The Blind Spot, Homer Eon Flint and Austin Hall [books to read for 13 year olds txt] 📗

“The fact that you understand our language indicates that either you have fallen heir to a body and a brain which are thoroughly in tune with ours, or else—and please understand that we know very little of this mystery—or else your own body has somehow become translated into a condition which answers the same purpose.

“At any rate, you ought to comprehend what I mean by the term 'earth.' Do you?”

“Oh, yes,” brightly. “I seem to understand everything you say, Hobart.”

“Then there is a corresponding picture in your mind to each thought I have given you?”

“I think so,” not so positively.

“Well,” hoping that I could make it clear, “this earth is formed in a huge globe, part of which is covered by another material, which we term water. And the portions which are not so covered, and are capable of supporting the structures which constitute the city, we call by still another name. Can you supply that name?”

“Continents,” without hesitation.

“Fine!” This was a starter anyhow. “We'll soon have your memory working!

“However, what I really began to say is this; each of these continents—and they are several in number—is inhabited by people more or less like ourselves. There is a vast number, all told. Each is either male or female, like ourselves—you seem to take this for granted, however—and you will find them all exceedingly interesting.

“Now, in all fairness,” letting go her hands at last “you must understand that there are, among the people whom you have yet to see, great numbers who are far more—well, attractive, than I am.

“And you must know,” even taking my gaze away, “that not all persons are as friendly as we. You will find some who are antagonistic to you, and likely to take advantage of—well, your unsophisticated viewpoint. In short”—desperately—“you must learn right away not to accept people without question; you must form the habit of reserving judgment, of waiting until you have more facts, before reaching an opinion of others.

“You must do this as a matter of self-protection, and in the interests of your greatest welfare.”

And I stopped.

She seemed to be thinking over what I said. In the end she observed: “This seems reasonable. I feel sure that wherever I came from such advice would have fitted.

“However”—smiling at me in a manner to which I can give no description other than affectionate—“I have no doubts about you, Hobart. I know you are absolutely all right.”

And before I could recover from the bliss into which her statement threw me, she turned to Charlotte with “You too, Charlotte; I know I can trust you.”

But when she looked at Jerome she commented: “I can trust you, Mister, too; almost as much, but not quite. If you didn't suspect me I could trust you completely.”

Jerome went white. He spoke for the first time since the girl's coming.

“How—how did you know that I suspected you?”

“I can't explain; I don't know myself.” Then wistfully: “I wish you would stop suspecting me, Mister. I have nothing to conceal from you.”

“I know it!” Jerome burst out, excitedly, apologetically. “I know it now! You're all right, I'm satisfied of that from now on!”

She sighed in pure pleasure. And she offered one hand to Jerome. He took it as though it were a humming-bird's egg, and turned almost purple. At the same time the honest, fervid manliness which backed the detective's professional nature shone through for the first time in my knowledge of him. From that moment his devotion to the girl was as absolute as that of the fondest father who ever lived.

Well, no need to detail all that was said during the next hour. Bit by bit we added to the girl's knowledge of the world into which she had emerged, and bit by bit there unfolded in her mind a corresponding image of the world from which she had come. And when, for an experiment, we took her out on the front porch and showed her the stars, we were fairly amazed at the thoughts they aroused.

“Oh!” she cried, in sheer rapture. “I know what those are!” By now she was speaking fairly well. “They are stars!” Then: “They don't look the same. They're not outlined in the same way as I know. But they can't be anything else!”

NOT OUTLINED THE SAME. I took this to be a very significant fact. What did it mean?

“Look”—showing her the constellation Leo, on the ecliptic, and therefore visible to both the northern and southern hemispheres—“do you recognise that?”

“Yes,” decisively. “That is, the arrangement; but not the appearance of the separate stars.”

And we found this to be true of the entire sky. Nothing was entirely familiar to her; yet, she assured us, the stars could be nothing else. Her previous knowledge told her this without explaining why, and without a hint as to the reason for the dissimilarity.

“Is it possible,” said I, speaking half to myself, “that she has come from another planet?”

For we know that the sky, as seen from any of the eight planets in this solar system, would present practically the same appearance; but if viewed from a planet belonging to any other star-sun, the constellations would be more or less altered in their arrangement, because of the vast distance involved. As for the difference in the appearance of the individual stars, that might be accounted for by a dissimilarity in the chemical make-up of the atmosphere.

“Ariadne, it may be you've come from another world!”

“No,” seemingly quite conscious that she was contradicting me. For that matter there wasn't anything offensive about her kind of frankness. “No, Hobart. I feel too much at home to have come from any other world than this one.”

Temporarily I was floored. How could she, so ignorant of other matters, feel so sure of this? There was no explaining it.

We went back into the house. As it happened, my eye struck first the gramophone. And it seemed a good idea to test her knowledge with this.

“Is this apparatus familiar to you?”

“No. What is it for?”

“Do you understand what is meant by the term 'music'?”

“Yes,” with instant pleasure. “This is music.” She proceeded, without the slightest self-consciousness, to sing in a sweet clear soprano, and treated us to the chorus of “I Am Climbing Mountains!”

“Good heavens!” gasped Charlotte. “What can it mean?”

For a moment the explanation evaded me. Then I reasoned: “She must have a sub-conscious memory of what was being played just before she materialised.”