experienced an intensification of the feverish sensation that his personality was split.
As the afternoon gave way to early evening, he fell once again into a deep contemplation-almost a self- induced trance-under the spell of which he explored the presence of the invisible doppelganger that seemed to occupy the same armchair as himself. Oddly, he found that he now associated this second Richard Burton not with the delirium of malaria but with Spring Heeled Jack.
He and his double, he intuitively recognised, existed at a point of divergence. To one of them, a path was open that led to Fernando Po, Brazil, Dam ascus, and 'wherever the fuck else they send you. ' For the other, the path was that of the king's agent, its destination shrouded.
The stilt-walker, Burton was certain, had somehow foreseen this choice. Jack, whatever he was, was not a spy, as he and Palmerston had initially suspected. Oh no, nothing so pedestrian as that! It wasn't just what the strangely costumed man had said but also the way he'd said it that forced upon Burton the conception that Jack possessed an uncanny knowledge of hisBurton's-future, knowledge that could never be gained from spying, no matter how efficient.
In India, he'd seen much that defied rational thought. Human beings, he was convinced, possessed a 'force of will' that could extend their senses beyond the limits of sight, hearing, taste, or touch. Could it, he wondered, even transcend the restrictions of time? Was Spring Heeled Jack a true clairvoyant? If he was, then he obviously spent far too much time dwelling upon the future, for his grasp of the present seemed tenuous at best; he had expressed astonishment when Burton revealed that the Nile debate-and Speke's accident-had already occurred.
'I'm a historian!' he'd claimed. 'I know what happened. It was 1864 not 1861.'
Happened. Past tense, though he spoke of 1864, which was three years in the future.
Curious.
There was an obvious-though hard to accept-explanation for the discrepancies in Jack's perception of time: he simply wasn't of this world. The creature had, after all, twice vanished before Burton's very eyes and, back in 1840, had done the same in full view of Detective Inspector Trounce. Plainly, this was a feat no mere mortal could achieve.
What's more, everything could be explained Jack's inconsistent character and appearance, his confusion about time, his seeming to be in two places at once, his apparent agelessness-if it were accepted that he was a supernatural being whose habitat lay beyond the realms of normal time and space. Perhaps Burton's first impression had been correct: could he be an uncorked djinni? A demon? A malevolent spirit? Moko, the Congo's god of divination?
The king's agent emerged from his contemplation having come to two conclusions. The first was that, for the time being, the bizarre apparition should be treated as one being rather than as two or more. The second was that Time was a key element in understanding Spring Heeled Jack.
He stood and rubbed a crick out of his neck. As always, focusing his mind on one thing had helped him to forget another, and, though his meeting with Isabel had been painful, he wasn't immobilised by depression, as he'd sometimes been in the past. In fact, he was feeling surprisingly positive.
It was eight o'clock.
Burton crossed to the window and looked down at Montagu Place. The fog had reduced to a watery mist, liberally punctuated with coronas of light from gas lamps and windows. The usual hustle and bustle had returned to the streets of London: the rattling velocipedes, gasping steam-horses, oldfashioned horse-drawn vehicles, pantechnicons, and, above all, the seething mass of humanity.
Usually, when he looked upon such a scene, Burton, ever the outsider, felt a fierce longing for the wide-open spaces of Arabia. This evening, though, there was an unfamiliar cosiness about London, almost a familiarity. He'd never felt this before. England had always felt strange to him, stifling and repressive.
I am changing, he thought. I hardly know myself.
A flash of red caught his attention: Swinburne stepping out of a hansom. The poet's arrival was signalled by shrill screams and cries as he squabbled with the driver over the fare. Swinburne had the fixed idea that the fare from one place in London to any other was a shilling, and would argue hysterically with any cabbie who said otherwise-which they all did. On this occasion, as so often happened, the driver, embarrassed by the histrionics, gave up and accepted the coin.
Swinburne came bobbing across the street with that peculiar dancing gait of his. He jangled the front doorbell.
Everyone uses the bell, thought Burton, except policemen. They knock.
Moments later, Burton heard Mrs. Angell's voice and the piping tones of Algernon, footsteps on the stairs, and the staccato rap of a cane on his study door.
He turned from the window and called, 'Come in, Algy!'
Swinburne bounced in and enthusiastically announced, 'Glory to Man in the highest! For Man is the master of things.'
'And what's prompted that declaration?' enquired Burton.
'I just saw one of the new rotorships! It was huge! How godlike we have become that we can send tons of metal gliding through the air! My hat! You've acquired new bruises! Was it Jack again? I saw in the evening edition that he pounced on a girl in the early hours.'
'A rotorship? What did it look like? I haven't seen one yet.'
Swinburne threw himself into an armchair, hooking a leg over one arm. He placed his top hat onto the end of his cane, held up the stick, and made the hat spin.
'A vast platform, Richard, flat and oval shaped, with a great many pylons extending horizontally from its edge, and, at their ends, vertical shafts at the tip of which great wings were spinning so fast that only a circular blur was visible. It was leaving an enormous trail of steam. Did he beat you up again?'
'On its way to India, perhaps,' mused Burton.
'Yes, I should think so. But listen to this: it had propaganda painted on its keel. Enormous words!'
'Saying what?'
'Saying: `Citizen! The Society of Friends of the Air Force summons you to its ranks! Help to build more ships like this!''
Burton raised an eyebrow. 'The Technologists are certainly on the up as far as public opinion is concerned. It seems they intend to make the most of it!'
'What a sight it was,' enthused Swinburne. 'I expect it could circle the globe without landing once! So tell me about the pummelling.'
'I'm surprised at your enthusiasm,' commented Burton, ignoring the question. 'I thought you Libertines were dead set against such machines. You know they'll be used to conquer the so-called uncivilised.'
'Well, yes, of course,' responded Swinburne, airily. 'But one can't help but be impressed by such impossibilities as flying ships of metal! Not with dreams, but with blood and with iron shall a nation be moulded to last! Anyway, old chap, answer my confounded question! How come the new bruises?'
'Oh,' said Burton. 'Just a tumble or two. I was clobbered by a werewolf, then, a few hours later, Spring Heeled Jack dragged my rotorchair out of the sky and sent me crashing through some treetops.'
Swinburne grinned. 'Yes, but really, what happened?'
'Exactly that.'
The young poet threw his topper at the explorer in exasperation. Burton caught it and tossed it back.
Swinburne sighed, and said, 'If you don't want to explain, jolly good, but at least tell me what's on the menu for tonight. Alcoholic excesses? Or maybe something different for a change? I've been thinking it might be fun to try opium.'
Blake slipped out of his jubbah and reached for his jacket, which he'd thrown carelessly over the back of a chair.
'You'll stay well away from that stuff, Algernon. Your self-destructive streak is dangerous enough as it is. Alcohol is going to kill you slowly, I have no doubt. Opium will do the job with far greater efficiency!' He buttoned up his jacket. 'Why you want to do away with yourself, I cannot fathom,' he continued.
'Pshaw!' objected Swinburne, jumping up and pressing his topper down over his wild carroty hair. 'I have no intention of killing myself. I'm just bored, Richard. Terribly, terribly bored. The ennui of this pointless existence gnaws at my bones.'
He began to dance crazily around the room.
