by M. P. Shiel
fail to go on to theinference of _the Thames_; there, or near there, would I find thosewhom I sought. The letters "mnnnnr," then, meant the Thames: what didthe still remaining letters mean? I now took these remaining letters,placing them side by side: I got aaa, sss, ee, oo, p and i. Juxtaposingthese nearly in the order indicated by the frequency of theiroccurrence, and their place in the Roman alphabet, you at once andinevitably get the word _Aesopi._ And now I was fairly startled by thissymmetrical proof of the exactness of my own deductions in otherrespects, but, above all, far above all, by the occurrence of that word_"Aesopi."_ For who was Aesopus? He was a slave who was freed for hiswise and witful sallies: he is therefore typical of the liberty of thewise--their moral manumission from temporary and narrow law; he wasalso a close friend of Croesus: he is typical, then, of the union ofwisdom with wealth--true wisdom with real wealth; lastly, and aboveall, he was thrown by the Delphians from a rock on account of his wit:he is typical, therefore, of death--the shedding of blood--as a resultof wisdom, this thought being an elaboration of Solomon's great maxim,"in much wisdom is much sorrow." But how accurately all this fitted inwith what would naturally be the doctrines of the men on whose track Iwas! I could no longer doubt the justness of my reasonings, andimmediately, while you slept, I set off for London.
'Of my haps in London I need not give you a very particular account.The meeting was to be held on the 15th, and by the morning of the 13thI had reached a place called Wargrave, on the Thames. There I hired alight canoe, and thence proceeded down the river in a somewhat zig-zagmanner, narrowly examining the banks on either side, and keeping asharp out-look for some board, or sign, or house, that would seem tobetoken any sort of connection with the word "Aesopi." In this way Ipassed a fruitless day, and having reached the shipping region, madefast my craft, and in a spirit of _diablerie_ spent the night in acommon lodging-house, in the company of the most remarkable humanbeings, characterised by an odour of alcohol, and a certain obtrusive_bonne camaraderie_ which the prevailing fear of death could notaltogether repress. By dawn of the 14th I was on my journey again--on,and ever on. Eagerly I longed for a sight of the word I sought: but Ihad misjudged the men against whose cunning I had measured my own. Ishould have remembered more consistently that they were no ordinarymen. As I was destined to find, there lay a deeper, more cabalisticmeaning in the motto than any I had been able to dream of. I hadproceeded on my pilgrimage down the river a long way past Greenwich,and had now reached a desolate and level reach of land stretching awayon either hand. Paddling my boat from the right to the left bank, Icame to a spot where a little arm of the river ran up some few yardsinto the land. The place wore a specially dreary and deserted aspect:the land was flat, and covered with low shrubs. I rowed into this armof shallow water and rested on my oar, wearily bethinking myself whatwas next to be done. Looking round, however, I saw to my surprise thatat the end of this arm there was a short narrow pathway--a windingroad--leading from the river-bank. I stood up in the boat and followedits course with my eyes. It was met by another road also winding amongthe bushes, but in a slightly different direction. At the end of thiswas a little, low, high-roofed, round house, without doors or windows.And then--and then--tingling now with a thousand raptures--I beheld apool of water near this structure, and then another low house, acounterpart of the first--and then, still leading on in the samedirection, another pool--and then a great rock, heart-shaped--and thenanother winding road--and then another pool of water. All was amodel--_exact to the minutest particular_--of the device on thepapyrus! The first long-waved line was the river itself; the threeshort-waved lines were the arm of the river and the two pools; thethree snakes were the three winding roads; the two trianglesrepresenting the letter #A# were the two high-roofed round houses; theheart was the rock! I sprang, now thoroughly excited, from the boat,and ran in headlong haste to the end of the last lake. Here there was arather thick and high growth of bushes, but peering among them, my eyeat once caught a white oblong board supported on a stake: on this, inblack letters, was marked the words, "DESCENSUS AESOPI." It wasnecessary, therefore, to go _down_: the meeting-place was subterranean.It was without difficulty that I discovered a small opening in theground, half hidden by the underwood; from the orifice I found that aseries of wooden steps led directly downwards, and I at once boldlydescended. No sooner, however, had I touched the bottom than I wasconfronted by an ancient man in Hellenic apparel, armed with the Greek_ziphos_ and _pelte_. His eyes, accustomed to the gloom, pierced melong with an earnest scrutiny.
'"You are a Spartan?" he asked at length.
'"Yes," I answered promptly.
'"Then how is it you do not know that I am stone deaf?"
'I shrugged, indicating that for the moment I had forgotten the fact.
'"You _are_ a Spartan?" he repeated.
'I nodded with emphasis.
'"Then, how is it you omit to make the sign?"
'Now, you must not suppose that at this point I was nonplussed, for inthat case you would not give due weight to the strange inherent powerof the mind to rise to the occasion of a sudden emergency--to stretchitself long to the length of an event; I do not hesitate to say that_no_ combination of circumstances can defeat a vigorous brain fullyalert, and in possession of itself. With a quickness to which thelightning-flash is tardy, I remembered that this was a spot indicatedby the symbols on the papyrus: I remembered that this same papyrus wasalways placed under the _tongue_ of the dead; I remembered, too, thatamong that very nation whose language had afforded the motto, to "turnup the _thumb_" (_pollicem vertere_) was a symbol significant of death.I touched the under surface of my tongue with the tip of my thumb. Theaged man was appeased. I passed on, and examined the place.
'It was simply a vast circular hall, the arched roof of which wassupported on colonnades of what I took to be pillars of porphyry. Downthe middle and round the sides ran tables of the same material; thewalls were clothed in hangings of sable velvet, on which, in infinitereproduction, was embroidered in cypher the motto of the society. Thechairs were cushioned in the same stuff. Near the centre of the circlestood a huge statue, of what really seemed to me to be pure beatengold. On the great ebon base was inscribed the word [Greek: LUKURGOS].From the roof swung by brazen chains a single misty lamp.
'Having seen this much I reascended to the land of light, and beingfully resolved on attending the meeting on the next day or night, andnot knowing what my fate might then be, I wrote to inform you of themeans by which my body might be traced. 'But on the next day a newthought occurred to me: I reasoned thus: "these men are not commonassassins; they wage a too rash warfare against diseased life, but notagainst life in general. In all probability they have a quiteimmoderate, quite morbid reverence for the sanctity of healthy life.They will not therefore take mine, _unless_ they suppose me to be theonly living outsider who has a knowledge of their secret, and thereforethink it absolutely necessary for the carrying out of their beneficentdesigns that my life should be sacrificed. I will therefore preventsuch a motive from occurring to them by communicating to another theirwhole secret, and--if the necessity should arise--_letting them know_that I have done so, without telling them who that other is. Thus mylife will be assured." I therefore wrote to you on that day a fullaccount of all I had discovered, giving you to understand, however, onthe envelope, that you need not examine the contents for some littletime.
'I waited in the subterranean vault during the greater part of the nextday; but not till midnight did the confederates gather. What happenedat that meeting I shall not disclose, even to you. All wassacred--solemn--full of awe. Of the choral hymns there sung, thehierophantic ritual, liturgies, paeans, the gorgeous symbolisms--of thewealth there represented, the culture, art, self-sacrifice--of themingling of all the tongues of Europe--I shall not speak; nor shall Irepeat names which you would at once recognise as familiar toyou--though I may, perhaps, mention that the "Morris," whose nameappears on the papyrus sent to me is a well-known _litterateur_ of thatname. But this in confidence, fo
r some years at least.
'Let me, however, hurry to a conclusion. My turn came to speak. I roseundaunted, and calmly disclosed myself; during the moment of hush, ofwide-eyed paralysis that ensued, I declared that fully as I coincidedwith their views in general, I found myself unable to regard theirmethods with approval--these I could not but consider too rash, tooharsh, too premature. My voice was suddenly drowned by one universal,earth-shaking roar of rage and contempt, during which I was surroundedon all sides, seized, pinioned, and dashed on the central table. Allthis time, in the hope and love of life, I passionately shouted that Iwas not the only living being who shared in their secret. But my voicewas drowned, and drowned again, in the whirling tumult. None heard me.A powerful and little-known anaesthetic--the means by which all
