pursued, were much larger and of two distinct types. Both were light
brown in color; but while one showed huge development of head and
jaw, with small flippers, the other kind reversed these attributes,
their heads being small, but their flippers long and powerful. They
ran their quarry down in the open, and seized them with outreaching
tentacles. No mistakes were made—no feints or false motions; and
there was no resistance by the victims. Where one was noticed he was
doomed. The tentacles gathered him in—to a murderous bite or a
murderous embrace.
At last, when the inflow had ceased,—when there must have been
millions of the brown killers in the tunnel,—the great hollow
cylinder turned slowly on its axis and backed out through the rent
in the wall, which immediately closed, with a crushing and
scattering of fragments. Though the allies were far down-stream now,
the war was practically ended; for the white defenders remained near
the walls, and the black invaders were in wildest panic, each one,
as the resistless current rushed him past, swimming against the
stream, to put distance between himself and the destroyer below. But
before long an advance-guard of the brown enemy shot out from the
tributaries above, and the tide of retreat swung backward. Then came
thousands of them, and the massacre was resumed.
“Hot stuff, eh?” said his friendly neighbor to him.
“Y-y-y-es—I guess so,” he answered, rather vacantly; “I don’t know.
I don’t know anything about it. I never saw such doings. What is it
all for? What does it mean?”
“Oh, this is nothing; it’s all in a lifetime. Still, I admit it
might ha’ been serious for us—and you, too—if we hadn’t got help.”
“But who are they, and what? They all seem of a family, and are
killing each other.”
“Immortal shade of Darwin!” exclaimed the other sentry, who had not
spoken before. “Where were you brought up? Don’t you know that
variations from type are the deadliest enemies of the parent stock?
These two brown breeds are the hundredth or two-hundredth cousins of
the black kind. When they’ve killed off their common relative, and
get to competing for grub, they’ll exterminate each other, and we’ll
be rid of ’em all. Law of nature. Understand?”
“Oh, y-yes, I understand, of course; but what did the black kind
attack me for? And what do they want, anyway?”
“To follow out their destiny, I s’pose. They’re the kind of folks
who have missions. Reformers, we call ’em—who want to enforce their
peculiar ideas and habits on other people. Sometimes we call them
expansionists—fond of colonizing territory that doesn’t belong to
them. They wanted to get through the cells to the lymph-passages,
thence on to the brain and spinal marrow. Know what that means?
Hydrophobia.”
“What’s that?”
“Oh, say, now! You’re too easy.”
“Come, come,” said the other, good-naturedly; “don’t guy him. He
never had our advantages. You see, neighbor, we get these points
from the subjective brain, which knows all things and gives us our
instructions. We’re the white corpuscles,—phagocytes, the scientists
call us,—and our work is to police the blood-vessels, and kill off
invaders that make trouble. Those red-and-gray chumps can’t take
care of themselves, and we must protect ’em. Understand? But this
invasion was too much for us, and we had to have help from outside.
You must have come in with the first crowd—think I saw you—in at the
bite. Second crowd came in through an inoculation tube, and just in
time to pull you through.”
“I don’t know,” answered our bewildered friend. “In at the bite?
What bite? I was swimming round comfortable-like, and there was a
big noise, and then I was alongside of a big white wall, and then—”
“Exactly; the dog’s tooth. You got into bad company, friend, and
you’re well out of it. That first gang is the microbe of rabies, not
very well known yet, because a little too small to be seen by most
microscopes. All the scientists seem to have learned about ’em is
that a colony a few hundred generations old—which they call a
culture, or serum—is death on the original bird; and that’s what
they sent in to help out. Pasteur’s dead, worse luck, but sometime
old Koch’ll find out what we’ve known all along—that it’s only
variation from type.”
“Koch!” he answered eagerly and proudly. “Oh, I know Koch; I’ve met
him. And I know about microscopes, too. Why, Koch had me under his
microscope once. He discovered my family, and named us—the comma
bacilli—the Spirilli of Asiatic Cholera.”
In silent horror they drew away from him, and then conversed
together. Other white warriors drifting along stopped and joined the
conference, and when a hundred or more were massed before him, they
spread out to a semi-spherical formation and closed in.
“What’s the matter?” he asked nervously. “What’s wrong? What are you
going to do? I haven’t done anything, have I?”
“It’s not what you’ve done, stranger,” said his quondam friend, “or
what we’re going to do. It’s what you’re going to do. You’re going
to die. Don’t see how you got past quarantine, anyhow?”
“What—why—I don’t want to die. I’ve done nothing. All I want is
peace and quiet, and a place to swim where it isn’t too light nor
too dark. I mind my own affairs. Let me alone—you hear me—let me
alone!”
They answered him not. Slowly and irresistibly the hollow formation
contracted—individuals slipping out when necessary—until he was
pushed, still protesting, into the nearest movable cave. The walls
crashed together and his life went out. When he was cast forth he
was in five pieces.
And so our gentle, conservative, non-combative cholera microbe, who
only wanted to be left alone to mind his own affairs, met this
violent death, a martyr to prejudice and an unsympathetic
environment.
* * * * *
Extract from hospital record of the case of John Anderson:
August 18. As period of incubation for both cholera and
hydrophobia has passed and no initial symptoms of either
disease have been noticed, patient is this day discharged,
cured.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A DILEMMA
By S. WEIR MITCHELL
I WAS just thirty-seven when my Uncle Philip died. A week before
that event he sent for me; and here let me say that I had never set
eyes on him. He hated my mother, but I do not know why. She told me
long before his last illness that I need expect nothing from my
father’s brother. He was an inventor, an able and ingenious
mechanical engineer, and had made much money by his improvement in
turbine-wheels. He was a bachelor; lived alone, cooked his own
meals, and collected precious stones, especially rubies and pearls.
From the time he made his first money he had this mania. As he grew
richer, the desire to possess rare and costly gems became stronger.
When he bought a new stone, he carried it in his pocket for a month
and now and then took it out and looked at it. Then it was added to
the collection in his safe at the trust company.
At the time he sent for me I was a clerk, and poor enough.
Remembering my mother’s words, his message gave me, his sole
relative, no new hopes; but I thought it best to go.
When I sat down by his bedside, he began, with a malicious grin:
“I suppose you think me queer. I will explain.” What he said was
certainly queer enough. “I have been living on an annuity into which
I put my fortune. In other words, I have been, as to money,
concentric half of my life to enable me to be as eccentric as I
pleased the rest of it. Now I repent of my wickedness to you all,
and desire to live in the memory of at least one of my family. You
think I am poor and have only my annuity. You will be profitably
surprised. I have never parted with my precious stones; they will be
yours. You are my sole heir. I shall carry with me to the other
world the satisfaction of making one man happy.
“No doubt you have always had expectations, and I desire that you
should continue to expect. My jewels are in my safe. There is
nothing else left.”
When I thanked him he grinned all over his lean face, and said:
“You will have to pay for my funeral.”
I must say that I never looked forward to any expenditure with more
pleasure than to what it would cost me to put him away in the earth.
As I rose to go, he said:
“The rubies are valuable. They are in my safe at the trust company.
Before you unlock the box, be very careful to read a letter which
lies on top of it; and be sure not to shake the box.” I thought this
odd. “Don’t come back. It won’t hasten things.”
He died that day week, and was handsomely buried. The day after, his
will was found, leaving me his heir. I opened his safe and found in
it nothing but an iron box, evidently of his own making, for he was
a skilled workman and very ingenious. The box was heavy and strong,
about ten inches long, eight inches wide and ten inches high. On it
lay a letter to me. It ran thus:
“DEAR TOM: This box contains a large number of very fine
pigeon-blood rubies and a fair lot of diamonds; one is
blue—a beauty. There are hundreds of pearls—one the famous
green pearl and a necklace of blue pearls, for which any
woman would sell her soul—or her affections.” I thought of
Susan. “I wish you to continue to have expectations and
continuously to remember your dear uncle. I would have left
these stones to some charity, but I hate the poor as much as
I hate your mother’s son,—yes, rather more.
“The box contains an interesting mechanism, which will act
with certainty as you unlock it, and explode ten ounces of
my improved, supersensitive dynamite—no, to be accurate,
there are only nine and a half ounces. Doubt me, and open
it, and you will be blown to atoms. Believe me, and you will
continue to nourish expectations which will never be
fulfilled. As a considerate man, I counsel extreme care in
handling the box. Don’t forget your affectionate
“UNCLE.”
I stood appalled, the key in my hand. Was it true? Was it a lie? I
had spent all my savings on the funeral, and was poorer than ever.
Remembering the old man’s oddity, his malice, his cleverness in
mechanic arts, and the patent explosive which had helped to make him
rich, I began to feel how very likely it was that he had told the
truth in this cruel letter.
I carried the iron box away to my lodgings, set it down with care in
a closet, laid the key on it, and locked the closet.
Then I sat down, as yet hopeful, and began to exert my ingenuity
upon ways of opening the box without being killed. There must be a
way.
After a week of vain thinking I bethought me, one day, that it would
be easy to explode the box by unlocking it at a safe distance, and I
arranged a plan with wires, which seemed as if it would answer. But
when I reflected on what would happen when the dynamite scattered
the rubies, I knew that I should be none the richer. For hours at a
time I sat looking at that box and handling the key.
At last I hung the key on my watch-guard; but then it occurred to me
that it might be lost or stolen. Dreading this, I hid it, fearful
that some one might use it to open the box. This state of doubt and
fear lasted for weeks, until I became nervous and began to dread
that some accident might happen to that box. A burglar might come
and boldly carry it away and force it open and find it was a wicked
fraud of my uncle’s. Even the rumble and vibration caused by the
heavy vans in the street became at last a terror.
Worst of all, my salary was reduced, and I saw that marriage was out
of the question.
In my despair I consulted Professor Clinch about my dilemma, and as
to some safe way of getting at the rubies. He said that, if my uncle
had not lied, there was none that would not ruin the stones,
especially the pearls, but that it was a silly tale and altogether
incredible. I offered him the biggest ruby if he wished to test his
opinion. He did not desire to do so.
Dr. Schaff, my uncle’s doctor, believed the old man’s letter, and
added a caution, which was entirely useless, for by this time I was
afraid to be in the room with that terrible box.
At last the doctor kindly warned me that I was in danger of losing
my mind with too much thought about my rubies. In fact, I did
nothing else but contrive wild plans to get at them safely. I spent
all my spare hours at one of the great libraries reading about
dynamite. Indeed, I talked of it until the library attendants,
believing me a lunatic or a dynamite fiend, declined to humor me,
and spoke to the police. I suspect that for a while I was “shadowed”
as a suspicious, and possibly criminal, character. I gave up the
libraries, and, becoming more and more fearful, set my precious box
on a down pillow, for fear of its being shaken; for at this time
even the absurd possibility of its being disturbed by an earthquake
troubled me. I tried to calculate the amount of shake needful to
explode my box.
The old doctor, when I saw him again, begged me to give up all
thought of the matter, and, as I felt how completely I was the slave
of one despotic idea, I tried to take the good advice thus given me.
Unhappily, I found, soon after, between the leaves of my uncle’s
Bible, a numbered list of the stones with their cost and much
beside. It was dated two years before my uncle’s death. Many of the
stones were well known, and their enormous value amazed me.
Several of the rubies were described with care, and curious
histories of them were given in detail. One was said to be the
famous “Sunset ruby,” which had belonged to the Empress-Queen Maria
Theresa. One was called the “Blood ruby,” not, as was explained,
because of the color, but on account of the murders it had
occasioned. Now, as I read, it seemed again to threaten death.
The pearls were described with care as an unequalled collection.
Concerning two of them my uncle had written what I might call
biographies,—for, indeed, they seemed to have done much evil and
some good. One, a black pearl, was mentioned in an old bill of sale
as—She—which seemed queer to me.
It was maddening. Here, guarded by a vision of sudden death, was
wealth “beyond the dreams of avarice.” I am not a clever or
ingenious man; I know little beyond how to keep a ledger, and so I
was, and am, no doubt, absurd about many of my notions as to how to
solve this riddle.
At one time I thought of finding a man who would take the risk of
unlocking the box, but what right had I to subject any one else to
the trial I dared not face? I could easily drop the box from a
height somewhere, and if it did not explode could then safely unlock
it; but if it did blow up when it fell, good-by to my rubies.
_Mine_, indeed! I was rich, and I was not. I grew thin and morbid,
and so miserable that, being a good Catholic, I at last carried my
troubles to my father confessor. He thought it simply a cruel jest
of my uncle’s, but was not so eager for another world as to be
willing to open my box. He, too, counselled me to cease thinking
about it. Good heavens! I dreamed about it. Not to think about it
was impossible. Neither my own thought nor science nor religion had
been able to assist me.
Two years have gone by, and I am one of the richest men in the city,
and have no more money than will keep me alive.
Susan said I was half cracked like Uncle Philip, and broke off her
engagement. In my despair I have advertised in the “Journal of
Science,” and have had absurd schemes sent me by the dozen. At last,
as I talked too much about it, the thing became so well known that
when I put the horror in a safe, in bank, I was promptly desired to
withdraw it. I was in constant fear of burglars, and my landlady
gave me notice to leave, because no one would stay in the house with
that box. I am now advised to print my story and await advice from
the ingenuity of the American mind.
I have moved into the suburbs and hidden the box and changed my name
and my occupation. This I did to escape the curiosity of the
reporters. I ought to say that when the government officials came to
hear of my inheritance, they very reasonably desired to collect the
succession tax on my uncle’s estate.
I was delighted to assist them. I told the collector my story, and
showed him Uncle Philip’s letter. Then I offered him the key, and
asked for time to get half a mile away. That man said he would think
it over and come back later.
This is all I have to say. I have made a will and left my rubies and
pearls to the Society for the Prevention of Human Vivisection. If
any man thinks this account a joke or an invention, let him coldly
imagine the situation:
Given an iron box, known to contain wealth, said to contain
dynamite, arranged to explode when the key is used to unlock it—what
would any sane man do? What would he advise?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE[8]
By A. CONAN DOYLE
Footnote 8:
By permission of Harper & Brothers.
I HAD called upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the
autumn of last year, and found him in deep conversation with a very
stout, florid-faced, elderly gentleman, with fiery red hair. With an
apology for my intrusion, I was about to withdraw when Holmes pulled
me abruptly into the room and closed the door behind me.
“You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear Watson,”
he said, cordially.
“I was afraid that you were engaged.”
“So I am. Very much so.”
“Then I can wait in the next room.”
“Not at all. This gentleman, Mr. Wilson, has been my partner and
helper in many of my most successful cases, and I have no doubt that
he will be of the utmost use to me in yours also.”
The stout gentleman half rose from his chair and gave a bob of
greeting, with a quick, little, questioning glance from his small,
fat-encircled eyes.
“Try the settee,” said Holmes, relapsing into his arm-chair and
putting his finger-tips together, as was his custom when in judicial
moods. “I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that
is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of
everyday life. You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm
which has prompted you to chronicle, and, if you will excuse my
saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own little
adventures.”
“Your cases have indeed been of the greatest interest to me,” I
observed.
“You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we
went into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary Sutherland,
that for strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go
to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of
the imagination.”
“A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting.”
“You did, doctor, but none the less you must come round to my view,
for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you, until
your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to be right.
Now, Mr. Jabez Wilson here has been good enough to call upon me this
morning, and to begin a narrative which promises to be one of the
most singular which I have listened to for some time. You have heard
me remark that the strangest and most unique things are very often
connected not with the larger but with the smaller crimes, and
occasionally, indeed, where there is room for doubt whether any
positive crime has been committed. As far as I have heard it is
impossible for me to say whether the present case is an instance of
crime or not, but the course of events is certainly among the most
singular that I have ever listened to. Perhaps, Mr. Wilson, you
would have the great kindness to recommence your narrative. I ask
you, not merely because my friend Dr. Watson has not heard the
opening part, but also because the peculiar nature of the story
makes me anxious to have every possible detail from your lips. As a
rule, when I have heard some slight indication of the course of
events, I am able to guide myself by the thousands of other similar
cases which occur to my memory. In the present instance I am forced
to admit that the facts are, to the best of my belief, unique.”
The portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance of some
little pride, and pulled a dirty and wrinkled newspaper from the
inside pocket of his great-coat. As he glanced down the
advertisement column, with his head thrust forward, and the paper
flattened out upon his knee, I took a good look at the man, and
endeavored, after the fashion of my companion, to read the
indications which might be presented by his dress or appearance.
I did not gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our visitor
bore every mark of being an average commonplace British tradesman,
obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy gray shepherd’s check
trousers, a not over-clean black frock-coat, unbuttoned in the
front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a
square pierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament. A frayed
top-hat and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay
upon a chair beside him. Altogether, look as I would, there was
nothing remarkable about the man save his blazing red head, and the
expression of extreme chagrin and discontent upon his features.
Sherlock Holmes’s quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook his
head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. “Beyond the
obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labor, that he
takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and
that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can
deduce nothing else.”
Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon
the paper, but his eyes upon my companion.
“How, in the name of good-fortune, did you know all that, Mr.
Holmes?” he asked. “How did you know, for example, that I did manual
labor? It’s as true as gospel, for I began as a ship’s carpenter.”
“Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger
than your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are more
developed.”
“Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?”
“I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that,
especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you
use an arc-and-compass breastpin.”
“Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?”
“What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for
five inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow
where you rest it upon the desk?”
“Well, but China?”
“The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist
could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of
tattoo marks, and have even contributed to the literature of the
subject. That trick of staining the fishes’ scales a delicate pink
is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I see a Chinese coin
hanging from your watch-chain, the matter becomes even more simple.”
Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. “Well, I never!” said he. “I
thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that
there was nothing in it, after all.”
“I begin to think, Watson,” said Holmes, “that I make a mistake in
explaining. ‘_Omne ignotum pro magnifico_,’ you know, and my poor
little reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I am so
candid. Can you not find the advertisement, Mr. Wilson?”
“Yes, I have got it now,” he answered, with his thick, red finger
planted half-way down the column. “Here it is. This is what began it
all. You just read it for yourself, sir.”
I took the paper from him, and read as follows:
“TO THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE: On account of the bequest of the
late Ezekiah Hopkins, of Lebanon, Pa., U.S.A., there is now
another vacancy open which entitles a member of the League
to a salary of £4 a week for purely nominal services. All
red-headed men who are sound in body and mind, and above the
age of twenty-one years, are eligible. Apply in person on
Monday, at eleven o’clock, to Duncan Ross, at the offices of
the League, 7 Pope’s Court, Fleet Street.”
“What on earth does this mean?” I ejaculated, after I had twice read
over the extraordinary announcement.
Holmes chuckled, and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit when in
high spirits. “It is a little off the beaten track, isn’t it?” said
he. “And now, Mr. Wilson, off you go at scratch, and tell us all
about yourself, your household, and the effect which this
advertisement had upon your fortunes. You will first make a note,
doctor, of the paper and the date.”
“It is _The Morning Chronicle_, of April 27, 1890. Just two months
ago.”
“Very good. Now, Mr. Wilson?”