الفصل الفصل 23 · RESTORATION OF THE FOUNTAIN

RESTORATION OF THE FOUNTAIN

Saturday noon I went to the well and looked on a while. Merlin

was still burning smoke-powders, and pawing the air, and muttering

gibberish as hard as ever, but looking pretty down-hearted, for

of course he had not started even a perspiration in that well yet.

Finally I said:

“How does the thing promise by this time, partner?”

“Behold, I am even now busied with trial of the powerfulest

enchantment known to the princes of the occult arts in the lands

of the East; an it fail me, naught can avail. Peace, until I finish.”

He raised a smoke this time that darkened all the region, and must

have made matters uncomfortable for the hermits, for the wind

was their way, and it rolled down over their dens in a dense and

billowy fog. He poured out volumes of speech to match, and contorted

his body and sawed the air with his hands in a most extraordinary

way. At the end of twenty minutes he dropped down panting, and

about exhausted. Now arrived the abbot and several hundred monks

and nuns, and behind them a multitude of pilgrims and a couple of

acres of foundlings, all drawn by the prodigious smoke, and all

in a grand state of excitement. The abbot inquired anxiously for

results. Merlin said:

“If any labor of mortal might break the spell that binds these

waters, this which I have but just essayed had done it. It has

failed; whereby I do now know that that which I had feared is

a truth established; the sign of this failure is, that the most

potent spirit known to the magicians of the East, and whose name

none may utter and live, has laid his spell upon this well. The

mortal does not breathe, nor ever will, who can penetrate the secret

of that spell, and without that secret none can break it. The

water will flow no more forever, good Father. I have done what

man could. Suffer me to go.”

Of course this threw the abbot into a good deal of a consternation.

He turned to me with the signs of it in his face, and said:

“Ye have heard him. Is it true?”

“Part of it is.”

“Not all, then, not all! What part is true?”

“That that spirit with the Russian name has put his spell

upon the well.”

“God's wounds, then are we ruined!”

“Possibly.”

“But not certainly? Ye mean, not certainly?”

“That is it.”

“Wherefore, ye also mean that when he saith none can break the spell--”

“Yes, when he says that, he says what isn't necessarily true.

There are conditions under which an effort to break it may have

some chance--that is, some small, some trifling chance--of success.”

“The conditions--”

“Oh, they are nothing difficult. Only these: I want the well

and the surroundings for the space of half a mile, entirely to

myself from sunset to-day until I remove the ban--and nobody

allowed to cross the ground but by my authority.”

“Are these all?”

“Yes.”

“And you have no fear to try?”

“Oh, none. One may fail, of course; and one may also succeed.

One can try, and I am ready to chance it. I have my conditions?”

“These and all others ye may name. I will issue commandment

to that effect.”

“Wait,” said Merlin, with an evil smile. “Ye wit that he that

would break this spell must know that spirit's name?”

“Yes, I know his name.”

“And wit you also that to know it skills not of itself, but ye

must likewise pronounce it? Ha-ha! Knew ye that?”

“Yes, I knew that, too.”

“You had that knowledge! Art a fool? Are ye minded to utter

that name and die?”

“Utter it? Why certainly. I would utter it if it was Welsh.”

“Ye are even a dead man, then; and I go to tell Arthur.”

“That's all right. Take your gripsack and get along. The thing

for _you_ to do is to go home and work the weather, John W. Merlin.”

It was a home shot, and it made him wince; for he was the worst

weather-failure in the kingdom. Whenever he ordered up the

danger-signals along the coast there was a week's dead calm, sure,

and every time he prophesied fair weather it rained brickbats.

But I kept him in the weather bureau right along, to undermine

his reputation. However, that shot raised his bile, and instead

of starting home to report my death, he said he would remain

and enjoy it.

My two experts arrived in the evening, and pretty well fagged,

for they had traveled double tides. They had pack-mules along,

and had brought everything I needed--tools, pump, lead pipe,

Greek fire, sheaves of big rockets, roman candles, colored fire

sprays, electric apparatus, and a lot of sundries--everything

necessary for the stateliest kind of a miracle. They got their

supper and a nap, and about midnight we sallied out through a

solitude so wholly vacant and complete that it quite overpassed

the required conditions. We took possession of the well and its

surroundings. My boys were experts in all sorts of things, from

the stoning up of a well to the constructing of a mathematical

instrument. An hour before sunrise we had that leak mended in

ship-shape fashion, and the water began to rise. Then we stowed our

fireworks in the chapel, locked up the place, and went home to bed.

Before the noon mass was over, we were at the well again; for there

was a deal to do yet, and I was determined to spring the miracle

before midnight, for business reasons: for whereas a miracle

worked for the Church on a week-day is worth a good deal, it is

worth six times as much if you get it in on a Sunday. In nine hours

the water had risen to its customary level--that is to say, it was

within twenty-three feet of the top. We put in a little iron pump,

one of the first turned out by my works near the capital; we bored

into a stone reservoir which stood against the outer wall of the

well-chamber and inserted a section of lead pipe that was long

enough to reach to the door of the chapel and project beyond

the threshold, where the gushing water would be visible to the

two hundred and fifty acres of people I was intending should be

present on the flat plain in front of this little holy hillock at

the proper time.

We knocked the head out of an empty hogshead and hoisted this

hogshead to the flat roof of the chapel, where we clamped it down

fast, poured in gunpowder till it lay loosely an inch deep on the

bottom, then we stood up rockets in the hogshead as thick as they

could loosely stand, all the different breeds of rockets there are;

and they made a portly and imposing sheaf, I can tell you. We

grounded the wire of a pocket electrical battery in that powder,

we placed a whole magazine of Greek fire on each corner of the

roof--blue on one corner, green on another, red on another, and

purple on the last--and grounded a wire in each.

About two hundred yards off, in the flat, we built a pen of

scantlings, about four feet high, and laid planks on it, and so

made a platform. We covered it with swell tapestries borrowed

for the occasion, and topped it off with the abbot's own throne.

When you are going to do a miracle for an ignorant race, you want

to get in every detail that will count; you want to make all the

properties impressive to the public eye; you want to make matters

comfortable for your head guest; then you can turn yourself loose

and play your effects for all they are worth. I know the value of

these things, for I know human nature. You can't throw too much

style into a miracle. It costs trouble, and work, and sometimes

money; but it pays in the end. Well, we brought the wires to

the ground at the chapel, and then brought them under the ground

to the platform, and hid the batteries there. We put a rope fence

a hundred feet square around the platform to keep off the common

multitude, and that finished the work. My idea was, doors open

at 10:30, performance to begin at 11:25 sharp. I wished I could

charge admission, but of course that wouldn't answer. I instructed

my boys to be in the chapel as early as 10, before anybody was

around, and be ready to man the pumps at the proper time, and

make the fur fly. Then we went home to supper.

The news of the disaster to the well had traveled far by this time;

and now for two or three days a steady avalanche of people had

been pouring into the valley. The lower end of the valley was

become one huge camp; we should have a good house, no question

about that. Criers went the rounds early in the evening and

announced the coming attempt, which put every pulse up to fever

heat. They gave notice that the abbot and his official suite would

move in state and occupy the platform at 10:30, up to which time

all the region which was under my ban must be clear; the bells

would then cease from tolling, and this sign should be permission

to the multitudes to close in and take their places.

I was at the platform and all ready to do the honors when the

abbot's solemn procession hove in sight--which it did not do till

it was nearly to the rope fence, because it was a starless black

night and no torches permitted. With it came Merlin, and took

a front seat on the platform; he was as good as his word for once.

One could not see the multitudes banked together beyond the ban,

but they were there, just the same. The moment the bells stopped,

those banked masses broke and poured over the line like a vast

black wave, and for as much as a half hour it continued to flow,

and then it solidified itself, and you could have walked upon

a pavement of human heads to--well, miles.

We had a solemn stage-wait, now, for about twenty minutes--a thing

I had counted on for effect; it is always good to let your audience

have a chance to work up its expectancy. At length, out of the

silence a noble Latin chant--men's voices--broke and swelled up

and rolled away into the night, a majestic tide of melody. I had

put that up, too, and it was one of the best effects I ever invented.

When it was finished I stood up on the platform and extended my

hands abroad, for two minutes, with my face uplifted--that always

produces a dead hush--and then slowly pronounced this ghastly word

with a kind of awfulness which caused hundreds to tremble, and

many women to faint:

“Constantinopolitanischerdudelsackspfeifenmachersgesellschafft!”

Just as I was moaning out the closing hunks of that word, I touched

off one of my electric connections and all that murky world of

people stood revealed in a hideous blue glare! It was immense

--that effect! Lots of people shrieked, women curled up and quit

in every direction, foundlings collapsed by platoons. The abbot

and the monks crossed themselves nimbly and their lips fluttered

with agitated prayers. Merlin held his grip, but he was astonished

clear down to his corns; he had never seen anything to begin

with that, before. Now was the time to pile in the effects. I lifted

my hands and groaned out this word--as it were in agony:

“Nihilistendynamittheaterkaestchenssprengungsattentaetsversuchungen!”

--and turned on the red fire! You should have heard that Atlantic

of people moan and howl when that crimson hell joined the blue!

After sixty seconds I shouted:

“Transvaaltruppentropentransporttrampelthiertreibertrauungsthraenentrag-

oedie!”

--and lit up the green fire! After waiting only forty seconds this

time, I spread my arms abroad and thundered out the devastating

syllables of this word of words:

“Mekkamuselmannenmassenmenchenmoerdermohrenmuttermarmormonumentenmacher!”

--and whirled on the purple glare! There they were, all going

at once, red, blue, green, purple!--four furious volcanoes pouring

vast clouds of radiant smoke aloft, and spreading a blinding

rainbowed noonday to the furthest confines of that valley. In

the distance one could see that fellow on the pillar standing rigid

against the background of sky, his seesaw stopped for the first

time in twenty years. I knew the boys were at the pump now and

ready. So I said to the abbot:

“The time is come, Father. I am about to pronounce the dread name

and command the spell to dissolve. You want to brace up, and take

hold of something.” Then I shouted to the people: “Behold, in

another minute the spell will be broken, or no mortal can break it.

If it break, all will know it, for you will see the sacred water

gush from the chapel door!”

I stood a few moments, to let the hearers have a chance to spread

my announcement to those who couldn't hear, and so convey it

to the furthest ranks, then I made a grand exhibition of extra

posturing and gesturing, and shouted:

“Lo, I command the fell spirit that possesses the holy fountain

to now disgorge into the skies all the infernal fires that still

remain in him, and straightway dissolve his spell and flee hence

to the pit, there to lie bound a thousand years. By his own dread

name I command it--BGWJJILLIGKKK!”

Then I touched off the hogshead of rockets, and a vast fountain of

dazzling lances of fire vomited itself toward the zenith with a

hissing rush, and burst in mid-sky into a storm of flashing jewels!

One mighty groan of terror started up from the massed people

--then suddenly broke into a wild hosannah of joy--for there, fair

and plain in the uncanny glare, they saw the freed water leaping

forth! The old abbot could not speak a word, for tears and the

chokings in his throat; without utterance of any sort, he folded me

in his arms and mashed me. It was more eloquent than speech.

And harder to get over, too, in a country where there were really

no doctors that were worth a damaged nickel.

You should have seen those acres of people throw themselves down

in that water and kiss it; kiss it, and pet it, and fondle it, and

talk to it as if it were alive, and welcome it back with the dear

names they gave their darlings, just as if it had been a friend who

was long gone away and lost, and was come home again. Yes, it was

pretty to see, and made me think more of them than I had done before.

I sent Merlin home on a shutter. He had caved in and gone down

like a landslide when I pronounced that fearful name, and had

never come to since. He never had heard that name before,--neither

had I--but to him it was the right one. Any jumble would have

been the right one. He admitted, afterward, that that spirit's own

mother could not have pronounced that name better than I did.

He never could understand how I survived it, and I didn't tell

him. It is only young magicians that give away a secret like that.

Merlin spent three months working enchantments to try to find out

the deep trick of how to pronounce that name and outlive it.

But he didn't arrive.

When I started to the chapel, the populace uncovered and fell back

reverently to make a wide way for me, as if I had been some kind

of a superior being--and I was. I was aware of that. I took along

a night shift of monks, and taught them the mystery of the pump,

and set them to work, for it was plain that a good part of the

people out there were going to sit up with the water all night,

consequently it was but right that they should have all they wanted

of it. To those monks that pump was a good deal of a miracle

itself, and they were full of wonder over it; and of admiration,

too, of the exceeding effectiveness of its performance.

It was a great night, an immense night. There was reputation in it.

I could hardly get to sleep for glorying over it.