Read Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (Burton & Swinburne) for Free Online

the humans conquered the Nāga many millennia ago.”
    “My head is spinning,” Monckton Milnes murmured.
    “Not just yours,” Burton said. “The resonance also awoke a hitherto dormant part of the human mind. It made mediumistic abilities possible. Thus Countess Sabina, and thus a Russian named Helena Blavatsky.”
    “The woman they say destroyed the Rakes last year?”
    “Quite so. She stole two of the Cambodian stones and used them to peer into the future.”
    “Which future—ours or the other one?”
    “Ours. And in that future, in the year 1914, another Russian, a clairvoyant named Grigori Rasputin, was gazing back at us.”
    “Why?”
    “Because he foresaw that the Great War, which was in his time raging, would lead to his assassination and the decimation of his beloved Russia. He came looking for the events that sparked off the conflict, and he found them here, in the 1860s.”
    Monckton Milnes regarded his friend through slitted eyes. “Are you referring to our role in the American hostilities?”
    “No. The world war will pitch us against united German states, so I'm of the opinion that the recent Eugenicist exodus to Prussia, which was led by the botanist Richard Spruce and my former partner John Speke, might be the spark that lights the flame.”
    “So this Rasputin fellow observed the defectors at work? To what end?”
    “He did much more than that. He possessed Blavatsky and used her to steal the rest of the Cambodian stones and recover the South American diamond from the Tichborne estate, thus changing history again. He then employed them to magnify and transmit his mesmeric influence, causing the working classes to riot. He intended nothing less than the wholesale destruction of the British Empire, so that United Germany might win the war against us without Russian assistance. Once that heinous outcome was achieved, Russia would swoop upon a weakened Germany and defeat her.”
    “Bloody hell!”
    “Blavatsky didn't survive and the plot failed,” Burton said. “I caused Rasputin to die in 1914, two years before his assassination, meaning that history has diverged yet again, although that particular bifurcation won't occur for another fifty-one years.”
    Monckton Milnes flexed his jaw. He clenched his fists. He blew out a breath, reached for his glass, emptied it, and refilled it again. He was trembling. “By thunder!” he muttered. “I actually believe all this! Where are the Cambodian and South American diamonds now?”
    “The South American stone was broken into seven fragments when I defeated Rasputin. They are in Palmerston's possession. The Cambodian stones are embedded in a babbage probability calculator.”
    “They are? For what purpose?”
    “During the Tichborne riots I was assisted by a philosopher named Herbert Spencer. He died with the stones in his pocket and his mind was imprinted onto them. Charles Babbage had designed a device to process just such an imprint. We fitted the diamonds into it and placed the mechanism in my clockwork valet. Herbert Spencer thus lives on, albeit in the form of a mechanical contraption. That is how I know the history of the Nāga, for the reptile intelligence remains in the stones, and Herbert can sense it. Actually, so can I, in a vague way. The Nāga came to me in a dream and left me with the phrase ‘Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.’ It was that which guided me in the final ruination of Rasputin.”
    Monckton Milnes again rubbed his face and again smudged his Harlequin makeup.
    “So only the African diamond remains undiscovered and Palmerston is sending you to find it?”
    “Precisely. As the last remaining unbroken stone, it will be more powerful than its splintered counterparts. He means to use the Eyes to wage a clandestine war on Prussia through clairvoyance, prophecy, and mediumistic assassinations. He intends that Bismarck will never unite the Germanic states. Do you see now why I'm wishing this