It was now considerably past noon, and our exercise had begun to tell on us both somewhat and to suggest a rest and something to eat. Accordingly we pulled the boat up on the beach, and got out some cooking utensils and provisions. I started off to collect some dry sticks to make a fire and Allan took a pail and proceeded along the shore to find a deep place or a boulder from which he could dip up clear water for our coffee. We happened to go together for a few rods, when glancing up the slope a short distance, I discovered a stake sticking in the ground. I gave an exclamation of surprise and quickly ran to secure it. It proved to be what I suspected, one of the stakes of the narrow gauge survey. “What have you found, old fellow?” Allan asked. I told him, and it seemed surprising to both of us that that frail bit of a pine stick should have survived the storms and accidents of thirteen years. We had used for stakes on those surveys common plastering lath; one lath four feet long being cut in the middle made two stakes. This was such a stake, an inch and a half wide and three-eighths of an inch thick. It owed its exceptional preservation to the fact that it was full of pitch and to its protected position. It had been driven in a slanting position, partly under the body of a large fallen tree, that lay over the point where the stake should have been set. The number of the stake had been written with red chalk, on the side that had happened to come underneath and so was largely protected from the rains. But it was now illegible, four red blotches being all that remained.
A person walking through our Minnesota woods will often meet with a little mound of earth, alongside of which he will see a cupshaped depression in the ground. The depression marks the spot where at some time in the past there stood a noble tree, and it indicates that the tree yielding to the force of an ancient tornado was toppled over, and, pulling its roots out of the ground drew up with them a cubic yard, more or less, of earth. Afterwards when the roots began to decay the earth was dropped in a heap beside the hole. There was such a mound and hollow at the west end of the rotten log in question, showing that it had been overthrown by the fierce assault of a western hurricane. The mound was old, well rounded by the action of the weather and covered with a mat of grass. I sat down on this mound in a half reclining position, with the stake in my hand, and tried again without success to make out the number[1]. A solitary mosquito was singing about my right ear, and persisted in returning and constantly evaded my efforts to capture it. Directly however, its wings became still, and unaccountable stupor appeared to steal over me, my head drooped over toward the left till it touched the grass and for a moment I was unconscious. But it was only for a moment for a new consciousness almost immediately supervened. It was a consciousness composed chiefly of subjective sensations, although I hold that even subjective sensations, very often in an unperceived manner, receive their direction and stimulation to activity from objects around us. But that is a question of psychology. At all events the sensations, I am about to relate were the most remarkable I ever experienced, and at the time were not accompanied by the least intimation, that they were not purely objective.
CHAPTER II.
The Professor.
First there was a loud singing noise in my right ear, pitched in a high key. Presently this pitch became lower and the sound resembled the rattle of rolling car wheels on a track, and they seemed to be approaching. I suddenly realized that they were advancing to the place where I lay, and greatly startled, I sprang to my feet. I was none too quick, for a train of four cars rolled rapidly over the very spot where I had lain. I saw they were filled with gay well dressed people evidently on a pleasure excursion. As I gazed after them toward the west along the gleaming rails, I remembered there was no locomotive with the train. Of course not, thought I, the road is run by electricity. But there was no overhead wire and no trolley. O, I see, these cars are propelled by storage batteries that they carry with them. I felt no surprise at this, nor at the fact that the road had been built after all, for it all seemed to be a matter of course. Turning toward the east where the line penetrated the ridge that lies between the bay and the lake, I saw on the edge of the cut the tall white mile post so illuminated by the direct sunshine that the number 24 in large black figures could be made out, although the distance was a third of a mile or more. While I was still gazing in that direction I suddenly became aware of a strange looking object coming through the cut and around the curve. It was a four wheeled vehicle something like a hand car, but it was not being “pumped” nor were there any handles for propelling it in that way.
The idea suddenly came to me that this car like the first I had seen, was propelled by a storage battery concealed somewhere about its anatomy. But the interest created by the car was quickly eclipsed by that inspired by its occupant; and a more remarkable creature I never read about or dreamed about. He sat bolt upright on the seat at the rear end of the car and while he was at a distance, I took him for a rather stiff dignified and odd specimen of a man. But as he approached and I got a better opportunity for observing details, I directly came to doubt if he could be a man at all. When I first saw him, I observed what seemed to be a large fan-like appendage projecting from his back, which I then took to be some peculiar garment streaming out behind. But as he approached, this appendage separated into two, and spreading out to the right and left acted like brakes against the wind and rapidly checked the speed of the car, reminding me of the action of the wings of a bird, when it alights. In short to my great astonishment it turned out they were wings. I instinctively stepped back two or three paces to allow this strange apparition to pass, but to my surprise the car stopped directly opposite to me and its occupant with a slight flutter of the aforesaid wings, hopped lightly out of it and stood beside the track so near to me, that I could have touched him. For a moment or two he busied himself with some arrangement about his car, the nature of which I did not observe, as my attention was absorbed chiefly by himself.
In the description, that I shall now give of him, will be included a number of details that I did not observe at first, but which showed themselves during the progress of our interview. The large wings mentioned above were at least six feet in radius, and each was nearly a semicircle. They could be folded like a fan and when in that position they lay down along his back from his shoulders to his heels and when fully extended reached from his heels to a point nearly five feet above his head. They were of a soft semitransparent, but thick and tough membranous material, full of veins and nerves and supported by stiff elastic ribs, radiating from their articulation at the shoulder to the circumference.
Besides these wings, he had two other pairs similar in texture, but much smaller. One pair was attached just in front of the principal pair and ordinarily they were directed upward beside his head and reaching above it. But he could also extend them laterally, so as to cover his face, as well as the back of his head and did so repeatedly while he was with me, apparently to shield himself from the rays of the sun. The other two were attached just below the main wings and extended downwards alongside of the body to the feet. But they too were extensible laterally and could be made to cover the entire lower half of the body. In short, these four minor wings were equivalent to clothes, and the numerous nerves by which they were traversed, indicated that they were also delicate organs of the sensations of heat and touch.
In addition to these wings, there were six other limbs, two of which were legs and two were arms, in much the same position in which they occur in man. The third pair of limbs were attached to the thorax between the arms and legs, and were ordinarily folded across the thorax. I came to the conclusion these limbs could be used either as hands or feet as occasion required, but while he was with me he made little other use of them than to occasionally give me a sly poke with one of them—usually the right—in the side—usually the left side—about the position of the second rib from the bottom. As these gestures always came about in connection with some humorous or ludicrous idea, it occurred to me in a whimsical way to call these limbs his jokers. His head was immense, possessing, I should say, double the capacity of the largest human head. The top part was globular, and the lower part, which might be called the face, was long and wedge shaped, tapering down to the jaws. The jaws were strong and well set with teeth and worked laterally instead of vertically as with us, and the slit forming the mouth was vertical and in the middle. There was no chin. The eyes were placed just above the mouth and at the base of the upper dome shaped portion of the head. They were of enormous size fully two inches in diameter, half globular and set far apart, forming as it were the corners of the face. They were not movable as ours are, because every part of the surface of the eye was equally good to see with; and their position enabled their owner to see three-fourths of the horizon without turning his head. The face had not one particle of expression or mobility to it, but this was compensated a hundred times by the expression of the eyes. Their usual expression, when at rest, was one of supreme kindliness and benevolence with a slight element of humor. But when the mind was in activity, the eyes beamed with good natured wit, were suffused with tender sentiment or flashed with intellectual brilliancy to a degree I would never have imagined possible. Under each of the wings there was an opening leading into the body, those of the middle wings being nearly three-fourths of an inch in diameter, and the others very much smaller. All were protected by movable lips. I soon discovered that these were for the purpose of breathing, the air being constantly inhaled and exhaled through them. I have no doubt the lining membrane of these breathing tubes was sensitive to odors and was therefore an organ of smell. As to ears, there was one plainly to be seen on the upper part of each arm, and I observed him move his arm in the proper directions to catch the sound. In the long conversation I had with him I cannot say that I heard any articulate voice. There was a slight humming noise, rising and falling in very agreeable musical cadences, and these appeared to accompany the enunciation of his ideas and thoughts when he addressed me. When I spoke to him, I used articulate words in plain English and he appeared to hear in the ordinary way. But his thoughts came to me like waves or pulsations and appeared to be injected bodily into my brain without any distinct sensation of hearing them. In short I directly came to perceive that it was a case of the telepathic transfer of ideas, experiments in which are known to most people, but which was in this case vastly more complete and perfect than I had ever imagined possible. In the report of the conversation between us that I give herein it is to be understood that I do not quote his language, but give the impression of his thoughts upon me in my own language, and the best I have been able to do, I am sensible, forms a very inadequate dress in which to set off the beauty of his sentiment or the strength of his reason.