THE GUARDS AT THE SILVER GATEWAY.—WHAT THEY WERE LIKE.—OUR RECEPTION
BY THEM.—I MAKE A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.—THE WORLD’S FIRST
TELEPHONE.—BULGER AND I SUCCEED IN MAKING FRIENDS WITH THESE
STRANGERS.—A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SOODOPSIES, THAT IS, MAKE
BELIEVE EYES, OR THE FORMIFOLK, THAT IS, ANT PEOPLE.—HOW A BLIND
MAN MAY READ YOUR WRITING.
O great Don Fum, Master of all Masters, what do I not owe thee for
having made known unto me the existence of this wonderful World within a
World! Would that I had been a worker in metal! I would not have passed
the glorious portal at which I had halted without having set in deep
intaglio upon its silver columns the full name of the most glorious
scholar whom the world has ever known. Bulger had warned me that this
gateway was guarded, and therefore I entered it cautiously, taking care
to peer into the dark corners lest I might be a target for some
invisible enemy to hurl a weapon at.
No sooner had I passed the gateway than three curious little beings of
about my own height threw themselves swiftly and silently across the
pathway. They wore short jackets, knee-breeches, and leggings reaching
to their ankles, but no hats or shoes, and their clothes were profusely
decorated with beautiful silver buttons.
Their hands and feet and heads seemed much too large for their little
bodies and pipe-stemmy legs, and gave them an uncanny and brownie look,
which was greatly increased by the staring and glassy expression of
their large, round eyes. When I first caught sight of them they had hold
of hands, but now they stood each with his pair stretched out toward
Bulger and me, waving them strangely in the air and agitating their long
fingers as if they were endeavoring to set a spell upon us.
I imagined that I could feel a sensation of drowsiness creeping over me
and made haste to call out:—
“Nay, good people, do not strive to set a spell upon me. I am the
illustrious explorer from the upper world,—Sebastian von Troomp,—and
come to you with most peaceful intent.”
But they paid no heed to my words, merely advancing a few inches and
with outstretched hands continued to beat and claw the air, pausing only
to signal to each other by touching each other’s hands or different
parts of each other’s bodies. I was deeply perplexed by their actions,
and took a step or two forward when instantly they fell back the same
distance.
“All men are brothers,” I exclaimed in a loud tone, “and carry the same
shaped hearts in their breasts. Why do you fear me? You are thrice my
number and in your own home. I pray you stand fast and speak to me!”
As I was pronouncing these words, they kept jerking their heads back as
if the sound of my voice were smiting them in the face. It was very
strange. Suddenly one of them drew from his pocket a ball of silken
cord, and, deftly unrolling it, tossed one end toward me. It flew
directly towards me, for its end was weighed with a thin disk of
polished silver, as was the end retained in the hand of the thrower. His
next move was to open his jacket and apparently press his disk against
his bare body right over his heart. I made haste to do the same with
mine, holding it firmly in place. This done, he retreated a step or two
until the silken cord had been drawn quite taut. Then he paused and
stood for several instants without moving a muscle, after which he
passed the disk to one of his companions, who, having pressed it against
his heart in turn, passed it to the third of the group.
With the quickness of thought the truth now burst upon me: The three
brownie-like creatures in front of me were not only blind, but they were
deaf and dumb. The one sense upon which they relied, and which in them
was of most marvellous keenness, was the sense of feeling. The strange
motions of their hands and fingers, so much like the beating and waving
of an insect’s feelers, were simply to intercept and measure the
vibrations of the air set in motion by the movements of my body. Their
large round eyes, too, had but the sense of feeling, but so wondrously
acute was it that it was almost like the power of sight, enabling them
by the vibration of the air upon the balls to tell exactly how near a
moving object is to them. Their purpose in throwing the silken cord and
silver disk to me was by measuring the beating of my heart and comparing
it with their own to determine whether I was human like them.
Judge of my astonishment, dear friends, upon seeing one of their number
point to the silver disk and, by means of sign-language, give me to
understand that they wanted to feel the heart of the living creature in
my company.
Stooping down, I hastened to gratify their curiosity by applying it over
my dear Bulger’s heart.
At once there was an expression of most comical amazement depicted on
their faces as they passed the disk from one to the other and pressed it
against different parts of their bodies—now against their breasts, now
against their cheeks, and even against their closed eyelids. Of course I
knew that their amazement proceeded from the rapid beating of Bulger’s
heart, and I enjoyed their child-like surprise very much. All expression
of fear now vanished from their faces, and I was delighted with the look
of sweet temper and good humor that played about their features, now
wreathed in smiles.
Slowly and on tip-toe they drew near to Bulger and me and for several
minutes amused themselves mightily by running their long, flexible
fingers hither and thither over our bodies.
It did not take them long to discover that I was to all intents and
purpose a creature of their own kind, but not so with Bulger. Their
round faces became seamed and lined with wonder as they made themselves
acquainted with his, to them, strange build, and ever and anon as they
felt him over would they pause and in lightning-like motions of their
fingers on each other’s hands and arms and faces exchange thoughts as to
the wonderful being which had entered the portal of their city.
No doubt you are dying of impatience, dear friends, to be told something
more definite concerning these strange people among whom I had fallen.
Well, know, then, that their existence had been darkly hinted at in the
manuscript of the Great Master, Don Fum. I say darkly hinted at, for you
must bear in mind that Don Fum never visited this World within a World;
that his wonderful wisdom enabled him to reason it all out without
seeing it, just as the great naturalists of our day, upon finding a
single tooth belonging to some gigantic creature which lived thousands
of years ago, are able to draw complete pictures of him.
Well, these curious beings whose city Bulger and I had entered are
called by two different names in Don Fum’s wonderful book. In some
places he speaks of them as the Soodopsies, or Make-believe Eyes, and in
others as the Formifolk or Ant People. Either name was most appropriate,
their large, round, clear eyes being really make-believe ones, for, as I
have told you, they had absolutely no sense of sight; while on the other
hand, the fact that they were deaf, dumb, and blind, and lived in
underground homes, made them well entitled to the name of Ant People. In
a few moments the three Soodopsies had succeeded in teaching me the main
principles of their pressure-language, so that I was, to their great
delight, enabled to answer a number of their questions.
[Illustration: THE FORMIFOLK TRY THE BEAT OF THE BARON’S HEART BY
TELEPHONE.]
But think not, dear friends, that these very wise and active little
folk, skilled in so many arts, have no other language than one
consisting of pressures of different degree, made by their finger-tips
upon each other’s bodies. They had a most beautiful language, so rich
that they were able to express the most difficult thoughts, to give
utterance to the most varied emotions; in short, a language quite the
equal of ours in all respects save one—it contained absolutely no word
that could give them the faintest notion what color was. This is not to
be wondered at, for they themselves neither had nor could have even the
faintest conception of what I meant by color, so that when I attempted
to make them understand that our stars were bright points in the sky,
they asked me if they would prick my finger if I should press upon one
of them. But you doubtless are anxious to know how the Formifolk can
possibly make use of any other language than that of pressures. Well, I
will tell you. Every Soodopsy carried at his girdle a little blank-book,
if I may so term it, the covers being of thin silver plates variously
carved and chased as the owner’s taste may prompt. The leaves of this
book also consist of thin sheets of silver not much thicker than our
tin-foil; also fastened to his girdle by a silken cord hangs a silver
pen or, rather, a stylus. Now, when a Soodopsy wishes to say something
to one of his people, something too difficult to express by pressures of
the finger-tips, he simply turns over a leaf of the silver against the
inside of either cover, both of which are slightly padded, and taking up
his stylus proceeds to write out what he wishes to say; and this done he
deftly tears the leaf out and hands it to his companion, who taking it
and turning it over, runs the wonderfully sensitive tips of his fingers
over the raised writing and reads it with the greatest ease; only of
course he reads from right to left instead of from left to light, as it
was written. So, hereafter, when I repeat my conversations with the
Formifolk, you will understand how they were conducted.