A. D. 2000
PREFACE
Lest originality of title and theme be denied, it is but justice to myself to state that both were assumed in November, 1887. My thanks are due to Lieutenant D. L. Brainard, Second Cavalry, for the true copy of the record of the Greely party left in the cairn at the farthest point on the globe ever reached by man – 83 degrees 24 minutes North Latitude, 40 degrees 46 minutes West Longitude.
CHAPTER I
“Number three! half-past eleven o’clock – and all’s well!”
“All is well!” came the response from the sentry at the guard-house, while the sharp click of his piece as he brought it to his shoulder and the heavy tread of his retreating footsteps were all that was heard to break the stillness that reigned supreme throughout the garrison.
It was a dark, dreary, foggy night. The heavy atmosphere seemed laden with great masses of fleeting vapor, and the walks of the post and the ground surrounding them were as wet as if a heavy shower had just spent its force.
Such was the Presidio of San Francisco, California, a military post of the United States government, on the night of November 17th, 1887. The lights of the garrison made little effect upon that thick and saturated atmosphere; yet the little that they did make only seemed to add more to the depth of the surrounding gloom.
In the officers’ club-room, near the main parade, was gathered a jolly party of old and young officers. The rooms were handsomely, even superbly, furnished. The billiard-tables were in full blast; the card-tables were occupied; while many sat and chatted upon the various military topics which are ever a part of the soldier’s life.
In a set of officers’ quarters, some distance away from the main parade, were assembled three subalterns of the line. The room was bright and cheerful, and the decanters upon the table showed that they knew of the good cheer of the world. The furniture upon which the officers sat and reclined, as also about the room, gave evidence of refinement and education; while the cases stacked with books, near the entrance, bespoke a tendency and desire on the part of the occupant of the quarters for the improvement of his mind. A grate fire in the angle threw its cheerful rays upon those present, while the luxuriousness and warmth of the whole room was in direct contrast with the gloominess and cold without.
Opening from the main room through a curtained door was a second room, the inside of which was a study. There was no carpet upon the floor, and the boards gave evidence of having been used by many feet. Tables containing jars and many curious vessels, wires in every direction, bottles filled and empty, maps and drawings, and instruments of peculiar form and shape, were seen about the room.
In one corner was a large Holtz machine, whose great disc of glass reflected back the rays from the lights in the front room.
The three men were soldiers and officers of the army.
In the center of the room, by a small table upon which was a roll of paper, with one hand holding down the pages, while the other was raised in a commanding gesture, stood Junius Cobb, a lieutenant in the cavalry arm of the service. Sitting in an easy-chair near the fire, with his legs on the fender and his eyes watching every movement of the speaker, reclined Lester Hathaway; while midway between the table and the right side of the room, in a large rocker, sat Hugh Craft.
Lester Hathaway was a graduate of the military academy of the United States, as was also Hugh Craft; both were lieutenants in the army – the former in the infantry, and the latter in the artillery branch of the service.
Lester Hathaway was about twenty-eight years of age, tall and slim, fair-haired, a pleasing face, languid air, and a blasé style. To him the world was one grand sphere for enjoyment; it was his life, his almost every thought, as to how he could pass his time in an easy and amusing manner. Balls, parties, and dances were his special vocations. With him there was no thought of the true hardships of life.
Young and handsome, courted by the ladies, he could not understand how it was that others should occupy their minds with subjects of research and study.
Hugh Craft was of a different type; yet, like Hathaway, he was tall and thin, and about the same age; but here the likeness terminated. He was darker than his companion, with sharp features, an aquiline nose, and a chin denoting great firmness. His eye was piercing, and wandered from one object to another with the rapidity of lightning. He was much more of a student than Hathaway, delighting in all that portion of the sciences touching the marvelous; a good listener to the views of others. Altogether, Hugh Craft was a man worthy to be the partner of a scientific man in a great enterprise.
Junius Cobb, the central figure in the room, deserves more than a passing description. He was a man about thirty-three years of age, of medium height, but of a full and well-developed form, black eyes, a pleasing countenance, a dark mustache nearly covering his lips, square chin, and eyebrows meeting in the center of the face – all tokens of a great firmness and decision. He was one who had given many of his days and nights to hard study in science, in political economy, and, in fact, had taken a deep interest in almost all of the various progressive undertakings of his day.
Outside of his duties, Junius Cobb had employed every spare moment of his time in experimenting in chemistry and electricity. The room off the sitting-room, where the three gentlemen were gathered this dark and foggy night, was his workshop, into which no man was permitted to go save he himself. Its mysterious contents were known to no other person.
His friends would come and visit him, and sit for hours talking and chatting, but no invitation was ever accorded them to enter that single room.
“Craft,” and Cobb pointed his finger at that personage in an impatient manner, “we have often discussed these matters, I will admit, but it is a theme I like to talk upon. Do you believe in the immortality of the soul?”
“Why, of course,” replied that person, looking surprised.
“And you, too, Hathaway?” continued Cobb, addressing the other.
“Most certainly I do,” was the reply.
“Now, do either of you believe that the living body can be so prepared that it will continue to hold the soul within its fleshly portals for years without losing that great and unknown essence?” and Cobb fixed his sparkling eyes upon his listeners.
“Yes,” answered Craft; “but by God alone.”
“I do not mean by God,” quickly returned the other. “God is all powerful; but by man?”
“Then, of course, I would say that it cannot be done.”
“But if I were to show you that it was a fact, an accomplished fact, you would, of course, admit it?”
“No, Cobb. Look here, old fellow,” pettishly exclaimed Hathaway, rising from his chair, “what is all this about, anyway?”
Cobb glanced at him with an expression of pity, and quickly replied:
“I mean, Hathaway, that it is in my power to hold the life of mortal man within its living body for an unlimited time. I mean that I can take your body, Hathaway, and so manipulate it that you will be, to all appearance, dead; but your soul, or whatever you choose to call it, will still be in your body; and further, that after a certain time you will again come to life, having all your former freshness and youth.”
Cobb stood at the table with his hand upon the pages of his book, and a smile upon his face which seemed to say, “Deny it if you can.”
Hathaway and Craft looked at him in amazement. These men had known Cobb to be a student, but neither of them had ever thought him demented.
The proposition advanced by him seemed so terribly contrary to all the principles of science, natural law, and life, that neither of them could believe that the man was in earnest.
Both Hathaway and Craft had often come to Cobb’s quarters, and exchanged ideas with him concerning various and many topics; both knew him to be a student of chemistry and philosophy, and that he worked many hours in his little back room. They knew that he worked with chemicals and electricity, and both knew him to be a very peculiar man, yet neither of them had ever before