“Call him again”—one whispered to Karl. “Mebbe he’s in there safe and sound and did not hear ye at fust.”
To satisfy the man’s scruples Karl obeyed, and called and called, and knocked and knocked again and yet again,—with the same result,—no answer, save the derisive yell of the gale.
“He be dead an’ gone for sure”—said a second man, with a slight pallor coming over his sea-tanned face—“Well ... well! ... if so be as we must break down th’ door——”
“Here, give me one of those things”—cried Karl impatiently, and snatching a crowbar he began dealing heavy blows at the massive nail-studded oaken barrier. Seeing him so much in earnest, his companions lost the touch of superstitious dread that had made them hesitate, and also set themselves to work with a will, and in a few minutes—minutes which to the anxious Karl seemed ages,—the door was battered in, ... and they all rushed forward, ... but the fierce wind, tearing wildly around them, caught the flame of the lamp they carried and extinguished it, so that they were left in total darkness. But over their heads the split roof yawned, showing the black sky, and about their feet was a mass of fallen stones and dust and indistinguishable ruin. As quickly as possible they re-lit the lamp and, holding it aloft, looked tremblingly, and without speaking a word, at the havoc and confusion around them. At first little could be seen but heaped-up stones and bricks and mortar, but Karl’s quick eyes roving eagerly about caught sight suddenly of something black under a heap of débris,—and quickly bending down over it he began with his hands to clear away the rubbish,—the other men, seeing what he was trying to do, aided him in his task, and in about twenty minutes’ time they succeeded in uncovering a black mass, huge and inanimate.
“What is it?” whispered one of the men—“It’s ... it’s not him?”
Karl said nothing—he felt himself turning sick with dread, ... he touched that doubtful blackness—it was a thick cloth like a great pall—it concealed ... what? Recklessly he pulled and tugged at it, getting his hands lacerated by a tangled mesh of wires and metals,—till, yielding at last to a strong jerk, it came away in weighty clinging folds, disclosing what to him seemed an enormous round stone, which, as the lamp-light flashed upon it, glistened mysteriously with a thousand curious hues. Karl grasped its edge in an effort to lift it—his fingers came in contact with something moist and warm, and, snatching them away in a sort of vague horror, he saw that they were stained with blood.
“Oh my God! my God!” he cried—“He is down there,—underneath this thing! ... help me to lift it, men!—lift it for Heaven’s sake!—lift it, quick—quick!”
But, though they all dragged at it with a will, the work was not so easy—the great Disc had fallen flat, and lay solemnly inert—and that oozing blood,—the blood of the too daring student of the stars who had designed its mystic proportions,—trickled from under it with sickening rapidity. At last, breathless and weary, they were about to give up the task in despair, when Karl snatched from out the ruins the iron needle or pendulum on which the Disc had originally swung, and, all unknowing what it was, thrust it cautiously under the body of the great stone to aid in getting a firmer hold of it, ... to his amazement and terror the huge round mass caught and clung to it, like warm sealing-wax to a piece of paper, and in an instant seemed to have magically dispensed with all its weight, for as, with his unassisted strength, he lifted the pendulum, the Disc lifted itself lightly and easily with it! A cry of fear and wonder broke from all the men,—Karl himself trembled in every limb, and big drops of cold sweat broke out on his forehead at what he deemed the devilish horror of this miracle. But as he, with no more difficulty than he would have experienced in heaving up a moderate-sized log of wood, raised the Disc and flung it back and away from him shudderingly, pendulum and all, his eyes fell on what had lain beneath it, ... a crushed pulp of human flesh and streaming blood—and reverend silver hairs ... and with a groan that seemed to rend his very heart Karl gave one upward sick stare at the reeling sky, and fainted, ... as unconscious for the time being as that indistinguishable mangled mass of perished mortality that once had been his master.
Gently and with compassionate kindness, the rough fishers who stood by lifted him up and bore him out of the tower and down the stairs,—and, after a whispered consultation, carried him away from the house altogether to one of their own cottages, where they put him under the care of one of their own women. None of them could sleep any more that night; they stood in a group close by their humble habitations, watching the progress of the storm, and ever and anon casting awe-stricken glances at the shattered tower.
“The devil was in it”—said one of the men at last, as he lit his pipe and endeavoured to soothe his nerves by several puffs at that smoky consoler—“or else how would it rise up like that as light as a feather at the touch of an iron pole?”