Swords & Steam Short Stories

by S. T. Joshi

  “Judith Gardenier.”

  “And your father’s name?”

  “Ah, poor man, Rip Van Winkle was his name, but it’s twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, and never has been heard of since – his dog came home without him; but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl.”

  Rip had but one question more to ask; but he put it with a faltering voice:

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “Oh, she, too, had died but a short time since; she broke a blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New England peddler.”

  There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. The honest man could contain himself no longer. He caught his daughter and her child in his arms. “I am your father!” cried he – “Young Rip Van Winkle once – Old Rip Van Winkle now! Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle?”

  All stood amazed until an old woman, tottering out from among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and peering under it in his face for a moment, exclaimed, “Sure enough! It is Rip Van Winkle – it is himself! Welcome home again, old neighbor. Why, where have you been these twenty long years?”

  Rip’s story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been to him but as one night. The neighbors stared when they heard it; some were seen to wink at each other, and put their tongues in their cheeks: and the self-important man in the cocked hat, who when the alarm was over had returned to the field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and shook his head–upon which there was a general shaking of the head throughout the assemblage.

  It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the road. He was a descendant of the historian of that name, who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the province. Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the village, and well versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood. He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story in the most satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the Catskill Mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. It was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-moon; being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city called by his name. His father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at ninepins in a hollow of the mountain; and he himself had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant peals of thunder.

  To make a long story short, the company broke up and returned to the more important concerns of the election. Rip’s daughter took him home to live with her; she had a snug, well-furnished house, and a stout, cheery farmer for a husband, whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins that used to climb upon his back. As to Rip’s son and heir, who was the ditto of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on the farm; but showed an hereditary disposition to attend to anything else but his business.

  The Aerial Burglar

  Percival Leigh

  We lately submitted ourselves to the process of being Mesmerised; and during the magnetic state, which was that of the highest degree of clairvoyance, were favoured with a peep into futurity. We recollect nothing, whatever, of all that we saw; but we are told that we wrote part of it down at the time, our eyes then being fast closed, and we sitting in a Windsor-chair upon the points of twelve tenpenny nails, which, for our own accommodation, and for the satisfaction of the company present, that we were in a slate of physical insensibility, had been driven up through the bottom of it.

  The ensuing narrative is compiled from the account, which, as we are informed, we indited upon that occasion.

  We found ourselves, all at once (where many Mesmerists, as well as their patients – also sundry metaphysicians, theologians, and moralists – very often lose themselves), in the clouds.

  Over the broad fields of air were spread innumerable islands of immense magnitude, of a circular form, and flattened above and below, so – to compare great things with small – as to resemble Cheshire cheeses. These we at first thought were planets, but we presently came to find that they were structures of human invention, composed as follows: over a case, forming an enormous air-cushion, was disposed a sort of wood-pavement, made of cork, which had been subjected to a process securing it from decomposition. Upon this was placed an artificial soil of earth, where grew herbage and trees of various kinds; and on which, dwelling-places, made of light yet warm materials, had been erected. The interiors of these artificial islands were filled with the Mesmeric fluid itself, – a gas many millions of times lighter than the most rarefied hydrogen; enabling them, notwithstanding the weight of their solid parts, to remain suspended in the air. Each of them was furnished with a stop-cock, whereby the gas might be let out at pleasure, and upon them all there was kept a large number of cats, from which creatures it had been discovered that the Mesmerogen, as the gas was termed, was procurable. These islands were tenanted by men, women, children, cattle, and other animals. When the aerial islanders wanted to descend, they let a quantity of the fluid out; when they wished to rise, they forced some of it in; displacing, of course, by so doing, the atmospheric air. This was Dean Swift’s idea of a flying island realised, without the aid of magic!

  The epoch in which we were existing, was the year 2000, – to such a pitch had science by that time attained! But, alas! Morality had not made a corresponding advancement; and it was with pain that we contemplated an aerial police, patrolling on flying machines, which were like huge turbots with wings, between the isles in mid-air. There was no mistaking them; the dark blue of their attire was relieved upon the lighter azure, their collars were lettered and numbered, and they wore list around their cuffs, which shewed that they were upon duty.

  Yes; crime, without leaving the earth, had soared into the sky; and theft and robbery contaminated the air.

  Dodging among the clouds, and evidently desirous of avoiding observation, we remarked an individual on a machine that seemed like a flying narwhal, or unicorn fish, the snout being furnished with a long and formidable spike resembling that creature’s horn. As he threaded his way through the darker masses of vapours, he threw around him into every nook and corner the rays of a dark lantern, which lighted up their gloomy recesses and kindled their lurid promontories with a red glare. As night came on these appearances were the more observable, and the policemen, now indistinguishable in the darkness, save by the lanterns which they also carried, seemed like portentous meteors flashing athwart the sky.

  Our consciousness, now, for a moment, became suspended. When it returned, we found ourselves in a bedchamber of a small cottage, which stood upon the verge of one of these islands. It was still night. The moon was shining through the open casement, in whose front, overshadowing the right angle, hung a graceful cluster of ivy, through which the night-breeze was sighing at intervals. Lights, now rendered less conspicuous by the moonshine, were still gliding about at a distance, and leisurely emerging from, and then disappearing amidst the clouds.

  Whilst we were enjoying this singular and wonderful spectacle, a light footstep approached; the chamber door opened, and a young and lovely girl, whose age might have been about twenty, entered with a rushlight in her hand. She was attired with a mixture of elegance and simplicity, in virgin-white muslin, with a black ribbon round the waist; a dress which became a cheek fair, but slightly pale, sparkling grey eyes, raven tresses, and a snowy brow, exceedingly. In a comer, on a chair, hung a richer garment of similar hue, but of satin, with appropriate accompaniments; ready to all appearance for the morrow, and being, unequivocally, a wedding costume. Placing her candle on the toilette-table, whereupon were arranged a variety of articles of feminine elegance, she approached the window, and pensively reclined with he
r cheek upon her hand, and her elbow on the sill.

  Presently a voice was heard below, singing to the accompaniment of an ophicleide.

  “Louisa, sleep till morning’s sun

  Shall gild thy cloud-built home;

  And rise to see us two made one,

  In yonder sacred dome.

  La, la, la, lira la!

  Until the holy rite be done,

  Ah! whither shall I roam?

  Lira la!”

  “ ’Tis Edward!” exclaimed the maiden. “Oh, Edward, go to bed; thou wilt catch cold in the night air.”

  “Not a bit of it,” answered the lover, with the accents of youth. “I can’t go to bed. I am all impatience for the happy hour that shall unite me for ever with thee. Meanwhile I shall be unable to close these eyes. But I will not disturb thy slumbers, Louisa. First let me charm thee, with the magic power of melody, to repose; and then, whirled about on my trusty Pegasus, I go to wander till mom in the moonlit air.”

  At these words the maiden threw herself listlessly on her couch; and the lover commenced a slow and soothing lullaby on his deep-toned instrument. In a few moments she slept, and the musician, striking into a lively air, which seemed very much like ‘The girls we leave behind us,’ mounted his machine, and, the tune dying away as he ascended, was soon out of sight.

  Louisa still slept, and the chamber, save with her musical breathing, was hushed. The rushlight was burning low, and the room consequently darkened, when suddenly a flash of light illuminated its interior, as some aerial navigator glided by. Presently this phenomenon was repeated; the person, whoever he was, having again crossed the window, and, during his course, having evidently taken a glance at the apartment.

  In a few moments there was a noise outside, as of somebody alighting; and suddenly the apparition of a man presented itself at the window, leaning with folded arms upon the sill, and gazing full into the room. The countenance was singularly forbidding; the eyes were deeply set in the head, the nose snubbed, the lips thick, and the whole expression sullen and scowling. There was a short pipe in the mouth, and a thick bludgeon, crossing the chest diagonally, rose over the left shoulder. The individual wore a white hat, much battered, with a piece of black crape round it, and by this circumstance we identified him with the person we had seen lurking among the clouds.

  After standing in this position for a second or two, he looked cautiously around, first on the right and then on the left, as if to see whether any one was watching him. He then noiselessly lifted one leg up through the casement into the room, displaying the lower part of a nether garment of soiled drab, a not very clean white stocking, and a boot, laced in front, which came a little above the ankle. He then introduced the other leg; and next resting himself on the palm of either hand, let himself down into the room. He looked a tall powerful man, and was dressed in a velveteen shooting jacket, and a waistcoat of faded black. A figured cotton neckcloth, twisted like a rope, was tied around his throat in a knot, and from the pocket of his coat there stuck out the stock of a pistol. It was plain that he was a burglar.

  He now, with the pace of one who is treading upon eggs, a precaution which his hob-nailed boots rendered very necessary, approached the fair sleeper. He bent over her, and threw the light of his lantern full in her face. She moved not – with a gesture expressive of satisfaction he put his finger to the side of his nose; and then, after fumbling a little in his pocket, drew forth a large clasp knife. Raising the implement of destruction, he was about to plunge it in her breast, when a sudden cry of “Past twelve o’clock,” outside the window, arrested his uplifted arm, and baulked his sanguinary purpose; he slunk hastily behind the bed. The whizzing sound of the watchman’s flying machine died away in the distance; the coast was now clear again, and the housebreaker, emerging from his place of concealment, proceeded to make the most of his time, by transferring to his pockets as many moveables as he could find. A brooch, a vinaigrette, a gold clasp, a tortoiseshell-comb, a white cambric handkerchief, and the miniature of a young gentleman, had been thus feloniously appropriated, when the ruffian proceeded to lay his profane hands on the satin wedding-dress, which, as before stated, was hanging on a chair in a corner. The rustling of the material awoke the sleeper, who instantly started up from the bed, and, perceiving a man in the room, gave utterance to a loud scream.

  The robber for a moment stood aghast; during which interval the courageous girl, with an unavailing instinct of self-defence, discharged one of her tiny slippers at the villain’s head. Ducking, he avoided the harmless missile; and his next act was to rush upon the shrieking victim; and, while with one hand he stopped her mouth, fumbled in his waistcoat pocket for his knife with the other. She, in the meanwhile, perceiving the pistol projecting from beneath the lappet of his coat, with wonderful presence of mind snatched it out, and discharged it full in his face. The ball infringed upon the skull; but instead of penetrating the brain, and thus terminating at once his career of guilt, it glanced, as often happens, and making the circuit of the head beneath the scalp, came out by the hole by which it went in; to the imminent peril of the young lady, one of whose curls it grazed in its backward passage, and then lodged in the bed-post.

  Half stunned, the housebreaker staggered back for an instant; and then collecting himself, and brandishing his knife, prepared, with clenched teeth and flashing eyes, to spring, tiger-like, on his prey, when a violent hammering at the door convinced him that the family was alarmed. He rushed, therefore, to the window, but as he was getting out the undaunted Louisa clung to the skirts of his coat. Not a moment was to be lost! Suddenly seizing her in his arms, he disappeared through the casement; and, quick as thought, mounting his aerostatic vehicle, flew off like a sparrow-hawk with a chicken.

  At this moment the unhappy Edward arrived from his midnight ramble, just in time to behold all that he held dear upon earth, apparently on her way to the moon. Sounding a fearful blast of alarm upon his ophicleide, he instantly touched a spring in his own conveyance, which let on the steam that it was moved by, and started after the villain in full chase; the whole aerial police, whom the summons had called to his aid, joining in the hue and cry.

  It was a grand sight to behold myriads of oxy-hydrogen lights, far and wide over the islets, blazing with an instantaneous splendour, and darting their noon-day radiance deep into the bosom of night. It appeared that every dwelling in the regions of air was furnished with these precautionary appliances, which were capable of being put in action at a moment’s notice.

  The chase, of which a complete view was thus afforded was animated beyond description. The burglar kept for some time considerably in advance of his pursuers, who however, at last, rapidly gained upon him. He then sought to baffle them by turning and winding, after the manner of a fox, in and out of the clouds. Now he plunged, with Edward, closely followed by the police, each on his several machine directly upon his track, into a dense body of vapour; now he appeared rounding the illuminated outline of one of its bold capes; the hunters instantly succeeding him. Then he dived with incredible velocity beneath an island, and anon soared aloft again, till both he and they looked like small specks among the stars.

  The different flying machines of the police force, also, formed a singular display. Some were in the form of birds or of fishes, others resembled dragons, griffins, and other fabulous animals; and the noise which they made in their progress, with the steam by which they were moved, was terrific.

  At length the housebreaker was seen descending, with the officers of justice hard upon him. He now made a desperate effort and stood at bay, darting, with infuriated despair into the midst of the throng, and running, with the spike with which his car was armed, full tilt against his foes, whose dexterity in avoiding him was admirable. At last, one of the policemen knocked off that dangerous weapon with his truncheon.

  The miscreant, upon this, perceived that his only safety lay in flight; and, with a cruel
ty and cowardice that must be considered unparalleled, by a sudden jerk disengaged himself from the burden of his prey. Horrible sight for a lover! Louisa fell screaming, with a velocity increasing with the square of the distance, earthward; but the wings of love are fleeter than the force of gravitation, and, ere she had fallen half a mile, Edward, descending with the rapidity of a sunbeam, had caught her in his arms. He conveyed her instantly to her parental home. She had fainted, and was apparently dead; but a dose of elixir vitae having been promptly administered to her, she speedily returned to life and love. Lovers only can understand the transports which were then the lot of herself and her Edward.

  In the meantime the burglar, surrounded by his pursuers, used every effort to escape. At last, finding all other resources fail him, he drew his remaining pistol; and balancing his car, stood in act to fire. His aim was known to be unerring, and it was clear that he could only be taken alive at the expense of the life of some one of those around him.

  Accordingly C. 24, drawing an electrical blunderbuss from a case which hung at his girdle, discharged a flash of lightning at his guilty head. The blow was sure and fatal. His hat, singed and blazing, flew to the winds, and his blackened and shattered form fell, with innumerable gyrations to earth; nor rested till it stuck upon some area railings.