The Lord Of The Dynamos

: The Door In The Wall And Other Stories

The chief attendant of the three dynamos that buzzed and rattled at

Camberwell, and kept the electric railway going, came out of

Yorkshire, and his name was James Holroyd. He was a practical

electrician, but fond of whisky, a heavy red-haired brute with

irregular teeth. He doubted the existence of the deity, but

accepted Carnot's cycle, and he had read Shakespeare and found him

weak in chemistry. His helper came out of the mysterious East, and

his name was Azuma-zi. But Holroyd called him Pooh-bah. Holroyd

liked a nigger because he would stand kicking--a habit with

Holroyd--and did not pry into the machinery and try to learn the

ways of it. Certain odd possibilities of the negro mind brought

into abrupt contact with the crown of our civilisation Holroyd

never fully realised, though just at the end he got some inkling of

them.



To define Azuma-zi was beyond ethnology. He was, perhaps,

more negroid than anything else, though his hair was curly rather

than frizzy, and his nose had a bridge. Moreover, his skin was

brown rather than black, and the whites of his eyes were yellow.

His broad cheekbones and narrow chin gave his face something of the

viperine V. His head, too, was broad behind, and low and narrow at

the forehead, as if his brain had been twisted round in the reverse

way to a European's. He was short of stature and still shorter of

English. In conversation he made numerous odd noises of no known

marketable value, and his infrequent words were carved and wrought

into heraldic grotesqueness. Holroyd tried to elucidate his

religious beliefs, and--especially after whisky--lectured to him

against superstition and missionaries. Azuma-zi, however, shirked

the discussion of his gods, even though he was kicked for it.



Azuma-zi had come, clad in white but insufficient raiment,

out of the stokehole of the Lord Clive, from the Straits

Settlements, and beyond, into London. He had heard even in his

youth of the greatness and riches of London, where all the women

are white and fair, and even the beggars in the streets are white,

and he arrived, with newly earned gold coins in his pocket, to

worship at the shrine of civilisation. The day of his landing was

a dismal one; the sky was dun, and a wind-worried drizzle filtered

down to the greasy streets, but he plunged boldly into the delights

of Shadwell, and was presently cast up, shattered in health,

civilised in costume, penniless and, except in matters of the

direst necessity, practically a dumb animal, to toil for James

Holroyd and to be bullied by him in the dynamo shed at Camberwell.

And to James Holroyd bullying was a labour of love.



There were three dynamos with their engines at Camberwell.

The two that had been there since the beginning were small

machines; the larger one was new. The smaller machines made a

reasonable noise; their straps hummed over the drums, every now and

then the brushes buzzed and fizzled, and the air churned steadily,

whoo! whoo! whoo! between their poles. One was loose in its

foundations and kept the shed vibrating. But the big dynamo

drowned these little noises altogether with the sustained drone of

its iron core, which somehow set part of the ironwork humming. The

place made the visitor's head reel with the throb, throb, throb of

the engines, the rotation of the big wheels, the spinning

ball-valves, the occasional spittings of the steam, and over all

the deep, unceasing, surging note of the big dynamo. This last

noise was from an engineering point of view a defect, but Azuma-zi

accounted it unto the monster for mightiness and pride.



If it were possible we would have the noises of that shed

always about the reader as he reads, we would tell all our story to

such an accompaniment. It was a steady stream of din, from which

the ear picked out first one thread and then another; there was the

intermittent snorting, panting, and seething of the steam engines,

the suck and thud of their pistons, the dull beat on the air as the

spokes of the great driving-wheels came round, a note the leather

straps made as they ran tighter and looser, and a fretful tumult

from the dynamos; and over all, sometimes inaudible, as the ear

tired of it, and then creeping back upon the senses again, was this

trombone note of the big machine. The floor never felt steady and

quiet beneath one's feet, but quivered and jarred. It was a

confusing, unsteady place, and enough to send anyone's thoughts

jerking into odd zigzags. And for three months, while the big

strike of the engineers was in progress, Holroyd, who was a

blackleg, and Azuma-zi, who was a mere black, were never out of the

stir and eddy of it, but slept and fed in the little wooden shanty

between the shed and the gates.



Holroyd delivered a theological lecture on the text of his big

machine soon after Azuma-zi came. He had to shout to be heard in

the din. "Look at that," said Holroyd; "where's your 'eathen idol

to match 'im?" And Azuma-zi looked. For a moment Holroyd was

inaudible, and then Azuma-zi heard: "Kill a hundred men. Twelve

per cent. on the ordinary shares," said Holroyd, "and that's

something like a Gord!"



Holroyd was proud of his big dynamo, and expatiated upon its

size and power to Azuma-zi until heaven knows what odd currents of

thought that and the incessant whirling and shindy set up within

the curly black cranium. He would explain in the most graphic

manner the dozen or so ways in which a man might be killed by it,

and once he gave Azuma-zi a shock as a sample of its quality.

After that, in the breathing-times of his labour--it was heavy

labour, being not only his own, but most of Holroyd's--Azuma-zi

would sit and watch the big machine. Now and then the brushes

would sparkle and spit blue flashes, at which Holroyd would swear,

but all the rest was as smooth and rhythmic as breathing. The band

ran shouting over the shaft, and ever behind one as one watched was

the complacent thud of the piston. So it lived all day in this big

airy shed, with him and Holroyd to wait upon it; not prisoned up

and slaving to drive a ship as the other engines he knew--mere

captive devils of the British Solomon--had been, but a machine

enthroned. Those two smaller dynamos, Azuma-zi by force of

contrast despised; the large one he privately christened the Lord

of the Dynamos. They were fretful and irregular, but the big

dynamo was steady. How great it was! How serene and easy in its

working! Greater and calmer even than the Buddhas he had seen at

Rangoon, and yet not motionless, but living! The great black coils

spun, spun, spun, the rings ran round under the brushes, and the

deep note of its coil steadied the whole. It affected Azuma-zi

queerly.



Azuma-zi was not fond of labour. He would sit about and watch

the Lord of the Dynamos while Holroyd went away to persuade the

yard porter to get whisky, although his proper place was not in the

dynamo shed but behind the engines, and, moreover, if Holroyd

caught him skulking he got hit for it with a rod of stout copper

wire. He would go and stand close to the colossus and look up at

the great leather band running overhead. There was a black patch

on the band that came round, and it pleased him somehow among all

the clatter to watch this return again and again. Odd thoughts

spun with the whirl of it. Scientific people tell us that savages

give souls to rocks and trees--and a machine is a thousand times

more alive than a rock or a tree. And Azuma-zi was practically a

savage still; the veneer of civilisation lay no deeper than his

slop suit, his bruises, and the coal grime on his face and hands.

His father before him had worshipped a meteoric stone, kindred

blood it may be had splashed the broad wheels of Juggernaut.



He took every opportunity Holroyd gave him of touching and

handling the great dynamo that was fascinating him. He polished

and cleaned it until the metal parts were blinding in the sun. He

felt a mysterious sense of service in doing this. He would go up

to it and touch its spinning coils gently. The gods he had

worshipped were all far away. The people in London hid their gods.



At last his dim feelings grew more distinct, and took shape in

thoughts and at last in acts. When he came into the roaring shed

one morning he salaamed to the Lord of the Dynamos, and then when

Holroyd was away, he went and whispered to the thundering machine

that he was its servant, and prayed it to have pity on him and save

him from Holroyd. As he did so a rare gleam of light came in

through the open archway of the throbbing machine-shed, and the

Lord of the Dynamos, as he whirled and roared, was radiant with

pale gold. Then Azuma-zi knew that his service was acceptable to

his Lord. After that he did not feel so lonely as he had done, and

he had indeed been very much alone in London. And even when his

work time was over, which was rare, he loitered about the shed.



Then, the next time Holroyd maltreated him, Azuma-zi went

presently to the Lord of the Dynamos and whispered, "Thou seest, O

my Lord!" and the angry whir of the machinery seemed to answer him.

Thereafter it appeared to him that whenever Holroyd came into the

shed a different note came into the sounds of the dynamo. "My Lord

bides his time," said Azuma-zi to himself. "The iniquity of the

fool is not yet ripe." And he waited and watched for the day of

reckoning. One day there was evidence of short circuiting, and

Holroyd, making an unwary examination--it was in the afternoon--got

a rather severe shock. Azuma-zi from behind the engine saw him

jump off and curse at the peccant coil.



"He is warned," said Azuma-zi to himself. "Surely my Lord is

very patient."



Holroyd had at first initiated his "nigger" into such

elementary conceptions of the dynamo's working as would enable him

to take temporary charge of the shed in his absence. But when he

noticed the manner in which Azuma-zi hung about the monster he

became suspicious. He dimly perceived his assistant was "up to

something," and connecting him with the anointing of the coils with

oil that had rotted the varnish in one place, he issued an edict,

shouted above the confusion of the machinery, "Don't 'ee go nigh

that big dynamo any more, Pooh-bah, or a'll take thy skin off!"

Besides, if it pleased Azuma-zi to be near the big machine, it was

plain sense and decency to keep him away from it.



Azuma-zi obeyed at the time, but later he was caught bowing

before the Lord of the Dynamos. At which Holroyd twisted his arm

and kicked him as he turned to go away. As Azuma-zi presently

stood behind the engine and glared at the back of the hated

Holroyd, the noises of the machinery took a new rhythm, and sounded

like four words in his native tongue.



It is hard to say exactly what madness is. I fancy Azuma-zi

was mad. The incessant din and whirl of the dynamo shed may have

churned up his little store of knowledge and his big store of

superstitious fancy, at last, into something akin to frenzy. At

any rate, when the idea of making Holroyd a sacrifice to the Dynamo

Fetich was thus suggested to him, it filled him with a strange

tumult of exultant emotion.



That night the two men and their black shadows were alone in

the shed together. The shed was lit with one big arc light that

winked and flickered purple. The shadows lay black behind the

dynamos, the ball governors of the engines whirled from light to

darkness, and their pistons beat loud and steady. The world

outside seen through the open end of the shed seemed incredibly dim

and remote. It seemed absolutely silent, too, since the riot of

the machinery drowned every external sound. Far away was the black

fence of the yard with grey shadowy houses behind, and above was

the deep blue sky and the pale little stars. Azuma-zi suddenly

walked across the centre of the shed above which the leather bands

were running, and went into the shadow by the big dynamo. Holroyd

heard a click, and the spin of the armature changed.



"What are you dewin' with that switch?" he bawled in surprise.

"Han't I told you--"



Then he saw the set expression of Azuma-zi's eyes as the

Asiatic came out of the shadow towards him.



In another moment the two men were grappling fiercely in front

of the great dynamo.



"You coffee-headed fool!" gasped Holroyd, with a brown hand at

his throat. "Keep off those contact rings." In another moment he

was tripped and reeling back upon the Lord of the Dynamos. He

instinctively loosened his grip upon his antagonist to save himself

from the machine.



The messenger, sent in furious haste from the station to find

out what had happened in the dynamo shed, met Azuma-zi at the

porter's lodge by the gate. Azuma-zi tried to explain something,

but the messenger could make nothing of the black's incoherent

English, and hurried on to the shed. The machines were all noisily

at work, and nothing seemed to be disarranged. There was, however,

a queer smell of singed hair. Then he saw an odd-looking crumpled

mass clinging to the front of the big dynamo, and, approaching,

recognised the distorted remains of Holroyd.



The man stared and hesitated a moment. Then he saw the face,

and shut his eyes convulsively. He turned on his heel before he

opened them, so that he should not see Holroyd again, and went out

of the shed to get advice and help.



When Azuma-zi saw Holroyd die in the grip of the Great Dynamo

he had been a little scared about the consequences of his act. Yet

he felt strangely elated, and knew that the favour of the Lord

Dynamo was upon him. His plan was already settled when he met the

man coming from the station, and the scientific manager who

speedily arrived on the scene jumped at the obvious conclusion of

suicide. This expert scarcely noticed Azuma-zi, except to ask a

few questions. Did he see Holroyd kill himself? Azuma-zi

explained that he had been out of sight at the engine furnace until

he heard a difference in the noise from the dynamo. It was not a

difficult examination, being untinctured by suspicion.



The distorted remains of Holroyd, which the electrician

removed from the machine, were hastily covered by the porter with

a coffee-stained tablecloth. Somebody, by a happy inspiration,

fetched a medical man. The expert was chiefly anxious to get the

machine at work again, for seven or eight trains had stopped midway

in the stuffy tunnels of the electric railway. Azuma-zi, answering

or misunderstanding the questions of the people who had by

authority or impudence come into the shed, was presently sent back

to the stoke-hole by the scientific manager. Of course a crowd

collected outside the gates of the yard--a crowd, for no known

reason, always hovers for a day or two near the scene of a sudden

death in London; two or three reporters percolated somehow into the

engine-shed, and one even got to Azuma-zi; but the scientific

expert cleared them out again, being himself an amateur journalist.



Presently the body was carried away, and public interest

departed with it. Azuma-zi remained very quietly at his furnace,

seeing over and over again in the coals a figure that wriggled

violently and became still. An hour after the murder, to anyone

coming into the shed it would have looked exactly as if nothing had

ever happened there. Peeping presently from his engine-room the

black saw the Lord Dynamo spin and whirl beside his little

brothers, and the driving wheels were beating round, and the steam

in the pistons went thud, thud, exactly as it had been earlier in

the evening. After all, from the mechanical point of view, it had

been a most insignificant incident--the mere temporary deflection

of a current. But now the slender form and slender shadow of the

scientific manager replaced the sturdy outline of Holroyd

travelling up and down the lane of light upon the vibrating floor

under the straps between the engines and the dynamos.



"Have I not served my Lord?" said Azuma-zi inaudibly, from his

shadow, and the note of the great dynamo rang out full and clear.

As he looked at the big whirling mechanism the strange fascination

of it that had been a little in abeyance since Holroyd's death,

resumed its sway.



Never had Azuma-zi seen a man killed so swiftly and

pitilessly. The big humming machine had slain its victim without

wavering for a second from its steady beating. It was indeed a

mighty god.



The unconscious scientific manager stood with his back to him,

scribbling on a piece of paper. His shadow lay at the foot of the

monster.



"Was the Lord Dynamo still hungry? His servant was ready."



Azuma-zi made a stealthy step forward; then stopped. The

scientific manager suddenly stopped writing, and walked down the

shed to the endmost of the dynamos, and began to examine the

brushes.



Azuma-zi hesitated, and then slipped across noiselessly into

shadow by the switch. There he waited. Presently the manager's

footsteps could be heard returning. He stopped in his old

position, unconscious of the stoker crouching ten feet away from

him. Then the big dynamo suddenly fizzled, and in another moment

Azuma-zi had sprung out of the darkness upon him.



First, the scientific manager was gripped round the body and

swung towards the big dynamo, then, kicking with his knee and

forcing his antagonist's head down with his hands, he loosened the

grip on his waist and swung round away from the machine. Then the

black grasped him again, putting a curly head against his chest,

and they swayed and panted as it seemed for an age or so. Then the

scientific manager was impelled to catch a black ear in his teeth

and bite furiously. The black yelled hideously.



They rolled over on the floor, and the black, who had

apparently slipped from the vice of the teeth or parted with some

ear--the scientific manager wondered which at the time--tried to

throttle him. The scientific manager was making some ineffectual

attempts to claw something with his hands and to kick, when the

welcome sound of quick footsteps sounded on the floor. The next

moment Azuma-zi had left him and darted towards the big dynamo.

There was a splutter amid the roar.



The officer of the company who had entered, stood staring as

Azuma-zi caught the naked terminals in his hands, gave one horrible

convulsion, and then hung motionless from the machine, his face

violently distorted.



"I'm jolly glad you came in when you did," said the scientific

manager, still sitting on the floor.



He looked at the still quivering figure.



"It's not a nice death to die, apparently--but it is quick."



The official was still staring at the body. He was a man of

slow apprehension.



There was a pause.



The scientific manager got up on his feet rather awkwardly.

He ran his fingers along his collar thoughtfully, and moved his

head to and fro several times.



"Poor Holroyd! I see now." Then almost mechanically he went

towards the switch in the shadow and turned the current into the

railway circuit again. As he did so the singed body loosened its

grip upon the machine and fell forward on its face. The core of

the dynamo roared out loud and clear, and the armature beat the

air.



So ended prematurely the Worship of the Dynamo Deity, perhaps

the most short-lived of all religions. Yet withal it could at

least boast a Martyrdom and a Human Sacrifice.