CHAPTER IX
THE GREAT SILENCE
Percy Darrow sat quite calmly, though a little hungrily, through the firstof the two hours of the Great Silence. As it fell, he looked at his watch;then went on reading. Strangely terrified faces flitted by the open doorof his little room. About seven o'clock Darrow, struck by a sudden idea,arose, walked down the corridor outside, and quite deliberately set towork to force the light door. As has been intimated, either by directorder of McCarthy or because of some vagueness of the orders, the youngman had been confined, not in the jail proper, but in one of the livingapartments of the wing.
Few realize how important a role sound plays in what might be called thedefensives of our every-day life. Sight is important, to be sure, but itis more often corroborative than not; it is more often used to identifythe source of the alarm that has been communicated through other channels.When we are told of the hero--or the villain--that he stood "with everysense alert", our mental picture, in spite of the phrasing, is that of aman listening intently for the first intimations of what may threaten.
So it is in prison. The warders can, of necessity, remain within actualview of but a few of the prisoners a small proportion of the time. Butthrough those massive and silent corridors sound stands watch-dog forthem. The minute scratch of a file, the vibrations attendant on the mostcautious attempts against the stone structure, the most muffled footfallreports to the jailer that mischief is afoot. Instantly he is on the spotto corroborate by his other faculties the warnings of the watch-dog of thesenses.
Now the watch-dog was asleep. Percy Darrow reflected that, were it not forthe terror of these unexplainable hours, the prisoners within or theirfriends without could assail their confines boldly and formidably, evenwith dynamite, and none would be the wiser if only none happened to bewithin actual visual range of the operations. He himself quite coolly usedthe iron side piece to his bed as a battering-ram to break the locks ofthe door. Then he walked down the long corridor and out through the policestation, bowing politely to the bewildered officers. The latter did notattempt to stop him.
The people in the streets were, for the most part, either standingstock-still, or moving slowly forward in a groping sort of fashion.Darrow, for the second time, noticed how analogous to the deprivation ofsight was the total deprivation of hearing and feeling vibration.
Traffic was at a standstill. People's faces were bewildered, for the mostpart; though here and there one showed contorted with the hysteria offright, or exalted with some other, probably religious, emotion. The sameimpression of ghostliness came to Darrow here as in the Atlas Building.Visual causes were not producing their wonted aural effect.
On the street corner a peanut vender's little whistle sent aloft bravelyits jet of steam; the bells on a ragpicker's cart swung merrily back andforth on their strap; a big truck, whose driver was either undaunted ordrunk, banged and clattered and rattled over the rough cobbles of a sidestreet--but no sound came from any one of them.
This complete severance of one cause and effect was sufficient todiscredit all natural laws. No other cause and effect was certain.Everywhere people were touching things to see if they were solid, or wet,or soft, or hard, as the case might be. Even Darrow felt, absurdly enough,that it would not be greatly serious to jump off the top of any buildinginto the street.
Darrow swung confidently enough down the street. He was the only person,with the exception of the drunken truck driver, who moved forward at anatural and easy gait. The effect was startling. Darrow seemed to be theonly real human being of the lot. All the rest were phantasmagoric.
But as he proceeded down-town the spell was beginning to break. Peoplewere communicating with one another by means of pencil and paper. Darrowwas amused, on crossing the park, to see against the lighted windows onNewspaper Row the silhouetted forms of activity. Evidently, the newspapermen were already at work on this fresh story.
Near the corner of the park Darrow saw standing a policeman of his variedacquaintance. The scientist walked up to this man, who was standing in thetypical vacant uncertainty, smiled agreeably, clapped him on the back, andshook his hand. The patrolman grasped Darrow's hand, but the look ofgroping uncertainty deepened on his face.
Darrow slipped his note-book from his pocket, and scribbled a few lines,which he showed to the officer. The latter read, inwardly digested for amoment, and smiled.
"Keep your hair on," ran Darrow's screed. "This will pass in a fewminutes, and it won't hurt you, anyway. Don't look like all these otherdubs."
He stood there companionably by the patrolman. They looked about them. Allat once, with this touch of normal, unafraid, human companionship, theweird horror of the situation fell away. Darrow and his companion wereseeing humanity disjointed from its accustomed habit, as one looks on astage full of men hypnotized into belief of an absurdity.
Where the blotting out of electricity had been tragic, this, as soon asits utter harmlessness was realized, became comic. All about through thepark men were meeting the situation according to the limited ideasdeveloped by a crustacean life of absolute dependence on the shell ofartificial environment. A considerable number of all sorts had fallen ontheir knees and were praying. One fat man in evening dress, with a silkhat and a large diamond stud showing between the lapels of a fur-linedcoat, was particularly fervent. By force of habit Darrow remarked on thisindividual.
"I'll bet he hasn't been to church since he was a kid," he observed, ofcourse inaudibly.
The policeman caught the direction of his look, however, and grinned withunderstanding.
Some stood frozen to one spot, their faces agonized, as a man would standstill were the earth likely to yawn anywhere. Darrow would have liked toreassure these, for their eyes expressed a frantic terror. One red-facedindividual with white side-whiskers, looking exactly like the comic-papercaricatures of the trusts, had evidently refused to accept any arbitrarydictates of natural forces. Probably he had never accepted any dictates ofany kind. He was going from one taxicab to another, trying to command adriver to take him somewhere, talking vehemently and authoritatively, hisface getting more and more purple with anger. The taxicab drivers merelystared at him stupidly.
"That old boy's kept his nerve," Darrow remarked, of course inaudibly, tohis companion. "But he'll die of apoplexy if he doesn't watch out."
Again the policeman caught the direction of Darrow's glance, and grinnedin understanding. He reached his huge gloved hand for the young man'spencil and paper, on which he wrote the name of a man high in railroadcircles, and grinned again with evident relish.
At this moment an entirely self-possessed young man swung across thestreet. He surveyed the two men sharply a moment, then approached,producing a sheaf of yellow paper as he did so.
"Professor Darrow?" he wrote.
Darrow nodded.
The young man pointed to himself, then to the Despatch Building.
"Cause?" he wrote, and waved his hand.
Darrow shook his head.
"Dangerous?"
Darrow shook his head again.
The reporter was about to add another question, when Darrow reached forthe paper. It was thrust eagerly into his hand. Darrow consulted hiswatch.
"If," he wrote, "you will wait here four minutes, I'll give you aninterview."
The reporter read this, and nodded.
"You're on!" he added to the written dialogue. Then he produced acigarette, lighted it, and joined the other two men in their amusedsurvey of the public's performances.
During the four minutes that ensued Darrow examined the reporterspeculatively. Finally his eye lighted up with recollection.
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