"Oh, Marse Doctah! Don't gib me up! don't gib me up! I didn't know it was Marse Tom's—Marse Doctah—I wuz comin' to."
"Hush, Abe!" said the doctor, "I'll not give you up; but your master is here, and I must get you safely away as soon as I can. It's my brother's man," said Dr. Miller.
"That's a great fix," said Lem; "but I'll get out of here and try to throw them off the track. Don't you leave him here two shakes; the barn'll be the first place they'll aim for," and even as he spoke he slipped away.
"Abe," said the doctor, "you must be perfectly quiet and do exactly what I tell you, and I will have you safe soon. Come with me." And he took him by the arm, and led him out of the side door of the barn and up the path to the kitchen door. He left him for one moment in the little entry outside of it, and went in and told his wife who it was that had come to them. She was shocked and rather frightened, but very quiet, and made no exclamation; and then they put Abe in the big store-room, just out of the kitchen, and she got him some food while she was saying:
"Go and send Patty to me. Tell her anything you can think of. Oh, I know—tell her to come out and show me where the milk is for the cottage cheese."
When the doctor went away Abe told her in a few frightened words that as soon as Mr. Mason left home, two weeks before, the overseer had given him a pass to go to the next county for some sheep, and as he had to drive them back, which would take some days, he knew that he wouldn't be missed for that time, and so could never have a better opportunity for the escape that he had planned for years; but had kept it such a secret that not even the doctor—whose abolition principles were well known to Abe—had had the least suspicion of such a thing. So he had run away, and, strangely enough, been passed along, until he was under the very roof with his master.
"Patty, be careful not to speak loud," Mrs. Miller said a moment later, when her daughter appeared. "I didn't want to see you about the cheeses; but we've got to hide a man to-night until father can get him away. He's in the store-room now; and, Patty," and her mother laid her hand on her shoulder, "it's a strange thing, and I can hardly believe it myself, but it's somebody we know—it's Uncle Tom's Abe."
It was lucky that a chair was behind Patty, for she sat down suddenly and grew very white, but all she said was, "Oh, mother, what shall we do?"
"Father will drive him to Northampton just as quick as he can get him away. But Mr. Carter thinks that Dimmock is following him up very closely, and if he comes here Abe has got to be put in the hiding-place."
A moment later Patty and her mother returned to the room, apparently quite calm and composed, and the doctor was just saying, "Well, I have a long drive before me, and must be off," in such a matter-of-fact way that Patty felt almost hysterical.
Just at that moment some one pounded on the knocker in a very imperative way, and Fanny said, "Goodness, somebody must be dying!" The doctor went to the front door and opened it. Even he, for a second, was startled, as he saw three men standing there.
"Good-evening," said the doctor. "Anybody sick? Hello, Dimmock, I didn't see you. What's the matter?"
Mr. Dimmock seemed somewhat embarrassed, and said: "No, we ain't none of us sick; but fact is, doctor, we're after a runaway nigger, and my friends here—Mr. Sterling and Mr. Pratt—say they traced him right up here about ten minutes ago, and they just brought me along to make the warrant right, as I'm United States Commissioner, you know. Have you got the fellow, and will you give him up?"
"Upon my word!" said the doctor, putting his hands behind his back and holding a hat in one of them. "Do you suppose that I've got him here, with you pretty nearly next door? And don't you know well enough that if I had I wouldn't tell you?"
"Pretty high and mighty, doctor," said the man they called Dimmock. "In the name of the United States, I demand to search this house. We've been through your barn a'ready."
"It's a—an outrage," said the doctor; "so search, if you please; you won't find anybody." And he stepped aside, and said, "Walk in, gentlemen. I have the highest respect for your authority—if not for your business."
As the men walked into the room, Patty said, "Father, is Mr. Dimmock going up into my room?"
"I suppose so," said her father; "no place is sacred when Mr. Dimmock goes hunting."
"Then I must go up a moment first," said Patty; "it isn't in order." And she left the room.
Mrs. Miller sat still and looked at the men, and Mr. Mason rose to his feet, saying,
"What's all this?"
The doctor knew that if he could keep the men back a very few moments Patty would hide Abe, for he was sure that his wife had made some plan with her. So he turned to Mr. Mason and said, "It's very likely, Tom, that I have a fugitive slave here, isn't it?"
But before Mr. Mason could answer, Dimmock said, "We knew you were here, Mr. Mason, and we're sorry to disturb you, but there are some people in Wellfield that keep the laws, and that nigger's been traced here, and we're bound to have him."
Mr. Mason laughed, but showed that he was very indignant, and he told Mr. Dimmock shortly that it was scarcely likely that Dr. Miller would conceal a fugitive slave under the same roof with a slave-owner, especially when that owner was his guest. But of the nice laws of hospitality Mr. Dimmock was quite unconscious, and the doctor didn't care what anybody said if they could only gain a little time. Mr. Dimmock said afterwards that the doctor was in a white rage, but he was quite mistaken; it wasn't rage at all, but a great variety of conflicting emotions.
As soon as Patty left the room she flew to the store-room, and said, in a whisper, "Abe, follow me quick. They're after you. Be very still."
He was terribly frightened, but long habit made him absolutely obedient, and he crept up the back stairs like a cat. They crept through the front hall, the voices plainly heard below, and Patty showed him how to lift the trap in the closet floor.
"This is your master's room," she whispered. "Don't even breathe loud, or you'll be heard. I'll let you out when it's safe. I don't believe you'll have to stay all night." Then she fitted the trap down carefully, lifted the light trunk over it, picked up her uncle's shoes and put them down softly as if they had been thrown in, dropped a soiled collar and handkerchief from the bureau, and then closed the door softly. Long in the telling, it had not taken three minutes. Then she ran down stairs.
"Show Mr. Dimmock and his friends about," said her father; "take them everywhere, Patty."
Patty took a lamp, and Mr. Dimmock said, "Give me another. I always carry my own light. People have a way of throwing shadows in the wrong places. The garret first." And when they got there he held his lamp high, casting its light into every dark corner. "What's that?" he said, pointing to a dark pile.
"Carpet rags," said Patty.
"Hiding a nigger, likely. You'd better look there, Sterling."
The man tossed the heap over until he came to the floor.
Into every room they went, and opened every closet door, and Patty felt herself trembling as they came to the door of the closet in her uncle's room, but grew quiet as she heard herself saying, calmly,
"Now you can hardly suppose that he's in Uncle Tom's room?"
"Well, not 'less he's a mighty cool one," said Mr. Dimmock.
At last they went, and the question was how to get Abe out of the closet and then out of the house. There was not a moment when it could be done, for Mr. Mason said he was tired to death, and would go to bed at once. And go he did, and there was nothing for the doctor to do but to suddenly remember that he had had a call, and to pretend to start for it. And after Fanny went upstairs Mrs. Miller and Patty absolutely groaned when they heard Mr. Mason shut his door and bolt it for the night. In the morning it did seem as if Mr. Mason and Fanny would never go down stairs. But at last Mr. Mason appeared below with his cheerful "Good-morning," and Fanny followed after a little. Then Patty discovered, as they sat down to the breakfast table, that she had left her handkerchief upstairs, and she ran up to her uncle's room to release Abe. As she lifted the trap-door he crawled out, stiff and cramped. She hurried him up to the garret, for they were obliged to hide him until night. Poor Abe was so frightened that he could only say,
"Oh, Miss Patty, s'pose Marse Tom come up heah and catch me!"
"Oh, he won't," said Patty; "Uncle Tom never comes up garret." But a bright thought came to her. "If you hear anybody coming, get under that pile of rags and pull them over you." And she pushed them together, for the men had left them strewed all over the floor, and ran down to breakfast.
A little later she smuggled some food and coffee to Abe, and cautioned him over and over not to step about at all, lest his footsteps should be heard below. But at last the long day drew to an end, and the night came. Silas had again been spirited out of the way; her father had the light wagon all ready, and they were ready to get Abe out of the garret and down to the barn.
Patty got her water-colors out to show to Mr. Mason and Fanny just at the moment that her mother slipped away to get Abe down and out of the house into the garden. He had to pass through the front hall to get from the garret stairs to the back stairs, and just at the critical moment, when she knew that Abe must be passing through the front hall, her uncle Tom said, "Oh, I've left my glasses upstairs!" and started to go for them.
"Let me," said Patty, for the whole hall was visible from four steps up on the front stairs.
"No, I'll go myself," said her uncle Tom, and he moved toward the foot of the stairs, and for one second Patty felt at her wits' end. Then she knocked over a vase of flowers on the table. The water ran all over the pictures. Both girls exclaimed; Mr. Mason turned to help mop it up with his handkerchief also, and the danger was over.
At breakfast-time the next day Mr. Mason said, "You came in late, or rather, early. Jack. Did you have a hard night of it?"
"Tiresome," said the doctor.
It was true, for he had driven Abe about sixteen miles up the river.
Abe was sent from Northampton to Canada by rail, and it was not until he was safe there that Mr. Mason, who was then in Boston, learned from his overseer of his disappearance; for just as Abe had hoped and supposed, he had not been missed for several days. Then Mr. Mason, very much cut up by his running away, went directly back to Virginia with his daughter.
That was the only time Patty's station ever held a waiting passenger.
As the little boat, with the two fishermen rowing and the silent figure sitting in the stern-sheets, dipped and tossed through the racing tide, which was at the flood, the wind began to blow up cold and nipping from the north. The spray froze as it splashed now and then over the gunwales of the boat.
It was quite midnight before they reached the New Jersey shore and pulled in beneath the shelter of a point of rocks that rose steeply out of the water. Here for the first time words were spoken.
"You have done well, my men, and here is a 'bright yellow' for each of you," said the young man in the cloak.
As he extended his hand, Roger, the younger, grasped it in a friendly way.
"I remember you, sir. I was one of the boatmen who rowed you across after the battle of Long Island. We are both good patriots."
The older man at this allusion respectfully touched his oil-skin cap. Then the boat was shoved out once more into the current.
The young man on the shore watched until it had disappeared.
"Now for a horse!" he exclaimed aloud.
Climbing up the rocks, and following closely a road which ran through a wide meadow, he saw a farm-house to the right. A light in one of the windows had first attracted his attention. He walked up the little lane, and stopped for a moment before knocking at the door.
"Tory or patriot, I wonder?" he queried. He had hesitated before pronouncing the last word.
In response to the tapping of his cold knuckles, the door was opened.
Before him stood a tall woman, and back of her a boy of thirteen or fourteen. The latter had a large bell-mouthed blunderbuss in the hollow of his arm.
"What is it at this time of night?" the woman inquired, in a deep voice like a man's.
"A word of direction," was the answer. "Could you tell me where I can find a horse? I will pay well for him."
"Where are you from?" asked the woman.
"From New York, but I would go on to the westward, and must hurry or I will be caught."
"Oh!" said the woman. "Come in by the fire. You are alone?"
"Yes," was the response.
The boy, who at first had looked suspiciously from the stranger to the tall figure of his mother, placed the blunderbuss in the corner, and the three walked into the kitchen.
"Are you going to join the army?" inquired the woman at length.
"I am in the army," was the reply; "but I must hasten. I have just been rowed across the river, and should I be captured it might go hard with me."
"I understand," said the woman, "and I will assist you if I can."
"You will be well paid," rejoined the young officer.
"Do not think of it," answered the woman. "I have given one son; and my husband and brother are with Washington. We must give our all. I can see what you have been afraid to tell. You have escaped. One has to be careful. Might I ask you your name?"
"Frothingham."
"I know that name well," said she. "I have heard my brother speak of a young Mr. Frothingham who was employed with him. He was at Mr. Wyeth's, the merchant's."
"Ah, indeed!" was the answer.
The young soldier drew forth a bag of gold. As he did so the light from the fireplace shone clearly upon his left hand. Across the back of it ran a scar.
"Eugene," said the woman, turning to the boy, "make haste to the stable and put the saddle on the colt. 'Tis all we have left, sir, but you are welcome. When you reach Morristown you may be able to send him back again. Perhaps you know my husband. My name is Ralston, and my brother's name is Samuel Thomas. You must remember him. My son was killed on Long Island. Were you there?"
"No, madam," was the thoughtful answer; "I was not."
The woman left the room, and the young man gazed into the fire.
He had had no idea of the devotion of these people to this cause. In far-away England he had suspected nothing of the intensity of feeling or the self-sacrifice and patriotism that animated the country.
A qualm of misgiving came over him. Was it not rather an uncomfortable part to play—taking his brother's place, as it were, and accepting the help and hospitality of these brave folk, who would give "their all," as the woman had said, for what they considered their rights and liberties! A feeling akin to pride had swept over him when the woman had spoken of his brother George; it could have been no other.
He struck his knee a blow with his closed fist.
"It is for the King," he said, beneath his breath.
At this moment the trampling of hoofs on the crisp earth outside attracted his attention.
The woman came to the door.
The lad was holding a small horse at the stone step.
"You have done me a great service, and I pray you will accept—" began the supposed fugitive.
Mrs. Ralston interrupted him.
"Think you, sir, that I would take one penny? 'Twould burn my fingers. It is for our country."
"Thank you, good friend, then," he said, and the tears came to his eyes despite himself.
The lad gave him a leg-up into the saddle. "I wish I were old enough to fight, sir," he said. "Good-by. Take the first road to the left and you are on the highway."
William mumbled a confused sentence of thanks and rode away.
This endeavor of his to prove his loyalty did not appear so glorious an undertaking as he had at first supposed. His thoughts ran back to his brother George in that cramped prison cell, where he supposed him still to be.
But the latter, a free man again, was at this moment seated before a fireplace in a large wainscoted room in a large house not far from Fraunce's Tavern.
On the opposite side was sitting the burly figure of Rivington!
When George had found that no boat was waiting for him at Striker's wharf, he had bethought himself at once of two places where he might hide—Mrs. Mack's and School-master Anderson's. How stupid he had been that he had not discovered the latter's character before! Putting the incidents together, he could read all plain enough.
Anderson was the one to see.
As he was about to sound the knocker gently on the schoolmaster's door, some one spoke to him and called softly,
"Number Four, I say!"
There was a touch on his elbow (he still carried his right hand in a sling), and Rivington was standing beside him.
"Do not fear, my son," he said; "I am one of the seven." There was the sound of laughing coming from within the house. "Some of our friends from across the water are in there," said the printer. "It was lucky I was in time to stop you. We must entertain them, you know. I have been following you for some time to make sure. Come with me."
He had piloted George to the street, and opened the door of his own house with a huge key, ushering him into the large room in which they were now seated.
It was odd, George kept thinking to himself, and hard to believe, that Rivington, the hated Tory, had turned patriot.
"Now, young Frothingham," said Rivington, after a pause, "this is an extraordinary occasion. You are the first one with whom I have held conversation upon any such dangerous subjects. But you must know two or three things that I believe most thoroughly. I have no faith in hopeless ventures, but, mark me, though this war lasts six months or six years, America will never again belong to England. I am so fully convinced of this that I have risked my safety to help end the struggle. Peace will come sooner or later, but the sooner the better, of course. Some day when my fellow-citizens learn what I have done they will not hang me in effigy or sink my presses in the bay. But enough of that. I have forgiven them.—To something of greater moment.—You cannot remain another day in this city. I doubt your being able to cross the river to-night. To-morrow morning early I go to Paulus Hook, and will take you with me as my servant. 'Tis a risk, perhaps, but it is the safest thing I can think of. I am supposed to go there on some business for General Howe. I am afraid that I shall muddle it, but I may learn something. Sleep here behind this heavy screen. We start early." Without another word he left the room.
At daybreak the next morning Rivington and George, in a small sail-boat, were making for the New Jersey shore.
George was dressed in a groom's livery, and carried a large despatch-box on his knees.
Almost all the dwellers in the country surrounding the Hook had found it to their best interests to hide any desire that they might have to show their leaning toward patriotism, and, to tell the truth, most of them were advanced Tories.
It was to visit one of these men, a dealer in live-stock, that Mr. Rivington was making the trip.
They had ridden but a short distance in the lurching one-horse chaise that had met them at the ferry, when Rivington pulled up.
"Here I say good-by," he said. "At the fifth house along this path from here stop and ask for the owner. He is a very aged man. His name has slipped me; but tell him frankly who you are, and that you have escaped from a British prison, and he will do his best to send you on your way. Do not fear that he will betray you. He hates me well, and would rejoice to see me hanged, but some day he may think better thoughts. Of course, do not mention my name to him. Good-by, lad. There is one person to whom you can present my best respects—General Washington. Success to him!"
George shook his benefactor's enormous hand, and took the path through a thicket of scrub-oaks.
Rivington had driven on but a short distance, when he thumped the bottom of the chaise with both feet. "You may shoot me for a lunkhead," he exclaimed, "if I did not forget to tell him of his brother's being in this country. I wonder if he knows it? He made no mention. It would have been best for him to know it."
But it was too late to call George's notice now, and he cut the horse a sharp flick with the whip.
It was two days later a small brown horse crunched his way through the deep fall of snow that lay upon the hills to the westward of the Passaic River.
His rider drew up at the foot of a hill, and slapped his thigh, to start the circulation in his half-frozen fingers. "I know the country hereabouts," he said. "Seven miles further on lies the Hewes estate, and beyond that Stanham Manor. From the crest of yonder hill I can look down upon the dear old place. And what if they should recognize me?" he went on. "What foolishness it was to undertake a trip like this! All the information I have obtained so far I could put into a thimble." He was sickening of the adventure. If it were not for the Frothingham stamina he would have backed out and tried his best to retrace his steps. "I will be surely able to pick up something worth hearing at the Hewes place," he went on, half aloud. "If I could only find out the number of the American forces at Princeton or Morristown it would pay me well for my trouble."
The horse, with its flanks steaming, had halted knee-deep in the snow during this soliloquy. William drew his cloak about him and dug his heels into the ribs of his steed. After plunging for half an hour through the heavy unbroken road he reached the top of the hill. Below him stretched the land that had belonged to the old rival company. His eye first sought the country further on. Above the little hill he could see the tall chimney that his own father had built in the old colony days. The smoke was pouring upward, and floated out in the higher air in a thin cloud much in the shape of an open mushroom; not a breeze was stirring; and further to the south another column of smoke marked the position of the Hewes foundries in the hollow.
Yes, and there it was, the old Manor House. He could see the dark patches of the pines about it, and almost imagine he could hear the roar of the water-fall. His eyes traversed the woods and the hill-side nearer. To the right should be the large mansion of Colonel Hewes. The panting horse was again reined in suddenly. There was nothing there where the Hewes house had stood but blackened walls and some stark timbers, whose outlines were softened by the new-fallen snow.
William felt a sense of sorrow besides one of fear and astonishment. He had intended to make his first venture of obtaining news at the house of Colonel Hewes. Now there was nothing to do but to press on and make a bold stroke. He would have to go to Stanham Mills. It would be impossible, weary as he was, to turn back. It would soon be dusk.
Once more he struck the colt with his heels, and descended the hill-side. At the bottom a small stream had to be forded. The tired horse plunged in, and had gone but a little way through the shallow when he stumbled and pitched forward. William flew over his head amongst the rocks and ice. Angry and stunned, he rose to his feet. There was a numb feeling at the elbow-joint of his right arm.
"Fortune is not smiling on me," he said, grimly, feeling the joint with his fingers. "Here is a nice mess if I have broken anything."
It was merely a serious dislocation, but by placing his hand between his knees he pulled the joint back into place. It caused him great agony, and if he had not been above the average in strength it would have been impossible for him to straighten it. His head hurt him also from its contact with a stone, and he felt sore and miserable as he managed to clamber back into the saddle. He had ridden but a little way when the pain in his arm necessitated another stop. With his handkerchief he made a sling, and hooked it about his neck.
"I would give a great deal for some of Aunt Clarissa's liniment," he murmured, grimly.
Just as he came across the well-travelled road that led to the Hewes foundries a man on horseback came toward him from out of the hollow. The snow flew from his horse's heels, and as soon as he caught sight of William he waved his hand.
"Hilloa!" he shouted. "Welcome back!" It was Colonel Hewes's cousin, the renowned rifleshot. When he was quite near he pulled his horse down to a walk. "George, dear boy," he said, "Lord knows I am glad to see you safe."
There was nothing else for him to do, although William's face flushed hotly at the idea of the deception he would have to practise.
"Are they all well?" he asked.
"Yes, marvellously so," was the rejoinder; "and there is much to tell about."
William controlled himself with an effort.
"Did you notice that our house was burned?" Mr. Hewes went on. "It caught fire at night. We narrowly escaped with our lives. Now we are guests at Stanham Manor, and are having very pleasant times. What a royal welcome you will have! But tell me, how did you escape? What news do you bring? What is Howe going to do with his army, and do our good friends in the city prosper?"
William smiled. "You are asking more questions than I can answer all at once," he said. "Now, one at a time. I escaped with little difficulty."
"But you are wounded!"
"It is nothing. It will be all right in a few days. There is little news, for I was placed in a position to gather nothing worth relating, as you may know. What Howe is going to do with his army is more than I can conjecture. In fact, I do not think he has made up his mind. There are comfortable quarters in New York."
"They are living on the fat of the land, I hear," said Mr. Hewes.
"Yes, and our friends are prospering."
"Well, it is good to have you home again," said the tall man. "My cousin, the Colonel, is away at Morristown, but we will have as a guest to-night—your guest, I might better say—a young officer, who is on his way from the army of the north to General Washington. He is carrying despatches of great moment."
William's heart leaped. Luck might be changing. Here at last would be an opportunity to gain reliable information that would help the royal forces.
"You are looking tired and worn, my boy, and I will promise to ask you no more until you have had a rest and something cheering," said Mr. Hewes. "That nag of yours is about done for, I should say."
"The roads are very bad," returned William, who, to tell the truth, was feeling the effects of his fall, and was dizzy and uncomfortable. "You are hard at work, I see," he added, turning the subject, and nodding in the direction of the smoking furnaces.
"Yes, yes, indeed," was the rejoinder. "Making good Yankee cannon-balls, and even your own foundry has been turning them out every day. We have pleased the Commander-in-chief mightily, I can tell you."
They had entered the familiar lane. The water was roaring under the ice at the edge of the dam. A group of workmen caught sight of the two riders from the doorway of the mill, and set up a cheer. They had been sighted from the house also, and a cluster of figures was waiting at the foot of the big white wooden pillars. Aunt Clarissa was there, and his sister Grace, and a broad-shouldered young man in a uniform of blue and buff. The servants ran out from the big wing and clustered about the roadway. Old Cato, hatless, came running down the road. When he approached within a few feet he stopped and faltered.
"Wy, Mas'r William! you, you—"
"Cato," said Mr. Hewes, "what's the matter?"
"Wy, it's Mas'r George, ob course; dis ol' nigger's goin' plumb crazy." Cato laughed.
Still something had happened to dampen the old colored man's effusion, and he grasped the hand extended to him with an assumption of being too much overcome for words.
As William slid from the saddle his dizziness had increased. He had had nothing to eat all that day, and the fall had been heavier than he had at first supposed. The sight of his little sister Grace, grown to this tall beautiful young creature, unnerved him, and when she turned her face up to his and put her arms around his neck, tears came into his eyes and he sobbed weakly.
"Poor boy!" said Aunt Clarissa, coming up, as he rested his head on Grace's shoulder and walked towards the door. "He has suffered much. Oh, those prisons! The stories I have heard. Dear George, forgive me. I have been both hard and wrong."
It was evident that Aunt Clarissa had suffered also, and her face had softened in a wonderful degree. William was almost tempted to make a clean breast of everything there and then, when the horror of his real position struck him forcibly. Words would not come; he felt a strange sinking at his heart; he stumbled, and would have fallen but for Mr. Hewes's extended arm. For the first time in his life he fainted.
He awoke, he knew not how long afterwards, feeling warm and comfortable, in a great high bed in what had been his uncle Nathan's room. A candle was burning dimly at his side, and faithful Aunt Polly was sitting fast asleep in a great rocking-chair. Well he knew how soundly Aunt Polly slept. Again he almost sickened at his false position. He could not stand it. What meant Aunt Clarissa's welcome? And how things had changed! One thing was left to him, and but one—flight. Anything rather than to sail under wrong colors and to deceive those who loved and trusted him.
He arose, and taking his clothes from the chair, stepped softly into the hallway and dressed quickly. Then he stole down stairs. The moonlight from the outside flooded the great hall. With a frightening start he saw hanging over the back of a great chair a pair of heavy saddle-bags. They belonged to the transient guest—the young American officer, most probably. He lifted the flap. Heavy papers tied and sealed with great blotches of red wax were there.
Was it dishonest? His hands fairly trembled. "'Tis for the King," he said, beneath his breath; but he stopped suddenly and slipped the papers back into the pouch. "I could not touch them if they contained secrets worth all kingdoms," he said. "I will go back empty-handed. I had rather fail."
There was a stir over in the direction of the fireplace, and to his surprise he saw old Cato shuffling noiselessly toward him. The old man picked up the saddle-bags without a word.
"Where are you going with that, Cato?" said William, astonished that the latter had not spoken.
"Jes goin' to take care ob dem, sah," was the reply.
"Leave them here. They are safe enough," said William, feeling half ashamed of himself, as he spoke the words.
"No, sah; scuse me," was the old man's reply. "If Mas'r William Frothingham asks dis ol' nigger fur his head he ken have it, but old Cato ain't goin' to give dese 'spatches to no British officer."
William leaned back against the mantel-piece. Had the others found out also?
It is not necessary to consider the various reasons that would impel many inhabitants of the earth to go to Mars if they had the opportunity. But no one can doubt that the first train for Mars, or the first balloon, or the first electric liner sent out by the Universal Celestial Transportation and Safe-Delivery Company, Mars Division, would be booked to its utmost capacity. Curiosity alone would suffice to crowd it, and it is certain that the Anglo-Saxon race, which has furnished most of the great travellers, would be fully represented in the throng of adventurers bound for another world.
When Mars is nearest to the earth its distance is no less than 36,000,000 miles. But if we set our speed to match that of an electric impulse flying through the Atlantic cable—say 15,000 miles per second—we should be there in just forty minutes. Good enough for time, but how about guide-books?
Well, as to that, explorers must expect to find their own way about. Marco Polo had no Baedeker. And, besides, we are not altogether left without guidance, such as it is. We have to thank Signor Schiaparelli for some very beautiful charts of Mars, which he has made with the aid of his telescope at Milan; and other astronomers have drawn charts of Mars also. It is true that all these are filled with glittering generalities, and in some respects are contradictory; yet upon the whole they really form a more complete map of the entire surface of Mars than anybody had of the earth in the time of Columbus.
On approaching Mars we should behold a world looking in some respects remarkably like the earth, having seasons resembling ours, with torrid, temperate, and frigid zones; turning on its axis like our globe, and in nearly the same time; showing in winter broad white caps, as of snow, covering its polar regions, and presenting many appearances suggestive of continents, oceans, islands, and peninsulas. As we watched it slowly turning under our eyes, we should see on one side, south of its equator, a huge, staring eyelike-spot, which Schiaparelli has named the "Lake of the Sun," and on the opposite side, reaching from the southern hemisphere into the northern, a great, dark, crooked area, somewhat resembling North America in shape, and known to astronomers as the "Hour-glass Sea." And then all the globe beneath us would appear to be mapped with delicate reds and yellows and grays and blues; long waving curves and sharper indentations would make their appearance in what look like coast-lines; and presently, running east and west and south and north, and passing "beyond the horizon's utmost rim," a network of dark-colored lines, like a vast web covering the planet, would be seen. These are the famous "canals."
But while we were wondering what this could mean, we should be struck by another unearthlike thing. Being accustomed to dwell on a globe three-fourths of whose surface is covered with water, it could not escape our notice that the world we were approaching had far more land than water. Indeed, it is likely that we should find that the "Hour-glass Sea," and many of the other so-called seas of Mars, are only part of the time filled with water, and that even then they are not like terrestrial oceans, but rather vast swamps, choked with rank vegetation suddenly awakened to life by periodical inundations supplying moisture to their roots. Visiting them at another time, we should find only deserts with cracked soil baking in the sun. At any rate, some of the discoveries made with great telescopes in 1894 suggest these things.
In the equatorial regions, where the earth is richest in all forms of life, it is not improbable that we should find Mars covered with one vast Sahara. We should have to go to the poles to discover anything like seas. When the snow-fields around the south pole began to melt away with the on-coming of summer, an opportunity would be given us to behold a spectacle that the earth cannot match. As the snow melted, the water thus formed would collect into a shallow sea, which would constantly tend to empty itself by flowing off toward the equator. Very likely Mars is a remarkably flat world, and the water from the pole would encounter little opposition to its movement.
Then would come a sight that would open our eyes with amazement. Looking toward the equator, we should see only barren red lands and the dry and dusty basins of ancient seas; but the wave of snow-water from the antarctic circle, running through ready channels and percolating the thirsty soil, would be like the spirit of life moving upon the face of a dying world. At its touch vegetation would sprout and spring and wax great, with the magic rapidity that we sometimes see exhibited on the earth; the hard soil at its roots would fall apart and dissolve with moisture, and in a few weeks, where only the naked bones of the planet had been visible before, we should be able to wade neck-deep in seas of verdure, with long grasses waving softly in the vernal wind, and sweet flowers stroking our faces.
The observations made by Mr. Percival Lowell and Professor W. H. Pickering during the last opposition of Mars seem to lend probability not only to such conjectures, but to others which are now to follow.
We have imagined ourselves watching on Mars the progress of the life-giving water spreading from the south pole during the spring and early summer of that hemisphere of the planet. But we have noticed its effects only in the great depressed regions that may once have been actual seas. How about the still greater regions which nobody has ever supposed to be seas, and which appear on the charts of Schiaparelli and others under the name of continents? If Mars has not water enough to keep its sea-beds permanently covered, its dry lands must thirst indeed! Let us go, then, to that strange region where lies the so-called "Lake of the Sun."
As we cross the red continents, hot and blazing in the merciless sunshine, we begin to meet the "canals," but, behold! they are not canals! They are broad streaks or belts of vegetation, intersected with numerous tiny water-channels, like the valley of the river Po or the flat meadows of Holland, and the water comes from the vast swamps formed, as we saw, by the polar inundation.
Now our interest rises to the dramatic pitch, for here is the work of hands, here are evidences of intelligent design, and here, if anywhere on this distant world, we must expect to meet its inhabitants. I shall not undertake at this point to describe the appearance that those inhabitants might present. But let us imagine that we put ourselves under their guidance.
It is probable, for a reason which I shall mention presently, that our Martian friends would turn out to be exceptionally intelligent. They might guess, then, that we would have a rather poor opinion of their world of floods and deserts, and for that reason they would lead us at once to its finest scenes. Through the corn-land and the vine-land of their irrigated belts, traversing the sandy wastes with strips of green, they would doubtless conduct us along magnificent shady roads to one of the numerous crossing-places where two or more of the fertile bands meet, and where our astronomers on the earth have noticed that there is always an oval dark spot, which some of them have thought must mark the site of a lake.
But as we approach one of these spots the spires and roofs (or what answer on Mars for spires and roofs) of a town make their appearance. And quickly we find ourselves in strange streets and avenues, surrounded by throngs of such people as the wildest traveller's tale has never pictured on the earth. We are led to a lofty outlook, from which we can see far across the level country, and behold the radiating belts, along which alone the land is fruitful, stretching away in every direction, and at each crossing-place widening into an island of green dotted with the dwellings of a town or city. The red glare of the leafless and waterless wilderness, contrasting with the emerald lines that intersect it, makes a scene of overwhelming strangeness. In the remote distance our guides point out to us the metropolis of this part of Mars, placed in the broadest of the verdant spots, where our charts show the "Lake of the Sun," and surrounded by an immense system of irrigated belts, running out across the desert to the distant sea-swamps on all sides like the spokes of an enormous wheel, and so conspicuous that the Lick telescope and other telescopes have shown them from the earth. Every one of those lines is sucking moisture from the polar overflow, and storing up subsistence for the great city and all the inhabitants of the land.
For this is not merely the harvest season on Mars; it is the time when every thought is on the future, and every energy is bent to the preservation of life upon the planet. Did we think that we had learned how to make the earth yield to us the full measure of its fertility? Bah! We had to come to Mars to find out that science. If we should return to this scene in a few months the story would be plain. Then the desert would have resumed its sway uninterrupted; the swamp oceans, half water and half leaves, would have returned to dust; the irrigating ditches would have dried up, and the productive belts would be like so many narrow bands of prairie that had been swept with fire. At such a time the "canals" of the planet Mars disappear from the sight of terrestrial astronomers, and the so-called "oceans" turn pale.
Then we may imagine the inhabitants of that most singular planet reaping the fruit of their foresight and industry; then is the season of social joys in the Martian metropolis on the site of the "Lake of the Sun"; then men go no longer forth to the fields to toil for the future, because that future for which they worked has come, and there is to be no more toil, until once again, with the slow swing of the seasons, the southern pole, burdened under its accumulated winter snows, beholds the sun, and at its touch dissolves into life-giving water.
So much for some of the broad features of life on Mars as recent discoveries permit us to picture them, although it should be borne in mind that astronomy, as a science, does not assert—though it does not deny—that there is life at all on Mars. It allows us to draw our own conclusions. Now, then, continuing the supposition that there may be inhabitants on Mars, let us consider some other queer things that we should probably behold and experience on paying them a visit.
Mars is small compared with our world, its diameter being only about 4200 miles, and its surface between one-third and one-fourth as extensive as the earth's. Knowing its size and density, we can calculate how great its gravitation is—in other words, how much bodies weigh on its surface. If we tip the scales at 150 pounds on the earth, we should find that our weight had been reduced, in going to Mars, to about 67 pounds. It is hardly possible to tell exactly how we should behave in such circumstances. Doubtless we should feel as if we were walking on air, or as if we could jump over a house, for our muscular strength would remain the same. Imagine the feelings of an elephant suddenly removed to Mars!
But the most singular effect that we should behold of this comparative lack of weight on Mars might be upon its own inhabitants. The chances are not small that we should find ourselves amid a lot of giants there, averaging about fifteen feet tall. It is easy to prove that on Mars a man of that height would, in proportion to his muscular strength, be no heavier or clumsier than our average descendant of Adam is. Yet he would be absolutely stronger and able to perform harder work. Then, too, the things he had to lift would be far lighter, bulk for bulk, than similar things on the earth. Accordingly, during our visit to one of those "irrigation belts" that Mr. Lowell has imagined, we might behold feats of strength in the digging of ditches and the garnering of the fruits of the soil that would fill us with astonishment.
And that leads us to something else rather queer. There are reasons for thinking that a small globe like Mars might, because it would cool faster, get into a habitable condition sooner than the earth. If so, the people of Mars may have family trees that would put our longest genealogies completely into the shade, and their history as a race may exceed ours by an enormous length of time.
Another trick with handkerchiefs is that known as "Easily seen Through," from the transparent box which plays an important part in it.
As this box is of glass, top, bottom, and sides, it hardly seems possible that anything could be concealed in it, and yet— But let me describe the trick in full.
The box, which is about four inches square, is held up so that it may be seen, and is then placed on a table and covered with a large handkerchief. Taking a piece of newspaper of the size of a sheet of foolscap, the performer twists it into a cornucopia, or paper cone, such as the grocer wraps sugar in for his customers, and gives it to one of the audience, who has volunteered to assist on the stage, to hold. Seated on a chair, the assistant holds the cornucopia at arm's length. The performer drops into its open mouth three small squares of silk—red, white, and blue, respectively—and with a borrowed cane or umbrella pushes them well down; he then closes the paper horn by folding over the mouth. To do this necessitates taking it from the assistant for an instant, and when it is returned, the larger end is given to him. With the injunction to keep it well away from his body lest he be suspected of collusion, the performer announces: "I shall now pass the handkerchiefs invisibly from the paper horn, which the gentleman holds, to the little glass box." Here he stops abruptly, and pretending to have heard a remark from the audience, continues, "Oh no, they are not there yet," and removes the handkerchiefs from the box to show it is still empty, and almost immediately covers it again. A moment later, however, when he whisks off the handkerchief, the three squares of colored silk are seen in the box, while the cornucopia, on being opened, is found to be empty.
Although some address on the part of the performer is necessary in order to give brilliancy to the trick, the secret lies in the box and the cornucopia.