The Purple Cloud Read online

  THE PURPLE CLOUD

  Well, the memory seems to be getting rather impaired now, rather weak.What, for instance, was the name of that parson who preached, justbefore the _Boreal_ set out, about the wickedness of any further attemptto reach the North Pole? I have forgotten! Yet four years ago it wasfamiliar to me as my own name.

  Things which took place before the voyage seem to be getting a littlecloudy in the memory now. I have sat here, in the loggia of this Cornishvilla, to write down some sort of account of what has happened--Godknows why, since no eye can ever read it--and at the very beginning Icannot remember the parson's name.

  He was a strange sort of man surely, a Scotchman from Ayrshire, big andgaunt, with tawny hair. He used to go about London streets in shoughand rough-spun clothes, a plaid flung from one shoulder. Once I saw himin Holborn with his rather wild stalk, frowning and muttering tohimself. He had no sooner come to London, and opened chapel (I think inFetter Lane), than the little room began to be crowded; and when, someyears afterwards, he moved to a big establishment in Kensington, allsorts of men, even from America and Australia, flocked to hear thethunderstorms that he talked, though certainly it was not an age apt tofly into enthusiasms over that species of pulpit prophets andprophecies. But this particular man undoubtedly did wake the strong darkfeelings that sleep in the heart; his eyes were very singular andpowerful; his voice from a whisper ran gathering, like snow-balls, andcrashed, as I have heard the pack-ice in commotion far yonder in theNorth; while his gestures were as uncouth and gawky as some wild man'sof the primitive ages.

  Well, this man--what _was_ his name?--Macintosh? Mackay? I think--yes,that was it! _Mackay_. Mackay saw fit to take offence at the new attemptto reach the Pole in the _Boreal_; and for three Sundays, when thepreparations were nearing completion, stormed against it at Kensington.

  The excitement of the world with regard to the North Pole had at thisdate reached a pitch which can only be described as _fevered_, thoughthat word hardly expresses the strange ecstasy and unrest whichprevailed: for the abstract interest which mankind, in mere desire forknowledge, had always felt in this unknown region, was now, suddenly, athousand and a thousand times intensified by a new, concrete interest--atremendous _money_ interest.

  And the new zeal had ceased to be healthy in its tone as the old zealwas: for now the fierce demon Mammon was making his voice heard in thismatter.

  Within the ten years preceding the _Boreal_ expedition, no less thantwenty-seven expeditions had set out, and failed.

  The secret of this new rage lay in the last will and testament of Mr.Charles P. Stickney of Chicago, that king of faddists, supposed to bethe richest individual who ever lived: he, just ten years before the_Boreal_ undertaking, had died, bequeathing 175 million dollars to theman, of whatever nationality, who first reached the Pole.

  Such was the actual wording of the will--_'the man who first reached'_:and from this loose method of designating the person intended hadimmediately burst forth a prolonged heat of controversy in Europe andAmerica as to whether or no the testator meant _the Chief_ of the firstexpedition which reached: but it was finally decided, on the highestlegal authority, that, in any case, the actual wording of the documentheld good: and that it was the individual, whatever his station in theexpedition, whose foot first reached the 90th degree of north latitude,who would have title to the fortune.

  At all events, the public ferment had risen, as I say, to a pitch ofpositive fever; and as to the _Boreal_ in particular, the daily progressof her preparations was minutely discussed in the newspapers, everyonewas an authority on her fitting, and she was in every mouth a bet, ahope, a jest, or a sneer: for now, at last, it was felt that success wasprobable. So this Mackay had an acutely interested audience, if asomewhat startled, and a somewhat cynical, one.

  A truly lion-hearted man this must have been, after all, to dareproclaim a point-of-view so at variance with the spirit of his age! Oneagainst four hundred millions, they bent one way, he the opposite,saying that they were wrong, all wrong! People used to call him 'Johnthe Baptist Redivivus': and without doubt he did suggest something ofthat sort. I suppose that at the time when he had the face to denouncethe _Boreal_ there was not a sovereign on any throne in Europe who, butfor shame, would have been glad of a subordinate post on board.

  On the third Sunday night of his denunciation I was there in thatKensington chapel, and I heard him. And the wild talk he talked! Heseemed like a man delirious with inspiration.

  The people sat quite spell-bound, while Mackay's prophesying voiceranged up and down through all the modulations of thunder, from thehurrying mutter to the reverberant shock and climax: and those who cameto scoff remained to wonder.

  Put simply, what he said was this: That there was undoubtedly some sortof Fate, or Doom, connected with the Poles of the earth in reference tothe human race: that man's continued failure, in spite of continualefforts, to reach them, abundantly and super-abundantly proved this; andthat this failure constituted a lesson--_and a warning_--which the racedisregarded at its peril.

  The North Pole, he said, was not so very far away, and the difficultiesin the way of reaching it were not, on the face of them, so very great:human ingenuity had achieved a thousand things a thousand times moredifficult; yet in spite of over half-a-dozen well-planned efforts inthe nineteenth century, and thirty-one in the twentieth, man had neverreached: always he had been baulked, baulked, by some seemingchance--some restraining Hand: and herein lay the lesson--_herein thewarning_. Wonderfully--really _wonderfully_--like the Tree ofKnowledge in Eden, he said, was that Pole: all the rest of earth lyingopen and offered to man--but _That_ persistently veiled and 'forbidden.'It was as when a father lays a hand upon his son, with: 'Not here, mychild; wheresoever you will--but not here.'

  But human beings, he said, were free agents, with power to stop theirears, and turn a callous consciousness to the whispers and warningindications of Heaven; and he believed, he said, that the time was nowcome when man would find it absolutely in his power to stand on that90th of latitude, and plant an impious right foot on the head of theearth--just as it had been given into the absolute power of Adam tostretch an impious right hand, and pluck of the Fruit of Knowledge; but,said he--his voice pealing now into one long proclamation of awfulaugury--just as the abuse of that power had been followed in the onecase by catastrophe swift and universal, so, in the other, he warned theentire race to look out thenceforth for nothing from God but a loweringsky, and thundery weather.

  The man's frantic earnestness, authoritative voice, and savage gestures,could not but have their effect upon all; as for me, I declare, I sat asthough a messenger from Heaven addressed me. But I believe that I hadnot yet reached home, when the whole impression of the discourse hadpassed from me like water from a duck's back. The Prophet in thetwentieth century was not a success. John Baptist himself, camel-skinand all, would, have met with only tolerant shrugs. I dismissed Mackayfrom my mind with the thought: 'He is behind his age, I suppose.'

  But haven't I thought differently of Mackay since, my God...?

  * * * * *

  Three weeks--it was about that--before that Sunday night discourse, Iwas visited by Clark, the chief of the coming expedition--a mere visitof friendship. I had then been established about a year at No. II,Harley Street, and, though under twenty-five, had, I suppose, as _elite_a practice as any doctor in Europe.

  _Elite_--but small. I was able to maintain my state, and move among thegreat: but now and again I would feel the secret pinch ofmoneylessness. Just about that time, in fact, I was only saved fromconsiderable embarrassment by the success of my book, 'Applications ofScience to the Arts.'

  In the course of conversation that afternoon, Clark said to me in hislight hap-hazard way:

  'Do you know what I dreamed about you last night, Adam Jeffson? Idreamed that you were with us on the expedition.'

  I think he must have seen my start: on the same night I had myselfdreamed the same thing; b
ut not a word said I about it now. There was astammer in my tongue when I answered:

  'Who? I?--on the expedition?--I would not go, if I were asked.'

  'Oh, you would.'

  'I wouldn't. You forget that I am about to be married.'

  'Well, we need not discuss the point, as Peters is not going to die,'said he. 'Still, if anything did happen to him, you know, it is you Ishould come straight to, Adam Jeffson.'

  'Clark, you jest,' I said: 'I know really very little of astronomy, ormagnetic phenomena. Besides, I am about to be married....'

  'But what about your botany, my friend? _There's_ what we should bewanting from you: and as for nautical astronomy, poh, a man with yourscientific habit would pick all that up in no time.'

  'You discuss the matter as gravely as though it were a possibility,Clark,' I said, smiling. 'Such a thought would never enter my head:there is,