Mirrikh, or, A Woman from Mars/Chapter 8

by Francis Worcester Doughty

CHAPTER VIII.

A MAN FROM ANOTHER WORLD.

“Great Heavens! What a crash!” cried Philpot, as he strode to the doorway to adjust the shawl, one end of which had been torn from its fastenings by the whirl of the wind. “Positively I thought this old rookery was coming down about our ears. There it goes again! By Jove! that was a blinder—look out boys, it’s coming again!”

It came. In an instant, we heard the echoing roll of that stupendous conflict in progress among the clouds.

I threw more wood on the fire, but did not speak—I could not. This last had struck me dumb.

Not the thunder of course; I do not refer to that! It was the letter. Could it by any possibility be that—but no. It was too absurd.

Meanwhile Maurice had seated himself again and Philpot returned to the fire.

“It is a good thing I found it,” he said. “It proves conclusively that the fellow is only a paltry trickster after all. No doubt the letter was written for your express benefit Wylde. He has some object in view in crossing your path as he does, you may rest assured.”

“Have you formed so low an estimate of my intelligence Doctor, that you think for an instant I could believe such a claim as that letter puts forth?”

“No—oh, no! I was only joking.”

“How dumb you are! Can’t you see that the letter is a cipher—that the allusions to Mars mean something altogether different—that——”

“Do you believe that George?” interposed Maurice.

“I do indeed.”

“Then I don’t.”

“What!” cried the Doctor. “De Veber, for gracious sake don’t let your love of the occult carry you too far!”

“I did not say I believed what the letter hints at. I say it is not a cipher. I stick to it. No man would write a cipher that way. His eagerness to recover the letter proves that it was nothing of the sort.”

“And I,” persisted Philpot, “believe that Wylde is right, and has hit the true solution. A journey to Mars! Transmigration to another planet! By Jove! that beats all the Buddhistic claims which have come to my knowledge yet. When I was a lad I used to dream of such a possibility, but——”

“But it is a startling conclusion to our acquaintance with Mr. Mirrikh,” interrupted Maurice. “If he can levitate from one tower of the Nagkon Wat to the other, why not from one planet to another?”

“Gad!” cried the Doctor suddenly slapping his knee. “I have it!”

“What is it?” I exclaimed,

“A thought—a remembrance—a curious coincidence all in one.”

“Out with it, Doctor,” said Maurice.

“Years ago I read a curious book written by an eighteenth century religious lunatic—you may have heard of him—Emmanuel Swedenborg, the Swedish seer.”

“I have heard of him, but never read any of his works. A sort of Spiritualist on a mild scale was he not?”

“Something that way. I have read but little of him myself, but I recollect this particular book because of the sublime impudence of its claim.”

“Which was?”

“That he had visited several of the planets in the spirit—among the rest the planet Mars.”

“Well?”

“Oh, I’m coming to it. Among other things he states that a portion of the inhabitants of Mars have faces which are black below and white above.”

“My stars! You don’t mean it!” cried Maurice.

“He does. He says just that. Now I see it all. Mirrikh is a fraud. He has been playing upon the credulity of the Benares Buddhists. His face is painted to help bear out his claim.”

“It must be so,” I cried. “Doctor you have hit it.”

“I’m sure of it!” said Philpot. “Would that he were here now. I could make the charge to his face. Oh, depend upon it, he is a shrewd rascal——hark! What is that!”

We listened.

Above the howl of the storm I could distinctly hear strange sounds proceeding apparently from that part of the tower which lay above us. Musical sounds—a voice singing, or rather chanting a strain so weird and dismal that it made my very blood run cold.

“Mirrikh, by all that’s holy!” ejaculated the Doctor. “The fakir has kept his word! He said that we should have a visit from him to-night.”

“Listen! listen!” breathed Maurice, raising his hand. “Could anything be grander, more solemn, more entirely in harmony with our strange surroundings?”

We listened breathlessly; even Philpot seemed to experience the influence of that wild, mournful strain which echoed down from the obscurity above us, reminding me most forcibly of the opening measures of the “Wolfschlticht” in Der Freischütz, being a series of prolonged shakes in a minor key, with an occasional break into melody, followed by an instant return to the shake again.

Suddenly this ceased and a moment of stillness followed, and then began a movement of a wholly different sort.

“Gad!” broke in the Doctor; “the top of the tower must be filled with people! No one voice could produce such sounds as those.”

“Hark! Hark!” whispered Maurice. “Was anything ever so heavenly, so divine!”

Now I am not much of a musician. I perform on no instrument nor do I sing, but I love music and in my time have attended operas and philharmonics sufficient to know something of what is what, and I can truthfully affirm that no more remarkable performance was ever heard by the ears of mortal man.

Beginning in low, sweet, sympathetic strains, which re-reminded me of the opening of the Larghetto in the Second Symphony, it rose by a gentle crescendo until it seemed to fill the whole of that gloomy interior, then falling again into melody which stirred the inmost depths of my soul.

Now the motive became more strident, and rising above the thunder which was again cracking outside, there came a succession of sounds harmonizing with the fury of the elements to a degree fairly enchanting, It was not one voice, but many; it could not have been produced otherwise, I was reflecting, when suddenly the chorus ceased, and but one voice was heard, and that deep and sonorous, rising and falling until at length it appeared to die away in the distance, and profound stillness pervaded the interior of the tower once more.

For several seconds no one spoke.

“Wonderful!” breathed Maurice at last. “Never in all my life have I listened to music so heavenly. George, what can it mean?”

“I propose to find out what it means,” cried the Doctor, seizing a burning brand from the fire. “Follow me, gentlemen. We shall soon know.”

He moved towards the stone staircase which communicated with the upper portion of the tower. What the sensations of my friend De Veber may have been I cannot say, but I know mine, as we followed, were those of deepest awe.

As we ascended, the silence remained unbroken. Presently we reached the floor above, the Doctor flashed his torch about, but we could discern no one. The circular chamber in which we found ourselves was untenanted; the rain was beating in through the solitary window with wild fury and I found myself wondering where all the water went to and why it had not long ago come pouring down about our heads.

“No one here!” breathed Philpot. “We must try the next floor above.”

We pushed on, but we might as well have spared ourselves the effort. There was no one to be found on that floor nor on the next, nor the next still.

Here the stairs came to an end. Nothing but a dilapidated wooden ladder remained, communicating with a small square opening like a scuttle, only there was no cover. Resolved to leave no portion of the tower unexplored, the Doctor even ascended to the opening, reporting nothing but the darkened vault of the heavens beyond.

We could go no further now, and just then a gust of wind extinguished the torch which Philpot had given Maurice to hold. A bat with flapping wings, disturbed by our intrusion, flew past my face, startling me more than I would have cared to own; just then the Doctor came hurrying down the ladder with an imprecation upon our want of success.

“By Jove! boys, this is most mysterious!” he exclaimed. “There’s no one in the tower but ourselves—that’s just as sure as fate.”

“I knew it!” I answered. “I’m going down.”

“Stay! We will light up first. I have matches.”

“You can’t do it in this draught,” said Maurice? “I’m going back. I’ve had enough of it up here.”

The attempt to light the brand proved futile. Without waiting to see the result, I had already started. The shadows oppressed me. I had had quite enough of them and was anxious to get back to our retreat on the ground floor.

Last to ascend, I was first on the stairs going back. My mental state spurred me on, and I reached the top of the last flight before Maurice and the Doctor had started on the one above.

Now, as I hurried down, my eyes naturally fixed themselves upon the fire, and I perceived that a man stood beside it with his back turned toward me, warming his hands by the blaze.

Instantly that same cold sensation came upon me, and in the same moment I saw that the man was Mirrikh. The next—I will swear that I never removed my eyes from him—and I perceived that the spot which he had occupied before the fire was vacant—Never pausing even to wonder, I dashed on, but when I reached the fire, he was no longer there.

I was glad of it. I had no wish to see him. Past being amazed at any phenomena which might present itself in connection with this man, I never even looked behind the statue to see if he was in hiding, never stopped to consider whether I had been the victim of an illusion or had actually seen him. It seemed useless to disturb myself about this mysterious person any longer, so I just shouted to my companions and bade them make haste, telling what I had seen when they reached my side.

Maurice said nothing, but Philpot was entirely incredulous. He took another brand from the fire and passed behind the big stone Buddha, calling out that there was no one concealed there. In no other part of the enclosure could a man have successfully hidden, so we found ourselves just where we started out.

“It won’t wash, Wylde,” said the Doctor, coarsely. “You didn’t see him.”

“But I did, though.”

“An optical illusion. You were scared, puzzled; thinking of Mirrikh is what brought it about.”

“And you—did you hear that music, or was it an aural illusion?” I retorted.

“Gad! But we all heard that.”

“Account for it.”

“I can’t!”

“Then in heaven’s name don’t talk to me of optical illusions, when—” The words fairly froze upon my lips. I stood staring at the shawl which Maurice had hung before the door, a prey to sensations which simply beggar description. Maurice’s back was turned, and so was the Doctor’s, thus they saw nothing, and, so far as the latter was concerned, it was just as well. But I saw a head come through that shawl—Mirrikh’s head, with the face uncovered—I swear I saw it—it is useless for me to attempt to unpersuade myself, though I have tried it again and again.

Not through any rent or opening in the shawl. Oh, no! Not that! It seemed to pass directly through the fabric itself as if the cohesive attraction of each particle were for the instant destroyed, not assuming its full form until at least three seconds had elapsed. First I saw the forehead, the parti-colored face and the hair form on the inside of the shawl. Then the eyes fitted themselves below the brow, and the nose and mouth appeared, last coming that black and beardless chin, and then I beheld the entire head in perfect outline floating in the air.

Dumb with amazement I neither moved nor spoke.

Now I saw the shadowy outline of a body beneath the head, and suddenly a detached hand appeared, then the other hand, then the legs, and then——

“What’s the matter, George! What is it, old fellow? For heaven sake speak to me,” I could hear Maurice saying.

I had fainted!

I lay upon the stone floor beside the fire with Maurice bending over me on one side and Philpot on the other. They were chafing my hands, Maurice’s face expressing the deepest concern.

I tried to answer—tried to pull myself together, and I did it—did it in spite of another shock, for, raising my eyes I saw Mr. Mirrikh standing near the fire fumbling in a pocket medicine case. Mirrikh in full form and not chopped up like a Chinese puzzle. It was the man I had met at Panompin; the man I had seen on the tower of the Nagkon Wat; the man who had saved the Doctor from the fury of the tiger; Mirrikh in full flesh, as tangible and material as Philpot or Maurice; and when from his face I turned my eyes toward the shawl, there it hung before the door swaying with the wind, not a rent in it—not even the pins by which the Doctor had fastened it to the wood-work disturbed.

“George! George!” called Maurice. “Speak! Don't look that way if you have the least consideration for my feelings. Old fellow, all this has been too much——”

“It’s all right,” I interrupted. “Nothing ails me. Let me get up, will you? I shall be right in a moment.”

“Nothing ails you? What do you mean then by frightening us to death, tumbling over into the fire?” Philpot cried. But I never heeded him. I sprang up just in time to meet the eyes of that wonderful man.

“Mr. Wylde! I am very sorry. I am afraid my abrupt entrance startled you,” he said gently. “You have had a hard day of it; and the storm has affected your nerves. Try a few drops of this mixture. It will put you right in a moment. You need not be afraid of it—it is a simple remedy prepared by myself.”

“I don’t want any of it,” I answered almost roughly. “Maurice, your brandy flask.”

I drank before attempting to speak again. Not for worlds would I have tasted the contents of that bottle then.

“How came he here?” I whispered to my friend.

“Positively I don't know, George. I saw you fall and sprang to catch you. When I looked up, there he was.”

I shuddered and said no more. Just then my eyes discovered another mystery. Mr. Mirrikh wore the same clothing as usual, and every stitch was as dry as the traditional bone!

Philpot, however, was in no mood for silence. I could see by the way his eyes snapped that he was all ready for the fray.

“Probably it was your sudden appearance among us, sir, that startled Mr. Wylde,” he began—we were standing, Maurice and I, on one side of the fire, and they two on the other—“positively you startled even me.”

“For which I am very sorry. If Mr. Wylde will only consent to take a few drops ”

“Which he wont. Look here, sir, where did you come from?”

“From the forest,” he replied with singular mildness. “Surely you have not forgotten your encounter with the tiger so soon?”

“Were you not here a moment ago?” cried the Doctor, ignoring the allusion.

“Did you see me here, sir?”

“No sir, but Wylde did.”

“I was here. I stepped out for a moment; now I am here again.”

“Faith, I see you are! Would you be obliging enough to inform me how you managed to escape a wetting?”

“By a very simple process, sir.”

“Name it.”

“When it began to rain I went inside.”

“What!”

“Did you fail to catch my words?”

“I failed to catch their significance.”

“Really, then I am at a loss to know how I can explain myself more fully.”

“Do you mean to tell us that you have been in this tower ever since it began to rain?”

“I came here before the rain began.”

“And where, pray, have you been since?”

“In one of the chambers above. I answer your questions, sir, simply from politeness. I deny your right to interrogate me; but go on to your heart’s content.”

“I propose to,” replied the Doctor, coolly. “You say you have been up stairs all the time we have been down stairs. May I inquire if it was you who favored us with an exhibition more or less musical, a few moments ago?”

“I was singing—yes, sir.”

“Alone?”

“If you had come up you would have found no one with me.”

“We did go up and we could not find even you.”

“For an excellent reason, sir. When you came up, I was no longer there.”

“Where were you?”

“Here.”

“Will you have the kindness to inform me by what means you got here?”

“No.”

“That settles it,” cried the Doctor, roughly. “I knew you couldn’t explain. I’ve nothing further to say.”

He turned his back abruptly upon Mr. Mirrikh, seated himself by the fire and began to smoke.

He was angry—very angry. In his supreme conceit he had flattered himself that he could show my Panompin friend in the light of a charlatan after the first question or two. In this he had lamentably failed.

Meanwhile Maurice, who had never uttered a word, seated himself again, and now pulled me down beside him; Mr. Mirrikh, however, did not sit down, but just stood there with his hands spread out to catch the warmth, gazing into the fire meditatively. Twice, in the silent moments which followed, I saw him look at Maurice curiously, and once he looked at me.

By this time my equanimity was pretty well restored and I can assure you that I felt quite ashamed of what had occurred. I resolved to settle the mystery of this man once and for all, and I sat there gazing at him trying to assure myself against my reason, that his face was painted as Philpot had claimed, for reason following the dictates of two excellent eyes, told me that it was not. I could not seize him and try the effect of a wet rag upon his chin, though I own that I was itching to do that very thing.

Now Maurice breaks the silence. Just as determined as Philpot, his diplomacy is greater, or his personal sphere more persuasive. He accomplishes with one question what the Doctor fails to accomplish with a dozen.

“You said the other morning that you sometimes smoked,” he remarked, pleasantly. “Won’t you join us now?”

“Thank you. I have no objection.”

He chose a spot near me and sat down, accepting the proffered cheroot and lighting it by the blowing coals.

“You will pardon our friend, I know,” said Maurice; “but one naturally feels a desire to account for the singular experiences we have had in this tower to-night. We are storm bound, Mr. Mirrikh, and, with the possible exception of yourself, all of us have got to stay here till morning. You cannot wonder at our curiosity. Why not gratify it? Wylde is your friend, I would like to be, and as for Mr. Philpot ”

“Oh, count me in,” blurted out the Doctor, “I have not forgotten that Mr. Mirrikh saved my life.”

“Gentlemen,” he said, after puffing meditatively for a moment, “I have nothing but the friendliest feelings toward you, nor in fact toward any one else. All God’s creatures are my friends, and in a fashion I try to love them all; for by loving his creatures I adore the Almighty himself. White or black, red or yellow, it makes no difference; men are men, intelligence is intelligence. What is it to me that you are representatives of a race widely different from my own?”

“Your views are most broad and harmonize with mine exactly,” replied Maurice; “but can you wonder at our curiosity——”

“I do not wonder at it.”

“Then gratify it.”

“That would be impossible.”

“Why so?”

“For an excellent reason. The intelligence of neither one of you has been cultivated to the point of understanding any explanation I could make.”

“I beg to differ with you!” cried Philpot. “Try us and see. If you were up stairs how the devil did you get down stairs without running against us? If you were alone up there, how happens it that we hear——”

“Pardon me. You heard me singing.”

“How many voices do you usually keep about you? I’ll swear I heard at least six at once.”

“As I was saying, Mr. De Veber,” continued Mirrikh, ignoring the question; “it is useless for me to attempt to explain what your minds—and I say it without the slightest desire to cast reflection—are incapable of comprehending. You ask me how I passed down from the top of the tower to the bottom without meeting you on the stairs——”

“I beg your pardon, I didn’t ask it,” said Maurice; “but I’d like to.”

“And I would like to answer but I cannot, further than to say that in doing what I did—and I don’t deny that I did it—I simply put into action a force as purely natural as the force of gravitation. Further than this I do not care to go.”

“Prove the existence of such a force by exerting it now,” I said. “By your strange conduct I have been placed in a most ambiguous position. I’m entitled to some consideration on that account if for no other reason.”

“Mr. Wylde! Is it so? I deeply regret it,” he exclaimed, in a tone of concern. “Still I am no charlatan. I cannot exhibit my powers for the asking. Why, what is this? Can it be possible! My book!”

There it lay open upon the floor just where I had thrown it. I had forgotten its existence, but now as he leaned back and picked it up I could do no less than make some explanation.

The attempt was a lame one I fear, but he listened in polite silence. I did not tell him who opened the bag, but he seemed to understand instinctively that it was not I.

Just as I ceased speaking, the thunder began crashing again. I remember that there was a particularly fearful clap when he opened the book, and running the pages over hastily began to read.

What he read—and he began it without the slightest explanation—was the report of a committee appointed by a theosophic society in England to examine into the claims of a noted Spiritualist who professed to have been bodily levitated through an open, third story window; not once, but frequently, with the power to control his levitations to a certain extent, although admitting ignorance as to how he was taken, where he went, or by what means he was brought back. The report of the committee was to the effect that they, on several occasions—always in the dark—did actually witness the levitation of this individual. The names signed were those of a clergyman, a noted barrister and a baronet, who to his other distinctions was able to add the M. P. Altogether it was just about the most remarkable reading I ever listened to. If I chose I could furnish names and dates, but as I propose to confine myself strictly to the matters which came under my own observation, I forbear.

“You have heard?” he said quietly, as he concluded. “In your own sober England, Mr. Philpot, precisely what I have done on several occasions with which you may be more or less acquainted, has been done. Need I say more?”

“It would be a trifle more satisfactory if you would,” returned the Doctor seriously. “I have read of this business before. That medium has since been exposed as a fraud.”

“Was the secret of his levitation exposed?”

“No. I understand not.”

Simply the man was caught cheating at some other trick?”

“So far as I have heard that is all. He pretended to materialize a spirit, which proved to be himself.”

“You see now how wise I am. It would never do for me to claim too much, or I should run the risk of being classed in the same category as this Englishman. I tell you I possess no supernatural powers. What I did was done on purely scientific principles. But it is quite useless for me to attempt to explain.”

He raised the book by the cover and shook it slightly.

Of course I knew what he was seeking for. I was prepared, too. I had the letter in my hand, having taken it out of my pocket unobserved, for he was not looking at me, and I now reached over and laid it upon his lap.

“There is your letter, Mr. Mirrikh,” I began. “I am sorry it has been opened, but——”

“Look here!” cried the Doctor; “there’s no use mincing matters. I opened that letter, Mr. Mirrikh, and I did it in opposition to Wylde’s particular request.”

For a moment there was a dead silence.

To my intense relief, however, Mr. Mirrikh seemed in no way disturbed.

He took up the envelope, removed the letter and hastily perused it. Then restoring it to the envelope again he thrust it into his pocket, and for a moment just sat there blowing the smoke from his mouth in rings. Presently he looked up with a half sarcastic smile.

“You have all read this letter, gentlemen, I presume?”

“I read it aloud,” replied the Doctor.

“Precisely. That amounts to the same thing. May I ask you what you think of its contents?”

He was asking too much. Even the Doctor’s impudence was not equal to repeating the remarks he had previously made.

“None of you speak,” he continued; “so I see that I must manage this business myself. If I chose I could easily avoid the issue by leaving you—Mr. Wylde knows how easily—but I shall not do this. I have long been of the opinion that the day is at hand when many matters understood only by a narrow circle of Oriental adepts, should be given to the world at large. Possibly this is my mission; I have for some time suspected it. Possibly my meeting with Mr. Wylde at Panompin was but the preliminary step toward the fulfilment of this mission; at all events I shall permit myself so to consider it, and——”

“And what?” exclaimed Maurice, eagerly. Philpot had the grace to hold his tongue.

“And ask you to repeat the question which you put to me on the tower of the Nagkon Wat, Mr. De Veber.”

“What question? I put several—you answered none.”

“I will answer any question you may now ask, freely.”

He arose and stood before us with a graceful dignity that impressed us all.

“Question me,” he repeated. “I am ready.”

“Then in God’s name, tell us who you are and where you came from!” blurted out the Doctor.

He smiled, folding his arms as we had seen him do before.

“Gentlemen,” he said slowly, “your curiosity shall be gratified. I am a man from the planet Mars!”