Fiction > Book editions > London, 1885 - Dynamiter

31- NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS.
once more vomited smoke ; but the most absolute silence
reigned and, but for the figure of my mother very slowly
following in our wake, I felt convinced there was no
human soul within a range of miles. At the thought, I
looked upon the doctor, gravely walking by my side,
with his bowed shoulders and white hair, and then once
more at his house, lit up and pouring smoke like some
industrious factory. And then my curiosity broke forth.
' In Heaven's name,' I cried, ' what do you make in this
inhuman desert ? '
He looked at me with, a peculiar smile, and answered
with an evasion:
' This is not the first time,' said he, ' that you have
seen my furnaces alight. One morning, in the small
hours, I saw you driving past ; a delicate experiment
miscarried ; and I cannot acquit myself of having startled
either your driver or the horse that drew you.'
' What ! ' cried I, beholding again in fancy the antics
of the figure, ' could that be you 1 '
' It was I,' he replied ; 'but do not fancy that I was
mad. I was in agony. I had been scalded cruelly.'
We were now near the house, which, unlike the
ordinary houses of the country, was built of hewn stone
and very solid. Stone, too, was its foundation, stone its
background. Not a blade of grass sprouted among the
broken mineral about the walls, not a flower adorned the
windows. Over the door, by way of sole adornment, the
Mormon Eye was rudely sculptured ; I had been brought
up to view that emblem from my childhood ; but since
the night of our escape^ it had acquired a new signifi-
cance, and set me shrinking. The smoke rolled volumin-
ously from the chimney top, its edges ruddy with the
fire ; and from the far corner of the building, near the
ground, angry puffs of steam shone snow-white in the
moon and vanished.
The doctor opened the door and j)aused upon the
threshold. ' You ask me what I make here,' he observed :
'Two things : Life and Death.' And he motioned me
to enter.
' I shall await my mother,' said I.