it was simply the movement of this round shield-like mass among its wonderful network of rods and wires. dr. kremlin called it his “crystal” disc,—but it was utterly unlike ordinary crystal, for it not only shone with a transparent watery clearness, but possessed the scintillating lustre of a fine diamond cut into numerous prisms, so that el-râmi shaded his eyes from the flash of it as he stood contemplating it in silence. it swirled round and round steadily; facing it, a large casement window, about the size of half the wall, was thrown open to the night, and through this could be seen a myriad sparkling stars. the wind blew in, but not fiercely now, for part of the wrath of the gale was past,—and the wash of the sea on the beach below had exactly the same tone in it as the monotonous hum of the disc as it moved. at one side of the open window a fine telescope mounted on a high stand pointed out towards the heavens,—there were numerous other scientific implements in the room, but it was impossible to take much notice of anything but the disc itself, with its majestic motion and the solemn sound to which it swung. dr. kremlin seemed to have almost forgotten el-râmi’s presence,—going up to the window, he sat down on a low bench in the corner, and folding his arms across his breast gazed at his strange invention with a fixed, wondering, and appealing stare.
“how to unravel the meaning—how to decipher the message!” he muttered—“sphinx of my brain, tell me, is there no answer? shall the actual offspring of my thought refuse to clear up the riddle i propound? nay, is it possible the creature should baffle the creator? see! the lines change again—the vibrations are altered,—the circle is ever the circle, but the reflexes differ,—how can one separate or classify them—how?”
thus far his half-whispered words were audible,—when el-râmi came and stood beside him. then he seemed to suddenly recollect himself, and, looking up, he rose to his feet and spoke in a perfectly calm and collected manner.
“you see”—he said, pointing to the disc with the air of a lecturer illustrating his discourse—“to begin with, there is the fine hair’s-breadth balance of matter which gives perpetual motion. nothing can stop that movement save the destruction of the whole piece of mechanism. by some such subtly delicate balance as that, the universe moves,—and nothing can stop it save the destruction of the universe. is not that fairly reasoned?”
“perfectly,” replied el-râmi, who was listening with profound attention.
“surely that of itself,—the secret of perpetual motion,—is a great discovery, is it not?” questioned kremlin eagerly.
el-râmi hesitated.
“it is,” he said at last. “forgive me if i paused a moment before replying,—the reason of my doing so was this. you cannot claim to yourself any actual discovery of perpetual motion, because that is nature’s own particular mystery. perhaps i do not explain myself with sufficient clearness,—well, what i mean to imply is this—namely, that your wonderful dial there would not revolve as it does if the earth on which we stand were not also revolving. if we could imagine our planet stopping suddenly in its course, your disc would stop also,—is not that correct?”
“why, naturally!” assented kremlin impatiently. “its movement is mathematically calculated to follow, in a slower degree, but with rhythmical exactitude, the earth’s own movement, and is so balanced as to be absolutely accurate to the very half-quarter of a hair’s-breadth.”
“yes,—and there is the chief wonder of your invention,” said el-râmi quietly. “it is that peculiarly precise calculation of yours that is so marvellous, in that it enables you to follow the course of perpetual motion. with perpetual motion itself you have nothing to do,—you cannot find its why or its when or its how,—it is eternal as eternity. things must move,—and we all move with them—your disc included.”
“but the moving things are balanced—so!” said kremlin, pointing triumphantly to his work—“on one point—one pivot!”
“and that point——?” queried el-râmi dubiously.
“is a central universe”—responded kremlin—“where god abides.”
el-râmi looked at him with dark, dilating, burning eyes.
“suppose,” he said suddenly—“suppose—for the sake of argument—that this central universe, you imagine exists, were but the outer covering or shell of another central universe, and so on through innumerable central universes for ever and ever and ever, and no point or pivot reachable!”
kremlin uttered a cry, and clasped his hands with a gesture of terror.
“stop—stop!” he gasped—“such an idea is frightful!—horrible! would you drive me mad?—mad, i tell you? no human brain could steadily contemplate the thought of such pitiless infinity!”
he sank back on the seat and rocked himself to and fro like a person in physical pain, the while he stared at el-râmi’s majestic figure and dark meditative face as though he saw some demon in a dream. el-râmi met his gaze with a compassionate glance in his own eyes.
“you are narrow, my friend,”—he observed—“as narrow of outward and onward conception as most scientists are. i grant you the human brain has limits; but the human soul has none! there is no ‘pitiless infinity’ to the soul’s aspirations,—it is never contented,—but eternally ambitious, eternally inquiring, eternally young, it is ready to scale heights and depths without end, unconscious of fatigue or satiety. what of a million million universes? i—even i—can contemplate them without dismay,—the brain may totter and reel at the multiplicity of them,—but the soul would absorb them all and yet seek space for more!”
his rich, deep, tranquil voice had the effect of calming kremlin’s excited nerves. he paused in his uneasy rocking to and fro, and listened as though he heard music.
“you are a bold man, el-râmi,” he said slowly—“i have always said it,—bold even to rashness. yet with all your large ideas i find you inconsistent; for example, you talk of the soul now, as if you believed in it,—but there are times when you declare yourself doubtful of its existence.”
“it is necessary to split hairs of argument with you, i see”—returned el-râmi with a slight smile,—“can you not understand that i may believe in the soul without being sure of it? it is the natural instinct of every man to credit himself with immortality, because this life is so short and unsatisfactory,—the notion may be a fault of heritage perhaps, still it is implanted in us all the same. and i do believe in the soul,—but i require certainty to make my mere belief an undeniable fact. and the whole business of my life is to establish that fact provably, and beyond any sort of doubt whatever,—what inconsistency do you find there?”
“none—none—” said kremlin hastily—“but you will not succeed,—yours is too daring an attempt,—too arrogant and audacious a demand upon the unknown forces.”
“and what of the daring and arrogance displayed here?” asked el-râmi, with a wave of his hand towards the glittering disc in front of them.
kremlin jumped up excitedly.
“no, no!—you cannot call the mere scientific investigation of natural objects arrogant,” he said—“besides, the whole thing is so very simple after all. it is well known that every star in the heavens sends forth perpetual radiations of light; which radiations in a given number of minutes, days, months, or years, reach our earth. it depends of course on the distance between the particular star and our planet, as to how long these light-vibrations take to arrive here. one ray from some stars will occupy thousands of years in its course,—in fact, the original planet from which it fell may be swept out of existence before it has time to penetrate our atmosphere. all this is in the lesson-books of children, and is familiar to every beginner in the rudiments of astronomy. but apart from time and distance, there is no cessation to these light-beats or vibrations; they keep on arriving for ever, without an instant’s pause. now my great idea was, as you know, to catch these reflexes on a mirror or dial of magnetic spar,—and you see for yourself that this thing, which seemed impossible, is to a certain extent done. magnetic spar is not a new substance to you, any more than it was to the egyptian priests of old—and the quality it has, of attracting light in its exact lines wherever light falls, is no surprise to you, though it might seem a marvel to the ignorant. every little zigzag or circular flash on that disc is a vibration of light from some star,—but what puzzles and confounds my skill is this;—that there is a meaning in those lines—a distinct meaning which asks to be interpreted,—a picture which is ever on the point of declaring itself, and is never declared. mine is the torture of a tantalus watching night after night that mystic dial!”
he went close up to the disc, and pointed out one particular spot on its surface where at that moment there was a glittering tangle of little prismatic tints.
“observe this with me—” he said, and el-râmi approached him—“here is a perfect cluster of light-vibrations,—in two minutes by my watch they will be here no longer,—and a year or more may pass before they appear again. from what stars they fall, and why they have deeper colours than most of the reflexes, i cannot tell. there—see!” and he looked round with an air of melancholy triumph, mingled with wonder, as the little spot of brilliant colour suddenly disappeared like the moisture of breath from a mirror—“they are gone! i have seen them four times only since the disc was balanced twelve years ago,—and i have tried in every way to trace their origin—in vain—all, all in vain! if i could only decipher the meaning!—for as sure as god lives there is a meaning there.”
el-râmi was silent, and dr. kremlin went on.
“the air is a conveyer of sound—” he said meditatively—“the light is a conveyer of scenes. mark that well. the light may be said to create landscape and generate colour. reflexes of light make pictures,—witness the instantaneous flash, which, with the aid of chemistry, will give you a photograph in a second. i firmly believe that all reflexes of light are so many letters of a marvellous alphabet, which, if we could only read it, would enable us to grasp the highest secrets of creation. the seven tones of music, for example, are in nature;—in any ordinary storm, where there is wind and rain and the rustle of leaves, you can hear the complete scale on which every atom of musical composition has ever been written. yet what ages it took us to reduce that scale to a visible tangible form,—and even now we have not mastered the quarter-tones heard in the songs of birds. and just as the whole realm of music is in seven tones of natural sound, so the whole realm of light is in a pictured language of design, colour, and method, with an intention and a message, which we—we human beings—are intended to discover. yet, with all these great mysteries waiting to be solved, the most of us are content to eat and drink and sleep and breed and die, like the lowest cattle, in brutish ignorance of more than half our intellectual privileges. i tell you, el-râmi, if i could only find out and place correctly one of those light-vibrations, the rest might be easy.”
he heaved a profound sigh,—and the great disc, circling steadily with its grave monotonous hum, might have passed for the wheel of fate which he, poor mortal, was powerless to stop though it should grind him to atoms.
el-râmi watched him with interest and something of compassion for a minute or two,—then he touched his arm gently.
“kremlin, is it not time for you to rest?” he asked kindly—“you have not slept well for many nights,—you are tired out,—why not sleep now, and gather strength for future labours?”
the old man started, and a slight shiver ran through him.
“you mean——?” he began.
“i mean to do for you what i promised—” replied el-râmi, “you asked me for this—” and he held up the gold-stoppered flask he had brought in with him from the next room—“it is all ready prepared for you—drink it, and to-morrow you will find yourself a new man.”
dr. kremlin looked at him suspiciously—and then began to laugh with a sort of hysterical nervousness.
“i believe—” he murmured indistinctly and with affected jocularity—“i believe that you want to poison me! yes—yes!—to poison me and take all my discoveries for yourself! you want to solve the great star-problem and take all the glory and rob me—yes, rob me of my hard-earned fame!—yes—it is poison—poison!”
and he chuckled feebly, and hid his face between his hands.
el-râmi heard him with an expression of pain and pity in his fine eyes.
“my poor old friend—” he said gently—“you are wearied to death—so i pardon you your sudden distrust of me. as for poison—see!” and he lifted the flask he held to his lips and drank a few drops—“have no fear! your star-problem is your own,—and i desire that you should live long enough to read its great mystery. as for me, i have other labours;—to me stars, solar systems, ay! whole universes are nothing,—my business is with the spirit that dominates matter—not with matter itself. enough;—will you live or will you die? it rests with yourself to choose—for you are ill, kremlin—very ill,—your brain is fagged and weak—you cannot go on much longer like this. why did you send for me if you do not believe in me?”
the old doctor tottered to the window-bench and sat down,—then looking up, he forced a smile.
“don’t you see for yourself what a coward i have become?” he said—“i tell you i am afraid of everything;—of you—of myself—and worst of all, of that—” and he pointed to the disc—“which lately seems to have grown stronger than i am.” he paused a moment—then went on with an effort—“i had a strange idea the other night,—i thought, suppose god, in the beginning, created the universe simply to divert himself—just as i created my dial there;—and suppose it had happened that instead of being his servant, as he originally intended, it had become his master?—that he actually had no more power over it? suppose he were dead? we see that the works of men live ages after their death,—why not the works of god? horrible—horrible! death is horrible! i do not want to die, el-râmi!” and his faint voice rose to a querulous wail, “not yet—not yet! i cannot!—i must finish my work—i must know—i must live——”
“you shall live,” interrupted el-râmi. “trust me—there is no death in this!”
he held up the mysterious flask again. kremlin stared at it, shaking all over with nervousness—then on a sudden impulse clutched it.
“am i to drink it all?” he asked faintly.
el-râmi bent his head in assent.
kremlin hesitated a moment longer—then, with the air of one who takes a sudden desperate resolve, he gave one eager yearning look at the huge revolving disc, and, putting the flask to his lips, drained its contents. he had scarcely swallowed the last drop, when he sprang to his feet, uttered a smothered cry, staggered, and fell on the floor motionless. el-râmi caught him up at once, and lifted him easily in his strong arms on to the window-seat, where he laid him down gently, placing coverings over him and a pillow under his head. the old man’s face was white and rigid as the face of a corpse, but he breathed easily and quietly, and el-râmi, knowing the action of the draught he had administered, saw there was no cause for anxiety in his condition. he himself leaned on the sill of the great open window and looked out at the starlit sky for some minutes, and listened to the sonorous plashing of the waves on the shore below. now and then he glanced back over his shoulder at the great dial and its shining star-patterns.
“only lilith could decipher the meaning of it all,” he mused. “perhaps,—some day—it might be possible to ask her. but then, do i in truth believe what she tells me?—would he believe? the transcendentally uplifted soul of a woman!—ought we to credit the message obtained through so ethereal a means? i doubt it. we men are composed of such stuff that we must convince ourselves of a fact by every known test before we finally accept it,—like st. thomas, unless we put our rough hand into the wounded side of christ, and thrust our fingers into the nail-prints, we will not believe. and i shall never resolve myself as to which is the wisest course,—to accept everything with the faith of a child, or dispute everything with the arguments of a controversialist. the child is happiest; but then the question arises—were we meant to be happy? i think not,—since there is nothing that can make us so for long.”
his brow clouded and he stood absorbed, looking at the stars, yet scarcely conscious of beholding them. happiness! it had a sweet sound,—an exquisite suggestion; and his thoughts clung round it persistently as bees round honey. happiness!—what could engender it? the answer came unbidden to his brain—“love!” he gave an involuntary gesture of irritation, as though some one had spoken the word in his ear.
“love!” he exclaimed half aloud. “there is no such thing—not on earth. there is desire,—the animal attraction of one body for another, which ends in disgust and satiety. love should have no touch of coarseness in it,—and can anything be coarser than the marriage-tie?—the bond which compels a man and woman to live together in daily partnership of bed and board, and reproduce their kind like pigs, or other common cattle. to call that love is a sacrilege to the very name,—for love is a divine emotion, and demands divinest comprehension.”
he went up to where kremlin lay reclined,—the old man slept profoundly and peacefully,—his face had gained colour and seemed less pinched and meagre in outline. el-râmi felt his pulse,—it beat regularly and calmly. satisfied with his examination, he wheeled away the great telescope into a corner, and shut the window against the night air,—then he lay down himself on the floor, with his coat rolled under him for a pillow, and composed himself to sleep till morning.
