A Strange Discovery

by Charles Romyn Dake

"Before a reply came, there was a pause so long that, says Peters, Pym was about to speak again. Then came the voice of this old man who had investigated and pondered for thousands of years that only inexhaustible study in the universe, the phenomenon of consciousness—the aged mystic no doubt being pleasantly warmed and mollified by the appellation 'Allwise One.'

"'None but God,' said Masusælili, 'knows of a certainty the future. Truly wise men, and the lower animals, when they would penetrate the future, use not the crude instrument termed reason; but rather do they nestle close to the bosom of—what now call ye Him? Thine ancestors, the barbarians of Britannia, when I was with them, named Him God. Thus, and only thus, may the future become known to thee. Have faith, as the bird, the fish, the little ant, which, feeling God, act, and are not disappointed. Think ye that the lowest of God's creatures would not have heard His warning voice, or seen His beckoning arm, or felt His guiding hand when in the air lurked this present danger? Yet reason told not you! God shows to us the future, when we should know His edicts in advance, always—always, if only we will look and hearken. But this, good youth, God doth permit only to those who lean with full confidence upon Him, as do the lower animals. To the consciousness of man it is given, if but the right conditions be attained, truly to know what in the present happeneth anywhere in the universe. Time is a barrier to the voluntary acquisition of knowledge, but distance is not an impediment. My body is confined to this poor vase, but certainly not my mind—it roams in Europe, in Asia, or amid the stars—but wait a moment. Poor youth! The hand on the dial of thy destiny moves rapidly. Go! Go now, and go in haste; for one who loves thee, at this moment sorely needs thee. Farewell.'

"Pym scarcely heard the word 'farewell;' for he was crossing the threshold of the house as Masusælili uttered it, and Peters was turning to follow. They ran as rapidly as the snow and the cutting wind would permit, and had covered the necessary three miles in about half an hour. The air was growing intensely cold. They met a party of three exiles, who were helping to scour the city for any food that might have been left in deserted homes. These men informed Pym that, in spite of the promptitude and haste of the rescue parties, more than a hundred persons had been frozen to death; and that frozen hands and feet by the thousand had been reported. The Hili-lites were so extremely susceptible to cold that, at a temperature of 20° Fahrenheit, if they were not well protected by clothing, they soon became drowsy, then slept, and, if not found and resuscitated within a very short time, died. One case was reported in which a woman, only six hundred feet from one of the rescue stations, was frozen to death in somewhat less than an hour, though she must have been thoroughly chilled when last seen in an apparently natural condition. During the day a party of three exiles, whilst on one of their rounds, had visited the house of this poor woman, and had carried her three children to the nearest station; and the woman herself, who was at the time hurrying about the room gathering together a few articles, it was supposed had followed close behind them. In this way she was overlooked, until, in the somewhat crowded room to which the children were taken, the youngest child, a little girl of four years, broke into tears and began to cry out for her mother. Then two men hastened back, and found the woman unconscious and apparently dead. The usual methods of resuscitation were inaugurated, and long continued, but the woman could not be revived.

"Peters says that he has during his life-time seen a number of persons who were frozen, several of them fatally; of which a part were in the Eastern States, others in the far north; and that these Hili-lites froze to death very differently from those in the northern part of the north temperate zone. He mentions the case of a Canadian who was exposed to extreme cold during a whole night. When found, the poor fellow was not only unconscious, but apparently dead. The arms and legs were frozen through and through, and the entire body was rigid. He was resuscitated, but afterwards lost his hands and feet. In Hili-li persons lost their lives from exposure to cold whose bodies were very little—a few of them not at all—frozen. The explanation of this difference is to be found in the fact that an animal dies when bodily temperature in the interior of the body reaches a certain degree of reduction, which point of reduction in the Hili-lites is much less than in persons habituated to life in a colder climate. In persons accustomed to a climate as warm as that of Hili-li, the heat-producing functions are feeble, and the heat-expelling functions are very active; but this does not fully explain why, in Peters' words, 'the people there froze to death without freezing.' Any person dying as a result of exposure to cold, dies long before any of the vital organs are frozen; and the Hili-lites no doubt ceased to live with a reduction of bodily temperature which would not have seriously inconvenienced a resident of Scotland or Canada. In the storm of which we speak, the people were nervously depressed as a result of fright. However, from all I can gather, the temperature was at times certainly as low as 40° Fahrenheit below freezing, at which degree almost any thinly clad person might freeze to death.

"But the hour is late, and, though I had expected to close Peters' story this evening, such a conclusion is, owing to my prolixity, scarcely practicable. If you still expect to start for home in three days, I shall certainly in one more evening complete the telling of Peters' experiences in Hili-li. The day after tomorrow I shall be engaged during the entire evening, and if we delay our next meeting till the following evening—your last in Bellevue—it is possible that something may happen to prevent our meeting; so, if you are willing, my next and last visit to you here shall be tomorrow evening."

I expressed my satisfaction with the arrangement, and he took his leave.

The following morning, I gave to Arthur, in my own way, an account of the storm in Hili-li, meanwhile leisurely dressing—a performance which, except under pressure, I have never in the morning been able unaided to accomplish in less than an hour. I had completed my toilet, but not my story, when in rushed Castleton.

After a little general conversation, I seemed naturally to return to the Peters story; and now, in a five-minute talk, I so closed it to the point reached by Bainbridge as to satisfy Arthur, and not weary the restless doctor. As I ended, Castleton said:

"I didn't get in to see you yesterday. The last time I was in we were talking of names; and to tell you the truth, it was a matter of names that held me back yesterday at the very time I was going to come up. You see, I have an old friend here in town, ——; you've no doubt heard of him—ex-member of Congress, and as good as appointed Minister to Venezuela right now. A scholar of the deepest erudition; a speaker and writer of great force and nicety, and of exquisite literary taste. Yesterday we met, and during our talk he told me that his book, the result of many years of thought, was completed. Now, for my part, I never believed that a rose would smell as sweet as it does if we called it a turnip. If Poe had, instead of 'Narrative of A. Gordon Pym,' named his story, 'Adventures of Dirk Peters, the Half-Breed,' he would have sold twice as many books. My friend is about to publish his book. 'Its name?' I asked him. 'There can be little choice of names for a translation of Montesquieu's "Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans," with notes by myself,' he replied. 'There can't?' said I; 'well, my friend, let me tell you there can. Now compare this name: "Montesquieu's Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans, with illustrative notes," etc., with a name like this: "The Roman Aristocrats Ripped, Rooted, and Routed"; or, "How the Roman Plutocrats were Peppered and Pounded." Heavens and Earth! what do the masses know about decadence? Why not name his book (and so I said to him), "How the Rich Romans Rotted"? Half the people would think from such a title that the Romans were enemies of the United States, and that Montesquieu and my friend were after them hot and fast; and then the story would go out that the French were helping us again. "General Montesquieu" would be heard on all sides, associated with endless repetitions of Lafayette memories. Lord, Lord! I sometimes think a man is better under-educated than over-educated."

Then after a pause he continued: