The Lair of the White Worm/Chapter 24

“AM I LOOKING grave?” asked Sir Nathaniel inconsequently when he re-entered the room.

“You certainly are, sir.”

“Yes. I ought to be. I feel as if I had on the Black Cap!” Then he went on more calmly: he felt that he should remain calm if he could. Calmness was a necessary condition of what he had to say. “This is in reality a black-cap affair. We little thought the day we met, only a few days ago, that we should be drawn into such a vortex. Already we are mixed up in robbery, manslaughter, and probably murder, but, a thousand times worse than all the crimes in the calendar, in an affair of gloom and mystery which has no bottom and no end—with magic and demonology, and even with forces of the most unnerving kind, which had their origin in an age when the world was different from the world which we know. We are going back to the origin of superstition—to an age when dragons of the prime tore each other in their slime. I shall come back to these things presently. We must fear nothing—no conclusion, however improbable, almost impossible it may be. Life and death is at the present moment hanging on our judgment. Life and death not only for ourselves, but for others whom we love. Therefore we must think accurately, go warily, and act boldly. Remember, I count on you as I hope you count on me.”

“I do, with all confidence.”

“Then,” said Sir Nathaniel, “let us think justly and boldly and fear nothing, however terrifying it may seem. I suppose I am to take as exact in every detail your account of all the strange things which happened whilst you were in Diana’s Grove?”

“So far as I know, yes. Of course I may be mistaken in recollection or appreciation, at the time, of some detail or another, but I am certain that in the main what I have said is correct.”

“Then you will not be offended if I ask you, if occasion demands it, to reiterate?”

“I am altogether at your service, sir, and proud to serve.”

“We have one account of what happened from an eye-witness whom we do believe and trust—that is you. We have also another account written by Lady Arabella under her own hand. These two accounts do not agree. Therefore we must take it that one of the two is lying.”

“Apparently, sir.”

“And that Lady Arabella is the liar!”

“Apparently—as I am not.”

“We must, therefore, try to find a reason for her lying. She has nothing to fear from Oolanga, who is dead. Therefore the only reason which could actuate her would be to convince someone else that she was blameless. This ‘someone’ could not be you, for you had the evidence of your own eyes. There was no one else present; therefore it must have been an absent person.”

“That seems beyond dispute, sir.”

“There is only one other person whose good opinion she could wish to keep—that person we know to be Edgar Caswall. He is the only one who fills the bill.”

The old man smiled and went on:

“Her lies point to other things besides the death of the African. She evidently wanted it to be accepted that Oolanga had killed the mongoose, but that his falling into the well was his own act. I cannot suppose that she expected to convince you, the eye-witness; but if she wished later on to spread the story, it was wise of her to try to get your acceptance of it.”

“That is so!”

Again Sir Nathaniel smiled. He felt that his argument was convincing.

“Then there were other matters of untruth. That, for instance, of the ermine collar embroidered with emeralds. If an understandable reason be required for this, it would be to draw attention away from the green lights which were seen in the room, and especially in the well-hole. Any unprejudiced person would accept the green lights to be the eyes of a great snake such as tradition pointed to living in the well-hole. In fine, therefore, Lady Arabella wanted the general belief to be that there was no snake of the kind in Diana’s Grove. Let us consider this. For my own part, I don’t believe in a partial liar. This art does not deal in veneer; a liar is a liar right through. Self-interest may prompt falsity of the tongue; but if one prove to be a liar, nothing that he says can ever be believed. This leads us to the conclusion that because she said or inferred that there was no snake, we should look for one—and expect to find it, too.

“Now let me here digress. I live, and have for many years lived, in Derbyshire, a county more celebrated for its caves than any other county in England. I have been through them all, and am familiar with every turn of them; as also with other great caves in Kentucky, in France, in Germany, and a host of other places—with all, in fact, of these very deep caves of narrow aperture which are so valued by intrepid explorers, who descend narrow gullets of abysmal depth and sometimes never return. In many of the caverns in the Peak I am convinced that some of the smaller passages were used in primeval times as the lairs of some of the great serpents of legend and tradition. It may have been that such caverns were formed in the usual geologic way—bubbles or flaws in the earth’s crust—which were later used by the monsters of the period of the young world. It may have been, of course, that some of them at least were worn originally by water; but in time they all found a use when suitable for living monsters. Such may be—I only give it as a suggestion for thought.

“This brings us to another point more difficult to accept and understand than any other requiring belief in a base not usually accepted or indeed entered on: whether such abnormal growths, as must have been in the case of the earlier inhabitants, could have ever changed in their nature. Some day the study of metabolism may progress so far as to enable us to accept structural changes proceeding from an intellectual or moral base. If such ever be probable, we may lean towards a belief that great animal strength may be a sound base for changes of all sorts. If this be so, what could be a more fitting subject than primeval monsters whose strength was such as to allow a survival of thousands of years? Mind, I do not assert, but only suggest it as a subject for thought. We do not know yet if brain can increase and develop independently of other parts of the living structure. This again I only suggest as a subject for thought. My reason for doing so will be presently touched on.

“After all, the mediæval belief in the Philosopher’s Stone which could transmute metals, has its counterpart in the accepted theory of metabolism which changes living tissue. Why, the theory has been put forward by a great scientist that the existence of radium and its products proves the truth of the theory of transmutation of metal. In an age of investigation like our own, when we are returning to science as the base of wonders—almost of miracles,—we should be slow to refuse to accept facts, however impossible they may seem to be. We are apt to be hide-bound as to theory when we begin to learn. In a more enlightened age, when the base of knowledge has not only been tested but broadened, perhaps we shall come to an understanding of that marvellous definition of ‘faith’ by St. Paul: ‘the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things unseen.’

“Now, my dear Adam, pardon these digressions into matters which are as far from that with which we are concerned as are the Poles from each other; but even these may help us to accept, even if they cannot help to elucidate. We are in a quagmire, my boy, as vast and as deep as that in which the monsters of the geologic age found shelter and perhaps advance.

“Now, I think we have talked enough for the present of many things hard to understand. It will be better, perhaps, if we lay them aside for the present. When you and I resume this chat we shall be more clear-headed to accept evident deductions, more resolute and better satisfied to act on them. Let us adjorn till to-morrow.”