The Fiery Wheel Read online

  And Monsieur Brularion terminated thus:

  Now, above all, we are struck with regret that human science is not yet capable of constructing a machine that would permit us to go to the aid of our brethren, prisoners on the planet Mercury, and to make truly extraordinary discoveries with them.

  At eight o’clock in the morning on the day when the Universel published that article, the illustrious Dr. Ahmed Bey was eating breakfast on his own in the dining room of his luxurious house on the edge of the Parc Monceau. It was a frugal breakfast, composed simply of a minuscule cup of Turkish coffee. Behind the Master, immobile and upright, stood a servant whose costume and visage testified to a Hindu origin, and in front of Ahmed Bey, a copy of the Universel was unfolded, supported by a carafe. While emptying his cup of coffee in little sips, the doctor was reading.

  When he reached the conclusion of Monsieur Brularion’s article, he set the empty cup down on a saucer and rubbed his hands, while silent laughter wrinkled his emaciated cheeks. Then, turning to the impassive Hindu, he pronounced a few words. The valet went out. Two minutes later, a young man came into the dining room and bowed to Ahmed Bey.

  “Monsieur Marlin,” said the doctor, “go in person to invite to supper, on my behalf, for midnight, the individuals whose names I shall list for you. Tell them that I deem their presence to be indispensable…indispensable, you hear?”

  “Very good, Master.”

  “Write.”

  And on an ivory tablet that he held in his hand, the young man wrote in pencil while the doctor dictated:

  “The astronomer Constant Brularion, Dr. Payen, Abbé Normat, Professor Martial and Monsieur Torpène, the Prefect of Police. Have you got that?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Make the visits this morning. This afternoon you’ll make sure that the laboratory is set up as for my spiritist séances. And telephone my notary right away to tell him to come to lunch with me. Go!”

  The secretary withdrew, but his master called him back. “I forgot. On the invitation addressed to Monsieur Torpène, add this sentence, word for word: ‘Dr. Ahmed Bey had found what he mentioned to you in the Parc Monceau on the night of the twenty-first and twenty-second of June.’”

  And, sending his secretary away with a gesture, the doctor rose to his feet, folded up the newspaper, smiled silently once again, and left the dining room in his turn, by a different door than the one that the Hindu and Monsieur Marlin had used.

  Ahmed Bey spent the day in his laboratory, occupied in mysterious tasks to which no human being was witness. He only interrupted that work for an hour, at midday, in order to eat lunch with Maître Suroit, his notary, to whom he gave meticulous orders regarding the placement of funds.

  In the evening, he dined at eight o’clock, very frugally. Then he retired to his laboratory again, after having ordered the Hindu to have the visitors wait in the drawing room until there were five of them, and then to introduce them all together into the dining room, where a cold supper would be served.

  Dr. Ahmed Bey’s laboratory occupied the entire width of the basement of the house. It was an immense room whose high ceiling was supported by marble columns. It was surrounded by a series of divans, above which numerous shelves fixed to the wall supported four or five thousand books. In the middle stood an enormous and rather intimidating electric machine, surrounded by other smaller machines and porcelain tubs half-full of variously colored liquids.

  In front of the electric machine there were two white marble tables, reminiscent of the dissecting slabs in an amphitheater.

  Thirty electric chandeliers, each with four lamps, illuminated the vast room brightly. Ten radiators, meticulously graduated, and ten cold air vents also scrupulously graduated, could produce a tropical heat or a Siberian chill. The hot and cold air were produced by machines located in a further basement, maintained in continuous activity night and day by Hindu mechanics.

  That day, the temperature of the laboratory was a mere twelve degrees above zero.

  At three minutes to midnight, a bell rang. The doctor, who was lying on a divan meditating, got to his feet, went into a cloakroom adjacent to the laboratory entrance, and replaced the long smock he was wearing with a frock-coat. Then he went to the dining room where he guests were waiting for him.

  After the customary greetings and salutations, Ahmed Bey placed Constant Brularion opposite him and sat down between Monsieur Torpène and Abbé Normat, a knowledgeable physiologist. Dr. Payen of the Académie de Médecine and the chemist, Professor Martial of the Académie des Sciences, sat to either side of Brularion.

  “Messieurs,” said Ahmed Bey, while the maître d’hôtel supervised the distribution of the hors-d’oeuvre, of which very small quantities were served, “Thank you for having responded to my invitation at such short notice. You won’t regret it. It isn’t a spiritist séance that I’ve invited you to tonight, but a prodigious spectacle that you can’t possible expect. And as you’ll require all your mental and physical strength, in order to remain calm, I advise you to eat in accordance with your appetite. You’ll excuse me for only giving you water to drink, but it’s important that your minds are absolutely lucid and composed, and I’ve often observed that a single small glass of wine diminishes the faculties—slightly, but definitely—even of the best-tempered of men. For myself, I shan’t eat, for what I’m going to do requires that my stomach be completely empty. This morning, I breakfasted with cenobitic frugality, and only absorbed liquids of prompt, facile and complete absorption. Don’t let my fast influence you, however. Honor the cuisine of my masterful Indian chef.”

  The five guests complied, but in spite of the placidity of Ahmed Bey, who did not show the slightest emotion, they ate rapidly; their curiosity had been whetted more that their appetite by their host’s words.

  At fifty minutes past twelve, the waiters served sorbets and fruits. They were barely tasted. When one o’clock chimed on the wall-clock, Ahmed rose to his feet, and his five guests immediately imitated him.

  Apart from the speech made by Ahmed Bey at the commencement, not a word had been pronounced during the meal. Everyone knew that the mysterious doctor’s strict habit was never to give explanations in advance of his experiments.

  “Would you care to follow me to the laboratory, Messieurs,” he said, opening a door.

  Having traversed a corridor and gone down the thirty marble steps of a broad staircase, the six men went into the laboratory, brightly lit by all the electric chandeliers.

  “Please sit down, Messieurs, and listen to me.”

  The five guests sat down on a divan and Ahmed Bey sat in front of them on a simple wooden stool. He took a newspaper out of his pocket, unfolded it, and read aloud: “Now, above all, we are struck with regret that human science is not yet capable of constructing a machine that would permit us to go to the aid of our brethren, prisoners on the planet Mercury, and to make truly extraordinary discoveries with them.”

  The doctor folded the paper again and said to Brularion: “That’s the conclusion of your article, published this morning.”

  The astronomer nodded his head.

  “Well, my dear astronomer,” Ahmed Bey continued, smiling—and his dark eyes flashed in the depths of the immense orbits in which they were hidden—“do not have that regret—or, rather, have that regret no longer.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Brularion, amazed.

  “I mean that although modern science has not discovered, and is not close to discovering, an engine capable of transporting you to another planet...” Ahmed Bey paused in his speech, stood up, and continued majestically: “Ancient science had found the means of suppressing space and distance for the human will. That means permitted a Brahmin, hundreds of centuries ago, to quit the Earth in order to travel through interplanetary space, and beyond the stars...”

  “And that means…?” said Abbé Normat, while the other four guests waited.

  “Has been lost,” Ahmed Bey replied.

  “In th
at case...”

  “I have rediscovered it.”

  That statement fell into the five scientists’ anguished silence. They were aware of the mysterious profundity of Ahmed Bey’s science, his serious character and the rigorous method of his search for the truth. They could not doubt his affirmation, and were animated by a violent emotion.

  “Messieurs,” said Ahmed Bey, without departing from his tranquility, you all know what the priests of the temple of Sakoulna in ancient India meant by the disincarnation and reincarnation of souls.”

  “Yes,” replied the voices of the five scientists, in unison.

  “With a few words, constituting a formula of incantation revealed by Brahma himself, the thrice holy Brahmins were able to separate their soul from their bodies, subsequently govern that soul, cause it to travel at their whim, and return it to its original body or reincarnate it in another. By modifying the formula of incantation, by as little as a single syllable, a Brahmin was able to command his own souls, and, leaving his human shell on Earth, go in spirit into the infinity of the astronomical havens. Did you know that, Messieurs?”

  “Yes,” replied Abbé Normat, gravely. “But for my part, I scarcely believed it I scarcely believed half of it. A man capable of disincarnating a soul and reincarnating it is the absolute master of life and death. Such power only belongs to God.”

  “It belongs to me!” pronounced Ahmed Bey, majestically.

  A moment of solemn silence followed these terrible words. Then Torpène, shivering as if he had just emerged from a dream, said: “Well, Monsieur…?”

  Ahmed Bey smiled, and slowly said: “Seventeen years ago, I discovered beneath the Great Pyramid a tanned ox-hide conserved by unknown processes and covered with inscriptions in Hermetic Sanskrit. After a year of work, I succeeded in deciphering the inscription. It taught me what I have told you, and what I have subsequently revealed to the scholarly world, without identifying myself. But it also taught me the means by which I might perhaps succeed in discovering the marvelous secret of the disincarnation and reincarnation of souls. Reading it made a profound impression on me. Two years later, my father having died and left me an immense fortune, I left for India. I found the temple of Sakoulna. I had myself initiated into the mysteries of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva and Ganesha. I studied the sacred books that dated from the origins of human intelligence and collected the information that fell from the desiccated lips of Brahmins, Stylites and holy penitents—all with the sole aim of discovering whether the Hermetic inscription might have deceived me. When I was convinced of its veracity, I finally set forth on the supreme research. Alone, I climbed the Tibetan plateau; alone, I wandered in the jungles inhabited by the sovereign serpents and tigers, and where palm trees grow in the ruins of temples...”

  Ahmed Bey’s voice had become strangely grave and melancholy—what memories his mind must have been recalling!—and he fell silent, lowering his head.

  For a few minutes, the scientists respected that emotional reverie—but Ahmed Bey had not finished, and they waited expectantly.

  “Go on!” Abbé Normat exclaimed, suddenly, quivering with impatience.

  “Ah! Have I not revealed everything?” the Doctor murmured, in a faint voice. Immediately, however, he added, in a clear and vibrant tone: “I possess the secret of the Hermetic inscription!”

  None of the five listeners doubted the verity of that extraordinary statement. They rose to their feet, prey to an invincible agitation.

  “But if it’s true,” said Constant Brularion, “that neither time or space really exists for the soul as we know it; if it’s true that the disincarnate soul retains all the intellectual and moral soul of the individual that it animated, you can therefore disincarnate your own soul and go to Mercury yourself.”

  “All that is true,” said Ahmed Bey, simply, “and I shall indeed depart for the planet Mercury.”

  “When?”

  “Right away.”

  That astounding affirmation was followed by a heavy silence—but one tremulous voice eventually said: “How?”

  “You shall see,” Ahmed Bey replied, smiling. “Please sit down again. When it is all over, you will only have to withdraw. My faithful steward Ra-Cobrah, whom you have sometimes seen here, has the orders necessary for my mortal envelope to be conserved intact to await my return. I only ask you to swear to me, on your honor, the most profound secrecy. Nothing that I have said to you, and none of what you are about to see, must be revealed! Monsieur Torpène, especially, must keep silence—remember that you came to interrogate me! Swear, Messieurs!”

  “So sworn,” said the five men, in chorus, raising their right hands.

  “Perfect!”

  The Doctor struck a gong with his closed fist. Immediately, a door opened and a richly-dressed Hindu appeared on the threshold. It was Ra-Cobrah. Ahmed Bey said a few words to him in a language unknown to the five guests, and Ra-Cobrah disappeared. The thaumaturge immediately went into the dressing-room. When he came back, he was wearing a long linen robe without sleeves or a collar; his arms and feet were bare, and he undoubtedly had nothing on his body except that druidic garment.

  He went to a apparatus made of copper and turned two small wheels. The temperature of the laboratory swiftly rose by fifty degrees, as indicated by the thermometers. At the same time a door opened and nine servants, visibly Oriental, entered rapidly, forming a strange cortege. One of them was carrying five linen tunics, which he gave to the guests. The latter quickly took off their heavy garments and put on the thin tunics—for without that precaution, which they had taken several times previously in the course of Ahmed Bey’s experiments, they would have suffocated.

  Four more servants carried in the body of a white man, and another four brought the body of a negro; they laid them down on the two marble slabs.

  “Messieurs,” said Ahmed Bey, “the white man is a cadaver; it was sent to me two hours ago from the hospital. The man died at midday. As for the negro, he is only asleep. He’s a slave, of whom I am the master, the absolute and unrestricted possessor. Before disincarnating my own soul and setting forth for Mercury without the encumbrance of my terrestrial appearance, the body that is presently alive and active before you, I want to demonstrate my power to you. Come closer, and observe that the white man is dead and the negro alive...”

  Followed by his friends, Brularion rose first. It was easy for the five scientists to determine that the white man was no more than a cadaver, while the negro was in a hypnotic trance.

  “It’s true,” said Torpène.

  Then, before the five spectators lined up beside the marble tables, Ahmed Bey extended his arm to the nearest column and turned an ivory button. All the chandeliers except one went out. That one, directly above the slabs, emitted a dim radiance, like a night-light. The contours of the laboratory were lost in an intimidating obscurity, in which a coppery reflection or a crystal gleam shone in places, like the eye of some monster.

  Ahmed Bey commenced magnetic passes. As his hands accomplished the traditional gestures, his lips murmured ancient incantations and his widened eyes flashed. His entire face was transfigured.

  With an indescribable emotion, the five scientists soon saw the body of the negro shiver convulsively, while a red-tinted foam moistened his lips. Suddenly, the black body sat up, then fell back along the marble, and a little spark emerged from his open mouth, which hovered in mid-air, bobbing hesitantly.

  Ahmed Bey made a broad gesture, uttering a terrible cry, and the spark flew like lightning toward the mouth of the white cadaver, between the lips of which it disappeared.

  Turning away from the black man, Ahmed Bey resumed making passes over the head of the white man—and they saw the naked body, which had been a mere cadaver a little while before, shiver, twitch and open his eyes: strange, frightened eyes, still full of the mysteries of the beyond.

  Ahmed Bey modified his passes; the resuscitated man closed his eyes again and went to sleep. The thaumaturge took a step toward the colu
mn, stretched out his right arm, which made a rapid movement, and the chandeliers spread their bright light once again.

  After a few minutes of heavy silence, Ahmed Bey, who had become progressively calmer, smiled, and said in his normal voice: “Now, Messieurs, would you care to observe that the white man is alive, and that the black man is dead. I have caused the latter’s soul to pass into the former’s body.

  In spite of the emotion, and the fear, that was troubling their intelligence, the five scientists were easily able to observe that the former cadaver was, indeed, alive and that the former living man was no more than a cadaver.

  Ahmed Bey struck the gong with his closed fist. The eight servants reappeared. At a sign from Ra-Cobrah, who accompanied them, they lifted up the black man and the white man and went out at a run.

  “It’s terribly marvelous!” murmured Brularion, whose forehead was streaming with cold sweat.

  “But what are they going to do with the dead man and the resuscitated man?” asked Abbé Normat.

  “The dead man,” Ahmed Bey replied, calmly, “will be dissolved in three minutes in a liquid of my own composition; no fragment will remain of him larger than the head of a pin. As for the white man who has been resuscitated, he’ll take his place among my domestics.

  “But you’ve given him the soul of a negro!” exclaimed Dr. Payen.

  “Of course!”

  “That soul will find itself singularly out of place in that white body.”

  “Not very much. The man I killed was a domestic here; having become white, he’ll continue his functions. As for the change in the color and form of his body, Ra-Cobrah will explain it to him by the miraculous intervention of manitous. In a matter of a few days, the soul of the black man will find itself quite at ease in his new white envelope.”

  “But you’ve killed a man!” said the Prefect of Police, endeavoring to smile.

  “A crime!” said Martial, with a forced laugh.