Part 28 (1/2)
I was not seriously alarmed. The workmen would procure a.s.sistance and labour indefatigably to release me; of that I could be certain. But how much earth had fallen? How much of the pa.s.sage was choked, and how long would they take before I was released? All that was uncertain. I had a candle, or, rather, a bit of one, and it was not probable that it would last till the pa.s.sage was cleared. What made me most anxious was the question whether the supply of air in the hollow in which I was enclosed would suffice.
My enthusiasm for prehistoric research failed me just then. All my interests were concentrated on the present, and I gave up groping about the skeleton for relics. I seated myself on a stone, set the candle in a socket of chalk I had scooped out with my pocket-knife, and awaited events with my eyes on the skeleton.
Time pa.s.sed somewhat wearily. I could hear an occasional thud, thud, when the men were using the pick; but they mostly employed the shovel, as I supposed. I set my elbows on my knees and rested my chin in my hands. The air was not cold, nor was the soil damp; it was dry as snuff.
The flicker of my light played over the man of bones, and especially illumined the skull. It may have been fancy on my part, it probably was fancy, but it seemed to me as though something sparkled in the eye-sockets. Drops of water possibly lodged there, or crystals formed within the skull; but the effect was much as of eyes leering and winking at me. I lighted my pipe, and to my disgust found that my supply of matches was running short. In France the manufacture belongs to the state, and one gets but sixty _allumettes_ for a penny.
I had not brought my watch with me below ground, fearing lest it might meet with an accident; consequently I was unable to reckon how time pa.s.sed. I began counting and ticking off the minutes on my fingers, but soon tired of doing this.
My candle was getting short; it would not last much longer, and then I should be in the dark. I consoled myself with the thought that with the extinction of the light the consumption of the oxygen in the air would be less rapid. My eyes now rested on the flame of the candle, and I watched the gradual diminution of the composite. It was one of those abominable _bougies_ with holes in them to economise the wax, and which consequently had less than the proper amount of material for feeding and maintaining a flame. At length the light went out, and I was left in total darkness. I might have used up the rest of my matches, one after another, but to what good?--they would prolong the period of illumination for but a very little while.
A sense of numbness stole over me, but I was not as yet sensible of deficiency of air to breathe. I found that the stone on which I was seated was pointed and hard, but I did not like to s.h.i.+ft my position for fear of getting among and disturbing the bones, and I was still desirous of having them photographed _in situ_ before they were moved.
I was not alarmed at my situation; I knew that I must be released eventually. But the tedium of sitting there in the dark and on a pointed stone was becoming intolerable.
Some time must have elapsed before I became, dimly at first, and then distinctly, aware of a bluish phosph.o.r.escent emanation from the skeletion. This seemed to rise above it like a faint smoke, which gradually gained consistency, took form, and became distinct; and I saw before me the misty, luminous form of a naked man, with wolfish countenance, prognathous jaws, glaring at me out of eyes deeply sunk under projecting brows. Although I thus describe what I saw, yet it gave me no idea of substance; it was vaporous, and yet it was articulate.
Indeed, I cannot say at this moment whether I actually saw this apparition with my eyes, or whether it was a dream-like vision of the brain. Though luminous, it cast no light on the walls of the cave; if I raised my hand it did not obscure any portion of the form presented to me. Then I heard: ”I will tear you with the nails of my fingers and toes, and rip you with my teeth.”
”What have I done to injure and incense you?” I asked.
And here I must explain. No word was uttered by either of us; no word could have been uttered by this vaporous form. It had no material lungs, nor throat, nor mouth to form vocal sounds. It had but the semblance of a man. It was a spook, not a human being. But from it proceeded thought-waves, odylic force which smote on the tympanum of my mind or soul, and thereon registered the ideas formed by it. So in like manner I thought my replies, and they were communicated back in the same manner.
If vocal words had pa.s.sed between us neither would have been intelligible to the other. No dictionary was ever compiled, or would be compiled, of the tongue of prehistoric man; moreover, the grammar of the speech of that race would be absolutely incomprehensible to man now. But thoughts can be interchanged without words. When we think we do not think in any language. It is only when we desire to communicate our thoughts to other men that we shape them into words and express them vocally in structural, grammatical sentences. The beasts have never attained to this, yet they can communicate with one another, not by language, but by thought vibrations.
I must further remark that when I give what ensued as a conversation, I have to render the thought intercommunication that pa.s.sed between the h.o.m.o Praehistoricus--the prehistoric man--and me, in English as best I can render it. I knew as we conversed that I was not speaking to him in English, nor in French, nor Latin, nor in any tongue whatever. Moreover, when I use the words ”said” or ”spoke,” I mean no more than that the impression was formed on my brain-pan or the receptive drum of my soul, was produced by the rhythmic, orderly sequence of thought-waves. When, however, I express the words ”screamed” or ”shrieked,” I signify that those vibrations came sharp and swift; and when I say ”laughed,” that they came in a choppy, irregular fas.h.i.+on, conveying the idea, not the sound of laughter.
”I will tear you! I will rend you to bits and throw you in pieces about this cave!” shrieked the h.o.m.o Praehistoricus, or primeval man.
Again I remonstrated, and inquired how I had incensed him. But yelling with rage, he threw himself upon me. In a moment I was enveloped in a luminous haze, strips of phosph.o.r.escent vapour laid themselves about me, but I received no injury whatever, only my spiritual nature was subjected to something like a magnetic storm. After a few moments the spook disengaged itself from me, and drew back to where it was before, screaming broken exclamations of meaningless rage, and jabbering savagely. It rapidly cooled down.
”Why do you wish me ill?” I asked again.
”I cannot hurt you. I am spirit, you are matter, and spirit cannot injure matter; my nails are psychic phenomena. Your soul you can lacerate yourself, but I can effect nothing, nothing.”
”Then why have you attacked me? What is the cause of your impotent resentment?”
”Because you are a son of the twentieth century, and I lived eight thousand years ago. Why are you nursed in the lap of luxury? Why do you enjoy comforts, a civilisation that we knew nothing of? It is not just.
It is cruel on us. We had nothing, nothing, literally nothing, not even lucifer matches!”
Again he fell to screaming, as might a caged monkey rendered furious by failure to obtain an apple which he could not reach.
”I am very sorry, but it is no fault of mine.”
”Whether it be your fault or not does not matter to me. You have these things--we had not. Why, I saw you just now strike a light on the sole of your boot. It was done in a moment. We had only flint and iron-stone, and it took half a day with us to kindle a fire, and then it flayed our knuckles with continuous knocking. No! we had nothing, nothing--no lucifer matches, no commercial travellers, no Benedictine, no pottery, no metal, no education, no elections, no _chocolat menier_.”
”How do you know about these products of the present age, here, buried under fifty feet of soil for eight thousand years?”
”It is my spirit which speaks with your spirit. My spook does not always remain with my bones. I can go up; rocks and stones and earth heaped over me do not hold me down. I am often above. I am in the tavern overhead. I have seen men drink there. I have seen a bottle of Benedictine. I have applied my psychical lips to it, but I could taste, absorb nothing. I have seen commercial travellers there, cajoling the patron into buying things he did not want. They are mysterious, marvellous beings, their powers of persuasion are little short of miraculous. What do you think of doing with me?”
”Well, I propose first of all photographing you, then soaking you in gum arabic, and finally transferring you to a museum.”
He screamed as though with pain, and gasped: ”Don't! don't do it. It will be torture insufferable.”