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After it had died down, Stubbs a
“No,” Daniel said. “Your message to me yesterday stated that he had requested an interview-”
“Indeed, guv’nor. Begged for it, more like.”
“Let us withhold the cane, then, and see what the interview yields.”
By this time they had come near enough to the end of the gallery to hear a persistent low hollow grinding and booming noise. Stubbs threw open a door at the end and led them into a spacious room-for they had entered into a sort of bastion anchoring the western end of the hospital, like the fist at the end of an arm-where that noise was a good deal louder. This salon was as cluttered with peculiar exhibits as the Court of Technologickal Arts at Clerkenwell, and as crowded with obstreperous madmen as a meeting of Her Majesty’s Privy Council. But the biggest object in the room-and the source of the noise-was an immense wooden drum, mounted above the floor like a wheel. Its axle spa
Projecting from one end of the axle was an enormous crank with a handle as long as an oar. A stout little stairway led up to a platform, large enough for two or three men to stand abreast and bend their backs to the operation of that crank. One crew was doing so now, and another stood by, quaffing beer to replace the moisture they’d sweated into their clothes.
As the great wheel ground away on its axle of greased iron, muffled thumps and booms sounded from within: sometimes a steady tattoo, as of ru
“The therapy is compleat!” Stubbs a
Stubbs leaned into the space between axle-support and drum-side and unlatched the door. It flew open all the way and banged against the outside of the Machine, revealing that its i
“You see?” Stubbs a
The man who had emerged from the Machine seemed to want in the worst way to get clear of it. But he knew better than to stand, or even sit. He straightened himself out on the floor, supporting himself on his forearms and his forehead, and began to creep along like an inchworm, pausing every few inches for an episode of dry heaves. In a minute or so he reached a waiting chamber-pot, dashed its lid off with a blind arm-swing, hugged it, and used it to pull himself up off the floor. With some further exertions, and the aid of a man in indigo, he got himself seated upon this vessel and immediately began to generate sounds of a hydraulic and pneumatic character.
“Has he assaulted any more walls?” Daniel asked.
“Only the one, Doctor. It is a part of his mania that he phant’sies he knows just where the treasure is hidden.”
“What treasure do you refer to?” Isaac asked.
“Why, the same one all the lunaticks are searching for, sir,” said Stubbs, “the Gold of King Solomon.”
JOHN DOE WAS in no condition for an interview just yet. While the attendants busied themselves putting Doe’s chains back on his wrists and ankles, and returning him to his cell, Daniel, Isaac, and Peter Hoxton ascended to the storey above and walked back to the center of Bedlam along a gantlet of cells similar to those below. Fewer visitors came up here. The ones who did tended to be gangs of bloody-minded ’prentices, or the most distasteful sort of fops, or solitary men who looked as if they might themselves benefit from a few hours in the Machine. The prisoners here remained locked in their cells, and for the best reasons. Daniel prudently walked as close to the windows, and as far from the doors, as was practical, and tried not to hear the mutterings of the faces framed in some of those little door-hatches. He led the others on, and they gladly followed, at a brisk pace. Presently they exeunted from the men’s wing and entered the central part of the edifice, above the main entrance, and below the cupola. Here they ascended another stair into a vaulted space: technically an attic, but a carefully finished one, airy and well-lit.
Seen from Mr. Witanoont’s Vinegar-Yard, Bedlam’s center looked as if a squarish fu
“I only paid one visit, and that was for your going-away party,” said Isaac.
This was of interest to Saturn, who had been distracted, leaning over the rail and beckoning to some blokes loitering on the ground floor, two storeys below them. Now those fellows were ascending the stair in a gang. A man in indigo was moving to intercept them on the landing. Saturn, whilst keeping an eye on their progress, attended to Daniel. “Was that before you went off to Massachusetts?” he inquired.
“Long before. I departed for Massachusetts, at long last, in 1695. The party to which Sir Isaac refers was in 1689.”
“That makes no sense,” Saturn pointed out. Then he leaned over the railing, turning his attention to what was happening on the landing below: the man in indigo had barred the path of the blokes-four in all-who had answered Saturn’s call. They were big, rough-looking lads who could have mowed this man down in an instant, but they had piled to a stop anyway, and were looking up to Saturn for their cue.