NEITHER ONE NOR THE OTHER.
That night I dreamt a monstrous dream; and it seemed to me that a ship
anchored off the island on a dark midnight.
Then rose up the dreadful figure on the shore, and stretched forth an
arm of stone, and with a stone hand laid hold on the ship, and lifted
her aloft, and dropt her all shattered into the crater of the volcan.
Whereupon, with a blast of sulphurous fire, the ship was blown an
appalling great height into the air.
With that, I awoke; but, though the phantasy of my dream passed away, I
knew, as by an instinct, that something monstrous had, indeed, happened
on the island. I felt along the wall for the little brass knob; and,
having found and pressed it, I looked round in the lighted cell. _One
of the walls was rent in a long fissure!_
Scarce I had seen the thing, but the door was thrown violently open,
and Ambrose came dashing in.
“Clayton!” cried he, terror in his staring eyes, “Clayton!”
“An earthquake!” cried I, “Was’t an earthquake?”
“Ay,” answered he. “Haste! Come on! If there come another, we shall be
entombed!”
I put on a great cloak, and we hasted out. The passage was full of men
scantly dressed, making towards the door. They cursed and swore, as
they shoved one another along helter-skelter.
Ambrose and I reached the great door, and in a trice stood without in
the darkness of the night. ’Twas dark indeed! There was no moon nor
stars. The air was hot and heavy, and seemed to throb in our ears.
Suddenly there came a jag of lightning that rent the black heaven like
a scroll; and the thunder scarce had ceased to roll, but, flash upon
flash, and jag upon jag, the lightning came continuously, as if it
would seam and scar and melt the firmament! The earth did crack and
crack as it came to ground.
There came a sudden, mighty flaw of wind; and then fell the rain!
It fell in flows and cataracts, crashing upon the trees of the wood
like an avalanche, driving the fugitives back into the passage.
Yet the outrageous tempest held not long, ceasing as suddenly as it
had begun. Hereupon some were for returning to their beds; but all
trembled, wavering in their minds. Ambrose and I made towards the wood,
which was all shattered and tumbled together, and the path quite gone.
With much ado, however, we contrived to get through it, or rather over
it; for often we were obliged to climb.
“I am apt to think,” said I as we emerged upon the cliff, “that ’twas
no earthquake; the lightning struck the place.”
“Nay, you are in the wrong,” replied Ambrose. “The earth shook. ’Twas
certainly an earthquake.”
“_It was neither one nor the other_,” came the voice of Doctor Copicus,
who stepped suddenly into our path.
“I say that it was neither one nor the other,” said he again; but there
was no anger in his voice--nay, he smiled on us, as he added:
“Hearken, my children! Come, walk with me and hearken, for there’s
somewhat I’d have you to know.”
So, wondering greatly, we began to walk with him alongst the cliff.
For a while, we went without speech. Then the Doctor spoke again; but
his voice was strange and remote, as if he spoke to himself.
“Much injustice,” said he, “much contumely, much wrong, I suffered at
their hands. I, a scholar such as cometh not in many generations, a
thinker compared with whom their subtlest heads were as wooden blocks;
I whose insight was piercing to the soul! They despised me! rejected
me! cast me out!
“To destroy the nation, to destroy it root and branch, to rase the
populous cities, to blast the countrysides; to find out a combustible,
an explosive searching as lightning, mighty that blasting gunpowder
would be, compared to it, but a puny breath--such motives, such
intents, became henceforth the poles and axle of my transported mind.
“This night, my children” (turning to us) “was that mighty thing
discovered, and the combustion of but a grain of it wrought the
convulsion that shook this island.... A cock-boat’s burden would shake
me a greater island!
“Thus the power is given--and the will is taken away!
“How is my hatred broken? dissolved and broken? like a bubble broken?
My firm purpose, tempered in the fires of hell, is no more! no more! It
went from me, Ambrose, when I pardoned you on the hill!”
He fell silent; but we continued to pace along in the sombre night.
“But hearken! mark me well! Ambrose, you have the keeping of my
parchments, what be they?”
“The Book of Science, the Book of Poesy, the Book of Life,” answered
Ambrose.
“So. Therein is my wisdom stored; therein is laid up the efficacy of
my genius; therein is traced and pencilled out my orbit and circling
arcs....”
He broke off; for there came a dreadful, subterraneous rumbling sound.
The ground did heave beneath our feet. I was thrown staggering down.
The dread portent ceased. The earth fell quiet. But, from a point in
the interior of the island, a blast of flame belched forth into the
night![F]