I
And thus the affair moved nearer to its close. The theory and practice of
molding form by means of sound was the next bang at his mind--delivered
in the clergyman's most convincing manner, and, in view of the proofs
that soon followed, an experience that seemed to dislocate the very
foundations of his visible world, deemed hitherto secure enough at least
to stand on.
Had it all consisted merely of talk on Mr. Skale's part the secretary
would have known better what to think. It was the interludes of practical
proof that sent his judgment so awry. These definite, sensible results,
sandwiched in between all the visionary explanation, left him utterly at
sea. He could not reconcile them altogether with hypnotism. He could
only, as an ordinary man, already with a bias in the mystical direction,
come to the one conclusion that this overwhelming and hierophantic man
was actually in touch with cisterns of force so terrific as to be
dangerous to what he had hitherto understood to be--life. It was easy
enough for the clergyman, in his optimistic enthusiasm, to talk about
their leading to a larger life. But what if the experiment failed, and
these colossal powers ran amok upon the world--and upon the invokers?
Moreover--chief anxiety of all--what was this name to be experimented
with? What was the nature of this force that Skale hoped to invoke--so
mighty that it should make them "as gods," so terrible that a chord alone
could compass even the first of its stupendous syllables?
And, further, he was still haunted with the feeling that other "beings"
occupied certain portions of the rambling mansion, and more than once
recently he had wakened in the night with an idea, carried over from
dreams possibly, that the corridor outside his bedroom was moving and
alive with footsteps. "From dreams possibly," for when he went and peered
shivering through the narrow crack of the half-opened door, he saw
nothing unusual. And another time--he was awake beyond question at the
moment, for he had been reading till two o'clock and had but just
extinguished the candle--he had heard a sound that he found impossible to
describe, but that sent all the blood with a swift rush from the region
of his heart. It was not wind; it was not the wood cracking with the
frost; it was not snow sliding from the slates outside. It was something
that simultaneously filled the entire building, yet sounded particularly
loud just outside his door; and it came with the abrupt suddenness of a
report. It made him think of all the air in the rooms and halls and
passages being withdrawn by immense suction, as though a gigantic dome
had been dropped over the building in order to produce a vacuum. And just
after it he heard, unmistakably, the long soft stride of Skale going past
his door and down the whole length of the corridor--stealthily, very
quickly, with the hurry of anxiety or alarm in his silence and his speed.
This, moreover, had now happened twice, so that imagination seemed a
far-fetched explanation. And on both occasions the clergyman had remained
invisible on the day following until the evening, and had then
reappeared, quiet and as usual, but with an atmosphere of immense
vibratory force somehow about his person, and a glow in his face and eyes
that at moments seemed positively colored.
No word of explanation, however, had as yet been forthcoming of these
omens, and Spinrobin waited with what patience he could, meanwhile, for
the final test which he knew to be close upon him. And in his diary, the
pages usually left blank now because words failed him, he wrote a
portion of Anone's cry that had caught his memory and expressed a little
of what he felt:
... for fiery thoughts
Do shape themselves within me, more and more,
Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear
Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills,
_Like footsteps upon wool_....
II
It was within three days of the expiration of his trial month that he
then had this conversation with the clergyman, which he understood quite
well was offered by way of preparation for the bigger tests about to
come. He has reported what he could of it; it seemed to him at the time
both plausible and absurd; it was of a piece, that is, with the rest of
the whole fabulous adventure.
Mr. Skale, as they walked over the snowy moors in the semi-darkness
between tea and dinner, had been speaking to him about the practical
results obtainable by sound-vibrations (what he already knew for that
matter), and how it is possible by fiddling long enough upon a certain
note to fiddle down a bridge and split it asunder. From that he passed on
to the scientific fact that the ultimate molecules of matter are not only
in constant whirring motion, but that also they do not actually touch one
another. The atoms composing the point of a pin, for instance, shift and
change without ceasing, and--there is space between them.
Then, suddenly taking Spinrobin's arm, he came closer, his booming tone
dropping to a whisper:
"To change the form of anything," he said in his ear, "is merely to
change the arrangement of those dancing molecules, to alter their rate of
vibration." His eyes, even in the obscurity of the dusk, went across the
other's face like flames.
"By means of sound?" asked the other, already beginning to feel eerie.
The clergyman nodded his great head in acquiescence.
"Just as the vibrations of heat-waves," he said after a pause, "can
alter the form of a metal by melting it, so the vibrations of sound can
alter the form of a thing by inserting themselves between those
whirling molecules and changing their speed and arrangement--change the
outline, that is."
The idea seemed fairly to buffet the little secretary in the face, but
Mr. Skale's proximity was too overpowering to permit of very clear
thinking. Feeling that a remark was expected from him, he managed to
ejaculate an obvious objection in his mind.
"But is there any sound that can produce vibrations fine and rapid
enough--to--er--accomplish such a result?"
Mr. Skale appeared almost to leap for pleasure as he heard it. In reality
he merely straightened himself up.
"That," he cried aloud, to the further astonishment and even alarm of his
companion, "is another part of my discovery--an essential particular of
it: the production of sound-vibrations fine and rapid enough to alter
shapes! Listen and I will tell you!" He lowered his voice again. "I have
found out that by uttering the true inner name of anything I can set in
motion harmonics--harmonics, note well, half the wave length and twice
the frequency!--that are delicate and swift enough to insert themselves
between the whirling molecules of any reasonable object--any object, I
mean, not too closely or coherently packed. By then swelling or lowering
my voice I can alter the scale, size or shape of that object almost
indefinitely, its parts nevertheless retaining their normal relative
proportions. I can scatter it to a huge scale by separating its molecules
indefinitely, or bring them so closely together that the size of the
object would be reduced to a practical invisibility!"
"Re-create the world, in fact!" gasped Spinrobin, feeling the earth he
knew slipping away under his feet.
Mr. Skale turned upon him and stood still a moment. The huge moors,
glimmering pale and unreal beneath their snow, ran past them into
the sky--silent forms corresponding to who knows what pedal notes?
The wind sighed--audible expression of who shall say what mighty
shapes?... Something of the passion of sound, with all its mystery and
splendor, entered his heart in that windy sigh. Was anything real? Was
anything permanent?... Were Sound and Form merely interchangeable symbols
of some deeper uncataloged Reality? And was the visible cohesion after
all the illusory thing?
"Re-mold the whole universe, sir!" he roared through the darkness, in a
way that made the other wish for the touch of Miriam's hand to steady
him. "I could make you, my dear Spinrobin, immense, tiny, invisible, or
by a partial utterance of your name, permanently crooked. I could
overwhelm your own vibrations and withdraw their force, as by suction of
a vacuum, absorbing yourself into my own being. By uttering the name of
this old earth, if I knew it, I could alter its face, toss the forests
like green dust into the sea, and lift the pebbles of the seashore to the
magnitude of moons! Or, did I know the true name of the sun, I could
utter it in such a way as to identify myself with its very being, and so
escape the pitiful terrors of a limited personal existence!"
He seized his companion's arm and began to stride down the mountainside
at a terrific pace, almost lifting Spinrobin from his feet as he did so.
About the ears of the panting secretary the wild words tore like bullets,
whistling a new and dreadful music.
"My dear fellow," he shouted through the night, "at the Word of Power of
a true man the nations would rush into war, or sink suddenly into eternal
peace; the mountains be moved into the sea, and the dead arise. To know
the sounds behind the manifestations of Nature, the names of mechanical
as well as of psychical Forces, of Hebrew angels, as of Christian
virtues, is to know Powers that you can call upon at will--and use! Utter
them in the true vibratory way and you waken their counterpart in
yourself and stir thus mighty psychic powers into activity in your Soul."
He rained the words down upon the other's head like a tempest.
"Can you wonder that the walls of Jericho fell flat before a 'Sound,'
or that the raging waves of the sea lay still before a voice that
called their Name? My discovery, Mr. Spinrobin, will run through the
world like a purifying fire. For to utter the true names of
individuals, families, tribes and nations, will be to call them to the
knowledge of their highest Selves, and to lift them into tune with the
music of the Voice of God."
They reached the front door, where the gleam of lamps shone with a homely
welcome through the glass panels. The clergyman released his companion's
arm; then bent down towards him and added in a tone that held in it for
the first time something of the gravity of death:
"Only remember--that to utter falsely, to pronounce incorrectly, to call
a name incompletely, is the beginning of all evil. For it is to lie with
the very soul. It is also to evoke forces without the adequate
corresponding shape that covers and controls them, and to attract upon
yourself the destructive qualities of these Powers--to your own final
disintegration and annihilation."
Spinrobin entered the house, filled with a sense of awe that was cold and
terrible, and greater than all his other sensations combined. The winds
of fear and ruin blew shrill about his naked soul. None the less he was
steadfast. He would remain to bless. Mr. Skale might be violent in mind,
unbalanced, possibly mad; but his madness thundered at the doors of
heaven, and the sound of that thundering completed the conquest of his
admiration. He really believed that when the end came those mighty doors
would actually open. And the thought woke a kind of elemental terror in
him that was not of this world--yet marvelously attractive.
III
That night the singular rushing sound again disturbed him. It seemed as
before to pass through the entire building, but this time it included a
greater space in its operations, for he fancied he could hear it outside
the house as well, traveling far up into the recesses of the dark
mountains. Like the sweep of immense draughts of air it went down the
passage and rolled on into the sky, making him think of the clergyman's
suggestion that some sounds might require airwaves of a hundred miles
instead of a few inches, too vast to be heard as sound. And shortly after
it followed the great gliding stride of Mr. Skale himself down the
corridor. That, at least, was unmistakable.
During the following day, moreover, Mr. Skale remained invisible.
Spinrobin, of course, had never permitted himself to search the house, or
even to examine the other rooms in his own corridor. The quarters where
Miriam slept were equally unknown to him. But he was quite certain that
these prolonged periods of absence were spent by the clergyman in some
remote part of the rambling building where there existed isolated, if not
actually secret, rooms in which he practiced the rituals of some
dangerous and intrepid worship. And these intimidating and mysterious
sounds at night were, of course, something to do with the forces he
conjured....
The day was still and windless, the house silent as the grave. He walked
about the hills during the afternoon, practicing his Hebrew "Names" and
"Words" like a schoolboy learning a lesson. And all about him the slopes
of mountain watched him, listening. So did the sheet of snow, shining in
the wintry sunlight. The clergyman seemed to have put all sound in his
pocket and taken it away with him. The absence of anything approaching
noise became almost oppressive. It was a Silence that prepares. Spinrobin
went about on tiptoe, spoke to Miriam in whispers, practiced his Names in
hushed, expectant tones. He almost expected to see the moors and
mountains open their deep sides and let the Sounds of which they were the
visible shape escape awfully about him....
In these hours of solitude, all that Skale had told him, and more still
that he divined himself, haunted him with a sense of disquieting reality.
Inaudible sounds of fearful volume, invisible forms of monstrous
character, combinations of both even, impended everywhere about him. He
became afraid lest he might stumble, as Skale had done, on the very note
that should release them and bring them howling, leaping, crashing about
his ears. Therefore, he tried to make himself as small as possible; he
muffled steps and voice and personality. If he could, he would have
completely disappeared.
He looked forward to Skale's return, but when evening came he was still
alone, and he dined _tête-à-tête_ with Miriam for the first time. And
she, too, he noticed, was unusually quiet. Almost they seemed to have
entered the world of Mrs. Mawle, the silent regions of the deaf. But for
the most part it is probable that these queer impressions were due to the
unusual state of Spinrobin's imagination. He knew that it was his last
night in the place--unless the clergyman accepted him; he knew also that
Mr. Skale had absented himself with a purpose, and that the said purpose
had to do with the test of Alteration of Forms by Sound, which would
surely be upon him before the sun rose. So that, one way and another, it
was natural enough that his nerves should have been somewhat overtaxed.
The presence of Miriam and Mrs. Mawle, however, did much to soothe him.
The latter, indeed, mothered the pair of them quite absurdly, smiling all
the time while she moved about softly with the dishes, and doing her best
to make them eat enough for four. Between courses she sat at the end of
the room, waiting in the shadows till Miriam beckoned to her, and once or
twice going so far as to put her hand upon Spinrobin's shoulder
protectively.
His own mind, however, all the time was full of charging visions. He kept
thinking of the month just past and of the amazing changes it had brought
into his thoughts. He realized, too, now that Mr. Skale was away,
something of the lonely and splendid courage of the man, following this
terrific, perhaps mad, ideal, day in day out, week in week out, for
twenty years and more, his faith never weakening, his belief undaunted.
Waves of pity, too, invaded him for the first time--pity for this sweet
girl, brought up in ignorance of any other possible world; pity for the
deaf old housekeeper, already partially broken, and both sacrificed to
the dominant idea of this single, heaven-climbing enthusiast; pity last
of all for himself, swept headlong before he had time to reflect, into
the audacious purpose of this violent and headstrong super-man.
All manner of emotions stirred now this last evening in his perplexed
breast; yet out of the general turmoil one stood forth more clearly than
the rest--his proud consciousness that he was taking an important part in
something really big at last. Behind the screen of thought and emotion
which veiled so puzzlingly the truth, he divined for the first time in
his career a golden splendor. If it also terrified him, that was only his
cowardice.... In the same way it might be splendid to jump into Niagara
just above the falls to snatch a passing flower that seemed more
wonderful than any he had seen before, but--!
"Miriam, tomorrow is my last day," he said suddenly, catching her grey
eyes upon him in the middle of his strange reflections. "Tonight may be
my last night in this house with you."
The girl made no reply, merely looking up and smiling at him. But the
singing sensation that usually accompanied her gaze was not present.
"That was very nearly--a discord," she observed presently, referring to
his remark. "It was out of tune!" And he realized with a touch of shame
what she meant. For it was not true that this was his last evening; he
knew really that he would stay on and that Mr. Skale would accept him.
Quick as a flash, with her simple intuition, she felt that he had said
this merely to coax from her some sign of sympathy or love. And the girl
was not to be drawn. She knew quite well that she held him and that their
fate, whatever it might be, lay together.
The gentle rebuke made him silent again. They sat there smiling at one
another across the table, and old Mrs. Mawle, sitting among the shadows
at the far end of the room, her hands crossed in front of her, her white
evening cap shining like a halo above her patient face, watched them,
also smiling. The rest of the strange meal passed without conversation,
for the great silence that all day had wrapped the hills seemed to have
invaded the house as well and laid its spell upon every room. A deep
hush, listening and expectant, dropped more and more about the building
and about themselves.
After dinner they sat for twenty minutes together before the library
fire, their toes upon the fender, for, contrary to her habit, Miriam had
not vanished at once to her own quarters.
"We're not alone here," remarked Spinrobin presently, in a low voice, and
she nodded her head to signify agreement. The presence of Mr. Skale when
he was in the house but invisible, was often more real and tremendous
than when he stood beside them and thundered. Some part of him, some
emanation, some potent psychic messenger from his personality, kept them
closely company, and tonight the secretary felt it very vividly. His
remark was really another effort to keep in close touch with Miriam, even
in thought. He needed her more than ever in this sea of silence that was
gathering everywhere about him. Gulf upon gulf it rose and folded over
him. His anxiety became every moment more acute, and those black serpents
of fear that he dreaded were not very far away. By every fiber in his
being he felt certain that a test which should shake the very foundations
of his psychical life was slowly and remorselessly approaching him.
Yet, though he longed to speak outright and demand of Miriam what she
knew, and especially that she should reveal the place of the clergyman's
concealment and what portent it was that required all this dread and
muted atmosphere for its preparation, he kept a seal upon his lips,
realizing that loyalty forbade, and that the knowledge of her contempt
would be even worse than the knowledge of the truth.
And so in due course she rose to go, and as he opened the door for her
into the hall, she paused a moment and turned towards him. A sudden
inexplicable thrill flashed through him as she turned her eyes upon his
face, for he thought at first she was about to speak. He has never
forgotten the picture as she stood there so close to his side, the
lamplight on her slim figure in its white silk blouse and neat dark
skirt, the gloom of the unlit hall and staircase beyond--stood there an
instant, then put both her arms about his neck, drew him down to her, and
kissed him gently on both cheeks. Twice she kissed him, then was gone
into the darkness, so softly that he scarcely heard her steps, and he
stood between the shadows and the light, her perfume still lingering, and
with it the sweet and magical blessing that she left behind. For that
caress, he understood, was the innocent childlike caress of their first
days, and with all the power of her loving little soul in it she had
given him the message that he craved: "Courage! And keep a brave heart,
dear Spinny, _tonight_!"