CHAPTER III
The Vanished Race
For a moment Ramey Winters stared at the gray-haired scientist incredulously. Then he laughed. "All right, sir," he said. "I'll bite. What's the gag?"
But there was no twinkle of amusement in Dr. Aiken's eyes now. He leaned forward over the table, his manner sober and abruptly serious.
"It's no joke, Ramey. It's the cold truth." In his voice was a strange note, a sort of angry helplessness. "For years men have been pondering this problem, but still the answer eludes us.
"In the year 1860, the French naturalist, A. Mouhot, came up the Mekong River in search for flora and fauna, and by sheer chance stumbled upon the massive, walled city of Angkor Thom, about one mile from here. I used the word, 'stumbled'; actually, only the toe of a giant could trip over such an obstacle. For Angkor Thom is a rectangular enclosure two miles in each direction, surrounded by a wall thirty feet high; within these walls are more than fifty towers, averaging two hundred feet in height! Altogether, the wall encloses something like a hundred and seventy-six acres of palaces, terraces, temples and galleries!
"That was the city proper. For miles about were the ruins of smaller abodes. This building in which we have made our headquarters, Angkor Vat, is supposed to have been Angkor Thom's chief temple. You have already exclaimed at its size. Let me point out that you cannot completely grasp how huge it is because there exists here no basis for comparison but palm trees, fromager, cane. The façade of this single building is five times as wide as the Cathedral of Notre Dame!
"Naturally, Mouhot was greatly excited. The records of mankind did not even hint at there ever having been such a civilization in this part of the world. He asked his native guides whence came these structures, who built them?
"Their answer was—the Gods!"
Ramey Winters nodded, fascinated. "I can understand that. Whatever men conceived and fashioned this edifice were of godlike stature. Before the world went crazy, I studied a smattering of architecture. Enough to realize the tremendous effort expended here—"
"Ah, but you haven't begun to see the wonders! Look at the walls and ceilings of this room, my boy."
"I been looking at them," spoke up Barrett. "Darned things is simply lousy.—'scuse me, Miss Sheila!—I mean the walls and ceilings is covered from top to bottom with carving and stuff. Pictures and wiggly scrolls and everything. What was this? Part of the art gallery?"
Dr. Aiken smiled distantly.
"Yes, Red. A very, very small portion of the hugest art gallery ever known. Because every square inch of wall in both Angkor Thom and Angkor Vat is covered with similar stone sculpturing! There are murals two hundred ... three hundred ... feet long emblazoned with the images of thousands of warriors in battle! A statue of a naga, or seven-headed serpent, more than one hundred feet long. Figures of gods and men, of evil demons, of creature unlike anything known to Man. About the grounds are single stones a hundred feet high, hand-carven to represent gods whose names we do not know."
Ramey frowned.
"Now, wait a minute, Doctor. That's impossible, you know! I mean, a hundred feet high—"
"I quite agree with you, Ramey. Such sculpturing is impossible to present-day civilization. My colleague, Alfred Maynard, once wrote: 'To transport these monoliths and erect the colossi, strength was wielded that our machinery does not supply.' A true statement of the case. The nearest quarries of the stone of which Angkor was built are twenty miles away! Modern engineering could no more duplicate the feat of building this structure than it could match the Pyramid of Cheops!
"Yet even if this gigantic task of transportation of materials could be accomplished—what craftsmen today could match the stone-engraving of these walls? The ancient workmen used no cement. With what incredible tools they pierced this stone into delicate images, we cannot guess. The pillars are as painstakingly filigreed as if wrought by a goldsmith. In a chamber I shall show you—a subterranean niche discovered by Lake, here—is something even more remarkable. A cabinet of metal, inscribed with hieroglyphs eroded just enough to be indecipherable!"
Lake answered Ramey's questioning glance with a nod.
"That's right. Damnedest thing I ever saw. Sort of a cube, about twelve feet square. Hollow, too. But I can't find any way to open it. The inscription probably tells what it's all about, but as the Doc says, you can't quite read it. Almost, but not quite. It's tantalizing. Like a picture out of focus, or—"
"Probably just as well." That was Syd O'Brien voicing his gloomy opinion. "Don't like the looks of the thing. Sinister."
"I'd like to see it," said Ramey. "I'd like to take a week or so and see everything about this place—What's up, Red?"
The redhead, seated nearest the doorway of the room, had come suddenly to his feet with a warning gesture. Now he whispered hoarsely, "Doc—outside! A spy! Somebody's found out about me and Ramey being here!"
In a single motion, Ramey was on his feet, his automatic in his hand, was gliding to his friend's side. Red was right. Ramey was just in time to see a furtive figure, scar-faced, yellow-robed, Oriental, slip behind one of the numberless pillars supporting the corridor. He spun.
"Red's right! They're on to us. I knew we couldn't get away with this. Everybody sit tight; Red and I are going to pull out before we get you all in trouble...."
Then Johnny Grinnell was at his shoulder, and he was snorting amused relief.
"It's all right, Winters. Put your pistol up. It's only poor old Sheng-ti. He's probably hungry again, daft old devil!" He called quietly in a tongue that Ramey—though he did not speak the language—recognized as Cantonese. Slowly the figure emerged from behind the pillar. Ramey saw a lean, shaven-pated Oriental of indeterminate age clad in the filthy yellow robe of a Buddhist bonze, or priest.
The bonze moved forward hesitantly, his eyes darting suspicion at the two strangers. As he approached, his mumble became English words.
"Food! The child of Buddha hungers."
"Very well, Sheng-ti," said Grinnell soothingly, "We share with thee." Aside, to Ramey, he explained, "Sheng-ti's a ku'an-chu, Most Holy One. Not quite right up here. Not an ounce of harm in him, though. We feed him, and he calls down Buddha's blessing on us. Fair enough, eh? Behold, Sheng-ti, we have guests! The bird-men from the sky have come to visit us."
The priest glowered at the two strangers malevolently.
"Later we shall show them the wonders of the temple," continued Grinnell. "They would see the statues of the gods, the fountains and the hidden crypt—"
At his last words, a spasm of something akin to terror passed over the face of the yellow man. His eyes clouded and he thrust long-taloned hands before his face as if fending off a blow. His voice lifted in a discordant croak.
"Aie, doom!" he cried. "Doom ... doom ... doom!"
And turning swiftly, he fled, ragged skirts trailing behind him, sandals slip-slopping on the stone floor. Ramey grunted.
"Well! Pleasant little harbinger of spring, isn't he? That last crack of yours went over big."
Dr. Aiken smiled.
"I shouldn't let that worry you, my boy. Sheng-ti's a dire prophet, but a poor one. He warned me three years ago that if I did not leave this temple I would 'vanish into yesteryear', never to return. Cheerful thought, wasn't it? But I'm still here.
"Now, sit down, both of you, and stop worrying about nonexistent troubles. Have you forgotten we are on an island surrounded by a moat? Our watchmen guard every approach. If anyone comes near, we'll be given ample warning. Now, let me see—what were we talking about?"
"The chamber Lake discovered."
"Oh, yes! Well, that's but one of the thousand mysteries of Angkor, Ramey. There are many more. I might point out some of the peculiarities of the sculpture itself. Oddly mingled with painstaking representations of ordinary men, are the figures of incredible, fabulous monsters. Dragons, great nagas, hypogrifins, monkeys garbed in human clothing, acting like men, apparently talking to each other and to humans.
"You might reasonably say that these representations are figments of the creative imagination, a sort of 'artistic license,' so to speak. But here's the rub! Whenever men are depicted, they are reproduced with elaborate fidelity. Not a single effort is made to aggrandize or conventionalize, as is the case in the artistry of other ancient races. The Minoan, for instance, or the Egyptian. The builders of Angkor seemed to pride themselves on faithful portrayal.
"But why, then, did they detract from their accuracy by delineating the figures of nonexistent creatures? And the colors they used—why did they portray some human figures as white, others yellow, and still others blue? Unless—" Ian Aiken's voice throbbed with eagerness—"these were creatures and men they knew?"
The older man's excitement communicated itself as an uneasy chill to Ramey. He said, "You mean—?"
"I don't know what I mean, Winters—yet. I'm still studying, still trying to unite in coherent oneness the facts imperishably carven here for someone to discern.
"All I know is that Angkor Vat is old—considerably older than baffled science has hitherto been willing to admit. By the eyes and the feet of the statuary we judge its period. Blank, staring eyes, unfocussing; feet carven by artists so unaware of perspective that they exposed the soles of a walking person.
"I know, too, that the explanation is written here on these walls for him who can solve the Angkor script. We have not yet found the key. The letters seem to resemble the elder Siamese, which itself resembled Sanskrit. Perhaps we'll never unlock that lingual door.
"But there is one universal language, Ramey Winters! The language of science, mathematics, astronomy! And here we have a whole city written in that language. The arrangement of Angkor is as truly symbolic, as truly based on the mystic science of numbers, as is the famed King's Chamber of Cheops' pyramid.[2] And there are certain astronomical carvings—"
"But, look, Doc—" That was Red Barrett cudgelling his brow—"if this here place was discovered about 1860, the scientists ought to been able to figure it out by now. Ain't they no histories at all, no ideas how it come?"
Dr. Aiken's smile was scornful.
"Too many," he answered, "and too poor! For want of a better explanation, experts have decided that a race known as the 'Khmers' inhabited Angkor. They have even presumed to establish the period of occupancy: from about the 5th Century B.C. to the 14th Century of our Christian reckoning. Some of the more daring savants have attempted to trace the 'lineage' of Khmerian royalty.
"Gentlemen, believe me—these explanations are rank nonsense! Based on no valid records, facts, or suppositions! The learned M. Groslier, attempting to explain why Angkor Vat should lie deserted and forgotten for five hundred years in a jungle grave, presents the theory that the Khmers waged a war with the neighboring Thais, were defeated and forcibly driven from their national stronghold.
"Stupid poppycock! The weak Acadians of Nova Scotia were expelled from their homeland by armed force—yet within two generations seventy percent of them had drifted back—to tiny farms and wretched hamlets. But we are asked to believe that a great race meekly left its capital and never attempted to return!
"Yet—suppose that were true? A faint possibility, but let us grant it. Then why did not the conquerors move into occupy what must have been the most magnificent city on the face of the earth. Remember, at the height of its glory, Angkor Thom must have been prouder than Augustus' Rome ... more alive with swaggering splendor than Hannibal's Carthage ... gay and rich as the Golden Chersonese of fable!"
Ramey nodded.
"Sounds whacky," he agreed. "Any more theories?"
"One even more implausible. That a plague destroyed the entire population of Angkor."
Ramey shook his head. "Well, that could have been, sir. Before the advance of medicine, plagues used to ravage whole countries periodically. The Black Death is supposed to have killed more than twenty-five million persons in Europe in the Renaissance period. The bubonic killed ten thousand a day in Constantinople during the Interregnum. Even today the Orient is swept by raging plagues—"
"I realize that, my boy. But tell me—you've heard of the Great Plague of London? What did the city look like?"
"It was a charnel-house. Death-carts ... dead bodies in the streets ... graveyards filled to overflowing...."
"Exactly! Now, listen here! In all of Angkor Thom, there are no human remains to be found!
"You will say this merely indicates that the Khmers did not inter their dead. Perhaps they had no sepulchers, no graveyards or tombs. True. But shouldn't there be human remains somewhere in or near these structures? Even if age did rot the carcasses, there should be bones! But—there are no bones in Angkor!
"Not only that, but there are no weapons, no pottery fragments, no accoutrements! If I die, one of thirty million souls simultaneously stricken by death, my body can decay, my crumbling bones may be swept away by the winds, yes! But the Khmers wore metal bracelets, belts, buckles; used utensils of metal. Their pictures tell us so.
"Yet there is not one piece of wearing apparel to be found in all Angkor! Not a single pin, not a scrap of household furniture, not one old, discarded cooking-pot! Now, how do you account for that?"
Ramey, staring at the old archeologist, slowly shook his head. "I—I can't, sir. Can you?"
Ian Aiken's eyes were strangely introspective.
"I see but one possible solution, my boy. There was a mass emigration, purposeful, determined, complete. That—until a more satisfactory theory presents itself—is the way I am forced to explain it. And it is an explanation at least halfway in accord with the symbolic drawing I mentioned a few minutes ago. The drawing that shows—Yes, Sirabhar?"
He broke off suddenly as the small Cambodian bustled into the room, dark eyes wide and frightened.
"Pardon, master Doctor, sir! But warriors approach. Armed forces of the Island Ones cross the South bridge."
"This time it ain't no false alarm, Ramey. It's the Japs. They did see our 'plane crash, after all!"