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<h1><b>Tales of Space and Time</b></h1>
<hr />
<div class="bk1"><h1><big>Tales of Space<br/> and Time</big></h1>
<div class="bk2"><i>By</i> H. G. WELLS, <i>Author
of "When the Sleeper Wakes"
"The War of the Worlds"
etc.</i></div>
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</div>
<div class="bk4">HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS<br/>
<big><span class="sp2">LONDON AND NEW YORK</span></big><br/>
1900</div>
</div>
<hr />
<div class="center"><small>Copyright, 1899, by <span class="smcap">Harper & Brothers</span><br/>
<br/>
<i>All rights reserved</i></small></div>
<div class="trn"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b>
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Dialect and variant spellings have been retained.</div>
<hr />
<h2>Contents</h2>
<div class='center'>
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
<tr><td class="td2" colspan="2"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
<tr><td class="td1">The Crystal Egg</td><td class="td2"><SPAN href="#Page_1">1</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="td1">The Star</td><td class="td2"><SPAN href="#Page_35">35</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="td1">A Story of the Stone Age</td><td class="td2"><SPAN href="#Page_59">59</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="td1">A Story of the Days to Come</td><td class="td2"><SPAN href="#Page_165">165</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="td1">The Man who could Work Miracles</td><td class="td2"><SPAN href="#Page_325">325</SPAN></td></tr>
</table></div>
<hr /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>THE CRYSTAL EGG</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was, until a year ago, a little and
very grimy-looking shop near Seven Dials,
over which, in weather-worn yellow lettering,
the name of "C. Cave, Naturalist and Dealer in
Antiquities," was inscribed. The contents of
its window were curiously variegated. They
comprised some elephant tusks and an imperfect
set of chessmen, beads and weapons, a box
of eyes, two skulls of tigers and one human,
several moth-eaten stuffed monkeys (one holding
a lamp), an old-fashioned cabinet, a flyblown
ostrich egg or so, some fishing-tackle,
and an extraordinarily dirty, empty glass fish-tank.
There was also, at the moment the story
begins, a mass of crystal, worked into the shape
of an egg and brilliantly polished. And at that
two people, who stood outside the window,
were looking, one of them a tall, thin clergyman,
the other a black-bearded young man of
dusky complexion and unobtrusive costume.
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</SPAN></span>The dusky young man spoke with eager gesticulation,
and seemed anxious for his companion
to purchase the article.</p>
<p>While they were there, Mr. Cave came into
his shop, his beard still wagging with the bread
and butter of his tea. When he saw these men
and the object of their regard, his countenance
fell. He glanced guiltily over his shoulder,
and softly shut the door. He was a little old
man, with pale face and peculiar watery blue
eyes; his hair was a dirty grey, and he wore a
shabby blue frock coat, an ancient silk hat, and
carpet slippers very much down at heel. He
remained watching the two men as they talked.
The clergyman went deep into his trouser
pocket, examined a handful of money, and
showed his teeth in an agreeable smile. Mr.
Cave seemed still more depressed when they
came into the shop.</p>
<p>The clergyman, without any ceremony,
asked the price of the crystal egg. Mr. Cave
glanced nervously towards the door leading
into the parlour, and said five pounds. The
clergyman protested that the price was high, to
his companion as well as to Mr. Cave—it was,
indeed, very much more than Mr. Cave had intended
to ask, when he had stocked the article—and
an attempt at bargaining ensued. Mr.
Cave stepped to the shop-door, and held it<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</SPAN></span>
open. "Five pounds is my price," he said, as
though he wished to save himself the trouble of
unprofitable discussion. As he did so, the upper
portion of a woman's face appeared above the
blind in the glass upper panel of the door leading
into the parlour, and stared curiously at the
two customers. "Five pounds is my price," said
Mr. Cave, with a quiver in his voice.</p>
<p>The swarthy young man had so far remained
a spectator, watching Cave keenly. Now he
spoke. "Give him five pounds," he said. The
clergyman glanced at him to see if he were in
earnest, and, when he looked at Mr. Cave
again, he saw that the latter's face was white.
"It's a lot of money," said the clergyman, and,
diving into his pocket, began counting his resources.
He had little more than thirty shillings,
and he appealed to his companion, with
whom he seemed to be on terms of considerable
intimacy. This gave Mr. Cave an opportunity
of collecting his thoughts, and he began to explain
in an agitated manner that the crystal was
not, as a matter of fact, entirely free for sale.
His two customers were naturally surprised at
this, and inquired why he had not thought of
that before he began to bargain. Mr. Cave became
confused, but he stuck to his story, that
the crystal was not in the market that afternoon,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</SPAN></span>
that a probable purchaser of it had already
appeared. The two, treating this as an
attempt to raise the price still further, made as
if they would leave the shop. But at this point
the parlour door opened, and the owner of the
dark fringe and the little eyes appeared.</p>
<p>She was a coarse-featured, corpulent woman,
younger and very much larger than Mr. Cave;
she walked heavily, and her face was flushed.
"That crystal <i>is</i> for sale," she said. "And five
pounds is a good enough price for it. I can't
think what you're about, Cave, not to take the
gentleman's offer!"</p>
<p>Mr. Cave, greatly perturbed by the irruption,
looked angrily at her over the rims of
his spectacles, and, without excessive assurance,
asserted his right to manage his business
in his own way. An altercation began.
The two customers watched the scene
with interest and some amusement, occasionally
assisting Mrs. Cave with suggestions. Mr.
Cave, hard driven, persisted in a confused and
impossible story of an enquiry for the crystal
that morning, and his agitation became
painful. But he stuck to his point
with extraordinary persistence. It was the
young Oriental who ended this curious controversy.
He proposed that they should call<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</SPAN></span>
again in the course of two days—so as to give
the alleged enquirer a fair chance. "And then
we must insist," said the clergyman, "Five
pounds." Mrs. Cave took it on herself to
apologise for her husband, explaining that he
was sometimes "a little odd," and as the two
customers left, the couple prepared for a free
discussion of the incident in all its bearings.</p>
<p>Mrs. Cave talked to her husband with singular
directness. The poor little man, quivering
with emotion, muddled himself between his
stories, maintaining on the one hand that he
had another customer in view, and on the other
asserting that the crystal was honestly worth
ten guineas. "Why did you ask five pounds?"
said his wife. "<i>Do</i> let me manage my business
my own way!" said Mr. Cave.</p>
<p>Mr. Cave had living with him a step-daughter
and a step-son, and at supper that night the
transaction was re-discussed. None of them
had a high opinion of Mr. Cave's business
methods, and this action seemed a culminating
folly.</p>
<p>"It's my opinion he's refused that crystal before,"
said the step-son, a loose-limbed lout of
eighteen.</p>
<p>"But <i>Five Pounds</i>!" said the step-daughter,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</SPAN></span>
an argumentative young woman of six-and-twenty.</p>
<p>Mr. Cave's answers were wretched; he could
only mumble weak assertions that he knew his
own business best. They drove him from his
half-eaten supper into the shop, to close it for
the night, his ears aflame and tears of vexation
behind his spectacles. "Why had he left the
crystal in the window so long? The folly of
it!" That was the trouble closest in his mind.
For a time he could see no way of evading sale.</p>
<p>After supper his step-daughter and step-son
smartened themselves up and went out
and his wife retired upstairs to reflect
upon the business aspects of the crystal,
over a little sugar and lemon and so forth in
hot water. Mr. Cave went into the shop, and
stayed there until late, ostensibly to make ornamental
rockeries for goldfish cases but really
for a private purpose that will be better explained
later. The next day Mrs. Cave found
that the crystal had been removed from the
window, and was lying behind some second-hand
books on angling. She replaced it in a
conspicuous position. But she did not argue
further about it, as a nervous headache disinclined
her from debate. Mr. Cave was always
disinclined. The day passed disagreeably.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</SPAN></span>
Mr. Cave was, if anything, more
absent-minded than usual, and uncommonly
irritable withal. In the afternoon,
when his wife was taking her customary
sleep, he removed the crystal from the window
again.</p>
<p>The next day Mr. Cave had to deliver a consignment
of dog-fish at one of the hospital
schools, where they were needed for dissection.
In his absence Mrs. Cave's mind reverted to the
topic of the crystal, and the methods of expenditure
suitable to a windfall of five pounds. She
had already devised some very agreeable expedients,
among others a dress of green silk for
herself and a trip to Richmond, when a jangling
of the front door bell summoned her into
the shop. The customer was an examination
coach who came to complain of the non-delivery
of certain frogs asked for the previous day.
Mrs. Cave did not approve of this particular
branch of Mr. Cave's business, and the gentleman,
who had called in a somewhat aggressive
mood, retired after a brief exchange of words—entirely
civil so far as he was concerned.
Mrs. Cave's eye then naturally turned to the
window; for the sight of the crystal was an
assurance of the five pounds and of her dreams.
What was her surprise to find it gone!<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>She went to the place behind the locker on
the counter, where she had discovered it the
day before. It was not there; and she immediately
began an eager search about the shop.</p>
<p>When Mr. Cave returned from his business
with the dog-fish, about a quarter to two in the
afternoon, he found the shop in some confusion,
and his wife, extremely exasperated
and on her knees behind the counter, routing
among his taxidermic material. Her face came
up hot and angry over the counter, as the jangling
bell announced his return, and she forthwith
accused him of "hiding it."</p>
<p>"Hid <i>what</i>?" asked Mr. Cave.</p>
<p>"The crystal!"</p>
<p>At that Mr. Cave, apparently much surprised,
rushed to the window. "Isn't it here?"
he said. "Great Heavens! what has become of
it?"</p>
<p>Just then, Mr. Cave's step-son re-entered
the shop from the inner room—he had come
home a minute or so before Mr. Cave—and he
was blaspheming freely. He was apprenticed to
a second-hand furniture dealer down the road,
but he had his meals at home, and he was
naturally annoyed to find no dinner ready.</p>
<p>But, when he heard of the loss of the crystal,
he forgot his meal, and his anger was diverted<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</SPAN></span>
from his mother to his step-father. Their first
idea, of course, was that he had hidden it. But
Mr. Cave stoutly denied all knowledge of its
fate—freely offering his bedabbled affidavit in
the matter—and at last was worked up to the
point of accusing, first, his wife and then his
step-son of having taken it with a view to a
private sale. So began an exceedingly acrimonious
and emotional discussion, which
ended for Mrs. Cave in a peculiar nervous condition
midway between hysterics and amuck,
and caused the step-son to be half-an-hour late
at the furniture establishment in the afternoon.
Mr. Cave took refuge from his wife's emotions
in the shop.</p>
<p>In the evening the matter was resumed, with
less passion and in a judicial spirit, under the
presidency of the step-daughter. The supper
passed unhappily and culminated in a painful
scene. Mr. Cave gave way at last to extreme
exasperation, and went out banging the front
door violently. The rest of the family, having
discussed him with the freedom his absence
warranted, hunted the house from garret to cellar,
hoping to light upon the crystal.</p>
<p>The next day the two customers called
again. They were received by Mrs. Cave almost
in tears. It transpired that no one <i>could</i><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</SPAN></span>
imagine all that she had stood from Cave at
various times in her married pilgrimage....
She also gave a garbled account of the disappearance.
The clergyman and the Oriental
laughed silently at one another, and said it was
very extraordinary. As Mrs. Cave seemed
disposed to give them the complete history of
her life they made to leave the shop. Thereupon
Mrs. Cave, still clinging to hope, asked
for the clergyman's address, so that, if she
could get anything out of Cave, she might communicate
it. The address was duly given, but
apparently was afterwards mislaid. Mrs. Cave
can remember nothing about it.</p>
<p>In the evening of that day, the Caves seem
to have exhausted their emotions, and Mr.
Cave, who had been out in the afternoon,
supped in a gloomy isolation that contrasted
pleasantly with the impassioned controversy
of the previous days. For some time matters
were very badly strained in the Cave household,
but neither crystal nor customer reappeared.</p>
<p>Now, without mincing the matter, we must
admit that Mr. Cave was a liar. He knew perfectly
well where the crystal was. It was in
the rooms of Mr. Jacoby Wace, Assistant
Demonstrator at St. Catherine's Hospital,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</SPAN></span>
Westbourne Street. It stood on the sideboard
partially covered by a black velvet cloth, and
beside a decanter of American whisky. It is
from Mr. Wace, indeed, that the particulars
upon which this narrative is based were derived.
Cave had taken off the thing to the hospital
hidden in the dog-fish sack, and there had
pressed the young investigator to keep it for
him. Mr. Wace was a little dubious at first.
His relationship to Cave was peculiar. He had
a taste for singular characters, and he had more
than once invited the old man to smoke and
drink in his rooms, and to unfold his rather
amusing views of life in general and of his wife
in particular. Mr. Wace had encountered Mrs.
Cave, too, on occasions when Mr. Cave was not
at home to attend to him. He knew the constant
interference to which Cave was subjected,
and having weighed the story judicially, he decided
to give the crystal a refuge. Mr. Cave
promised to explain the reasons for his remarkable
affection for the crystal more fully on a
later occasion, but he spoke distinctly of seeing
visions therein. He called on Mr. Wace the
same evening.</p>
<p>He told a complicated story. The crystal he
said had come into his possession with other
oddments at the forced sale of another curiosity<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</SPAN></span>
dealer's effects, and not knowing what
its value might be, he had ticketed it at ten
shillings. It had hung upon his hands at that
price for some months, and he was thinking of
"reducing the figure," when he made a singular
discovery.</p>
<p>At that time his health was very bad—and
it must be borne in mind that, throughout all
this experience, his physical condition was one
of ebb—and he was in considerable distress by
reason of the negligence, the positive ill-treatment
even, he received from his wife and step-children.
His wife was vain, extravagant, unfeeling,
and had a growing taste for private
drinking; his step-daughter was mean and
over-reaching; and his step-son had conceived
a violent dislike for him, and lost no chance of
showing it. The requirements of his business
pressed heavily upon him, and Mr. Wace does
not think that he was altogether free from occasional
intemperance. He had begun life in a
comfortable position, he was a man of fair education,
and he suffered, for weeks at a stretch,
from melancholia and insomnia. Afraid to disturb
his family, he would slip quietly from his
wife's side, when his thoughts became intolerable,
and wander about the house. And about<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</SPAN></span>
three o'clock one morning, late in August,
chance directed him into the shop.</p>
<p>The dirty little place was impenetrably black
except in one spot, where he perceived an unusual
glow of light. Approaching this, he discovered
it to be the crystal egg, which was
standing on the corner of the counter towards
the window. A thin ray smote through a
crack in the shutters, impinged upon the object,
and seemed as it were to fill its entire interior.</p>
<p>It occurred to Mr. Cave that this was not in
accordance with the laws of optics as he had
known them in his younger days. He could
understand the rays being refracted by the
crystal and coming to a focus in its interior, but
this diffusion jarred with his physical conceptions.
He approached the crystal nearly, peering
into it and round it, with a transient revival
of the scientific curiosity that in his youth
had determined his choice of a calling. He was
surprised to find the light not steady, but
writhing within the substance of the egg, as
though that object was a hollow sphere of some
luminous vapour. In moving about to get different
points of view, he suddenly found that
he had come between it and the ray, and that
the crystal none the less remained luminous.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</SPAN></span>
Greatly astonished, he lifted it out of the light
ray and carried it to the darkest part of the
shop. It remained bright for some four or five
minutes, when it slowly faded and went out.
He placed it in the thin streak of daylight, and
its luminousness was almost immediately restored.</p>
<p>So far, at least, Mr. Wace was able to verify
the remarkable story of Mr. Cave. He has
himself repeatedly held this crystal in a ray of
light (which had to be of a less diameter than
one millimetre). And in a perfect darkness,
such as could be produced by velvet wrapping,
the crystal did undoubtedly appear very faintly
phosphorescent. It would seem, however, that
the luminousness was of some exceptional sort,
and not equally visible to all eyes; for Mr. Harbinger—whose
name will be familiar to the
scientific reader in connection with the Pasteur
Institute—was quite unable to see any light
whatever. And Mr. Wace's own capacity for
its appreciation was out of comparison inferior
to that of Mr. Cave's. Even with Mr. Cave
the power varied very considerably: his vision
was most vivid during states of extreme weakness
and fatigue.</p>
<p>Now, from the outset this light in the crystal
exercised a curious fascination upon Mr. Cave.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</SPAN></span>
And it says more for his loneliness of soul than
a volume of pathetic writing could do, that he
told no human being of his curious observations.
He seems to have been living in such an
atmosphere of petty spite that to admit the
existence of a pleasure would have been to risk
the loss of it. He found that as the dawn advanced,
and the amount of diffused light increased,
the crystal became to all appearance
non-luminous. And for some time he was unable
to see anything in it, except at night-time,
in dark corners of the shop.</p>
<p>But the use of an old velvet cloth, which he
used as a background for a collection of minerals,
occurred to him, and by doubling this,
and putting it over his head and hands, he was
able to get a sight of the luminous movement
within the crystal even in the daytime. He
was very cautious lest he should be thus discovered
by his wife, and he practised this occupation
only in the afternoons, while she was
asleep upstairs, and then circumspectly in a hollow
under the counter. And one day, turning
the crystal about in his hands, he saw something.
It came and went like a flash, but it
gave him the impression that the object had
for a moment opened to him the view of a wide
and spacious and strange country; and, turning<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</SPAN></span>
it about, he did, just as the light faded, see
the same vision again.</p>
<p>Now, it would be tedious and unnecessary
to state all the phases of Mr. Cave's discovery
from this point. Suffice that the effect was
this: the crystal, being peered into at an angle
of about 137 degrees from the direction of the
illuminating ray, gave a clear and consistent
picture of a wide and peculiar countryside. It
was not dream-like at all: it produced a definite
impression of reality, and the better the light
the more real and solid it seemed. It was a
moving picture: that is to say, certain objects
moved in it, but slowly in an orderly manner
like real things, and, according as the direction
of the lighting and vision changed, the picture
changed also. It must, indeed, have been like
looking through an oval glass at a view, and
turning the glass about to get at different aspects.</p>
<p>Mr. Cave's statements, Mr. Wace assures
me, were extremely circumstantial, and entirely
free from any of that emotional quality
that taints hallucinatory impressions. But it
must be remembered that all the efforts of Mr.
Wace to see any similar clarity in the faint
opalescence of the crystal were wholly unsuccessful,
try as he would. The difference in<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</SPAN></span>
intensity of the impressions received by the two
men was very great, and it is quite conceivable
that what was a view to Mr. Cave was a mere
blurred nebulosity to Mr. Wace.</p>
<p>The view, as Mr. Cave described it, was invariably
of an extensive plain, and he seemed
always to be looking at it from a considerable
height, as if from a tower or a mast. To the
east and to the west the plain was bounded at a
remote distance by vast reddish cliffs, which
reminded him of those he had seen in some picture;
but what the picture was Mr. Wace was
unable to ascertain. These cliffs passed north
and south—he could tell the points of the compass
by the stars that were visible of a night—receding
in an almost illimitable perspective
and fading into the mists of the distance before
they met. He was nearer the eastern set of
cliffs, on the occasion of his first vision the sun
was rising over them, and black against the
sunlight and pale against their shadow appeared
a multitude of soaring forms that Mr.
Cave regarded as birds. A vast range of buildings
spread below him; he seemed to be looking
down upon them; and, as they approached
the blurred and refracted edge of the picture,
they became indistinct. There were also trees
curious in shape, and in colouring, a deep<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</SPAN></span>
mossy green and an exquisite grey, beside a
wide and shining canal. And something great
and brilliantly coloured flew across the picture.
But the first time Mr. Cave saw these pictures
he saw only in flashes, his hands shook, his
head moved, the vision came and went, and
grew foggy and indistinct. And at first he had
the greatest difficulty in finding the picture
again once the direction of it was lost.</p>
<p>His next clear vision, which came about a
week after the first, the interval having yielded
nothing but tantalising glimpses and some useful
experience, showed him the view down the
length of the valley. The view was different,
but he had a curious persuasion, which his subsequent
observations abundantly confirmed,
that he was regarding this strange world from
exactly the same spot, although he was looking
in a different direction. The long façade of
the great building, whose roof he had looked
down upon before, was now receding in perspective.
He recognised the roof. In the front
of the façade was a terrace of massive proportions
and extraordinary length, and down the
middle of the terrace, at certain intervals, stood
huge but very graceful masts, bearing small
shiny objects which reflected the setting sun.
The import of these small objects did not<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</SPAN></span>
occur to Mr. Cave until some time after, as he
was describing the scene to Mr. Wace. The
terrace overhung a thicket of the most luxuriant
and graceful vegetation, and beyond this
was a wide grassy lawn on which certain broad
creatures, in form like beetles but enormously
larger, reposed. Beyond this again was a richly
decorated causeway of pinkish stone; and beyond
that, and lined with dense <i>red</i> weeds, and
passing up the valley exactly parallel with the
distant cliffs, was a broad and mirror-like expanse
of water. The air seemed full of squadrons
of great birds, manœuvring in stately
curves; and across the river was a multitude of
splendid buildings, richly coloured and glittering
with metallic tracery and facets, among a
forest of moss-like and lichenous trees. And
suddenly something flapped repeatedly across
the vision, like the fluttering of a jewelled fan
or the beating of a wing, and a face, or rather
the upper part of a face with very large eyes,
came as it were close to his own and as if on
the other side of the crystal. Mr. Cave was so
startled and so impressed by the absolute reality
of these eyes, that he drew his head back
from the crystal to look behind it. He had become
so absorbed in watching that he was quite
surprised to find himself in the cool darkness of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</SPAN></span>
his little shop, with its familiar odour of
methyl, mustiness, and decay. And, as he
blinked about him, the glowing crystal faded,
and went out.</p>
<p>Such were the first general impressions of
Mr. Cave. The story is curiously direct and
circumstantial. From the outset, when the valley
first flashed momentarily on his senses, his
imagination was strangely affected, and, as he
began to appreciate the details of the scene he
saw, his wonder rose to the point of a passion.
He went about his business listless and distraught,
thinking only of the time when he
should be able to return to his watching. And
then a few weeks after his first sight of the
valley came the two customers, the stress and
excitement of their offer, and the narrow escape
of the crystal from sale, as I have already
told.</p>
<p>Now, while the thing was Mr. Cave's secret,
it remained a mere wonder, a thing to creep to
covertly and peep at, as a child might peep
upon a forbidden garden. But Mr. Wace has,
for a young scientific investigator, a particularly
lucid and consecutive habit of mind. Directly
the crystal and its story came to him, and
he had satisfied himself, by seeing the phosphorescence
with his own eyes, that there really<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</SPAN></span>
was a certain evidence for Mr. Cave's statements,
he proceeded to develop the matter systematically.
Mr. Cave was only too eager to
come and feast his eyes on this wonderland he
saw, and he came every night from half-past
eight until half-past ten, and sometimes, in Mr.
Wace's absence, during the day. On Sunday
afternoons, also, he came. From the outset Mr.
Wace made copious notes, and it was due to his
scientific method that the relation between the
direction from which the initiating ray entered
the crystal and the orientation of the picture
were proved. And, by covering the crystal in a
box perforated only with a small aperture to
admit the exciting ray, and by substituting
black holland for his buff blinds, he greatly improved
the conditions of the observations; so
that in a little while they were able to survey
the valley in any direction they desired.</p>
<p>So having cleared the way, we may give a
brief account of this visionary world within the
crystal. The things were in all cases seen by
Mr. Cave, and the method of working was invariably
for him to watch the crystal and report
what he saw, while Mr. Wace (who as a
science student had learnt the trick of writing
in the dark) wrote a brief note of his report.
When the crystal faded, it was put into its box<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</SPAN></span>
in the proper position and the electric light
turned on. Mr. Wace asked questions, and
suggested observations to clear up difficult
points. Nothing, indeed, could have been less
visionary and more matter-of-fact.</p>
<p>The attention of Mr. Cave had been speedily
directed to the bird-like creatures he had seen
so abundantly present in each of his earlier
visions. His first impression was soon corrected,
and he considered for a time that they
might represent a diurnal species of bat. Then
he thought, grotesquely enough, that they
might be cherubs. Their heads were round,
and curiously human, and it was the eyes of
one of them that had so startled him on his second
observation. They had broad, silvery
wings, not feathered, but glistening almost as
brilliantly as new-killed fish and with the same
subtle play of colour, and these wings were not
built on the plan of bird-wing or bat, Mr. Wace
learned, but supported by curved ribs radiating
from the body. (A sort of butterfly wing with
curved ribs seems best to express their appearance.)
The body was small, but fitted with
two bunches of prehensile organs, like long
tentacles, immediately under the mouth. Incredible
as it appeared to Mr. Wace, the persuasion
at last became irresistible, that it was<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</SPAN></span>
these creatures which owned the great quasi-human
buildings and the magnificent garden
that made the broad valley so splendid. And
Mr. Cave perceived that the buildings, with
other peculiarities, had no doors, but that the
great circular windows, which opened freely,
gave the creatures egress and entrance. They
would alight upon their tentacles, fold their
wings to a smallness almost rod-like, and hop
into the interior. But among them was a multitude
of smaller-winged creatures, like great
dragon-flies and moths and flying beetles, and
across the greensward brilliantly-coloured
gigantic ground-beetles crawled lazily to and
fro. Moreover, on the causeways and terraces,
large-headed creatures similar to the greater
winged flies, but wingless, were visible, hopping
busily upon their hand-like tangle of tentacles.</p>
<p>Allusion has already been made to the glittering
objects upon masts that stood upon the
terrace of the nearer building. It dawned upon
Mr. Cave, after regarding one of these masts
very fixedly on one particularly vivid day, that
the glittering object there was a crystal exactly
like that into which he peered. And a still
more careful scrutiny convinced him that each<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</SPAN></span>
one in a vista of nearly twenty carried a similar
object.</p>
<p>Occasionally one of the large flying creatures
would flutter up to one, and, folding its wings
and coiling a number of its tentacles about the
mast, would regard the crystal fixedly for a
space,—sometimes for as long as fifteen minutes.
And a series of observations, made at
the suggestion of Mr. Wace, convinced both
watchers that, so far as this visionary world
was concerned, the crystal into which they
peered actually stood at the summit of the endmost
mast on the terrace, and that on one occasion
at least one of these inhabitants of this
other world had looked into Mr. Cave's face
while he was making these observations.</p>
<p>So much for the essential facts of this very
singular story. Unless we dismiss it all as the
ingenious fabrication of Mr. Wace, we have
to believe one of two things: either that
Mr. Cave's crystal was in two worlds at
once, and that, while it was carried about in
one, it remained stationary in the other, which
seems altogether absurd; or else that it had
some peculiar relation of sympathy with another
and exactly similar crystal in this other
world, so that what was seen in the interior of
the one in this world was, under suitable conditions,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</SPAN></span>
visible to an observer in the corresponding
crystal in the other world; and <i>vice
versa</i>. At present, indeed, we do not know of
any way in which two crystals could so come
<i>en rapport</i>, but nowadays we know enough to
understand that the thing is not altogether impossible.
This view of the crystals as <i>en rapport</i>
was the supposition that occurred to Mr.
Wace, and to me at least it seems extremely
plausible....</p>
<p>And where was this other world? On this,
also, the alert intelligence of Mr. Wace speedily
threw light. After sunset, the sky darkened
rapidly—there was a very brief twilight
interval indeed—and the stars shone out. They
were recognisably the same as those we see, arranged
in the same constellations. Mr. Cave
recognised the Bear, the Pleiades, Aldebaran,
and Sirius: so that the other world must be
somewhere in the solar system, and, at the utmost,
only a few hundreds of millions of miles
from our own. Following up this clue, Mr.
Wace learned that the midnight sky was a
darker blue even than our midwinter sky, and
that the sun seemed a little smaller. <i>And there
were two small moons!</i> "like our moon but
smaller, and quite differently marked" one of
which moved so rapidly that its motion was<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</SPAN></span>
clearly visible as one regarded it. These moons
were never high in the sky, but vanished as
they rose: that is, every time they revolved
they were eclipsed because they were so near
their primary planet. And all this answers
quite completely, although Mr. Cave did not
know it, to what must be the condition of
things on Mars.</p>
<p>Indeed, it seems an exceedingly plausible
conclusion that peering into this crystal Mr.
Cave did actually see the planet Mars and its
inhabitants. And, if that be the case, then the
evening star that shone so brilliantly in the sky
of that distant vision, was neither more nor
less than our own familiar earth.</p>
<p>For a time the Martians—if they were Martians—do
not seem to have known of Mr.
Cave's inspection. Once or twice one would
come to peer, and go away very shortly to some
other mast, as though the vision was unsatisfactory.
During this time Mr. Cave was able
to watch the proceedings of these winged people
without being disturbed by their attentions,
and, although his report is necessarily vague
and fragmentary, it is nevertheless very suggestive.
Imagine the impression of humanity
a Martian observer would get who, after a difficult
process of preparation and with considerable<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</SPAN></span>
fatigue to the eyes, was able to peer at
London from the steeple of St. Martin's
Church for stretches, at longest, of four minutes
at a time. Mr. Cave was unable to ascertain
if the winged Martians were the same as
the Martians who hopped about the causeways
and terraces, and if the latter could put on
wings at will. He several times saw certain
clumsy bipeds, dimly suggestive of apes, white
and partially translucent, feeding among certain
of the lichenous trees, and once some of
these fled before one of the hopping, round-headed
Martians. The latter caught one in its
tentacles, and then the picture faded suddenly
and left Mr. Cave most tantalisingly in the
dark. On another occasion a vast thing, that
Mr. Cave thought at first was some gigantic
insect, appeared advancing along the causeway
beside the canal with extraordinary rapidity.
As this drew nearer Mr. Cave perceived that it
was a mechanism of shining metals and of extraordinary
complexity. And then, when he
looked again, it had passed out of sight.</p>
<p>After a time Mr. Wace aspired to attract the
attention of the Martians, and the next time
that the strange eyes of one of them appeared
close to the crystal Mr. Cave cried out and
sprang away, and they immediately turned on<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</SPAN></span>
the light and began to gesticulate in a manner
suggestive of signalling. But when at last Mr.
Cave examined the crystal again the Martian
had departed.</p>
<p>Thus far these observations had progressed
in early November, and then Mr. Cave, feeling
that the suspicions of his family about the crystal
were allayed, began to take it to and fro
with him in order that, as occasion arose in the
daytime or night, he might comfort himself
with what was fast becoming the most real
thing in his existence.</p>
<p>In December Mr. Wace's work in connection
with a forthcoming examination became heavy,
the sittings were reluctantly suspended for a
week, and for ten or eleven days—he is not
quite sure which—he saw nothing of Cave. He
then grew anxious to resume these investigations,
and, the stress of his seasonal labours being
abated, he went down to Seven Dials. At
the corner he noticed a shutter before a bird
fancier's window, and then another at a cobbler's.
Mr. Cave's shop was closed.</p>
<p>He rapped and the door was opened by the
step-son in black. He at once called Mrs.
Cave, who was, Mr. Wace could not but observe,
in cheap but ample widow's weeds of the
most imposing pattern. Without any very<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</SPAN></span>
great surprise Mr. Wace learnt that Cave was
dead and already buried. She was in tears, and
her voice was a little thick. She had just returned
from Highgate. Her mind seemed occupied
with her own prospects and the honourable
details of the obsequies, but Mr. Wace was
at last able to learn the particulars of Cave's
death. He had been found dead in his shop in
the early morning, the day after his last visit
to Mr. Wace, and the crystal had been clasped
in his stone-cold hands. His face was smiling,
said Mrs. Cave, and the velvet cloth from the
minerals lay on the floor at his feet. He must
have been dead five or six hours when he was
found.</p>
<p>This came as a great shock to Wace, and he
began to reproach himself bitterly for having
neglected the plain symptoms of the old man's
ill-health. But his chief thought was of the
crystal. He approached that topic in a gingerly
manner, because he knew Mrs. Cave's peculiarities.
He was dumbfounded to learn that
it was sold.</p>
<p>Mrs. Cave's first impulse, directly Cave's
body had been taken upstairs, had been to write
to the mad clergyman who had offered five
pounds for the crystal, informing him of its recovery;
but after a violent hunt in which her<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</SPAN></span>
daughter joined her, they were convinced of
the loss of his address. As they were without
the means required to mourn and bury Cave in
the elaborate style the dignity of an old Seven
Dials inhabitant demands, they had appealed
to a friendly fellow-tradesman in Great Portland
Street. He had very kindly taken over a
portion of the stock at a valuation. The valuation
was his own and the crystal egg was included
in one of the lots. Mr. Wace, after a
few suitable consolatory observations, a little
off-handedly proffered perhaps, hurried at
once to Great Portland Street. But there he
learned that the crystal egg had already been
sold to a tall, dark man in grey. And there the
material facts in this curious, and to me at least
very suggestive, story come abruptly to an end.
The Great Portland Street dealer did not know
who the tall dark man in grey was, nor had he
observed him with sufficient attention to describe
him minutely. He did not even know
which way this person had gone after leaving
the shop. For a time Mr. Wace remained in
the shop, trying the dealer's patience with
hopeless questions, venting his own exasperation.
And at last, realising abruptly that the
whole thing had passed out of his hands, had
vanished like a vision of the night, he returned<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</SPAN></span>
to his own rooms, a little astonished to find the
notes he had made still tangible and visible
upon his untidy table.</p>
<p>His annoyance and disappointment were
naturally very great. He made a second call
(equally ineffectual) upon the Great Portland
Street dealer, and he resorted to advertisements
in such periodicals as were likely to come into
the hands of a <i>bric-a-brac</i> collector. He also
wrote letters to <i>The Daily Chronicle</i> and <i>Nature</i>,
but both those periodicals, suspecting a
hoax, asked him to reconsider his action before
they printed, and he was advised that such
a strange story, unfortunately so bare of supporting
evidence, might imperil his reputation
as an investigator. Moreover, the calls of his
proper work were urgent. So that after a
month or so, save for an occasional reminder to
certain dealers, he had reluctantly to abandon
the quest for the crystal egg, and from that
day to this it remains undiscovered. Occasionally,
however, he tells me, and I can quite believe
him, he has bursts of zeal, in which he
abandons his more urgent occupation and resumes
the search.</p>
<p>Whether or not it will remain lost for ever,
with the material and origin of it, are things
equally speculative at the present time. If the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</SPAN></span>
present purchaser is a collector, one would have
expected the enquiries of Mr. Wace to have
reached him through the dealers. He has been
able to discover Mr. Cave's clergyman and
"Oriental"—no other than the Rev. James
Parker and the young Prince of Bosso-Kuni in
Java. I am obliged to them for certain particulars.
The object of the Prince was simply
curiosity—and extravagance. He was so eager
to buy, because Cave was so oddly reluctant to
sell. It is just as possible that the buyer in the
second instance was simply a casual purchaser
and not a collector at all, and the crystal egg,
for all I know, may at the present moment be
within a mile of me, decorating a drawing-room
or serving as a paper-weight—its remarkable
functions all unknown. Indeed, it is
partly with the idea of such a possibility that I
have thrown this narrative into a form that
will give it a chance of being read by the ordinary
consumer of fiction.</p>
<p>My own ideas in the matter are practically
identical with those of Mr. Wace. I believe
the crystal on the mast in Mars and the crystal
egg of Mr. Cave's to be in some physical, but
at present quite inexplicable, way <i>en rapport</i>,
and we both believe further that the terrestrial
crystal must have been—possibly at some remote<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</SPAN></span>
date—sent hither from that planet, in order
to give the Martians a near view of our affairs.
Possibly the fellows to the crystals in
the other masts are also on our globe. No
theory of hallucination suffices for the facts.</p>
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