Gods, Men and Ghosts

by Lord Dunsany

  “Yes, it was England. England all over. And a man who couldn’t have been either a Russian or an inhabitant of the moon came towards me, looking at me out of his eye-glass, along his gravel drive. My shell had landed in one of his flower-beds, and the parachute draped all over it looked like a fallen tent. Well, I’m not a lunatic. So I didn’t say to him: ‘I have come out of a gun in Russia, but I was looking for the moon.’ No, I said: ‘I’m very sorry, sir, but I’m down from London, camping; and I didn’t know it was private. I’ll go away at once.’ He gave one disgusted look at his flower-bed, and went away with his nose in the air. You see I’d told him exactly what he’d expected, as when I told the Russians about the Archbishop of Canterbury, and there was no more for him to say. Well, I didn’t like to leave that shell for the Press of the world to write about. I was none too sure I mightn’t get extradited over that business of the steel bar. So I got hold of the powder that was to light up the moon, and mixed it with everything inflammable in the shell and put the oxygen canisters on top of it; and, protecting it all from the rain with the parachute, I set the whole thing alight. It made a fine glow in the sky; but they wouldn’t have seen that in Russia: they were looking for it in the wrong place. And I doubt if what was left of the shell, after that, got into even the local papers. And by the evening of the next day I saw Mimi again, as she had told me I would.”

  “Now, you know, that’s unusual,” said Jorkens to Tutton and me. “I should say distinctly unusual.”

  A Mystery of the East

  NOVEMBER had come round again, and the woods away beyond London were a glory, and London had drawn round her ancient shoulders the grey cloak she wears at this season. It was dim in the room at the club where we sat after lunch, the curtains round the one window seemed tall masses of shadow, and we were talking about the mystery of the East. It was really more than mystery we were discussing; for one who had met it in Port Said, another in Aden, a third who believed he had seen it in Kilindini, and a collector of butterflies who had met it all over India, were telling tales of pure magic. It is my object in recording tales I hear at my club to relate only those that are true so far as we know, and that seem to me to be interesting, but none of these stories of magic fulfilled either of these conditions, and I do not therefore retell them; yet I mention them because they gradually woke Jorkens, who happened to be asleep, and drew from him what is to me a very interesting statement.

  “They understand magic perfectly,” he asserted.

  “What? Who do?” we said, startled by the vehement statement from the man that we thought was still sleeping.

  “The East,” said Jorkens. “I mean to say those in the East whose business it is. Just as one says that the West understands machinery. Of course you’d find millions in Europe who could not run a machine, but engineers can.”

  “And in the East?” I said, to keep him to the point.

  “In the East,” said Jorkens, “the magicians understand magic.”

  “Can you give us a case in point?” asked Terbut. And I’m glad he did, for one often hears of the mystery of the East, but seldom, as now, a definite story of magic, with every detail that anybody could ask for.

  “Certainly I can,” replied Jorkens, now wide awake.

  I have little doubt that Terbut hoped, in a tale of magic, to catch Jorkens out with something he could not prove, more thoroughly than he could ever hope to catch him over some more solid tale of travel or sport. How completely he failed I leave the reader to judge.

  And then Jorkens began his story.

  “On a bank of the Ganges, not so long ago, I was standing looking at that pearl of a river; there flowed the water of it a yard or two from my feet, and there flowed the beauty of it right through me. It was evening, and river and sky were not only unearthly, as you might suppose, but they somehow seemed realler than earth, with a reality that all the while was growing and growing and growing. So that if ever I had left the world we know for the world of fancies and song that seems sometimes to drift so near to it, then is the time I’d have gone. But I was brought back suddenly to reality by stepping on to a man who was sitting beside the river, while my gaze was far off in the twilight. In fact I fell over him, and all light of the Ganges was gone clean out of my mind; but he still sat motionless there with his eyes as full of the beauty of river and sky as they had probably been for hours. That is, I suppose, one of the principal differences between us and people like that; we can probably appreciate the glory of such a river under that sort of sky, with the fires of the burning-ghats beginning to glow, and a young moon floating slender over their temples, we can probably appreciate it almost as well as they can; but we don’t seem able to cling to it. Well, as I was saying, I was brought back to earth in every sense of the word, and there was this man, naked above the waist, sitting as though; well, there’s only one way to describe it; sitting as though I had not been there at all. One of those what-d’you-call-’ems, I said to myself. And all of a sudden the idea came to test him.”

  “How did you do that?” asked Terbut.

  “Nothing simpler,” said Jorkens. “Well, in one way it wasn’t so simple, because I had to explain to him what a sweepstake was, and what numbers were, in fact practically everything; and I don’t suppose he really understood; but one thing I did make him understand, and that was that the number on a ticket that I showed him was the same as the number on a ticket in another part of the world, and that it was his job to make that other ticket come first out of a drum, first among millions. I got him to understand that, because he asked me why, and I told him that there was money on it. When a man starts asking questions you can nearly always make him understand, because you can see just where he has stuck, and can help him on every time. So he said that he had not the power to make the money of use to me, and I said: ‘Never you mind about that.’ And the rest he promised to do. The ticket with that very number should come first of all out of the drum, or there was no power in Ganges. And then he took my ticket out of my hand and held it up high in that glow of sunset and small moon and fires, and gave it back and went on with his meditation. I wanted to thank him, but it was no use whatever; his spirit was somewhere far off: I might as well have tried to talk to one of his Indian gods.

  “Well, I may as well tell you that that sweepstake was to be worth £30,000; and I walked away pretty pleased, for I could see that if there is anything whatever in magic, or whatever it is that these people practise, then I was sure of the prize; he had given his word for that. Of course I still thought that there might possibly be nothing in it; but, if there was, there could be no possible doubt that he was one of them, or that he had exerted his power just as he said.

  “Well, I left the Ganges next day; I left India within the week; and you may imagine I was pretty full of my chances of getting £30,000. Was there anything in the mystery of the East or was there not? That was the point. Now there was a man in the ship who knew, if anyone knew, a man called Lupton. He knew the East as well as anyone born on this side of the world is likely to know it; and, in particular, he knew about this very thing; I mean magic. Unfortunately I’d never met him, and I hardly liked to go up and beard him, he was too distinguished for that; and there was I watching him walking by me every day, and knowing that he carried the secret of my £30,000, the simple knowledge of whether or not the East could do what it claimed. Well, sooner or later on board a ship you get to know everybody, though we were into the Mediterranean before I was introduced to him; and almost the first thing I said to him was, ‘Is there anything in this magic that they say they can do in the East?’

  “It very nearly shut him up altogether, for he thought that I was speaking of magic lightly. But he luckily saw I was serious. I suppose he saw some light from that thirty thousand that there must have been in my eyes. For after a moment’s silence, as though he were not going to answer, he turned and, speaking in a quite friendly way, said: ‘You might, just as well, doubt wireless.’

  �
�So then I asked him what I wanted to know: was it possible for a man to exert any influence in the East that could cause a ticket to come first out of a drum in Dublin? And I remember still the very words of his answer: ‘It is a very rare power,’ he said; ‘yet not only can it be done, but I know a man now living who is able to do it.’

  “Well, I asked him then about my friend by the Ganges, but he knew nothing about him. His man lived in North Africa. My man might be able to do it too, he said, but there were very few of them. There was one obvious crab in the situation, and a difficult one to deal with: why didn’t he go to his African friend himself, and lift that thirty thousand? He was a distinguished man and I’d only just been introduced to him, and it wasn’t too easy a question to ask. But I managed it. Of course my question was all wrapped up, but I got it out. And he answered me quite sincerely. ‘I’m settling down now near London,’ he said, ‘on my pension and what I’ve put by, and I don’t say that if anyone offered me thirty thousand I shouldn’t be grateful to him; only, living as much in the East as I have done, one has taken a good deal of quinine in one’s time, and in the end it’s bad for the nerves; and if I got thirty thousand like that, out of the East by magic, I’d always be worrying as to whether the East might get level. I know it’s silly of me, but there it is. You probably don’t feel like that.’

  “ ‘No, I don’t think I do,’ I said. I couldn’t say any more, for fear of hurting his feelings. But thirty thousand, you know; and afraid that the East might try to get it back! Well, let the East try: that was all I felt about it. But first of all let’s get it. So I said, ‘What part of North Africa were you saying that this man lived in?’

  “He smiled at my persistence, and told me. ‘Not very far in,’ he said. ‘A night and half a day by train from the coast. You had better get out at El Kántara; and a few days ride on a mule from there will bring you to the Ouled Naïl Mountains, where he lives.’

  “ ‘What part of the mountains?’ I asked. For he had stopped speaking, and a mountain range seemed rather an incomplete address.

  “ ‘Oh, there’s no difficulty in finding him,’ he said. ‘He’s a holy man, and well enough known. You merely ask one of the nomads for Hamid ben Ibrahim, when you get to the feet of the mountains. Besides, you can see his house for twenty miles. It’s only ten foot high, and about eight yards broad and long; but it’s white-washed, under brown mountains, and the desert is flat in front of it all the way to the Niger. You’ll find Hamid all right.’

  “ ‘They don’t all do it for nothing, I suppose,’ said I; ‘like my friend on the Ganges.’

  “You see, I hadn’t very much cash in hand after my trip to India, not counting my hope of the thirty thousand pounds.

  “ ‘No,’ he said. ‘But he’ll do it for this.’

  “And he gave me a little packet out of his pocket; a powder, as I could feel through the paper.

  “ ‘What is it?’ I said.

  “ ‘Bismuth,’ he answered. ‘His digestion’s bad. But he’s too holy to take an aperient; never has had one in his life, or smoked; and of course brandy is out of the question. So he is rather hard to cure. As you probably know, all Europeans are held to be doctors over there; so the first thing he’ll do is to tell you his symptoms and ask you to cure him; and I think bismuth may do it. If it does, he’ll work that ticket for you. In fact he knows a good deal more about magic than any of us know of medicine. And you might ask the ship’s doctor for anything else that might be good for him. He’s pretty fat, and takes no exercise. Do what you can for the old fellow.’

  “ ‘I certainly will,’ I said. It seemed only fair.

  “ ‘And I should buy a tent in Algiers,’ he said, ‘rather than hire one from an Arab. You’ll find it will cost you about a quarter as much. Or an eighth. It depends how good you are at bargaining.’

  “Daylight had gone while we talked, without my noticing it; and I looked up and saw bands of stars where there had been scarlet and gold. And a chill came with the stars, and Lupton’s face went grey; for the chill after sunset seemed the one thing he was unable to stand, though you’d have thought the opposite, living as he had lived, more in tents than in houses. So he went below, and his last words to me were: ‘He can do it all right. You need have no doubt of that.’

  “Well, I troubled Lupton no more; oddly enough I rather avoided him, for any conversation we might have had would have sounded so trivial after this mystery of the East that he had revealed to me, while all those millions of stars slipped softly out to shine in the Mediterranean. And before the end of the week we came to Marseilles. Well, I got out there. If I’d gone on to England I’d only have had to come back again, in order to get to Africa; and the finances wouldn’t have run to it. My only difficulty was how to get another ticket in that sweepstake, as I didn’t want the two spells working on the same ticket; but, do you know, I was able to buy one from a man in Marseilles, who seemed to have lost faith in his luck. So with that I slipped across to Algiers by a line that goes backwards and forwards from Marseilles to the African coast, and cheers itself against any monotony it may find in that by calling itself the Compagnie Générate Transatlantique. I hadn’t entirely lost faith in my friend by the Ganges; I had kept his ticket and wanted to see what he could do; but naturally, after having that talk with one of the foremost orientalists, I relied a great deal more on the man he had recommended me. When first I had seen the man by the Ganges it had hardly seemed possible to me that he could fail, so overpowering seemed his eyes, and so much his spirit seemed dwelling only temporarily in that body that sat by the river, and able to exert its power on one place as well as another. But now I was all under the influence of Lupton, and only wanted to find the man in the Ouled Naïl Mountains.

  “Well, I bought a cheap tent in Algiers and took the train one evening, and the next afternoon I came in sight of the mountains, going up like spires from El Kántara. There I told the Arabs that I was a doctor, travelling to the desert in search of health. It was easy enough for them to believe me, for I had given proof of medical knowledge by that very remark; for, do you know, there is more health in the Sahara than in the whole length of Harley Street. But in any case it was perfectly true what Lupton had told me, that every European is credited, in those parts, with being a doctor. But I was a very special kind of doctor, and I had brought a few aperients and some extra quinine in order to prove it further. One day, with the wind in the date palms under those barren precipices, I started off on mules with three Arabs, riding south-westwards. Somehow El Kántara always reminds me of gold in iron vaults, the green mass of a thousand date-palms, these people’s only wealth, and all round them rocks that have never known as much green as you sometimes see on a salt-cellar.”

  “You were telling us,” I said, “of the man you were looking for in the Ouled Naïl Mountains.”

  “I beg your pardon,” said Jorkens. “Yes, we were riding south-westwards. As soon as we got through the pass we were in the desert, and we rode keeping the mountains on our right. We were never far from water: old torrents that had come with storms in the mountains had scooped out hundreds of basins in all the dry ravines; and over every one you came to someone had placed a flat stone, to protect the water that lay there from being drunk up by the sun. We had an easy journey, camping whenever the mules were tired; and as we ambled past the flocks of the nomads the rumour of my skill as a doctor went on swiftly before me. Ah, those evenings in the desert, with the afterglow on the mountains; and here it’s all dark and noisy and full of houses.”

  “You found the Ouled Naïl Mountains?” I said.

  “Ah, yes,” said Jorkens. “Yes, yes, of course. We kept out in the desert, and one day there was the whole range of them lying on our right. We kept out in the desert till I saw the white house. I saw it suddenly one evening. There had been no sign of anything on the mountains; and then the sun set, and far away to the north-east of us, I saw the house stand out exactly as Lupton described it, with its door an
d its two small windows, miles and miles away.

  “I moved into the mountains to get water next day; and then I said that I had found the health that I sought and would go back to El Kántara, and we went along under the mountains, on a course that brought me close to the little house. Of course we and our mules were visible from the house on the rocks all the morning, and my reputation as a physician had arrived there long before, so that as soon as I drew near, the holy man came running out of his house, so far as a man of that shape may be said to be able to run. Well, I talked a good deal of Arabic, of a sort, and he talked a good deal of bad French, and we understood one another perfectly. Diagnosis is always a good thing in medicine, as any doctor will tell you, but it is particularly effective when you are able to do it before the patient has spoken at all. You see, I knew all about this man from Lupton. So I told him all his symptoms. And then I gave him some medicine right away, and he made some coffee for me and we sat and talked for five hours. Whether it was the medicine or the diagnosis, he was feeling better already, and when it came to offering me some fee I told him that my skill to heal was rather the result of magic than the study of medicine, and that therefore I took no fee; but that if, as some rumour among the nomads rather seemed to have indicated, he was himself a brother magician, I should be well content to be shown a little of his own magic; and I brought out the ticket I had bought in Marseilles from the man who had given up faith in it.