The Lost World
It is thus that the great crisis of a man's life springs out at him.
Could I have imagined when I entered that hall that I was about to
pledge myself to a wilder adventure than had ever come to me in my
dreams? But Gladys--was it not the very opportunity of which she
spoke? Gladys would have told me to go. I had sprung to my feet. I
was speaking, and yet I had prepared no words. Tarp Henry, my
companion, was plucking at my skirts and I heard him whispering, "Sit
down, Malone! Don't make a public ass of yourself." At the same time I
was aware that a tall, thin man, with dark gingery hair, a few seats in
front of me, was also upon his feet. He glared back at me with hard
angry eyes, but I refused to give way.
"I will go, Mr. Chairman," I kept repeating over and over again.
"Name! Name!" cried the audience.
"My name is Edward Dunn Malone. I am the reporter of the Daily
Gazette. I claim to be an absolutely unprejudiced witness."
"What is YOUR name, sir?" the chairman asked of my tall rival.
"I am Lord John Roxton. I have already been up the Amazon, I know all
the ground, and have special qualifications for this investigation."
"Lord John Roxton's reputation as a sportsman and a traveler is, of
course, world-famous," said the chairman; "at the same time it would
certainly be as well to have a member of the Press upon such an
expedition."
"Then I move," said Professor Challenger, "that both these gentlemen be
elected, as representatives of this meeting, to accompany Professor
Summerlee upon his journey to investigate and to report upon the truth
of my statements."
And so, amid shouting and cheering, our fate was decided, and I found
myself borne away in the human current which swirled towards the door,
with my mind half stunned by the vast new project which had risen so
suddenly before it. As I emerged from the hall I was conscious for a
moment of a rush of laughing students--down the pavement, and of an arm
wielding a heavy umbrella, which rose and fell in the midst of them.
Then, amid a mixture of groans and cheers, Professor Challenger's
electric brougham slid from the curb, and I found myself walking under
the silvery lights of Regent Street, full of thoughts of Gladys and of
wonder as to my future.
Suddenly there was a touch at my elbow. I turned, and found myself
looking into the humorous, masterful eyes of the tall, thin man who had
volunteered to be my companion on this strange quest.
"Mr. Malone, I understand," said he. "We are to be companions--what?
My rooms are just over the road, in the Albany. Perhaps you would have
the kindness to spare me half an hour, for there are one or two things
that I badly want to say to you."
CHAPTER VI
"I was the Flail of the Lord"
Lord John Roxton and I turned down Vigo Street together and through the
dingy portals of the famous aristocratic rookery. At the end of a long
drab passage my new acquaintance pushed open a door and turned on an
electric switch. A number of lamps shining through tinted shades
bathed the whole great room before us in a ruddy radiance. Standing in
the doorway and glancing round me, I had a general impression of
extraordinary comfort and elegance combined with an atmosphere of
masculine virility. Everywhere there were mingled the luxury of the
wealthy man of taste and the careless untidiness of the bachelor. Rich
furs and strange iridescent mats from some Oriental bazaar were
scattered upon the floor. Pictures and prints which even my
unpractised eyes could recognize as being of great price and rarity
hung thick upon the walls. Sketches of boxers, of ballet-girls, and of
racehorses alternated with a sensuous Fragonard, a martial Girardet,
and a dreamy Turner. But amid these varied ornaments there were
scattered the trophies which brought back strongly to my recollection
the fact that Lord John Roxton was one of the great all-round sportsmen
and athletes of his day. A dark-blue oar crossed with a cherry-pink
one above his mantel-piece spoke of the old Oxonian and Leander man,
while the foils and boxing-gloves above and below them were the tools
of a man who had won supremacy with each. Like a dado round the room
was the jutting line of splendid heavy game-heads, the best of their
sort from every quarter of the world, with the rare white rhinoceros of
the Lado Enclave drooping its supercilious lip above them all.
In the center of the rich red carpet was a black and gold Louis Quinze
table, a lovely antique, now sacrilegiously desecrated with marks of
glasses and the scars of cigar-stumps. On it stood a silver tray of
smokables and a burnished spirit-stand, from which and an adjacent
siphon my silent host proceeded to charge two high glasses. Having
indicated an arm-chair to me and placed my refreshment near it, he
handed me a long, smooth Havana. Then, seating himself opposite to me,
he looked at me long and fixedly with his strange, twinkling, reckless
eyes--eyes of a cold light blue, the color of a glacier lake.
Through the thin haze of my cigar-smoke I noted the details of a face
which was already familiar to me from many photographs--the
strongly-curved nose, the hollow, worn cheeks, the dark, ruddy hair,
thin at the top, the crisp, virile moustaches, the small, aggressive
tuft upon his projecting chin. Something there was of Napoleon III.,
something of Don Quixote, and yet again something which was the essence
of the English country gentleman, the keen, alert, open-air lover of
dogs and of horses. His skin was of a rich flower-pot red from sun and
wind. His eyebrows were tufted and overhanging, which gave those
naturally cold eyes an almost ferocious aspect, an impression which was
increased by his strong and furrowed brow. In figure he was spare, but
very strongly built--indeed, he had often proved that there were few
men in England capable of such sustained exertions. His height was a
little over six feet, but he seemed shorter on account of a peculiar
rounding of the shoulders. Such was the famous Lord John Roxton as he
sat opposite to me, biting hard upon his cigar and watching me steadily
in a long and embarrassing silence.
"Well," said he, at last, "we've gone and done it, young fellah my
lad." (This curious phrase he pronounced as if it were all one
word--"young-fellah-me-lad.") "Yes, we've taken a jump, you an' me. I
suppose, now, when you went into that room there was no such notion in
your head--what?"
"No thought of it."
"The same here. No thought of it. And here we are, up to our necks in
the tureen. Why, I've only been back three weeks from Uganda, and
taken a place in Scotland, and signed the lease and all. Pretty goin's
on--what? How does it hit you?"
"Well, it is all in the main line of my business. I am a journalist on
the Gazette."
"Of course--you said so when you took it on. By the way, I've got a
small job for you, if you'll help me."
"With pleasure."
"Don't mind takin' a risk, do you?"
"What is the risk?"
"Well, it's Ballinger--he's the risk. You've heard of him?"
"No."
"Why, young fellah, where HAVE you lived? Sir John Ballinger is the
best gentleman jock in the north country. I could hold him on the flat
at my best, but over jumps he's my master. Well, it's an open secret
that when he's out of trainin' he drinks hard--strikin' an average, he
calls it. He got delirium on Toosday, and has been ragin' like a devil
ever since. His room is above this. The doctors say that it is all up
with the old dear unless some food is got into him, but as he lies in
bed with a revolver on his coverlet, and swears he will put six of the
best through anyone that comes near him, there's been a bit of a strike
among the serving-men. He's a hard nail, is Jack, and a dead shot,
too, but you can't leave a Grand National winner to die like
that--what?"
"What do you mean to do, then?" I asked.
"Well, my idea was that you and I could rush him. He may be dozin',
and at the worst he can only wing one of us, and the other should have
him. If we can get his bolster-cover round his arms and then 'phone up
a stomach-pump, we'll give the old dear the supper of his life."
It was a rather desperate business to come suddenly into one's day's
work. I don't think that I am a particularly brave man. I have an
Irish imagination which makes the unknown and the untried more terrible
than they are. On the other hand, I was brought up with a horror of
cowardice and with a terror of such a stigma. I dare say that I could
throw myself over a precipice, like the Hun in the history books, if my
courage to do it were questioned, and yet it would surely be pride and
fear, rather than courage, which would be my inspiration. Therefore,
although every nerve in my body shrank from the whisky-maddened figure
which I pictured in the room above, I still answered, in as careless a
voice as I could command, that I was ready to go. Some further remark
of Lord Roxton's about the danger only made me irritable.
"Talking won't make it any better," said I. "Come on."
I rose from my chair and he from his. Then with a little confidential
chuckle of laughter, he patted me two or three times on the chest,
finally pushing me back into my chair.
"All right, sonny my lad--you'll do," said he. I looked up in surprise.
"I saw after Jack Ballinger myself this mornin'. He blew a hole in the
skirt of my kimono, bless his shaky old hand, but we got a jacket on
him, and he's to be all right in a week. I say, young fellah, I hope
you don't mind--what? You see, between you an' me close-tiled, I look
on this South American business as a mighty serious thing, and if I
have a pal with me I want a man I can bank on. So I sized you down,
and I'm bound to say that you came well out of it. You see, it's all
up to you and me, for this old Summerlee man will want dry-nursin' from
the first. By the way, are you by any chance the Malone who is
expected to get his Rugby cap for Ireland?"
"A reserve, perhaps."
"I thought I remembered your face. Why, I was there when you got that
try against Richmond--as fine a swervin' run as I saw the whole season.
I never miss a Rugby match if I can help it, for it is the manliest
game we have left. Well, I didn't ask you in here just to talk sport.
We've got to fix our business. Here are the sailin's, on the first
page of the Times. There's a Booth boat for Para next Wednesday week,
and if the Professor and you can work it, I think we should take
it--what? Very good, I'll fix it with him. What about your outfit?"
"My paper will see to that."
"Can you shoot?"
"About average Territorial standard."
"Good Lord! as bad as that? It's the last thing you young fellahs
think of learnin'. You're all bees without stings, so far as lookin'
after the hive goes. You'll look silly, some o' these days, when
someone comes along an' sneaks the honey. But you'll need to hold your
gun straight in South America, for, unless our friend the Professor is
a madman or a liar, we may see some queer things before we get back.
What gun have you?"
He crossed to an oaken cupboard, and as he threw it open I caught a
glimpse of glistening rows of parallel barrels, like the pipes of an
organ.
"I'll see what I can spare you out of my own battery," said he.
One by one he took out a succession of beautiful rifles, opening and
shutting them with a snap and a clang, and then patting them as he put
them back into the rack as tenderly as a mother would fondle her
children.
"This is a Bland's .577 axite express," said he. "I got that big
fellow with it." He glanced up at the white rhinoceros. "Ten more
yards, and he'd would have added me to HIS collection.