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GULLIVER OF MARS
GULLIVER OF MARS EDWIN L. ARNOLD Original Title: Lieut. Gulliver Jones
CHAPTER I
Dare I say it? Dare I say that I a plain prosaic lieutenant in the
republican service have done the incredible things here set out for the
love of a woman--for a chimera in female shape; for a pale vapid ghost
of woman-loveliness? At times I tell myself I dare not: that you will
laugh and cast me aside as a fabricator; and then again I pick up my
pen and collect the scattered pages for I MUST write it--the pallid
splendour of that thing I loved and won and lost is ever before me
and will not be forgotten. The tumult of the struggle into which that
vision led me still throbs in my mind the soft lisping voices of the
planet I ransacked for its sake and the roar of the destruction which
followed me back from the quest drowns all other sounds in my ears!
I must and will write--it relieves me; read and believe as you list.
At the moment this story commences I was thinking of grilled steak and
tomatoes--steak crisp and brown on both sides and tomatoes red as a
setting sun!
Much else though I have forgotten THAT fact remains as clear as the
last sight of a well-remembered shore in the mind of some wave-tossed
traveller. And the occasion which produced that prosaic thought was a
night well calculated to make one think of supper and fireside though
the one might be frugal and the other lonely and as I Gulliver Jones
the poor foresaid Navy lieutenant with the honoured stars of our Republic
on my collar and an undeserved snub from those in authority rankling in
my heart picked my way homeward by a short cut through the dismalness
of a New York slum I longed for steak and stout slippers and a pipe
with all the pathetic keenness of a troubled soul.
It was a wild black kind of night and the weirdness of it showed up
as I passed from light to light or crossed the mouths of dim alleys
leading Heaven knows to what infernal dens of mystery and crime even
in this latter-day city of ours. The moon was up as far as the church
steeples; large vapoury clouds scudding across the sky between us and
her and a strong gusty wind laden with big raindrops snarled angrily
round corners and sighed in the parapets like strange voices talking
about things not of human interest.
It made no difference to me of course. New York in this year of grace
is not the place for the supernatural be the time never so fit for
witch-riding and the night wind in the chimney-stacks sound never so
much like the last gurgling cries of throttled men. No! the world was
very matter-of-fact and particularly so to me a poor younger son with
five dollars in my purse by way of fortune a packet of unpaid bills
in my breastpocket and round my neck a locket with a portrait therein
of that dear buxom freckled stub-nosed girl away in a little southern
seaport town whom I thought I loved with a magnificent affection. Gods!
I had not even touched the fringe of that affliction.
Thus sauntering along moodily my chin on my chest and much too absorbed
in reflection to have any nice appreciation of what was happening about
me I was crossing in front of a dilapidated block of houses dating
back nearly to the time of the Pilgrim Fathers when I had a vague
consciousness of something dark suddenly sweeping by me--a thing like
a huge bat or a solid shadow if such a thing could be and the next
instant there was a thud and a bump a bump again a half-stifled cry
and then a hurried vision of some black carpeting that flapped and shook
as though all the winds of Eblis were in its folds and then apparently
disgorged from its inmost recesses a little man.
Before my first start of half-amused surprise was over I saw him by the
flickering lamp-light clutch at space as he tried to steady himself
stumble on the slippery curb and the next moment go down on the back
of his head with a most ugly thud.
Now I was not destitute of feeling though it had been my lot to see men
die in many ways and I ran over to that motionless form without an idea
that anything but an ordinary accident had occurred. There he lay silent
and as it turned out afterwards dead as a door-nail the strangest old
fellow ever eyes looked upon dressed in shabby sorrel-coloured clothes
of antique cut with a long grey beard upon his chin pent-roof eyebrows
and a wizened complexion so puckered and tanned by exposure to Heaven
only knew what weathers that it was impossible to guess his nationality.
I lifted him up out of the puddle of black blood in which he was lying
and his head dropped back over my arm as though it had been fixed to
his body with string alone. There was neither heart-beat nor breath in
him and the last flicker of life faded out of that gaunt face even as
I watched. It was not altogether a pleasant situation and the only thing
to do appeared to be to get the dead man into proper care (though little
good it could do him now!) as speedily as possible. So sending a chance
passer-by into the main street for a cab I placed him into it as soon
as it came and there being nobody else to go got in with him myself
telling the driver at the same time to take us to the nearest hospital.
"Is this your rug captain?" asked a bystander just as we were driving
off.
"Not mine" I answered somewhat roughly. "You don't suppose I go
about at this time of night with Turkey carpets under my arm do you?
It belongs to this old chap here who has just dropped out of the skies
on to his head; chuck it on top and shut the door!" And that rug
the very mainspring of the startling things which followed was thus
carelessly thrown on to the carriage and off we went.
Well to be brief I handed in that stark old traveller from nowhere at
the hospital and as a matter of curiosity sat in the waiting-room while
they examined him. In five minutes the house-surgeon on duty came in
to see me and with a shake of his head said briefly--
"Gone sir--clean gone! Broke his neck like a pipe-stem. Most
strange-looking man and none of us can even guess at his age. Not a
friend of yours I suppose?"
"Nothing whatever to do with me sir. He slipped on the pavement and
fell in front of me just now and as a matter of common charity I brought
him in here. Were there any means of identification on him?"
"None whatever" answered the doctor taking out his notebook and
as a matter of form writing down my name and address and a few brief
particulars "nothing whatever except this curious-looking bead hung
round his neck by a blackened thong of leather" and he handed me a thing
about as big as a filbert nut with a loop for suspension and apparently
of rock crystal though so begrimed and dull its nature was difficult to
speak of with certainty. The bead was of no seeming value and slipped
unintentionally into my waistcoat pocket as I chatted for a few minutes
more with the doctor and then shaking hands I said goodbye and went
back to the cab which was still waiting outside.
It was only on reaching home I noticed the hospital porters had omitted to
take the dead man's carpet from the roof of the cab when they carried him
in and as the cabman did not care about driving back to the hospital with
it and it could not well be left in the street I somewhat reluctantly
carried it indoors with me.
Once in the shine of my own lamp and a cigar in my mouth I had a closer
look at that ancient piece of art work from heaven or the other place
only knows what ancient loom.
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