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Page 13
Then he completely lost control of himself. He jumped from the bed.
Doctor Castleton stood near the doorway, and I quickly moved to his
side. The old woman had vanished. Peters poured forth yell on yell, such
as I had never conceived it possible for a human throat to utter. He
grasped a strong oak-pole, and broke it as I might have broken a dry
twig. I afterward placed the longer fragment of this pole with each of
its extremities on a large stone, the two about four feet apart; and
lifting into the air a rock weighing a hundred or more pounds, dropped
it on the middle of the fragment; and it did not even bend what this man
of awful strength had severed with his two hands as one would break a
wooden toothpick between the fingers. Then Peters picked up a stove
which stood, fireless, in the room; and he cast it through an open
window, seven or eight feet away, into the yard beyond, where it fell,
breaking into a hundred pieces. I need scarcely say that Doctor
Castleton and myself had left the room with decided alacrity. Well, to
terminate a description none too agreeable, Peters' wild delirium
continued until, out in the door-yard, forty or fifty feet from the
house, he fell, exhausted. Then we carried him back to his bed. Doctor
Castleton gave some directions to the old woman, and soon we left for
town, Peters being asleep.
"Strange," said Doctor Castleton, after we had driven for perhaps a
mile, "strange that a thought can do such things! A word is said, the
thread of memory is touched by suggestion, and it vibrates back through
half a century to some scene of terror stamped ineradicably upon the
brain--or if not upon the brain, then where?--and, lo! the reflexes
spring into action, and a maniac with Samson's strength takes the place
of a docile invalid. Ah, who can answer the mystery of mysteries, and
tell us what this consciousness is! Behind that gift of God rests the
secret of life, and of death, and probably of Eternity itself."
We rode along, returning a little more leisurely than we had come. I sat
wondering how we were to learn from such a man as Peters his secrets--if
secrets he possessed. Even if his past held only important facts not of
secret import, I had received striking evidence that the subject of that
wonderful sea-voyage was not to be carelessly broached to Dirk Peters. I
concluded to say nothing more of the matter until I should meet
Bainbridge, whom I knew would be anxiously awaiting my return, hardly
daring to hope that Poe's Dirk Peters was really in existence and
discovered.
As we neared town, my mind turned to the strange being at my side. Here
was a man who could think, and think both learnedly and poetically of
the wonders of heaven and earth; and yet who could talk of driving from
town a business competitor! Surely that part of his talk which seemed so
laughable was in spirit wholly dramatic--intended rather to fill the
assumed expectations of his hearers, than truly representing the
speaker's feeling. Then my thoughts reverted to the talk I had
overheard, when "Pickles" was made to see veritable showers of
"greenbacks" raining into his vacuous pocket. I smiled to myself; and
then a spirit of audacity coming over me, I determined to ascertain what
Castleton would say to me on the currency question. I concluded to admit
that I had overheard through my open window the conversation on monetary
matters alluded to. There would then be no opportunity for him to evade
the responsibility of assuming as his own the peculiar opinions
expressed by him on that occasion. Now, when he could not consistently
deny the advocacy of views to me so apparently untenable, and could not
seriously adopt them without lowering himself intellectually in the
estimation of a stranger--and I did not for an instant think that he
believed the nonsense which he had so glowingly represented and
demonstrated to poor old "Pickles"--then by what possible means would he
extricate himself from the dilemma?
When I broached the money question, he seemed to warm to the subject at
once; but as I led around to the fact of my overhearing the "Pickles"
incident, he seemed slightly disconcerted--but only momentarily. He was
himself again so quickly that I should not have noticed his
embarrassment had I not been closely observing him for that very
purpose.
"Well, now," he said, blithely, "as you are a stranger, a man of high
and irreproachable honor, _sans peur et sans reproche_--and one, I know,
who will not place me in an equivocal position here in my home by
divulging my true position--I don't mind telling you, in all confidence,
the truth. I am not, my dear sir, an ass. (What I say, remember, goes no
farther.) I am, sir, a theoretical and practical politician of great--I
only repeat what many of my friends (men of supreme mental attainments,
and the best of judges) herald forth as undeniable truth--a politician,
sir, of great depth and exceeding cunning--a rare combination,
philosophers tell us. What a humbug this whole greenback question is!
Why, sir, it is to that very element of scarcity over which they howl,
that money, or anything else, owes its commercial value. Diminish the
general scarcity of anything on earth to the point of a full supply for
everybody and the commercial value at once becomes _nil_. There is
nothing of more real value than atmospheric air; yet the supply is so
great that all demands are filled, leaving an enormous surplus; and
hence atmospheric air has no commercial value. There is nothing on earth
of much less service to humanity than are diamonds; yet the possession
of a pound of fair-sized diamonds would make a Croesus of a beggar. The
dreams of the Greenbacker are but new phases of our childhood fancies of
finding a mountain of pure gold, with which we are to make the whole
world happy; it is conceivable to find the mountain of gold--but, alas!
what will be its value when we have found it? Take actual money, for
instance. Any metal might be used as money which the world should agree
to call money, provided only that the metal is not so plentiful as to
make it impossible to handle because of bulk, or so scarce as to make
the unit of value impalpable. The standard may even from time to time be
changed, if we do not object to the enormous trouble of making the
change----"
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