PROLOGUE
(By the Editor of the Original MS., the lateEdward Cayley, F.S.A.)
Ingiving the following narrative to the Press, I feel, as its editor, I am bound to write a short preface of apology or explanation to such of the public as care to read these pages. But I shall be as brief as possible.
The manuscript, which is here produced in printed form, came into my personal possession through the kindness of Sir W—— Y——, the eminent traveller and mountaineer, who chanced upon it under the following circumstances. Whilst engaged in some work of exploration in the Andes, at the height of 12,000 feet or thereabouts above sea-level, he and his party had to traverse a dry stony ravine. On their passage upward one of the attendant guides chanced to espy amongst the loose stones and rubble a plain white metal cylinder sealed at both ends. Except for a conspicuous dent, evidently the result of a heavy fall, the cylinder itself appeared uninjured, and it was immediately brought by the finder to Sir W——, as the leader of the party. Sir W—— stopped for a moment to examine this strange treasure-trove, and, though much pressed for time, was able to loosen the cover and toascertain that the cylinder contained a large scroll of fine vellum closely covered with minute writing. In the fading light, Sir W——, who had many matters of professional importance to think of, gave only a cursory glance at the manuscript itself, which he fancied must be connected with some of the ancient inhabitants of Peru. Without examining the parchment closely, he thereupon packed away the cylinder in his baggage and made no further effort to elucidate its nature until his return to Lima. My friend was here considerably astonished to find that the MS. which had so strangely fallen into his hands was written, not in some antique or unknown language and characters, but in neat though exceedingly small English script, with the sole exception of one short sentence in Latin—added apparently by another hand and in a different ink—in which the Latin writer begged the finder of the cylinder to take the enclosed scroll of vellum to the nearest English or American consulate. But for this Latin request, which was inserted at the beginning of the manuscript in a most prominent manner, the whole was written in fair nervous English, which it became easy to decipher, so soon as the reader had grown accustomed to the crabbedness of the writing, that had evidently been produced by an exiguity of space.
By one of those curious but happy chances which sometimes occur in life, Sir W—— was still more astonished to discover that the name of the authorwas not only familiar to him, but that he actually had once owned a slight acquaintance with him. More than this, Sir W——, who is one of my dearest and oldest friends, knew that I had been intimate with the writer of this parchment, who (as he thought) had been dead for some years. Sir W—— therefore, though greatly puzzled by the whole inscrutable occurrence, very wisely made no further mention of his discovery, but on his return to England brought the manuscript direct to me at my room in the British Museum. After a long discussion between us, Sir W—— voluntarily made over all arrangements in the matter of publishing or suppressing the contents of the scroll to myself, and indeed, so to speak, washed his hands of all further responsibility in the matter, which had apparently somewhat affected his nerves or his spirits. I have only to add, with regard to the original owner of the MS., that Sir W——, when at Lima, showed the metal case to various persons employed at the museum there, and that all these experts unanimously declared that this object itself could never have been produced by any of the aboriginal inhabitants of Peru; whilst the metal, a species of platinum, was, so far as they were aware, unknown on our planet. And this verdict of the officials at Lima is, I believe, perfectly correct.
As to the authenticity of the MS., I may at once state that the account contained therein coincides in every particular with the evidence that wasproduced at the time of its alleged author's mysterious disappearance. I have had for many years an intimate acquaintance, amounting to a cordial friendship, with the writer, A—— B——. I do not necessarily concur with all that he states later on as to his exceptional mental gifts; nor do I consider his close self-analysis as altogether a correct one. Still, I think his own views on his attainments, his natural genius, his complete failure, and his outlook on life are sincere. Though highly nervous and sensitive by nature, and a prey to constant fits of depression, neither I nor any of his friends, would ever have suspected him of a tendency to suicide. We were indeed, all of us, fully as surprised as we were grieved to learn through the newspapers of November ——, 19—, the details of what we most assuredly at that date considered to have been his own deliberate act of self-destruction. For there can be no question but that A—— B—— had made beforehand plans for his contemplated disappearance; the letter of instruction he wrote to his brother, the careful packing of his valuables at his lodgings, and the sudden payment on the morning that he was last seen of certain outstanding bills clearly point to this surmise. We are however now confronted since the strange discovery of the manuscript with two theories as to his end; did A—— B—— really perish on the beach at Dover; or did he evanish from his own world of men in order to start a new life under new conditions? Hisclothing, we know, was found lying on the bare ground carefully held down by stones and boulders, and in his pockets were some money and a few personal trifles of value. Nevertheless, it is just possible he may have changed into some other garb, and thus disguised have made his escape whither none could trace him. This second theory is however highly improbable, seeing that his age was over forty, his temperament on the whole normal, and his health indifferent; so that I merely mention it here to show that the suggestion has not escaped my own inquiring mind. The conclusion however which both the police and his relatives held was that A—— B—— had in some fit of frenzy or despair plunged naked into the sea, wherein he had been speedily drowned; for it was a cold stormy night. It is true the actual body was never recovered, but professional and amateur alike were agreed on the point of suicide whilst of unsound mind. That the manuscript is a literary jest perpetrated in the name of A—— B—— is also most unlikely, for though he was an author of some talent and repute, his mere name certainly had not the glamour requisite to draw special attention to any posthumous publication. At the risk therefore of being considered credulous, or even crazy, I have come to the deliberate decision that the whole marvellous story as set forth on the parchment is essentially true; and that the events described therein are not the figments of any imagination, sane or insane. Ifthis is the case (which I do not for one moment doubt), then we possess an inestimable account of a planet other than our own. On the other hand, were it a fraud of an elaborate nature, as has been suggested, we have simply a treatise dealing with a Utopia in the stars, just one of those sterile semi-descriptive, semi-political effusions that the speculative human mind has produced from time to time. The record of Meleager and of its unique Secret, of which the author claims to know the existence but not the working details, is either a matter of surpassing interest, or else it is but a literary trifle, a jejune compound of material borrowed from Plato, Sir Thomas More, Rabelais, James Harington, Dean Swift, Samuel Butler, H.G. Wells, and Heaven only knows how many other inventors in a similar vein, both ancient and modern, English and foreign. Once more I repeat my full belief in the writer's veracity and in the substantial truth of all his many adventures. As I write this, I have lying on my desk before me that same strange metal cylinder, and that exquisitely prepared roll of vellum; and whenever I take these objects in my hands I really feel that I am fingering a message in a tangible form from a friend and fellow-mortal who has passed hence to another planet.
I have only to add that in editing the MS. I have deemed it expedient to omit here and there a few passages which might perhaps tend to prejudicethe reader against A—— B—— himself; the fact being patent to me that the author, after some years of residence in another and a wholly diverse moral and physical atmosphere, has somehow imbibed notions and theories that may clash with some of the recognised conventions and standards of this our world, which was also once his own. These omissions do not however mar the general trend of the narrative; and if any authorised persons may conceive a serious desire to peruse these excerpts, I shall willingly acquaint them with what is missing from the text.