Thirty Strange StoriesWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science
Thirty Strange Stories
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Fantasy fiction, English; Science fiction, English; Short stories, English
And then, bit by bit, it came out that on the very day Davidson was
seized, H. M. S. _Fulmar_ had actually been off a little rock to the
south of Antipodes Island. A boat had landed overnight to get penguins’
eggs, had been delayed, and a thunderstorm drifting up, the boat’s crew
had waited until the morning before rejoining the ship. Atkins had been
one of them, and he corroborated, word for word, the descriptions
Davidson had given of the island and the boat. There is not the
slightest doubt in any of our minds that Davidson has really seen the
place. In some unaccountable way, while he moved hither and thither in
London, his sight moved hither and thither in a manner that
corresponded, about this distant island. _How_ is absolutely a mystery.
That completes the remarkable story of Davidson’s eyes. It is perhaps
the best authenticated case in existence of a real vision at a distance.
Explanation there is none forthcoming, except what Professor Wade has
thrown out. But his explanation invokes the Fourth Dimension, and a
dissertation on theoretical kinds of space. To talk of there being “a
kink in space” seems mere nonsense to me; it may be because I am no
mathematician. When I said that nothing would alter the fact that the
place is eight thousand miles away, he answered that two points might be
a yard away on a sheet of paper and yet be brought together by bending
the paper round. The reader may grasp his argument, but I certainly do
not. His idea seems to be that Davidson, stooping between the poles of
the big electro-magnet, had some extraordinary twist given to his
retinal elements through the sudden change in the field of force due to
the lightning.
He thinks, as a consequence of this, that it may be possible to live
visually in one part of the world, while one lives bodily in another. He
has even made some experiments in support of his views; but, so far, he
has simply succeeded in blinding a few dogs. I believe that is the net
result of his work, though I have not seen him for some weeks. Latterly,
I have been so busy with my work in connection with the Saint Pancras
installation that I have had little opportunity of calling to see him.
But the whole of his theory seems fantastic to me. The facts concerning
Davidson stand on an altogether different footing, and I can testify
personally to the accuracy of every detail I have given.
THE CONE
The night was hot and overcast, the sky redrimmed with the lingering
sunset of midsummer. They sat at the open window trying to fancy the air
was fresher there. The trees and shrubs of the garden stood stiff and
dark; beyond in the roadway a gas lamp burnt, bright orange against the
hazy blue of the evening. Further were the three lights of the railway
signal against the lowering sky. The man and woman spoke to one another
in low tones.
“He does not suspect?” said the man, a little nervously.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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