Into the Green Prism

by A. Hyatt Verrill

  END OF PART 1.

  If the first part of our well-known author's story has whetted your appetite for more, the second part will leave you gasping. Of all the novel and daring: situations, the present one in this story certainly merits high consideration. We know that the story will prove ample food for our correspondents, and that a red-hot battle will be waged in the Discussions Deportment. And after all, when the unbelievers will shout, "Impossible," you might ask them to explain how a human being sees a three dimensional body, as pictured in his brain, and how he comes to see it, and how he is able to recall that picture or object twenty years later? Perhaps this simple and commonplace thing is just as difficult of explanation as Mr. Verrill's mirage coming to life.

  What Went Before:

  PROFESSOR RAMON AMADOR, internationally recognized authority on physics and optics, and with a dash of the aborigine in him, and the writer of this story, Don Alfeo, an archeologist, complement each other in their discoveries, whenever they meet on an expedition.

  Prof. Amador, quite excited over the findings that his associate had made while in the Manabi district a year before, asks permission to accompany him on his next trip. Don Alfeo readily grants this permission, because he is sure that some marvelous discoveries will be made there if his friend accompanies him. In Ecuador, with the help of some peons there, all the scientific paraphernalia belonging to both men, are finally brought to the shore of the Manabi River, where the professor immediately sets out to find the source of the supply of minute golden beads and green glass-like mineral which Don Alfeo showed him. He not only finds more gold beads, but also a lapis lazuli image, beautifully ornamented with many patterns deeply engraved over it. The place had obviously been the site of a great temple or place for ceremonials—a veritable treasure house for the scientists, it seemed.

  In experimenting with the green "glass" which they found there, the professor" accidently stumbles on a new discovery. He finds that in the prismatic form it magnifies minute objects to great proportions and as clearly as though they were full size. This glass Ramon names "Manabinite." They also discover that inorganic matter, placed within a certain range of the projected waves produced by the prism, vanishes. Other material such as wood, paper, or metal, becomes as transparent as glass. Prof. Amador believes he can see even an atom with the aid of his highly developed prism. Finally he does. They observe the minute structures of stones, wood, etc., though some material show's no change whatever behind the prism. After these astounding discoveries, the two scientists decide to return home with a collection of their precious prisms, to continue their amazing experiments unhampered, in well equipped laboratories in America.

  CHAPTER VI (Continued)

  Strangely enough, it was his preparations for departure that led to the most astonishing, the most amazing and the most incredible discovery of all, and resulted in the mysterious, hitherto inexplicable, disappearance of my dear friend and companion.

  In order that it might be quite safe while he was packing, Ramon asked me to take charge of the prism. As I was carrying it towards my own quarters, a whim seized me to have a last look at something. Idly wondering how an ordinary landscape would appear when viewed through the apparatus, I carried it to a little knoll a short distance from camp, and pointing it toward a sandy area beyond, stepped behind it. Only a faint, hazy, indefinite outline appeared, and very carefully and slowly, I manipulated the adjustments which, as I have said, were designed to alter its magnifying powers or "focus" as I called it. Quickly the sand, pebbles and rocks took shape. They became enlarged, seemingly detached from everything else and appeared as if they were floating in the air in the peculiar manner to which I was now accustomed. The image was not tremendously magnified, but was sufficiently enlarged to make each grain of sand appear like a pebble, each pebble like a boulder, each boulder like a mountain. It was a fascinating sight, and, anxious to see the effect of greater magnification, I continued to move the adjustments. Slowly the grains of sand, the pebbles and the rocks grew before my eyes. A tiny blade of grass was transformed into a lofty, rough-stemmed palm-like tree. An ant, scurrying across the field of vision, appeared like some gigantic, prehistoric monster. Larger became the minute grains of sand; the pebbles had become enormous, rough-sided, rock masses, seamed and scarred and pitted.

  The pieces of rock were now too vast to be within the field, and rose like stupendous precipices—And then I stared, gasped, unable to believe my eyes. In a deep ravine, which I knew was merely the space between two tiny grains of sand, I had caught a glimpse of movement, of some living creature. What could it be, what form of animal life could be so small, so microscopic that it appeared a mere speck under such enormous magnification?

  The next instant I gave vent to an involuntary yell of incredulous, almost terrified amazement. The creature had reappeared. It was standing, clearly revealed beside a gleaming mass of pink quartz, and it was—a human being, a man!

  I felt I must be going mad. I felt like one in a dream, in a nightmare. Chills ran up and down my back. Either I was suffering from dementia, from an optical illusion or else—no, that was utterly impossible—or else I was gazing upon a miniature human being, a fellow man, who was less than one thousandth of an inch in height, who was smaller than an amoeba, who was microscopic in size!

  I was brought back to earth by Ramon, who, aroused by my shout, had come hurrying towards me.

  "What's wrong?" he cried. ''Have you smashed it?"

  I was too dazed, too overcome to reply, even to speak. I could only point at the Manabinite prism. My expression and features must have told Ramon that something amazing had happened. But nothing had prepared him for the wonder of it. As he glanced into the prism, his jaw sagged, his eyes dilated, his face paled. "Santisima Madre!" he gasped, crossing himself. "My God!" he ejaculated in English, "it's a man! But it cannot be, it's impossible, supernatural!"

  "But true!" I managed to exclaim in a hoarse voice. "Thank God, Ramon, you see him too! I was afraid I had gone mad; that my brain was affected."

  "There's another!" almost screamed Ramon. "Oh, Dios, what does it mean? Are we both mad?"

  Now I, too, was gazing at the image revealed by the prism. Beside the first figure there was a second. Both were men, both were perfectly formed, stalwart fellows, dark-skinned, with long floating hair, their bodies clad in elaborately-colored poncho-like cloaks, both with staffs or clubs in their hands.

  "They are Indians!" I whispered, unconsciously lowering my voice as if fearing they might hear me. "What does it mean, Ramon? Do such beings exist? Are they really there? Or are we seeing something that is an illusion, a mirage, the reduced images of men somewhere else? What do you make of it?"

  For a moment Ramon was silent. Then, very slowly, as if weighing every word he spoke, "Amigo mio," he said. "We are gazing upon the most incredible things that human eyes have ever seen. Those two beings are real, they are alive, they are as human as we are. Mirages, illusions, phantasms, ghosts, fairies cast no shadows. Those men do. Down there among those grains of sand, under our feet, is a race of humans infinitely minute. God alone knows who or what they are. God alone knows how many of our fellow men and women we may have crushed beneath our blundering feet. Amigo mio, we have, that is, you have made a discovery that will startle the world. All of my discoveries are nothing compared with it. Unsuspected, unknown, undreamed of, absolutely incredible as it is, you have discovered a new, a microscopic race of men!"

  "But—but. my heavens, man!" I cried, my voice shaking with the excitement and wonder of it all. "It's impossible! Why, we've been walking here, digging, working over this very spot. If such beings existed— and that's a preposterous idea—we would have destroyed them, buried them, crushed them as you say! No, no, Ramon! There's some explanation, some sane, sensible reason for what we see!"

  "Hush!" admonished Ramon. "They're moving. They're going on. We must watch them, must follow them, must find out if there are more of them. Perhaps they have—yes, t
hey must have—houses, villages. They——"

  I burst into maniacal, nervous laughter. "Follow them!" I cried derisively. "How can you follow a man scarcely larger than an atom?"

  "With this prism." snapped Ramon. "You forget that its depth of focus, as you will persist in calling it, is fully fifty feet. To those infinitesimal men among the grains of sand, fifty feet would be the breadth of a contingent. To them a few inches would be a day's journey—perhaps a month's tramp. You desired to see a 'living atom' as you expressed it. You have seen two. Ah, there they go! They are hurrying. Santissimo Virgen! I see it! There is a house, a village! Scores, hundreds of people!"

  CHAPTER VII

  Even now, when the excitement, the wonder, the weird, dreamlike, incredulous amazement of it has passed; when I can think of it calmly and dispassionately; when, looking back, I can think of that day and revisualize every moment, every detail, every word as though I were reading it from a printed page; even now, I say, I cannot well describe our feelings, our sensations as, with staring, wondering, unbelieving eyes, we gazed into that bit of crystal and found ourselves looking into another world. We simply could not credit our senses. There before us, as plain, as clear, as natural as though we were gazing at any other community of Indians, were the throngs of people. There were their houses, their village. But that they were minute, microscopic, so small that the ordinary grains of sand were like good-sized hills beside them, seemed so utterly preposterous, so unnatural, so scientifically impossible, that we could not force ourselves to believe in their reality. No, to us, to our senses, we were looking upon some Indian settlement at a distance. To us, it seemed that by some freak of optics or physics, the images of normal-sized beings had been reflected, refracted (like the images in a mirage), to where we stood, and had been picked up by the prism.

  In fact the illusion was so perfect and complete, that I found myself far more interested in studying the people themselves than I was in the marvel of the prism, and, temporarily at least, felt that I was watching perfectly normal-sized Indians. That they were Indians was obvious, but they were totally distinct from any Indians I had ever seen before.

  Their color was a light ochre or olive, scarcely darker than tanned white men or than Professor Amador. Their hair, worn long by both men and women, was a tawny-brown, and their features were regular, well-formed, and denoted a high grade of intellect. The men were dressed in poncho-like garments of some material that glistened like metal, or I might better say, fish-scales. They wore sandals upon their feet, their hair was confined by fillets of bright colors, and they wore various ornaments in the form of necklaces, etc. I am now describing the first two individuals we had seen, but I noticed, among the throng at which we were now gazing, that there were obviously several classes or castes among the people. Among the men these were marked by the apparel, some wearing ponchos of dull-colored material, others merely loin-cloths; the ones with the iridescent, metallic garments were in the minority. Among the women, the castes were marked not only by costume but by the color of the skin. Some were almost white, others were quite dark. The latter were nude to the waist and wore skirt-like garments of some fiber, while the others wore skirts of the same material as the ponchos of the first men and had capelike garments fastened across the chest, covering the shoulders and back.

  It was no doubt largely due to the fact that they were so typically Indian that we could not realize or believe that they were not normal in size. Had we suddenly discovered some minute beings of weird, monstrous or wholly new forms; if they had two heads or four legs; had they been green, blue or scarlet; had they been transcendingly beautiful and fairy-like or as repulsively ugly as Calibans, then, no doubt, we might have been able to convince ourselves that we were gazing at microscopic beings. But here we were, watching human beings, that were not only normal in every respect except size, but were, in addition, typical Indians.

  Even the village and the houses were scarcely different from those of ordinary aborigines. The houses were low, domed or beehive-shaped, apparently constructed of adobe or clay, and among them were several larger buildings, the whole surrounded by a thick, high wall. I noticed, too, that the men, when carrying anything, bore bows and arrows, long slender spears and short stone-headed clubs. The two new arrivals, whom we had first detected, had apparently been on a hunting trip, for, as they entered the village, I noticed that one of them carried the body of a dead creature. At first I took it for a small deer, but, as the hunter threw it down before one of the houses, I saw to my surprise that it was not a vertebrate but some unknown creature, apparently an insect, for it had six legs.

  I also saw that its skin, hair, fur or whatever its covering, was like metal and iridescent, and I assumed that the ponchos of the men were made from the skin or covering of the creature. But whether they were woven from the material, or whether the entire hide was used, I could not determine.

  Here let me call attention to another peculiar sensation I had—and which I found later was shared by my companion. As we watched these people, we had an almost irresistible temptation to reach out and touch them. As I saw the strange animal, I forgot for the moment that I was merely watching the thing through the prism, and unconsciously, I extended my hand with the idea of picking up the creature and examining it.

  Instantly the scene was blotted out—people and village vanished, and in their place was a wall, brown, seamed, scarred, pitted. An exclamation of mingled amazement and impatience came from Ramon. I stared, speechless with amazement. What had happened? What new miracle was this?

  Then, as suddenly as they had vanished, the people were before us again, and the wall had disappeared. I broke into hysterical laughter. I had withdrawn my hand; the wall that had blotted out the view had been a portion of my own hand vastly magnified!

  For the first time since we had first seen the men, full realization of their size came to us. For the first time we were fully able to believe that the Indians before us were Liliputians that would have made the denizens of Gulliver's Liliput appear like enormous giants; people so small that, by comparison, even the smallest ant would appear as gigantic a monster as a dinosaur would to an ordinary human being.

  It seemed beyond the bounds of reason, and had not Ramon seen exactly what I saw, I should have felt sure I was mad or that my senses were playing me false. How could such beings exist? How could there be living men and women so minute that they were invisible to the unaided eye? How could they survive? How could they escape being trampled and crushed underfoot? How could they avoid being utterly destroyed by the first rain, by the first puff of wind, by the first handful of drifting sand or dislodged gravel?

  Such were the thoughts that raced through my mind as I watched the people in the village before me.

  Then a remarkable thing happened. The scene before us was darkened. Twilight fell upon the village. Above the heads of the people some dense cloud was drifting. Involuntarily, I glanced at the sky. It was almost cloudless. Without thinking, I turned my eyes towards the spot where the Indian village had been, momentarily forgetting that it would be invisible. There was the bare stretch of sand, and crawling across it, was a tiny green lizard. I gasped as a sudden thought, a sudden idea swept through my mind. I sprang to the prism. There was the village; light was beginning to shine upon it once more. Again I glanced upward to see the lizard moving away. It was a wild, an insane thought, but a fact. The lizard had crawled directly over the Indians, but so far above their heads that he appeared merely as a dark cloud! So minute were they that the ordinary grains of sand were like the loftiest mountains to us. What we, looking through the prism, had mistaken for the sand grains, we're particles of impalpable dust! Any ordinary thing, any normal creature, would pass over them, far up in their sky, leaving them unharmed, protected by their surrounding sand-grain mountains! They were as safe, as protected between grains of sand as ordinary human beings would be in some narrow canyon between the highest peaks of the Andes. Even Ramon and myself, walk
ing across the sand, would not harm them. Our gigantic feet, treading the sand, would merely appear like dense black clouds. Something of this I managed to babble to my companion. "Of course," he snapped back a bit impatiently. "You can't crush a molecule or an atom, can you? Those beings are scarcely larger than atoms. Good heavens, man! Don't you realize how small they are? Why, you could put a whole family of them on a microscope slide, place a cover-glass over them, press it down as tightly as you could, and they'd have plenty of room to walk about and be comfortable! Good Lord, amigo mio, what a train of thought this leads to! They probably imagine they are full-sized men and women. They feel themselves just as large as we feel ourselves. What if there are still others as much smaller than they, as they are smaller than us!"

  But I scarcely heard him. I had caught sight of a large building, a temple or a palace, and was staring transfixed. It was unmistakable, the counterpart of ancient, pre-Incan temples, and they were being used. Before its door were two stone chairs, chairs of exactly the same form, style and workmanship of those I had found here at the Manabi site! I was dazed, my mind was in a turmoil. What could it mean? Then I began to realize, to note, a hundred details. There could be no doubt about it. These Indians, these infinitesimal beings, were the same race as the ancient Manabis. Their sculpture, their chairs, their pottery, their ornaments were identical. But how, what, why—? The Manabis, as I knew from skeletons and skulls, were normal-sized men and women. Yet here were Manabis of microscopic dimensions, carrying on precisely the same industries, following the same customs, living the same life as the ancient Manabis had lived. Was it possible they were spirits? Was it possible that the uncanny powers of the prism had made visible the wraiths of another world? Were we gazing at the ghosts, the souls of long-dead Manabis? I laughed madly, hysterically, at the thought. But what other explanation could there be?