But I was more fortunate than Templeton. Instead of being immersed in the successive jars, I was plunged immediately into the white light which had condemned him. The sensation was not unpleasant—might, indeed, be described as ecstatic for a mind untroubled. My body tingled with life. Looking down, I was conscious of a new nakedness. I could see everything which my body held, and yet through them. The activities in every vein were transparent.
I was held there for some time, and then lifted out, examined, and plunged back for a further period. When I expected to be thrown aside, I was carried, still held in that vice-like grip, to a further room, where I was thrust into one of a great number of little cages which lined its walls.
I considered my position, and was not sure that I might not come to envy even the fate of Templeton. The operation I had undergone had already disfigured me. There was no hair, long or short, left upon me. Even my hands showed an unaccustomed bareness. I looked round, and I cannot say what I saw. It is best forgotten.
I will only say that Harry Brett was in an opposite cage, and though I called over to him, he did not know me. He was quite mad, and it was true that he was quite happy. Like a child, he enjoyed to watch the colour of his flesh change … but I have resolved that I will not tell it.
… A Dweller passed before my cage, thinking slowly and clearly. He inquired for a Primitive of the False-skin Age who was claimed by the Amphibians. With a stir of hope I responded.
After a moment’s questioning, he allowed my identity. He told me, “You are released at the request of the Leaders of the Amphibians. There has been fighting on the Grey Beaches, at which they helped us to conquer. They might have had what they would, but they asked for this thing only.” He looked at me with more curiosity than contempt, and I knew that he would have cut me open without scruple had he felt free to do so, to discover the secret of my importance. He went on, “You are to be given to the Seekers of Wisdom. You will be safe with them so long as you tell them some new thing continually. … It needn’t be true—that doesn’t matter,” he added more to himself than to me.
He lifted me from the cage, and walked on at a quiet pace, and I trotted behind him.
I was with the Seekers of Wisdom many months, till the year was completed.
During that time I was examined incessantly on every detail of the civilisation from which I came. I defended it as best I might, and I explained it where I was able. But I found that I knew few things thoroughly, and my explanations halted continually. I met a readier understanding of social life from creatures which were more after my own kind than had been possible to the Amphibian mind, but I was still vexed by the contempt with which my race was regarded. I reflected that the antipathy which we feel for anything which is different from our own customs might be theirs also, and that they might be less than fair to us in consequence. Brief as our own lives are, we know that many of us live too long to remain in harmony with the changes which a generation brings. I could not see that their own methods of life were as far advanced as they thought them.
Yet the reactions of their minds will not leave me as they learnt of the filth of our polluted rivers, and the pall of our blinded skies.
I must still see, as they saw them, the pity of our neglected land, the folly that leaves our fields half barren while the shadow of starvation is but ten years distant, the foulness of our congested cities, the insane worship of movement which leaves its thousands slain or maimed unpitied in our bloody streets. …
But to write of these things in detail would be to begin a book when it is time for the ending.
I lost the count of days, and the time came unlooked for when the year was over. …
XVI
Return
“Danby,” I said, “you might fetch me an overcoat.”
Having been provided with this useful garment, I sat once more at the familiar fireside.
I looked at the clock, which had indicated three minutes after eight when I had shaken hands with the Professor, with a disliked solemnity, before I commenced the experiment. The hand was now at seven minutes after the hour.
I had noticed a lump of half-burnt coal that had poised perilously over the top bar of the grate as I had risen to leave them. It broke now, as I gazed, and fell noisily into the ashpan.
Yes—it was the same fire—the same night. It would be no use to tell them.
And yet I saw that they were impatient for me to begin, but how could I? How could I expect them to believe?—And so much was beyond the reach of words to tell it.
“Did you find them?” said the Professor, with a note of suppressed anxiety in his voice which would have been less surprising from one of the others, and which reminded me that the question was not merely of my own adventures. I realised the different values of that room from
