official tones, “this affair, strange as it is, must be treated
according to rule and precedent. Sub-inspector Winkel, as your superior
officer, I command you to arrest me upon a charge of murderously
assaulting you. You will commit me to prison for the night, together
with Herr von Schlegel and Herr Wilhelm Schlessinger. We shall take our
trial at the coming sitting of the judges. In the meantime take care
of that piece of evidence”--pointing to the piece of parchment--“and
while I am away devote your time and energy to utilizing the clew you
have obtained in discovering who it was who slew Herr Schiffer, the
Bohemian Jew.”
The one missing link in the chain of evidence was soon supplied. On
December 28th the wife of Reinmaul the janitor, coming into the bedroom
after a short absence, found her husband hanging lifeless from a hook
in the wall. He had tied a long bolster-case round his neck and stood
upon a chair in order to commit the fatal deed. On the table was a note
in which he confessed to the murder of Schiffer, the Jew, adding that
the deceased had been his oldest friend, and that he had slain him
without premeditation, in obedience to some incontrollable impulse.
Remorse and grief, he said, had driven him to self-destruction; and he
wound up his confession by commending his soul to the mercy of Heaven.
The trial which ensued was one of the strangest which ever occurred in
the whole history of jurisprudence. It was in vain that the prosecuting
council urged the improbability of the explanation offered by the
prisoners, and deprecated the introduction of such an element as magic
into a nineteenth-century law-court. The chain of facts was too strong,
and the prisoners were unanimously acquitted. “This silver hatchet,”
remarked the judge in his summing up “has hung untouched upon the
wall in the mansion of the Graf von Schulling for nearly two hundred
years. The shocking manner in which he met his death at the hands of
his favorite house-steward is still fresh in your recollection. It has
come out in evidence that, a few days before the murder, the steward
had overhauled the old weapons and cleaned them. In doing this he
must have touched the handle of this hatchet. Immediately afterward he
slew his master, whom he had served faithfully for twenty years. The
weapon then came, in conformity with the Count’s will, to Buda Pesth,
where, at the station, Herr Wilhelm Schlessinger grasped it, and,
within two hours, used it against the person of the deceased Professor.
The next man whom we find touching it is the janitor Reinmaul, who
helped to remove the weapons from the cart to the store-room. At the
first opportunity he buried it in the body of his friend Schiffer. We
then have the attempted murder of Strauss by Schlegel, and of Winkel
by Inspector Baumgarten, all immediately following the taking of the
hatchet into the hand. Lastly comes the providential discovery of the
extraordinary document which has been read to you by the clerk of the
court. I invite your most careful consideration, gentlemen of the jury,
to this chain of facts, knowing that you will find a verdict according
to your consciences without fear and without favor.”
Perhaps the most interesting piece of evidence to the English reader,
though it found few supporters among the Hungarian audience, was that
of Dr. Langemann, the eminent medico-jurist, who has written text-books
upon metallurgy and toxicology. He said:
“I am not so sure, gentlemen, that there is need to fall back upon
necromancy or the black art for an explanation of what has occurred.
What I say is merely a hypothesis, without proof of any sort, but
in a case so extraordinary every suggestion may be of value. The
Rosicrucians, to whom allusion is made in this paper, were the most
profound chemists of the early Middle Ages, and included the principal
alchemists whose names have descended to us. Much as chemistry has
advanced, there are some points in which the ancients were ahead of
us, and in none more so than in the manufacture of poisons of subtle
and deadly action. This man Bodeck, as one of the elders of the
Rosicrucians, possessed, no doubt, the recipe of many such mixtures,
some of which, like the _aqua tofana_ of the Medicis, would poison by
penetrating through the pores of the skin. It is conceivable that the
handle of this silver hatchet has been anointed by some preparation
which is a diffusible poison, having the effect upon the human body
of bringing on sudden and acute attacks of homicidal mania. In such
attacks it is well known that the madman’s rage is turned against those
whom he loved best when sane. I have, as I remarked before, no proof
to support me in my theory, and simply put it forward for what it is
worth.”
With this extract from the speech of the learned and ingenious
professor, we may close the account of this famous trial.
The broken pieces of the silver hatchet were thrown into a deep pond,
a clever poodle being employed to carry them in his mouth, as no one
would touch them for fear some of the infection might still hang
about them. The piece of parchment was preserved in the museum of
the University. As to Strauss and Schlegel, Winkel and Baumgarten,
they continued the best of friends, and are so still for all I know
to the contrary. Schlessinger became surgeon of a cavalry regiment,
and was shot at the battle of Sadowa five years later, while rescuing
the wounded under a heavy fire. By his last injunctions his little
patrimony was to be sold to erect a marble obelisk over the grave of
Professor von Hopstein.
THE MAN FROM ARCHANGEL.
On the fourth day of March, in the year 1867, I being at that time
in my five-and-twentieth year, I wrote the following words in my
note-book, the result of much mental perturbation and conflict:
“The solar system, amid a countless number of other systems as large
as itself, rolls ever silently through space in the direction of the
constellation of Hercules. The great spheres of which it is composed
spin and spin through the eternal void ceaselessly and noiselessly. Of
these one of the smallest and most insignificant is that conglomeration
of solid and of liquid particles which we have named the earth. It
whirls onward now as it has done before my birth, and will do after my
death--a revolving mystery, coming none know whence, and going none
know whither. Upon the outer crust of this moving mass crawl many
mites, of whom I, John McVittie, am one, helpless, impotent, being
dragged aimlessly through space. Yet such is the state of things among
us that the little energy and glimmering of reason which I possess
is entirely taken up with the labors which are necessary in order to
procure certain metallic disks, wherewith I may purchase the chemical
elements necessary to build up my ever-wasting tissues, and keep a
roof over me to shelter me from the inclemency of the weather. I thus
have no thought to expend upon the vital questions which surround me
on every side. Yet, miserable entity as I am, I can still at times
feel some degree of happiness, and am even--save the mark!--puffed up
occasionally with a sense of my own importance.”
These words, as I have said, I wrote down in my note-book, and they
reflected accurately the thoughts which I found rooted far down in
my soul, ever present and unaffected by the passing emotions of the
hour. Every day for seven months I read over my words, and every day
when I had finished them I said to myself, “Well done, John McVittie;
you have said the thought which was in you. You have reduced things
to their least common measure!” At last came a time when my uncle,
McVittie of Glencairn, died--the same who was at one time chairman of
committees of the House of Commons. He divided his great wealth among
his many nephews, and I found myself with sufficient to provide amply
for my wants during the remainder of my life, and became at the same
time owner of a bleak tract of land upon the coast of Caithness, which
I think the old man must have bestowed upon me in derision, for it
was sandy and valueless, and he had ever a grim sense of humor. Up to
this time I had been an attorney in a midland town in England. Now I
saw that I could put my thoughts into effect, and, leaving all petty
and sordid aims, could elevate my mind by the study of the secrets of
nature. My departure from my English home was somewhat accelerated by
the fact that I had nearly slain a man in a quarrel, for my temper was
fiery, and I was apt to forget my own strength when enraged. There
was no legal action taken in the matter, but the papers yelped at
me, and folk looked askance when I met them. It ended by my cursing
them and their vile, smoke-polluted town, and hurrying to my northern
possession, where I might at last find peace and an opportunity for
solitary study and contemplation. I borrowed from my capital before I
went, and so was able to take with me a choice collection of the most
modern philosophical instruments and books, together with chemicals and
such other things as I might need in my retirement.
The land which I had inherited was a narrow strip, consisting mostly
of sand, and extending for rather over two miles round the coast of
Mansie Bay, in Caithness. Upon this strip there had been a rambling,
gray-stone building--when erected or wherefore none could tell me--and
this I had repaired, so that it made a dwelling quite good enough
for one of my simple tastes. One room was my laboratory, another my
sitting-room, and in a third, just under the sloping roof, I slung
the hammock in which I always slept. There were three other rooms,
but I left them vacant, except one which was given over to the old
crone who kept house for me. Save the Youngs and the McLeods, who were
fisher-folk living round at the other side of Fergus Ness, there were
no other people for many miles in each direction. In front of the house
was the great bay, behind it were two long barren hills, capped by
other loftier ones beyond. There was a glen between the hills, and when
the wind was from the land it used to sweep down this with a melancholy
sough and whisper among the branches of the fir-trees beneath my attic
window.
I dislike my fellow-mortals. Justice compels me to add that they
appear for the most part to dislike me. I hate their little crawling
ways, their conventionalities, their deceits, their narrow rights and
wrongs. They take offence at my brusque outspokenness, my disregard for
their social laws, my impatience of all constraint. Among my books
and my drugs in my lonely den at Mansie I could let the great drove
of the human race pass onward with their politics and inventions and
tittle-tattle, and I remained behind stagnant and happy. Not stagnant
either, for I was working in my own little groove, and making progress.
I have reason to believe that Dalton’s atomic theory is founded upon
error, and I know that mercury is not an element.
During the day I was busy with my distillations and analyses. Often
I forgot my meals, and when old Madge summoned me to my tea I found
my dinner lying untouched upon the table. At night I read Bacon,
Descartes, Spinoza, Kant--all those who have pried into what is
unknowable. They are all fruitless and empty, barren of result, but
prodigal of polysyllables, reminding me of men who while digging for
gold have turned up many worms, and then exhibit them exultantly as
being what they sought. At times a restless spirit would come upon me,
and I would walk thirty and forty miles without rest or breaking fast.
On these occasions, when I used to stalk through the country villages,
gaunt, unshaven, and dishevelled, the mothers would rush into the road
and drag their children indoors, and the rustics would swarm out of
their pot-houses to gaze at me. I believe that I was known far and wide
as the “mad laird o’ Mansie.” It was rarely, however, that I made these
raids into the country, for I usually took my exercise upon my own
beach, where I soothed my spirit with strong black tobacco, and made
the ocean my friend and my confidant.
What companion is there like the great, restless, throbbing sea? What
human mood is there which it does not match and sympathize with? There
are none so gay but that they may feel gayer when they listen to its
merry turmoil, and see the long green surges racing in, with the glint
of the sunbeams in their sparkling crests. But when the gray waves toss
their heads in anger, and the wind screams above them, goading them on
to madder and more tumultuous efforts, then the darkest-minded of men
feels that there is a melancholy principle in Nature which is as gloomy
as his own thoughts. When it was calm in the Bay of Mansie the surface
would be as clear and bright as a sheet of silver, broken only at one
spot, some little way from the shore, where a long black line projected
out of the water, looking like the jagged back of some sleeping
monster. This was the top of the dangerous ridge of rocks known to the
fishermen as the “ragged reef o’ Mansie.” When the wind blew from the
east the waves would break upon it like thunder, and the spray would
be tossed far over my house and up to the hills behind. The bay itself
was a bold and noble one, but too much exposed to the northern and
eastern gales, and too much dreaded for its reef, to be much used by
mariners. There was something of romance about this lonely spot. I have
lain in my boat upon a calm day, and, peering over the edge, I have
seen far down the flickering, ghostly forms of great fish--fish, as it
seemed to me, such as naturalists never knew, and which my imagination
transformed into the genii of that desolate bay. Once, as I stood by
the brink of the waters upon a quiet night, a great cry, as of a woman
in hopeless grief, rose from the bosom of the deep and swelled out
upon the still air, now sinking and now rising, for a space of thirty
seconds. This I heard with my own ears.
In this strange spot, with the eternal hills behind me and the eternal
sea in front, I worked and brooded for more than two years unpestered
by my fellow-men. By degrees I had trained my old servant into habits
of silence, so that she now rarely opened her lips, though I doubt not
that when twice a year she visited her relations in Wick her tongue
during those few days made up for its enforced rest. I had come almost
to forget that I was a member of the human family, and to live entirely
with the dead, whose books I pored over, when a sudden incident
occurred which threw all my thoughts into a new channel.
Three rough days in June had been succeeded by one calm and peaceful
one. There was not a breath of air that evening. The sun sank down in
the west behind a line of purple clouds, and the smooth surface of the
bay was gashed with scarlet streaks. Along the beach the pools left by
the tide showed up like gouts of blood against the yellow sand, as if
some wounded giant had toilfully passed that way and had left these
red traces of his grievous hurt behind him. As the darkness closed
in, certain ragged clouds which had lain low on the eastern horizon
coalesced and formed a great, irregular cumulus. The glass was still
low, and I knew that there was mischief brewing. About nine o’clock
a dull, moaning sound came up from the sea, as from a creature who,
much harassed, learns that the hour of suffering has come round again.
At ten a sharp breeze sprang up from the eastward. At eleven it had
increased to a gale, and by midnight the most furious storm was raging
which I ever remember upon that weather-beaten coast.
As I went to bed the shingle and sea-weed was pattering up against my
attic-window, and the wind was screaming as though every gust were a
lost soul. By that time the sounds of the tempest had become a lullaby
to me. I knew that the gray walls of the old house would buffet it
out, and for what occurred in the world outside I had small concern.
Old Madge was usually as callous to such things as I was myself. It
was a surprise to me when, about three in the morning, I was awoke
by the sound of a great knocking at my door and excited cries in the
wheezy voice of my housekeeper. I sprang out of my hammock and roughly
demanded of her what was the matter.
“Eh, maister, maister!” she screamed in her hateful dialect. “Come
doun, mun; come doun! There’s a muckle ship gaun ashore on the reef,
and the puir folks are a’ yammerin’ and ca’in’ for help--and I doobt
they’ll a’ be drooned. Oh, Maister McVittie, come doun!”
“Hold your tongue, you hag!” I shouted back in a passion. “What is it
to you whether they are drowned or not? Get back to your bed and leave
me alone.” I turned in again, and drew the blankets over me. “Those
men out there,” I said to myself, “have already gone through half the
horrors of death. If they be saved they will but have to go through
the same once more in the space of a few brief years. It is best,
therefore, that they should pass away now, since they have suffered
that anticipation which is more than the pain of dissolution.” With
this thought in my mind I endeavored to compose myself to sleep once
more, for that philosophy which had taught me to consider death as a
small and trivial incident in man’s eternal and ever-changing career,
had also broken me of much curiosity concerning worldly matters. On
this occasion I found, however, that the old leaven still fermented
strongly in my soul. I tossed from side to side for some minutes
endeavoring to beat down the impulses of the moment by the rules of
conduct which I had framed during months of thought. Then I heard a
dull roar amid the wild shriek of the gale, and I knew that it was the
sound of a signal-gun. Driven by an uncontrollable impulse, I rose,
dressed, and, having lit my pipe, walked out on to the beach.
It was pitch dark when I came outside, and the wind blew with such
violence that I had to put my shoulder against it and push my way
along the shingle. My face pringled and smarted with the sting of
the gravel which was blown against it, and the red ashes of my pipe
streamed away behind me dancing fantastically through the darkness. I
went down to where the great waves were thundering in, and, shading
my eyes with my hand to keep off the salt spray, I peered out to sea.
I could distinguish nothing, and yet it seemed to me that shouts and
great inarticulate cries were borne to me by the blasts. Suddenly as
I gazed I made out the glint of a light, and then the whole bay and
the beach were lit up in a moment by a vivid blue glare. They were
burning a colored signal-light on board of the vessel. There she lay
on her beam-ends right in the centre of the jagged reef, heeled over
to such an angle that I could see all the planking of her deck. She
was a large two-masted schooner, of foreign rig, and lay perhaps a
hundred and eighty or two hundred yards from the shore. Every spar and
rope and writhing piece of cordage showed up hard and clear under the
livid light which sputtered and flickered from the highest portion of
the forecastle. Beyond the doomed ship out of the great darkness came
the long rolling lines of black waves, never ending, never tiring,
with a petulant tuft of foam here and there upon their crests. Each
as it reached the broad circle of unnatural light appeared to gather
strength and volume, and to hurry on more impetuously until, with a
roar and a jarring crash, it sprang upon its victim. Clinging to the
weather shrouds I could distinctly see some ten or twelve frightened
seamen, who, when their light revealed my presence, turned their white
faces toward me and waved their hands imploringly. I felt my gorge
rise against these poor cowering worms. Why should they presume to
shirk the narrow pathway along which all that is great and noble among
mankind has travelled? There was one there who interested me more than
they. He was a tall man who stood apart from the others, balancing
himself upon the swaying wreck as though he disdained to cling to rope
or bulwark. His hands were clasped behind his back and his head was
sunk upon his breast; but even in that despondent attitude there was
a litheness and decision in his pose and in every motion which marked
him as a man little likely to yield to despair. Indeed, I could see by
his occasional rapid glances up and down and all around him that he was
weighing every chance of safety; but though he often gazed across the
raging surf to where he could see my dark figure upon the beach, his
self-respect, or some other reason, forbade him from imploring my help
in any way. He stood, dark, silent, and inscrutable, looking down on
the black sea, and waiting for whatever fortune Fate might send him.
It seemed to me that that problem would very soon be settled. As I
looked, an enormous billow, topping all the others, and coming after
them, like a driver following a flock, swept over the vessel. Her
foremast snapped short off, and the men who clung to the shrouds were
brushed away like a swarm of flies. With a rending, riving sound the
ship began to split in two, where the sharp back of the Mansie reef was
sawing into her keel. The solitary man upon the forecastle ran rapidly
across the deck and seized hold of a white bundle which I had already
observed, but failed to make out. As he lifted it up the light fell
upon it, and I saw that the object was a woman, with a spar lashed
across her body and under her arms in such a way that her head should
always rise above water. He bore her tenderly to the side and seemed to
speak for a minute or so to her, as though explaining the impossibility
of remaining upon the ship. Her answer was a singular one. I saw her
deliberately raise her hand and strike him across the face with it. He
appeared to be silenced for a moment or so by this; but he addressed
her again, directing her, as far as I could gather from his motions,
how she should behave when in the water. She shrank away from him,
but he caught her in his arms. He stooped over her for a moment and
seemed to press his lips against her forehead. Then a great wave came
welling up against the side of the breaking vessel, and, leaning over,
he placed her upon the summit of it as gently as a child might be
committed to its cradle. I saw her white dress flickering among the
foam on the crest of the dark billow, and then the light sank gradually
lower, and the riven ship and its lonely occupant were hidden from my
eyes.
As I watched those things my manhood overcame my philosophy, and I felt
a frantic impulse to be up and doing. I threw my cynicism to one side
as a garment which I might don again at leisure, and I rushed wildly to
my boat and my sculls. She was a leaky tub, but what then? Was I, who
had cast many a wistful, doubtful glance at my opium bottle, to begin
now to weigh chances and to cavil at danger? I dragged her down to the
sea with the strength of a maniac, and sprang in. For a moment or two
it was a question whether she could live among the boiling surge, but a
dozen frantic strokes took me through it, half-full of water but still
afloat. I was out on the unbroken waves now, at one time climbing,
climbing up the broad black breast of one, then sinking down, down on
the other side, until looking up I could see the gleam of the foam all
around me against the dark heavens. Far behind me I could hear the wild
wailings of old Madge, who, seeing me start, thought no doubt that my
madness had come to a climax. As I rowed I peered over my shoulder,
until at last on the belly of a great wave which was sweeping toward
me I distinguished the vague white outline of the woman. Stooping over
I seized her as she swept by me, and with an effort lifted her, all
sodden with water, into the boat. There was no need to row back, for
the next billow carried us in and threw us upon the beach. I dragged
the boat out of danger, and then lifting up the woman I carried her to
the house, followed by my housekeeper, loud with congratulation and
praise.
Now that I had done this thing a reaction set in upon me. I felt that
my burden lived, for I heard the faint beat of her heart as I pressed
my ear against her side in carrying her. Knowing this, I threw her down
beside the fire which Madge had lit, with as little sympathy as though
she had been a bundle of faggots. I never glanced at her to see if she
were fair or no. For many years I had cared little for the face of a
woman. As I lay in my hammock upstairs, however, I heard the old woman,
as she chafed the warmth back into her, crooning a chorus of “Eh, the
puir lassie! Eh, the bonnie lassie!” from which I gathered that this
piece of jetsam was both young and comely.
* * * * *