The Secret of the Earth

"By a man, or by men? Which did you say?"

"I said by a man – by one man – I believe that island has a single inhabitant, but we shall see!"

Again I looked at my brother with curiosity, half-wondering if he were demented.

"I understood you to say that the Palæocrystic Sea was the dividing line between the known and the unknown world.

"And you understood me correctly," he replied,

"There is but one man in the world who knows anything about this island; in fact he is the only man living who has a right to name it."

"I should imagine that the inhabitant you speak of would have an equal right," I observed.

"That is just where you make your mistake," said Torrence with a knowing look. "Were he an ordinary man he might have; but under the circumstances – hardly!"

"And what are the circumstances? Why should he not name it?" I insisted.

"Because he is an idiot!" said Torrence.

I started.

"And how do you know that?"

"If I am wrong we shall soon find out. If I am right we shall equally soon know it!"

He was searching the point of land with his glass, and seemed disinclined to continue the subject, so with rather unpleasant emotions, I concluded to wait for developments. It could not now belong before I should know if there was any foundation for Torrence's talk. Certainly what he had said savored of lunacy.

We now bore down upon the island rapidly, and saw a rocky ledge surmounting a narrow beach, where we concluded to land. The promontory had a flat top, about thirty feet above the sea and we lowered ourselves gently down upon it. Scarcely had we done so than Torrence said:

"We shall probably have to explore in order to find traces of our inhabitant; and I wonder, therefore, if it would not be wiser to sail around the island before disembarking. It would certainly save trouble."

We concluded therefore to take a leisurely tour of discovery, and ascertain the size and general contour before landing; and so without further ado, we rose again, almost as soon as we had touched the ground.

The island was rocky, but not without vegetation, its arable parts being carpeted with vivid green. There was also a quantity of small trees, bearing a peculiar fruit, which neither of us had ever seen before. Inland, it rose into billowy hillocks, to probably an elevation of a couple of hundred feet, near the center. Its shores were indented with a number of bays or inlets, some of which made considerable inroad upon it. To the best of our judgment it was about four miles long, and of very irregular width, as in places these inlets nearly cut it in two. Thousands of pigeons flew out wherever we approached their rocky nestings, but there appeared to be no other animal life.

"And where is your inhabitant?" I asked, when we had gone around the greater part of the coast.

"We may not be able to find him at all," he answered; "I said we should probably discover traces of him if we searched. For my part, I have not given that up."

But the words were scarcely spoken when he sprang to the governing board and halted the vessel. I saw that we were hovering over a green sward which sloped gently to the water's edge near the head of one of the inlets described. Lowering ourselves gradually we landed on a grassy knoll, and Torrence immediately threw out the ladder and went over. I followed him, and in a minute saw what had attracted his attention from above, but which had entirely escaped mine. It was a rough looking stone, set on end, in the sward, and there being no other stones in the vicinity, it presented rather a peculiar appearance, inasmuch as it seemed almost certain that it had been placed there by human hands. We examined it with growing interest. There was something uncanny in finding such an object in such a place. It looked like a monument intended to mark a tomb, or the headstone of a grave in some country churchyard. It was about three feet high, nearly covered with a green mould, and had the appearance of great age.

"This," said Torrence, "is the first indication I have found!"

He was passing his hand over the face of the stone.

"Your single inhabitant must be a giant to plant such a rock as that!" I observed.

"Not at all," said Torrence; "I have no idea that he even touched it."

"Then you think nature placed it there?"

"Neither; but what is this?"

He was still examining the face of the thing studiously, with both hands and eyes. I stooped down to examine it. There was a roughness or indentation, which did not seem to be natural. Scraping the moss away from the crevices, we discovered to my amazement the following inscription, which I herewith give from a careful copy in my note book

Inscription

There could be no possible doubt about this being an intentional design, but in what tongue, or what it meant was a mystery. We puzzled over it for an hour, when Torrence suggested that they might be English letters, rudely and ignorantly carved. "For instance," he said, "the first might very well be an N. The second is evidently an E; while the third is unmistakably intended for an I. Now the fourth is the same as the first. The fifth cannot well be other than an L. The sixth is the same as the second, and the last is a T." When we looked at it in this way, it seemed clear enough. Indeed what else could it be? But what the word meant, remained a mystery. Suddenly it occurred to us that it might be more than one word. "Suppose," said Torrence, "that the last five letters are intended to form the word 'Inlet' – a pronounced feature of the coast of this island – and that the first two stand for North East. There we seem to have it – North East Inlet – the stone probably refers to something of interest in, or about the North East Inlet of the island!"

Surely we had solved the problem. But when I reminded Torrence that we had been searching for traces of his alleged inhabitant, and that he should not be surprised at this discovery, he said:

"True enough; but exactly where they would be, or what they would look like, or even if this was the right island, I could not tell; but now I feel sure that I am right."

"The stone was evidently put here by some one," I remarked.

"Undoubtedly. There is not the slightest appearance of its having been deposited by nature; and the letters were cut with rough tools, by ignorant hands."

"And you believe a human being could have reached this spot without an air ship?"

"There is not one chance in a million that it could have been done," he replied; "certainly never by the course we have taken. But there are stretches of land reaching far to the north; and in certain seasons, under the most exceptional circumstances, possibly some lost scout of the Arctic seas might have drifted here, had he once pushed his way across the frozen belt. I say it is possible; but that is all. Before we leave we shall know whether it is a fact."

We lingered a few minutes while I made the copy of the inscription, and then climbed back into the air ship, bound for the North East Inlet.

Skimming slowly around the shore we soon discovered the indentation we were looking for, and following up its course for a few hundred yards above the mouth, reached another of those turfy knolls, with which the island abounded. Around this the water ran directly into the land, forming a diminutive lake a little higher up, with grassy slopes upon every side. It was a beautiful spot, entirely protected from the surf, and screened from the winds as well. Indeed, so sheltered and peaceful a nook was it, and withal so inviting, that we decided to descend and look around, having observed nothing extraordinary from above.

"If I do not discover something interesting here," said Torrence, "I shall be disappointed."

Having landed on the hillock above the lake we separated, walking in opposite directions. The ground was covered with a brilliant, mossy turf, where the black bed rock did not protrude; but where it did so, only served to enhance the intensity of color by contrast. I had not walked far when I heard Torrence call:

"Hello! Look at this!"

I hurried over to where he was. There was no doubt about it. He had made a discovery. On a grassy knoll, not far from the water's edge, was a small structure like a tomb, built of rough stones to the height of a man's breast, and about five feet in diameter. It looked old, was moss grown, and covered with a heavy cap stone. We felt convinced that in this cairn was concealed some important secret, and that it was undoubtedly the place referred to. We went immediately to work to remove the upper stone, which we found quite difficult, but by working an iron wedge which we secured from the air ship, it slowly yielded to our endeavors. The stones were closely knitted together, having been set in a rough mortar, made out of some tenacious kind of mud, but we gradually worked them loose, and one by one rolled them on the ground. In half an hour we had an opening large enough to look into. It was dark, but Torrence leaned over the edge and groped about with his hands. Presently he was tugging at something and exclaimed:

"I believe I've got it."

A minute later he pulled out an iron box by a ring in the lid. It was covered with rust, and had a keyhole but no key. We shook it gently. There was something inside, and we tried to raise the lid; but it was immovable. I proposed to pound it open if possible with some of the stones at our feet, but before doing so, we decided to examine the crevices of the cairn for a key. It was well we did, for our search was rewarded by the discovery of an old brass key, covered with green oxide. We polished it up with some sand, but before it would open the box we had to go to the air ship after a little oil to lubricate the chambers. At last we were successful, and turning back the lid looked in; but I drew back with horror at the first glance, for directly under my eyes was the rough, though strongly executed picture of a madman. It was one of those crude, intense drawings that gives the immediate impression of lifelikeness. Old and stained as the picture was, it was evident that the artist had seized upon the most salient features of his subject, and reproduced them with terrible effect. It was the simplest sketch imaginable, but the wild and painful glare of the eyes was intensified by a reddish brown scar. which ran down the middle of the forehead. Directly under this picture, which, by the by, was done upon a piece of old cloth, was this extraordinary inscription

Inscription

Examining the box again we found directly under the picture another paper which upon examination proved to be an outlandish, water-stained document. At the first glance it looked like a foreign language, which we had no doubt it was, but our attention being attracted by certain words that looked like English, we examined it more carefully, and to our amazement discovered that the paper was really in our own language, though evidently executed by such an ignorant hand as scarcely to be recognized as such. We took possession of it, and I here give a careful copy of it, without attempting to reproduce the handwriting, which is almost unintelligible.

"Tu thim az finds these roks and kontents plese rede with kare an in charty's nam help ef he bee livin the pore kretur we shipreke saylers is kompeled to leve on this lonsum plase. Us 3 abil Bodid seamen was reked in the ice from the Brig John W. Saunders, whaler, of the city of Hull. There was 13 others of us wen the ship squeeched and busted, levin us wid nothin but sum vittels and a few valybles, wich we tride to save. We bilt some sleds outen her timbers, and loded thim with sich vittels an truk as we wanted tu sav and started over the ice. God amity nos how fur or wher we traveled tu, hevin no berins no nothin tu go bi, and God amity nos the orful sufferins we suffered. All on us dide but us 3. We traveled over montans ov ice, and it seemed like we kep a travelin fur yers, tho in koors we nos it went so long as thet. Bimby we finds oursels a flotin on a chunk o ice ni az big az a farm. Our vittels was ni gone afore we struk the flotin' ice, and all was ded but us 3 Ned Merrick, Jo Niles and Jan von Broekhuysen who is uf dutch parents but English birth. We kep a flotin on the ice tel the long nite past and the day kum agin; but we sede as how Jan was doin quer and one day he went plum mad and tried to kil us. We tide him down, and then we sited this iland, tho in wut part uf the erth we kan't tel. We sede we wus flotin strate fur here and the sea was ruf but not so kold as before. We dun wut we kud fur our chums as dide but we kudent help oursels, lesen them, and so lef, thim bak on the ice tu rot. Wen we got close tu this iland the sea wus up, and our ice chunk struk a rok and busted afore we landed. Jan von Broekhuysen struk his hed agin a rok and we brung him ashore levin a bludy streke behind. His fored got split in tu and he wuz the orfulest site we ever sede – he warnt moren abut 20 yers o age and that lik he got in the hed or his goin mad wun, plum noked the reckolecshun outen him. He node uz not – nor wher he hed bin, nor wher be wuz, nor his own nam, nor nothin – nor yit kud he speke a single word. We hev heered as how a nok in the hed wud sometimes strik the memry outen man, but niver is we seed one in sich a fix afore. Jan van Broekhuysen node nuthin'. He wuz like tu one jes born – the rok wut split his hed made the terriblest lookin skar we ever seed, and we washed it out and dun the best we kud for him but waz not fix to sow it up agin. He seen us drink the water outen the spring, and he dun so 2. he seen us ketch the birds in the roks and ete um and he dun so 2, he seen us ketch the fish and he dun wut we dun. The frute here is bitter but it helps tu kepe us aliv. Now how long we has lived here we kan't tel, but we iz goin awa in a bote we bilt outen skraps o drift wood and stuff we found preferin tu resk the orful sea and ice agin than tu liv and rot on this place wher man kums not. Jan von Broekhuysen has grode afeerd o us and runs awa wenever we gos ni him and we seldum ketches a site o' him. We has lost all kont o time and don't no how long we has ben here nor wen we kum nor nothin – but ther has ben 1 dark spel and 2 lite spels, and we think it must a ben a yer sence we kum. Siknes and hardship has ni ruined us mind and body, and we don't keer wut bekomes o us. We bilds this ere rok hut around this box wich we fetched with us havin' sum o' our valybles. We makes a pikter of Jan von Broekhuysen and paints that skar on his hed wid our own blud but we douts ef eny man will ever see him agin az he is wilder and skeerier nor a gote. We haz also razed a rok in anuder place for a sine. It is with sorro that we leves our ole komrade – but we kan nether ketch nor tame him. Ef we node wut part uv tho erth we wus in we wud no wher to strik fur, but we don't, and rekon we will both be drownd afore gettin any whers. Ef eny person finds Jan be kind to him. We leves here amejetly. Jan is livin' on birds eggs, birds, and fish, and sum o them qur apples there ain't mutch else tu ete. Kind frends we saz farewel

"Yours Truly,

(Signed) { "NED MERRICK,

{ "JOE NILES."