Drome
Preface
"But please to remember that although we can prove to our own satisfaction that some things really exist, we can not prove that any imaginable thing outside our experience can not possibly exist. Imagine the wildest impossibility you can think of; you will not induce a modern man of science to admit the impossibility of it as an absolute."—F. Marion Crawford: Whosoever Shall Offend.
"But please to remember that although we can prove to our own satisfaction that some things really exist, we can not prove that any imaginable thing outside our experience can not possibly exist. Imagine the wildest impossibility you can think of; you will not induce a modern man of science to admit the impossibility of it as an absolute."—F. Marion Crawford: Whosoever Shall Offend.
On my return from the Antarctic, it was with surprise and grief that I learned of the very strange and wholly inexplicable disappearance of Milton Rhodes and William Carter. The special work of Rhodes was in a department of science very different from that to which my own pertains; but we were much interested in each other's investigations and problems, and, indeed, we even conducted some experiments together.
It will be quite patent, then, that, as theMultnomahmade her way northward, I was looking forward with much pleasure anticipated to the meeting with my friend—with all that I had to tell him of our adventures and discoveries in the region of the Southern Pole, picturing to myself the astonishment that would most certainly be his on seeing some of the things brought from that mysterious region; above all, imagining his reaction when we would behold our poor Sleeping Beauty in her crystal coffin, in which she had lain (neither living nor dead, as I believe; or as my friend Bond McQuestion has it, in a living death) from some awful day in that period men call the Pliocene.
And then to come back and find that Milton Rhodes had disappeared, and with him William Carter!
They had vanished as suddenly and mysteriously as though a secret departure had been made for the moon or Mars or Venus.
It was very little, I was surprised to learn, that any one could tell me. And that very little presented some very singular features indeed. This was certain: Milton Rhodes had planned to begin in a very few days a series of experiments (the exact nature of which was unknown) that would claim his close and undivided attention for weeks, possibly months, experiments that would keep him imprisoned, so to speak, in his laboratory. But he had not even begun those experiments; he had vanished. What had caused the sudden change? What had happened?
As for William Carter, he was about to start on a journey which would take him as far as Central America. Again, what had happened? What had causedhimto give over all that he had purposed and go and disappear along with Milton Rhodes?
Here there was but one bit of light, but that light seemed to make the problem the more perplexing. The very day before that on which Rhodes and Carter got into the automobile and started for Mount Rainier, some visitor had come and had been received by Rhodes in the library, Carter being present at this meeting. Some of the concomitants of this visit had been a little unusual, it was remembered, though at the time no one had given that a thought.
It was believed that this man had remained there with Rhodes and Carter for a period somewhat extended. But who had this mysterious visitor been? It was, of course, held as certain that something told by this man to the scientist and his companion was the key to the mystery. But what had the visitor told them?
We knew that Rhodes and Carter had gone to Mount Rainier. But why had they so suddenly abandoned all their plans and gone to the mountain? On the mountain they had disappeared. More than that no man could tell.
And now we come to another enigma. Rhodes seldom drove a car himself. On this trip, however, he was at the wheel. The only other occupant of that car was Carter. And Rhodes had left with his chauffeur, Everett Castleman, instructions over which I puzzled my head a good deal but without my ever becoming any the wiser. These instructions were somewhat extraordinary.
They were these:
If Rhodes had not returned, or if no word had been received from him, within a period of ten days, then Castleman was to go to Mount Rainier. He was to go to Paradise, and he was to go on the eleventh day. And he was to maintain a strict silence about everything appertaining to this whole proceeding. At Paradise he was to remain for another period. This was one of eight days. If, at the expiration of that time, neither Rhodes nor Carter had appeared, Castleman was, on the ninth day, to take the car back to Seattle, and then the imposition of silence regarding that part which Castleman had played was at an end.
Themystery, of course, was what had become of Milton Rhodes and William Carter. Had some fatal accident occurred? Had they, for instance, fallen into a crevasse and perished? Or had they just gone off on some wild mountain hike and would they be returning any day?
As to this last hypothesis, those instructions given to Castleman should have shown its utter untenability.
And so the time passed. And Milton Rhodes and William Carter never came back. Week followed week. Month followed month. All hope was abandoned—had been abandoned long before theMultnomahentered Elliott Bay.
And that mysterious visitor? Why had he not spoken? Why had he not come forward and told what he knew? Where was he? Had he too vanished? Had he joined Rhodes and Carter on the mountain, and had the three vanished together? And what had he told them there in Rhodes' library on that fateful day?
Thus matters stood when one afternoon an automobile came gliding into my place, and there in it were Milton Rhodes and William Carter!
With respect to the mystery of their disappearance, I could for some time elicit from them no enlightenment whatever.
Instead:
"Where is she, Darwin?" asked Milton Rhodes, looking about. "Let me see her! Let me meet her! Quick!"
"So you know about my Sleeping Beauty in the Ice?"
"Of course. The first thing that I did," he told me, "was to get a copy ofZandara[1]. We've just finished reading it. And, if it hadn't been for what has happened to us, to Bill here and me, then I might have been inclined, Darwin oldtillicum, to fancy that Bond had been romancing in that book of his instead of setting forth an account of actual adventure and discovery."
"But, Milton," I asked, "what in the world did happen?"
"We'll come to that soon, Darwin old top. What Bill and I want now is to see your Zandara."
"Well, you'll have to wait till she gets back. That should be in an hour or so.
"But, again, what on earth happened?Wherehave you two been all this time?"
But I must not go on like this, or I will find that I am writing a book myself instead of a preface to William Carter's narrative.
You will see it mentioned in his Prolegomenon that his manuscript was to be placed in my keeping, to be given by me to the world when the time fixed upon had expired. All that I need say on that point is that theraison d'êtreof this prospective measure will be quite obvious to you ere you have read to the last page ofDrome.
Save for three very brief footnotes, and to those my name is appended, every word in the pages that follow is from the hand of William Barrington Carter.
I hasten to conclude, that you may proceed to learn who that mysterious visitor was, what he told them,whereRhodes and Carter went—where they are now.
Seattle, Washington,September 18, 1951.