My uncle recovered the power of speech rapidly. Before I had been a week
in his house he was able to talk with comparative ease. He seemed to
enjoy my companionship, and I spent most of my time in his library,
conversing with him or conning the musty books that had long lain
unread. To me this room was a fascinating and restful place. Somehow
it reminded me of an old cemetery. The time-worn books upon its shelves
stood in solemn rows, like headstones, sacred to the memory of the men
who wrote them--their titles like inscriptions half obliterated. I did
not see Rayel for days after the midnight episode that gave me such a
startling revelation of his power.
“Do you think that Rayel knows everything that passes in one's mind--a
vivid dream, for instance?” I asked my uncle one day when we were alone
together.
Yes, except when he is himself asleep. His command of my dreams puzzled
me at first. I thought I had put the past completely out of my mind. But
I could not hide it from him. Little by little he learned everything in
my history. One day I saw him at work on a picture. It startled me.
The canvas showed a man lying on a surgeon's table. The knife had just
severed an artery in his thigh. There were four men working over him--I
was one of them. Gradually the features took on a familiar expression.
His face grew paler under the brush. A few touches--the scene was
complete. The man was dead--his eyes wide open, staring at me.
My uncle paused and looked earnestly into my face.
“It was a bit of your professional experience,” said I. “Something had
reminded you of it.”
“The night before I dreamed about it” he answered. “My mind, released
from the command of my will, betrayed me.”
“A strange power!” I exclaimed.
“Incredible to you! Impossible to acquire unless the work begins at
birth, and then the possibilities are infinite,” said he, drawing his
chair closer to mine. “You know what I have done. Start the new-born
mind on any highway and see how it hurries along. You can do more,
working a little while over the cradle, than all the preachers under
heaven, after its occupant has grown beyond your ministry. I tell
you, sir, the world is indifferent to its children. Neglected by their
parents, subject to hired tenderness or none at all; left to the care of
ignorant or depraved nurses, and often taught little but selfishness
and greed of gain, the children of men are surrounded by destructive
agencies. Can we wonder that the human mind loses in infancy so much
of its native power? But so the generations of earth are growing up,
bearing embittered fruit and sowing its seed to the four winds.
Who cares for the mind and body of a child has the highest possible
mission--the most sacred of all trusts. He must give it all his time and
strength. He must lead its mind into green pastures; he must share its
joys; he must know its hopes and fears; he must give it hold on lines
of thought that reach into eternity, which will sooner or later flood it
with inspiration; he must see that the brain has a sufficient foundation
of flesh and blood and bone; he must give it all his life until the
germs of power are developed.”
“Unfortunately,” said I, “most parents have other things to do and think
of.”
“Parentage is a crime under such circumstances. It has peopled the world
with fools and knaves. It delays the coming of Christ's kingdom. There
are a few wise men, but they are held down as gravitation holds the
rock. There are laws of attraction in the world of mind as in that of
matter. Good and evil are its poles. Every atom between them is held in
place by the operation of opposing forces. The general mass of mind
lies within narrow zones on both sides of the equatorial line of this
imaginary world. Its attraction prevents any men from rising far above
or descending far below it. I tell you, sir, the intellectual world has
degrees of latitude and longitude which determine every man's location.
Emancipated from the forces I have described, my son has risen to a
level beyond the attainment of men under ordinary conditions. Hypocrisy
and deceit are things of which he knows nothing. I do not ascribe to
him, mind you, the possession of saintly virtues. He is a man in whom
the best potentialities of mind and body have been developed. I have
carefully avoided the danger of making him a morbid, spiritual creature.
His body is quite as wonderful as his mind.”
My uncle had been pacing restlessly up and down the room as he spoke,
often pausing before me and uttering his words vehemently, with quick
gestures and flashing eyes. He did not, seemingly, expect an answer to
his remark, for, as he ceased speaking, he stepped before one of the
windows and stood for a moment looking out upon the courtyard.
“See!” said he suddenly, motioning to me.
I stepped to his side and, looking through the window, saw Rayel running
across the lawn with the lion on his shoulders. When the beast sprang
down he seized it by the mane and tossed it about like one with the
strength of Hercules. Here was a man who exercised his rightful dominion
over animated nature!
“The beast is very fond of him,” said my uncle, “and a movement of his
finger is sufficient to control it.”
“Why did you adopt a pet so terrible?” I asked.
“To secure isolation,” he answered. “He's an object of terror to
intruders, and a source of delight to us.”
“You have snakes here, too,” I ventured.
“Yes, and for the same reason, But they can't harm you now. Since you
came we have killed them. They have been good friends to me, but you
were a stranger, and your life would have been in danger every day.
Years ago I procured a score of them from the mountains of Pennsylvania
and put them into the thickets. They multiplied like rats, and so I was
armed against invasion.
“To prevent their escape I sank a screen of wire two feet below the
ground along the base of the walls; I also posted a warning inside my
gate. Long ago I began to destroy them, and there were only a few left
when you came. They were good friends to me--excellent friends!” he
repeated, rubbing his hands with a grim smile. “For eighteen years I
have been able to carry on my work unmolested. No knowledge of what was
transpiring outside this little world has ever reached me.”
“How did you begin the work of teaching this interior language to
Rayel?” I asked.
“By signs at first--gradually making them more simple and suggestive.
The elimination of signs kept pace with the development of his
intuitions. It was slow work and hard work, but I gave all my time
to it. After he became familiar with a sign, I began to make it less
pantomimic, until finally a lift of the eyebrow, a movement of the lips,
or an inclination of the head served to express my meaning. In time he
could detect the passing shades of expression in my eyes and understand
them. Look at me,” said he, laying his hand on my head and watching my
eyes as the firelight shone upon them, for it was now evening.
“Don't you know, my boy, that your eyes reflect what is passing in your
mind? Then there are countless nerves and muscles in your face which
proclaim thought. They aid my intuitions to discover what you do not
speak. You wonder--ah! you are afraid!--afraid of me.”
I started in my chair, for while he was looking into my eyes a strange
gleam came into his own. He turned about suddenly and looked into the
bright fire that burned on the grate before us.
“Never fear,” he continued, nervously twirling a lock of his white hair.
“Never fear, sir--I am not mad. Not yet. I have been afraid of it, but
my reason will outlast my life. Do you ever pray?”
“Every day,” I answered.
“Then you employ the interior language. We commune directly with the
Holy Spirit. You get some message from Him every day more satisfactory
than words. It's the answer of your prayers. I tell you, sir, words are
an invention of the devil. Do you like Rayel?” he asked, turning upon me
abruptly.
“You need have no doubt of that,” I answered, “or of my willingness to
look after him if it should be necessary--to take him away with me and
cherish him as I would a brother.”
“Good! Good!” he exclaimed smiling and rubbing his hands joyfully.
“I have not long to live. When the time comes, take him out among the
knaves and fools! But we must hurry: our time is short. We must prepare
him for a second birth. You will find him an apt pupil--a very apt one.
He already knows more of the world than I thought possible. I don't
think you will find him troublesome--he can help you; he will teach
you wisdom; he will enlarge the issues of your life. My fortune will be
ample for his needs: use it as you see fit. I have one servant left,”
he said, drawing his chair closer to mine and speaking scarcely above
a whisper: “I would like this to be his home when I am dead. It will be
better, however, to place him in some public institution where he can
be well provided for. I shall leave a sufficient allowance for him. The
manner of its bestowal I leave entirely to your judgment. There were two
of them--you have seen the other. He was a faithful fellow. They were
poor fools, both of them, but uncommonly wise,” he continued. “They kept
it to themselves. I found them in an asylum twenty-five years ago. They
called them idiots. Idiots! God help us!”
That strange light seemed to kindle in his eyes again while he was
speaking, and it conveyed anything but a cheerful suggestion to my mind.
“There is this difference between idiots and madmen,” he continued. “The
former are born outside the pale of human sympathy; the latter overstep
it. In either case they are not of this earth--they are embodied spirits
living in a world of their own creation, biding the time of liberation
from the flesh. And do you know, there are more madmen in the world than
it dreams of?”
He stopped with a tone of sharp interrogation and looked squarely into
my face.
“There are undoubtedly many of them,” said I.
“The lines of monomania all lead to madness,” he continued. “The deeper
one plunges into the mysteries of life the nearer he approaches it. But,
mark you, one man may venture further than another. For years I have
lived in fear of two things--madness and death. Not on my account, but I
had Rayel to think of.”
My uncle rose to his feet before he had ceased speaking and walked
stealthily on his tiptoes to an open door, where he stood for a moment
listening. I could hear nothing but the sound of the wind whistling in
the chimney.
“Wait here,” he whispered presently, and then disappeared through the
door, closing it after him. I held my watch down to the firelight and
saw it was near eleven o'clock. I felt drowsy, and had almost fallen
asleep, when my uncle returned, carrying a lantern. “Rayel is asleep,”
said he, in a whisper. “Won't you come with me?--it will not take long.”
“Certainly,” said I, rising, and waiting for him to lead the way. He put
on his antique hat and threw a shawl over his shoulders.
“It's a chilly night,” said he. “You'd better wear another coat.”
I drew on my overcoat at once, wondering what new experience awaited
me. Holding the lantern in front of him, he proceeded slowly and feebly
across the rear courtyard, and unlocked a door in one of the side wings
of the house, through which we passed into a large unfurnished room.
“I always wait till he's asleep,” said my uncle, shuffling across the
room and unlocking another door on its opposite side. “He's never been
here--never yet,” he continued, pulling the door open. The dim light of
the lantern shone out upon a thicket of fragrant spruce and cedar. As
I stepped down upon the ground, following in the steps of my uncle, I
could hear the murmur of the great pines towering far above our heads.
Slowly we made our way through the dense undergrowth, and soon entered
an open space carpeted with pine needles and moss. It was a circular
plot in the thicket, and out of its centre rose an immense pine, whose
upper branches wholly obscured the sky. My uncle hung his lantern on a
knot protruding from the trunk of the tree, and slowly knelt upon the
ground, covering his face with his hands. Suddenly he beckoned to me,
and I knelt down beside him.
“Listen!” said he. “Do you hear voices? She comes to me here. Can you
see her--my wife? Look about you, do you not see her?”
He laid his trembling hand upon my shoulder. Again I saw that awful
gleam in his eyes. The gruesome suggestion he had made set my nerves
tingling, and I peered about among the shadows of that dimly lighted
recess, half expecting some vision to greet my eyes. Then there came a
loud rustling of the branches high above us. The lantern light flared up
and suddenly went out, leaving us in total darkness.
“She is here!” he whispered, in excitement. “Sit still--do not speak.”
A deep silence, intensified by the sound of the night wind in the trees
around us, followed my uncle's words. The going out of the light he had
seemed to regard as a signal from the spirit world, and I sat still as
he bade me, not doubting that his acute senses had penetrated the veil
which limited my own vision. I had seen so many revelations of his
strange power that I now sat awestruck and afraid, waiting for some word
from him to end my suspense. I could see nothing in the darkness, but
I could hear my uncle breathing heavily, as if trying to suppress his
emotion. Suddenly there was a stir in the bushes near us. Then I heard a
step like that of a man on the thickly covered earth close by my side.
I stretched out prone upon the ground, covering my face with my hands.
I could hear a sound as of some one groping about in the darkness, and
then I felt the touch of a strange hand upon my shoulder.