Meanwhile, as the talk continued, and the wings ofimaginative speculation fanned the thick tobacco smoke, others had dropped in, both male and female members, and the group now filled the little room to the walls. The same magnet drew them all, in each heart burned the same huge question mark: Who—what—is this LeVallon? What was the meaning of the scene in Khilkoff's Studio?
Here, too, was a curious and significant fact about the gathering—the amount of knowledge, true or otherwise, they had managed to collect about LeVallon. One way or another, no one could say exactly how, the Society had picked up an astonishing array of detail they now shared together. It was known where he had spent his youth, also how, and with whom, as well as something of the different views about him held by Dr. Devonham and Edward Fillery. To such temperaments as theirs the strange, the unusual, came automatically perhaps, percolating into their minds as though a collective power of thought-reading operated. Garbled, fanciful, askew, their information may have been, but a great deal of it was not far wrong.
Imson, for instance, provided an account of LeVallon's birth, to which all listened spellbound. He evaded all questions as to how he knew of it. "His parents," he assured the room, "practised the old forgotten magic; his father, at any rate, was an expert, if not an initiate, with all the rites and formulæ of ancient times in his memory. LeVallon was born as the result of an experiment, its origins dating back so far that they concerned life upon another planet, I believe, a planet nearer to the sun. The tremendous winds and heat were vehicles of deity, you see—there."
"The parents, you mean, had former lives upon another planet?" asked someone in a hushed tone. "Or he himself?"
"The parents—and Mason. Mason was involved in the experiment that resulted in the birth of LeVallon here to-day."
"The experiment—what was it exactly?" inquired Lattimer, while Toogood surreptitiously made notes on his rather dirty cuff.
Imson shrugged his shoulders very slightly.
"Some of it came to me in sleep," he mentioned, producing a paper from his pocket and beginning to read it aloud before anyone could stop him.
"When the sun was younger, and moon and starsWere thrilled with my human birth,And the winds fled shouting the wondrous newsAs they circled the sea and the earth,"From the fight for money and worldly fameI drew one magical soulWho came to me over the star-lit seaAs the needle turns to the Pole."Conceived in the hour the stars foretold,This son of the winds I bore,And I taught him the secrets of——"
"When the sun was younger, and moon and starsWere thrilled with my human birth,And the winds fled shouting the wondrous newsAs they circled the sea and the earth,"From the fight for money and worldly fameI drew one magical soulWho came to me over the star-lit seaAs the needle turns to the Pole."Conceived in the hour the stars foretold,This son of the winds I bore,And I taught him the secrets of——"
"When the sun was younger, and moon and starsWere thrilled with my human birth,And the winds fled shouting the wondrous newsAs they circled the sea and the earth,
"When the sun was younger, and moon and stars
Were thrilled with my human birth,
And the winds fled shouting the wondrous news
As they circled the sea and the earth,
"From the fight for money and worldly fameI drew one magical soulWho came to me over the star-lit seaAs the needle turns to the Pole.
"From the fight for money and worldly fame
I drew one magical soul
Who came to me over the star-lit sea
As the needle turns to the Pole.
"Conceived in the hour the stars foretold,This son of the winds I bore,And I taught him the secrets of——"
"Conceived in the hour the stars foretold,
This son of the winds I bore,
And I taught him the secrets of——"
"Yes," interrupted Povey audaciously, "but the experiment you were telling us about——?"
A murmur of approving voices helped him.
"Oh, the experiment, yes, well—all I know is," he went on with conviction, calmly replacing the poem in his pocket, "that it concerned an old rite, involving the evocation of some elemental being or nature-spirit the three of them had already evoked millions of years before, but had not banished again. The experiment they made to-day was to restore it to its proper sphere. In order to do so, they had to evoke it again, and, of course"—he glanced round, as though all present were familiar with the formula of magical practices—"it could come only through the channel of a human system."
"Of course, yes," murmured a dozen voices, while eyes grew bigger and a pin dropping must have been audible.
"Well"—Imson spoke very slowly now, each word clearas a bell—"the father, who was officiating, failed. He could not stand the strain. His heart stopped beating. He died—just whenitwas there, he dropped dead."
"What happened toit?" asked Povey, too interested to care that he no longer led the room. "You said it could only use a human system as channel——"
"It did so," explained Imson.
The information produced a pause of several seconds. Some of the members, like Toogood, though openly, were making pencil notes upon cuffs or backs of envelopes.
"But the channel was neither Mason nor the woman." The effect of this negative information was as nothing compared to the startling interest produced by the speaker's next words: "It took the easiest channel, the line of least resistance—the unborn body of the child."
Povey, seizing his opportunity, leaped into the silence:
"Whose body, now full grown, and named LeVallon, came to the Studio!" he exclaimed, looking round at the group, as though he had himself given the explanation all had just listened to. "A human body tenanted by a nature-spirit, one of the form-builders—aDeva...."
FOR all the wildness of the talk, this group of the Unstable was a coherent and consistent entity, using a language each item in it understood. They knew what they were after. Alcohol, coffee, tobacco, underfeeding, these helped or hindered, respectively, the expression of an ideal that, nevertheless, was common to them all; and if the minds represented were unbalanced, or merely speculative, poetic, one genuine quest and sympathy bound all together into a coherent, and who shall say unintelligent or valueless, unit. The unstable enjoyed an extreme sensitiveness to varied experience, with flexible adaptability to all possible new conditions, whereas the stable, with their rigid mental organizations, remained uninformed, stagnant, even fossilized.
In other rooms about the great lamp-lit city sat, doubtless, other similar groups at the very same moment, discussing the shibboleths of other faiths, of other dreams, of other ideas, systems, notions, philosophies, all interpretative of the earth in which little humanity dwells, cut off and isolated, apparently, from the rest of the stupendous universe. A listener, screened from view, a listener not in sympathy with the particular group he observed, and puzzled, therefore, by the language used, must have deemed he listened to harmless, if boring, madness. For each group uses its own language, and the lowest common denominator, though plainly printed in the world's old scriptures, has not yet become adopted by the world at large.
Into this particular group, a little later in the evening, and when the wings of imagination had increased theirsweep a trifle dangerously perhaps—into the room, like the arrival of a policeman rather, dropped Father Collins. He came rarely to the Prometheans' restaurant. There was a general sense of drawing breath as he appeared. A pause followed. Something of the cold street air came with him. He wore his big black felt hat, his shabby opera cloak, and clutched firmly—he had no gloves on—the heavy gnarled stick he had cut for his collection in a Cingalese forest years ago, when he was studying with a Buddhist priest. The folds of his voluminous cloak, as he took it off, sent the hanging smoke-clouds in a whirl. His personality stirred the mental atmosphere as well. The women looked up and stared, respectful welcome in their eyes; several of the men rose to shake hands; there was a general shuffling of chairs.
"Bring anothermoulin à ventand a clean glass," Povey said at once to the hovering waiter.
"It's raw and bitter in the street and a fog coming down thickly," mentioned Father Collins. He exhaled noisily and with comfortable relief, as he squeezed himself towards the chair Povey placed for him and looked round genially, nodding and shaking hands with those he knew. "But you're warm and cosy enough in here"—he sat down with unexpected heaviness, and smiled at everybody—"and well fed, too, I'll be bound."
"'The body must be comfortable before the mind can enjoy itself,'" said Phillipps, an untidy member who disliked asceticism. "Starvation produces hallucination, not vision." His glance took in the unused glasses. His qualification was a vision of an uncle at the moment of death, and the uncle had left him money. He had written a wordy pamphlet describing it.
"I'll have an omelette, then, I think," Father Collins told the waiter, as the red wine arrived. "And some fried potatoes. A bit of cheese to follow, and coffee, yes." He filled his glass. He had not come to argue or to preach, and Phillipps's challenge passed unnoticed. Phillipps, who had been leading the talk of late, resented the new arrival,but felt his annoyance modify as he saw his own glass generously filled. Povey, too, accepted a glass, while saying with a false vehemence, "No, no," his finger against the rim.
A change stole over the room, for the new personality was not negligible; he brought his atmosphere with him. The wild talk, it was felt now, would not be quite suitable. Father Collins had the reputation of being something of a scholar; they were not quite sure of him; none knew him very intimately; he had a rumoured past as well that lent a flavour of respect. One story had it that "dabbling in magic" had lost him his position in the Church. Yet he was deemed an asset to the Society.
Whatever it was, the key changed sharply. Imson's eyes and ears grew wider, the hand of Miss Lance went instinctively to her hair and combs, Miss Milligan sought through her mind for a remark at once instructive and uncommon, Mrs. Towzer looked past him searchingly lest his aura escape her before she caught its colour, and Kempster, smoothing his immaculate coat, had an air of being in his present surroundings merely by chance. Toogood, quickly scanning his notes, wondered whether, if called upon, he was to be Pharaoh or Cleopatra. One and all, that is, took on a soberer gait. This semi-clerical visit complicated. The presence of Father Collins was a compliment. What he had to say—about LeVallon and the Studio scene—was, anyhow, assured of breathless interest.
Povey led off. "We were just talking over the other night," he observed, "the night at the Studio, you remember. The storm and so on. It was a singular occurrence, though, of course, we needn't, wemustn'texaggerate it." And while he thus, as Secretary, set the note, Father Collins sipped his wine and beamed upon the group. He made no comment. "You were there, weren't you?" continued Povey, sipping his own comforting glass. "I think I saw you. Fillery, you may have noticed," he added, "brought—a friend."
"LeVallon, yes," said the other in a tone that startled them. "A most unusual fellow, wasn't he?" He was attacking the omelette now. "A Greek God, if ever I saw one," he added. And the silence in the crowded room became abruptly noticeable. Miss Milligan, feeling her zodiacal garter slipping, waited to pull it up. Imson's brown eyes grew wider. Kempster held his breath. Toogood borrowed a cigar and waited for someone to offer him a match before he lit it.
"Delicious," added Father Collins. "Cooked to a turn." The omelette slid about his plate.
But the silence continued, and he realized the position suddenly. Emptying his glass and casually refilling it, he turned and faced the eager group about him.
"You want to know whatIthought about it all," he said. "You've been discussing LeVallon, Nayan and the rest, I see." He looked round as though he were in the lost pulpit that was his right. After a pause he asked point blank: "And what doyouall think of it? How did it strike you all? For myself, I confess"—he took another sip and paused—"I am full of wonder and question," he finished abruptly.
It was Imson, the fearless, wondering Pat Imson, who first found his tongue.
"We think," he ventured, "LeVallon is probably ofDevaorigin."
The others, while admiring his courage, seemed unsympathetic suddenly. Such phraseology, probably meaningless to the respected guest, was out of place. Eyes were cast down, or looked generally elsewhere. Povey, remembering that the Society was not solely Eastern, glared at the speaker. Father Collins, however, was not perturbed.
"Possibly," he remarked with a courteous smile. "The origin of us all is doubtful and confused. We know not whence we come, of course, and all that. Nor can we ever tell exactly who our neighbour is, or what. LeVallon," he went on, "since you all ask me"—he looked round again—"is—for me—an undecipherable being. I am," he added, his words falling into open mouths and extended eyes and ears, "somewhat puzzled. But more—I am enormously stimulated and intrigued."
All gazed at him. Father Collins was in his element. The rapt silence that met him was precisely what he had a right to expect from his lost pulpit. He had come, probably, merely to listen and to watch. The opportunity provided by a respectful audience was too much for him. An inspiration tempted him.
"I am inclined to believe," he resumed suddenly in a simple tone, "that he is—a Messenger."
The sentence might have dropped from Sirius upon a listening planet. The babble that followed must, to an ordinary man, have seemed confusion. Everyone spoke with a rush into his neighbour's ear. All bubbled. "I always thought so, I told you so, that was exactly what I meant just now"—and so on. All found their tongues, at any rate, if Povey, as Secretary, led the turmoil:
"Something outside our normal evolution, you mean?" he asked judiciously. "Such a conception is possible, of course."
"A Messenger!" ran on the babel of male and female voices.
It was here that Father Collins failed. The "unstable" in him came suddenly uppermost. The "ecstatic" in his being took the reins. The wondering and expectant audience suited him. The red wine helped as well. When he said "Messenger" he had meant merely someone who brought a message. The expression of nobility merged more and more in the slovenly aspect. Like a priest in the pulpit, whom none can answer and to whom all must listen, he had his text, though that text had been suggested actually by the conversation he had just heard. He had not brought it with him. It occurred to him merely then and there. His mind reflected, in a word, the collective idea that was in the air about him, and he proceeded tosum it up and give expression to it. This was his gift, his fatal gift—a ready sensitiveness, a plausible exposition. He caught the prevailing mood, the collective notion, then dramatized it. Before he left the pulpit he invariably, however, convinced himself that what he had said in it was true, inspired, a revelation—for that moment.
"A Messenger," he announced, thrusting his glass aside with an impatient gesture as though noticing for the first time that it was there. "A Messenger," he repeated, the automatic emphasis in his voice already persuading him that he believed what he was about to say, "sent among us from who knows what distant sphere"—he drew himself up and looked about him—"and for who can guess on what mysterious and splendid mission."
His eye swept his audience, his hand removed the glass yet farther lest, it impede free gesture. It was, however, as Povey noticed, empty now. "We, of course," he went on impressively, lowering his voice, "we, a mere handful in the world, but alert and watchful, all of us—we know that some great new teaching is expected"—he threw out another challenging glance—"but none of us can know whence it may come nor in what way it shall manifest." His voice dropped dramatically. "Whether as a thief in the night, or with a blare of trumpets, none of us can tell. But—we expect it and are ready. Tous, therefore, perhaps, as to the twelve fishermen of old, may be entrusted the privilege of accepting it, the work of spreading it among a hostile and unbelieving world, even perhaps the final sacrifice of—of suffering for it."
He paused, quickly took in the general effect of his words, picked up here and there a hint of question, and realized that he had begun on too exalted a note. Detecting this breath of caution in the collective mind that was his inspiration, he instantly shifted his key.
"LeVallon," he resumed, instinctively emphasizing the conviction in his voice so that the change of key might be less noticeable, "undoubtedly—believes himself to be—somesuch divine Messenger...." It was consummate hedging.
The sermon needs no full report. The audience, without realizing it, witnessed what is known as an "inspirational address," where a speaker, naturally gifted with a certain facile eloquence, gathers his inspiration, takes his changing cues as well, from the collective mind that listens to him. Father Collins, quite honestly doubtless, altered his key automatically. He no longer said that LeVallonwasa Messenger, but that he "believed himself" to be one. Like Balaam, he said things he had not at first thought of saying. He talked for some ten minutes without stopping. He said "all sorts of things," according to the expression of critical doubt, of wonder, of question, of rejection or acceptance, on the particular face he gazed at. At regular intervals he inserted, with considerable effect, his favourite sentence: "A man in hisownplace is the Ruler of his Fate."
He developed his idea that LeVallon "believed himself to be such and such ..." but declared that the conception had been put into the youth during his life of exile in the mountains—the Society had already acquired this information and extended it—and had "felt himself into" the rôle until he had become its actual embodiment.
"He does not think, he does not reason," he explained. "He feels—hefeels with. Now, to 'feel with' anything is to become it in the end. It is the only way of true knowledge, of course, of true understanding. If I want to understand, say, an Arab, I mustfeel withthat Arab to the point—for the moment—of actually becoming him. And this strange youth has spent his time, his best years, mark you—his creative years,feeling withthe elemental forces of Nature until he has actually becomes—at moments—one with them."
He paused again and stared about him. He saw faces shocked, astonished, startled, but not hostile. He continued rapidly: "There lies the danger. One may get caught, get stuck. Lose the desire to return to one's normal self.Which means, of course, remaining out of relation with one's environment—mad. Only a man in hisownplace is the ruler of his luck...."
He noticed suddenly the look of disappointment on several faces. He swiftly hedged.
"On the other hand," he went on, making his voice and manner more impressive than before, "it may be—who can say indeed?—it may be that he is in relation with another environment altogether, a much vaster environment, an extended environment of which the rest of humanity is unaware. The privilege of tasting something of an extended environment some of us here already enjoy. What we all know ashumanactivities are doubtless but a fragment of life—the conscious phenomena merely of some larger whole of which we are aware in fleeting seconds only—by mood, by hint, by suggestive hauntings, so to speak—by faint shadows of unfamiliar, nameless shape cast across our daily life from some intenser sun we normally cannot see! LeVallon may be, as some of us think and hope, a Messenger to show us the way into a yet farther field of consciousness....
"It is a fine, a noble, an inspiring hope, at any rate," he assured the room. "Unless some such Messenger comes into the world, showing us how to extend our knowledge, we can get no farther; we shall never know more than we know now; we shall only go on multiplying our channels for observing the same old things...."
He closed his little address finally on a word as to what attitude should be adopted to any new experience of amazing and incredible kind. To a Society such as the one he had the honour of belonging to was left the guidance of the perverse and ignorant generations outside of it, "the lethargic and unresponsive majority," as he styled them.
"We must not resist," he declared bravely. "We must accept with confidence, above all without fear." He leaned back in his chair, somewhat exhausted, for the source of his inspiration was evidently weakening. His words cameless spontaneously, less easily; he hesitated, sighed, looked from face to face for help he did not find. His glass was empty. "We're here," he concluded lamely, "without being consulted, and we may safely leave to the Powers that brought us here the results of such acceptance."
"Quite so," agreed Povey, sighing audibly. "Denial will get us nowhere." He filled up Father Collins's glass and his own. "I think most of us are ready enough to accept any new experience that comes, and to accept it without fear." He drained his own glass and looked about him. "But the point is—how did LeVallon produce the effect upon us all—the effect he did produce? He may be non-human, or he may be merely mad. He may, as Imson says, come to us by some godless chance from another evolutionary system—of which, mind you, we have as yet no positive knowledge—or he may be a Messenger, as Father Collins suggests, from some divine source, bringing new teaching. But, in the name of Magic, how did he manage it? In other words—what is he?"
For Povey could be very ruthless when he chose. It was this ruthlessness, perhaps, that made him such an efficient secretary. The note of extravagance in his language had possibly another inspiration.
An awkward pause, at any rate, followed his remarks. Father Collins had comforted and blessed the group. Povey introduced cold water rather.
"There's this—and there's that," remarked Miss Milligan, tactfully.
"Those among us," added Miss Lance with sympathy, "who have The Sight, know at least what they have seen. Still, I think we are indebted to Father Collins for—his guidance."
"If we knew exactly what he is," mentioned Mrs. Towzer, referring to LeVallon, "we should know exactly where we are."
They got up to go. There was a fumbling among crowded hat-pegs.
"What is he?" offered Kempster. "He certainly made us all sit up and take notice."
"No mere earthly figure," suggested Imson, "could have produced the effecthedid. In my poem—it came to me in sleep——"
Father Collins held his glass unsteadily to the light. "A Messenger," he interrupted with authority, "would affect us all differently, remember."
The talk continued in this fashion for a considerable time, while all searched for wraps and coats. The waiter brought the bill amid general confusion, but no one noticed him. All were otherwise engaged. Povey paid it finally, putting it down to the Entertainment Account.
"Remember," he said, as they stood in a group on the restaurant steps, each wondering who would provide a lift home, "remember, we have all got to write out an account of what we saw and heard at the Studio. These reports will be valuable. They will appear in our 'Psychic Bulletin' first. Then I'll have them bound into a volume. And I shall try and get LeVallon to give us a lecture too. Tickets will be extra, of course, but each member can bring a friend. I'll let you all know the date in due course."
WHILE the Prometheans thus, individually and collectively fermenting, floundered between old and new interpretations of a strange occurrence, in another part of London something was happening, of its kind so real, so interesting, that one and all would eagerly have renounced a favourite shibboleth or pet desire to witness it. Kempster would have eaten a raw beefsteak, Lattimer have agreed to rebirth as a woman, Mrs. Towzer have swallowed whisky neat, and even Toogood have written a signed confession that his "psychometry," was intelligent guesswork.
It is the destiny, however, of such students of the wonderful to receive their data invariably at second or third hand; the data may deal with genuine occurrences, but the student seems never himself present at the time. From books, from reports, from accounts of someone who knew an actual witness, the student generally receives the version he then proceeds to study and elaborate.
In this particular instance, moreover, no version ever reached their ears at all, either at second or third hand, because the only witness of what happened was Edward Fillery, and he mentioned it to no one. Its reality, its interpretation likewise, remained authoritative only for that expert, if unstable, mind that experienced the one and divined the other.
His conversation with Devonham over, and the latter having retired to his room, Fillery paid a last visit to the patient who was now his private care, instead of merely an inmate of the institution that was half a Home and half a Spiritual Clinique. The figure lay sleeping quietly, the lean, muscular body bare to the wind that blew upon it from the open window. Graceful, motionless, both pillowand coverings rejected, "N. H." breathed the calm, regular breath of deepest slumber. The light from the door just touched the face and folded hands, the features wore no expression of any kind, the hair, drawn back from the forehead and temples, almost seemed to shine.
Through the window came the rustle of the tossing branches, but the night air, though damp, was neither raw nor biting, and Fillery did not replace the sheets upon the great sleeping body. He withdrew as softly as he entered. Knowing he would not close an eye that night, he left the house silently and walked out into the deserted streets....
The rain had ceased, but the wet wind rushed in gusts against him, the soft blows and heavy moisture acting as balm to his somewhat tired nerves. As with great elemental hands, the windy darkness stroked him, soothing away the intense excitement he had felt, muting a thousand eager questions. They stroked his brain into a gentler silence gradually. "Don't think, don't think," night whispered all about him, "but feel, feel, feel. What you want to know will come to you by feeling now." He obeyed instinctively. Down the long, empty streets he passed, swinging his stick, tapping the lampposts, noting how steady their light held in the wind, noting the tossing trees in little gardens, noting occasionally rifts of moonlight between the racing clouds, but relinquishing all attempt to think.
He counted the steps between the lamp-posts as he swung along, leaving the kerb at each crossing with his left foot, taking the new one with his right, planting each boot safely in the centre of each paving stone, establishing, in a word, a sort of rhythm as he moved. He did so, however, without being consciously aware of it. He was not aware, indeed, of anything but that he swung along with this pleasant rhythmical stride that rested his body, though the exercise was vigorous.
And the night laid her deep peace upon him as he went....
The streets grew narrower, twisted, turned and ran uphill;the houses became larger, spaced farther apart, less numerous, their gardens bigger, with groups of trees instead of isolated specimens. He emerged suddenly upon the open heath, tasting a newer, sweeter air. The huge city lay below him now, but the rough, shouting wind drowned its distant roar completely. For a time he stood and watched its twinkling lights across the vapours that hung between, then turned towards the little pond. He knew it well. Its waves flew dancing happily. The familiar outline of Jack Straw's Castle loomed beyond. The square enclosure of the anti-aircraft gun rattled with a metallic sound in the wind....
He had been walking for the best part of two hours now, thinking nothing but feeling only, and his surface-consciousness, perhaps, lay still, inactive. The mind was quiescent certainly, his being subdued and lulled by the rhythmic movement which had gained upon his entire system. The sails of his ship hung idly, becalmed above the profound deeps below. It was these deeps, the mysterious and inexhaustible region below the surface, that now began to stir. There stole upon him a dim prophetic sense as of horizons lifting and letting in new light. He glanced about him. The moon was brighter certainly, the flying scud was thinning, though the dawn was still some hours away. But it was not the light of moon or sun or stars he looked for; it was no outer light.
The little waves fell splashing at his feet. He watched them for a long time, keeping very still; his heart, his mind, his nerves, his muscles, all were very still.... He became aware that new big powers were alert and close, hovering above the world, feathering the Race like wings of mighty birds. The waters were being troubled....
He turned and walked slowly, but ever with the same pleasant rhythm that was in him, to the pine trees, where he paused a minute, listening to the branches shaking and singing, then retraced his steps along the ridge, every yard of which, though blurred in darkness, he knew and recognized.Below, on his left lay London, on his right stretched the familiar country, though now invisible, past Hendon with its Welsh Harp, Wembley, and on towards Harrow, whose church steeple would catch the sunrise before very long. He reached the little pond again and heard its small waves rushing and tumbling in the south-west wind. He stood and watched them, listening to their musical wash and gurgle.
The waters, yes, were being troubled.... Despite the buffeting wind, the world lay even stiller now about him; no single human being had he seen; even stiller than before, too, lay heart and mind within him; the latter held no single picture. He was aware, yes, of horizons lifting, of great powers alert and close; the interior light increased. He felt, but he did not think. Into the empty chamber of his being, swept and garnished, flashed suddenly, then, as in picture form, the memory of "N. H." All that he knew about him came at once: Paul's notes and journey, the London scenes and talks, his own observations, deductions, questionings, his dreams, and fears and yearnings, his hope and wonder—all came in a clapping instant, complete and simultaneous. Into his opened subconscious being floated the power and the presence of that bright messenger who brought glad tidings to his life.
"N. H." stood beside him, whispering with lips that were the darkness, and with words that were the wind. It was the power and presence of "N. H." that lifted the horizon and let in light. His body lay sleeping miles away in that bed against an open window. This was his real presence. Without words, as without thought, understanding came. The appeal of "N. H." was direct to the subliminal mind; it was the hidden nine-tenths he stimulated; hence came the intensification of consciousness in all who had to do with him. And it operated now. Fillery was aware of defying time and space, as though there were no limits to his being. Faith lights fires.... Perception wandered down those dusky by-waysbehindthe mind that lead through tracklessdepths where the massed heritage of the world-soul, lit sometimes by a flashing light, reveal incredible, incalculable things. One of those flashes came now. Through the fissures, as it were, of his unstable being rose the marvellous, uncanny gleam. His eyes were opened and he saw.
The label, he realized, was incorrect, inadequate—"N. H." was a misnomer; more than human, both different to and greater than, came nearer to the truth. A being from other conditions certainly, belonging to another order; an order whose work was unremitting service rendered with joy and faithfulness; a hierarchy whose service included the entire universe, the stars and suns and nebulæ, earth with her frail humanity but an insignificant fraction of it all....
He came, of course, from that central sea of energy whence all life, pushing irresistibly outwards into form, first arises. Like human beings, he came thence undoubtedly, but more directly than they, in more intimate relations, therefore, with the elemental powers that build up form and shape the destinies of matter. One only of a mighty host of varying degrees and powers, his services lay interwoven with the very heart and processes of Nature herself. The energies of heat and air, essentials of all life everywhere, were his handmaidens; he worked with fire and wind; in the forms he helped to build he set enthusiasm and energy aglow....
From stars and fire-mist he came now into humanity, using the limited instrument of a human mechanism, a mechanism he must learn to master without breaking it. A human brain and nerves confined him. He could deal with essences only, those essential, buried, semi-elemental powers that lie ever waiting below the threshold of all human consciousness, linking men, did they but know it, direct with the sea of universal life which is inexhaustible, independent of space and time. The fraction of his nature which had manifested as a transient surface-personality—LeVallon—was gone for ever, merged in the real self below.
His origin was already forgotten; no memory of it lay in his present brain; he must suffer training, education, and he turned instinctively to those whose ideal, like his own, was one of impersonal service. To a woman he turned, and to a man. His recognition, guided by Nature, was sure and accurate. It must take time and patience, sympathy and love, faith, belief and trust, and the labour must be borne by one man chiefly—by Fillery, into whose life had come this strange bright messenger carrying glad tidings ... to prove at last that man was greater than he knew, that the hope for Humanity, for the deteriorating Race, for crumbling Civilization, lay in drawing out into full practical consciousness the divine powers concealed below the threshold of every single man and woman....
But how, in what practical manner, what instrument could they use? The human mechanism, the brain, the mind, afforded inadequate means of manifestation; new wines into old skins meant disaster; knowledge, power beyond the experience of the Race needed a better instrument than the one the Race had painfully evolved for present uses. New powers of unknown kinds, as already in those rare cases when the supernormal forces emerged, could only strain the machinery and cause disorder. A new order of consciousness required another, a different equipment. And the idea flashed into him, as in the Studio when he watched "N. H." and the girl—Father Collins had divined its possibility as well—the idea of a group consciousness, a collective group-soul. What a single individual might not be able to resist at first without disaster, many—a group in harmony—two or three gathered together in unison—these might provide the way, the means, the instrument—the body.
"The personal merged in the impersonal," he exclaimed to the night about him, already aware that words, expression, failed even at this early stage of understanding. "Beauty, Art! Where words, form, colour end, we shall construct, while yet using these as far as they go, a new vehicle, a new——"
"Good evenin'," said a gruff voice. "Good evenin', sir," it added more respectfully, after a second's inspection. "Turned out quite fine after the storm."
Aware of the policeman suddenly, Fillery started and turned round abruptly. Evidently he had uttered his thoughts aloud, probably had cried and shouted them. He could think of nothing in the world to say.
"It was a terrible storm. I hardly ever see the likes of it." The man was looking at him still with doubtful curiosity.
"Extraordinary, yes." Dr. Fillery managed to find a few natural words. It was an early hour in the morning to be out, and his position by the pond, he now realized, might have suggested an undesirable intention. "It made sleep impossible, and I came out to—to take a walk. I'm a doctor, Dr. Fillery—the Fillery Home."
"Yes, sir," said the man, apparently satisfied. He looked at the sky. "All blown away again," he remarked, "and the moon that nice and bright——"
Fillery offered something in reply, then moved away. The moon, he noticed, was indeed nice and bright now; the heavy lower vapours all had vanished, and thin cirrus clouds at a great height moved slowly before an upper wind; the stars shone clearly, and a faint line of colour gave a hint of dawn not far away.
He glanced at his watch. It was nearly half-past four.
"It's impossible, impossible," he thought to himself, the pictures he had been seeing still hanging before his eyes. "It was all feeling—merely feeling. My blood, my heritage asserting themselves upon an over-tired system! Too much repression evidently. I must find an outlet. My Caucasian Valley again!"
He walked rapidly. His mind began to work, and thinking made an effort to replace feeling. He watched himself. His everyday surface-consciousness partially resumed its sway. The policeman, of course, had interrupted the flow and inrush of another state just at the moment when aflash of direct knowledge was about to blaze. It concerned "N. H.," his new patient. In another moment he would have known exactly what and who he was, whence he came, the purpose and the powers that attended him. The policeman—and inner laughter ran through him at this juxtaposition of the practical and the transcendental—had interfered with an interesting expansion of his being. An extension of consciousness, perhaps a touch of cosmic consciousness, was on the way. The first faint quiver of its coming, magical with wondrous joy, had touched him. Its cause, its origin, he knew not, yet he could trace both to the effect produced upon him by "N. H." Of that he was sure. This effect his reasoning mind, with busy analysis and criticism, had hitherto partially suppressed, even at its first manifestation in Charing Cross Station. To-night, criticism silent and analysis inactive, it had found an outlet, his own deep inner stillness had been its opportunity. Then came the practical, honest, simple policeman, the censor, who received so much a week to keep people in the way they ought to follow, the safe, broad way....
He smiled, as he walked rapidly along the deserted streets. He knew so well the method and process of these abnormal states in others. As he swung along, not tired now, but rested, rather, and invigorated, the rhythm of motion established itself again. "N. H." a Nature Spirit! A Nature Being! Another order of life entering humanity for the first time, that humanity for whose welfare it—or was it he?—had worked, with hosts of similar beings, during incalculable ages....
He smiled, remembering the policeman again. There was always a policeman, or a censor. Oh, the exits beyond safe normal states of being, the exits into extended fields of consciousness, into an outer life which the majority, led by the best minds of the day, deny with an oath—these were well guarded! His smile, as he thought of it, ran from his lips and settled in the eyes, lingering a moment there before it died away....
How quiet, yet unfamiliar, the suburb of the huge city lay about him in pale half-light. The Studio scene, how distant it seemed now in space and time; it had happened weeks ago in another city somewhere. Devonham, his cautious, experienced assistant, how far away! He belonged to another age. The Prometheans were part of a dream in childhood, a dream of pantomime or harlequinade whose extravagance yet conveyed symbolic meaning. Two figures alone retained a reality that refused to be dismissed—a mysterious, enigmatic youth, a radiant girl—with perhaps a third—a broken priest....
The rhythm, meanwhile, gained upon him, and, as it did so, thinking once more withdrew and feeling stole back softly. His being became more harmonized, more one with itself, more open to inspiration.... "N. H.," whose work was service, service everywhere, not merely in that tiny corner of the universe called Humanity.... "N. H.," who could neither age nor die.... What was the hidden link that bound them? Had they not served and played together in some lost Caucasian valley, leaped with the sun's hot fire, flown in the winds of dawn ... sung, laughed and danced at their service, with a radiant sylph-like girl who had at last enticed them into the confinement of a limited human form?... Did not that valley symbolize, indeed, another state of existence, another order of consciousness altogether that lay beyond any known present experience or description...?
The dawn, meanwhile, grew nearer and a pallid light ran down the dreadful streets.... He reached at length the foot of the hill upon whose shoulder his own house stood. The familiar sights stirred more familiar currents of feeling, and these in turn sought words....
The crowding houses, with their tight-shut windows, followed and pressed after as he climbed. They swarmed behind him. How choked and airless it all was. He thought of the heavy-footed routine of the thousands who occupied these pretentious buildings. Here lived a section of thegreatest city on the planet, almost a separate little town, with marked characteristics, atmosphere, tastes and habits. How many, he wondered, behind those walls knew yearning, belief, imagination beyond the ruck and routine of familiar narrow thought? Rows upon rows, with their stunted, manufactured trees, hideous conservatories, bulging porches, ornamented windows—his wings beat against them all with the burning desire to set their inmates free. They caged themselves in deliberately. A few thousand years ago these people lived in mud huts, before that in caves, before that again in trees. Now they were "civilized." They dwelt in these cages. Oh, that he might tear away the thick dead bricks, and let in light and dew and stars, and the brave, free winds of heaven! Waken the deeper powers they carried unwittingly about with them through all their tedious sufferings! Teach them that they were greater than they knew!
The yearning was deep and true in him, as the houses followed and tried to bar his way. Many of the occupiers, he knew, would welcome help, would gaze with happy, astonished eyes at the wonder of their own greater selves set free. Not all, of course, were wingless. Yet the majority, he felt, were otherwise. They peered at him from behind thick curtains, hostile, sceptical, contented with their lot, averse to change. Mode, custom, habit chained them to the floor. He was aware of a collective obstinate grin of smug complacency, of dull resistance. Though a part of the community, of the race, of the world, of the universe itself, they denied their mighty brotherhood, and clung tenaciously to their idea of living apart, cut off and separate. They belonged to leagues, societies, clubs and circles, but the bigger oneness of the race they did not know. Of greater powers in themselves they had no faintest inkling. At the first sign of these, they would shuffle, sneer and turn away, grow frightened even.
The yearning to show them a bigger field of consciousness, to help them towards a realization of their buriedpowers, to let them out of their separate cages, beat through his being with a passionate sincerity.... In a hundred thousand years perhaps! Perhaps in a million! He knew the slow gait that Nature loved. The trend of an Age is not to be stemmed by one man, nor by twelve, who see over the horizon. The futility of trying pained him. Yet, if no one ever tried! Oh, for a few swift strokes of awful sacrifice—then freedom!
The words came back to him, and with them, from the same source, came others: "I sit and I weave.... I sit and I weave."... Whose, then, was this divine, eternal patience?...
There could be, it seemed, no hurried growth, no instant escape, no sudden leap to heaven. Slowly, slowly, the Ages turned the wheel. "Nor can other beings help," he remembered; "they can only tell what their own part is."... And as his clear mind saw the present Civilization like all its wonderful predecessors, tottering before his very eyes, threatening in its collapse, the extinction of knowledge so slowly, painfully, laboriously acquired, the deep heart in him rose as on wings of wind and fire, questing the stars above. There was this strange clash in him, as though two great divisions in his being struggled. A way of escape seemed just within his reach, only a little beyond the horizon of his actual knowledge. It fluttered marvellously; golden, alight, inviting. Its coming glory brushed his insight. It was simple, it was divine. There seemed a faint knocking against the doors of his mental and spiritual understanding....
"'N. H.'!" he cried, "Bright Messenger!"
He paused a moment and stood still. A new sound lay suddenly in the night. It came, apparently, from far away, almost from the air above him. He listened. No, after all it was only steps. They came nearer. A pedestrian, muffled to the ears, went past, and the steps died away on the resounding pavement round the corner. Yet the sound continued, and was not the echo of the steps justgone. It was, moreover, he now felt convinced, in the air above him. It was continuous. It reminded him of the musical droning hum that a big bell leaves behind it, while a suggestion of rhythm, almost of melody, ran faintly through it too.
Somebody's lines—was it Shelley's?—ran faintly in his mind, yet it was not his mind now that surged and rose to the new great rhythm: