I dreamed that night that a woman, with a face as white as ivory, came
and bent over me. She led a babe by either hand, while behind her were
scores of other ones, with lovely faces, but all as pale as the stars
themselves, who looked and sighed, but said nothing, and when they had
stared their fill, dropped out one by one, leaving a wonderful blank in
the monotony where they had been; but beyond that dream nothing
happened.
It was a fine morning when I woke again, and obviously broad day
outside, the sunshine coming down through cracks in the old palace
roof, and lying in golden pools on the floor with dazzling effect.
Rubbing my eyes and sitting up, it took me some time to get my senses
together, and at first an uneasy feeling possessed me that I was
somehow dematerialised and in an unreal world. But a twinge of cramp
in my left arm, and a healthy sneeze, which frightened a score of bats
overhead nearly out of their senses, was reassuring on this point, and
rubbing away the cramp and staggering to my feet, I looked about at the
strange surroundings. It was cavernous chaos on every side:
magnificent architecture reduced to the confusion of a debris-heap,
only the hollow chambers being here and there preserved by massive
columns meeting overhead. Into these the yellow light filtered
wherever a rent in a cupola or side-wall admitted it, and allured by
the vision of corridors one beyond the other, I presently set off on a
tour of discovery.
Twenty minutes' scrambling brought me to a place where the fallen jambs
of a fine doorway lay so close together that there was barely room to
pass between them. However, seeing light beyond, I squeezed through,
and I found myself in the best-preserved chamber of all--a wide, roomy
hall with a domed roof, a haze of mural paintings on the walls, and a
marble floor nearly hidden in a century of fallen dust. I stumbled over
something at the threshold, and picking it up, found it was a baby's
skull! And there were more of them now that my eyes became accustomed
to the light. The whole floor was mottled with them--scores and
hundreds of bones and those poor little relics of humanity jutting out
of the sand everywhere. In the hush of that great dead nursery the
little white trophies seemed inexpressibly pathetic, and I should have
turned back reverently from that chamber of forgotten sorrows but that
something caught my eye in the centre of it.
It was an oblong pile of white stone, very ill-used and chipped,
wrist-deep in dust, yet when a slant of light came in from above and
fell straight upon it, the marble against the black gloom beyond blazed
like living pearl. It was dazzling; and shading my eyes and going
tenderly over through the poor dead babes, I looked, and there, full in
the shine, lay a woman's skeleton, still wrapped in a robe of which
little was left save the hard gold embroidery. Her brown hair,
wonderful to say, still lay like lank, dead seaweed about her, and
amongst it was a fillet crown of plain iron set with gems such as eye
never looked upon before. There were not many, but enough to make the
proud simplicity of that circlet glisten like a little band of fire--a
gleaming halo on her dead forehead infinitely fascinating. At her
sides were two other little bleached human flowers, and I stood before
them for a long time in silent sympathy.
Could this be Queen Yang, of whom the woodcutter had told me? It must
be--who else? And if it were, what strange chance had brought me
here--a stranger, yet the first to come, since her sorrow, from her
distant kindred? And if it were, then that fillet belonged of right to
Heru, the last representative of her kind. Ought I not to take it to
her rather than leave it as spoil to the first idle thief with pluck
enough to deride the mysteries of the haunted city? Long time I thought
over it in the faint, heavy atmosphere of that hall, and then very
gently unwound the hair, lifted the circlet, and, scarcely knowing what
I did, put it in my shoulder-bag.
After that I went more cheerfully into the outside sunshine, and
setting my clothes to dry on a stone, took stock of the situation. The
place was, perhaps, not quite so romantic by day as by night, and the
scattered trees, matted by creepers, with which the whole were
overgrown, prevented anything like an extensive view of the ruined city
being obtained. But what gave me great satisfaction was to note over
these trees to the eastward a two-humped mountain, not more than six or
seven miles distant--the very one I had mislaid the day before. Here
was reality and a chance of getting back to civilisation. I was as
glad as if home were in sight, and not, perhaps, the less so because
the hill meant villages and food; and you who have doubtless lunched
well and lately will please bear in mind I had had nothing since
breakfast the day before; and though this may look picturesque on
paper, in practice it is a painful item in one's programme.
Well, I gave my damp clothes but a turn or two more in the sun, and
then, arguing that from the bare ground where the forest ended half-way
up the hill, a wide view would be obtained, hurried into my garments
and set off thither right gleefully. A turn or two down the blank
streets, now prosaic enough, an easy scramble through a gap in the
crumbling battlements, and there was the open forest again, with a
friendly path well marked by the passage of those wild animals who made
the city their lair trending towards my landmark.
A light breakfast of soft green nuts, plucked on the way, and then the
ground began to bend upwards and the woods to thin a little. With
infinite ardour, just before midday, I scrambled on to a bare knoll on
the very hillside, and fell exhausted before the top could be reached.
But what were hunger or fatigue to the satisfaction of that moment?
There was the sea before me, the clear, strong, gracious sea, blue
leagues of it, furrowed by the white ridges of some distant storm. I
could smell the scent of it even here, and my sailor heart rose in
pride at the companionship of that alien ocean. Lovely and blessed
thing! how often have I turned from the shallow trivialities of the
land and found consolation in the strength of your stately solitudes!
How often have I turned from the tinselled presence of the shore, the
infinite pretensions of dry land that make life a sorry, hectic sham,
and found in the black bosom of the Great Mother solace and comfort!
Dear, lovely sea, man--half of every sphere, as far removed in the
sequence of your strong emotions from the painted fripperies of the
woman-land as pole from pole--the grateful blessing of the humblest of
your followers on you!
The mere sight of salt water did me good. Heaven knows our separation
had not been long, and many an unkind slap has the Mother given me in
the bygone; yet the mere sight of her was tonic, a lethe of troubles, a
sedative for tired nerves; and I gazed that morning at the illimitable
blue, the great, unfettered road to everywhere, the ever-varied, the
immutable, the thing which was before everything and shall be last of
all, in an ecstasy of affection.
There was also other satisfaction at hand. Not a mile away lay a
well-defined road--doubtless the one spoken of by the wood-cutter--and
where the track pointed to the seashore the low roofs and circling
smoke of a Thither township showed.
There I went hot-footed, and, much too hungry to be nice in formality,
swung up to the largest building on the waterside quay and demanded
breakfast of the man who was lounging by its doorway chewing a honey
reed. He looked me up and down without emotion, then, falling into the
common mistake, said,
"This is not a hostel for ghosts, sir. We do not board and lodge
phantoms here; this is a dry fish shop."
"Thrice blessed trade!" I answered. "Give me some dried fish, good
fellow, or, for the matter of that, dried horse or dog, or anything
mortal teeth can bite through, and I will show you my tastes are
altogether mundane."
But he shook his head. "This is no place for the likes of you, who
come, mayhap, from the city of Yang or some other abode of disembodied
spirits--you, who come for mischief and pay harbourage with
mischance--is it likely you could eat wholesome food?"
"Indeed I could, and plenty of it, seeing I have dined and breakfasted
along the hedges with the blackbirds this two days. Look here, I will
pay in advance. Will that get me a meal?" and, whipping out my knife,
cut off another of my fast-receding coat buttons.
The man took it with great interest, as I hoped he would, the yellow
metal being apparently a very scarce commodity in his part of the
planet.
"Gold?" he asked.
"Well--ahem! I forgot to ask the man who sewed them on for me what
they were exactly, but it looks like gold, doesn't it?"
"Yes," he answered, turning it to and fro admiringly in his hand, "you
are the first ghost I ever knew to pay in advance, and plenty of them
go to and fro through here. Such a pretty thing is well worth a
meal--if, indeed, you can stomach our rough fare. Here, you woman
within," he called to the lady whom I presume was his wife, "here is a
gentleman from the nether regions who wants some breakfast and has paid
in advance. Give him some of your best, for he has paid well."
"And what," said a female voice from inside, "what if I refused to
serve another of these plaguy wanderers you are always foisting upon
me?"
"Don't mind her tongue, sir. It's the worst part of her, though she is
mighty proud of it. Go in and she will see you do not come out
hungry," and the Thither man returned calmly to his honey stick.
"Come on, you Soul-with-a-man's-stomach," growled the woman, and too
hungry to be particular about the tone of invitation, I strode into the
parlour of that strange refreshment place. The woman was the first I
had seen of the outer race, and better than might have been expected in
appearance. Big, strong, and ruddy, she was a mental shock after the
slender slips of girlhood on the far side of the water, half a dozen of
whom she could have carried off without effort in her long arms. Yet
there was about her the credential of rough health, the dignity of
muscle, an upright carriage, an animal grace of movement, and withal a
comely though strongly featured face, which pleased me at once, and
later on I had great cause to remember her with gratitude. She eyed me
sulkily for a minute, then her frown gradually softened, and the
instinctive love of the woman for the supernatural mastered her other
feelings.
"Is that how you looked in another world?" she asked.
"Yes, exactly, cap to boots. What do you think of the attire, ma'am?"
"Not much," replied the good woman frankly. "It could not have been
becoming even when new, and you appear as though you had taken a muddy
road since then. What did you die of?"
"I will tell you so much as this, madam--that what I am like to die of
now is hunger, plain, unvarnished hunger, so, in Heaven's name, get out
what you have and let me fall-to, for my last meal was yesterday
morning."
Whereat, with a shrug of her shoulders at the eccentricities of nether
folk, the woman went to the rear of the house, and presently came back
with a meal which showed her husband had done scant justice to the
establishment by calling it a dry fish shop. It is true, fish supplied
the staple of the repast, as was inevitable in a seaport, but, like all
Martian fish, it was of ambrosial kind, with a savour about it of wine
and sunshine such as no fish on our side of space can boast of. Then
there were cakes, steaming and hot, vegetables which fitted into the
previous course with exquisite nicety, and, lastly, a wooden tankard of
the invariable Thither beer to finish off. Such a meal as a hungry man
might consider himself fortunate to meet with any day.
The woman watched me eat with much satisfaction, and when I had
answered a score of artless questions about my previous state, or
present condition and prospects, more or less to her satisfaction, she
supplied me in turn with some information which was really valuable to
me just then.
First I learned that Ar-hap's men, with the abducted Heru, had passed
through this very port two days before, and by this time were probably
in the main town, which, it appeared, was only about twelve hours'
rowing up the salt-water estuary outside. Here was news! Heru, the
prize and object of my wild adventure, close at hand and well. It
brought a whole new train of thoughts, for the last few days had been
so full of the stress of travel, the bare, hard necessity of getting
forward, that the object of my quest, illogical as it may seem, had
gone into the background before these things. And here again, as I
finished the last cake and drank down to the bottom of the ale tankard,
the extreme folly of the venture came upon me, the madness of venturing
single-handed into the den of the Wood King. What had I to hope for?
What chance, however remote, was there of successfully wresting that
blooming prize from the arms of her captor? Force was out of the
question; stealth was utterly impractical; as for cajolery, apparently
the sole remaining means of winning back the Princess--why, one might
as well try the persuasion of a penny flute upon a hungry eagle as seek
to rouse Ar-hap's sympathies for bereaved Hath in that way. Surely to
go forward would mean my own certain destruction, with no advantage, no
help to Heru; and if I was ever to turn back or stop in the idle quest,
here was the place and time. My Hither friends were behind the sea; to
them I could return before it was too late, and here were the rough but
honest Thither folk, who would doubtless let me live amongst them if
that was to be my fate. One or other alternative were better than going
to torture and death.
"You seem to take the fate of that Hither girl of yours mightily to
heart, stranger," quoth my hostess, with a touch of feminine jealousy,
as she watched my hesitation. "Do you know anything of her?"
"Yes," I answered gloomily. "I have seen her once or twice away in
Seth."
"Ah, that reminds me! When they brought her up here from the boats to
dry her wet clothes, she cried and called in her grief for just such a
one as you, saying he alone who struck down our men at her feast could
rescue her--"
"What! Heru here in this room but yesterday! How did she look? Was
she hurt? How had they treated her?"
My eagerness gave me away. The woman looked at me through her
half-shut eyes a space, and then said, "Oh! sits the wind in THAT
quarter? So you can love as well as eat. I must say you are
well-conditioned for a spirit."
I got up and walked about the room a space, then, feeling very
friendless, and knowing no woman was ever born who was not interested
in another woman's loves, I boldly drew my hostess aside and told her
about Heru, and that I was in pursuit of her, dwelling on the girl's
gentle helplessness, my own hare-brained adventure, and frankly asking
what sort of a sovereign Ar-hap was, what the customs of his court
might be, and whether she could suggest any means, temporal or
spiritual, by which he might be moved to give back Heru to her kindred.
Nor was my confidence misplaced. The woman, as I guessed, was touched
somewhere back in her female heart by my melting love-tale, by my
anxiety and Heru's peril. Besides, a ghost in search of a fairy
lady--and such the slender folk of Seth were still considered to be by
the race which had supplanted them--this was romance indeed. To be
brief, that good woman proved invaluable.
She told me, firstly, that Ar-hap was believed to be away at war,
"weekending" as was his custom, amongst rebellious tribes, and by
starting at once up the water, I should very probably get to the town
before he did. Secondly, she thought if I kept clear of private brawls
there was little chance of my receiving injury, from the people at all
events, as they were accustomed to strange visitors, and civil enough
until they were fired by war. "Sickle cold, sword hot," was one of
their proverbs, meaning thereby that in peaceful times they were lambs,
however lionlike they might be in contest.
This was reassuring, but as to recovering the lady, that was another
matter over which the good woman shook her head. It was ill coming
between Ar-hap and his tribute, she said; still, if I wanted to see
Heru once again, this was my opportunity, and, for the rest, that
chance, which often favours the enamoured, must be my help.
Briefly, though I should probably have gone forward in any case out of
sheer obstinacy, had it been to certain destruction, this better aspect
of the situation hastened my resolution. I thanked the woman for help,
and then the man outside was called in to advise as to the best and
speediest way of getting within earshot of his hairy sovereignty, the
monarch of Thitherland.
CHAPTER XVI
The Martian told me of a merchant boat with ten rowers which was going
up to the capital in a couple of hours, and as the skipper was a friend
of his they would no doubt take me as supercargo, thereby saving the
necessity of passenger fees, which was obviously a consideration with
me. It was not altogether a romantic approach to the dungeon of an
imprisoned beauty, but it was practical, which is often better if not
so pleasant. So the offer was gladly closed with, and curling myself in
a rug of foxskins, for I was tired with much walking, sailors never
being good foot-gangers, I slept soundly fill they came to tell me it
was time to go on board.
The vessel was more like a canal barge than anything else, lean and
long, with the cargo piled in a ridge down the centre as farmers store
their winter turnips, the rowers sitting on either side of this plying
oars like dessert-spoons with long handles, while they chanted a
monotonous cadence of monosyllables:
Oh, ho, oh,
Oh, ho, oh,
How high, how high.
and then again after a pause--
How high, how high
Oh, ho, oh,
Oh, ho, oh.
the which was infinitely sleep-provoking if not a refrain of a high
intellectual order.
I shut my eyes as we pulled away from the wharfs of that nameless
emporium and picked a passage through a crowd of quaint shipping,
wondering where I was, and asking myself whether I was mentally rising
equal to my extraordinary surroundings, whether I adequately
appreciated the immensity of my remove from those other seas on which I
had last travelled, tiller-ropes in hand, piloting a captain's galley
from a wharf. Good heavens, what would my comrades on my ship say if
they could see me now steering a load of hairy savages up one of those
waterways which our biggest telescopes magnify but to the thickness of
an indication? No, I was not rising equal to the occasion, and could
not. The human mind is of but limited capacity after all, and such
freaks of fortune are beyond its conception. I knew I was where I was,
but I knew I should probably never get the chance of telling of it, and
that no one would ever believe me if I did, and I resigned myself to
the inevitable with sullen acquiescence, smothering the wonder that
might have been overwhelming in passing interests of the moment.
There is little to record of that voyage. We passed through a fleet of
Ar-hap's warships, empty and at anchor in double line, serviceable
half-decked cutters, built of solid timber, not pumpkin rind it was
pleasant to notice, and then the town dropped away as we proceeded up a
stream about as broad as the Hudson at its widest, and profusely
studded with islands. This water was bitterly salt and joined another
sea on the other side of the Martian continent. Yet it had a
pronounced flow against us eastward, this tide running for three spring
months and being followed, I learned, as ocean temperatures varied, by
a flow in the opposite direction throughout the summer.
Just at present the current was so strong eastwards, the moisture
beaded upon my rowers' tawny hides as they struggled against it, and
their melancholy song dawdled in "linked sweetness long drawn out,"
while the swing of their oars grew longer and longer. Truly it was
very hot, far hotter than was usual for the season, these men declared,
and possibly this robbed me of my wonted energy, and you, gentle
reader, of a description of all the strange things we passed upon that
highway.
Suffice it to say we spent a scorching afternoon, the greater part of a
stifling night moored under a mud-bank with a grove of trees on top
from which gigantic fire-flies hung as though the place were
illuminated for a garden fete, and then, rowing on again in the
comparatively cool hours before dawn, turned into a backwater at
cock-crow.
The skipper of our cargo boat roused me just as we turned, putting
under my sleepy nostrils a handful of toasted beans on a leaf, and a
small cup full of something that was not coffee, but smelt as good as
that matutinal beverage always does to the tired traveller.
Over our prow was an immense arch of foliage, and underneath a long
arcade of cool black shadows, sheltering still water, till water and
shadow suddenly ended a quarter of a mile down in a patch of brilliant
colour. It was as peaceful as could be in the first morning light, and
to me over all there was the inexpressible attraction of the unknown.
As our boat slipped silently forward up this leafy lane, a thin white
"feather" in her mouth alone breaking the steely surface of the stream,
the men rested from their work and began, as sailors will, to put on
their shore-going clothes, the while they chatted in low tones over the
profits of the voyage. Overhead flying squirrels were flitting to and
fro like bats, or shelling fruit whereof the husks fell with a pleasant
splash about us, and on one bank a couple of early mothers were washing
their babies, whose smothered protests were almost the only sound in
this morning world.
Another silent dip or two of the oars and the colour ahead crystallised
into a town. If I said it was like an African village on a large
scale, I should probably give you the best description in the fewest
words. From the very water's edge up to the crown of a low hill inland,
extended a mass of huts and wooden buildings, embowered and partly
hidden in bright green foliage, with here and there patches of millet,
or some such food plant, and the flowers that grow everywhere so
abundantly in this country. It was all Arcadian and peaceful enough at
the moment, and as we drew near the men were just coming out to the
quays along the harbour front, the streets filling and the town waking
to busy life.
A turn to the left through a watergate defended by towers of wood and
mud, and we were in the city harbour itself; boats of many kinds moored
on every side; quaint craft from the gulfs and bays of Nowhere, full of
unheard-of merchandise, and manned by strange-faced crews, every vessel
a romance of nameless seas, an epitome of an undiscovered world, and
every moment the scene grew busier as the breakfast smoke arose, and
wharf and gangway set to work upon the day's labours.
Our boat--loaded, as it turned out, with spoil from Seth--was run to a
place of honour at the bottom of the town square, and was an object of
much curiosity to a small crowd which speedily collected and lent a
hand with the mooring ropes, the while chatting excitedly with the crew
about further tribute and the latest news from overseas. At the same
time a swarthy barbarian, whose trappings showed him to be some sort of
functionary, came down to our "captain," much wagging of heads and
counting of notched sticks taking place between them.
I, indeed, was apparently the least interesting item of the cargo, and
this was embarrassing. No hero likes to be neglected, it is fatal to
his part. I had said my prayers and steeled myself to all sorts of
fine endurance on the way up, and here, when it came to the crisis, no
one was anxious to play the necessary villain. They just helped me
ashore civilly enough, the captain nodded his head at me, muttering
something in an indifferent tone to the functionary about a ghost who
had wandered overseas and begged a passage up the canal; the group
about the quay stared a little, but that was all.
Once I remember seeing a squatting, life-size heathen idol hoisted from
a vessel's hold and deposited on a sugar-box on a New York quay. Some
ribald passer-by put a battered felt hat upon Vishnu's sacred curls,
and there the poor image sat, an alien in an indifferent land, a sack
across its shoulders, a "billycock" upon its head, and honoured at most
with a passing stare. I thought of that lonely image as almost as
lonely I stood on the Thither men's quay, without the support of
friends or heroics, wondering what to do next.
However, a cheerful disposition is sometimes better than a banking
account, and not having the one I cultivated the other, sunning myself
amongst the bales for a time, and then, since none seemed interested in
me, wandered off into the town, partly to satisfy my curiosity, and
partly in the vague hope of ascertaining if my princess was really
here, and, if possible, getting sight of her.
Meanwhile it turned hot with a supernatural, heavy sort of heat
altogether, I overheard passersby exclaiming, out of the common, and
after wandering for an hour through gardens and endless streets of
thatched huts, I was glad enough to throw myself down in the shadow of
some trees on the outskirts of the great central pile of buildings, a
whole village in itself of beam-built towers and dwelling-place,
suggesting by its superior size that it might actually be Ar-hap's
palace.
Hotter and hotter it grew, while a curious secondary sunrise in the
west, the like of which I never saw before seemed to add to the heat,
and heavier and heavier my eyelids, till I dozed at last, and finally
slept uncomfortably for a time.
Rousing up suddenly, imagine my surprise to see sitting, chin on knees,
about a yard away, a slender girlish figure, infinitely out of place in
that world of rough barbarians. Was it possible? Was I dreaming? No,
there was no doubt about it, she was a girl of the Hither folk, slim
and pretty, but with a wonderfully sad look in her gazelle eyes, and
scarcely a sign of the indolent happiness of Seth in the pale little
face regarding me so fixedly.
"Good gracious, miss," I said, still rubbing my eyes and doubting my
senses, "have you dropped from the skies? You are the very last person
I expected to see in this barbarian place."
"And you too, sir. Oh, it is lovely to see one so newly from home, and
free-seeming--not a slave."
"How did you know I was from Seth?"
"Oh, that was easy enough," and with a little laugh she pointed to a
pebble lying between us, on which was a piece of battered sweetmeat in
a perforated bamboo box. Poor An had given me something just like that
in a playful mood, and I had kept it in my pocket for her sake, being,
as you will have doubtless observed, a sentimental young man, and now I
clapped my hand where it should have been, but it was gone.
"Yes," said my new friend, "that is yours. I smelt the sweetmeat
coming up the hill, and crossed the grass until I found you here
asleep. Oh, it was lovely! I took it from your pocket, and white Seth
rose up before my swimming eyes, even at the scent of it. I am Si,
well named, for that in our land means sadness, Si, the daughter of
Prince Hath's chief sweetmeat-maker, so I should know something of such
stuff. May I, please, nibble a little piece?"
"Eat it all, my lass, and welcome. How came you here? But I can
guess. Do not answer if you would rather not."
"Ay, but I will. It is not every day I can speak to ears so friendly
as yours. I am a slave, chosen for my luckless beauty as last year's
tribute to Ar-hap."
"And now?"
"And now the slave of Ar-hap's horse-keeper, set aside to make room for
a fresher face."
"And do you know whose face that is?"
"Not I, a hapless maid sent into this land of horrors, to bear ignominy
and stripes, to eat coarse food and do coarse work, the miserable
plaything of some brute in semi-human form, with but the one
consolation of dying early as we tribute-women always die. Poor
comrade in exile, I only know her as yet by sympathy."
"What if I said it was Heru, the princess?"
The Martian girl sprang to her feet, and clasping her hands exclaimed,
"Heru, the Slender! Then the end comes, for it is written in our books
that the last tribute is paid when the best is paid. Oh, how splendid
if she gave herself of free will to this slavery to end it once for
all. Was it so?"
"I think, Si, your princess could not have known of that tradition; she
did not come willingly. Besides, I am come to fetch her back, if it
may be, and that spoils the look of sacrifice."
"You to fetch her back, and from Ar-hap's arms? My word, Sir Spirit,
you must know some potent charms; or, what is less likely, my
countrymen must have amazingly improved in pluck since I left them.
Have you a great army at hand?"
But I only shook my head, and, touching my sword, said that here was
the only army coming to rescue Heru. Whereon the lady replied that she
thought my valour did me more honour than my discretion. How did I
propose to take the princess from her captors?
"To tell the truth, damsel, that is a matter which will have to be left
to your invention, or the kindness of such as you. I am here on a
hare-brained errand, playing knight-errant in a way that shocks my
common sense. But since the matter has gone so far I will see it
through, or die in the attempt. Your bully lord shall either give me
Heru, stock, lock, and block, or hang me from a yard-arm. But I would
rather have the lady. Come, you will help me; and, as a beginning, if
she is in yonder shanty get me speech with her."
Poor Si's eyes dilated at the peril of the suggestion, and I saw the
sluggish Martian nature at war against her better feelings. But
presently the latter conquered. "I will try," she said. "What matter
a few stripes more or less?" pointing to her rosy shoulders where red
scars crisscross upon one another showed how the Martian girls fared in
Ar-hap's palace when their novelty wore off. "I will try to help you;
and if they kill me for it--why, that will not matter much." And
forthwith in that blazing forenoon under the flickering shadow of the
trees we put our heads together to see what we might do for Heru.
It was not much for the moment. Try what we would that afternoon, I
could not persuade those who had charge of the princess to let me even
approach her place of imprisonment, but Si, as a woman, was more
successful, actually seeing her for a few moments, and managed to
whisper in her ear that I had come, the
Spirit-with-the-gold-buttons-down-his front, afterwards describing to
me in flowing Martian imagery--but doubtless not more highly coloured
than poor Heru's emotion warranted--how delightedly that lady had
received the news.
Si also did me another service, presenting me to the porter's wife, who
kept a kind of boarding-house at the gates of Ar-hap's palace for
gentlemen and ladies with grievances. I had heard of lobbying before,
and the presentation of petitions, though I had never indulged myself
in the pastime; but the crowd of petitioners here, with petitions as
wild and picturesque as their own motley appearances, was surely the
strangest that ever gathered round a seat of supreme authority.
Si whispered in the ear of that good woman the nature of my errand,
with doubtless some blandishment of her own; and my errand being one so
much above the vulgar and so nearly touching the sovereign, I was at
once accorded a separate room in the gate-house, whence I could look
down in comparative peace on the common herd of suitors, and listen to
the buzz of their invective as they practised speeches which I
calculated it would take Ar-hap all the rest of his reign to listen to,
without allowing him any time for pronouncing verdicts on them.
Here I made myself comfortable, and awaited the return of the sovereign
as placidly as might be. Meanwhile fate was playing into my feeble
hands.
I have said it was hot weather. At first this seemed but an outcome of
the Martian climate, but as the hours went by the heat developed to an
incredible extent. Also that red glare previously noted in the west
grew in intensity, till, as the hours slipped by, all the town was
staring at it in panting horror. I have seen a prairie on fire,
luckily from the far side of a comfortably broad river, and have ridden
through a pine-forest when every tree for miles was an uplifted torch,
and pungent yellow smoke rolled down each corrie side in grey rivers
crested with dancing flame. But that Martian glare was more sombre and
terrible than either.
"What is it?" I asked of poor Si, who came out gasping to speak to me
by the gate-house.
"None of us know, and unless the gods these Thither folk believe in are
angry, and intend to destroy the world with yonder red sword in the
sky, I cannot guess. Perhaps," she added, with a sudden flash of
inspiration, "it comes by your machinations for Heru's help."
"No!"
"If not by your wish, then, in the name of all you love, set your wish
against it. If you know any incantations suitable for the occasion,
oh, practise them now at once, for look, even the very grass is
withering; birds are dropping from trees; fishes, horribly bloated, are
beginning to float down the steaming rills; and I, with all others,
have a nameless dread upon me."
Hotter and hotter it grew, until about sunset the red blaze upon the
sky slowly opened, and showed us for about half an hour, through the
opening a lurid, flame-coloured meteor far out in space beyond; then
the cleft closed again, and through that abominable red curtain came
the very breath of Hades.
What was really happening I am not astronomer enough to say, though on
cooler consideration I have come to the conclusion that our planet, in
going out to its summer pastures in the remoter fields of space, had
somehow come across a wandering lesser world and got pretty well singed
in passing. This is purely my own opinion, and I have not yet
submitted it to the kindly authorities of the Lick Observatory for
verification. All I can say for certain is that in an incredibly short
space of time the face of the country changed from green to sear,
flowers drooped; streams (there were not many in the neighbourhood
apparently) dried up; fishes died; a mighty thirst there was nothing to
quench settled down on man and beast, and we all felt that unless
Providence listened to the prayers and imprecations which the whole
town set to work with frantic zeal to hurl at it, or that abominable
comet in the sky sheered off on another tack with the least possible
delay, we should all be reduced to cinders in a very brief space of
time.
CHAPTER XVII
The evening of the second day had already come, when Ar-hap arrived
home after weekending amongst a tribe of rebellious subjects. But any
imposing State entry which might have been intended was rendered
impossible by the heat and the threat of that baleful world in the
western sky.
It was a lurid but disordered spectacle which I witnessed from my room
in the gate-house just after nightfall. The returning army had
apparently fallen away exhausted on its march through the town; only
some three hundred of the bodyguard straggled up the hill, limp and
sweating, behind a group of pennons, in the midst of which rode a
horseman whose commanding presence and splendid war harness impressed
me, though I could not make out his features; a wild, impressionist
scene of black outlines, tossing headgear, and spears glittering and
vanishing in front of the red glare in the sky, but nothing more. Even
the dry throats of the suitors in the courtyard hardly mustered a husky
cry of welcome as the cavalcade trooped into the enclosure, and then
the shadows enfolded them up in silence, and, too hot and listless to
care much what the morrow brought forth, I threw myself on the bare
floor, tossing and turning in a vain endeavour to sleep until dawn came
once more.
A thin mist which fell with daybreak drew a veil over the horrible
glare in the west for an hour or two, and taking advantage of the
slight alleviation of heat, I rose and went into the gardens to enjoy a
dip in a pool, making, with its surrounding jungle of flowers, one of
the pleasantest things about the wood-king's forest citadel. The very
earth seemed scorched and baking underfoot--and the pool was gone! It
had run as dry as a limekiln; nothing remained of the pretty fall which
had fed it but a miserable trickle of drops from the cascade above.
Down beyond the town shone a gleam of water where the bitter canal
steamed and simmered in the first grey of the morning, but up here six
months of scorching drought could not have worked more havoc. The very
leaves were dropping from the trees, and the luxuriant growths of the
day before looked as though a simoon had played upon them.
I staggered back in disgust, and found some show of official activity
about the palace. It was the king's custom, it appeared, to hear
petitions and redress wrongs as soon after his return as possible, but
today the ceremony was to be cut short as his majesty was going out
with all his court to a neighbouring mountain to "pray away the comet,"
which by this time was causing dire alarm all through the city.
"Heaven's own particular blessing on his prayers, my friend," I said to
the man who told me this. "Unless his majesty's orisons are fruitful,
we shall all be cooked like baked potatoes before nightfall, and though
I have faced many kinds of death, that is not the one I would choose by
preference. Is there a chance of myself being heard at the throne?
Your peculiar climate tempts me to hurry up with my business and begone
if I may."
"Not only may you be heard, sir, but you are summoned. The king has
heard of you somehow, and sent me to find and bring you into his
presence at once."
"So be it," I said, too hot to care what happened. "I have no levee
dress with me. I lost my luggage check some time ago, but if you will
wait outside I will be with you in a moment."
Hastily tidying myself up, and giving my hair a comb, as though just
off to see Mr. Secretary for the Navy, or on the way to get a senator
to push a new patent medicine for me, I rejoined my guide outside, and
together we crossed the wide courtyard, entered the great log-built
portals of Ar-hap's house, and immediately afterwards found ourselves
in a vast hall dimly lit by rays coming in through square spaces under
the eaves, and crowded on both sides with guards, courtiers, and
supplicants. The heat was tremendous, the odour of Thither men and the
ill-dressed hides they wore almost overpowering. Yet little I recked
for either, for there at the top of the room, seated on a dais made of
rough-hewn wood inlet with gold and covered with splendid furs, was
Ar-hap himself.
A fine fellow, swarthy, huge, and hairy, at any other time or place I
could have given him due admiration as an admirable example of the
savage on the borderland of grace and culture, but now I only glanced
at him, and then to where at his side a girl was crouching, a gem of
human loveliness against that dusky setting. It was Heru, my ravished
princess, and, still clad in her diaphanous Hither robes, her face
white with anxiety, her eyes bright as stars, the embodiment of
helpless, flowery beauty, my heart turned over at sight of her.
Poor girl! When she saw me stride into the hall she rose swiftly from
Ar-hap's side, clasped her pretty hands, and giving a cry of joy would
have rushed towards me, but the king laid a mighty paw upon her, under
which she subsided with a shiver as though the touch had blanched all
the life within.
"Good morning, your majesty," I said, walking boldly up to the lower
step of the dais.
"Good morning, most singular-looking vagrant from the Unknown,"
answered the monarch. "In what way can I be of service to you?''
"I have come about that girl," I said, nodding to where Heru lay
blossoming in the hot gloom like some night-flowering bud. "I do not
know whether your majesty is aware how she came here, but it is a
highly discreditable incident in what is doubtless your otherwise
blameless reign. Some rough scullions intrusted with the duty of
collecting your majesty's customs asked Prince Hath of the Hither
people to point out the most attractive young person at his wedding
feast, and the prince indicated that lady there at your side. It was a
dirty trick, and all the worse because it was inspired by malice, which
is the meanest of all weaknesses. I had the pleasure of knocking down
some of your majesty's representatives, but they stole the girl away
while I slept, and, briefly, I have come to fetch her back."
The monarch had followed my speech, the longest ever made in my life,
with fierce, blinking eyes, and when it stopped looked at poor
shrinking Heru as though for explanation, then round the circle of his
awestruck courtiers, and reading dismay at my boldness in their faces,
burst into a guttural laugh.
"I suppose you have the great and puissant Hither nation behind you in
this request, Mr. Spirit?"
"No, I came alone, hoping to find justice here, and, if not, then
prepared to do all I could to make your majesty curse the day your
servants maltreated my friends."
"Tall words, stranger! May I ask what you propose to do if Ar-hap, in
his own palace, amongst his people and soldiers, refuses to disgorge a
pretty prize at the bidding of one shabby interloper--muddy and
friendless?"
"What should I do?"
"Yes," said the king, with a haughty frown. "What would you do?"
I do not know what prompted the reply. For a moment I was completely
at a loss what to say to this very obvious question, and then all on a
sudden, remembering they held me to be some kind of disembodied spirit,
by a happy inspiration, fixing my eyes grimly on the king, I answered,
"What would I do? Why, I WOULD HAUNT YOU!"
It may not seem a great stroke of genius here, but the effect on the
Martian was instantaneous. He sat straight up, his hands tightened,
his eyes dilated, and then fidgeting uneasily, after a minute he
beckoned to an over-dressed individual, whom Heru afterwards told me
was the Court necromancer, and began whispering in his ear.
After a minute's consultation he turned again, a rather frightened
civility struggling in his face with anger, and said, "We have no wish,
of course, stranger, to offend you or those who had the honour of your
patronage. Perhaps the princess here was a little roughly handled,
and, I confess, if she were altogether as reluctant as she seems, a
lesser maid would have done as well. I could have wooed this one in
Seth, where I may shortly come, and our espousals would possibly have
lent, in the eyes of your friends, quite a cheerful aspect to my
arrival. But my ambassadors have had no great schooling in diplomacy;
they have brought Princess Heru here, and how can I hand her over to
one I know nothing of? How do I know you are a ghost, after all? How
do I know you have anything but a rusty sword and much impertinence to
back your astounding claim?"
"Oh, let it be just as you like," I said, calmly shelling and eating a
nut I had picked up. "Only if you do not give the maid back, why,
then--" And I stopped as though the sequel were too painful to put into
words.
Again that superstitious monarch of a land thronged with malicious
spirits called up his magician, and, after they had consulted a moment,
turned more cheerfully to me.
"Look here, Mister-from-Nowhere, if you are really a spirit, and have
the power to hurt as you say, you will have the power also to go and
come between the living and the dead, between the present and the past.
Now I will set you an errand, and give you five minutes to do it in."
"Five minutes!" I exclaimed in incautious alarm.
"Five minutes," said the monarch savagely. "And if in that time the
errand is not done, I shall hold you to be an impostor, an impudent
thief from some scoundrel tribe of this world of mine, and will make of
you an example which shall keep men's ears tingling for a century or
two."
Poor Heru dropped in a limp and lovely heap at that dire threat, while
I am bound to say I felt somewhat uncomfortable, not unnaturally when
all the circumstances are considered, but contented myself with
remarking, with as much bravado as could be managed,
"And now to the errand, Ar-hap. What can I do for your majesty?"The king consulted with the rogue at his elbow, and then nodding and chuckling in expectancy of his triumph, addressed me. |
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