CHAPTER II

_The Challenge of the Unknown_

Incredible! Impossible! I did not say it, though my thoughts were

written on my face, no doubt.

Derek said quietly, "Difficult to believe, Charlie? Yes! But it happens

to be true. The girl I love is not of this world, but she lives

nevertheless. I have seen her, talked with her. A slim little

thing--beautiful...."

He sat staring. "This is nothing supernatural, Charlie. Only

the ignorant savages of our past called the unknown--the

unusual--supernatural. We know better now."

I said, "This girl--"

He gestured. "As I told you, I have for years been working on the theory

that there is another world, existing here in this same space with us.

The Fourth Dimension! Call it that it you like. I have found it, proved

its existence! And this girl--her name is Hope--lives in it. Let me tell

you about her and her people. Shall I?"

My heart was pounding so that it almost smothered me. "Yes, Derek."

"She lives here, in this Space we call New York City. She and her people

use this same Space at the same time that we use it. A different world

from ours, existing here now with us! Unseen by us. And we are unseen by

them!

"A different form of matter, Charlie. As tangible to the people of the

other realm as we are to our own world. Humans like ourselves."

He paused, but I could find no words to fill the gap. And presently he

went on:

"Hope's world, co-existing here with us, is dependent upon us. They

speak what we call English. They shadow us."

I murmured, "Phantoms of reality."

"Yes. A world very like ours. But primitive, where ours is civilized."

* * * * *

He paused again. His eyes were staring past me as though he could see

through the walls of the cellar room into great reaches of the unknown.

What a strange mixture was this Derek Mason! What a strange compound of

the cold reality of the scientist and the fancy of the romantic dreamer!

Yet I wonder if that is not what science is. There is no romantic lover

gawping at the moon who could have more romance in his soul, or see in

the moonlit eyes of his loved one more romance than the scientist finds

in the wonders of his laboratory.

Derek went on slowly:

"A primitive world, primitive nation, primitive passions! As I see it

now, Charlie--as I know it to be--it seems as though perhaps Hope's

world is merely a replica of ours, stripped to the primitive. As though

it might be the naked soul of our modern New York, ourselves as we

really are, not as we pretend to be."

He roused himself from his reverie.

"Hope's nation is ruled by a king. An emperor, if you like. A monarch,

beset with the evils of luxury and ease, and wine and women. He is

surrounded by his nobles, the idle aristocracy, by virtue of their birth

proclaiming themselves of too fine a clay to work. The crimson nobles,

they are called. Because they affect crimson cloaks, and their beautiful

women, voluptuous, sex-mad, are wont to bedeck themselves in veils and

robes of crimson.

"And there are workers, toilers they call them. Oppressed, down-trodden

toilers, with hate for the nobles and the king smoldering within them.

In France there was such a condition, and the bloody revolution came of

it. It exists here now. Hope was born in the ranks of these toilers, but

has risen by her grace and beauty to a position in the court of this

graceless monarch."

* * * * *

He leaped from his chair and began pacing the room. I sat silent,

staring at him. So strange a thing! Impossible? I could not say that. I

could only say, incredible to me. And as I framed the thought I knew its

incredibility was the very measure of my limited intelligence, my lack

of knowledge. The vast unknown of nature, so vast that everything which

was real to me, understandable to me, was a mere drop in the ocean of

the existing unknown.

"Don't you understand me now?" Derek added vehemently. "I'm not talking

fantasy. Cold reality! I've found a way to transport myself--and

you--into this different state of matter, into this other world! I've

already made a test. I went there and stayed just for a few moments, a

night or so ago."

It made my heart leap wildly. He went on:--

"There is chaos there. Smoldering revolution which at any time--to-night

perhaps--may burst into conflagration and destroy this wanton ruling

class." He laughed harshly. "In Hope's world the workers are a primitive,

ignorant people. Superstitious. Like the peons of Mexico, they're all

primed and ready to shout for any leader who sets himself up. My

chance--our chance--"

He suddenly stopped his pacing and stood before me. "Don't you feel the

lure of it? The open road? 'The road is straight before me and the Red

Gods call for me!' I'm going, Charlie. Going to-night--and I want you to

go with me! Will you?"

Would I go? The thing leaped like a menacing shadow risen solidly to

confront me. Would I go?

Suddenly there was before me the face of a girl. White. Apprehensive. It

seemed almost pleading. A face beautiful, with a mouth of parted red

lips. A face framed in long, pale-golden hair with big staring blue

eyes. Wistful eyes, wan with starlight--eyes that seemed to plead.

I thought, "Why, this is madness!" I was not seeing this face with my

eyes. There was nothing, no one here in the room with me but Derek. I

knew it. The shadows about us were empty. I was conjuring the face only

from Derek's words, making real that which existed only in my

imagination.

Yet I knew that in another realm, with my thoughts now bridging the gap,

the girl was real. Would I go into the unknown?

The quest of the unknown. The gauntlet of the unknown flung down now

before me, as it was flung down before the ancient explorers who picked

up its challenge and mounted the swaying decks of their little galleons

and said, "We'll go and see what lies off there in the unknown."

That same lure was on me now. I heard my voice saying, "Why yes, I guess

I'll go, Derek."