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15 - Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey - Ingersoll Lockwood · Classic Science Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter fifteen. The guards at the silver Gateway, What they
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  Speaker 1: were like our reception by them? I make a wonderful
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  Speaker 1: discovery the world's first telephone. Bulgar, and I succeed in
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  Speaker 1: making friends with these strangers. A brief description of the pseudopsies,
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  Speaker 1: that is, make believe eyes or the former folk, that is,
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  Speaker 1: aunt people. How a blind man may read your writing? O,
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  Speaker 1: Great don Fu, Master of all masters, What do I
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  Speaker 1: not owe THEE for having made known unto me the
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  Speaker 1: existence of this wonderful world within a world? Would that
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  Speaker 1: I had been a worker in metal, I would not
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  Speaker 1: have passed the glorious portal at which I had halted,
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  Speaker 1: without having set in deep intaglio upon its silver columns
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  Speaker 1: the full name of the most glorious scholar whom the
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  Speaker 1: world has ever known. Bulgar had warned me that this
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  Speaker 1: gateway was guarded, and therefore I entered it cautiously, taking
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  Speaker 1: care to peer into the dark corners, lest I might
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  Speaker 1: be a target for some invisible enemy to hurl a weapon.
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  Speaker 1: No sooner had I passed the gateway than three curious
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  Speaker 1: little beings of about my own height threw themselves swiftly
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  Speaker 1: and silently across the pathway. They wore short jackets, knee breeches,
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  Speaker 1: and leggings reaching to their ankles, but no hats or shoes,
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  Speaker 1: and their clothes were profusely decorated with beautiful silver buttons.
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  Speaker 1: Their hands and feet and heads seemed much too large
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  Speaker 1: for their little bodies and pipe stemy legs, and gave
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  Speaker 1: them an uncanny and browny look, which was greatly increased
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  Speaker 1: by the staring and glassy expression of their large round eyes.
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  Speaker 1: When I first caught sight of them, they had hold
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  Speaker 1: of hands, but now they stood, each with his pair
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  Speaker 1: stretched out toward Bulgar and me, waving them strangely in
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  Speaker 1: the air and agitating their long fingers as if they
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  Speaker 1: were endeavoring to set a spell upon us. I imagined
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  Speaker 1: that I could feel a sensation of drowsiness creeping over me,
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  Speaker 1: and made haste to call out, Knie. Good people do
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  Speaker 1: not strive to set a spell upon me. I am
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  Speaker 1: the illustrious explorer from the upper world, Sebastian von Trump,
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  Speaker 1: and come to you with most peaceful intent. But they
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  Speaker 1: paid no heed to my words, merely advancing a few
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  Speaker 1: inches and with outstretched hands, continued to beat and claw
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  Speaker 1: the air, pausing only to signal to each other by
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  Speaker 1: touching each other's hands or different parts of each other's bodies.
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  Speaker 1: I was deeply perplexed by their actions, and took a
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  Speaker 1: step or two forward, when instantly they fell back the
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  Speaker 1: same distance. All men are brothers, I exclaimed in a
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  Speaker 1: loud tone, and carry the same shaped hearts in their breasts.
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  Speaker 1: Why do you fear me? You are thrice my number
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  Speaker 1: in your own home. I pray you stand fast and
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  Speaker 1: speak to me. As I was pronouncing these words, they
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  Speaker 1: kept jerking their heads back, as if the sound of
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  Speaker 1: my voice were smiting them in the face. It was
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  Speaker 1: very strange. Suddenly one of them drew from his pocket
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  Speaker 1: a ball of silken cord, and deathly, unrolling it, tossed
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  Speaker 1: one end toward me. It flew directly towards me, for
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  Speaker 1: its end was weighted with a thin disk of polish silver,
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  Speaker 1: as was the end retained in the hand of the thrower.
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  Speaker 1: His next move was to open his jacket and apparently
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  Speaker 1: press his disc against his bare body, right over his heart.
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  Speaker 1: I made haste to do the same with mine, holding
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  Speaker 1: it firmly in place. This done, he retreated a step
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  Speaker 1: or two until the silver cord had been drawn quite taut.
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  Speaker 1: Then he paused and stood for several instants without moving
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  Speaker 1: a muscle, after which he passed the disk to one
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  Speaker 1: of his companions, who, having pressed it against his heart,
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  Speaker 1: in turn passed it to the third of the group.
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  Speaker 1: With the quickness of thought, the truth now burst upon me.
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  Speaker 1: The three brownie like creatures in front of me were
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  Speaker 1: not only blind, but they were deaf and dumb. The
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  Speaker 1: one sense upon which they relied, and which in them
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  Speaker 1: was of most marvelous keenness, was the sense of feeling.
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  Speaker 1: The strange motions of their hands and fingers, so much
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  Speaker 1: like the beating and waving of an insects feelers were
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  Speaker 1: simply to intercept and measure the vibrations of the air
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  Speaker 1: set in motion by the movements of my body. Their
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  Speaker 1: large round eyes too, But the sense of feeling, but
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  Speaker 1: so wondrously acute was it that it was almost like
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  Speaker 1: the power of sight, enabling them, by the vibration of
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  Speaker 1: the air upon the balls, to tell exactly how near
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  Speaker 1: a moving object is to them. Their purpose in throwing
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  Speaker 1: the silken cord and silver dish to me was by
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  Speaker 1: measuring the beating of my heart and comparing it with
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  Speaker 1: their own to determine whether I was human like them.
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  Speaker 1: Judge of my astonishment, dear friends, upon seeing one of
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  Speaker 1: their number point to the silver disk, and by means
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  Speaker 1: of sign language, give me to understand that they wanted
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  Speaker 1: to feel the heart of the living creature in my company.
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  Speaker 1: Stooping down, I hastened to gratify their curiosity by applying
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  Speaker 1: it over my dear Bulgar's heart. At once. There was
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  Speaker 1: an expression of most comical amazement depicted on their faces
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  Speaker 1: as they passed the disk from one to the other
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  Speaker 1: and pressed it against different parts of their bodies, now
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  Speaker 1: against their breasts, now against their cheeks, and even against
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  Speaker 1: their closed eyelids. Of course, I knew that their amazement
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  Speaker 1: proceeded from the rapid beating of Bulger's heart, and I
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  Speaker 1: enjoyed their childlike surprise very much. All expression of fear
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  Speaker 1: now vanished from their faces, and I was delighted with
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  Speaker 1: the look of sweet temper and good humor that played
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  Speaker 1: about their features. Slowly and on tiptoe, they drew nearer
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  Speaker 1: to Bulgar and mean, and for several minutes amused themselves
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  Speaker 1: mightily by running their long, flexible fingers hither and thither
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  Speaker 1: over our bodies. It did not take to belong to
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  Speaker 1: discover that I was, to all intents and purposes, a
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  Speaker 1: creature of their own kind. But not so with Bulgar.
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  Speaker 1: Their round faces became seamed and lined with wonder as
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  Speaker 1: they made themselves acquainted with his to them strange build
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  Speaker 1: and ever and anon. As they felt him over would
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  Speaker 1: they pause, and, in lightning like motions of their fingers
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  Speaker 1: on each other's hands and arms and faces, exchanged thoughts
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  Speaker 1: as to the wonderful being which had entered the portal
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  Speaker 1: of their city. No doubt your dying of impatience, dear friends,
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  Speaker 1: to be told something more definite concerning these strange people
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  Speaker 1: among whom I had fallen. Well know then that their
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  Speaker 1: existence had been darkly hinted at in the manuscript of
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  Speaker 1: the great Master Don Fum. I say darkly hinted at.
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  Speaker 1: For you must bear in mind that Don Fum never
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  Speaker 1: visited this world within a world, that his wonderful wisdom
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  Speaker 1: enabled him to reason it all out without seeing it,
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  Speaker 1: just as the great naturalists of our day, upon finding
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  Speaker 1: a single tooth belonging to some gigantic creature which lived
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  Speaker 1: thousands of years ago, are able to draw complete pictures
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  Speaker 1: of him. While these curious beings whose city Bulgar and
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  Speaker 1: I had entered are called by two different names in
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  Speaker 1: Don Fum's Wonderful In some places he speaks of them
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  Speaker 1: as the pseudopsies or make believe eyes, and in others
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  Speaker 1: as the former folk or ant people. Either name was
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  Speaker 1: most appropriate, their large, round, clear eyes being really make
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  Speaker 1: believe ones, for as I have told you, they have
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  Speaker 1: absolutely no sense of sight. While on the other hand,
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  Speaker 1: the fact that they were deaf, dumb, and blind, and
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  Speaker 1: lived in underground homes made them well entitled to the
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  Speaker 1: name of ant people. In a few moments, the three
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  Speaker 1: pseudopsies had succeeded in teaching me the main principles of
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  Speaker 1: their pressure language, so that I was, to their great delight,
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  Speaker 1: enabled to answer a number of their questions. But think not,
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  Speaker 1: dear friends, that these very wise and active little folks,
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  Speaker 1: skilled in so many arts, have no other language than
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  Speaker 1: one consisting of pressures of different degree made by their
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  Speaker 1: fingertips upon each other's bodies. They had a most beautiful language,
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  Speaker 1: so rich that they were able to express the most
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  Speaker 1: difficult thoughts, to give utterance to the most varied emotions.
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  Speaker 1: In short, a language quite equal of ours in all
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  Speaker 1: respects save one. It contained absolutely no word that could
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  Speaker 1: give them the faintest notion what color was. This is
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  Speaker 1: not to be wondered at, for they themselves neither had
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  Speaker 1: nor could have even the faintest conception of what I
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  Speaker 1: meant by color, So that when I attempted to make
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  Speaker 1: them understand that our stars were bright points in the sky,
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  Speaker 1: they asked me if they would prick my finger if
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  Speaker 1: I should press upon one of them. But you, doubtless
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  Speaker 1: are anxious to know how the former folk can possibly
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  Speaker 1: make use of any other language than that of pressures. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I will tell you. Every pseudopsy carried at his girdle
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  Speaker 1: a little blank book, if I may so term it,
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  Speaker 1: the covers being of thin silver plates, variously carved and
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  Speaker 1: chased as the owner's taste may prompt. The leaves of
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  Speaker 1: this book also consist of thin sheets of silver, not
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  Speaker 1: much thicker than our tinfoil. Also fastened to his girdle
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  Speaker 1: by a silken cord, hangs a silver pen, or rather
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  Speaker 1: a stylus. Now, when a pseudopsy wishes to say something
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  Speaker 1: to one of his people, something too difficult to express
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  Speaker 1: by pressures of the finger tips, he simply turns over
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  Speaker 1: a leaf of the silver against the inside of either cover,
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  Speaker 1: both of which are slightly padded, and taking up his stylus,
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  Speaker 1: proceeds to write out what he wishes to say. And
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  Speaker 1: this done, he deftly tears the leaf out and hands
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  Speaker 1: it to his companion, who, taking it and turning it over,
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  Speaker 1: runs the wonderfully sensitive tips of his fingers over the
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  Speaker 1: raised writing, and reads it with the greyest ease. Only orse,
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  Speaker 1: he reads from right to left instead of from left
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  Speaker 1: to right as it was written. So hereafter, when I
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  Speaker 1: repeat my conversations with the form of folk, you will
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  Speaker 1: understand how they were conducted. End of Chapter fifteen.