THE PEOPLE OF THE COMET
7
nodded. Her face was full of delight and wonder, as if she were beholding a spectacle that had long been promised. The man’s voice was affirmative and emphatic, certain; even if he could not understand me; and once again he pointed at the moon. The man turned to me:
“'Mas!?' He indicated the moon.
“For an instant my mind ran the gamut of several languages. Mas? Mas? And then it came—it was the moon—the old mother tongue, Sanscrit for the moon—Mas! The man was speaking Sanscrit! My heart leaped at the discovery.
“'Tho Moon—Mas!’ I nodded. It was my first conversational effort in an almost mummified language; for a moment I was bewildered; I repeated my words; ‘Yes—Mas—the Moon!'
“He smiled; again he spoke to the maiden; then he turned to me; he pointed at the ground:
«'Roos?
“It was the same word again; evidently he meant the Earth; so I repeated my answer:
"'Barth.'
“And again we came to a deadlock. I saw that, unless we could overcome it, our conversation would get us nowhere. I was supremely interested in this wonderful couple who spoke Sanscrit. It had been a dead language for thousands of years. Who could they be? Certainly I could not account for the manner of their coming, nor for their dress, nor for their beauty. Though they were man and maiden, human like myself, there was, for all that, a vast gulf between us. I had a notion of time, somehow, a vague apprehension of a leap across the bridge of the ages.
“For a moment I thought rapidly, my mind cluttered with conjectures, all of which I thrust aside for something practical. The man spoke of the Earth, or what, to him, had apparently the same meaning; and as an astronomer the word had, to me, a special significance—a planet, a part of the solar system. I thought of the globe in the corner, and pointed.
“He was delighted. At the sight of the sphere he ran over to it and spun it upon its axis; again he spoke to the maiden, in the same language: but too rapidly for me to follow. The girl fell upon her knees and watched, while the other traced his fingers over the surface. T noticed that his search was slow and uncertain, like a school boy’s first adventure with a map; and I noted, also, that most of his search was about the poles. But he was perplexed. There was something about the globe that puzzled him. Only occasionally did his face light up, and then only when he ran his fingers over some northern continent. At last he turned to me. He pointed at the sphere.
"' Roos.'
“It was not a question this time. Apparently he was satisfied on the point of the globe. Roos was, indeed, the Earth.
"I nodded then, under the lead of a happy inspiration, I pointed to California.
“The name had, apparently, no meaning; but when he followed my finger he drew back; he looked up at my face; his eyes were wide, almost wild. I don’t know that I have ever seen such an expression in a man’s eyes— it was ineredulous, almost terrified. He glanced about the room, at the books and at instruments upon the table; then he stood up. The beautiful girl by his side watched him with growing wonder. Apparently she could understand neither her companion nor myself. The man spoke, following my words, then he went into the old tongue, speaking slowly so I could follow:
“'You mean that this is California—here—that you live here!'
“He indicated my finger.
“'Exactly,’ I answered. ‘Here. This is California. We are here at this very moment.’
“'Impossible!'
“‘Impossible? Why!’ I could not understand. At first I had entertained the idea that the pair might be a couple of masqueraders out on a lark; but the language they spoke, together with their sincerity, did not allow it.
“'Why is it impossible?’ I asked. ‘I have been here for twenty years.’
“'It is impossible,’ he answered, ‘because you could not live here. You would burn. It is too far south.'
“'I do not understand you. Who are you who come here speaking an obsolete Janguage? You are not English, nor French, nor German—yet you are Caucasian. How did you come here? What do you mean by saying that we are too far south?'
“For answer he stepped to the globe, and placed his finger on the upper part of Greenland:
“ 'We should be here. Life is not possible as far south as you say. It is impossible.'
“To say that I was interested is to say nothing. I could not understand. Was ‘it possible that there was life to the north of Greenland? I stepped over to the shelf and drew down a book on Arctic exploration; I opened it at a typical illustration—an ice field—a vast expanse of heartless, frigid, piled-up icy desert.
“ 'That’s Greenland,’ I said. And to illustrate my words still further, I drew a piece of ice from the container and placed it in his hand. His jaw dropped. I felt sorry when I saw his dismay; and Thad the feeling that there was a great wrong done somehow. He sat down on a chair, and in utter misery he dropped his head upon the table and covered it with his arms. The girl nestled to him; she threw one of her beautiful arms about his neck and with her hand began stroking the hair back from his forehead.
“'What is it, Alvas?’ she asked. ‘Is it wrong? It must be as you say. You know so much. After all that you have done, you cannot fail now. It must be as you say. You have proved everything—and now that you have come back to little things you cannot fail here. You are the greatest astronomer that ever lived.'
“An astronomer !
“'Then you are an astronomer!” I exclaimed.
“The man looked up. He took the girl in his arms, and kissed her; there was a bit of anguish in the action, like that of one who has lost everything, like that of one who, in the supreme moment, has gone down in utter defeat.
“'I am afraid that it is so, Sora,’ he said. ‘It must be so. There is one thing that I had thought of; but have forgotten until now. I have made a great mistake. There are things that may and may not be. It is no more than natural that I, who have found everything, should fail in the end. It is God’s will. It is his rule that Man can go only just so far. I had forgotten vibration.’
"'What do you mean?'
“Just this, dear. You and I are only a youth and a maiden. The stuff that this man placed in my hand just now is ice, or frozen water, which we could make only under process. If it is true that it is heaped about the poles it can mean but one thing—that you and I are very very, old. Old!’—there was a depth of despair in the word—'Our world has been buried and forgotten these millions of years! You and I are probably thirty, perhaps one hundred million years of age."
“ ‘But it has only been a few days!'
“'I know it. We have come through the Universe and solved Infinity. Now we pay the penalty!'
