Эптон Синклер - Oil!

Then the New York papers came; and later on, the papers from Angel City, with the story spread all over the front page day after day. The body of Eli could not be found. The people of the temple employed divers—they had searchlights sweeping the water at night, and thousands of the faithful patrolling the sands, holding revival services there, weeping and praying to God to give them back their beloved leader in his green bathing-suit. This went on for a week, for two weeks; and it was puzzling, because the longest time a body could stay in the sea without floating was nine days, and never before had it happened that a drowned body had failed to be washed ashore.

Then, more and more amazing, there began to be rumors in the papers—they were afraid to say anything direct, but they hinted, and quoted others who hinted—Eli was possibly not drowned; Eli had been seen here, he had been seen there—and always in the company of a certain young woman, whom rumor declared to have been the keeper of the sacred robes in the Tabernacle. Of course, the first time Dad saw one of those hints, he remembered what he and Bunny had seen that day at the beach hotel, and he went up into the air. “By God, that fellow’s playing a trick! He’s gone off on a spree with a woman!”

There was a thrill for you! Dad talked about it for hours—it almost drove the spooks out of his mind! It was no joking matter, because in the course of the search for Eli’s body two men had lost their lives—one diver had been taken with pneumonia, and a member of the Tabernacle, seeing what he thought was a body, had swam out too far and gone down. And here was Dad with the key to the mystery! Was it his duty to cable the facts to the Reverend Poober?

More sensations yet—the people at the Tabernacle began getting letters from kidnappers, who alleged that they had taken Eli in his green bathing-suit, and had him in hiding, and demanded half a million dollars ransom for him! What was that? Nobody in Angel City could be sure. Had the prophet really been kidnapped? Or was it true that he was driving over the state, in company with Miss X, as the newspapers referred to the former keeper of the sacred robes? One of the funniest aspects of the scandal was that various young couples who had gone off on love-expeditions in motor-cars—a favorite diversion of the well-to-do—now found themselves in an embarrassing situation; all over the state newspaper reporters and police officials were looking for Eli and Miss X, and woe to any tall blond man who happened to register at a hotel with a girl and no marriage certificate!

The denouement, when it finally came, was so sensational that it got itself cabled, and thus spared Dad a tedious wait. Thirty-five days after Eli’s disappearance, some fishermen, rowing in a harbor several hundred miles from Angel City, encountered a man swimming to shore, and picked him up; and behold, it was a tall blond man in a green bathing-suit—in short, it was the prophet! The story he told was that, finding himself being carried out to sea, he had prayed to the Lord, and the Lord had heard his prayer, and had sent three angels to hold him up in the water. The name of one of these angels was Steve, and the second was a lady angel, whose name was Rosie, and the third was a Mexican angel, and his name was Felipe. These angels had taken turns holding onto the shoulder-straps of Eli’s green bathing-suit; and when he grew faint, one of them would fly away and bring him food. They had upheld him, even while he slept, quite peacefully in the water. For the entire period of thirty-five days Eli had been thus alternately swimming and sleeping. The devil had come, with wings of flame, and driven the good angels away, and bound Eli’s hands behind him so that he had nearly drowned. But he had prayed to the Lord, and the angels had floated him to a rusty old can, and held it while he rubbed his bonds against the sharp edges, and severed the bonds and was able to swim again.

So here was the prophet, none the worse for his adventure; and when he had landed on the shore, and got some clothing, here came the reporters hot-foot—for there have not been so many miracles in these skeptical recent days, and this was an indubitable one. Crowds of people swarmed about the prophet, they sang hosannas, and strewed his path with flowers, and when he got back to Angel City, you just couldn’t imagine the excitement—fifty thousand people at the railroad station, it beat anything that even the greatest movie stars had achieved. And when he got to the Tabernacle, there were his followers falling on their knees and weeping for joy, because the Lord had answered their prayers and given them back their prophet; six times a day the vast auditorium was packed, and outside a park was filled with people, and Eli’s mighty bellow was conveyed by a dozen loud-speakers, and men and women fell down at the sound and shouted “Praise the Lord!”

Of course there were skeptics, people with the devil in their hearts who refused to believe Eli’s story, and persisted in talking about a blue-colored automobile driven by a good-looking girl, having a heavily veiled man wearing goggles in the seat beside her. They talked about signatures on hotel-registers, and hand-writing experts, and other such obscenities; but all that made no difference to the glory-shouters at the Tabernacle, which was packed all day and all night, as never before in the history of religions. Over and over Eli would tell his story, full of the most convincing details—why, he even told how the angels’ wings had swished, and sometimes splashed water into his face; he told the very words the angels had spoken to him. Said the prophet, if God in His Omnipotence could keep Jonah three days in the belly of a whale, and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the burning fiery furnace, why could he not keep Eli Watkins afloat on the sea? It is obvious that no one could answer that.

And then came an incident which settled the matter, completing the glory of the Third Revelation. Eli happened to look inside his green bathing-suit, and what should he find but a snow-white feather! He recognized it, of course—a proof of his story, left there by the mercy of the Lord! When this fresh miracle was announced, the hosannas of the faithful shook the roof; and presently the angel’s feather was mounted in a glass case, and set up behind the place where Eli preached, and, such was the Lord’s mercy, whoever even looked upon this relic, was instantly cured of all his ailments and had his sins forgiven—yes, even the most deadly sin of fornication!

The billboards of Paris broke into universal ecstasy: “Schmolsky-Superba Présente l’Etoile Américaine, Viola Tracy, dans La Couche d’Or, Cinéma-Mélodrame de la Société en Huit Reels.” There were pages in the newspapers, “Premiere Production sur le Continent d’Europe”—Schmolsky was doing the job in style. “L’Etoile” herself was coming, all the way from California; and Bunny motored to Havre to meet her, and oh, how happy they were, a second honeymoon, with the old disharmonies forgotten. He drove her back to Paris—no, almost to Paris, she must board a train outside the city and make her entrance according to schedule announced in the newspapers. There were the shouting thousands, the cameras, and the reporters, including those whose duty it would be to cable the stirring news back to New York and Angel City.

The world grows one, and it is the “cinéma-mélodrame de la Société” that is doing it—which is to say the world grows American. The premiere here in Paris was the same as a premiere in Hollywood, except that the crowd made more noise, and sought to embrace its idol, actually imperilling the idol’s life. There was a double reason for excitement, because the man who had played the leading part was no common movie actor, but a real prince from Roumania, who had been visiting in Southern California, and had yielded to the wiles of Schmolsky and become a star for a night. Now here he was in person, on his way home to Roumania—having traveled on the train and the steamer with Vee, so Bunny learned. A tall, lean young man, not very handsome, but used to attention; courteous, but easily bored, wearing a quizzical smile, and reluctant to be serious—until he heard Bunny express some sympathy with the murderous and blasphemous reds! After that, he preferred the company of Bunny’s sister.