A Strange Discovery

by Charles Romyn Dake

The NINETEENTH Chapter

Arriving there, they found the Duke and Diregus quite actively engaged—for Hili-lites; still, very much valuable time was being wasted. Already the snow had ceased to fall, and the temperature, Peters thinks, must have reached ten degrees below freezing, and was rapidly falling. In the ducal palace there were, in two or three rooms, hearths, and flue-openings for carrying off smoke; but as there was no wood ready for burning, and as there seemed to be no dry wood in sight, the Duke and his son were at the end of their resources as soon as they had gathered together into a safe place food sufficient to last for a week or ten days. Fortunately the palace was unusually well stocked with edibles.

When Pym and Peters arrived, their cool manner and prompt action exhaling confidence with every look and movement, the Duke and Diregus were soon enlivened, as in fact were all others who came in contact with these two active and intrepid strangers.

Pym glanced about him, compassing at a look all possible resources. Then he issued his orders, himself working with the others, and, so to speak, 'setting the pace.' In ten minutes a large outbuilding—similar to our summer-houses, or Anglo-Saxon kiosks—was razed to the ground, broken in pieces, and placed in the rooms, in which fires were soon glowing and crackling. In twenty minutes, those whom Pym and Peters had found half-frozen and wholly discouraged, were cheerful, comfortable, and out of danger.

The two men hastened forth through the city, giving assistance and advice, and infusing confidence. The smaller residences, as well as many of those of medium size, were constructed of wood. Pym went rapidly through the city, ordering that one house in each square be demolished, and the wood divided—but haste! haste! The temperature was rapidly declining to a point at which a Hili-lite, even when actively at work, could not exist.

Pym and Peters might, unaided, have reached one-tenth of the people of Hili-li, and have shown them the way to safety. As many more, possibly, might have found other means of saving themselves. It seems improbable that more than one-fourth of the people of Hili-li would have survived this terrible storm, had Pym and Peters not been reinforced.

"Let no man, in his finite weakness, ever question the methods of Infinite Wisdom, which is Infinite Goodness. At the very time when every moment gained by Pym and Peters meant the saving of a hundred more lives—at the very moment when two additional men, hardy and inured to danger, would have doubled the life-saving force, four hundred of the 'Exiles of Olympus' arrived in the city. They had left behind them warmth and safety, and sailing across thirty miles of tempestuous sea, had come, headed by Medosus, to try to save their fellow-countrymen. These four hundred men, young and vigorous, comprised the real enterprise and daring of Hili-li. They had been promised their liberty, and their visits, individually, to Hili-li had recently been not only allowed but even encouraged by those in authority; but the final act permitting them to return had been, by the formalities of state, delayed.

"Pym, Peters, and Medosus consulted for a moment, and then the exiles divided into a hundred parties of four each, and systematically scattered through the city, doing the work of giants. Finally the exiles established a hundred stations, selecting for the purpose large rooms, in which they built hearths of lava-blocks taken from the streets, in most of the houses the hearths being placed in the centre of an upper room, and an opening directly above cut through the roof. At each of these stations one exile at a time took charge of the fire, whilst the other three of the party in charge scoured the neighborhood for persons that might in the first desultory search have been overlooked. Then, when all seemed provided for, the exiles, protecting their bodies with such additional clothing as those now cared for could spare, went forth in search of food, to the deserted houses, and to such depots of supply as the city possessed.

"The work of rescue being thoroughly inaugurated, Pym had a moment in which his mind might roam from the work immediately in hand; and he thought of the aged mystic, Masusælili. The old man resided in a spot so retired that the various rescue parties might easily have overlooked him; and the temperature was now probably fifty degrees below freezing. Fortunately, at the instant he thought of the old philosopher, he and Peters were near the city limits, and within a third of a mile of Masusælili's home; and starting off at a brisk run, the two were five minutes later in the old man's house, standing outside his laboratory door. As the two had hurried along, Peters would continue to murmur against the project: 'What's the use,' he would growl; 'we'll only find the old fellow roasting himself in front of a magic fire of burning snow or ice. He's all right, and we'd better be saving human people.'

"As several raps, increasing from the gentlest to the most vigorous, elicited no response, Pym opened the laboratory door, and with Peters entered. But the old man was nowhere to be seen. Pym hastily returned to the hallway, and discovering a stair leading to a small cellar, he descended. The cellar was filled with débris, two small window casements opening to the exterior air were broken and decayed to the last degree of dilapidation, and the icy wind whistled through the rubbish of the doleful spot. He ran back to the laboratory, where Peters was hunting about, hoping to find Masusælili alive, yet fearing to find his emaciated form lying lifeless amid the mass of chemical and mechanical appliances which littered the room. Several of the large vase-like objects before alluded to stood here and there; and as the smaller of them might have hidden the body of a large-sized man, the searchers even glanced into them. Each vase sat apart upon the floor, flaring upward like a giant lily to a height of four or five feet; and from each of them projected, within an inch of the floor, a faucet of rude construction, through which passed a very primitive spigot. One of these enormous vases, large enough to have secreted two small men, stood inverted; and Pym, with no particular object in view, but simply because he could not think of anything else to do, gave the vase a push, in such a way as to raise for an inch or two from the floor its large rim, flaring out to a diameter of probably four feet.