Chapter XIV

Returning to the rocket, we found that the problem of getting the strange passenger out of it had been solved by the foreman of the estate, a very ingenious and alert young man. Without the slightest indication of fear, he had passed a strong rope under the arms of the creature, padding the rope where it touched the body, as a protective measure against injury. Outside, he had rigged up a small derrick. His idea was to hoist the passenger by the shoulders, through the opening in the rocket.

One of the chauffeurs had brought a stretcher and some blankets from the garage in the car. Everything was set for the performance when I heard Henry murmur: "The providence of heaven for this rocket to land here!"

I was just pushing forward to get another peep. The creature was anything but pleasant to look at, or be near, and I was thankful that I was smoking a strong cigar. After it had been hoisted out of the rocket, and placed with tender care on the stretcher, I found myself still staring at this queerest of queer things; so extremely hideous as to be almost fascinating to the gaze; a sort of living satire on a man-beast, which might have been imagined by Jonathan Swift, or drawn by Doré.

He was unclothed, of course, and there was a strong probability that he had never worn any clothes at all, not even a loin cloth. But out of the strange fellow's face gleamed a pair of unusually bright, wondering eyes. His look was suggestive of extreme gratitude for our rescuing him from his perilous plight.

Our first gesture of good-will and hospitality was made by Niki, who had brought from the castle two long-necked bottles, one containing milk, the other, sherry. Just before the creature was lifted out of the rocket, and was held in an upright position by the ropes from the derrick, Niki, at Henry's suggestion, had offered it the choice of the two bottles. To our amazement, the creature's sharp eyes had fastened themselves at once on the bottle containing the sherry, while a hand, that was suggestively like a chimpanzee's, pointed to it. Then he opened his enormous mouth and held it open.

Niki poked the bottle of sherry down his throat, and gave him an inordinately large dose of it, and the creature gulped it down as if it had been a teaspoonful of cough syrup; such a dose would have made me jump; in him, it did not produce the flicker of an eye-lash. The sherry was followed by a small dose of milk.

It is only fair to describe the creature in his natural state, for a few days later, Henry dressed him in custom clothes, under which his hairy ugliness, and revolting uncouthness, were almost completely hidden.

When first discovered, he appeared to be in a coma, his head drooped over to one side; his face was puffed and blotched, a little greenish. Henry had explained this condition as arising from the lassitude of space, for the rocket must have traveled at a frightening speed. At first touch, his body felt cold; there was hardly any pulse.

To my mind he was human, but a separate species, similar to the skeletons of the ancient type of man recovered from deposits in certain sections of our globe. As I studied him, I realized that the term "human" should be employed with reservation.

Judged by a human standard, I placed him at once in my mind as being in the zone between the form of man and ape, a man type but not a fully evolved product. His massive jaws, for one thing, suggested the ape. He was at least six feet in height. His shoulders were broad and massive, and his arms were a little longer in proportion to a man's. He had very broad hands, with short, thick fingers. But the fingers, I noticed, were not united by a web, which is characteristic of apes on the earth, this web often extending to the first finger joint.

His skin was as black as the Negro types of Africa. It was covered with large coarse hair, under which was a coat of short, curly hair; a very ample bodily protection, I figured, provided by nature, against the range of temperatures on his planet. He had a small skull, and enormous canine teeth. The perplexing aspect was his human-like countenance. The skin of his face was a pinkish white, like a baby's, and of a glossy appearance. The beard-line was marked with a light powdery growth of hair, common to boys approaching manhood; under his chin was a real beard, a short and thick one. Judged humanly, he would pass for a man in his late twenties.

While I was studying his general appearance, it struck me as strange that so far he hadn't spoken. When Henry walked over to the stretcher from the rocket, I sounded him on the talk question.

"There's the possibility that the creature is still in the monosyllabic stage," he replied. "We won't know if he has the power of speech until he comes out of the terrific strain he's been under, and becomes acclimated. I dare say he'll be sluggish for some time, because of the earth's heavy gravitational pull, so different from that on Mars, where the people walk and leap with feathery lightness because of the planet's small size. While, on the sun, for instance, the gravitational pull is so powerful that you or I could only move about with the assistance of a steam-crane."

I smiled at the thought of being assisted in walking by a steam-crane, and wondered what would happen if I were in a hurry to catch a train. Then I laughed out loud. My laughter, however, was provoked at the sight of the creature opening his mouth, and holding it open, at the approach of Niki, as if to signify that he wanted another dose of sherry. Certainly he had brains even if he couldn't talk.

Calling the servants over to the stretcher, Henry said: "Now, men, this stranger from a far distant world needs our immediate assistance. Everybody give a hand, and we'll carry him to the car and then drive to the castle."

"Surely you're not going to take him inside the castle?" I said.

"Why not?" Henry retorted. "We're not used to this sort of guest, I know, but we'll just have to get used to him. I regard this helpless creature as an ambassador of good will from another world, and I intend to extend to him the same hospitality I would offer the Ambassador of Great Britain, if he were my guest."

"Have you consulted Jane about this?" I persisted.

"No!" he roared; adding, testily: "Am I not master in my own house?"

"You are being absurd, Henry. That's all I've got to say." This closed the conversation so far as I was concerned.

Henry went on, however, though in a more subdued tone. "In any case," he said, "since you've brought the matter up, I'll give you my word that as long as the creature is a guest in our home, he shall be kept under careful surveillance."

He walked off, and in a few moments, he was leading the way, as six men, with their uncanny burden, swung away toward the car. I followed them, at some distance, and to my stunned amazement, on arriving at the castle, I learned from Jane that Henry had put the thing to bed in our guest chamber de luxe, which we called the State Apartment. Jane was more disturbed than she cared to admit. She and Pat had both seen the creature, and she spoke of it as looking "rather dreadful." When I asked her how Pat had taken it, she said Pat had looked surprised but not at all startled.

"Listen, Jane," I said, in a serious tone. "Do you think if Henry was in his right mind, he would be capable of such action, housing this awful, frightful thing in with the rest of us?"

Jane pretended not to be listening.

"Nevertheless," I continued, "you know that our beloved parent went insane before he died, but it was kept quiet, and we can't afford to ignore a thing like this, breaking out in Henry, to conceal an old scandal in our family."

At this Jane turned on me. "Be careful, Livingston," she admonished; "no good rattling the skeleton in our closet with a reporter in our midst. I think Henry's acting very sanely, considering the strain he's been under, and I can't help thinking, as he does, that it was a definite act of providence for this rocket from Mars to fall near our beach. As for the creature that came in the rocket, in its present state, I'm sure it can do no harm."

I tried to prolong the argument, but she refused to discuss the subject any further, and finally left me. On my way to breakfast, I ran into Pat, who had just finished hers. "Oh, Uncle Livingston!" she exclaimed. "What a lot of fun we're going to have with this big Teddy Bear in the house!" A remark so incredible that I almost gasped.

"It will be quite pleasant, won't it?" I observed, sardonically. "But some people mightn't like it."

Then she caught me by the arm, and drew me aside. She dropped the gay tone of her voice, and glanced round half-fearfully before speaking. "I really don't like the idea so much myself," she admitted. "But you see--now brace yourself for this--I must pretend I'm not shocked, or frightened, because Mr. McGinity says all this makes a whale of a good story, even better and bigger than the fall of the meteor in Times Square, and establishing radio communication with Mars. And, you know, I'm too good a friend of his to spoil--a whale of a good story."

"Isn't this stretching things rather fine?" I asked. "Mr. McGinity is a smart young man, as I believe I've said before, but there's no reason under heaven why you should jeopardize your comfort and personal safety just for the sake of his getting a story. It's dangerous business."

"Call it what you like," she returned evasively. "I've made up my mind not to be frightened, and I'm going to stick to it even if--" She checked herself, and I saw that she was trembling.

I was startled. "Look here, Pat," I said. "We can't have you work yourself into a state of nerves over this. I'll go and find Henry, and order him to get this Barnum's 'What Is It?' out of the house, quickly; and if he doesn't, I'll have it removed by force, and hand it over to the Bronx Zoo. Why--why, the creature might sneak out, in the dead of night, and get in your bedroom!"

"Why, in heaven's name, should it want to get in my room?" she said, with a return of her usual composure. "That sounds rather silly to me."

"I suppose I shouldn't be telling you this, Pat," I said, doubtfully, "as you're still very young, and--"

"I don't think you can tell me much I don't know," she interrupted. "Anyway, Niki is going to act as the creature's guard and valet, and he's very much pleased about it."

"Oh, Niki will do anything, now, short of murder, to please Henry," I said; "he's hot after that $25,000 reward. But the whole matter to me--now prepare yourself--'ain't what you'd call natural.' If putting a big chimpanzee in our bedchamber de luxe, and giving it valet service, isn't the act of a lunatic, I don't know what is."

"I agree with you," Pat rejoined, "but I'm afraid, as far as Uncle Henry is concerned, the matter is hopeless. We must try to get his point of view."

"No; I'll be darned if I will!" I said to myself. Then I said, aloud: "Anyway, you will lock your door carefully, Pat?"

"I always do," she replied, laughing, and left me.

She had no sooner gone, when McGinity came downstairs, and we had breakfast together. He didn't say very much; apparently he was lost in thought. My mind was too confused to work properly, but while we ate, in strained silence, I was trying to think a way out of all the mess as best I could. Presently, McGinity broke the silence by exclaiming, partly to himself: "That terrible ape in the same house with Pat! Think of it!"

"I have thought, to my own shame, and to the shame of our house," I returned. "But Henry seems to think this visitor from Mars the gentlest thing alive."

"My hands are tied," he said, despondently. "Can't you suggest something?"

"The only thing I can suggest is that you stay on with us, if you can arrange to do your writing here," I said, "as a sort of personal guard for Pat. As Henry seems to have grown rather fond of you, I'm sure he can hold no objection. Of course, not a word to Pat about it."

McGinity sat up suddenly in his chair. "That's a great idea," he exclaimed. "My City Editor just ordered me to stick on the job, and I was planning to stay at a hotel in the village."

"If you were to act as personal guard for Pat," I remarked, "there would be nothing sentimental about it, of course."

"Oh, of course, nothing like that," McGinity replied; and he colored and looked at Pat's white cockatoo, on its perch, by the window, the furniture, the ceiling--anywhere but at me.

"I'm sure I can arrange it with Henry to have you stay," I said. "If he insists on keeping this Teddy Bear, as Pat jokingly calls it, in the house, I'm afraid, I'm sadly afraid, there's going to be trouble. Unpleasantness, at any rate."

McGinity looked me square in the eyes. "Pardon me, Mr. Livingston," he said, "but--is there any insanity running in your family?"

Recalling Jane's admonishment, I hesitated a moment before replying. "Isn't there a chance of an abnormal state of mind bobbing up in any family?" I said at last, and let it go at that.

"Anyway, we've got to keep Pat safe," McGinity said. "And as long as this creature is kept in the house, she should be instructed never to wander round alone, upstairs or downstairs. Why, I've got nerves of steel, myself, but I'll confess that if I bumped unexpectedly into a creature like that, in the dark, I'd run like hell."

At this, Henry entered the picture, remaining just long enough to dash down a cup of black coffee, and to invite McGinity and me down to the beach for a more detailed study of the rocket, and to search for the parchment scroll concealed therein, the deciphering of which he felt would help solve the riddle of Mars.

"I'm mighty glad to have your assistance, McGinity," he said, over his hasty cup of coffee, "and I've been wondering if you could arrange with your newspaper to remain with us, and write your stories here."

McGinity gave me a significant side glance, then replied: "I'm sure I can fix it, Mr. Royce. Thanks a lot for the honor and compliment."

On our way out, Henry further informed us that he had called in the best physician in the neighborhood, who was now at the bedside of the visitor from Mars, rendering every possible medical aid. He seemed rather disgruntled when Pat met us on the terrace, and insisted on accompanying us to the beach. But this mood was quickly offset by the appearance of Olinski, who had raced from the city to the castle as fast as a taxi-cab could get him there, in response to Henry's urgent telephone call.