"And that Lady Arabella is the liar!" "Apparently--as I am not." "We must, therefore, try to find a reason for her lying. She has nothing
to fear from Oolanga, who is dead. Therefore the only reason which could
actuate her would be to convince someone else that she was blameless. This 'someone' could not be you, for you had the evidence of your own
eyes. There was no one else present; therefore it must have been an
absent person." "That seems beyond dispute, sir." "There is only one other person whose good opinion she could wish to
keep--Edgar Caswall. He is the only one who fills the bill. Her lies
point to other things besides the death of the African. She evidently
wanted it to be accepted that his falling into the well was his own act. I cannot suppose that she expected to convince you, the eye-witness; but
if she wished later on to spread the story, it was wise of her to try to
get your acceptance of it." "That is so!" "Then there were other matters of untruth. That, for instance, of the
ermine collar embroidered with emeralds. If an understandable reason be
required for this, it would be to draw attention away from the green
lights which were seen in the room, and especially in the well-hole. Any
unprejudiced person would accept the green lights to be the eyes of a
great snake, such as tradition pointed to living in the well-hole. In
fine, therefore, Lady Arabella wanted the general belief to be that there
was no snake of the kind in Diana's Grove. For my own part, I don't
believe in a partial liar--this art does not deal in veneer; a liar is a
liar right through. Self-interest may prompt falsity of the tongue; but
if one prove to be a liar, nothing that he says can ever be believed. This leads us to the conclusion that because she said or inferred that
there was no snake, we should look for one--and expect to find it, too. "Now let me digress. I live, and have for many years lived, in
Derbyshire, a county more celebrated for its caves than any other county
in England. I have been through them all, and am familiar with every
turn of them; as also with other great caves in Kentucky, in France, in
Germany, and a host of other places--in many of these are tremendously
deep caves of narrow aperture, which are valued by intrepid explorers,
who descend narrow gullets of abysmal depth--and sometimes never return. In many of the caverns in the Peak I am convinced that some of the
smaller passages were used in primeval times as the lairs of some of the
great serpents of legend and tradition. It may have been that such
caverns were formed in the usual geologic way--bubbles or flaws in the
earth's crust--which were later used by the monsters of the period of the
young world. It may have been, of course, that some of them were worn
originally by water; but in time they all found a use when suitable for
living monsters. "This brings us to another point, more difficult to accept and understand
than any other requiring belief in a base not usually accepted, or indeed
entered on--whether such abnormal growths could have ever changed in
their nature. Some day the study of metabolism may progress so far as to
enable us to accept structural changes proceeding from an intellectual or
moral base. We may lean towards a belief that great animal strength may
be a sound base for changes of all sorts. If this be so, what could be a
more fitting subject than primeval monsters whose strength was such as to
allow a survival of thousands of years? We do not know yet if brain can
increase and develop independently of other parts of the living
structure. "After all, the mediaeval belief in the Philosopher's Stone which could
transmute metals, has its counterpart in the accepted theory of
metabolism which changes living tissue. In an age of investigation like
our own, when we are returning to science as the base of wonders--almost
of miracles--we should be slow to refuse to accept facts, however
impossible they may seem to be. "Let us suppose a monster of the early days of the world--a dragon of the
prime--of vast age running into thousands of years, to whom had been
conveyed in some way--it matters not--a brain just sufficient for the
beginning of growth. Suppose the monster to be of incalculable size and
of a strength quite abnormal--a veritable incarnation of animal strength. Suppose this animal is allowed to remain in one place, thus being removed
from accidents of interrupted development; might not, would not this
creature, in process of time--ages, if necessary--have that rudimentary
intelligence developed? There is no impossibility in this; it is only
the natural process of evolution. In the beginning, the instincts of
animals are confined to alimentation, self-protection, and the
multiplication of their species. As time goes on and the needs of life
become more complex, power follows need. We have been long accustomed to
consider growth as applied almost exclusively to size in its various
aspects. But Nature, who has no doctrinaire ideas, may equally apply it
to concentration. A developing thing may expand in any given way or
form. Now, it is a scientific law that increase implies gain and loss of
various kinds; what a thing gains in one direction it may lose in
another. May it not be that Mother Nature may deliberately encourage
decrease as well as increase--that it may be an axiom that what is gained
in concentration is lost in size? Take, for instance, monsters that
tradition has accepted and localised, such as the Worm of Lambton or that
of Spindleston Heugh. If such a creature were, by its own process of
metabolism, to change much of its bulk for intellectual growth, we should
at once arrive at a new class of creature--more dangerous, perhaps, than
the world has ever had any experience of--a force which can think, which
has no soul and no morals, and therefore no acceptance of responsibility. A snake would be a good illustration of this, for it is cold-blooded, and
therefore removed from the temptations which often weaken or restrict
warm-blooded creatures. If, for instance, the Worm of Lambton--if such
ever existed--were guided to its own ends by an organised intelligence
capable of expansion, what form of creature could we imagine which would
equal it in potentialities of evil? Why, such a being would devastate a
whole country. Now, all these things require much thought, and we want
to apply the knowledge usefully, and we should therefore be exact. Would
it not be well to resume the subject later in the day?" "I quite agree, sir. I am in a whirl already; and want to attend
carefully to what you say; so that I may try to digest it." Both men seemed fresher and better for the "easy," and when they met in
the afternoon each of them had something to contribute to the general
stock of information. Adam, who was by nature of a more militant
disposition than his elderly friend, was glad to see that the conference
at once assumed a practical trend.