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Title: At the Queen’s Mercy
Author: Blodgett, Mabel Fuller
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "At the Queen’s Mercy" ***
At the Queen’s Mercy
[Illustration]
At the Queen’s Mercy
By MABEL FULLER BLODGETT
AUTHOR OF
_The Aspen Shade_, * _In Poppy Land_, * _Fairy Tales_
_Illustrated by_ HENRY SANDHAM, R.C.A.
[Illustration: VT CRESCIT]
Lamson, Wolffe and Company
Boston, New York and London
MDCCCXCVII
Copyright, 1897,
By Lamson, Wolffe and Company.
_All rights reserved._
_Norwood Press_
_F. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith_
_Norwood Mass. U.S.A._
=To My Husband=
_This Book is Dedicated_
Contents
Chapter Page
I. A Slave’s Secret 1
II. The Pass of Blood 17
III. What Next Befell 31
IV. At the Queen’s Mercy 45
V. Astolba’s Errand 60
VI. The Cup of the Beast 73
VII. The High Priest’s Council 84
VIII. In the Cage 109
IX. The Mad Man of the Moon 121
X. The Red Witch holds her Revel 133
XI. The Treasure House of Edba and of Hed 144
XII. The Dance of the Maidens 161
XIII. A Strange Story 182
XIV. The Flower of Death 194
XV. The White Dove’s Flight 202
XVI. Zobo the Mighty Wrestles 215
XVII. Check to the Queen 225
XVIII. The Wisdom of Hubla 231
XIX. For life, for Love, for Freedom 240
XX. The Beginning of the End 252
List of Illustrations
Page
At the Queen’s Mercy _Frontispiece_
The Mysterious Map 13
For Life or Death 127
At Bay 179
The Beginning of the End 258
At the Queen’s Mercy
Chapter I
A Slave’s Secret
I am a plain man, and to do a plain man’s work was ever more to my taste
than to set down with a clerk’s skill such happenings as have befallen.
Nevertheless, something within me spurs me onward; for, to tell the
truth, I am loath to die leaving no record of the sights that I have
seen; sights to brand the memory and stir the blood, and doings to turn
one hot and cold, years after the doers thereof have crumbled into dust.
Fate, fickle jade, has willed a peaceful end for me—a man from whom
peace has ever been afar off. Yet by my fireside I am not alone: Zobo,
the Mighty, wrestles in the flames; Astolba, my fair white dove Astolba,
gently smiles upon my waking dreams, and she, the Queen with deadly
wondrous beauty, like some fair poisonous flower, flaunts before my
eyes.
But enough of fancies. I must on to the beginning of the marvellous tale
in which I was to play so large a part. A tale strange beyond common
reckoning; strange beyond belief, were I not known not only as a man
whose inches well may bear him out, but also as one little versed in the
art of embroidering blunt facts with fine imaginings.
It chanced in this wise:—
We sat by the fire, Gaston Lestrade and I, one dark and stormy evening,
for this was the end of the rainy season. We were in the African
interior; fortune had dealt hardly with us. It is not needful to the
purpose of this tale to tell by what and by whom we had come to so
dismal a pass; enough that we found ourselves wet, hungry, surrounded by
hostile savages, and, worse than all, poor to nakedness after four
months’ irksome traffic in ivory and gum. Lestrade sat pulling his fine
black mustache, for all his present wretchedness, with the air of a
dandy on the Parisian boulevard, though there was not a petticoat within
miles, and death, from one cause or another, more like to be our portion
than amorous adventure.
A quick eye for a woman had my comrade, and a heart big enough to hold
all the sex, or, at least, such as were personable. But over and above
all this, Gaston Lestrade was a man to die for a friend, albeit with a
jest on his lips, and I forbore to meddle with his pastimes.
For myself, I cannot deny that women have ever held me in esteem, and
once or twice have urged me to retreat by hot advances. The reason of
this has ever seemed to me that I am big of limb and brawny withal; that
I am slow to speech and anger, yet enduring in that to which I have set
my mind. And this is not commonly the manner of the sex, who look up to
the power or strength such as the Lord has not given them, whose tongues
are nimble, and whose fancies float hither and thither with every
breath, like thistledown before the wind. And so they take to that which
is not of their fashion.
Every man to his taste, say I—the wooing of maids to one, the clash of
arms to another, and for me comfort and plenty, and as little danger as
possible, which is in itself a strange thing, since it has been decreed
that all my life till now be spent for war and women. But I must hark
back to the fireside. We had taken stock of our resources, and with the
less trouble, inasmuch as they were few.
“Four biscuit, _mon ami_,” said Lestrade, “and a few strips of smoked
meat. Truly, Africa is an excellent place to starve in.” And he yawned
as though the subject did not closely concern him.
Which nettled me, and I spoke sharply: “Our powder and shot are nearly
spent. The king, next whose village we lie, loves us not; his fourth
wife can perhaps tell the reason.”
Here Lestrade yawned again.
“A spiritless wench, but not uncomely,” he murmured in his own tongue.
“The palm-oil wine is gone,” I finished.
Here my comrade was pricked to interest. He raised the flask and set it
down with a sigh.
“_Hélas_, thou art ever right, my Dering. What shall it be? Do we fight
our way to shore, or on through the jungle, or does it meet with thy
judgment that we await here the tender mercies of our royal neighbor
yonder?”
I gave the fire an ill-tempered shove with my foot, for I was cold and
hungry, and it has ever been my experience that a man’s sweetness of
temper will suffer from the emptiness of his stomach. “You know it is
equally impossible to go or to stay,” I answered shortly. Lestrade held
up his hand for silence, and through the heavy patter of the rain on the
roof of our hut came a noise that was not of the jungle. Gaston looked
to the priming of his rifle; I held my finger on the trigger of my own.
“Some one running, and for his life,” said Lestrade, under his breath,
and even as he spoke, the door of our cabin was thrust open, and a man
leaped into the fire-lit circle.
He stood a hunted creature, quivering and amazed for an instant, the
next, an arrow sped through the doorway and buried its point in his
shoulder.
A yell of triumph rang through the forest, and two Fan warriors, hideous
in war-paint, followed. They faltered on seeing Lestrade and me, but
quickly plucked forth their spears to do us injury.
It was not the time or place for argument. The report from Gaston’s
rifle rang out sharply, and the first savage pitched headlong and lay
still, a thin, dark stream trickling from the body over the earthen
threshold. The second, I dropped also, but not so neatly, for he
wriggled like a big black snake into the underbrush, and was lost to
sight. Seeing which I turned to look at our visitor, but here again
Lestrade was quicker than I.
The negro was leaning heavily against the side of the hut, and Gaston
held in his hand the slender arrow which he had plucked from the man’s
shoulder.
“A pin prick,” I began, with some contempt, for indeed the stranger’s
pallor, black though he was, and my comrade’s grave face, seemed greater
tribute than was needful for so slight a hurt.
“Poisoned,” Gaston answered briefly, and even as he said it I knew that
it was so.
I took the piece of bamboo in my hand. It was some ten inches long and
sharpened at one end. I stooped and picked up the bag of skin that lay
on the floor beside the body, still warm, of our fallen foe. Arranged in
careful order within were other arrows like to the first, each
red-tipped, each a swift and fatal messenger.
There was no hope, and the wounded man knew it.
He was a tall, muscular savage, a little stooped and grizzled with age,
but powerful, save for the death sickness that had begun already to
loosen his joints.
Many lines crossed and recrossed his face, and as I looked on him more
closely, I saw that his features were not those of the neighboring
tribe, nor indeed did his face resemble the natives that I had seen.
Furthermore, his skin was more bronze than black.
A curious woven strip falling from one shoulder over the right breast
bound his middle. Save for this, the man was naked, and I saw that some
strange torture had twisted and distorted his wrists and hands.
Moreover, his body bore in several places the mark of hot iron, and my
gorge rose at the thought of the infernal cruelties that had been
practised.
Meanwhile Lestrade, with something of a woman’s touch, and in that was I
ever far behind my comrade, well-known as he is for skill and nicety in
sickness,—Gaston, I say, had helped the stranger down, had placed a
packet beneath his head, and now stood waiting, helpless to do more and
pitiful of the drops of agony that stood bead-like upon the forehead of
the dying man.
The end would not be long. Presently the savage spoke, and in the
dialect of the neighboring tribe, but with the words somewhat clipped
and altered as one speaking a strange language to strange ears.
“I am Sagamoso, priest of the Council,” he said, “and the door of Shimra
opens.” He raised himself with pain, upon his elbow, and his eyes
glittered strangely in the firelight. “Nevertheless, promise, O men of
white countenance, that you will bury me, my feet to the rising sun,
ashes upon my breast, in the name of Edba and of Hed; and deep, deep, so
that no beast shall rend me, no enemy loose me from my grave. Inasmuch
shall I escape the last evil.”
“Christian burial, and no heathen mummery shall you have,” said I; for
in truth I was sore that this savage should have fled to us, as if our
case was not evil enough, and so was like to bring the whole tribe of
Fan, like a swarm of angry bees, about our ears.
Lestrade was silent, and the stranger catching at my tone looked from
one to the other of us, for a space, in silence also.
Then, as if some inward power thrust from him words he fain would have
held back, he burst forth:—
“O men of white countenance! My hour is at hand. Swear by Edba and by
Hed to bury me as I have besought, and the place of the woman and of the
treasure shall be known to you, and, moreover, the secret way.”
“The woman!” said Lestrade, drawing in his breath quickly.
“The treasure!” I cried, and neither of us thought of the strangeness of
such words from the lips of a savage.
Then by Edba and by Hed we swore; for the man’s words had somehow taken
hold upon our minds, and afterwards, all-curious, half-believing, for
the very strangeness of its telling lured us on, we heard the story of
Sagamoso, one time priest of the people of the Walled City, now outcast
and slave.
I cannot tell it as he told it there in the African forest, with the
rain falling heavily without, and the fire casting strange shadows on
the face of the dying man, convulsed now and again by the action of the
poison that was eating out his life. But the things that he said are set
down in due order, though, as I told you, I am no scribe and cannot
cunningly interweave and polish my words as the learned do.
“I am not of this people nor of this place,” said Sagamoso; “my home is
many miles hence, and the path is hidden and beset with peril. But two
of the people of white countenance like to yours have ever come so
far,—one a man old, not so much with years as with weariness and the
toil of wanderings; the other, his daughter, straight and slender, and
fair above the common lot of woman.
“Him we slaughtered there at the outer gate, as is the law for
strangers. The maid was at the Queen’s behest brought to the palace, but
whether as the bride of Hed, I know not. Such service rendered to our
god is like to be her portion: nevertheless, three moons must wax and
wane before the feast, wherefore you who are of her people can yet save
her from the death marriage, unless, indeed, Hed be wroth, or Lah, the
Queen, set her will to thwart you.
“Yet even so, surely of maids there are many, but of treasure like to
that in the secret storehouse of Edba, there is not in the whole world.
“I, Sagamoso, priest of the Council, tell it you. O men of white
countenance! torture like to this,”—and he raised his twisted claw-like
hands,—“torture of hot iron and seared flesh could not have wrung it
from me. But if I be not buried with the rites of the dread god whose
servant I yet am, I must walk forever in the outer darkness, weariness
unutterable my portion throughout all ages. Because of the sin that I
have sinned, the door of Shimra indeed is shut before my face, but the
peace of nothingness is still within my grasp, and for that peace will I
betray the secret of the city that has cast me forth, the secret of the
jewels and the fragrant gums, the ivory and precious woods, the gold and
rich garments and the wines of price, that lay hid within the bowels of
the earth, and guarded by the name that may not be spoken.”
Here the stranger’s voice faltered and was still, and Lestrade and I
looked at each other in amazement that was yet half belief, for the
passion in the tones rang through the hut, and that the manner of this
heathen burial was to him that asked it of vital import, none might
doubt.
“This maiden,” said Lestrade, as though the thought of the treasure had
passed him by, “what dreadful fate threatens her, and where is this
walled city?”
[Illustration]
The poison was doing its work all too well. Thickly and with difficulty
the words came from the swollen lips of the dying man. He thrust aside
the woven strip that covered his breast.
“Look!” he gasped; “the secret way.” Lestrade and I bent close and there
sure enough, tattooed in lines of blue and red, on a spot above the
heart as big as a man’s palm, we saw a rude map.
“Straight through the jungle northward,” breathed the priest, “by the
swamp, by the waterfall, through the mountains, where beyond lieth the
Pass of Blood! Behold the sign!”
His wavering forefinger touched the woven garment, and we saw the
fantastic outline of an evil, leering god, about whose squat and crooked
body twined a monstrous serpent.
“Bid the gate open in the name of Hed!” he continued, his voice growing
full and resonant once more. “And look you—speak not of Sagamoso, the
betrayer of the trust, the defiler of the sanctuary. Him, they think
long since dead. Let his name be forgotten lest it be cursed before the
Council.”
“But the maid, the maid!” cried Lestrade.
The eyes of the stranger narrowed. A curious light blazed in their
depths. With a superhuman effort, the dying man raised himself from the
ground.
“I am a priest of the Council,” he cried, in a strange, chanting kind of
voice. “I have been traitor. I have been slave. To Edba and to Hed have
I turned my back. But my gods remember, my gods are strong, my gods
punish. Think not to wrest from the Snake, his bride.”
The strange, triumphant note broke. “By Edba and by Hed have you sworn,”
he muttered, and so passed.
Lestrade and I had learned the slave’s secret, and the leaven for good
or ill was working within us, silently indeed, but with a strange,
persistent, and fateful power.
First, without more words, we buried him, and with the rites he had
demanded, for I am a man of my word, and Lestrade follows my leading
easily in that which affects him not nearly.
Then—for the day was at hand—we considered briefly that which had taken
place and that which was to come.
Our present fortunes could well bear mending. The priest’s words of a
woman to be saved, and a treasure to be gained, had fired our blood.
Life held little of safety for us here, and the end of it was that
Lestrade’s daring spirit weighed down my more prudent advices, and the
die was cast.
Once having resolved upon the enterprise, I put from me, as is my habit,
all thought against the wisdom of the undertaking, though to perish in
the jungle in the pursuit of a phantom city, or to be slain at its gates
in reality, seemed like to be our portion.
Sagamoso’s last words echoed in my mind. That hatred of the white
stranger had lurked in the eyes of the dying man I doubted not, but
needs must when the devil drives. Wherefore, without more speech upon
the matter, our scanty goods were packed, and Lestrade, with a gay tune
upon his lips, and I, the more silent for his light-heartedness, set
forth upon our journeyings.
Chapter II
The Pass of Blood
The first step now was to flee from the wrath of the Fan tribe.
Cannibals were they, and over and above their just cause for offence I
felt that they had long been tempted to try the flavor of a white-man
roast. However, I was not minded to end my days in so inglorious a
manner; neither would Gaston’s high spirit brook the thought of such
disgrace. We pushed our canoe, therefore, with all good-will up stream,
and by dint of hard paddling, in the art of which I stand second to
none, we had soon a comfortable distance between ourselves and our
neighbors.
Lestrade had copied with feminine painstaking, on a strip of hide, every
line of the rude map tattooed upon Sagamoso’s brawny chest. I, for my
part, had taken with us the woven garment, which I saw was made of the
hair of some animal, a goat probably, and which was colored with vivid
dyes in orange, crimson, and blue.
Following, as well as we might, the chart that was now our only guide,
towards nightfall we beached our canoe, and I, by great good-luck,
speared a small monkey that chattered in the branches of a tree
overhead. We quickly made a fire, and Lestrade served a steak which,
garnished with plantains, left nothing to be desired.
The howling of a panther sounded faintly through my slumbers that first
night of our encampment, but the protecting fire kept the great cat at
bay, and he had gone by day-break.
We arose refreshed and ready to look lightly upon our quest, all
undisturbed by the slenderness of our ammunition and stores. So one hour
passed and another. We had begun to suffer much from the thorns that
tore our flesh, from innumerable flies that ran their red-hot needles
into every unprotected inch of our bodies and even through our clothes.
Our shoes, too, had by this time been cut in strips, and our feet were
swollen and bleeding.
But these were hardships that every traveller looks to, and we were
consumed with the desire to find the Walled City and behold the maiden
and the treasure that its temple held.
Indeed, we talked of little else. Gaston turned the slave’s tale this
way and that, and his nimble tongue wove pictures all different in form,
but all ending happily with processions of triumph, where crowned as
kings we bore away the damsel and the gold.
Even to my sober thought, these tales lightened much the journey; yet,
though I am not given to fancies, the eyes of the heathen god outlined
upon the dead priest’s garment, at such times seemed to gleam, with a
kind of horrible joy and malice, and the snake’s crest reared, and I
could almost hear the thick hiss in which the python vents its rage.
It is not my purpose to relate each adventure as it happened. Perils
from man and beast there were. Once we were captured by a strange tribe
and escaped narrowly, leaving behind us much of vital use to us in our
journeying. Once I saved Lestrade, helpless and unarmed, from the fury
of a gorilla. Once we fled for our lives before the onslaught of an army
of brown ants, that strip to the bone every living thing that ventures
in the line of its strange march.
So on, and at last we reached the waterfall set down upon our chart, and
here a thing happened that kindled anew the fire of our drooping hearts.
It was a thing wonderful in itself, more wonderful as explaining the
parting words of the slave Sagamoso, and it clearly showed us that we
had not strayed from the right path, and that the jungle had given up
its secret.
This waterfall was higher than any I had seen in Africa. It fell with a
rush and a roar loud enough to be heard very far off, and it was split
at its lowest part by a tall pillar of stone, on which was carved—and
this was what cheered us like wine—the grotesque image of the
snake-encircled god.
How such a pillar could have been set up by mortal hands in such a
place, exposed as it was to the fury of the downpour of this great body
of water, was in itself a marvel, and threw a new light on the people
that, with our small store of weapons, we two men had set out to brave.
“The waterfall must have been turned from its course,” said Lestrade.
And I, seeing no better way out of it, agreed.
Yet was this no time to stop and argue the matter, so we took up our
burdens once more, and, with renewed hope, pressed on; and the more
certainly in that here the jungle broke, leaving before us a broad
track, as though an army of elephants had fled or been driven along the
way.
This did not astonish us at the moment, for there are many such
clearings in the African forest; but as we sped onward, and the broad
thoroughfare still stretched before us, as far as eye could see, we knew
this was no common happening.
Night found us yet on this untrammelled and solitary highway; and as the
shadows closed, I am not ashamed to confess that a chill settled on my
heart, and that even Lestrade grew silent.
However, naught chanced to disturb our slumbers, and looking well to our
arms, we marched briskly forward.
Lestrade was a little ahead, and on a sudden he gave a sharp cry
and—disappeared. The ground had opened and swallowed him. I pressed
forward, and my horrified gaze took in at a flash the devilish trap into
which he had fallen.
A pit thirty feet in depth, twenty feet or more in width, stretched, as
I afterwards found, from one side of the road to the other. It had been
artfully covered with a fine mesh of woven grass, and this mesh by
several inches of earth, so that the fiendish contrivance was hidden
from the most careful gaze. Air-holes, the use of which I will tell
presently, were so arranged as to be concealed by the dense foliage of
the jungle. The plaited grass of course could not bear up any weight of
moment, although small animals might safely venture across.
But this was not all. A loathsome mass of serpents crawled and twisted
upon the bottom of this pit; and hanging by his fingers from a slight
projecting rock on the side, some twelve feet down, I saw the agonized
form of my friend.
“Courage, Gaston!” I cried, and cheerfully, though my soul was sick
within me. “I will save you—or shoot you,” I added inwardly.
Even in that moment of horror the old mocking smile played for an
instant on the white face beneath.
“Agreed,” Lestrade answered, in a voice that he fain would have copied
after my own.
I slipped the woven garment of the priest Sagamoso from about my body,
and knotted it into a running noose. This I tied securely to the stock
of my rifle, and leaning over the pit, I swung it down in the hope that
I might fasten it under Gaston’s shoulders and so ease the terrible
strain that I could see grew instantly more unbearable.
I beheld the white bones of animals or men in the pit beneath. The fetid
odor of that nameless place assailed my nostrils, and I saw, merciful
heaven! that it should be so—the noose fell short.
I looked heavily upward, and there, carved on a tree that overtopped the
pit, I beheld the horrid image of the snake-encircled god.
The face leered down upon me, and the eyes taunted me, vile slits that
they were, in the impassive cruelty of that smooth countenance.
Then a frenzy seized me and lent strength to bone and sinew.
“I will save you, man, or I will die with you.” The sound came thickly
from between my teeth.
I thrust my spear deep into the ground beside the pit. I tied about me
one end of the garment of the dead priest, and fastened the other to the
spear. Then with my naked hands I made a kind of foothold in the close
packed earth, and let myself down over the edge. If there was a flaw in
the iron forged by savage hands, the spear would snap. The woven strip
of cloth that cut into my flesh might part under the strain, or the
stake be pulled from its earthen bed. I dared not look below, but I
heard Lestrade’s quick, hard breathing.
That twelve feet seemed a hundred, and the snail pace all the slower for
the galloping pulses of my heart.
All at once—for the ear grows keen in danger—I heard Gaston’s fingers
slipping,—slipping along the rock.
“Friend, I can do no more.”
The faint whisper was borne upward from the pit. With a superhuman
effort I let go my hold with one hand, and my fingers closed upon the
collar of Lestrade’s shirt.
He hung a dead weight, limp in my grasp, and I thought my arms would
start from their sockets. The spear above us swung to one side; the
sweat from my forehead ran down and blinded my eyes.
With an animal instinct I clung to the side of the pit. I could feel the
veins in my temples full to bursting, and for one brief moment, ease
from that terrible rack seemed more to be desired than a friend’s life;
more precious than sunlight; a better thing than honor itself. The next
instant, and my foot, by the Lord’s mercy, touched the stone that had
stayed Lestrade’s fall.
Inch by inch, I, John Dering, lifted that unconscious body, while the
birds twittered in the branches overhead, and the pitiless sun beat
down, and the god of the people of the Walled City kept evil watch, and
the serpents hissed and writhed in the pit beneath.
At last I had one arm over the edge of that place of torment. One final
mighty effort, and Lestrade was safe, while the spear shot from its
socket, and fell tinkling into the depths below. How I drew myself up to
lie upon the edge beside my friend, I do not know. My blood had turned
to water in my veins, and I was as weak as a new-born babe. I could not
have lifted a finger to have escaped a thousand deaths. Earth and sky
came together in one black threatening mass; the next I knew Lestrade
was pouring water on my forehead, and moreover kissing me on both
cheeks—a foreign practice I could never stomach, and one which soon
brought me to my senses.
That day we rested. The next we tore the cover of grass from that foul
trap, and left it open to the gaze of men and beasts.
Then because I am a religious man and believe in the right conduct of
human undertakings, I swore to set my face the more earnestly towards
the object of our travelling. Neither to seek peace or comfort till the
Walled City be found; praying that Providence might deliver into my hand
the maker of that death pit, that I might presently bring him to a
repentance that would be beyond the pale of backsliding forever.
“The Lord do so to me, and more also, if I follow not the leading of my
conscience in this matter,” said I, and Lestrade answered, “Amen.”
Then, because we were not to be put aside like children, from that to
which we had set our minds, we felled a tree, and bridged the pit and so
crossed.
Much more slowly we now proceeded, for we had been taught caution, yet
we marched onward, with little thought to the map, for the course lay
plain before us. We were now in a mountainous country, and it had grown
cool, a matter for much thanksgiving. We guessed by this and other signs
that now our quest was well-nigh over, and we were right; for at length
after much toil of travel we came without mishap to our journey’s end.
Massed across the open appeared a pile of rock, and as we neared, I saw
the lines in Lestrade’s face deepen. Nor was I untouched, for we did not
doubt that before us lay the entrance to the City that we sought. We
looked to our guns and came up with all caution.
The noise of the jungle was in our ears, but of human sight or sound
there was none. The mass in front towered above us to the sky, and we
saw that it had been set in place by some gigantic machinery unknown to
the civilized world. The massive barrier was formed of rock, fitted
together with cunning, and smooth like glass.
The nature of the rock was strange to us, for it was splashed here and
there by great red stains, like gouts of blood; and the fancy was
further heightened by a scarlet creeper that clung and fed itself, and
well-nigh covered the base of the ponderous mass.
There was no gate nor doorway nor visible opening of any kind, and on
each side of the great wall grew dense a prickly thorn, so tough that it
turned the edges of our axes, and we saw the hopelessness of cutting
through our way, even if the wall of stone extended not further in the
African forest than eye could see.
That this was the mocking work of the people we had come to seek was
plain; for here, as before, by the waterfall and overlooking the pit,
here on the central rock and far above our heads, was painted the same
gross image of their god.
We hoped to find some hidden entrance, and we went over the wall’s
surface, Lestrade and I, with patient fingers, all the long morning, and
again and again, till night had well-nigh settled down upon us. But all
in vain. The unyielding mass barred our further progress, and, as
before, the serpent god gloated over the failure of our hopes. Mad at
this ending, I seized my gun, and aimed it straight at the hideous face
above. The ball sped surely, as my shots ever do. It flattened itself
against the surface of the rock, between the creature’s eyes.
There was a dull rumbling, a sound as of chains that slid and struck
against stone or metal. Then the central stone slowly turned, as on a
pivot, and forth from the opening poured a wild stream of men.
Chapter III
What Next Befell
On they came, like a swarm of angry bees from a hive; and I saw that
they were mostly men of great stature, though mine, I judged, would
still overtop the tallest, the which I do not say boastfully, but as one
bearing witness to the truth.
Now that we had come at last to open war, my mind was clear, as my hand
and heart were steady, and I could take calm note of this, as of other
matters.
Lestrade was humming a gay tune at my side, his rifle well aimed, his
finger on the trigger.
These people were clearly brethren of the dead priest Sagamoso, for they
were of the same bronze color; and as they drew nearer, I perceived the
regularity of their features, like to his.
They carried spears and swords that flashed bright in the rays of the
setting sun. They called to us in a strange language and with
threatening gestures; but I am, as I have said, a peaceful man, and
loath to shed blood, so with a word I restrained my more fiery Lestrade,
and we abode their onslaught.
Then a spear hurtled through the air and clove the fleshy portion of my
arm, and with that, the lust of conflict fell upon me, and my eyes saw
red, and verily I was mad with the joy of battle.
The foremost dropped before me, shot through the heart, and the second.
They paused for an instant in their onward rush, but I thought not so
much with fear or surprise, as in obedience to a command. Then they
pressed forward. My rifle emptied itself into the compact living mass.
Lestrade was close behind. I seized the barrel in my hand, and the first
oncomer fell like an ox beneath the blow.
So, thrusting, beating down the line of shining weapons, I clove my way
through, and for me there was no weariness, nor fear, nor prick of
bodily hurt. Only that fierce gladness, that inasmuch as it is the man’s
portion, transcends the lot of woman. There was one strange thing I
noted even in the midst of the tumult. The warriors seemed bound by some
observance to disable rather than to wound us. They struck heavily, it
is true, but with the flat of their swords, and this I could see was
from no love of the stranger.
Hate flashed from their eyes and rang in their voices; so as I laid
stoutly about me, I did so with the more good-will in that I felt myself
reserved with Lestrade for some more devoted sacrifice than was possible
at the moment.
On a sudden the howling horde melted away, and a new enemy appeared.
Down the open space, with great leaps, and with a cry, half bestial,
half human in its malice, it came. A gray, furry body, fantastically
striped in red and blue, two shining, bead-like eyes. This I saw; the
next instant two sinewy claw-like hands were at my throat, and we were
rolling over and over in the dust, the creature biting and striving to
smother me in its embrace. It was strong, and it knew the tricks of
wrestling. For a time neither one of us could boast of vantage.
The fight had ceased, and I dimly saw Lestrade trussed into a helpless
bundle and lying upon the ground. The people of the Walled City stood in
silence, resting upon their arms, like warriors of bronze.
Then the inward fury that consumed me stiffened my muscles to steel. My
knee rested on the creature’s hairy chest. I seized its jaw in my hand,
and forced its head slowly, slowly back.
Its eyes rolled in helpless fury; its great teeth were ground together
in a rage that defied me to the worst; the tongue protruded. There was a
quick snap like the breaking of sugar-cane. The giant head rolled limply
to one side; the long arms relaxed their pressure. A wail of sorrow and
of anger rose from the waiting throng; I stood one instant, conqueror
and free! In another, I was brought heavily to my knees, and the meshes
of a net encompassed me. The horde of warriors fell into line. A litter
of crossed spears was quickly made, and Lestrade and I were hoisted up
and so with ignominy carried onward as is a bale of goods to the
warehouse. Through the cleft in the wall of the Pass of Blood, which
closed with ominous silence behind us; on through a passage-way, deep,
narrow, hewn out of the solid rock; so once more were we borne close
guarded, into the sunlight, and within the City of the worshippers of
the serpent god, the City of our golden dreams and the dead priest’s
promise.
The street that opened was straight and wide, and bordered by houses of
good size, generally of one story only, but built in every case of
stone. Lestrade and I had never seen the like in all Africa, and the
smooth, hard roadbed over which we were carried was another proof of the
skill of this strange people.
Now that the stress of battle was over, I could look about me. From the
open doorways of the houses peered a curious throng, men, children, and
women also, but these last were close veiled, much to my good Gaston’s
disappointment, as I could see.
Our bodyguard were fine, stalwart fellows; each man had filed his two
upper and two lower front teeth to a point, a custom I have elsewhere
observed, and one giving the countenance a singularly wolfish look.
Their long black locks were braided, and the plats were interwoven with
strands of golden wire. They bore spears, and long curved knives stuck
in girdles of panther skin. They carried also shields of hide, and on
their feet were curious sandals that were laced to the calf with
leathern strips.
The heads of the leaders were decorated with feathers held in place by a
jewelled clasp, and the size of the gems sent the blood tingling through
my veins.
I could now see that one man commanded this array, and I was the more
sorry for that inasmuch as the steely glitter of his eye when turned our
way, boded his prisoners little good. He was an old man and unlike the
rest, covered from neck to heel by a flowing white garment around whose
hem appeared strange characters writ in scarlet. A long gray beard fell
over his breast, and his hair was bound by a plain gold fillet that
crossed the forehead. In his hand he carried a short rod of ebony, and I
noted with growing pain the reverence with which his followers observed
his every gesture.
On a sudden, he raised his staff, and like one man the warriors halted.
We had stopped before an archway that spanned the street, and which was
guarded by a gate of woven bamboo made strong by bars of iron, and
bristling with points of the same metal. This gate swung on a pivot, and
a man appeared who held earnest conference with our aged leader.
This newcomer looked to be about thirty years of age. I judged that he
was not more than five feet tall, but the spread of his shoulders was so
enormous that he might well have looked shorter than his real height.
His massive arms were covered with bracelets of the precious yellow
metal; his garments were striped with gold and blue. He carried no spear
or buckler, but a short, straight two-edged sword hung from his side.
The talk was brief but earnest, and its import was clearly not to the
satisfaction of our venerable friend. At last, with a vindictive
backward glance at me, he pointed his long, bony finger at the body of
the dead ape, for now I knew the kind of creature whose neck I had
broken.
He of the broad shoulders looked at it and then at me again with more
discernment, and I thought with no less liking than before. Then as the
tide of remonstrance from him of the evil eye and white beard did not
cease, the other took from a fold in his garments a thing that glistened
and glittered like a molten rainbow in the fading light, a girdle whose
links were gold fastening squares studded with gems that defied, in
their brilliance, the noonday sun.
This he laid upon the outstretched hand of the elder, and his clamor
ceased, hushed to muttered murmuring. The armed throng passed the open
gate, and as they defiled before him with the jewelled girdle, each
touched, with outstretched palm, the breast and forehead, and the
broad-shouldered one gravely bent his head in answer to their salute.
So were we borne along through a maze of streets like to that through
which we had first come.
At length a halt was called, and we found ourselves before a temple
built, indeed, of stone, but ornamented with carvings of fruit and
flowers and strange figures of beasts and birds, covered with a curious
lacquer in brilliant tints, red, green, violet, and gold.
Six men received us. They wore short, white tunics, and had shaven
crowns bound by silver fillets, and they looked, I thought, with
ill-concealed pleasure on the body of the dead ape.
Only a small bodyguard followed Lestrade and myself within the portals
of this temple. We were borne along a curious labyrinth of passages all
going downward and towards a common centre. A door of iron, heavily
barred, was loosened and turned upon its pivot. We were carried within.
Here our bonds were struck off by order of the chief with broad
shoulders, but contrariwise, a metal girdle was locked about our waists,
and this in turn was fastened by a stout but sufficiently long chain to
a staple in the wall of our prison chamber.
Then the guards withdrew, and through the bars of the door I saw the
leader bind the outer bolts with a small cord. This he sealed with wax,
and likewise stamped the seal with a square of the jewelled girdle in
such manner that none could enter without having first broken the wax
itself. Then he also left us, and Lestrade and I were once more alone.
We turned with one consent, and after we had each spoken somewhat to the
other on the marvels of our capture and present escape from death, and
had rubbed our arms and legs to a more comfortable complexion, for our
bonds had been drawn about us with no light hand, we then took, what was
plainly the next thing in order, and examined with due care our forced
abiding-place.
The worst thing to be said against it was the darkness, for all light
filtered from a distance through slits in the roof. The room was airy
enough, however, and cool. The walls were closely overlaid with sticks
of bamboo, and the floor was of earth pressed into bricks and colored
with some show of art. Two woven sacks were filled to a pleasant
thickness with some sweet-smelling leaves, and were each provided with a
soft, wide strip of cloth, so that in the matter of beds, these heathen
had given us nothing of which to complain.
A long, low settle of heavy black wood was also given over to our use,
and this made complete the furnishing of the place.
After some hours of converse, and when darkness had settled like a pall
upon the chamber, we heard approaching footsteps, and a lighted torch
was thrust through the bars of the upper part of the door and into a
socket set for the purpose. Then from the same hand came a wooden
platter piled high with steaming meat and plantains, a gourd of water,
and three small stone pitchers brimming with palm wine.
The three pitchers, and the fact that the meat was also divided into
three portions, puzzled, at the time, both Gaston and myself, but we
found afterwards that as I had killed the sacred ape belonging to the
service of Hed, I was supposed to be possessed of a devil to whose
strength was due this feat.
One portion of all our food was therefore set apart for the use of this
same familiar. That I, who am, as I have said, a religious man, should
be so thought of, filled me, when I knew the facts, with righteous
indignation; but at the time, in my ignorance, I cheerfully abode the
insult, and the portion of the evil spirit said to dwell within me was
consumed like to the other victuals, with all the zeal and constancy of
a hungry man.
After our first prison meal, Lestrade and I betook ourselves to bed, and
being a heavy sleeper, I knew no more until a hand shook me roughly by
the shoulder. Now I could never abide being broken of my rest, a thing
which was the less to be desired after the wearying events of the bygone
day. So it was with little ceremony I struck out, and should perhaps,
between sleeping and waking, have done some damage, had not the same
hand deftly emptied the gourd of water over my head, while Gaston’s
familiar voice cried, with less courtesy than need be, “Fool!”
This brought me briskly to my senses, and I was about to argue the point
with him, when a new sound hushed my tongue to silence, and I needed not
Lestrade’s command to listen.
A curious sound it was, and awesome, there in the midnight hour,—a sound
not all a wail, not all a chant, but holding a note of jubilee so coldly
cruel that it pierced with icy fear the very marrow of him who heard it.
Three times this strange song rose and fell distinctly to our waiting
ears. Then it grew fainter and fainter, and died away, at length, in the
distance.
I thought of my past sins and of my present straits, and I wished, with
all earnestness, that I and my good rifle had not been parted.
Then sleep bore heavy upon my eyelids, and I turned over on my sack of
leaves, leaving Lestrade still sitting with the white moonlight shining
down through the slits in the roof above us upon his face.
Chapter IV
At the Queen’s Mercy
The next day passed without event of any kind, save the welcome advent
of three good meals. I can say, for my part, that no sweet adventure
could so well have satisfied my palate; and I bore the lack of present
peril with all fortitude. But Lestrade was not of my mind, and ate
moodily and more sparely than is fitting for the wellbeing of a
Christian stomach. He spoke, moreover, ungratefully of “fattening for
the sacrifice,” which, I take it, was neither a wise nor a comfortable
saying, inasmuch as there appears, to my way of thinking, little profit
in vain forebodings of that which is to come, and much mischief in
despising present good for fear of future evil.
To be tied like a dog to a ring in the wall vexed him also, and sorely;
nor did my pointing out to him the value of a submissive spirit, and its
purpose in mastering the carnal pride of the flesh, greatly avail him.
For myself, I believe in patience until the time be ripe for the
chastisement of the enemy, to the hurt, indeed, of his mortal body, but
to the everlasting benefit of his heathen soul. But Lestrade is of a
fiery nature, that cannot brook delay. Still the day wore on, and at
nightfall the sound of footsteps and the clang of metal resounded once
more through the rock-hewn corridors without.
Nearer came the approaching feet, and soon the light of torches could be
seen by us dimly in the distance.
Then he of the broad shoulders appeared, accompanied by a guard of armed
men. The seal of our prison was cut asunder, the door opened, we were
loosed from our chains, and cords were bound about our wrists. Then a
sign to follow was given, and we went forth.
We passed from the temple into the street, and so on through many other
streets, until we halted before a great building, whose walls were set
with marbles of rare tints, and embellished with silver that glistened
in the moonlight.
No time was given us to look and wonder; the massive gates swung open,
and we went within. From Lestrade and myself there broke an exclamation
of wonder, for we had come from darkness into the brightness of a hall,
the like of which is not, I verily believe, in all Africa.
For a little the glare was blinding, but soon my eyes became used to the
light, and I began to look attentively about me.
This then is what I saw. The audience room was brilliant with thousands
of torches that hung from silver sockets set in the wall, and depending
also from pillars of carved wood that held up the roof. These torches
burned clearly and with a sweet smell, and their light was shed on a
countless multitude of men that lined the room itself.
The walls, too, of this great hall, though of stone, were enriched with
panels of rare woods in pink and in amber, polished like the supporting
pillars to a rare excellence of mirror-like brightness.
The floor was fashioned of huge blocks of marble set close and in a
curious pattern, and covered towards the centre with a silk rug woven
with pictures of strange beasts and birds like to those carved upon the
temple we had just left.
The corners of this room were filled with plants bearing vivid flowers
that gave forth a strong but very sweet scent. One end of this strange
apartment was fenced off from what might be called the outer court, by a
silver screen of fine open-work. Opposite this, at the further end,
stood a low chair of ebony, round which coiled a carven serpent wrought
in the same black wood, but with scales overlaid also in silver.
On this seat, or throne, I beheld the aged man who had commanded the
force that had captured us, and whom I felt must be the High Priest of
the dread god Hed.
He sat now, his chin in his hand, and he regarded us, I saw, with the
same dark disfavor.
Surrounding him were men with shaven crowns and wearing woven garments
like to those of the dead priest Sagamoso, and without this circle stood
another line of men, but these were clothed in white like the six who
had received us at the entrance of our prison house.
Beyond these again were massed warriors, naked save for their
leopard-skin girdles, their shields and swords. The outer ring was
composed of a curious throng of every age and condition, with women
closely veiled, and even children.
Near the silver screen, on each side of the hall, sat, cross-legged, six
negroes, natives of a tribe I had never seen. These were richly dressed,
and before each was a drum ornamented with gold, and these they beat
constantly with long spoon-shaped pieces of wood.
Behind them stood still other negroes thrumming on rude harps; the whole
producing a strange, not unmusical sound, very soul-stirring in effect
on him who listened. Suddenly there came from behind the silver screen
the clash of cymbals. The people bent to the earth, and even the white
beard of the haughty High Priest swept the ground. The warriors clashed
their shields together; a cry of reverence and of welcome broke from the
waiting throng; the silver screen parted. It slipped noiselessly back
into the wall on either side.
Lestrade drew a quick breath, and at the same instant my eyes rested on
the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen. For a little her
loveliness held me fixed as though some spell had been wrought upon my
vision. It was not until her voice, full and musical, broke the tense
silence, that I turned my eyes away to see what setting held so fair a
jewel.
And truly it was worthy. For the throne was of pure gold, and the back a
peacock’s tail, so encrusted with gems as to quite hide the precious
yellow metal, and the seat supported by four elephants’ tusks banded at
the top by a row of egg-shaped emeralds. Behind the throne crouched a
circle of mute veiled women before negro fan-bearers, erect and naked
save for turban and loin cloth of golden tissue. Surrounding with drawn
swords their royal mistress stood the guard of the household, each a
perfect specimen of manhood and each plainly but richly dressed.
Lah, the Queen, was arrayed in some Eastern fabric, not silver and not
silk, but partaking of the nature of each, and bound about the waist by
the girdle that I had seen in the hands of him who had committed us to
the safe keeping of the temple.
This garment was held in its place over the bare shoulder, by a clasp
whereof the diamonds were as big as hazel nuts. A fillet shaped like a
serpent encircled the Queen’s head and kept back from her face the long,
braided locks of blue-black hair that hung, heavy also with jewels, to
her knees. She alone of all the women present was unveiled. I drank in
the glory of her unfathomable eyes darker than midnight. I saw the
scarlet of her lips, the warm olive of her skin, the graceful lines of
her strong, supple, beautiful body.
But I have little skill in such portraying. To Lestrade that task.
Enough that Lah, Queen of the people of the Walled City, was not only
fair above the need of woman,—the Lord knoweth the ruin that hath
followed the working of the tenth part of such charm,—but she held also
a subtle something in the serene cruelty of her gaze, a something in the
calm command that curved her lips, to drive men mad, to fill the heart
with a love that was half hatred, and a hate that could not do its worst
because of the love that stayed its ordering.
So much let me say in my defence for what has followed. I am a man not
easily prone to fall into the toils of women; to whom has been given
subtlety to offset their weakness. But to Lah, a man’s brain and a
woman’s wit; a man’s will and a woman’s will; a man’s strength and a
woman’s beauty. Aye! more than woman’s. Look to it, you who would judge
me, and remember likewise the end, the end also with the beginning.
But enough. I will now set down for the better ordering of this tale,
what befell at the Queen’s audience, although it was not for days after
that I learned the true import of that fateful evening.
Lah then spoke in this wise:—
“Who are these two strangers, whence their coming, and what their
purpose?”
Then arose Agno, the High Priest, and his eyes glowed with a strange
fire, and we, watching, saw his aged hand clench fast the staff of
office that it held. With a fine gesture of mingled scorn and anger, he
threw out the other, palm open, towards us, where, still close guarded,
we stood in silence.
“Behold!” he cried, “the invaders of our City, the murderers of the
sacred ape, whose hands are red with the blood of our warriors, whose
sacrilegious weapons have been turned against the dread god. Yes, I have
said it—violators of Hed himself!”
A sudden thrill ran through the people, and there was something in the
faces turned towards us, so pitilessly cruel, that a cold chill settled
on my heart, and I was well put to it to preserve the calm disdain that
sat, as was fitting, upon my countenance.
Only Lah, the Queen, looked straight before her at the speaker, and her
lips, I thought, curved slightly with a little smile whose meaning was
not plain to me.
Agno turned towards the listening throng with a sudden change of voice
and manner.
“O worshippers of the Serpent and of Edba! Shall the wrath of the gods
fall upon your heads because they look down from the appointed place and
see such deeds unpunished?
“Nevertheless warmed and fed and unhurt have these two rested by royal
order till now in the sacred temple, and the wrath above grows black,
and the thirst of the Serpent is not slaked.”
I thought I beheld again a swift change pass over the face of the Queen,
like a cloud that covers for an instant the glory of the sun, but when I
looked closer I saw that I was wrong, since her lips still wore that
same curious half-smile.
“Doubtless,” went on the High Priest smoothly, “doubtless the Queen, who
is ever zealous for the glory of the gods, but bides her time, lest in
too swift a death, some pang of body or soul be lost to these defamers.
Surely such thought for the honor of Hed and of Edba shall not be
without reward. But I warn you,” and here his voice rang out with its
old passion, “the patience of the Serpent is at an end; the god clamors
for vengeance. Woe! woe! to him who setteth a stumbling-block in the way
of rightful punishment.
“Let Lah, the Queen, command it! Let the torture that is the portion of
these begin! Let their death and the manner of their passing plead for
us and turn away, while there be yet time, the wrath that is to come!”
A hoarse murmur of applause rang through the multitude, and of their
number, a man richly dressed and I judged a warrior, stepped out from
among his fellows and stood in the centre, alone.
“Agno, the High Priest, has said it. We, the people, repeat it. Oh
Queen, let the blood of the stranger flow freely that the gods may be
appeased.”
Lah turned, and I saw then, what, bewildered by the rising storm, I had
not noticed; namely, that the Queen’s sandalled foot rested upon the
head of an enormous tiger that lay motionless before the throne.
She uttered a low, brief word of command, and the great beast rose,
stretched himself lazily, and then stepped noiselessly forth.
A shudder ran through the throng. I saw the face blanch of the man who
had spoken. The soft, padding footfall sounded now through the tense
silence as the tiger drew slowly near.
At length when about ten paces from the warrior, the beast paused. The
victim tried to speak, but no words came. His fixed distended eyes were
on the lithe form before him. The great cat was crouched to spring, its
tail waving gently, its tawny head raised.
Lah’s voice broke the silence, caressingly, once more.
The creature bounded lightly through the air. The next instant the
warrior lay prone on the marble floor, a swift, wide-spreading pool of
blood speaking dumbly yet to heaven, of the doom that had fallen. The
Queen turned to Agno.
“Behold,” she said, “your answer.”
With a graceful gesture she stopped the rising murmur of the multitude,
and again her wonderful voice changed. It hid not the majesty of the
speaker; no, truly, it hinted at power to enforce the words, but it was
sweet, sweet and persuasive, over and above anything that I have ever
heard.
“O my people!” thus spoke the Queen. “When, before to-night, has the
highest in the land received an order of him who standeth next unto the
throne? When before this hour has the chief servant of the Snake set a
limit to the will of her who calls herself, and truly, the Snake’s
Bride? Have I not borne the embrace of the holy one, the python? In the
dread hour in the pit itself has not the marriage rite been held, and
for this?
“Turn, O my people, ere it be too late! The fate of yonder man,” and she
pointed to the loose-limbed, weltering form upon the pavement, “the fate
of such as he is naught to the vengeance that shall surely fall on him
who sets his neck stiffly against the will of her, the best beloved of
Hed. Aye! of the highest! I have said it. Look you to it.
“I am Lah, the Queen, and the just gods have given unto the hollow of my
hand all power. As for these,” and she turned her beautiful face an
instant towards us, “rest quietly. The defamers of the Serpent may not
hope for mercy. Nevertheless, in mine own time, and after mine own
choosing, shall they pay the penalty.
“Guards, lead the prisoners behind the veil!” She turned smiling to the
High Priest.
“More prudence would better befit thy white hairs, most pious Agno,” she
said, and the clash of cymbals answering to her nod drowned the bitter
answer that writhed upon his lips, and proved that the Queen was, after
all, but yet a woman, and so holding fast to the sex’s dear privilege of
the final word.
Obedient to Lah’s command, six stalwart negro warriors, gorgeous in loin
cloths of scarlet and gold, advanced, and laying hands upon us, hurried
us, Lestrade and me, through the gaping multitude, on past the silver
screen, by the Queen’s glittering throne, the host of slave girls, the
musicians, the courtiers, onward still, until we reached a shimmering
network of silk and steel that draped securely an entrance at the back.
With averted eyes the guards drew aside this heavy veil, and we passed
within, the plaudits of the fickle throng still ringing in our ears.
Chapter V
Astolba’s Errand
Lestrade and I looked about us. The face of Lah was still so potently
present in my friend’s memory that he seemed hardly conscious of the
aspect of this new prison. I am, however, of a colder nature, and I
scanned with eager gaze the inner hall in which we found ourselves. The
guards had halted without the veil that screened from the profane this
entrance to the palace of the Queen.
We stood, therefore, quite alone, in a large recess, arched and
windowless and tiled with bricks painted in bright colors that showed, I
judged, a kind of sacred pictured story. Hanging lamps in red, green,
and blue, curiously wrought and giving forth a sweet heavy perfume,
depended from the roof above our heads. Another curtain, also formed of
tiny rings of silk and steel, screened the further end of this strange
anteroom.
I plucked Gaston by the arm, for he was still in a day-dream, and
together we walked along, till I, stretching forth my hand, parted the
heavy woven folds before us. A massive door of some dark metal that
looked like bronze now barred the way, but only for an instant.
Invisible hands touched some hidden spring, and again we entered. This
time the chamber in which we found ourselves was far richer than the one
which we had left, and to which we might not return, since the door had
locked into place behind us. Here the floor was of sandalwood, and
covered with a rug so thick that our feet sank deep as though we walked
on moss, while fair flowers woven in soft hues, still further cheated
the eye that gazed upon their beauty. The walls were hung with silken
tapestries; four slaves marvellously carved in ebony and clothed in rich
garments, stood each in his respective corner, and these held high in
one hand a scented torch, while the other grasped a curved and
glittering knife. There were couches also here and there, covered with
rare stuffs, and a shimmering gauze enriched with silver and turquois
veiled here, as before, the further end of the apartment.
Lestrade’s interest quickened. His swift gesture tore aside the curtain
and revealed a gate of beaten gold.
My blood leaped at the sight. I put forth my hand and shook the massive
bars about which twined garlands of yellow, yellow flowers. My clumsy
fingers touched the delicate wreaths of roses and of leaves. They did
not melt away before my eyes; not a petal, not a spray so much as
trembled. It was all gold; solid, beautiful, wonderful gold.
I grasped Lestrade by the shoulder, but with an impatience new to him he
shook off the touch and pointed to the gate. It was slowly opening; we
passed, and it closed behind us. I saw pillars of ivory, the sheen of
precious metal, the pink of tulip-wood walls inlaid with silver. I saw
tiger skins upon the floor, and stuffed leopards bent to spring; I saw
their jewelled eyes and claws of gold. Strange, sweet music floated
through the air. I heard the tinkle of distant fountains. Then the blaze
of light from the great star above ceased. The darkness of the pit
wrapped us round, the thick hiss of a serpent pierced the night. I heard
the rustle of garments and struck out valiantly.
There came a mocking peal of feminine laughter, then strong hands seized
us from behind, and despite our struggles we were bound hand and foot
and carried on and on through a tangled labyrinth, now to the right, now
to the left, now doubling on our tracks, and all in the midnight
darkness, with the indescribable noises in our ears of a silent
attending multitude.
I thought the bearers walked along ground that gradually sloped
downward. Afterward I found that I was right. At the moment there was so
much else to think of that the true force of this fact did not strike
me. I say this that you may note that I am a just man, as well as a
modest, that I do not lay claim to a foresight or an understanding of
the inwardness of things, over and above that which nature has bestowed
on me. This I may say has so far been sufficient for the purpose, as
indeed the event has in time borne out. And without former knowledge who
could have guessed the hidden secrets of Lah’s palace, or the mysteries
that gathered thick about the dwelling-place of Edba and of Hed.
I heard Lestrade whistling softly there in the darkness not ten paces
away. The sound heartened me wonderfully. We were still together, and
what might befall lost half its terror.
All at once our bearers halted. I was gently laid upon a couch. My bonds
were loosened, and as I sprang to my feet a light flashed from above,
and I found myself standing beside Lestrade. The throng had melted away
as if by magic. A woman closely veiled and draped in a white garment,
alone stood waiting. Ere I could speak she turned with a quick gesture
and threw back the filmy covering that hid her face. Lestrade and I
uttered a smothered exclamation, for the woman’s skin was fairer than
our own, and as she spoke, we knew on the instant that the tale of
Sagamoso was true, and that the daughter of the murdered explorer stood
before us. The girl was trembling so that Gaston made haste to lead her
to a couch, while I stood stolid, my eyes fixed upon her eyes, luminous
and wide with mingled fear and joy, while I waited in breathless silence
for her words.
“How I have suffered,” she said half to herself, and the English was
sweet to me, and the sound of her voice yet sweeter. She looked about
her as a frightened fawn looks when the dogs are upon her. “These walls
have ears,” she said under her breath. “This horrible place is full of
treachery. Still I must ask you, for I cannot wait. You are of my
people. Have you come to save me?”
Lestrade took her hand in his and kissed it, and his voice was the voice
of a mother soothing a tired child.
“It is our sacred purpose, and naught shall turn us,” he said.
“That and vengeance on your enemies,” I added.
“Hush!” she answered, with a warning gesture. She listened in silence
for a moment, and then the folds of her veil once more hid her face, but
I had seen the pretty color come back to her lips and cheek, and her
smile of trust and gratitude had stirred me mightily. “I am Astolba,
handmaid of Lah, the Queen,” she continued aloud, and with a subtile
change of manner that Lestrade was quick to note and imitate.
As for me, I stood still gazing dumbly, yet drinking in the music of her
speech.
“She, the beloved of the gods, has sent me hither, that you may learn
from me the language of the people of the Walled City; that their
customs and rites may be made known to you. So that, strangers though
you be, you may yet stand within the inner circle,—if so the Queen
will,—and bring knowledge and power to the followers of Edba and of
Hed.”
She looked with pleading towards _me_, for with a woman’s quick instinct
she saw that Gaston had no scruples at learning aught, let it but come
from her fair lips.
For me, I have, thank the Lord, small stomach for heathen follies;
little patience with holy serpents and sacred apes, with bloody chanting
and such like deviltries.
Nevertheless, when Astolba added softly, “It is the Queen’s order; will
you learn of me?” I nodded, and she, I think, was puzzled and not best
pleased, not knowing for certain which argument had changed the habit of
my mind. And that is, let me tell you, an excellent manner to deal with
women.
Astolba, therefore,—for so she was called, and the word meaning “white
dove” did indeed singularly befit her,—Astolba having told her errand
and won consent, began at once her mission.
I cannot fit with nicety the meaning of all she told into the jewelled
setting of her speech. I am, as I have said, a plain man, and can but
repeat the substance of the strange lesson begun that hour, and
continued in due order during many succeeding days, until the language
and customs of this strange people became at length known to us.
For Astolba herself, her own story was simple. We already knew much from
the dying words of the fugitive priest. Her future fate was to her, as
to us, a sealed book, and we forbore to let her see the red light cast
upon it by those same last words.
The maid had so far been treated well, with a kind of contemptuous pity,
by her beautiful mistress. Lah was curious of all that pertained to
Saxon life and usage. She had even learned the language; she had
questioned her white prisoner closely about the arts, the doings, the
manufactures of the stranger. She had copied in some measure, but
secretly, such things as pleased her fancy, or seemed like to extend her
power.
“She is wonderful,” said Astolba, “but she is terrible. The Queen’s
nature is like a bottomless well. You drop a pebble into its depths, and
you listen and listen, and you hear no sound. It is falling, falling,
falling. And so with Lah. No one can judge that hidden depth. She is all
in one. Childlike, lovable, gentle, then fierce, treacherous, and oh so
unspeakably cruel!”
The girl covered her face with her hands as if to shut out some horrid
sight.
“You could not bear, strong men that you are, the things that I have
seen,” she said in a whisper. Then she went on more calmly, to speak of
other matters, but the vision of the icy fear that had pierced her was
by me not soon forgotten.
As I look back on it all now, I see how, little by little, we learned
the belief of the people of the Walled City.
For better comprehension of this tale, I will now briefly set forth the
substance of their strange faith.
Lah and her subjects worshipped chiefly, and with dread, two singular
powers: Hed, the serpent god whose spirit dwelt in the body of a
monstrous python, called the holy Snake; and Edba, the moon goddess.
Hed gave victory in battle, revenge over enemies, success in various
undertakings. Edba gave the crops and increase to the people.
Hed was worshipped by bloody sacrifices; Edba, by offerings of fruit and
flowers, save on the great yearly feast, when she, too, demanded that a
human life be poured forth before her altar.
Hed was the god of fear; Edba, the goddess of love. Once every twelve
months, a maiden, fair and without blemish, became the bride of the
Snake. That is, with songs and rejoicing, the rose-crowned victim was
thrown to the python, and crushed to death in the reptile’s horrid
folds, in the presence of a frenzied multitude.
Two years before our coming a King had ruled with a heavy hand the
people of the Walled City. Unlike his royal predecessors, he had made
war upon the neighboring country, and he had brought home vast treasure
and many slaves, so that the High Priest dared not lift his voice
against the practice. To leave the City on any pretext whatsoever was a
thing forbidden alike to the Ruler and his people; a thing unheard of
for generations, and a thing accursed by Hed. But the King brooked no
restraint; the masses were drunk with their new-found liberty, and
Agno’s maledictions were looked upon as little more than the impotent
murmurings of a feeble old man.
Then one day the King returned with a captive, none knew from whence, a
woman who despised the customs of the people, the beauty of whose
unveiled face made glad like wine the heart of him who beheld it. Her,
the King married; one month from that day he died, suddenly, at a
banquet, and Lah, upheld by the High Priest, had seized the sceptre.
No woman had ever sat before upon the throne, and the people and army
rebelled, the priests alone remaining faithful to their new sovereign.
But Lah faced the rising storm with calm authority. She appealed to an
ancient test almost forgotten. She became, by her own wish, the bride of
the Snake, and before the very eyes of her wondering subjects, she came
forth from the pit, not only alive, but unhurt.
From that moment she became a sacred person. The chief ringleaders of
the revolt were cruelly butchered by their quondam followers, and Lah
was Queen indeed.
So much for what had taken place before our coming. That there was no
longer peace between the High Priest and his sovereign, I already
guessed, but I did not know then how near the crisis was, or how the
scale of power trembled in the balance.
This, for Astolba’s errand. I must now turn to the events that thickly
followed on her coming.
Chapter VI
The Cup of the Beast
On the noonday that followed Astolba’s last visit, our usual meal was
not brought to us, but on the hour, a turbaned slave appeared, bearing
rich vestments of the barbarous kind worn by the attendants at the
Queen’s court. These he flung upon the floor of our gilded cage, and by
signs, showed us that we were to divest ourselves of our Christian
garments and don instead these heathenish trappings.
Lestrade, glad of any divertisement—for of a surety our enforced leisure
had become a burden to him—Lestrade, I say, bent himself with something
of a child’s glee to this mummery, and I must needs confess showed in
the issue bravely enough. But I, with some stubbornness to the
messenger’s mute importunities, shook my head, and having now achieved
some knowledge of the language, I put to the fellow a few questions as
to our state, and the term of our imprisonment.
But the slave was silent; and at length, wearied by his sullenness, I
seized him by the shoulder, and (it shames me) with no gentle grip, for
I was bent on forcing something more reasonable from between his thick
lips than the senseless gibbering with which he had so far replied to my
inquiries.
The fellow’s eyes rolled with fear, and opening his mouth, he pointed
inward, dumbly, and I saw that his tongue had been shorn off close to
the roots. The sight filled me with such mingled feelings of rage at the
hellish cruelty that had been practised, and of pity for the helpless
victim, that when the poor creature took from beneath his cloak two
covered silver goblets, and with mute entreaties offered one to me and
one to Gaston, I followed without a thought my friend’s example, and
drank off at a draught the spiced wine that the cup contained.
Almost on the instant a mist arose before my eyes, and I saw, as in a
dream, Lestrade fall on the marble floor of our prison house. The slave
vanished as he had come; sweet music from a distance sounded in my ears,
a great joy took hold upon my heart. I looked up and beheld the unveiled
countenance of Lah, shining with its wondrous beauty, like a star, above
me. I stretched forth my arms to draw the vision nearer, and—I knew no
more.
How many hours passed while I lay close wrapped in that dreamless sleep,
I cannot say. After a time, long or short as it may be, I awoke, and,
piece by piece, what had befallen came back to my mind. I was still
calm, still strangely happy, and loth to break the charmed spell that
held my being. But after a little my manhood struggled in the toils. I
opened my eyes, and saw, without wholly understanding all as yet, that I
was in another chamber, hewn, it appeared, out of solid rock, yet softly
draped with silken tapestries. I lay upon a couch covered with the skin
of a lion. I idly noted that the claws were of gold and the eyes of
emerald. I saw that I was dressed in the garments that the slave had
brought; but the sight awoke no anger. I glanced about me, and I beheld
Lestrade, sitting motionless, with bowed head, in a distant corner of
the room. I spoke to him, but he did not reply. Then I roused me, and
again I spoke, and still silence. At this, the fumes of that accursed
potion left my brain, and springing to my feet, I went swiftly to him,
and again spoke; and this time Gaston raised his head, and his eyes
encountered mine. His eyes! Not his, but those of an unthinking beast,
with no show of meaning, of friendliness, aye, of barest humanity, in
their depths. With trembling hand I touched him upon the shoulder.
“Gaston!” I cried. “Gaston! what has happened? Speak! do you not know
me?”
Then, as he answered not, I shook him roughly, in my terror and
amazement, and he turned,—turned like a savage dog that is
disturbed,—and snapped at my hand. His lips drew back over his white
teeth in an angry snarl, a beast-like snarl, and I, sick with horror,
let go my hold, and there, with the same smile of cruel, conscious
sovereignty, by my side stood Lah.
Then the rage that was in me broke loose; and forgetting everything, her
womanhood with her power, I saw only the foul wrong that had been
wrought upon the body of my friend, and I seized her soft arm in my
hand, and gripped it savagely.
“Cursed sorceress,” I cried, “this is your work!”
For an instant the Queen’s eyes blazed, and had I not been beside myself
with rage, I needs must have blanched before them; then a look of
wonderful sweetness came into her face, and she said, with simple
dignity, in the language of her people:—
“I will cure your friend.”
I let go my hold and such a flood of mingled feeling overbore me, that I
knew not what to do or say, or what construction to put upon the matter.
My usual slow thinking but unmoved self was far from me. I was on fire
with new thoughts, new feelings, that I knew not how to meet.
I turned from my friend, crouched in bestial fear in the royal presence,
to the red marks that I had just brought in my blind fury to the satin
surface of the Queen’s beautiful bare arm.
Then, with an effort, I shook off the spell of Lah’s wonderful presence.
I felt myself once more my own master. My eyes looked into her eyes, and
I did not flinch.
“Is this your work?” I asked.
Again a subtile change passed over the Queen’s face, but whether of
anger or no, I could not tell. She motioned me to sit beside her on the
couch from which I had just now risen, and I obeyed.
Then she pointed to the marks of my fingers on her flesh.
“This is your work,” she answered, “and you yet live.”
I looked in silence on Lestrade’s cowering form, and again my heart was
hot within me. The Queen followed my gaze, and once more she spoke.
“Do you not fear?” she asked. “See to what an end I can bring the gay
spirit of your friend. Like a whipped hound he will come to my call. See
him cringe as to the lash before my face. Take heed lest his fate be
your fate, and your pride in like manner be humbled.”
“O Queen,” I answered, and my anger made me now again as cold and as
calm as I had before been hot and troubled within me. “In your power we
are indeed; nevertheless, think not that it can touch, as you have said,
the spirit of your captives. Lestrade’s body indeed trembles before you,
your cruelty has lost him his reason, but his soul has but fled to its
innermost retreat. You cannot lay so much as your little finger upon
Gaston’s real self. It defies you, it remains unchanged despite you. You
have turned his outer being by your devilish arts into the likeness of a
beast. I doubt not your will or your power to do the same to me.”
“Doubt not my power,” said Lah, gently, “but doubt my will. Think you
another could have done so to me?” and she touched her bruised arm
again. “Could so have used me, the Queen, and have not repaid the insult
by a thousand deaths in one? But in you, my Dering,” and the name took
music on her tongue, “I behold my mate. The people and the priests cry
out for your blood. The one shall be appeased; the other balked.” She
laid her hand, light as a snow flake upon my brawny arm, and her
beautiful face was raised to mine. “What matters this broken slave, once
friend to you? I do not command your fear, O my prisoner! but I do
beseech your love.”
Beneath her touch all my slow nature turned to fire. Her wonderful
loveliness beat upon my soul, like the unclouded vision of the noonday
sun, unbearable to the eyes. I felt a wave of turbulent and searching
passion flood my being, my veins throbbed with the quick pulsing of my
heart, and then—then the shivering, grovelling form of my once gallant
friend came between me and the sunlight, and I shut my eyes to the
beauty that tempted me to disloyalty and dishonor.
Once more Lah’s spell was broken. Once more I was my own master. But
with self-control came prudence coldly back. I felt that Gaston’s life
and mine trembled in the balance, and life is strangely sweet. And so it
was that I turned to the Queen and bent my head, and kissed in silence
the bruise upon her arm, and I felt her tremble, and knew that, for the
time at least, I was her master also. And I knew then what to do, and
did it as readily as one possessing intimately the knowledge of an
instrument plays upon its keys.
“Give back first to my friend his reason,” I said and somewhat coldly,
and Lah with meekness took from her bosom a golden box, and opening it,
plucked forth a strange-shaped nut. With the dagger from her girdle she
scraped part of this off to a powder, and this in turn she mixed with
water from a pitcher at hand, and poured the whole into a bowl. This cup
she raised to Gaston’s lips, and he drank greedily and with noise,
lapping up the water like a beast. Then at a word he crouched before
her, and after a moment his limbs relaxed,—the vacant look passed from
his face, he breathed quietly, now once more asleep.
“He will wake,” said the Queen to my mute question, “in an hour, and you
will once more have your friend.”
“I thank you,” I answered.
“And is that all?” she asked, still tenderly, but with a warning note of
passion in her voice. “Is that all, when men have died, and joyfully,
that they might but kiss the hem of my garment, the print of my sandal
in the dust?”
“No,” said I, boldly, “that is not all; but, Lah, in my country, men’s
hearts beat not to the ordering of aught save their own will. Neither do
they love as slaves, but as masters. Beautiful above all women as you
are, O my Queen, think not I will stoop before you. I am not cold. I
could love, strongly, faithfully, to the uttermost, with a passion far
outweighing that of these servants who you have said have died content
but to kiss the hem of your robe, the print of your sandal. But not, O
my Queen, as they, not as the subject to the ruler, not as vassal to his
mistress. You can rend my soul from my body if you will. You cannot make
me bend my heart to your ordering. Not fear, not even love, shall sway
me. For I love, O most proud, most beautiful of women, even as I have
said, not as the slave, but as the master.”
Lah turned quickly as if stung. I waited breathless in silence for her
answer. Then at last she spoke, and there was new majesty in her
bearing, and though she bent her head with a strange humility, I knew
not the secret of her inmost thought. Yet the words came. “Be it so,”
she answered, and in obedience to a secret signal, the door of the cell
slowly opened, Lah passed through beyond, and I, save for the presence
of my sleeping comrade, was again alone.
Chapter VII
The High Priest’s Council
Heavy still with the fumes of the Queen’s sleeping-potion that the black
had brought me, I sat with my head in my hands after Lah’s departure,
thinking yet but lamely, on all that had just now passed, while Lestrade
slumbered in peace in the corner of our prison.
It might have been an hour or mayhap two, when my friend stirred,
stretched himself, and at last sat up, his usual happy-go-lucky air
giving way to a look of surprise when he saw our new abiding-place.
“How feel you, Gaston?” I asked anxiously, for I still distrusted the
Queen’s medicine, and the enduring nature of this sudden cure.
“Never better,” Lestrade answered brightly; “but what means this sudden
change of quarters? As for thyself, man, no popinjay of the tropics ever
pricked it more blithely, no strolling mountebank bright with gold and
scarlet and jingling bells, no, nor Solomon himself, of a verity, so
much as touched the height of thy magnificence. Why, comrade! thy
raiment shineth like the sun, and thou in the midst of grandeur, solemn
as any owl.”
And with that he fell a-laughing mightily, so that I was nettled, and
without more ado related briefly, and perchance too sharply, all that
had chanced since the slave’s coming, save, as was fitting, the last
passage between Lah and myself.
And at my story Lestrade grew grave once more, but not as one would
fancy because of the danger he had but now passed, but all, if one would
believe it, because of the figure he had cut in the Queen’s presence.
And I was hard put to it, to answer with discretion his many questions,
without wounding him to the quick on the one hand, or ministering to his
vanity and vain hope of Lah’s favor, on the other.
Indeed, I was sore beset, when the door of our cell swung open, and
Astolba came in, whereat Lestrade forgot apparently altogether and on
the instant, his interest in the Queen’s bearing, and turned, with all
singleness of mind, to the entertainment of his fair visitor.
She, poor child, was in great spirits, and it was a pretty sight to
watch the swift color come and go in her cheek, and note the many
innocent little coquetries with which she met Gaston’s warm advances.
Not that he took toll of every look and word; there were plenty still
for me, of another, and, I could not help thinking, of a deeper nature.
However that may be, the reason for her light-heartedness was soon made
known to us.
The Queen, she told us, was on our side, and she would bring to naught
the cruelty of the priests of Hed. Lah had spoken softly to her, almost
as one sister to another, of us whose lives were forfeit to the gods;
had promised us powerful protection, and bade Astolba bear to us, with
all speed, the message.
Yesterday, it seemed, a missive had reached the throne, which read that
Agno plotted, in the name of his unholy office, to tear us from the
sanctuary of the very palace itself, and bear us to the altar of torture
and of death.
Hearing this, Lah had hidden her wrath, but had given orders to two
mutes that we be drugged with a harmless potion, and borne by a secret
way back to the Temple of Edba, whence we had come.
“You are now,” said Astolba, “in a hidden chamber that is next the
Council Room itself. The Queen bids me tell you that at midnight the
priests will meet there, and your fate will be the subject of their
speech.” She drew back the tapestry that masked the wall, and put her
finger on the head of a painted snake that was revealed, for the stone
was covered with pictured emblems of Hed’s most revolting worship.
Once, twice, and once again, she pressed the chosen spot, and
noiselessly a huge block of stone slipped back and disclosed a leathern
curtain.
Astolba motioned us to silence, and drew forth the jewelled knife that
hung from my much bedizened girdle. With it she slit the drapery of hide
that screened the opening she had made.
Then she pushed back the heavy folds, but with all caution, and stooping
at a sign from her, we gazed through the rent and saw indeed the High
Priest’s Council Room.
Lestrade, when I had done, scanned the place also with curious eyes.
Then we fell back, and Astolba, again pressing, this time a painted
emblem of the moon, the huge stone slipped noiselessly into its
appointed socket.
“Now,” said Astolba, “I have delivered to you the Queen’s message, save
for this scroll, which I have been also bidden to hand to you.” And she
placed, I fancied a shade reluctantly, in my hand an ivory tablet.
And in the language of the people of the Walled City, I read:—
“The wiles of the Serpent shall be brought to naught. Behold, even at
the twelfth hour the crystal globe shall fall, and into thy hand be
delivered the secret of thine enemy. But the wisdom and the power of
the lioness no man may measure. Wherefore beware! Yet walk in the
light openly, despising not the good gifts of the gods, and all shall,
in the day to come, be well.”
The Queen’s signet, the same as that cut upon the middle stone of her
girdle, a hand grasping a writhing snake, was engraved on this missive,
which I again read carefully, and at Lestrade’s impatient asking, this
time aloud.
“A precious epistle,” said Gaston, with an expressive shrug; for he was
nettled, I make no doubt, that the Queen’s majesty had addressed itself
to me rather than to him.
“What is this crystal ball of which the letter speaks?” I asked, to
change, if might be, the current of my friend’s thought.
“Look up,” Astolba answered, “and you will behold this people’s strange
clock. It works, I think, by water. Every hour a ball of lead curiously
and differently marked, will drop from the plate above, into the brazen
bowl which you see below. At midnight a crystal ball will show you by
its fall that the hour to act has come. And now I must say farewell.”
She smiled upon us each in turn. “Good by for a little, dear friends,”
she said; “be brave, be fortunate,” and had gone.
After Astolba’s departure we waited with what patience we might for the
appointed hour. A mute, black as ebony, like his brother of the goblets,
brought us a supper that did no shame to the hospitality of his royal
mistress. Delicious fruits were served to us in massive silver dishes;
there was, beside, a steak, from what animal I know not, that was rarely
toothsome. There were flat cakes of grain and a jar of ruby-tinted wine
that would have made an anchorite forswear himself. So we dined
together, Lestrade and I, and little by little, a moodiness that before
had wrapped us round, now fell from us like a cloak; the potent grape
juice warmed us through, and we were gay.
After the banquet the slave departed, silent as he had come, and Gaston,
stretched upon the lion skin, sang snatches of fair French ditties,
while I, in a reverie strangely sweet, with Lah’s face floating in a
glory through the waking dream, watched, motionless and content, the
leaden balls fall clanging, on the hour, into the bowl of brass beneath.
At length the longed-for moment came, and with it the crystal ball.
Lestrade rose, yawned, and was about to speak, but I, with a warning
gesture, pressed thrice the serpent’s head painted on our prison wall.
Back, slow and noiseless as before, slipped the massive stone. With a
courteous gesture Gaston bade me look. I plucked at the rent in the
curtain of hide, and even as I gazed, with measured step, two by two,
the priests of Edba and of Hed entered from the farther end of the
Council Room.
Lestrade cut with my knife another slit in the folds of the heavy
drapery of skins, and together we watched in silence.
The chamber into which we looked was of great size, and seemingly
hollowed like our prison cell, from out the solid rock. Massive pillars
of stone supported the roof, and these were carved with hideous, leering
figures grotesquely entwined.
The walls of the place were covered with painted pictures, rudely drawn
but strangely and horribly lifelike. These represented victims suffering
all the tortures that a cruel and fertile mind could think of, and
through all the horrid story appeared at intervals the emblem of Hed,
the serpent, and the sign of Edba, the silver moon; and these were shown
forth also on curtains of hide that draped, as before our hiding-place,
certain portions of the apartment.
The room was bare, but there was a throne of ebony on a raised platform
at the further end, and in front of this stood a round stone altar with
a deep groove running through it, that slanted and ended in a large
basin or trough. Before this altar burned a fire in a three-cornered and
very large brazier, holding not coals, but fagots. From this there shot
forth forked tongues of blue flame, and from it also came the only light
that illuminated the Council Hall.
Back of the throne I beheld a gigantic figure of black marble, but
painted in glaring colors. The eyes of this image were of blazing jewels
worth a king’s ransom, and in the squat figure I recognized my old
enemy, Hed, the snake-encircled god. The firelight shone on the
serpent’s silver scales, and the reptile seemed to move. With an effort
I looked away and saw that beside the revolting figure of Hed, there
stood, on a pedestal, a tall, veiled, and graceful statue, all of white
and luminous stone, and holding in its hand a crescent jewelled moon.
This, then, was Edba.
I turned once more to the advancing priests, and as I did so, a wild
blood-curdling chant broke from the on-moving ranks. I looked at
Lestrade; his face was white, and I saw that he recognized the song that
we had heard once before, at midnight, in our other prison cell beneath
the temple. Slowly the priests drew near, forty in number, and ranged
themselves about the sides of the apartment, near unto the throne. One
brawny fellow took his stand almost in front of me, and so near that I
could easily have plucked him by the shoulder.
Twenty of these ministers to the gods were clothed in white garments,
and twenty wore robes blood red in hue, and I thought from the glances
cast one at the other, that there was little love lost between the two
parties. They stood there chanting their heathenish song, and at the end
fell flat on their faces on the stone pavement. As they did so, the
further door swung open, and Agno advanced through the prostrate ranks,
clad in a flowing gown of white and scarlet, and seated himself on the
throne. His piercing glance swept the Council Room, and had I not been
aware of the thickness of the shadow, the strength of my right arm, and
the justice of my cause, even I would have shrunk back before him into
the safety of my hiding-place.
The High Priest waited an instant, then struck the dais twice with his
staff of office, and these ministers of evil arose.
Then at their leader’s command, forth from the red-robed ranks came the
foremost of their number, who advanced, thrust his naked hand into the
very centre of the blazing pile and drew forth a flaming brand.
Then he turned to the waiting throng, and no sign of pain writhed upon
his lips, though he must indeed have been terribly burned.
“I, priest of Hed, do swear for myself and my brethren, by the Snake’s
head, by the Snake’s bride, by the power of blood, by the flame on the
altar, to keep secret the counsels of this holy meeting, and of our
office, and to obey him sitting upon the throne. May the body of him who
betrayeth the trust be tortured to the uttermost, and body and soul
forever hereafter! Let Hed himself bear witness.”
He paused, and every man, worshipper of the Serpent, bent his head in
silent affirmation.
Agno turned to the white-robed throng, and again the foremost stepped
from the ranks, caught out from the flames another brand, and spoke: “I,
priest of Edba, do swear for myself and my brethren, by the moon’s
light, by the yearly victim, by the earth’s fruits, by the flame on the
altar, to keep secret the counsels of this holy meeting, and of our
office, and to obey him sitting upon the throne. May the body of him who
betrays the trust be tortured to the uttermost, and body and soul
forever hereafter! Let Edba herself bear witness.” And again as with the
followers of Hed, his nineteen companions gave in solemn silence their
consent.
“Friends,” said Agno, “the time is ripe, the hour of vengeance is at
hand. Let the followers of Edba and of Hed forget their impious
quarrels, and unite in peace and strength against the stranger. Yes,
brethren, our altar has been defamed, the sacred ape murdered, the power
of the gods scorned, and even we threatened in the exercise of our holy
office. Aye, and worst of all, the sacrilegious wretches are sheltered
beneath the royal mantle of the Queen.”
A low murmur broke from the listening throng, and the wily Agno hastened
to say on.
“Nay, brethren, think not that I bear malice against the throne. Rather
as a father would I defend the person of our mistress from the sorceries
of the stranger. Surely are the eyes of Lah bewitched, since she
protects these outcasts, and as surely will their blood, and their blood
only, make true again her vision. Look to it, ye priests of the temple.
The gods are angry; Hed and Edba cry out, ‘Why are my servants slothful?
Why do they sit with folded hands appeasing not our outraged majesty?’
Shall they withdraw their favor from their ministers? Shall the light of
their countenance be turned from us? Shall we perish, that the strangers
live?”
Again a low, fierce murmur broke from the assembly. Agno’s eyes gleamed,
for he saw that his words now sank deep—seed in fruitful soil.
“Nay, more, mark you, followers of Edba, and you, too, worshippers of
Hed, already the people scorn us for our weakness.
“Already the gold runs scantily in our coffers; already have fallen away
the gifts to the temple. Not twelve hours since, a blemished goat was
offered at the altar; already the voice of the multitude is raised
against us. Aye, even as I approached this sacred meeting-place, a
drunken soldier of the Queen stumbled rudely against me, and when I
cursed him for his awkwardness, he laughed,—yes, my brethren,—laughed in
my very face. May the flames consume him! May the Serpent eat his
heart!”
Again an angry murmur confirmed his words, and the foremost of the band
of Edba spoke in answer.
“We, followers of the Moon, ask peace rather than bloodshed,” he began.
“Nevertheless, we join with thee, most holy Agno, in clamoring for the
punishment of the stranger. Only this much must be granted. Give to us
the victims. For long have the worshippers of Hed lorded it over the
adorers of Edba. Now grant to us the sole honor of bringing to the altar
these unbelieving dogs, and rest assured, their fate shall be such as to
content even the thirsty souls of our red-robed brethren.”
“Never!” shouted, as with one voice, the followers of the Serpent; and
an angry tumult arose on the instant, hardly stilled when Agno commanded
peace by all that was sacred, and with mingled threats and prayers
enforced his words.
The calm ranks of the forty priests were broken, and the worshippers of
Edba and of Hed mingled together. Eyes gleamed hatred, and hot words
broke from the lips of the humblest.
At length one voice bore down the rest, and the clamor was hushed for
the moment. It came from him of the scarlet garment, who had thrust his
hand into the burning pile.
“My brothers, my brothers, let there be no strife amongst us,” he cried
aloud. “Rather turn this burst of fury upon the strangers. Are there not
two victims? Let the priests of Edba give one unbeliever, bound hand and
foot, unto the mercies of the Mad Man of the Moon; we, of Hed, will take
care that the Serpent be avenged upon the other.”
A troubled silence succeeded this speech, and I saw that each side
feared to give advantage to the other by the renewal of the strife.
Clearly, if nothing happened to prevent it, a temporary peace, bad
indeed for our prospects, would prevail.
I looked at Lestrade, and I saw the same dare-devil thought spring into
his mind. I noted that the sacred fire burned low, unnoticed in the
tumult. The room was well-nigh wrapped in darkness. A scarlet robe and a
white were well within reach. Gaston and I, as one man, thrust forth our
arms through the rents made in the curtain by our knives.
I struck him of the red robe, right joyously, a well-planted buffet on
the cheek. He reeled with the shock, and I saw Gaston slyly prick, with
his dagger, the fat side of the priest before him.
In an instant all was confusion. A cry of treason was raised, and the
sons of Edba and of Hed flew like a pack of ill-bred curs straight at
each other’s throats.
Agno shouted in vain; and I promise you the sight was such a merry one,
that forgetting the risk we ran, I laughed aloud for very joy of it.
In the general scuffle over went the brazier, and the only light in the
Council Room came now from a few dying embers.
Gaston’s rash spirit rose within him, and before I could utter a word,
he had pushed aside the heavy folds of the leathern curtain, and leaped
through the opening in the wall of our prison, straight into the
thickest of the fray. I could not leave my comrade, though my cooler
spirit saw little glory and much danger in the adventure into which he
had plunged us, and through which I was bound to follow him.
Hoping much from the friendly darkness, however, I also sprang forth,
and it would seem unnoticed; and then the lust of battle that abides
still in the sinful heart of man arose in me, and in the good giving and
taking of blows I forgot all else. On a sudden, as I was struggling
right gladly with a fellow in a red cloak, who wrestled all too well to
have been a follower of false gods, just, I say, as I had tripped
him—for the heathen knew not the trick, and so went down like a bullock
under me, but still holding fast manfully; just then Agno—and may the
evil one repay him!—Agno threw a powder upon the dying flames, and at
once the Hall was brighter than day.
I gave mine enemy a parting blow and sprang for cover, and I saw
Lestrade throw back a sturdy fellow, and start to follow. But his foot
tripped over a fallen priest, and I, turning to his rescue, was seized
and held fast by a dozen eager hands.
We were prisoners again, and in much worse case, and as I stared about
me with late repentance that I had ever left my cell, the only
comfortable thought for me at all lay in the still fresh evidence of the
havoc we had wrought amongst the enemy in whose toils we once more found
ourselves.
If I live to a ripe old age, which seems likely though I be now at
seventy but little past my prime, I shall, I am sure, never forget the
look of rage and triumph upon those dark faces bent above us. We lay,
Lestrade and I, bound and helpless on the stone floor of that bloody
Council Room.
Agno would fain have played with us awhile, even as a cat with a mouse,
for the sheer love of the sport, but the High Priest’s hot-headed
followers would have none of it. They clamored for a swift judgment on
the culprits, and their wily leader saw their demands had best be
satisfied.
So from the throne before the grim and silent images of the gods we had
dared, came forth the solemn sentence of our doom.
Lestrade was given over to the worshippers of Hed. A week hence on the
high festival day he was to be tied to the horns of the altar, and there
done to death. My fate was swifter, but as terrible. Two nights hence
the moon would be at its full, and Edba would claim in me her chosen
victim.
“Let the stranger,” said Agno, “be bound to the stone that stands in the
centre of the cleared space within the holy grove. There has Izab, the
Mad Man of the Moon, his abiding-place, and there, unpitied, and alone
save for the avenger, shall this dog of an unbeliever meet his doom.”
“What is your meaning?” I began, for I have always held it the wiser
part to learn the worst at once; but in the hoarse roar of satisfied
revenge that rose from the priests about, my words were lost, and before
I could speak again a gag was thrust, none too tenderly, into my mouth.
I saw Lestrade wave his fettered hand to me, in parting, and the brave
smile on his white lips made my eyes strangely dim.
Four lusty sons of Edba raised me up, and I was borne from the Council
Room and carried through a multitude of passages.
At length my bearers stopped; a door opened, a massive door, but so low
that a short man must stoop to enter. The foul smell of a noisome
dungeon assailed my nostrils. I was thrust within, still fettered, and
so rudely that for a little my head swam with the force of the blow I
had received in falling, so that I could not note at once the quality of
my new prison.
This, alas! I found quite soon enough, matched but too well the state of
my changed fortunes. The hole was unfit for a beast, much less for the
chamber of a Christian gentleman. Nevertheless, I had been placed there,
and it was cold comfort to reflect that I was not long to trespass on
the hospitality of my entertainers.
However, it is ill crying over spilt milk, nor am I a man to waste good
time in such thankless observance. So I disposed myself upon the damp
floor of the dungeon, as well as the painful tightness of my bonds would
permit, and by dint of thrusting my swollen tongue this way and that, I
at last got rid, to my great joy, of the foul gag that had so
unceremoniously stopped my speech.
My mouth was sore and my throat parched. A rare thirst consumed me, and
it was with delight that I observed the slimy coating on the walls made
by the constant fall of water from above. I put my lips close to the
cold stone, and with much greater patience than I thought could abide in
my nature, I waited till little by little, drop by drop, my suffering
was assuaged.
It was dark in my prison house. Four small holes pierced the stone roof,
and from these came some air and, I hoped, by morning, light also.
I heard the scuffling of a legion of rats; from whence I know not,
unless the earthen pipe that thrust its nozzle through the floor gave
access to the cell. This, I think, was the case, for soon I felt the
pattering of their feet upon my body; the boldest even nibbled at the
belt of leather that I wore, and had I not shown signs of life, they
might have been yet more uncivil in their advances.
A hundred years passed by, and I was still a prisoner: let one who would
assure me that I am wrong, take but my place in that foul spot, and see
the bitter truth that lies within such reckoning as mine.
No visitor, grim or otherwise, approached my cell. I would, I believe,
have welcomed, in my extremity, Satan himself, but he came not, nor his
ministers. The Queen’s hand could not reach me here; Gaston, my faithful
comrade, he too was absent, perhaps in pain like me, perhaps in bonds,
forgotten and, like me, well-nigh mad.
My head was light from want of food and drink and sleep. I tossed about
from side to side in unavailing anguish, and it was not the agony of the
bonds eating into my flesh, that cowed me, but the darkness and the
solitude.
There in that place of torment my manliness fought against such odds as
even now I dread to think on. But praise to Him whose servant I am, at
last my braver self prevailed, and when, after those hours of
interminable horror, Agno appeared, I did not grovel at his feet, but
faced him calmly and, at least in outward seeming, unafraid.
A day had come and gone; the High Priest said my hour was at hand. By
his order my bonds were loosed, and the blood rushed painfully through
my numbed body, that pricked as with millions of needles.
“What of my friend?” I managed to ask.
Agno smiled with subtile malice.
“The stranger waits his doom in the company of fair woman, with revel
and sweet minstrelsy. Goodly wines and rich meats are his portion, and
soft garments wrap him round. Yet in six short days shall the Snake
receive his own.”
At least he knows not the torments of such a dungeon as this, I thought,
and my heart was a little lightened, which I think fell hardly within
the reckoning of the High Priest of Hed when he disclosed the fate of my
fellow captive.
But there was no time to ponder this or other matters. At a sign from
their leader the guard closed in upon me. I was led along through a maze
of underground passages as before, and at last into the open. Before we
reached the outer wall my eyes were blindfolded, my hands tied, and I
was muffled in the folds of a cloak.
In this fashion I was marched along, to my great inward misgiving; but
at length a halt was called and the bandage was taken from my eyes.
Chapter VIII
In the Cage
Though I knew from all that had gone before that change of quarters was
little likely to bring me comfort, pleasure, or ease, either of mind or
of body, my spirits rose, despite my better sense, as I turned my back
upon the place of torment that had held me captive.
Neither did the triumphant malice of Agno’s dark countenance daunt me.
Whatever befell, it was good. Good to be alive and breathe again the
pure open air; good to be dazzled, half-blinded even, by a sun I had
thought never to shine on me again save in death.
But I had not long in which to rejoice over my shackled freedom; for,
still chained, I was thrust rudely into a new and curious prison; a
barbarous invention of a barbarous people, a cage like a wild beast’s
den.
In this, still closely guarded, I was borne along, and through its open
bars of stout bamboo, a gaping crowd beheld me, and it sent a hot wave
of righteous wrath surging through my veins to feel that I could not, at
least, stand upright like a man, and fling back scorn for scorn; but on
account of the lowness of my prison, needs must crouch, beast-like, in
shameful silence before the taunts of the rabble, this offscouring of
the people of the Walled City.
Thus with ignominy was I carried through the broad streets of Lah’s
capital, and still caged thus, I was placed upon the central stone of
the great open market-place, and here, at the High Priest’s command, was
I left with the staring crowd for company.
Agno himself had gone. I noted, through the open bars of my foul den,
that the walls of the storehouses about were hung with gay carpets, and
that the business of buying and selling had ceased in favor of the still
more urgent and exciting business of seeing an enemy put to scorn,
mayhap to death.
The multitude were wreathed with flowers as for a festal day. They
jostled one another, it is true, to get a nearer look at the man about
to suffer the extremest wrath of the mighty gods; they pushed one
another aside, but with merry words and no anger. Their anger was all
for him who had defiled the sanctuary. The very women held up their
children and taught them words of infamy for me, the captive.
A man loves not to be called a coward. It was not for this that with
patience I had learned from Astolba’s lips the language of this people.
The time was long. The sun beat down upon my unprotected head. I shook
the bars of my cage with savage strength, and the people shrank back,
only to return with new-born laughter at my impotence.
And Lah came not.
Thus dragged the weary hours. At last, a few of them that tormented me,
bolder or more cruel than the rest, began to fling not only taunts, but
stones. Yet some unknown power restrained even these, for the stones
they chose were small, and did but sting and bruise the flesh, nor did
one of all draw blood. But it was merry sport for them, my enemies. As
they warmed to it, ’twas like enough that the unknown bond that held
them would have snapped, and I been given over, then and there, to an
easy death thus at their hands, when once more an ever-watchful fate
stepped between me and vengeance.
The sound of chanting and of bells rose faint from the distance, and, as
at a command, the throng fell back, while I, with straining ears and
beating heart, waited for what this might portend.
Was it the Queen bent on rescue?
The thought thrilled me with new hope, but the strange chant came nearer
yet, and hope died. For I heard it now for the third time. The song of
wrath, the song of the Temple of Edba, of the High Priest’s Council—the
song of death to the stranger, to him within the gates.
The dull beating of drums and the clash of weapons mingled with the
hymn. Then the first of a band of warrior priests came into sight, and
the people herded together, near to the walls, that the holy ones might
have room to pass.
The strange procession circled about my cage. Of them that marched, some
bore shields and swords; some carried wands of office; others swung open
silver cups laden with sweet-scented spices consumed to the honor of the
gods. Some bore wreaths of many-colored flowers. All were in spotless
white, and all kept step with order and rhythm to the cadenced measures
of that horrible hymn of praise.
But now an awed murmur rose from the waiting throng. Some fell on their
faces, and some, and these were women, rushed forward in a kind of
frenzied joy of welcome. The men drew aside with reverent haste to let
them pass, and the object of their devotion came in sight.
I saw a canopied litter swung aloft; I saw fan-bearers and all the
jewelled trappings of royalty. And again my pulse beat thick with joy,
for a veiled figure sat within the litter, and for one fleeting moment I
believed that Lah had come to claim me, prisoner. Another instant
pricked the bubble of my hope.
One woman and another from out the throng fell, face downward, on the
wayside, in the path of her who rode thus immovable, in state, herself,
no woman truly, but Edba, the Moon Goddess, come to behold her fallen
enemy.
The priests marched steadily along over the prostrate bodies in the
dust, nor turned aside for any self-devoted victim. Only when the silver
statue reached the centre of the cleared space before my cage, was a
halt called. Then with much speech-making, and many strange observances,
was I once more committed to my doom.
Surely had I no need to complain of lack of ceremony about my end, save
only the incivility with which these pious persons received my own
attempt at answer.
But of a truth they may have feared, and rightly, the effect of
Christian eloquence. For though I be but a plain man, and one more of
deed than of word, I was roused in that hour to a flow of language, a
subtlety of wit, and a power of rebuke, that would, I think, have shamed
the boldest into silence, and carried me perchance a conqueror, victor
not victim, from that place of torment.
But it was not so to be. The beat of drums drowned my voice; at a sign,
the bearers of the litter resumed their march.
Edba, too, had gone; another hour had sped. I was still caged, still
fettered, still a prisoner.
Some of the people, my former tormentors, had gone on with the Moon
Goddess and her train. Others stayed to bear away the victims left
behind her in the market-place. Of these some groaned mournfully, others
rent the air with cries, and one, a tall woman of some beauty, rose,
swayed for a moment, and then fell heavily, and lay motionless, but with
a strange smile on her parted lips.
I still had a few spectators of my misery, but their zest at the sight
had somehow departed. No one now flung either taunts or pebbles. I began
to solace myself with the idea of an hour’s quiet before nightfall in
which to think; bitter comfort undisturbed my own thoughts, when a group
of chattering slave girls neared my prison. They gathered round it with
unseemly jests and laughter. Their tinkling anklets were of gold, and of
gold also were the bracelets on their bare brown arms. They belonged, I
saw, to some great house, but the thought of them and their concerns did
not affect me.
Lestrade, now, in such a case, even such an evil case as mine, would
have held discourse with them. He would have saluted, I doubt not, with
flattering words, such as through their hampering veils seemed comely.
But I am of sterner stuff. Their chatter irked me, and their
light-heartedness was an insult and a cruelty. I would not be a show and
a delight to such as these. So I held my head down, and drew my cloak
about me, and alike to their questioning and their jibes, maintained a
sullen silence. Seeing which, she who seemed the leader in their
merriment drew nearer.
“I will have speech of the monster,” she cried, somewhat in this wise:
“Behold neither sweet words from fair lips, nor jibes, nor hard stones
move him. Yet, by the Veiled One I swear it, this I warrant shall
quicken his sense—the moody one;” and she drew from her hair a long gold
pin. “At least, will I see if his blood be red like that of other
mortals.”
At these words the other slaves fell back, and some would have stayed
her, but with a light laugh she flung aside alike their restraining
hands and words, and came close, close to the bars of the cage. Now, I
am not a man to fear the prick of a weapon wielded by a woman, nor, for
that matter, in fair fight with any man; but I was mad that my quiet be
broken, and over and above that, her boldness vexed me, for I was one
who never could bear the forwardness of maids.
So, as the pin-point touched my flesh, I seized the bodkin ’twixt thumb
and finger, and in my grasp it broke, or came apart, I know not which,
and I saw that it was hollow.
At the instant the slave’s veil slipped aside a little. I saw her finger
seek her lip to caution me to silence. The next moment her shrill scream
rang through the air.
“The brute! He has my golden pin,” she cried, and wrung her hands, and
thus bewailing her loss, passed, after a little, with her companions out
of sight.
Then, as soon as I could, being unobserved, I looked closer on the
bodkin, and, as I held it this way and that, to catch the meaning of
some characters graven faintly on the surface, a small round pellet
slipped from out the hollow pin, and rolled along the floor of my cage.
It lay upon the very edge, but I had caught the Queen’s name in the
short sentence before me, so stooped not to pick it up, until I read:
“Within, find help when all fails;”
and the royal signet,
“Lah.”
I scanned the words with all care. Then my eager fingers sought the
fallen pellet, but, in my haste I jarred the cage so that the little
ball rolled over the edge, and was gone.
As I gazed upon it, lying there on the bare earth not four feet away,
but as much out of my reach as though the world’s breadth was between it
and me, a dog came up, one of the many that hunt for scraps and offal
among the refuse of the market-place. One of these scraps, a strip of
dried beef, I think it was, lay, as luck would have it, close to my
treasure. The half-starved brute greedily seized on the fragment, and
his long tongue licked up as well the pellet,—gift to me from the Queen.
With a wrathful cry I shook my clenched hand at the already retreating
brute.
He was not three paces off, but almost on the instant a convulsive
tremor seized upon the creature. The mongrel’s legs stiffened, he raised
his head and gave a despairing howl, a sound choked in the uttering;
for, with another shuddering spasm, he dropped and lay still.
A cry of terror rose from the multitude.
“Behold, the captive looked upon the dog in anger, and he is dead! Let
us leave this place! Let us fly!”
A panic seized the people at the words. Women snatched up their
offspring, covering them from harm beneath their mantles. Strong men
trampled upon the weak, that they might escape.
The crowd melted away as if by magic. The sun beat down pitilessly as
before, but on an empty market-place. Empty, save for the hapless
prisoner crouched within his cage, and for the dead body of the brute
beside it,—victim to the mercy of Lah, the Queen.
Chapter IX
The Mad Man of the Moon
Thus it was that Agno and his ministers found me. Again, I may say their
coming added no new horror to these last hours. It is the interminable
waiting that wears to a thread a man’s courage. I would, of my own wish,
have that which was to come, over quickly. Already was the strain
beginning to tell. It would not be an easy death, this I knew, for it
was a death of the High Priest’s contriving. It was a death feared by
Lah, a death from which she would fain have saved me,—and how? After
all, I was glad that the Lord had put temptation from me. Brought face
to face with unknown terrors, I felt that my strength might have given
way before the trial. I set this down plainly with the rest.
Read on, and see what fair foundation of truth had I for doubting mortal
strength in such extremity.
Well, a day had come and gone, and Satan’s chiefest emissary was at
hand. The lagging feet of justice quickened. By Agno’s order was I again
blindfolded, and by his order was I loosed from my cage.
Supported by two of the priests of Edba,—for my cramped legs refused to
do my bidding,—I was half dragged, half led, away.
Still blindfolded, I was laid upon a stone and fastened there securely
by a band about my middle, and by thongs that tied me, wrist and ankle,
to rings set in the altar’s side.
Then my bandage was taken off, but it was some minutes before my dazzled
eyes could see clearly, and then I found, to my surprise, that the High
Priest and his followers had vanished. For all I knew to the contrary, I
was quite alone. I looked about me, and I saw that I was in a cleared
space in the form of a circle. This was guarded by a high and thorny
hedge of some tropical plant, strange to me, whose narrow leaves
bristled like so many bayonets.
The sun beat pitilessly upon my uncovered head, but I knew from its
position that night was not far off. I was bound to a rude granite-hewn
altar, and carved upon it in many places, amid a throng of grotesque
images, I saw the familiar sign of Edba, the crescent moon.
This altar stood at one side of the circle; directly opposite, was
reared a hut shaped like a bee-hive, and made of close-woven branches.
There was no door to this strange dwelling, but a thin veil of plaited
grasses partly hid the entrance. I strained my eyes in a vain effort to
see beyond this curtain. Once or twice a faint rustling from within
broke the deathly silence, and that was all. These singular noises made
my heart beat faster, for I judged, and rightly, that here was the abode
of my enemy, perhaps of my executioner.
The hours wore on. I was giddy from the length of my fast, the horrors
of my imprisonment, and the nameless dread of what was to come. A chill
crept over me, and though the day was hot, I shivered so that the rings
of the altar rattled. I thought I saw two fiery eyes gleam for an
instant upon me, from behind the curtain that veiled the entrance to the
hut, but when I looked again I knew my own base fears had called up the
vision.
I turned my head resolutely away, and scanned the ground about me. As my
eyes travelled along the thorny hedge that circled the place, I saw
something that gleamed through the green, half hidden by the underbrush.
Idly I looked, but the next instant my pulse quickened; for as I gazed,
the horrid meaning of the thing leaped to my mind. I had seen the white
bones of a mouldering human skeleton.
I set my teeth lest any sound escape me, and some watchful priest
staying behind his fellows to gloat over my misery, hear my cry and so
have joy over my weakness.
The sun went down, and night fell. A wind arose, and it blew from the
silent hut to me, and I smelled the breath of the charnel house, and my
stomach turned within me.
But the stars came out, and the moon rode in the sky; a full moon, round
and glorious.
Then the curtain of grass was pushed aside, and the Thing that dwelt
within leaped into the circle. It was white, with a loathsome whiteness,
naked, and painted with spots of red and blue, and it mowed and mumbled
and danced uncouthly there in the moonlight.
I watched it with a thick sense of impending horror. It flung its arms
wildly about its head and laughed shrilly at its own fantastic shadow.
It rolled over and over on the ground and stretched its limbs in
content, while the moonlight bathed them, just as a beast will stretch
out comfortably in the warm sunshine.
I moved a little on my bed of stone, and again the rings of the altar
rattled.
Then the Thing raised its head, and its eyes rested on me with a look of
greed and cunning.
It stopped its hideous play and began to crawl warily but surely towards
me.
Nearer it came, and yet nearer. My throat was parched, and I shut fast
my lips lest a womanish shriek shame me forever.
At last it reached my resting-place, stood upright, and craftily touched
my shackled hands and feet.
Then the Thing, half beast and half human, bent over me, and its teeth
met in the flesh of my right arm.
The vengeance of Agno, High Priest of Edba and of Hed, had fallen. The
whole sickening knowledge pulsed through my soul, even as the agony of
my wound racked my spent body.
My doom was sealed.
I was to be eaten alive by the Mad Man of the Moon, that the gods of the
people of the Walled City might be avenged.
Suddenly the Thing let go its hold and raised its shaggy head, and I
noted, even in the stupor of horror that had come upon me, that it was
listening.
Then a man stepped out from the thorny hedge into the cleared circle—a
man naked and quite unarmed.
[Illustration]
I saw, as in a dream, the breadth of his massive shoulders, and that he
was mighty above his fellows, and as I looked, the truth came to me, and
I knew that this was Zobo, the commander of the bodyguard of Lah, the
Queen.
The Mad Man of the Moon gave a low snarl, and sprang at the throat of
the intruder.
Then began a wrestling match between the two, made terrible by the time
and place, by the bestial noises of my would-be murderer, and by the
knowledge I somehow had, that this duel was to the death.
Back and forth they strained and fought. I had looked to see my enemy
snap like a reed in Zobo’s iron grip, but I soon found the demon the
creature served had given it unholy powers. It was supple like a snake,
and its muscles were of steel. I saw great drops of sweat stand out upon
the bare body of the Queen’s servant, and, too, the veins in his
forehead stand out like whipcord, with the strain of the conflict.
The unclean Thing bit, and foamed at the mouth, and strove with a
devil’s strength and a man’s cunning for the mastery. Zobo fought with a
kind of grim patience; while I, chained hand and foot, waited helpless
for the issue.
Suddenly a cloud passed before the moon, and I saw the Mad Man falter.
It was only for an instant, but that instant the Keeper of the Seal was
quick to seize.
He gripped my foe by the throat, and the two fell, rolling over and over
on the hard ground, not far from where I lay.
The man-beast writhed in fury, and tore at the hands that held him, but
in vain. I saw his head fall limply back, and his limbs relax. Zobo,
with a deep breath, let go his hold, and I beheld on his face a look of
mingled fear and loathing for the deed he had done.
Then I looked back on the prostrate form of mine enemy, and I cried out
in warning, for the Mad Man had but feigned death.
Quick as thought, the Queen’s soldier turned also, but too late. Izab
had seized a stone that lay at hand, and the missile struck Zobo full on
the forehead as he tried to rise. The Keeper of the Seal fell backward
and was still. I looked to see my enemy rise and trample on the
prostrate body, but it was not to be.
The Mad Man’s arms moved once above his head; a hoarse, guttural murmur
came from beneath his clenched teeth.
The moon shone forth glorious indeed, but the body of my friend and the
body of my foe alike lay motionless.
Then the bayonet thicket was parted yet once more, and the form of a
woman thickly veiled and wrapped in a mantle appeared in the open.
With a swift, gliding motion she crossed the space; looked once at me
and then towards the quiet bodies in the moonlight.
She passed the Mad Man’s lifeless form and spurned it contemptuously
with her foot. Then she turned to where Zobo lay, with upturned face and
staring eyes, before her. Motionless as he, she stayed an instant; then,
with an indescribably graceful gesture, she took her cloak from her
shoulders, and spread it over Edba’s victim.
Once more she faced me, flinging back the veil that shrouded her, and I
saw that she was none other than Lah, the Queen.
What happened next is only dimly present in my remembrance. As in a
dream, I knew that her lips met mine; that my bonds fell from me at her
touch, and that I walked a free man once more, but not firmly, because
of weakness, towards the bodies of the dead.
My hand instinctively sought Zobo’s heart; and without surprise, because
in my weak state nothing could have surprised me, I found that it still
beat, though faintly.
“Come,” said Lah, imperiously; “I have risked more than you dream of to
come thus, and at this hour, and to you. My life with your life trembles
in the balance. Now,—even at this moment,—Agno himself may come, and
then no power of mine could save us. Leave here the body of my servant
to die as he would wish, at my command, for me.”
These words I remember sounded in my ears, and more, but I had never yet
left a fallen friend in trouble, still less would I desert now one who
had all but given his life for mine.
Something of this I said to her, and seeing that I was bent upon my
purpose, Lah bade me lift the wounded soldier.
“If you can bear him hence with my aid, not a dozen steps from here in a
secret place in the thicket help will meet you,” said the Queen, but as
one who grudged to yield her will to mine.
How I did it I never knew. Weakness and long fast had made even my own
weight a sore burden, but I steeled my shrinking muscles to their duty,
and Lah, with supple strength beyond her sex, helped me in the task.
So, half dragging, half supporting, the unconscious form we went, till
at a word from the Queen I halted.
Lah stooped and knocked twice and then twice again upon a block of
granite that rose from the ground.
I heard a dull noise sounding distantly from somewhere, and behold,
before us, the earth itself had opened.
At Lah’s command I swung myself down into the black depth.
Strong hands seized me; Lah called that she and Zobo followed, and—I
knew no more.
Chapter X
The Red Witch holds her Revel
It may have been hours or days. I do not fix the space of my captivity.
A man in my state,—may it be reckoned with heavy reckoning against this
son of darkness, this foul priest of Hed,—a man, as I say, in my
condition of mind and body notes not the flight of time. Neither do I
deny that I may perchance have dreamed somewhat. That witch’s cave
wherein at length I came again to life was a likely enough nest for the
hatching of nightmares, aye! and worse things to follow. But this I
hold,—upon my honor as an honest man and a God-fearing gentleman, and to
defend the truth of the same, I will do violence to him who doubts me,—I
saw, and saw with waking eyes, and waking brain, the things I now relate
to you who read these pages.
So, defending if need be every jot and tittle of my tale, I will set
forth in plain unvarnished words what fate set me to see of the red
witch and her revel.
The last thing I remember was the fall of some heavy substance above my
head, as half-carried by Lah, the Queen, I was let down into that dark
hole, beyond which lay the moment’s safety, and perchance escape.
Then came a swift rushing and surging as of mighty waters about and
above me; fiery darts shot through my brain and danced before my eyes.
Then distant voices, and figures passing and repassing, but ever afar
off. Lastly, a glimmer of light, and the touch of cooling bandages bound
tight about my head. After a time the darkness wholly passed; I lay on a
couch of skins, and a bowl full of some evil-smelling mixture was
pressed against my lips.
At this, I remember I was wroth, and would have smote the unseen nurse
that teased me, but my hand, when I tried to raise it, fell, heavy as
lead, by my side. I heard a hoarse cackling laugh, and against my will I
drank of the cup held out to me.
Nor, save for a slightly bitter flavor, was the draught nauseous.
Indeed, it warmed like wine. I felt new strength run tingling from limb
to limb, and I opened my eyes, my own man once more, a little weak and
stiff in the joints still, yet whole and sound again and ready for the
morrow and its burden.
Looking about me I found that I lay in a corner of a cave barely six
feet high, whose end was lost in darkness. This cavern was lighted from
above, by torches stuck in rude brackets here and there in the rocky
wall. I saw, too, that the earth of the floor had been pounded hard and
smooth, and was covered over with intermingling lines of black and
white, red, blue, and yellow.
I followed these lines with my eyes, and I beheld, without understanding
it, that the network had a meaning. Sometimes a line would end abruptly
with a star, sometimes it was cut clean across, often other lines met
the first, so that the colors ran thickly together; but at all times
there was a certain order like the lines of a map, or a puzzle in
geometry.
After a time I grew giddy watching this never-ending maze, and I turned
upon my side that I might better see the other portion of my prison
house. A fire smouldered in a distant corner, and a leaping flame showed
the edge of a great cauldron that stood in the cave’s centre, from which
came the quick shimmer and sparkle of precious metal and of gems. A dark
mass near by uncoiled itself slowly, and two unwinking, lidless, fiery
eyes looked straight at me and beyond. The thing slipped away without
noise into the farther darkness, and I sat up. A draught of air played
about my head. It was damp, and pleasantly cool in this underground
retreat, and save for the crackling of the fire all was silent.
I am not, I trust, a coward, but I tell this as it happened, leaving out
nothing, altering nothing. For all I knew I was alone, safe and alone,
but on a sudden my heart began to beat thickly, my hair stood erect, and
my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth. Cold sweat stood in beads upon
my body, and some inner force compelled me to look where I would not.
And there, crouching by the fire, I saw the bent figure of a woman,
hardly larger than a child, but old beyond man’s counting.
She swayed backward and forward. She was perfectly bald, and her face
was a mass of wrinkles, though the ashen, parchment-like skin was drawn
tight over the bones.
I saw that the creature was wrapped in a red mantle. She turned her head
and opened her eyes full upon me. Such eyes! Two sparks of living fire,
deep set, that ate through bone and muscle, flesh and sinew, and laid
bare the soul. I shrank back, and the head of the red witch dropped down
once more between her shoulders. I felt the terror that had seized me
pass, but I had lost all wish to move. So I waited, in patience and
unsurprised, the pleasure of the shrivelled hag, to whose lair the Queen
had brought me.
For a space the red witch sat still as some carven image. As the
firelight fell on the wizened, peering face, the peaked features took on
new shapes of ugliness; the lips writhed in a terrible smile, yet
stirred not, and I drew back into the shadows and waited for that which
was to come. As I did so, the hag arose. For an instant I feared that
she was about to approach my couch, but she passed into the outer
darkness with never a backward glance.
Another moment and she had come again, walking slowly and with evident
pain, and indeed with so much feebleness that I thought every step would
be her last.
Upheld by her skinny arms was a curious image in painted stone, the god
Hed, as I saw at once.
The weight of the thing must have been a tax on the strength of a man
even of my inches, but this strange woman now held it aloft, and without
pausing, lightly as though lifting a feather, set the god in a niche
prepared for him above and opposite the cauldron.
Then she drew from her withered bosom a small bag, and took from it a
pinch of powder. This she threw into the pot, and at once a thin blue
vapor arose from its depths.
The hag squatted beside her brew, and began a monotonous beating with
her hands upon a hollow log, across either end of which a tanned skin
had been tightly drawn.
Then she commenced to sing in a curious cracked voice, and the song had
no melody, but instead a kind of rhythm that met with the drum beats,
and stirred, I know not how or why, to frenzy him who listened.
This is a fragment of the song as near as I can remember. For reasons
that I shall tell presently I stopped my ears in horror before its end.
It was no common chanting; for even as it rose, _the thin blue smoke
took on form and substance and imaged what she sang_.
“I am Hubla the witch, and I hold in my palm the lives of men.
Blood shall flow that I may not thirst; and the white dove shall
flutter in the net at my command.
I am the ruler of the night, and the things that fly in the darkness.
And the things that crawl are mine, and jewels and gold are to me as
grains of sand.
I alone hold the flower of death, I alone read the scroll of days.
Come, hatred and strife, that Hubla may have joy.
Come, devils and men, and work my will.
Come, you fair Queen, and you white maid, you, stranger, and you,
priest of Hed.
Here by my brew I sit and sing;
Come ye and do my pleasuring.”
And here it was that as a Christian man I stopped my ears. For I come of
honest yeoman stock, and God forbid that I should so much as listen to
such foul mouthings.
That the devils the witch called were there, I doubted not, for as I
have said, even as the words passed her lips, the blue vapor from the
cauldron took shape, and I saw floating therein all those whom she had
named. But more was still to come. For presently my own image was joined
to theirs and was swept with them into a kind of evil dance. Faster and
faster the vapor figures whirled. There was despair and envy, and wrath
and sorrow and dismay, on the swift revolving faces. I could not turn my
eyes away, and my heart was as water in my breast.
Then on a sudden the lips of the hag ceased to move, and like drifted
smoke the vision passed.
I would have cried aloud in wrath against such practices, but the sound
died in my throat.
Then Hubla spoke, but not to me.
She had risen, and now stood before the hideous image of the Serpent
god, and in one hand she held a slender iron rod whose end was white
hot, and whose middle part glowed red from the flames.
“False and perjured god!” I heard her cry, and the tones struck ice to
my breast, so full were they of malice and of rage. “Between me and thee
is the struggle yet to come. Think not that Hubla fears thee. Take this,
and this, in token of thy shame and thy defeat.”
And as she spoke she smote with all her force, with the rod, the stolid
squatting figure.
Drops of foam fell from the witch’s lips, and again her shrill voice
rang through the cavern.
“I have shielded thine enemy. Out of the toils of thy priests I have
delivered him. Lo! he shall live, and the blast of thy anger shall not
smite him. Neither shall thy breath consume him. For I have thrown my
mantle about him, and he shall live to mock thee in thy courts.”
Then once more, with all her might she smote, and the stone image fell
with a crash from its narrow ledge, and lay prone in the glowing embers
beneath the cauldron.
Peal after peal of shrill laughter came from the shrivelled figure, and
straightway the witch began to dance,—a strange heathenish dance, in
which she flung about her withered arms, and took grotesque steps with
bare feet that trod upon the smouldering logs strewn about her fallen
enemy.
Then at length she threw upon the flames another powder. A deafening
report followed; the cavern shook, and a column of red flame shot up to
the ceiling. The heat was intolerable, and the place was crimsoned as
with blood.
I gasped for breath, and shielded my face as well as I might from the
awful scorch of that fiery pillar, nor, I think, could my mortal body
have withstood the flame; but after a moment’s space Hubla clapped her
hands, and on the instant the fire died down.
Save from the flickering light from the torches, all was darkness; the
red witch crouched as before, motionless, before the embers.
For a little she sat thus; then once more those fiery points that lay
behind her eyelids glowed on me, and I saw the skinny hand beckon.
“Rise, son,” said the red witch. “Thy hour is come. Go boldly forward.
Death lies waiting with open maw, but Hubla bids you fear him not. Rise!
the treasures of the ages await thee.”
Chapter XI
The Treasure House of Edba and of Hed
As a man in a dream, I rose at her behest, and found that little of my
old strength had left me. Only my feet and legs prickled as though I
walked through nettles, but this in turn passed off.
Hubla, the witch, had vanished into the darkness of the cavern’s other
end. I followed, stumbling over bones and other litter that strewed the
earthen floor, and once something slipped, all too softly, out from
beneath my tread. I am no coward, as I have said, but I take no shame to
myself that I was glad when I felt the cool night air upon my face, and
saw that I had left the cave’s mouth.
The red witch still appeared some paces ahead, and old as she was, I had
all that I cared to do to keep the distance from widening between us.
She walked on and on, evenly, and without word or sign to me who
followed. Once she stopped and listened with head raised and nostrils
distended like a beast. Our course was winding, and I thought we doubled
on our tracks. Sometimes it was grass that my feet walked upon,
sometimes smooth rock, and again we crossed a torrent bridged by a
single tree trunk.
All at once Hubla vanished. I stared stupidly at the empty air, and I
think another in my place would have run with all good speed from the
spot where such devil’s tricks and things of ill omen could happen. I
did indeed commend me to the holy four, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
as is my wont before I lay me to rest. It is a worthy practice, and a
comfort to a man in my evil case. And that it was Hubla, the red witch,
who answered, shakes not my faith, seeing even the end with the
beginning. Her words coming almost from beneath my feet did both startle
and enrage me. It was, indeed, well for her who spoke that she was old,
and if a foul she-monster, that she still wore the shape of woman.
“Son of a pig! Why standest thou staring? Is the golden apple of fortune
overripe that it should fall into that gaping mouth of thine?”
At the same time I felt an iron clutch about my ankle, and the solid
earth gave way beneath my feet. Also, at the moment, a chain slipped
through my fingers.
“Struggle not and hold, on your life,” said the same voice in my ear,
and I obeyed, because it was borne in upon me, that to obey was all that
there was left to do. I felt about me the swift fall of gravel and small
stones that went tinkling down into some abyss on which I dared not
think.
Then once again I found a foothold, and clung to it with vigor and all
earnestness. I stood now upon a narrow platform bridging a bottomless
well, and the chain had vanished, pulled from my grasp by the turn of an
invisible windlass. At the opening far above me I saw the dark blue sky
and a single golden star.
There was many a thing a man might have said to such a guide as this,
but Hubla waited not the hot words that burned upon my tongue. Instead,
she thrust into my hand a crooked piece of iron, and by signs showed me
how it might be made to fit an opening in the rock before me. She had
held her claw-like hand like a vice upon my wrist, but now she relaxed
her hold, and in another instant had gone, cat-like,—only no cat could
have done it,—up and up the side of this strange prison, until, reaching
the top, she sprang over the edge, without so much as a backward glance,
and I was left alone.
Then, as one having no other outlet, I put my shoulder against the rock,
and with all my might I leaned upon the bar of iron that I held. Slowly,
slowly the great stone yielded to the strain, and presently there yawned
an opening big enough for a man of substance, like myself, to crawl
through. I had no stomach for further acquaintance with my latest
dungeon, so, grasping the iron as my one hope and weapon, I plunged feet
foremost through the hole. I swung for a moment thus, helpless, with no
resting-place within reach; then, as I could not hope to better my lot
by such procedure, I commended my soul to Heaven, and loosed my fingers
from their hold upon the ledge. Fortunately, the fall was not a bad one.
I picked myself up but little bruised and shaken, and found that I was
in a narrow passage whose sides I could touch on either hand.
Walking thus, and moving with all caution, I advanced, until at length
further progress was barred by a door of stone. I went carefully over
its surface with my fingers and found a small opening. Into this I
thrust my strange key, and the rock giving way on a sudden to my touch,
I fell headlong into the next chamber. For a moment I was blinded by the
dazzle of light with which the room was flooded. But after a little I
opened my eyes, and as I did so, my heart leaped in my breast, and a
sudden faintness seized me, for I saw that I stood on the threshold of
the hidden storehouse, and the treasure of the kings of the people of
the Walled City, aye, and of their gods, had been delivered into my
hand.
I am an old man now, but my pulse beats faster even to this day, when I
think of what it was mine to see in that same wondrous treasure house. I
noted not that the door had closed behind me, and that there was no
opening on the inner side into which my key might fit. I saw only that I
stood on piled-up ingots of yellow yellow gold; that bags of skins lay
bursting and brimming over with pearls by my side; that half-opened
wooden chests held each its store of many-colored jewels; that the
gem-encrusted weapons, crowns, and girdles of a dead and bygone royalty
littered the very floor. I saw great rough-hewn blocks of silver, curios
of many kinds, and mass on mass of ivory tusks. There were, also,
beautiful woven tapestries, and rugs of silken lustre, and great sealed
jars that I found held wine, fragrant and honey-colored, and fit for an
emperor’s banquet.
The room was an exact circle, not over large, and lighted from above by
countless hanging lamps. The roof of solid rock was held up by massive
pillars. A hollowed block of stone made a kind of altar at one side. It
was like the altar in the Council Chamber, and it had the same red
stain. Above it leered the serpent god, a brazen image with emerald
eyes, and bracelets on wrists and ankles of diamonds, such as Lah in all
her magnificence had never worn.
Twelve tiger skins, twelve lion skins, and twelve skins of the panther,
each one beyond common size, of great beauty and quite perfect, lay
spread upon the rocky floor. With some of these I made a couch, and,
wearied, sat me down to muse upon the secret of the storehouse and to
plan how I might best escape with some prudently chosen portion of the
treasure; how meet Astolba and Lestrade, and so journey swiftly and
safely away from this wicked city and its people, whose mad lust for
blood had well-nigh ended all our lives.
It was sweet to dream of a peaceful homecoming, and rare sport to let
handful after handful of glittering jewels trickle through my fingers,
as thus I sat and pondered. I am not, I hope, a man covetous above my
fellows, but my soul within me warmed at the sight of all this countless
treasure, and the gold and gems were as meat and drink to my body.
Neither felt I now any weariness or fear. I laughed aloud, and the sound
echoed back from the rocky walls, and again I laughed, and Hed the
serpent god laughed too, but silently.
And then, even then, I felt the touch of a hand upon my shoulder, and
looking upward I saw Lah, the Queen! She stood smiling and without
words, for a moment, and I, not knowing what the visit might portend,
spoke not.
Being a woman I knew she must soon have speech with me, and that I
should then find whether the future should make peace between us, or
war.
When at length she did open her lips, I found too that I had forgotten
the power of that musical voice; at least its tones sent a sudden thrill
through all my being, and I listened, spellbound, against my will.
“Thou art a man,” said Lah; “therefore I say not to thee, let fear slip
from thee as a garment. Fear lodges not in this breast of thine, else
thou hadst not thrust thyself, by what means I know not, thus into the
jaws of death; aye! into the secret storeroom of the Kings of the House,
where lies the very treasure of the gods themselves.”
Now I liked not much this address, for I saw the lady meant not all she
said. Nevertheless the time was ripe for action, and so with a swift
movement I put my arm about the Queen’s waist, and pulled her gently but
firmly down beside me.
Then I slipped my hand beneath her chin, and looked straight into her
eyes. You who have looked without blanching into the eyes of a lioness
aroused will know that I did this deed yet boast not.
“Come you as friend or as foe?” I said.
I saw the Queen’s hand tremble as she grasped the hilt of the dagger at
her girdle. Then she relaxed her hold, and her beautiful head bent with
a kind of proud humility.
“My lord himself shall say,” she answered. Then swifter than an arrow’s
flight her mood changed. With a regal gesture she drew back from my
embrace.
“Tell me, stranger to me and to my people. Lay bare thy heart and lie
not. Is it I whom you love, or does thy fancy hold yet to that weak
thing, that white-faced girl Astolba?”
The attack was so sudden that I knew not well how to stand against it.
For the first time in my life I wished for the nimble tongue of my
friend Lestrade, and somewhat too of his wider knowledge of the wiles of
women.
“Answer, slave!” cried Lah, imperiously.
I looked up, and the half-contemptuous tone stung me to a sullen
defiance.
“I love neither you nor the other,” I said doggedly.
“By Edba and by Hed!” breathed the Queen sharply, and I saw her face
grow ashen.
She laughed, but not loudly, and I misliked the sound; and again silence
fell upon us. Then once more Lah’s voice, cruel, beautiful as her face,
and as calmly cold:—
“Thou shalt die a dog’s death,” she said. “Even now is thy doom upon
thee,” and she pointed to the place where we stood.
I looked down, and saw as I did so that a thin stream of water crawled
upon the floor and now had reached and wet the sole of my sandal.
“What does this mean?” I asked, with strange foreboding, and again the
Queen laughed noiselessly at the question.
The stream slowly widened; now it lapped the foot of the altar of stone;
a little further and an ingot of gold blocked its course, but only for
an instant. The emerald-eyed god looked on, serenely pitiless.
Then the horrible truth flashed across me. I seized the Queen by the
arm, and she swayed backward and forward in my grasp.
“Woman,” I cried in my despair, “what devil’s work is this?”
Then, because I could not bear the terrible joy in her eyes, I became by
a mighty effort calm once more.
“Little by little, and this rock-hewn chamber shall be filled even to
the roof with water, as thou seest,” said Lah, smiling. “I was passing
by a secret way, and I heard the noise of a fall in this the treasure
house. Without delay I touched the spring that sets free the waters that
they may do their work, avenge the gods, keep clean from the touch of
thieves, this my heritage and theirs. Then! O stranger, it was borne in
upon me that I should see the face in life of him who thus boldly dared
entrance to this place. The face was thine.” She was silent for a
moment. “And there was time for flight, for freedom before the waters
came.”
“And you?” I asked.
“The first thin stream locked fast the door behind me,” she calmly
answered. “What matters it? I also meet my doom.” She turned and held
forth her hand. “We die—together.”
There was silence for a space, and then her voice fell again on my ear,
and now sweet beyond human fancying.
“See,” she said softly. “The time is short; we were mated from the
beginning. O lion heart, since so soon we both must pass, forgive me,
even as thus I forgive you.”
She stooped and kissed me once upon the forehead, and I in a frenzy born
of the hour and of her beauty, caught her to me, and kissed her also,
not once, but many times, on hair and hands and lips.
And all the time the water rose with a swift relentless quiet that knew
no rest. No rest till its murderous task was done, and I, fool that I
was, and she, the Queen, should die, like rats in a trap, inglorious, if
together.
My brief passion grew cold at the thought. Yet my despair was not all
for myself. It seemed too cruel a thing for truth, that one like to this
woman, so splendidly alive, so perfect a work of nature, should be
blotted out of existence by this cold, creeping, ignorant, pitiless
force.
For now the water was ankle deep. I looked into the eyes of Lah, and
they met mine with a soft serenity. Women are queer creatures. I do not
doubt that in the very face of this slow and evil death, she, the Queen,
was altogether happy.
I could not bear her gaze. Neither could I stand idle, while the
treacherous flood rose about us.
It was wild and useless labor, but with a frenzy of energy I pulled
together two jewel chests, piled on blocks of silver that felt like
featherweights to my mad strength, took ivory tusks and casks of wine,
and built a throne higher than his who sat unmoved, the serpent god
looking upon our misery. Then, bearing her in my arms, on the topmost
part I set the Queen, and she, seeing that I would have it so, obeyed,
while I, a little lower, took my stand by her side.
And still the water rose, and still with wide-open eyes, all undismayed,
sat Lah, while our swift heart-beats measured off the time,—the all too
little time that for us two meant the whole remaining span of life.
The flood now had reached my knees, and had wet the hem of the Queen’s
garment. It seemed to rise more quickly. I measured the space left to
the roof of the storehouse and saw that soon our torture would be over.
Then a great rage took hold on me that thus we two should perish. I
would at least make one more try for life. I would swim close to the
walls of this infernal trap and see if somewhere, somehow, there lay not
a chance of rescue.
I turned to the Queen and told her of my purpose. She smiled, but
forbade me not. “There is no hope,” she said, “or I should know of it.
But see, take this my dagger, and just before the end—promise me—I would
go first along the dark way that leads to the gate of Shimra. Swear to
me. I would not die alone.”
I was no Christian in that hour. I take shame to me that it was so. The
Queen had her will with me, and I gave her the promise that she craved.
Then I struck out boldly, for the time was short. Round and round I
circled, swimming slowly and looking well for any crack or fissure in
stone or pillar. But the walls were as smooth as glass to my touch, and
I found no opening.
He of the emerald eyes gloated over me, over us two. His massive knees
lent me a moment’s foothold, and in childish rage I struck him furiously
across the face with my dagger’s hilt. And at the sound the Queen sprang
to her feet.
“Look!” she cried breathlessly; “look, the god is hollow!”
Men’s wits work nimbly at such a time as this. Without pausing, I swam
behind the great metal image—and it was true: cleverly hidden in the
back I saw a door. But the water had now reached its base.
“Swim for your life!” I called to the Queen, but she shook her head.
“I know not how the trick is done,” she answered steadily. “Save then
yourself.”
But I was half-way across the space between. The rest seems now like
some fantasy of the brain. I have said evil things of Hed. Let me now
put down in black and white one good thing to his memory: the door that
saved us was not locked.
’Twas like the heathenish way of the priests who set it there to taunt
with bolts the maddened wretch who thus sought safety. Yet it was so,
even as I have written it. The door yielded to my pressure and revealed
a small winding staircase.
Already the water flowed a torrent through the opening, but I had the
Queen safe in, and now had followed. Quickly I shut the barrier in place
behind me. And then—then safe at last in the darkness it was Lah who
sighed, so strange are the ways of women:—
“I know not. But I had joy in death, and now life has been yet once more
thrust upon me.”
Chapter XII
The Dance of the Maidens
So I had come empty handed, after all, from out the Treasure House of
Kings.
We groped our way down the spiral staircase, the Queen and I, and both
were silent. Far be it from me to guess the thoughts of the woman at my
side; as for my own, I fear that man is but an ungrateful animal at
best. For I thought little of our wonderful escape, and much of the
rubies, the ivory and pearls, and other goodly store of wealth that I
had left behind.
Some day, I vowed to myself, I would wrest once more the secret of the
entrance to that room of death and gold, and then it should go hard with
me indeed, did I come forth as now, with not so much as a yellow ingot
to show for the adventure.
I am a man of even temper, but I was cold and hungry and out of conceit
with myself and the world about me. Had some priest of Edba or of Hed
stayed our retreating steps, I could have stopped his protesting clamor
with more good-will than brotherly love. But we reached without let or
hindrance the last stair, and a door opening to my touch showed a long
corridor but dimly lighted, and winding before us.
“Follow me,” whispered the Queen; “make no noise, but come quickly. From
this spot I can reach my own Palace, and once there, woe to him who
should so much as lay a finger on you, my lord.”
She led the way with swift and silent footsteps, and I came close
behind. Then on a sudden she paused and signed to me to step within a
recess formed by the angle of two walls.
I obeyed with rather an ill grace, I fear; for I had heard nothing, and
indeed was willing to run some risk, that I might the more readily find
dry raiment and victuals even of heathen cooking, but so that I might
eat.
Yet Lah with finger on lip tarried, and I saw her bosom rise and fall
with her quick breathing. If such a woman could know fear, it was fear
now that looked from her eyes, as I gazed into their depths. And before
the end I knew that it _was_ terror that blanched her face, and that the
danger she shunned was danger to me.
And then, just as I was about to protest against this useless dallying,
I heard in the distance the patter of loosely tied sandals upon the
stone floor, and soon a light showed forth like a glow-worm’s torch in
the blackness of the further end.
There were voices too. A goodly company, I judged. Lah stood, a living
statue, her dagger drawn, the folds of her dripping mantle spread to
shield me as with unconscious force she thrust me back into the dark
corner of the recess.
As for me, I pondered where and how it were best to strike, and if I
should find in the leader my old acquaintance, Agno, the High Priest.
The voices came nearer. The men were disputing, for now I caught stray
fragments of their speech.
“Surely the god himself would strike down the thief,” said one, “did not
the water do its work.”
“Since none of us knows the secret of the entrance,” said a second, “we
can do naught but guard the corridor till Agno comes.”
“You are blind, both of you, as the bats that hang in the Temple’s inner
court,” sneered a third. “The stranger has strong magic. He has killed
the sacred ape; he has defied both Edba and Hed; he has escaped, though
bound, from the very Mad Man of the Moon, whom first he slew. Why should
we stand like fools watching for that which comes not? If the strangers
seek the treasures of the gods, why, let the gods defend their own!”
“Blasphemer!” cried one in anger, and there was a hoarse clamor of
assent, and I thought they would have fallen then and there, like
wolves, upon the grumbler, but a new voice sternly bade the clamor
cease.
“Get ye onward, and for him who lags or murmurs there shall be both
stripes and fasting. For him who compasses the death of the thief of the
Treasure House, honor and riches here, and glory hereafter. Forward!”
The voices and the light were very near now, and two by two, I saw the
armed company turn the angle of the wall and march steadily on.
We crouched closer in the inky shadow that befriended us, and I knew
that if they did but reach the further turning without beholding us, we
were safe.
There were eight in all, and so deep were they in their now whispered
talk, or so much in awe of their leader, that they did not so much as
turn their heads our way, but marched steadily by.
I began to breathe easily again. The whole array had passed the place,
the foremost had even reached the next turning, when the last man, with
a muttered oath, tripped on the loosened latchet of his sandal.
His companions hurried on, and he, kneeling, stooped to fasten the
leathern thong. He had laid his torch beside him on the stone, and now
he turned to raise it. As ill-luck would have it, the light flashed for
a moment on our hiding-place. I saw his jaw drop and his look of wonder.
His fellow-guardsmen had just now turned the corner.
I started forward, but I was too late. With the noiseless, supple spring
of a tigress, Lah was upon him. There was a swift flash of steel, and
the thing was over. The Queen even caught the reeling figure and laid it
quietly upon the stone.
“I knew his voice,” she said. “’Tis he who called upon the gods to
defend their own. They will think that Edba and Hed have avenged the
insult. It is well. Let us come.”
And so once more, half dazed, I followed. It was a very labyrinth we
threaded, but at length we reached its last winding, and I found myself
in the very chamber to which Lestrade and I had first been taken.
The sight of it brought back my old companion to my mind. False friend
and comrade that I was! The events of the last hours had quite effaced
his image from my mind.
He had fallen victim like me into the hands of these bloody and
treacherous priests.
How long had I been prisoner unconscious in the lair of the red witch
Hubla? what was Gaston’s fate? and what of her whom I had given my word
to rescue?
Filled with shame, I caught the Queen’s mantle as, with the promise of
the quick ministry of slaves, she turned to leave me.
“My friend!” I said, in an agony of fear. “Tell me of his fate.”
“He lives,” Lah answered.
“Unhurt?”
“Unhurt—as yet.”
“And she—Astolba?”
The Queen’s eyes narrowed, but she spoke calmly.
“She lives also, but the feast of Edba is at hand.”
“When?” I asked, shuddering; for I could not conceal the horror of my
soul.
“To-night. At the sixth hour I will come for thee. Meanwhile rest
quietly; be warmed, be fed. Thou hast my promise; thou shalt see all.”
Then I flung myself before the Queen in her pitiless beauty, and, as a
man distraught, I raved and pleaded, that she would protect this poor
girl, that she at least would give me the chance to die fighting by her
side. That she would save Astolba, sweet, innocent, frightened child,
alone in the hands of demons. That she would save Gaston, my friend—
And all the time the face of Lah was as marble, and I saw no mercy in
those firm closed lips.
At length, wearying of my suit, without a word she tore the hem of her
garment from my frantic grasp, and had gone.
I sat stupefied with grief, my head in my hands. And then I raged in
helpless passion against fate, against a heaven that could let such
things be done, and against myself, thus safe in hiding, while she whom
I had sworn to protect, and he, my best, my faithful friend, went forth
to meet the lingering agony of a cruel death.
Slaves came, and against my will I was clothed in warm and jewelled
raiment. Meat and wine and fruit were brought in golden salvers and set
before me. I turned from it all in loathing, and then the thought came
to me that the Queen had given her word that I should see the end. I
would eat then and drink, and force myself to rest, and it would go hard
if, at the appointed hour, I broke not my bonds, and took my rightful
place beside my friends.
Without knowing it, a tender feeling stole into my heart for that poor
child, about to be thrown a sacrifice to the hideous god. I could not
bear that she should be hurt or frightened. And the tenderness grew
until it was something very like to love that found its place within my
breast, and I vowed that if the Queen should really let this monstrous
thing be done, that did she care for me as she had said, I would wring
her heart without pity and without remorse, in just revenge. But it
should not be. Neither should my brave and gallant Lestrade perish, a
victim to this horrid worship.
I paced up and down the marble floor like a caged beast, and then I
remembered that I must husband my strength, and so, with all my power of
will, lay motionless upon the couch and watched the weary hours go
slowly by.
But at length the fateful moment came, and with it Lah, resplendent in
her jewelled garments, the crown upon her head, the girdle of power
about her waist. She had never been more beautiful, and her beauty had
never touched me less. Indeed, it was almost hatred that I felt for her
in that hour, and I said to her in her own language that which was in my
heart.
“If these two die, then never between me and thee is there peace again.
Thou shalt be my bitterest foe, and may this right hand of mine wither
ere it clasp thine in friendship. May I taste death rather than the
honeyed poison of thy lips. The choice is thine. I have spoken. Thou
knowest if I keep my word.”
She turned proudly.
“He is a fool who breathes threats into the ear of the Queen, and the
portion of fools is fire,” she said, and in the proverb I read my
answer.
Then she signed to me to follow, and I obeyed. The way led through the
same dark tangle of underground passages, as those we threaded in our
escape from the Treasure House, but the journey was not so long, and at
length it ended in a kind of antechamber richly hung with rugs and
skins.
Two giant slaves advanced and fell prostrate on the ground before the
face of Lah.
“Take this man,” she said, “and array him as a member of my household.
See that he is veiled and that his cloak covers him from head to foot.
When I am seated upon my throne let him take his stand by my right hand.
As for you, choose well your station. Watch your prisoner closely. At
his first movement, his first outcry, seize him and bear him from the
court. Let there be no struggle and no noise. I have spoken. Look you to
it.” And without so much as a backward glance at me, the Queen had gone.
It was therefore after the manner now set forth that I entered into the
inner Temple of Edba, and waited that which was to come.
Already like thousands of ants, black and brown, the people swarmed
within the enclosure, filled the wooden balconies to overflowing, and
massed themselves in crowds upon the raised platform that lined the
walls.
A band of musicians, stationed near the centre, beat monotonously on
their hidebound drums and chanted a doleful hymn of praise.
With a refinement of cruelty, Lah had placed me where I could at once
see best the torment of my friends, and do least to relieve it. I
watched with cold fury the holiday look on the face and garb of the
people. They came to this hideous spectacle with the light laughter and
noisy bustle of a merrymaking.
Yet the slow-moving, solemn files of priests pleased me no better, and
the calm of the close ranks of soldiery alike called forth my wrath.
There was not one in all that vast multitude that thought with pity on
the fate of her destined to be the Snake’s unhappy bride. Not one but
longed for the fall of the knife that was to sever for all time the
thread of life of him I called my friend.
I thought how but the veil of silken tissue that I wore stood between me
and death; yet, I say it not with boasting, my pulse beat not faster for
the fact. I was as a man carried out of himself. I waited, immovable as
the very image of Hed himself whose squat figure presided side by side
with Edba, over this heathen revel.
There was a stir among the people, as when the wind blows through the
trees of the forest. I heard the royal salute, the clash of arms, and
Lah had taken her place on the throne beside me. Then Agno raised his
staff, and the band of players in the centre of the court struck from
their rude instruments the first measures of a dance. At the wild
fantastic prelude, two doors at the Temple’s end swung back on their
central pivot, and from each appeared six maidens clad in white. They
wore silver girdles, and the veils on their heads were caught each with
a crescent of silver.
These were the twelve, the fairest in the land, chosen by the priests
from out the people. They were to dance before the statue of the god,
and the god himself would show by his nod, which of the number was to be
his bride.
I knew but all too well that on Astolba the lot would fall; but these
poor girls, her companions, were ignorant of their fate, and bound by
their awful rites, as I knew them to be, not one among them but looked
her anguish and her fear. With a slow gliding movement in time to the
music they took their stand before the veiled figure of Edba and the
leering image of Hed. I saw Astolba take her place with the rest, and I
glanced at the watchful eyes of my two guards who hung, ready to spring,
like eager mastiffs at either hand.
Then the music changed. Again Agno raised his staff, and, with a wild
barbaric gush of melody, the centre door swung open. Four priests in
costly scarlet raiment advanced, bearing on their shoulders a litter
garlanded with flowers, and on this litter, attired as a king, but bound
a prisoner, I saw my friend Lestrade.
The royal salute was given, and the people fell on their faces. Then the
bearers put the litter down and knelt with bowed heads before their
captive. Again Agno waved his wand of office.
A deep shuddering sigh ran through the waiting throng as they stood
erect. The bearers, too, had risen. I saw them strike the fetters from
the victim’s feet and hands. Then, closely guarded, he was bound to the
horns of the altar, the sacrificial stone standing in the centre of the
inner circle, before the statues of the gods. I noted that between that
stone and me lay a pit sunk in the floor of the court, and in the pit a
giant python coiled asleep.
But once more the musicians struck their instruments and began the
fantastic strains that heralded the dance. I saw the reptile move
uneasily. Then its great head was raised. It swayed from side to side,
as the music rose and fell.
Agno gave the signal, and the maidens began their dance. It was a kind
of raised platform of marble on which they moved, and it was strangely
inlaid with tiles both green and white. Only in the centre, just before
the image of Hed, was set a single blood-red stone, and over this each
maiden was forced in the mazes of the dance to go.
I saw them tremble and falter with terror as they stepped upon this
tile, and how their courage rose when once it was safely passed.
The people watched with horrible eagerness all the scene. I glanced
covertly at my guard, and I perceived with joy that I was forgotten for
the moment.
As for the Queen, she sat immovable, her level brows knit, one bare
sandalled foot resting on her tiger’s head. Something told me that the
moment had come. I saw Lah raise her hand. On the instant the head of
the serpent god fell forward, his chin resting on his breast.
Astolba was standing, helpless as a bird in the snare of the fowler, her
feet resting on the centre crimson stone.
A hush fell on the multitude. I saw a wreath of roses flung upon the
victim’s head, while at the same time a slender cord, sent swift through
the air by an unseen hand, coiled itself about the body of the
shuddering girl.
“The great god Hed has chosen!” shrieked the people. “To the pit with
the bride! To the pit!”
Then I knew my time had come. No human power could have held me back. I
tore the clinging veil and mantle from my limbs. I gave one burly slave
a backward blow that sent him reeling upon his fellows; the other I
tripped easily with my foot as he started to lay hold upon me. With a
quick leap I cleared the amazed circle of the guard. Zobo, back again in
life, and warned by the Queen’s cry, sprang to seize me as I fled, but I
slipped beneath his outstretched arm.
The multitude seeing my face, which I grant was hardly human in that
hour, screamed aloud for very fear. I saw them huddled like sheep
together.
A voice cried: “The Magician is upon us!”
I had passed the serpent pit and reached the altar stone. The
sacrificial knife, broad-bladed, sharp of edge, lay close to my hand.
Another moment and Lestrade was free.
Then together we had reached Astolba. Gaston seized the brazier of live
coals that stood before Hed’s image, and flung it full in the face of
the first pursuing priest. His cheerful voice rang out. Even in that
dread moment I could have sworn that his gaze had rested with instant
approval on the shapely ankle of a flying white-robed maiden. He swung
the empty brazier with right good-will, and I kept about me a clean
circle with my glittering knife.
But already the end was near. Like a cloud of enraged insects the
priests swept down upon us, and the reluctant soldiery, fearing they
knew not what, came too at Agno’s shrill command. I gave myself three
minutes yet of life. My shoulder was bleeding from the stab of a spear,
but I felt no pain. With my back to the statue of Hed I fought on
blindly.
[Illustration]
The circle, bristling with swords and spears, narrowed. Some one had
thrown his dagger at me from afar, and the hilt had cut open my forehead
just above the eye. It was an irksome wound because I needed then, if
ever, clear sight, and the blood that trickled down did the more sadly
vex me in that I found no instant when I could pause and brush away the
teasing drops.
As I have said, the end was near. Gaston, fighting still beside me,
cried out that it was so, and bade me “farewell and God speed.” I saw
the sword of a burly soldier within an inch of my breast. There was no
time for thrust or parry. I gave but one brief thought to the sweet
earth, and not, it shames me, to near heaven. Then on the second I saw
the sword struck upward. There was the blue flash of a weapon wielded
strong and well, and there by my side, with one foot on the body of a
fallen foe, stood Lah, a lioness at bay!
There followed a moment’s pause. Then Zobo, with his tunic torn and
bloody from the struggle, leaped into the ring and took his place by the
woman he loved and served.
“Back!” cried the Queen, “back! The priests outnumber us and the people
thirst for blood. On to the Palace; the guards will fight their way to
me and follow.”
I saw the wisdom of her words, and it was plain to me that we must do
her bidding, and urgently, for our lives’ sake. I thought with longing
of the door just at my back. It is a comfortable thing, a strong-barred
door, when one has reached the side of safety and left the howling mob
without.
So with all caution, step by step, we slowly gave way. There were still
shrewd blows struck, for the Queen’s presence had but made the fight
with the priests yet hotter, though now the warriors hung back, and
would not be spurred forward to battle by the curses freely poured forth
on them by Agno. A yard of ground thus counted by inches is longer than
many a mile. But the mighty Zobo fought as never man fought before. The
Queen, unwearied, guarded now my left, Lestrade, my right.
All honor to such goodly company—they saved the day. Astolba, half led,
half carried by me, reached first the sheltering door. When all had
entered, it was made fast, and without a word Lah led onward.
Back through the honeycombed passages, till the door of the harem swung
open at the royal order, a shattered remnant of the bodyguard greeting
us, and we were in the citadel at last.
Then I saw the true spirit that reigned in the soul of her who ruled
that place: how, at her command, the gates were made fast, the slaves
armed, the secret entrance blocked,—one sent to this post, one to that.
This woman with a man’s brain thought of all these things and more; and
I, beholding, marvelled. And though I fain would have had it otherwise,
the marvel grew.
For all being done, she turned to me at last, and proudly, though her
eyes were filled with tears.
“I, who have flung away a kingdom for thy sake, ask now this question:
between me and thee, is it war or peace?”
And I, clasping her hand in mine, the memory of her service wiping out
the past, answered right readily, and from my heart, that it was peace.
Chapter XIII
A Strange Story
What had befallen during my captivity I shall now relate in the words of
my comrade, Gaston Lestrade. It was long after that he thus set forth
the matter, and I transcribe it, leaving nothing out, not even such
reflections on me as have no bearing on the story, but with which,
nevertheless, he saw fit to garnish his strange tale.
It was with pain [said he] that I saw you, my good friend Dering, vanish
in the distance in the company of that black priest and his followers.
It was my folly, and mine alone, that had brought you to that pass, but
I did not let the thought deaden my hopes, or cause me to dwell less
confidently on plans for our escape.
The beautiful, the adorable Lah, she would see to it, I felt sure, that
two gallant gentlemen be not foully murdered; and I set myself to
compose on the moment a love ditty in which I should relate to her not
only my admiration for her charms, but also my earnest expectation of
rescue at her fair hands and speedy safety for my friend as for myself.
Meanwhile I too was borne along out from that blood-stained and evil
Council Room, and at a sign from that arch-traitor Agno, I was carried
down a long passage, hewn also from solid rock, and ending in a massive
door.
This, after some delay, was opened, and I was set once more upon my
feet; my bonds were loosed and my guards left me, going out by the way
they had come.
I was alone in an immense hall ornamented with colored marbles and hung
with colored lights, but quite bare of furniture of any kind. At one end
of this apartment hung a heavy curtain embroidered with mystic symbols
in both gold and silver.
Soft music and the rippling laughter of women came faintly from beyond,
and without more ado I pressed forward, for the sound was strangely
sweet and inviting to a man perilously encompassed with dangers as I
was.
I found that the tapestry of which I have spoken hid another door. This
stood ajar, and I entered without mishap into the next chamber.
You, Dering, cold Puritan that you are, cannot imagine the delight that
filled my heart as I stood on that threshold and gazed about me.
Every sad thought fled on the instant, for I had strayed before my time
into Mahomet’s paradise, and the houris that inhabit it were not
wanting.
That room, Dering, was lovely beyond a poet’s dream and rich above a
miser’s wildest hopes. But it was not the room, beautiful as it was,
that caught and held me spellbound. It was the multitude of fair and
gracious women that it contained, each one a rare and perfect flower,
and each bending low in welcome and a kind of worship, as I approached.
The foremost—a tall, willowy creature, Dering, with blue-black waving
mass of hair and glorious violet eyes—advanced and kneeling bade me look
upon her and her companions as my slaves.
“For seven days it is our mission to do you homage,” said she; “for
seven days you are our lord, and your pleasure, ours.”
Then as she paused, I gallantly, as became a gentleman, raised her up
and taking the thread of her discourse, I said:—
“And the seven days passing, what then, loveliest of women?”
But she pointed back to the way by which I had come.
“The door behind the veil shall open, and we shall know you no more,”
she answered. “Yet till then what is the pleasure of my lord?”
Now I am a man who lives from one hour to the next. In this wise have I
escaped much bitterness of spirit, and garnered in great store of sweet.
It was plainly, then, the part of wisdom to let the future be, just as
it was the part of a chivalrous man to let no shadow hang upon the
converse that I should hold with this beauteous maid and her companions.
So I drank of the wine they pressed upon me. I tasted of this
flower-wreathed dish and that. I listened to the songs they sang, and
sang in turn for their entertaining.
I was a king, but I was none the less a gentleman. I think I may say
with truth, these fair ladies of my court grew fast to think with dread
on that veiled door, and the moment that should mean farewell for them
and me.
So the time went smoothly. I had it even in my heart to thank the
dark-browed priest to whose command I owed this interval.
Had it not been for the captivity of my friend Dering and doubts of his
fate, for the continued absence of the lady we had come to rescue, and
for the cold reserve of Lah, the Queen, I could have flung myself with
my whole soul into the delights that by some unknown chance encompassed
me, a victim.
But as I have said, mine is a light and joyous nature, and so it was
that when I kissed the little hand that held my trencher, my thoughts
were more with the slender fingers that I pressed and their beauteous
owner, than with black parting and divers other sorrows yet to come.
And now I have to relate a strange thing, and one, beginning with what
was to me an impulse stranger yet.
It was the evening of the sixth day. I sat in the midst of my fair
court, and was glad of the event, however sinister, that had brought me
to that place.
Then on a sudden a yearning came to me to be alone. I am ever one to
spare a woman’s feelings. If an ungracious thing must indeed be said, I
say it, but I wrap the words about with tender nothings, and the wound
is dealt so gracefully, that oft times the stricken one forgets the hurt
in dreaming on the manner of its coming.
Not so, alas! on this occasion, though I grieve to say it. For I turned
as bluntly as ever did my trusty comrade Dering, whose breadth of
shoulder does with the fair sex what his tongue would ever again undo,
only that there is no counting on a petticoat, and it is oft times the
whim of the fickle ones to follow, spaniel-like, him who most derides
them.
Well, as I have said, I turned in the midst of the pretty tinkle of
feminine laughter and silvery speech, and asked almost roughly, if there
were not some spot in all that Palace, where a man, prisoner though he
be, might find a welcome solitude.
Then she who chiefly tended on my wants bent her sweet head, and with a
new timidity besought that I should go with her.
As in a dream I left behind the now silent and wondering bevy of
maidens, and my guide, pointing to a door I oft had noted, told me that
beyond that portal I could rest undisturbed by the idle chatter of my
slaves.
“We are forbidden to enter there,” she said, “but to the King all things
are possible.”
So I pushed open the door and passed within, and the cold air as of a
vault struck full on my face as I did so. My heart, too, felt that icy
chill, but I pushed on, as one driven by another’s will, and when my
eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom of the place, I looked about, and
the truth came to me: I stood within the Burial Hall of Kings.
The chamber was hewn from stone resembling granite, and was supported by
pillars of the same dull gray hue. Lamps hanging from these lit the Hall
but dimly, yet I could see with all distinctness the thrones, also of
massive rock, that lined the walls. Save one in the centre each was
filled.
I love not the company of such as these, yet something held me fast. I
thought with longing of that outer room, so bright, so gay; of the
flower-like faces and graceful forms I had but now left behind, and all
the while I stood rooted to the spot, in the dark shadow of a column,
and waited, though I knew it not, for that which was to be. The
flickering light of the lamps did strange things to the grim faces about
me.
There they sat, those kings who once had ruled the people of the Walled
City. A greater Ruler than they had touched each with His sceptre, and
the passing of centuries was to each as the dry leaves that are blown
from the trees, in autumn, by the wind.
I gazed upon them, and their silent majesty awed me, as a living,
breathing presence never could have done. Even now the dead king at my
right grasped in his hand the staff of power. Crowned and robed with
royalty sat he, yet the mouse that gnawed his sandal’s strap was more
potent far, for good or ill.
As the thought crossed my mind I heard a faint noise like the trailing
of garments upon the floor. It was an eerie sound in such a place, but
as before, I stood motionless, held still by the same curious spell, and
the sound came nearer.
Then from between two thrones at the Hall’s further end there glided a
woman clad all in white. It was impossible to mistake that grace and
dignity. I would fain have flung myself at her feet, but something in
the hushed look of her face held me back. I even closed my eyes, that
look so plainly was not meant for me. For the mask had fallen, and I saw
straight into the bared heart of her who was at once more and less than
other women, the heart of Lah, the Queen. A stifled sob reached my ears,
and behold, she had thrown herself upon the hard stone of the floor, and
with clasped hands, knelt, a suppliant, before the unmoved figures of
the royal dead.
Then her voice, her wonderful, beautiful voice, broke the silence.
“O Rulers of the people of the Walled City! I cry out to you. The gods
have turned away in anger. Edba, herself once a woman, heeds me no
longer. I am not of your race. I have come a stranger to this land, but
I ask you, have I not given back good measure for all that the land has
given me? Surely, has prosperity come upon your people, O Throned Ones
who sit and answer not. Much riches have I brought to them; my rule has
been strong; my justice known abroad. The wicked tremble before my face,
and the doer of brave deeds have I exalted! See, an empty throne awaits
me in your midst. Does that anger you that I, a woman and a stranger,
should there take my place? Then listen, Great Ones. Give me but a
single little gift from out your store. Turn to me the heart of the
stranger. Behold, I kneel to you, I, Lah, who kneel not even to the
gods. Hear then my oath: my throne shall remain empty throughout the
ages. Take back your kingdom if it please you. Strip from me my riches.
Take all—I care not, but turn to me this one heart. Leave but my beauty
and my lover.”
Her voice died away, and again there was silence. Then the Queen rose
from her knees, and a splendid passion clothed her from head to foot.
“Ye answer not, O Rulers of the people of the Walled City! In peace have
I come to you. Look to it that I come not again in war. For neither the
dead nor the living shall stay my will. Ye sit upon thrones indeed, but
at my pleasure. If the stranger love me, it is well, for me and for ye
also. For I can scatter your ashes to the winds, and I can fling ye, one
and all, upon a funeral pyre. For Lah can hate, as well as love, and
when she comes again, she comes your friend or foe.”
Then she passed. And I, in mute amazement that was half terror, stayed
her not, but went back softly, groping in the dark for the door that had
let me within this sepulchre.
For this woman was not as other women, and her words were not meant for
me to hear. So I locked them away in my breast, and only thus after many
days do I set them down, that he, my friend, may take from them some
comfort.
For I know now, without room for doubt, whose love it was for which the
Queen pleaded of the silent dead, within the Burial Hall of Kings.
Chapter XIV
The Flower of Death
We were now in the Palace, and the place was besieged. About its walls
(and they were thick indeed, or this tale had not been written) a
howling mob surged through the day and still unwearied made hideous the
night.
The people of the Walled City, maddened by their priests, cried out for
blood, and it added an unfailing interest to the cry that we who heard
it knew right well for whose blood they were thus loudly clamoring.
But the Queen was deaf to the tumult, nor did she seem to heed the fact
that as the days wore on, the multitude, grown bolder, now cursed the
name of her who shielded thus the enemies of the gods.
Agno was not idle. Abroad the wolves leaped at the gates; the royal
archers shot them down by hundreds, and in turn were slain. Grim death
walked thus a hundred paces off, and we within, moved by the will of her
who reigned supreme, lived softly and spoke not of that which chiefly
filled our thoughts. That it was the beginning of the end, we knew, but
one forbade the hint of danger, and we obeyed.
Meanwhile the serene, luxurious life of the Palace flowed quietly on,
like some broad, placid stream that speeds not nor frets, for all the
thunder of the waterfall at hand.
Lestrade, grown strangely moody, and Astolba, with white, hushed face,
sat with me, guests in the Queen’s banquet-hall; but I alone drank from
the royal cup, and on me alone did the eyes of Lah rest with the look
that was at once both promise and fulfilment.
I am a prudent man, but a man has need of more than prudence to guard
against a foe like this. For the Queen was to me all woman in those
days, and the spell of her beauty and her new-born gentleness was on me.
Also the uncertainty of these golden hours, and the sense of
ever-present danger, went to my head like wine. I set it down in penance
for the sin of my unfaithfulness. I forgot the garnered store of wealth,
whose secret I had held; I forgot my friend; I forgot the maid that I
had sworn to save. And it was in a mood like this, that Astolba found
me, the morning of the fifth day of the siege of the Palace.
I was on my way to meet the Queen, and my whole soul was in my errand,
so that I looked with the less kindness and the more impatience on the
hand that stayed me. It was a small hand and white, but I am not
Lestrade, and I had little thought for its beauty. None the less I am a
man, and its weakness should have held me as its fairness might not do.
Yet it was with more haste than gentleness that I asked Astolba’s
errand. Had I been less amorously engaged with my own purpose, I think
the terror in the upturned face would have touched me to the quick; as
it was, I set her story down more to the vain fears of any maid in such
a case, than to the score of her with whom the tale chiefly dealt—for it
was of the Queen that Astolba spoke; the Queen, who, as I have said, was
all meekness and sweet humility with me. Yet this is what Astolba told
me, and little did I think that I should so soon see reason in her
speech:—
“It was night at about the eleventh hour,” she began; “I lay shivering
upon my couch, and I could not sleep. You remember that I had asked
Lah’s permission to go from the banquet, and as I passed, you had turned
kindly to me, and bade me take courage, while even as you spoke the
hideous cries from without came faintly to my ears. Perhaps your notice
stirred the hatred of the Queen, for indeed of late she does hate me. At
least she looked at me, and her look pierced me through and through. The
thought of it kept me awake. I was cold with fear though the night was
warm. I shall die with terror in this evil place. Oh, if you be a man,
help me to escape or kill me quickly! But I tell you I will not longer
live this life of horror.”
So Astolba cried, and I, with a coldness that I can never enough regret,
asked her to speak plainly and to the point; what else of evil had the
Queen done? Or had she compassed all wickedness in a single look?
But the maid, like a frightened child, clung to me still, and
half-weeping went on with her story.
“It was late, as I have told you, and yet I could not sleep. But at
length I was so worn with brooding on the dreadful past, and the black
future, that I think I must have dropped into a light slumber. And in my
dreams a still more awful horror took hold on me, and I would have cried
out but a hand was placed over my mouth, and I awoke. The Queen stood by
my side.” Astolba covered her face with her hands. “I shall never forget
the anger, the hatred, and the scorn of her look, yet when she spoke,
her voice was low, and calm with a cruel quiet.
“‘Miserable white-faced slave,’ she said. ‘Have you wondered why I have
so far spared you? Did you think because you have escaped the serpent’s
pit, that you could hope to escape me? It would have been all too easy
to have thrown you to those dogs without the gates, who would have made
short work of your slender prettiness.’
“Then her passion seemed to break out of the bonds in which she held it.
She took hold of my arm—see the mark of her fingers on the flesh. She
dragged me half-fainting from the couch, and I swayed to and fro in her
iron grasp.
“‘Look,’ she said, ‘look at me well, and ask yourself if your white face
can hold a charm for him, now that he has gazed upon my beauty? Yet will
I make sure. You have heard many a secret of the Palace; yet you have
not heard of the flower of death. But fear not, for of that also you
shall know. You shall breathe its perfume, when you think not, and you
shall die. Little by little your blood shall dry in your veins, and your
fair, white skin shall shrivel and hang loose. Your eyes shall lose
their lustre. You shall have pity, perchance, but love shall pass you
by. Day by day you will wither. You will seek for death, and death will
come all too slowly. Yet in the end, that also shall come, and with it
the first and last mercy that shall be rendered to you from the hands of
Lah, the Queen—’
“Then she left me—”
“And you awoke,” said I, half-smiling, as one comforting a child. “For
surely, Astolba, you cannot think that such a thing as this could by any
chance be true. The flower of death! Are you not already a little
ashamed of all this nonsense? As for the Queen, has she not shielded us
all at the risk of her own life? And while I am here, and Lestrade, what
do you fear? Death could come to you only after it had come first to us.
And in truth, it shall go hard if we do not soon find some way to save
you and ourselves. But we must trust the Queen. Have patience a little—”
and here I stooped, and kissed as a brother might, the soft cheek, now
so pale and wan. “Meanwhile dream no more dreams.”
And so I left her, with drooping head like a broken flower—left her and
sought the woman whose strong hand still held the threads of the tangled
web that men call fate.
Chapter XV
The White Dove’s Flight
Now I had gone from Astolba in the full belief that she had dreamed this
thing, yet such is the strangeness of life, an hour had not passed by,
when I gave fullest credence both to her story and her danger. For in
that hour the mask of womanly gentleness had dropped from the Queen, and
with it, the blindness from my eyes. I saw, as long ago I should have
seen, had the charm of her great beauty been less, that the Palace of
the Walled City was no fit resting-place, and that there was a brave
man’s work to be done, and by me.
Astolba’s story had made me a little late, and Lah loved not to wait the
coming of either subject or lover. A dozen slave girls were seated on a
rug in the room’s centre; as I took my tardy place beside the Queen,
they, at the royal word, began a love chant that was strangely sweet and
plaintive. Perhaps I praised their voices over much; perhaps the jealous
humor that had seized their mistress had not yet been spent. However
this may be, I know the musicians were, at a word, dismissed, while, at
Lah’s command, one of the slaves attending on the Queen’s person took
the vacant place.
Soft strains of wild, sad music came from a room beyond, and at the
royal signal the girl began to dance. Hers was a slender, jewelled
figure, and it floated hither and thither, like some gaudy tropical
blossom blown by the wind. Her whole body responded to the half-savage
harmonies; her arms wreathed themselves to the measures of the melody;
her bracelets and anklets tinkled as she swayed.
Then as the strains grew wilder, discordant and yet strangely sweet, I
know not how it happened, but the veil that covered the girl’s face was
thrown back. I saw that she was beautiful, despite her red-bronze skin;
saw for an instant only, it is true, but in that instant the Queen
beside me was changed from a woman to a wild beast that springs upon its
prey.
At the first words I saw the poor girl sink before the feet of Lah, in a
mute agony of supplication and of fear,—while from behind the throne two
burly blacks came forth to do the Queen’s bidding. I do not know how I
had wit to use the words I did. Perhaps Astolba’s story furnished me the
key. But I will say that never was human life in more deadly peril. I
thank Heaven that I have not its ending, in some measure, to lay at my
door. Trembling from head to foot the maid passed from the royal
presence, to disgrace and imprisonment indeed, but not to death.
The sound of her weeping had not died away before Lah had become her
same, sweet, gentle self of the last five days. But I had seen that
which could not be forgotten. Astolba’s anguish was branded upon my
mind. Her white face came between the Queen and me, yet I had learned
dark wisdom in that same Palace, and I think I showed not the change
that had come upon me.
Nevertheless, I turned over and over in my mind every device that could
lead to freedom. But I had now to guard against an enemy more potent and
subtle than Agno or any of his priest-ridden mob. I walked slowly, with
bent head, towards the women’s apartments, and there was little profit
in my musing.
Then the thought came to me to match Astolba’s wit against the Queen’s;
and even, as half-smiling I pondered the conceit, a hand fell lightly on
my arm, and there before me stood the maid herself.
Now the mild sweetness, even the fears of my gentle fellow-captive held
for me a new charm in the light of the tigress’s fury of her whose side
I had but lately left. It won me the more that she should lean on me.
And remorse burned within me that I had laughed at her terrors and left
her, hardly more than an hour since, in heaviness of spirit, well nigh
in tears.
So I took in my two great hands her little one, and it nestled
unresisting but trembling like a bird ensnared by the fowler. Then I
looked into the depths of her innocent eyes, and they drew me nearer
with a strange power. So near that my lips had in another moment touched
hers, and the words that began “Forgive me”—ended with “I love you.”
It was pretty to see the pink roses bloom again in that sweet face,
raised in perfect trust to mine, and to myself I swore that, come what
might, I would do a man’s part to keep them there.
“Where is Lestrade?” I asked, and Astolba looking up, I added, “because
we prisoners must hold a counsel. I have seen that which makes this
Palace no fit shelter for my future wife.”
At this she blushed, but after a few moments’ dalliance the seriousness
of my business urged me to action, and at my repeated question Astolba
drew me to a further room, where sat my comrade.
I greeted him with frankness as is my way, and because we had been more
like brothers than mere friends, I told him bluntly at once of the
good-fortune that had befallen me.
It grieved me then, the more that I had so little expected it, that
Lestrade should act as he did. For at my first words the smile left his
face, and with one long, and I could have sworn reproachful, look at
Astolba, he rushed by me and was gone.
The maid, too, was strangely pale again. Well, I was hurt and puzzled
also. Astolba I could see had felt deeply the manner in which Gaston had
treated my announcement. But it was no time for idle questioning. The
hour to act had struck, and I passed over, in silence, my friend’s new
mood, and bade Astolba think on that which should best lead to our
escape.
And with a woman’s instinct she put her finger at once upon the plan
most like to aid us.
I had spoken of the dangers round about, and of the new and great danger
that was ours in acting thus in secret without the knowledge of the
Queen.
“In all this city we have not a friend,” I said, when she with a new
impatience and insufficient deference cut short the thread of my
discourse.
“You have one both willing and powerful. Zobo, the Captain of the
Queen’s guard, shall aid us.”
“Zobo!” cried I, in amazement at her folly. “Zobo! the best friend of
Lah!”
“And so yours,” she answered. “Can it be you have not seen? He loves the
Queen. He fears you as he fears not death. And he is a true man. He will
find a way to lead us from the Palace, yet neither will he deliver us to
the mob without. Have speech with him at once. For your friend Gaston
Lestrade, have no fear. Make your plan, and tell me but the time and
place and manner of your going. He and I will follow.”
It was thus Astolba spoke, and there was so much wit in what she said,
and so much new-born energy and strength in the manner of the saying,
that I was convinced of the justice of her words.
Thus she left me, going out by the door through which Lestrade had fled,
while I turned my steps to the guard-room of the Palace. Here a piece of
good-luck awaited me, for I found Zobo, and alone.
He looked not over pleased at my coming, but with grave courtesy bade me
sit.
Then I, with what craft I might, began the task before me, and Zobo
stood after the first few words motionless,—a giant statue of bronze.
Only his eyes were alive, and they glowed with a strange and savage
fire.
When my plan began to unfold, I saw him start, and the great corded
muscles of his bare arms knotted as his hands gripped tight the rod of
metal that he held. When his fingers relaxed their hold, I saw that he
had bent the inch-wide bar, as a child bends a pliant twig. But I was
then in the midst of my discourse, and could not be turned aside by
trifles.
When I had done, there was silence, the kind of silence that a man
feels, like to that which comes upon the face of nature before the
tempest breaks. I saw that but a very little thing was needed to turn
the unfailing loyalty of the man into its accustomed channel. Then we
should be dragged before the Queen to meet the reward of our treachery,
for such would be our attempted escape in the eyes of her who reigned
over the Walled City. Of that I had no single doubt.
Perhaps a man grows used to danger. Perhaps my nerves were dulled by
what had gone before. At least, I can say this with truth, I thought in
that moment more on the pattern of the rug at my feet than on the chance
of life or death that trembled in the balance. The crucial moment
passed. Love triumphed. Zobo was ours.
An hour later I had left the place. We were to make the attempt that
night,—Lestrade and myself disguised as priests, and Astolba dressed as
a singing-boy attached to Edba’s Temple. According to a blessed, if
heathenish, custom, we could go veiled. We should leave the Palace by
one of the many-tangled secret ways beneath it. The entrance to this, as
to all, was of course guarded, but Zobo held the Queen’s warrant, and
with that we might hope to pass.
Once in the City, a friendly guide should meet us. We should be to him
inmates of the royal household fallen under Lah’s displeasure, to be
saved by Zobo’s contrivance. We were to make our way through our foes as
best we might, protected by our priestly garb, and wait in hiding in a
deserted hut to which our guide would conduct us. There we should be
left. And then it was that Zobo showed the greatest proof of friendship.
He held with the Queen alone the knowledge of a hidden door within the
City’s wall. One by one, we three swore by all that was sacred never to
reveal the secret.
Through this door we were to pass, and once without, the wilderness
stretched before us. Save for famine, drouth, wild beasts, and roaming
savages, we should be safe.
It was a wild and perilous enterprise, but we caught at it with
eagerness. The very air of the Palace had grown heavy in my nostrils. I
longed for freedom, as a shipwrecked mariner dying of thirst longs for
water. Despite the thousand risks we ran, my heart beat high with hope.
In secret I helped to pack the little store of food and drink that we
were to take with us, and with due care I made our choice of weapons.
Then the hour came. The common danger knit us all closer together.
Lestrade and I once more, as in the old days, clasped hands and wished
each other luck. Astolba moved before us clad all in white. Zobo the
Mighty led the way, his flickering torch casting grotesque shadows on
the walls and floor of the underground passage. Sometimes this corridor
narrowed suddenly, so that we had to crawl beast-like upon all fours for
as much as fifty paces; then it arched high above our heads. I think we
were all three captives strangely lighthearted. There was no
presentiment of evil. We reached the outer entrance in safety, and in
safety passed.
Smoothly, as runs a play, we escaped the multiform dangers that beset
our every step. The guide was not too curious; the people of the Walled
City gave way with respect before our priestly garments.
We found the hut without misadventure; and his duty done, our guide
departed. A little later we had passed from its friendly shelter. A
double line of overhanging trees screened us from the curious, but
indeed, at that hour, there was none to question us. We were in an old
garden, and it reached well-nigh to the City wall. When the sentinel
should have passed, we in turn would step from beneath the shadow of the
trees, and then the opened door and freedom!
My blood pulsed fast in my veins at the thought. I heard the guard go
slowly onward. I whispered to Lestrade, “The White Dove has brought us
liberty.”
Then I stepped out from the tree’s shelter, and at the same moment
something dropped from the branches above my head. Two arms gripped me
about the throat and a hoarse chuckle sounded in my ears.
“I am thy friend Hubla,” said the voice. “Back, you three! back to your
kennel, or I call the guard!”
Chapter XVI
Zobo the Mighty Wrestles
I would have made a fight for it even then. Had Lestrade and I been
alone, I would in truth have done so, but I knew that the sentinel was
in easy call of his fellows, and Astolba’s presence held my hands.
The insolence of Hubla’s fiendish laughter choked me with rage, but I
met her taunts in silence; and if Lestrade had but followed my lead in
the matter, the red witch would have lacked food for merriment.
As for Astolba—the poor maid was crushed. So near to freedom, and now
back to the manifold horrors of the gorgeous gilded cage we called our
prison. She followed blindly, as one in a dream, and her white face was
the best spur to my resolve to save her. This attempt should not be the
last. Edba and Hed and all the powers of darkness; the Queen, the
priests, the ravening mob,—all against one man’s promise; yet even in
the face of this disgraceful entry to the Palace I bound myself again by
a new oath, Astolba should be saved.
I like not to think even now of that disgraceful journey to the royal
house. I saw the frenzied people shrink from the hag who drove us
reluctant onward; even the priests turned aside in fear at her approach.
Thus in the early dawn we came, unmolested and unquestioned, to the
secret entrance by which we had left. The guard received us. I saw Hubla
whisper a word into the ear of Zobo, and he ungraciously bade us enter.
The smiling, malicious face of the red witch was for an instant pressed
close to mine. I drew back with a smothered exclamation of disgust. Her
jeering laugh rang again through the stone corridor, and she had gone.
May she receive a just reward! Through her we were once more prisoners.
After an hour’s rest I sought the Queen, for it was no plan of mine to
make, without need, a new enemy. One glance at her face assured me that,
for reasons of her own, Hubla had kept our secret. As for Zobo, I had no
fear. It was for his interest, as much as mine, that he should be silent
as to that night’s doings.
Lah was pacing up and down the open court where she was wont to receive
me. The tinkling fountain, the tapestries, the jewelled banquet cups,
the heavy perfumed flowers, the Queen’s very beauty, filled me with a
new unrest, but I hid the feeling. Lah was hardly mistress of herself in
that hour, else it was very like she would have read me. As it was, I
saw that something of importance had happened, and that for the time, at
least, I was quite safe.
“Agno’s messenger has but now gone,” she said. “Some day I will have the
neck of that arch-traitor, the High Priest, beneath my heel. But now he
knows his power, yet knowing it fears mine.
“This then is his message. The justice of our quarrel shall the gods
decide. To-day, if so it be my will, Zobo shall wrestle with the Head
Man of Edba’s Temple. I know the fellow; he is a giant in size and
strength, but slow of wit.
“Agno believes that my faithful Captain is worn with lack of sleep and
much watching. It is also in the compact that the People’s Champion be
oiled from head to foot; he alone, not Zobo. Then shall these two
wrestle, and from the gods, judgment. Zobo holds the guard still loyal.
If he be slain, then I look for such mercy as the priests may show. But
if he be the victor—”
The Queen’s eyes glowed with a strange fire. “Then am I once more in my
rightful place, the mistress of my people,—” she spoke softly,—“and
revenge is strangely sweet.”
I stood in silence before her, and Lah took up again the thread of her
discourse.
“Behold, every day we grow weaker, and the food less. I had not thought
to be a captive in mine own Palace, nor had I thought to give my heart
into another’s keeping, as weaker women do. Yet have both issues come to
pass.”
She turned once more to me. “My Dering, I had looked to ask thy wisdom
in this matter; but no. On me alone shall rest the burden.”
She clapped her hands, and a slave came forward and stood with folded
arms and bowed head, awaiting the royal word.
“Go, bid my ministers proclaim from the Palace walls my answer, for
which the High Priest waits. Before the people, at the third hour, shall
Zobo the Mighty wrestle, and to the friend of Edba and of Hed, victory.”
And thus the die was cast. I cannot tell with what feverish eagerness I
awaited the result of this new move in the game, whose stakes were life
and death. Lestrade was wild with alternate thrills of joy and fear when
I told him of the matter. That was his nature. As for me, I saw well
what the Queen’s defeat would mean to us, her captives, but I confess
that the thought of her victory raised little hope in my breast.
As for the maid, to the blackness of Astolba’s despair there was just
then no light. The poor girl was haunted by the thought of the flower of
death, and the horror of it did what I much doubted the evil blossom
itself could do. She was wasting away, and kisses, even mine, could not
call back again, as once, the pretty color to her white cheeks. I did my
best to comfort her, however, and when the third hour—the time appointed
for the wrestling—came, Lestrade arrived and took my place beside her.
So, knowing Astolba to be in good hands, I again sought the Queen, and
found from her that the meeting was to be in the open square before the
Palace walls.
Already this was black with the mass of waiting people. From within I
could see all that went on below, but it irked me that Lah had forbidden
me to join her.
A raised platform, richly ornamented and hung with multicolored silks,
had been hastily set up directly before the great centre gate. This gate
had been opened, and there the Queen was to sit enthroned and surrounded
by the guard.
As I watched all this, Zobo passed me, coming from the royal apartments.
His face wore a look of such pure and noble resolve and such exalted
happiness, that I lowered my eyes before the light in his, with a
feeling near to envy, savage and worshipper of idols though he was.
A few moments later and a roar from the mob without bade me look quickly
forth. The Queen in all the magnificence of her public presence had
taken her place, and the people, from mingled awe, or the force of
habit, had given the royal salute.
Even at the distance at which I sat, I thought I could see, through my
loophole, the frown on Agno’s lowering face; but again a tumult of
cheers and cries drew my wandering gaze.
The Head Man of Edba’s Temple had stepped into the cleared circle. My
spirits raised by my ancient enemy’s discomfiture, sank like lead, at
the sight of this giant figure. He stood motionless, stolidly waiting
for the tumult of welcoming cheers to cease, till at last, at a signal
from Agno, silence fell.
Thus it was in the midst of an ominous calm that Zobo, the Queen’s
Champion, took his place. They stood together for a moment, by an evil
design of the High Priest, I doubt not; for it was all too plain that
the Head Man’s enormous bulk dwarfed even the burly form of the Captain
of the Royal Guard. But in that moment I remembered the look that I had
surprised on the face of the friend of Lah, and remembering, hoped on.
Then as I gazed thus, the High Priest’s staff clanged once upon the
stone beneath his feet, and the two men fell back. They stood eying each
other warily, like two great dogs set on to fight. This was to be no
common wrestling, for no common stake, and at the latter end it was the
victor alone who should leave the field.
I looked at the Queen. She was gently smiling, but I saw her hand
tighten on the arm of her throne. At the same moment a savage, exultant
roar broke from the waiting throng. The two men had clenched. I saw the
glistening limbs of the Head Man wound, snake-like, about the body of
his enemy, and, snake-like, slip from the iron grip of the Queen’s
Champion. Now one had the vantage, now the other.
It was so still that I could hear the hoarse breathing of the wrestlers.
Then I laughed aloud, for Zobo’s mighty arms were about the trunk of his
foe, and I thought the giant’s ribs would crack beneath the strain. But
the next instant the Head Man was free again, and with a dexterous twist
was interlocked once more with his enemy. I knew the trick of that fall
and my heart sank. Zobo staggered, and was down.
A mighty shout rose from the priestly ranks, and I saw the Queen lean
forward and fix her eyes on the agonized face of her gallant Captain.
The giant was grinding the life out of his fallen foe. I turned away,
sick with the horror of it, but a terrible fascination drew me back.
Zobo was looking straight into the eyes of the woman he loved, and as he
did so, that strange, glad, pure light in his, shone forth, undimmed,
once more.
With a superhuman effort he raised himself on his arm. The next, he was
on his feet once more, his hands at the Head Man’s throat. I saw the
giant beat the air for an instant with a wild and futile motion. Then
the voice of the High Priest rose shrill in the awful quiet, bidding the
wrestlers cease. But too late. For even as his words rang out, the
massive form of Zobo’s foe relaxed, hung limp for a moment, then struck
the ground with a dull, lifeless thud.
Zobo, turning, walked straight to the throne of Lah. As he reached it, I
saw his lips move in a vain effort at speech. Then his giant body swayed
and fell heavily. The Queen’s Champion lay, face downward, at her feet,
his hand holding fast the hem of her garment.
From the ranks of the people burst forth the thunder of applause. For,
behold the gods had sat in judgment. The Queen was guiltless, and the
day was won.
Chapter XVII
Check to the Queen
From my loophole I had seen it all. From that same post of vantage, I
now beheld the arch-traitor Agno come forth at the head of his fawning
priests to do homage to his Queen. Through all the false ardor of his
congratulations, Lah had not spoken. Indeed, from the very beginning of
the conflict till now no word had passed her lips. Only in the midst of
Agno’s discourse, at a sign from their royal mistress, four slaves had
raised the body of the fallen hero, and borne him within the Palace. As
they passed, the Queen’s hand had rested lightly upon her Champion’s
forehead, in a mute caress. That was all, but I knew that Lah was not
ungrateful.
The High Priest’s long-winded flatteries were not done, when at another
sign from the Queen, the royal salute broke forth from the guard and was
echoed by the people. The mighty clamor drowned the honeyed words, and I
saw Agno’s face writhe with passion, as Lah, with an imperious gesture,
bade him stand aside. But for once her woman’s hate had outrun her
wisdom. The public affront was too great to be silently borne. Another
moment, and Agno, surrounded by his priests, had reached his raised seat
of honor, and from thence had begun a wild address to the still waiting
throng.
In the face of the late decision of Edba and of Hed, the High Priest
dared not impeach the Queen. His words, however, were aimed at her
new-born power, and they were full of painful interest to me who
listened, for they dealt with me and with my comrade, and with Astolba,
my promised bride.
“All glory, honor, and strength to Lah!” he shouted. “Friend of the
gods; heaven-born mistress of the people of the Walled City. Behold Zobo
the Mighty has wrestled, and to him belongs the victory. I, the High
Priest of the Temple, proclaim a festival; a feast of gladness and of
thanksgiving.
“On the third day hence shall it be, and on the altar of the gods will
we slay the strangers and do to death her, the Snake’s chosen bride. So
shall the Queen be rid of her enemies, peace and prosperity given to us,
and the anger of the great ones turned away.”
At these words the bloodthirsty crowd went once again wild with joy. I
saw the Queen turn as though about to speak, but the deafening clamor
would have drowned her voice. I think at least she saw Agno’s evil,
smiling face, and dared not run the risk of insult. So in proud silence
she drew back. The Palace gates closed behind her, and I, with a new
anxiety gnawing at my heart, turned also to seek my fellow-victims.
This was the sad end of a brilliant beginning. As I passed the Queen’s
private audience room, the sound of a strange low chant drew me closer.
The tapestried curtain was pulled a little aside, and within I saw the
red witch bending over a brazier, and showing dim through the blue smoke
that coiled upward, serpent-like, from the living embers. She it was who
chanted this weird monotonous refrain, and as I looked again, I beheld
Lah, pale and rigid, listening, with a look of mingled dread and
longing, to the evil song.
Then I passed onward, and as I did so, the four slaves bearing the body
of Zobo met me in the passage. I signed for them to stop, and they did
so in submissive silence. The Champion lay on his back. There were red
stains on the embroidered cloth that covered him, and the giant frame
bore marks of the past struggle, that would never be effaced. But I saw
with joy that he still breathed deeply and regularly enough, though his
wide-open eyes knew me not. They were bringing him to the Queen and to
Hubla. The magic touch of the one or the muttered spell of the other
would call back again the light of reason to those glazed, unseeing
eyes. So much I knew, for I had sojourned already long enough in the
Walled City to learn somewhat of its dark wisdom. I drew aside therefore
and let the slaves go forward with their burden.
There was deep silence within now, instead of that weird blood-curdling
chant, but its dull measures still beat upon my brain like the heavy
throb of a piston or the blow of a hammer. The desire filled me to lie
at rest and let Astolba’s white fingers smooth with light touch my weary
head. So thinking, I sought the spot where last we three had
met,—Lestrade, the maid, and I. But the place was empty. First calmly,
then with a secret dread and fevered anxiety, I sought them,—my
fellow-captives, going from room to room. But in vain. The deserted
chambers mocked me. A woman’s sandal lay upon the floor; it was small
and dainty like its owner, the fair girl whom I had lost, but it bore no
message. I picked it up and hid it safe within the folds of my tunic,
near my heart.
Then I turned, and there in ominous silence stood the Queen. Her eyes
met mine, nor did they drop or falter before the imperious question that
sprung to my lips. And when her answer came, there was new depth and new
sweetness in her voice, so that the very memory of it, even in these
days, is a charm to bind me fast.
“What is the loss of these two to me and to thee? O stranger to my gods
and to my people! through the lips of Hubla, fate hath spoken. Out of
all the world we two stand apart. For life, for death; for good, for
ill; for joy, for sorrow, thou and I, together and alone.”
Chapter XVIII
The Wisdom of Hubla
At first, after the Queen had spoken thus, I answered nothing. The light
in her eyes dazzled me, and the new tone of her voice echoed in my
heart. But when a second time she broke the silence, a certain menace
lurked beneath the sweetness of her words, and that acted as a spur to
my faltering impulse.
So I wrestled with temptation and forgot not the peril of my friends,
and indeed I spoke sternly, demanding to be told their fate.
“For I have searched, and they are gone from here,” I said. “This is no
hour for idle dalliance. Your Palace, O Queen! has much that I mislike.
In which of its many dungeons shall I look for these two, Astolba and
Lestrade?”
At my words the quick color surged to the face of Lah, but she answered
calmly. “Question Agno and his servants. In this matter I have no part.”
“To believe you is to doubt your power,” I said. “Do you tell me that
the High Priest has dared—”
But here she stopped me with uplifted hand. “I pray thee, anger me not.
O my Dering,” and marvellously tender was that wondrous voice, “I am not
as other women, even as thou art beyond and above the horde of courtiers
and of warriors to whom my word is law, who kiss my sandal’s print,
rejoicing when I smile, trembling before my frown. Yet even to the
meanest of these, comes love. To thy lips, beloved, I hold in my turn
the golden cup. Drink deep and forget all care, all sorrow. Together we
will stand before Edba’s altar. There shalt thou be crowned on the third
day, with me, ruler of the people of the Walled City. Agno himself shall
bless our union, nor dare to lay a sacrilegious hand upon thy garment’s
hem.
“Thus shalt thou escape death and gain great glory, and length of years,
and fulness of power. Thus, O my Dering, Hubla the red witch hath seen
it written in the magic vapor, and behold mine own eyes have been
unsealed, and I too have seen us there—we two encircled by the serpent
sacred to Hed. And for this day, I thank the gods, and thank them too
that I am fair and that I come not empty handed to my lord. Speak
quickly, for I bear not pain with patience, and indeed my soul hungers
for the love light in thine eyes, and the touch of thy lips on mine.
Speak then, my lord. Lah, the Queen, awaits thy answer.”
Then it was that I said a cruel thing. In truth, between her beauty and
her proffered love, her tempting and the bond of my own oath, I was as a
man distraught. Before me rose the sweet, pale face of her whom I had
come to save. The vision of Astolba came between me and the Queen, and
being made savage by my own misery, I answered bitterly: “Is it thus in
thy country? The woman woos the man?”
For a moment’s space she looked at me, and that look is branded forever
on my memory. The next, her hand leaped to her dagger’s hilt. I did not
move. In truth, death held for me then no terrors. The flash of the
blade passed before my eyes. The point struck through the flesh to the
bone and glanced off. Slowly the red stain spread upon the fold of my
white tunic. The Queen’s eyes, wide with horror, followed it in silence.
Then with a wild cry, Lah flung herself at my feet. She wept not as a
woman weeps, but as a man—not easily, but with low, strangling sobs that
caught and tore at the throat.
Then because hers was no fit place for a woman I raised her up. Well, I
can bear most things, but I cannot bear to hear a woman cry. So I
comforted her with words: “Your tears against my blood; then we are
quits.” And kissed her once, and with the kiss I signed away my freedom
and my honor, for I said:—
“Save but my friends, and on the third day, if we both live, then will I
meet you at Edba’s altar, and you shall have your will with me, for at
your bidding I am prisoner of yours until the end.”
“Nay, not my prisoner, but my lord,” Lah answered, and she plucked from
her girdle the centre ring, that one which bore the signet stone, and
this by a chain of gold she hung about my neck, saying, “Nor yet my lord
alone, but master also of the people of the Walled City.”
But I was silent, for I knew too well that I was but fate’s plaything,
and master not even of my plighted word. Thus Hubla’s dark wisdom
triumphed, and I being but a man,—on my head be the shame,—seeing the
Queen’s beauty, was not wholly sad.
Then it was that a strange thing happened. Lah bade me take up the ring
that held the signet, and obedient to her wish in the matter, I fixed my
eyes upon the centre jewel. This was a ruby as large as a hazel nut, and
as I looked into its glorious depth I thought a crimson flame leaped
from its heart, a flame that waxed and waned, and changed from violet to
scarlet; a flame that, even as I gazed spellbound upon it, ceased
suddenly as it had come.
Then the Queen took my hand in hers, and like a child I followed whither
she led me, for the dancing flame was still before my eyes; I felt the
jewel pulsing as it lay upon my breast, and I had no will but her will,
and no thought for anything in this world or the next, save of the ruby,
the wondrous jewel that was mine. So, in unbroken silence we went
together, out from the empty chambers that had held my lost love, lost
and too soon forgotten; out through the long winding corridors, and then
ever downward.
At length Lah pushed aside a heavy curtain, and we stood, still hand in
hand, within the Burial Hall of Kings. You have heard already Lestrade’s
account of this same fearsome sepulchre. Now to his word I add my own,
for as I am a living man, thus I, too, crossed the threshold of that
awful place and stood within.
The dead Kings stirred not as we came; neither spoke they word of
welcome. But had they risen one and all to repel the stranger whose
footfall thus boldly broke the peace of centuries, I should still have
been unsurprised and unafraid. For it was of the ruby, and of the ruby
alone, that I thought, and so I put forth no claim to bravery, other
than is natural to me, but relate the simple truth of what then
followed.
Without pausing, Lah drew me forward until we reached the single empty
throne, and there, by a sign, she bade me sit. So, at her command, I, a
living man, as yet uncrowned, took my place with these, the monarchs of
the past. Then, with averted face, the Queen withdrew, and I, save for
the awful presence of the dead, was quite alone.
A curious drowsiness clouded my brain and lulled to rest my every sense.
I thought the ruby’s fire scorched my flesh, and the pain of it was not
all pain, but pleasure, too, intermingled in a way of which I now find
it hard to rightly tell, though to this day I bear upon my breast a scar
which up to that strange hour was not there.
Thus for a time I sat, and then the dead King at my right spoke, though
his lips moved not, and his words fell coldly on the silence.
“O my brethren, the hour is at hand; the curse is fallen. The glory of
Edba and of Hed is darkened, and our bodies, reverenced throughout the
ages, shall crumble to dust, and be scattered through the world by every
varying wind. A woman hath wrought great things for the Walled City. A
woman shall pluck down even that which she hath set up. Speak, O my
brothers! What price shall the stranger pay?”
Then a low, wrathful murmur filled that ancient Hall, to which I, still
gloating over my treasure, my ruby without price, listened without fear.
“_He shall taste of love and die athirst_,” said one.
“_He shall hold in the hollow of his hand great wealth, and behold it
shall avail him not_,” answered a third.
“_Woe! woe!_” cried another; “_Death shall stay from him afar off. The
weariness of years and the coldness of friends be his portion._”
Then again there was silence, and as I waited, lo! a great light filled
the Burial Hall, and from a distance came a glorious voice not mortal,
wholly sweet, yet full of power. And before it the dead Kings bent their
heads, and at its sound I forgot the jewel that I wore, and the voice
spoke to me, and of me, and with it both joy and sorrow overflowed my
heart. As for the words it spoke I know them not.
But this I know, that it called me both blessed and cursed in the love
that raised me above my fellows; and bade me be of good cheer, for of
the blackness of the night is born the glory of the dawn, and both the
darkness and the light were to be mine throughout the years; and in the
latter end, peace, unknowable in time, endless throughout eternity.
Then the voice was stilled, and I awoke, and descending from the throne
I sought the Queen’s presence. But all these things I kept close locked
in my heart, nor at her eager questioning would I tell my dream.
Chapter XIX
For Life, for Love, for Freedom
It was near to midnight. I was weary, mind and body, for I had been
urging the Queen to tell me plainly of the fate of my friends, and she
had pleaded ignorance, and either could not or would not give me
satisfaction.
To a reasonable man like myself it is a tedious process and one bearing
little fruit, to thread the mazes of a woman’s mind, yet this had been
my task, and after all these hours I now laid me to rest with the
comfortable knowledge that I had perchance been cajoled, and at any rate
altogether baffled.
Yet she was beautiful, my Queen, and I could not be wholly discontent.
Her very contrariness was a charm, or would have been, had I felt less
bondsman to the cause of my friends. And this was the more strange, in
that I have always loved obedience in a woman, and reckoned docility the
chief of female virtues.
I put this down that men may read. You that wonder at my folly may
perchance go further and with less cause, when the touch of the blind
god comes to you as to me. As for you who smile on, knowing no better,
from your lonely height, you have missed wholly the inwardness of life
and its savor, and so my pity may well match your own and with the
greater reason.
Well, I have said that it was close to midnight when I sought my couch,
and not five minutes after when I was wrapped in deepest slumber,
therefore I cannot say when the scent of coming trouble filled my
nostrils, or when the heavy burden of the foreknowledge of sorrow broke
my rest. But this I do know: I breathed with difficulty. A heavy weight
seemed pressing on my chest, and in the distance, even in my sleep, I
heard a thunderous rumble as of the chariot wheels of the gods.
With that thought I woke, and waking, knew that the air was full of
sulphur and that something lay across me, motionless, in the darkness. I
put forth my strength and pushed the thing away, and it was cold, and it
rolled from off the couch, and fell on the floor beside it, with a dull
sound I liked but little.
The lamp that lit my chamber had gone out, and the slave that was wont
to sleep at my feet had left his accustomed place. With a strange inward
shrinking I passed my hand swiftly over the huddled shape on the
pavement, and as I thus learned the sickening truth, a lurid flash of
lightning showed the distorted features of him whom I had called, and
proved the reason of his silence.
Then a clap of thunder shook the very Palace. I heard the shrill scream
of a frightened woman, and I groped my way to the door. As I reached it,
a dull red glare lit up faintly the stone corridor, and I saw that it
came from without and through a loophole that pierced the massive wall.
There was an indescribable murmur also that was deadened by the
thickness of outer stone of the fortress Palace. This murmur sounded to
me very much like the angry hum of a horde of bees. Hurrying feet, bare
of sandals, ran this way and that. The royal household was astir and
affrighted.
Soon I saw again a blinding flash of blue light and heard the deafening
peal of thunder that followed. All this time there was no sound of
falling rain, but the air was heavy and stagnant and full of a curious
mineral odor that stank in my nostrils.
Then as I groped my way onward through the tangled labyrinth that lay
between me and the Queen, I felt a hand fall on my shoulder, and a voice
spoke low in my ear through all the tumult. I turned, and the voice
whined on, and in a moment I had caught the sense of that which it
uttered.
“For behold, I have given gifts of price to the Temple, yet doth fire
from heaven even now destroy my household. Woe is me! but the magic of
the white stranger is strong. Follow, my lord, and I will lead you to
your friends. So shall the shadow of your protecting mantle fall upon
me, and my miserable life be spared.”
Thus the creature grovelled before me, and even as he spoke, a forked
tongue of light struck a cornice above our heads, and a great fragment
of carved stone fell at my feet.
I bade the whimpering fellow rise and be a man and lead me, as he valued
his black skin, with all speed, to the dungeon where lay my comrade and
the maid.
So at his word I turned me back once more, and, drawing my knife, I let
the shivering wretch gaze on the bright polish of its metal, that he
might forswear all thought of treachery. I think, however, that the
deadly fear of the storm that consumed him would have kept him true.
At least, without mischance, he led me downward, by a way new to me,
till at length, in the bowels of the earth, I rejoined my friends. It
was a hasty, if a joyous, greeting that we gave one another. There was
no time to lose. Astolba’s face told me that, as did the feverish
pressure with which my good comrade Lestrade grasped my hands.
So with eloquent maledictions in the native tongue, and in round
English, I swore the jailer, my trembling guide, to silence, and once
again we three together began the business of escape.
Well for us that the friendly darkness covered us, and that before the
dreadful onslaught of the storm the sentinels had fled. Our hard-earned
knowledge of the network of dungeon, chamber, and corridor stood us in
good stead; fear lent us strength and pricked us onward, and it was not
long as we count by minutes before we paused for breath—we three
together without the Palace, and so far safe, within the shadow of its
wall.
Then it was that my heart sank like lead within my bosom. In the
excitement of the flight, I had not thought of the Queen, and that
escape meant farewell and forever.
One lives long in an hour like that, and in a flash I saw that I was
bound to Lah by a stronger chain than any that could be forged by the
word of a heathen priest before Edba’s altar.
But awful peril faced us, and if ever a maid needed the service of two
stalwart men, such a one was Astolba, in the midst of this terrible
danger alike from the heavens and from the beasts about us.
So, privately in the darkness, I kissed the ruby that lay upon my
breast. This also I set down,—I care not who reads it,—and with the kiss
I sealed a compact that led me from my desire to my duty.
Then I resolutely turned my back upon the Palace.
The dull roar was not so distant or so muffled now. It came from a
maddened crowd that surged about the royal entrance gates.
Ghostly figures joined the mob, by twos and threes, showing not white,
but black, against the red glare of burning buildings; and over all hung
the sulphurous vapor; from above, peal upon peal of deafening
thunder—the serpent flash of light.
The people of the Walled City were mad with fear, and in their terror
lay our best pledge of safety. Lestrade supported the maid and tenderly
urged her onward, and I in silence led the way, with naked sword to
answer him who should unwisely question us.
My comrade bore with him such weapons as he had time to choose in our
hasty flight, and Astolba, with a woman’s foresight, had carried from
the cell provisions and a flask of water.
The secret door of the outer wall was near, and freedom within our
grasp, but I took no joy of it. Lah’s face, beautiful and reproachful,
rose before me and filled me with a mighty longing that would not be
stilled. I even half hoped that we, or at least that I, would be
challenged, captured, and so stand once more a prisoner in that queenly
presence; but no man stayed us, and without let or hindrance we passed
through the door in the wall, and stood once again beyond the boundaries
of the City of the worshippers of Edba and of Hed.
But even in that moment the shrill voice of Hubla reached my ears,
strangely broken with wild, strangling sobs, and though I knew it not,
the voice of Hubla was the voice of fate. How or by what means she had
tracked us, I cannot tell.
Lestrade, mindful of her past malice, strode forth quickly with upraised
spear, but I withheld his hand.
There was no power for evil in the shrunken, huddled figure at my feet.
Even her witch’s deviltry had fallen from her as a garment.
It was not the sorceress who clasped my knees, but an old old woman,
half-mad with frantic grief and terror; and at her first words my blood
leaped in my veins, for she bade me save the Queen.
I saw Astolba come forward from the shelter of Lestrade’s protecting
arm, and as in a dream, I heard her, with a strange hardness in her
voice, bid the red witch cease her lamentations, for she said coldly,
“What is Lah’s fate to you?”
Then with something of her old fire, Hubla stood upright.
“What is the Queen to me?” she repeated, with scorn in look and tone.
“For whom have I toiled? For whom have I betrayed the secrets of the
gods? Who sits, by my contriving, upon the throne of Kings? For whom
have I shed without mercy the blood of friend and foe? And she is all in
all to me. The wrath of Edba and Hed strike me alone. I am their
rightful victim; let them spare my child.”
“Your child!” I cried in amazement, but she turned upon me with her old
savagery.
“And you, her lover, waste the time in idle words. You stand here
prating, while the mob, maddened by the priests, fire the Palace and
tear in pieces Lah, their Queen.”
I turned, stricken dumb by the horror of her words, and it was Lestrade
who put the question that trembled on my lips.
“The hag is distraught or worse,” he said, with contempt. “Think not to
cheat us by so clumsy a trick. Did not Agno himself at the wrestling do
homage to the Queen?”
Hubla answered, but it was to me she spoke.
“If you have pity, hasten. By the gods I swear I tell nothing but the
bare truth. This storm has set the people wild with fear, and the crafty
priests have dared to say that Edba and Hed have sent it in punishment
of the Queen’s sins. In mercy, come quickly, for the end is near.”
“And if we believe this likely tale,” sneered Lestrade, “what can one
man do? what is my friend among so many?”
“The fire of the pit smite you!” raved the witch, beside herself with
passion. Then once again she clung to me, beseeching, “Come; for she
loves you.”
And I answered, “I will come.”
Then it was that Astolba spoke, and I knew not till then how pitiless
can be a woman’s voice.
“Is this thing true?” she asked. “Promised to me as you are, do you love
this woman?”
The lash of her scorn cut me like a knife, but I felt that the time for
half-truths was over. So I said humbly but yet steadfastly, “I do not
know. Nevertheless I cannot leave her to perish. Remember she has saved
your life and mine.”
“Go then,” she cried bitterly. “We waste time. I thank Heaven there
beats yet one loyal heart; one who will stand my friend. If we part
here, it is forever.”
“Forever if it be your will,” I answered, with sad pride.
And with that I saw Lestrade draw the maid close, and together, without
a word, they passed from me, and the darkness swallowed them; and I,
turning, bade Hubla lead onward to the Queen.
Chapter XX
The Beginning of the End
How little a man sees of what is before him. A week hence I would have
scorned the thought that, once free, I should enter willingly again the
City of heathen gods; that monster city that stretched before me,
pitiless and dark, and full of mystery. Full, too, of the thirst of
blood and of nameless deeds.
Surely the measure of its iniquity had overflowed. Within its walls
there was little room for a man of peace like myself, but in these days
I was not the master of my acts that I had once been; an inward fire
consumed me. I will not make out my case one whit better than it was.
Looking back in the calm of these latter days, I see Astolba was not all
wrong.
It was not duty simply that drove me back; the duty of man to woman. It
was, too, a strange half-bitter gladness that rose within me, as by
Hubla’s side I went back, to face death, if need be, with her whose
peril called me,—Lah, the Queen.
When the red witch had clutched my knees beseeching, she had seemed too
feeble for further effort. Now, however, as once before had chanced, as
we sought the road to the Palace, I had much ado to keep up with the
swiftness of her halting gait.
For all my efforts she was ever in front, and as we had naught to say to
each other, it was not long before we reached one of the secret
entrances to the place, within which the uncanny figure of Hubla
vanished, flitting like a bat through the darkness.
On the threshold I paused for an instant. One wing of the Palace was
already aflame; the great square in front was packed with a howling mob.
It had not yet surrounded the royal residence, but I knew it would soon
do so; for if the magic of the Queen’s eloquence had, as I surmised,
held it thus far in check, the spell now had lost its power.
Already the maddened people swarmed up the front of the massive
building. The bodyguard within was faithful, and hurled back the rebels
as they came. But the struggle I knew was but too unequal.
Fascinated by the spectacle, I still lingered. I saw one and another of
the enemy bearing off rich spoil: jewelled garments, costly furnishings,
goblets, skins, tapestries.
In the midst of the foe stood Agno, urging on the plunderers by word and
gesture. His place was directly beneath the great statue of the god,
Hed, and even as I looked a blue flame shot from above, and the stone
image reeled.
The High Priest with a cry of terror flung himself back, but too late.
The stone crashed downward. In a moment’s space all was over. Agno, the
arch-traitor, had received from his master a just reward.
With a lighter heart I stepped within the Palace. Now that our chief
enemy was dead hope rose again within my breast. It would go hard indeed
if having received from Heaven this signal favor, I did not save the
Queen.
Hubla had disappeared, but I had threaded the labyrinth before me too
often to need a guide. The thick walls of the place deadened the sound
of the storm without. Only the echo of my running feet jarred on the
silence.
The lust of the battle was upon me. First, I would give a lesson to
these knaves, and that before the face of Lah; then, if need be, we
would fly together. So would I pay my debt.
The clash of arms and the cries of the wounded told me all too surely
which way to turn. Breathless, I rushed into the Queen’s own chamber.
This place the last desperate handful of her followers had made their
stronghold.
In their midst, clothed right royally, as for a festal day, stood Lah,
their mistress and my own. When she saw me, the fire in her eyes gave
place to a look of such glad wonder that I was humbled at the sight, and
would have knelt before her, save that the hour and place were for more
active service.
The great tawny beast, the tiger that she fondled, stood guard on one
side; Zobo the Mighty, with drawn sword, had taken his stand on the
other.
The same look of hostile jealousy leaped into the eyes of both man and
brute, as I advanced; but Lah saw it, and with a word made peace between
us. She was so lovely, so wondrously lovely, in that hour! All Queen and
yet all woman.
And not ten paces off, and drawing ever nearer, came the ravening mob.
Agno’s death had not turned them from their purpose, as I had hoped.
It was the beginning of the end; but I swore within me that it was life
with Lah, or death for me. It is thus fate laughs at the oaths of men.
In this hour I am whole and strong, while she—
But I must not let the bitterness of memory stay my hand. I have, I know
it well, but little art in picturing out the past, and even now I could
not if I would dwell on what followed next. The wound, for all these
intervening years, is still too fresh.
She stood there thus, my Queen, the love light in her eyes, in the full
radiance of her beauty.
With my oath freshly sworn, I stepped forward to take my part in her
defence. That second a spear, flung from a distance, clove the air and
buried its point in Lah’s fair breast. It needed no surgeon’s skill to
know the hurt was mortal. With a roar like that of an angry beast Zobo
sprang forward to avenge the murder.
The Queen swayed heavily forward, and I caught her in my arms. She
clasped her small hands round the spear’s shaft and tried with a man’s
courage to pull out the cruel steel, but I saw the useless agony it gave
her, and gently begged her cease. The tears rolled down my face, and I
cared not who should see them.
Lah’s beautiful head lay on my shoulder. She rested there as a tired
child rests in its mother’s arms. The great brute, the tiger she had
loved, now lapped the hand that fell in piteous helplessness by her
side.
The roar of battle came nearer, but I heeded it not. For me the worst
was over.
With a mighty effort the Queen raised her head. She spoke no word to me,
but what need was there of words between us in that hour? But faintly,
in a strange tongue, she called to Zobo, and in the midst of all the din
and turmoil round about, he heard that cry. I saw his face convulsed
with agony, but again Lah spoke, with a sweet beseeching eagerness, and,
falling on his knees before her, the warrior kissed her garment’s hem
and bent his head in token of obedience. Then he turned to me.
I looked once more into the depths of the Queen’s beautiful eyes. Then
their lids drooped. The tiger uttered a long, terrible cry.
Zobo picked me up like a child in his giant arms and bore me from the
chamber. I saw the great tawny brute standing over the body of his
mistress. With burning shame and anger, I struggled to be free, but the
Captain of the Guard held me close.
[Illustration]
A forked tongue of flame licked the curtained tapestry that screened the
room from which he carried me. The threads of gold shone bright amongst
those of baser metal. The hanging fell into place behind us. At a word
from my captor four brawny slaves that waited took hold on me and bore
me onward. Zobo tore down the burning tapestry and smothered the flame
in his hands. He knelt beside the motionless body of the Queen. As he
did so, the last of the gallant guard reeled back pierced by a hundred
hungry knives. Then a turn in the winding corridor hid the room from
sight.
Spurred by the fear of capture and of death, but bound by I know not
what strange spell of obedience, my captors hurried onward, but ever
with their burden.
So ingloriously was I borne without the Palace, and when at last they
let me go, I saw a sheet of flame rise from its massive roof. The great
palace with its fearsome Burial Hall, its beautiful Throne Room, and its
wondrous Treasure Chamber, was even now a ruin—a fitting funeral pyre
for her whose fair body lay within.
So once more I turned. And because in that hour, death would have been a
sweet and not a bitter draught, Heaven withheld the cup from my
thirsting lips. No man molested me, and at last I stood utterly alone
once again and for the last time at the secret door that led through the
wall of the City to the jungle without. Then that door, too, slipped
into place behind me.
The dawn was breaking, the great storm was over, and I was free.
All this was, as I have said, many many years ago. I am an old man now,
and having done my self-allotted task, I can die in peace at the
appointed hour.
I have never mated. I have seen fair women, but none like her whose
ashes lie within the dark circle of the City of Edba and of Hed. I have
heard sweet voices, but none like hers.
Astolba, a matron now, passed me by on the arm of my one time gay
comrade, Gaston Lestrade. He bore himself not so lightheartedly, I
thought. Neither glanced at me as they passed on, but Astolba’s face
turned from rose to white. But I do not blame them. I know too much
which they would have forgotten.
So I sit beside the fire alone, save for my dreams and for the ruby that
hangs upon my breast. When I hold the gem, I bear within the hollow of
my hand untold wealth. This I know full well, but the riches of the
universe would not tempt me to sell the parting gift of Lah, the Queen.
Is this love? Again I say I know not. Only this: in life the jewel rests
upon my heart, and at my death he will be a bold man and not wise, who
shall dare to wrest it from me.
THE END
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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