How the elder Baron and the Baroness received Bulger and me upon our
return from our first voyage. I am decorated by the Emperor with the
grand cross of the Crimson Cincture. The elder Baron presents me
with a copy of an ancient Roman newspaper. I read of the murder of
the beautiful Paula, and the banishment by Cæsar of the Seven
Sculptors to a far-away island in the southern seas. I resolved to
set out in search of the Island. My departure. Trouble with crew. My
sailing-master loses his reason. I hear the cry, Land ho! It is the
Sculptors’ Island. Description of it. I go ashore. Paula’s statue.
Adventures on the Island. Bulger makes a wonderful discovery.
Something about the strange people who inhabit the Island. Their
habits, their pleasures, their characters. I am overtaken by an
alarming melancholy. My awful dread at thought of becoming as one of
the dwellers on the Sculptors’ Isle. I learn of the existence of
Antonius. I seek him. Vain endeavor to grasp his hand. Our
interview. The strange and moving history of the Seven Sculptors and
their descendants. How they were transformed into the Slow Movers.
Bulger and I propose to leave the Island. Extraordinary conduct of a
bust of the great Cæsar. Our farewell to the Slow Movers. Their
adieu. Our good ship sails away.
[Illustration: THE BEAUTIFUL PAULA.]
Upon my return from my first journey to far away lands, the elder baron
and his faithful spouse, my beloved mother, followed by all the
retainers of the household, met Bulger and me at the outer gate and
welcomed us home with that wild and boisterous joy which only German
hearts are capable of.
The elder baron threw his arms around my neck, and, forgetful of the
fact that I was only half his size, lifted me completely off the ground
in the unreasoning joy of a father’s heart, nearly throttling me.
I kicked vigorously, but, the soft felt soles of my oriental shoes
prevented me from giving him to understand that he was fast choking me
to death.
At last my thoughtful mother noticed that I was growing black in the
face, and laying hold of my legs, pulled me downward out of the
dangerous embrace in which the elder baron had wrapped me. Not, however,
until my father’s Nuremberg egg had bored painfully into my protuberant
brow, adding another bump to that already bumpy territory. Upon noticing
which the elder baron dispatched an attendant to his apartment with
orders to search his medicine chest for a bottle of volatile liniment.
In his eagerness to undo the harm he had inflicted, he poured a stream
of acrid liquid into my eyes, causing me intense suffering. This red and
inflamed condition of my eyes, however, the tenants, and retainers
attributed to my emotion upon entering the baronial hall once more,
after so long an absence.
I didn’t regret this little accident at all, for while I am opposed to
that ready-made style of emotion which some people always keep on hand,
I have no objections to a noble and dignified use of tears.
It is needless to say that every body was delighted to see Bulger. They
all found that he had increased in size, beauty and intelligence.
He received all this homage with a dignity that was charming to behold.
To impress the crowd with a due sense of that discipline and
self-control which he acquired as the constant companion and confidant
of his master, he absolutely refused to touch the many tid-bits and
dainty morsels which the retainers offered him, and gazed with the
utmost indifference at the other dogs in their mad scramblings for the
food which he had declined.
I was very proud of him.
In a few days everything had settled down to its wonted quiet again
beneath the baronial roof. Evenings I passed giving accounts of the many
wonderful things I had seen while abroad.
To these sittings, a few of the older and more confidential household
servants were admitted.
My good mother arranged them in a semi-circle behind the chairs of the
elder baron and his guests. I, with Bulger by my side, occupied a dais,
either seated by the side of a table holding my curiosities or standing
in front of my auditors in an easy position, while I held them
spell-bound by my narration.
There was one thing that worried me, and it was this: How will the elder
baron receive the announcement of my intention to leave home again, ere
many moons?
To my great surprise and delight he didn’t even wait for me to make
known my intentions.
While seated in my library, one day, poring over a very rare book of
travels which I had just purchased, a gentle tap at the door caused
Bulger to raise his head and give a low growl.
“Come in!” said I.
It was the elder baron.
“I disturb you!” he began.
“You have that right, baron,” I replied, with a gracious smile; “be
seated, pray.”
And saying this, I arranged the pelt of a very beautiful and rare animal
which I had killed while abroad, so as to make a comfortable seat for
the elder baron on the canopy.
“My son!” said the baron, “I come to bring thee this little token from
our gracious master, the Emperor.”
I looked up.
He held in his hand the insignia of the Grand Cross of the Crimson
Cincture.
I laid the bauble on the table.
“Little baron,” continued my father, “I am well pleased with thee.”
I made a low obeisance.
“Thy marvelous adventures fill all mouths. Thou hast set a new lustre on
the family name, and I come to rouse thee from thy apparent sloth. Thou
must be up and doing. Thou must shake off this indolence which will gain
an increased power over thee each passing hour. New triumphs await thee.
Go forth once more. Turn aside out of the beaten paths. Seek the
wonderful and marvelous. But ere thou settest forth, ponder the contents
of this parchment roll. Many years ago, when the down of manhood first
came upon my cheek, and before life’s burdens had come to lie heavily on
my soul, I found it in the damp and noisome vaults of an ancient Roman
Convent, which the pestilential air of an encroaching marsh had emptied
of its inmates. It may turn thy footsteps toward something strange and
interesting!”
Concealing with difficulty the joy occasioned by my father’s words and
my earnestness to know the contents of the parchment roll, I returned
the elder baron’s salutation with marked respect, and he withdrew.
I need not assure the reader of the almost breathless anxiety with which
I unrolled the volume.
It was in the Latin tongue, and was the work of a scribe.
The ink had faded somewhat, but, even in places where it had entirely
disappeared, I could by the aid of a strong lens readily trace out the
words by the lines scratched into the parchment by the point of the reed
pen.
It was a copy of an ancient Roman newspaper or Acta Diurna, and bore a
date corresponding to our forty-fifth year before the present era.
Cæsar was at the height of his power.
Peace reigned, the arts flourished. Rome, the centre of the world, was
the home of a glory and magnificence far beyond anything the eyes of man
had yet gazed upon.
The contents of this copy of the Acta Diurna were largely made up of
detailed accounts of a famous trial just completed at Rome, in which
seven noted sculptors had been found guilty of poisoning a beautiful
maid named Paula, after they had each completed a statue of her, in
order that no other sculptors should ever be able to make use of her for
the same purpose.
The judges had pronounced the sentence of death upon them, but in
consideration of their splendid services in beautifying the imperial
city, Cæsar had changed their punishment from death to life-long exile.
The seven sculptors had been transported in an imperial galley to a
far-away island in the Southern Seas. As stated in this copy of the Acta
Diurna it was the most remote piece of land belonging to the Roman
Empire lying to the Southward:
“Ad insulam remotissimam imperii romani medianorum.”
As an additional act of the imperial clemency the wives and children of
the condemned sculptors had been graciously accorded permission to
follow their husbands and fathers into their terrible exile.
When I had finished reading all the minute details of this strange crime
and its awful results, I found that my blood was coursing through my
veins with a mad violence. I paced the floor with such a quick and
nervous step and with agitation so plainly visible in my looks, that I
was aroused from my reverie by the anxious whining of Bulger, who was
following me about the room close upon my heels.
Why not go in quest of this far-away isle to which these seven sculptors
and their families were transported by command of great Cæsar?
Perchance in that far-distant isle dwells a race of beings who,
forgetting the world, and forgotten by it, will, by their strange habits
and peculiar customs so interest me as to repay me for all the dangers I
may run in crossing untracked seas and turning aside from ocean paths.
Perchance their descendants may be living yet?
This idea now took possession of my whole being.
Sleep was impossible.
Far into the night I pored over ancient charts.
While deepest silence enwrapped the baronial halls, I worked out in my
mind, or, rather, let my mind work out, the course which I should
pursue.
For it was always a custom of mine never to attempt to solve the
unsolvable. In fact, I early made the discovery that any interference on
my part with the mysterious workings of my mind tended rather to impede
its action.
So I waited calmly for light.
It came at last.
Closing my eyes, with my inner sight I could see a map of the eastern
world traced in glowing, shimmering lines upon an inky background.
And there, too, could I see my course marked out in dotted lines of
fire.
With a loud, ringing cry of joy I sprang to my feet and exclaimed: “I
shall find this wonderful isle! I shall unlock the portals of the
Southern seas! I shall gaze upon the descendants of Paula’s murderers!
“Come, Bulger! Away! Away!”
Hastily bidding adieu to my parents, I swung myself into the saddle,
and, with Bulger securely strapped en croupe, dashed madly away towards
the shores of the Mediterranean.
“The baron’s mad son is off again!” cried the peasants, as I galloped
past their farm houses.
In three days I stood upon the deck of my vessel.
In obedience to my orders, the captain’s hand literally rested upon the
helm.
All that day he had been standing with his eyes riveted upon the shore,
for something told him that I could not be far away.
Everything was in readiness, even to the last biscuit.
As Bulger and I leaped over the rail, my good ship rounded to the wind,
and darted away like a thing of life.
The blood tingled in my veins at sight of the blue waves and white
bellying sails.
Bulger gave vent to his satisfaction in mad gambols and ear-piercing
barks.
It was certainly an auspicious beginning.
Leaving the command of the ship to the mate, the captain joined me in
the cabin, where I unfolded to him my project of sailing in the Southern
seas in quest of a long-forgotten island.
He made haste to unroll his chart and adjust his spectacles, in order to
fix the location of the island when I should give him the latitude and
longitude.
Fancy his almost consternation when I told him that the only proof I had
of the existence of such an island was the brief mention in the ancient
Roman newspaper.
Was I mad?
Did I care no more for life than to throw it away in such a foolhardy
undertaking?
Had I no idea of the rage of the terrible typhoon, the treachery of the
hidden reef, the weight of the watery mountains which would topple on
our deck?
Could I expect seamen to go where there was no record that the most
adventurous sailors of past centuries had ever ploughed the water?
I smiled.
“Master,” said I, after a moment’s silence, “this ship is mine, and you
have sworn to serve me like a true seaman, but if your courage has
failed you, you shall be put ashore at the first port we make. Go!”
“Nay, little baron,” cried the skipper, “I was only testing your
resolution. If you have the courage to sail into unknown seas, I have
the courage to follow you, come bright skies and calm waters or come
storm clouds and thunderbolt!”
I shook the old man’s hand, and bade him go on deck, for at last sleep
had come to my wakeful eyes—the first time in three whole weeks—and I
wanted to be alone.
In a few days we passed the Straits of Gibraltar and turned southward,
keeping the African coat in sight.
I passed my time perfecting myself in the Latin language, and often
called forth very vigorous protestations from Bulger by addressing him
in that tongue, and making use of him as a sort of audience before which
I delivered my speeches after I had rounded them and polished them.
The only stops we made now were for water or provisions.
By daylight and starlight my staunch ship bounded along on her course as
if some friendly nereids were pushing at her stern. In the long watches
of the night I lay in my hammock and pictured to myself that Roman
galley as it bore those seven exiles with kith and kin away from their
beloved land forever.
Ere another moon had bent her crescent in the evening sky we had reached
the Cape, and came to anchor with intent to overhaul our ship most
thoroughly before going farther southward.
This occupied several days.
I chafed under the delay.
Ten times a day I summoned the ship’s master to my cabin and urged him
to make greater haste. He bore with me most patiently. My heart gave a
leap, when, at last, I heard the master order the crew to set the sails.
The seamen were singing and tugging away at the main-sheets as I stepped
upon the deck.
“How shall I head her, little Baron?” asked the master, raising his hand
to his cap.
“Dead to the southward!” I replied.
He stood transfixed.
He had thought that we would round the Cape and follow the usual course
to the Indies.
His lips move as if to protest.
I cut him short, however, with an imperious wave of the hand.
Several of the sailors, noticing the pallor which had overspread the
captain’s face, drew near and stood gazing upon us, half wonderingly,
half inquiringly.
“Captain!” said I calmly, but quite loud enough to be overheard by the
men standing in a group near by, “my pistols were made by the Emperor’s
armorer. They never miss fire. Let me find you changing this vessel’s
course a single point east or west of south and I’ll kill you in your
tracks!”
Saying this I walked away.
From that moment all went well.
The ship’s master saw that I was determined to have my way, even if I
lost my life in consequence, and he yielded.
Turning around to the group of sailors, I called out:
“A thousand ducats to the man who first sights land!”
A hearty cheer rent the air, and calling to Bulger to follow me, I went
below to think.
That night I not only took the precaution to hang a lanthorn so that I
could lie in my hammock and see a ship’s compass at any time I might
awake, but, fearful lest some treachery might be attempted, I ordered my
faithful Bulger to sleep with his back against the door so that the
least vibration would arouse him.
Night after night these precautions were followed out most strictly.
During the day, too, my pistols were always in my belt.
Bulger felt the danger I was in, and he, by his vigilance gave me the
advantage of eyes in the back of my head.
A low growl warned me of the approach of the master or one of the crew.
Thus protected and guarded, I felt that nothing save a general mutiny
need be feared. And this I knew to be almost impossible, for a number of
the crew were too devoted to me to listen to any traitorous proposals.
They would have slain the master in cold blood had he dared to breathe
the word mutiny!
Things went very well for about ten days when I saw that a terrible
struggle was going on in the captain’s mind.
I began to fear that he might lose his reason and throw himself into the
sea.
His face took on a yellow-greenish hue.
He was literally dying of fright.
One morning he threw himself upon his knees in front of me, and with
tear-stained cheeks implored me to put back to the African coast again.
I did all I could to quiet him, but in vain.
His reason was slowly but surely giving way.
Calling the mate to me, I put him in command of the vessel, and directed
him to confine the captain in his cabin and place a guard over him.
It cut me to the heart to be obliged to do this, for the poor fellow
begged like a dog to be left in command of his ship.
But I was deaf to his entreaties.
I felt that now all trouble was at an end.
The wind was blowing fifteen knots an hour.
Every stitch of sail had been crowded on.
We fairly leapt out of the water like a thing of life, half flying half
swimming.
Ever and anon I glanced at the compass.
She was headed dead south.
My cheeks tingled and I could feel the flow of warm blood through every
vein in my body.
The moon went up like a shield of burnished gold. The sea glittered like
liquid fire. Anon, a porpoise leaped into the air and sent a thousand
ripples circling away as he plunged into the water again
Our good ship cleft the glassy bosom of the sea like some huge black
monster of the deep, and left a trail of fire in her wake as far as the
eye could reach.
Towards midnight I went to rest.
But neither rest nor sleep was possible.
Half undressing, I threw myself into my hammock, and Bulger took his
accustomed place at the door.
The lanthorn was not strong enough to overcome the light of the full
moon. It streamed through the bull’s eyes in weird, fantastic rays, and
crowded my cabin with strange and mysterious forms.
They were seven!
Their faces and figures were godlike, so white, so beautiful were they.
There was an indescribable sadness in their full dark eyes.
They spake not a word.
Suddenly the paneling of the cabin ceiling parted, and disclosed a
staircase wrapped in dim, uncertain light.
Adown these steps came a most gracious being, so white and fair and
lovely that I gazed with bated breath.
Down, down it came, nearer and nearer.
She needed but wings to be an angel!
But, oh! her fair face was so filled with sorrow!
Her lips were parted, her long black hair fell in confused tresses on
her shoulders.
She stepped into the cabin. And then, with a quick, dread look, her gaze
fell upon the seven bowed figures.
“Paula!” they cried, and drew their white robes over their heads.
* * * * *
“Land ho! Land ho!”
What! Could I believe my ears?
“Land ho! Land ho!”
With a bound I sprang from my hammock and rushed upon deck.
Ay, it was true! There, half a mile ahead of us, was a sight that
stunned me like the blow of a bludgeon.
Land it was, but not such a land as in my wildest dreams I had hoped to
find.
Ten thousand lights glimmered on that mysterious shore, and illumined
the front of a Roman temple whiter than milk. A marble staircase of the
same hue led down to the very water’s edge.
A sacrifice was in progress.
From the highest terrace a column of black smoke curled slowly upward.
No sound reached my ear.
I stood almost bereft of my senses.
At last, my power of speech returned. I ordered anchor to be cast, and
clinging to the shrouds of my good ship, gazed long and joyfully upon
the entrancing scene.
The land rose in natural terraces from the seashore, and no matter in
what direction you looked, your eye caught glimpses of a graceful statue
or group of statuary gleaming in the white moonlight, amid the dark
foliage, like white-robed figures astray in a wood.
“It must be!” I murmured to myself.
“I have found it! This Roman temple, this marble stairway, these groups
of statuary, all point to the glorious success of my voyage of
discovery. This is the Sculptors’ Isle!”
How long I stood there gazing upon this beautiful shore I know not. Some
one pulling gently at my sleeve roused me from my reverie.
It was Bulger.
I stooped and stroked his head for a few moments.
Suddenly I awoke to a sense of great weariness, and casting another
glance toward that mysterious shore, I turned and descended to the
cabin.
I soon fell into a deep sleep.
The terrible strain upon my nerves since leaving the Cape, caused by the
half mutiny of the crew, the insanity of the ship’s master, and the long
watches through which I had lain and listened for the cry of land, had
at last told upon me.
The sun was several hours high when I sprang out of my hammock and
rushed upon deck.
Could it all have been a dream? Should I find the noble temple,
staircase of marble, and all the towering statues melted away into thin
air?
Ah no!
That beautiful shore was still there, unrolled before my wondering eyes
like some fair picture full of light and grace and delicious coloring.
“Man the launch!” I called out and in quicker time than it takes to tell
it, I was on my way to the shore of the Sculptors’ Isle.
Faithful Bulger sat beside me, his eyes bright and expressive as he
gazed into my face.
Landing at the foot of the marble stairway, I sprang lightly out of the
launch, followed by Bulger, and bounded up the marble steps.
There were three landings before I reached the level of the temple, from
each of which the outlook grew more and more delightful. In truth, it
was a glorious approach to produce which art and nature had fairly
outdone themselves. At length I cleared the last flight of steps, and
with a throbbing heart crossed the tessellated court and paused in front
of the entrance to the temple.
The embers were still smouldering on the altar, around which stood
several white-robed priests with low-bowed heads and averted faces.
Unwilling to break in upon their solemn office, I turned and followed a
broad way, paved with marble and shaded by most graceful trees and
trailing vines.
At every step my eyes fell upon some statue of ravishing beauty—now
nymphs; now goddess; now Jove himself; now the great Cæsar; now the fair
Graces; now terrible Pluto; now smiling Ceres; now the crescent-crowned
Diana, accoutered for the chase; now dancing satyrs; now goat-footed
Pan; now some Roman hero or statesman; and ever and anon, came the
figure of a maiden, wondrously fair, but with an unutterable look of
sadness upon her beautiful face. So often did the same figure meet my
gaze that I was led at last to approach its pedestal in hopes of finding
some explanation. I gave a cry of pleasure as my eyes fell upon the name
sculptured there.
It was Paula.
Now every doubt was dissipated.
I had indeed found the Sculptors’ Isle
Broad winding paths, leading right and left, now lured my footsteps. No
fairy land could be more beautiful.
Golden fruit glistened ’mid the dark green leaves.
Flowers of countless hues bloomed on every side, sending forth the most
delicate perfumes. Trailing vines hung in graceful festoons or twined
around the pedestals of the statues, carrying their white blossoms to
the whiter hands of these silent and motionless inhabitants of this
region of loneliness. I say inhabitants, for as yet my eye had seen no
living creature, save the priests grouped about the altar.
Have I landed upon the shores of an island, upon which nature, with a
lavish hand, has bestowed stately forests, placid lakes, purling brooks,
trees laden with delicious fruits, plants waving their flowery tassels
and plumes in the perfumed air, vines trailing their richly variegated
foliage from tree to tree, a radiant sky above, a soil clad with velvety
verdure beneath, only to find it abandoned, deserted of man; a thing of
beauty and yet loneliness, a mere polished and painted shell, out of
which all life has gone forever?
Such was the train of thought which busied my mind as I strolled along
through these winding paths paved with marble shut in by a leafy roof,
through which ever and anon the sunlight burst to light up the
masterpieces of the sculptor’s art, around whose pedestals climbed and
clambered scores of flowering vines, some carrying in their curved laps
clusters of berries, brighter in hue than burnished gold, others holding
out to the passer-by bunches of grapes deeper in purple than the Lydian
dye.
As I pursued my way through this enchanted garden, in which the swaying
lily stalks bent their perfumed-filled cups down to my cheeks and the
trees dropped their gold and purple fruit at my feet, while deep in the
bosky thicket of red-leaved shrubs and silken-tufted pine, the
melancholy nightingale warbled his liquid melody in slow and plaintive
measure, my heart yearned for the sound of a human voice.
“Would that some living being,” I cried, “no matter how bent and twisted
in figure, or how discordant in voice, might come forth to meet me in
this beautiful solitude.”
I noticed now that my path was ascending a gently sloping hillock. I
quickened my pace, for I was anxious to stand upon some elevation, so
that I could command a more extensive view of the outlying country.
As I gained the summit of the hillock, a scene of indescribable beauty
met my gaze.
As far as the eye could reach I saw unrolled beneath me a landscape of
such surpassing loveliness that I paused spell-bound. Imagine a valley
shut in by wooded heights, through which a silvery stream courses
tranquilly; here a forest giant spreads its far-reaching limbs, and
there a clump of fruit trees display their load of golden treasures in
the sunlight; on this side flowering shrubs shine white as ivory against
the dark greensward, on that with trailing vines and trimmed copses,
man’s hand has built many a shady bower of fantastic outline; to this
add scores of statues posed in every conceivable attitude of grace and
beauty—here a group, there a single figure, and farther on by twos and
threes, standing, reclining, sitting, at play, in meditation, listening,
reading, thrumming stringed instruments, in attitudes of the chase,
casting the quoit, or reaching up to pluck fruit or flowers.
“Is this a dream?” I murmured. “Am I not the sport of some mischievous
spirit of the place?”
From this deep reverie the loud barking of Bulger aroused me with
shock-like violence.
I looked in the direction of the sound.
Poor, foolish dog, he was gamboling about one of the statues and amusing
himself in waking the echoes with his voice.
I was a little nettled by the interruption, and called to him to cease
his barking.
It seemed to me almost a sacrilege to disturb the deep repose of this
fair valley.
Again the barking broke forth. This time Bulger’s strange antics were
wilder than before.
He seemed fairly beside himself bounding around and around the statue
which was that of a young man in the act of reaching aloft for fruit or
flowers—and giving vent to a sort of half anger, half mischief, in a
series of barks, growls and whinings. Rare indeed was it that Bulger did
not give heed to my wishes, no matter how faintly expressed, but now,
not even a threatening tone of voice seemed to have the slightest effect
upon him.
He continued his mad gamboling and sharp, angry barking. Determined to
reproach him most severely for his disobedience, I strode angrily toward
him.
I drew near.
I looked! I saw!
Ashes of my forefathers, what? The statue had wide-opened eyes. The
statue had the blush of life on its cheeks.
Motion, movement, even to a hair’s breadth, there was none! And yet
these fair blue eyes were bent upon Bulger in half-inquisitive,
half-wondering gaze.
I rubbed my eyes and looked again.
I took a step forward.
Suddenly a wave of fear crept over me like the flow of icy water. Would
the living marble, as it warmed to life, moved by some long pent-up
passions, raise its hand and strike me dead?
Gathering myself together, I glanced toward a group of maidens at play
beneath the shade of a leafy roof of arched branches and interlacing
vines.
Quicker than it takes to tell it, I sprang forward and fixed my gaze
upon their faces.
Death could not hold the human form in attitude more motionless than
theirs.
And yet their eyes were filled with strange light.
Upon their fair faces the red tint of life glowed, bright and warm!
Where was I?
A strange feeling of half dread, half delight, now swept over me.
And still I dared not speak. My voice will break the spell by which all
these breathing children of earth’s flinty breast keep their hold on
life, and they will fade away to nothingness.
And now the eyes of her nearest me—of deeper black than polished coal,
appeared bent full upon me. I could see, I thought, the glisten of those
ebon orbs, as if a tear had broken over them.
Her hand was outstretched.
What if I touch it, thought I, to see if it have the warmth of life
within it, or whether it be not in truth a thing of stone, and I the
sport of some mischievous spirit of the island?
I’ll do it, if I’m slain like a poor worm, which, warmed by an
approaching flame crawls to meet it.
I touched its finger-tips!
O, wondrous thing!
They were not of stone, but of softest, warmest flesh!
I staggered back, expecting to see the group vanish in thin air.
But no; it moved not.
It stood as motionless as before!
And now I felt my limbs grow strong beneath me.
I determined to speak, come evil or come good!
Fixing my gaze upon their fair young faces, I uncovered and addressed
them thus:
“O, strange and mysterious beings, resent not this bold intrusion of a
puny mortal upon your sacred repose! Speak to me! If ye so will, let me
take my feet off the soil of your fair island. But ere I go, speak to
me, let me know whether ye be not the creations of some spirit of this
isle, or whether ye are really living, breathing beings!”
No sound issued from those rosy lips, parted as if in the very act of
speaking.
No movement, no tremor, came to break the marble-like pose of these fair
figures.
A whole minute elapsed.
To me it seemed an eternity.
I stood riveted to the ground in most anxious suspense.
The minutes dragged their heavy bodies along one after another.
But joy unutterable!
Their lips begin to move.
A smile, almost imperceptible at first, spreads slowly, slowly, over
their faces.
The crimson of their cheeks takes on a deeper hue.
Their eyes bend a most sweet and friendly look upon me.
The word “we” falls gently on my ear.
Another pause!
I lean forward, in most painful suspense, to catch the next faint
syllable.
It came at last.
“Live!”
“They live!” I cried in a loud and joyous voice, “they live! I am not
the sport of any strange divinity. These figures are not cold and
senseless marble, but warm-blooded, breathing, thinking, living beings!”
I cannot tell you the depth of my satisfaction that this discovery was
made by my loved Bulger. He saw the terrible perplexity which had come
upon his master, and hastened to his rescue; not frowning face, not
threatening voice was sufficient to turn him from his purpose of letting
light in upon my darkened mind. In my deep contrition, I could scarcely
bring myself to speak his name.
I felt how unworthy of his love I was.
But he pardoned me with a nobility of character more than human and
spake his forgiveness by covering my hands with caresses and uttering a
series of soft low barks.
With Bulger by my side, I now mingled with these flesh and blood
companions of the island’s marble dwellers, passing from one group to
another in speechless wonderment. Ay, in good faith they were alive, but
not more so than the flowers, the shrubs, the trees, the vines which
helped to make up the lovely scene of which they were the brightest and
fairest ornaments.
The vines moved from place to place more rapidly than they, the flowers
oped their buds more quickly than the maidens did their lips. Like
beautiful figures of wax, moved by the slow uncoiling of some hidden
spring, these living statues passed hours, nay days, in rising to their
feet or sinking down upon the velvety greensward.
For several hours I stood watching the white hand of a maiden as it
reached forward, with imperceptible motion to pluck a red-cheeked peach
which hung beside her. A full hour went by ere those delicate fingers
were clasped around the peach, another ere it had been carried to her
lips. There, all day long, she held it pressed, but as the sun went down
behind the wooded hills, it fell from her loosened grasp and rolled
towards my feet. I slowly stooped, for I was not long in discovering
that my quick movements pained these animated statues, and picked it up.
I could feel that some of the pulp had been drawn from the luscious
fruit, but the skin was hardly broken, so gently had she fed upon it.
At this moment, seeing a smile upon the face of one of the maiden’s I
turned to find upon whom she bent her gaze.
It was a handsome youth, who stood, perhaps fifty feet distant, with his
eyes fixed beamingly upon the maiden’s.
“Surely” thought I, “affection will, as in other lands, quicken their
movements; they will advance toward each other somewhat rapidly now.”
But no, the long twilight yielded little by little to the deeper
shadows; night came; the moon set her glowing disc in the heavens, and
yet that youth was not near enough to clasp the hand of the maiden he
loved.
From the first coming of the twilight, smiles had been slowly gathering
upon the faces of the other youths and maidens, whose eyes were turned
upon the lovers.
At this moment a gentle “ha!” fell upon my ear, and, after the lapse of
half an hour, another and louder “ha!” followed it, to be, after a still
longer pause, followed by still another “ha!” This last “ha!” was
lengthened out into a clear and ringing note which lasted several
seconds. Then it grew fainter and fainter, and died away like a spent
echo. Their mirth was over.
As I was threading my way among these living statues, one morning, I
came upon a group of children at play.
At first I could not see that they had noticed my coming at all, but
after the lapse of a quarter of an hour I discovered that their large
beautifully clear eyes were slowly turning toward me, so I determined to
sit down near by and observe them. Fancy my delight upon finding that a
delicate thread-like flowering vine had twined around and around the
body of a little golden-haired maid of about seven, encircled her neck
with its many colored leaves and coral berries, and coiled itself like a
crown of gold and crimson upon her soft ringlets, dropping its blossoms
and tendrils gently down around her head and shoulders.
Seeing my astonishment, and hearing my words of delight, a mild-faced
woman seated near me slowly, slowly raised her hands and extended her
fingers to make me understand that these little cherubs had been ten
days at play there upon the ground.
“This beautiful vine,” thought I, “has joined in their sport. As much
alive as they, it is in truth one of their playmates, and has wound
itself lovingly around the child seated nearest to it.”
I looked again. Lo! a tree loaded with delicious nuts was swinging in
the breeze and shaking them into the laps of these children at play,
while on the other side, a tall, graceful plant bearing cup-shaped
flowers of sunny whiteness, each of which I noticed was filled with
limpid water, drops of which sparkled in the sunlight like polished
gems, gently brushed against the cheek of a smiling boy, as if to say:
“Drink, dear little brother!”
“Wonderful!” cried I, “these happy creatures, these trees and flowers,
these fruits and vines are all children of the same family. No storms
ever come to darken these fair skies. Eternal spring reigns here. By
daylight, starlight and moonlight their lives flow gently along like
some broad, silvery stream, whose motion is too slow for human eye to
note it. Mysterious people! How shall I fathom the wonderful secret of
your existence? How shall I read the history of a people whose only
books are speechless brooks and silent groves, whose tongues have so
lost their power to interpret thought that months might go by and yet
the mystery remain unsolved!”
After a sojourn of a few days among the “Slow Movers,” as I shall call
them, I made a discovery which alarmed me greatly.
I found that this mysterious silence, this strange fate which cast me
among living creatures with whom converse was next to impossible, this
utter inability to distinguish the living statues from the marble ones,
was beginning to prey upon my mind.
Bulger noticed my ever-increasing melancholy, and exerted himself to
amuse and comfort me.
I responded but poorly to his thousand and one cunning tricks and
laughable antics.
In fact, I felt that my mind was gradually yielding to some dread
influence which pervaded the very air, and which, even hour by hour, so
gained in strength that I realized the necessity of making a superhuman
effort to break away from the power it had already acquired over me, or
else become myself a living statue and brother to the forms of flesh and
marble which inhabited this wonderland.
I will not weary my readers with minute details of the plan which I had
conceived to end the danger which threatened me, to snatch myself from
the living death which I could already feel creeping over me.
In my despair I determined to apply to the oldest of the Slow Movers,
and throw myself upon his mercy, so to speak, to tell him of my longing
to escape from the terrible fate threatening me, to return home to my
beloved parents, who would go down in sorrow to their graves if I, their
sole child, their pride and their hope, should never come again to
gladden their old age.
But more than this, I determined if possible, to learn the history of
the island and its mysterious folk, and to that end I resolved to
beseech him to indicate to me where I might find some record of their
past, some book or parchment, so that I might not go through life
burdened with the brain-racking thought that I had been powerless to
solve this mystery—a thought, which, if it did not shorten my days,
would most surely embitter them.
As I have already explained, in attempting to converse with the Slow
Movers I was confronted with a two-fold difficulty. In the first place,
though I might burst with impatience, yet must I preserve a perfectly
calm and placid exterior, and, in the second place, when, after the long
and wearying delay, it came my turn to make reply, that reply must not
exceed the snail’s pace of the Slow Movers’ speech, else their bright
eyes clouded up and they seemed absolutely paralyzed by the rapidity of
my utterance. Their eye-lids sank slowly down and they seemed to fall
into a deep slumber, out of which it took hours to arouse them.
At the first streak of dawn I sought out the aged Slow Mover, whom I had
often noted in his leafy temple, seated on a marble pediment his eyes
fixed on the silent stream which bathed the very roots of the trees,
whose wide-spreading branches helped to roof over his habitation.
All that day and the starry night which followed it, I sat at his feet.
Picture to yourself my utter despair at learning that not a word or a
line, not a leaf or a parchment, was in existence, which, might end my
fearful anxiety. I say fearful, for stronger and stronger, hour by hour,
grew the impulse to put an end to this life of useless, senseless
activity and join the throng of living statues into whose heart no vain
regrets came to darken their placid dream-life.
On the morning of the second day a thought burst upon my mind. It was
this:
Perchance there may dwell, somewhere on this isle, some one living
creature, who, unlike his brothers, may possess the power of rapid
speech, whose tongue, for some reason or other, may have stayed
loosened.
I reasoned thus: In every land there were opposites, good and bad,
beautiful and ugly, graceful and awkward, swift and slow. Surely on this
isle must live such contrasts as these. True, it may be an exception;
but it would be most wonderful if it did not exist.
All that day I spent in imparting unto the aged Slow Mover my train of
thought.
It was deep in the twilight ere I had succeeded in putting the question
to him: Whether there was not some living creature dwelling on this
island whose powers of speech were more like mine, and to whom I might,
in my ever increasing dread of transformation into a Slow Mover, flee
for refuge from myself, for satisfaction of the irresistible longing
pressing on my very soul.
But the shades of evening were not so deep that I could not note the
darker shadow which began to gather on the face of the aged Slow Mover
when I had completed my question.
I was startled.
So violent were the beatings of my heart that they sounded loud, though
muffled, above the sighing of the zephyr, the rustle of the leaves, the
plaintive warbling of the nightingale.
As this shadow went on growing, ever deeper and deeper, on the old man’s
visage, I felt that I had touched some ancient wound, which, though
long-forgotten, now bled afresh.
His lips parted, his head sank slowly, slowly, a sigh came forth, so
full of meaning, so like a tale-bearer of some long hidden sorrow, that
I feared for the worst.
My limbs stiffened.
I could feel the blood lessen its pace in my veins and go groping along
as if uncertain of its way.
I pressed the tips of my fingers to my cheeks. They were cold as
polished marble.
I essayed to speak. The words would not come.
At last I made a violent effort—
“Bulger!” I whispered.
Poor dog, he slept at my feet.
I struggled to escape the spell for one brief moment, that I might stoop
to give my faithful friend a farewell caress.
Hist!
The Slow Mover spoke.
“Son!”
I was saved!
He had aught to say to me.
The spell was broken.
My heart began to beat again; the warm blood ran tingling through my
veins.
It was a narrow escape.
Already my finger tips had cooled.
Another moment and I would have joined the throng of Slow Movers, and
become a brother to the marble dwellers on the Sculptors’ Isle.
All that night the aged Slow Mover talked to me. And when the sun went
up I knew all. I knew the secret which had so darkened his placid
countenance. I knew the cave in which dwelt the hermit of the Sculptors’
Isle—an outcast, a prisoner, shut in between the narrow walls of a
cavern by the sea, for no fault of his, for no sin, for no wrong.
Nature had so willed it.
Why, the aged Slow Mover knew not.
Antonius was the name which the hermit bore.
When morning came I sought him out.
I found him seated by his cavern’s portal, looking out upon the glory of
the eastern sky.
This was the secret of his exile:
Some cruel fate had, in his youth, visited him with a dread disease, not
unlike that which is known as St. Vitus’ dance. When the fit was upon
him, not only did he lose all control over his limbs, so that his feet
bore him whither he willed not to go, and that, too, with extreme
rapidity, but his arms likewise executed the most rapid and vigorous
gestures, now in apparent anger, now entreaty, now wonder. You will
readily understand why ill-fated Antonius came to be banished from the
midst of the Slow Movers.
Although their brother, and deeply beloved of them, his lightning-like
rapidity of motion, his violent gestures, his almost ceaseless change of
attitude, not only offended the Slow Movers, it dazed them; it shocked
them; it checked the sluggish flow of life blood within their veins, and
threatened them all with slow but certain death.
He must go!
He did!
Antonius was banished to the cavern by the sea, where never came sound,
save the ocean’s roar when lashed by the demons of the gale, or its sad
murmur and ceaseless break and splash in its moments of slumber and
rest.
But, most terrible of all the manifestations of the unfortunate
Antonius’ fearful ailment was the utterly wild and ungovernable rapidity
of his speech.
Like maddened steeds, tongue and lips rushed along!
To the eyes and ears of the Slow Movers, such a violently expressive
face, such mad rapidity of utterance, were death itself!
Not one brief month would have found a living statue in that home of
flinty hearts, had Antonius not gone!
Antonius was thankful for that dread decree, which housed him forever in
the cavern by the sea!
He saw the sufferings of his people, and though his eyes in that brief
time wept more tears than all his brethren ever had shed in their
sluggish lives, yet were they but a poor proof of the awful grief he
felt.
Antonius turned towards me as I approached the spot where he sat wrapped
in deep meditation. A sad, but withal kindly smile flitted about his
lips, like the quick but faint glimmer of the lightning in the distant
sky.
He rose.
I paused to await his bidding to approach him.
He spake not a word, but stretched out his hand.
I bounded forward to clasp it and press it to my lips.
At that instant the fit fell on him.
I could see the look of pain which flashed across his face.
Away he glided, now backward, now forward, now sidewise, now obliquely,
his hand outstretched in a desperate effort to reach me, who, with equal
desperation, advanced and retreated in a mad endeavor to grasp what
constantly eluded me.
Bulger utterly unable to comprehend this wild dance among the rocks of
that cavernous shore, followed my heels barking furiously.
I could take no time to quiet him.
Away, away, sped Antonius with redoubled speed, his right hand extended
toward me as if with a pitiful prayer to grasp it and thus end the fit
which was shaking his limbs so furiously.
Pausing to catch my breath, I again pursued the flitting figure with a
determination to overtake it or perish in the attempt.
At last it seemed to circle in smaller and ever smaller rings.
Now was my time!
I sprang upon that whirling form, with a sort of mad desperation, to
seize and hold its outstretched hand.
At length I held it.
But no!
His body had come to a rest, but now high over my head, now at my feet,
now flashing up one side, now down the other, now whizzing in front of
my eyes, now encircling my head like a bird in swift flight that hand
went on, ever on, in its wild and mysterious course!
My strength was failing me!
Shall I ever be able to grasp it!
Antonius, too, showed signs of yielding to the awful power of the dread
disease which tormented him!
His face took on a strange pallor! His breast heaved convulsively. With
one last despairing effort I succeeded in catching his hand in its
flight around my head!
I clung to it with desperate vigor!
My touch dispelled the venom from his veins.
He seemed to awake as from some awful dream. He passed his hand across
his eyes.
He smiled.
Still clinging to his hand, I gently forced him to be seated upon a
rocky bench, over which the ocean had woven a velvety covering of
sea-grass and weeds.
“Antonius!” I cried, “peace come upon thee! Forget thy suffering. Be as
thou once wert! My touch can give thee rest at least for a brief
respite!”
He pressed my hand. A deep sigh lifted his breast. It was the last gasp
of the demon which oppressed him.
He was now at rest.
To me his utterance was rapid but not more so than that of many quick
thinkers with whom I had conversed.
“What wouldst thou?” said he, in a low but strangely sweet, mild voice.
I unfolded to him the object of my coming.
I went back to the finding of the Roman newspaper and my departure from
home.
All, all; I told him all; how I had come into the home of the Slow
Movers, how I had mistaken them for marble like the rest of the figures
about the island, how I longed to have the mystery cleared up.
All that day Antonius and I sat by the sea in most delightful converse.
Only once, at high noon, did he set a brief limit to his tale while we
passed into his cavern to partake of food and drink.
With a high-bounding heart, I listened to his story of the landing of
the Seven Sculptors upon the isle. Their first task had been to rear the
glorious temple with its long flight of marble steps leading down to the
sea. Then they, and, later, their sons, and their sons’ sons, had set to
work to people this beautiful island with almost countless figures of
the rarest grace and finish.
In the forests, by the river’s banks, through the valley, on the
hillside, adown the terraces, to the very water’s edge, rose the
faultless statues in wondrous beauty and profusion.
Here, there and everywhere, forms of matchless grace gleamed, snow-white
amid the leafy bowers or tangled underwood.
A mysterious ardor burned within the hearts of these exiled artists. It
would seem that theirs was a wild sort of hope to rear on that
far-distant isle another Rome—an infant daughter, but fairer and whiter
in her marble magnificence than the glorious mother who sate upon her
seven hills!
Times and times again, aye, thrice three score and ten, the wretched
Paula arose out of the quarried blocks, ever fair and ever fairer, now
bent in awful grief, now putting the very skies to shame with the
entrancing beauty of her upturned, pleading, sweet and pitiful face.
Here and there, too, stood great Cæsar, never to be forgotten for his
godlike clemency in snatching the sculptors from terrible death.
As the second century of the exile dawned upon the little Roman Kingdom,
far away beneath the Southern skies, at the very moment when the colony
was waxing strong and vigorous a strange and mysterious thing happened
to the dwellers in this island home of sweet content.
No more male children were born!
The seven sculptors, now bent with age, and their faces hollowed by the
sharp chisels of remorse, went, one after the other to the dark realm of
Death.
Their sons, too, came into ripe manhood. And their sons grew up, happy
in the possession of that glorious talent which had peopled the isle
with such matchless forms of beauty.
But now the race had reached the end of its long reign in the world of
art.
Decade after decade slipped away, and still there came not one male
child to gladden a sculptor’s home.
A sort of blank despair sank upon the colony.
The elder sculptors laid their chisels down in utter hopelessness.
Even the younger wrought less and less.
Still there came no boy to wake the old-time song and laughter of that
once joyous island home.
Fingers cunning in art grew stiff with age.
Hearts full of glorious inspiration waxed dull and spiritless! One by
one they all went the way which mortal feet must tread.
A terrible, a wonderful change came over the people.
Weighed down by this leaden grief, surrounded day and night by these
speechless, motionless marble forms, which, although silent as the very
clod itself, yet cried out unceasingly: “Give us more companions in
these solitudes!” these unfortunate people almost turned to marble
itself.
They became, in good sooth, brothers and sisters to the marble dwellers
on this island.
At length the end came!
The last sculptor was laid upon the carved bier of the great white
temple by the sea!
A silence so long, so deep, so dreadful, fell upon the people that it
almost seemed their speech was lost forever.
Within the dark grottoes and bosky underwood, they crawled to hide away
from the very light of day.
Their limbs, once so supple and elastic, ever ready to bear their owners
over hill and across plain, delighting in the dance, inured to the race,
now became heavy and slow.
They seemed almost about to turn to stone, and join the silent company
around them.
In good sooth, such a fate was imminent, when the happening of a joyful
event averted it.
A year had passed since the last sculptor had gone to join the shadowy
caravan which moves forever across the desert of Eternal Silence, when
his seven sad-faced daughters were fairly startled by an infant’s cry.
But look!
Their widowed mother stands before them with a babe nestled in her arms.
It is a son!
The joyful tidings can only creep from family to family.
Alas! it was too late to call them back to old-time customs and habits,
too late to start their blood again in old-time bounding, leaping course
through their veins.
They were a changed people!
True, their happiness came again, but it was not the same. They could
smile and laugh, but it was scarcely more than faces of marble moved by
some mysterious power. They could talk, but so slowly fell the words
that it almost seemed some statue spoke amid the leafy coverts of the
island. They could move, but snail or tortoise outstripped them with
ease.
[Illustration: REMARKABLE BEHAVIOR OF A BUST OF CÆSAR IN THE LAND OF THE
SLOW MOVERS.]
Ay, they were changed indeed; fated henceforth to people their beautiful
island home with living statues.
For years in long flight sped away, till one century followed another,
and yet the wondrous talent came back no more.
It was lost forever!
Long, long ago, too, the people forgot the story of their fathers.
It is kept alive in the hearts of a few chosen ones, and they hand it
down, each quarter century, to younger keepers selected for the purpose.
To Antonius the secret had been thus confided.
And such was the tale he told to me!
With a light heart, now that its weight of doubt and uncertainty had
been lifted from it, I bade Antonius farewell, and, followed by Bulger
wended my way back to the abodes of the Slow Movers.
As I passed through one of the groves peopled with marble forms, I
paused, I hardly knew why, in front of an admirable bust of the great
Cæsar.
Bulger joined me, and there we stood, children of this late day, with
our eyes uplifted to the face of him whose smallest word was once copied
down on waxen tablet as if it were the utterance of a god.
I had always liked Cæsar.
We resembled each other in many ways.
We were both men of action.
I felt sorry for him now, that he should be forced to live, even in the
shape of marble, among such dull and inactive people as the Slow Movers.
I told him so.
“And yet, Julius,” said I, “called of men the Great Cæsar, what a
fortunate thing it is that thou art not living now, for thou wouldst be
overcome with shame at finding everybody reading my adventures while the
book which thou wrotest concerning Gaul lies mouldy and dust-covered on
the shelves of the libraries!”
The following day, in passing that way again, and glancing up at great
Cæsar’s face, I noticed that a smile had just started in the right
corner of his mouth. So stolid had he become through his long residence
among the Slow Movers that he had just begun to be amused by the remark
I had made on the previous day.
Thoughts of home now arose in my mind.
The fact is that shortly after my interview with Antonius in his cavern
by the sea, Bulger had commenced to show unmistakable signs of
home-sickness. So I dispatched him with a note to the officer of my
vessel to begin preparations at once for the return voyage.
Bulger made haste to execute the commission.
He proceeded to the foot of the marble staircase, and then by loud
barking attracted the attention of the officer whom I had left in
command.
He sent a boat ashore and Bulger met it with my letter in his mouth.
To tell the truth, I would have fain lingered for a week or so longer
among the Slow Movers, but it was plain to be seen that they were
growing restive at my presence.
On the cheeks of many of them all signs of ruddy peach-bloom had
disappeared.
Day by day they grew more and more like their marble brethren.
My quick movements so wearied their eyes that after a few hours’ stay in
their midst I found myself surrounded by a company of deep sleepers.
Nor dared I speak.
For no matter how I softened my voice, or how slowly I uttered my words,
they jarred upon the delicate ears of the Slow Movers, and signs of
suffering gradually passed over their faces.
My resolution was therefore quickly formed.
With a snail’s pace I passed from group to group, from bower to bower,
from grove to grove, saying in a soft and measured tone: “Fare——well!
Fare——well!”
Then I directed my steps toward the white temple by the sea, for I knew
my boat’s crew were waiting for me at the foot of the marble staircase.
As I passed in front of Great Cæsar’s statue I turned to wave a last
adieu.
What saw I, think you?
Why, that same smile which had begun in the right corner of his mouth
several days ago, had crossed over to the other side of his face and was
just at the left corner of his mouth.
On the right side, whence it had come, all was as stern and calm as when
he sat enthroned at Rome, and ruled the world.
Several hours later, as we were busy setting the sails of my good ship
there fell upon my ear in a soft, echo-like tone, the word.
“Fare!”
The Slow Movers had begun to speak their adieu. The winds were
favorable.
The sails filled.
As the sun went down, pouring a flood of golden light upon the beautiful
marble staircase, the great white temple and the many snowy statues
which gleamed so bright and fair amid the dark foliage of the trees and
vines upon the terraces of that mysterious island I threw myself upon
the deck with intent to keep my eyes fixed upon the lovely scene as long
as possible.
My good ship sailed away in deepest silence. For I had given orders that
no one should speak above a whisper.
Now the Sculptors’ Isle had faded to a mere speck in the horizon, and
now, in the gathering shades of night, it was swallowed up, and lost
forever!
My heart grew heavy.
Bulger nestled his head in my lap, with his loving eyes fixed full upon
me.
Sleep overcame us both.
The sky was star-studded when we awoke.
The cool night wind had refreshed me.
I sprang up with the intention of going below. At that instant there
came floating along on the evening breeze, like a mountain echo nearly
spent, a soft mysterious sound.
My ear caught it! It was:
“W—e l—l!”
The Slow Movers had finished speaking their adieu.