The Fiery Wheel Read online

  After a long moment of silent reflection, he said: “Many other phenomena will doubtless surprise us in the Saturnian world.”

  “Martian,” said Jonathan, obstinately.

  “But after all,” said Brad, “Why are you so determined that we’re in something coming from the planet Mars?”

  “Why are you and Paul holding on to the notion that the planet Saturn has something to do with our adventure?”

  “Because it was my idea,” Brad replied, drily.

  “No, it’s not that,” said Paul, authoritatively. “Personally, I think that the Fiery Wheel, in whose hub we are, in all probability, miraculously enclosed...”

  “Miraculously is the word!” Bild put in.

  “Well, the Fiery Wheel comes from the planet Saturn because it has exactly the same form.”

  “Yes—Saturn and its ring!” exclaimed Brad.

  “That’s not proof!” said Bild.

  “It’s a probability.”

  “Insufficient!”

  “Well, so be it,” said Paul, determined to make peace. “We’ll find out later if it’s Saturn or Mars. The thing is, what can we do?”

  “Exactly!” said Arthur and Jonathan.

  “Whether it’s Martian, Saturnian, Selenite or Jovian…in this place, the laws of attraction, equilibrium and weight, such as we know them on Earth, don’t apply. The Saturnian matter—let’s use that term provisionally, shall we?—of which this polygonal and spherical wall is made, exercises an attraction of its own upon us, since I can walk down here and up there without falling, my head always pointing in the direction of the center of the room. And when I was up there, I didn’t experience any sensation of being upside-down, although, according to terrestrial laws, I really was. Anyway—and this is the most extraordinary thing—instead of coming from the center to the circumference, as in the terrestrial world, this attraction comes from the circumference.”

  “That is strange!” said Bild.

  “I can’t see any other explanation,” said Brad. “Shall we try, Jonathan?”

  They stood up, and had already started walking when a penetrating whistle tore Paul’s ears. He had the mysterious sensation of the presence of someone other than them. He put his right hand on Bild’s left shoulder, and murmured instinctively: “The Saturnians!”

  In front of them, a part of the wall vanished, like thick smoke opening up before a powerful jet of water, and they saw...

  An intense column of green light came in through the abruptly-created opening, and then another, and then a third. They were as high as a tall man, and at the summit of each of them a globe of pale, phantasmal white light floated, from which crackling sparks sprang continually: three heads of opaque fire above the slender transparency of three green columns!

  While these singular apparitions, now arranged in a line abreast, glided toward them, Paul stepped back, trembling and chilled by fear, and had the vague impression that Brad and Bild were recoiling with him.

  The columns stopped, and each of them in turn emitted a spray of sparks, with rhythmic crepitations. Then they glided forward again.

  They saw the columns surround them—how can these indescribable things be expressed?—like a light fog surrounding a tree, without hiding them, and they perceived that the three globes of pale fire were settling on their heads.

  Long sheaves of sparks sprang from the luminous globes, with rapid crackling sounds. Then a long shrill whistle rang out. The globes reappeared before their eyes, at the summit of the transparent green columns, and glided toward the part of the wall from which they had emerged.

  While the green columns were disengaging from the three friends, Paul had succeeded in gradually suppressing his instinctive terror. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound emerged from his throat, which was still taut. He was, at least, able to raise his right arm in an unthinking gesture, but the green columns carrying the luminous globes, gliding slowly and smoothly, disappeared. Immediately, the opaque cloudy wall was as it had been before, smooth and clear, without any disturbance in its continuity.

  “Haven’t I been dreaming, Paul?” said Jonathan. “Am I not going mad? I saw three columns of green light, three...”

  “Me too, three!” said Arthur Brad, in a voice that was hardly perceptible.

  “And three balls of white fire...”

  “White fire, indeed, which launched crackling sparks...”

  “And which placed themselves on our heads, around our legs...”

  “Yes, around all three of us—eh, Paul?”

  Paul turned to his companions. They were lived, and their eyes were shining strangely in their bloodless faces; their pale lips were trembling.

  Paul undoubtedly looked the same, but he was conscious of his absolute presence of mind, and the indisputable possession of his reason. He was not mad, nor was he hallucinating. He had seen it, and they had all seen the same thing, so it was true. The three vertical columns bearing globes of pale fire existed, had been there, and had acted—yes, acted—with one accord...

  “Jonathan, Arthur, I saw it too. You’re not mad. We’re in a strange world...”

  “Did you notice that the columns and globes of fire didn’t emit any heat or radiant light?”

  “Yes, indeed…only sparks...”

  “But what can they be?” stammered Bild.

  “I don’t know. Those luminous globes make on think of heads…and the sprinkling sparks...

  “Yes, that’s it—sprinkling…like words, or gazes...”

  “Ah! Thoughts…or materialized, active intentions…that’s it!”

  “Of course: thinking being, concentrated, having become a pure fluid...”

  “But that’s inconceivable!” Brad protested.

  The word had just been pronounced when Paul heard a noise to his right that immediately woke in his mind the memory of the rustle of a silk skirt. He turned abruptly, and he saw, at the same time as the wall split open and closed again, a pale and beautiful young woman standing beside a man who was bowing!

  This time, he doubted his eyes. He was advancing toward the new apparition when a flash of memory illuminated his mind.

  “Ah!” he cried. “Lolla Mendès!”

  After the three columns of fire, that was a contrast so striking that he burst out laughing. Behind him he heard the nervous laughter of Bild and Brad—and they repeated, between its spasms: “Ha ha! Lolla! Lolla Mendès!”

  It was, indeed, the young Spanish woman who stood before them.

  And Paul recognized, then, the face of the young woman that he had seen in Ahmed Bey’s crystal cup in Calcutta.

  Chapter Four

  In which the delights of love and the dolors of hunger arrive in tandem

  At the sight of Lolla and Francisco, the three men experienced a real fit of dementia, but it did not last long.

  When Paul got tired of laughing, his reason returned, and he made a sudden resolution to accept everything, even the most illogically implausible events, as if it were simple and natural.

  In the blink of an eye, he had scanned the young woman and the valet.

  Slim and lithe, but not thin, of slightly more than medium height, Lola Mendès was dressed in a red bodice and skirt. Her hands and feet were elegantly slender. Her bare neck, full figure and fine skin were a delicate shade of brown, gracefully supporting an oval face helmeted by admirable black hair, with mat white cheeks, a straight, a proud nose and flared nostrils, and a narrow forehead, beneath which large dark eyes sparkled between marvelously long and dense lashes. Her lips were a vivid red, slightly thick but precisely designed. Energetic and languorous at the same time, Lolla Mendès’ beauty was impressive.

  Intelligent and bewildered at the same time, the valet Francisco’s ugliness was grotesque. Even thinner and taller than Jonathan Bild, the fellow had twisted legs and enormous hands, and as slightly hunchbacked. A few strands of a moustache bristled beneath his donquixotic nose; his cheekbones protruded enormously from his parchment-l
ike complexion, and his bald head was like an ostrich’s egg in bright sunlight. Beneath his enormous eyebrows shone exceedingly dark eyes, deeply sunk within their orbits and sparkling with intelligence. He was standing askance, his left fist on his hip, his right holding a yellow melon hat far from his body, but his two feet were set together with military precision beside a traveling valise protected by a gray sheath.

  While the valet bowed, the young mistress stared, silent and nonplussed, with an expression of considerable embarrassment. Paul felt a need to speak. He had recovered all his mental vigor and composure, for the presence in the Fiery Wheel of two human beings had brought about a salutary reaction in him—and, he sensed, in Bild and Brad too. Then too, Lolla Mendès’ beauty moved him, and gave him an ardent desire to appear valiant.

  “Mademoiselle,” he said, bowing, “you’re probably surprised to hear me pronounce your name, and that of your servant. It’s because your adventure was related by Captain Mendès...”

  “My father’s alive?” cried the young woman, blushing.

  “He’s alive—at least, the terrestrial newspapers of yesterday, the twenty-first of June, affirmed it. Those newspapers told us everything. We had read them a few hours before being abducted, just as you have been...”

  “Well said, Paul,” said Jonathan Bild and Arthur Brad, simultaneously.

  “Mademoiselle,” he continued, “we are now happy to find ourselves in the Fiery Wheel, since you are here. We might perhaps be useful to you...”

  “Do things properly, Paul,” said Jonathan. “Make the introductions.”

  “Do that, Paul,” Brad approved.

  Paul moved to his left and drew his tall, thin companion toward him. “Jonathan Bild, officer in the United States navy,” he said. He turned to his right, and saw that his short, stout companion had stepped forward. “Arthur Brad, Professor of Natural History at the University of Boston.” And indicating himself, bowing deeply, he added: “Paul de Civrac, correspondent of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belle-Lettres de Paris, lieutenant in the Colonial Infantry...” He straightened up and added: “All three of us charged, by the American and French governments in association, with a scientific mission to the excavations at Neiva in Colombia. We were passing through Bogota when we were kidnapped by the Fiery Wheel.”

  Paul de Civrac was about thirty years old, of medium height; his two friends were a few years older. Although Paul’s delicate oval face, his blond moustache, dark hair, brown eyes and the entirety of his aristocratic and muscular were exemplary of a pure-bred Frenchman, his two friends, Jonathan Bild and Arthur Brad—the former very tall and slim, with dark eyes and wavy chestnut-colored hair; the latter small, plump and blue-eyed, with his red hair cropped short—represented the two types of the true American.

  The three friends—so dissimilar physically but equal in their intelligence, benevolence and courage—stood up stiffly, with a slight inclination, in front of the young woman.

  Since her filial exclamation, the young Spanish woman had not said a word. Her dark eyes, seemingly immense—her face had gone pale again—were gazing with an expression that passed slowly from amazement to confidence. Her valet seemed less emotional. While Paul was speaking he had dissolved in comical reverences, and as soon as the young man had finished, he was the one who replied, in a corncrake voice rendered even more bizarre by the tenuousness of the atmosphere.

  “Be welcome, Señores, to this diabolical machine. Personally, I’m getting used to it, and as long as the provisions last...” He cast a glance at the valise. “One sees things here to make one invoke the name of the benevolent and generous Virgin del Pilar a hundred times a day, but there’s no danger, since we’re still alive. Unfortunately, the Señorita is desolate, remaining sad and frightened, lamenting...”

  He approached Paul and, making a trumpet of his hand around his mouth, the Castilian Scarpin whispered in his ear: “Between us, Señor, I was afraid the Señorita might go mad. This uncommon abduction, you understand…the columns of green light, the balls of fire…but perhaps you’ve already seen them? Yes? Good—now I’m tranquil…the Señorita…well, since you’re here, three gallant caballeros, men of flesh and blood, Christians like her father and myself...”

  He stopped dead. The young woman had taken a step forward and put her pretty hand on the domestic’s shoulder. She pushed him gently backwards. “Enough, Francisco,” she said, in a commanding tone. And addressing Paul, while her beautiful eyes moistened with tears and her admirable throat palpitated, she said: “Excuse my emotion, Monsieur. For as long as I’ve been here—two days, according to the date you’ve pronounced—I’ve felt myself gradually going mad. Now, I have all my presence of mind. I accept your help. You’ll explain to me…there are so many strange and frightening things here. But my father is alive, did you say?”

  “Yes, Mademoiselle.”

  Paul reported to her, briefly, what he had read in the newspapers. For fear of seeming insane, he did not tell her that, a year before, he had seen Lolla’s face in a crystal cup full of water. He even swore to himself that he would never reveal that magical event—but he remembered Ahmed Bey then, with a shiver of fear and admiration. While he was speaking, he wondered why he had not recognized Lolla on seeing the photograph of the young woman carried off by the Fiery Wheel in the newspapers in Bogota. Perhaps, he thought, the photograph was poor, and lacking in authenticity.

  While following these thoughts internally, he was speaking aloud to Lolla Mendès. When he had finished, he fell silent.

  “So,” she said, “we’re in some kind of balloon that’s come from the planet Saturn?”

  “Yes, Mademoiselle, probably...”

  “Unless it comes from the planet Mars,” said the incorrigible Bild.

  Paul shrugged his shoulders. Putting himself entirely at ease in the exorbitant situation, he acted in that vast and bizarre room as he would have acted in his own study. “Would you care to sit down, Mademoiselle. There are no chairs, but the floor of the room is so soft...”

  She sat down in front of him, while Bild and Brad let themselves fall beside them, and Francisco took up a position slightly apart.

  The circumstances were so extravagant that, in spite of her trouble and anxiety, Lolla Mendès could not help smiling. Bild and Brad followed suit. Pail did likewise, but the less discreet Francisco exclaimed: “Ha ha! This would be enough to amuse me all my life if...” A glance from his young mistress cut him off.

  There was a momentary silence, during which Lolla Mendès observed the three friends while they observed her in their turn.

  She spoke first. “Where are we now?”

  “In relation to the Earth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Difficult to conjecture,” said Brad.

  “Impossible,” said Bild.

  “But Mademoiselle,” said Paul, “where were you before you came in here?”

  “In another room—round, like this one, but smaller.”

  “Have you come here before?” asked Bild.

  “Yes, twice.”

  “How?” asked Brad.

  “Each time, a hole opened in front of us,” Francisco explained, evidently eager to involve himself in the conversation. “We went through. The first time, it was from the little round room into this one; the second time, from this one to a little round room; and then the same again...”

  “It was the first time we came into this big room that we saw the columns of fire and the balls with little lightning flashes,” Lolla continued. “I nearly died of fright…but I wasn’t harmed.”

  “We’ve seen them too,” said Bild.

  “They’re probably Saturnians,” Brad risked.

  Lolla’s eyes widened in astonishment.

  “Yes,” said Paul, in his turn. “We think that the columns are a special luminous matter supporting pure minds…almost-perfect intelligences…brains, if you wish, brains arrived at such perfection that they don’t need any organ and present themselves in the
form of globes of fire...like certain apparitions observed on Earth by mediums...”

  “Souls, then?” stammered Lolla Mendès.

  “Yes, souls—that’s it!” exclaimed Francisco, enthusiastically. “These Saturnians, or Martians, are souls, pure souls without bodies...”

  Paul resumed, more forcefully: “It’s for exactly that reason that I believe they’re Saturnians rather than Martians. In fact, according to what we know about the planet Saturn, the characteristics of which are contrary to those of Mars, the light specific density of substances and the density of the atmosphere there are such that the Saturnians are necessarily incapable of living on the ground. They can only be aerostatic beings floating in the atmosphere above the thick and heavy clouds that cover their ringed world. And the walls of this room and others are constituted by the assembled cloud, to which the Saturnians can give any form they wish. And that cloud, that vapor, supports us because we’re so inconceivably light here that we don’t weigh anything relative to the density of the vapors. Think of an ant on an eiderdown!

  “What a world! Even our astronomers, rationalistic as they are, affirm that, in view of the physical and physiological conditions of their planet, the Saturnians must have transparent bodies of an incomparable lightness, flying through their sky without wings…without material needs of any sort. Enlarge that still-purely-human conception a little, and the columns of light and the globes of fire justify the timid hypotheses of our astronomers admirably. Pure spirits in the form of light! What a world!”

  “And their will, in order to be carried out,” said Arthur Brad, “only needs to be, to exist…those crackling sparks are its determinations. By their mysterious force they can open the walls of this room at a distance; they can modify forms...”

  These possibilities were so exciting that silence fell again.