"No," he said. "It happened before you were born. What manner of man
are you--to see into the past? It is not prophecy. Wait!"
He darted out of my studio and into his own, where I heard him throwing
things about, opening trunks and closets, and talking to himself. I
relighted my pipe, seated myself, and waited, wondering what had upset
him. After a time he returned, much calmer, and holding in one hand a
painting, in the other a small tintype, the faces of which he concealed
from me.
"Our finite minds," he said, as he stood above me, "consider only
what appeals to the five senses. Our subconscious minds consider the
infinite, in which there is neither time, nor space, nor distance. That
mutiny and murder has occurred, is occurring, and will occur. You have
dipped into the infinite, that is all. Look!"
He showed me the painting. It was dusty and dingy, but, with a few
minor exceptions of detail, the exact duplicate of the painting on my
easel!
"I painted this thirty years ago," he said, "and for twenty-five years
it has lain at the bottom of an old trunk. The subject was too grisly
for the market, and I did not try to sell it."
While I stared, open-eyed and open-mouthed, at his picture, and my pipe
went out from my irregular, gasping breathing, he held before me the
tintype. It was the picture of a young man clad in cheap, ready-made
garments--the "store clothes" of the farmer, or the "shore clothes" of
the sailor. And the face was the face that I had conceived for the man
held aloft by the negro in my painting!
"I was that young fellow," he said, "and this tintype was taken at the
end of that voyage."
"What does it mean?" I gasped. "Have I read your mind?"
"I do not know. It depends upon what else you know yourself. Can you
tell me what killed those men? Can you tell me what killed the nigger,
so that instead of being thrown twenty feet I merely slid down from his
grip and bumped my elbow on the ice? Ice, understand, near the equator,
in the Indian Ocean."
"I do not know," I choked. "Did this happen? When did it happen?"
"Nearly fifty years ago, when I was 'fore the mast, unable to
understand. But it was one of the influences that led me to the study
of science. Perhaps I could understand now, if I had the data. But
I cannot remember, and I have not your power of intuition. It is a
wonderful power, but as likely to harm as to help you. Have you studied
physics at all?"
"Only in the most elementary way," I answered. "And something killed
those men, you say--something you do not understand?"
"I can only surmise. Something struck them that froze them stiff,
that turned moving salt water to ice in an instant, that killed the
intelligence that directed it. It was a passenger, a young missionary
going home--a young genius of a man with a bent toward material things,
and a whole boatload of scientific paraphernalia that he was always
experimenting with. He was on the poop-deck when this occurred, but
went clean crazy when I fell to the deck. We put him in the Cape Town
hospital, but up to the last he was demented. He alone could tell what
he did to that bunch of mutineers, but he could not have lived much
longer."
"Tell me the yarn," I suggested. "Perhaps I can make a further guess at
it."
"The best way," he answered, "would be to hypnotize you and question
your subconscious mind. It is done in the hospitals to learn of
mysterious, baffling diseases, and why could not you tell how this
happened? But I never hypnotized anyone, so I'll give you the
yarn--tell you what I know, and perhaps you can get the rest."
He placed his picture, face downward, on my table, seated himself, and
lighted his pipe as a preliminary to his story. But before he could
begin there was a knock at the door, and I admitted Old Bill.
"Thought, sir," he said, "that you might want me to clean up when the
job is done."
This was usual; when a piece of work was in the making I paid no
attention to my place. Only when the last stroke was applied to a
picture did I think of housecleaning, and send for Bill.
"All right," I answered. "But not right away. Come back in an hour,
when we're through talking."
He had entered the room, and nodded at my answer, even though his eyes
were fixed upon the painting on the easel.
"But ye haven't put my face in it, arter all, sir," he said.
"No, you didn't make good, Bill," I answered. Then my attention was
taken by the expression of his face--a curious blankness which I knew
too well. My neighbor noticed, too, and said sharply:
"Brace up, Bill! Brace up, man!"
I knew the remedy from former experience, and happened to have it in a
closet. Quickly pouring a glass of liquor, I gave it to the shaking,
tottering old man, and he swallowed it at a gulp.
"Thank ye, sir," he said a moment later, when he was steadier. "Ye know
I don't drink, sir; but when I feel it comin' on, nothin' else but a
drink'll stop the spell. I'll be back in an hour, sir."
He left, and the artist remarked: "Poor old Bill. He'll go out feet
first one of these days, and that'll be the last of him. Well, I'll
tell you about that bark. I shipped in her at Hongkong, and stuck to
her at Batavia, where every other man 'fore the mast deserted. She was
not exactly a hell ship, as hell ships go; but the skipper and two
mates were American, with American ideas of discipline, and these ideas
were too strenuous for the cosmopolitan crew of Dagoes, Dutchmen, and
Sou'egians that had taken her down the China Sea.
"But the crew we took on at Batavia was worse; there was not a white
man in the crowd. There were three giants among them--one, Wong Fing,
a short-haired renegade from Ningpo, where he was wanted for cutting
his brother's throat. Another was Pango Sam, a West Coast negro, and
a capital seaman, but with a frightful temper. The third was Landy
Jim, and I never knew his nationality. He was a half-breed, or a
fourth-breed; when things went well with him he was yellow, but when
angered he turned black, and his eyes turned red as his hair, which,
though kinky, was the color of a brand-new brick. They were a fine
trio, and the master spirits.
"The rest were the usual riffraff of the Orient, yellow and brown,
barely able to speak English or understand orders, but able to get
out of their own way, steer after a fashion, and pull a rope if put
in their hands. With this crowd we went to sea, bound for Cape Town,
and at the last moment our passenger, of whom I have spoken, joined us
with his apparatus. There was nothing that I understood at the time,
nor even now. He had a lot of tanks, flasks, carboys, spiral pipes,
and such things, with a big, cup-shaped affair that might have been
a reflector if it had not been so long. I remember it was polished
inside, and perhaps now, could I see that outfit, I might make a guess
as to what he was experimenting with.
"No, in painting that picture you did not read my mind, or you would
have put the Reverend Mr. Mayhew in with the apparatus on the poop;
for I saw it plainly, though unable to understand; and there is plenty
of room in the foreground--on the poop. You have pictured Pango Sam
correctly, and the fellow down on deck near the fore-rigging is Landy
Jim, and Wong Fing is that fellow on the fore-hatch. It is wonderful,
and it is more than mere mind reading, though I cannot say that you
have got the features of the others. I cannot remember."
At this moment there was an interruption. The elevator boy appeared,
announcing that a visitor had arrived, asking for my neighbor, and,
with apologies and promises to return, he left me, leaving the door
open. I sat there in my easy-chair thinking of the wonderful powers of
the subconscious mind, as indicated in my own case, and wondering if I
could go farther, and solve the mystery that was beyond the powers of
my experienced and erudite old friend. I smoked and pondered, until my
pipe went out, then filled and relighted it to smoke and ponder still
more, while I looked at the picture I had painted. And as I looked the
pipe went cold in my grasp, the fixed expression on the faces of Pango
Sam, Wong Fing, and Landy Jim took on mobility of action, while the men
on deck writhed in their dying agony.
My pipe fell to the floor again, and I roused up, realizing only that
I had been half asleep, but also feeling the desire to fill in the
hiatus--to place in the vacant foreground the scientific apparatus
vaguely described by my friend. So, after a few preliminary outlinings
in charcoal, I went at it, and soon I had placed the tanks and spiral
pipes and the long, cup-shaped object described to me.
Vaguely, as I worked, I felt that I was merely obeying
suggestion--following up the hints given me by my neighbor; yet, when
I had finished, and seated myself for another smoke, I felt myself
trembling from head to foot, as though I had actually lived the
experience, and were suffering from the memories. From this state of
mind I was aroused by the return of my neighbor.
"By George!" he said, as he looked at the painting. "Where do you get
this? You have got it right, and refreshened my memory. Fifty years is
a long time, and I had forgotten; but there is the whole apparatus,
lacking only the Reverend Mr. Mayhew. Why didn't you put him in, behind
that big, long cup?"
"Don't know," I answered. "Didn't think of him."
"Well, never mind. There is a reason for all things. No doubt you will
yet get it all, if you delve farther into the infinite."
But I did not need to delve still farther, as will be apparent by what
follows.
"There is not much to the yarn," he continued. "The trouble began in
the usual way, from the white man's fixed idea that it is always safe
to kick a nigger, and that a nigger is anything human, but not white. A
good deal depends, of course, upon the kind of nigger that is kicked,
and big Pango Sam was not accustomed to it. Neither were Wong Fing nor
Landy Jim, but they all got it before we were well through the Straits
of Sunda. All three threatened the second mate, who was doing the
kicking, with sudden death, and the result was that we were all called
aft and compelled, under the muzzle of three pistols, to hand in our
sheath knives.
"I needed no such coercion, for, though I was a 'foremast hand, I had
no great sympathy for, nor community of interest with, my shipmates.
However, the skipper and two mates classed me in with the rest, and had
as little sympathy for me. In fact, the only companionship I enjoyed on
that passage was when I was at the wheel, and the passenger would talk
with me. He was about my age, and seemed to have taken a liking to me;
yet there was little that we could talk about. I was uneducated and
crude, while his was the brightest mind I had come into contact with.
"Even then I could appreciate that he knew more of navigation than did
the skipper, and I heard him say one day that the mistake of his life
was in taking to the ministry instead of devoting himself to science.
For preaching came hard to him, he said, while the study of science was
a delight.
"Well, I hardly know how the trouble started. It was partly due to our
losing our knives, for a sailor without a knife is like a mechanic
without tools. It put us all in a bad humor; we had to untie with our
fingers rackings, whippings, and stops which ordinarily we would have
cut. And one day, when the passenger had his apparatus on the poop,
a fierce squall hit us, and soon developed into a gale that demanded
the taking in of canvas. There was no time to lift those heavy tanks
and flasks down below, so, while we hauled on downhauls, clewlines,
and buntlines, the passenger remained by his property, watching and
guarding it.
"We had trouble at once from the lack of our knives, for the coils of
all halyards had been stopped up clear of the deck, and we had to untie
these while the three bullies of the after-guard yelled at us. Seas
began boarding us, too, and that made matters worse. But finally we
got the two royals, the gafftopsail, and the flying jib down, and the
courses clewed up; but while the latter was being done, I and two of
the small fry went aloft to furl, my job being the fore royal. I furled
it, and had started down, when I looked below, and saw the whole crowd
on deck fighting the two mates, with the helmsman running forward to
join the row, leaving the skipper at the wheel.
"I slid down by the royal backstay, for while I had no great
fellow-feeling for the officers, still, they were my countrymen, and
I had no desire to take part in mutiny. Before I reached the deck,
however, the fight was over, as far the mates were concerned. They were
running aft, for their guns, I suppose, while all but Pango Sam lay
stretched out on the deck, and he met me at the rail with murder in his
eyes, knowing instinctively, I suppose, that I was not on his side.
"As I jumped to the deck and reached for a belaying pin, he grabbed
me. I was utterly helpless in the grasp of that giant. He roared
inarticulately, and frothed at the mouth as he lifted me at full length
over his head, to dash me to the deck.
"But, as I told you, I merely slid down, to paralyze my crazy bone on
hard ice--ice, remember, in the tropics. When I picked myself up Pango
Sam was still standing, but dead and stiff, his feet frozen in the ice
that covered the deck. Then I saw our passenger flat on his back. He
never recovered his reason. His last intelligent speech was given as he
fell to the deck, which was about a second or so after I fell myself.
While at the wheel, a few days later, I heard the skipper quote it to
the mate. It was: 'God have mercy upon my soul!' After that he uttered
nothing but gibberish."
Behind us the sound of footsteps came to our ears: but before we could
turn, or arise, a voice, fervent and agonized, repeated: "God have
mercy upon my soul!" And Old Bill launched headlong between us, and
lay unconscious on the floor at the foot of the easel.
"Another spell," said my neighbor. "It was coming to him, I guess. Help
me lift him to your couch."
We laid the old fellow on the couch, where he lay with every indication
of a fainting spell. But, though we worked over him for a time, he did
not come out of it. He did not seem to be in a natural sleep, either,
for his breath was too faint, his pulse too irregular. We watched him
with growing disquiet for a while, then telephoned to the nearest
hospital. Old Bill was taken away, still unconscious, and all we could
do was to put him from our minds with the mental reservation that we
would visit him.
We did not visit him. Work, engagements, the eternal scramble for money
incidental to the life of every man who works for himself, prevented
my neighbor and me from getting together for the visit. In a month,
however, Old Bill visited us as we sat, discussing my picture; but we
hardly recognized him, and, on his part, he did not recognize us at all.
His old face, though still wrinkled and withered, bore an alert,
intelligent look far removed from the dull, stupid expression we had
known; he was clad in well-fitting garments late from the tailor. He
carried a cane, and on his hands were gloves which, as he removed them,
showed fingers thick and stubby, but with the unmistakable signs of
recent manicuring.
"Pardon me, gentlemen," he said, as he looked us over, "but I have
been directed to this studio by an ambulance surgeon as the place from
which I was taken in a comatose condition about a month ago. I wakened
a few days later with the memories, the consciousness--the ego, I might
say--of a young man of twenty-five. Had not that ego been in a good,
stable condition I might have gone mad when I saw my old face in a
mirror, and realized that I had lost fifty years of my life.
"Since then, however, I have been re-establishing my old connections,
and I am now trying to learn what I have been, where I have been,
and who I have been. Can you tell me anything? I am, or was once, a
Methodist clergyman, named Franklin Mayhew; but I fear that I have
forfeited the title of reverend."
"What?" exclaimed my neighbor. We had both risen to our feet, to stare
at the metamorphosed Old Bill, but now we sat down, rather weak in the
legs. I had the grace to motion our visitor to a chair.
"If you are the Reverend Franklin Mayhew," continued my neighbor, "did
you once take passage in the bark _Rangoon_ at Batavia, bound to Cape
Town?"
"I did, and by my chronology it was but a month ago. The terrible
scenes on board that vessel were the first things that came to my mind
when I wakened in the hospital. Do you know anything about it? I want
to know what happened to me."
"I do not know what happened to you, nor what happened to that crowd of
mutineers. I was 'fore the mast in that bark, and remember you; but I
have known you lately merely as a man-of-all-work around this building.
I owe you a dollar for cleaning up my place"--our visitor raised his
hand deprecatingly--"and we called you Bill. You couldn't remember
your last name, nor very far back. You went crazy aboard that bark,
Mr. Mayhew, and we put you ashore, still crazy, at Cape Town. I know
nothing more."
"Nor does anyone else?" The look on his face was piteous.
"I doubt that you can gather up the threads. Why should you wish to?
You must have lived a life of misery and hard labor. You were shocked
into fainting by the sight of a picture, right here in this studio, and
you have awakened to intelligence and mental activity."
"What picture?"
For answer I arose and wheeled the easel around so that the painting
faced him. The effect upon him was more startling than had been the
same experience upon my friend.
"Oh, God, help me!" he almost screamed. "God have mercy upon my soul!
Why must it be perpetuated? Have I not suffered enough?" He covered his
face with his hands, and with some misgiving I covered the picture with
a cloth.
"That was it," he continued. "That was the last I remember on board
that bark, and the first in the hospital the other day. I killed seven
human beings--I, an ordained minister of the gospel!"
"Steady, sir," answered my neighbor, rising and laying a reassuring
hand upon his shoulder. "You killed only six--how, I don't know--six
bloodthirsty cutthroats who would have killed you if they'd had their
way."
"But one was innocent," answered Mr. Mayhew, uncovering his moist eyes.
"The young fellow in the clutch of the big negro."
"That was myself, and I am very much alive. In fact, Mr. Mayhew, you
saved my life. You killed the nigger, but I simply fell down to the
deck. Then I came aft and helped carry you below. Look here?" He lifted
the cloth, and pointed to the face of the man held poised over the
negro's head. "That's me. Never mind who painted this picture, but look
here." He displayed the tintype. "Taken at the end of that voyage,"
he continued, "and still in my possession. No doubt, Mr. Mayhew, your
mind gave way under the shock of the experience, and it returned to
you when you looked at the reproduction. Now, don't worry about it any
more. You did right to quell that mutiny."
"Perhaps--according to most standards. But I was a minister, and my
conscience was already active enough from my devotion to science to the
neglect of my clerical work. But perhaps you are right. I'll try and
not worry."
I joined in with what encouragement I could offer, and when he had
calmed somewhat my neighbor said: "You must tell me how you did it,
Mr. Mayhew. You killed six worthless heathen, and saved the lives of
several white men, by some application of intense cold. I am a student
of science, but I cannot understand."
"Very simple," answered our guest. "You know that cold is merely
negative heat, and, if reduced to a point, will act like heat,
decreasing in strength as the square of the distance."