The Face And The Mask - Robert Barr
The Professor bowed and the audience applauded. As soon as the applause
began the Professor held up his unmaimed arm and said, "Gentlemen, I
beg that you will not applaud."
It seems the fashion in America to address a11 sorts and conditions of
men as "Gentlemen."
The Professor continued, "I have here some explosives so sensitive that
the slightest vibration will cause them to go off, and I therefore ask
you to listen in silence to what I have to say. I must particularly ask
you also not to stamp on the floor."
Before these remarks were concluded Simkins had slipped out by the back
entrance, and somehow his desertion seemed to have a depressing effect
upon the company, who looked upon the broken-up Professor with eyes of
wonder and apprehension.
The Professor drew towards him one of the boxes and opened the lid. He
dipped his one useful hand into the box and, holding it aloft, allowed
something which looked like wet sawdust to drip through his fingers.
"That, gentlemen," he said, with an air of the utmost contempt, "is
what is known to the world as dynamite. I have nothing at all to say
against dynamite. It has, in its day, been a very powerful medium
through which our opinions have been imparted to a listening world, but
its day is past. It is what the lumbering stage-coach is to the
locomotive, what the letter is to the telegram, what the sailing-vessel
is to the steamship. It will be my pleasant duty to-night to exhibit to
you an explosive so powerful and deadly that hereafter, having seen
what it can accomplish, you will have nothing but derision for such
simple and harmless compounds as dynamite and nitro-glycerine."
The Professor looked with kindly sympathy over his audience as he
allowed the yellow mixture to percolate slowly through his fingers back
into the box again. Ever and anon he took up a fresh handful and
repeated the action.
The Anarchists in the audience exchanged uneasy glances one with the
other.
"Yet," continued the Professor, "it will be useful for us to consider
this substance for a few moments, if but for the purpose of comparison.
Here," he said, diving his hand into another box and bringing up before
their gaze a yellow brick, "is dynamite in a compressed form. There is
enough here to wreck all this part of London, were it exploded. This
simple brick would lay St. Paul's Cathedral in ruins, so, however
antiquated dynamite may become, we must always look upon it with
respect, just as we look upon reformers of centuries ago who perished
for their opinions, even though their opinions were far behind what
ours are now. I shall take the liberty of performing some experiments
with this block of dynamite." Saying which the Professor, with his free
arm, flung the block of dynamite far down the aisle, where it fell on
the floor with a sickening thud. The audience sprang from their seats
and tumbled back one over the other. A wild shriek went up into the
air, but the Professor gazed placidly on the troubled mob below him
with a superior smile on his face. "I beg you to seat yourselves," he
said, "and for reasons which I have already explained, I trust that you
will not applaud any of my remarks. You have just now portrayed one of
the popular superstitions about dynamite, and you show by your actions
how necessary a lecture of this sort is in order that you may
comprehend thoroughly the substance with which you have to deal. That
brick is perfectly harmless, because it is frozen. Dynamite in its
frozen state will not explode--a fact well understood by miners and all
those who have to work with it, and who, as a rule, generally prefer to
blow themselves to pieces trying to thaw the substance before a fire.
Will you kindly bring that brick back to me, before it thaws out in the
heated atmosphere of this room?"
One of the men stepped gingerly forward and picked up the brick,
holding it far from his body, as he tip-toed up to the platform, where
he laid it down carefully on the desk before the Professor.
"Thank you," said the Professor, blandly.
The man drew a long breath of relief as he went back to his seat.
"That is frozen dynamite," continued the Professor, "and is, as I have
said, practically harmless. Now, it will be my pleasure to perform two
startling experiments with the unfrozen substance," and with that he
picked up a handful of the wet sawdust and flung it on a small iron
anvil that stood on the table. "You will enjoy these experiments," he
said, "because it will show you with what ease dynamite may be handled.
It is a popular error that concussion will cause dynamite to explode.
There is enough dynamite here to blow up this hall and to send into
oblivion every person in it, yet you will see whether or not concussion
will explode it." The Professor seized a hammer and struck the
substance on the anvil two or three sharp blows, while those in front
of him scrambled wildly back over their comrades, with hair standing on
end. The Professor ceased his pounding and gazed reproachfully at them;
then something on the anvil appeared to catch his eye. He bent over it
and looked critically on the surface of the iron. Drawing himself up to
his full height again, he said,
"I was about to reproach you for what might have appeared to any other
man as evidence of fear, but I see my mistake. I came very near making
a disastrous error. I have myself suffered from time to time from
similar errors. I notice upon the anvil a small spot of grease; if my
hammer had happened to strike that spot you would all now be writhing
in your death-agonies under the ruins of this building. Nevertheless,
the lesson is not without its value. That spot of grease is free nitro-
glycerine that has oozed out from the dynamite. Therein rests, perhaps,
the only danger in handling dynamite. As I have shown you, you can
smash up dynamite on an anvil without danger, but if a hammer happened
to strike a spot of free nitroglycerine it would explode in a moment. I
beg to apologize to you for my momentary neglect."
A man rose up in the middle of the hall, and it was some little time
before he could command voice enough to speak, for he was shaking as if
from palsy. At last he said, after he had moistened his lips several
times:--
"Professor, we are quite willing to take your word about the explosive.
I think I speak for all my comrades here. We have no doubt at all about
your learning, and would much prefer to hear from your own lips what
you have to say on the subject, and not have you waste any more
valuable time with experiments. I have not consulted with my comrades
before speaking, but I think I voice the sense of the meeting." Cries
of "You do, you do," came from all parts of the hall. The Professor
once more beamed upon them benevolently.
"Your confidence in me is indeed touching," he said, "but a chemical
lecture without experiments is like a body without a soul. Experiment
is the soul of research. In chemistry we must take nothing for granted.
I have shown you how many popular errors have arisen regarding the
substance with which we are dealing. It would have been impossible for
these errors to have arisen if every man had experimented for himself;
and although I thank you for the mark of confidence you have bestowed
upon me, I cannot bring myself to deprive you of the pleasure which my
experiments will afford you. There is another very common error to the
effect that fire will explode dynamite. Such, gentlemen, is not the
case."
The Professor struck a match on his trousers-leg and lighted the
substance on the anvil. It burnt with a pale bluish flame, and the
Professor gazed around triumphantly at his fellow Anarchists.
While the shuddering audience watched with intense fascination the pale
blue flame the Professor suddenly stooped over and blew it out.
Straightening himself once more he said, "Again I must apologize to
you, for again I have forgotten the small spot of grease. If the flame
had reached the spot of nitro-glycerine it would have exploded, as you
all know. When a man has his thoughts concentrated on one subject he is
apt to forget something else. I shall make no more experiments with
dynamite. Here, John," he said to the trembling attendant, "take this
box away, and move it carefully, for I see that the nitro-glycerine is
oozing out. Put it as tenderly down in the next room as if it were a
box of eggs."
As the box disappeared there was a simultaneous long-drawn sigh of
relief from the audience.
"Now, gentlemen," said the Professor, "we come to the subject that
ought to occupy the minds of all thoughtful men." He smoothed his hair
complacently with the palm of his practicable hand, and smiled genially
around him.
"The substance that I am about to tell you of is my own invention, and
compares with dynamite as prussic acid does with new milk as a
beverage." The Professor dipped his fingers in his vest pocket and drew
out what looked like a box of pills. Taking one pill out he placed it
upon the anvil and as he tip-toed back he smiled on it with a smile of
infinite tenderness. "Before I begin on this subject I want to warn you
once more that if any man as much as stamps upon the floor, or moves
about except on tip-toe this substance will explode and will lay London
from here to Charing Cross in one mass of indistinguishable ruins. I
have spent ten years of my life in completing this invention. And these
pills, worth a million a box, will cure all ills to which the flesh is
heir."
"John," he said, turning to his attendant, "bring me a basin of water!"
The basin of water was placed gingerly upon the table, and the
Professor emptied all the pills into it, picking up also the one that
was on the anvil and putting it with the others.
"Now," he said, with a deep sigh, "we can breathe easier. A man can put
one of these pills in a little vial of water, place the vial in his
vest-pocket, go to Trafalgar Square, take the pill from the vial, throw
it in the middle of the Square, and it will shatter everything within
the four-mile radius, he himself having the glorious privilege of
suffering instant martyrdom for the cause. People have told me that
this is a drawback to my invention, but I am inclined to differ with
them. The one who uses this must make up his mind to share the fate of
those around him. I claim that this is the crowning glory of my
invention. It puts to instant test our interest in the great cause.
John, bring in very carefully that machine with the electric-wire
attachment from the next room."
The machine was placed upon the table. "This," said the Professor,
holding up some invisible object between his thumb and forefinger, "is
the finest cambric needle. I will take upon the point of it an
invisible portion of the substance I speak of." Here he carefully
picked out a pill from the basin, and as carefully placed it upon the
table, where he detached an infinitesimal atom of it and held it up on
the point of the needle. "This particle," he said, "is so small that it
cannot be seen except with the aid of a microscope. I will now place
needle and all on the machine and touch it off with electric current;"
and as his hand hovered over the push-button there were cries of
"Stop! stop!" but the finger descended, and instantly there was a
terrific explosion. The very foundation seemed shaken, and a dense
cloud of smoke rolled over the heads of the audience. As the Professor
became visible through the thinning smoke, he looked around for his
audience. Every man was under the benches, and groans came from all
parts of the hall. "I hope," said the Professor, in anxious tones,
"that no one has been hurt. I am afraid that I took up too much of the
substance on the point of the needle, but it will enable you to imagine
the effect of a larger quantity. Pray seat yourselves again. This is my
last experiment."
As the audience again seated itself, another mutual sigh ascended to
the roof. The Professor drew the chairman's chair towards him and sat
down, wiping his grimy brow.
A man instantly arose and said, "I move a vote of thanks to Professor
Slivers for the interesting----"
The Professor raised his hand. "One moment," he said, "I have not quite
finished. I have a proposal to make to you. You see that cloud of smoke
hovering over our heads? In twenty minutes that smoke will percolate
down through the atmosphere. I have told you but half of the benefits
of this terrific explosive. When that smoke mixes with the atmosphere
of the room it becomes a deadly poison. We all can live here for the
next nineteen minutes in perfect safety, then at the first breath we
draw we expire instantly. It is a lovely death. There is no pain, no
contortion of the countenance, but we will be found here in the morning
stark and stiff in our seats. I propose, gentlemen, that we teach
London the great lesson it so much needs. No cause is without its
martyrs. Let us be the martyrs of the great religion of Anarchy. I have
left in my room papers telling just how and why we died. At midnight
these sheets will be distributed to all the newspapers of London, and
to-morrow the world will ring with our heroic names. I will now put the
motion. All in favor of this signify it by the usual upraising of the
right hand."
The Professor's own right hand was the only one that was raised.
"Now all of a contrary opinion," said the Professor, and at once every
hand in the audience went up.
"The noes have it," said the Professor, but he did not seem to feel
badly about it. "Gentlemen," he continued, "I see that you have guessed
my second proposal, as I imagined you would, and though there will be
no newspapers in London to-morrow to chronicle the fact, yet the
newspapers of the rest of the world will tell of the destruction of
this wicked city. I see by your looks that you are with me in this, my
second proposal, which is the most striking thing ever planned, and is
that we explode the whole of these pills in the basin. To make sure of
this, I have sent to an agent in Manchester the full account of how it
was done, and the resolutions brought forward at this meeting, and
which doubtless you will accept.
"Gentlemen, all in favor of the instant destruction of London signify
it in the usual manner."
"Mr. Professor," said the man who had spoken previously, "before you
put that resolution I would like to move an amendment. This is a very
serious proposal, and should not be lightly undertaken. I move as an
amendment, therefore, that we adjourn this meeting to our rooms at
Soho, and do the exploding there. I have some little business that must
be settled before this grand project is put in motion."
The Professor then said, "Gentlemen, the amendment takes precedence. It
is moved that this meeting be adjourned, so that you may consider the
project at your club-rooms in Soho."
"I second that amendment," said fifteen of the audience rising together
to their feet.
"In the absence of the regular chairman," said the Professor, "it is my
duty to put the amendment. All in favor of the amendment signify it by
raising the right hand."
Every hand was raised. "The amendment, gentlemen, is carried. I shall
be only too pleased to meet you to-morrow night at your club, and I
will bring with me a larger quantity of my explosive. John, kindly go
round and tell the man to unlock the doors."
When Simkins and Slivers called round the next night at the regular
meeting-place of the Anarchists, they found no signs of a gathering,
and never since the lecture has the Soho Anarchist League been known to
hold a meeting. The Club has mysteriously dissolved.
THE FEAR OF IT.
The sea was done with him. He had struggled manfully for his life, but
exhaustion came at last, and, realizing the futility of further
fighting, he gave up the battle. The tallest wave, the king of that
roaring tumultuous procession racing from the wreck to the shore, took
him in its relentless grasp, held him towering for a moment against the
sky, whirled his heels in the air, dashed him senseless on the sand,
and, finally, rolled him over and over, a helpless bundle, high up upon
the sandy beach.
Human life seems of little account when we think of the trifles that
make toward the extinction or the extension of it. If the wave that
bore Stanford had been a little less tall, he would have been drawn
back into the sea by one that followed. If, as a helpless bundle, he
had been turned over one time more or one less, his mouth would have
pressed into the sand, and he would have died. As it was, he lay on his
back with arms outstretched on either side, and a handful of dissolving
sand in one clinched fist. Succeeding waves sometimes touched him, but
he lay there unmolested by the sea with his white face turned to the
sky.
Oblivion has no calendar. A moment or an eternity are the same to it.
When consciousness slowly returned, he neither knew nor cared how time
had fled. He was not quite sure that he was alive, but weakness rather
than fear kept him from opening his eyes to find out whether the world
they would look upon was the world they had last gazed at. His
interest, however, was speedily stimulated by the sound of the English
tongue. He was still too much dazed to wonder at it, and to remember
that he was cast away on some unknown island in the Southern Seas. But
the purport of the words startled him.
"Let us be thankful. He is undoubtedly dead." This was said in a tone
of infinite satisfaction.
There seemed to be a murmur of pleasure at the announcement from those
who were with the speaker. Stanford slowly opened his eyes, wondering
what these savages were who rejoiced in the death of an inoffensive
stranger cast upon their shores. He saw a group standing around him,
but his attention speedily became concentrated on one face. The owner
of it, he judged, was not more than nineteen years of age, and the
face--at least so it seemed to Stanford at the time--was the most
beautiful he had ever beheld. There was an expression of sweet gladness
upon it until her eyes met his, then the joy faded from the face, and a
look of dismay took its place. The girl seemed to catch her breath in
fear, and tears filled her eyes.
"Oh," she cried, "he is going to live."
She covered her face with her hands, and sobbed.
Stanford closed his eyes wearily. "I am evidently insane," he said to
himself. Then, losing faith in the reality of things, he lost
consciousness as well, and when his senses came to him again he found
himself lying on a bed in a clean but scantily furnished room. Through
an open window came the roar of the sea, and the thunderous boom of the
falling waves brought to his mind the experiences through which he had
passed. The wreck and the struggle with the waves he knew to be real,
but the episode on the beach he now believed to have been but a vision
resulting from his condition.
A door opened noiselessly, and, before he knew of anyone's entrance, a
placid-faced nurse stood by his bed and asked him how he was.
"I don't know. I am at least alive."
The nurse sighed, and cast down her eyes. Her lips moved, but she said
nothing. Stanford looked at her curiously. A fear crept over him that
he was hopelessly crippled for life, and that death was considered
preferable to a maimed existence. He felt wearied, though not in pain,
but he knew that sometimes the more desperate the hurt, the less the
victim feels it at first.
"Are--are any of my--my bones broken, do you know?" he asked.
"No. You are bruised, but not badly hurt. You will soon recover."
"Ah!" said Stanford, with a sigh of relief. "By the way," he added,
with sudden interest, "who was that girl who stood near me as I lay on
the beach?"
"There were several."
"No, there was but one. I mean the girl with the beautiful eyes and a
halo of hair like a glorified golden crown on her head."
"We speak not of our women in words like those," said the nurse,
severely; "you mean Ruth, perhaps, whose hair is plentiful and yellow."
Stanford smiled. "Words matter little," he said.
"We must be temperate in speech," replied the nurse.
"We may be temperate without, being teetotal. Plentiful and yellow,
indeed! I have had a bad dream concerning those who found me. I thought
that they--but it does not matter. She at least is not a myth. Do you
happen to know if any others were saved?"
"I am thankful to be able to say that every one was drowned."
Stanford started up with horror in his eyes. The demure nurse, with
sympathetic tones, bade him not excite himself. He sank back on his
pillow.
"Leave the room," he cried, feebly, "Leave me--leave me." He turned his
face toward the wall, while the woman left as silently as she had
entered.
When she was gone Stanford slid from the bed, intending to make his way
to the door and fasten it. He feared that these savages, who wished him
dead, would take measures to kill him when they saw he was going to
recover. As he leaned against the bed, he noticed that the door had no
fastening. There was a rude latch, but neither lock nor bolt. The
furniture of the room was of the most meagre description, clumsily
made. He staggered to the open window, and looked out. The remnants of
the disastrous gale blew in upon him and gave him new life, as it had
formerly threatened him with death. He saw that he was in a village of
small houses, each cottage standing in its own plot of ground. It was
apparently a village of one street, and over the roofs of the houses
opposite he saw in the distance the white waves of the sea. What
astonished him most was a church with its tapering spire at the end of
the street--a wooden church such as he had seen in remote American
settlements. The street was deserted, and there were no signs of life
in the houses.
"I must have fallen in upon some colony of lunatics," he said to
himself. "I wonder to what country these people belong--either to
England or the United States, I imagine--yet in all my travels I never
heard of such a community."
There was no mirror in the room, and it was impossible for him to know
how he looked. His clothes were dry and powdered with salt. He arranged
them as well as he could, and slipped out of the house unnoticed. When
he reached the outskirts of the village he saw that the inhabitants,
both men and women, were working in the fields some distance away.
Coming towards the village was a girl with a water-can in either hand.
She was singing as blithely as a lark until she saw Stanford, whereupon
she paused both in her walk and in her song. Stanford, never a backward
man, advanced, and was about to greet her when she forestalled him by
saying:
"I am grieved, indeed, to see that you have recovered."
The young man's speech was frozen on his lip, and a frown settled off
his brow. Seeing that he was annoyed, though why she could not guess,
Ruth hastened to amend matters by adding:
"Believe me, what I say is true. I am indeed sorry."
"Sorry that I live?"
"Most heartily am I."
"It is hard to credit such a statement from one so--from you."
"Do not say so. Miriam has already charged me with being glad that you
were not drowned. It would pain me deeply if you also believed as she
does."
The girl looked at him with swimming eyes, and the young man knew not
what to answer. Finally he said:
"There is some horrible mistake. I cannot make it out. Perhaps our
words, though apparently the same, have a different meaning. Sit down,
Ruth, I want to ask you some questions."
Ruth cast a timorous glance towards the workers, and murmured something
about not having much time to spare, but she placed the water-cans on
the ground and sank down on the grass. Stanford throwing himself on the
sward at her feet, but, seeing that she shrank back, he drew himself
further from her, resting where he might gaze upon her face.
Ruth's eyes were downcast, which was necessary, for she occupied
herself in pulling blade after blade of grass, sometimes weaving them
together. Stanford had said he wished to question her, but he
apparently forgot his intention, for he seemed wholly satisfied with
merely looking at her. After the silence had lasted for some time, she
lifted her eyes for one brief moment, and then asked the first question
herself.
"From what land do you come?"
"From England."
"Ah! that also is an island, is it not?"
He laughed at the "also," and remembered that he had some questions to
ask.
"Yes, it is an island--also. The sea dashes wrecks on all four sides of
it, but there is no village on its shores so heathenish that if a man
is cast upon the beach the inhabitants do not rejoice because he has
escaped death."
Ruth looked at him with amazement in her eyes.
"Is there, then, no religion in England?"
"Religion? England is the most religious country on the face of the
earth. There are more cathedrals, more churches, more places of worship
in England than in any other State that I know of. We send missionaries
to all heathenish lands. The Government, itself, supports the Church."
"I imagine, then, I mistook your meaning. I thought from what you said
that the people of England feared death, and did not welcome it or
rejoice when one of their number died."