Chapter XXX: The Mystery That Was Unsolved

I think that it only remains for us--Maurice Sheldon, Fellow of Trinity, and Gilbert Rice, Tutor and Lecturer of the same--to say briefly how we came in possession of the most amazing narrative ever written by man.

We have put it together and carefully compiled it from the manuscripts of our friends--Professor Carmichael, Mr. Frank Abercromby, Mr. John Herbert Carysfort, and the Rev. Clarence Radcliffe, of St. Boniface College, Oxford, and curate of St. Dunstane, then and for some time under Prebendary Seaton.

Mr. Rice and myself, after an unusually hard term of work, took a reading party to Bude, in North Cornwall. They and we had a very enjoyable time in a comfortable farmhouse on the cliffs, a mile out of Bude, in a quiet country district called Upper Lynstone. After the junior members of our party had dispersed, I suggested that a walking tour would make a capital wind-up to a very happy vacation.

We struck camp, therefore, went down the coast to Boscastle and Tintagel, where we explored the wonderfully interesting neighbourhood, and then we trained from Camelford to Wadebridge. We were to make Newquay our objective point, and we started at about two o’clock from our hotel at Wadebridge, having had our luggage sent on to the Headland Hotel at Newquay.

The afternoon was far from propitious, and when we got out upon St. Breock’s downs, a mile distant from Wadebridge, we thought a heavy thunderstorm was coming on, and we sheltered for a time at a toll-house placed at a fork of the roads. We decided, after all, to push on, and, when we had reached a most desolate stretch of moorland, we were appalled by a sudden blaze of light from a murky mass of clouds, which was instantly followed, not by a peal of thunder, but by a resounding concussion, which made the very road heave under our feet, and nearly overturned us both into a ditch.

When we recovered our senses, we saw that a huge aerolite had fallen upon the moor close by, only a hundred yards from the road. It had split in two, and the fragments lay rent asunder and sending up vapour and steam. But our attention was instantly riveted by a conical cylinder of greyish-coloured metal still partly attached to the smaller of the two fragments.

The thing was so evidently of artificial make, and had so plainly fallen, in connection with the aerolite, from the sky, that we were hardly able to control ourselves for excitement and agitation. Perhaps I was the more impulsive of the two, for I made several foolish attempts to secure the strange object, but only burned the skin of my hands in doing so.

Several occupants of farms lying within a mile of the shock came running up in due course. We explained what had happened, and prevailed, by the persuasive argument of a coin, on one of the sturdiest of them, to procure a vehicle from the nearest available place, which, unfortunately for us, was as far off as St. Columb Major. However, before assistance arrived, the cylinder had cooled sufficiently to enable us to hoist it into the vehicle and to drive away with it to the little roadside hotel at St. Columb, where we sat up all night. With a hammer and chisel we managed to break the thing open, and a roll of manuscripts tumbled out.

We felt like men on the brink of a great discovery, and so truly we were; for the manuscripts were nothing more nor less than the astounding narratives which we have here pieced together and present to the public.

The letters which our friends had despatched from Newbiggin, in Northumberland, had been published in the Press, and had caused a sensational flutter at the time. But few had given full credence to the story, and some had even set it down as a hoax. At the same time, the utter disappearance of four persons well known at Cambridge and at Oxford was a thing in itself that needed accounting for. Whatever explanation was then given, it remains to be seen what attitude the public in general, and the scientific public in particular, will now adopt when they read and study the foregoing narrative. Whether men are convinced or no, it is our duty to clear up all mysteries which so very personally affect our friends, and this we have now done by letting them speak for themselves.

There is no hope whatever that we shall ever see them again, and there are only two theories to be entertained of the fate of Professor Carmichael and the engineer and of the two peculiar persons who had the misfortune to be compelled to be their fellow-travellers.

One is, that they came to grief in space. If that be so, there can, I fear, be little doubt how it happened. They could not have fallen into the sun, as they once so much dreaded, because if so the cylinder would have perished with them. Rather do we believe they were struck in the void of space (probably not far from the earth) by a meteorite, which wrecked the machine by the shock of direct collision.

The two bodies would then be fused together into one burning mass, and would fall upon the earth by virtue of the terrestrial attraction. The only explanation we can give as to how the cylinder could have escaped is, that, in the last moment of agony and suspense, Carmichael must have thrown it out into space; then, after the collision, it would naturally fall upon the huge meteorite as the nearest attracting body and be carried along with it.

One other theory presents itself: that the catastrophe happened nearer to Venus, that the Asteroid was not fatally damaged, that the cylinder was cast adrift, and that the travellers, after an awful struggle with death, returned to Venus, and are now living in it as their adopted country.

One very curious circumstance has been noted from an Italian Observatory. Professor Rossini and his two assistants were attentively watching Venus early on the morning of a day of exceptionally fine weather in August. They noticed tiny sparklets of light emitted from the summit of the high mountain on the southern horn of the crescent. These lights continued flashing for nearly a quarter of an hour, and it is at least a remarkable coincidence that the number of flashes, which were carefully counted by Professor Rossini, exactly correspond to the letters in the names of Carmichael and Carysfort.

Can we dare to deduce any theory of hope from this? The planet has been kept under close observation, but nothing has been noted since.

(Signed) MAURICE SHELDON.
GILBERT RICE.

BRIGHTON
H. AND C. TREACHER
PRINTERS

Transcriber’s note:

Obvious errors in punctuation have been silently corrected in this
version, but minor inconsistencies and archaic forms have been
retained as printed. Typos in proper names have been silently
corrected. The footnote has been slightly moved to better fit the
ebook format.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.

The following alterations have been made:

On page 052: umanity _to_ humanity

“I will go about in a bath-chair if it is to benefit humanity,” said
Abercromby.

On page 088: eludicate _to_ elucidate

The Professor admitted that this was quite possible, but it did not
elucidate the amazing problem of how English could be known in Venus.

On page 165: eyerywhere _to_ everywhere

And as for you, strangers, go forth and spread everywhere the things
which God has done for your world,

On page 174: hought _to_ I thought

“Pardon the liberty I am taking, but I thought you would like to know
how we are all doing.