Читать книгу Whirlaway: A Story of the Ages - H. C. F. Morant - Страница 5

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"Happy the man whose lot it is to know

The secrets of the earth."

—Euripides.

When Helen had recovered a little from the startling descent she grew alarmed. "Oh, what have I done, Whirlaway? What have I done?"

"Done?" said Whirlaway, pretending to be surprised. "Why, Helen, you've done everything that you shouldn't do. You pressed the button because, like lots of other little girls, you can't help meddling with things you know nothing about. But then you've only twelve years' wisdom, poor child."

"And you have a hundred million," thought Helen, who kept silent under the rebuke. She said nothing, however, for she was beginning to have great respect for the little man, and besides, he seemed to know everything, and he wasn't looking frightened.

"I'll show him," she murmured in Tirri's funny, furry ear; "I'll show him that, even if I am only twelve, we're not afraid, are we, Tirri?" Tirri, as if in reply, snuggled closer to Helen.

"Where are we going now, Whirlaway?" she asked him.

"If you had studied your book instead of merely glancing at the pictures you would have known. Turn to page 3."

Kneeling down, Helen placed Tirri on the floor, opened the book, and, turning to page 3, she saw on it a drawing of a clock like the one in the lift. Round it were printed the strange names she had seen opposite the buttons.

"What funny names!" she exclaimed.

"Read them out," said Whirlaway.

"I'll try," replied Helen. She spelled out C-A-I-N-O-Z-O-I-C: "CAINO—CAINO," she stumbled.

"Go on," encouraged Whirlaway. "Try to pronounce it. Wherever you find a long word, break it up into syllables. So try it, Helen; you must learn these words."

Helen wrinkled her forehead, scratched her nose, and, drawing a deep breath, started afresh.

"CAIN, CAIN; O-O, ZO, I-C, IC. CAIN-O-ZO-IC," she exclaimed triumphantly, with a gleam in her twinkling eyes. "CAIN-O-ZO-IC, there you are, Whirlaway!"

"Good—that's the idea," he replied. "Keep it up."

So Helen proceeded to spell out the next words, and breaking them up into syllables, she soon mastered them.

Green—CAIN-O-ZO-IC (age of mammal life).

Yellow—MES-O-ZO-IC (age of reptile life).

Red—PAL-AE-O-ZO-IC (age of fishes).

Black—ARCH-AE-O-ZO-IC (cradle of life).

Suddenly glancing up at the clock, Helen saw that its one hand was moving backwards. "What does it all mean?" she asked breathlessly.

"Don't you understand?" Whirlaway answered. "We are in a lift, which is taking us down through the ages. With these keys we shall be able to unlock the doors to the different ages and learn their secrets. You shall see what the earth was like, you shall see the kinds of animals that lived, and how they lived, millions of years ago."

"Millions of years! Millions, you say, Whirlaway? Why, a year often seems a long time to me, but a million years—why, it seems like a—like a—"

"Million years!" slyly suggested Whirlaway.

This radiant little gentleman seemed to be full of good spirits, for, as they went down, Whirlaway sang softly in his sweet little voice a strange, happy song which Helen did not understand, though she remembered it and thought over it long afterwards:

O Earth, unwind thy coils!

O Time, reverse thy flight!

What used to be

Let Helen see

With wonder and delight.

The pageant of the past

For Helen's sake unroll,

That she may know

How all things flow,

Unhasting, towards their goal.

Teach her to conquer fear!

No creature of the dust,

No beast nor man

Can change the plan

Ordained, in which we trust.

Helen was at the same time excited, pleased, and alarmed at the prospect before her. "Millions of years," she thought, "Millions!" She felt now how fully she must trust the little man, who seemed to have all the knowledge of all the ages.

"Dear Mr. Whirlaway," she said, "I feel so excited, but I want to tell you something before we see all these wonders. So please don't unlock any doors until you have heard me. I feel that you are much older and wiser than I, and that I want you to be my teacher; but not like the teacher of our class at school, Miss Noall, who has read so many books that she talks like a book and looks like a book. And oh, she can be so dry, drier than dust, drier than ashes!" She heaved a sigh at the thought of it. "When she drones on we sit very quiet and pretend to be listening, and half the time we do not know a word she is saying. I know I think of Father and Mother and Tirri and new shoes and holidays while I should be thinking of history and geography.

"Dear Mr. Whirlaway," she continued earnestly, "be patient with me. Don't lose your temper if I ask questions, even silly questions. Try to tell me things easily and brightly. I want to know the Earth's story. I want to see everything I can see; but, please, Mr. Whirlaway, when you explain things to me don't be dry like poor Miss Noall."

"I shall do my best, my dear," said Whirlaway gravely. "Learning is a slow process, but it need never be dull or wearisome. I, who have lived millions of years, have been learning all the time and yet have much to learn. But it has been all enjoyment. So stop me whenever you don't quite understand. A dull Sunbeam would be a very unworthy member of the family. Ask all the questions you wish to ask. And don't imagine I know everything. It has taken me millions of years to find out how really little I know compared to what there is to know of God's universe. So cheer up, Helen," he continued with a smile. "There are tasty crumbs of knowledge ahead of you. And now we'll not talk any more of ourselves, but keep our eyes and our minds open. What say you, Mr. Tirri?"

Tirri opened and blinked his eyes, nodded sleepily, and, purely from force of habit, bit a gum leaf.

"We are not going to the Land of Make-Believe, are we, Whirlaway?" excitedly asked Helen as the lift continued on its downward course.

"Not at all," he replied. "You will see for yourself what actually did take place, and in what order the fishes, reptiles, and birds appeared on the earth."

Still the lift went deeper. Helen asked: "Are we going to where it is all marked black on the dial of that funny clock thing?"

"No," he said. "We shall stop at the red section marked 'Cambrian.' That was a period of about six hundred million years ago. But while we are getting there, I shall tell you what happened on the earth earlier than that."

"Earlier than that!" breathed Helen. "Earlier than six hundred million years ago! Goodness gracious me!

"Yes, even earlier than that, Helen." Whirlaway smiled to himself at her breathless eagerness.

"The black section marked Archaeozoic (which means belonging to the earliest period of geological history—the English word is formed from two Greek words: ARCHE, the beginning; and ZOE, life)—I say the black section marked Archaeozoic represents a time when the earth was a place of mighty mountains, with bare rocky slopes. Great volcanoes belched forth steam and molten rock, streams of lava ran down the mountain-sides, and the earth trembled with almost continuous earthquakes. Later, the crust of the Earth collapsed in places where the strain became too great, and formed large basins in which water collected, making the great oceans."

"Ugh!" said Helen, "I should not like to have lived in the Arch-a—Arch-ae-o-zo-ic era," she finished with a rush.

Just then the lift began to slow down, and the word CAMBRIAN shone out on the dial in red letters.

"What does 'Cambrian' mean?" asked Helen. "Has it anything to do with Wales. One of father's friends (Mr. Llewelyn) is a Welshman, but he told me once that he was a Cambrian, and he's certainly not millions of years old!"

Her companion smiled. "Cambrian does mean belonging to Wales," he said. "But it is also the name of an early period in geological history. An English scholar gave the name Cambrian to that period because some of the rocks in the mountains of Wales were formed at that time."

All the time the lift was getting slower and slower, and, as the hand pointed to 6, indicating six hundred million years, it stopped. Helen jumped to her feet, her eyes shining with suppressed excitement. "How are we to get out?" she cried.

"Let us try the lever again," suggested Whirlaway.

So, taking hold of the lever, they both pulled with all their might. The searchlight flashed, and the grinding noise explained itself. To Helen's astonishment, half the inner wall of the lift slid back, exposing an outer one of glass. A view of surpassing beauty was disclosed. They were at the Cambrian Sea, and it was teeming with life. All kinds of strange swimming and crawling things were to be seen among the waving sea-lilies.

"Oh," gasped Helen breathlessly, "is this Fairyland?"

"It does look like it; but those floating objects you see are real, although they are so very beautiful," replied Whirlaway calmly.

"What are they?"

"Listen, my dear, I'll tell you about them one by one."

"I am listening."

"Well, to begin with, the most lovely things of all are too tiny to see. Floating about in the water before you are millions of small things about the size of a pin's head. Some, the most beautiful of all to my mind, look like fairy lanterns. Shaped just like balloons, they glow and are transparent."

"Oh, how beautiful! Go on, Whirlaway. I can imagine them all."

"Well, there are others that look like the Catherine wheels that we have on the King's Birthday, but they don't whirl round and round. Others are like perfect little crystal jugs, complete with handle and all; and others again shine like brilliants."

"Oh, I do wish I could see them all."

"Now look down on the bed of the sea. Can you see in the mud there are some creatures with tiny legs that come out of the sides of their bodies?"

"Yes, I can see them. Some of them are nearly buried in the mud."

"Exactly—that was their trouble. The light never reaches them, so they have no need for eyes."

"Then how do they see what they are to eat?"

Whirlaway chuckled; he had expected this.

"Clever little girl! They do not see, but they manage quite well for all that. To chew they have to move; so, when they move, they chew!"

This remark of Whirlaway's seemed to amuse Helen. She repeated it in sing-song fashion—"To chew they have to move, and, when they move, they chew-oo-oo." She laughed aloud and burst into a gay little song:

You move to chew;

You do, you do!

Your actions prove—

To chew you move.

But I can eat

And keep my seat.

Unless to prove

I choose to move.

I can't feel sad—

In fact, I'm glad

Not I, but you

Must move to chew.

And yet I'm sorrowful to find

You know no better, being blind.

Becoming grave and sensible again, she asked: "What are they called?"

"Trilobites," was the answer. "Tri means three, and lobes, you know, are rounded projections, like the lobes of your ears."

"My goodness me! I thought you were going to say that is how they chewed—that they took three bites!"

"Don't interrupt. If you would only wait until I have finished you would understand. It means that they are composed of three sections—a head, body, and a tail."

"Oh," said Helen meekly, still humming her foolish little 'I do' song quietly to herself. "I see—I see—I see—I truly see!"

"You have seen sponges and jellyfish, I suppose?" said Whirlaway, interrupting her a trifle impatiently.

"Oh, yes, heaps of times. Are there any here?"

"Very many! Look, they are floating past."

After the jellyfish and sponges had drifted by them, Helen caught sight of some little bud-shaped things growing from the bed of the sea.

"Do cactus plants grow in the sea?" she asked Whirlaway.

"No, those you see are called cystids, and the prickles they have are to protect them."

"What is that lovely plant there, with the sea-snail climbing up its stalk?" she asked.

Whirlaway had to think hard, not because he did not know all about the plant, but because he wanted to be sure he could make Helen understand what it was.

"Well," he said slowly, "it is not exactly a plant, although it is known as a sea-lily. As a matter of fact, it is really an animal, and it sweeps its food into its mouth with those long, feeler-like arms. There is one having dinner now."

That idea would never have dawned on Helen, and it made her laugh again. "I thought it was waving to me, and I felt as if I should wave back."

"It would be flattered to hear you say that. At first the stalks of the sea-lilies were so short that their arms swept much mud into their mouths, and they had a good deal of trouble with their diet."

"So they grew taller to keep their mouths out of the mud?" Helen queried.

"Yes, something seemed to tell them, though they had no apparent brain, that they must adapt themselves to their surroundings in order to live and progress," said the Sunbeam thoughtfully. "The sea-lily keeps on growing till the head is many feet above the mud of the ocean, and then, having no further use for the stalk, it detaches itself and floats away. As a matter of fact, the starfish you find on the beach in your modern times is a very distant relation of the floating head of a sea-lily."

"I say, Mr. Whirlaway, when I get back to Lyell Lodge, and go down to the beach, shall I be able to find any of the Cambrian creatures I can see here now, besides sponges and jellyfish?" asked Helen.

"Well, most of the things you see here now go through so many changes that I am afraid you would not recognize them; but the little shell-fish called Lingula has developed, even at this early stage, a shell so perfect for its purpose in life that it will have no reason to alter its ways. Its descendants will live through all the millions of years with little change."

Helen thought to herself that she must try to find a lingula to add to her collection of shells.

"Down there," Whirlaway continued, "are many trilobites, some of them more than twelve inches long, and the wonderful little animals also that make the beautiful coral are working very hard building their tiny, single, cup-shaped houses, which are very different from the great coral reefs they will build later."

During this rather long speech of Mr. Whirlaway, Helen began to show some signs of impatience, and at last she said: "I think these are all very interesting, Mr. Whirlaway, but I do really want to see the huge animals you told me about."

"Well, then, let us get out of this lift."

"But we are locked in," cried Helen, suddenly remembering that the door had closed when they entered the lift.

"Ah, that is a problem," said Whirlaway, pondering.

So they both seated themselves on the book and thought hard. Suddenly Whirlaway jumped to his feet. "I have it," he exclaimed. "You remember when we stepped into this life from the cellar? I came first; but it was not until you came down that the light flashed on, and then the door at the top closed."

Helen quickly grasped his meaning. "Yes, I understand. What you mean is that as long as there is some one in the lift the weight makes the light stay on and the door remains shut."

"That's right. I am not heavy enough to work it."

In a flash Helen was racing up the steps. Immediately her feet were off the floor of the lift the light went out and the door above slowly opened. But they were not in darkness, because the other light that shone when she pulled the lever was still glowing. On getting out of the lift Helen found herself in a cave-like passage, so she called Whirlaway.

"Come on, Mr. Whirlaway. It's all right—I can see—it's not a bit dark, really."

He gathered up the bunch of coloured keys and climbed up the steps to the door at the top. Tirri was not going to be left out of anything, so he scampered up the steps. He was out through the door as quickly as any other koala could go. Through the dim passage they all went, keeping close together. At the far end was a ladder.

"Hallo! what's this?" said Whirlaway.

"It looks like the ladder the gardener uses at home," replied Helen. "It is a ladder," she exclaimed a second later. "Shall we have to climb it?"

"Why, certainly," answered Whirlaway. "I'll carry Tirri, so up you go!"

Helen couldn't help smiling. She just wouldn't keep still. "I don't want to be rude, Whirlaway, but I think Tirri might carry you," she said.

Whirlaway laughed. "Well, he is rather big, isn't he? Perhaps you'd better, my dear." So Helen lifted Tirri, still clutching his bunch of leaves. Up they all climbed. Helen went first, and, when Whirlaway reached the opening, he saw through the dim light Helen closely examining an odd-looking rounded stone with "ONE HUNDRED MILLION YEARS TO ORDOVICIAN" engraved on it.

"What is this funny-looking stone for, Whirlaway?"

"That is a year-stone," he replied.

"Year-stone? I have heard of milestones before, and date-stones and cherry-stones, but this is the first time I've heard of YEAR-STONES."

"We shall see many of them as we wander through the ages. Each age has been divided by geologists into periods, and the year-stones are to give you some idea how long the different periods lasted."

"Then the Cambrian lasted one hundred million years?"

"Yes, and Ordovician, which you see written on the year-stone, is the name of the next period. We shall come to all the rest on our way back up through the different strata to Lyell Lodge."

"But look! There's a door," cried Helen, "and it has 'Cambrian' above it. Oh, it is locked," she added as she impetuously tried to open it.

"Here are the keys," said Whirlaway triumphantly—"the coloured keys—the keys of the ages. The red one will unlock it."

"Brrr! What a dark passage!" cried Helen with a shiver as the door opened. "Where is Tirri? He's disappeared."

"I'll hold to your skirt so that we can keep close to each other," said Whirlaway. "He can't be far away. We'll soon find him" Which was true, for the next minute Tirri came back to Helen, still clutching his gum leaves. She picked him up with a sigh of relief and cuddled him into her shoulder. "Naughty Tirri! Don't you do that again," she scolded affectionately.

Helen walked on through the cold stone passage, but suddenly stopped. "Listen, Whirlaway. Footsteps! Who's coming?" she called in a frightened voice.

"Away! Footsteps! Who's coming?" came back the mocking answer.

Helen was puzzled, and was a little annoyed at Whirlaway, who was laughing. She showed her vexation. "Well, I don't see anything funny in that."

"Well, I don't see anything funny in that," she heard repeated.

"I don't know who they are, but they are very rude to mimic what I say."

"What I say," said the mysterious voice.

"How much longer are you going on talking to yourself?" asked Whirlaway. "That's only an echo. Remember, there is no human being living in this period."

"Why, I never thought of that."

Coming to the end of the cave-like passage, Helen peeped out on the most forlorn place she had ever seen.

Thunder boomed among the hard, bare-looking hills, and lightning flashed and streaked its way across the sky. A fierce wind blew so hard that she had to screw up her eyes as she gazed on the scene before her.

"Don't come out or you'll be blown away," she cried. "Or drowned," she added, as the rain began to teem down, swelling the wide, rushing rivers in raging torrents.

They remained sheltering in the cave, which they could now see opened to the seashore.

Helen shuddered. "Ugh! what an awful-looking place this is! There isn't a sign of anything living, not even a tree or a blade of grass."

"Well, that is just the impression you should get, for now you will be able to see, as we go on, how things developed. So let us hurry."

"But you will be blown away, won't you?"

"Not if we walk along under the shelter of the rocks. Come on, let us keep close to each other."

So off they hurried, running until they were breathless, and then, after resting for a little, they started again. They found it hard to breathe for the air was thick and heavy; but at last there came a change. The hills were covered with snow, and the wide and once rushing rivers were frozen hard and still with ice.

There was as yet no sign of life at all on the land.

On they tramped through the snow, and, because they hurried, they kept warm. Whirlaway, glancing up at Helen now and again, could not help chuckling. Her rosy cheeks looked as if they had been polished, and her eyes shone brightly. But it was her little nose that made him laugh so much. It looked like a wee red blob.

Tirri perhaps felt the cold the least as he snuggled up as close as he could to Helen's shoulder. She in turn felt comforted from the feel of his warm soft fur. Soon they saw in the side of a cliff a large door. Whirlaway told Helen that it was the entrance to the next period.