proof?'
"They all said that it would. Rastin turned to me. 'Stand on the metalcircle, Henri,' he said. I did so.
"All were watching very closely. Thicourt did something quickly with thelevers and buttons of the mechanisms in the room. They began to hum, andblue light came from the glass tubes on some. All were quiet, watchingme as I stood there on the circle of metal. I met Rastin's eyes andsomething in me made me call goodbye to him. He waved his hand andsmiled. Thicourt pressed more buttons and the hum of the mechanisms grewlouder. Then he reached toward another lever. All in the room weretense and I was tense.
"Then I saw Thicourt's arm move as he turned one of the many levers.
"A terrific clap of thunder seemed to break around me, and as I closedmy eyes before its shock, I felt myself whirling around and falling atthe same time as though into a maelstrom, just as I had done before. Theawful falling sensation ceased in a moment and the sound subsided. Iopened my eyes. I was on the ground at the center of the familiar fieldfrom which I had vanished hours before, upon the morning of that day. Itwas night now, though, for that day I had spent five hundred years inthe future.
"There were many people gathered around the field, fearful, and theyscreamed and some fled when I appeared in the thunderclap. I went towardthose who remained. My mind was full of things I had seen and I wantedto tell them of these things. I wanted to tell them how they must workever toward that future time of wonder.
"But they did not listen. Before I had spoken minutes to them they criedout on me as a sorcerer and a blasphemer, and seized me and brought mehere to the Inquisitor, to you, sire. And to you, sire, I have told thetruth in all things. I know that in doing so I have set the seal of myown fate, and that only a sorcerer would ever tell such a tale, yetdespite that I am glad. Glad that I have told one at least of this timeof what I saw five centuries in the future. Glad that I saw! Glad that Isaw the things that someday, sometime, must come to be--"
* * * * *
It was a week later that they burned Henri Lothiere. Jean de Marselait,lifting his gaze from his endless parchment accusation and examens onthat afternoon, looked out through the window at a thick curl of blacksmoke going up from the distant square.
"Strange, that one," he mused. "A sorcerer, of course, but such a one asI had never heard before. I wonder," he half-whispered, "was there anytruth in that wild tale of his? The future--who can say--what men mightdo--?"
There was silence in the room as he brooded for a moment, and then heshook himself as one ridding himself of absurd speculations. "Buttush--enough of these crazy fancies. They will have me for a sorcerer ifI yield to these wild fancies and visions _of the future_."
And bending again with his pen to the parchment before him, he wentgravely on with his work.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ February 1961, first published in _Amazing Stories_ October 1930. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
The Man Who Saw the Future Page 3
