It stands to reason that so remarkable a chapter should not have escaped the notice of the bibliographer who, as already observed, had been engaged for the last quarter of a century in elucidating the text of the old historian and enriching it with footnotes for the better understanding of modern students. In the interval of three and a half centuries many changes had taken place in the physical aspect of Nepenthe; among other things, these twelve streams of pestilential odour had ceased to flow, all save the fountain of Saint Elias; their very sites had been forgotten, though traditions of their former existence still lingered among the populace.
Searching among the archives for whatever might bear on the ancient history of these springs, Mr. Eames had accumulated abundant material for footnotes geological, hydrographical and balneo-therapic. Furthermore, his personal explorations on the island had enabled him to locate the site of at least four of these old fountains, and to prove that if some of them had been covered up under the debris of landslides, the majority had disappeared in consequence of a general desiccation of the province.
Lastly and chiefly, his investigations had brought him in contact with that manuscript, already mentioned, of the Dominican monk Father Capocchio-a manuscript in which he alighted upon a curious but troublesome literary discovery anent these very fountains. The author, a contemporary of Monsignor Perrelli, a hater of Nepenthe, a cleric of lascivious and lecherous temperament, has in this parchment preserved what he calls a "popular joke"—a saying which he declares to have been "common property of the whole country" on the subject of Nepenthe and its evil-smelling waters. It was one of those scholarly, ponderous and yet helplessly straightforward jokes of the late Renaissance; a joke to which Monsignor Perrelli does not allude, both for reasons of local patriotism and of general decorum; some vulgar dictum, in short, connected with the name of the patron saint of Nepenthe who, he urged, was simply a local nature-god, christianized.
When the bibliographer's eagle eye first fell upon this passage he was staggered. Then, on reflection, he found himself in an awkward predicament—his natural modesty as a man contending with a no less natural and legitimate pride and desire as historian that the fruits of his labours should not be lost.
"These," he said, "are the dilemmas which confront the conscientious annotator."
What position was he to take up? Should he exclude the miserable joke altogether from his amended and enlarged edition of Perrelli? He did not feel himself justified in this line of conduct. Some future investigator would be sure to unearth it and get the credit for his industry. Should he re-state it in such terms as to make it palatable to refined readers, diluting its primary pungency without impairing its essential signification? He was disposed to adopt that course, but, unfortunately, all attempts at verbal manipulation failed. Good scholar as Mr. Eames was, the joke proved to be obdurate, uncompromising; vainly he wrestled with it; try as he would, it stood out naked and unashamed, refusing to be either cajoled or bullied into respectability. There was no circumventing that joke, he decided. Should he reproduce it there fore IN EXTENSO? Such, after mature deliberation and not without certain moral misgivings, he conceived to be his duty towards posterity. Veiled in the obscurity of a learned tongue, the joke was surreptitiously introduced into the company of a thousand chaste footnotes that could dispense with such covering devices.
Of the subsequent history of the Saint Elias Fountain, which alone still continued to flow, the bibliographer also learned much—how its fame had grown in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries till it attracted invalids from the most distant provinces, necessitating the erection of a palatial pump-room for the better accommodations of visitors; how latterly again the waters had unaccountably fallen into disfavour with the public. And this, notwithstanding the fact that in 1872 the celebrated Privy Councillor Dr. Saponaro, Director of the Montecitorio Home for Incurables, had written, at the urgent solicitation of the Nepenthe Town Authorities (who were alarmed at the decrease in their bathing-tax revenue) a pamphlet—a pamphlet which, by the way, cost them a mint of money in view of the author's deserved reputation as an incorruptible scientist—a pamphlet extolling the virtue of the spring; proving, by elaborate chemical analysis, that its ingredients had not only not changed a white since the days of Monsignor Perrelli but actually improved in quality; and concluding with the warm recommendation that they were as well adapted as ever for curing those ailments to which the island population was peculiarly liable—namely, the consequences of excessive lechery and alcohol, and the discomfort caused by ingrowing toe-nails.
The local deputy, Don Guistino Morena, had often promised his Nepenthean constituents to look into the matter and see that something was done. But he was a busy man. Up to the present he had apparently not moved a finger.
And now this fountain, the last survivor of the twelve health-giving springs, had suddenly run dry….
The bad news spread like wild-fire. It was regarded—for reasons which will presently appear—as a portent of gravest significance. The clergy met in unofficial but well-attended conclave to deliberate as to what attitude should be adopted towards the phenomenon, and what measures taken to allay popular apprehensions.