Books: The Moon Metal
G >>
Garrett P. Serviss >> The Moon Metal
Pages:
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6
At first I could discern nothing except a smoky blue glow. But soon my
vision cleared a little, and then I perceived that I was gazing into a
narrow tunnel which met ours directly end to end. Glancing along the
axis of this gallery I saw, some two hundred yards away, a faint light
which evidently indicated the mouth of the tunnel.
At the end where we had met it the mysterious tunnel was considerably
widened at one side, as if the excavators had started to change
direction and then abandoned the work, and in this elbow I could just
see the outlines of two or three flat cars loaded with broken stone,
while a heap of the same material lay near them. Through the centre of
the tunnel ran a railway track.
"Do you know what you are looking at?" asked Hall in my ear.
"I begin to suspect," I replied, "that you have accidentally run into
Dr. Syx's mine."
"If Dr. Syx had been on his guard this accident wouldn't have
happened," replied Hall, with an almost inaudible chuckle.
"I heard you remark a month ago," I said, "that you were changing the
direction of your tunnel. Has this been the aim of your labors ever
since?"
"You have hit it," he replied. "Long ago I became convinced that my
company was throwing away its money in a vain attempt to strike a lode
of pure artemisium. But President Boon has great faith in Dr. Syx, and
would not give up the work. So I adopted what I regarded as the only
practicable method of proving the truth of my opinion and saving the
company's funds. An electric indicator, of my invention, enabled me to
locate the Syx tunnel when I got near it, and I have met it end on,
and opened this peep-hole in order to observe the doctor's
operations. I feel that such spying is entirely justified in the
circumstances. Although I cannot yet explain just how or why I feel
sure that Dr. Syx was the cause of the sudden discovery of the surface
nuggets, and that he has encouraged the miners for his own ends, until
he has brought ruin to thousands who have spent their last cent in
driving useless tunnels into this mountain. It is a righteous thing to
expose him."
"But," I interposed, "I do not see that you have exposed anything yet
except the interior of a tunnel."
"You will see more clearly after a while," was the reply.
Hall now placed his eye again at the aperture, and was unable entirely
to repress the exclamation that rose to his lips. He remained staring
through the hole for several minutes without uttering a
word. Presently I noticed that the lenses of his eye were illuminated
by a ray of light coming through the hole, but he did not stir.
After a long inspection he suddenly applied his ear to the hole and
listened intently for at least five minutes. Not a sound was audible
to me, but, by an occasional pressure of the hand, Hall signified that
some important disclosure was reaching his sense of hearing. At length
he removed his ear.
"Pardon me," he whispered, "for keeping you so long in waiting, but
what I have just seen and overheard was of a nature to admit of no
interruption. He is still talking, and by pressing your ear against
the hole you may be able to catch what he says."
"Who is 'he'?"
"Look for yourself."
I placed my eye at the aperture, and almost recoiled with the violence
of my surprise. The tunnel before me was brilliantly illuminated, and
within three feet of the wall of rock behind which we crouched stood
Dr. Syx, his dark profile looking almost satanic in the sharp contrast
of light and shadow. He was talking to one of his foremen, and the two
were the only visible occupants of the tunnel. Putting my ear to the
little opening, I heard his words distinctly:
--"end of their rope. Well, they've spent a pretty lot of money for
their experience, and I rather think we shall not be troubled again by
artemisium-seekers for some time to come."
The doctor's voice ceased, and instantly I clapped my eye to the
hole. He had changed his position so that his black eyes now looked
straight at the aperture. My heart was in my mouth, for at first I
believed from his expression that he had detected the gleam of my
eyeball. But if so, he probably mistook it for a bit of mica in the
rock, and paid no further attention. Then his lips moved, and I put my
ear again to the hole. He seemed to be replying to a question that the
foreman had asked.
"If they do," he said, "they will never guess the real secret."
Thereupon he turned on his heel, kicked a bit of rock off the track,
and strode away towards the entrance. The foreman paused long enough
to turn out the electric lamp, and then followed the doctor.
"Well," asked Hall, "what have you heard?"
I told him everything.
"It fully corroborates the evidence of my own eyes and ears," he
remarked, "and we may count ourselves extremely lucky. It is not
likely that Dr. Syx will be heard a second time proclaiming his
deception with his own lips. It is plain that he was led to talk as he
did to the foreman on account of the latter's having informed him of
the sudden discharge of my men this morning. Their presence within
ear-shot of our hiding-place during their conversation was, of course,
pure accident, and so you can see how kind fortune has been to us. I
expected to have to watch and listen and form deductions for a week,
at least, before getting the information which five lucky minutes have
placed in our hands."
While he was speaking my companion busied himself in carefully
plugging up the hole in the rock. When it was closed to his
satisfaction he turned on the light in our tunnel.
"Did you observe," he asked, "that there was a second tunnel?"
"What do you say?"
"When the light was on in there I saw the mouth of a smaller tunnel
entering the main one behind the cars on the right. Did you notice
it?"
"Oh yes," I replied. "I did observe some kind of a dark hole there,
but I paid no attention to it because I was so absorbed in the
doctor."
"Well," rejoined Hall, smiling, "it was worth considerably more than a
glance. As a subject of thought I find it even more absorbing than
Dr. Syx. Did you see the track in it?"
"No," I had to acknowledge, "I did not notice that. But," I continued,
a little piqued by his manner, "being a branch of the main tunnel, I
don't see anything remarkable in its having a track also."
"It was rather dim in that hole," said Hall, still smiling in a
somewhat provoking way, "but the railroad track was there plain
enough. And, whether you think it remarkable or not, I should like to
lay you a wager that that track leads to a secret worth a dozen of the
one we have just overheard."
"My good friend," I retorted, still smarting a little, "I shall not
presume to match my stupidity against your perspicacity. I haven't
cat's eyes in the dark."
Hall immediately broke out laughing, and, slapping me good-naturedly
on the shoulder, exclaimed:
"Come, come now! If you go to kicking back at a fellow like that, I
shall be sorry I ever undertook this adventure."
VII
A MYSTERY INDEED!
When President Boon had heard our story he promptly approved Hall's
dismissal of the men. He expressed great surprise that Dr. Syx should
have resorted to a deception which had been so disastrous to innocent
people, and at first he talked of legal proceedings. But, after
thinking the matter over, he concluded that Syx was too powerful to be
attacked with success, especially when the only evidence against him
was that he had claimed to find artemisium in his mine at a time when,
as everybody knew, artemisium actually was found outside the
mine. There was no apparent motive for the deception, and no proof of
malicious intent. In short, Mr. Boon decided that the best thing for
him and his stockholders to do was to keep silent about their losses
and await events. And, at Hall's suggestion, he also determined to say
nothing to anybody about the discovery we had made.
"It could do no good," said Hall, in making the suggestion, "and it
might spoil a plan I have in mind."
"What plan?" asked the president.
"I prefer not to tell just yet," was the reply.
I observed that, in our interview with Mr. Boon, Hall made no
reference to the side tunnel to which he had appeared to attach so
much importance, and I concluded that he now regarded it as lacking
significance. In this I was mistaken.
A few days afterwards I received an invitation from Hall to accompany
him once more into the abandoned tunnel.
"I have found out what that sidetrack means," he said, "and it has
plunged me into another mystery so dark and profound that I cannot see
my way through it. I must beg you to say no word to any one concerning
the things I am about to show you."
I gave the required promise, and we entered the tunnel, which nobody
had visited since our former adventure. Having extinguished our lamp,
my companion opened the peep-hole, and a thin ray of light streamed
through from the tunnel on the opposite side of the wall. He applied
his eye to the hole.
"Yes," he said, quickly stepping back and pushing me into his place,
"they are still at it. Look, and tell me what you see."
"I see," I replied, after placing my eye at the aperture, "a gang of
men unloading a car which has just come out of the side tunnel, and
putting its contents upon another car standing on the track of the
main tunnel."
"Yes, and what are they handling?"
"Why, ore, of course."
"And do you see nothing significant in that?"
"To be sure!" I exclaimed. "Why, that ore--"
"Hush! hush!" admonished Hall, putting his hand over my mouth; "don't
talk so loud. Now go on, in a whisper."
"The ore," I resumed, "may have come back from the furnace-room,
because the side tunnel turns off so as to run parallel with the
other."
"It not only may have come back, it actually has come back," said
Hall.
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I have been over the track, and know that it leads to a
secret apartment directly under the furnace in which Dr. Syx pretends
to melt the ore!"
For a minute after hearing this avowal I was speechless.
"Are you serious?" I asked at length.
"Perfectly serious. Run your finger along the rock here. Do you
perceive a seam? Two days ago, after seeing what you have just
witnessed in the Syx tunnel, I carefully cut out a section of the
wall, making an aperture large enough to crawl through, and, when I
knew the workmen were asleep, I crept in there and examined both
tunnels from end to end. But in solving one mystery I have run myself
into another infinitely more perplexing."
"How is that?"
"Why does Dr. Syx take such elaborate pains to deceive his visitors,
and also the government officers? It is now plain that he conducts no
mining operations whatever. This mine of his is a gigantic
blind. Whenever inspectors or scientific curiosity seekers visit his
mill his mute workmen assume the air of being very busy, the cars
laden with his so-called 'ore' rumble out of the tunnel, and their
contents are ostentatiously poured into the furnace, or appear to be
poured into it, really dropping into a receptacle beneath, to be
carried back into the mine again. And then the doctor leads his gulled
visitors around to the other side of the furnace and shows them the
molten metal coming out in streams. Now what does it all mean? That's
what I'd like to find out. What's his game? For, mark you, if he
doesn't get artemisium from this pretended ore, he gets it from some
other source, and right on this spot, too. There is no doubt about
that. The whole world is supplied by Syx's furnace, and Syx feeds his
furnace with something that comes from his ten acres of Grand Teton
rock. What is that something? How does he get it, and where does he
hide it? These are the things I should like to find out."
"Well," I replied, "I fear I can't help you."
"But the difference between you and me," he retorted, "is that you can
go to sleep over it, while I shall never get another good night's rest
so long as this black mystery remains unsolved."
"What will you do?"
"I don't know exactly what. But I've got a dim idea which may take
shape after a while."
Hall was silent for some time; then he suddenly asked:
"Did you ever hear of that queer magic-lantern show with which Dr. Syx
entertained Mr. Boon and the members of the financial commission in
the early days of the artemisium business?"
"Yes, I've heard the story, but I don't think it was ever made
public. The newspapers never got hold of it."
"No, I believe not. Odd thing, wasn't it?"
"Why, yes, very odd, but just like the doctor's eccentric ways,
though. He's always doing something to astonish somebody, without any
apparent earthly reason. But what put you in mind of that?"
"Free artemisium put me in mind of it," replied Hall, quizzically.
"I don't see the connection."
"I'm not sure that I do either, but when you are dealing with Dr. Syx
nothing is too improbable to be thought of."
Hall thereupon fell to musing again, while we returned to the entrance
of the tunnel. After he had made everything secure, and slipped the
key into his pocket, my companion remarked:
"Don't you think it would be best to keep this latest discovery to
ourselves?"
"Certainly."
"Because," he continued, "nobody would be benefited just now by
knowing what we know, and to expose the worthlessness of the 'ore'
might cause a panic. The public is a queer animal, and never gets
scared at just the thing you expect will alarm it, but always at
something else."
We had shaken hands and were separating when Hall stopped me.
"Do you believe in alchemy?" he asked.
"That's an odd question from you," I replied. "I thought alchemy was
exploded long ago."
"Well," he said, slowly, "I suppose it has been exploded, but then,
you know, an explosion may sometimes be a kind of instantaneous
education, breaking up old things but revealing new ones."
VIII
MORE OF DR. SYX'S MAGIC
Important business called me East soon after the meeting with Hall
described in the foregoing chapter, and before I again saw the Grand
Teton very stirring events had taken place.
As the reader is aware, Dr. Syx's agreement with the various
governments limited the output of his mine. An international
commission, continually in session in New York, adjusted the
differences arising among the nations concerning financial affairs,
and allotted to each the proper amount of artemisium for coinage. Of
course, this amount varied from time to time, but a fair average could
easily be maintained. The gradual increase of wealth, in houses,
machinery, manufactured and artistic products called for a
corresponding increase in the circulating medium; but this, too, was
easily provided for. An equally painstaking supervision was exercised
over the amount of the precious metal which Dr. Syx was permitted to
supply to the markets for use in the arts. On this side, also, the
demand gradually increased; but the wonderful Teton mine seemed equal
to all calls upon its resources.
After the failure of the mining operations there was a moderate
revival of the efforts to reduce the Teton ore, but no success cheered
the experimenters. Prospectors also wandered all over the earth
looking for pure artemisium, but in vain. The general public, knowing
nothing of what Hall had discovered, and still believing Syx's story
that he also had found pure artemisium in his mine, accounted for the
failure of the tunnelling operations on the supposition that the
metal, in a free state, was excessively rare, and that Dr. Syx had had
the luck to strike the only vein of it that the Grand Teton
contained. As if to give countenance to this opinion, Dr. Syx now
announced, in the most public manner, that he had been deceived again,
and that the vein of free metal he had struck being exhausted, no
other had appeared. Accordingly, he said, he must henceforth rely
exclusively, as in the beginning, upon reduction of the ore.
Artemisium had proved itself an immense boon to mankind, and the new
era of commercial prosperity which it had ushered in already exceeded
everything that the world had known in the past. School-children
learned that human civilization had taken five great strides, known
respectively, beginning at the bottom, as the "age of stone," the "age
of bronze," the "age of iron," the "age of gold," and the "age of
artemisium."
Nevertheless, sources of dissatisfaction finally began to appear, and,
after the nature of such things, they developed with marvellous
rapidity. People began to grumble about "contraction of the currency."
In every country there arose a party which demanded "free money."
Demagogues pointed to the brief reign of paper money after the
demonetization of gold as a happy period, when the people had enjoyed
their rights, and the "money barons"--borrowing a term from
nineteenth-century history--were kept at bay.
Then came denunciations of the international commission for
restricting the coinage. Dr. Syx was described as "a devil-fish
sucking the veins of the planet and holding it helpless in the grasp
of his tentacular billions." In the United States meetings of
agitators passed furious resolutions, denouncing the government,
assailing the rich, cursing Dr. Syx, and calling upon "the oppressed"
to rise and "take their own." The final outcome was, of course,
violence. Mobs had to be suppressed by military force. But the most
dramatic scene in the tragedy occurred at the Grand Teton. Excited by
inflammatory speeches and printed documents, several thousand armed
men assembled in the neighborhood of Jenny's Lake and prepared to
attack the Syx mine. For some reason the military guard had been
depleted, and the mob, under the leadership of a man named Bings, who
showed no little talent as a commander and strategist, surprised the
small force of soldiers and locked them up in their own guard-house.
Telegraphic communication having been cut off by the astute Bings, a
fierce attack was made on the mine. The assailants swarmed up the
sides of the canyon, and attempted to break in through the foundation
of the buildings. But the masonry was stronger than they had
anticipated, and the attack failed. Sharp-shooters then climbed the
neighboring heights, and kept up an incessant peppering of the walls
with conical bullets driven at four thousand feet per second.
No reply came from the gloomy structure. The huge column of black
smoke rose uninterruptedly into the sky, and the noise of the great
engine never ceased for an instant. The mob gathered closer on all
sides and redoubled the fire of the rifles, to which was now added the
belching of several machine-guns. Ragged holes began to appear in the
walls, and at the sight of these the assailants yelled with
delight. It was evident that, the mill could not long withstand so
destructive a bombardment. If the besiegers had possessed artillery
they would have knocked the buildings into splinters within twenty
minutes. As it was, they would need a whole day to win their victory.
Suddenly it became evident that the besieged were about to take a hand
in the fight. Thus far they had not shown themselves or fired a shot,
but now a movement was perceived on the roof, and the projecting arms
of some kind of machinery became visible. Many marksmen concentrated
their fire upon the mysterious objects, but apparently with little
effect. Bings, mounted on a rock, so as to command a clear view of the
field, was on the point, of ordering a party to rush forward with axes
and beat down the formidable doors, when there came a blinding flash
from the roof, something swished through the air, and a gust of heat
met the assailants in the face. Bings dropped dead from his perch, and
then, as if the scythe of the Destroyer had swung downward, and to
right and left in quick succession, the close-packed mob was levelled,
rank after rank, until the few survivors crept behind rocks for
refuge.
Instantly the atmospheric broom swept up and down the canyon and
across the mountain's flanks, and the marksmen fell in bunches like
shaken grapes. Nine-tenths of the besiegers were destroyed within ten
minutes after the first movement had been noticed on the roof. Those
who survived owed their escape to the rocks which concealed them, and
they lost no time in crawling off into neighboring chasms, and, as
soon as they were beyond eye-shot from the mill, they fled with panic
speed.
Then the towering form of Dr. Syx appeared at the door. Emerging
without sign of fear or excitement, he picked his way among his fallen
enemies, and, approaching the military guard-house, undid the
fastening and set the imprisoned soldiers free.
"I think I am paying rather dear for my whistle," he said, with a
characteristic sneer, to Captain Carter, the commander of the
troop. "It seems that I must not only defend my own people and
property when attacked by mob force, but must also come to the rescue
of the soldiers whose pay-rolls are met from my pocket."
The captain made no reply, and Dr. Syx strode back to the works. When
the released soldiers saw what had occurred their amazement had no
bounds. It was necessary at once to dispose of the dead, and this was
no easy undertaking for their small force. However, they accomplished
it, and at the beginning of their work made a most surprising
discovery.
"How's this, Jim?" said one of the men to his comrade, as they stooped
to lift the nearest victim of Dr. Syx's withering fire. "What's this
fellow got all over him?"
"Artemisium! 'pon my soul!" responded "Jim," staring at the
body. "He's all coated over with it."
Immediately from all sides came similar exclamations. Every man who
had fallen was covered with a film of the precious metal, as if he had
been dipped into an electrolytic bath. Clothing seemed to have been
charred, and the metallic atoms had penetrated the flesh of the
victims. The rocks all round the battle-field were similarly
veneered. "It looks to me," said Captain Carter, "as if old Syx had
turned one of his spouts of artemisium into a hose-pipe and soaked 'em
with it."
"That's it," chimed in a lieutenant, "that's exactly what he's done."
"Well," returned the captain, "if he can do that, I don't see what use
he's got for us here."
"Probably he don't want to waste the stuff," said the
lieutenant. "What do you suppose it cost him to plate this crowd?"
"I guess a month's pay for the whole troop wouldn't cover the
expense. It's costly, but then--gracious! Wouldn't I have given
something for the doctor's hose when I was a youngster campaigning in
the Philippines in '99?"
The story of the marvellous way in which Dr. Syx defended his mill
became the sensation of the world for many days. The hose-pipe theory,
struck off on the spot by Captain Carter, seized the popular fancy,
and was generally accepted without further question. There was an
element of the ludicrous which robbed the tragedy of some of its
horror. Moreover, no one could deny that Dr. Syx was well within his
rights in defending himself by any means when so savagely attacked,
and his triumphant success, no less than the ingenuity which was
supposed to underlie it, placed him in an heroic light which he had
not hitherto enjoyed.
As to the demagogues who were responsible for the outbreak and its
terrible consequences, they slunk out of the public eye, and the
result of the battle at the mine seemed to have been a clearing up of
the atmosphere, such as a thunderstorm effects at the close of a
season of foul weather.
But now, little as men guessed it, the beginning of the end was close
at hand.
IX
THE DETECTIVE OF SCIENCE
The morning of my arrival at Grand Teton station, on my return from
the East, Andrew Hall met me with a warm greeting.
"I have been anxiously expecting you," he said, "for I have made some
progress towards solving the great mystery. I have not yet reached a
conclusion, but I hope soon to let you into the entire secret. In the
meantime you can aid me with your companionship, if in no other way,
for, since the defeat of the mob, this place has been mighty
lonesome. The Grand Teton is a spot that people who have no particular
business out here carefully avoid. I am on speaking terms with
Dr. Syx, and occasionally, when there is a party to be shown around, I
visit his works, and make the best possible use of my eyes. Captain
Carter of the military is a capital fellow, and I like to hear his
stories of the war in Luzon forty years ago, but I want somebody to
whom I can occasionally confide things, and so you are as welcome as
moonlight in harvest-time."
"Tell me something about that wonderful fight with the mob. Did you
see it?"
"I did. I had got wind of what Bings intended to do while I was down
at Pocotello, and I hurried up here to warn the soldiers, but
unfortunately I came too late. Finding the military cooped up in the
guard-house and the mob masters of the situation, I kept out of sight
on the side of the Teton, and watched the siege with my binocular. I
think there was very little of the spectacle that I missed."
"What of the mysterious force that the doctor employed to sweep off
the assailants?"
Pages:
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6