Part 5 (1/2)
The captain, named Astley, was a jovial person who held every kind of certificate He seemed so extraordinarily able at his business that personally I suspected hi made mistakes in the course of his career, not unconnected with the worshi+p of Bacchus In this I believe I was right; otherwise abigger than a private yacht The first mate, Jacobsen, was a melancholy Dane, a spiritualist who played the concertina, and seemed to be able to do without sleep The creere a ood men for the most part and quite unobjectionable,Scandinavian I think that is all I need say about the Star of the South
The arrangeh the Straits of Gibraltar to Marseilles, where ould join her, and thence travel via the Suez Canal, to Australia and on to the South Seas, returning hoht dictate
All the first part of the plan we carried out to the letter Of the re at present
The Star of the South was a theical instruments, selected by Bickley, and a case of Bibles and other religious works in sundry languages of the South Seas, selected by Bastin, whose bishop, when he understood the pious objects of his journey, had rather encouraged than hindered his departure on sick leave, and a large number of novels, books of reference, etc, laid in by myself She duly sailed from the Thae, where all three of us boarded her
I forgot to add that she had another passenger, the little spaniel, Tommy I had intended to leave hi up he followedof my purpose that my heart was touched When I entered the motor to drive to the station he escaped froe on my knee After this I felt that Destiny intended him to be our companion
Moreover, was he not linked withfuture also?
Chapter V The Cyclone
We enjoyed our voyage exceedingly In Egypt, a land I was glad to revisit, we only stopped a hile the Star of the South, which we rejoined at Suez, coaled and went through the Canal This, however, gave us time to spend a few days in Cairo, visit the Pyramids and Sakkara which Bastin and Bickley had never seen before, and inspect the great Museum The journey up the Nile was postponed until our return It was a pleasant break and gave Bickley, a yptian history and theology, the opportunity of trying to prove to Bastin that Christianity was a uined
It never seemed to occur to either of theressive; in short, different rays of light thrown from the various facets of the same crystal, as in turn these are shone upon by the sun of Truth
Our passage down the Red Sea was cool and agreeable Thence we shaped our course for Ceylon Here again we stopped a little while to run up to Kandy and to visit the ruined city of Anarajapura with its great Buddhist topes that once again gave rise to religious argu Ceylon we struck across the Indian Ocean for Perth in Western Australia
It was a long voyage, since to save our coal we made most of it under canvas However, ere not dull as Captain Astley was a good companion, and even out of the melancholy Dane, Jacobsen, we had entertain seances in the cabin, at which the usual phenomena occurred The table twisted about, voices were heard and Jacobsen's accordion wailed out tunes above our heads These happenings drove Bickley to a kind of madness, for here were events which he could not explain He was convinced that so tricks upon hiue, entirely without result
First he accused Jacobsen, as very indignant, and then hed In the end Jacobsen and I left the ”circle” and the cabin, which was locked behind us; only Bastin and Bickley re there in the dark Presently we heard sounds of altercation, and Bickley e very red in the face, followed by Bastin, as saying:
”Can I help it if solasses, which anyhow are quite useless to you when there is no light? Again, is it possible foron the other side of that table, to have placed the concertina on your head andthat I have not the slightest idea how to do?”
”Please do not try to explain,” snapped Bickley ”I am perfectly aware that you deceived ood joke”
”My dear fellow,” I interrupted, ”is it possible to i anyone?”
”Why not,” snorted Bickley, ”seeing that he deceives himself from one year's end to the other?”
”I think,” said Bastin, ”that this is an unholy business and that we are both deceived by the devil I will have no more to do with it,” and he departed to his cabin, probably to say soiven up but Jacobsen produced an instrument called a planchette and with difficulty persuaded Bickley to try it, which he did after , a heart-shaped piece of wood mounted on wheels and with a pencil stuck at its narrow end, cantered about the sheet of paper on which it was placed, Bickley, whose hands rested upon it, staring at the roof of the cabin Then it began to scribble and after a while stopped still
”Will the Doctor look?” said Jacobsen ”Perhaps the spirits have told hi”
”Oh! curse all this silly talk about spirits,” exclailasses and held up the paper to the light, for it was after dinner
He stared, then with an exclae suspicion at the poor Dane and the rest of us, threw it down and left the cabin I picked it up and next hter There on the top of the sheet was a rough but entirely recognizable portrait of Bickley with the accordion on his head, and underneath, written in a delicate, Italian female hand, absolutely different from his oere these words taken from one of St Paul's Epistles--”Oppositions of science falsely so called” Underneath the, schoolboy fist, very like Bastin's, was inscribed, ”Tell us how this is done, you silly doctor, who think yourself so clever”
”It seems that the devil really can quote Scripture,” was Bastin's only comment, while Jacobsen stared before him and smiled
Bickley never alluded to thewith paper and che to discover a form of invisible ink which would appear upon the application of the hand As he never said anything about it, I fear that he failed
This planchette business had a so it and asked e him I inquired on what day we should reach Fremantle, the port of Perth
It wrote an anshich, I may remark, subsequently proved to be quite correct