I
For some minutes they sat in front of the fire and sipped their coffee in
silence. The secretary felt that the sliding platform on which he was
traveling into this extraordinary adventure had been going a little too
fast for him. Events had crowded past before he had time to look squarely
at them. He had lost his bearings rather, routed by Miriam's beauty and
by the amazing way she talked to him. Had she lived always inside his
thoughts she could not have chosen words better calculated to convince
him that they were utterly in sympathy one with the other. Mr. Skale,
moreover, approved heartily. The one thing Spinrobin saw clearly through
it all was that himself and Miriam--their voices, rather--were necessary
for the success of the clergyman's mysterious experiments. Only, while
Miriam, little witch, knew all about it, he, candidate on trial, knew as
yet--nothing.
And now, as they sat opposite one another in the privacy of the library,
Spinrobin, full of confidence and for once proud of his name and
personality, looked forward to being taken more into the heart of the
affair. Things advanced, however, more slowly than he desired. Mr.
Skale's scheme was too big to be hurried.
The clergyman did not smoke, but his companion, with the other's ready
permission, puffed gently at a small cigarette. Short, rapid puffs he
took, as though the smoke was afraid to enter beyond the front teeth, and
with one finger he incessantly knocked off the ashes into his saucer,
even when none were there to fall. On the table behind them gurgled the
shaded lamp, lighting their faces from the eyes downwards.
"Now," said Mr. Skale, evidently not aware that he thundered, "we can
talk quietly and undisturbed." He caught his beard in a capacious hand,
in such a way that the square outline of his chin showed through the
hair. His voice boomed musically, filling the room. Spinrobin listened
acutely, afraid even to cross his legs. A genuine pronouncement, he felt,
was coming.
"A good many years ago, Mr. Spinrobin," he said simply, "when I was a
curate of a country parish in Norfolk, I made a discovery--of a
revolutionary description--a discovery in the world of real things, that
is, of spiritual things."
He gazed fixedly over the clutched beard at his companion, apparently
searching for brief, intelligible phrases. "But a discovery, the
development of which I was obliged to put on one side until I inherited
with this property the means and leisure which enabled me to continue my
terrific--I say purposely terrific--researches. For some years now I have
been quietly at work here absorbed in my immense pursuit." And again he
stopped. "I have reached a point, Mr. Spinrobin--"
"Yes," interjected the secretary, as though the mention of his name
touched a button and produced a sound. "A point--?"
"Where I need the assistance of some one with a definite quality of
voice--a man who emits a certain note--a certain tenor note." He released
his beard, so that it flew out with a spring, at the same moment
thrusting his head forward to drive home the announcement effectively.
Spinrobin crossed his legs with a fluttering motion, hastily. "As you
advertised," he suggested.
The clergyman bowed.
"My efforts to find the right man," continued the enthusiast, leaning
back in his chair, "have now lasted a year. I have had a dozen men down
here, each on a month's trial. None of them suited. None had the
requisite quality of voice. With a single exception, none of them could
stand the loneliness, the seclusion; and without exception, all of them
were too worldly to make sacrifices. It was the salary they wanted. The
majority, moreover, confused imagination with fancy, and courage with
mere audacity. And, most serious of all, not one of them passed the test
of--Miriam. She harmonized with none of them. They were discords one and
all. You, Mr. Spinrobin, are the first to win acceptance. The instant she
heard your name she cried for you. And she knows. She sings the soprano.
She took you into the chord."
"I hope indeed--" stammered the flustered and puzzled secretary, and then
stopped, blushing absurdly. "You claim for me far more than I should dare
to claim for myself," he added. The reference to Miriam delighted him,
and utterly destroyed his judgment. He longed to thank the girl for
having approved him. "I'm glad my voice--er--suits your--chord." In his
heart of hearts he understood something of what Mr. Skale was driving at,
yet was half-ashamed to admit it even to himself. In this twentieth
century it all seemed so romantic, mystical, and absurd. He felt it was
all half-true. If only he could have run back into that great "mental
prairie" of his boyhood days it might all have been _quite_ true.
"Precisely," continued Mr. Skale, bringing him back to reality,
"precisely. And now, before I tell you more, you will forgive my asking
you one or two personal questions, I'm sure. We must build securely as we
go, leaving nothing to chance. The grandeur and importance of my
experiments demand it. Afterwards," and his expression changed to a
sudden softness in a way that was characteristic of the man, "you must
feel free to put similar questions to me, as personal and direct as you
please. I wish to establish a perfect frankness between us at the start."
"Thank you, Mr. Skale. Of course--er--should anything occur to me to
ask--" A momentary bewilderment, caused by the great visage so close to
his own, prevented the completion of the sentence.
"As to your beliefs, for instance," the clergyman resumed abruptly,
"your religious beliefs, I mean. I must be sure of you on that ground.
What are you?"
"Nothing--I think," Spinrobin replied without hesitation, remembering how
his soul had bounced its way among the various creeds since Cambridge,
and arrived at its present state of Belief in Everything, yet without any
definite label. "Nothing in particular. Nominally, though--a Christian."
"You believe in a God?"
"A Supreme Intelligence, most certainly," was the emphatic reply.
"And spirits?"
Spinrobin hesitated. He was a very honest soul.
"Other life, let me put it," the clergyman helped him; "other beings
besides ourselves?"
"I have often felt--wondered, rather," he answered carefully, "whether
there might not be other systems of evolution besides humanity. Such
extraordinary Forces come blundering into one's life sometimes, and one
can't help wondering where they come from. I have never formulated any
definite beliefs, however--"
"Your world is not a blind chaos, I mean?" Mr. Skale put gravely to him,
as though questioning a child.
"No, no, indeed. There's order and system--"
"In which you personally count for something of value?" asked the
other quickly.
"I like to think so," was the apologetic reply. "There's something that
includes me somewhere in a purpose of very great importance--only, of
course, I've got to do my part, and--"
"Good," Mr. Skale interrupted him. "And now," he asked softly, after
a moment's pause, leaning forward, "what about death? Are you afraid
of death?"
Spinrobin started visibly. He began to wonder where this extraordinary
catechism was going to lead. But he answered at once: he had thought out
these things and knew where he stood.
"Only of its possible pain," he said, smiling into the bearded visage
before him. "And an immense curiosity, of course--"
"It does not mean extinction for you--going out like the flame of a
candle, for instance?"
"I have never been able to believe _that_, Mr. Skale. I continue
somewhere and somehow--forever."
The cross-examination puzzled him more and more, and through it, for the
first time, he began to feel dimly, ran a certain strain of something not
quite right, not permissible in the biggest sense. It was not the
questions themselves that produced this odd and rather disquieting
impression, but the fact that Mr. Skale was preparing the ground with
such extraordinary thoroughness. This conversation was the first swell,
as it were, rolling mysteriously in upon him from the ocean in whose
deeps the great Experiment lay buried. Forces, tidal in strength, oceanic
in volume, shrouded it just now, but he already felt them. They reached
him through the person of the clergyman. It was these forces playing
through his personality that Spinrobin had been aware of the first moment
they met on the station platform, and had "sensed" even more strongly
during the walk home across the mountains.
Behind the play of these darker impressions, as yet only vague and
ambiguous, there ran in and out among his thoughts the vein of something
much sweeter. Miriam, with her large grey eyes and silvery voice, was
continually peeping in upon his mind. He wondered where she was and what
she was doing in the big, lonely house. He wished she could have been in
the room to hear his answers and approve them. He felt incomplete without
her. Already he thought of her as the melody to which he was the
accompaniment, two things that ought not to be separated.
"My point is," Mr. Skale continued, "that, apart from ordinary human
ties, and so forth, you have no intrinsic terror of death--of losing your
present body?"
"No, no," was the reply, more faintly given than the rest. "I love my
life, but--but--" he looked about him in some confusion for the right
words, still thinking of Miriam--"but I look forward, Mr. Skale; I look
forward." He dropped back into the depths of his armchair and puffed
swiftly at the end of his extinguished cigarette, oblivious of the fact
that no smoke came.
"The attitude of a brave man," said the clergyman with approval. Then,
looking straight into the secretary's blue eyes, he added with increased
gravity: "And therefore it would not be immoral of me to expose you to an
experiment in which the penalty of a slip would be--death? Or you would
not shrink from it yourself, provided the knowledge to be obtained seemed
worth while?"
"That's right, sir--Mr. Skale, I mean; that's right," came the answer
after an imperceptible pause.
The result of the talk seemed to satisfy the clergyman. "You must think
my questions _very_ peculiar," he said, the sternness of his face
relaxing a little, "but it was necessary to understand your exact
position before proceeding further. The gravity of my undertaking demands
it. However, you must not let my words alarm you." He waited a moment,
reflecting deeply. "You must regard them, if you will, as a kind of
test," he resumed, searching his companion's face with eagle eyes, "the
beginning of a series of tests in which your attitude to Miriam and hers
to you, so far as that goes, was the first."
"Oh, that's all right, Mr. Skale," was his inadequate rejoinder; for the
moment the name of the girl was introduced his thoughts instantly
wandered out to find her. The way the clergyman pronounced it increased
its power, too, for no name he uttered sounded ordinary. There seemed a
curious mingling in the resonant cavity of his great mouth of the
fundamental note and the overtones.
"Yes, you have the kind of courage that is necessary," Mr. Skale was
saying, half to himself, "the modesty that forgets self, and the
unworldly attitude that is essential. With your help I may encompass
success; and I consider myself wonderfully fortunate to have found you,
wonderfully fortunate...."
"I'm glad," murmured Spinrobin, thinking that so far he had not learned
anything very definite about his duties, or what it was he had to do to
earn so substantial a salary. Truth to tell, he did not bother much about
that part of it. He was conscious only of three main desires: to pass the
unknown tests, to learn the nature of Mr. Skale's discovery, with the
experiment involved, and--to be with Miriam as much as possible. The
whole affair was so unusual that he had already lost the common standards
of judging. He let the sliding platform take him where it would, and he
flattered himself that he was not fool enough to mistake originality for
insanity. The clergyman, dreamer and enthusiast though he might be, was
as sane as other men, saner than most.
"I hope to lead you little by little to what I have in view," Mr. Skale
went on, "so that at the end of our trial month you will have learned
enough to enable you to form a decision, yet not enough to--to use my
knowledge should you choose to return to the world."
It was very frank, but the secretary did not feel offended. He accepted
the explanation as perfectly reasonable. In his mind he knew full well
what his choice would be. This was the supreme adventure he had been so
long a-seeking. No ordinary obstacle could prevent his accepting it.
II
There came a pause of some length, in which Spinrobin found nothing
particular to say. The lamp gurgled; the coals fell softly into the
fender. Then suddenly Mr. Skale rose and stood with his back to the
grate. He gazed down upon the small figure in the chair. He towered
there, a kindly giant, enthusiasm burning in his eyes like lamps. His
voice was very deep, his manner more solemn than before when he spoke.
"So far, so good," he said, "and now, with your permission, Mr.
Spinrobin, I should like to go a step further. I should like to
take--your note."
"My note?" exclaimed the other, thinking he had not heard correctly.
"Your sound, yes," repeated the clergyman.
"My sound!" piped the little man, vastly puzzled, his voice shrill with
excitement. He dodged about in the depths of his big leather chair, as
though movement might bring explanation.
Mr. Skale watched him calmly. "I want to get the vibrations of your
voice, and then see what pattern they produce in the sand," he said.
"Oh, in the sand, yes; quite so," replied the secretary. He remembered
how the vibrations of an elastic membrane can throw dry sand, loosely
scattered upon its surface, into various floral and geometrical figures.
Chladni's figures, he seemed to remember, they were called after their
discoverer. But Mr. Skale's purpose in the main, of course, escaped him.
"You don't object?"
"On the contrary, I am greatly interested." He stood up on the mat beside
his employer.
"I wish to make _quite_ sure," the clergyman added gravely, "that your
voice, your note, is what I think it is--accurately in harmony with
mine and Miriam's and Mrs. Mawle's. The pattern it makes will help to
prove this."
The secretary bowed in perplexed silence, while Mr. Skale crossed the
room and took a violin from its case. The golden varnish of its ribs and
back gleamed in the lamplight, and when the clergyman drew the bow across
the strings to tune it, smooth, mellow sounds, soft and resonant as
bells, filled the room. Evidently he knew how to handle the instrument.
The notes died away in a murmur.
"A Guarnerius," he explained, "and a perfect pedigree specimen; it has
the most sensitive structure imaginable, and carries vibrations almost
like a human nerve. For instance, while I speak," he added, laying the
violin upon his companion's hand, "you will feel the vibrations of my
voice run through the wood into your palm."
"I do," said Spinrobin. It trembled like a living thing.
"Now," continued Mr. Skale, after a pause, "what I first want is to
receive the vibrations of your own voice in the same way--into my very
pulses. Kindly read aloud steadily while I hold it. Stop reading when I
make a sign. I'll nod, so that the vibrations of my voice won't
interfere." And he handed a notebook to him with quotations entered
neatly in his own handwriting, selected evidently with a purpose, and all
dealing with sound, music, as organized sound, and names. Spinrobin read
aloud; the first quotation from Meredith he recognized, but the others,
and the last one, discussing names, were new to him:--
"But _listen in the thought_; so may there come
Conception of a newly-added chord,
Commanding space beyond where ear has home.
"Everything that the sun shines upon sings or can be made to sing, and
can be heard to sing. Gases, impalpable powders, and woolen stuffs, in
common with other non-conductors of sound, give forth notes of different
pitches when played upon by an intermittent beam of white light. Colored
stuffs will sing in lights of different colors, but refuse to sing in
others. The polarization of light being now accomplished, light and sound
are known to be alike. Flames have a modulated voice and can be made to
sing a definite melody. Wood, stone, metal, skins, fibers, membranes,
every rapidly vibrating substance, _all have in them the potentialities
of musical sound_.
"Radium receives its energy from, and responds to, radiations which
traverse all space--as piano strings respond to sounds in unison with
their notes. Space is all a-quiver with waves of radiant energy. We
vibrate in sympathy with a few strings here and there--with the tiny
X-rays, actinic rays, light waves, heat waves, and the huge
electromagnetic waves of Hertz and Marconi; but there are great spaces,
numberless radiations, to which we are stone deaf. Some day, a thousand
years hence, we shall know the full sweep of this magnificent harmony.
"Everything in nature has its name, and he who has the power to call a
thing by its proper name can make it subservient to his will; for its
proper name is not the arbitrary name given to it by man, but the
expression of the totality of its powers and attributes, because the
powers and attributes of each Being are intimately connected with its
means of expression, and between both exists the most exact proportion in
regard to measure, time, and condition."
The meaning of the four quotations, as he read them, plunged down into
him and touched inner chords very close to his own beliefs. Something of
his own soul, therefore, passed into his voice as he read. He read, that
is to say, with authority.
A nod from Mr. Skale stopped him just as he was beginning a fifth
passage. Raising the vibrating instrument to his ear, the clergyman first
listened a moment intently. Then he quickly had it under his chin, beard
flowing over it like water, and the bow singing across the strings. The
note he played--he drew it out with that whipping motion of the bow only
possible to a loving expert--was soft and beautiful, long drawn out with
a sweet singing quality. He took it on the G string with the second
finger--in the "fourth position." It thrilled through him, Spinrobin
declares, most curiously and delightfully. It made him happy to hear it.
It was very similar to the singing vibrations he had experienced when
Miriam gazed into his eyes and spoke his name.
"Thank you," said Mr. Skale, and laid the violin down again. "I've got
the note. You're E flat."
"E flat!" gasped Spinrobin, not sure whether he was pleased or
disappointed.
"That's your sound, yes. You're E flat--just as I thought, just as I
hoped. You fit in exactly. It seems too good to be true!" His voice began
to boom again, as it always did when he was moved. He was striding about,
very alert, very masterful, pushing the furniture out of his way, his
eyes more luminous than ever. "It's magnificent." He stopped abruptly and
looked at the secretary with a gaze so enveloping that Spinrobin for an
instant lost his bearings altogether. "It means, my dear Spinrobin," he
said slowly, with a touch of solemnity that woke an involuntary shiver
deep in his listener's being, "that you are destined to play a part, and
an important part, in one of the grandest experiments ever dreamed of by
the heart of man. For the first time since my researches began twenty
years ago I now see the end in sight."
"Mr. Skale--that _is_ something--indeed," was all the little man could
find to say.
There was no reason he could point to why the words should have produced
a sense of chill about his heart. It was only that he felt again the huge
groundswell of this vast unknown experiment surging against him, lifting
him from his feet--as a man might feel the Atlantic swells rise with him
towards the stars before they engulfed him forever. It seemed getting a
trifle out of hand, this adventure. Yet it was what he had always longed
for, and his courage must hold firm. Besides, Miriam was involved in it
with him. What could he ask better than to risk his insignificant
personality in some gigantic, mad attempt to plumb the Unknown, with that
slender, little pale-faced Beauty by his side? The wave of Mr. Skale's
enthusiasm swept him away deliciously.
"And now," he cried, "we'll get your Pattern too. I no longer have any
doubts, but none the less it will be a satisfaction to us both to see it.
It must, I'm sure, harmonize with ours; it must!"
He opened a cupboard drawer and produced a thin sheet of glass, upon
which he next poured some finely powdered sand out of a paper bag. It
rattled, dry and faint, upon the smooth, hard surface. And while he did
this, he talked rapidly, boomingly, with immense enthusiasm.
"All sounds," he said, half to himself, half to the astonished secretary,
"create their own patterns. Sound builds; sound destroys; and invisible
sound-vibrations affect concrete matter. For all sounds produce
forms--the forms that correspond to them, as you shall now see. Within
every form lies the silent sound that first called it into view--into
visible shape--into being. Forms, shapes, bodies are the vibratory
activities of _sound made visible_."
"My goodness!" exclaimed Spinrobin, who was listening like a man in a
dream, but who caught the violence of the clergyman's idea none the less.
"Forms and bodies are--_solidified Sound_," cried the clergyman in
italics.
"You say something extraordinary," exclaimed the commonplace Spinrobin in
his shrill voice. "Marvelous!" Vaguely he seemed to remember that
Schelling had called architecture "frozen music."
Mr. Skale turned and looked at him as a god might look at an
insect--that he loved.
"Sound, Mr. Spinrobin," he said, with a sudden and effective lowering of
his booming voice, "is the original divine impulsion behind
nature--communicated to language. It is--creative!"
Then, leaving the secretary with this nut of condensed knowledge to crack
as best he could, the clergyman went to the end of the room in three
strides. He busied himself for a moment with something upon the wall;
then he suddenly turned, his great face aglow, his huge form erect,
fixing his burning eyes upon his distracted companion.
"In the Beginning," he boomed solemnly, in tones of profound conviction,
"was--the _Word_." He paused a moment, and then continued, his voice
filling the room to the very ceiling. "At the Word of God--at the thunder
of the Voice of God, worlds leaped into being!" Again he paused. "Sound,"
he went on, the whole force of his great personality in the phrase, "was
the primordial, creative energy. A sound can call a form into existence.
Forms are the Sound-Figures of archetypal forces--the Word made Flesh."
He stopped, and moved with great soft strides about the room.
Spinrobin caught the words full in the face. For a space he could not
measure--considerably less than a second, probably--the consciousness of
something unutterably immense, unutterably flaming, rushed tumultuously
through his mind, with wings that bore his imagination to a place where
light was--dazzling, white beyond words. He felt himself tossed up to
Heaven on the waves of a great sea, as the body of strange belief behind
the clergyman's words poured through him.... For somewhere, behind the
incoherence of the passionate language, burned the blaze of a true
thought at white heat--could he but grasp it through the stammering
utterance.
Then, with equal swiftness, it passed. His present surroundings came
back. He dropped with a dizzy rush from awful spaces ... and was aware
that he was merely--standing on the black, woolly mat before the fire
watching the movements of his new employer, that his pumps were bright
and pointed, his head just level with a dark marble mantelpiece. Dazed,
and a trifle breathless he felt; and at the back of his disordered mind
stirred a schoolboy's memory that the Pythagoreans believed the
universe to have been called out of chaos by Sound, Number, and
Harmony--or something to that effect.... But these huge, fugitive
thoughts that tore through him refused to be seized and dealt with. He
staggered a little, mentally; then, with a prodigious effort, controlled
himself--and watched.
III
Mr. Skale, he saw, had fastened the little sheet of glass by its four
corners to silken strings hanging from the ceiling. The glass plate hung,
motionless and horizontal, in the air with its freight of sand. For
several minutes the clergyman played a series of beautiful modulations in
double-stopping upon the violin. In these the dominating influence was E
flat. Spinrobin was not musical enough to describe it more accurately
than this. Only, with greater skill than he knows, he mentions how Skale
drew out of that fiddle the peculiarly intimate and searching tones by
which strings can reach the spiritual center of a man and make him
respond to delicate vibrations of thoughts beyond his normal gamut....
Spinrobin, listening, understood that he was a greater man than he
knew....
And the sand on the glass sheet, he next became aware, was shifting,
moving, dancing. He heard the tiny hissing and rattling of the dry
grains. It was uncommonly weird. This visible and practical result
made the clergyman's astonishing words seem true and convincing. That
moving sand brought sanity, yet a certain curious terror of the
unknown into it all.
A minute later Mr. Skale stopped playing and beckoned to him.
"See," he said quietly, pointing to the arrangement the particles of
sand had assumed under the influence of the vibrations. "There's your
pattern--your sound made visible. That's your utterance--the Note you
substantially represent and body forth in terms of matter."
The secretary stared. It was a charming but very simple pattern the lines
of sand had assumed, not unlike the fronds of a delicate fern growing out
of several small circles round the base.
"So that's my note--made visible!" he exclaimed under his breath. "It's
delightful; it's quite exquisite."
"That's E flat," returned Mr. Skale in a whisper, so as not to disturb
the pattern; "if I altered the note, the pattern would alter too. E
natural, for instance, would be different. Only, luckily, you are E
flat--just the note we want. And now," he continued, straightening
himself up to his full height, "come over and see mine and Miriam's and
Mrs. Mawle's, and you'll understand what I meant when I said that yours
would harmonize." And in a glass case across the room they examined a
number of square sheets of glass with sand upon them in various patterns,
all rendered permanent by a thin coating of a glue-like transparent
substance that held the particles in position.
"There you see mine and Miriam's and Mrs. Mawle's," he said, stooping to
look. "They harmonize most beautifully, you observe, with your own."
It was, indeed, a singular and remarkable thing. The patterns, though all
different, yet combined in some subtle fashion impossible of analysis to
form a complete and well-proportioned Whole--a design--a picture. The
patterns of the clergyman and the housekeeper provided the base and
foreground, those of Miriam and the secretary the delicate
superstructure. The girl's pattern, he noted with a subtle pleasure, was
curiously similar to his own, but far more delicate and waving. Yet,
whereas his was floral, hers was stellar in character; that of the
housekeeper was spiral, and Mr. Skale's he could only describe as a
miniature whirlwind of very exquisite design rising out of apparently
three separate centers of motion.
"If I could paint over them the color each shade of sound represents,"
Mr. Skale resumed, "the tint of each _timbre_, or _Klangfarbe_, as the
Germans call it, you would see better still how we are all grouped
together there into a complete and harmonious whole."
Spinrobin looked from the patterns to his companion's great face bending
there beside him. Then he looked back again at the patterns. He could
think of nothing quite intelligible to say. He noticed more clearly every
minute that these dainty shapes of sand, stellar, spiral, and floral,
stood to one another in certain definite proportions, in a rising and
calculated ratio of singular beauty.
"There, before you, lies a true and perfect chord made visible," the
clergyman said in tones thrilling with satisfaction, "--three notes in
harmony with the fundamental sound, myself, and with each other. My dear
fellow, I congratulate you, I congratulate you."
"Thank you very much, indeed," murmured Spinrobin. "I don't quite
understand it all yet, but it's--it's extraordinarily fascinating and
wonderful."
Mr. Skale said nothing, and Spinrobin drifted back to his big armchair. A
deep silence pervaded the room for the space of several minutes. In the
heart of that silence lay the mass of direct and vital questions the
secretary burned, yet was afraid, to ask. For such was the plain truth;
he yearned to know, yet feared to hear. The Discovery and the Experiment
of this singular man loomed already somewhat vast and terrible; the
adjective that had suggested itself before returned to him--"not
permissible." ... Of Mr. Skale himself he had no sort of fear, though a
growing and uncommon respect, but of the purpose Mr. Skale had in view
he caught himself thinking more and more, yet without obvious reason,
with a distinct shrinking almost amounting to dismay. But for the fact
that so sweet and gentle a creature as Miriam was traveling the same path
with him, this increased sense of caution would have revealed itself
plainly for what it was--Fear....
"I am deeply interested, Mr. Skale," he said at length, breaking first
the silence, "and sympathetic too, I assure you; only--you will forgive
me for saying it--I am, as yet, still rather in the dark as to where all
this is to lead--" The clergyman's eyes, fixed straight upon his own,
again made it difficult to finish the sentence as he wished.
"Necessarily so, because I can only lead you to my discovery step by
step," replied the other steadily. "I wish you to be thoroughly prepared
for anything that may happen, so that you can deal intelligently with
results that might otherwise overwhelm you."
"Overwhelm--?" faltered his listener.
"_Might_, I said. Note carefully my use of words, for they are accurately
chosen. Before I can tell you all I must submit you, for your own sake,
to certain tests--chiefly to the test of Alteration of Form by Sound. It
is somewhat--er--alarming, I believe, the first time. You must be
thoroughly accustomed to these astonishing results before we dare to
approach the final Experiment; so that you will not tremble. For there
can be no rehearsal. The great Experiment can only be made once ... and I
must be as sure as possible that you will feel no terror in the face of
the Unknown."
IV
Spinrobin listened breathlessly. He hesitated a moment after the other
stopped speaking, then slewed round on his slippery chair and faced him.
"I can understand," he began, "why you want imagination, but you spoke of
courage too? I mean,--is there any immediate cause for alarm? Any
personal danger, for instance, _now_?" For the clergyman's weighty
sentences had made him realize in a new sense the loneliness of his
situation here among these desolate hills. He would appreciate some
assurance that his life was not to be trifled with before he lost the
power to withdraw if he wished to do so.
"None whatever," replied Mr. Skale with decision, "there is no question
at all of physical personal injury. You must trust me and have a little
patience." His tone and manner were exceedingly grave, yet at the same
time inspired confidence.
"I do," said Spinrobin honestly.
Another pause fell between them, longer than the rest; it was broken by
the clergyman. He spoke emphatically, evidently weighing his words with
the utmost care.
"This Chord," he said simply--yet, for all the simplicity, there ran to
and fro behind his words the sense of unlawful and immense forces
impending--"I need for a stupendous experiment with sound, an experiment
which will lead in turn towards a yet greater and final one. There is no
harm in your knowing that. To produce a certain transcendent result I
want a complex sound--a chord, but a complete and perfect chord in which
each note is sure of itself and absolutely accurate."
He waited a moment. There was utter silence about them in the room.
Spinrobin held his breath.
"No instrument can help me; the notes must be human," he resumed in a
lower voice, "and the utterers--pure. For the human voice can produce
sounds 'possessing in some degree the characteristics not only of all
musical instruments, but of all sounds of whatever description.' By means
of this chord I hope to utter a certain sound, a certain _name_, of which
you shall know more hereafter. But a name, as you surely know, need not
be composed of one or two syllables only; a whole symphony may be a name,
and a whole orchestra playing for days, or an entire nation chanting for
years, may be required to pronounce the beginning merely of--of certain
names. Yours, Robert Spinrobin, for instance, I can pronounce in a
quarter of a second; but there may be names so vast, so mighty, that
minutes, days, years even, may be necessary for their full utterance.
There may be names, indeed, which can never be known, for they could
never be uttered--_in time_. For the moment I am content simply to drop
this thought into your consciousness; later you shall understand more. I
only wish you to take in now that I need this perfect chord for the
utterance in due course of a certain complex and stupendous name--the
invocation, that is, of a certain complex and stupendous Force!"
"I think I understand," whispered the other, afraid to interrupt more.
"And the difficulty I have experienced in finding the three notes has
been immense. I found Mrs. Mawle--alto; then Miriam I found at birth and
trained her--soprano; and now I have found you, Mr. Spinrobin, and my
chord, with myself as bass, is complete. Your note and Miriam's, soprano
and tenor, are closer than the relations between the other notes, and a
tenor has accordingly been most difficult to find. You can now understand
the importance of your being sympathetic to each other."
Spinrobin's heart burned within him as he listened. He began to grasp
some sweet mystical meaning in the sense of perfect companionship the
mere presence of the girl inspired. They were the upper notes in the same
chord together, linked in a singing and harmonious relation, the one
necessary to the other. Moreover, in the presence of Mr. Skale and the
housekeeper, bass and alto in the full chord, their completeness was
still more emphasized, and they knew their fullest life. The adventure
promised to be amazingly seductive. He would learn practically the
strange truth that to know the highest life Self must be lost and merged
in something bigger. And was this not precisely what he had so long been
seeking--escape from his own insignificance?
"And--er--the Hebrew that you require of me, Mr. Skale?" he asked,
returning to practical considerations.
"Our purposes require a certain knowledge of Hebrew," he answered without
hesitation or demur, "because that ancient language and the magical
resources of sound are profoundly linked. In the actual sounds of many of
the Hebrew letters lies a singular power, unguessed by the majority,
undivined especially, of course, by the mere scholar, but available for
the pure in heart who may discover how to use their extraordinary values.
They constitute, in my view at least, a remnant of the original Chaldaean
mysteries, the lore of that magic which is older than religion. The
secret of this knowledge lies in the _psychic values of sound_; for
Hebrew, the Hebrew of the Bahir, remains in the hierarchy of languages a
direct channel to the unknown and inscrutable forces; and the knowledge
of mighty and supersensual things lies locked up in the correct utterance
of many of its words, letters and phrases. Its correct utterance, mark
well. For knowledge of the most amazing and terrible kind is there,
waiting release by him who knows, and who greatly dares.
"And you shall later learn that sound is power. The Hebrew alphabet you
must know intimately, and the intricate association of its letters with
number, color, harmony and geometrical form, all of which are but
symbols of the Realities at the very roots of life. The Hebrew alphabet,
Mr. Spinrobin, is a 'discourse in methods of manifestation, of
formation.' In its correct pronunciation lies a way to direct knowledge
of divine powers, and to conditions beyond this physical existence."
The clergyman's voice grew lower and lower as he proceeded, and the
conviction was unavoidable that he referred to things whereof he had
practical knowledge. To Spinrobin it was like the lifting of a great
veil. As a boy he had divined something of these values of sound and
name, but with the years this knowledge had come to seem fantastic and
unreal. It now returned upon him with the force of a terrific certainty.
That immense old inner playground of his youth, without boundaries or
horizon, rolled up before his mental vision, inviting further and
detailed discovery.
"With the language, qua language," he continued, "you need not trouble,
but the 'Names' of many things you must know accurately, and especially
the names of the so-called 'Angels'; for these are in reality Forces of
immense potency, vast spiritual Powers, Qualities, and the like, all
evocable by correct utterance of their names. This language, as you will
see, is _alive_ and divine in the true sense; its letters are the
vehicles of activities; its words, terrific formulae; and the true
pronunciation of them remains today a direct channel to divine knowledge.
In time you shall see; in time you shall know; in time you shall hear.
Mr. Spinrobin," and he thrust his great head forwards and dropped his
voice to a hushed whisper, "in time we shall all together make this
Experiment in sound which shall redeem us and make us as Gods!"
"Thank you!" gasped the secretary, swept off his feet by this torrent of
uncommon and mystical language, and passing a moist hand through his
feathery hair. He was not entirely ignorant, of course, of the alleged
use of sound in the various systems of so-called magic that have
influenced the minds of imaginative men during the history of the world.
He had heard, more or less vaguely, perhaps, but still with
understanding, about "Words of Power"; but hitherto he had merely
regarded such things as picturesque superstitions, or half-truths that
lie midway between science and imagination. Here, however, was a man in
the twentieth century, the days of radium, flying machines, wireless
telegraphy, and other invitations towards materialism, who apparently had
practical belief in the effective use of sound and in its psychic and
divine possibilities, and who was devoting all of his not inconsiderable
powers of heart and mind to their actual demonstration. It was
astonishing. It was delightful. It was incredible! And, but for the
currents of a strange and formidable fear that this conception of Skale's
audacious Experiment set stirring in his soul, Spinrobin's enthusiasm
would have been possibly as great as his own.
As it was he went up to the big clergyman and held out his hand, utterly
carried away by the strangeness of it all, caught up in a vague splendor
he did not quite understand, prepared to abandon himself utterly.
"I gather something of what you mean," he said earnestly, "if not all;
and I hope most sincerely I may prove suitable for your purpose when the
time comes. As a boy, you know, curiously enough, I always believed in
the efficacy of names and the importance of naming true. I think," he
added somewhat diffidently, looking up straight into the luminous eyes
above him, "if you will allow me to say so, I would follow you anywhere,
Mr. Skale--anywhere you cared to lead."
"'Upon him that overcometh,'" said the clergyman in that gentle voice he
sometimes used, soft as the voice of woman, "'will I write my new
name....'"
He gazed down very searchingly into the other's eyes for a minute or two,
then shook the proffered hand without another word. And so they
separated and went to bed, for it was long past midnight.