PART TWO
"I love to lose myself in a mystery: to pursue my reason to an O Altitudo!"
Religio Medici (sect. ix.).
I
How passing wonderful it is that I should be enabled to send another message to the Earth, and still more wonderful, wonderful out of all whooping, that I should be writing it not as sovereign of an unsuspected planet but as a humble member of the human hive on Earth itself, here in this mean Welsh sea-side inn! As to my former missive which I dispatched to my present abode through d'Aragno's kind offices some two years ago, I have, of course, no notion as to its final fate. That it really did reach the sphere of its destination I am convinced; but whether it is still lying unheeded on some rolling steppe or sterile mountain range; or whether it has been ascertained, deciphered, discussed, nay even printed, I am wholly in the dark.[1] Not that I seek to vex my mind in this matter. Nevertheless, it amuses me to assume that my former letter from Meleager has been duly found, debated and published, even though such assumption likewise includes the theory that its veracity is discredited by all who have cared to study its contents. Are we not assured in The Book that one arising specially from the dead and scorched with the flames of hell will not arouse belief in the living man? And if the mission of Dives to his careless brethren be a predestined failure, what chance of credence can possibly await such a message in manuscript from Meleager? Leaving these barren speculations, I intend to resume the tale of my adventures at the point where I halted—namely, on the eve of my entrusting my scroll to the custody of the Meleagrian councillor.
[1] This was obviously written before the interview described in a later chapter.—C.W.
It is not so easy to judge of the exact passage of time in Meleager, but I fancy about two years must have flowed past without any incident worthy of record since I parted with my cherished manuscript. The diurnal revolution of duty, sleep, exercise and meditation marched so smoothly onward that it came to my unprepared mind as a crashing shock to learn that my cycle of calm existence was liable to fierce disturbance. My sharp awakening was on this wise. For some days I had received no visit from my dear old friend, the Arch-priest (for by this time, in spite of certain barriers of circumstance and polity, he had grown very dear to me), and this omission caused me to feel some degree of anxiety concerning his absence. More curious than alarmed I therefore asked one of the hierarchy, Vaïlo, who was in attendance, the cause of this suspension of the usual visits. The councillor, discreetly casting his eyes to the ground, replied that the Arch-priest was expecting shortly to be absorbed into the family of the Sun-god. Albeit enigmatically thus expressed, I could not fail to realise the gravity of the news; in plain parlance, my friend and adviser was on the point of dissolution. A horrible chill invaded my heart, and I felt sick with a sense of genuine sorrow and of deep misgiving. I knew him to be old, and I ought therefore to have anticipated the propinquity of his death, but with blind egoism I had overlooked such eventualities. My first impulse was to ply Vaïlo with questions as to his condition and chance of recovery, but the guarded replies afforded me no ray of hope. I even begged to be conducted to the old man's bedside to take a last farewell, but this request Vaïlo (I think and trust with a touch of pity in his harsh voice) assured me was illegal. I then lapsed into sullen silence, whereupon the councillor took the opportunity to depart, leaving me a prey to unspeakable misery and agitation.
All that night I tossed and turned on my luxurious bed, and such short spells of sleep as I snatched only reflected the dour images that were passing through my brain. Mechanically I undertook my usual duties in the morning, and later in the day I was sitting beside a solitary and untasted meal in my balcony, moodily staring with fixed unseeing eyes at the beautiful prospect sweltering in the noontide sunshine, when Hiridia suddenly entered to announce that a litter was being borne up the palace steps. A moment later appeared a messenger with the request for an audience of the Arch-priest, who was too feeble to approach on foot. With my black despair of a moment past converted into temporary relief, I signed my assent, and all expectation I watched the palanquin being carried through the ante-chamber and finally set down on the pavement of the balcony. With my own hand I assisted its venerable occupant to alight and to install himself with some degree of comfort in a large chair. It was distressing to mark the changes that the past few days had wrought in my beloved friend, whom I had always regarded as a sublime picture of hale and hearty age, sound alike in body and intellect. Now the skin drawn taut over the face appeared like yellow parchment; the hands were dry and osseous; the gait was languid and hesitating; verily, the seal of impending death was firmly set alike on limb and lineament. So soon as we were left alone, the Arch-priest, gazing at me steadfastly with an expression in which were blended at once pity, affection and grave concern, held out his poor trembling arms towards me, whereupon I sank to the floor so as to lay my head on the thick white folds of the robe that covered his emaciated form. Long time he continued to stroke my hair or gently trace my features with his dry, feverish hands, much as a blind man might seek to feel or sense some precious object, the while I wept unrestrained tears, whose bitter flow seemed to relieve my heart of some of its accumulated anguish. Thus we remained, age comforting and supporting youth, and both finding mutual consolation in this belated concession and yielding to an open affection from which we had so long been debarred. At length a warning voice in gentle, feeble tones bade me dry my eyes and rise to my feet.
"My son," began the old man, "my son, for in my heart I have long adopted you as such, your image and your fate have been troubling me in dreams upon my bed. Be strong. Be prepared for evil tidings. My life is ebbing fast, as you may see, but there are matters I must announce to you before my small stock of vitality is exhausted. Seat yourself in that chair facing me, and give me your hand to clasp, whilst I tell you what I specially desire to impart....
"I am a very old man, and though I have retained my powers of mind and body in a degree that is unusual in Meleager, whose denizens fade as they mature earlier than do those of the Earth, the inevitable call has sounded at last, and in my case more swiftly and suddenly than I could have wished. For many months past I have been deeply distressed on your behalf, my son. I have been rent and vexed by the rival claims of duty towards my office and of my pity and affection towards yourself. Or rather, I have been speculating with ceaseless anxiety as to where my real duty lay. As a councillor of the hierarchy of Meleager and a keeper of The Secret I am impelled to abandon you to your fate, be what it may; yet as one who is about to say farewell to all things in this existence, I feel I cannot, I must not depart thus without lifting from you the cloud of subtlety and intrigue wherewith your young life is overshadowed. I have endured hideous visions upon my bed; I have heard your voice of reproach and pictured your final struggle; I have communed with my own soul in perfect frankness; and as the result of this spiritual conflict, involving so many diverse arguments, I am here to-day to warn you."
Again the old man extended his wasted arms towards me and embraced me with a renewed burst of tenderness. Then he motioned to me to resume my seat.
"I must hasten to divulge what is lying like a load upon my heart, for my span of life can now but be reckoned by hours, not days. In the first place you have been grievously, wilfully deceived by our envoy on Earth and also by myself (though herein I have been merely following the normal trend of our polity) in one most important matter. For you have been permitted, even encouraged, to believe that your reign here in Meleager can be indefinitely prolonged, provided you do not set yourself to withstand or embarrass the ruling hierarchy of this planet. Only theoretically is this true. It is a fact, I admit, that our kings can be rejuvenated over and over again, and by this means be enabled to survive generation after generation of Meleagrians—but this never happens in reality. Not a few monarchs have these aged eyes of mine witnessed in Meleager, and I have heard tell of others, but not one of these has attained to so much as two lustres of regnant power in the star to which they had been translated under circumstances similar to your own. It is true our kings have often brought premature and well-deserved disaster on their own heads, but of such I am not now thinking. I am speaking of our hierarchy who are by no means immaculate, and whose intrigues and jealousy will not permit any monarch to escape his predetermined end, no matter how conspicuous his merits. Not that all our members are tainted with this disease of treachery, that is far from being the case; but in every executive body so strong is the spirit of self-interest that no scruples will stand in the way of preserving power, from whatsoever cause it is once threatened. Men are mostly evil, as your great Italian thinker, Nicholas Machiavelli, was bold enough to proclaim, and their guides or politicians are crafty animals who suck advantage from every weakness of humanity. Such being the inevitable state of things politic, our poor monarchs are placed in a hopeless dilemma, whereby they are doomed to failure, and for the following reasons. If they avoid the snare of politics, they grow vicious or oppressive of the populace, so that they lose the general esteem, and the watching hierarchy is swift to annex this alienated favour and to transfer it to its own body by ridding Meleager of an obnoxious semi-divine King. Again, it has happened on not a few occasions that the King has set to combine with the subservient populace against the real ruling caste. I myself have seen these palace courts and halls slippery with the blood of slaves and soldiers who have sought at the royal bidding to overthrow the executive council, and have themselves been overwhelmed and massacred in the attempt. Or else, commonest and most dreaded event of all that we prepare to circumvent, our monarch will seek to found a dynasty. This is a danger we are compelled to nip in the bud by eliminating the erring sovereign rather than by destroying the victim or tool of his designs. But you yourself belong to none of these categories of undesirable rulers—the ambitious, the despotic, the brutal, the licentious, the knavish; and it is for this very distinction that I now have come hither to inform you of certain things.
"You alone of all the earth-rapt monarchs of Meleager that ever I have known or heard of have pursued an even tenor of deportment, holding yourself strictly aloof from the besetting snares of popular adulation and of selfish indolence. You have never strained to encroach on the prerogative of the hierarchy, yet you have openly and boldly clung to such shreds of power as our constitution legally permits you to exercise. You have never stooped to flatter the priestly caste; although you have given proof again and again that you clearly understand and appreciate the intertwining nature of the bonds that unite the offices of King and council. You have shown yourself affable and gracious to our nobility; kindly and sympathetic to the people without any ulterior object in your behaviour. You have forborne to break our laws with regard to dalliance with women, for in your case no spy has as yet reported any such dereliction on your part. You have worked well, within the limits assigned to you, to assist the well-being of the community; and it is also evident that you are a cordial upholder of our fundamental theory that human happiness rather than human progress offers the truest mark for statesmanship, and that those who enjoy the sweets of office and power must alone taste of the bitter punishment entailed by their own failure or disloyalty. In my eyes, therefore, you are the ideal King; and yet, and yet, you will not survive to behold the complement of the half score of years of sovereignty, which has only once been attained hitherto in the whole course of Meleagrian annals. Your very virtues of self-restraint and implicit honour have only contrived to arouse in its direst shape that spectre of suspicion which is the guiding genius of our state craft. In other words, even a good King of Meleager is likewise foredoomed, whatever struggles and sacrifices he may make to gain and hold the approval of his virtual masters.
"To divert my warning now from the general to the particular, I must tell you that on my departure hence to the Hereafter, every signal points clearly to the approaching cessation of your reign. Unless I am gravely mistaken, the councillor who is marked out to succeed me as Arch-priest leads our most truculent faction, and under his auspices no long period will elapse before the order will go forth for a change of monarch. Doubtless not a few voices will be raised in your behalf, for you have grown dear to many of us; but I feel convinced such pleading will not prevail. By this time you must, with your acquisitive mind, have guessed at the fate which awaits yourself, the fate that has engulfed so many of your predecessors, the Fountain of Rejuvenation. The sustaining ropes will be cut during your plunge therein, so that the fierce undercurrent may draw you into the bowels of the underworld. Thus will you cease to reign, as we phrase it with euphemistic delicacy. Should you perchance be cunning enough to elude this mode of execution, rest assured there are other means in plenty equally awful and drastic, once the fiat of your removal has been definitely pronounced. My son, you must prepare to meet your fate, for though I still hope some unexpected turn of Fortune's wheel may yet operate for your preservation, in my opinion your doom is already imminent. But one ray of comfort, or rather one spell of delay, I am able to promise you. By our immutable laws the newly elected Arch-priest, who guards the rites and mysteries of that dreadful fountain, is compelled to retain in office the two attendant councillors who assist in carrying out the process of the lustration. Thus on the first occasion of this ceremony under my successor you will be absolutely safe, for I have obtained the most solemn assurances to this effect from the two colleagues who have lately served me in this capacity. But this arrangement will only affect the next ceremony, for thenceforth the new Arch-priest is empowered to select assistants of his own, and naturally he will choose his own creatures for the required purpose. Still, such a respite will afford you some breathing-space for preparation and self-communing, as it will prolong your existence for the space of a further half-year. Perhaps fresh developments may arise within that span of time—who knows?
"One thing I implore of you, and I know I do not ask in vain. Do not stir up strife in our planet, as other kings have done before you. Your chance of success is almost hopeless, as no doubt you already realise, knowing the intensity of the suspicion wherewith every movement on your part is regarded and provided for. Because you are destined to die, die alone, and forbear to drag a number of innocent persons along with you to your doom. You have performed your manifest duty for the past seven years with a steadfast beneficence that is worthy of your alleged father, the Sun; and remember, it is the fulfilment of duty alone that counts in the future life of the Hereafter, whose prospective blessings will eventually be yours."
I cannot describe the tender and earnest manner of the dying man's discourse, terrible though its disclosures were to myself. Even the final piece of advice, platitude of every creed and clime though it was, seemed to come as a help and a spur to me at this critical juncture. After all, what is a platitude but the untimely expression of some great basic truth? And here, from the venerable hierophant, who from a strict sense of duty had left his sick-bed to come hither and instruct me, the words seemed to possess a peculiar meaning and value; his simple appeal to my own sense of rectitude had all the force of a profound thought extracted from a world of thinking. I could only press the hot, dry, bony hand, as I shrouded my head in the folds of my royal mantle in a vain endeavour to subdue a fresh bout of weeping.
"And now," continued my companion, making an effort to rise, "I must depart with my blessing upon you. Long may you be spared to rule in Meleager; and if not so, then we shall meet in due sequence within that narthex of silence and shadows which forms the vestibule to the temple of the Hereafter."
Once more he embraced me long and lovingly, after which he bade me strike the bell reposing on the table. At his request too I passed to the farthest end of the balcony, so as to keep my face averted from the little group of attendants who now assisted the dying man to his litter. I could hear the shuffling of feet and whispering of voices involved in the task of transporting my old friend, whilst with swimming eyes I gazed blankly at the white cheerful city, the cool greenery of the palace gardens and the flashing liquid mirror of the haven of Tamarida. Nor did I budge from my stiff, comfortless pose till at length I felt a light touch on the shoulder, the respectful touch of a privileged dependent. On turning my eyes, still red and swollen with my lately shed tears, they met the honest, inquiring face of Hiridia, who was regarding me reproachfully, as though rebuking me in silence for such an unseemly lack of control. I made the necessary attempt in the form of a wan smile and a request for a cup of wine; for a true public ruler must exhibit no private sorrow. Was it not the magnificent Giovanni dei Medici, Pope Leo the Tenth, who was reprimanded by his punctilious chamberlain for falling to tears openly on the news of the death of his favourite brother, "seeing that the Roman pontiff was a demi-god and not a man, and must therefore display a serene and smiling countenance on all occasions to the people"? It was in this spirit then that I accepted Hiridia's tacit reproof; sometimes the will of man imposes itself on the weakness of the gods.
II
Three days later I was informed of the passing of Anzoni, Arch-priest of Meleager, and of the election of Marzona as his successor. For the former part of this intelligence I was, of course, fully prepared, but the latter intimation aroused my worst apprehensions and depressed my spirits to their lowest depth. For I understood only too well the hard, intractable, suspicious nature of the councillor who had just been chosen—by what means or on what system I knew not—to fill the vacant office of my dear old friend. All I could do was to conceal with equal adroitness both my sorrow for the first calamity and my anxiety over the second, and to pursue my normal course of life with all the composure at my disposal. Nevertheless, my first formal interview with the new potentate only served to strengthen every foreboding on my part. Marzona always treated me, I admit, with a courteous demeanour whether in public or private; but I was only too conscious on every occasion of our meeting that I was in the presence of a crafty, unrelenting foe, whom it would be useless to attempt to placate. As for Marzona's prior career, I had gathered some time ago that he was by birth a plebeian "intellectual," who had risen by his talents (in the manner already described by me in my former letter) to the order of the nobility, and from the ranks of the nobles had contrived to pass through the school of the neophytes and the college of the probationers, and thence into the coveted oligarchy beyond. For private reasons he had always aimed at the office of Arch-priest, sedulously declining, with this particular objective in view, to undertake the voyage to the Earth, with the result that now at last he had attained to that eminence on which for years he had concentrated his hopes, his desires and all his immense capacity of intrigue. In appearance Marzona was not unprepossessing, and his face, which showed of a somewhat lighter tint than is usual in Meleager, would have been accounted handsome, were it not for the dull hazel eyes, which, however, constantly emitted from their recesses a ruddy gleam, reminding me of the hidden tongue of flame that lurks in the so-called black opals of Queensland. To a nature so sensitive as mine, the very approach of this personage caused an involuntary tremor of repulsion, and in my heart I always quailed when those expressionless, opalescent orbs were directed at me.
In estimating our misfortunes and brooding over them, we are unwittingly given to exaggerate, so forcibly works within us the irrepressible spirit of egoism. We oftentimes hold ourselves to be the absolute sport of some malign fury, whereas, did we but know it, we have in reality but commenced to drink of that bitter cup which we imagine we have almost drained to the dregs. So it was in my own case of despondency. I could not figure to myself a worse disaster than what had just befallen me in the double blow caused by my old protector's death and the election of his odious supplanter; and accordingly I set to lament my grievances as though they were incapable of further extension. My mental blindness on this point was however swiftly and suddenly illumined by means of a recurring stroke of evil that was dealt me within three weeks of the election of the new Arch-priest. On awaking one morning I missed Hiridia's customary entrance into my chamber, an omission of duty that had never occurred previously except with my consent and knowledge. The day passed slowly without any sign of my chamberlain, so that I grew angered, puzzled and finally alarmed. Still, some inner shrinking urged me to restrain my natural annoyance and curiosity as to this mysterious lapse, and it was not till nightfall that I summoned Zulàr, my senior equerry, and questioned him with such nonchalance as I could assume concerning the cause of Hiridia's abstention. Zulàr, who seemed terribly nervous, at first sought to evade my inquiries; but on my growing stern and insistent, he admitted to me what I realised at once to be the truth, or at least a portion of the truth; Hiridia had entered the school of neophytes the preceding night, having lately developed a vocation for the hierarchy, for which his age now rendered him eligible. So far, this was strictly accurate, for I knew that the graceful stripling of some seven years ago had quite recently attained the prescribed age, being indeed a youth no longer; also I was convinced he really was interned within the walls of the seminary. On the other hand, it was inconceivable that Hiridia should have deserted his master in so abrupt and so insolent a fashion, even supposing he had honestly wished to graduate for the hierarchy, of which intention on his part I had never observed the least indication. His loyalty and devotion to myself and my interests were beyond question, and I had the anguish to realise that my poor favourite had been treacherously kidnapped and was now a veritable prisoner within the walls of that hierarchical castle.
Fortunately indignation rather than grief was the predominating emotion of the moment, so that I at once dispatched the affrighted Zulàr to bear a message from me to the Arch-priest, bidding him attend with all speed at the palace. For hours I waited in wakeful fury the arrival of Marzona, who on some pretext contrived to delay his coming until the following morning was well advanced. Perhaps this slighting of my command was not wholly without benefit to myself, for by the time of his belated appearance my mood had grown calmer and I was disposed to regard the situation with some degree of diplomatic restraint. Without, therefore, directly assuming his influence in the matter, I bade Marzona explain to me this sudden resolve on Hiridia's part, whereby I had been unexpectedly deprived of an official whose services I valued so highly. I also laid stress on the erratic and disrespectful manner of his withdrawal from my Court. Coldly and steadily those dull, jade-coloured eyes scanned my face, as I expatiated on my wrongs, so that I could easily gather there was no help forthcoming from this quarter whence doubtless had emanated this cunning stroke of malevolence. When I had made an end, the Arch-priest began in suave tones of pseudo-sympathy to express his regret for my loss, whose extent he did not seek to minimise. At the same time, so he explained to me, the laws of Meleager with regard to postulants for the hierarchy were fundamental in their scope, and consequently utterly beyond the control or interference of the Arch-priest. Hiridia had exceeded his thirtieth year, and was therefore free to choose and inaugurate such a career at any moment; at the same time he agreed with me in thinking that Hiridia's conduct in so quitting my service snowed a lamentable lack of gratitude and consideration to a most indulgent patron. And he again offered me his condolences for my loss and resulting inconvenience.
No Medicean Secretary of State could have exhibited greater reserve and finesse in argument and deportment than did the new Arch-priest of Meleager in this interview with myself. Had it not all been so tragical and alarming, I could almost have been won to admiration of the easy duplicity of Marzona, who parried my questions and pretended to soothe my complaints of ill-treatment, the while wholly indifferent to the patent fact that I was clearly reading his black hostile heart. The moral prototype of this man must have flourished centuries ago at the venal courts of Rome and Ferrara; had the state craft of the petty Italian despots of the Renaissance been transplanted into the fertile soil of Meleagrian hearts, here in the twentieth century of our Herthian Christian era? Disgusted and wearied at last from this verbal fencing with an invulnerable antagonist, I nodded my head in token that the interview was at an end and the incident closed, my sole ray of consolation being that Marzona did not perhaps truly appraise the full extent of the injury he had dealt me by his recent seizure of Hiridia's person. Possibly he may have relied on my being goaded thereby into indiscreet abuse, and if such were his main object, in this design he had at least been foiled. Verily, this reflection was a sorry crumb of compensation for the blighting loss I had sustained; still, it offered some moral support in itself to think that I had successfully curbed my natural fury. At the same time I did not wholly veil my attitude of intense displeasure, for I argued it might possibly excite fresh suspicion in another guise were I to bear my late discomfiture too lightly in outward appearance. With my heart therefore secretly wrung and tortured and with my brain afire from impotent indignation, I sought to swallow my late indignities with as good a grace as I could muster.
If man is incapable of estimating the full degree of a visitation of evil, so also is he equally at fault in appreciating his present advantages, until he be suddenly deprived of them. So it fell in this matter of Hiridia's removal, whose unhappy consequences to myself only emerged gradually after the event. Until a few weeks ago I could never have believed that Hiridia's companionship had been of such vital help to me or had so sweetened my royal existence. I had been accustomed to regard my erstwhile tutor rather as a favoured page whom it amused me to confide in, to mystify, to scold, or to twit as might suit my passing whim. That I should have deeply regretted his departure I was quite ready to admit; but I never anticipated the serious nature of my loss till that loss was effected. A veritable portion of myself seemed to have been lopped away by this devilish scheme; whilst the haunting thought that the poor boy—for I made scant allowance for his thirty years now fulfilled—was almost certainly sobbing out his faithful and affectionate heart in a hateful prison, only served to fan the flame of my torment. Yet I was helpless and powerless, and could only await the approach of the solstice, when the expected bath in the Fountain of Rejuvenation might possibly brace my brain for some successful plan of action.
III
Happily this ceremony was not many weeks distant, and its approach afforded me some objective, however uncertain and inadequate, for fixing my hopes in the future. The lassitude too that usually preceded this half-yearly reinvigorating process had appeared rather earlier than its wont, so that the physical weariness and languor were already rendering my brain less active and thereby indirectly supplying me with some measure of relief from my tense anxiety. I continued to perform my daily duties in the judgment halls of the city, but otherwise I ceased to leave the palace during this time of ineffable loneliness and humiliation. To fill Hiridia's vacant place of chamberlain I nominated Zulàr, and likewise selected another equerry. With my daily routine thus proceeding outwardly much as usual, I relied on my being left in peace throughout the intervening weeks before the coming of the solstice. But herein I was grievously mistaken in supposing that the machinations of my enemies had been even temporarily suspended, as the following incident can testify.
I was in the habit, especially during the hot weather, of sitting in the palace gardens to meditate. Now, in my case, this daily custom of meditation supplied the place of reading, and with constant practice it was interesting to find how excellent a substitute for books it became in course of time. For I had gradually grown to appreciate the luxury of solitary thought to such an extent that I should have lamented the cessation of these opportunities as many an earth-born mortal would regard his deprivation of all printed matter. "He is never alone who is accompanied by noble thoughts," and inasmuch as I felt myself in the cue for tragedy, poetry, comedy or pure fantasy, so I had grown an adept in attaching my prevailing humour to the trend of my musings. Thus I passed long hours of solitary communing in a world of my own peopled with my intimate aspirations, ideals, conceits and fancies. My favourite spot for the practice of these cerebral gymnastics, if I may so describe them, was a certain shady corner of the palace gardens which terminated in a semicircular marble bench backed by a close-clipped hedge of bay and daphne. The path leading hither was likewise lined with thick walls of aromatic verdure, so that the air was often odorous with the clinging scent of aleagnis and allspice. Overhead the branches of taller trees had been artfully pleached, whilst the young leaves of the topmost boughs in opposition to the fierce beams of the invading sunlight caused a soft golden haze to brood in the sylvan vaulting of this green alley. As I lay on my marble couch I used to note the penetrating shafts of sunshine discover the knots of golden wire that bound together these over-arching limbs, exposing the artificial origin of the bower and reminding me of Leonardo da Vinci's Arbour of Love with its gilded true-lovers' knots that still flourishes in one of the vaulted chambers of the Sforzas' gloomy citadel in Milan. True, I used to miss in my leafy Meleagrian lair the mocking fauns and nymphs of Boboli and Borghese, who seemed set on their stone pedestals to watch with sly glances as to whether Christian mortals would behave with more decorum than themselves in those delicious and provocative groves, where in primitive days they were
"Wont to clasp their loves at noontide,
Close as lovers clasp at night,"
with none to call aloud Halt! or Fie! To make amends for the absence of these simulacra of the jolly pagan life of Herthus, there was a fountain hidden somewhere behind the bosky screens, which allowed its water to flow in a series of cadences and pauses and arpeggios, so that it sung a lullaby that was by no means monotonous to the surrounding thickets and to any stray inhabitant thereof.
Here I used to expend many an hour in perfect solitude, seeking repose and release from the canker of anxiety, trying more or less effectually to emulate the advice of the poet and to annihilate my entity to a green thought in a green shade.
It was on a hot afternoon that after the midday meal I sought as usual my cherished retreat, wherein I seated myself according to my custom, appreciating at once the melody of the unseen fountain, the droning of the bees in the scented bloom without and the amber radiance caught in the interwoven branches overhead. Lying thus, I sought to hit on some apposite theme whereon to concentrate my powers of meditation. But the jaded brain and the perturbed mind to-day refused to permit me any relief from the engrossing melancholy of my present situation. Thus I sat limp and despairing on my bench, utterly oblivious of the passage of time and only dimly conscious of the amenities of art and nature wherewith I was surrounded. From this drowsy mood of reflection I was suddenly recalled by a rustling sound close beside me. With ears alert I heard the sound increase, and a moment later descried the thick wall of box and laurel tremble and then divide so as to allow the figure of a young female to emerge from its depths. In sheer amazement I continued to stare, grasping every detail of the intruder's face and dress, as she gracefully extricated her form out of the detaining undergrowth. She was taller and slighter in build than the average type of her sex in Meleager; her skin was considerably fairer and of an elegant pallor; her hair had glints of gold and chestnut to relieve its blackness; her eyes were like beryls. Clad in her green robe and coif she certainly appeared a natural incarnation, a veritable hamadryad, amidst these secluded groves which had just produced her. Instinctively I realised she was no true native of Meleager; her figure, her eyes, her skin, her gestures were not those of my subjects; on the contrary, there was a subtle but pervading suggestion that this interloper was of the Earth. Was she then the daughter, or possibly the descendant, of some predecessor of mine in this perilous throne who had risked his crown in an amorous adventure? Who was she? Whence was she? Why was she here? Such questions naturally chased one another across my perplexed brain, but the third of them at least the new-comer was evidently only too anxious to explain. I myself was the goal and aim of her present vagary, for still crouching low she writhed towards my feet, which she proceeded to clasp, whilst with tears in her beautiful eyes and breakings of her rich tender voice she began to implore my protection.
Beset thus unawares, I could do no less than listen to the rambling tale of woe and injustice her parted rosy lips delivered; how she had managed to escape from the hateful tutelage of the priestesses of the Sun; how she knew she could rely on my assistance; and how many sanctuaries of easy concealment existed in the purlieus of the palace. All the while this torrent of entreaty, flattery and self-commiseration was being poured forth in an unbroken stream, my suppliant contrived to edge nearer and nearer to myself, half-rising from her knees and lifting her shapely white arms to the level of my shoulders. There was an influence, an aroma about her that vaguely suggested the women of my own planet. I realised the existence of some indefinable link between my own nature and hers, something of the Earth earthy, and therefore inestimably precious here in Meleager. A warm current of human sympathy and magnetic attraction seemed to be circulating around me. One moment, one second more, and I felt we should be locked together in one another's arms, we two hapless dwellers on Meleager belonging of right to another world and meeting in an alien planet. One second more, and we two waifs of different sexes would have been caught in an embrace of commingled sorrow and devotion, caring naught for the dangers ahead and happy only in our new-found union of congenial souls. The bewitching face, with eyes that sparkled through the film of tears and with radiant youth lurking in their wells of light, was almost touching my own, when there flashed before me a vision rather than a thought of my impending danger. I glimpsed a sensation of orbs vigilant and sinister, multitudinous as the eyes in the peacock's tail, usurping the places of the leaves around me; the playing water's chant turned into a sudden note of terrified warning and entreaty; the golden haze above grew lurid. With supreme energy I knit my remaining strength together, as I battled with the temptation to surrender. My bodily powers rose in obedience to my guiding brain, and extricating myself none too gently from the already twining arms of the maiden, I caught her with my right palm a resounding box on the ear which echoed through that sylvan silence. At the same moment I shouted aloud, and leaped to my feet. It was as if scales had fallen from my mental eyes, for I could sense, even if I could not actually see the enclosing hedges filled with spies, some of whom were hurrying stealthily hence, whilst others were preparing to enter the alley in as natural a manner as they could assume. These latter came forward sheepishly and stood before me, as I pointed to the grovelling form of the girl who was now weeping violently at my feet. Whose duty was it, I asked, to prevent strange women from invading these gardens and disturbing the noontide repose of the Child of the Sun? As to my late reception of the charmer, even assuming that every motion of mine had been carefully observed by this battalion of eavesdroppers, there could be no question as to the final rebuff her advances had encountered. Her shriek of dismay and the scarlet flush on her pale cheek were at least sufficient witnesses of the fact that I had not fallen into the trap that had been so elaborately prepared for my ensnaring. Without proof positive I had good reason to imagine that many of the persons concealed in the bushes were not spies at all, but admirers and supporters of my own, who had been specially invited hither to test my fallibility. If such were the case, the Arch-priest and his satellites must have received a distinct shock over this conspicuous miscarriage of their scheme concocted for the express purpose of alienating and disgusting those members of the council who upheld my honour and integrity.
Quivering with an anger that I did not attempt to dissemble, I left the open-mouthed group beside the girl who was still sobbing hysterically on the ground. As for her, why should I waste a tittle of compassion on her misfortune? Are not all creatures and tools of cunning politicians always treated with contumely both by employers and unmaskers when their ignoble missions fail? With indignant mien therefore I strode from the gardens and retired to the palace, where I gave the captain of the royal bodyguard a rating for his alleged lack of vigilance. One result at any rate this plot secured for me, and that was a complete freedom from further molestation during the remainder of the period before the coming festival. A further interview with Marzona however soon after this incident only made me perceive yet more clearly the utter impossibility of my arriving at any compact with an implacable and unscrupulous enemy, who was merely biding his time to strike again and strike harder. It was in vain that I essayed overtures; all my attempts at understanding and conciliation were met with an icy condescension that made my task obviously hopeless; and indeed from this time forward the Arch-priest rarely gave me the opportunity of an interview save in the presence of other colleagues.
IV
At length the expected date of my official rejuvenating process arrived, to which I submitted with unusual docility. Despite the murderous intentions of Marzona, I endured the subsequent plunge into the fountain without trepidation, although I dared not face the baleful eyes of the personage whose malignity was rendered powerless for this occasion by the inevitable laws of Meleager. I fancied I could detect an air of quiet reassurance to myself in the bearing of the two inferior councillors; but in any case I swallowed my apprehensions to the best of my ability and entered that malodorous but invigorating fluid with a firm bearing. I duly obtained my reward, for when I emerged all dripping from the seething pool, I experienced a buoyancy of mind and body beyond that of any previous occasion. Thus refreshed and refortified, I deemed myself capable of taking the initiative, and so cheerful and confident did I feel that I was almost tempted to snap my fingers in that saturnine face as it grimly surveyed my drying and dressing. Before ever I quitted the baptistery, several schemes of policy, and even of escape, began to invade my brain, so that I longed to be alone with my own thoughts; nor did many days elapse before I had adumbrated a certain scheme of procedure.
This plan was, it is true, somewhat shadowy in its outline, but it was founded on the assumption that any active effort on my part was preferable to mere stagnation, to a passive courting of future disaster. My idea too was of a dual nature, for it aimed both at self-preservation and also at an unveiling of The Secret. For some time past I had been speculating on the uses of Mount Crystal with its temple of the Altar of the Sun, and from many items of information I had acquired in devious or accidental ways, I had come to the certain conclusion that on this rocky peak was to be sought the key of the mystery. A presentiment, that was already become an article of faith to me, told me that by penetrating hither even at a venture, I should be pursuing the sole avenue leading to ultimate escape, to regained liberty, to a safe return to Earth. In my fresh exuberance of mentality I kept arguing to myself that as my translation to Meleager had been successfully accomplished, so also there existed a chance, however difficult, of my returning safe to my original domicile. My immediate object therefore was to enter that distant temple on the shoulder of the mountain, which I could descry from my palace windows; the goal once attained, I must trust further to my sharpened wits. The spirit of adventure flamed hot within me, so that I found some difficulty in concealing my vigorous excitement under an air of lazy indifference.
My first piece of preparation caused me to smile inwardly, but it at least implied belief in a successful issue of my plan. It consisted in extracting a number of gems from various ornaments which had been bestowed on me for the decoration of my person, had I been so minded. From these I cautiously removed a quantity of sapphires, alexandrites and other precious stones, which I enclosed in a small leather bag attached to a stout gold chain round my neck. Without such a reserve of potential capital I scarcely relished the prospect of my return in the form of a pauper to my native Earth, where that ancient deity Mammon draws a conspicuous following in every cult, and is likewise the leading, if not the sole, guide of the irreligious. Without the possession of such a talisman, I knew I should be liable to exposure to many ills and indignities; and I congratulated myself on my forethought in this measure of precaution, and also on my retentive memory concerning the universal conditions of the Earth at the date of my removal.
Having completed this minor preliminary detail, I proceeded to greater things. Now the sacred mountain stands at a considerable distance from Tamarida, and in no case would it have been possible for me (setting aside the existence of watchers and spies in the palace itself) to make my way thither within the few hours of darkness on which I was compelled to rely for the execution of my plan. I therefore decided to pay a visit to a nobleman named Lotta, who owned an estate that was bounded by the ravine separating the area of Mount Crystal from the mainland. For the mountain itself is a peninsula, washed on three sides by the sea, whilst the fourth side consists of a long narrow arid gully which is crossed at one spot by a viaduct. The precincts of Mount Crystal are, as I have already said, the property of the hierarchy, and nobody is permitted to enter this reserved domain save the councillors and their servants, who approach by this solitary bridge. In vulgar esteem the thick forests and rocky glens of the forbidden space are haunted by evil spirits, so that I felt sure no Meleagrian of the people would venture to scale its precipitous slopes, even by daylight; whilst no noble would naturally intrude on this sacrosanct spot. From these deductions therefore I concluded that the sole means of ingress, the viaduct, was not likely to be guarded with any great strength or vigilance, seeing how little fear of a trespasser there must be on the part of the custodians of the place. Having reasoned so far, I had also formed the opinion that, the bridge once safely traversed, there would be little to hinder my speedy arrival at the temple itself, beyond which my present calculations did not extend.
Not many days after the solstice therefore I set forth, accompanied only by Zulàr, on my proposed visit to the country house of my indicated host who received me with every sign of satisfaction and respect. I had paid several visits here in the past, so that my present resolution could not, and indeed did not, excite the smallest suspicion on the part of my enemies, who were in no wise disturbed by my departure from the palace. On the second evening of my visit I was talking to young Bávil, my entertainer's son and heir, a special favourite of mine, and in the course of our conversation I promised the lad a particular spear of my own invention. The boy's eyes eagerly glistened at the mention of this welcome gift, whereupon I summoned Zulàr and bade him hasten to the palace after his supper, fetch the required weapon, and return with it on the following morning. Having thus contrived to rid myself of Zulàr's presence on so simple an errand, I continued to sit with Lotta and his family during the sociable interval that in Meleager extends from supper till bedtime.
Retiring to rest at an early hour I crept into my bed fully clothed, and waited anxiously thus until the last sound of wakefulness in the household had died away. When all was still, I rose cautiously from my couch, crossed the room on tiptoe and slipped through the open casement into the warm greyness of a summer's night without moonshine and without dew. Quietly I pursued the track leading through the gardens and farm of my host towards the lip of the ravine that separated his estate from the forbidden mountain. From previous hunting expeditions I was sufficiently familiar with this stony narrow pathway, and under this luminous crepuscule I experienced small difficulty in tracing its sinuous progress along the edge of the cliffs. An hour of slow steady walking thus at last brought me to the desired point, a spot where the private path merged into the road running from Tamarida to the viaduct. With eyes now grown fully accustomed to the gloaming I paused to scan the outline of the bridge. As I waited thus in a silence broken only by the ululation of wolves in the distant forests, I could clearly distinguish the soft padding of human feet at no great distance from where I stood. Very carefully I removed my buskins, which I hid in a neighbouring thicket, and thus relieved of my tell-tale foot-gear advanced in the direction of the sound. Peering ahead I soon obtained a better view of the bridge, as well as of the adjoining guard-house, whose façade displayed two squares of pale yellow light, from which I gathered that a guard of men-at-arms was stationed within its walls. Stealthily creeping forward, with body bent and with eyes fixed on the two warning patches of lanthorn light, I speedily espied the source of the faint tramping sound. A sentry, a diminutive but sturdy soldier, was dutifully patrolling the dusty space before the guard-house. Poor little doomed creature, fulfilling his appointed task! Poor little subject of the Child of the Sun, loyal to his creed and crown, and wholly innocent of all evil intent against myself! Very gently did I convey my sharp serviceable hunting blade from its sheath to my mouth, at the same time divesting myself of my heavy mantle of azure silk, which I placed in both hands ready for a dexterous throw in the manner of the retiarius of the Roman amphitheatre. Crouched low like some panther prepared to spring, and armed with dagger and cloak, I waited to commit rank murder, to terminate the life of a fellow-creature with every right to enjoy health and happiness, to turn a wife into a widow, to render her children orphans, to wreck a peaceful home in a doubtful effort to save my own skin. Never did I hate and despise myself more heartily in my earthly career, than I did now at this first desperate stroke for freedom in Meleager. God knows whether after all I might not have shrunk shamefacedly from the loathsome act, had I allowed my thoughts thus to ramble farther in these ethical convolutions of right and wrong. But as I still hesitated, I suddenly observed the unsuspecting soldier deliberately stop, lay aside his spear, and with unconcern kneel down to fasten the loosened thong of his sandal. At such an opportunity some force—was it moral or physical?—impelled me, and with a spring that would have done credit to a young cat-a-mountain, I had leaped on the bending figure whose startled head was swiftly swathed in the thick folds of my royal robe. There was some struggling, as well as faint muffled cries, whilst I tightly clenched the half-smothered head beneath my left arm. I then transferred the dagger from my teeth to my right hand and skilfully inserted the keen blade into my captive's reins. The struggles increased, then relaxed, then faded into a series of convulsive twitchings; till I felt my hand grow wet and warm with the blood I was shedding for my own selfish purpose. Still I continued to hold the knife in its soft fleshy socket, until with a final twisting of the steel in the mode of the Spanish assassin, I slowly withdrew the weapon from the fatal gash. All things appear mercifully of a neutral tint on a moonless night, so that I was spared the chief horror of my ensanguined hands and tunic, for I greatly dislike the sight of blood. I next gently unwound my cloak from the dead man's face, and then dragged the corpse across the path to lay it behind a large clump of agaves. A small pool of stagnant water hard by enabled me to remove the gore from my hands and garments, whilst a neighbouring bank of lush couch grass assisted in the cleansing of my dagger, which I wiped and wiped again before I replaced it in its scabbard. These necessary operations afforded me space to breathe, to recuperate and to reflect.
The primal instinct of self-preservation being thus fulfilled, I returned to my scheme. With my unshod feet I walked slowly up to the guard-house, whence issued unmistakable sounds of deep slumber. I even ventured to peep through the open window, so as to catch a glimpse of four or five soldiers within, all sleeping on mattresses beneath the subdued rays of a great guard lanthorn. Quitting the building I found no obstacle in crossing the bridge, but soon after reaching its farther end I nearly met with an unexpected calamity. Groping in the gloom of a thicket of pines I suddenly felt my movements hampered, to discover just in time that I had inadvertently stumbled against a stout cord. There could be little question as to its import and object; it was a cord of intercommunication that was stretched from the temple above to the guard-house below. My good genius was certainly in close attendance on me that most memorable night, for had I tripped over this rope and set the alarm signal in motion, there could have been only one result to my escapade. As it so happened, I was not a little assisted by my discovery. In the first place, I neatly severed the cord itself, and then proceeded to fasten each of the divided ends with a clove hitch to a bough so that in the possible event of the guard at the bridge or the watchers in the temple wishing to communicate, their efforts would be nullified. Also I perceived that by following the direction of the cord, I should pursue the easiest way of ascent to the temple itself.
Bestowing a delicate touch from time to time on the friendly clue, I hurried upward, treading a well-worn path through the hanging woods that in daylight, or possibly even in moonlight, would have been sufficiently simple and obvious to the pedestrian. So rapid and unimpeded were my steps that I was out of breath by the time I reached the huge bastions that overtopped the forest trees and uplifted the main platform of the temple. Here I rested a while, and then once more, with the aid of the cord, lighted on a narrow winding stairway which I ascended with infinite caution. Arrived almost at the head of the steps, I kneeled down and very slowly raised my eyes above the level of the low parapet. What I now descried was a long narrow space, perhaps four hundred feet in length, which served as platform to an immense plain building with a lofty roof. Its long lateral extent disclosed a number of doors flush with the exterior wall and all of identical design. Even more exciting to me however than this gigantic edifice was the apparition of a white-robed guardian pacing slowly along the terrace. Towards this new opponent I entertained none of those scruples that had racked me before hurling myself on the unfortunate sentry below; but I realised the extreme danger and delicacy of the situation. The councillor, whose identity I could not discover owing to the prevailing gloom, paraded the terrace from end to end, the conclusion of his paces bringing him within a few yards of the spot where I knelt hunched below the parapet with my fingers on the handle of my hunting knife. But he noticed nothing, and turning again towards the east began to retrace his steps. When he had retired some distance, I darted from my hiding-place to examine the nearest of the doors. But there was no sign of any means of ingress either in that door, or in its neighbour, or in the door beyond. Having hazarded so much, I hastened back to my niche, there to await the return of this nocturnal watcher. In my mind, that knew time was of the essence of my final success, I was still debating whether to spring upon the approaching senator, or to make one more effort to enter the temple, when my good genius again solved my perplexity. Of a sudden I grew aware of a curious rustling sound in the tree-tops, and a second later a large drop of water plashed on my upturned face. Soon rain was pattering heavily on all around, and by the time the councillor had reached the tether of his promenade he began to feel the effects of this unexpected drenching. I saw him pause, hold out both hands to test the violence of the sudden shower, fling his cloak over his head, and then make a precipitate and somewhat undignified rush for the shelter of the building. With straining eyeballs I watched him pass each doorway till he paused at the seventh from the end, which admitted him without impediment of any kind. Still in bent posture I hurried in his footsteps through the hissing downfall, caught the swinging door before it had ceased to oscillate, and noiselessly insinuated myself within the portal. I was fully nerved for an immediate struggle, but on entering I perceived that the senator had already walked ahead some paces towards the eastern end of the huge building, and was evidently still unaware of the presence of an unauthorised visitor. Shrinking behind a pillar or buttress, I waited in patient silence for the next turn of Fortune's wheel, which was certainly revolving fast and furious that night.
So far as I could observe in the faint and flickering light I was standing within a vast barrel-vaulted erection with pillared alcoves on either side, reminding me somewhat of an immense Renaissance church. There was artificial lighting somewhere, but I failed to trace its whereabouts; the western end of the building lay in inky shadow, but its eastern extremity was open and exposed to the air. The central portion was largely occupied by a long abyss which appeared to be a species of graving dock, and resting on metal lines that ran the whole length of this hollow space were four or more bulky vessels constructed of some silver-glinted material not unlike aluminium.
Far from inspiring terror the sombre novelty of the place engendered in me a thrill of exultation, even of satisfaction, in the thought that I had indeed penetrated to the very heart of The Secret. Of my two guiding emotions at this moment an overwhelming curiosity—the unflinching curiosity of the Caliph Vathek and his mother Carathis in the fatal halls of Eblis—was perhaps predominant; but almost equally potent was the itching to revenge myself on the treacherous hierarchy of Meleager. Meanwhile the footfalls of the unsuspecting guardian of the place echoed faintly in the distance, and I could detect the silhouette of his form against the background of open space to the east. Slowly the figure returned, perhaps to repass the door, for the storm without had abated and the sky was clearing. Nearer he drew and nearer, so that in the superior light of the building I could at last distinguish the individual features of the councillor. It was Marzona, Arch-priest.
This sudden recognition caused me to start, so that possibly I may have emitted some betraying noise to call attention to my presence, though what ensued before the actual impact I am still puzzled to say. For in a trice I found myself and Marzona locked together in a deadly but silent embrace, since instinctively it would seem I had posed for action with my cloak as on the previous encounter at the bridge. For a second time I held my antagonist's head enveloped in those ample folds, albeit his limbs were unembarrassed. We were knotted, I say, in a death grip, swaying from side to side, our hatred oozing as it were from our very pores, as we strained and wrestled with furious determination. Naturally, I was the taller and the stronger of the two, but intensity of hate gives an additional stimulus, and that advantage perhaps Marzona could claim. Vainly did I struggle to utilise my dagger; try as I would, it was all I could contrive with my superior strength to keep Marzona's head tightly swathed and his limbs powerless to inflict an injury. How long this embittered duel might have lasted, and with what final result, I cannot tell, had not a false step on my enemy's part brought him perilously near the edge of the central abyss. Another step, and his left foot was treading in vacuity. He reeled; made one despairing but ineffectual effort to drag me with him in his disaster; and then I saw him, with my cloak still encompassing his head, fall headlong into that gaping pit beside us. There followed a dull faint thud of contact with something far below, and then I found myself kneeling hot and exhausted on the brink of that fatal chasm. Very warily did I lean forward to peer down and to listen, but there was nothing but blackness and silence in those impenetrable depths.
V
After some minutes spent in useless speculation I rose from my knees and proceeded to explore the building, for I knew I must hasten. With feelings compact of awe and interest I approached the weird monsters of metal that stood reposing on their sustaining rails, and growing bolder I actually entered the vessel that was nearest to the broad eastern exit. I experienced no difficulty in descending into what I can best describe as a moderate-sized cabin with two smaller closets adjoining. Standing on its hinges at right angles to the cabin was the great lid of the airship. In this modified twilight I had no trouble in picking my steps, but a minute survey of details demanded a much stronger light. Nevertheless, I could distinguish directions in Latin painted on various parts of the cabin, and it was during a strained examination of one of these notices that I must have inadvertently touched or trodden on the concealed spring, which again was destined by my abiding good angel to prove my next instrument of salvation. A gentle humming or whirring seemed to vibrate around me, beginning very softly but gradually rising in intensity so that in alarm I prepared to quit the ship and regain the floor. But before I could collect my dazed thoughts into sufficient concert to act at all, I became aware of a soft gliding motion and actually perceived the long vista of the hall recede from my eyes, as I was slowly drifting through some unseen mechanical force out of the edifice and was being launched into the infinite beyond. With a joyful bound, so it seemed to me, my craft passed out of the open arching portal and was now running swiftly as though borne on invisible wires. I watched, as in a vision, the temple, mountain and shores of Meleager dwindle and diminish in my track, until they became mere outlines in the grey dimness that precedes the dawn. Still, as one fascinated, I could only stare and marvel, for the superfluity of adventures and wonders of this night had caused a sort of mental congestion of my brain. Suddenly I was once more recalled to the necessity of action, when I felt something hard pressing on my neck, and realised it was the cover of the airship closing gently of its own volition. Hurriedly I subsided into the well of the cabin with my eyes fixed on the slow descending cover, which finally settled down on the lower portion of the vessel like the lid of some Brobdingnagian snuff-box. Meanwhile I lay below, stupefied in an atmosphere which I soon found unpleasantly warm and also permeated with a subtle indescribable odour that at first produced a sense of nausea and of suffocation. However, by lying prone on a couch, for the cabin was furnished with tolerable comfort, these disagreeable symptoms were mitigated, though throughout my long journey I never felt any desire to rise and move about by reason of my giddiness. I could see that the vessel was well supplied with provisions, mostly in liquid form; and in truth there was every arrangement for two or three persons to inhabit this hold without any marked discomfort for a considerable space of time. At intervals around the walls of the cabin were printed long sentences in Latin, interspersed with many technical terms in English, French and German wherever the classical tongue failed to express adequately the required meaning. All these notices related to the working of various levers and other pieces of mechanism on board, and as I lay reclined in a state of semi-consciousness I amused myself by deciphering these injunctions.
Time was practically non-existent during this mad whirling through aerial space, and as my capacity for further amazement was by now completely exhausted, I resigned myself to my present condition of a not unpleasant drowsiness, which made me indifferent as to whither my strange vehicle was bearing me. Day and night chased each other like alternate streaks of black and white; sunlight, moonlight, starlight, darkness, opacity in no wise concerned me during my voyage from the planet of Meleager. From time to time I sought to allay my constant thirst, or rather the irritating dryness of mouth and gullet (for I felt no hunger), with the contents of some of the numerous bottles near me; and thus refreshed, I gladly returned to my couch and sank into my previous state of lethargy. As I lay thus, I often meditated on the past, but of the present and the future I felt utterly careless and apathetic.
How long this hurtling through the empyrean lasted I cannot say; presumably there were instruments on board for computing the speed of the machine and other statistics, but I never sought to discover such appliances. Rarely too did I care to gaze out of the many port-hole windows, for the sight of the circumambient waves of empty space induced in me a horrible sense of dizziness. So I remained thus prostrate in a half-sleeping, half-waking condition that for aught I knew or cared might be prolonged for eternity, until at last I was aroused from my somnolence by a faint icy breath falling on my face. On looking up I perceived the lid of my prison slowly opening, for all the world like the upper shell of some gigantic oyster, and the widening aperture was admitting draughts of fresh bracing air into the vitiated atmosphere of the cabin. Instinctively I knew we were entering the air-zone of the Earth. Strange sounds and clickings were now manifest in the unseen machinery; our motion became less rapid and regular; and these phenomena together with the bitter cold soon dispelled my torpor and brought me to my feet, for I could stand upright now that the lid of the vessel was raised on its hinges. Craning forward I saw we were in truth nearing the Earth, though evidently at a relaxed rate of velocity; and fascinating it was to me to note the steady aggrandisement of the great orb of Mundus, as we drew perceptibly closer to its surface. Already the Eastern hemisphere was brilliantly defined, with Asia and the islands of the Orient all glowing in the flush of dawn, which was driving the lingering shadows of night to westward. A colossal globe of gold and azure and sable was slowly revolving under my eyes, which remained in fixed contemplation of an expanding scene that none save a few enraptured mystics or poets have ever aspired to describe.
With the keen draughts of air on my face and in my lungs I began to foreshadow my ultimate goal. The vessel which had so far carried me faithfully and smoothly was now beginning to flag and oscillate in so alarming a manner that I felt my attention was urgently demanded for its mechanical needs. The inscribed directions at once engaged my feverish attention, but so excited and over-hasty was I, that I set to working levers and pulling chains without grasping the full import of my movements. Eagerly I essayed to steer towards the British Isles, on which my gaze was concentrated, but my efforts to utilise this superb masterpiece of mechanism fell below my intentions. In a series of irregular spirals the great airship continued to descend, nor with all my frenzied manipulation of its levers and handles and pulleys could I persuade it to alter its course; down, down it dropped until I realised nothing could save me now from the wilderness of ocean beneath. How cruel my fate! To sail thus from the stars to the Earth only to be engulfed and choked in the barren salt waters! What a mean conclusion to a divine adventure! Not terror, but fierce disappointment was my prevailing emotion, as mounting to the rim of the cabin I made ready to leap at the precise moment the misguided vessel should strike the surface of the sea.
I have only a faint reminiscence of a sharp plunge and recovery; of a glimpse of my aerial chariot being swallowed in the surge; of a dull roar of explosions, before I found myself swimming or floating in calm tepid waters which were all tinged with the carnation and primrose and pearly tints of a glorious summer sunrise, whilst above my head hung the vast impassive dome of heaven flecked with cirrus clouds all gold and saffron. Even so there sprouted in my brain the vain conceit that to perish thus in mid-ocean all aglow with prismatic hues was no ill-fitting termination to the career of a monarch of Meleager. Thus did Icarus reason perhaps when his pinions melted in the envious sunbeams and he fell into the classic sea that henceforth assumed his illustrious name. It would have been in keeping with the late web of wonders spun around me if I were to find old Neptune in person ready to receive me with a bevy of ivory-armed nereids to bewail my comely corpse or an escort of tritons to announce my passing on their raucous conches. Like the hero of the Puritan poet, I still contrived to hug my majesty even in my fall from heaven; and the sick fancy seemed to support me as I straggled in the translucent swell. Involuntarily my eyes closed, as I finally abandoned myself to—what? Surely but to the next miracle, to the next freak of Fortune which had guided her favourite hitherto?
Strange noises echoed in my ears; I was rescued; I recognised my salvage without surprise and without enthusiasm. It was my due. No dolphin-mounted Neptune came to claim me; no nereid or triton stirred in my behalf; but the Man who ascended to the Stars was not destined to die by drowning. I sensed the familiar timbre of English voices close at hand; I felt a firm but kindly grip upon my shoulder; I suffered a painful but dexterous hoisting over a gunwale; I was lying in the stern of a boat, whose rowers were panting from recent effort; I was safe in the custody of my own Herthian countrymen.
VI
Perhaps I can plead insensibility for not recalling my further experiences in the row-boat or in my transmission thence to the steamship Orissa, to which the smaller craft belonged. For I remember nothing of the happenings between the moment of my rescue in the water and my deposition in a narrow white-painted cabin of the British vessel. Here my sodden tunic and vest were removed, not without expressions of astonishment on the part of the stewards, to be replaced by some ugly flannel sleeping garments. An attempt on their part to detach the little leather bag and gold chain from my neck was stoutly resisted, and eventually I was permitted to retain them. Some hot vinous potion was poured with well-intentioned effort down my reluctant throat, and perhaps as a result of this characteristic Herthian hospitality, I soon fell into a dreamless refreshing slumber which must have endured some hours.
When I awoke it was still daylight, and on opening my eyes they at once rested on the figure of a man seated by my bedside, who was evidently watching me with the deepest concern. His countenance, which appealed to my fastidious taste, was honest, intelligent and kindly, though its features were rugged and suggestive of humble origin. From his grizzled hair and heavily lined face I concluded him to be on the border-line of old and middle age, perhaps some sixty years old. Our two pairs of eyes met in a searching but friendly survey, after which encounter I smiled graciously, as I should smile upon one of my nobles in Meleager, and at the same time extended my hand for salutation. Naturally it was not kissed—how could I expect such behaviour from a Herthian equal?—but it was clasped with a gentle reassuring pressure that in no wise prejudiced me against my companion, who after a pause began to address me. His voice owned the same quality as his features, and was by no means spoiled by a trace of north-country doric that still lingered in his speech. His opening questions were of the usual type that would be found in the secular rituale (did such a compilation exist), in the section relating to the case of a ship-wrecked waif. To these I replied in a brief and (I fear) obscurantist manner. That my questioner was equally puzzled and interested, I could easily see; so that I found a somewhat malicious amusement in increasing his perplexity. Contrariwise, I soon began to examine my would-be interrogator much in the style I might have employed towards dear old Anzoni or Hiridia. My new friend seemed somewhat surprised, but good-naturedly supplied all the information I sought, whereby I learned that the ship now sheltering me was the Orissa, of seven thousand tons' burden, a cargo-boat of the Pheon Line but also carrying first-class passengers, on her way home to Liverpool from Rangoon. It would appear that the officer on the bridge at break of day had seen the airship strike the water and disappear at no great distance on our port side, and had promptly given orders for a boat to be lowered to effect a rescue. On nearing the scene of the recent disaster I had been found floating in an apparently unconscious state but otherwise uninjured by my late shock and immersion. He himself was Doctor Charles Wayne, a native of Cumberland and until lately a medical practitioner in Burmah, where he had spent most of his life in Government service. He was now returning home on a pension in his sixty-second year. He was a widower without children. The Orissa had passed through some exciting experiences in her voyage from Suez to Gibraltar, for on their way they had learned of the declaration of war between Germany and Britain. They had hurried with a sharp look-out by day and with darkened decks at night through the Mediterranean for fear of prowling German cruisers, so that all aboard were impatient to make the mouth of the Mersey without any delay or mishap.
Here indeed was startling news! I had been absent barely seven years in Meleager, and now on my return to the progressive Earth, which I had left prattling of universal peace, I was confronted by the outbreak of a European conflict on a vast scale. There had certainly been wars and rumours of war in plenty during the past half-century, but such barbaric terrors I used to be assured were the mere dying echoes of the moribund volcano of militarism, and that before us there extended a blessed and endless period of peace, wherein moral education, increasing wages and salaries, dissent, teetotalism and other blessings of equal value were to be the special marks of a glorious democratic era that would have no termination.
"They manage these things better in Meleager," I half muttered to myself, whilst Dr Wayne continued to expatiate to me on the bellicose attitude of the Hohenzollerns, on the magnificent patriotism of the French politicians, of the foresight and skill displayed by our own ministers of state, and of the lofty altruism of the Tsar. I listened, but without the attention that the exceptional nature of the case seemed to demand. Somehow it merely appeared to me that the mundane kaleidoscope had only sustained another vigorous revolution, and that the scarlet of human riot and unrest was in reality no more predominant now than in the previous arrangement of its component colours. And yet I should be doing myself an injustice were I to speak of my lack of interest concerning this stupendous piece of news; although at the same time I found myself surveying this newest phase of the world's progress with the cold aloofness of an external critic from some distant planet—which attitude after all exactly fitted my case. Thus I fell once more into a reverie on the relative values of human happiness and human progress, that theme whereon I had so often argued with my councillors in my deserted palace at Tamarida.
I spent a restful night lulled by the throbbing of the engines and the swirling of the waters displaced by our keel. The good doctor slept on the cabin sofa opposite my berth, and once or twice rose in the night hours to attend to my wants. On the following morning I had completely recovered, and news to this effect having been bruited throughout the ship, various uninvited visitors came to inspect the castaway in Dr Wayne's cabin. At my urgent entreaty I was spared a good many of these intrusions, but my kind protector could not well exclude the baboon-faced captain, whose empurpled visage framed in masses of ochre hair thrust itself more than once through the doorway and inquired in rasping accents after my welfare. The bibulous ship's surgeon too invaded my retreat, and expressed a desire to astonish my stomach with special concoctions of his own mixing. Good Dr Wayne did all that was possible to save me from these well-meaning persons, and finally he closed the cabin door on the pretence of my exhaustion. Left thus in peace, my companion began to address me seriously in regard to certain matters. I had so far refrained from giving the name I bore on earth, and was firmly resolved not to betray it, nor could any attempt draw the required information from me. Acknowledging his failure, the Doctor with a sigh of resignation desisted to apply, at the same time begging me to mention some name, a fictitious one if I were so minded, for the benefit of the authorities on landing. The suggestion seemed reasonable enough, and after some further parley I agreed to accept temporarily the absurd name of Theodore King, concerning which Dr Wayne made some jocose observations. In the name then of Theodore King, man rescued at sea in latitude 38° by longitude 18° or thereabouts, was my official report endorsed, and in this nominal disguise I was eventually disembarked at Liverpool stage.
But for the all-pervading sensation caused by the recent declaration of war and the many ramifying minor excitements of the moment, I much doubt whether this ingenious attempt at self-concealment would have succeeded so easily. But for this crucial event I might easily have become a centre of inquisitive interest that would have caused great inconvenience and delay; as it so fell, however, everybody on board the Orissa was far too engrossed with the supreme agitation of the moment to pay much attention to the eccentric, not to say insane, individual who had been picked up from a collapsed aeroplane off the coast of Portugal.
With special insistence and appeal and with arguments whose soundness I was forced to admit, I had even allowed Dr Wayne to clip my super-abundant locks, and had likewise consented to clothe myself in a tolerable suit of blue serge, which he had begged from a good-natured passenger of unusual height. Thus clad and groomed, I managed to leave the boat in company with my careful protector without exciting overmuch curiosity either from my fellow-travellers of the Orissa or from the crowd on the landing-stage. After a certain amount of staring and a good many inquiries, which Dr Wayne skilfully parried, I found myself in a cab loaded with the Doctor's luggage jolting through the squalid streets of Liverpool on our way to a hotel. Here we spent a few hours in a private room, surrounded by masses of newspapers which my companion set to study with intense eagerness.
And here I shall digress a little in order to confront a real difficulty of understanding which must have already struck the reader. How evolved it that a complete stranger like Dr Charles Wayne allowed himself to be so burdened with such an incubus as myself? That is a query, I admit, which none save Dr Wayne is competent to answer, but I suspect even he can hardly solve the difficulty satisfactorily. When he comes to read these pages in due course, he may conceivably be able to say, "It was this," or "It was that, which not only aroused my interest in this mysterious being but also impelled me to serve and obey him henceforward." Yet even then I think he will fail to analyse truthfully the different motives which induced him thus to surrender his own freedom of action and to place himself without a murmur at my disposal. It may have been my piteous condition of solitude; it may have been my almost unearthly beauty of form and face; it may have been my uncanny misfortune out in mid-ocean; it may have been my quiet arrogance and originality of demeanour; it may have been his professional curiosity in a prospective patient;—it may have been one, or some, or all, or none of these things which contributed to his subservience. I cannot tell, and I feel Dr Wayne may be no wiser in the matter than myself. Sometimes I imagine that some faint exhalation of the supernatural must cling around my person, for it does not seem impossible to me that after adventures such as mine a delicate psychical fragrance (if I may so dare to describe that which is in reality indescribable) may permeate my bodily husk. Such an aroma, though but dimly comprehended, might admittedly prove of irresistible attraction to that rare spiritual type of humanity to which I strongly hold Dr Wayne to belong in spite of his homely exterior. I trust he will pardon the apparent impertinence of this statement, since it proceeds from the sole being who has been able to discover and appreciate the inherent sweetness and strength of his soul within. And for my own part I am often haunted by the notion, which I have scarcely the temerity to express in writing, that it was not the mere mundane accident of an accident that led Dr Wayne to embark on the Orissa where later on he was brought into such close contact with myself in my hour of need.
VII
We left Liverpool in the late hours of a brilliant August afternoon on our way to London. Throughout the journey southward I lay back dreamily in my seat, watching each receding vista and appreciating all with the dual interest of recollection and novelty. I preferred to recline thus in silence, and my companion, whose frequent inquisitions of my face in no wise disturbed me, seemed disinclined to resent my mood. Arrived at Euston we proceeded to a certain hotel on the Embankment which perpetuates a historic name and whose latter-day luxury is tempered by the near presence of a mouldy but modernised chapel, that can still claim to be a royal appanage. Dr Wayne had at first demurred to my choice of this particular hostelry, which is decidedly not celebrated for the moderation of its bills; but as in all else his opposition soon relaxed before my repeated desire. Accordingly it was I who engaged what I deemed a convenient and adequate suite of rooms, wherein we installed ourselves without further ado. My new surroundings in many ways attracted me, and we had not been an hour in the hotel before I was ensconced in a corner of the exiguous balcony outside our windows, lost in contemplation of the noble tawny flood swirling seaward through lines of sparkling lamps. Before retiring to sleep, however, I deemed it only fair to allay the evident apprehensions of Dr Wayne concerning expense. Accordingly I produced and untied my small leather wallet, emptying its shower of flashing jewels on to a table beneath a powerful electric lamp. The Doctor, who owned some superficial acquaintance with the science of metallurgy, was amazed at this sudden display of concentrated wealth, and henceforward appeared fully reconciled to our present mode of life.
[I may add here also that in the course of the next few days my friend carried a portion of these superb gems to a diamond merchant in the city who was personally known to him. This London dealer, so Dr Wayne informed me, could not repress his admiration of these glittering trifles, which, in spite of the unfavourable condition of the market induced by the war, he was soon able to dispose of, presumably with a handsome commission for his services. Be that as it may, a sum of eight hundred pounds was thus realised, and this money I insisted on Dr Wayne, to his evident reluctance, placing to his credit at his own bank. "Point d'argent; point de Londres"; at any rate I had solved for the nonce any question of financial difficulties.]
My impressions of London were so confused in this early stage of the great European War that I see little gain in attempting to crystallise my feelings into any sort of description. Indeed, I found it well-nigh impossible to attune my own thoughts to the popular attitude of the moment; but then I never ceased to remind myself that of necessity I was detached from a purely patriotic outlook owing to my long residence in Meleager with its consequent effects on a plastic mind that had definitely grown to regard the Earth and all therein as things left behind for evermore. The excited talk and scandal of the hotel corridors, the sheaves of redundant telegrams affixed from time to time on the public screens, the yells of the newsvendors, the headlines of the popular journals announcing English, French, Russian, Belgian and Servian victories in endless succession; the brouhaha of the streets and the gossip of the boudoir, all alike left me cold and phlegmatic. Dr Wayne used to read aloud to me daily from half-a-dozen papers, for I had signally failed to reacquire my long-suspended love of reading; but I was unable to grasp more than the patent fact that the fate of Paris was hanging in the balance:—Paris, the city of light and leadership; Paris the capital of Saint Louis, of Henry of Navarre, of Louis le Roi Soleil, of Napoleon Buonaparte; Paris, the erstwhile acme of my earthly ideals. Doubtless it was my own obliquity and rustiness of mind that caused this lamentable lack of comprehension of the situation as a whole, and prevented me from viewing it through those same rosy glasses of insular humour wherewith the bulk of my countrymen were regarding the trend of passing events on the Continent. I knew myself to be at best an amphibian, with my body on Earth and my heart in Meleager, yet capable of a residence in either planet. I felt lost and lonely in this city of reek and confusion, whose inhabitants probably outnumbered the whole tale of my own forsaken people. After a week or so I ceased to find solace in wandering amid streets and churches and galleries, and spent more hours than ever in musing with my eyes directed towards the river, the shipping and the steeples that clove the hot blue August sky. Dr Wayne meanwhile was busied with many matters, such matters as would presumably engage the attention of a time-expired Indian public servant; and from my peculiar tincture of indifference I was equally resigned to his absence or his presence, provided only he did not desert me, of which contingency I had no fear whatsoever.
With the sudden salvation of Paris at a critical moment and the ensuing German retreat from the Marne, the cloud of foreboding was partially lifted from me, without however quickening any fresh growth of interest within. Yet I listened to Dr Wayne's daily budget of news, and comported myself with conventional intelligence on the rare occasions that I found myself brought into contact with the Doctor's friends, who apparently regarded me as an interesting case, a sort of God's fool, in Dr Wayne's charge, in which impression I was naturally averse to undeceive them, for such a view at present suited my comfort and convenience.
September was now well advanced, and I much doubt if ever I should have achieved the desire, still less the determination, to leave a place I felt too languid to dislike but for a critical incident which I was half-hoping, half-dreading to occur. One afternoon Dr Wayne entered my room in an excited state and with unwonted heat began to dilate on a curious adventure he had just experienced in the hotel itself. It seems that on his return he noticed in the vestibule of the hall two diminutive swarthy foreigners seated in the middle of a miscellaneous mass of rugs, shawls, laces, cushions, ornaments of brass and other objects, all of Oriental appearance, though the Doctor assured me of obvious British or German manufacture. Dr Wayne, who, as I have already hinted, was an enthusiastic patriot, became somewhat nettled on seeing all this trumpery displayed for sale during so serious an epoch, albeit several expensively dressed women were already hovering round the men and their wares, like moths attracted to some sugary compound. The vendors, who had graceful manners and spoke fluent though broken English, called themselves vaguely "Indians," which statement on Dr Wayne's searching questions they qualified by remarking they were loyal subjects of the Indian Empire. The Doctor's rising suspicions were by no means appeased by this explanation; but on finding that the hotel servants as well as the hovering females resented his method of cross-examination, and were inclined to champion these Eastern peddlers, he ultimately desisted and retreated upstairs to vent his tale into my ears. I listened to him with that polite aloofness which has grown to be a second habit of nature with me, at first with faint attention, but ere long as he proceeded with intense though concealed agitation. For the detailed description of the pair of merchants in the hall below promptly convinced me of the accuracy of my first impression—that these Indian peddlers were no other than envoys from Meleager who had traced their erring King hither.
I wonder if my reader has ever experienced Fear. And by Fear I do not mean mere fright, or terror, or alarm, or other mental spasms with which Fear is so often vulgarly confused. If he reads Mr Kipling's poems about Mowgli, the little hunter of the jungle, he will obtain some inkling of that mysterious emotion which is in reality man's tribute to a relentless destiny.
"Very softly down the glade runs a waiting watching shade,
And the whisper spreads and widens far and near;
And the sweat is on thy brow, for he passes even now—
He is Fear, O little Hunter, he is Fear!
And thy throat is shut and dried, and thy heart against thy side
Hammers: Fear, O little Hunter—this is Fear."
Yes, Fear in one aspect is a physical recognition of the existence and the approach of the Unknown; and its external symptoms are first of all an involuntary erection of the hair of the head, a sensation of intense heat in the scalp and a subsequent exudation of chill sweat over the body, which last offers some relief to the internal or psychical lesion caused by Fear. I endured it then, as I suddenly realised in the midst of Dr Wayne's half-humorous discourse that I was a fly caught in the web of Fate; a victim rotating on the wheel of destiny; an atom of humanity that was urgently required for the completion of some great cosmic design....
It passed; thank God, It passed; and moreover It left me stronger and wiser than before. Very likely those honest penetrating grey eyes of my companion detected my fleeting wave of anguish, but he only kept an eloquent silence; and when a few minutes later I expressed a wish to descend and interview these alleged Indian wanderers, he offered neither comment nor opposition.
On reaching the vestibule I found the two foreign traders conversing amiably with a youthful frock-coated manager, for the fashionable ladies had evacuated the hall in pursuit of the tea and the music which were being provided in a distant chamber. At my approach the Indians took no farther notice of me than by smiling blandly and by indicating the various articles spread at their feet. Meanwhile the supercilious young manager addressed me: "Your friend Dr Wayne seems to think we are encouraging spies or bad characters here; but so far as I can judge, these men are only Indian hucksters, and several of our ladies are very pleased with the bargains they have bought this afternoon. What do you make of them, sir?"
"I believe," said I slowly, envisaging the two Meleagrian nobles, envoys to our Earth disguised in the mean garments of Oriental mountebanks, "from their features and their dress these men hail from the Nicobar Islands, where I once held an official post."
And in the most natural and condescending manner I could command I straightway began to question the two smiling pseudo-merchants in Meleagrian.
"Are you here in order to kill me?"
To which sentence with a grin of pleased recognition and a sweeping obeisance the elder of the pair replied with downcast eyes:
"Far be such evil thoughts from us! We seek to entreat your Majesty's return to your sorrowing subjects in Meleager!"
"Aha!" cried I triumphantly in English to the admiring clerk; "they are Nicobarians!" (I might just as safely have styled them Baratarians so far as he was concerned!) "I thought I could not be mistaken."
And thus the serious farce continued to be enacted for some little time in the presence of an outsider, all blissfully ignorant of the fact that he was over-hearing a colloquy of prime importance between two ambassadors of another planet and their run-away king.
I need not add that I was successful in convincing the worthy manager of the genuine character and zealous loyalty of these two dwellers in one of the obscure outlying dependencies of our Indian Empire, so that he was in excellent temper when a sudden summons called him away to the telephone. His withdrawal enabled us to continue our conversation with greater ease, my interlocutors imploring me to reconsider my decision to remain on Earth. Not to prolong this narrative, I shall only add here that finally I consented to meet these envoys again after an interval of one month, by which date I hoped to arrive at a definite decision as to my future course of action. In any event, I pleaded for a breathing-space wherein to digest all the extraordinary adventures of the past few months. Finally, though not over-willingly, they consented to this respite, and then in token of our mutual pact we three simultaneously in accordance with the Meleagrian practice touched our breasts with all ten fingers, a gesture that implies a most solemn oath in cases where the more elaborate ritual is undesirable or difficult to effect.
My last question was directed to their possible difficulty in tracing my whereabouts, for having formed no plans I could not therefore inform them of my movements. But such an objection evidently offered no difficulties to the Meleagrians who only smiled and straightway began to proffer me certain of their goods with a noisy plausibility that formed a perfect imitation of the methods of that humble class whose functions and personality they had usurped. I at once set to chaffer with affected eagerness, with the result that a returning queue of bedizened leaders of fashion, the majority of them with cigarettes in their mouths, entered the hall in time to observe a tall, fair and distinguished-looking gentleman (obviously an Englishman) finally decide to purchase for three guineas a long, soft chuddah shawl which its vendor was folding and twirling before his eyes with easy grace. Having secured my shawl with the requisite cash, the second trader now sidled towards me holding in both his slender brown hands an ornamental casket which he pressed upon me with many encomiums in quaint broken English. A mere flicker of light in the tail of his eye afforded me the necessary hint to accept the box, for which I paid a pound or so. The Indian then wrapped my bargain with much ceremony in blue crinkled paper and carefully deposited it in my hands, wherein it lay heavy as lead. There followed a casual nod on my part, met by elegant salaams to the wealthy sahib, and the next moment I was ascending the staircase with my shawl and box, pursued by the inquiring glances of the astonished ring of ladies.
On gaining my bedroom I cautiously unlocked the casket, which I found was filled to overflowing with English sovereigns and bank-notes. I did not happen to need them, but at least I was touched by the agreeable thought that the donors did not desire their king to suffer the straits of penury in the coming interval of waiting.
VIII
I found Dr Wayne quite ready to acquiesce in my newly formed decision to leave London; indeed, I fancy he still owned some qualms concerning the style and expense of our present abode. The only question that now remained was whither should we proceed. It was the Doctor and not myself who ultimately settled this point, for he had set to search the advertisement columns of his numerous journals, and after much hesitation had lighted on the notice of a Welsh hotel which on reflection commended itself also to my choice. The place was named Glanymôr and was situated on the southern shores of Cardigan Bay at a convenient distance from a small county town. It doubtless possessed the double advantage of quiet and remoteness, the two qualities of locale I especially demanded, so that after some farther discussion I asked Dr Wayne to make the necessary arrangements for our proposed sojourn there. In four days' time therefore from the date of the incident of the Indian peddlers, we were able to leave Paddington Station on our way towards the spot selected, where I looked to obtain the peace and solitude essential for me to refresh my jaded brain and to provoke it to some definite conclusion. I left London without a pang of regret, but also without any pleasurable enthusiasm for the change of air and scene I was seeking; so languid and detached was my outlook towards the future.
After several hours of travelling westward, after noon we reached a large market town of South Wales where a hired motor car was awaiting us. It was a glorious day, cool, calm and bright, with the tang of autumn in the air but the guise of summer still masking the face of Nature. Ere long we were speeding through a district of tall hazel hedges and small fields in endless succession, recalling at times an immense rural chess-board set amidst steep hills of no distinction of outline but with their grassy flanks relieved in many places by patches of autumnal gorse, of roseate ling and of murrey bracken. Little rills, peeping through miniature thickets of delicate lady fern, coursed here and there down the slopes, and at times we were skirting the bank of a torrent with golden-brown peat-stained waters circling and curling around mossy boulders. In many places the hedge banks were still gay with hawkweeds, scabious and belated foxgloves. Already the charm of the revisited Earth was beginning to arouse my sluggish spirits, and the sight of this mountain brook with its suggestions of a happy childhood that delighted in rambling and fishing began to stir the clogged and mantled pool of my earthly memory. Here at any rate was still the Earth, the beloved Earth radiant and unspoiled, the Earth untainted by the deadly miasma of modern progress which is striving with too evident success to convert the whole world into grey suburban uniformity and ugliness. Next we sped through a squalid hamlet compact of raw stuccoed chapels, of tin-roofed cottages and blatant villas of shrieking prosperity; and the late burgeoning of my earthy affections was rudely nipped. Nevertheless, we had soon quitted the ghastly modern township with its ill-dressed and ill-favoured inhabitants, and started to descend by a long gentle declivity to a broad bottom, for we were crossing the lofty watershed between two important Welsh rivers. We finally reached a wide valley cleft by a noble stream that was now a deep silent volume of water overhung by woods of oak and larch, and now a series of broad gushing shallows whose leaping waves broke merrily over opposing snags and rocks. At intervals we passed prosperous farms, old-fashioned country houses that seemed haunts of ancient peace, and stretches of rich pasture that were contiguous with the river's meanderings. Out of this delectable valley we ascended a sharp rise and, avoiding a moderate-sized country town, at length we reached an exposed hill-top which afforded us the prospect of the estuary of the river we had so lately left behind. Some two miles farther ahead our goal was attained, after traversing a tract of sand dunes whose desiccated soil gave sustenance to clumps of glaucous sea-holly and prickly bushes of the sand-rose that at this season bore large sorbs of burnished purple. The hotel itself, a gaunt, rambling, recently erected structure, was perched on the rim of a precipitous range of cliffs. It was certainly a blot upon the landscape; but its interior promised solid comfort, whilst the hearty welcome of the landlord, bereft of his usual tale of summer boarders, made plenteous reparation for the lack of such luxury as we had bidden adieu to in London.
From the balcony outside our rooms upstairs there was a spacious and comprehensive view of the surrounding scenery. In front of us lay a broad basin enclosed in a broken circuit of rising ground and with the yellow sands and foaming bar of the issuing river in the middle distance. The opposite extremity of this half-enclosed sheet of water ended in a projecting rocky headland dotted with white-washed farmhouses and cottages, and barring the farther view of the coast-line to southward. Nearer at hand and adjacent to the inn there jutted forth the northern horn of the little bay, backed by the craggy islet of Ynys Ilar formed like a couched lion with his visage set towards the sinking sun. The rocky shores had assumed everywhere a purple-black tint against the pale blue of sea and sky, whilst inland the bleak unfertile soil showed brown and bare in the walled fields now denuded of their crops of oats and barley. I would not deny a certain inherent charm to the quiet scenery of Glanymôr, and possibly some landscape painter of an unambitious type might have felt tempted to portray its sober tints and restful contours; but I myself experienced a sense of disappointment in what I deemed its negative character. Here was no savage majesty of nature; no sweep of limitless ocean; no thundering breakers on a boundless strand; no gloomy groves descending to the shore; no groups of gnarled and distorted pines that were eloquent of furious gales. And yet the features and general aspect of the place somehow imbued me with regretful thoughts of Tamarida, its haven and its twin promontories. For the first time a craving for my lost palace struck at my heart, as I gazed upon the encircling sweep of land and sea and sky. It may have been my fancy, but I thought I perceived a shadowy vision of that aerial city hover for a second like a mirage in the greyness of the dull horizon.
Our daily life at Glanymôr was placid and not unpleasant. The soft Welsh air, the perpetual sobbing of the sea beneath our windows, the peaceful atmosphere, the wholesome food all reacted on my over-strung nerves, which in time began to recover their wonted tone. I was braced by bathing in the Atlantic waters, icy-cold though they were; I appreciated my daily walks in company with Dr Wayne along the crest of the indented shore that faces the crags of Ynys Ilar. I mightily preferred the cries of the curlew and guillemot to the shouting of men and the hooting of cars in London. Altogether I was tolerably happy but for one drawback, and this was my total inability to concentrate my thinking powers on the very subject I had travelled hither to study. Try as I would, I could not marshal my reasonings and calculations to meet in one point; and so I allowed the crucial question to remain unanswered, almost unattempted, and let myself drift with the current of my own indecision. Instead of racking my brain, I preferred to lie in some sheltered hollow of the rocks above the water, watching the waves collect and disperse with half-shut eyes that idly noted the dull yellow riband of tiny shells which marked the limits of the advancing and receding tides along the line of cliffs. Dr Wayne, in such hours as he could spare from his multiplicity of newspapers, was evidently studying me and my movements with silent interest, but we rarely spoke during our long walks above the coast-line or over the brown fallows and stony paths of the wind-swept treeless countryside.
Thus passed day after day of that precious interregnum, which ought to have been expended in constant deliberation and with the nicest weighing of advantages, instead of being frittered thus in yielding to an insistent temptation to somnolence and vacuity of mind. Perhaps there may have been some external unsuspected force, which was being directed against my own efforts of concentration to prevent my arriving at any conclusion. I had been the plaything of Fate for so long that possibly I may be excused for harbouring such a notion.
IX
A quarter of a mile behind our inn of Glanymôr stood the buildings of a fair-sized farm. I used often to walk to Pen Maelgwyn, whose name recalled that of a doughty Welsh chieftain slain in Plantagenet days, ascending the slope thither by means of a narrow footpath traversing the russet stubbles wherein still lingered a few gay marigolds and fragile poppies. The front of the house, a long low erection, was coloured a Naples yellow, but its roof and many clustering byres and sheds were all thickly coated with dazzling whitewash. Above the porch and many windows set with diminutive panes had been painted ornamental stripes of black and vermilion in a local style that has now almost fallen out of fashion. Before the threshold lay a broad stone slab marked in chalk with elaborate patterns in rings and lines, which Dr Wayne, who is skilled in Celtic folk-lore, tells me is a relic of the dim past, when such tracery was designed to entice the good fairies indoors and at the same time to exclude any malignant elementals that might be skulking near. The whole length of the façade of the dwelling was distinguished by a narrow walled-in flower garden, wherein Mrs Mary Davies, the farmer's wife, cherished a number of gaudy dahlias, Indian pinks, purple asters and tall spikes of golden-rod, these last being much patronised by a pair of elegant Red Admiral butterflies.
The messuage and its attendant buildings were wholly enclosed within a low rampart of rubble and loose boulders, also profusely daubed with the prevailing whitewash, this boundary wall surrounding an irregular space which included a round weed-covered pond and a number of middens for the cackling fowls of every condition—geese, chickens, ducks, turkeys and even peacocks. The yard was dirty, stony and unkempt, yet it possessed a certain fascination of its own, and there was a stile surmounting its haphazard parapet whereon I often sate, sometimes to watch the crowded life of the haggard, but more generally with my face turned towards the open sea. By directing my eyes hence in a sou'-westerly direction, so as to avoid the converging lines of the Welsh and Irish coasts, I had been told that nothing but the ocean with no intervening obstacle of land stretched between the cliffs of Glanymôr and the far-away coast of North America. There were no trees within a mile and more of Pen Maelgwyn, but the rough stone wall was heavily fringed with tall aromatic herbs such as tansy, wormwood and wild reseda to make amends for the total lack of arboreal verdure.
Hither then I often strolled during the morning hours when Dr Wayne was absorbed in his newspapers or his correspondence, and from the date of my first intrusion at Pen Maelgwyn I always received a courteous welcome from Mr and Mrs Davies, the tenants of the place, who held a couple of hundred acres of varied but indifferent land. That Mr Hannaniah Davies belonged to the old school was evident from his speech, his dress and his professed outlook on life itself. Having served as bailiff for many years to a neighbouring squire he spoke English easily and correctly, and moreover with a well-bred accent. His wife Mary, on the other hand, could scarcely aspire to a word of any language save her native Welsh, so that our intercourse was of necessity confined to gesticulation and smiles, or to a few trivial phrases of which the expressions "Dim Saesneg" on her part and of "Dim Cymraeg" on mine, were perhaps the most lucid and useful. With Hannaniah however I often held converse—on the war, on politics, on travel, on religious controversy; and though he was bigoted and benighted in his tenets yet he could argue with politeness and good temper, which constitutes a virtue in itself, and that no common one. Our debates were usually held in the kitchen (which I vastly preferred to the chill musty parlour with its garish modern furniture and its repellent portraits of pastors and demagogues) and in this low warm cosy chamber I loitered for many a pleasant hour. The uneven stone floor was generally strewn with lily-white sand; the settle and chairs and dresser of pale Welsh oak shone brightly with Mary's affectionate polishing; I loved the many quaint old jugs and plates which had happily escaped the accursed hand of the plundering collector. In the deep-set space of the sole window flourished Mary's winter garden, a miscellaneous series of pots and saucers containing a fine geranium, a fuchsia, a trailing white campanula, some musk and a bizarre vegetable of the leek family that resembled a shining green octopus set on end. Above our heads depended from the rafters fine hams and bunches of odorous sage and marjoram.
In this old-time chamber I often partook of my "merenda," which invariably consisted of a glass of buttermilk with one or two square currant-engrained biscuits known to the polite world as Garibaldis, but owning a less romantic if more descriptive name in the days of my boyhood. This matutinal hospitality, I may add, was repaid not in coin but by the loan of papers and periodicals which Hannaniah read by the aid of a pair of antiquated spectacles, that reposed on the great sheepskin folio Welsh Bible always ready for use. Thus alternately reading aloud and discoursing, with Mary's clogs clattering in and out of the fragrant kitchen, I often succeeded in making the worthy Hannaniah waste an hour or more of his valuable agricultural time in the course of the morning.
A calendar month had already elapsed since our arrival at Glanymôr, and I was beginning to wonder in what guise the waiting Meleagrian envoys would next present themselves. Yet although the month had been fulfilled, with a few days to spare, I was still speculating as to how, when and where they would approach me. With my mind absorbed in anticipation and replete with intense curiosity that was not tinctured by any alarm, I went one morning to Pen Maelgwyn on my usual errand, and on my arrival found my friend Hannaniah much excited over a matter of domestic concern, which he was eager to impart to me. It appeared that both Mr Davies's farm lads, English-speaking boys from a large industrial school of the Midlands, had been lately secured in the local recruiting nets, so that the farm itself was suffering in consequence of their departure. There were none to fill the vacant places, and so pressed was the farmer that two days ago he had been only too thankful to engage the temporary services of what he described as a "nigger tramp," who called himself an Indian. The new-comer certainly did not seem very proficient in the duties he declared himself willing to perform but he seemed intelligent and anxious to please; whilst on his side the sorely tried Hannaniah was thankful to obtain even such inferior assistance as this. There were hopes expressed that the strange heathen might in time develop into a fairly capable farm hand, and in this expectation even the suspicious Mrs Davies had agreed to lay aside her intense prejudice against the man's colour and appearance. Thus spake Hannaniah Davies; and I need not say that at this piece of news my heart began to hammer at my ribs, though not (I can truthfully vouch) with fear, but rather with suppressed exaltation. For I felt thankful to be relieved at last from my long spell of uncertainty and indecision, than which any definite evil seemed almost preferable. The idea of coming action served to brace and vivify me, so that it required some restraint on myself to criticise the matter propounded by the farmer with the proper degree of calmness. I approved warmly his decision to employ the stranger, and then remarked with an air of indifference: "I wonder if by any chance I can speak your black man's language, if he is really an Indian, as he declares. I have spent many years among the natives of Hindostan, and I should much like to interview the man, whose name you tell me is Hamid."
I had scarcely finished speaking when Hannaniah, looking out of one of the tiny panes of thick greenish glass of the kitchen window, spied the subject of our conversation crossing the yard, and at my suggestion he beckoned him to approach the homestead. Mrs Davies, too, who had paused from her usual routine of scrubbing, was deeply interested, and in her native vernacular expressed her admiration for the powers of the Saxon gentleman who could speak the language of the blacks, for in her simple philosophy all dark-skinned foreigners owned but one lingo, whilst a multiplicity of tongues was a special privilege reserved for the Aryan race. Hannaniah was no doubt more enlightened on such a point, but I fancy he had no fixed or correct views concerning Indians and negroes; it would therefore in no way be surprising to him, a good bilinguist, that anyone who had lived in the East like myself should understand the language of a wandering Oriental. He left the room, and I followed him into the soft breeze and the mellow October sunshine which was reviving Mary's rain-sodden dahlias round which the Red Admirals were hovering with brilliant if somewhat tattered wings.
The figure of the newly hired labourer could be observed slowly descending the long yard, for he was encumbered with a bundle of clover under his left arm, whilst his right side was heavily weighed down by a bucket of some provender for the calves. His garments formed a sort of ugly compromise between the costumes of East and West—a turban of soiled mauve muslin, a shabby threadbare brown coat and loose baggy trousers of canvas such as Levantine sailors affect. In this cheap and unattractive garb I quickly recognised Fajal, a leading member of the hierarchy of Meleager, and after Anzoni the most trustworthy and agreeable personage of all that august body to my mind. On our appearance in the yard the new servant halted a moment, placed the dirty bucket on the ground, and made an obeisance equally to Mr Davies and myself. As he bent before us in his squalid disguise, with his delicate shapely hands encrusted with barley-meal, and with his shoddy boots all caked with filthy mud, I reflected and marvelled for a second or two on the inexorable sense of duty or responsibility which could compel such a man as Fajal, whose pedigree could easily vie with that of a Habsburg or a Colonna, to stoop to such abasement and to face such vicissitudes. Yet though he bent ragged and grimy and cringing before us, I could still detect the noble fruit concealed within the rugged husk, albeit such a gift of discrimination was wholly beyond the range of the farmer's blunter powers of perception and inferior knowledge of humanity. I addressed a few commonplace phrases in Meleagrian to Fajal, who replied with discreet modesty, only in his last sentence bidding me seek him in the adjacent byre as soon as it was feasible. Mr Davies standing by was certainly impressed with the fluency of our conversation, but after an admiring "Well! Well!" as a tribute to my linguistic attainments, he turned away in order to visit his head labourer, John Lewis, who was cutting bracken on the distant lea against the sky-line. I accompanied my host so far as the farm gate, but declined to walk with him to the upland, whither I watched him proceed alone. With the master and man busy over the fern stacking, with the mistress and maids employed within the dairy or kitchen, the way was clear before me. I turned my eyes with mixed feelings towards the indicated byre, which stood next to a row of newly thatched ricks of oats and barley, the spoils of the lately garnered harvest. In that humble structure I knew there tarried now for me the messenger of Fate, the arbiter of my destiny. It was as useless, as it would have been cowardly, to evade or postpone the inevitable interview, so without further ado I carefully shut the yard gate and slowly picked my steps through the stones and mire to the open doorway of the shippen.
X
The cow-house at Pen Maelgwyn was a lengthy rather dilapidated building, and in its atmosphere of semi-darkness and bovine stuffiness I groped my way along the narrow passage between the crazy old mud wall and the wooden railing which secured the beasts. At the farther end was a square pen wherein the calves were kept, and it was here that at length I chanced on Fajal who was busily occupied in feeding his charges. On noticing me approach, he made an end of his task, and letting down the slip rail advanced to accost me in the gangway. Here he sank on his knees upon the slimy cobbles, at the same time catching hold of my coat with uplifted hands. This unexpected attitude of worship and devotion at once struck me unpleasantly; I deemed it insincere and inappropriate; and I repelled my suppliant in no gracious manner, striving to disengage myself from his grasp.
"I had a better esteem of you, Fajal," I began in tones of reproachful chagrin, "than that you should still attempt to mock me by persisting in this threadbare pretence of a subject and his king. You know who I am, and what I am in the eyes of the body to which you belong; so why indulge in this sickly acting when there is no stage and no necessity for hypocrisy? Speak to me as man to man. Tell me what you wish to say, but tell it in the spirit of plain truth and reality."
Nevertheless, crouching yet more abjectly into the mire, Fajal still clung obstinately to my knees and even endeavoured to kiss my feet as he started to speak in a hollow voice that suggested intense emotion kept with difficulty under control.
"Majesty! Your rebuke is neither harsh nor undeserved; and if it so pleased you, I should willingly and joyfully feel the weight of your foot upon my neck, or even on my face. Cheerfully would I in my own person make the atonement justly due to you for the treacherous ingratitude that has been your Majesty's sole reward for your reign of virtue and self-sacrifice in Meleager. But there is no mockery in my attitude of subjection to the King of Meleager who has thus successfully defied and vanquished his fate, and now for a second time receives the entreaty to come and reign amongst us. And this time the loyalty I am authorised to proffer will not be confined to the uneducated populace, but it will also emanate freely from our hierarchy who have delegated me, seeing that I was in the past your most open admirer and warmest upholder, to implore your pardon and to beg you to acquire incalculable merit by returning and resuming that unselfish and beneficent sway for which at this moment all Meleager is sighing and praying. Do not suffer me to plead in vain, O King!"
Fajal paused, and then as I stood motionless and showed no disposition to interrupt he continued to entreat yet more vehemently, using at times the old arguments I had heard years ago from d'Aragno, and at times a novel system of reasoning based on the present affection and anxiety of the Meleagrians for my return.
"We are at the present time in a parlous state of unrest and transition in Meleager. Our people cry aloud for their vanished King, and threaten to over-turn our ancient constitution, for some peculiar instinct seems to have penetrated the common mind—by what means or influence assuredly even I cannot divine—that you have deserted our planet in wrath and dudgeon to seek again your Father's court. Already a revolution has taken place in the hierarchy itself, and Marzona's satellites have shared their leader's fate, the fate which you yourself inflicted on him, most noble, puissant and wonderful Being! All, all pray daily for your speedy return; whilst amongst such old councillors as have survived the late cataclysm and the newly elected members of our caste, there is but one ardent all-pervading desire—to see yourself installed again as our King, our King who has of his own motion mastered The Secret, who has flown back to Earth, who alone is fitted to rule in Meleager....
"And if you will but accept again our crown under these changed conditions of tardy sincerity in our hierarchy and of burning loyalty of our people in all its ranks, what results may you not achieve? The periods of your rejuvenation will continue unchecked; you will be living and ruling and bending life to your purpose for generations hence, nay, centuries after my poor bones and those of my colleagues have been converted to dust and ashes; for aught I know to the contrary you may even, if you so will, achieve immortality thanks to the unmatched potentialities of our marvellous fountain. The very salutation 'O King, live for ever!' that occurs again and again in your Book of the Christian cult will in your case cease to be the meaningless compliment of courtier and sycophant. You will rule and rule, always youthful, always dominant, the one thing stable in a community of perpetual change. There are certain limits perhaps which you may not exceed, but these you already recognise and will observe henceforward in the same spirit that you have so nobly and unselfishly exhibited in the past. And if the day should dawn—may it be untold æons hence from my own day of recall!—when you will have grown weary of well-doing, weary of your unending performance of duty even under the lightest of moral yokes, when you sigh for release and oblivion, and yearn to plunge into the dusky mazes of the Hereafter, are there not means accessible to gratify such a craving? There is but one mode of entering this world, and that involves travail and tears, but there are a hundred exits from the house of life, and many of these are pleasant and free of dolour. Remember what one of your own Herthian poets has dangled before the eyes of those who are exhausted and sighing for their euthanasia:
"'There are poppies by the river,
There is hemlock in the dell.'
"Nevertheless, may the time be far removed when the ideal King of Meleager thinks fit to abdicate, preferring the unseen unsubstantial bliss of the Other Life to the ceaseless routine of sovereignty with its attendant pleasures and burdens....
"Majesty, ponder all this in your present quiet retreat which as yet has been scarcely touched by the encroachments of the bloodshed and tumult that have been released to complete the utter downfall of your unhappy Earth. Have you not dimly apprehended the dire prospects that even now await your fellow-mortals on this devoted distracted planet? Is she not in the pangs of a fresh period of travail, and seeing her thus threatened and knowing her past history, do you expect her to bring forth a regenerating angel? I tell you, no. The horrors of carnage and greed and ambition have only begun; the stream of blood is trickling slowly, but it will continue to creep onward with increasing volume till scarcely a corner of the Earth will not be saturated with human gore....
"But enough of this awful theme, for my personal argument there is unsound insomuch as you yourself are concerned, for you at least will be spared the sight and taste of the evils that will assuredly follow. Your sojourn on Earth will be very brief; already the effects of your last immersion in our sacred pool are beginning to subside; so that before this fateful year draws to its bloody and hideous close, your spark of life will be extinguished. Do not therefore imagine that you will be permitted to achieve the allotted span of mankind on Earth; the hidden waters of the Meleagrian spring are both lethal and vitalising. Once the proper hour of renewal is passed, a species of decay, even of disintegration, will supervene, and you will sink into your miserable grave, a loathsome object, a mass of disease, impotence and decomposition.
"Reflect, O King, reflect, ere it prove too late! Make your choice between an inevitable, speedy and revolting demise here on Earth, and the prospect of a further reign in Meleager under such conditions as I have already indicated to you."
With this last earnest appeal Fajal watched me narrowly for some seconds, whilst I remained voiceless and irresolute. Seeing me thus still obdurate in my indecision, he sighed heavily and then sought in the folds of his vest, whence he drew forth a thin packet that he presented to me with these significant words: "If you doubt my warning and advice, look in this mirror steadily a while, and you will then understand."
I had scarcely transferred the package to the breast of my coat before I noticed an entering figure darken the patch of sunlight formed by the open door at the other end of the byre. It was Mr Davies returned from his fern cutting and now bent on an inspection of his stock. He saw nothing unusual however in my seeking thus the society of his new servant, who was now diligently cleaning the racks overhead. I delayed for a few minutes' talk with the farmer before bidding him good-morning and walking back to the inn.
In the verandah I found Dr Wayne smoking a pipe and enjoying the rare sunshine of this fleeting St Luke's Summer. We smiled at one another as I passed within, but I did not pause to converse, for I was impatient to open my concealed parcel. So I went upstairs and seated myself on a chair in the full light shed from the open window. Having unwound some folds of cloth I extricated the mirror of which Fajal had spoken, and found it to be a moderate-sized rectangular piece of thick glass without any frame and offering no peculiarity of aspect. Taking it in both my hands and in full glare of the sunlit window, I set to gaze intently in the expectation of some development whose nature I already half divined. As I prepared for this careful inspection of myself, or rather my counterfeit, I recalled to mind a picture I had seen years ago in the Wiertz Museum in what was then the capital of the Belgian kingdom, representing a youthful courtesan of the Mid-Victorian era stripped bare to the waist and contemplating herself in a cheval-glass. But in the painter's canvas the glass itself returned no true image of her comely complacent face and her swelling breasts, but in their stead a leering female skeleton, a revelation that seemed in no wise to shake the lady's composure. So in my own case I had a shrewd premonition I was destined to receive some shock of this nature out of the innocent-looking mirror lately presented to me. Of this shadowy encounter before me however I experienced no dread; very possibly the glass would reveal to me my own anatomy as a suitable memento mori to dissipate any lingering notions I might still entertain as to the undesirability of prolonging my life by a refusal to return to Meleager. But why, I asked myself, should I be afraid to survey my own basic framework? Are we not all mere skeletons clothed in an exiguous garment of skin and tissue, and animated by some mysterious internal engine which keeps intact the fleshy envelope and supplies the motive power of mind and muscle?
The perfectly smooth complexion that confronted my inquiring look suggested nothing save the early stages of manhood, though there was perceptible in the eyes a weary nervous expression, that hinted at a youth marred or tempered by experience and disillusion. Many minutes must have been occupied in contemplation of this beautiful and yet spurious specimen of juvenile physiognomy before I began to note a very slight alteration in the skin and outlines of the face before me; tiny delicate pencillings like the ghosts of hoar-frost tracery were forming below the lids and at the corners of the temples; the rotundity of the cheeks seemed to shrink; queer vindictive lines started here and there on the countenance, spoiling its fixed impression of repose and announcing anxiety and discontent. I grew overwhelmingly interested in this whimsical exhibition of scientific magic (if I may so describe it); of alarm or disgust I felt no scintilla as yet, so absorbed was I in my attitude of inquisitive observation. Having once declared itself visibly, this metamorphosis of the face seemed to develop more rapidly; the skin was bereft of its freshness and became sallow and somewhat transparent; I could tell the staring bones within, and the contours of the skull were clearly defined. The hair had lost its sheen, and the throat its firmness and fulness. But it no more horrified me to detect my own skeleton peeping forth through the imprisoning flesh than it would have startled me to see my naked body on stripping to bathe. Whatever might be my final decision, whether to remain on Earth and perish, or to proceed to Meleager and live, Fajal's device could exercise no sort of influence over my well-ordered mind. It was uncanny, unwholesome, unnatural; but as a practical argument for its acknowledged purpose it must prove utterly unavailing, and was in truth almost childish in its conception.
I was still absorbed in watching this phenomenon of the disunion of body and bones with complete unconcern, when my nimble imagination suddenly darted into a diverse channel of speculation. From my present medical or scientific abstraction I found myself sharply recalling Benozzo Gozzoli's frescoes in the Campo Santo of Pisa, wherein are depicted for the edification of the careless Christian the three stages of human decay after death. It was a morbid but persistent theme, and not only did I fail to exclude it from my unwilling brain, but other paintings and representations equally or even more gruesome, such as the decadent artists of the days of the later Medicean princes loved to depict, arose to my prolific fancy. I recalled Zumbo's horrible wax figures, exhibiting at once the loathsome corruption of the flesh and the exquisite torments of hell-fire, wherewith a certain Tuscan Grand Duchess was wont to stimulate to self-denying piety a mind engrossed by the pomps of rank and riches. With these unwelcome but spontaneous memories there now supervened a physical sensation that was most repugnant. The room itself, despite the fresh sea breeze and the cheerful sunshine, grew close and oppressive; there arose an intolerable smell of putrefaction, the unmistakable bouquet of the charnel-house; and this insidious encroaching odour filled my whole being with a sense of disgust that I found impossible to expel.
Meanwhile in the mirror itself the process of disintegration was advancing apace. At first I sought to ignore the changing tints of the rotting flesh and the entry of the worms and other vermin of the abandoned dead, and haply I might have succeeded in my mental struggle, had it not been for the increasing and well-nigh overpowering stench of the tomb which seemed to gather and enfold me in its dank miasmatic embrace. The pure light of the sunlit room had yielded to a dingy crepuscule, in which alone was plainly visible that accursed rectangle of glass with its surface churning out horror upon horror not only for the retina but also for the nostrils. And in the midst of this dissolving creeping mutating picture of human corruption there still shone out intact the feverish unfaded eyes that were stretched wide with a blank despair. I searched and searched with questioning dilated pupils their awful counterparts in the cruel glass, as though I were striving to force them to surrender up their appalling secret. At length I seemed to obtain the solution I sought yet dreaded to receive: it was Finality. What I saw being enacted before me by proxy was my own fate, my utter blotting out from the page of life, and not a mere stage, painful and ugly doubtless, but nevertheless only an intermediate stage to another phase of existence, as I had hitherto devoutly held. At last I realised that my own appointed portion was but this mean trilogy: the grave, corruption and nothingness; for the Hereafter owned no longer any concern with myself, the amphibian of two worlds, who had evaded his manifest duties alike on Earth and in Meleager. I remembered with a shudder Fajal's solemn warning as to the dire effects of that youth-bestowing and yet death-dealing fountain wherein I had so often been immersed. Was it really so? Had I in my flight from my kingdom lost that priceless yet elusive endowment, the soul? A faint gleam of hope in the midst of my terror shot suddenly into the mirk of my anguish, when I recalled Anzoni's farewell greeting to myself and his expressed desire for a mutual meeting in the halls of the Hereafter. Ah, but then Anzoni had assumed I was going to meet my fate like a hero, and had no intention of slinking back to Earth!
Thus, despite this vague consoling thought, this clutching at a fescue in the whirlpool of my despair, I became obsessed with a fierce longing and determination at all costs to cheat death and to cling to every chance that is vital and physical. Fajal's mission had triumphed. I grew frenzied at the fearful prospect adumbrated for me on this glassy screen; I was frantic to quit the Earth, and equally frantic to stake anything and everything on a second translation to Meleager. I tried to dash the mirror from my hands, only to discover that, like Medea's poisoned coronet, the accursed thing clung to the flesh of my palms and fingers, and refused to be shaken off. In my madness of terror I screamed aloud, and with the glass still adhering like burning wax to my skin I dashed myself against the wall repeatedly till I shattered to atoms the devilish instrument of torture in my ravings.
I can call to mind nothing further until I returned to sufficient consciousness again to see Dr Wayne's anxious and expectant face bent over me, as I lay prone on the boards surrounded by a mass of glittering fragments and splinters. My hands were cut and bleeding, but already the kind Doctor was tending them with some soothing antiseptic, and the pain was endurable. I allowed myself to be enticed to bed, where I passed the remainder of the day recovering from the double shock of mind and body I had so lately sustained. As usual, Dr Wayne spoke very little, and though his honest face betrayed his keen curiosity over my latest adventure, he asked no questions, and indeed scarcely ventured any comment, except the remark that there was a most peculiar scent of violets in the room, which was odd, seeing it was mid-October.
Violets!
XI
It required two or three days of repose and nursing before I could recover from my recent shock and the injuries to my hands. When at last I was sufficiently restored to leave the house for a walk, I felt small inclination to proceed to Pen Maelgwyn, and after hesitating as to my direction I eventually turned my steps towards a small beach that nestled below the northern promontory of the bay. In this sheltered fissure of the coast I used sometimes to sit on the shaly rocks covered with soft tussocks of faded sea-pinks, or else used to linger by the tide idly seeking amongst the wet shining pebbles for stray moss-agates or the tiny cowries like roseate pearls that a westerly gale invariably cast on these shores. Accordingly I followed a path towards this cove and descended the cart track that finally lost itself in the dry sand and globular boulders of the upper portion of this little haven. On advancing thus far I perceived to my surprise and annoyance that I should not obtain solitary possession of my accustomed haunt, for close to the water's edge stood a horse and cart; whilst I could detect the grating sound of shovelling sea-gravel by some person who for the moment was hidden by the cart itself. I strolled down the long narrow space to discover with a start of astonishment that the individual occupied in digging the gravel was none other than Fajal. He seemed in no wise disconcerted at my apparition, but merely continued to ply his task till I almost touched him, when he immediately dropped his spade and sank on his knees amidst the dripping stones and weeds. He then proceeded to kiss my hands, my knees, and even my feet, but of this behaviour I took no heed.
"I have examined my face in your mirror, Fajal——" I began.
"Your Majesty has no need to tell this to your servant," replied he, with a sad, weary smile on his face, which expressed neither pleasure nor interest in my statement.
"—And I am now wholly convinced of the necessity for my immediate return to Meleager," continued I, rather nettled by Fajal's nonchalance.
"A few minutes' study of self in its surface is of more avail than a month spent in book-lore or close meditation," retorted Fajal dryly. "It is our last resource, our irresistible argument, although to the best of my knowledge there has never arisen any occasion to resort to it hitherto. Yet you perceive we are fore-armed in Meleager against every emergency, even for the case of a recalcitrant monarch who will not return to the people he has deserted."
"I should never have deserted Meleager," I cried with some heat, "had not your caste set before me the choice of death or flight."
"Your Majesty then holds that any deviation from the course of fixed duty can be legitimately excused?" replied Fajal, arching his eyebrows. "But this is neither the hour nor place to raise a thorny question of political ethics which I look forward some day to discussing at our leisure. I have only to regret that in the course of my mission I have been compelled to perturb your Majesty so greatly in mind and body before I could impress on you the inevitability of your return to Meleager. It grieves and shames me to reflect that the arguments and entreaties of myself and my colleagues here and in London should have proved so futile and barren of success."
Fajal then gently took my hands in his, removed their wrappings of lint, and from a box of salve carefully anointed the still sore and angry flesh. (They were completely cured by the following morning.) He then began to speak to me of many matters concerning my return to Meleager and my subsequent duties there which I do not deem it desirable to inscribe in this place, and he ended by enumerating the arrangements already made for my second translation to my expectant subjects.
"This very night," said he, "I shall be dismissed with ignominy from Pen Maelgwyn. John Lewis, the old labourer, is already jealous and hostile, and there will shortly arise a quarrel between us, wherein I shall unsheathe this knife. A hubbub will then ensue; Mrs Davies will uphold her servant, and Mr Davies, who seems less unworthy than the majority of his type, will reluctantly consent to my immediate dismissal. I shall be given my wages; I shall collect my humble store of clothing; and at early dawn to-morrow I shall quit Pen Maelgwyn. This day week, which will be the twenty-seventh day of the month, you will prepare for my secret return. Wait until midnight in your room, and then listen for the unmistakable call for your presence without delay at the farthest point of the headland yonder. All will be in readiness for your easy departure from the inn; even the lurcher in the stable-yard will be silenced that night. Have no qualms or fears; your Majesty will only have to traverse the two furlongs of ground between the inn and the rocky cape, whereat our craft will rest till we have embarked.
"One other matter however I wish your Majesty to understand. Is it not the case that you dispatched a manuscript to Earth some three years ago?" (I nodded assent.) "That scroll was duly delivered on Earth, was found, read, discussed and printed, with the only possible result that could arise therefrom. The person who gave your narrative to the world was one Edward Cayley, a learned recluse, and he was naturally only accounted a credulous fool for his pains. The book was certainly published, and though the absurd venture scarcely deserved their serious attention, our envoys here have contrived to destroy nearly all copies of the volume. Perhaps also Cayley himself might have succumbed later to some of our peculiar methods of removal, had he not suddenly expired of the heart disease from which he had long suffered. The whole matter of your communication from Meleager has however been entrusted unconditionally to myself, and as I apprehend no danger whatsoever from anything you may publish, it is open to you to act freely in this connection. Here is Mr Cayley's book—keep it for any purpose you may require. I assure your Majesty I fear no ill result will accrue either from the late Mr Cayley's romance or from the manuscript which you yourself" (here I gave a start of genuine astonishment) "have been inditing almost daily in your chamber at Glanymôr. I cannot conceive either the contemporary pleasure or the ultimate object of your Majesty's constant occupation with the pen; it may be the old literary bacillus of Earth that is not yet eradicated from your semi-divine system; it may be some fanciful desire to benefit the planet of your birth by showing its leaders that human happiness is not necessarily involved in human progress, which is the fundamental error of these modern Herthians; it may be that a sheer sense of humorous amusement prompts you to this action. But whatsoever your goal, it is clear that you intend to charge your excellent friend Dr Wayne with the editing of your manuscript." (Again I gave an involuntary start.) "Be it so. I have not the wish or the intention to thwart your Majesty in this innocuous pastime; nor shall I seek to disappoint Dr Wayne in his hungry expectation of the unveiling of the complicated enigma whose nature he dimly realises. Indeed, I am anxious to do a service to that interesting man, for whose hospitality to our errant King on Earth I am grateful, and whose rare spiritual qualities I admire and respect. Let him publish what you have written here in Glanymôr; what benefit can happen to you or what injury to us from proclaiming such a farrago of the impossible and the improbable? Very few will read the book, and none will give credence to its contents. Yours is not so much a mad world, as it has been arraigned by your leading poet, as an unbelieving world, which rejects with fury of derision all evidence of whatsoever is not obvious to its recognised scholars and astronomers."
I acquiesced in silence. It was astounding to me to learn that so much was known of my most private concerns, and I saw little use in arguing or asking questions. It was evident too that Fajal regarded my return to Meleager as a settled matter past all debate, and this mental admission induced in me a welcome sense of peace and deliverance.
Thus we stood on this misty solemn October afternoon beside the grey placid sea, surely the most extraordinary pair of mortals—if as mortals we could be faithfully so described—on the surface of the globe. No sound save the regular silvery tinkle of the tiny waves lapping on the beach and an occasional movement from the stolid cart-horse beside us broke the spell of oppressive stillness, so that when finally Fajal spoke, his voice seemed to proceed from some far-off unseen place, which had no connection with our present environment.
"Has your Majesty no other aim than to escape the terrors of the grave in thus deciding once more to exchange your Mother Earth for Meleager? Do the loyalty and the prayers of your subjects weigh as nothing in the scales of your predilection? Has your abandoned palace no remembered charms? Our temple bells, our sunlit city, our shining harbour, our dawns and our sunsets, do these count for naught? O King, have none of the fibres of your once generous heart struck root in our soil? Have you already forgotten your splendour, your kingdom, your people, your friends in these few weeks spent upon your blood-soaked insurgent Earth?"
With a look of sorrowful reproach accompanying these words of rebuke, Fajal bade me examine a small tablet of crystal or of some transparent substance that he held in the hollow of his left hand. I gladly lowered my ashamed and burning face in its direction, but could perceive no more than a mass of variegated colours that seemed to be perpetually shifting and changing. I strained my eyes for long, vainly seeking to identify any of the minute objects thus depicted, till at last I ceased from the attempt in despair of success. With a sigh of resignation, Fajal now presented me with a pair of large horn-rimmed spectacles, which I adjusted to my eyes, with the immediate result that the scenes in the crystal seemed enlarged and clarified. I saw distinctly my palace at Tamarida with the warm sunbeams flickering on marble pillars and dancing in golden bars on the frescoed vaulting; I saw the gardens, cool and umbrageous, with their many fountains spurting their foamy jets upon the drenched fronds of fern and palm; I saw my aery balcony with its table of audience and faithful Hiridia standing disconsolate beside my favourite chair; under the external awnings of blue and yellow I saw the deep purple line of the harbour beyond the enclosing balustrade. A veritable wave of nostalgia seemed to engulph me, as I watched thus every familiar scene of my Meleagrian existence pass in procession before my gaze.
As a lost soul might gaze on Paradise I beheld the pillared court of the great temple displayed before me, with its sunlit space filled with the usual throng of worshippers upon a holy day. There was the medley of colours, like some huge bed of gorgeous tulips, the white of the hierarchy, the crimson of the nobles, the green of the merchants, and the many varied tints of the garments of the populace; what past memories of my reign did not such a vision evoke in me! I fretted to be gone, so as to regain that rich and varied crowd beneath that glowing sky, to reassume my accustomed place of honour and adoration in their midst. And then, even as I yearned, chafing at the ties which still bound me to Earth, my companion was able to inflame yet further my longing to return. With his disengaged right hand he searched the pocket of his coat and a moment later I beheld in his fingers a strange-looking instrument bearing some resemblance to the mystical sistrum of ancient Egypt. Bidding me continue to fix my eyes on the crystal before me, Fajal waved aloft this curved and stringed spherule, whereupon a soft murmuring seemed to fill the languid heavy autumnal air, and this muttering again developed into advancing waves of harmony that concentrated in an ultimate crashing note of triumph in my very face. The sounds now appeared to shrink and retreat, now to advance and expand in volume, but after some moments of vague, desultory, erratic come-and-go the music at length seemed to collect and pour as through some invisible funnel into the actual crystal lying in Fajal's palm. The ambient air was now completely free of its reverberations, and the music subsided into moderate compass, convenable with the scale and setting of the variegated scene that still lay exposed on the crystal tablet. Finally, the compressed sound blended with the multitude of figures in this miniature reproduction of the temple of Tamarida, so that I could distinguish the articulation of the many worshippers as well as the canticles of the choristers wafted from afar to my ears. So might the Olympian Zeus in heroic days have heard the daily orisons of his earth-born suppliants, and have sought for the sparse note of sincerity amidst that vast uproar of human prayer ascending from a thousand altars to his ivory throne set amidst the unattainable clouds of highest heaven. But here from Meleager the issuing petition rang out unanimous, solemn and unfeigned....
I had heard and seen sufficient; there was no more room nor any need for further colloquy with Fajal. I have but a dim impression of my hands being saluted, and of my striding rapidly with downcast head from the beach, leaving my fate behind me in the person of the humble Indian labourer with the horse and cart. In the waning light of the October evening I hastened back to the inn, and threw myself on my bed to digest my latest experience, the ultimate phase of my unique mission. In an hour's time I had shaken off the bewilderment of my encounter by the beach, and was able to converse naturally with Dr Wayne. It was now merely a matter of waiting seven days for the call, and there was nothing to prevent my passing this brief span of time pleasantly and profitably. I hope I have done what lay in my power to conciliate Dr Wayne, with whom I enjoyed some interesting walks in the mild drizzling weather along the summits of the rocky coast. Once or twice the notion arose in me of taking the good man into my complete confidence, but eventually I decided against this course, and confined my efforts to preparing him for the task of publication of my second manuscript and of Mr Cayley's book which I shall leave behind me when I am called to quit this Earth. I have an overwhelming desire to see this purpose fulfilled, and as Fajal has given me express permission to do so, why should not I indulge this innocent whim of mine, however useless and trivial it may be deemed? I think it was Dean Swift who once declared that the man who contrived to make two blades of grass grow where but one had bloomed before bestowed more solid advantage on the human race than all the combined clique of the politicians. So, if I can attract one convert into seeing through my own experienced eyes that what is called progress is not the sole thing needful and desirable for this sorely tried old world of my birth, I shall have accomplished my most modest aim. I shall have sown a seed of arresting reflection amidst the rampant tares of self-sufficiency and materialism which now clog the Herthian soil.
It is my last night, my last hour on Earth. Midnight has struck some time ago, and already the air is resonant with that strange haunting musical susurration that Fajal's spherule has made familiar to me. My few preparations are all completed, and I have but to descend quietly, loosen the bolt of a certain door, cross the haggard, and follow the path to the headland where the royal vessel awaits the King of Meleager who now bids farewell for ever and for ever to the World and all that therein is.