SHONKU AND THE GOLDEN CHANCE by Satyajit Ray, Translated by Victor Ghoshe

Part 1

24 the June

Today is the 'Midsummer Day'; I am sitting beside the 'Stonehenge' on the English Salisbury plain and writing my diary. Stonehenge was build four thousand years back, exactly when the 'Bronze Age' was about to start in this part of the earth. Man had just learnt - how to use metal and was advancing very fast towards the new age civilizations.

Historically Egyptians, Indians, Mesopotamians, Persians walked on the path of civilization far before Europeans. But then again, I really don’t understand - how could one call those people uncivilized, who had built the Stonehenge four thousand years ago.Huge stone pillars; brought from far away places; made to stand side by side; one pillar kept horizontally on every two consecutive pillars. Going side by side these ‘door like’ structures created a huge circle.

Even a couple of years back people used to think, that Stonehenge was a religious ceremony centre of a tribe called 'The Kelts'. But very recently archeologists have discovered that this was actually an observatory and if that is true, this is surely one of the oldest observatories of the world. Scientists have discovered a relation between these stone pillars and the movement of the sun, which becomes very clear especially on this day -the 'Midsummer Day'.It's so amazing that without the help of the modern technology, how was it possible for those people to position these pillars so accurately.

Anyway my friend Krole has a different view- he believes ancient people knew some chemical formulae, which could temporarily reduce the weight of stones. And for that reason — building a ‘Pyramid’ or a Stonehenge was much easier in those days than now.Willhelm Krole had always believed in the supernatural powers of ancient people. He had researched majorly on ancient magic, rituals, spiritualism, and witchcraft. He accompanied me in Tibet for our ‘Unicorn expedition’. a little far on my right, sitting on the grass, Krole is playing a flute. This unique flute is made of a human leg-bone, which he collected from a Tibetan monastery. And we could never imagine that such great German folk tune could be played with this weird instrument.

The other person who accompanied me in my Tibet expedition is now sitting on my left and enjoying a

cup of not-so-hot coffee. He is none other than my dear friend - Geologist Jeremy Saunders. Few days' back Saunders invited me to come to London. And Krole and me are now staying with him at his house in Hampstead. We have a plan to stay here for another seven days.This year summer is truly great here — no rainfall; no drizzle - clear blue sky. Only bright sunrays are dripping through white clouds and spreading energy. Let me stop writing as Krole has stopped playing his flute. Its time - we need to go to a famous auction house in London with him now. He has got this information that a Thirteen-century Spanish manuscript of Alchemy is on auction there. Krole believes that he would get it for a throw away price, as no one takes interest in Alchemy now-a-days. Making gold in the laboratories is though an expensive affair but not impossible in this atomic age.

24 the June 10.30 pm

Peculiar experience in the auctions.

Our 'happy-go-lucky' Bavarian friend Krole is generally a quit guy, we never saw him getting excited, but today he went mad in the auctions. The manuscript - which he thought he would get for fifty pounds, finally cost him one thousand five hundred pounds; which is about twenty five thousand Indian Rupees. And it happened only because of one person; who was bidding hysterically to compete Krole; in the process he pushed the price of this bundle of old parchment paper to this height. It was easy to make out that he was an American from his dress and from the way he was talking. When finally Krole won, we could realize that he was disgusted, as he displayed a major frown on his forehead all the time.

Krole has got submerged in the manuscript since we came back from the auction house. Though the papers were very old but the handwriting was very clear and very easy to read. And of course, Krole knew Spanish very well.

As far as my knowledge is concerned, I know that, in the thirteenth century there was quite a stir in Spain about Alchemy. This was very much influenced by the Arabs; who made it popular in most of the European territories.

Gold is the king of all metals. It looks beautiful and it is also everlasting. Even in our 'Puranas' gold often stood for the sun and silver for moon. Through the centuries there were certain groups who kept on experimenting relentlessly to make gold from the cheaper metals like lead, copper etcetera. These were the people who were called the Alchemists.In their methods they used to mix 'Mantra-s' and ‘Chanting’ with the scientific processes and for that reason, mainstream scientists never acknowledged them as scientists. Even in our country, people had practiced Alchemy. I know this well because I have an ancient Sanskrit manuscript called 'Dhanadaprakarantantrasara'. Surprisingly this manuscript furnishes many ways of making gold from cheaper metals, most of them mention a long list of ingredients and write about mixing them and heat them on fire. When this is done there are five to ten procedures to follow — upto this level it could have been fine, but after this when the manuscript mentioned that one has to chant a specific mantra for ten thousand times — it became too much for me. And probably that's the reason for which I had never tried Alchemy in my entire career.

But that really doesn't matter whether I have tried it or not — history had mentioned ‘Alchemists’ in almost every century. In Europe there were kings who had hired Alchemists and paid for their laboratories and all other expenses. With the hope that when they would need money those alchemists

would make gold and help them with finances. But of course there is no such report available that someone actually did so.

Anyway, the point is — Krole strongly believes in Alchemy, otherwise he would not have spent so much money for the manuscript. When he was bidding, Saunders told me, “Krole believes - the gold he would make, would take care of all these expenses. And if we do not make much fun of him there are chances that we also get our shares."

25th June

Even in London I regularly go for my morning walks at 5 am sharp, as I do in Giridih, my hometown. In London, during the summers, at 5 am there is a good amount of morning light. But the Englishmen do not get up early, so all the places are mostly empty around this time, especially my favorite walking place — Hampstead Heath. This ocean- like wavy Greenfield highly energizes me, if I walk there for an hour. When I come back Saunders is generally ready with the coffee. Krole gets up a little late — at 9 am, because he reads till late night.

Today I was surprised to see Krole walking in the drawing room anxiously; he had already made his coffee and sipping it in-between his brisk steps.

The moment he saw me, he stopped; stared at me for some time and asked “you are a Scorpio, right?” I said, “Yes”Before your hair turned gray, were they black?Yes again.Do you have garlic in your food?Yes…. sometimes!Great!!! That says you got to be there, as Saunders is a Leo and I am a Taurian, his hair colour is pale, mine is golden and none of us eat garlic.“What do you mean! is this a riddle?” I asked

“No riddle my dear friend, Manuel Savedra had mentioned in his manuscript that “to make gold in a laboratory, at least one human being who has all these three virtues has to be present during the experiment- so my dear Shonku you are in.”“IN? Where? Is it going to happen here? In Hampstead? In this drawing room? WHERE?"

I was truly perplexed and was thinking whether Krole should be taken seriously or not.Krole pointed his finger firmly towards the world atlas on the wall and said, 'four degree west by thirty seven point two degree north.'

I did not have to look at the map to say 'It's Spain I believe — Granada.''Right you are', said Krole, but to name the actual place you have to look at the map.I stepped towards the wall; the place where my finger reached after calculating the latitude and longitude had 'Montefrio' written on it. Krole said Manuel Savedra — the writer of this manuscript used to live in Montefrio.

'Have you gone mad Krole?' I couldn't help saying— 'Do you believe that the seven hundred years old house still stands there? And above all if the manuscript has the procedure described, then we can do it in any laboratory, why do we need to go to Spain for that?

Krole was quite annoyed when he heard that. He put down his coffee mug on the table with a 'bang' and said - Shonku, you must know, that this is not an average scientific experiment, had it been somewhat like that, then it wouldn't have been important whether you eat garlic or not, whether the colour of your hair was black or not. Here in this kind of experiment - ‘time’, ‘geographical location’, even ‘physical and behavioral pattern’ of the researchers play important roles.

Believe me, these are all serious matters and for god's sake please do not underestimate these things. And what makes you think that seven hundred years old house would not exist! haven't you seen those pre-renaissance European castles? They are still standing tall in many places. Krole went on with his long lecture '… according to the manuscript, Savedra was from a very high-class family and the description of his residence suggests that it was a huge castle. Some part of it could be broken, but I am sure we will find at least one room in the whole castle, which can be used as our laboratory. And of course if people are staying there in the castle then we will have to negotiate with them. But I believe that, anything and everything is possible in this world — you only need to pay the price and Alchemy is……..

“What is it; which makes you people start an arguement so early in the morning"?Saunders entered. Krole was so excited; he repeated our entire conversation to Saunders and ended with - “if we could go to Tibet in search of an imaginary animal, then why can't we go to Spain which is just a two hours plane journey from here and where there is a chance for us to create artificial gold?

Saunders did not argue — possibly because Krole was so excited. He said 'I do not mind going to Spain and I believe Shonku also doesn't mind, but may we know what are the equipments and ingredients your experiment require other than shonku in person.'Time is more important than the ingredients. Savedra has suggested that one can start the experiment at 12pm, on any day within seven days before or after the Midsummer Day — because only in those few days the sun is strongest on the earth. The ingredients are also easily available. Mercury and lead has always been mentioned in Alchemy all over the world they are mentioned by Savedra as well, apart from those — water, sulphur, table salt and quite a number of roots, leafs & barks of some specific plants.

The tools should all be earthen or made of glass. This is also a very common thing in Alchemy, other than these, we need a burner, an old 'air pump of a blacksmith’ and a water tank on the floor.Water tank? Why? Asked Saunders.

To save rain water in that, but this is something new, I have never read this in any other Alchemy book, replied Krole.Has he mentioned 'touchstone' I asked.

The concept of a touchstone is very popular in every part of the world. Some of the books of Alchemy, which I read, primarily focusses on making a touchstone and after that by the touch of that stone one can turn other metals into gold.Krole said 'No! Savedra has not mentioned touchstone. The ingredients will react chemically and form a semi-solid stuff. That has to be purified in the rainwater and the liquid which comes out finally works as the catalyst. That means when other materials are brought in contact to that liquid they turn into gold.Did Savedra succeed?' Saunders asked with sarcasm.

There was silence for some time and then Krole said in a grave voice “the manuscript is actually a diary

and not written in a textbook format. The way his experiments proceeded his language became more and more poetic. Though he didn't write anything like 'today I made gold’ but towards the end he wrote — Krole picked up the manuscript from the top of the grand piano and read out loud “today I not only feel like the best magician or the like the best scientist of this world but I feel like - I am the best artist on this earth — who has a divine talent — and who can immortalize any creation of this universe….' Now you are free to interpret this. Saunders and I looked at each other. Silence prevailed for some time again; I could understand that some of Krole's excitements had automatically been injected into Saunders' veins exactly the way it was happening to me. Saunders asked 'does any ritual or any chanting required in this process? And the way he asked the question, I could pretty well understood that he was trying to hide his excitement from us.Krole took a long drag from his pipe; puffed out and said— 'a planchet has to be performed, prior to the commencement of our experiment.

'Planchet?' But whose spirit to call?

'The world famous alchemist Zabir-Ibn-Hayan's, you must have heard of this 10th century genius. It's just a normal blessing seeking process and as I am there, it wouldn't be problem at all.We knew that Krole heads a planchet institution in Munich.'And we need him.' Said Krole staring at the door. Following his line of vision we found Mustafa — the huge Persian cat of Saunders.

-'He means?' Saunders shouted loudly. I know Saunders is quite sensitive about cats, somewhat like me. Three years back when he came to my house in Giridih he tied a nice ribbon around my cat Newton's neck, as a gesture of his affection.

Krole said Savedra has strongly mentioned that a cat's presence in the laboratory is very important and always been very helpful for experiments. If not a cat, the second choice is an owl. But when we have a cat then why should we go for the second option?Saunders or me, none of us promised Krole about the Spain trip, though Krole mentioned repeatedly that if this Midsummer Day passes by, then we have to wait for another year.After the breakfast we three went to a fair in Hampstead Heath. This is an annual affair- it happens during the summers every year. Rows of stalls, gambling joints, merry-go-rounds, a large number of kids and a mixed crowd of all ages. We walked through all these and reached at a relatively open space where there was a very well-decorated caravan-like car which had -'Come and have your future told by Madame Reneta' written on it.

Madame herself was sitting inside the car and looking through the curtained window, she smiled and wished us good morning.

Gypsy fortunetellers like this are very common in this country — especially in the fairs. Krole immediately decided to visit her to see what was there in our fate. All three of us entered the caravan, as krole was quite hell-bent to know our future. Madame Reneta - a well built lady, was sitting in her well-decorated room and waiting for clients with her minimum equipments - one round shaped table, a vase holding a single red rose and a crystal ball. Generally what happens — these fortunetellers stare at their crystal balls and see their client's future events in the ball.Krole did not waste time and said, 'Madame, could you please tell us whether anything remarkable is going to happen in our lives. We three are friends and are going to start a very important project soon.

Reneta put both her elbows on the table and concentrated on the crystal ball. We three were sitting around the table, on three chairs. The sound of 'Merry-go-round, giggles of kids, loud voices of the vendors were coming through the window. Krole was so excited he moved closer towards the ball.

'I see the sun rising ' Madame Reneta whispered in a very thick, husky voice. Krole suddenly stopped breathing - I am sure he was translating 'sun' into 'gold'.'I see the sun rising for you,' Madame Reneta uttered again. 'And'....She stopped. My heart started beating faster. Situations like this transform elderly people to kids.'And what?' Krole asked anxiously. He could not be patient any more. But Madame Reneta was indifferent; she covered the ball with her two hands from two sides possibly to have a clearer view of the future by guarding the daylight.'And- ' the thick husky voice reverberated the caravan again 'And I see death. Yes death''Whose death?' Krole's voice trembled as he uttered the two words. He again started breathing very fast.

'A death of a radiant man.'Madame Renata didn't say anything more.When asked how does the 'radiant man' look — she replied 'his face is blurred'.Saunders got up from his chair; Madame Reneta came out of her trance and raised her right hand with a smile. Saunders paid her a decent fee and we three came out of the caravan.

End of Part one

Part 2

26th JuneAs far as our equipments were concerned we didn’t want to take any chances, so we bought everything from London.The famous - rather infamous 'Chorebazar of London is on the 'Porto Bello Street' — we spent some two and half hours there and collected lots of earthen potteries, glass flasks and retorts — exactly like those which we see in old Hollywood movies. One of Saunders' friend is a renowned film producer; a few years back he produced a thriller, and the story revolved around Alchemy - for which he made lots of earthen potteries and cooking accessories; luckily Saunders could hire some of those equipments, from the production manager.Saunders took Mustafa along. And I am sure even if Krole wouldn't have mentioned mustafa, Saunders would still bring Mustafa, because he can't stay away from Mustafa for long.

Personally speaking, I was not very enthusiastic about making artificial gold and not even interested in the gold itself. My excitement was all about visiting this part of Spain, as I had never been here. Saunders was not engaged in any important project so he was also quite excited about the outing. And what do I write about Krole - he was so excited, he couldn't even sit quietly for a while. This moment he is reading the manuscript, the next moment he is walking briskly in the drawing room and the next moment he is drawing some gibberish diagrams in his notebook. I tried to peep once; the diagrams seemed somewhat like 'The Tantric Mandalas.'

It was five pm in the evening; I was packing and the calling bell rang — after a while I heard someone opening the door and then a familiar voice. It must be that American gentleman who was competing with Krole in the auctions. I was quite intrigued and immediately went down. Saunders was already there and made our guest comfortable in the drawing room. Krole also came down within a minute. It seemed that he could also identified the guest’s voice.

Our guest took out three visiting cards from his vest pocket and handed them over to three of us. The name written on the card was — Rufus H. Blackmore.'Rufus Blackmore ?' Krole exclaimed 'are you the person who wrote the book named “Black art and white magic”?''Yes Sir, I am the one.'

I was observing him thoroughly - long face, very pale skin, shoulder-touching black hair, and very calm eyes — but of course we knew which can also have fire at times as we have seen in the 'Calling wood Auction House'.The gentleman put his hand into the right pocket of his blazer and took three silver balls out, which were as big as table tennis balls. And showed us at least twenty five different tricks with them within a couple of seconds. The shining balls were disappearing and reappearing so amazingly that none of us could make out what was happening. We should agree that the tricks were really great. Finally when he took out the three balls out of our pockets, then we couldn't help clapping.

'Your magic deserves a huge round of applause!' said Willhelm Krole.

'You haven't seen even one tenth of my genius.' Said Rufus with a very dry smile. These are all mediocre magic, do you want to know what my real magic is?' Blackmore gave a little pause and then held one of the three balls with the first finger and the thumb of his right hand and announced — 'This ball is made of silver and the silver is made by me. You can't get silver — more pure than this in the whole world.'All three of us kept quiet…Blackmore's eyes twinkled in excitement.

'Half of the Alchemy magic is in my hands now' said Blackmore, 'but even after three years of experiment I have not yet been successful in making artificial gold. I believe Savedra explained everything in his diary. I came to know about Savedra's diary from my Alchemist guru. And when I came to know that it was on auction at Calling Woods, I immediately flew from Sanfransisco. I thought I would get it for just a few dollars, but I could never think that professor Krole would be so excited to acquire it. I could overbid him that day, but I thought when we would get introduced and he would learn about my work, possibly he would give me the diary for the same price. I think professor Krole has bought the diary for his collection, like any other collector of scriptures and manuscripts. But I am an Alchemist myself - the best in America, why America? Possibly the only original Alchemist of this world. My guru has died. So now I am the only one in this world who can use that diary properly. I got the money with me and I want the diary.'Rufus Blackmore then took out a beautiful leather wallet from his blazer pocket; took out a bundle of ten-pound notes from that and put them on the center table.

Krole talked first.'You take the money back Mr. Blackmore. I do not wish to give away the diary.''You are taking a wrong decision professor Krole'.'Possibly not. You may be a magician, but there is no proof that you are an Alchemist. And of course we are not ready to believe that you have made the silver, which these balls are made of.'

Rufus Blackmore was silent for a few seconds. Then he gave a killer's look at all of us; took the money from the table; got up and said, 'You must have read, ninety nine per cent pure silver has been successfully made in a laboratory - but no one could make hundred per cent pure silver in the world — except this one, which I made.He looked at Krole and threw one of those three balls towards him, which landed on Krole's lap.'I know All three of you are scientists,’ Blackmore carried on. ‘At least check out whether I am right or wrong — analyze this silver, you have two days time; I am staying at 'Woldorf Hotel'; room No.four twenty nine. If you change your mind and decide to sell the diary to me, give me a call. And if you do not sell it to me then let me tell you one thing, making artificial gold is not your cup of tea.'

After this dramatic lecture he didn't wait for a moment and walked firmly towards the door. But what he did while going out of the door was quite an offence. Mustafa was sitting on the threshold. Blackmore kicked him with his sharp toed patent leather shoe, so hard that he flew three feet away from the place where he was. Saunders jumped up crying, 'what the hell!!' and ran after him, but Rufus was already out

on the road. Krole tried to make Saunders calm. And said, 'I thinkthis guy is insane, let's not get into any complication.'

Mustafa was crying loud in pain and anger. Saunders finally had to take him in his lap to cool him down. I was thinking if Alchemists are like this, then the subject should be kept aside, but there is no way out now as the day after tomorrow we are starting for Granada in another two days. God only knows what is going to happen.

Montefrio, 29th JuneIt's raining. The way clouds have covered the sky, it seems that they are not going to clear up in coming two-three days. Krole thinks it's a good sign and it could not be better, because one of the most important ingredients of the experiment is automatically being collected.A huge plastic container has been kept on the second floor terrace of the Savedra castle. And we are sure that it will be full before evening.We are not staying in the castle. We found a hotel close by and have checked in. No one stays in the Savedra Castle now. And no one knows since when it's been abandoned. But Savedra family is quite well known in Montefrio. We asked the first person we met in Montefrio, where the castle was, and he promptly gave us a detailed direction. As we took a stopover in Granada and rested well, we all were quite fresh, so we did not waste any time and followed his direction. We had to take a left turn from the Montefrio Post Office and started driving through a narrow hilly road. We reached the second landmark in ten minutes; it was ruins of a medieval Moorish inn. From eight to fifteenth century the Moors had reigned over this part of Spain. And those Arabic Muslims had left their marks everywhere, the well-known Al-Hambra palace of Granada is just one of them to mention.

Beside the ruins of the inn a boy was standing under a tree with a Mongoose on his shoulder. He came up to us as our taxi stopped. When asked about the castle, he told us that no one stays there. We had to explain that we did not want to meet anyone there; we only wanted to see the castle. He said if we could take him with us in the car he would show us the way easily, he also added that he could be a good guide to us. We did not have any problem with the proposal, so we took him along.The boy was quite chirpy; he flooded us with a load of information about himself. His name is Pablo, he had five brothers and seven sisters; he is the youngest and is unemployed. His father has a liquor shop; three of his brothers are working in that shop. One of the other two brothers run a fruit shop. The fifth one plays guitar in a restaurant. All his sisters got married. Pablo knows the history of Montefrio very well; how old the palaces and castles were; which king used to live in which palace; which king died in which year, he knows everything. He also shared that he used to earn some pocket money by working as a tourist guide, but as he studied only up to the fourth standard he could not get good work.His actual hobby is to catch animals and to train them. He caught the mongoose only three days back and it had already started obeying his orders.He was on the front seat and kept on narrating his biography. On the backseat of the taxi, we three discussed in a low voice that we would offer him to be with us and help us in our basic requirements for the few days we are going to stay here. And of course we would pay him for that. But till that time we didn't see the castle and we didn't know whether it would be possible for us to start our experiment

there or not.

After another fifteen minute's drive through a forest we reached at a little open space, where Pablo asked to stop the car. 'We have to walk from here,' He said. 'How far?' asked Krole 'just about two minutes' replied Pablo.

If not exactly in two minutes, but we reached in front of a huge iron gate within five minutes of a fairly troublesome walk through the bushes and shrubs. It was surely not a very huge castle but quite enough for hundred people to live in it.There was no canal around the castle. A path twisted, turned through the compound gate and took us to the main entrance of the house. Pablo could guess that we wanted to enter inside the castle — he said at least one thousand bats reside there in that house along with innumerable rats and snakes. Saunders asked him how did he know so much about the castle. Pablo replied 'Once I entered the castle following a 'Salamander', Oh! God! What pain it caused!! It made me run up and down and finally took me to the terrace.Salamander is a reptile from the chameleon class and is often seen in this part of Spain.

'What else have you seen there in the castle?' asked Krole. Pablo said he had seen nothing much — a few broken chairs and tables, some old weapons on the walls. Ceilings were mostly broken and hanging dangerously. Amongst all the rooms were like this, but only one was locked so he couldn't see what was inside. But surprisingly there was a kitchen in the castle, which had a lot of earthen utensils - he had taken one bowl from those and gifted it to his mother.Now, this made all of us very excited 'can you take us to the kitchen? ´ Krole asked in a low yet very sharp voice.'Why not?' said Pablo, 'come with me'!

We went with Pablo and found that our guess was not wrong at all. There was no doubt about the fact that seven hundred years back one of the South Eastern rooms of the Savedra castle had been used as a laboratory of an Alchemist.Oven, water tank on the floor, earthen pottery, glass retorts and tubes-everything was there though all of them were covered by the layers of dusts of the last seven centuries. There was a medieval air pump also — which Krole checked and certified that it was fine and would work for us as well. We all had seen pictures of laboratories, exactly like this in so many alchemy books, the only difference was — the people who were going to work there were from the twentieth century. At the same time the other true fact was — now it was not only Krole, Saunders and I were also getting into the 'medieval time-frame' mentally. And I was sure that those alchemists also used to feel the same excitement, which I was feeling in my veins.

We hired Pablo for thousand Pesetas a day , which is close to our Indian 100 Rupees. He would clean up the Laboratory within a day so that we can start our work from the day after. He also would have to clean-up two more rooms because we all three have to stay in the castle only. As once the process of gold making starts we would not be able to leave Savendra Caste. Pablo would bring our

food; sleeping would not be a problem as all three of us have sleeping bags.We went back to the hotel at 1:30 p.m. And it started raining within half an hour, immediately we sent Pablo to the castle with the container. Now it's 8:30 pm and the rain has stopped. This place is quite dry but it's sheer luck that we had this encounter with a sudden rainfall.Krole and Saunders had just called me to say that they are ready for dinner. O-ho! I forgot to mention one thing in my diary — the ball which Rufas Blackmore had given us — we tested it before coming here and came to know that the silver was hundred percent pure. So now we cannot call him a magician anymore; he has been successful as an alchemist as well. Now we need to overtake him by making hundred percent pure gold. And we all three are confident about that.

30th June (0:30 hrs)We have just returned from Savedra castle after spending two hours in our Alchemic laboratory. We had to perform an important ritual before we started our experiment, as per Savedra's instructions. Now I am going to write about it, but before that, let me write something else — the spirit of tenth century Arabian Alchemist gave his blessings to us. Tomorrow exactly at twelve noon our manual air pump would start working. All ingredients have been collected in sufficient quantities and a new big lock has also been arranged for the laboratory door, tomorrow we are going to shift in the castle. Pablo will also be there with us.

We have explained our business (to some extent) to him because he seemed so innocent, we thought we could have faith in him.

The new thing in the method of planchet to call upon the spirit of Zabir-Ibn-Hayan; which Krole used this time, was some Latin & Tibetan chants in the beginning, where Saunders did the Tibetan part and Krole did the Latin portion, after that Krole played some European religious tunes with his bone-flute. I must mention one thing that during this planchet there was another living thing in the room — he was none other than Mustafa. He has already killed three rats since we shifted to this castle. I am sure he is expecting more of them and that is why he is so happy.

After the chant and the flute, we all sat around a table and started thinking about Zabir-Ibn-Hayan. Krole and I, we both know the Arabian language pretty well, so we knew it would not be any problem to communicate with the spirit. The spirit would come through Krole as he was the medium. He was sitting with his eyes closed; Saunders and I were looking at Krole without even blinking our eyes. The light sources were only two candles; the flames where swaying very slowly with the wind and with that our three large shadows were also swaying on the wall.After some fifteen odd minutes, there was a new shadow movement on the wall and as we looked up, we found a bat; hanging from the log of the ceiling. It was not a very uncommon thing to have a bat hanging from an old castle ceiling like this, but the uncommon thing with this bat was — it was also swaying like a pendulum and was staring at all of us. With the corner of my eye I could see that Mustafa was also staring at it.There was a little change in Krole's body — to be precise a change in his posture. The upper part of his body had bent forward, towards the table and his lower body was moving upwards.

In two minutes time his posture took a shape as if Krole was in his 'Namaz'. Saunders and I could clearly see that his feet were not touching the floor any more and he was not sitting on the chair — his body was entirely suspended in the air.From somewhere the smell of 'Itr' (an Arabic essence) was coming and the moment I recognized it, there was a little 'Thud' and I found a pearl 'prayer beads' on the table in front of Krole's head I could identify, that was a 'Tasbeeh', which is very popular among Muslim devotees.Surprise was waiting for us — all the pearls came out individually; arranged themselves in a specific manner, which seemed to be a line written in Arabic, which read— 'be successful'.After ten seconds the line got dismantled and again got arranged as a new line in Arabic — 'The price of gold'.I started thinking what did the spirit mean by this and then for the third time the pearls got re-arranged to write —'The price of life'. And then all of a sudden they all vanished.Krole's body then fell down on the chair with a heavy 'thud'. When I explained the writing to Saunders he said "Success, I understand, but 'the price of gold is the price of life?' What does that mean?"Krole did not have any satisfactory answer for that, he said he was in a trance and he couldn’t remember what all he had done during the time.In my opinion we do not need to get worried about the second and the third sentence — 'Be successful' is enough.Even when we were coming out of the room after the planchet, the bat was still hanging from the ceiling.

Would it go tomorrow or it would stay in our laboratory permanently?

End of Part two

Part 3:

Ist July.

We have shifted to Savedra castle from the hotel. But a strange thing happened before we shifted, which made all of us a little tensed. The hotel management was mostly responsible for it, and we had to be very rude to him for that — let me write in details.Even in the small sized hotels, it never happens, that the room 'A' key would also open room 'B'; here on the very first day I discovered that the lock of Krole's room could easily be opened by Saunder's Room keys. We all were annoyed, but the area around the hotel was so beautiful and so quite, we decided to stay there.Today in the morning Krole came to my room shouting and using German slangs for the hotel manager — he was very angry, I gave him a glass of water first and after he calmed down a bit, I learned that last night someone entered his room and left everything at sixes and sevens.'Could he take anything?' I asked anxiously — 'No, he couldn’t, but it was quite easy for him, just think, had the diary been there with me, what would have happened?One thing I forgot to mention, that in London, Krole copied a part of the diary where the 'gold making process' was explained, in coded script and kept the diary in his bank locker. We had distributed those papers amongst ourselves; each of us had three A4 sheets to carry. Now I think — had this safety measure not been taken what could have happened! Saunders went straight to the manager's room and started scolding him vehemently. The gentleman was almost in tears, he said that since the hotel's inauguration - twenty-six years ago, no such thing happened there. When we interrogated the night watchman - Pedro, he said one tourist came looking for a room last night, it was one a.m. and when he told him that there was no room available in the hotel, the tourist then took a seat and offered him a cigarette. Pedro couldn't refuse the expensive French cigarette. And with just one drag of that cigarette he fall asleep and wake up only in the morning. 'How did he look?' Krole asked, ‘The face was covered with beard and moustache and a dark glass', replied Pedro. He also said that the thief must have climbed up on the second floor balcony by the water pipe and once he reached the balcony, the stairs were just a few meters through the passage.Now – at this point of conversation I asked Krole that so much happened in his room and how come he didn't wake up? He said last night he had taken two sleeping pills, as he wanted to have some good sleep before we start the work.As Krole didn't loose any money or any of his belongings and we were also leaving the hotel, we decided to not to think about it any more. The manager said he would inform the police, and would ask them to enquire about all the new tourists who visited the place within the last couple of days.After reaching the castle, we have inspected around and seen the entire castle thoroughly in the daylight. The plan of the castle was quite complex and one really cannot get a clear idea at one go. Quite frankly — had Pablo not been there with us, we would have lost our way innumerable times. We already heard that one of the eastern rooms on the 1st floor was locked. Today we saw it. There was quite huge a lock hanging on the door. Though we tried a lot but could not have any luck opening it. 'It would be funny to try any of our keys to open this lock'. Said Krole 'anyway we are going to stay here, so one day we would try with a hammer or something heavy to break this open. Saunders seemed a little morose since yesterday. He has this thought that there is some connection between the gypsy lady's forecast and the comments made by the spirit. He said Madame Reneta said, 'I see death' and yesterday the spirit communicated 'the price of gold is the price of life.' Now friends, if I see my life is at

stake, then I would leave this project immediately and not only that — even Mustafa's life is equally priceless to me. But Krole was very optimistic — he said, ‘don’t think much about the gypsy lady’s forecast. Gold cannot have any connection with death. And what Zabir Hayan’s spirit meant was —Alchemic gold is a priceless thing’.Exactly at 12 noon we started our experiment by setting fire in the oven.The proceedings were very simple — it only required time and patience. Today we had to burn different plants and collect their ashes. The other thing we did was to weight the ingredients (especially lead, sulphur and table salt) and put them into different containers. Oh! Yes! Another thing the rainwater had been stored in the oval shaped water tank by Pablo.Its 10 pm. We all have slept in shifts because at least two of us should always be there in the laboratory. Pablo ‘s duty was to guard the place through the night so he also slept for a couple of hours in the after noon.

4 th July

Nothing worth mentioning had happened over the last three days, that's why I didn't write. Today's scheduled work is also going fine. But in the afternoon something exciting happened which I think is mentionable — I heard the sound of Saunders' alarm clock from the next room at 12.30 p.m. and understood he would come to work and I would have to sleep now, though I knew I could not sleep, as my nerves were very much awakened, but I had to maintain the routine, so I left the laboratory immediately after Saunders entered and decided to survey the castle within these three hours.Unknowingly I walked directly towards the closed door on the 1st floor. One thing was really disturbing me - why would only one room among the twenty-six rooms of this castle be locked? After climbing the stairs of the 1st floor, I walked through the dark passage towards the closed door. The door was huge — ten feet in height and four & half feet in width. Decorative copper plates were fitted on the door. Intricate designs on the lock were also quite visible. I was carrying a torch and after searching the door from top to bottom with its light I found a thin crack. I was in a dilemma - if I put the torchlight through the crack then I do not have a place to put my eyes through. Finally I took off my spectacles and put my right eye on the crack.I never thought that I would be able to see anything inside a locked, dark room. But even through that 1/4th inch narrow crack I could see that the room was not at all dark, possibly light was coming through some skylight or through a window. I could also understand that the light had a yellow tint in it — most probably the walls were painted in yellow or the window had yellow glass fitted.No further investigation was possible for me; I knew only one person could help me; I came out of the castle in search of that other person.It didn't take much time to find out Pablo. He was sitting under an oak tree in the compound of the castle and trying to set up a catch for hedgehogs. He said he had seen one in the bushes around the oak tree. I said, 'let the hedgehog wait for some more time to get captured, and you come and do a small work for me.'I showed him the room and asked him to go up on the third floor and find out whether there was any sky-light or something like that on that room or not. Pablo came back in ten minutes; totally out of breath; his eyes were twinkling in excitement “professor - come with me!” he breathed.He did not leave my hand until we reached the second floor terrace; he was literally pulling me by my hand. The moment we reached on the terrace he pointed his finger towards a specific direction and shouted “there’s the sky-light, see what all magnificent things are there in that room.'

I looked through the skylight and got so excited that I immediately broke the glass of the skylight; collected some rope; helped Pablo to climb down. And got the shock of my life when finally Pablo climbed up to me with three golden statues in his hand. He was holding one life size squirrel, one owl and one rose — when I rubbed them with my handkerchief the blinding glitter suggested that they were undoubtedly made of 100% pure gold.And of course there was no doubt about the fact that the gold was made by the thirteenth century Spanish alchemist Manuel Savedra. Surely enough, now I know why did he call himself an artist, because he was not only a great alchemist but also a goldsmith of a class. Even the famous Italian goldsmith Benvenutu Chellini's works would seem very dull in front of these works of art, I thought.

5th July

Initially I thought I would not show these objects to Saunders and Krole. But keeping Saunders' depression in mind I showed them the statues.Actually Saunders lost his excitements with in two days since we started our work — one primary reason for that was …as a scientist it is quite tough to accept the methodology of alchemy on a serious note. I can understand this and respect the feeling. But being an Indian, I can't ignore things like spirits, ghosts, mantras and chants etc. In my own life I had come across so many things for which science does not have any explanation. But Saunders is a pure Englishman; he does not believe in any 'Mumbo Jumbos'.But, now Saunders' attitude has changed and the only reason for that is the gold, made by Savedra. We have displayed the statues on a shelf in our laboratory. I don't know how much the beauty of the room is enhanced, but surely I can say that the chances of a visit by robbers are now much higher. Anyway all three of us are carrying weapons.Saunders is a crack shot hunter, Krole is also good with his pistol and I always carry my annihilin gun in my pocket. So there is no reason to be afraid of.Pablo is guarding the compound in the nights; he could finally catch the hedgehog, so he is very happy with both his mongoose and hedgehog.It seems that it will take two more days for us to finish the work. Today that 'semi-liquid thing' (as mentioned in the diary) has been made. It looks quite peculiar. Its colour appears to be different from different angles. And possibly for the existence of mercury all the colours have a silver tint.

6th July

Today something serious has happened which made us to believe that someone is still following us. In the morning when Pablo came to us with the news — we followed him to the garden and found some unknown footprints. And they were almost everywhere. Some of them were very close to our laboratory's window. Strangely enough Pablo could hear nothing. But then again it's not very surprising at all, as there are many ways to enter the castle compound, other than the main gate. The seven hundred year old wall is broken in many places. Anyone can enter through any of those broken parts; can hide behind the bushes and keep an eye on our activities. Now onwards Pablo should be more cautious. It is 9 a.m and I have just started writing my diary after finishing the coffee. Its time for Krole to go to sleep, but I am not sure whether any of us can sleep tonight. Today it is scheduled to mix the semi-liquid substance with rainwater and to purify it for seven hours continuously. After that we need to pray to our gods and goddesses and try all the metal stuff we are carrying, into that semi liquid substance to check whether we are successful or not. If the result doesn't satisfy us, we do not know what would be our next step. Probably we would have to act as good boys and go back home. I do not know why? But I have a feeling that our experiment is going towards success.

7th July

Extreme sadness. All the slogging, all the efforts and endless patience has gone in vein, the liquid we made through the alchemic process could not turn any metal into gold. We tried everything we had with us in that liquid but nothing happened. Though one thing we could understand that this thing had some specialty; it should be cold by this time but whenever I take my hand close to it, it feels like innumerable invisible needles are pinning my hand from nowhere.Savedra had clearly stated in his diary that this liquid couldn't be touched. Saunders had carried Mustafa out of the laboratory; he had gone to the garden and was sitting helplessly on a half broken bench. Krole was sitting on a stool and staring at the oval water tank as if he was in a trance. That bat was still hanging from the ceiling. It was there in the same place since it came inside on the very first day. I could never realize Krole’s state of mind, that he was so shocked until he suddenly became furious about the bat. Suddenly I saw him taking out his revolver. He abused the bat in German and before I could do anything he shot it. But surprisingly the dead bat didn't fall; it kept on hanging the same way, only droplets of blood started dripping from it's body on the floor.Saunders heard the firing and ran straight up to the laboratory. He took a few seconds to understand the situation and then started scolding Krole violently.I immediately went out of the laboratory. I was really feeling very tired after so many long working hours, night shifts and failure at the end. Generally, none of my expeditions were unsuccessful, but I think this time it was one. 7th July, 11 pmThe most shocking and memorable day in my life. All those spine-chilling events happened within ten minutes of Krole- Saunders's fight. Let me now describe how everything happened. I went to the garden instead of going to my own room after coming out of the laboratory. Two-three minutes before there was a quick rainfall, but now the sun was shining bright on the sky. When I came out and looked at the eastern sky, 'Mull Hassen' the highest peak of Spain welcomed me. A beautiful pair of rainbows above the peak were adding amazing colours to the sky. Suddenly, a sound of a half-uttered cry brought me down on earth from the two beautiful rainbows. Following the sound I ran as fast as I could and found Pablo — lying on the grass; senseless. He had a black spot on his jaw and blood was dripping from this mouth. The next moment some noises came from the direction of the laboratory. I ran again towards the noise; but I had to stop at the door. Rufus Blackmore standing facing Krole and Saunders with a .38 colt revolver and with a devilish smile. “ The moment you cross the door, you are a dead man”, he warned.After saying this, he first collected the coded formula papers from the table and then he moved towards the shelf where the golden statues were kept. I still shiver in horror to visualize what happened the next.A hairy ball-like thing jumped out of Saunders's lap; traveled all the distance through air at the speed of thunder and attacked Blackmore. Blackmore’s revolver went out of control and got fired, Krole had a close shave as the bullet missed him by a few inches and broke a glass retort.And with that, Blackmore lost his balance and fell into the tank at the center of the room. Mustafa went back to his master after taking his revenge by giving deep scratch marks on Blackmore's face with his claws. The moment Blackmore's body touched the liquid; he started trembling as if he got an electric shock and then remained motionless. All three of us kept watching with our three pairs of eyes wide open — the uncovered areas of Blackmore's body — like his neck, his face, his hands- they all were

turning into dazzling gold — very fast.Saunders whispered “the price of gold …the price of life”.

So in Savedra's alchemy living things are required to make gold instead of metals — like human beings, flowers, animals, birds anything living.The ‘Blackmore’ we can see now, that owl, that squirrel, that rose — they all were mortal living things at some point of time. Now, they will never talk, never move, and never age as they have all become immortal.

The mystery of Munroe Island by Victor Ghoshe

Munroe Island, 12th March.

Whatever has happened over the last three weeks prior to my journey has been noted in my diary, but in a very hap-hazard way. Now as we have reached this island and have some time in hand, I am going to re-organize

those notes.

It’s needless to say that I am again a part of an expedition. The island, on which I am sitting now, possibly had a name because three hundred years back people from mainland arrived here, but that name never reached the civilized world. So, let us call it ‘Munroe Island’ for the time being.

We are five in the group - my old friend Jeremy Saunders is the one who has actually initiated this expedition.To start the story of this expedition, I need to give an introduction of Bill Callenbauch, who is also a part of this expedition – a professional photographer from California; tall, well built and adventure-loving. He is touching forty-five but looks half his age. Saunders knows Callenbauch for quite a long time. Last December, National Geographic magazine sent Callenbauch to the Northwestern Africa to shoot some local festivals. He was visiting different small cities of that region. Something surprising happened at a town called ‘Agadir’ in Morocco. Agadir is a coastal town and a large number of its population lives on fishing. Callenbauch went to the fishermen’s’ locality to talk to them and to take some photographs. While talking to a fisherman, Callenbauch noticed a three-year-old kid playing with a corked bottle. Callenbauch could also see a folded paper in the bottle and got intrigued to ask the fisherman if he could have the bottle to have a closer look.The bottle was sealed and the paper inside was a letter, written in English. The writing style suggested that it was a letter written long time ago.

The father of the kid said that the bottle was there in their house since his grandfather’s time. The fishermen were Muslims and they write in Arabic, so no one thought of opening the bottle and reading the letter.

Callenbauch took the letter out of the bottle and read it, within another few days he finished his work and went back to London, where he visited Saunders and showed him the letter. The letter had just a few lines written with a pencil, which goes like –

Latitude 33º East – Longitude 33º North, 13 December 1622

We have discovered a wonder plant here in this unknown island whose miraculous medicinal values can revolutionise human civilization. I am sending this letter in this bottle against Brandon’s strict orders. As he asked all of us to not to talk about the plant and not to spread the news. Black-hole Brandon is the ruler of this island now. Thus, if anyone comes to explore this place after reading this letter, he should be prepared to fight with Brandon. Black-hole Brandon is after my life, and I am sure that my death is close.

Hector Munroe

Saunders went to the Naval office in London and enquired about the ship wrecks occurred during 1621-1622 in the Atlantic Ocean. Generally the naval departments preserve all the documents in the archives even if they are centuries old. There were three shipwrecks in 1622. Dr Hector Munroe’s name was found in the passenger list of a ship named ‘Conquest’. It was destined to the Virgin Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and was coming from Gibraltar. The ship drowned near Bermuda – and the reason was never known. The naval department report says there were no survivors; but now we have enough proof to believe that Hector Munroe survived.At the same time the passenger list of Conquest did not show any Brandon’s name. Saunders investigated further to learn that in the early years of seventeenth century there was one Greg Brandon – the most infamous pirate of that time. Brandon was one eyed – in the place of the second eye there was a hole – which gave him the name ‘Black hole Brandon’. Brandon had killed over a thousand people for his lust for gold. That time Jamaica was one of the main shelters for the English pirates. It could also be possible that Brandon and his gang had attacked Conquest and drowned it. And Munroe had survived possibly because he was a doctor. Those days a doctor’s demand was very high on a pirate ship.

Diseases like Scurvy, pellagra, Berry-Berry were very common in the seas, and they could kill all the sailors in no time. For that reason a doctor, who could treat these ailments and could also do surgery if needed – used to be a very important person for a voyage. Hector Munroe was surely a doctor of that competence. But how did he and Brandon reached that unknown island is still a mystery.

To sum it up – after learning all these facts Saunders decided to visit the unknown island in-spite of the fact that centuries had passed since the letter was written. He wrote to me about this. I agreed immediately and joined him in London within seven days. When I arrived London the preparation for the expedition was almost over. Callenbauch had told Saunders that if the expedition finally happens, he would surely be a part of it. And when I talked to him I could make out that he is dreaming of making a lot of money from the TV channels by selling the film rights, which he is planning to shoot during the expedition.

The fourth one of our group is a Japanese scientist called Hidechi Suma. One of his innumerable inventions is just there on the beach in front of my eyes. This is a jet driven sea vehicle called Sumacraft, and what a magical thing it is! We realized it pretty well during this one thousand five hundred miles sea journey. Sumacraft had never caused any problem for us and overcame all the hurdles of such a long voyage. Suma came to London for a demonstration of this jet boat and there he met Saunders.Sumacraft is not the only thing he had invented. He is also carrying some of his other inventions, which he thinks will be useful in our expedition. Above all Suma is one of the finest Biochemists of the world. The other thing I should mention about him is that - I have never seen such a well dressed person in my life; you look at him at any hour of the day, you would be forced to believe that he is in his own city Osaka and in a while he would take his briefcase and start for office.

Before I introduce the 5th person I should write how he actually got inside the group. Saunders published an advertisement on all the leading newspapers of London – calling for eligible people to join the group for the expedition. There were five eligibility criteria:

i) Previous experience of sea voyageii) Experience of being a part of at least two scientific expeditions.iii) A degree in any stream of scienceiv) Good healthv) Experience to handle weapons

The fifth one of our group could only fulfill the first criteria. He is not a scientist, he is a writer, and he had never been part of any expedition neither scientific nor non-scientific. Only in school once he climbed up 1500 ft on the Ben Nevis Mountains of Scotland with a group of friends. As the total height of Ben Nevis is 4500 ft so climbing up 1500 ft of it was truly not a big deal. But then why was he included in the group?

The reason is simple – David Munroe is a successor of Hector Munroe. The proverb we often use about – ‘fourteen generations up…’ in Bengali, if we truly go those fourteen-generations back, we would find Hector Munroe on the top of David’s family chart. David approached Saunders when he saw the advertisement – and requested to include him in the expedition. He said that he had heard that Dr. Munroe was contemporary to Shakespeare, from his father and grandfather. At the time when the British Navy was fighting the ‘Spanish Armada’, Dr. Munroe was the physician for the British Admiral the Duke of Ephingham. Apart from this when David learnt - that ‘Black hole Brandon’ was also there in his forefather’s story, he became very keen to be a part of this expedition. He had read so many stories about the pirates, even he read so much about ‘Black hole Brandon’. If there were any hidden treasure of Brandon and if he can discover that – it would be really a dream come true for him. And here I should mention one thing, that David is only twenty-two year old.

One single glance at David Munroe and one would know that his hands had never held any weapon. The lost look in his eyes, soft voice, and shoulder touching long golden hair- all of them may vouch for his imagination power but surely not for his physical power.

Saunders had finally selected David, because of only one reason – the blood that is flowing in David’s vein is truly the blood of the person who wrote the letter in the bottle.

There is another member in the group – Rocket – the huge Great Den of David and of course who is in the best shape amongst all of us.

Today in the morning we have arrived here. We had all our doubts when even after traveling 600 miles in two days time we could not see any sign of land. We started thinking whether this part of Atlantic Ocean has any island at all. Today after sunrise when Saunders put on his binoculars and announced that he could see land through the thick fog around, Callenbauch

instantly got ready with his movie camera. I was a little surprised because generally long before the land appears, sea gulls come and announce the news in their cracked voices, but here it was so different, not a single sea gull was around.

Things are no more surprising now, because even after surveying the whole day over 5 kilometers of area we could not see any living creature other than some insects and crabs, and not only that, we could not find any uncommon plant either. The plants we have seen here are only those, which are normally found in this part of Atlantic. But we have only seen a part of the western side of the island.

We have made our camp on the beach itself. This is the Southern side of the island, which has only sand and is a little rocky; vegetation is very less on this part. The island is quite small and mostly plain; but the central part – which is nearly five kilometers away from our camp – is quite high and full of rocky hillocks.

David is very happy, he is running on the beach with Rocket throughout the day – and we also are quite enjoying it. He seems to be a very different person now. Much different than the way we have seen him in London and during the voyage.

The one, who has actually created a problem, is Callenbauch. He sneezed at least thirty times continuously from the moment he stepped on the island – and that was followed by a high fever, so we could not take him with us. Suma stayed with him in the camp, as he wanted to prepare all his machinery and also to set up a small laboratory, because some basic chemical analysis will be required if we find some new species of plant.

Though he is so sick but, still Callenbauch has predicted that in two-three days we are going to pack up from here. According to him there are plenty of islands in Atlantic, which are similar to this one.But then again we could not forget the letter of Dr. Hector Munroe; when the latitude and longitude were correct – I am sure that this is the island mentioned in Munroe’s letter and this is the island where he found the amazing fruit.

13th March, 12 Noon.Callenbauch’s prediction has failed. No question can arise about leaving this island in two-three days.

Let me explain.

Today in the morning we took bath in the sea and finished our breakfast and then as we were getting ready to go out to explore – David came and proposed that he wanted to go out alone with Rocket.Yesterday only I could make out that his confidence level was going up. Truly, it’s very tough for a writer to roam around with a bunch of old scientists.We have come to see things thoroughly, and for that we need time and patience. David said

that he wants to visit those hillocks and check whether there is any cave, as he believes that Blackhole Brandon’s treasure can be found in those caves (if there is any). ‘I will surely come back in half an hour’ – said David.

I told him that though there are no big creatures, but poisonous snakes and scorpions can be there, and he should not take this risk. But David was hell bent to go – and said he would take Callenbauch’s pistol and Rocket would be there with him, so there would be nothing to be worried about.

I was thinking how to stop David from this childish venture, and then suddenly heard a loud – ‘No, - No No No No !’

What happened? Such a strong ‘No’ on Suma’s smiling face was looking quite weird. Suma put down a small machine on the beach and said, ‘There is something big here – that side.

The Mystery of Monroe Island Part 2

Suma pointed his finger towards those hillocks. Then he showed us his amazing machine - Telecardioscope. One can hear the heartbeat of any animal from a distance of 10 kilometers (maximum). The machine has a receiver and a knob, one has to turn the receiver and the knob to find out which direction and how far the animal is. The moment, the direction and the distance match, the machine produces the sound of its heartbeat and a coloured light bulb goes ‘beep beep…’ with the rhythm of the beat. If the animal is 10 kilometers away the light glows in dark violet, as the animal comes close, the colours of the bulb changes according to the ‘VIBGYOR’ order and finally becomes Red when the animal is just a kilometer away. When the animal comes within a kilometer range, the machine only produces a louder heartbeat sound and the red light bulb goes uninterruptedly ‘on’.

‘The animal is not changing its place. And I think it’s quite big’ said Suma.

‘How big?’ – I asked

‘Bigger than a human being – as the heartbeat and the size of an animal is inversely proportionate. The heartbeat of a normal sized human being is seventy per minute. And for this animal it is just above fifty.

‘Could it be a tortoise?’ I asked. Huge tortoises are quite common at this part of Atlantic, the other big animals found here are monkeys and deers, but their heartbeat rates are much faster than those of human beings.

‘You might be right Shonku - the way it is lying idle at the same place – it can be a huge tortoise’ – said Suma.

But what is this tortoise doing at the middle of the island - so far from the shore – that’s a big question!

But Saunders didn’t buy the tortoise story at all. He believed that, this was a different animal all together - possibly the only big animal of this island, and for the same reason David should not go alone.

After another few minutes of the light and sound show, Suma switched his machine off. None of us could resist clapping and congratulating Suma for such a great invention. A ‘great dane’ can feel the

presence of a creature long before a human being does, but even Rocket must have been feeling very small in front of this machine.

We all were ready to go out to explore, but Bill Callenbauch had some problem. He tried all the medicines he was carrying but they were of no good. Let me come back and give him a ‘miracureall’ - this invention of mine cures any ailment except the common cold in a day’s time. Callenbauch has become desperate now, as he knows that his camera has things to shoot, but he couldn’t get up from bed. Today also Suma will stay back in the camp; he needs some more time to set up his miniature laboratory.

Three of us set out with Rocket to explore. We know if any animal comes close, Rocket will bark and if it doesn’t, there is nothing to worry.

We are not going towards the hillocks of the central island, as there is very less vegetation. Today we are going to explore the eastern side of the island, we will follow the beach and wherever we find dense vegetation we will enter the forest. We all are armed. Saunders’ is carrying his German Mannlicher rifle, David has Calenbauch’s Barett Automatic, and I am carrying my ‘Anaihilin’ in my vest pocket. When I told Calenbauch about my weapon - that any living creature of this earth would vanish with a little press on its trigger, he told me very clearly that I should not use it if anything appears in front of us. Because if it vanishes, he wouldn’t be able to capture it in his movie camera.

We decided if someone wants to leave the group to wander alone for some time, then he got to shout frequently to let others know his whereabouts, and he can’t go far from the group. Obviously the rule was for David, because we figured out that his indifferent and lazy nature had disappeared and he seemed to be charged up now. The area through which we are going now has no large rocks or trees so even if one goes a little away from the group he would still be visible.

I have been thinking – Suma’s machine has informed us about only one animal; is there any other animal around? If there are more, are they all beyond ten kilometers? Not possible…Because I believe this island is much less than 10 kilometers in both length and breadth. Seven days would be sufficient to survey the entire island.

We walked for a mile on the beaches and the landscape changed. Now we had to go inside the island. On our left the first row was of short palm trees and then the forest gradually went thick. There were banana trees, papaya trees, coconut trees and with them there were other known and unknown tall trees. Rock and sand had disappeared from the ground beneath; grass and shrubs took the place.

We three and Rocket entered into the forest.One thing was very surprising – there were no chirps, no noise of birds. I have never been in a forest - this silent, especially at this part of the earth, where you find hundreds of bird species. The other sound missing was the sound of reptiles moving through grasses, I felt like we were walking through a cursed forest and the trees are also going to die soon.

After another 10 minutes of walk, the forest became a little thinner and we reached a relatively open place. Another few steps and we had to stop with a shock. David was walking in front of us with a difference of a few steps – suddenly he uttered a shrill cry and stopped. We all walked fast to reach near David to find –

A lot of animal bones and skulls were scattered on that open space. We had to try very hard to identify skeletons from the pile of bones, there were skeletons of some deers, some big reptiles – possibly a couple of Iguanas and of many monkeys. The colours of the bones were brownish yellow which interpreted that they were very old.

This is a proof that there were animals on this island, but they are no more, and we do not have any clue to understand why they have disappeared.

David was quite shocked, and kept quite for sometime and then said –

“That Monster! That monster! It had finished all these animals.”

We realized the animal whose heartbeat was captured in Suma’s machine, has now become a monster in David’s imagination. But it’s not yet time to be sure about the thought that a creature ate all these animals, they could have died naturally also. But then again why would all these different species of animals would come to one place and die?

We kept on walking and approached towards a teak wood forest, I could also see some ‘Cedar’ trees in the forest from where I was. Bougainvillea, jasmine and China rose shrubs were everywhere. I have seen mostly all kinds of teak wood trees, but I have never seen the kind of bright blue patches some of these trees have.

We had to go close to find out what were those blue colour patches; it was not a colour patch on the trunk but was the colour of innumerable honey-comb-like small fruits, which have grown on the trunk. I should also mention the fragrance. An unknown and very nice scent made the air thick around that area. The mesmerizing blue colour and the scent of this plant stunned all of us. The first one to react was David – he shouted in joy and ran towards the tree to touch the blue thing; we all had to shout to stop him from touching it.

As Saunders touched those fruits with rubber gloves on his hand, they fell on the ground very easily; we collected nearly hundred such fruits in a polythene bag and headed back for the camp. Suma should immediately do the chemical analysis of this fruit, as we have not seen this fruit before. My intuition says this is the plant Dr Munroe wrote about. It’s obvious that this is a parasitic plant, and lives on the teak wood tree.

Suma’s miniature laboratory is ready and he has started the chemical analysis process of the blue fruit. We have learnt that, naked hands can touch this fruit – as it is not harmful to skin. I have been to Callenbauch’s tent and showed him one fruit. He took it in his hands, stared at it for some time and then put it on the bedside table with a sigh. I could make out that he was very unhappy, as he couldn’t shoot the special moment of discovering this plant. Before coming back I gave him one miracurall tablet of mine, as we needed him to document everything. The problem with Callenbauch is that, he doesn’t want to take any medicine, which is not made in America, but now as the situation has gone worst; he has agreed to take one.

13th March, 9:00 pm.

Our expedition will surely be successful – and everyday this faith is getting stronger. At this point of time we cannot even guess, how would this expedition end, but the way things are taking turns, it seems that we would be able to return with some great experience.

Today Callenbauch had a little chicken soup in Lunch. His pulse is still quite weak and he looks feeble - the way his looks had changed in last two days – it’s becoming an issue of our concern.

But even in this situation he asked about the animal. Could we see it? Is it still there or came closer to us?

Telecardioscope is switched off now, as Suma is engrossed in the chemical analysis of the fruit, and we can understand that he is doing well, from his frequent happy shouts. Saunders and I were anxiously observing the process of the research, and of course we knew what was happening. We could actually see that the presence of all the vitamins in this fruit is being discovered one by one. In Munroe’s age the term ‘Vitamin’ was not formed. Science was a kindergarten student then, and research on food was to start yet another two fifty years later.

Suma got up from his chair at 3pm and uttered two words. First he said ‘amazing’, then he pushed the white handkerchief one fourth of an inch inside his blazer pocket and said ‘and mysterious’.

In the mean time Chalenbauch came and stood behind us so silently that we couldn’t even realize – the moment we had an eye contact, he came forward shook hands with me and said, “Great! Your medicine is great – I am entirely cured.”

What are you saying? It’s just been an hour.‘Well you can see,’ said Bill Calenbauch with a smile.I never knew my own medicine could work so fast.‘And take this – this was there on my table.’

What! This is the tablet I gave you.It didn’t take long time to solve the mystery. Calenbauch has taken the blue fruit instead of my medicine, as he was not in his full senses in high fever. And the fruit cured him so fast. Calenbauch’s cure is not the only visible virtue of the fruit. The shine in Calenbauch’s eyes is also something to mention; which we have never seen before.Saunders told Suma, ‘You do not need to do any more research on this; let’s take this fruit as much as possible and lets go back to our country; we will cultivate this plant and surpass all medicine companies in business.

Though Saunders said this very lightly but Suma answered back in a very serious voice. He said he has to carry on with the analysis at least for another day. There are elements in this fruit other than the vitamins, which are yet to be identified.

But Suma had to leave his work and start the cardiograph machine as Calenbauch was requesting him repeatedly. The machine showed the animal in the same place. ‘But his heartbeat is slower.’ Said Suma.Though we could understand that from the sound itself, yesterday it was fifty, and today it is below forty.

‘My god!’ cried Callenbauch – ‘is it going to die? Why are you guys wasting so much of time for this fruit, when there is such an animal over there?’Saunders replied – ‘Bill, please don’t be restless as we already got the fruit, now tomorrow onwards we will start surveying the center of the island for the animal.

Callenbauch was not happy at all even after this conversation; he went to his tent –in a disgusted mood.

14th March.

Today we could not go out. It was raining heavily with storm and lightening flashes throughout the day. Callenbauch captured us in his movie camera and recorded our interviews.

David told us stories of pirates after we finished our lunch. My God! this boy has got a huge stock of stories.

‘I have a bad news’– said Suma ‘Whichever element is there other than the vitamins, can’t be analyzed and identified in this small laboratory, that can only be done in big laboratories when we are back. But of course our mission has already been successful – and we will surely be back in another couple of days. Suma had strict orders for us to not to consume the fruit until we analyze it thoroughly. If such serious sickness of Callenbauch can be cured by only one fruit and in just one hour, then one can only imagine the power of this fruit. Suma thinks though this fruit seems good but he would not be astonished if it turns out to be harmful to human being. I do not know whether surprisingly high appetite is harmful or not but Callenbauch has eaten three packets of hams in lunch today.

15th March, 7am.

Bad news.

Callenbauch has set out of the camp without telling us anything. We got the news from David Monroe – he and Callenbauch shares one tent, Saunders and me stay in one of the other two and Suma with all his gadgets and machineries stays in the last one.David woke up in the morning and found Callenbauch’s empty bed. And along with him all his camera equipments, which were there on the table had vanished. He immediately came out of the tent and shouted repeatedly calling Callenbauch, but there was no reply. At last he thought of taking Rocket’s help to find Callenbauch and gave Callenbauch’s handkerchief to Rocket to smell. But when after smelling the kerchief Rocket started running towards those hillocks of the central region, he then called him back.Suma worked throughout the night and slept in the morning; he was awakened and given the news. He immediately put his Telecardioscope on and showed us that Callenbauch is approaching those hillocks and was three kilometers away from the camp.We will start in another five minutes. Today is a bright day, and we all are going together. Saunders was disgusted and was repeatedly cursing himself – ‘why did I include him in this expedition’

15th March, 5.30pm.

Everything in my mind has gone hay where, after all these shocking events.

Now we are on the beach, sitting on the semi-dry sand, roughly two kilometers eastward from the central hillock area of the island. Saunders is taking notes in his diary. He has signed contracts with three leading dailies of London to write about this expedition. And today he has opened his diary for the first time.We could not find Callenbauch, but we found the case of his camera and his tape recorder. And both of them were discovered in very bad condition. Generally he ties up the movie camera with his body by a strap; and if he had been attacked by that unknown creature – the camera must have been with him at that point of time.David has borrowed Suma’s ‘Mikiki’ revolver and practicing his aim on a single pebble, which he has placed on a huge stone at a distance of fifty yards. And the way his practice is going, it seems that another few days - and he will become a ‘crack shot’.

Suma is walking on the beach. Forty steps left and - forty steps right – with precision. Even after eight hours of exploration, not a single crease is visible on his dress and not even a single hair on his head has moved.The leather bag which is hanging from his shoulder, has an amazing weapon in it, this one is also made by Suma himself and named ‘Sumagun’. Sumagun is eighteen inch in height, it has a button instead of a trigger - if been pressed, a needle-headed capsule comes out which contains a deadly poison again made by Suma. If this needle enters any body part of any animal, it dies in three seconds.

Part 3

I need to write about our discoveries. Firstly – we have come to know that there were people who lived on this island other than Munroe and Brandon.We have found some skeletons, glasses, bottles, knives, earrings etc. in a cave - we now have reasons to believe that the pirates - who survived the shipwreck, came here and took shelter in some of those caves we have visited. We have found twenty two cutlasses - the typical swords carried by the pirates in those days.

Well ! We have not found any treasure till now, but there are many caves to be explored yet; and god only knows what lies there.

We left the cave and walked for ten minutes and then suddenly Rocket started barking, following him we found Callenbauch’s Camera case and tape recorder beside a bush.It seemed he wanted to get rid of them and run away. But the question was, why? We requested Suma to switch on the telecardioscope on that very spot. The result was not very hopeful. We turned the receiver towards all directions but couldn’t find any signal of life other than that unknown animal’s.

It could only be so – that Callenbauch was somewhere within a kilometer.

But what is he doing? Is he injured? He’s got a gun; he can just shot once and let us know about his position. The heartbeat of the animal has gone back to fifty and the colour of the light is in between yellow and green; means the creature is just about three kilometers from here.

We collected Callenbauch’s Camera case and tape recorder and came here - on the beach to take rest and have some coffee. Suma made Callenbauch’s damaged tape recorder stand on the sand and switched it on. And when it started playing, Suma smiled silently, possibly because of the only reason

that the recorder was a Japanese one. We all stood around the machine in the late afternoon sunlight and heard Callenbauch’s voice.

“This is Bill Callenbauch. 14th March, 8.10 in the morning.

My sole expedition has been successful. Just a few moments back I have seen the animal. It came out of a cave and was just fifty yards away from me, it is larger than human being and possibly walks on four feet - though it was standing on its two feet when I saw it. It couldn’t see me as I was behind a tree, but before I could fix the telephoto lens on my camera it went inside the cave. From a distance it didn’t appear to be a ferocious animal, and from it’s walking pace I could make out that either it was unwell or it was very old. I am approaching the cave quietly.”The recorded voice ends here.And it’s time we should return. God only knows what tomorrow has in its is reserve for us.

16th March: 6.30 a.m.

Frightening experienceLast night around 2.30 am, Rocket’s loud growl and David’s shout woke me up. When I came out, I saw Rocket roaring frantically facing the north and vigorously pulling the leash in David’s hand to be free. As it was a moonless night and that too a cloudy one, we couldn’t make out why was Rocket excited. Saunders went inside the tent to bring the torch and before he came out Rocket pulled David down on the sand and ran away towards the northern hillocks. In the mean time Suma had switched on his telecardioscope, but it showed no result; which meant - even if that animal came close to our camp, it was still within a kilometer's range.

Silence prevailed for some time. We couldn’t find out anything with the torch; Rocket had disappeared behind the hillocks. We were discussing whether we should also go and search, suddenly a spine-chilling howl of Rocket left all of us spellbound. It was not a loud howl of excitement or anger but a cry of pain.Saunders held the torch high and we saw Rocket coming back. David ran towards him and we followed him. The reason of the ‘howl’ was clear;

there was a deep wound on Rocket’s back and blood was dripping out from there. We could also make out one more thing, that it was not only the animal who caused a wound on Rocket’s body but Rocket also got it injured - as Rocket’s mouth had it’s blood all over.We dressed Rocket’s wound, it was not anything major, he would surely be fine within a day.Suma tested the blood, found on Rocket’s mouth and announced that the group of the blood is ‘A’. ‘A’ group is normally a human blood group but it is also found in some species of monkeys. There was no doubt that the animal was some kind of a big monkey, because half an hour back we visited the spot - it was just fifty yards away from the camp and had seen it’s footprints on the sand. The footprints followed closed palm prints; the foot was slightly bigger than a human foot and had five fingers.Today we need to be prepared to fight this wild beast. The island, which has a ‘nectar-like’ fruit, also has

a ferocious monkey, which has surprised and frightened all of us.

17th March – 9 p.m.We are leaving this island tomorrow morning. I can’t truly describe the state of my mind, because now – words like ‘happy’, ‘sad’, ‘surprised’ all became mediocre for description.

Actually I have observed this pattern – that none of my expedition had ever been totally a success or a failure; as in many cases there had been astonishing gains, and in many cases there were irrevocable losses. One thing can be said about this expedition – that the stock of my experience, knowledge and astonishment have grown many folded. The place where we got Callenbauch’s camera case and the tape recorder yesterday– today we reached that spot and Suma switched on his telecardioscope. The machine signaled for only one animal’s heartbeat. The rate of it was 50 per minute; the colour of the light was Orange – which meant the creature was within a diameter of 2.4 kilometers from there. But it was moving and Suma had to turn the receiver constantly to capture the signal. We already knew from Callenbauch’s description that the animal could not run fast, so even if it coming towards us – we still have half an hour in our hand to survey the area. None of us still believes that Callenbauch has died. It is possible that he is seriously injured and is lying somewhere within a kilometer and that was the reason for which his heartbeats were not been reflected in the telecardioscope.

But all our hopes were shattered when Jeremy Saunders discovered the dead body of Callenbauch, behind a bush of poinsettia flower (Euphorbia pulcherrima, indigenous to Mexico and Central America, sometimes found on islands at this part as well). But Callenbauch's entire body was not there; the major portion of the lower part was missing, and it was easy to guess that the beast had eaten the missing part of the body.Callenbauch’s movie camera was still strapped around his waist - the lens was broken into pieces and the frame was absolutely damaged. Suddenly our Japanese friend uttered, “We might have some interesting film there” - and did something which shocked all of us. He moved forward and started un-strapping the camera from the dead body. the rest of us moved on as we could not bare the horrible and sad sight. We knew that we had to burry Callenbauch’s body, but it was not the time, we had to move on then.Another few minutes walk and we all could see a huge, dark entrance of a cave next to a hillock. Did Callenbauch mention this cave?We walked on. From our camp it seemed that this side was only rocky, but now we could see that there are trees also. After all these explorations since last couple of days - now we are sure of one thing that our miracle fruits are only available in one specific area of the island and nowhere else.When we were close to the cave, David walked faster than the rest of us and silently walked into the cave like a spy film hero. He still could not resist the temptation of visiting a new cave before the others. Over these last few days he visited all the big and small caves, which came in our way. He had been

inside all of them with a torch and surveyed thoroughly. We all knew that he was doing all this because of his dream of discovering a treasure.

Had he ever dreamt that his dream would come true someday?

“Yo! Ho! Ho!” –David’s shout was genuinely a pirate’s war cry...For a moment we were compelled to think that possibly he was not Munroe’s but Brandon’s descendent.Has he got something?

Yes! The Pirate’s cry had a good enough reason. We all were familiar with the look of a pirate’s chest. Exactly similar looking - a very old and very big wooden chest was lying on the floor in one corner of the cave.

We could not make out from outside, that this cave was so big; at least a hundred people could stay in this one. It was very clear that this was the main cave among the others, which Brandon and his men used.David was staring at the chest in such a way as if he was in a trance. He wanted to go forward and open the chest but it seemed that he could not move.At last Saunders went forward and opened the chest and David fainted with a shrill cry. Suma attended him immidiately and brought him back in sense within a few seconds by just three little knocks on his forehead with his ring finger. We should all agree that there were genuine reasons for David to faint. His childhood dream has been fulfilled today; the chest was full of seventeenth century Spanish gold coins; Black-hole Brandon’s treasure - which he had gathered through his whole lifetime.In the meantime another discovery had caused quite an excitement among all of us. This was also a wooden chest, but much smaller in size. The copper plated letters were still visible on its top – Dr. H. Monroe

When we opened this box, among some very old clothing and some medical equipment we found a very valuable thing – Dr. Hector Munroe’s Diary. The diary started from the next day of Dr Moroe's landing on this island. This Diary is a great documentation. It even gives details about how Munroe came here, etc. And we were happy that our guess was quite right. The ship conquest was attacked by the pirates and drowned. Brandon rescued Munroe and got him on his ship. Then they started for Jamaica. On the way the ship faced a storm and lost the way. Some sort of unknown epidemic was also spreading among the sailors and after a week from the conquest attack, the ship came close to this island and drowned. 33 people other than Brandon and Munroe could somehow save their lives. A sailor named Ragland who was very sick discovered this blue fruit, and got cured within an hour. After this incident that fruit cured all the sick sailors like magic. Munroe gave a name to this fruit – Ambrozia (which means The Nectar). One question came in Munroe’s mind. Whether the birds and animals of this island also eat this fruit?’ He wrote-

If not any other animal but monkeys eat this – which I could understand from their health and swiftness. And not only that – they are not vegetarians, they are carnivorous. I have seen them catching chameleons and frogs and eat. Munroe is clearer in his next sentence. He ate the fruit without any sickness and wrote –

“I have tested The Nectar today. This fruit has an amazing appetite enhancing power. Today we have relished deer meat in the morning. Though there are so much of fruits and vegetables in this island but they cannot satisfy our appetite any more. Should this amazing fruit be confined to this island only, and no one else on this earth would ever know about it?

In the later pages there is a hint that Brandon was trying to kill Munroe as there was no need of a doctor. Munroe was absconding to save his life, but he knew that he could not save himself from Brandon. On the other side, food was becoming scarce in the island. The pirates have finished all the deers and started hunting birds and monkeys. No one was ready to eat fruits and vegetables any more.

The last thing Munroe wrote was very shocking and we all could see Munroe in a different light from this. He wrote:

I do not know whether I did the right thing by sending the letter in the bottle. Now I have doubts whether I can call this fruit – ‘The Nectar’ at all. I can see with my own eyes that within last three months these people have become beasts from human beings. And I also am going to be the same? This eternal cure from all diseases, this indomitable appetite……these things can’t be good for mankind!

We had finished Munroe’s diary and were sitting quietly and sadly in the cave and suddenly the thought came in my mind that its time we should again check with the telecardioscope.

Immediately we put it on but no result was shown, possibly the animal had already came within a Kilometer’s range.

Exactly at this point of time my nostril captured a new smell in the cave, which was not there earlier. We were sitting on some rocks at the entrance of the cave to read the diary in the tilted daylight. But the smell was coming from inside, and that was getting stronger every moment. There must be another entrance of this cave from the backside and the animal must have entered through that entrance. He must be coming towards us very softly because till then we could not hear any sound.

There was a little sound of a displaced stone. The next moment there was a spine-chilling howl and a stone came out of the darkness and hit Saunders on his head. Saunders immediately fell on the ground. The next thing was amazing – David picked up Saunders’ gun from the ground and fired twice in the darkness.

Now we saw the animal for the first time in the fading twilight and heard it’s heart-piercing cry. It was on its two legs and coming towards us...before even I could reach out to my anihilin, a whistle like sound came out from Suma’s gun and a poisonous capsule-pin hit the beast on its chest. It fell on the floor of the cave within a second, facing the ceiling.

For the first time I saw Suma to be excited. He shouted and said, ‘Now just imagine the amazing power of the fruit – Shonku, I figured it out, and that’s why I asked you to not to eat it. Whoever eats this fruit for once, only starvation and accident can take his life and nothing else. This animal alone had eaten up all other animals on this island and finally was dying of starvation, but when he got Callenbouch as food, he was revived. Now his appetite has been satiated for good!”

Suma then twisted his left wrist towards the animal’s face and pressed a button on his wrist watch and a very powerful beam of light came out of the watch and fell on the face of the animal.

‘Gentlemen, the creature which you are looking at now’, said Suma – ‘its age is more than four hundred years.’

‘Black-hole Brandon!’ – David almost shook the cave with his cry.

Saunders had recovered. Four of us were staring at the dead creature. This tall and huge animal could no more be identified as a human being, only the deep hole in the place of his right eye which seemed much deeper in the laser beam of Suma’s torch – was announcing it’s original identity.

David Munroe’s bullet had injured him and Suma’s poison capsule had stopped his heartbeat.

Now my weapon wiped off this bloodthirsty pirate - a human being who was contemporary to Shakespeare, from the face of the earth for good.