THE MYSTERY THAT WAS UNSOLVED
I think that it only remains for us--Maurice Sheldon, Fellow of
Trinity, and Gilbert Rice, Tutor and Lecturer of the same--to say
briefly how we came in possession of the most amazing narrative ever
written by man.
We have put it together and carefully compiled it from the manuscripts
of our friends--Professor Carmichael, Mr. Frank Abercromby, Mr. John
Herbert Carysfort, and the Rev. Clarence Radcliffe, of St. Boniface
College, Oxford, and curate of St. Dunstane, then and for some time
under Prebendary Seaton.
Mr. Rice and myself, after an unusually hard term of work, took a
reading party to Bude, in North Cornwall. They and we had a very
enjoyable time in a comfortable farmhouse on the cliffs, a mile out
of Bude, in a quiet country district called Upper Lynstone. After the
junior members of our party had dispersed, I suggested that a walking
tour would make a capital wind-up to a very happy vacation.
We struck camp, therefore, went down the coast to Boscastle and
Tintagel, where we explored the wonderfully interesting neighbourhood,
and then we trained from Camelford to Wadebridge. We were to make
Newquay our objective point, and we started at about two o’clock from
our hotel at Wadebridge, having had our luggage sent on to the Headland
Hotel at Newquay.
The afternoon was far from propitious, and when we got out upon St.
Breock’s downs, a mile distant from Wadebridge, we thought a heavy
thunderstorm was coming on, and we sheltered for a time at a toll-house
placed at a fork of the roads. We decided, after all, to push on,
and, when we had reached a most desolate stretch of moorland, we were
appalled by a sudden blaze of light from a murky mass of clouds, which
was instantly followed, not by a peal of thunder, but by a resounding
concussion, which made the very road heave under our feet, and nearly
overturned us both into a ditch.
When we recovered our senses, we saw that a huge aerolite had fallen
upon the moor close by, only a hundred yards from the road. It had
split in two, and the fragments lay rent asunder and sending up vapour
and steam. But our attention was instantly riveted by a conical
cylinder of greyish-coloured metal still partly attached to the smaller
of the two fragments.
The thing was so evidently of artificial make, and had so plainly
fallen, in connection with the aerolite, from the sky, that we were
hardly able to control ourselves for excitement and agitation. Perhaps
I was the more impulsive of the two, for I made several foolish
attempts to secure the strange object, but only burned the skin of my
hands in doing so.
Several occupants of farms lying within a mile of the shock came
running up in due course. We explained what had happened, and
prevailed, by the persuasive argument of a coin, on one of the
sturdiest of them, to procure a vehicle from the nearest available
place, which, unfortunately for us, was as far off as St. Columb
Major. However, before assistance arrived, the cylinder had cooled
sufficiently to enable us to hoist it into the vehicle and to drive
away with it to the little roadside hotel at St. Columb, where we sat
up all night. With a hammer and chisel we managed to break the thing
open, and a roll of manuscripts tumbled out.
We felt like men on the brink of a great discovery, and so truly
we were; for the manuscripts were nothing more nor less than the
astounding narratives which we have here pieced together and present to
the public.
The letters which our friends had despatched from Newbiggin, in
Northumberland, had been published in the Press, and had caused a
sensational flutter at the time. But few had given full credence to
the story, and some had even set it down as a hoax. At the same time,
the utter disappearance of four persons well known at Cambridge and
at Oxford was a thing in itself that needed accounting for. Whatever
explanation was then given, it remains to be seen what attitude the
public in general, and the scientific public in particular, will now
adopt when they read and study the foregoing narrative. Whether men are
convinced or no, it is our duty to clear up all mysteries which so very
personally affect our friends, and this we have now done by letting
them speak for themselves.
There is no hope whatever that we shall ever see them again, and there
are only two theories to be entertained of the fate of Professor
Carmichael and the engineer and of the two peculiar persons who had the
misfortune to be compelled to be their fellow-travellers.
One is, that they came to grief in space. If that be so, there can, I
fear, be little doubt how it happened. They could not have fallen into
the sun, as they once so much dreaded, because if so the cylinder would
have perished with them. Rather do we believe they were struck in the
void of space (probably not far from the earth) by a meteorite, which
wrecked the machine by the shock of direct collision.
The two bodies would then be fused together into one burning mass, and
would fall upon the earth by virtue of the terrestrial attraction. The
only explanation we can give as to how the cylinder could have escaped
is, that, in the last moment of agony and suspense, Carmichael must
have thrown it out into space; then, after the collision, it would
naturally fall upon the huge meteorite as the nearest attracting body
and be carried along with it.
One other theory presents itself: that the catastrophe happened nearer
to Venus, that the Asteroid was not fatally damaged, that the cylinder
was cast adrift, and that the travellers, after an awful struggle with
death, returned to Venus, and are now living in it as their adopted
country.
One very curious circumstance has been noted from an Italian
Observatory. Professor Rossini and his two assistants were attentively
watching Venus early on the morning of a day of exceptionally fine
weather in August. They noticed tiny sparklets of light emitted from
the summit of the high mountain on the southern horn of the crescent.
These lights continued flashing for nearly a quarter of an hour, and it
is at least a remarkable coincidence that the number of flashes, which
were carefully counted by Professor Rossini, exactly correspond to the
letters in the names of Carmichael and Carysfort.
Can we dare to deduce any theory of hope from this? The planet has been
kept under close observation, but nothing has been noted since.
(Signed) MAURICE SHELDON.
GILBERT RICE.
BRIGHTON
H. AND C. TREACHER
PRINTERS
Transcriber’s note:
Obvious errors in punctuation have been silently corrected in this
version, but minor inconsistencies and archaic forms have been
retained as printed. Typos in proper names have been silently
corrected. The footnote has been slightly moved to better fit the
ebook format.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.
The following alterations have been made:
On page 052: umanity _to_ humanity
“I will go about in a bath-chair if it is to benefit humanity,” said
Abercromby.
On page 088: eludicate _to_ elucidate
The Professor admitted that this was quite possible, but it did not
elucidate the amazing problem of how English could be known in Venus.
On page 165: eyerywhere _to_ everywhere
And as for you, strangers, go forth and spread everywhere the things
which God has done for your world,
On page 174: hought _to_ I thought
“Pardon the liberty I am taking, but I thought you would like to know
how we are all doing.