In the Land of Time, and Other Fantasy Tales – Read Now and Download Mobi
Table of Contents
The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth
The Coronation of Mr. Thomas Shap
The Last Dream of Bwona Khubla
The Development of the Rillswood Estate
IN THE LAND OF TIME AND OTHER FANTASY TALES
EDWARD JOHN MORETON DRAX PLUNKETT, 18th Baron Dunsany was born in London in 1878, the scion of an Anglo-Irish family that could trace its ancestry to the twelfth century. In 1905 he self-published The Gods of Pegaāna, and its critical and popular success impelled the publication of numerous other collections of short stories, including A Dreamer’s Tales (1910), The Book of Wonder (1912), and The Last Book of Wonder (1916). Dunsany also distinguished himself as a dramatist, and his early plays—collected in Five Plays (1914) and Plays of Gods and Men (1917)—were successful in Ireland, England, and the United States. Dunsany was seriously injured during the Dublin riots of 1916, and he also saw action in World War I as a member of the Coldstream Guards.
In the 1920s Dunsany began writing novels, among them The King of Elfland’s Daughter (1924) and The Blessing of Pan (1927). He also wrote many tales of the loquacious clubman Joseph Jorkens, eventually collected in five volumes. His later plays include If (1921), Plays of Near and Far (1922), Seven Modern Comedies (1928), and Plays for Earth and Air (1937). By the 1930s, encouraged by W. B. Yeats and others to write about his native Ireland, he produced The Curse of the Wise Woman (1933), The Story of Mona Sheehy (1939), and other novels. His later tales were gathered in The Man Who Ate the Phoenix (1949) and The Little Tales of Smethers (1952), but many works remain uncollected. Lord Dunsany died at Dunsany Castle in County Meath, Ireland, in 1957. He is recognized as a leading figure in the development of modern fantasy literature, influencing such writers as J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, and Ursula K. Le Guin.
S. T. JOSHI is a freelance writer and editor. He has edited Penguin Classics editions of H. P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (1999) and The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories (2001), as well as Algernon Blackwood’s Ancient Sorceries and Other Strange Stories (2002). Among his critical and biographical studies are The Weird Tale (1990), Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination (1995), H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (1996), and The Modern Weird Tale (2001). He has also edited works by Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen, and H. L. Mencken, and is compiling a three-volume Encyclopedia of Supernatural Literature. He lives with his wife in Seattle, Washington.
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in Penguin Books 2004
Introduction and notes copyright © S. T. Joshi, 2004
All rights reserved
Published by arrangement with the Trustees of the Estate of Lord Dunsany. © Dunsany Will Trust.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Dunsany, Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, 1878-1957.
In the land of time, and other fantasy tales / by Lord Dunsany ; edited with an introduction and notes
by S. T. Joshi.
p. cm.
ISBN : 978-1-4406-5026-0
1. Fantasy fiction, English. I. Joshi, S. T., 1958- II. Title.
PR6007.U6A6 2004
823’.912—dc21 2003054901
The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Introduction
“No one can imitate Dunsany, and probably everyone who’s ever read him has tried.”1 This perspicacious comment by C. L. Moore underscores both the devotion, extending to a kind of reverential adulation, elicited in readers of the fantasy fiction of Lord Dunsany (1878-1957) and the extent to which subsequent writers in the fantasy tradition have striven to capture dim echoes of the crystalline beauty of Dunsany’s literary creation. Largely unknown to even the average literate reader, and merely a hallowed name to many enthusiasts of imaginative literature, Dunsany can nevertheless be seen as the source and inspiration of much of the writing that followed in his wake; such figures as H. P. Lovecraft, J. R. R. Tolkien, Fritz Leiber, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Moore herself are deeply in Dunsany’s debt for the example he set as a prose stylist and as a creator of an entire universe of shimmering fantasy.
The notion that Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, who became the eighteenth Baron Dunsany (pronounced Dun-SAY-ny) upon his father’s death in 1899, would become a central figure in twentieth-century fantasy would have struck the author himself as little short of fantastic. Certainly there was little in his background or early upbringing to suggest that Dunsany would be anything other than an average scion of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. His birth in London on July 24, 1878, is not insignificant, for it highlighted the fact that Dunsany would remain Anglo-Irish to the end of his days, with perhaps a slightly greater emphasis on the first element of that compound. A devoted Unionist who loathed the Nationalists who wished to tear Ireland away from Great Britain (in later years he would speak bitterly of the “Disunited Kingdom”), Dunsany regularly alternated his living quarters from Dunsany Castle in County Meath to his home at Dunsall Priory, Shoreham, Kent. During his early education, at Eton and Sandhurst, he showed no particular literary bent; and his first published work, a mediocre poem in the Pall Mall Magazine for September 1897, did little to indicate that Dunsany would, in the course of a fifty-year career, produce dozens of novels and plays and hundreds of short stories and poems, and would receive accolades from both sides of the Atlantic and from critics ranging from Rebecca West and Graham Greene to H. L. Mencken and William Rose Benét.
But then, in 1904, Dunsany took it into his mind to write The Gods of Pegaāna. Because he had no literary reputation, he was forced to subsidize its publication by Elkin Mathews the next year; but never again would Dunsany have to pay for the issuance of any of his work. This very slim volume, scarcely twenty thousand words in length, created a sensation among both readers and critics—especially after a favorable review by the poet Edward Thomas in the London Daily Chronicle—and could well be said to have introduced something quite new in literature. What Dunsany had done was to create an entire cosmogony, complete with a pantheon of ethereal but balefully powerful gods—a cosmogony, however, whose aim was not the fashioning of an ersatz religion that made any claim to metaphysical truth, but rather the embodiment of Oscar Wilde’s imperishable dictum, “The artist is the creator of beautiful things.”2 For Dunsany, who was probably an atheist, the creator god Mäna-Yood-Sushai was not a replacement of either the jealous god of the Old Testament or the loving god of the New, but a symbol for the transience and ephemerality of all creation: it is not through any conscious act that Mäna brought the worlds into existence; those worlds are, instead, merely the dreams that arise in his mind, ruled over by “small gods” who, nevertheless, exercise awesome power over their little realms. One day Skarl, whose continual drumming keeps Mäna asleep and dreaming, will cease to pound his drum, and Māna will wake, and the worlds will vanish like bubbles in the air. . . .
What could possibly have led Dunsany to fashion such an extraordinary universe of pure imagination? The literary influences operating on his work are difficult to specify, especially since Dunsany, although the author of three substantial autobiographies, is himself rather cagey in speaking of his literary antecedents. It has long been recognized that both the archaic cast and the stately cadences of Dunsany’s prose style derive from his thorough familiarity with the language of the King James Bible. But the multiplicity of gods in Dunsany’s pantheon, as well as their creation in a spirit of tenuous beauty rather than cosmic truth, may also suggest the influence of Greco-Roman mythology, and Dunsany himself admits as much. His inability to master Greek in youth “left me with a curious longing for the mighty lore of the Greeks, of which I had had glimpses like a child seeing wonderful flowers through the shut gates of a garden; and it may have been the retirement of the Greek gods from my vision after I left Eton that eventually drove me to satisfy some such longing by making gods unto myself, as I did in my first two books.”3 But a philosophical influence can also be conjectured. Dunsany read Nietzsche in 1904,4 just around the time he wrote The Gods of Pegaāna, and we can detect the presence of the German iconoclast in numerous conceptions and perhaps even in its ponderous phraseology, so similar to the prose-poetic rhythms of Thus Spake Zarathustra. In effect, Dunsany was seeking to fuse the naïveté and spirit of wonder that had led primitive humanity to invent its gods with a very modern sensibility that recognized the insignificance of mankind amidst those incalculable vortices of space and time that modern science had uncovered.
Dunsany went on to produce, over the next decade and a half, perhaps the most remarkable body of fantasy literature that the twentieth century can claim: the story collections Time and the Gods (1906), The Sword of Welleran (1908), A Dreamer’s Tales (1910), The Book of Wonder (1912), Fifty-one Tales (1915), The Last Book of Wonder (1916), and Tales of Three Hemispheres (1919), and two collections of dramas, Five Plays (1914) and Plays of Gods and Men (1917). These volumes are, however, far from constituting a uniform or monolithic body of work. It is true that, as Dunsany remarked, Time and the Gods is an avowed sequel to The Gods of Pegaāna, elaborating upon the Pegāna mythology and emphasizing the transience of the gods themselves in the face of the unrelenting scythe of Time; and several tales in other volumes—notably “The Sword of Welleran” and “The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth”—could be said to have initiated the subgenre of “sword and sorcery,” in which heroic battles in fantastic lands are the focus. But in a substantial majority of other tales the “real” world begins to encroach insidiously upon the realm of pure imagination, and it is this dynamic fusion of reality and fantasy that frequently engenders some of the most evocative and poignant moments in Dunsany’s early work.
And yet, that “real” world was never absent from Dunsany’s imagination, if we are to take him at his own word. In noting how, at an early age, he saw a hare in the garden of Sir Joseph Prestwich, Dunsany goes on to remark in his first autobiography, Patches of Sunlight (1938):
If ever I have written of Pan, out in the evening, as though I had really seen him, it is mostly a memory of that hare. If I thought that I was a gifted individual whose inspirations came sheer from outside earth and transcended common things, I should not write this book; but I believe that the wildest flights of the fancies of any of us have their homes with Mother Earth.5
A little later he writes more generally:
The source of all imagination is here in our fields, and Creation is beautiful enough for the furthest flights of the poets. What is called realism only falls far behind these flights because it is too meticulously concerned with the detail of material; mere inventories of rocks are not poetry; but all the memories of crags and hills and meadows and woods and sky that lie in a sensitive spirit are materials for poetry, only waiting to be taken out, and to be laid before the eyes of such as care to perceive them.6
Many of Dunsany’s devotees, who have cherished his early work precisely because of its otherworldly remoteness, will be startled by these passages; but these words will gain still more relevance when we consider the long course of Dunsany’s later writing.
The most remarkable feature of Dunsany’s early tales and plays is their prose style; but the essence of that style has frequently been misconstrued. Dunsany’s style is not nearly as dense or adjective-laden as of other writers of poetic prose—John Lyly, Sir Thomas Browne, William Morris, Oscar Wilde (especially in his fairy tales), Arthur Symons, Clark Ashton Smith, and others. Instead, Dunsany’s most powerful effects are engendered by a daring use of symbol, metaphor, and simile. In “In the Land of Time,” an army quixotically seeks to beard Time in his lair, but Time hurls a handful of years at them—“and the knees of the army stiffened, and the beards grew and turned grey.” In this sense much of Dunsany’s work aligns itself with the tradition of the fable, especially in its use of a transparent moral and its paring away of all extraneous narrative features (including, in many cases, character or landscape description) that do not bear upon the tale’s outcome. An important feature of Dunsany’s style is his singularly felicitous invention of imaginary names—names not devised at random, but carefully coined to create dim echoes of Greek, Arabic, Asian, or other mythologies, and so to convey implications of antiquity, holiness, and exotic beauty.
Although the books of Dunsany’s first fifteen years as a writer established his fame throughout the English-speaking world—especially after his tales began appearing in the London Saturday Review and in H. L. Mencken’s Smart Set—one can also detect a certain shift in Dunsany’s own attitude toward his work. This shift becomes most evident in The Book of Wonder. The stories in this volume—inspired by paintings by Sidney H. Sime, whose imaginative illustrations to Dunsany’s early books were in no small part responsible for their popularity—reveal a wry, owlish humor that constitutes a virtual parody of the “gods and men” scenarios that had enraptured his early readers. In story after story, characters of dubious honesty receive a fitting comeuppance at the hands of the gods. It is a matter of taste whether one likes this development in Dunsany’s manner. One of those who did not was H. P. Lovecraft, whose appreciation for Dunsany’s work generally bordered upon the idolatrous. In a letter he commented astutely:
As he gained in age and sophistication, he lost in freshness and simplicity. He was ashamed to be uncritically naive, and began to step aside from his tales and visibly smile at them even as they unfolded. Instead of remaining what the true fantaisiste must be—a child in a child’s world of dream—he became anxious to show that he was really an adult good-naturedly pretending to be a child in a child’s world. This hardening-up began to show, I think, in The Book of Wonder.7
It is also possible that the outbreak of World War I had something to do with this evolution. The preface to The Last Book of Wonder suggests that Dunsany—who had already seen action in the Boer War at the turn of the century and had enlisted in the Coldstream Guards—did not expect to survive the conflict. He did indeed have a close brush with death, but it occurred during the Dublin riots of 1916, when his car was ambushed and he was hit in the face by a rebel’s bullet. In the end Dunsany did not get sent overseas, but his visits to some of the battlefields in France were recorded in the poignant and lugubrious volume Unhappy Far-Off Things (1919).
After the war, a change seemed to be in order. Following Tales of Three Hemispheres Dunsany wrote almost no short stories for the next five or six years. A spectacularly successful American lecture tour in 1919-20 cemented his reputation—a reputation, incidentally, that now rested largely on his plays. His early dramas had been staged in both Ireland and England to great success, and in 1916 a Dunsany craze swept the United States, as each one of the Five Plays was simultaneously produced in a different off-Broadway theater in New York. The Gods of the Mountain remained Dunsany’s most popular play, and it may well be his greatest; in its depiction of seven beggars who boldly strive to pass themselves off as the green jade gods on the top of a mountain, it comes close to capturing the gravity of Greek tragedy, but not without a certain Nietzschean awareness of the passing of the divine from human affairs. If (1921), his only full-length play, is an exhilarating meditation on time and chance. Later volumes—Plays of Near and Far (1922), Alexander and Three Small Plays (1925), and Seven Modern Comedies (1928)—also contain outstanding work.
But Dunsany himself felt the need to strike out in new directions. He abandoned the short story for a time and turned to novel writing. After producing a charming but insubstantial picaresque tale, The Chronicles of Rodriguez (1922), he wrote the gorgeous otherworldly fantasy, The King of Elfland’s Daughter (1924), in a splendid return to his early manner. Both The Charwoman’s Shadow (1926) and The Blessing of Pan (1927) have their distinctive charms; the latter in particular is a lost jewel of fantastic literature in its simultaneous depiction of the triumph of nature over modern civilization and the triumph of paganism over Christianity. While these novels represent, in their greater emphasis on character portrayal and the complexities arising out of a sustained narrative, a development from his early fantasy work, Dunsany made a still clearer break with that work when, in 1925, he sat down to write his first tale of the clubman Joseph Jorkens, “The Tale of the Abu Laheeb.”
On the most superficial level, Dunsany found in the Jorkens tales a convenient means of recording the impressions he gained on his far-flung travels, chiefly in Africa and the Middle East, and chiefly for the purpose of big-game hunting. In his second autobiography, While the Sirens Slept (1944), he makes this motive explicit, telling of the aftermath of an expedition to the Sahara:
It was from material gathered on this journey that on the 29th and 30th March, 1925, I wrote a tale called The Tale of the Abu Laheeb. There was in this tale more description of the upper reaches of the White Nile or of the Bahr-el-Gazal than I have given here; indeed the whole setting of that fantastic story may be regarded as accurately true to life, though not the tale itself. I mention this short story and the date, because it was the first time that I told of the wanderings of a character that I called Jorkens. He was my reply to some earlier suggestion that I should write of my journeys after big game and, being still reluctant to do this, I had invented a drunken old man who, whenever he could cadge a drink at a club, told tales of his travels. When in addition to his other failings I made him a liar, I felt that at least there could be nothing boastful about my stories.8
The Jorkens tales—nearly 150 of which were written over a thirty-year span—brought Dunsany more widespread popularity than even his early tales and plays or his recent novels. They were published in the most widely circulated magazines both in the United States (Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Vanity Fair, Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan) and the United Kingdom (Pall Mall Magazine, Spectator, Strand Magazine, John O’London’s Weekly), and were collected in five volumes from 1931 to 1954; a sixth volume was assembled before Dunsany’s death but not issued.
Dunsany’s blunt statement that Jorkens was a “liar” belies the actual scenarios of the stories; for their cleverness resides exactly in the reader’s inability to detect any overt falsehood in them, however grotesque, implausible, or even preposterous they may appear. The secret of the Jorkens tales is their presentation of bizarre, fantastic, even supernatural incidents that resolve themselves in such a way that their outcomes remain secret or become nullified. Hence Jorkens, in “The Tale of the Abu Laheeb,” comes upon a creature in Africa who shares with humanity the use of fire; but this bond prevents Jorkens from shooting him and bringing his carcass back as proof of the creature’s existence. In “Our Distant Cousins,” a friend of Jorkens has made a trip to Mars—but has regrettably lost the one bit of proof (a tiny elephant the size of a mouse) that would have confirmed the fact of his journey. In many tales Jorkens makes and then loses a fortune, while in others he faces almost certain death but narrowly escapes—and after all, isn’t the fact that he lived to tell the tale proof of its veracity?
The Jorkens tales, lighthearted and even frivolous as many of them are, nevertheless manage to underscore several of Dunsany’s central concerns. One particular concern that began to develop around this time was what might be termed the conflict of humanity and nature. Even his early, otherworldly fantasies could be said to have as their focus the need for humanity’s reunification with the natural world; but with the passing of the years Dunsany felt he had to convey the message more forcefully. Mankind in the twentieth century was heading in the wrong direction—a direction that might, in the end, lead to its destruction, or what is worse, its merited overthrow by the rest of the natural world. Industrialization and commerce (with its accompanying prevalence of advertising, one of Dunsany’s bêtes noires) were threatening to rob the world of its stores of wonder and fantasy, and both the animal and the plant kingdom (see “The Walk to Lingham”) were within their rights to throw off the shackles that subjugated them to a race that no longer merited its superiority.
One of the chief ways Dunsany conveyed this topos was by the use of a nonhuman perspective. At its most innocuous, this means the attempt to capture the world as viewed through the eyes and minds of an animal; hence we have the delightful short novel My Talks with Dean Spanley (1936), in which a clergyman, when sufficiently plied with wine, speaks of his firm belief that in a past life he was a dog. Years later this novel was writ large in another lost classic of fantasy, The Strange Journeys of Colonel Polders (1950), in which a bluff, no-nonsense British officer, having offended an Indian swami in his club, finds his spirit lodged in a bewildering succession of nonhuman bodies—a fox, an eel, a cat, a mountain goat, even a jinn. The wondrous felicity with which Dunsany seems to capture the exact sentiments of the animals in question makes this work a delight in spite of its seemingly random structure.
A sharper edge, however, is found in many other of Dunsany’s works of this kind. In the play The Old Folk of the Centuries (1930) a butterfly who is magically turned into a little boy quickly finds the life of a human being far too constricting for comfort, and he finds a convenient witch to transform him back to a butterfly. Another play, Lord Adrian (written in 1922-23 but not published until 1933), comes close to misanthropy. Here an elderly nobleman is injected with the glands from an ape and, rejuvenated, produces an offspring, Lord Adrian; but Adrian’s partial animal ancestry leads him to plan an overthrow of the human race, since “I regard the domination of all life by man as the greatest evil that ever befell the earth.”9 Even the otherwise mild-mannered Colonel Polders, like Gulliver, gradually gains a “distaste for the human race”10 after repeated deadly encounters with humans. Perhaps the greatest of all instances of this misanthropy occurs in a short play, The Use of Man (in Plays for Earth and Air, 1937). Here the spirit of a hapless and not very bright young man is summoned to a council of the spirits of animals somewhere in space, and he has an extraordinarily difficult time justifying the “use” of the human race in the natural scheme of things. He finds that no animal, aside from the slavishly devoted dog, will stand up for his species: the crow doesn’t like man’s guns; the bear resents the fact that he is locked up in zoos; the mouse hates man’s traps. At the very last a single animal comes to man’s rescue: the mosquito finds a “use” in man—he is its food.
From the very earliest of his works, Dunsany occasionally took pleasure in envisioning the eventual extirpation of the human race. Several of the exquisite prose poems in Fifty-one Tales have this as their focus, although in many cases it seems part and parcel of the “cosmic” perspective that Dunsany had adopted at this juncture. In later works it is industrialism that will bring a fitting doom to our race, ridding the world of a dangerous menace and leaving the earth free for the animals to resume their sway. The potent one-act play The Evil Kettle (in Alexander and Three Small Plays) may be Dunsany’s most effective embodiment of this idea. Here the well-known anecdote of the young James Watt looking at a steaming teakettle and envisioning therefrom the awesome power of steam is given a nightmarish twist: at night the Devil comes to Watt and forces him to glimpse a hideous vision of the future with its “dark, Satanic mills” and the earth’s natural beauty corrupted by mechanization. But the Devil casts a spell over him and makes him forget what he has just seen, and we are left with a haunting sense of historic inevitability. Dunsany’s later treatments of this theme—notably his late novel The Last Revolution (1951), which depicts machines revolting from humanity’s control—are, regrettably, much inferior to this concentrated bit of venom.
One of the subtlest of Dunsany’s treatments of the man-versus-nature theme occurs in what is probably his finest novel, The Curse of the Wise Woman (1933). This work, set entirely in Ireland, brings to the fore the vexed issue of Dunsany’s relations with the land of his ancestors. There had been Plunketts in Ireland since the eleventh century, and Dunsany produced some of his greatest work there; but would he ever abandon his otherworldly realms of dream and fantasy to write about it—its landscape, its people, its rich stores of history and myth? For the first three decades of his career the answer seemed to be a resounding no; although some of his early stories had appeared in such Irish periodicals as the Shanachie and the Irish Homestead, Dunsany himself frequently admitted that he preferred to invent his myths out of whole cloth rather than to adapt existing ones. And yet, he could hardly be unaware that a literary revival was going on in Ireland at exactly the time he began writing. His early plays had been produced at the Abbey Theatre, and he himself was enthusiastic about the plays of J. M. Synge and others. He was well acquainted with James Stephens, W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, and other prominent figures in Irish literature. Yeats assembled a slim volume, Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsany, for publication by the Cuala Press in 1912, in the introduction to which he expressed the following pensive regret:
When I was first moved by Lord Dunsany’s work I thought that he would more help this change [i.e., the Irish literary revival] if he could bring his imagination into the old Irish legendary world instead of those magic lands of his with their vague Eastern air; but even as I urged him I knew that he could not, without losing his rich beauty of careless suggestion, and the persons and images that for ancestry have all those romantic ideas that are somewhere in the background of all our minds. He could not have made Slieve-na-Mon nor Slieve Fua incredible and phantastic enough, because that prolonged study of a past age, necessary before he could separate them from modern association, would have changed the spontaneity of his mood to something learned, premeditated, and scientific.11
This is remarkably on target, and it proves also to have been prophetic: Yeats seems to have sensed that Dunsany would have to renounce his devotion to otherworldly fantasy before he could treat the real world of Ireland in his fiction. There is a gradual decline of the purely fantastic element throughout the entire course of his work, to the point that such later novels as Up in the Hills (1935), Rory and Bran (1936), Guerrilla (1944), and His Fellow Men (1952) have nothing fantastic or supernatural in them, although they nonetheless retain that ethereal delicacy that remained Dunsany’s keynote.
But The Curse of the Wise Woman did not emerge from nowhere; it had decided antecedents, and Yeats was at the center of them. In 1932 Yeats and Lady Gregory established the Irish Academy of Letters. The members chosen for inclusion were to be divided into two categories, “academicians” and “associates”; Yeats and Bernard Shaw explained the distinction: “the Academicians must have done creative work ‘Irish in character or subject’; an Associate need not fall within this definition though he must be of Irish birth or descent.”12 Dunsany was mightily insulted that he was chosen only as an associate (in some of his writings he actually suggests that he was not chosen at all), but as a matter of fact he had up to this point done very little writing “Irish in character or subject,” so his placement in that category (along with such figures as T. E. Lawrence and Eugene O’Neill) was understandable. Nonetheless, Dunsany seems to have been inspired by this perceived slight to write The Curse of the Wise Woman, a poignant novel that explores the numerous conflicts in Irish life—Catholic and Protestant, city and country, progress and tradition, political stability and violence—in a scenario in which the supernatural is reduced to the vanishing point, and may not come into play at all: a “wise woman” (witch), enraged at the threatened destruction of a bog by a development company, seems to summon up the power of nature and bring about a ferocious storm that wipes out the company’s machines and saves the bog. After the publication of the novel, Dunsany was elected as an “academician” member of the Irish Academy of Letters.
The Story of Mona Sheehy (1939) is another superb Irish novel, touchingly describing the fate of a young woman who thinks she is a child of the fairies and finds herself working unhappily in a factory far from the fields and bogs she loves. It is perhaps the chief example of what might be called Dunsany’s late renunciation of fantasy. At the very outset we know clearly that Mona is not a child of the fairies but the offspring of an illicit sexual encounter between Lady Gurtrim and an Irish laborer; but the strength of Mona’s belief creates a kind of ersatz fantasy atmosphere as distinctive as it is compelling. Other tales written around this time—including numerous short skits written for Punch in the 1940s—are much less flattering to Irish self-esteem, and may have had some role in what appears to be a deliberate avoidance of Dunsany’s work on the part of Irish writers and critics. The culmination is reached in “Helping the Fairies” (1947), whose plot twist is too cleverly nasty to reveal here.
Dunsany remained vigorous to the end, both as a man and as a writer. The onset of World War II found him too old to fight, but not too old to be a part of the Home Guard, watching for incoming German planes from his home in Kent. In 1940 he accepted the Byron Professorship of English Literature at Athens University, but had to be evacuated the next year when Hitler invaded Greece; the long and circuitous trip home is described in a long poem, A Journey (1944). Jorkens continued to appear in story after story. In 1932 Dunsany had created another serial character, the amateur detective Linley, whose adventures are narrated by the self-effacing Smethers. The first story, “The Two Bottles of Relish,” was rejected by several magazines because of its gruesomeness (Dunsany remarks with perverse pride that “my literary agent was unable to get any man in England or America to touch it”13) before appearing in Time and Tide, thereafter becoming one of the most frequently reprinted stories in modern literature. Although praised by Ellery Queen, Dunsany’s other mystery tales as collected in The Little Tales of Smethers (1952) seem insubstantial. Plays continued to be written with vigor and panache, and Plays for Earth and Air (1937), containing several one-acters written for broadcast on BBC radio, feature some of his cleverest dramatic work. Lord Dunsany died on October 25, 1957.
How did a writer so well known in his time, and so showered with critical acclaim, lapse so far into obscurity? A number of factors having nothing to do with the merit, or lack of it, of Dunsany’s work conspired against him. First, fantasy has always been relatively restricted in its appeal, and in the course of the twentieth century it gradually dropped out of mainstream fiction and became a narrow “genre” somewhere between science fiction and horror fiction, and incurring the critical disdain that those literary modes suffered. Second, Dunsany’s ambiguous involvement with his Irish literary compatriots—to say nothing of his Unionist sympathies at a time when most leading Irish writers were Nationalists—caused his work to be either scorned or deliberately ignored by those who should have been acknowledging it as a distinctive contribution to the national literature. And third, Dunsany, like so many writers, wrote too much. Although to my mind he maintained a remarkably high consistency over a lifetime’s work, he had the misfortune to write what many regarded as his best work quite early in his career—those tales of bejeweled fantasy that we designate by the adjective “Dunsanian”—so that even his devotees, such as H. P. Lovecraft, found his later work not entirely to their taste and failed to champion it.
But Dunsany’s presence as an influence upon contemporary literature is not entirely insignificant. His plays may have fallen out of fashion, but they were appreciated by no less a figure than Pirandello; as late as 1950 Brooks Atkinson, reviewing a New York revival of The Gods of the Mountain, was noting that Dunsany’s dramatic work was by no means deserving of the oblivion that had overtaken it.14 The sword-and-sorcery tradition he had initiated was developed by Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber. And Lovecraft’s worshipful discussion of Dunsany in “Supernatural Horror in Literature” (1927) did much to inspire interest in his work among later devotees of Lovecraft, so that such editors as Lin Carter and Darrell Schweitzer strove to bring some of the best of it back into print.
Dunsany was, however, not one to confuse popularity with merit. To the end of his life he remained convinced of the high calling of the genuine artist, and he knew that artists must sometimes toil in obscurity, and in the face of prevailing public opinion. In the early essay “Nowadays” (1918) he speaks of the poet’s function:
It is to see at a glance the glory of the world, to see beauty in all its forms and manifestations, to feel ugliness like a pain, to resent the wrongs of others as bitterly as one’s own, to know mankind as others know single men, to know Nature as botanists know a flower, to be thought a fool, to hear at moments the clear voice of God.15
By these criteria, Dunsany, although doing his best work in prose, was a poet indeed.
Suggestions for Further Reading
PRIMARY
Mention has been made of Dunsany’s early short story collections, from The Gods of Pegaāna (1905) to Tales of Three Hemispheres (1919). Two early omnibuses from the Modern Library—The Book of Wonder (1918), containing The Book of Wonder and Time and the Gods, and A Dreamer’s Tales and Other Stories (1917), containing A Dreamer’s Tales and The Sword of Welleran—are noteworthy. My edition of The Complete Pegaāna (Chaosium, 1998) contains The Gods of Pegaāna, Time and the Gods, and a few other stories. Tales of War (1918) is a lackluster collection of war stories. Later collections include The Man Who Ate the Phoenix (1949) and The Little Tales of Smethers and Other Stories (1952), but many stories remain uncollected. Some of these are included in Darrell Schweitzer’s edition of The Ghosts of the Heaviside Layer and Other Fantasms (Owlswick Press, 1980). Lin Carter edited three selections of Dunsany’s early work as part of the Adult Fantasy Series published by Ballantine (1972-74), and E. F. Bleiler assembled a meritorious selection, Gods, Men and Ghosts (1972).
Dunsany’s Jorkens tales are collected in five volumes: The Travel Tales of Mr. Joseph Jorkens (1931), Jorkens Remembers Africa (1934), Jorkens Has a Large Whiskey (1940), The Fourth Book of Jorkens (1947), and Jorkens Borrows Another Whiskey (1954). Night Shade Books is preparing, under my editorship, a three-volume reprint of the complete Jorkens tales, which will include the sixth Jorkens volume, which did not appear in Dunsany’s lifetime.
Dunsany’s novels have all been cited in the introduction. His shorter plays are gathered in Five Plays (1914), Plays of Gods and Men (1917), Plays of Near and Far (1922), Alexander and Three Small Plays (1925), Seven Modern Comedies (1928), and Plays for Earth and Air (1937). Several plays appeared separately: If (1921), The Old Folk of the Centuries (1930), Lord Adrian (1933), and Mr. Faithful (1935).
Dunsany wrote many essays, but few have been collected. Some are gathered in The Ghosts of the Heaviside Layer. Of his three autobiographies, Patches of Sunlight (1938), While the Sirens Slept (1944), and The Sirens Wake (1945), the first is by far the best, being a poignant account of Dunsany’s early years; the latter tend to be rather monotonous chronicles of his travels. See also the volume My Ireland (1937). The Donnellan Lectures (1945) contains some significant passages on prose style and dramatic technique. A Glimpse from a Watch Tower (1946) is a trenchant series of essays on the prospects for civilization following the end of World War II.
Dunsany’s poetry—not a notable branch of his work—is collected in several volumes: Fifty Poems (1929), Mirage Water (1938), War Poems (1941), Wandering Songs (1943), A Journey (1944), The Year (1946), and To Awaken Pegasus (1949). His verse translation of The Odes of Horace (1947) is exemplary.
SECONDARY
The relative paucity of recent studies of Dunsany’s life and work stands in stark contrast to the wealth of criticism—chiefly in the form of book reviews and newspaper articles—that he received during his lifetime. Mark Amory’s Biography of Lord Dunsany (Collins, 1972) is a singularly undistinguished biography by a writer who seems to have had no sensitivity to or sympathy with Dunsany’s work. Hazel Littlefield’s Lord Dunsany: King of Dreams (Exposition Press, 1959) is a charming memoir by a Californian whom Dunsany visited several times late in life. Arthur C. Clarke and Lord Dunsany: A Correspondence, ed. Keith Allen Daniels (Anamnesis Press, 1998), prints a fascinating correspondence between Dunsany and the modern master of science fiction.
S. T. Joshi and Darrell Schweitzer’s Lord Dunsany: A Bibliography (Scarecrow Press, 1993) is the first comprehensive listing of works by and about Dunsany.
Of book-length critical studies, Edward Hale Bierstadt’s Dunsany the Dramatist (Little, Brown, 1917, rev. 1919) is the first, but is uninsightful. Darrell Schweitzer’s Pathways to Elfland: The Writings of Lord Dunsany (Owlswick Press, 1989) is enthusiastic and wide-ranging, and is useful as a preliminary overview. The most exhaustive study is S. T. Joshi’s Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination (Greenwood Press, 1995), which surveys the entirety of Dunsany’s work.
Among shorter critical essays, Ernest A. Boyd’s “Lord Dunsany—Fantaisiste,” in his Appreciations and Depreciations (John Lane, 1918), is still of value. Yeats’s introduction to Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsany (1912) can now be found in his Prefaces and Introductions, ed. William H. O’Donnell (Macmillan, 1989). H. P. Lovecraft frequently wrote about Dunsany, but his lecture “Lord Dunsany and His Work” (1922) is not as illuminating as one might have wished. It can be found in his Miscellaneous Writings (Arkham House, 1995). Arthur C. Clarke wrote an enthusiastic appreciation of Dunsany in “Dunsany Lord of Dreams,” Rhodomagnetic Digest (November-December 1951). Ursula K. Le Guin addresses Dunsany in “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie,” in The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction (Putnam, 1979). S. T. Joshi’s “Lord Dunsany: The Career of a Fantaisiste,” in The Weird Tale (University of Texas Press, 1990), is an early version of his monograph.
Among recent critics of Irish literature, only John Foster Wilson, in the chapter “A Dreamer’s Tales: The Stories of Lord Dunsany,” in Fictions of the Irish Literary Revival (Syracuse University Press, 1987), has addressed Dunsany’s work significantly.
A Note on the Text
All works by Dunsany in this volume, with two exceptions, are taken from the first British or American editions of his short story collections, as specified in the explanatory notes. “Helping the Fairies” and “The Romance of His Life” are previously uncollected in book form and are derived from their first magazine appearances.
I have incurred many debts of gratitude over the years in regard to my work on Dunsany, most significantly to Darrell Schweitzer, Douglas A. Anderson, Dan Clore, and David E. Schultz. More recently, Mike Ashley has lent me valuable assistance. The support of Edward Plunkett, the twentieth Lord Dunsany; his wife, Marie Alice Plunkett; and his literary adviser, Joe Doyle, is greatly appreciated.
I.
PEGĀNA AND ENVIRONS
The Gods of Pegāna
PREFACE
There be islands in the Central Sea, whose waters are bounded by no shore and where no ships come—this is the faith of their people.
[PROLOGUE]
In the mists before the Beginning, Fate and Chance cast lots to decide whose the Game should be; and he that won strode through the mists to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI and said: “Now make gods for Me, for I have won the cast and the Game is to be Mine.” Who it was that won the cast, and whether it was Fate or whether Chance that went through the mists before the Beginning to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI—none knoweth.
THE GODS OF PEGĀNA
Before there stood gods upon Olympus, or ever Allah was Allah, had wrought and rested MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI.
There are in Pegāna—Mung and Sish and Kib, and the maker of all small gods, who is MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI. Moreover, we have a faith in Roon and Slid.
And it has been said of old that all things that have been were wrought by the small gods, excepting only MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, who made the gods, and hath thereafter rested.
And none may pray to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI but only to the gods whom he hath made.
But at the Last will MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI forget to rest, and will make again new gods and other worlds, and will destroy the gods whom he hath made.
And the gods and the worlds shall depart, and there shall be only MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI.
OF SKARL THE DRUMMER
When MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI had made the gods and Skarl, Skarl made a drum, and began to beat upon it that he might drum for ever. Then because he was weary after the making of the gods, and because of the drumming of Skarl, did MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI grow drowsy and fall asleep.
And there fell a hush upon the gods when they saw that MĀNA rested, and there was silence on Pegāna save for the drumming of Skarl. Skarl sitteth upon the mist before the feet of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, above the gods of Pegāna, and there he beateth his drum. Some say that the Worlds and the Suns are but the echoes of the drumming of Skarl, and others say that they be dreams that arise in the mind of MĀNA because of the drumming of Skarl, as one may dream whose rest is troubled by sound of song, but none knoweth, for who hath heard the voice of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, or who hath seen his drummer?
Whether the season be winter or whether it be summer, whether it be morning among the worlds or whether it be night, Skarl still beateth his drum, for the purposes of the gods are not yet fulfilled. Sometimes the arm of Skarl grows weary; but still he beateth his drum, that the gods may do the work of the gods, and the worlds go on, for if he cease for an instant then MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI will start awake, and there will be worlds nor gods no more.
But, when at the last the arm of Skarl shall cease to beat his drum, silence shall startle Pegāna like thunder in a cave, and MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI shall cease to rest.
Then shall Skarl put his drum upon his back and walk forth into the void beyond the worlds, because it is THE END, and the work of Skarl is over.
There there may arise some other god whom Skarl may serve, or it may be that he shall perish; but to Skarl it shall matter not, for he shall have done the work of Skarl.
OF THE MAKING OF THE WORLDS
When MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI had made the gods there were only the gods, and They sat in the middle of Time, for there was as much Time before them as behind them, which having no end had neither a beginning.
And Pegāna was without heat or light or sound, save for the drumming of Skarl; moreover Pegāna was The Middle of All, for there was below Pegāna what there was above it, and there lay before it that which lay beyond.
Then said the gods, making the signs of the gods and speaking with Their hands lest the silence of Pegāna should blush; then said the gods to one another, speaking with Their hands: “Let Us make worlds to amuse Ourselves while MĀNA rests. Let Us make worlds and Life and Death, and colours in the sky; only let Us not break the silence upon Pegāna.”
Then raising Their hands, each god according to his sign, They made the worlds and the suns, and put a light in the houses of the sky.
Then said the gods: “Let Us make one to seek, to seek and never to find out concerning the wherefore of the making of the gods.”
And They made by the lifting of Their hands, each god according to his sign, the Bright One with the flaring tail to seek from the end of the Worlds to the end of them again, to return again after a hundred years.
Man, when thou seest the comet, know that another seeketh besides thee nor ever findeth out.
Then said the gods, still speaking with Their hands: “Let there be now a Watcher to regard.”
And They made the Moon, with his face wrinkled with many mountains and worn with a thousand valleys, to regard with pale eyes the games of the small gods, and to watch throughout the resting time of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI; to watch, to regard all things, and be silent.
Then said the gods: “Let Us make one to rest. One not to move among the moving. One not to seek like the comet, nor to go round like the worlds; to rest while MĀNA rests.”
And They made the Star of the Abiding and set it in the North.1
Man, when thou seest the Star of the Abiding to the North, know that one resteth as doth MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, and know that somewhere among the Worlds is rest.
Lastly the gods said: “We have made worlds and suns, and one to seek and another to regard, let Us now make one to wonder.”
And They made Earth to wonder, each god by the uplifting of his hand according to his sign.
And Earth Was.
OF THE GAME OF THE GODS
A million years passed over the first game of the gods. And MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI still rested, still in the middle of Time, and the gods still played with Worlds. The Moon regarded, and the Bright One sought, and returned again to his seeking.
Then Kib grew weary of the first game of the gods, and raised his hand in Pegāna, making the sign of Kib, and Earth became covered with beasts for Kib to play with.
And Kib played with beasts.
But the other gods said one to another, speaking with their hands: “What is it that Kib has done?”
And They said to Kib: “What are these things that move upon The Earth yet move not in circles like the Worlds, that regard like the Moon and yet they do not shine?”
And Kib said: “This is Life.”
But the gods said one to another: “If Kib has thus made beasts he will in time make Men, and will endanger the Secret of the gods.”
And Mung was jealous of the work of Kib, and sent down Death among the beasts, but could not stamp them out.
A million years passed over the second game of the gods, and still it was the Middle of Time.
And Kib grew weary of the second game, and raised his hand in The Middle of All, making the sign of Kib, and made Men: out of beasts he made them, and Earth was covered with Men.
Then the gods feared greatly for the Secret of the gods, and set a veil between Man and his ignorance that he might not understand. And Mung was busy among Men.
But when the other gods saw Kib playing his new game They came and played it too. And this They will play until MĀNA arise to rebuke Them, saying: “What do ye playing with Worlds and Suns and Men and Life and Death?” And They shall be ashamed of Their playing in the hour of the laughter of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI.
It was Kib who first broke the Silence of Pegāna, by speaking with his mouth like a man.
And all the other gods were angry with Kib that he had spoken with his mouth.
And there was no longer silence in Pegāna or the Worlds.
THE CHAUNT OF THE GODS
There came the voice of the gods singing the chaunt of the gods, singing: “We are the gods; We are the little games of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI that he hath played and hath forgotten.
“MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI hath made us, and We made the Worlds and the Suns.
“And We play with the Worlds and the Sun and Life and Death until MĀNA arise to rebuke us, saying: ‘What do ye playing with Worlds and Suns?’
“It is a very serious thing that there be Worlds and Suns, and yet most withering is the laughter of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI.
“And when he arises from resting at the Last, and laughs at us for playing with Worlds and Suns, We will hastily put them behind us, and there shall be Worlds no more.”
THE SAYINGS OF KIB (Sender of Life in All the Worlds)
Kib said: “I am Kib. I am none other than Kib.”
Kib is Kib. Kib is he and no other. Believe!
Kib said: “When Time was early, when Time was very early indeed—there was only MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI. MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI was before the beginning of the gods, and shall be after their going.”
And Kib said: “After the going of the gods there will be no small worlds nor big.”
Kib said: “It will be lonely for MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI.”
Because this is written, believe! For is it not written, or are you greater than Kib? Kib is Kib.
CONCERNING SISH (The Destroyer of Hours)
Time is the hound of Sish.
At Sish’s bidding do the hours run before him as he goeth upon his way.
Never hath Sish stepped backward nor ever hath he tarried; never hath he relented to the things that once he knew nor turned to them again.
Before Sish is Kib, and behind him goeth Mung.
Very pleasant are all things before the face of Sish, but behind him they are withered and old.
And Sish goeth ceaselessly upon his way.
Once the gods walked upon the Earth as men walk and spake with their mouths like Men. That was in Wornath-Mavai. They walk not now.
And Wornath-Mavai was a garden fairer than all the gardens upon Earth.
Kib was propitious, and Mung raised not his hand against it, neither did Sish assail it with his hours.
Wornath-Mavai lieth in a valley and looketh towards the south, and on the slopes of it Sish rested among the flowers when Sish was young.
Thence Sish went forth into the world to destroy its cities, and to provoke his hours to assail all things, and to batter against them with the rust and with the dust.
And Time, which is the hound of Sish, devoured all things; and Sish sent up the ivy and fostered weeds, and dust fell from the hand of Sish and covered stately things. Only the valley where Sish rested when he and Time were young did Sish not provoke his hours to assail.
There he restrained his old hound Time, and at its borders Mung withheld his footsteps.
Wornath-Mavai still lieth looking towards the south, a garden among gardens, and still the flowers grow about its slopes as they grew when the gods were young; and even the butterflies live in Wornath-Mavai still. For the minds of the gods relent towards their earliest memories, who relent not otherwise at all.
Wornath-Mavai still lieth looking towards the south; but if thou shouldst ever find it thou art then more fortunate than the gods, because they walk not in Wornath-Mavai now.
Once did the prophet think that he discerned it in the distance beyond mountains, a garden exceeding fair with flowers; but Sish arose, and pointed with his hand, and set his hound to pursue him, who hath followed ever since.
Time is the hound of the gods; but it hath been said of old that he will one day turn upon his masters, and seek to slay the gods, excepting only MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, whose dreams are the gods themselves—dreamed long ago.
THE SAYINGS OF SLID (Whose Soul Is by the Sea)
Slid said: “Let no man pray to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, for who shall trouble MĀNA with mortal woes or irk him with the sorrows of all the houses of Earth?
“Nor let any sacrifice to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, for what glory shall he find in sacrifices or altars who hath made the gods themselves?
“Pray to the small gods, who are the gods of Doing; but MĀNA is the god of Having Done—the god of Having Done and of the Resting.
“Pray to the small gods and hope that they may hear thee. Yet what mercy should the small gods have, who themselves made Death and Pain; or shall they restrain their old hound Time for thee?
“Slid is but a small god. Yet Slid is Slid—it is written and hath been said.
“Pray thou, therefore, to Slid, and forget not Slid, and it may be that Slid will not forget to send thee Death when most thou needest it.”
And the People of the Earth said: “There is a melody upon the Earth as though ten thousand streams all sang together for their homes that they had forsaken in the hills.”
And Slid said: “I am the Lord of gliding waters and of foaming waters and of still. I am the Lord of all the waters in the world and all that long streams garner in the hills; but the soul of Slid is in the Sea. Thither goes all that glides upon the Earth, and the end of all the rivers is the Sea.”
And Slid said: “The hand of Slid hath toyed with cataracts, adown the valleys have trod the feet of Slid, and out of the lakes of the plains regard the eyes of Slid; but the soul of Slid is in the Sea.”
Much homage hath Slid among the cities of men and pleasant are the woodland paths and the paths of the plains, and pleasant the high valleys where he danceth in the hills; but Slid would be fettered neither by banks nor boundaries—so the soul of Slid is in the Sea.
For there may Slid repose beneath the sun and smile at the gods above him with all the smiles of Slid, and be a happier god than Those who sway the Worlds, whose work is Life and Death.
There may he sit and smile, or creep among the ships, or moan and sigh round islands in his great content—the miser lord of wealth in gems and pearls beyond the telling of all fables.
Or there may be, when Slid would fain exult, throw up his great arms, or toss with many a fathom of wandering hair the mighty head of Slid, and cry aloud tumultuous dirges of shipwreck, and feel through all his being the crashing might of Slid, and sway the sea. Then doth the Sea, like venturous legions on the eve of war that exult to acclaim their chief, gather its force together from under all the winds and roar and follow and sing and crash together to vanquish all things—and all at the bidding of Slid, whose soul is in the sea.
There is ease in the soul of Slid and there be calms upon the sea; also, there be storms upon the sea and troubles in the soul of Slid, for the gods have many moods. And Slid is in many places, for he sitteth in high Pegāna. Also along the valleys walketh Slid, wherever water moveth or lieth still; but the voice and the cry of Slid are from the sea. And to whoever that cry hath ever come he must needs follow and follow, leaving all stable things; only to be always with Slid in all the moods of Slid, to find no rest until he reach the sea. With the cry of Slid before them and the hills of their home behind have gone a hundred thousand to the sea, over whose bones doth Slid lament with the voice of a god lamenting for his people. Even the streams from the inner lands have heard Slid’s far-off cry, and all together have forsaken lawns and trees to follow where Slid is gathering up his own, to rejoice where Slid rejoices, singing the chaunt of Slid, even as will at the Last gather all the Lives of the People about the feet of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI.
THE DEEDS OF MUNG (Lord of All Deaths between Pegaāna and the Rim)
Once, as Mung went his way athwart the Earth and up and down its cities and across its plains, Mung came upon a man who was afraid when Mung said: “I am Mung!”
And Mung said: “Were the forty million years before thy coming intolerable to thee?”
And Mung said: “Not less tolerable to thee shall be the forty million years to come!”
Then Mung made against him the sign of Mung and the Life of the Man was fettered no longer with hands and feet.
At the end of the flight of the arrow there is Mung, and in the houses and the cities of Men. Mung walketh in all places at all times. But mostly he loves to walk in the dark and still, along the river mists when the wind hath sank, a little before night meeteth with the morning upon the highway between Pegāna and the Worlds.
Sometimes Mung entereth the poor man’s cottage; Mung also boweth very low before The King. Then do the Lives of the poor man and of The King go forth among the Worlds.
And Mung said: “Many turnings hath the road that Kib hath given every man to tread upon the earth. Behind one of these turnings sitteth Mung.”
One day as a man trod upon the road that Kib had given him to tread he came suddenly upon Mung. And when Mung said: “I am Mung!” the man cried out: “Alas, that I took this road, for had I gone by any other way then had I not met with Mung.”
And Mung said: “Had it been possible for thee to go by any other way then had the Scheme of Things been otherwise and the gods had been other gods. When MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI forgets to rest and makes again new gods it may be that They will send thee again into the Worlds; and then thou mayest choose some other way, and so not meet with Mung.”
Then Mung made the sign of Mung. And the Life of that man went forth with yesterday’s regrets and all old sorrows and forgotten things—whither Mung knoweth.
And Mung went onward with his work to sunder Life from flesh, and Mung came upon a man who became stricken with sorrow when he saw the shadow of Mung. But Mung said: “When at the sign of Mung thy Life shall float away there will also disappear thy sorrow at forsaking it.”2 But the man cried out: “O Mung! tarry for a little, and make not the sign of Mung against me now, for I have a family upon the Earth with whom sorrow will remain, though mine should disappear because of the sign of Mung.”
And Mung said: “With the gods it is always Now. And before Sish hath banished many of the years the sorrows of thy family for thee shall go the way of thine.” And the man beheld Mung making the sign of Mung before his eyes, which beheld things no more.
THE CHAUNT OF THE PRIESTS
This is the chaunt of the Priests.
The chaunt of the Priests of Mung.
This is the chaunt of the Priests.
All day long to Mung cry out the Priests of Mung, and yet Mung hearkeneth not. What, then, shall avail the prayers of All the People?
Rather bring gifts to the Priests, gifts to the Priests of Mung.
So shall they cry louder unto Mung than ever was their wont.
And it may be that Mung shall hear.
Not any longer then shall fall the Shadow of Mung athwart the hopes of the People.
Not any longer then shall the Tread of Mung darken the dreams of the People.
Not any longer shall the lives of the People be loosened because of Mung.
Bring ye gifts to the Priests, gifts to the Priests of Mung.
This is the chaunt of the Priests.
The chaunt of the Priests of Mung.
This is the chaunt of the Priests.
THE SAYINGS OF LIMPANG-TUNG (The God of Mirth and of Melodious Minstrels)
And Limpang-Tung said: “The ways of the gods are strange. The flower groweth up and the flower fadeth away. This may be very clever of the gods. Man groweth from his infancy, and in a while he dieth. This may be very clever too.
“But the gods play with a strange scheme.
“I will send jests into the world and a little mirth. And while Death seems to thee as far away as the purple rim of hills, or sorrow as far off as rain in the blue days of summer, then pray to Limpang-Tung. But when thou growest old, or ere thou diest pray not to Limpang-Tung, for thou becomest part of a scheme that he doth not understand.
“Go out into the starry night, and Limpang-Tung will dance with thee who danced since the gods were young, the god of mirth and of melodious minstrels. Or offer up a jest to Limpang-Tung; only pray not in thy sorrow to Limpang-Tung, for he saith of sorrow: ‘It may be very clever of the gods, but he doth not understand.’ ”
And Limpang-Tung said: “I am lesser than the gods; pray, therefore, to the small gods and not to Limpang-Tung.
“Natheless3 between Pegāna and the Earth flutter ten thousand thousand prayers that beat their wings against the face of Death, and never for one of them hath the hand of the Striker been stayed, nor yet have tarried the feet of the Relentless One.
“Utter thy prayer! It may accomplish where failed ten thousand thousand.
“Limpang-Tung is lesser than the gods, and doth not understand.”
And Limpang-Tung said: “Lest men grow weary down on the great Worlds through gazing always at a changeless sky I will paint my pictures in the sky. And I will paint them twice in every day for so long as days shall be. Once as the day ariseth out of the homes of dawn will I paint upon the Blue, that men may see and rejoice; and ere day falleth under into the night will I paint upon the Blue again, lest men be sad.”4
“It is a little,” said Limpang-Tung, “it is a little even for a god to give some pleasure to men upon the Worlds.” And Limpang-Tung hath sworn that the pictures that he paints shall never be the same for so long as the days shall be, and this he hath sworn by the oath of the gods of Pegāna that the gods may never break, laying his hand upon the shoulder of each of the gods and swearing by the light behind Their eyes.
Limpang-Tung hath lured a melody out of the stream and stolen its anthem from the forest; for him the wind hath cried in lonely places and ocean sung its dirges.
There is music for Limpang-Tung in the sounds of the moving of grass and in the voices of the people that lament or in the cry of them that rejoice.
In an inner mountain land where none hath come he hath carved his organ pipes out of the mountains, and there when the winds, his servants, come in from all the world he maketh the melody of Limpang-Tung. But the song, arising at night, goeth forth like a river, winding through all the world, and here and there amid the peoples of earth one heareth, and straightway all that hath voice to sing crieth aloud in music to his soul.
Or sometimes walking through the dusk with steps unheard by men, in a form unseen by the people, Limpang-Tung goeth abroad, and, standing behind the minstrels in cities of song, waveth his hands above them to and fro, and the minstrels bend to their work, and the voice of the music ariseth; and mirth and melody abound in that city of song, and no one seeth Limpang-Tung as he standeth behind the minstrels.
But through the mists towards morning, in the dark when the minstrels sleep and mirth and melody have sunk to rest, Limpang-Tung goeth back again to his mountain land.
OF YOHARNETH-LAHAI (The God of Little Dreams and Fancies)
Yoharneth-Lahai is the god of little dreams and fancies.
All night he sendeth little dreams out of Pegāna to please the people of Earth.
He sendeth little dreams to the poor man and to The King.
He is so busy to send his dreams to all before the night be ended that oft he forgetteth which be the poor man and which be The King.
To whom Yoharneth-Lahai cometh not with little dreams and sleep he must endure all night the laughter of the gods, with highest mockery, in Pegāna.
All night long Yoharneth-Lahai giveth peace to cities until the dawn hour and the departing of Yoharneth-Lahai, when it is time for the gods to play with men again.
Whether the dreams and the fancies of Yoharneth-Lahai be false and the Things that are done in the Day be real, or the Things that are done in the Day be false and the dreams and the fancies of Yoharneth-Lahai be true, none knoweth saving only MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, who hath not spoken.
OF ROON, THE GOD OF GOING (And the Thousand Home Gods)
Roon said: “There be gods of moving and gods of standing still, but I am the god of Going.”
It is because of Roon that the worlds are never still, for the moons and the worlds and the comet are stirred by the spirit of Roon, which saith: “Go! Go! Go!”
Roon met the Worlds all in the morning of Things, before there was light upon Pegāna, and Roon danced before them in the Void, since when they are never still. Roon sendeth all streams to the Sea, and all the rivers down to the soul of Slid.
Roon maketh the sign of Roon before the waters, and lo! they have left the hills; and Roon hath spoken in the ear of the North Wind that he may be still no more.
The footfall of Roon hath been heard at evening outside the houses of men, and thenceforth comfort and abiding know them no more. Before them stretcheth travel over all the lands, long miles, and never resting between their homes and their graves—and all at the bidding of Roon.
The Mountains have set no limit against Roon nor all the seas a boundary.
Whither Roon hath desired there must Roon’s people go, and the worlds and their stream and the winds.
I heard the whisper of Roon at evening, saying: “There are islands of spices to the South,” and the voice of Roon saying: “Go.”
And Roon said: “There are a thousand home gods, the little gods that sit before the hearth and mind the fire—there is one Roon.”
Roon saith in a whisper, in a whisper when none heareth, when the sun is low: “What doeth MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI?” Roon is no god that thou mayest worship by thy hearth, nor will he be benignant to thy home.
Offer to Roon thy toiling and thy speed, whose incense is the smoke of the camp fire to the South, whose song is the sound of going, whose temples stand beyond the farthest hills in his lands behind the East.
Yarinareth, . . . Yarinareth, . . . Yarinareth, which signifieth Beyond—these words be carved in letters of gold upon the arch of the great portal of the Temple of Roon that men have builded looking towards the East upon the Sea, where Roon is carved as a giant trumpeteer, with his trumpet pointing towards the East beyond the Seas.
Whoso heareth his voice, the voice of Roon at evening, he at once forsaketh the home gods that sit beside the hearth. These be the gods of the hearth: Pitsu, who stroketh the cat; Hobith, who calms the dog; and Habaniah, the lord of glowing embers; and little Zumbiboo, the lord of dust; and old Gribaun, who sits in the heart of the fire to turn the wood to ash—all these be home gods, and live not in Pegāna and be lesser than Roon.
There is also Kilooloogung, the lord of arising smoke, who taketh the smoke from the hearth and sendeth it to the sky, who is pleased if it reacheth Pegāna, so that the gods of Pegāna, speaking to the gods, say: “There is Kilooloogung doing the work on earth of Kilooloogung.”
All these are gods so small that they be lesser than men, but pleasant gods to have beside the hearth;5 and often men have prayed to Kilooloogung, saying: “Thou whose smoke ascendeth to Pegāna send up with it our prayers, that the gods may hear.” And Kilooloogung, who is pleased that men should pray, stretches himself up all grey and lean, with his arms above his head, and sendeth his servant the smoke to seek Pegāna, that the gods of Pegāna may know that the people pray.
And Jabim is the Lord of broken things, who sitteth behind the house to lament the things that are cast away.6 And there he sitteth lamenting the broken things until the worlds be ended, or until someone cometh to mend the broken things. Or sometimes he sitteth by the river’s edge to lament the forgotten things that drift upon it.
A kindly god is Jabim, whose heart is sore if anything be lost. There is also Triboogie, the Lord of Dusk, whose children are the shadows, who sitteth in a corner far off from Habaniah and speaketh to none. But after Habaniah hath gone to sleep and old Gribaun hath blinked a hundred times, until he forgetteth which be wood or ash, then doth Triboogie send his children to run about the room and dance upon the walls, but never disturb the silence.
But when there is light again upon the worlds, and dawn comes dancing down the highway from Pegāna, then does Triboogie retire into his corner, with his children all around him, as though they had never danced about the room. And the slaves of Habaniah and old Gribaun come and awake them from their sleep upon the hearth, and Pitsu strokes the cat, and Hobith calms the dog, and Kilooloogung stretches aloft his arms towards Pegāna, and Triboogie is very still, and his children asleep.
And when it is dark, all in the hour of Triboogie, Hish creepeth from the forest, the Lord of Silence, whose children are the bats, that have broke the command of their father, but in a voice that is ever so low. Hish husheth the mouse and all the whispers in the night; he maketh all noises still. Only the cricket rebelleth. But Hish hath set against him such a spell that after he hath cried a thousand times his voice may be heard no more but becometh part of the silence.
And when he hath slain all sounds Hish boweth low to the ground; then cometh into the house, with never a sound of feet, the god Yoharneth-Lahai.
But away in the forest whence Hish hath come, Wohoon, the Lord of Noises in the Night, awaketh in his lair and creepeth round the forest to see whether it be true that Hish hath gone.
Then in some glade Wohoon lifts up his voice and cries aloud, that all the night may hear, that it is he, Wohoon, who is abroad in all the forest. And the wolf and the fox and the owl, and the great beasts and the small, lift up their voices to acclaim Wohoon. And there arise the sounds of voices and the stirring of leaves.
THE REVOLT OF THE HOME GODS
There be three broad rivers of the plain, born before memory or fable, whose mothers are three grey peaks and whose father was the storm. Their names be Eimēs, Zānēs, and Segástrion.
And Eimēs is the joy of lowing herds; and Zānēs hath bowed his neck to the yoke of man, and carries the timber from the forest far up below the mountain; and Segástrion sings old songs to shepherd boys, singing of his childhood in a low ravine and of how he once sprang down the mountain sides and far away into the plain to see the world, and of how one day at last he will find the sea. These be the rivers of the plain, wherein the plain rejoices. But old men tell, whose fathers heard it from the ancients, how once the lords of the three rivers of the plain rebelled against the law of the Worlds, and passed beyond their boundaries, and joined together and whelmed cities and slew men, saying: “We now play the game of the gods and slay men for our pleasure, and we be greater than the gods of Pegāna.”
And all the plain was flooded to the hills.
And Eimēs, Zānēs, and Segástrion sat upon the mountains, and spread their hands over their rivers that rebelled by their command.
But the prayer of men going upward found Pegāna, and cried in the ear of the gods: “There be three home gods who slay us for Their pleasure, and say that they be mightier than Pegāna’s gods, and play Their game with men.”
Then were all the gods of Pegāna very wroth; but They could not whelm the lords of the three rivers, because being home gods, though small, they were immortal.
And still the home gods spread their hands across their rivers, with their fingers wide apart, and the waters rose and rose, and the voice of their torrent grew louder, crying: “Are we not Eimēs, Zānēs, and Segástrion?”
Then Mung went down into a waste of Afrik, and came upon the drought Umbool as he sat in the desert upon iron rocks, clawing with miserly grasp at the bones of men and breathing hot.
And Mung stood before him as his dry sides heaved, and ever as they sank his hot breath blasted dead sticks and bones.
Then Mung said: “Friend of Mung! go thou and grin before the faces of Eimēs, Zānēs, and Segástrion till they see whether it be wise to rebel against the gods of Pegāna.”
And Umbool answered: “I am the beast of Mung.”
And Umbool came and crouched upon a hill upon the other side of the waters and grinned across them at the rebellious home gods.
And whenever Eimēs, Zānēs, and Segástrion stretched out their hands over their rivers they saw before their faces the grinning of Umbool; and because the grinning was like death in a hot and hideous land therefore they turned away and spread their hands no more over their rivers, and the waters sank and sank.
But when Umbool had grinned for thirty days the waters fell back into the river beds and the lords of the rivers slunk away back again to their homes: still Umbool sat and grinned.
Then Eimēs sought to hide himself in a great pool beneath a rock, and Zānēs crept into the middle of a wood, and Segástrion lay and panted on the sand—still Umbool sat and grinned.
And Eimēs grew lean, and was forgotten, so that the men of the plain would say: “Here once was Eimēs”; and Zānēs scarce had strength to lead his river to the sea; and as Segástrion lay and panted, a man stepped over his stream, and Segástrion said: “It is the foot of a man that has passed across my neck, and I have sought to be greater than the gods of Pegāna.”
Then said the gods of Pegāna: “It is enough. We are the gods of Pegāna, and none are equal.”
Then Mung sent Umbool back to his waste in Afrik to breathe again upon the rocks, and parch the desert, and to sear the memory of Afrik into the brains of all who ever bring their bones away.
And Eimēs, Zānēs, and Segástrion sang again, and walked once more in their accustomed haunts, and played the game of Life and Death with fishes and frogs, but never essayed to play it any more with men, as do the gods of Pegāna.
OF DOROZHAND (Whose Eyes Regard the End)
Sitting above the lives of the people, and looking, doth Dorozhand see that which is to be.
The god of Destiny is Dorozhand. Upon whom have looked the eyes of Dorozhand he goeth forward to an end that naught may stay; he becometh the arrow from the bow of Dorozhand hurled forward at a mark he may not see—to the goal of Dorozhand. Beyond the thinking of men, beyond the sight of all the other gods regard the eyes of Dorozhand.
He hath chosen his slaves. And them doth the destiny-god drive onward where he will, who, knowing not whither nor even knowing why, feel only his scourge behind them or hear his cry before.
There is something that Dorozhand would fain achieve, and, therefore, hath he set the people striving, with none to cease or rest in all the Worlds. But the gods in Pegāna speaking to the gods, say: “What is it that Dorozhand would fain achieve?”
It hath been written and said that not only the destinies of men are the care of Dorozhand but that even the gods of Pegāna be not unconcerned by his will.
All the gods of Pegāna have felt a fear, for they have seen a look in the eyes of Dorozhand that regardeth beyond the gods.
The reason and purpose of the Worlds is that there should be Life upon the Worlds, and Life is the instrument of Dorozhand wherewith he would achieve his end.
Therefore the Worlds go on, and the rivers run to the sea, and Life ariseth and flieth even in all the Worlds, and the gods of Pegāna do the work of the gods—and all for Dorozhand. But when the end of Dorozhand hath been achieved there will be need no longer of Life upon the Worlds, nor any more a game for the small gods to play. Then will Kib tiptoe gently across Pegāna to the resting-place in Highest Pegāna of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, and touching reverently his hand, the hand that wrought the gods, say: “MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, thou hast rested long.”
And MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI shall say: “Not so, for I have rested but fifty aeons of the gods, each of them scarce more than ten million mortal years of the Worlds that ye have made.”
And then shall the gods be afraid when they find that MĀNA knoweth that they have made Worlds while he rested. And they shall answer: “Nay; but the Worlds came all of themselves.”
Then MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, as one who would have done with an irksome matter, will lightly wave his hand—the hand that wrought the gods—and there shall be gods no more.
When there shall be three moons towards the north above the Star of the Abiding, three moons that neither wax nor wane but regard towards the North.
Or when the comet ceaseth from his seeking and stands still, not any longer moving among the Worlds but tarrying as one who rests after the end of search, then shall arise from resting, because it is THE END, the Greater One, who rested of old time, even MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI.
Then shall the Times that were be Times no more; and it may be that the old, dead days shall return from beyond the Rim, and we who have wept for them shall see those days again, as one who, returning from long travel to his home, comes suddenly on dear, remembered things.
For none shall know of MĀNA who hath rested for so long, whether he be a harsh or a merciful god. It may be that he shall have mercy, and that these things shall be.
THE EYE IN THE WASTE
There lie seven deserts beyond Bodraháhn, which is the city of the caravans’ end. None goeth beyond. In the first desert lie the tracks of mighty travellers outward from Bodraháhn, and some returning. And in the second lie only outward tracks, and none return.
The third is a desert untrodden by the feet of men.
The fourth is the desert of sand, and the fifth is the desert of dust, and the sixth is the desert of stones, and the seventh is the Desert of Deserts.
In the midst of the last of the deserts that lie beyond Bodraháhn, in the centre of the Desert of Deserts, standeth the image that hath been hewn of old out of the living hill whose name is Rānorāda—the eye in the waste.
About the base of Rānorāda is carved in mystic letters that are vaster than the beds of streams these words:
To the god who knows.
Now, beyond the second desert are no tracks, and there is no water in all the seven deserts that lie beyond Bodraháhn. Therefore came no man thither to hew that statue from the living hills, and Rānorāda was wrought by the hands of gods. Men tell in Bodraháhn, where the caravans end and all the drivers of the camels rest, how once the gods hewed Rānorāda from the living hill, hammering all night long beyond the deserts. Moreover, they say that Rānorāda is carved in the likeness of the god Hoodrazai, who hath found the secret of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, and knoweth the wherefore of the making of the gods.
They say that Hoodrazai stands all alone in Pegāna and speaks to none because he knows what is hidden from the gods.
Therefore the gods have made his image in a lonely land as one who thinks and is silent—the eye in the waste.
They say that Hoodrazai had heard the murmurs of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI as he muttered to himself, and gleaned the meaning, and knew; and that he was the god of mirth and of abundant joy, but became from the moment of his knowing a mirthless god, even as his image, which regards the deserts beyond the track of man.
But the camel drivers, as they sit and listen to the tales of the old men in the market-place of Bodraháhn, at evening, while the camels rest, say: “If Hoodrazai is so very wise and yet is sad, let us drink wine, and banish wisdom to the wastes that lie beyond Bodraháhn.” Therefore is there feasting and laughter all night long in the city where the caravans end.
All this the camel drivers tell when the caravans come in from Bodraháhn; but who shall credit tales that camel drivers have heard from aged men in so remote a city?
OF THE THING THAT IS NEITHER GOD NOR BEAST
Seeing that wisdom is not in cities nor happiness in wisdom, and because Yadin the prophet was doomed by the gods, ere he was born, to go in search of wisdom, he followed the caravans to Bodraháhn. There in the evening, when the camels rest, when the wind of the day ebbs out into the desert sighing amid the palms its last farewells and leaving the caravans still, he sent his prayer with the wind to drift into the desert calling to Hoodrazai.
And down the wind his prayer went calling: “Why do the gods endure, and play their game with men? Why doth not Skarl forsake his drumming, and MĀNA cease to rest?” and the echo of seven deserts answered: “Who knows? Who knows?”
But out of the waste beyond the seven deserts where Rānorāda looms enormous in the dusk, at evening his prayer was heard; and from the rim of the waste whither had gone his prayer, came three flamingoes flying, and their voices said: “Going South, Going South” at every stroke of their wings.
But as they passed by the prophet they seemed so cool and free and the desert so blinding and hot that he stretched up his arms towards them. Then it seemed happy to fly and pleasant to follow behind great white wings, and he was with the three flamingoes up in the cool above the desert, and their voices cried before him: “Going South, Going South,” and the desert below him mumbled: “Who knows? Who knows?”
Sometimes the earth stretched up towards them with peaks of mountains, sometimes it fell away in steep ravines, blue rivers sang to them as they passed above them, or very faintly came the song of breezes in lone orchards, and far away the sea sang mighty dirges of old forsaken isles. But it seemed that in all the world there was nothing only to be going South.
It seemed that somewhere the South was calling to her own, and that they were going South.
But when the prophet saw that they had passed above the edge of Earth, and that far away to the North of them lay the Moon, he perceived that he was following no mortal birds but some strange messengers of Hoodrazai whose nest had lain in one of Pegāna’s vales below the mountains whereon sit the gods.
Still they went South, passing by all the Worlds and leaving them to the North, till only Araxes, Zadres, and Hyráglion lay still to the South of them, where great Ingazi seemed only a point of light, and Yo and Mindo could be seen no more.
Still they went South till they passed below the South and came to the Rim of the Worlds.
There there is neither South nor East nor West, but only North and Beyond: there is only North of it where lie the Worlds, and Beyond it where lies the Silence; and the Rim is a mass of rocks that were never used by the gods when They made the Worlds, and on it sat Trogool. Trogool is the Thing that is neither god nor beast, who neither howls nor breaths, only IT turns over the leaves of a great book, black and white, black and white for ever until THE END.
And all that is to be is written in the book, as also all that was.
When IT turneth a black page it is night, and when IT turneth a white page it is day.
Because it is written that there are gods—there are the gods.
Also there is writing about thee and me until the page where our names no more are written.
Then as the prophet watched IT, Trogool turned a page—a black one, and night was over, and day shone on the Worlds.
Trogool is the Thing that men in many countries have called by many names, IT is the Thing that sits behind the gods, whose book is the scheme of Things.
But when Yadin saw that old remembered days were hidden away with the part that IT had turned, and knew that upon one whose name is writ no more the last page had turned for ever a thousand pages back, then did he utter his prayer in the face of Trogool who only turns the pages and never answers prayer. He prayed in the face of Trogool: “Only turn back thy pages to the name of one which is writ no more, and far away upon a place named Earth shall rise the prayers of a little people that acclaim the name of Trogool, for there is indeed far off a place called Earth where men shall pray to Trogool.”
Then spake Trogool who turns the pages and never answers prayer, and his voice was like the murmurs of the waste at night when echoes have been lost: “Though the whirlwind of the South should tug with his claws at a page that hath been turned yet shall he not be able ever to turn it back.”
Then because of words in the book that said that it should be so, Yadin found himself lying in the desert where one gave him water, and afterwards carried him on a camel into Bodraháhn.
There some said that he had but dreamed when thirst had seized him while he wandered among the rocks in the desert. But certain aged men of Bodraháhn say that indeed there sitteth somewhere a Thing that is called Trogool, that is neither god nor beast, that turneth the leaves of a book, black and white, black and white, until he come to the words: MAI DOON IZAHN, which means The End For Ever, and book and gods and worlds shall be no more.
YONATH THE PROPHET
Yonath was the first among prophets who uttered unto men.
These are the words of Yonath, the first among all prophets:
There be gods upon Pegaāna.
Upon a night I slept. And in my sleep Pegāna came very near. And Pegāna was full of gods.
I saw the gods beside me as one might see wonted things.
Only I saw not MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI.
And in that hour, in the hour of my sleep—I knew.
And the end and the beginning of my knowing, and all of my knowing that there was, was this—that Man Knoweth Not.
Seek thou to find at night the utter edge of the darkness, or seek to find the birthplace of the rainbow where he leapeth upward from the hills, only seek not concerning the wherefore of the making of the gods.
The gods have set a brightness upon the farther side of the Things to Come that they may appear more felicitous to men than the Things that Are.
To the gods the Things to Come are but as the Things that Are, and nothing altereth in Pegāna.
The gods, although not merciful, are not ferocious gods. They are the destroyers of the Days that Were, but they set a glory about the Days to Be.
Man must endure the Days that Are, but the gods have left him his ignorance as a solace.
Seek not to know. Thy seeking will weary thee, and thou wilt return much worn, to rest at last about the place from whence thou settest out upon thy seeking.
Seek not to know. Even I, Yonath, the olden prophet, burdened with the wisdom of great years, and worn with seeking, know only that man knoweth not.
Once I set out seeking to know all things. Now I know one thing only, and soon the Years will carry me away.
The path of my seeking, that leadeth to seeking again, must be trodden by very many more, when Yonath is no longer even Yonath.
Set not thy foot upon that path.
Seek not to know.
These be the Words of Yonath.
YUG THE PROPHET
When the Years had carried away Yonath, and Yonath was dead, there was no longer a prophet among men.
And still men sought to know.
Therefore they said unto Yug: “Be thou our prophet, and know all things, and tell us concerning the wherefore of It All.”
And Yug said: “I know all things.” And men were pleased.
And Yug said of the Beginning that it was in Yug’s own garden, and of the End that it was in the sight of Yug.
And men forgot Yonath.
One day Yug saw Mung behind the hills making the sign of Mung. And Yug was Yug no more.
ALHIRETH-HOTEP THE PROPHET
When Yug was Yug no more men said unto Alhireth-Hotep: “Be thou our prophet, and be as wise as Yug.”
And Alhireth-Hotep said: “I am as wise as Yug.” And men were very glad.
And Alhireth-Hotep said of Life and Death: “These be the affairs of Alhireth-Hotep.” And men brought gifts to him.
One day Alhireth-Hotep wrote in a book: “Alhireth-Hotep knoweth All Things, for he hath spoken with Mung.”
And Mung stepped from behind him, making the sign of Mung, saying: “Knowest thou All Things, then, Alhireth-Hotep?” And Alhireth-Hotep became among the Things that Were.
KABOK THE PROPHET
When Alihireth-Hotep was among the Things that were, and still men sought to know, they said unto Kabok: “Be thou as wise as was Alhireth-Hotep.”
And Kabok grew wise in his own sight and in the sight of men.
And Kabok said: “Mung maketh his sign against men or withholdeth it by the advice of Kabok.”
And he said unto one: “Thou hast sinned against Kabok, therefore will Mung make the sign of Mung against thee.” And to another: “Thou hast brought Kabok gifts, therefore shall Mung forbear to make against thee the sign of Mung.”
One night as Kabok fattened upon the gifts that men had brought him he heard the tread of Mung treading in the garden of Kabok about his house at night.
And because the night was very still it seemed most evil to Kabok that Mung should be treading in his garden, without the advice of Kabok, about his house at night.
And Kabok, who knew All Things, grew afraid, for the treading was very loud and the night still, and he knew not what lay behind the back of Mung, which none had ever seen.
But when the morning grew to brightness, and there was light upon the Worlds, and Mung trod no longer in the garden, Kabok forgot his fears, and said: “Perhaps it was but a herd of cattle that stampeded in the garden of Kabok.”
And Kabok went about his business, which was that of knowing All Things, and telling All Things unto men, and making light of Mung.
But that night Mung trod again in the garden of Kabok, about his house at night, and stood before the window of the house like a shadow standing erect, so that Kabok knew indeed that it was Mung.
And a great fear fell upon the throat of Kabok, so that his speech was hoarse; and he cried out: “Thou art Mung!”
And Mung slightly inclined his head, and went on to tread in the garden of Kabok, about his house at night.
And Kabok lay and listened with horror at his heart.
But when the second morning grew to brightness, and there was light upon the Worlds, Mung went from treading in the garden of Kabok; and for a little while Kabok hoped, but looked with great dread for the coming of the third night.
And when the third night was come, and the bat had gone to his home, and the wind had sunk, the night was very still.
And Kabok lay and listened, to whom the wings of the night flew very slow.
But, ere night met the morning upon the highway between Pegāna and the Worlds, there came the tread of Mung in the garden of Kabok towards Kabok’s door.
And Kabok fled out of his house as flees a hunted beast and flung himself before Mung.
And Mung made the sign of Mung, pointing towards The End.
And the fears of Kabok had rest from troubling Kabok any more, for they and he were among accomplished things.
OF THE CALAMITY THAT BEFEL YUN-ILĀRA BY THE SEA, AND OF THE BUILDING OF THE TOWER OF THE ENDING OF DAYS
When Kabok and his fears had rest the people sought a prophet who should have no fear of Mung, whose hand was against the prophets.
And at last they found Yūn-Ilāra, who tended sheep and had no fear of Mung, and the people brought him to the town that he might be their prophet.
And Yūn-Ilāra builded a tower towards the sea that looked upon the setting of the Sun. And he called it the Tower of the Ending of Days.
And about the ending of the day would Yūn-Ilāra go up to his tower’s top and look towards the setting of the Sun to cry his curses against Mung, saying: “O Mung! whose hand is against the Sun, whom men abhor but worship because they fear thee, here stands and speaks a man who fears thee not. Assassin-lord of murder and dark things, abhorrent, merciless, make thou the sign of Mung against me when thou wilt, but until silence settles upon my lips, because of the sign of Mung, I will curse Mung to his face.” And the people in the street below would gaze up with wonder towards Yūn-Ilāra, who had no fear of Mung, and brought him gifts; only in their homes after the falling of the night would they pray again with reverence to Mung. But Mung said: “Shall a man curse a god?” And Mung went forth amid the cities to glean the lives of the People.
And still Mung came not nigh to Yūn-Ilāra as he cried his curses against Mung from his tower towards the sea.
And Sish throughout the Worlds hurled Time away, and slew the Hours that had served him well, and called up more out of the timeless waste that lieth beyond the Worlds, and drave7 them forth to assail all things. And Sish cast a whiteness over the hairs of Yūn-Ilāra, and ivy about his tower, and weariness over his limbs, for Mung passed by him still.
And when Sish became a god less durable to Yūn-Ilāra than ever Mung hath been he ceased at last to cry from his tower’s top his curses against Mung whenever the sun went down, till there came the day when weariness of the gift of Kib fell heavily upon Yūn-Ilāra.
Then from the Tower of the Ending of Days did Yūn-Ilāra cry out thus to Mung, crying: “O Mung! O loveliest of the gods! O Mung, most dearly to be desired! thy gift of Death is the heritage of Man, with ease and rest and silence and returning to the Earth. Kib giveth but toil and trouble; and Sish, he sendeth regrets with each of his hours wherewith he assails the World. Yoharneth-Lahai cometh nigh no more. I can no longer be glad with Limpang-Tung. When the other gods forsake him a man hath only Mung.”
But Mung said: “Shall a man curse a god?”
And every day and all night long did Yūn-Ilāra cry aloud: “Ah, now for the hour of the mourning of many, and the pleasant garlands of flowers and the tears, and the moist, dark earth. Ah, for repose down underneath the grass, where the firm feet of the trees grip hold upon the world, where never shall come the wind that now blows through my bones, and the rain shall come warm and trickling, not driven by storm, where is the easeful falling asunder of bone from bone in the dark.” Thus prayed Yūn-Ilāra, who had cursed in his folly and youth, while never heeded Mung.
Still from a heap of bones that are Yūn-Ilāra still, lying about the ruined base of the tower that once he builded, goes up a shrill voice with the wind crying out for the mercy of Mung, if any such there be.
OF HOW THE GODS WHELMED SIDITH
There was dole in the valley of Sidith.
For three years there had been pestilence, and in the last of the three a famine; moreover, there was imminence of war.
Throughout all Sidith men died night and day, and night and day within the Temple of All the gods save One (for none may pray to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI) did the priests of the gods pray hard.
For they said: “For a long while a man may hear the droning of little insects and yet not be aware that he hath heard them, so may the gods not hear our prayers at first until they have been very oft repeated. But when our praying has troubled the silence long it may be that some god as he strolls in Pegāna’s glades may come on one of our lost prayers, that flutters like a butterfly tossed in storm when all its wings are broken; then if the gods be merciful They may ease our fears in Sidith, or else They may crush us, being petulant gods, and so we shall see trouble in Sidith no longer, with its pestilence and dearth and fears of war.”
But in the fourth year of the pestilence and in the second year of the famine, and while still there was imminence of war, came all the people of Sidith to the door of the Temple of All the gods save One, where none may enter but the priests—but only leave gifts and go.
And there the people cried out: “O High Prophet of All the gods save One, Priest of Kib, Priest of Sish, and Priest of Mung, Teller of the mysteries of Dorozhand, Receiver of the gifts of the People, and Lord of Prayer, what doest thou within the Temple of All the gods save One?”
And Arb-Rin-Hadith, who was the High Prophet, answered: “I pray for all the People.”
But the people answered: “O High Prophet of All the gods save One, Priest of Kib, Priest of Sish, and Priest of Mung, Teller of the mysteries of Dorozhand, Receiver of the gifts of the People, and Lord of Prayer, for four long years hast thou prayed with the priests of all thine order, while we brought ye gifts and died. Now, therefore, since They have not heard thee in four grim years, thou must go and carry to Their faces the prayer of the people of Sidith when They go to drive the thunder to his pasture upon the mountain Aghrinaun, or else there shall no longer be gifts upon thy temple door, whenever falls the dew, that thou and thine order may fatten.
“There thou shalt say before Their faces: ‘O All the gods save One, Lords of the Worlds, whose child is the eclipse, take back thy pestilence from Sidith, for Ye have played the game of the gods too long with the people of Sidith, who would fain have done with the gods.’ ”
Then in great fear answered the High Prophet, saying: “What if the gods be angry and whelm Sidith?” And the people answered: “Then are we sooner done with pestilence and famine and the imminence of war.”
That night the thunder howled upon Aghrinaun, which stood a peak above all others in the land of Sidith. And the people took Arb-Rin-Hadith from his Temple and drave him to Aghrinaun, for they said: “There walk to-night upon the mountain All the gods save One.”
And Arb-Rin-Hadith went trembling to the gods.
Next morning, white and frightened from Aghrinaun, came Arb-Rin-Hadith back into the valley, and there spake to the people, saying: “The faces of the gods are iron and Their mouths set hard. There is no hope from the gods.”
Then said the people: “Thou shalt go to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, to whom no man may pray: seek him upon Aghrinaun where it lifts clear into the stillness before morning, and on its summit, where all things seem to rest, surely there rests also MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI. Go to him, and say: ‘Thou hast made evil gods, and They smite Sidith.’ Perchance he hath forgotten all his gods, or hath not heard of Sidith. Thou hast escaped the thunder of the gods, surely thou shalt also escape the stillness of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI.”
Upon a morning when the sky and lakes were clear and the world still, and Aghrinaun was stiller than the world, Arb-Rin-Hadith crept in fear towards the slopes of Aghrinaun because the people were urgent.
All that day men saw him climbing. At night he rested near the top. But ere the morning of the day that followed, such as rose early saw him in the silence, a speck against the blue, stretch up his arms upon the summit to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI. Then instantly they saw him not, nor was he ever seen of men again who had dared to trouble the stillness of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI.
Such as now speak of Sidith tell of a fierce and potent tribe that smote away a people in a valley enfeebled by pestilence, where stood a temple to “All the gods save One” in which was no high priest.
OF HOW IMBAUN BECAME HIGH PROPHET IN ARADEC OF ALL THE GODS SAVE ONE
Imbaun was to be made High Prophet in Aradec, of All the gods save One.
From Ardra, Rhoodra, and the lands beyond came all High Prophets of the Earth to the Temple in Aradec of All the gods save One.
And there they told Imbaun how The Secret of Things was upon the summit of the dome of the Hall of Night, but faintly writ, and in an unknown tongue.
Midway in the night, between the setting and the rising sun, they led Imbaun into the Hall of Night, and said to him, chaunting all together: “Imbaun, Imbaun, Imbaun, look up to the roof, where is writ The Secret of Things, but faintly, and in an unknown tongue.”
And Imbaun looked up, but darkness was so deep within the Hall of Night that Imbaun saw not even the High Prophets who came from Ardra, Rhoodra, and the lands beyond, nor saw he aught in the Hall of Night at all.
Then called the High Prophets: “What seest thou, Imbaun?”
And Imbaun said: “I see naught.”
Then called the High Prophets: “What knowest thou, Imbaun?”
And Imbaun said: “I know naught.”
Then spake the High Prophet of Eld of All the gods save One, who is first on Earth of prophets: “O Imbaun! we have all looked upwards in the Hall of Night towards the Secret of Things, and ever it was dark, and the secret faint and in an unknown tongue. And know thou knowest what all High Priests know.”
And Imbaun answered: “I know.”
So Imbaun became High Prophet in Aradec of All the gods save One, and prayed for all the people, who knew not that there was darkness in the Hall of Night or that the secret was writ faint and in an unknown tongue.
These are the words of Imbaun that he wrote in a book that all the people might know:
“In the twentieth night of the nine hundredth moon, as night came up the valley, I performed the mystic rites of each of the gods in the temple as is my wont, lest any of the gods should grow angry in the night and whelm us while we slept.
“And as I uttered the last of certain secret words I fell asleep in the temple, for I was weary, with my head against the altar of Dorozhand. Then in the stillness, as I slept, there entered Dorozhand by the temple door in the guise of a man, and touched me on the shoulder, and I awoke.
“But when I saw that his eyes shone blue and lit the whole of the temple I knew that he was a god though he came in mortal guise. And Dorozhand said: ‘Prophet of Dorozhand, behold! that the people may know.’ And he showed me the paths of Sish stretching far down into the future time.
“Then he bade me arise and follow whither he pointed, speaking no words but commanding with his eyes.
“Therefore upon the twentieth night of the nine hundredth moon I walked with Dorozhand adown the paths of Sish into the future time.
“And ever beside the way did men slay men. And the sum of their slaying was greater than the slaying of the pestilence or any of the evils of the gods.
“And cities arose and shed their houses in dust, and ever the desert returned again to its own, and covered over and hid the last of all that had troubled its repose.
“And still men slew men.
“And I came at last to a time when men set their yoke no longer upon beasts but made them beasts of iron.
“And after that did men slay men with mists.
“Then, because the slaying exceeded their desire, there came peace upon the world that was brought by the hand of the slayer, and men slew men no more.
“And cities multiplied, and overthrew the desert and conquered its repose.
“And suddenly I beheld that THE END was near, for there was a stirring above Pegāna as of One who grows weary of resting, and I saw the hound Time crouch to spring, with his eyes upon the throats of the gods, shifting from throat to throat, and the drumming of Skarl grew faint.
“And if a god may fear, it seemed that there was fear upon the face of Dorozhand, and he seized me by the hand and led me back along the paths of Time that I might not see THE END.
“Then I saw cities rise out of the dust again and fall back into the desert whence they had arisen; and again I slept in the Temple of All the gods save One, with my head against the altar of Dorozhand.
“Then again the Temple was alight, but not with light from the eyes of Dorozhand; only dawn came all blue out of the East and shone through the arches of the Temple. Then I awoke and performed the morning rites and mysteries of All the gods save One, lest any of the gods be angry in the day and take away the Sun.
“And I knew that because I who had been so near to it had not beheld THE END a man should never behold it or know the doom of the gods. This They have hidden.”
OF HOW IMBAUN MET ZODRAK
The prophet of the gods lay resting by the river to watch the stream run by.
And as he lay he pondered on the Scheme of Things and the works of all the gods. And it seemed to the prophet of the gods as he watched the stream run by that the Scheme was a right scheme and the gods benignant gods; yet there was sorrow in the Worlds. It seemed that Kib was bountiful, that Mung calmed all who suffer, that Sish dealt not too harshly with the hours, and that all the gods were good; yet there was sorrow in the Worlds.
Then said the prophet of the gods as he watched the stream run by: “There is some other god of whom naught is writ.” And suddenly the prophet was aware of an old man who bemoaned beside the river, crying: “Alas! alas!”
His face was marked by the sign and seal of exceeding many years, and there was yet vigour in his frame. These be the words of the prophet that he wrote in his book: “I said: ‘Who art thou that bemoans beside the river?’ And he answered: ‘I am the fool.’ I said: ‘Upon thy brow are the marks of wisdom such as is stored in books.’ He said: ‘I am Zodrak. Thousands of years ago I tended sheep upon a hill that sloped towards the sea. The gods have many moods. Thousands of years ago They were in mirthful mood. They said: “Let Us call up a man before Us that We may laugh in Pegāna.”
“‘They took me from my sheep upon the hill that slopes towards the sea. They carried me above the thunder. They stood me, that was only a shepherd, before Them on Pegāna, and the gods laughed. They laughed not as men laugh, but with solemn eyes.
“ ‘And Their eyes that looked on me saw not me alone but also saw the Beginning and THE END and all the Worlds besides. Then said the gods, speaking as speak the gods: “Go! Back to thy sheep.”
“‘But I, who am the fool, had heard it said on earth that whoso seeth the gods upon Pegāna becometh as the gods, if so he demand to Their faces, who may not slay him who hath looked Them in the eyes.
“ ‘And I, the fool, said: “I have looked in the eyes of the gods, and I demand what a man may demand of the gods when he hath seen Them in Pegāna.” And the gods inclined Their heads and Hoodrazai said: “It is the law of the gods.”
“ ‘And I, who was only a shepherd, how could I know?
“ ‘I said: “I will make men rich.” And the gods said: “What is rich?”
“‘And I said: “I will send them love.” And the gods said: “What is love?” And I sent gold into the Worlds, and, alas! I sent with it poverty and strife. And I sent love into the Worlds, and with it grief.
“‘And now I have mixed gold and love most wofully together, and I can never remedy what I have done, for the deeds of the gods are done, and nothing may undo them.
“‘Then I said: “I will give men wisdom that they may be glad.” And those who got my wisdom found that they knew nothing, and from having been happy became glad no more.
“ ‘And I, who would make men happy, have made them sad, and I have spoiled the beautiful scheme of the gods.
“‘And now my hand is for ever on the handle of Their plough. I was only a shepherd, and how should I have known?
“ ‘Now I come to thee as thou restest by the river to ask of thee thy forgiveness, for I would fain have the forgiveness of a man.’
“And I answered: ‘O Lord of seven skies, whose children are the storms, shall a man forgive a god?’
“He answered: ‘Men have sinned not against the gods as the gods have sinned against men since I came into Their councils.’
“And I, the prophet, answered: ‘O Lord of seven skies, whose plaything is the thunder, thou art amongst the gods, what need hast thou for words from any man?’
“He said: ‘Indeed I am amongst the gods, who speak to me as They speak to other gods, yet there is always a smile about Their mouths, and a look in Their eyes that saith: “Thou wert a man.”’
“I said: ‘O Lord of seven skies, about whose feet the Worlds are as drifted sand, because thou biddest me, I, a man, forgive thee.’
“And he answered: ‘I was but a shepherd, and I could not know.’ Then he was gone.”
PEGĀNA
The prophet of the gods cried out to the gods: “O! All the gods save One” (for none may pray to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI), “where shall the life of a man abide when Mung hath made against his body the sign of Mung?—for the people with whom ye play have sought to know.”
But the gods answered, speaking through the mist:
“Though thou shouldst tell thy secrets to the beasts, even that the beasts should understand, yet will not the gods divulge the secret of the gods to thee, that gods and beasts and men shall be all the same, all knowing the same things.”8
That night Yoharneth-Lahai came to Aradec, and said unto Imbaun: “Wherefore wouldst thou know the secret of the gods that not the gods may tell thee?
“When the wind blows not, where, then, is the wind?
“Or when thou art not living, where art thou?
“What should the wind care for the hours of calm or thou for death?
“Thy life is long, Eternity is short.
“So short that, should thou die and Eternity should pass, and after the passing of Eternity thou shouldst live again, thou wouldst say: ‘I closed mine eyes but for an instant.’
“There is an Eternity behind thee as well as one before. Hast thou bewailed the aeons that passed without thee, who are so much afraid of the aeons that shall pass?”9
Then said the prophet: “How shall I tell the people that the gods have not spoken and their prophet doth not know? For then should I be prophet no longer, and another would take the people’s gifts instead of me.”
Then said Imbaun to the people: “The gods have spoken, saying: ‘O Imbaun, Our prophet, it is as the people believe, whose wisdom hath discovered the secret of the gods, and the people when they die shall come to Pegāna, and there live with the gods, and there have pleasure without toil. And Pegāna is a place all white with the peaks of mountains, on each of them a god, and the people shall lie upon the slopes of the mountains each under the god that he hath worshipped most when his lot was in the Worlds. And there shall music beyond thy dreaming come drifting through the scent of all the orchards in the Worlds, with somewhere someone singing an old song that shall be as a half-remembered thing. And there shall be gardens that have always sunlight, and streams that are lost in no sea, beneath skies for ever blue. And there shall be no rain nor no regrets. Only the roses that in highest Pegāna have achieved their prime shall shed their petals in showers at thy feet, and only far away on the forgotten earth shall voices drift up to thee that cheered thee in thy childhood about the gardens of thy youth. And if thou sighest for any memory of earth because thou hearest unforgotten voices, then will the gods send messengers on wings to soothe thee in Pegāna, saying to them: “There one sigheth who hath remembered Earth.” And they shall make Pegāna more seductive for thee still, and they shall take thee by the hand and whisper in thine ear till the old voices are forgot.
“ ‘And besides the flowers of Pegāna there shall have climbed by then until it hath reached to Pegāna the rose that clambered about the house where thou wast born. Thither shall also come the wandering echoes of all such music as charmed thee long ago.
“ ‘Moreover, as thou sittest on the orchard lawns that clothe Pegāna’s mountains, and as thou hearkenest to melody that sways the souls of the gods, there shall stretch away far down beneath thee the great unhappy Earth, till gazing from rapture upon sorrows thou shalt be glad that thou wert dead.
“ ‘And from the three great mountains that stand aloof and over all the others—Grimbol, Zeebol, and Trehágobol—shall blow the wind of the morning and the wind of the evening and the wind of all the day, borne upon the wings of all the butterflies that have died upon the Worlds, to cool the gods and Pegāna.
“‘Far through Pegāna a silvery fountain, lured upward by the gods from the Central Sea, shall fling its waters aloft, and over the highest of Pegāna’s peaks, above Trehágobol, shall burst into gleaming mists, to cover Highest Pegāna, and make a curtain about the resting-place of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI.
“ ‘Alone, still and remote below the base of one of the inner mountains, lieth a great blue pool.
“ ‘Whoever looketh down into its waters may behold all his life that was upon the Worlds and all the deeds that he hath done.
“ ‘None walk by the pool and none regard its depths, for all in Pegāna have suffered and all have sinned some sin, and it lieth in the pool.
“‘And there is no darkness in Pegāna, for when night hath conquered the sun and stilled the Worlds and turned the white peaks of Pegāna into grey then shine the blue eyes of the gods like sunlight on the sea, where each god sits upon his mountain.
“ ‘And at the Last, upon some afternoon, perhaps in summer, shall the gods say, speaking to the gods: “What is the likeness of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI and what THE END?”
“‘And then shall Māna-Yood-Sushai draw back with his hand the mists that cover his resting, saying: “This is the Face of MĀNĀ-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ and this THE END.”’”
Then said the people to the prophet: “Shall not black hills draw round in some forsaken land, to make a vale-wide cauldron wherein the molten rock shall seethe and roar, and where the crags of mountains shall be hurled upward to the surface and bubble and go down again, that there our enemies may boil for ever?”
And the prophet answered: “It is writ large about the bases of Pegāna’s mountains, upon which sit the gods: ‘Thine Enemies Are Forgiven.’ ”
THE SAYINGS OF IMBAUN
The Prophet of the gods said: “Yonder beside the road there sitteth a false prophet; and to all who seek to know the hidden days he saith: ‘Upon the morrow the King shall speak to thee as his chariot goeth by.’
“Moreover, all the people bring him gifts, and the false prophet hath more to listen to his words than hath the Prophet of the gods.”
Then said Imbaun: “What knoweth the Prophet of the gods? I know only that I and men know naught concerning the gods or aught concerning men. Shall I, who am their prophet, tell the people this?
“For wherefore have the people chosen prophets but that they should speak the hopes of the people, and tell the people that their hopes be true?
“The false prophet saith: ‘Upon the morrow the king shall speak to thee.’
“Shall not I say: ‘Upon The Morrow the gods shall speak with these as thou restest upon Pegāna?’
“So shall the people be happy, and know that their hopes be true who have believed the words that they have chosen a prophet to say.
“But what shall know the Prophet of the gods, to whom none may come to say: ‘Thy hopes are true,’ for whom none may make strange signs before his eyes to quench his fear of death, for whom alone the chaunt of his priests availeth naught?
“The Prophet of the gods hath sold his happiness for wisdom, and hath given his hopes for the people.”
Said also Imbaun: “When thou art angry at night observe how calm be the stars; and shall small ones rail when there is such a calm among the great ones? Or when thou art angry by day regard the distant hills, and see the calm that doth adorn their faces. Shalt thou be angry while they stand so serene?
“Be not angry with men, for they are driven as thou art by Dorozhand. Do bullocks goad one another on whom the same yoke rests?
“And be not angry with Dorozhand, for then thou beatest thy bare fingers against iron cliffs.
“All that is is so because it was to be. Rail not, therefore, against what is, for it was all to be.”
And Imbaun said: “The Sun ariseth and maketh a glory about all the things that he seeth, and drop by drop he turneth the common dew to every kind of gem. And he maketh a splendour in the hills.
“And also man is born. And there rests a glory about the gardens of his youth. Both travel afar to do what Dorozhand would have them do.
“Soon now the sun will set, and very softly come twinkling in the stillness all the stars.
“Also man dieth. And quietly about his grave will all the mourners weep.
“Will not his life arise again somewhere in all the worlds? Shall he not again behold the gardens of his youth? Or does he set to end?”
OF HOW IMBAUN SPAKE OF DEATH TO THE KING
There trod such pestilence in Aradec that the King as he looked abroad out of his palace saw men die. And when the King saw death he feared that one day even the King should die. Therefore he commanded guards to bring before him the wisest prophet that should be found in Aradec.
Then heralds came to the temple of All the gods save One, and cried aloud, having first commanded silence, crying: “Rhazahan, King over Aradec, Prince by right of Ildun and Ildaun, and Prince by conquest of Pathia, Ezek, and Azhan, Lord of the Hills, to the High Prophet of All the gods save One sends salutations.”
Then they bore him before the King.
The King said unto the prophet: “O Prophet of All the gods save One, shall I indeed die?”
And the prophet answered: “O King! thy people may not rejoice for ever, and some day the King will die.”
And the King answered: “This may be so, but certainly thou shalt die. It may be that one day I shall die, but till then the lives of the people are in my hands.”
Then guards led the prophet away.
And there arose prophets in Aradec who spake not of death to Kings.
OF OOD
Men say that if thou comest to Sundāri, beyond all the plains, and shalt climb to his summit before thou art seized by the avalanche which sitteth always on his slopes, then there lie before thee many peaks. And if thou shalt climb these and cross their valleys (of which there be seven and also seven peaks) thou shalt come at last to the land of forgotten hills, where amid many valleys and white snow there standeth the “Great Temple of One God Only.”
Therein is a dreaming prophet who doeth naught, and a drowsy priesthood about him.
These be the Priests of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI. Within the temple it is forbidden to work, also it is forbidden to pray. Night differeth not from day within its doors. They rest as MĀNA rests. And the name of their prophet is Ood.
Ood is a greater prophet than any of all the prophets of Earth, and it hath been said by some that were Ood and his priests to pray, chaunting all together and calling upon MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI would then awake, for surely he would hear the prayers of his own prophet—then would there be Worlds no more.
There is also another way to the land of forgotten hills, which is a smooth road and a straight, that lies through the heart of the mountains. But for certain hidden reasons it were better for thee to go by the peaks and snow, even though thou shouldst perish by the way, than that thou shouldst seek to come to the home of Ood by the smooth, straight road.
THE RIVER
There arises a river in Pegāna that is neither a river of water nor yet a river of fire, and it flows through the skies and the Worlds to the Rim of the Worlds,—a river of silence. Through all the Worlds are sounds, the noises of moving, and the echoes of voices and song; but upon the River is no sound ever heard, for there all echoes die.
The River arises out of the drumming of Skarl, and flows for ever between banks of thunder, until it comes to the waste beyond the Worlds behind the farthest star, down to the Sea of Silence.
I lay in the desert beyond all cities and sounds, and above me flowed the River of Silence through the sky; and on the desert’s edge night fought against the Sun, and suddenly conquered.
Then on the River I saw the dream-built ship of the God Yoharneth-Lahai, whose great prow lifted grey into the air above the River of Silence.
Her timbers were olden dreams dreamed long ago, and poets’ fancies made her tall, straight masts, and her rigging was wrought out of the people’s hopes.
Upon her deck were rowers with dream-made oars, and the rowers were the people of men’s fancies, and princes of old story and people who had died, and people who had never been.
These swung forward and swung back to row Yoharneth-Lahai through the Worlds with never a sound of rowing. For ever on every wind float up to Pegāna the hopes and the fancies of the people which have no home in the Worlds, and there Yoharneth-Lahai weaves them into dreams, to take them to the people again.
And every night in his dream-built ship Yoharneth-Lahai setteth forth, with all his dreams on board, to take again their old hopes back to the people and all forgotten fancies.
But ere the day comes back to her own again, and all the conquering armies of the dawn hurl their red lances in the face of night, Yoharneth-Lahai leaves the sleeping Worlds, and rows back up the River of Silence, that flows from Pegāna into the Sea of Silence that lies beyond the Worlds.
And the name of the River is Imrāna, the River of Silence. All they that be weary of the sound of cities and very tired of clamour creep down in the night-time to Yoharneth-Lahai’s ship, and going aboard it, lie down upon the deck, and pass from sleeping to the River, while Mung, behind them, makes the sign of Mung because they would have it so. And, lying there upon the deck among their own remembered fancies, and songs that were never sung, they drift up Imrāna ere the dawn, where the sound of the cities comes not, nor the voice of the thunder is heard, nor the midnight howl of Pain as he gnaws at the bodies of men, and far away and forgotten bleat the small sorrows that trouble all the Worlds.
But where the River flows through Pegāna’s gates, between the great twin constellations Yum and Gothum, where Yum stands sentinel upon the left and Gothum upon the right, there sits Sirāmi, the lord of All Forgetting. And, when the ship draws near, Sirāmi looketh with his sapphire eyes into the faces and beyond them of those that were weary of cities, and as he gazes, as one that looketh before him remembering naught, he gently waves his hands. And amid the waving of Sirāmi’s hands there fall from all that behold him all their memories, save certain things that may not be forgot even beyond the Worlds.
It hath been said that when Skarl ceases to drum, and MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI awakes, and the gods of Pegāna know that it is THE END, then the gods will enter galleons of gold, and with dream-born rowers glide down Imrāna (who knows whither or why?) till they come where the River enters the Silent Sea, and shall there be gods of nothing, where nothing is, and never a sound shall come. And far away upon the River’s banks shall bay their old hound Time, that shall seek to rend his masters; while MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI shall think some other plan concerning gods and worlds.
THE BIRD OF DOOM AND THE END
For at the last shall the thunder, fleeing to escape from the doom of the gods, roar horribly among the Worlds; and Time, the hound of the gods, shall bay hungrily at his masters because he is lean with age.
And from the innermost of Pegāna’s vales shall the bird of doom, Mosahn, whose voice is like the trumpet, soar upward with boisterous beatings of his wings above Pegāna’s mountains and the gods, and there with his trumpet voice acclaim THE END.
Then in the tumult and amid the fury of Their hound the gods shall make for the last time in Pegāna the sign of all the gods, and go with dignity and quiet down to Their galleons of gold, and sail away down the River of Silence, not ever to return.
Then shall the River overflow its banks, and a tide come setting in from the Silent Sea, till all the Worlds and the Skies are drowned in Silence; while MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI in the Middle of All sits deep in thought. And the hound Time, when all the Worlds and cities are swept away whereon he used to raven, having no more to devour shall suddenly die.
But there are some that hold—and this is the heresy of the Saigoths—that when the gods go down at the last into their galleons of gold Mung shall turn alone, and, setting his back against Trehágobol and wielding the Sword of Severing which is called Death, shall fight out his last fight with the hound Time, his empty scabbard Sleep clattering loose beside him.
There under Trehágobol they shall fight alone when all the gods are gone.
And the Saigoths say that for two days and nights the hound shall leer and snarl before the face of Mung—days and nights that shall be lit by neither sun nor moons, for these shall go dipping down the sky with all the Worlds as the galleons glide away, because the gods that made them are gods no more.
And then shall the hound, springing, tear out the throat of Mung, who, making for the last time the sign of Mung, shall bring down Death crashing through the shoulders of the hound, and in the blood of Time that Sword shall rust away.
Then shall MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI be all alone, with neither Death nor Time, and never the hours singing in his ears, nor the swish of the passing lives.
But far away from Pegāna shall go the galleons of gold that bear the gods away upon whose faces shall be utter calm, because They are the gods knowing that it is THE END.
Time and the Gods
Once when the gods were young and only Their swarthy servant Time was without age, the gods lay sleeping by a broad river upon earth. There in a valley that from all the earth the gods had set apart for Their repose the gods dreamed marble dreams. And with domes and pinnacles the dreams arose and stood up proudly between the river and the sky, all shimmering white to the morning. In the city’s midst the gleaming marble of a thousand steps climbed to the citadel where arose four pinnacles beckoning to heaven, and midmost between the pinnacles there stood the dome, vast, as the gods had dreamed it. All around, terrace by terrace, there went marble lawns well guarded by onyx lions and carved with effigies of all the gods striding amid the symbols of the worlds. With a sound like tinkling bells, far off in a land of shepherds hidden by some hill, the waters of many fountains turned again home. Then the gods awoke and there stood Sardathrion. Not to common men have the gods given to walk Sardathrion’s streets, and not to common eyes to see her fountains. Only to those to whom in lonely passes in the night the gods have spoken, leaning through the stars, to those that have heard the voices of the gods above the morning or seen Their faces bending above the sea, only to those hath it been given to see Sardathrion, to stand where her pinnacles gathered together in the night fresh from the dreams of gods. For round the valley a great desert lies through which no common traveller may come, but those whom the gods have chosen feel suddenly a great longing at heart, and crossing the mountains that divide the desert from the world, set out across it driven by the gods, till hidden in the desert’s midst they find the valley at last and look with eyes upon Sardathrion.
In the desert beyond the valley grow a myriad thorns, and all pointing towards Sardathrion. So may many that the gods have loved come to the marble city, but none can return, for other cities are no fitting home for men whose feet have touched Sardathrion’s marble streets, where even the gods have not been ashamed to come in the guise of men with Their cloaks wrapped about Their faces. Therefore no city shall ever hear the songs that are sung in the marble citadel by those in whose ears have rung the voices of the gods. No report shall ever come to other lands of the music of the fall of Sardathrion’s fountains, when the waters which went heavenward return again into the lake where the gods cool Their brows sometimes in the guise of men. None may ever hear the speech of the poets of that city, to whom the gods have spoken.
It stands a city aloof. There hath been no rumour of it—I alone have dreamed of it, and I may not be sure that my dreams are true.
Above the Twilight the gods were seated in the after years, ruling the worlds. No longer now They walked at evening in the Marble City hearing the fountains splash, or listening to the singing of the men they loved, because it was in the after years and the work of the gods was to be done.
But often as they rested a moment from doing the work of the gods, from hearing the prayers of men or sending here the Pestilence or there Mercy, They would speak awhile with one another of the olden years saying, “Rememberest thou not Sardathrion?” and another would answer “Ah! Sardathrion, and all Sardathrion’s mist-draped marble lawns whereon we walk not now.”
Then the gods turned to do the work of the gods, answering the prayers of men or smiting them, and ever They sent Their swarthy servant Time to heal or overwhelm. And Time went forth into the worlds to obey the commands of the gods, yet he cast furtive glances at his masters, and the gods distrusted Time because he had known the worlds or ever the gods became.
One day when furtive Time had gone into the worlds to nimbly smite some city whereof the gods were weary, the gods above the twilight speaking to one another said:
“Surely we are the lords of Time and the gods of the worlds besides. See how our city Sardathrion lifts over other cities. Others arise and perish but Sardathrion standeth yet, the first and the last of cities. Rivers are lost in the sea and streams forsake the hills, but ever Sardathrion’s fountains arise in our dream city. As was Sardathrion when the gods were young, so are her streets to-day as a sign that we are the gods.”
Suddenly the swart figure of Time stood up before the gods, with both hands dripping with blood and a red sword dangling idly from his fingers, and said:
“Sardathrion is gone! I have overthrown it!”
And the gods said:
“Sardathrion? Sardathrion, the marble city? Thou, thou hast overthrown it? Thou, the slave of the gods?”
And the oldest of the gods said:
“Sardathrion, Sardathrion, and is Sardathrion gone?”
And furtively Time looked him in the face and edged towards him fingering with his dripping fingers the hilt of his nimble sword.
Then the gods feared with a new fear that he that had overthrown Their city would one day slay the gods. And a new cry went wailing through the Twilight, the lament of the gods for Their dream city, crying:
“Tears may not bring again Sardathrion.
“But this the gods may do who have seen, and seen with unrelenting eyes, the sorrows of ten thousand worlds—thy gods may weep for thee.
“Tears may not bring again Sardathrion.
“Believe it not, Sardathrion, that ever thy gods sent this doom to thee; he that hath overthrown thee shall overthrow thy gods.
“How oft when Night came suddenly on Morning playing in the fields of Twilight did we watch thy pinnacles emerging from the darkness, Sardathrion, Sardathrion, dream city of the gods, and thine onyx lions looming limb by limb from the dusk.
“How often have we sent our child the Dawn to play with thy fountain tops; how often hath Evening, loveliest of our goddesses, strayed long upon thy balconies.
“Let one fragment of thy marbles stand up above the dust for thine old gods to caress, as a man when all else is lost treasures one lock of the hair of his beloved.
“Sardathrion, the gods must kiss once more the place where thy streets were once.
“There were wonderful marbles in thy streets, Sardathrion.
“Sardathrion, Sadathrion, the gods weep for thee.”
A Legend of the Dawn
When the worlds and All began the gods were stern and old and They saw the Beginning from under eyebrows hoar with years, all but Inzana, Their child, who played with the golden ball. Inzana was the child of all the gods. And the law before the Beginning and thereafter was that all should obey the gods, yet hither and thither went all Pegāna’s gods to obey the Dawnchild because she loved to be obeyed.
It was dark all over the world and even in Pegāna, where dwell the gods, it was dark when the child Inzana, the Dawn, first found her golden ball. Then running down the stairway of the gods with tripping feet, chalcedony, onyx, chalcedony, onyx, step by step, she cast her golden ball across the sky. The golden ball went bounding up the sky, and the Dawnchild with her flaring hair stood laughing upon the stairway of the gods, and it was day. So gleaming fields below saw the first day of all the days that the gods have destined. But towards evening certain mountains, afar and aloof, conspired together to stand between the world and the golden ball and to wrap their crags about it and to shut it from the world, and all the world was darkened with their plot. And the Dawnchild up in Pegāna cried for her golden ball. Then all the gods came down the stairway right to Pegāna’s gate to see what ailed the Dawnchild and to ask her why she cried. Then Inzana said that her golden ball had been taken away and hidden by mountains black and ugly, far away from Pegāna, all in a world of rocks under the rim of the sky, and she wanted her golden ball and could not love the dark.
Thereat Umborodom, whose hound was the thunder, took his hound in leash, and strode away across the sky after the golden ball until he came to the mountains afar and aloof. There did the thunder put his nose to the rocks and bay along the valleys, and fast at his heels followed Umborodom. And the nearer the hound, the thunder, came to the golden ball the louder did he bay, but haughty and silent stood the mountains whose plot had darkened the world. All in the dark among the crags in a mighty cavern, guarded by two twin peaks, at last they found the golden ball for which the Dawnchild wept. Then under the world went Umborodom with his thunder panting behind him, and came in the dark before the morning from underneath the world and gave the Dawnchild back her golden ball. And Inzana laughed and took it in her hands, and Umborodom went back into Pegāna, and at its threshold the thunder went to sleep.
Again the Dawnchild tossed the golden ball far up into the blue across the sky, and the second morning shone upon the world, on lakes and oceans, and on drops of dew. But as the ball went bounding on its way, the prowling mists and the rain conspired together and took it and wrapped it in their tattered cloaks and carried it away. And through the rents in their garments gleamed the golden ball, but they held it fast and carried it right away and underneath the world. Then on an onyx step Inzana sat down and wept, who could no more be happy without her golden ball. And again the gods were sorry, and the South Wind came to tell her tales of most enchanted islands, to whom she listened not, nor yet to the tales of temples in lone lands that the East Wind told her, who had stood beside her when she flung her golden ball. But from far away the West Wind came with news of three grey travellers wrapt round with battered cloaks that carried away between them a golden ball.
Then up leapt the North Wind, he who guards the pole, and drew his sword of ice out of his scabbard of snow and sped away along the road that leads across the blue. And in the darkness underneath the world he met the three grey travellers and rushed upon them and drove them far before him, smiting them with his sword till their grey cloaks streamed with blood. And out of the midst of them, as they fled with flapping cloaks all red and grey and tattered, he leapt up with the golden ball and gave it to the Dawnchild.
Again Inzana tossed the ball into the sky, making the third day, and up and up it went and fell towards the fields, and as Inzana stooped to pick it up she suddenly heard the singing of all the birds that were. All the birds in the world were singing all together and also all the streams, and Inzana sat and listened and thought of no golden ball, nor ever of chalcedony and onyx, nor of all her fathers the gods, but only of all the birds. Then in the woods and meadows where they had all suddenly sung, they suddenly ceased. And Inzana, looking up, found that her ball was lost, and all alone in the stillness one owl laughed. When the gods heard Inzana crying for her ball They clustered together on the threshold and peered into the dark, but saw no golden ball. And leaning forward They cried out to the bat as he passed up and down: “Bat that seest all things, where is the golden ball?”
And though the bat answered none heard. And none of the winds had seen it nor any of the birds, and there were only the eyes of the gods in the darkness peering for the golden ball. Then said the gods: “Thou hast lost thy golden ball,” and They made her a moon of silver to roll about the sky. And the child cried and threw it upon the stairway and chipped and broke its edges and asked for the golden ball. And Limpang-Tung, the Lord of Music, who was least of all the gods, because the child cried still for her golden ball, stole out of Pegāna and crept across the sky, and found the birds of all the world sitting in trees and ivy, and whispering in the dark. He asked them one by one for news of the golden ball. Some had last seen it on a neighbouring hill and others in the trees, though none knew where it was. A heron had seen it lying in a pond, but a wild duck in some reeds had seen it last as she came home across the hills, and then it was rolling very far away.
At last the cock cried out that he had seen it lying beneath the world. There Limpang-Tung sought it and the cock called to him through the darkness as he went, until at last he found the golden ball. Then Limpang-Tung went up into Pegāna and gave it to the Dawnchild, who played with the moon no more. And the cock and all his tribe cried out: “We found it. We found the golden ball.”
Again, Inzana tossed the ball afar, laughing with joy to see it, her hands stretched upwards, her golden hair afloat, and carefully she watched it as it fell. But alas! it fell with a splash into the great sea and gleamed and shimmered as it fell till the waters became dark above it and it could be seen no more. And men on the world said: “How the dew has fallen, and how the mists set in with breezes from the streams.”
But the dew was the tears of the Dawnchild, and the mists were her sighs when she said: “There will no more come a time when I play with my ball again, for now it is lost for ever.”
And the gods tried to comfort Inzana as she played with her silver moon, but she would not hear Them, and went in tears to Slid, where he played with gleaming sails, and in his mighty treasury turned over gems and pearls and lorded it over the sea. And she said “O Slid, whose soul is in the sea, bring back my golden ball.”
And Slid stood up, swarthy, and clad in seaweed, and mightily dived from the last chalcedony step out of Pegāna’s threshold straight into ocean. There on the sand, among the battered navies of the nautilus and broken weapons of the swordfish, hidden by dark water, he found the golden ball. And coming up in the night, all green and dripping, he carried it gleaming to the stairway of the gods and brought it back to Inzana from the sea; and out of the hands of Slid she took it and tossed it far and wide over his sails and sea, and far away it shone on lands that knew not Slid, till it came to its zenith and dropped towards the world.
But ere it fell the Eclipse dashed out from his hiding, and rushed at the golden ball and seized it in his jaws. When Inzana saw the Eclipse bearing her plaything away she cried aloud to the thunder, who burst from Pegāna and fell howling upon the throat of the Eclipse, who dropped the golden ball and let it fall towards earth. But the black mountains disguised themselves with snow, and as the golden ball fell down towards them they turned their peaks to ruby crimson and their lakes to sapphires gleaming amongst silver, and Inzana saw a jewelled casket into which her plaything fell. But when she stooped to pick it up again she found no jewelled casket with rubies, silver or sapphires, but only wicked mountains disguised in snow that had trapped her golden ball. And then she cried because there was none to find it, for the thunder was far away chasing the Eclipse, and all the gods lamented when They saw her sorrow. And Limpang-Tung, who was least of all the gods, was yet the saddest at the Dawnchild’s grief, and when the gods said: “Play with your silver moon,” he stepped lightly from the rest, and coming down the stairway of the gods, playing an instrument of music, went out towards the world to find the golden ball because Inzana wept.
And into the world he went till he came to the nether cliffs that stand by the inner mountains in the soul and heart of the earth where the Earthquake dwelleth alone, asleep but astir as he sleeps, breathing and moving his legs, and grunting aloud in the dark. Then in the ear of the Earthquake Limpang-Tung said a word that only the gods may say, and the Earthquake started to his feet and flung the cave away, the cave wherein he slept between the cliffs, and shook himself and went galloping abroad and overturned the mountains that hid the golden ball, and bit the earth beneath them and hurled their crags about and covered himself with rocks and fallen hills, and went back ravening and growling into the soul of the earth, and there lay down and slept again for a hundred years. And the golden ball rolled free, passing under the shattered earth, and so rolled back to Pegāna; and Limpang-Tung came home to the onyx step and took the Dawnchild by the hand and told not what he had done but said it was the Earthquake, and went away to sit at the feet of the gods. But Inzana went and patted the Earthquake on the head, for she said it was dark and lonely in the soul of the earth. Thereafter, returning step by step, chalcedony, onyx, chalcedony, onyx, up the stairway of the gods, she cast again her golden ball from the Threshold afar into the blue to gladden the world and the sky, and laughed to see it go.
And far away Trogool upon the utter Rim turned a page that was numbered six in a cipher that none might read. And as the golden ball went through the sky to gleam on lands and cities, there came the Fog towards it, stooping as he walked with his dark brown cloak about him, and behind him slunk the Night. And as the golden ball rolled past the Fog suddenly Night snarled and sprang upon it and carried it away. Hastily Inzana gathered all the gods and said: “The Night hath seized my golden ball and no god alone can find it now, for none can say how far the Night may roam, who prowls all round us and out beyond the worlds.”
At the entreaty of Their Dawnchild all the gods made Themselves stars for torches, and far away through all the sky followed the tracks of Night as far as he prowled abroad. And at one time Slid, with the Pleiades in his hand, came nigh to the golden ball, and at another Yoharneth-Lahai, holding Orion for a torch, but lastly Limpang-Tung, bearing the morning star, found the golden ball far away under the world near to the lair of Night.10
And all the gods together seized the ball, and Night turning smote out the torches of the gods and thereafter slunk away; and all the gods in triumph marched up the gleaming stairway of the gods, all praising little Limpang-Tung, who through the chase had followed Night so close in search of the golden ball. Then far below on the world a human child cried out to the Dawnchild for the golden ball, and Inzana ceased from her play that illumined world and sky, and cast the ball from the Threshold of the gods to the little human child that played in the fields below, and would one day die. And the child played all day long with the golden ball down in the little fields where the humans lived, and went to bed at evening and put it beneath his pillow, and went to sleep, and no one worked in all the world because the child was playing. And the light of the golden ball streamed up from under the pillow and out through the half shut door and shone in the western sky, and Yoharneth-Lahai in the night time tip-toed into the room, and took the ball gently (for he was a god) away from under the pillow and brought it back to the Dawnchild to gleam on an onyx step.
But some day the Night shall seize the golden ball and carry it right away and drag it down to its lair, and Slid shall dive from the Threshold into the sea to see if it be there, and coming up when the fishermen draw their nets shall find it not, nor yet discover it among the sails. Limpang-Tung shall seek among the birds and shall not find it when the cock is mute, and up the valleys shall go Umborodom to seek among the crags. And the hound, the thunder, shall chase the Eclipse and all the gods go seeking with Their stars, but never find the ball. And men, no longer having light of the golden ball, shall pray to the gods no more, who, having no worship, shall be no more the gods.
These things be hidden even from the gods.
In the Land of Time
Thus Karnith, King of Alatta, spake to his eldest son: “I bequeath to thee my city of Zoon, with its golden eaves, where-under hum the bees. And I bequeath to thee also the land of Alatta, and all such other lands as thou art worthy to possess, for my three strong armies which I leave thee may well take Zindara and overrun Istahn, and drive back Onin from his frontier, and leaguer the walls of Yan, and beyond that spread conquest over the lesser lands of Hebith, Ebnon, and Karida. Only lead not thine armies against Zeenar, nor ever cross the Eidis.”
Thereat in the city of Zoon in the land of Alatta, under his golden eaves, died King Karnith, and his soul went whither had gone the souls of his sires the elder Kings, and the souls of their slaves.
Then Karnith Zo, the new King, took the iron crown of Alatta and afterwards went down to the plains that encircle Zoon and found his three strong armies clamouring to be led against Zeenar, over the river Eidis.
But the new King came back from his armies, and all one night in the great palace alone with his iron crown, pondered long upon war; and a little before dawn he saw dimly through his palace window, facing east over the city of Zoon and across the fields of Alatta, to far off where a valley opened on Istahn. There, as he pondered, he saw the smoke arising tall and straight over small houses in the plain and the fields where the sheep fed. Later the sun rose shining over Alatta as it shone over Istahn, and there arose a stir about the houses both in Alatta and Istahn, and cocks crowed in the city and men went out into the fields among the bleating sheep; and the King wondered if men did otherwise in Istahn. And men and women met as they went out to work and the sound of laughter arose from streets and fields; the King’s eyes gazed into the distance toward Istahn and still the smoke went upward tall and straight from the small houses. And the sun rose higher that shone upon Alatta and Istahn, causing the flowers to open wide in each, and the birds to sing and the voices of men and women to arise. And in the market-place of Zoon caravans were astir that set out to carry merchandise to Istahn, and afterwards passed camels coming to Alatta with many tinkling bells. All this the King saw as he pondered much, who had not pondered before. Westward the Agnid mountains frowned in the distance guarding the river Eidis; behind them the fierce people of Zeenar lived in a bleak land.
Later the King, going abroad through his new kingdom, came on the Temple of the gods of Old. There he found the roof shattered and the marble columns broken and tall weeds met together in the inner shrine, and the gods of Old, bereft of worship or sacrifice, neglected and forgotten.11 And the King asked of his councillors who it was that had overturned this temple of the gods or caused the gods Themselves to be thus forsaken. And they answered him:
“Time has done this.”
Next the King came upon a man bent and crippled, whose face was furrowed and worn, and the King having seen no such sight within the court of his father said to the man:
“Who hath done this thing to you?”
And the old man answered:
“Time hath ruthlessly done it.”
But the King and his councillors went on, and next they came upon a body of men carrying among them a hearse. And the King asked his councillors closely concerning death, for these things had not before been expounded to the King. And the oldest of the councillors answered:
“Death, O King, is a gift sent by the gods by the hand of their servant Time, and some receive it gladly, and some are forced reluctantly to take it, and before others it is suddenly flung in the middle of the day. And with this gift that Time hath brought him from the gods a man must go forth into the dark to possess no other thing for so long as the gods are willing.”
But the King went back to his palace and gathered the greatest of his prophets and his councillors and asked them more particularly concerning Time. And they told the King how that Time was a great figure standing like a tall shadow in the dusk or striding, unseen, across the world, and how that he was the slave of the gods and did Their bidding, but ever chose new masters, and how all the former masters of Time were dead and Their shrines forgotten. And one said:
“I have seen him once when I went down to play again in the garden of my childhood because of certain memories. And it was towards evening and the light was pale, and I saw Time standing over the little gate, pale like the light, and he stood between me and that garden and had stolen my memories of it because he was mightier than I.”
And another said:
“I, too, have seen the Enemy of my House. For I saw him when he strode over the fields that I knew well and led a stranger by the hand to place him in my home to sit where my forefathers sat. And I saw him afterwards walk thrice round the house and stoop and gather up the glamour from the lawns and brush aside the tall poppies in the garden and spread weeds in his pathway where he strode through the remembered nooks.”
And another said:
“He went one day into the desert and brought up life out of the waste places, and made it cry bitterly and covered it with the desert again.”
And another said:
“I too saw him once seated in the garden of a child tearing the flowers, and afterwards he went away through many woodlands and stooped down as he went, and picked the leaves one by one from the trees.”
And another said:
“I saw him once by moonlight standing tall and black amidst the ruins of a shrine in the old kingdom of Amarna, doing a deed by night. And he wore a look on his face such as murderers wear as he busied himself to cover over something with weeds and dust. Thereafter in Amarna the people of that old Kingdom missed their god, in whose shrine I saw Time crouching in the night, and they have not since beheld him.”
And all the while from the distance at the city’s edge rose a hum from the three armies of the King clamouring to be led against Zeenar. Thereat the King went down to his three armies and speaking to their chiefs said:
“I will not go down clad with murder to be King over other lands. I have seen the same morning arising on Istahn that also gladdened Alatta, and have heard Peace lowing among the flowers. I will not desolate homes to rule over an orphaned land and a land widowed. But I will lead you against the pledged enemy of Alatta who shall crumble the towers of Zoon and hath gone far to overthrow our gods. He is the foe of Zindara and Istahn and many-citadeled Yan; Hebith and Ebnon may not overcome him nor Karida be safe against him among her bleakest mountains. He is a foe mightier than Zeenar with frontiers stronger than the Eidis: he leers at all the peoples of the earth and mocks their gods and covets their builded cities. Therefore we will go forth and conquer Time and save the gods of Alatta from his clutch, and coming back victorious shall find that Death is gone and age and illness departed, and here we shall live for ever by the golden eaves of Zoon, while the bees hum among unrusted gables and never crumbling towers. There shall be neither fading nor forgetting, nor ever dying nor sorrow, when we shall have freed the people and pleasant fields of the earth from inexorable Time.”
And the armies swore that they would follow the King to save the world and the gods.
So the next day the King set forth with his three armies and crossed many rivers and marched through many lands, and wherever they went they asked for news of Time.
And the first day they met a woman with her face furrowed and lined, who told them that she had been beautiful and that Time had smitten her in the face with his five claws.
Many an old man they met as they marched in search of Time. All had seen him but none could tell them more, except that some said he went that way and pointed to a ruined tower or to an old and broken tree.
And day after day and month by month the King pushed on with his armies, hoping to come at last on Time. Sometimes they encamped at night near palaces of beautiful design or beside gardens of flowers, hoping to find their enemy when he came to desecrate in the dark. Sometimes they came on cobwebs, sometimes on rusted chains and houses with broken roofs or crumbling walls. Then the armies would push on apace thinking that they were closer upon the track of Time.
As the weeks passed by and weeks grew to months, and always they heard reports and rumours of Time, but never found him, the armies grew weary of the great march, but the King pushed on and would let none turn back, saying always that the enemy was near at hand.
Month in, month out, the King led on his now unwilling armies, till at last they had marched for close upon a year and came to the village of Astarma very far to the north. There many of the King’s weary soldiers deserted from his armies and settled down in Astarma and married Astarmian girls. By these soldiers we have the march of the armies clearly chronicled to the time when they came to Astarma, having been nigh a year upon the march. And the army left that village and the children cheered them as they went up the street, and five miles distant they passed over a ridge of hills and out of sight. Beyond this less is known, but the rest of this chronicle is gathered from the tales that the veterans of the King’s armies used to tell in the evenings about the fires in Zoon and remembered afterwards by the men of Zeenar.
It is mostly credited in these days that such of the King’s armies as went on past Astarma came at last (it is not known after how long a time) over a crest of a slope where the whole earth slanted green to the north. Below it lay green fields and beyond them moaned the sea with never shore nor island so far as the eye could reach. Among the green fields lay a village, and on this village the eyes of the King and his armies were turned as they came down the slope. It lay beneath them, grave with seared antiquity, with old-world gables stained and bent by the lapse of frequent years, with all its chimneys awry. Its roofs were tiled with antique stones covered over deep with moss; each little window looked with a myriad strange-cut panes on the gardens shaped with quaint devices and overrun with weeds. On rusted hinges the doors swung to and fro and were fashioned of planks of immemorial oak with black knots gaping from their sockets. Against it all there beat the thistledown, about it clambered the ivy or swayed the weeds; tall and straight out of the twisted chimneys arose blue columns of smoke, and blades of grass peeped upward between the huge cobbles of the unmolested street. Between the gardens and the cobbled street stood hedges higher than a horseman might look, of stalwart thorn, and upward through it clambered the convolvulus to peer into the garden from the top. Before each house there was cut a gap in the hedge, and in it swung a wicket gate of timber soft with the rain and years, and green like the moss. Over all of it there brooded age and the full hush of things bygone and forgotten. Upon this derelict that the years had cast up out of antiquity the King and his armies gazed long. Then on the hill slope the King made his armies halt, and went down alone with one of his chiefs into the village.
Presently there was a stir in one of the houses, and a bat flew out of the door into the daylight, and three mice came running out of the doorway down the step, an old stone cracked in two and held together by moss; and there followed an old man bending on a stick, with a white beard coming to the ground, wearing clothes that were glossed with use, and presently there came others out of the other houses, all of them as old, and all hobbling on sticks. These were the oldest people that the King had ever beheld, and he asked them the name of the village and who they were; and one of them answered: “This is the City of the Aged in the Territory of Time.”
And the King said, “Is Time then here?”
And one of the old men pointed to a great castle standing on a steep hill and said: “Therein dwells Time, and we are his people”; and they all looked curiously at King Karnith Zo, and the eldest of the villagers spoke again and said: “Whence do you come, you that are so young?” and Karnith Zo told him how he had come to conquer Time to save the world and the gods, and asked them whence they came.
And the villagers said:
“We are older than always, and know not whence we came, but we are the people of Time, and here from the Edge of Everything he sends out his hours to assail the world, and you may never conquer Time.” But the King went back to his armies, and pointed toward the castle on the hill and told them that at last they had found the Enemy of the Earth; and they that were older than always went back slowly into their houses with the creaking of olden doors. And they went across the fields and passed the village. From one of his towers Time eyed them all the while, and in battle order they closed in on the steep hill as Time sat still in his great tower and watched.
But as the feet of the foremost touched the edge of the hill Time hurled five years against them, and the years passed over their heads and the army still came on, an army of older men. But the slope seemed steeper to the King and to every man in his army, and they breathed more heavily. And Time summoned up more years, and one by one he hurled them at Karnith Zo and at all his men. And the knees of the army stiffened, and the beards grew and turned grey, and the hours and days and the months went singing over their heads, and their hair turned whiter and whiter, and the conquering hours bore down, and the years rushed on and swept the youth of that army clear away till they came face to face under the walls of the castle of Time with a mass of howling years, and found the top of the slope too steep for aged men. Slowly and painfully, harassed with agues and chills, the King rallied his aged army that tottered down the slope.
Slowly the King led back his warriors over whose heads had shrieked the triumphant years. Year in, year out, they straggled southwards, always towards Zoon; they came, with rust upon their spears and long beards flowing, again into Astarma, and none knew them there. They passed again by towns and villages where once they had inquired curiously concerning Time, and none knew them there either. They came again to the palaces and gardens where they had waited for Time in the night, and found that Time had been there. And all the while they set a hope before them that they should come on Zoon again and see its golden eaves. And no one knew that unperceived behind them there lurked and followed the gaunt figure of Time cutting off stragglers one by one and overwhelming them with his hours, only men were missed from the army every day, and fewer and fewer grew the veterans of Karnith Zo.
But at last after many a month, one night as they marched in the dusk before the morning, dawn suddenly ascending shone on the eaves of Zoon, and a great cry ran through the army:
“Alatta, Alatta!”12
But drawing nearer they found that the gates were rusted and weeds grew tall along the outer walls, many a roof had fallen, gables were blackened and bent, and the golden eaves shone not as heretofore. And the soldiers entering the city expecting to find their sisters and sweethearts of a few years ago saw only old women wrinkled with great age and knew not who they were.
Suddenly someone said:
“He has been here too.”
And then they knew that while they searched for Time, Time had gone forth against their city and leaguered it with the years, and had taken it while they were far away and enslaved their women and children with the yoke of age. So all that remained of the three armies of Karnith Zo settled in the conquered city. And presently the men of Zeenar crossed over the river Eidis and easily conquering an army of aged men took all Alatta for themselves, and their kings reigned thereafter in the city of Zoon. And sometimes the men of Zeenar listened to the strange tales that the old Alattans told of the years when they made battle against Time. Such of these tales as the men of Zeenar remembered they afterwards set forth, and this is all that may be told of those adventurous armies that went to war with Time to save the world and the gods, and were overwhelmed by the hours and the years.
The Relenting of Sarnidac
The lame boy Sarnidac tended sheep on a hill to the southward of the city. Sarnidac was a dwarf and greatly derided in the city. For the women said:
“It is very funny that Sarnidac is a dwarf,” and they would point their fingers at him saying:—“This is Sarnidac, he is a dwarf; also he is very lame.”
Once the doors of all the temples in the world swung open to the morning, and Sarnidac with his sheep upon the hill saw strange figures going down the white road, always southwards. All the morning he saw the dust rising above the strange figures and always they went southwards right as far as the rim of the Nydoon hills where the white road could be seen no more. And the figures stooped and seemed to be larger than men, but all men seemed very large to Sarnidac, and he could not see clearly through the dust. And Sarnidac shouted to them, as he hailed all people that passed down the long white road, and none of the figures looked to left or right and none of them turned to answer Sarnidac. But then few people ever answered him because he was lame, and a small dwarf.
Still the figures went striding swiftly, stooping forward through the dust, till at last Sarnidac came running down his hill to watch them closer. As he came to the white road the last of the figures passed him, and Sarnidac ran limping behind him down the road.
For Sarnidac was weary of the city wherein all derided him, and when he saw these figures all hurrying away he thought that they went perhaps to some other city beyond the hills over which the sun shone brighter, or where there was more food, for he was poor, even perhaps where people had not the custom of laughing at Sarnidac. So this procession of figures that stooped and seemed larger than men went southward down the road and a lame dwarf hobbled behind them.
Khamazan, now called the City of the Last of Temples, lies southward of the Nydoon hills. This is the story of Pompeides, now chief prophet of the only temple in the world, and greatest of all the prophets that have been:
“On the slopes of Nydoon I was seated once above Khamazan. There I saw figures in the morning striding through much dust along the road that leads across the world. Striding up the hill they came towards me, not with the gait of men, and soon the first one came to the crest of the hill where the road dips to find the plains again, where lies Khamazan. And now I swear by all the gods that are gone that this thing happened as I shall say it, and was surely so. When those that came striding up the hill came to its summit they took not the road that goes down into the plains nor trod the dust any longer, but went straight on and upwards, striding as they strode before, as though the hill had not ended nor the road dipped. And they strode as though they trod no yielding substance, yet they stepped upwards through the air.
“This the gods did, for They were not born men who strode that day so strangely away from earth.
“But I, when I saw this thing, when already three had passed me, leaving earth, cried out before the fourth:
“ ‘Gods of my childhood, guardians of little homes, whither are ye going, leaving the round earth to swim alone and forgotten in so great a waste of sky?’
“And one answered:
“‘Heresy apace shoots her fierce glare over the world and men’s faith grows dim and the gods go. Men shall make iron gods and gods of steel when the wind and the ivy meet within the shrines of the temples of the gods of old.’13
“And I left that place as a man leaves fire by night, and going plainwards down the white road that the gods spurned cried out to all that I passed to follow me, and so crying came to the city’s gates. And there I shouted to all near the gates:
“ ‘From yonder hilltop, the gods are leaving earth.’
“Then I gathered many, and we all hastened to the hill to pray the gods to tarry, and there we cried out to the last of the departing gods:
“‘Gods of old prophecy and of men’s hopes, leave not the earth, and all our worship shall hum about Your ears as never it hath before, and oft the sacrifice shall squeal upon Your altars.’
“And I said:—
“ ‘Gods of still evenings and quiet nights, go not from earth and leave not Your carven shrines, and all men shall worship You still. For between us and yonder still blue spaces oft roam the thunder and the storms. There in his hiding lurks the dark eclipse, and there are stored all snows and hails and lightnings that shall vex the earth for a million years. Gods of our hopes, how shall men’s prayers crying from empty shrines pass through such terrible spaces; how shall they ever fare above the thunder and many storms to whatever place the gods may go in that blue waste beyond?’
“But the gods bent straight forward, and trampled through the sky and looked not to the right nor left nor downwards, nor ever heeded my prayer.
“And one cried out hoping yet to stay the gods, though nearly all were gone, saying:—
“‘O gods, rob not the earth of the dim hush that hangs round all Your temples, bereave not all the world of old romance, take not the glamour from the moonlight nor tear the wonder out of the white mists in every land; for, O ye gods of the childhood of the world, when You have left the earth You shall have taken the mystery from the sea and all its glory from antiquity, and You shall have wrenched out hope from the dim future. There shall be no strange cities at night time half understood, nor songs in the twilight, and the whole of the wonder shall have died with last year’s flowers in little gardens or hill-slopes leaning south; for with the gods must go the enchantment of the plains and all the magic of dark woods, and something shall be lacking from the quiet of early dawn. For it would scarce befit the gods to leave the earth and not take with Them that which They had given it. Out beyond the still blue spaces Ye will need the holiness of sunset for Yourselves and little sacred memories and the thrill that is in stories told by fire-sides long ago. One strain of music, one song, one line of poetry and one kiss, and a memory of one pool with rushes, and each one the best, shall the gods take to whom the best belongs, when the gods go.
“ ‘Sing a lamentation, people of Khamazan, sing a lamentation for all the children of earth at the feet of the departing gods. Sing a lamentation for the children of earth who must now carry their prayer to empty shrines and around empty shrines must rest at last.’
“Then when our prayers were ended and our tears shed, we beheld the last and smallest of the gods halted upon the hilltop. Twice he called to Them with a cry somewhat like the cry wherewith our shepherds hail their brethren, and long gazed after Them, and then deigned to look no longer and to tarry upon earth and turn his eyes on men. Then a great shout went up when we saw that our hopes were saved and that there was still on earth a haven for our prayers. Smaller than men now seemed the figures that had loomed so big, as one behind the other far over our heads They still strode upwards. But the small god that had pitied the world came with us down the hill, still deigning to tread the road, though strangely, not as men tread, and into Khamazan. There we housed him in the palace of the King, for that was before the building of the temple of gold, and the King made sacrifice before him with his own hands, and he that had pitied the world did eat the flesh of the sacrifice.”14
And the Book of the Knowledge of the gods in Khamazan tells how the small god that pitied the world told his prophets that his name was Sarnidac and that he herded sheep, and that therefore he is called the shepherd god, and sheep are sacrificed upon his altars thrice a day, and the North, East, West, and the South are the four hurdles of Sarnidac and the white clouds are his sheep. And the Book of the Knowledge of the gods tells further how the day on which Pompeides found the gods shall be kept for ever as a fast until the evening and called the Fast of the Departing, but in the evening shall a feast be held which is named the Feast of the Relenting, for on that evening Sarnidac pitied the whole world and tarried.
And the people of Khamazan all prayed to Sarnidac, and dreamed their dreams and hoped their hopes because their temple was not empty. Whether the gods that are departed be greater than Sarnidac none know in Khamazan, but some believe that in Their azure windows They have set lights that lost prayers swarming upwards may come to them like moths and at last find haven and light far up above the evening and the stillness where sit the gods.
But Sarnidac wondered at the strange figures, at the people of Khamazan, and at the palace of the King and the customs of the prophets, but wondered not more greatly at aught in Khamazan than he had wondered at the city which he had left. For Sarnidac, who had not known why men were unkind to him, thought that he had found at last the land for which the gods had let him hope, where men should have the custom of being kind to Sarnidac.
The Fall of Babbulkund
I said: “I will arise now and see Babbulkund, City of Marvel. She is of one age with the earth; the stars are her sisters. Pharaohs of the old time coming conquering from Araby first saw her, a solitary mountain in the desert, and cut the mountain into towers and terraces. They destroyed one of the hills of God, but they made Babbulkund. She is carven, not built; her palaces are one with her terraces, there is neither join nor cleft. Hers is the beauty of the youth of the world. She deemeth herself to be the middle of Earth, and hath four gates facing outward to the Nations. There sits outside her eastern gate a colossal god of stone. His face flushes with the lights of dawn. When the morning sunlight warms his lips they part a little, and he giveth utterance to the words ‘Oon Oom,’ and the language is long since dead in which he speaks, and all his worshippers are gathered to their tombs, so that none knoweth what the words portend that he uttereth at dawn. Some say that he greets the sun as one god greets another in the language thereof, and others say that he proclaims the day, and others that he uttereth warning. And at every gate is a marvel not credible until beholden.”
And I gathered three friends and said to them: “We are what we have seen and known. Let us journey now and behold Babbulkund, that our minds may be beautified with it and our spirits made holier.”
So we took ship and travelled over the lifting sea, and remembered not things done in the towns we knew, but laid away the thoughts of them like soiled linen and put them by, and dreamed of Babbulkund.
But when we came to the land of which Babbulkund is the abiding glory, we hired a caravan of camels and Arab guides, and passed southwards in the afternoon on the three days’ journey through the desert that should bring us to the white walls of Babbulkund. And the heat of the sun shone upon us out of the bright grey sky, and the heat of the desert beat up at us from below.
About sunset we halted and tethered our horses, while the Arabs unloaded the provisions from the camels and prepared a fire out of the dry scrub, for at sunset the heat of the desert departs from it suddenly, like a bird. Then we saw a traveller approaching us on a camel coming from the south. When he was come near we said to him:
“Come and encamp among us, for in the desert all men are brothers, and we will give thee meat to eat and wine, or, if thou art bound by thy faith, we will give thee some other drink that is not accursed by the prophet.”
The traveller seated himself beside us on the sand, and crossed his legs and answered:
“Hearken, and I will tell you of Babbulkund, City of Marvel. Babbulkund stands just below the meeting of the rivers, where Oonrāna, River of Myth, flows into the Waters of Fable, even the old stream Plegáthanees.15 These, together, enter her northern gate rejoicing. Of old they flowed in the dark through the Hill that Nehemoth, the first of Pharaohs, carved into the City of Marvel. Sterile and desolate they float far through the desert, each in the appointed cleft, with life upon neither bank, but give birth in Babbulkund to the sacred purple garden whereof all nations sing. Thither all the bees come on a pilgrimage at evening by a secret way of the air. Once, from his twilit kingdom, which he rules equally with the sun, the moon saw and loved Babbulkund, clad with her purple garden; and the moon wooed Babbulkund, and she sent him weeping away, for she is more beautiful than all her sisters the stars. Her sisters come to her at night into her maiden chamber. Even the gods speak sometimes of Babbulkund, clad with her purple garden. Listen, for I perceive by your eyes that ye have not seen Babbulkund; there is a restlessness in them and an unappeased wonder. Listen. In the garden whereof I spoke there is a lake that hath no twin or fellow in the world; there is no companion for it among all the lakes. The shores of it are of glass, and the bottom of it. In it are great fish having golden and scarlet scales, and they swim to and fro. Here it is the wont of the eighty-second Nehemoth (who rules in the city to-day) to come, after the dusk has fallen, and sit by the lake alone, and at this hour eight hundred slaves go down by steps through caverns into vaults beneath the lake. Four hundred of them carrying purple lights march one behind the other, from east to west, and four hundred carrying green lights march one behind the other, from west to east. The two lines cross and re-cross each other in and out as the slaves go round and round, and the fearful fish flash up and down and to and fro.”
But upon that traveller speaking night descended, solemn and cold, and we wrapped ourselves in our blankets and lay down upon the sand in the sight of the astral sisters of Babbulkund. And all that night the desert said many things, softly and in a whisper, but I knew not what he said. Only the sand knew and arose and was troubled and lay down again, and the wind knew. Then, as the hours of the night went by, these two discovered the foot-tracks wherewith we had disturbed the holy desert, and they troubled over them and covered them up; and then the wind lay down and the sand rested. Then the wind arose again and the sand danced. This they did many times. And all the while the desert whispered what I shall not know.
Then I slept awhile and awoke just before sunrise, very cold. Suddenly the sun leapt up and flamed upon our faces; we all threw off our blankets and stood up. Then we took food, and afterwards started southwards, and in the heat of the day rested, and afterwards pushed on again. And all the while the desert remained the same, like a dream that will not cease to trouble a tired sleeper.
And often travellers passed us in the desert, coming from the City of Marvel, and there was a light and a glory in their eyes from having seen Babbulkund.
That evening, at sunset, another traveller neared us, and we hailed him, saying:
“Wilt thou eat and drink with us, seeing that all men are brothers in the desert?”
And he descended from his camel and sat by us and said:
“When morning shines on the colossus Neb and Neb speaks, at once the musicians of King Nehemoth in Babbulkund awake.
“At first their fingers wander over their golden harps, or they stroke idly their violins. Clearer and clearer the note of each instrument ascends like larks arising from the dew, till suddenly they all blend together and a new melody is born. Thus, every morning, the musicians of King Nehemoth make a new marvel in the City of Marvel; for these are no common musicians, but masters of melody, raided by conquest long since, and carried away in ships from the Isles of Song. And, at the sound of the music, Nehemoth awakes in the eastern chamber of his palace, which is carved in the form of a great crescent, four miles long, on the northern side of the city. Full in the windows of its eastern chamber the sun rises, and full in the windows of its western chamber the sun sets.
“When Nehemoth awakes he summons slaves who bring a palanquin with bells, which the King enters, having lightly robed. Then the slaves run and bear him to the onyx Chamber of the Bath, with the sound of small bells ringing as they run. And when Nehemoth emerges thence, bathed and anointed, the slaves run on with their ringing palanquin and bear him to the Orient Chamber of Banquets, where the King takes the first meal of the day. Thence, through the great white corridor whose windows all face sunwards, Nehemoth, in his palanquin, passes on to the Audience Chamber of Embassies from the North, which is all decked with Northern wares.
“All about it are ornaments of amber from the North and carven chalices of the dark brown Northern crystal, and on its floors lie furs from Baltic shores.
“In adjoining chambers are stored the wonted food of the hardy Northern men, and the strong wine of the North, pale but terrible. Therein the King receives barbarian princes from the frigid lands. Thence the slaves bear him swiftly to the Audience Chamber of Embassies from the East, where the walls are of turquoise, studded with the rubies of Ceylon, where the gods are the gods of the East, where all the hangings have been devised in the gorgeous heart of Ind, and where all the carvings have been wrought with the cunning of the isles. Here, if a caravan hath chanced to have come in from Ind or from Cathay, it is the King’s wont to converse awhile with Moguls or Mandarins, for from the East come the arts and knowledge of the world, and the converse of their people is polite. Thus Nehemoth passes on through the other Audience Chambers and receives, perhaps, some Sheikhs of the Arab folk who have crossed the great desert from the West, or receives an embassy sent to do him homage from the shy jungle people to the South. And all the while the slaves with the ringing palanquin run westwards, following the sun, and ever the sun shines straight into the chamber where Nehemoth sits, and all the while the music from one or other of his bands of musicians comes tinkling to his ears. But when the middle of the day draws near, the slaves run to the cool groves that lie along the verandahs on the northern side of the palace, forsaking the sun, and as the heat overcomes the genius of the musicians, one by one their hands fall from their instruments, till at last all melody ceases. At this moment Nehemoth falls asleep, and the slaves put the palanquin down and lie down beside it. At this hour the city becomes quite still, and the palace of Nehemoth and the tombs of the Pharaohs of old face to the sunlight, all alike in silence. Even the jewellers in the market-place, selling gems to princes, cease from their bargaining and cease to sing; for in Babbulkund the vendor of rubies sings the song of the ruby, and the vendor of sapphires sings the song of the sapphire, and each stone hath its song, so that a man, by his song, proclaims and makes known his wares.
“But all these sounds cease at the meridian hour, the jewellers in the market-place lie down in what shadow they can find, and the princes go back to the cool places in their palaces, and a great hush in the gleaming air hangs over Babbulkund. But in the cool of the late afternoon, one of the King’s musicians will awake from dreaming of his home and will pass his fingers, perhaps, over the strings of his harp and, with the music, some memory may arise of the wind in the glens of the mountains that stand in the Isles of Song. Then the musician will wrench great cries out of the soul of his harp for the sake of the old memory, and his fellows will awake and all make a song of home, woven of sayings told in the harbour when the ships came in, and of tales in the cottages about the people of old time. One by one the other bands of musicians will take up the song, and Babbulkund, City of Marvel, will throb with this marvel anew. Just now Nehemoth awakes, the slaves leap to their feet and bear the palanquin to the outer side of the great crescent palace between the south and the west, to behold the sun again. The palanquin, with its ringing bells, goes round once more; the voices of the jewellers sing again, in the market-place, the song of the emerald, the song of the sapphire; men talk on the housetops, beggars wail in the streets, the musicians bend to their work, all the sounds blend together into one murmur, the voice of Babbulkund speaking at evening. Lower and lower sinks the sun, till Nehemoth, following it, comes with his panting slaves to the great purple garden of which surely thine own country has its songs, from wherever thou art come.
“There he alights from his palanquin and goes up to a throne of ivory set in the garden’s midst, facing full westwards, and sits there alone, long regarding the sunlight until it is quite gone. At this hour trouble comes into the face of Nehemoth. Men have heard him muttering at the time of sunset: ‘Even I too, even I too.’ Thus do King Nehemoth and the sun make their glorious ambits about Babbulkund.
“A little later, when the stars come out to envy the beauty of the City of Marvel, the King walks to another part of the garden and sits in an alcove of opal all alone by the marge of the sacred lake. This is the lake whose shores and floors are of glass, which is lit from beneath by slaves with purple lights and with green lights intermingling, and is one of the seven wonders of Babbulkund. Three of the wonders are in the city’s midst and four are at her gates. There is the lake, of which I tell thee, and the purple garden of which I have told thee and which is a wonder even to the stars, and there is Ong Zwarba, of which I shall tell thee also. And the wonders at the gates are these. At the eastern gate Neb. And at the northern gate the wonder of the river and the arches, for the River of Myth, which becomes one with the Waters of Fable in the desert outside the city, floats under a gate of pure gold, rejoicing, and under many arches fantastically carven that are one with either bank. The marvel at the western gate is the marvel of Annolith and the dog Voth. Annolith sits outside the western gate facing towards the city. He is higher than any of the towers or palaces, for his head was carved from the summit of the old hill; he hath two eyes of sapphire wherewith he regards Babbulkund, and the wonder of the eyes is that they are to-day in the same sockets wherein they glowed when first the world began, only the marble that covered them has been carven away and the light of day let in and the sight of the envious stars. Larger than a lion is the dog Voth beside him; every hair is carven upon the back of Voth, his war hackles are erected and his teeth are bared. All the Nehemoths have worshipped the god Annolith, but all their people pray to the dog Voth, for the law of the land is that none but a Nehemoth may worship the god Annolith. The marvel at the southern gate is the marvel of the jungle, for he comes with all his wild untravelled sea of darkness and trees and tigers and sunward-aspiring orchids right through a marble gate in the city wall and enters the city, and there widens and holds a space in its midst of many miles across. Moreover, he is older than the City of Marvel, for he dwelt long since in one of the valleys of the mountain which Nehemoth, first of Pharaohs, carved into Babbulkund.
“Now the opal alcove in which the King sits at evening by the lake stands at the edge of the jungle, and the climbing orchids of the jungle have long since crept from their homes through clefts of the opal alcove, lured by the lights of the lake, and now bloom there exultingly. Near to this alcove are the harems of Nehemoth.
“The King hath four harems—one for the stalwart women from the mountains to the north, one for the dark and furtive jungle women, one for the desert women that have wandering souls and pine in Babbulkund, and one for the princesses of his own kith, whose brown cheeks blush with the blood of ancient Pharaohs and who exult with Babbulkund in her surpassing beauty, and who know nought of the desert or the jungle or the bleak hills to the north. Quite unadorned and clad in simple garments go all the kith of Nehemoth, for they know well that he grows weary of pomp. Unadorned all save one, the Princess Linderith, who weareth Ong Zwarba and the three lesser gems of the sea. Such a stone is Ong Zwarba that there are none like it even in the turban of Nehemoth nor in all the sanctuaries of the sea. The same god that made Linderith made long ago Ong Zwarba; she and Ong Zwarba shine together with one light, and beside this marvellous stone gleam the three lesser ones of the sea.
“Now when the King sitteth in his opal alcove by the sacred lake with the orchids blooming around him all sounds are become still. The sound of the tramping of the weary slaves as they go round and round never comes to the surface. Long since the musicians sleep, and their hands have fallen dumb upon their instruments, and the voices in the city have died away. Perhaps a sigh of one of the desert women has become half a song, or on a hot night in summer one of the women of the hills sings softly a song of snow; all night long in the midst of the purple garden sings one nightingale; all else is still; the stars that look on Babbulkund arise and set, the cold unhappy moon drifts lonely through them, the night wears on; at last the dark figure of Nehemoth, eighty-second of his line, rises and moves stealthily away.”
The traveller ceased to speak. For a long time the clear stars, sisters of Babbulkund, had shone upon him speaking, the desert wind had arisen and whispered to the sand, and the sand had long gone secretly to and fro; none of us had moved, none of us had fallen asleep, not so much from wonder at his tale as from the thought that we ourselves in two days’ time should see that wondrous city. Then we wrapped our blankets around us and lay down with our feet towards the embers of our fire and instantly were asleep, and in our dreams we multiplied the fame of the City of Marvel.
The sun arose and flamed upon our faces, and all the desert glinted with its light. Then we stood up and prepared the morning meal, and, when we had eaten, the traveller departed. And we commended his soul to the god of the land whereto he went, of the land of his home to the northward, and he commended our souls to the God of the people of the land wherefrom we had come. Then a traveller overtook us going on foot; he wore a brown cloak that was all in rags and he seemed to have been walking all night, and he walked hurriedly but appeared weary, so we offered him food and drink, of which he partook thankfully. When we asked him where he was going, he answered “Babbulkund.” Then we offered him a camel upon which to ride, for we said, “We also go to Babbulkund.” But he answered strangely:
“Nay, pass on before me, for it is a sore thing never to have seen Babbulkund, having lived while yet she stood. Pass on before me and behold her, and then flee away at once, returning northward.”
Then, though we understood him not, we left him, for he was insistent, and passed on our journey southwards through the desert, and we came before the middle of the day to an oasis of palm trees standing by a well and there we gave water to the haughty camels and replenished our water-bottles and soothed our eyes with the sight of green things and tarried for many hours in the shade. Some of the men slept, but of those that remained awake each man sang softly the songs of his own country, telling of Babbulkund. When the afternoon was far spent we travelled a little way southwards, and went on through the cool evening until the sun fell low and we encamped, and as we sat in our encampment the man in rags overtook us, having travelled all the day, and we gave him food and drink again, and in the twilight he spoke, saying:
“I am the servant of the Lord the God of my people, and I go to do his work on Babbulkund. She is the most beautiful city in the world; there hath been none like her, even the stars of God go envious of her beauty. She is all white, yet with streaks of pink that pass through her streets and houses like flames in the white mind of a sculptor, like desire in Paradise. She hath been carved of old out of a holy hill, no slaves wrought the City of Marvel, but artists toiling at the work they loved. They took no pattern from the houses of men, but each man wrought what his inner eye had seen and carved in marble the visions of his dream. All over the roof of one of the palace chambers winged lions flit like bats, the size of every one is the size of the lions of God, and the wings are larger than any wing created; they are one above the other more than a man can number, they are all carven out of one block of marble, the chamber itself is hollowed from it, and it is borne aloft upon the carven branches of a grove of clustered tree-ferns wrought by the hand of some jungle mason that loved the tall fern well. Over the River of Myth, which is one with the Waters of Fable, go bridges, fashioned like the wisteria tree and like the drooping laburnum, and a hundred others of wonderful devices, the desire of the souls of masons a long while dead. Oh! Very beautiful is white Babbulkund, very beautiful she is, but proud; and the Lord the God of my people hath seen her in her pride, and looking towards her hath seen the prayers of Nehemoth going up to the abomination Annolith, and all the people following after Voth. She is very beautiful, Babbulkund; alas that I may not bless her. I could live always on one of her inner terraces looking on the mysterious jungle in her midst and the heavenward faces of the orchids that, clambering from the darkness, behold the sun. I could love Babbulkund with a great love, yet am I the servant of the Lord the God of my people, and the King hath sinned unto the abomination Annolith, and the people lust exceedingly for Voth. Alas for thee, Babbulkund, alas that I may not even now turn back, for to-morrow I must prophesy against thee and cry out against thee, Babbulkund. But ye travellers that have entreated me hospitably, rise and pass on with your camels, for I can tarry no longer, and I go to do the work on Babbulkund of the Lord the God of my people. Go now and see the beauty of Babbulkund before I cry out against her, and then flee swiftly northwards.”
A smouldering fragment fell in upon our camp fire and sent a strange light into the eyes of the man in rags. He rose at once, and his tattered cloak swirled up with him like a great wing; he said no more, but turned round from us instantly southwards, and strode away into the darkness towards Babbulkund. Then a hush fell upon our encampment, and the smell of the tobacco of those lands arose. When the last flame died down in our camp fire I fell asleep, but my rest was troubled by shifting dreams of doom.
Morning came, and our guides told us that we should come to the city ere nightfall. Again we passed southwards through the changeless desert; sometimes we met travellers coming from Babbulkund, with the beauty of its marvels still fresh in their eyes.
When we encamped near the middle of the day we saw a great number of people on foot coming towards us running, from the southwards. These we hailed when they were come near, saying, “What of Babbulkund?”
They answered: “We are not of the race of the people of Babbulkund, but were captured in youth and taken away from the hills that are to the northward. Now we have all seen in visions of the stillness the Lord the God of our people calling to us from His hills, and therefore we all flee northward. But in Babbulkund King Nehemoth hath been troubled in the nights by unkingly dreams of doom, and none may interpret what the dreams portend. Now this is the dream that King Nehemoth dreamed on the first night of his dreaming. He saw move through the stillness a bird all black, and beneath the beatings of his wings Babbulkund gloomed and darkened; and after him flew a bird all white, beneath the beatings of whose wings Babbulkund gleamed and shone; and there flew by four more birds alternately black and white. And, as the black ones passed Babbulkund darkened, and when the white ones appeared her streets and houses shone. But after the sixth bird there came no more, and Babbulkund vanished from her place, and there was only the empty desert where she had stood, and the rivers Oonrāna and Plegáthanees mourning alone. Next morning all the prophets of the King gathered before their abominations and questioned them of the dream, and the abominations spake not. But when the second night stepped down from the halls of God, dowered with many stars, King Nehemoth dreamed again; and in this dream King Nehemoth saw four birds only, black and white alternately as before. And Babbulkund darkened again as the black ones passed, and shone when the white came by; only after the four birds came no more, and Babbulkund vanished from her place, leaving only the forgetful desert and the mourning rivers.
“Still the abominations spake not, and none could interpret the dream. And when the third night came forth from the divine halls of her home dowered like her sisters, again King Nehemoth dreamed. And he saw a bird all black go by again, beneath whom Babbulkund darkened, and then a white bird and Babbulkund shone; and after them came no more, and Babbulkund passed away. And the golden day appeared, dispelling dreams, and still the abominations were silent, and the King’s prophets answered not to portend the omen of the dream. One prophet only spake before the King, saying: ‘The sable birds, O King, are the nights, and the white birds are the days, . . .’ This thing the King had feared, and he arose and smote the prophet with his sword, whose soul went crying away and had to do no more with nights and days.
“It was last night that the King dreamed his third dream, and this morning we fled away from Babbulkund. A great heat lies over it, and the orchids of the jungle droop their heads. All night long the women in the harem of the North have wailed horribly for their hills. A fear hath fallen upon the city, and a boding. Twice hath Nehemoth gone to worship Annolith, and all the people have prostrated themselves before Voth. Thrice the horologers have looked into the great crystal globe wherein are foretold all happenings to be, and thrice the globe was blank. Yea, though they went a fourth time yet was no vision revealed; and the people’s voice is hushed in Babbulkund.”
Soon the travellers arose and pushed on northwards again, leaving us wondering. Through the heat of the day we rested as well as we might, but the air was motionless and sultry and the camels ill at ease. The Arabs said that it boded a desert storm, and that a great wind would arise full of sand. So we arose in the afternoon, and travelled swiftly, hoping to come to shelter before the storm. And the air burned in the stillness between the baked desert and the glaring sky.
Suddenly a wind arose out of the South, blowing from Babbulkund, and the sand lifted and went by in great shapes, all whispering. And the wind blew violently, and wailed as it blew, and hundreds of sandy shapes went towering by, and there were little cries among them and the sounds of a passing away. Soon the wind sank quite suddenly, and its cries died, and the panic ceased among the driven sands. And when the storm departed the air was cool, and the terrible sultriness and the boding were passed away, and the camels had ease among them. And the Arabs said that the storm which was to be had been, as was willed of old by God.
The sun set and the gloaming came, and we neared the junction of Oonrāna and Plegáthanees, but in the darkness discerned not Babbulkund. We pushed on hurriedly to reach the city ere nightfall, and came to the junction of the River of Myth where he meets with the Waters of Fable, and still saw not Babbulkund. All round us lay the sand and rocks of the unchanging desert, save to the southwards where the jungle stood with its orchids facing skywards. Then we perceived that we had arrived too late, and that her doom had come to Babbulkund; and by the river in the empty desert on the sand the man in rags was seated, with his face hidden in his hands, weeping bitterly.
Thus passed away in the hour of her iniquities before Annolith, in the two thousand and thirty-second year of her being, in the six thousand and fiftieth year of the building of the World, Babbulkund, City of Marvel, sometime called by those that hated her City of the Dog, but hourly mourned in Araby and Ind and wide through jungle and desert; leaving no memorial in stone to show that she had been, but remembered with an abiding love, in spite of the anger of God, by all that knew her beauty, whereof still they sing.
II.
TALES OF WONDER
The Sword of Welleran
Where the great plain of Tarphet runs up, as the sea in estuaries, among the Cyresian mountains, there stood long since the city of Merimna well-nigh among the shadows of the crags. I have never seen a city in the world so beautiful as Merimna seemed to me when first I dreamed of it. It was a marvel of spires and figures of bronze, and marble fountains, and trophies of fabulous wars, and broad streets given over wholly to the Beautiful. Right through the centre of the city there went an avenue fifty strides in width, and along each side of it stood likenesses in bronze of the Kings of all the countries that the people of Merimna had ever known. At the end of that avenue was a colossal chariot with three bronze horses driven by the winged figure of Fame, and behind her in the chariot the huge form of Welleran, Merimna’s ancient hero, standing with extended sword. So urgent was the mien and attitude of Fame, and so swift the pose of the horses, that you had sworn that the chariot was instantly upon you, and that its dust already veiled the faces of the Kings. And in the city was a mighty hall wherein were stored the trophies of Merimna’s heroes. Sculptured it was and domed, the glory of the art of masons a long while dead, and on the summit of the dome the image of Rollory sat gazing across the Cyresian mountains toward the wide lands beyond, the lands that knew his sword. And beside Rollory, like an old nurse, the figure of Victory sat, hammering into a golden wreath of laurels for his head the crowns of fallen Kings.
Such was Merimna, a city of sculptured Victories and warriors of bronze. Yet in the time of which I write the art of war had been forgotten in Merimna, and the people almost slept. To and fro and up and down they would walk through the marble streets, gazing at memorials of the things achieved by their country’s swords in the hands of those that long ago had loved Merimna well. Almost they slept, and dreamed of Welleran, Soorenard, Mommolek, Rollory, Akanax, and young Iraine. Of the lands beyond the mountains that lay all round about them they knew nothing, save that they were the theatre of the terrible deeds of Welleran, that he had done with his sword. Long since these lands had fallen back in the possession of the nations that had been scourged by Merimna’s armies. Nothing now remained to Merimna’s men save their inviolate city and the glory of the remembrance of their ancient fame. At night they would place sentinels far out in the desert, but these always slept at their posts dreaming of Rollory, and three times every night a guard would march around the city clad in purple, bearing lights and singing songs of Welleran. Always the guard went unarmed, but as the sound of their song went echoing across the plain towards the looming mountains, the desert robbers would hear the name of Welleran and steal away to their haunts. Often dawn would come across the plain, shimmering marvellously upon Merimna’s spires, abashing all the stars, and find the guard still singing songs of Welleran, and would change the colour of their purple robes and pale the lights they bore. But the guard would go back leaving the ramparts safe, and one by one the sentinels in the plain would awake from dreaming of Rollory and shuffle back into the city quite cold. Then something of the menace would pass away from the faces of the Cyresian mountains, that from the north and the west and the south lowered upon Merimna, and clear in the morning the statues and the pillars would arise in the old inviolate city. You would wonder that an unarmed guard and sentinels that slept could defend a city that was stored with all the glories of art, that was rich in gold and bronze, a haughty city that had erst oppressed its neighbours, whose people had forgotten the art of war. Now this is the reason that, though all her other lands had long been taken from her, Merimna’s city was safe. A strange thing was believed or feared by the fierce tribes beyond the mountains, and it was credited among them that at certain stations round Merimna’s ramparts there still rode Welleran, Soorenard, Mommolek, Rollory, Akanax, and young Iraine. Yet it was close on a hundred years since Iraine, the youngest of Merimna’s heroes, fought his last battle with the tribes.
Sometimes indeed there arose among the tribes young men who doubted and said: “How may a man for ever escape death?”
But graver men answered them: “Hear us, ye whose wisdom has discerned so much, and discern for us how a man may escape death when two score horsemen assail him with their swords, all of them sworn to kill him, and all of them sworn upon their country’s gods; as often Welleran hath. Or discern for us how two men alone may enter a walled city by night, and bring away from it that city’s king, as did Soorenard and Mommolek. Surely men that have escaped so many swords and so many sleety arrows shall escape the years and Time.”
And the young men were humbled and became silent. Still, the suspicion grew. And often when the sun set on the Cyresian mountains, men in Merimna discerned the forms of savage tribesmen black against the light, peering towards the city.
All knew in Merimna that the figures round the ramparts were only statues of stone, yet even there a hope lingered among a few that some day their old heroes would come again, for certainly none had ever seen them die. Now it had been the wont of these six warriors of old, as each received his last wound and knew it to be mortal, to ride away to a certain deep ravine and cast his body in, as somewhere I have read great elephants do, hiding their bones away from lesser beasts. It was a ravine steep and narrow even at the ends, a great cleft into which no man could come by any path. There rode Welleran alone, panting hard; and there later rode Soorenard and Mommolek, Mommolek with a mortal wound upon him not to return, but Soorenard was unwounded and rode back alone from leaving his dear friend resting among the mighty bones of Welleran. And there rode Soorenard, when his day was come, with Rollory and Akanax, and Rollory rode in the middle and Soorenard and Akanax on either side. And the long ride was a hard and weary thing for Soorenard and Akanax, for they both had mortal wounds; but the long ride was easy for Rollory, for he was dead. So the bones of these five heroes whitened in an enemy’s land, and very still they were, though they had troubled cities, and none knew where they lay saving only Iraine, the young captain, who was but twenty-five when Mommolek, Rollory and Akanax rode away. And among them were strewn their saddles and their bridles, and all the accoutrements of their horses, lest any man should ever find them afterwards and say in some foreign city: “Lo! the bridles or the saddles of Merimna’s captains, taken in war,” but their beloved trusty horses they turned free.
Forty years afterwards, in the hour of a great victory, his last wound came upon Iraine, and the wound was terrible and would not close. And Iraine was the last of the captains, and rode away alone. It was a long way to the dark ravine, and Iraine feared that he would never come to the resting-place of the old heroes, and he urged his horse on swiftly, and clung to the saddle with his hands. And often as he rode he fell asleep, and dreamed of earlier days, and of the times when he first rode forth to the great wars of Welleran, and of the time when Welleran first spake to him, and of the faces of Welleran’s comrades when they led charges in the battle. And ever as he awoke a great longing arose in his soul as it hovered on his body’s brink, a longing to lie among the bones of the old heroes. At last when he saw the dark ravine making a scar across the plain, the soul of Iraine slipped out through his great wound and spread its wings, and pain departed from the poor hacked body and, still urging his horse forward, Iraine died. But the old true horse cantered on till suddenly he saw before him the dark ravine and put his forefeet out on the very edge of it and stopped. Then the body of Iraine came toppling forward over the right shoulder of the horse, and his bones mingle and rest as the years go by with the bones of Merimna’s heroes.
Now there was a little boy in Merimna named Rold. I saw him first, I, the dreamer, that sit before my fire asleep, I saw him first as his mother led him through the great hall where stand the trophies of Merimna’s heroes. He was five years old, and they stood before the great glass casket wherein lay the sword of Welleran, and his mother said: “The sword of Welleran.” And Rold said: “What should a man do with the sword of Welleran?” And his mother answered: “Men look at the sword and remember Welleran.” And they went on and stood before the great red cloak of Welleran, and the child said: “Why did Welleran wear this great red cloak?” And his mother answered: “It was the way of Welleran.”
When Rold was a little older he stole out of his mother’s house quite in the middle of the night when all the world was still, and Merimna asleep dreaming of Welleran, Soorenard, Mommolek, Rollory, Akanax, and young Iraine. And he went down to the ramparts to hear the purple guard go by singing of Welleran. And the purple guard came by with lights, all singing in the stillness, and dark shapes out in the desert turned and fled. And Rold went back again to his mother’s house with a great yearning towards the name of Welleran, such as men feel for very holy things.
And in time Rold grew to know the pathway all round the ramparts, and the six equestrian statues that were there guarding Merimna still. These statues were not like other statues, they were so cunningly wrought of many-coloured marbles that none might be quite sure until very close that they were not living men. There was a horse of dappled marble, the horse of Akanax. The horse of Rollory was of alabaster, pure white, his armour was wrought out of a stone that shone, and his horseman’s cloak was made of a blue stone, very precious. He looked northward.
But the marble horse of Welleran was pure black, and there sat Welleran upon him looking solemnly westwards. His horse it was whose cold neck Rold most loved to stroke, and it was Welleran whom the watchers at sunset on the mountains the most clearly saw as they peered towards the city. And Rold loved the red nostrils of the great black horse and his rider’s jasper cloak.
Now beyond the Cyresians the suspicion grew that Merimna’s heroes were dead, and a plan was devised that a man should go by night and come close to the figures upon the ramparts and see whether they were Welleran, Soorenard, Mommolek, Rollory, Akanax, and young Iraine. And all were agreed upon the plan, and many names were mentioned of those who should go, and the plan matured for many years. It was during these years that watchers clustered often at sunset upon the mountains but came no nearer. Finally, a better plan was made, and it was decided that two men who had been by chance condemned to death should be given a pardon if they went down into the plain by night and discovered whether or not Merimna’s heroes lived. At first the two prisoners dared not go, but after a while one of them, Seejar, said to his companion, Sajar-Ho: “See now, when the King’s axeman smites a man upon the neck that man dies.”
And the other said that this was so. Then said Seejar: “And even though Welleran smite a man with his sword no more be-falleth him than death.”
Then Sajar-Ho thought for a while. Presently he said: “Yet the eye of the King’s axeman might err at the moment of his stroke or his arm fail him, and the eye of Welleran hath never erred nor his arm failed. It were better to bide here.”
Then said Seejar: “Maybe that Welleran is dead and that some other holds his place upon the ramparts, or even a statue of stone.”
But Sajar-Ho made answer: “How can Welleran be dead when he even escaped from two score horsemen with swords that were sworn to slay him, and all sworn upon our country’s gods?”
And Seejar said: “This story his father told my grandfather concerning Welleran. On the day that the fight was lost on the plains of Kurlistan1 he saw a dying horse near to the river, and the horse looked piteously toward the water but could not reach it. And the father of my grandfather saw Welleran go down to the river’s brink and bring water from it with his own hand and give it to the horse. Now we are in as sore a plight as was that horse, and as near to death; it may be that Welleran will pity us, while the King’s axeman cannot because of the commands of the King.”
Then said Sajar-Ho: “Thou wast ever a cunning arguer. Thou broughtest us into this trouble with thy cunning and thy devices, we will see if thou canst bring us out of it. We will go.”
So news was brought to the King that the two prisoners would go down to Merimna.
That evening the watchers led them to the mountain’s edge, and Seejar and Sajar-Ho went down towards the plain by the way of a deep ravine, and the watchers watched them go. Presently their figures were wholly hid in the dusk. Then night came up, huge and holy, out of waste marshes to the eastwards and low lands and the sea; and the angels that watched over all men through the day closed their great eyes and slept, and the angels that watched over all men through the night awoke and ruffled their deep blue feathers and stood up and watched. But the plain became a thing of mystery filled with fears. So the two spies went down the deep ravine, and coming to the plain sped stealthily across it. Soon they came to the line of sentinels asleep upon the sand, and one stirred in his sleep calling on Rollory, and a great dread seized upon the spies and they whispered “Rollory lives,” but they remembered the King’s axeman and went on. And next they came to the great bronze statue of Fear, carved by some sculptor of the old glorious years in the attitude of flight towards the mountains, calling to her children as she fled. And the children of Fear were carved in the likeness of the armies of all the trans-Cyresian tribes with their backs towards Merimna, flocking after Fear. And from where he sat on his horse behind the ramparts the sword of Welleran was stretched out over their heads as ever it was wont. And the two spies kneeled down in the sand and kissed the huge bronze foot of the statue of Fear, saying: “O Fear, Fear.” And as they knelt they saw lights far off along the ramparts coming nearer and nearer, and heard men singing of Welleran. And the purple guard came nearer and went by with their lights, and passed on into the distance round the ramparts still singing of Welleran. And all the while the two spies clung to the foot of the statue, muttering: “O Fear, Fear.” But when they could hear the name of Welleran no more they arose and came to the ramparts and climbed over them and came at once upon the figure of Welleran, and they bowed low to the ground, and Seejar said: “O Welleran, we came to see whether thou didst yet live.” And for a long while they waited with their faces to the earth. At last Seegar looked up towards Welleran’s terrible sword, and it was still stretched out pointing to the carved armies that followed after Fear. And Seejar bowed to the ground again and touched the horse’s hoof, and it seemed cold to him. And he moved his hand higher and touched the leg of the horse, and it seemed quite cold. At last he touched Welleran’s foot, and the armour on it seemed hard and stiff. Then as Welleran moved not and spake not, Seejar climbed up at last and touched his hand, the terrible hand of Welleran, and it was marble. Then Seejar laughed aloud, and he and Sajar-Ho sped down the empty pathway and found Rollory, and he was marble too. Then they climbed down over the ramparts and went back across the plain, walking contemptuously past the figure of Fear, and heard the guard returning round the ramparts for the third time, singing of Welleran; and Seejar said: “Ay, you may sing of Welleran, but Welleran is dead and a doom is on your city.”
And they passed on and found the sentinel still restless in the night and calling on Rollory. And Sajar-Ho muttered: “Ay, you may call on Rollory, but Rollory is dead and naught can save your city.”
And the two spies went back alive to their mountains again, and as they reached them the first ray of the sun came up red over the desert behind Merimna and lit Merimna’s spires. It was the hour when the purple guard were wont to go back into the city with their tapers pale and their robes a brighter colour, when the cold sentinels came shuffling in from dreaming in the desert; it was the hour when the desert robbers hid themselves away going back to their mountain caves, it was the hour when gauze-winged insects are born that only live for a day, it was the hour when men die that are condemned to death, and in this hour a great peril, new and terrible, arose for Merimna and Merimna knew it not.
Then Seejar turning said: “See how red the dawn is and how red the spires of Merimna. They are angry with Merimna in Paradise and they bode its doom.”
So the two spies went back and brought the news to their King, and for a few days the Kings of those countries were gathering their armies together; and one evening the armies of four Kings were massed together at the top of the deep ravine, all crouching below the summit waiting for the sun to set. All wore resolute and fearless faces, yet inwardly every man was praying to his gods, unto each one in turn.
Then the sun set, and it was the hour when the bats and the dark creatures are abroad and the lions come down from their lairs, and the desert robbers go into the plains again, and fevers rise up winged and hot out of chill marshes, and it was the hour when safety leaves the thrones of Kings, the hour when dynasties change. But in the desert the purple guard came swinging out of Merimna with their lights to sing of Welleran, and the sentinels lay down to sleep.
Now into Paradise no sorrow may ever come, but may only beat like rain against its crystal walls, yet the souls of Merimna’s heroes were half aware of some sorrow far away as some sleeper feels that some one is chilled and cold yet knows not in his sleep that it is he. And they fretted a little in their starry home. Then unseen there drifted earthward across the setting sun the souls of Welleran, Soorenard, Mommolek, Rollory, Akanax, and young Iraine. Already when they reached Merimna’s ramparts it was just dark, already the armies of the four Kings had begun to move, jingling, down the deep ravine. But when the six warriors saw their city again, so little changed after so many years, they looked towards her with a longing that was nearer to tears than any that their souls had known before, crying to her:
“O Merimna, our city: Merimna, our walled city.
“How beautiful thou art with all thy spires, Merimna. For thee we left the earth, its kingdoms and little flowers, for thee we have come away for awhile from Paradise.
“It is very difficult to draw away from the face of God—it is like a warm fire, it is like dear sleep, it is like a great anthem, yet there is a stillness all about it, a stillness full of lights.
“We have left Paradise for awhile for thee, Merimna.
“Many women have we loved, Merimna, but only one city.
“Behold now all the people dream, all our loved people. How beautiful are dreams! In dreams the dead may live, even the long dead and the very silent. Thy lights are all sunk low, they have all gone out, no sound is in thy streets. Hush! Thou art like a maiden that shutteth up her eyes and is asleep, that draweth her breath softly and is quite still, being at ease and untroubled.
“Behold now the battlements, the old battlements. Do men defend them still as we defended them? They are worn a little, the battlements,” and drifting nearer they peered anxiously. “It is not by the hand of man that they are worn, our battlements. Only the years have done it and indomitable Time. Thy battlements are like the girdle of a maiden, a girdle that is round about her. See now the dew upon them, they are like a jewelled girdle.
“Thou are in great danger, Merimna, because thou art so beautiful. Must thou perish to-night because we no more defend thee, because we cry out and none hear us, as the bruised lilies cry out and none have known their voices?”
Thus spake those strong-voiced battle-ordering captains, calling to their dear city, and their voices came no louder than the whispers of little bats that drift across the twilight in the evening. Then the purple guard came near, going round the ramparts for the first time in the night, and the old warriors called to them, “Merimna is in danger! Already her enemies gather in the darkness.” But their voices were never heard because they were only wandering ghosts. And the guard went by and passed unheeding away, still singing of Welleran.
Then said Welleran to his comrades: “Our hands can hold swords no more, our voices cannot be heard, we are stalwart men no longer. We are but dreams, let us go among dreams. Go all of you, and thou too, young Iraine, and trouble the dreams of all the men that sleep, and urge them to take the old swords of their grandsires that hang upon the walls, and to gather at the mouth of the ravine; and I will find a leader and make him take my sword.”
Then they passed up over the ramparts and into their dear city. And the wind blew about, this way and that, as he went, the soul of Welleran who had upon his day withstood the charges of tempestuous armies. And the souls of his comrades, and with them young Iraine, passed up into the city and troubled the dreams of every man who slept, and to every man the souls said in their dreams: “It is hot and still in the city. Go out now into the desert, into the cool under the mountains, but take with thee the old sword that hangs upon the wall for fear of the desert robbers.”
And the god of that city sent up a fever over it, and the fever brooded over it and the streets were hot; and all that slept awoke from dreaming that it would be cool and pleasant where the breezes came down the ravine out of the mountains; and they took the old swords that their grandsires had, according to their dreams, for fear of the desert robbers. And in and out of dreams passed the souls of Welleran’s comrades, and with them young Iraine, in great haste as the night wore on; and one by one they troubled the dreams of all Merimna’s men and caused them to arise and go out armed, all save the purple guard who, heedless of danger, sang of Welleran still, for waking men cannot hear the souls of the dead.
But Welleran drifted over the roofs of the city till he came to the form of Rold lying fast asleep. Now Rold was grown strong and was eighteen years of age, and he was fair of hair and tall like Welleran, and the soul of Welleran hovered over him and went into his dreams as a butterfly flits through trellis-work into a garden of flowers, and the soul of Welleran said to Rold in his dreams: “Thou wouldst go and see again the sword of Welleran, the great curved sword of Welleran. Thou wouldst go and look at it in the night with the moonlight shining upon it.”
And the longing of Rold in his dreams to see the sword caused him to walk still sleeping from his mother’s house to the hall wherein were the trophies of the heroes. And the soul of Welleran urging the dreams of Rold caused him to pause before the great red cloak, and there the soul said among the dreams: “Thou art cold in the night; fling now a cloak around thee.”
And Rold drew round about him the huge red cloak of Welleran. Then Rold’s dreams took him to the sword, and the soul said to the dreams: “Thou hast a longing to hold the sword of Welleran: take up the sword in thy hand.”
But Rold said: “What should a man do with the sword of Welleran?”
And the soul of the old captain said to the dreamer: “It is a good sword to hold: take up the sword of Welleran.”
And Rold, still sleeping and speaking aloud, said: “It is not lawful; none may touch the sword.”
And Rold turned to go. Then a great and terrible cry arose in the soul of Welleran, all the more bitter for that he could not utter it, and it went round and round his soul finding no utterance, like a cry evoked long since by some murderous deed in some old haunted chamber that whispers through the ages heard by none.
And the soul of Welleran cried out to the dreams of Rold: “Thy knees are tied! Thou art fallen in a marsh! Thou canst not move.”
And the dreams of Rold said to him: “Thy knees are tied, thou art fallen in a marsh,” and Rold stood still before the sword. Then the soul of the warrior wailed among Rold’s dreams, as Rold stood before the sword.
“Welleran is crying for his sword, his wonderful curved sword. Poor Welleran, that once fought for Merimna, is crying for his sword in the night. Thou wouldst not keep Welleran without his beautiful sword when he is dead and cannot come for it, poor Welleran who fought for Merimna.”
And Rold broke the glass casket with his hand and took the sword, the great curved sword of Welleran; and the soul of the warrior said among Rold’s dreams: “Welleran is waiting in the deep ravine that runs into the mountains, crying for his sword.”
And Rold went down through the city and climbed over the ramparts, and walked with his eyes wide open but still sleeping over the desert to the mountains.
Already a great multitude of Merimna’s citizens were gathered in the desert before the deep ravine with old swords in their hands, and Rold passed through them as he slept holding the sword of Welleran, and the people cried in amaze to one another as he passed: “Rold hath the sword of Welleran!”
And Rold came to the mouth of the ravine, and there the voices of the people woke him. And Rold knew nothing that he had done in his sleep, and looked in amazement at the sword in his hand and said: “What art thou, thou beautiful thing? Lights shimmer in thee, thou art restless. It is the sword of Welleran, the curved sword of Welleran!”
And Rold kissed the hilt of it, and it was salt upon his lips with the battle-sweat of Welleran. And Rold said: “What should a man do with the sword of Welleran?”
And all the people wondered at Rold as he sat there with the sword in his hand muttering, “What should a man do with the sword of Welleran?”
Presently there came to the ears of Rold the noise of a jingling up in the ravine, and all the people, the people that knew naught of war, heard the jingling coming nearer in the night; for the four armies were moving on Merimna and not yet expecting an enemy. And Rold gripped upon the hilt of the great curved sword, and the sword seemed to lift a little. And a new thought came into the hearts of Merimna’s people as they gripped their grandsires’ swords. Nearer and nearer came the heedless armies of the four Kings, and old ancestral memories began to arise in the minds of Merimna’s people in the desert with their swords in their hands sitting behind Rold. And all the sentinels were awake holding their spears, for Rollory had put their dreams to flight, Rollory that once could put to flight armies and now was but a dream struggling with other dreams.
And now the armies had come very near. Suddenly Rold leaped up, crying: “Welleran! And the sword of Welleran!” And the savage, lusting sword that had thirsted for a hundred years went up with the hand of Rold and swept through a tribesman’s ribs. And with the warm blood all about it there came a joy into the curved soul of that mighty sword, like to the joy of a swimmer coming up dripping out of warm seas after living for long in a dry land. When they saw the red cloak and that terrible sword a cry ran through the tribal armies, “Welleran lives!” And there arose the sounds of the exulting of victorious men, and the panting of those that fled, and the sword singing softly to itself as it whirled dripping through the air. And the last that I saw of the battle as it poured into the depth and darkness of the ravine was the sword of Welleran sweeping up and falling, gleaming blue in the moonlight whenever it rose and afterwards gleaming red, and so disappearing into the darkness.
But in the dawn Merimna’s men came back, and the sun arising to give new life to the world, shone instead upon the hideous things that the sword of Welleran had done. And Rold said: “O sword, sword! How horrible thou art! Thou art a terrible thing to have come among men. How many eyes shall look upon gardens no more because of thee? How many fields must go empty that might have been fair with cottages, white cottages with children all about them? How many valleys must go desolate that might have nursed warm hamlets, because thou hast slain long since the men that might have built them? I hear the wind crying against thee, thou sword! It comes from the empty valleys. It comes over the bare fields. There are children’s voices in it. They were never born. Death brings an end to crying for those that had life once, but these must cry for ever. O sword! sword! why did the gods send thee among men?” And the tears of Rold fell down upon the proud sword but could not wash it clean.
And now that the ardour of battle had passed away, the spirits of Merimna’s people began to gloom a little, like their leader’s, with their fatigue and with the cold of the morning; and they looked at the sword of Welleran in Rold’s hand and said: “Not any more, not any more for ever will Welleran now return, for his sword is in the hand of another. Now we know indeed that he is dead. O Welleran, thou wast our sun and moon and all our stars. Now is the sun fallen down and the moon broken, and all the stars are scattered as the diamonds of a necklace that is snapped off one who is slain by violence.”
Thus wept the people of Merimna in the hour of their great victory, for men have strange moods, while beside them their old inviolate city slumbered safe. But back from the ramparts and beyond the mountains and over the lands that they had conquered of old, beyond the world and back again to Paradise, went the souls of Welleran, Soorenard, Mommolek, Rollory, Akanax, and young Iraine.
The Kith of the Elf-Folk
Chapter I
The north wind was blowing, and red and golden the last days of Autumn were streaming hence. Solemn and cold over the marshes arose the evening.
It became very still.
Then the last pigeon went home to the trees on the dry land in the distance, whose shapes already had taken upon themselves a mystery in the haze.
Then all was still again.
As the light faded and the haze deepened, mystery crept nearer from every side.
Then the green plover came in crying, and all alighted.
And again it became still, save when one of the plover arose and flew a little way uttering the cry of the waste. And hushed and silent became the earth, expecting the first star. Then the duck came in, and the widgeon, company by company: and all the light of day faded out of the sky saving one red band of light. Across the light appeared, black and huge, the wings of a flock of geese beating up wind to the marshes. These, too, went down among the rushes.
Then the stars appeared and shone in the stillness, and there was silence in the great spaces of the night.
Suddenly the bells of the cathedral in the marshes broke out, calling to evensong.
Eight centuries ago on the edge of the marsh men had built the huge cathedral, or it may have been seven centuries ago, or perhaps nine—it was all one to the Wild Things.
So evensong was held, and candles lighted, and the lights through the windows shone red and green in the water, and the sound of the organ went roaring over the marshes. But from the deep and perilous places, edged with bright mosses, the Wild Things came leaping up to dance on the reflection of the stars, and over their heads as they danced the marsh-lights rose and fell.
The Wild Things are somewhat human in appearance, only all brown of skin and barely two feet high. Their ears are pointed like the squirrel’s, only far larger, and they leap to prodigious heights. They live all day under deep pools in the loneliest marshes, but at night they come up and dance. Each Wild Thing has over its head a marsh-light, which moves as the Wild Thing moves; they have no souls, and cannot die, and are of the kith of the Elf-folk.
All night they dance over the marshes, treading upon the reflection of the stars (for the bare surface of the water will not hold them by itself); but when the stars begin to pale, they sink down one by one into the pools of their home. Or if they tarry longer, sitting upon the rushes, their bodies fade from view as the marsh-fires pale in the light, and by daylight none may see the Wild Things of the kith of the Elf-folk. Neither may any see them even at night unless they were born, as I was, in the hour of dusk, just at the moment when the first star appears.
Now, on the night that I tell of, a little Wild Thing had gone drifting over the waste, till it came right up to the walls of the cathedral and danced upon the images of the coloured saints as they lay in the water among the reflection of the stars. And as it leaped in its fantastic dance, it saw through the painted windows to where the people prayed, and heard the organ roaring over the marshes. The sound of the organ roared over the marshes, but the song and prayers of the people streamed up from the cathedral’s highest tower like thin gold chains, and reached to Paradise, and up and down them went the angels from Paradise to the people, and from the people to Paradise again.
Then something akin to discontent troubled the Wild Thing for the first time since the making of the marshes; and the soft grey ooze and the chill of the deep water seemed to be not enough, nor the first arrival from northwards of the tumultuous geese, nor the wild rejoicing of the wings of the wildfowl when every feather sings, nor the wonder of the calm ice that comes when the snipe depart and beards the rushes with frost and clothes the hushed waste with a mysterious haze where the sun goes red and low, nor even the dance of the Wild Things in the marvellous night; and the little Wild Thing longed to have a soul, and to go and worship God.
And when evensong was over and the lights were out, it went back crying to its kith.
But on the next night, as soon as the images of the stars appeared in the water, it went leaping away from star to star to the farthest edge of the marshlands, where a great wood grew where dwelt the Oldest of the Wild Things.
And it found the Oldest of Wild Things sitting under a tree, sheltering itself from the moon.
And the little Wild Thing said: “I want to have a soul to worship God, and to know the meaning of music, and to see the inner beauty of the marshlands and to imagine Paradise.”
And the Oldest of the Wild Things said to it: “What have we to do with God? We are only Wild Things, and of the kith of the Elf-folk.”
But it only answered, “I want to have a soul.”
Then the Oldest of the Wild Things said: “I have no soul to give you; but if you got a soul, one day you would have to die, and if you knew the meaning of music you would learn the meaning of sorrow, and it is better to be a Wild Thing and not to die.”
So it went weeping away.
But they that were kin to the Elf-folk were sorry for the little Wild Thing; and though the Wild Things cannot sorrow long, having no souls to sorrow with, yet they felt for awhile a soreness where their souls should be when they saw the grief of their comrade.
So the kith of the Elf-folk went abroad by night to make a soul for the little Wild Thing. And they went over the marshes till they came to the high fields among the flowers and grasses. And there they gathered a large piece of gossamer that the spider had laid by twilight; and the dew was on it.
Into this dew had shone all the lights of the long banks of the ribbed sky, as all the colours changed in the restful spaces of evening. And over it the marvellous night had gleamed with all its stars.
Then the Wild Things went with their dew-bespangled gossamer down to the edge of their home. And there they gathered a piece of the grey mist that lies by night over the marshlands. And into it they put the melody of the waste that is borne up and down the marshes in the evening on the wings of the golden plover. And they put into it, too, the mournful songs that the reeds are compelled to sing before the presence of the arrogant North Wind. Then each of the Wild Things gave some treasured memory of the old marshes, “For we can spare it,” they said. And to all this they added a few images of the stars that they gathered out of the water. Still the soul that the kith of the Elf-folk were making had no life.
Then they put into it the low voices of two lovers that went walking in the night, wandering late alone. And after that they waited for the dawn. And the queenly dawn appeared, and the marsh-lights of the Wild Things paled in the glare, and their bodies faded from view; and still they waited by the marsh’s edge. And to them waiting came over field and marsh, from the ground and out of the sky, the myriad song of the birds.
This, too, the Wild Things put into the piece of haze that they had gathered in the marshlands, and wrapped it all up in their dew-bespangled gossamer. Then the soul lived.
And there it lay in the hands of the Wild Things no larger than a hedgehog; and wonderful lights were in it, green and blue; and they changed ceaselessly, going round and round, and in the grey midst of it was a purple flare.
And the next night they came to the little Wild Thing and showed her the gleaming soul. And they said to her: “If you must have a soul and go and worship God, and become a mortal and die, place this to your left breast a little above the heart, and it will enter and you will become a human. But if you take it you can never be rid of it to become a mortal again unless you pluck it out and give it to another; and we will not take it, and most of the humans have a soul already. And if you cannot find a human without a soul you will one day die, and your soul cannot go to Paradise because it was only made in the marshes.”
Far away the little Wild Thing saw the cathedral windows alight for evensong, and the song of the people mounting up to Paradise, and all the angels going up and down. So it bid farewell with tears and thanks to the Wild Things of the Kith of Elf-folk, and went leaping away towards the green dry land, holding the soul in its hands.
And the Wild Things were sorry that it had gone, but could not be sorry long because they had no souls.
At the marsh’s edge the little Wild Thing gazed for some moments over the water to where the marsh-fires were leaping up and down, and then pressed the soul against its left breast a little above the heart.
Instantly it became a young and beautiful woman, who was cold and frightened. She clad herself somehow with bundles of reeds, and went towards the lights of a house that stood close by. And she pushed open the door and entered, and found a farmer and a farmer’s wife sitting over their supper.
And the fanner’s wife took the little Wild Thing with the soul of the marshes up to her room, and clothed her and braided her hair, and brought her down again, and gave her the first food that she had ever eaten. Then the farmer’s wife asked many questions.
“Where have you come from?” she said.
“Over the marshes.”
“From what direction?” said the farmer’s wife.
“South,” said the little Wild Thing with the new soul.
“But none can come over the marshes from the south,” said the farmer’s wife.
“No, they can’t do that,” said the farmer.
“I lived in the marshes.”
“Who are you?” asked the farmer’s wife.
“I am a Wild Thing, and have found a soul in the marshes, and we are kin to the Elf-folk.”
Talking it over afterwards, the farmer and his wife agreed that she must be a gipsy who had been lost, and that she was queer with hunger and exposure.
So that night the little Wild Thing slept in the farmer’s house, but her new soul stayed awake the whole night long dreaming of the beauty of the marshes.
As soon as dawn came over the waste and shone on the farmer’s house, she looked from the window towards the glittering waters, and saw the inner beauty of the marsh. For the Wild Things only love the marsh and know its haunts, but now she perceived the mystery of its distances and the glamour of its perilous pools, with their fair and deadly mosses, and felt the marvel of the North Wind who comes dominant out of unknown icy lands, and the wonder of that ebb and flow of life when the wildfowl whirl in at evening to the marshlands and at dawn pass out to sea. And she knew that over her head above the farmer’s house stretched wide Paradise, where perhaps God was now imagining a sunrise while angels played low on lutes, and the sun came rising up on the world below to gladden fields and marshes.
And all that heaven thought, the marsh thought too; for the blue of the marsh was as the blue of heaven, and the great cloud shapes in heaven became the shapes in the marsh, and through each ran momentary rivers of purple, errant between banks of gold. And the stalwart army of reeds appeared out of the gloom with all their pennons waving as far as the eye could see. And from another window she saw the vast cathedral gathering its ponderous strength together, and lifting it up in towers out of the marshlands.
She said, “I will never, never leave the marsh.”
An hour later she dressed with great difficulty and went down to eat the second meal of her life. The farmer and his wife were kindly folk, and taught her how to eat.
“I suppose the gipsies don’t have knives and forks,” one said to the other afterwards.
After breakfast the farmer went and saw the Dean, who lived near his cathedral, and presently returned and brought back to the Dean’s house the little Wild Thing with the new soul.
“This is the lady,” said the farmer. “This is Dean Murnith.” Then he went away.
“Ah,” said the Dean, “I understand you were lost the other night in the marshes. It was a terrible night to be lost in the marshes.
“I love the marshes,” said the little Wild Thing with the new soul.
“Indeed! How old are you?” said the Dean.
“I don’t know,” she answered.
“You must know about how old you are,” he said.
“Oh, about ninety,” she said, “or more.”
“Ninety years!” exclaimed the Dean.
“No, ninety centuries,” she said; “I am as old as the marshes.”
Then she told her story—how she had longed to be a human and go and worship God, and have a soul and see the beauty of the world, and how all the Wild Things had made her a soul of gossamer and mist and music and strange memories.
“But if this is true,” said Dean Murnith, “this is very wrong. God cannot have intended you to have a soul. What is your name?”
“I have no name,” she answered.
“We must find a Christian name and a surname for you. What would you like to be called?”
“Song of the Rushes,” she said.
“That won’t do at all,” said the Dean.
“Then I would like to be called Terrible North Wind, or Star in the Waters,” she said.
“No, no, no,” said Dean Murnith; “that is quite impossible. We could call you Miss Rush if you like. How would Mary Rush do? Perhaps you had better have another name—say Mary Jane Rush.”
So the little Wild Thing with the soul of the marshes took the names that were offered her, and became Mary Jane Rush.
“And we must find something for you to do,” said Dean Murnith. “Meanwhile we can give you a room here.”
“I don’t want to do anything,” replied Mary Jane; “I want to worship God in the cathedral and live beside the marshes.”
Then Mrs. Murnith came in, and for the rest of that day Mary Jane stayed at the house of the Dean.
And there with her new soul she perceived the beauty of the world; for it came grey and level out of misty distances, and widened into grassy fields and ploughlands right up to the edge of an old gabled town; and solitary in the fields far off an ancient windmill stood, and his honest hand-made sails went round and round in the free East Anglian winds. Close by, the gabled houses leaned out over the streets, planted fair upon sturdy timbers that grew in the olden time, all glorying among themselves upon their beauty. And out of them, buttress by buttress, growing and going upwards, aspiring tower by tower, rose the cathedral.
And she saw the people moving in the streets all leisurely and slow, and unseen among them, whispering to each other, unheard by living men and concerned only with bygone things, drifted the ghosts of very long ago. And wherever the streets ran eastwards, wherever were gaps in the houses, always there broke into view the sight of the great marshes, like to some bar of music weird and strange that haunts a melody, arising again and again, played on the violin by one musician only, who plays no other bar, and he is swart and lank about the hair and bearded about the lips, and his moustache droops long and low, and no one knows the land from which he comes.
All these were good things for a new soul to see.
Then the sun set over green fields and ploughlands and the night came up. One by one the merry lights of cheery lamp-lit windows took their stations in the solemn night.
Then the bells rang, far up in a cathedral tower, and their melody fell on the roofs of the old houses and poured over their eaves until the streets were full, and then flooded away over green fields and ploughlands till it came to the sturdy mill and brought the miller trudging to evensong, and far away eastwards and seawards the sound rang out over the remoter marshes. And it was all as yesterday to the old ghosts in the streets.
Then the Dean’s wife took Mary Jane to evening service, and she saw three hundred candles filling all the aisle with light. But sturdy pillars stood there in unlit vastnesses; great colonnades going away into the gloom where evening and morning, year in year out, they did their work in the dark, holding the cathedral roof aloft. And it was stiller than the marshes are still when the ice has come and the wind that brought it has fallen.
Suddenly into this stillness rushed the sound of the organ, roaring, and presently the people prayed and sang.
No longer could Mary Jane see their prayers ascending like thin gold chains, for that was but an elfin fancy, but she imagined clear in her new soul the seraphs passing in the ways of Paradise, and the angels changing guard to watch the World by night.
When the Dean had finished service, a young curate, Mr. Millings, went up into the pulpit.
He spoke of Abana and Pharpar,2 rivers of Damascus: and Mary Jane was glad that there were rivers having such names, and heard with wonder of Nineveh,3 that great city, and many things strange and new.
And the light of the candles shone on the curate’s fair hair, and his voice went ringing down the aisle, and Mary Jane rejoiced that he was there.
But when his voice stopped she felt a sudden loneliness, such as she had not felt since the making of the marshes; for the Wild Things never are lonely and never unhappy, but dance all night on the reflection of the stars, and having no souls desire nothing more.
After the collection was made, before any one moved to go, Mary Jane walked up the aisle to Mr. Millings.
“I love you,” she said.
Chapter II
Nobody sympathised with Mary Jane.
“So unfortunate for Mr. Millings,” every one said; “such a promising young man.”
Mary Jane was sent away to a great manufacturing city of the Midlands, where work had been found for her in a cloth factory. And there was nothing in that town that was good for a soul to see. For it did not know that beauty was to be desired; so it made many things by machinery, and became hurried in all its ways, and boasted its superiority over other cities and became richer and richer, and there was none to pity it.
In this city Mary Jane had had lodgings found for her near the factory.
At six o’clock on those November mornings, about the time that, far away from the city, the wildfowl rose up out of the calm marshes and passed to the troubled spaces of the sea, at six o’clock the factory uttered a prolonged howl and gathered the workers together, and there they worked, saving two hours for food, the whole of the daylit hours and into the dark till the bells tolled six again.
There Mary Jane worked with other girls in a long dreary room, where giants sat pounding wool into a long thread-like strip with iron, rasping hands. And all day long they roared as they sat at their soulless work. But the work of Mary Jane was not with these, only their roar was ever in her ears as their clattering iron limbs went to and fro.
Her work was to tend a creature smaller, but infinitely more cunning.
It took the strip of wool that the giants had threshed, and whirled it round and round until it had twisted it into hard thin thread. Then it would make a clutch with fingers of steel at the thread that it had gathered, and waddle away about five yards and come back with more.
It had mastered all the subtlety of skilled workers, and had gradually displaced them; one thing only it could not do, it was unable to pick up the ends if a piece of the thread broke, in order to tie them together again. For this a human soul was required, and it was Mary Jane’s business to pick up broken ends; and the moment she placed them together the busy soulless creature tied them for itself.
All here was ugly; even the green wool as it whirled round and round was neither the green of the grass nor the green of the rushes, but a sorry muddy green that befitted a sullen city under a murky sky.
When she looked out over the roofs of the town, there too was ugliness; and well the houses knew it, for with hideous stucco they aped in grotesque mimicry the pillars and temples of old Greece, pretending to one another to be that which they were not. And emerging from these houses and going in, and seeing the pretence of paint and stucco year after year until it all peeled away, the souls of the poor owners of those houses sought to be other souls until they grew weary of it.
At evening Mary Jane went back to her lodgings. Only then, after the dark had fallen, could the soul of Mary Jane perceive any beauty in that city, when the lamps were lit and here and there a star shone through the smoke. Then she would have gone abroad and beheld the night, but this the old woman to whom she was confided would not let her do. And the days multiplied themselves by seven and became weeks, and the weeks passed by, and all days were the same. And all the while the soul of Mary Jane was crying for beautiful things, and found not one, saving on Sundays, when she went to church, and left it to find the city greyer than before.
One day she decided that it was better to be a Wild Thing in the lonely marshes than to have a soul that cried for beautiful things and found not one. From that day she determined to be rid of her soul, so she told her story to one of the factory girls, and said to her:
“The other girls are poorly clad and they do soulless work; surely some of them have no souls and would take mine.”
But the factory girl said to her: “All the poor have souls. It is all they have.”
Then Mary Jane watched the rich whenever she saw them, and vainly sought for some one without a soul.
One day at the hour when the machines rested and the human beings that tended them rested too, the wind being at that time from the direction of the marshlands, the soul of Mary Jane lamented bitterly. Then, as she stood outside the factory gates, the soul irresistibly compelled her to sing, and a wild song came from her lips hymning the marshlands. And into her song came crying her yearning for home and for the sound of the shout of the North Wind, masterful and proud, with his lovely lady the Snow; and she sang of tales that the rushes murmured to one another, tales that the teal knew and the watchful heron. And over the crowded streets her song went crying away, the song of waste places and of wild free lands, full of wonder and magic, for she had in her elf-made soul the song of the birds and the roar of the organ in the marshes.
At this moment Signor Thompsoni, the well-known English tenor, happened to go by with a friend. They stopped and listened; every one stopped and listened.
“There has been nothing like this in Europe in my time,” said Signor Thompsoni.
So a change came into the life of Mary Jane.
People were written to, and finally it was arranged that she should take a leading part in the Covent Garden Opera in a few weeks.
So she went to London to learn.
London and singing lessons were better than the City of the Midlands and those terrible machines. Yet still Mary Jane was not free to go and live as she liked by the edge of the marshlands, and she was still determined to be rid of her soul, but could find no one that had not a soul of their own.
One day she was told that the English people would not listen to her as Miss Rush, and was asked what more suitable name she would like to be called by.
“I would like to be called Terrible North Wind,” said Mary Jane, “or Song of the Rushes.”
When she was told that this was impossible and Signorina Maria Russiano was suggested, she acquiesced at once, as she had acquiesced when they took her away from her curate; she knew nothing of the ways of humans.
At last the day of the Opera came round, and it was a cold day of the winter.
And Signorina Russiano appeared on the stage before a crowded house.
And Signorina Russiano sang.
And into the song went all the longing of her soul, the soul that could not go to Paradise, but could only worship God and know the meaning of music, and the longing pervaded that Italian song as the infinite mystery of the hills is borne along the sound of distant sheep-bells. Then in the souls that were in that crowded house arose little memories of a great while since that were quite quite dead, and lived awhile again during that marvellous song.
And a strange chill went into the blood of all that listened, as though they stood on the border of bleak marshes and the North Wind blew.
And some it moved to sorrow and some to regret, and some to an unearthly joy,—then suddenly the song went wailing away like the winds of the winter from the marshlands when Spring appears from the South.
So it ended. And a great silence fell fog-like over all that house, breaking in upon the end of a chatty conversation that Cecilia, Countess of Birmingham, was enjoying with a friend.
In the dead hush Signorina Russiano rushed from the stage; she appeared again running among the audience, and dashed up to Lady Birmingham.
“Take my soul,” she said; “it is a beautiful soul. It can worship God, and knows the meaning of music and can imagine Paradise. And if you go to the marshlands with it you will see beautiful things; there is an old town there built of lovely timbers, with ghosts in its streets.”
Lady Birmingham stared. Every one was standing up. “See,” said Signorina Russiano, “it is a beautiful soul.”
And she clutched at her left breast a little above the heart, and there was the soul shining in her hand, with the green and blue lights going round and round and the purple flare in the midst.
“Take it,” she said, “and you will love all that is beautiful, and know the four winds, each one by his name, and the songs of the birds at dawn. I do not want it, because I am not free. Put it to your left breast a little above the heart.”
Still everybody was standing up, and Lady Birmingham felt uncomfortable.
“Please offer it to some one else,” she said.
“But they all have souls already,” said Signorina Russiano.
And everybody went on standing up. And lady Birmingham took the soul in her hand.
“Perhaps it is lucky,” she said.
She felt that she wanted to pray.
She half-closed her eyes, and said “Unberufen.” Then she put the soul to her left breast a little above the heart, and hoped that the people would sit down and the singer go away.
Instantly a heap of clothes collapsed before her. For a moment, in the shadow among the seats, those who were born in the dusk hour might have seen a little brown thing leaping free from the clothes, then it sprang into the bright light of the hall, and became invisible to any human eye.
It dashed about for a little, then found the door, and presently was in the lamplit streets.
To those that were born in the dusk hour it might have been seen leaping rapidly wherever the streets ran northwards and eastwards, disappearing from human sight as it passed under the lamps and appearing again beyond them with a marsh-light over its head.
Once a dog perceived it and gave chase, and was left far behind.
The cats of London, who are all born in the dusk hour, howled fearfully as it went by.
Presently it came to the meaner streets, where the houses are smaller. Then it went due north-eastwards, leaping from roof to roof. And so in a few minutes it came to more open spaces, and then to the desolate lands, where market gardens grow, which are neither town nor country. Till at last the good black trees came into view, with their demoniac shapes in the night, and the grass was cold and wet, and the night-mist floated over it. And a great white owl came by, going up and down in the dark. And at all these things the little Wild Thing rejoiced elvishly.
And it left London far behind it, reddening the sky, and could distinguish no longer its unlovely roar, but heard again the noises of the night.
And now it would come through a hamlet glowing and comfortable in the night; and now to the dark, wet, open fields again; and many an owl it overtook as they drifted through the night, a people friendly to the Elf-folk. Sometimes it crossed wide rivers, leaping from star to star; and, choosing its way as it went, to avoid the hard rough roads, came before midnight to the East Anglian lands.
And it heard there the shout of the North Wind, who was dominant and angry, as he drove southwards his adventurous geese; while the rushes bent before him chaunting plaintively and low, like enslaved rowers of some fabulous trireme, bending and swinging under blows of the lash, and singing all the while a doleful song.
And it felt the good dank air that clothes by night the broad East Anglian lands, and came again to some old perilous pool where the soft green mosses grew, and there plunged downward and downward into the dear dark water till it felt the homely ooze once more coming up between its toes. Thence, out of the lovely chill that is in the heart of the ooze, it arose renewed and rejoicing to dance upon the image of the stars.
I chanced to stand that night by the marsh’s edge, forgetting in my mind the affairs of men; and I saw the marsh-fires come leaping up from all the perilous places. And they came up by flocks the whole night long to the number of a great multitude, and danced away together over the marshes.
And I believe that there was a great rejoicing all that night among the kith of the Elf-folk.
The Ghosts
The argument that I had with my brother in his great lonely house will scarcely interest my readers. Not those, at least, whom I hope may be attracted by the experiment that I undertook, and by the strange things that befell me in that hazardous region into which so lightly and so ignorantly I allowed my fancy to enter. It was at Oneleigh that I had visited him.
Now Oneleigh stands in a wide isolation, in the midst of a dark gathering of old whispering cedars. They nod their heads together when the North Wind comes, and nod again and agree, and furtively grow still again, and say no more awhile. The North Wind is to them like a nice problem among wise old men; they nod their heads over it, and mutter about it all together. They know much, those cedars, they have been there so long. Their grandsires knew Lebanon, and the grandsires of these were the servants of the King of Tyre and came to Solomon’s court. And amidst these black-haired children of grey-headed Time stood the old house of Oneleigh. I know not how many centuries had lashed against it their evanescent foam of years; but it was still unshattered, and all about it were the things of long ago, as cling strange growths to some sea-defying rock. Here, like the shells of long-dead limpets, was armour that men encased themselves in long ago; here, too, were tapestries of many colours, beautiful as seaweed; no modern flotsam ever drifted hither, no early Victorian furniture, no electric light. The great trade routes that littered the years with empty meat tins and cheap novels were far from here. Well, well, the centuries will shatter it and drive its fragments on to distant shores. Meanwhile, while it yet stood, I went on a visit there to my brother, and we argued about ghosts. My brother’s intelligence on this subject seemed to me to be in need of correction. He mistook things imagined for things having an actual existence; he argued that second-hand evidence of persons having seen ghosts proved ghosts to exist. I said that even if they had seen ghosts, this was no proof at all; nobody believes that there are red rats, though there is plenty of first-hand evidence of men having seen them in delirium. Finally, I said I would see ghosts myself, and continue to argue against their actual existence. So I collected a handful of cigars and drank several cups of very strong tea, and went without my dinner, and retired into a room where there was dark oak and all the chairs were covered with tapestry; and my brother went to bed bored with our argument and trying hard to dissuade me from making myself uncomfortable. All the way up the old stairs as I stood at the bottom of them, and as his candle went winding up and up, I heard him still trying to persuade me to have supper and go to bed.
It was a windy winter, and outside the cedars were muttering I know not what about; but I think that they were Tories of a school long dead, and were troubled about something new. Within, a great damp log upon the fireplace began to squeak and sing, and struck up a whining tune, and a tall flame stood up over it and beat time, and all the shadows crowded round and began to dance. In distant corners old masses of darkness sat still like chaperones and never moved. Over there, in the darkest part of the room, stood a door that was always locked. It led into the hall, but no one ever used it; near that door something had happened once of which the family are not proud. We do not speak of it. There in the firelight stood the venerable forms of the old chairs; the hands that had made their tapestries lay far beneath the soil, the needles with which they wrought were many separate flakes of rust. No one wove now in that old room—no one but the assiduous ancient spiders who, watching by the deathbed of the things of yore, worked shrouds to hold their dust. In shrouds about the cornices already lay the heart of the oak wainscot that the worm had eaten out.
Surely at such an hour, in such a room, a fancy already excited by hunger and strong tea might see the ghosts of former occupants. I expected nothing less. The fire flickered and the shadows danced, memories of strange historic things rose vividly in my mind; but midnight chimed solemnly from a seven-foot clock, and nothing happened. My imagination would not be hurried, and the chill that is with the small hours had come upon me, and I had nearly abandoned myself to sleep, when in the hall adjoining there arose the rustling of silk dresses that I had waited for and expected. Then there entered two by two the high-born ladies and their gallants of Jacobean times. They were little more than shadows—very dignified shadows, and almost indistinct; but you have all read ghost stories before, you have all seen in museums the dresses of those times—there is little need to describe them; they entered, several of them, and sat down on the old chairs, perhaps a little carelessly considering the value of the tapestries. Then the rustling of their dresses ceased.
Well—I had seen ghosts, and was neither frightened nor convinced that ghosts existed. I was about to get up out of my chair and go to bed, when there came a sound of pattering in the hall, a sound of bare feet coming over the polished floor, and every now and then a foot would slip and I heard claws scratching along the wood as some four-footed thing lost and regained its balance. I was not frightened, but uneasy. The pattering came straight towards the room that I was in, then I heard the sniffing of expectant nostrils; perhaps “uneasy” was not the most suitable word to describe my feelings then. Suddenly a herd of black creatures larger than bloodhounds came galloping in; they had large pendulous ears, their noses were to the ground sniffing, they went up to the lords and ladies of long ago and fawned about them disgustingly. Their eyes were horribly bright, and ran down to great depths. When I looked into them I knew suddenly what these creatures were, and I was afraid. They were the sins, the filthy, immortal sins of those courtly men and women.
How demure she was, the lady that sat near me on an old-world chair—how demure she was, and how fair, to have beside her with its jowl upon her lap a sin with such cavernous red eyes, a clear case of murder. And you, yonder lady with the golden hair, surely not you—and yet that fearful beast with the yellow eyes slinks from you to yonder courtier there, and whenever one drives it away it slinks back to the other. Over there a lady tries to smile as she strokes the loathsome furry head of another’s sin, but one of her own is jealous and intrudes itself under her hand. Here sits an old nobleman with his grandson on his knee, and one of the great black sins of the grandfather is licking the child’s face and has made the child its own. Sometimes a ghost would move and seek another chair, but always his pack of sins would move behind him. Poor ghosts, poor ghosts! how many flights they must have attempted for two hundred years from their hated sins, how many excuses they must have given for their presence, and the sins were with them still—and still unexplained. Suddenly one of them seemed to scent my living blood, and bayed horribly, and all the others left their ghosts at once and dashed up to the sin that had given tongue. The brute had picked up my scent near the door by which I had entered, and they moved slowly nearer to me sniffing along the floor, and uttering every now and then their fearful cry. I saw that the whole thing had gone too far. But now they had seen me, now they were all about me, they sprang up trying to reach my throat; and whenever their claws touched me, horrible thoughts came into my mind and unutterable desires dominated my heart. I planned bestial things as these creatures leaped around me, and planned them with a masterly cunning. A great red-eyed murder was among the foremost of those furry things from whom I feebly strove to defend my throat. Suddenly it seemed to me good that I should kill my brother. It seemed important to me that I should not risk being punished. I knew where a revolver was kept; after I had shot him, I would dress the body up and put flour on the face like a man that had been acting as a ghost. It would be very simple. I would say that he had frightened me—and the servants had heard us talking about ghosts. There were one or two trivialities that would have to be arranged, but nothing escaped my mind. Yes, it seemed to me very good that I should kill my brother as I looked into the red depths of this creature’s eyes. But one last effort as they dragged me down—“If two straight lines cut one another,” I said, “the opposite angles are equal. Let AB, CD, cut one another at E, then the angles CEA, CEB equal two right angles (prop. xiii.). Also CEA, AED equal two right angles.”4
I moved towards the door to get the revolver; a hideous exultation arose among the beasts. “But the angle CEA is common, therefore AED equals CEB. In the same way CEA equals DEB. Q.E.D.” It was proved. Logic and reason re-established themselves in my mind, there were no dark hounds of sin, the tapestried chairs were empty. It seemed to me an inconceivable thought that a man should murder his brother.
The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth
In a wood older than record, a foster brother of the hills, stood the village of Allathurion; and there was peace between the people of that village and all the folk who walked in the dark ways of the wood, whether they were human or of the tribes of the beasts or of the race of the fairies and the elves and the little sacred spirits of trees and streams. Moreover, the village people had peace among themselves and between them and their lord, Lorendiac. In front of the village was a wide and grassy space, and beyond this the great wood again, but at the back the trees came right up to the houses, which, with their great beams and wooden framework and thatched roofs, green with moss, seemed almost to be a part of the forest.
Now in the time I tell of, there was trouble in Allathurion, for of an evening fell dreams were wont to come slipping through the tree trunks and into the peaceful village; and they assumed dominion of men’s minds and led them in watches of the night through the cindery plains of Hell. Then the magician of that village made spells against those fell dreams; yet still the dreams came flitting through the trees as soon as the dark had fallen, and led men’s minds by night into terrible places and caused them to praise Satan openly with their lips.
And men grew afraid of sleep in Allathurion. And they grew worn and pale, some through the want of rest, and others from fear of the things they saw on the cindery plains of Hell.
Then the magician of the village went up into the tower of his house, and all night long those whom fear kept awake could see his window high up in the night glowing softly alone. The next day, when the twilight was far gone and night was gathering fast, the magician went away to the forest’s edge, and uttered there the spell that he had made. And the spell was a compulsive, terrible thing, having a power over evil dreams and over spirits of ill; for it was a verse of forty lines in many languages, both living and dead, and had in it the word wherewith the people of the plains are wont to curse their camels, and the shout wherewith the whalers of the north lure the whales shoreward to be killed, and a word that causes elephants to trumpet; and every one of the forty lines closed with a rhyme for “wasp.”
And still the dreams came flitting through the forest, and led men’s souls into the plains of Hell. Then the magician knew that the dreams were from Gaznak. Therefore he gathered the people of the village, and told them that he had uttered his mightiest spell—a spell having power over all that were human or of the tribes of the beasts; and that since it had not availed the dreams must come from Gaznak, the greatest magician among the spaces of the stars. And he read to the people out of the Book of Magicians, which tells the comings of the comet and foretells his coming again. And he told them how Gaznak rides upon the comet, and how he visits Earth once in every two hundred and thirty years, and makes for himself a vast, invincible fortress and sends out dreams to feed on the minds of men, and may never be vanquished but by the sword Sacnoth.
And a cold fear fell on the hearts of the villagers when they found that their magician had failed them.
Then spake Leothric, son of the Lord Lorendiac, and twenty years old was he: “Good Master, what of the sword Sacnoth?”
And the village magician answered: “Fair Lord, no such sword as yet is wrought, for it lies as yet in the hide of Tharagavverug, protecting his spine.”
Then said Leothric: “Who is Tharagavverug, and where may he be encountered?”
And the magician of Allathurion answered: “He is the dragon-crocodile who haunts the Northern marshes and ravages the homesteads by their marge. And the hide of his back is of steel, and his under parts are of iron; but along the midst of his back, over his spine, there lies a narrow strip of unearthly steel. This strip of steel is Sacnoth, and it may be neither cleft nor molten, and there is nothing in the world that may avail to break it, nor even leave a scratch upon its surface. It is of the length of a good sword, and of the breadth thereof. Shouldst thou prevail against Tharagavverug, his hide may be melted away from Sacnoth in a furnace; but there is only one thing that may sharpen Sacnoth’s edge, and this is one of Tharagavverug’s own steel eyes; and the other eye thou must fasten to Sacnoth’s hilt, and it will watch for thee. But it is a hard task to vanquish Tharagavverug, for no sword can pierce his hide; his back cannot be broken, and he can neither burn nor drown. In one way only can Tharagavverug die, and that is by starving.”
Then sorrow fell upon Leothric, but the magician spoke on:
“If a man drive Tharagavverug away from his food with a stick for three days, he will starve on the third day at sunset. And though he is not vulnerable, yet in one spot he may take hurt, for his nose is only of lead. A sword would merely lay bare the uncleavable bronze beneath, but if his nose be smitten constantly with a stick he will always recoil from the pain, and thus may Tharagavverug, to left and right, be driven away from his food.”
Then Leothric said: “What is Tharagavverug’s food?”
And the magician of Allathurion said: “His food is men.”
But Leothric went straightway thence, and cut a great staff from a hazel tree, and slept early that evening. But the next morning, awaking from troubled dreams, he arose before the dawn, and, taking with him provisions for five days, set out through the forest northwards towards the marshes. For some hours he moved through the gloom of the forest, and when he emerged from it the sun was above the horizon shining on pools of water in the waste land. Presently he saw the claw-marks of Tharagavverug deep in the soil, and the track of his tail between them like a furrow in a field. Then Leothric followed the tracks till he heard the bronze heart of Tharagavverug before him, booming like a bell.
And Tharagavverug, it being the hour when he took the first meal of the day, was moving toward a village with his heart tolling. And all the people of the village were come out to meet him, as it was their wont to do; for they abode not the suspense of awaiting Tharagavverug and of hearing him sniffing brazenly as he went from door to door, pondering slowly in his metal mind what habitant he should choose. And none dared to flee, for in the days when the villagers fled from Tharagavverug, he, having chosen his victim, would track him tirelessly, like a doom. Nothing availed them against Tharagavverug. Once they climbed the trees when he came, but Tharagavverug went up to one, arching his back and leaning over slightly, and rasped against the trunk until it fell. And when Leothric came near, Tharagavverug saw him out of one of his small steel eyes and came towards him leisurely, and the echoes of his heart swirled up through his open mouth. And Leothric stepped sideways from his onset, and came between him and the village and smote him on the nose, and the blow of the stick made a dint in the soft lead. And Tharagavverug swung clumsily away, uttering one fearful cry like the sound of a great church bell that had become possessed of a soul that fluttered upward from the tombs at night—an evil soul, giving the bell a voice. Then he attacked Leothric, snarling, and again Leothric leapt aside, and smote him on the nose with his stick. Tharagavverug uttered like a bell howling. And whenever the dragon-crocodile attacked him, or turned towards the village, Leothric smote him again.
So all day long Leothric drove the monster with a stick, and he drove him farther and farther from his prey, with his heart tolling angrily and his voice crying out for pain.
Towards evening Tharagavverug ceased to snap at Leothric, but ran before him to avoid the stick, for his nose was sore and shining; and in the gloaming the villagers came out and danced to cymbal and psaltery. When Tharagavverug heard the cymbal and psaltery, hunger and anger came upon him, and he felt as some lord might feel who was held by force from the banquet in his own castle and heard the creaking spit go round and round and the good meat crackling on it. And all that night he attacked Leothric fiercely, and ofttimes nearly caught him in the darkness; for his gleaming eyes of steel could see as well by night as by day. And Leothric gave ground slowly till the dawn, and when the light came they were near the village again; yet not so near to it as they had been when they encountered, for Leothric drove Tharagavverug farther in the day than Tharagavverug had forced him back in the night. Then Leothric drove him again with his stick till the hour came when it was the custom of the dragon-crocodile to find his man. One third of his man he would eat at the time he found him, and the rest at noon and evening. But when the hour came for finding his man a great fierceness came on Tharagavverug, and he grabbed rapidly at Leothric, but could not seize him, and for a long while neither of them would retire. But at last the pain of the stick on his leaden nose overcame the hunger of the dragon-crocodile, and he turned from it howling. From that moment Tharagavverug weakened. All that day Leothric drove him with his stick, and at night both held their ground; and when the dawn of the third day was come the heart of Tharagavverug beat slower and fainter. It was as though a tired man was ringing a bell. Once Tharagavverug nearly seized a frog, but Leothric snatched it away just in time. Towards noon the dragon-crocodile lay still for a long while, and Leothric stood near him and leaned on his trusty stick. He was very tired and sleepless, but had more leisure now for eating his provisions. With Tharagavverug the end was coming fast, and in the afternoon his breath came hoarsely, rasping in his throat. It was as the sound of many huntsmen blowing blasts on horns, and towards evening his breath came faster but fainter, like the sound of a hunt going furious to the distance and dying away, and he made desperate rushes towards the village; but Leothric still leapt about him, battering his leaden nose. Scarce audible now at all was the sound of his heart: it was like a church bell tolling beyond hills for the death of some one unknown and far away. Then the sun set and flamed in the village windows, and a chill went over the world, and in some small garden a woman sang; and Tharagavverug lifted up his head and starved, and his life went from his invulnerable body, and Leothric lay down beside him and slept. And later in the starlight the villagers came out and carried Leothric, sleeping, to the village, all praising him in whispers as they went. They laid him down upon a couch in a house, and danced outside in silence, without psaltery or cymbal. And the next day, rejoicing, to Allathurion they hauled the dragon-crocodile. And Leothric went with them, holding his battered staff; and a tall, broad man, who was smith of Allathurion, made a great furnace, and melted Tharagavverug away till only Sacnoth was left, gleaming among the ashes. Then he took one of the small eyes that had been chiselled out, and filed an edge on Sacnoth, and gradually the steel eye wore away facet by facet, but ere it was quite gone it had sharpened redoubtably Sacnoth. But the other eye they set in the butt of the hilt, and it gleamed there bluely.
And that night Leothric arose in the dark and took the sword, and went westwards to find Gaznak; and he went through the dark forest till the dawn, and all the morning and till the afternoon. But in the afternoon he came into the open and saw in the midst of The Land Where No Man Goeth the fortress of Gaznak, mountainous before him, little more than a mile away.
And Leothric saw that the land was marsh and desolate. And the fortress went up all white out of it, with many buttresses, and was broad below but narrowed higher up, and was full of gleaming windows with the light upon them. And near the top of it a few white clouds were floating, but above them some of its pinnacles reappeared. Then Leothric advanced into the marshes, and the eye of Tharagavverug looked out warily from the hilt of Sacnoth; for Tharagavverug had known the marshes well, and the sword nudged Leothric to the right or pulled him to the left away from the dangerous places, and so brought him safely to the fortress walls.
And in the wall stood doors like precipices of steel, all studded with boulders of iron, and above every window were terrible gargoyles of stone; and the name of the fortress shone on the wall, writ large in letters of brass: “The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save For Sacnoth.”
Then Leothric drew and revealed Sacnoth, and all the gargoyles grinned, and the grin went flickering from face to face right up into the cloud-abiding gables.
And when Sacnoth was revealed and all the gargoyles grinned, it was like the moonlight emerging from a cloud to look for the first time upon a field of blood, and passing swiftly over the wet faces of the slain that lie together in the horrible night. Then Leothric advanced towards a door, and it was mightier than the marble quarry, Sacremona, from which of old men cut enormous slabs to build the Abbey of the Holy Tears. Day after day they wrenched out the very ribs of the hill until the Abbey was builded, and it was more beautiful than anything in stone. Then the priests blessed Sacremona, and it had rest, and no more stone was ever taken from it to build the houses of men. And the hill stood looking southwards lonely in the sunlight, defaced by that mighty scar. So vast was the door of steel. And the name of the door was The Porte Resonant, the Way of Egress for War.
Then Leothric smote upon the Porte Resonant with Sacnoth, and the echo of Sacnoth went ringing through the halls, and all the dragons in the fortress barked. And when the baying of the remotest dragon had faintly joined in the tumult, a window opened far up among the clouds below the twilit gables, and a woman screamed, and far away in Hell her father heard her and knew that her doom was come.
And Leothric went on smiting terribly with Sacnoth, and the grey steel of the Porte Resonant, the Way of Egress for War, that was tempered to resist the swords of the world, came away in ringing slices.
Then Leothric, holding Sacnoth in his hand, went in through the hole that he had hewn in the door, and came into the unlit, cavernous hall.
An elephant fled trumpeting. And Leothric stood still, holding Sacnoth. When the sound of the feet of the elephant had died away in remoter corridors, nothing more stirred, and the cavernous hall was still.
Presently the darkness of the distant halls became musical with the sound of bells, all coming nearer and nearer.
Still Leothric waited in the dark, and the bells rang louder and louder, echoing through the halls, and there appeared a procession of men on camels riding two by two from the interior of the fortress, and they were armed with scimitars of Assyrian make and were all clad with mail, and chain-mail hung from their helmets about their faces, and flapped as the camels moved. And they all halted before Leothric in the cavernous hall, and the camel bells clanged and stopped. And the leader said to Leothric:
“The Lord Gaznak has desired to see you die before him. Be pleased to come with us, and we can discourse by the way of the manner in which the Lord Gaznak has desired to see you die.”
And as he said this he unwound a chain of iron that was coiled upon his saddle, and Leothric answered:
“I would fain go with you, for I am come to slay Gaznak.”
Then all the camel-guard of Gaznak laughed hideously, disturbing the vampires that were asleep in the measureless vault of the roof. And the leader said:
“The Lord Gaznak is immortal, save for Sacnoth, and weareth armour that is proof even against Sacnoth himself, and hath a sword the second most terrible in the world.”
Then Leothric said: “I am the Lord of the sword Sacnoth.”
And he advanced towards the camel-guard of Gaznak, and Sacnoth lifted up and down in his hand as though stirred by an exultant pulse. Then the camel-guard of Gaznak fled, and the riders leaned forward and smote their camels with whips, and they went away with a great clamour of bells through colonnades and corridors and vaulted halls, and scattered into the inner darknesses of the fortress. When the last sound of them had died away, Leothric was in doubt which way to go, for the camel-guard was dispersed in many directions, so he went straight on till he came to a great stairway in the midst of the hall. Then Leothric set his foot in the middle of a wide step, and climbed steadily up the stairway for five minutes. Little light was there in the great hall through which Leothric ascended, for it only entered through arrow slits here and there, and in the world outside evening was waning fast. The stairway led up to two folding doors, and they stood a little ajar, and through the crack Leothric entered and tried to continue straight on, but could get no farther, for the whole room seemed to be full of festoons of ropes which swung from wall to wall and were looped and draped from the ceiling. The whole chamber was thick and black with them. They were soft and light to the touch, like fine silk, but Leothric was unable to break any one of them, and though they swung away from him as he pressed forward, yet by the time he had gone three yards they were all about him like a heavy cloak. Then Leothric stepped back and drew Sacnoth, and Sacnoth divided the ropes without a sound, and without a sound the severed pieces fell to the floor. Leothric went forward slowly, moving Sacnoth in front of him up and down as he went. When he was come into the middle of the chamber, suddenly, as he parted with Sacnoth a great hammock of strands, he saw a spider before him that was larger than a ram, and the spider looked at him with eyes that were little, but in which there was much sin, and said:
“Who are you that spoil the labour of years all done to the honour of Satan?”
And Leothric answered: “I am Leothric, son of Lorendiac.”
And the spider said: “I will make a rope at once to hang you with.”
Then Leothric parted another bunch of strands, and came nearer to the spider as he sat making his rope, and the spider, looking up from his work, said: “What is that sword which is able to sever my ropes?”
And Leothric said: “It is Sacnoth.”
Thereat the black hair that hung over the face of the spider parted to left and right, and the spider frowned; then the hair fell back into its place, and hid everything except the sin of the little eyes which went on gleaming lustfully in the dark. But before Leothric could reach him, he climbed away with his hands, going up by one of his ropes to a lofty rafter, and there sat, growling. But clearing his way with Sacnoth, Leothric passed through the chamber, and came to the farther door; and the door being shut, and the handle far up out of his reach, he hewed his way through it with Sacnoth in the same way as he had through the Porte Resonant, the Way of Egress for War. And so Leothric came into a well-lit chamber, where Queens and Princes were banqueting together, all at a great table; and thousands of candles were glowing all about, and their light shone in the wine that the Princes drank and on the huge gold candelabra, and the royal faces were irradiant with the glow, and the white table-cloth and the silver plates and the jewels in the hair of the Queens, each jewel having a historian all to itself, who wrote no other chronicles all his days. Between the table and the door there stood two hundred footmen in two rows of one hundred facing one another. Nobody looked at Leothric as he entered through the hole in the door, but one of the Princes asked a question of a footman, and the question was passed from mouth to mouth by all the hundred footmen till it came to the last one nearest Leothric; and he said to Leothric, without looking at him:
“What do you seek here?”
And Leothric answered: “I seek to slay Gaznak.”
And footman to footman repeated all the way to the table: “He seeks to slay Gaznak.”
And another question came down the line of footmen: “What is your name?”
And the line that stood opposite took his answer back.
Then one of the Princes said: “Take him away where we shall not hear his screams.”
And footman repeated it to footman till it came to the last two, and they advanced to seize Leothric.
Then Leothric showed to them his sword, saying, “This is Sacnoth,” and both of them said to the man nearest: “It is Sacnoth;” then screamed and fled away.
And two by two, all up the double line, footman to footman repeated, “It is Sacnoth,” then screamed and fled, till the last two gave the message to the table, and all the rest had gone. Hurriedly then arose the Queens and Princes, and fled out of the chamber. And the goodly table, when they were all gone, looked small and disorderly and awry. And to Leothric, pondering in the desolate chamber by what door he should pass onwards, there came from far away the sounds of music, and he knew that it was the magical musicians playing to Gaznak while he slept.
Then Leothric, walking towards the distant music, passed out by the door opposite to the one through which he had cloven his entrance, and so passed into a chamber vast as the other, in which were many women, weirdly beautiful. And they all asked him of his quest, and when they heard that it was to slay Gaznak, they all besought him to tarry among them, saying that Gaznak was immortal, save for Sacnoth, and also that they had need of a knight to protect them from the wolves that rushed round and round the wainscot all the night and sometimes broke in upon them through the mouldering oak. Perhaps Leothric had been tempted to tarry had they been human women, for theirs was a strange beauty, but he perceived that instead of eyes they had little flames that flickered in their sockets, and knew them to be the fevered dreams of Gaznak. Therefore he said:
“I have a business with Gaznak and with Sacnoth,” and passed on through the chamber.
And at the name of Sacnoth those women screamed, and the flames of their eyes sank low and dwindled to sparks.
And Leothric left them, and, hewing with Sacnoth, passed through the farther door.
Outside he felt the night air on his face, and found that he stood upon a narrow way between two abysses. To left and right of him, as far as he could see, the walls of the fortress ended in a profound precipice, though the roof still stretched above him; and before him lay the two abysses full of stars, for they cut their way through the whole Earth and revealed the under sky; and threading its course between them went the way, and it sloped upward and its sides were sheer. And beyond the abysses, where the way led up to the farther chambers of the fortress, Leothric heard the musicians playing their magical tune. So he stepped on to the way, which was scarcely a stride in width, and moved along it holding Sacnoth naked. And to and fro beneath him in each abyss whirred the wings of vampires passing up and down, all giving praise to Satan as they flew. Presently he perceived the dragon Thok lying upon the way, pretending to sleep, and his tail hung down into one of the abysses.
And Leothric went towards him, and when he was quite close Thok rushed at Leothric.
And he smote deep with Sacnoth, and Thok tumbled into the abyss, screaming, and his limbs made a whirring in the darkness as he fell, and he fell till his scream sounded no louder than a whistle and then could be heard no more. Once or twice Leothric saw a star blink for an instant and reappear again, and this momentary eclipse of a few stars was all that remained in the world of the body of Thok. And Lunk, the brother of Thok, who had lain a little behind him, saw that this must be Sacnoth and fled lumbering away. And all the while that he walked between the abysses, the mighty vault of the roof of the fortress still stretched over Leothric’s head, all filled with gloom. Now, when the farther side of the abyss came into view, Leothric saw a chamber that opened with innumerable arches upon the twin abysses, and the pillars of the arches went away into the distance and vanished in the gloom to left and right.
Far down the dim precipice on which the pillars stood he could see windows small and closely barred, and between the bars there showed at moments, and disappeared again, things that I shall not speak of.
There was no light here except for the great Southern stars that shone below the abysses, and here and there in the chamber through the arches lights that moved furtively without the sound of footfall.
Then Leothric stepped from the way, and entered the great chamber.
Even to himself he seemed but a tiny dwarf as he walked under one of those colossal arches.
The last faint light of evening flickered through a window painted in sombre colours commemorating the achievements of Satan upon Earth. High up in the wall the window stood, and then streaming lights of candles lower down moved stealthily away.
Other light there was none, save for a faint blue glow from the steel eye of Tharagavverug that peered restlessly about it from the hilt of Sacnoth. Heavily in the chamber hung the clammy odour of a large and deadly beast.
Leothric moved forward slowly with the blade of Sacnoth in front of him feeling for a foe, and the eye in the hilt of it looking out behind.
Nothing stirred.
If anything lurked behind the pillars of the colonnade that held aloft the roof, it neither breathed nor moved.
The music of the magical musicians sounded from very near.
Suddenly the great doors on the far side of the chamber opened to left and right. For some moments Leothric saw nothing move, and waited clutching Sacnoth. Then Wong Bongerok came towards him, breathing.
This was the last and faithfullest guard of Gaznak, and came from slobbering just now his master’s hand.
More as a child than a dragon was Gaznak wont to treat him, giving him often in his fingers tender pieces of man all smoking from his table.
Long and low was Wong Bongerok, and subtle about the eyes, and he came breathing malice against Leothric out of his faithful breast, and behind him roared the armoury of his tail, as when sailors drag the cable of the anchor all rattling down the deck.
And well Wong Bongerok knew that he now faced Sacnoth, for it had been his wont to prophesy quietly to himself for many years as he lay curled at the feet of Gaznak.
And Leothric stepped forward into the blast of his breath, and lifted Sacnoth to strike.
But when Sacnoth was lifted up, the eye of Tharagavverug in the butt of the hilt beheld the dragon and perceived his subtlety.
For he opened his mouth wide, and revealed to Leothric the ranks of his sabre teeth, and his leather gums flapped upwards. But while Leothric made to smite at his head, he shot forward scorpion-wise over his head the length of his armoured tail. All this the eye perceived in the hilt of Sacnoth, who smote suddenly sideways. Not with the edge smote Sacnoth, for, had he done so, the severed end of the tail had still come hurtling on, as some pine tree that the avalanche has hurled point foremost from the cliff right through the broad breast of some mountaineer. So had Leothric been transfixed; but Sacnoth smote sideways with the flat of his blade, and sent the tail whizzing over Leothric’s left shoulder; and it rasped upon his armour as it went, and left a groove upon it. Sideways then at Leothric smote the foiled tail of Wong Bongerok, and Sacnoth parried, and the tail went shrieking up the blade and over Leothric’s head. Then Leothric and Wong Bongerok fought sword to tooth, and the sword smote as only Sacnoth can, and the evil faithful life of Wong Bongerok the dragon went out through the wide wound.
Then Leothric walked on past that dead monster, and the armoured body still quivered a little. And for a while it was like all the ploughshares in a county working together in one field behind tired and struggling horses; then the quivering ceased, and Wong Bongerok lay still to rust.
And Leothric went on to the open gates, and Sacnoth dripped quietly along the floor.
By the open gates through which Wong Bongerok had entered, Leothric came into a corridor echoing with music. This was the first place from which Leothric could see anything above his head, for hitherto the roof had ascended to mountainous heights and had stretched indistinct in the gloom. But along the narrow corridor hung huge bells low and near to his head, and the width of each brazen bell was from wall to wall, and they were one behind the other. And as he passed under each the bell uttered, and its voice was mournful and deep, like to the voice of a bell speaking to a man for the last time when he is newly dead. Each bell uttered once as Leothric came under it, and their voices sounded solemnly and wide apart at ceremonious intervals. For if he walked slow, these bells came closer together, and when he walked swiftly they moved farther apart. And the echoes of each bell tolling above his head went on before him whispering to the others. Once when he stopped they all jangled angrily till he went on again.
Between these slow and boding notes came the sound of the magical musicians. They were playing a dirge now very mournfully.
And at last Leothric came to the end of the Corridor of the Bells, and beheld there a small black door. And all the corridor behind him was full of the echoes of the tolling, and they all muttered to one another about the ceremony; and the dirge of the musicians came floating slowly through them like a procession of foreign elaborate guests, and all of them boded ill to Leothric.
The black door opened at once to the hand of Leothric, and he found himself in the open air in a wide court paved with marble. High over it shone the moon, summoned there by the hand of Gaznak.
There Gaznak slept, and around him sat his magical musicians, all playing upon strings. And, even sleeping, Gaznak was clad in armour, and only his wrists and face and neck were bare.
But the marvel of that place was the dreams of Gaznak; for beyond the wide court slept a dark abyss, and into the abyss there poured a white cascade of marble stairways, and widened out below into terraces and balconies with fair white statues on them, and descended again in a wide stairway, and came to lower terraces in the dark, where swart uncertain shapes went to and fro. All these were the dreams of Gaznak, and issued from his mind, and, becoming marble, passed over the edge of the abyss as the musicians played. And all the while out of the mind of Gaznak, lulled by that strange music, went spires and pinnacles beautiful and slender, ever ascending skywards. And the marble dreams moved slow in time to the music. When the bells tolled and the musicians played their dirge, ugly gargoyles came out suddenly all over the spires and pinnacles, and great shadows passed swiftly down the steps and terraces, and there was hurried whispering in the abyss.
When Leothric stepped from the black door, Gaznak opened his eyes. He looked neither to left nor right, but stood up at once facing Leothric.
Then the magicians played a deathspell on their strings, and there arose a humming along the blade of Sacnoth as he turned the spell aside. When Leothric dropped not down, and they heard the humming of Sacnoth, the magicians arose and fled, all wailing, as they went, upon their strings.
Then Gaznak drew out screaming from its sheath the sword that was the mightiest in the world except for Sacnoth, and slowly walked towards Leothric; and he smiled as he walked, although his own dreams had foretold his doom. And when Leothric and Gaznak came together, each looked at each, and neither spoke a word; but they smote both at once, and their swords met, and each sword knew the other and from whence he came. And whenever the sword of Gaznak smote on the blade of Sacnoth it rebounded gleaming, as hail from off slated roofs; but whenever it fell upon the armour of Leothric, it stripped it off in sheets. And upon Gaznak’s armour Sacnoth fell oft and furiously, but ever he came back snarling, leaving no mark behind, and as Gaznak fought he held his left hand hovering close over his head. Presently Leothric smote fair and fiercely at his enemy’s neck, but Gaznak, clutching his own head by the hair, lifted it high aloft, and Sacnoth went cleaving through an empty space. Then Gaznak replaced his head upon his neck, and all the while fought nimbly with his sword; and again and again Leothric swept with Sacnoth at Gaznak’s bearded neck, and ever the left hand of Gaznak was quicker than the stroke, and the head went up and the sword rushed vainly under it.
And the ringing fight went on till Leothric’s armour lay all round him on the floor and the marble was splashed with his blood, and the sword of Gaznak was notched like a saw from meeting the blade of Sacnoth. Still Gaznak stood unwounded and smiling still.
At last Leothric looked at the throat of Gaznak and aimed with Sacnoth, and again Gaznak lifted his head by the hair; but not at his throat flew Sacnoth, for Leothric struck instead at the lifted hand, and through the wrist of it went Sacnoth whirring, as a scythe goes through the stem of a single flower.
And bleeding, the severed hand fell to the floor; and at once blood spurted from the shoulders of Gaznak and dripped from the fallen head, and the tall pinnacles went down into the earth, and the wide fair terraces all rolled away, and the court was gone like the dew, and a wind came and the colonnades drifted thence, and all the colossal halls of Gaznak fell. And the abysses closed up suddenly as the mouth of a man who, having told a tale, will for ever speak no more.
Then Leothric looked around him in the marshes where the night mist was passing away, and there was no fortress nor sound of dragon or mortal, only beside him lay an old man, wizened and evil and dead, whose head and hand were severed from his body.
And gradually over the wide lands the dawn was coming up, and ever growing in beauty as it came, like to the peal of an organ played by a master’s hand, growing louder and lovelier as the soul of the master warms, and at last giving praise with all its mighty voice.
Then the birds sang, and Leothric went homeward, and left the marshes and came to the dark wood, and the light of the dawn ascending lit him upon his way. And into Allathurion he came ere noon, and with him brought the evil wizened head, and the people rejoiced, and their nights of trouble ceased.
This is the tale of the vanquishing of The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save For Sacnoth, and of its passing away, as it is told and believed by those who love the mystic days of old.
Others have said, and vainly claim to prove, that a fever came to Allathurion, and went away; and that this same fever drove Leothric into the marshes by night, and made him dream there and act violently with a sword.
And others again say that there hath been no town of Allathurion, and that Leothric never lived.
Peace to them. The gardner hath gathered up this autumn’s leaves. Who shall see them again, or who wot of them? And who shall say what hath befallen in the days of long ago?
Blagdaross
On a waste place strewn with bricks in the outskirts of a town twilight was falling. A star or two appeared over the smoke, and distant windows lit mysterious lights. The stillness deepened and the loneliness. Then all the outcast things that are silent by day found voices.
An old cork spoke first. He said: “I grew in Andalusian woods, but never listened to the idle songs of Spain. I only grew strong in the sunlight waiting for my destiny. One day the merchants came and took us all away and carried us all along the shore of the sea, piled high on the backs of donkeys, and in a town by the sea they made me into the shape that I am now. One day they sent me northward to Provence, and there I fulfilled my destiny. For they set me as a guard over the bubbling wine, and I faithfully stood sentinel for twenty years. For the first few years in the bottle that I guarded the wine slept, dreaming of Provence; but as the years went on he grew stronger and stronger, until at last whenever a man went by the wine would put out all his might against me, saying: ‘Let me go free; let me go free!’ And every year his strength increased, and he grew more clamorous when men went by, but never availed to hurl me from my post. But when I had powerfully held him for twenty years they brought him to the banquet and took me from my post, and the wine arose rejoicing and leapt through the veins of men and exalted their souls within them till they stood up in their places and sang Provençal songs. But me they cast away—me that had been sentinel for twenty years, and was still as strong and staunch as when first I went on guard. Now I am an outcast in a cold northern city, who once have known the Andalusian skies and guarded long ago Provençal suns that swam in the heart of the rejoicing wine.”
An unstruck match that somebody had dropped spoke next. “I am a child of the sun,” he said, “and an enemy of cities; there is more in my heart than you know of. I am a brother of Etna and Stromboli;5 I have fires lurking in me that will one day rise up beautiful and strong. We will not go into servitude on any hearth nor work machines for our food, but we will take our own food where we find it on that day when we are strong. There are wonderful children in my heart whose faces shall be more lively than the rainbow; they shall make a compact with the North wind, and he shall lead them forth; all shall be black behind them and black above them, and there shall be nothing beautiful in the world but them; they shall seize upon the earth and it shall be theirs, and nothing shall stop them but our old enemy the sea.”
Then an old broken kettle spoke, and said: “I am the friend of cities. I sit among the slaves upon the hearth, the little flames that have been fed with coal. When the slaves dance behind the iron bars I sit in the middle of the dance and sing and make our masters glad. And I make songs about the comfort of the cat, and about the malice that is towards her in the heart of the dog, and about the crawling of the baby, and about the ease that is in the lord of the house when we brew the good brown tea; and sometimes when the house is very warm and slaves and masters are glad, I rebuke the hostile winds that prowl about the world.”
And then there spoke the piece of an old cord. “I was made in a place of doom, and doomed men made my fibres, working without hope. Therefore there came a grimness into my heart, so that I never let anything go free when once I was set to bind it. Many a thing have I bound relentlessly for months and for years; for I used to come coiling into warehouses where the great boxes lay all open to the air, and one of them would be suddenly closed up, and my fearful strength would be set on him like a curse, and if his timbers groaned when first I seized them, or if they creaked aloud in the lonely night, thinking of woodlands out of which they came, then I only gripped them tighter still, for the poor useless hate is in my soul of those that made me in the place of doom. Yet, for all the things that my prison-clutch has held, the last work that I did was to set something free. I lay idle one night in the gloom on the warehouse floor. Nothing stirred there, and even the spider slept. Towards midnight a great flock of echoes suddenly leapt up from the wooden planks and circled round the roof. A man was coming towards me all alone. And as he came his soul was reproaching him, and I saw that there was a great trouble between the man and his soul, for his soul would not let him be, but went on reproaching him.
“Then the man saw me and said, ‘This at least will not fail me.’ When I heard him say this about me, I determined that whatever he might require of me it should be done to the uttermost. And as I made this determination in my unaltering heart, he picked me up and stood on an empty box that I should have bound on the morrow, and tied one end of me to a dark rafter; and the knot was carelessly tied, because his soul was reproaching him all the while continually and giving him no ease. Then he made the other end of me into a noose, but when the man’s soul saw this it stopped reproaching the man, and cried out to him hurriedly, and besought him to be at peace with it and to do nothing sudden; but the man went on with his work, and put the noose down over his face and underneath his chin, and the soul screamed horribly.
“Then the man kicked the box away with his foot, and the moment he did this I knew that my strength was not great enough to hold him; but I remembered that he had said I would not fail him, and I put all my grim vigour into my fibres and held him by sheer will. Then the soul shouted to me to give way, but I said:
“ ‘No; you vexed the man.’
“Then it screamed to me to leave go of the rafter, and already I was slipping, for I only held on to it by a careless knot, but I gripped with my prison grip and said:
“ ‘You vexed the man.’
“And very swiftly it said other things to me, but I answered not; and at last the soul that vexed the man that had trusted me flew away and left him at peace. I was never able to bind things any more, for every one of my fibres was worn and wrenched, and even my relentless heart was weakened by the struggle. Very soon afterwards I was thrown out here. I have done my work.”
So they spoke among themselves, but all the while there loomed above them the form of an old rocking-horse complaining bitterly. He said: “I am Blagdaross. Woe is me that I should lie now an outcast among these worthy but little people. Alas! for the days that are gathered, and alas for the Great One that was a master and a soul to me, whose spirit is now shrunken and can never know me again, and no more ride abroad on knightly quests. I was Bucephalus when he was Alexander, and carried him victorious as far as Ind. I encountered dragons with him when he was St. George, I was the horse of Roland fighting for Christendom, and was often Rosinante. 6 I fought in tournays and went errant upon quests, and met Ulysses and the heroes and the fairies. Or late in the evening, just before the lamps in the nursery were put out, he would suddenly mount me, and we would gallop through Africa. There we would pass by night through tropic forests, and come upon dark rivers sweeping by, all gleaming with the eyes of crocodiles, where the hippopotamus floated down with the stream, and mysterious craft loomed suddenly out of the dark and furtively passed away. And when we had passed through the forest lit by the fireflies we would come to the open plains, and gallop onwards with scarlet flamingoes flying along beside us through the lands of dusky kings, with golden crowns upon their heads and sceptres in their hands, who came running out of their palaces to see us pass. Then I would wheel suddenly, and the dust flew up from my four hoofs as I turned and we galloped home again, and my master was put to bed. And again he would ride abroad on another day till we came to magical fortresses guarded by wizardry and overthrew the dragons at the gate, and ever came back with a princess fairer than the sea.
“But my master began to grow larger in his body and smaller in his soul, and then he rode more seldom upon quests. At last he saw gold and never came again, and I was cast out here among these little people.”
But while the rocking-horse was speaking two boys stole away, unnoticed by their parents, from a house on the edge of the waste place, and were coming across it looking for adventures. One of them carried a broom, and when he saw the rocking-horse he said nothing, but broke off the handle from the broom and thrust it between his braces and his shirt on the left side. Then he mounted the rocking-horse, and drawing forth the broomstick, which was sharp and spiky at the end, said, “Saladin is in this desert with all his paynims, and I am Coeur de Lion.”7 After a while the other boy said: “Now let me kill Saladin too.” But Blagdaross in his wooden heart, that exulted with thoughts of battle, said: “I am Blagdaross yet!”
Idle Days on the Yann
So I came down through the wood to the bank of Yann and found, as had been prophesied, the ship Bird of the River about to loose her cable.
The captain sate cross-legged upon the white deck with his scimitar lying beside him in its jewelled scabbard, and the sailors toiled to spread the nimble sails to bring the ship into the central stream of Yann, and all the while sang ancient soothing songs. And the wind of the evening descending cool from the snowfields of some mountainous abode of distant gods came suddenly, like glad tidings to an anxious city, into the wing-like sails.
And so we came into the central stream, whereat the sailors lowered the greater sails. But I had gone to bow before the captain, and to inquire concerning the miracles, and appearances among men, of the most holy gods of whatever land he had come from. And the captain answered that he came from fair Belzoond, and worshipped gods that were the least and hum-blest, who seldom sent the famine or the thunder, and were easily appeased with little battles. And I told how I came from Ireland, which is of Europe, whereat the captain and all the sailors laughed, for they said, “There are no such places in all the land of dreams.” When they had ceased to mock me, I explained that my fancy mostly dwelt in the desert of Cuppar-Nombo, about a beautiful blue city called Golthoth the Damned, which was sentinelled all round by wolves and their shadows, and had been utterly desolate for years and years, because of a curse which the gods once spoke in anger and could never since recall. And sometimes my dreams took me as far as Pungar Vees, the red walled city where the fountains are, which trades with the Isles and Thul. When I said this they complimented me upon the abode of my fancy, saying that, though they had never seen these cities, such places might well be imagined. For the rest of that evening I bargained with the captain over the sum that I should pay him for my fare if God and the tide of Yann should bring us safely as far as the cliffs by the sea, which are named Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate of Yann.
And now the sun had set, and all the colours of the world and heaven had held a festival with him, and slipped one by one away before the imminent approach of night. The parrots had all flown home to the jungle on either bank, the monkeys in rows in safety on high branches of the trees were silent and asleep, the fireflies in the deeps of the forest were going up and down, and the great stars came gleaming out to look on the face of Yann. Then the sailors lighted lanterns and hung them round the ship, and the light flashed out on a sudden and dazzled Yann, and the ducks that fed along his marshy banks all suddenly arose, and made wide circles in the upper air, and saw the distant reaches of the Yann and the white mist that softly cloaked the jungle, before they returned again into their marshes.
And then the sailors knelt on the decks and prayed, not all together, but five or six at a time. Side by side there kneeled down together five or six, for there only prayed at the same time men of different faiths, so that no god should hear two men praying to him at once. As soon as any one had finished his prayer, another of the same faith would take his place. Thus knelt the row of five or six with bended heads under the fluttering sail, while the central stream of the River Yann took them on towards the sea, and their prayers rose up from among the lanterns and went towards the stars. And behind them in the after end of the ship the helmsman prayed aloud the helmsman’s prayer, which is prayed by all who follow his trade upon the River Yann, of whatever faith they be. And the captain prayed to his little lesser gods, to the gods that bless Belzoond.
And I too felt that I would pray. Yet I liked not to pray to a jealous God there where the frail affectionate gods whom the heathen love were being humbly invoked; so I bethought me, instead, of Sheol Nugganoth, whom the men of the jungle have long since deserted, who is now unworshipped and alone; and to him I prayed.
And upon us praying the night came suddenly down, as it comes upon all men who pray at evening and upon all men who do not; yet our prayers comforted our own souls when we thought of the Great Night to come.
And so Yann bore us magnificently onwards, for he was elate with molten snow that the Poltiades had brought him from the Hills of Hap, and the Marn and Migris were swollen full with floods; and he bore us in his might past Kyph and Pir, and we saw the lights of Goolunza.
Soon we all slept except the helmsman, who kept the ship in the mid-stream of Yann.
When the sun rose the helmsman ceased to sing, for by song he cheered himself in the lonely night. When the song ceased we suddenly all awoke, and another took the helm, and the helmsman slept.
We knew that soon we should come to Mandaroon. We made a meal, and Mandaroon appeared. Then the captain commanded, and the sailors loosed again the greater sails, and the ship turned and left the stream of Yann and came into a harbour beneath the ruddy walls of Mandaroon. Then while the sailors went and gathered fruits I came alone to the gate of Mandaroon. A few huts were outside it, in which lived the guard. A sentinel with a long white beard was standing in the gate, armed with a rusty pike. He wore large spectacles, which were covered with dust. Through the gate I saw the city. A deathly stillness was over all of it. The ways seemed untrodden, and moss was thick on doorsteps; in the market-place huddled figures lay asleep. A scent of incense came wafted through the gateway, of incense and burned poppies, and there was a hum of the echoes of distant bells. I said to the sentinel in the tongue of the region of Yann, “Why are they all asleep in this still city?”
He answered: “None may ask questions in this gate for fear they wake the people of the city. For when the people of this city wake the gods will die. And when the gods die men may dream no more.” And I began to ask him what gods that city worshipped, but he lifted his pike because none might ask questions there. So I left him and went back to the Bird of the River.
Certainly Mandaroon was beautiful with her white pinnacles peering over her ruddy walls and the green of her copper roofs.
When I came back again to the Bird of the River, I found the sailors were returned to the ship. Soon we weighed anchor, and sailed out again, and so came once more to the middle of the river. And now the sun was moving toward his heights, and there had reached us on the River Yann the song of those countless myriads of choirs that attend him in his progress round the world. For the little creatures that have many legs had spread their gauze wings easily on the air, as a man rests his elbows on a balcony and gave jubilant, ceremonial praises to the sun, or else they moved together on the air in wavering dances intricate and swift, or turned aside to avoid the onrush of some drop of water that a breeze had shaken from a jungle orchid, chilling the air and driving it before it, as it fell whirring in its rush to the earth; but all the while they sang triumphantly. “For the day is for us,” they said, “whether our great and sacred father the Sun shall bring up more life like us from the marshes, or whether all the world shall end to-night.” And there sang all those whose notes are known to human ears, as well as those whose far more numerous notes have been never heard by man.
To these a rainy day had been as an era of war that should desolate continents during all the lifetime of a man.
And there came out also from the dark and steaming jungle to behold and rejoice in the Sun the huge and lazy butterflies. And they danced, but danced idly, on the ways of the air, as some haughty queen of distant conquered lands might in her poverty and exile dance, in some encampment of the gipsies, for the mere bread to live by, but beyond that would never abate her pride to dance for a fragment more.
And the butterflies sung of strange and painted things, of purple orchids and of lost pink cities and the monstrous colours of the jungle’s decay. And they, too, were among those whose voices are not discernible by human ears. And as they floated above the river, going from forest to forest, their splendour was matched by the inimical beauty of the birds who darted out to pursue them. Or sometimes they settled on the white and wax-like blooms of the plant that creeps and clambers about the trees of the forest; and their purple wings flashed out on the great blossoms as, when the caravans go from Nurl to Thace, the gleaming silks flash out upon the snow, where the crafty merchants spread them one by one to astonish the mountaineers of the Hills of Noor.
But upon men and beasts the sun sent a drowsiness. The river monsters along the river’s marge lay dormant in the slime. The sailors pitched a pavilion, with golden tassels, for the captain upon the deck, and then went, all but the helmsman, under a sail that they had hung as an awning between two masts. Then they told tales to one another, each of his own city or of the miracles of his god, until all were fallen asleep. The captain offered me the shade of his pavilion with the gold tassels, and there we talked for awhile, he telling me that he was taking merchandise to Perdóndaris, and that he would take back to fair Belzoond things appertaining to the affairs of the sea. Then, as I watched through the pavilion’s opening the brilliant birds and butterflies that crossed and recrossed over the river, I fell asleep, and dreamed that I was a monarch entering his capital underneath arches of flags, and all the musicians of the world were there, playing melodiously their instruments; but no one cheered.
In the afternoon, as the day grew cooler again, I awoke and found the captain buckling on his scimitar, which he had taken off him while he rested.
And now we were approaching the wide court of Astahahn, which opens upon the river. Strange boats of antique design were chained there to the steps. As we neared it we saw the open marble court, on three sides of which stood the city fronting on colonnades. And in the court and along the colonnades the people of that city walked with solemnity and care according to the rites of ancient ceremony. All in that city was of ancient device; the carving on the houses, which, when age had broken it, remained unrepaired, was of the remotest times, and everywhere were represented in stone beasts that have long since passed away from Earth—the dragon, the griffin, and the hippogriffin, and the different species of gargoyle. Nothing was to be found, whether material or custom, that was new in Astahahn. Now they took no notice at all of us as we went by, but continued their processions and ceremonies in the ancient city, and the sailors, knowing their custom, took no notice of them. But I called, as we came near, to one who stood beside the water’s edge, asking him what men did in Astahahn and what their merchandise was, and with whom they traded. He said, “Here we have fettered and manacled Time, who would otherwise slay the gods.”
I asked him what gods they worshipped in that city, and he said, “All those gods whom Time has not yet slain.” Then he turned from me and would say no more, but busied himself in behaving in accordance with ancient custom. And so, according to the will of Yann, we drifted onwards and left Astahahn. The river widened below Astahahn, and we found in greater quantities such birds as prey on fishes. And they were very wonderful in their plumage, and they came not out of the jungle, but flew, with their long necks stretched out before them, and their legs lying on the wind behind, straight up the river over the mid-stream.
And now the evening began to gather in. A thick white mist had appeared over the river, and was softly rising higher. It clutched at the trees with long impalpable arms, it rose higher and higher, chilling the air; and white shapes moved away into the jungle as though the ghosts of shipwrecked mariners were searching stealthily in the darkness for the spirits of evil that long ago had wrecked them on the Yann.
As the sun sank behind the field of orchids that grew on the matted summit of the jungle, the river monsters came wallowing out of the slime in which they had reclined during the heat of the day, and the great beasts of the jungle came down to drink. The butterflies a while since were gone to rest. In little narrow tributaries that we passed night seemed already to have fallen, though the sun which had disappeared from us had not yet set.
And now the birds of the jungle came flying home far over us, with the sunlight glistening pink upon their breasts, and lowered their pinions as soon as they saw the Yann, and dropped into the trees. And the widgeon began to go up the river in great companies, all whistling, and then would suddenly wheel and all go down again. And there shot by us the small and arrow-like teal; and we heard the manifold cries of flocks of geese, which the sailors told me had recently come in from crossing over the Lispasian ranges; every year they come by the same way, close by the peak of Mluna, leaving it to the left, and the mountain eagles know the way they come and—men say—the very hour, and every year they expect them by the same way as soon as the snows have fallen upon the Northern Plains. But soon it grew so dark that we saw these birds no more, and only heard the whirring of their wings, and of countless others besides, until they all settled down along the banks of the river, and it was the hour when the birds of the night went forth. Then the sailors lit the lanterns for the night, and huge moths appeared, flapping about the ship, and at moments their gorgeous colours would be revealed by the lanterns, then they would pass into the night again, where all was black. And again the sailors prayed, and thereafter we supped and slept, and the helmsman took our lives into his care.
When I awoke I found that we had indeed come to Perdóndaris, that famous city. For there it stood upon the left of us, a city fair and notable, and all the more pleasant for our eyes to see after the jungle that was so long with us. And we were anchored by the market-place, and the captain’s merchandise was all displayed, and a merchant of Perdóndaris stood looking at it. And the captain had his scimitar in his hand, and was beating with it in anger upon the deck, and the splinters were flying up from the white planks; for the merchant had offered him a price for his merchandise that the captain declared to be an insult to himself and his country’s gods, whom he now said to be great and terrible gods, whose curses were to be dreaded. But the merchant waved his hands, which were of great fatness, showing the pink palms, and swore that of himself he thought not at all, but only of the poor folk in the huts beyond the city to whom he wished to sell the merchandise for as low a price as possible, leaving no remuneration for himself. For the merchandise was mostly the thick toomarund carpets that in the winter keep the wind from the floor, and tollub which the people smoke in pipes. Therefore the merchant said if he offered a piffek more the poor folk must go without their toomarunds when the winter came, and without their tollub in the evenings, or else he and his aged father must starve together. Thereat the captain lifted his scimitar to his own throat, saying that he was now a ruined man, and that nothing remained to him but death. And while he was carefully lifting his beard with his left hand, the merchant eyed the merchandise again, and said that rather than see so worthy a captain die, a man for whom he had conceived an especial love when first he saw the manner in which he handled his ship, he and his aged father should starve together and therefore he offered fifteen piffeks more.
When he said this the captain prostrated himself and prayed to his gods that they might yet sweeten this merchant’s bitter heart—to his little lesser gods, to the gods that bless Belzoond.
At last the merchant offered yet five piffeks more. Then the captain wept, for he said that he was deserted of his gods; and the merchant also wept, for he said that he was thinking of his aged father, and of how he soon would starve, and he hid his weeping face with both his hands, and eyed the tollub again between his fingers. And so the bargain was concluded, and the merchant took the toomarund and tollub, paying for them out of a great clinking purse. And these were packed up into bales again, and three of the merchant’s slaves carried them upon their heads into the city. And all the while the sailors had sat silent, cross-legged in a crescent upon the deck, eagerly watching the bargain, and now a murmur of satisfaction arose among them, and they began to compare it among themselves with other bargains that they had known. And I found out from them that there are seven merchants in Perdóndaris, and that they had all come to the captain one by one before the bargaining began, and each had warned him privately against the others. And to all the merchants the captain had offered the wine of his own country, that they make in fair Belzoond, but could in no wise persuade them to it. But now that the bargain was over, and the sailors were seated at the first meal of the day, the captain appeared among them with a cask of that wine, and we broached it with care and all made merry together. And the captain was glad in his heart because he knew that he had much honour in the eyes of his men because of the bargain that he had made. So the sailors drank the wine of their native land, and soon their thoughts were back in fair Belzoond and the little neighbouring cities of Durl and Duz.
But for me the captain poured into a little glass some heavy yellow wine from a small jar which he kept apart among his sacred things. Thick and sweet it was, even like honey, yet there was in its heart a mighty, ardent fire which had authority over souls of men. It was made, the captain told me, with great subtlety by the secret craft of a family of six who lived in a hut on the mountains of Hian Min. Once in these mountains, he said, he followed the spoor of a bear, and he came suddenly on a man of that family who had hunted the same bear, and he was at the end of a narrow way with precipice all about him, and his spear was sticking in the bear, and the wound not fatal, and he had no other weapon. And the bear was walking towards the man, very slowly because his wound irked him—yet he was now very close. And what the captain did he would not say, but every year as soon as the snows are hard, and travelling is easy on the Hian Min, that man comes down to the market in the plains, and always leaves for the captain in the gate of fair Belzoond a vessel of that priceless secret wine.
And as I sipped the wine and the captain talked, I remembered me of stalwart noble things that I had long since resolutely planned, and my soul seemed to grow mightier within me and to dominate the whole tide of the Yann. It may be that I then slept. Or, if I did not, I do not now minutely recollect every detail of that morning’s occupations. Towards evening, I awoke and wishing to see Perdóndaris before we left in the morning, and being unable to wake the captain, I went ashore alone. Certainly Perdóndaris was a powerful city; it was encompassed by a wall of great strength and altitude, having in it hollow ways for troops to walk in, and battlements along it all the way, and fifteen strong towers on it in every mile, and copper plaques low down where men could read them, telling in all the languages of those parts of the Earth—one language on each plaque—the tale of how an army once attacked Perdóndaris and what befel that army. Then I entered Perdóndaris and found all the people dancing, clad in brilliant silks, and playing on the tambang as they danced. For a fearful thunderstorm had terrified them while I slept, and the fires of death, they said, had danced over Perdóndaris, and now the thunder had gone leaping away large and black and hideous, they said, over the distant hills, and had turned round snarling at them, showing his gleaming teeth, and had stamped, as he went, upon the hilltops until they rang as though they had been bronze. And often and again they stopped in their merry dances and prayed to the God they knew not, saying, “O, God that we know not, we thank Thee for sending the thunder back to his hills.” And I went on and came to the market-place, and lying there upon the marble pavement I saw the merchant fast asleep and breathing heavily, with his face and the palms of his hands towards the sky, and slaves were fanning him to keep away the flies. And from the market-place I came to a silver temple and then to a palace of onyx, and there were many wonders in Perdóndaris, and I would have stayed and seen them all, but as I came to the outer wall of the city I suddenly saw in it a huge ivory gate. For a while I paused and admired it, then I came nearer and perceived the dreadful truth. The gate was carved out of one solid piece!
I fled at once through the gateway and down to the ship, and even as I ran I thought that I heard far off on the hills behind me the tramp of the fearful beast by whom that mass of ivory was shed, who was perhaps even then looking for his other tusk. When I was on the ship again I felt safer, and I said nothing to the sailors of what I had seen.
And now the captain was gradually awakening. Now night was rolling up from the East and North, and only the pinnacles of the towers of Perdóndaris still took the fallen sunlight. Then I went to the captain and told him quietly of the thing I had seen. And he questioned me at once about the gate, in a low voice, that the sailors might not know; and I told him how the weight of the thing was such that it could not have been brought from afar, and the captain knew that it had not been there a year ago. We agreed that such a beast could never have been killed by any assault of man, and that the gate must have been a fallen tusk, and one fallen near and recently. Therefore he decided that it were better to flee at once; so he commanded, and the sailors went to the sails, and others raised the anchor to the deck, and just as the highest pinnacle of marble lost the last rays of the sun we left Perdóndaris, that famous city. And night came down and cloaked Perdóndaris and hid it from our eyes, which as things have happened will never see it again; for I have heard since that something swift and wonderful has suddenly wrecked Perdóndaris in a day—towers, and walls, and people.
And the night deepened over the River Yann, a night all white with stars. And with the night there rose the helmsman’s song. As soon as he had prayed he began to sing to cheer himself all through the lonely night. But first he prayed, praying the helmsman’s prayer. And this is what I remember of it, rendered into English with a very feeble equivalent of the rhythm that seemed so resonant in those tropic nights.
To whatever god may hear.
Wherever there be sailors whether of river or sea: whether their way be dark or whether through storm: whether their peril be of beast or of rock: or from enemy lurking on land or pursuing on sea: wherever the tiller is cold or the helmsman stiff: wherever sailors sleep or helmsmen watch: guard, guide, and return us to the old land, that has known us: to the far homes that we know.
To all the gods that are.
To whatever god may hear.
So he prayed, and there was silence. And the sailors laid them down to rest for the night. The silence deepened, and was only broken by the ripples of Yann that lightly touched our prow. Sometimes some monster of the river coughed.
Silence and ripples, ripples and silence again.
And then his loneliness came upon the helmsman, and he began to sing. And he sang the market songs of Durl and Duz, and the old dragon-legends of Belzoond.
Many a song he sang, telling to spacious and exotic Yann the little tales and trifles of his city of Durl. And the songs welled up over the black jungle and came into the clear cold air above, and the great bands of stars that look on Yann began to know the affairs of Durl and Duz, and of the shepherds that dwelt in the fields between, and the flocks that they had, and the loves that they had loved, and all the little things that they hoped to do. And as I lay wrapped up in skins and blankets, listening to those songs, and watching the fantastic shapes of the great trees like to black giants stalking through the night, I suddenly fell asleep.
When I awoke great mists were trailing away from the Yann. And the flow of the river was tumbling now tumultuously, and little waves appeared; for Yann had scented from afar the ancient crags of Glorm, and knew that their ravines lay cool before him wherein he should meet the merry wild Irillion rejoicing from fields of snow. So he shook off from him the torpid sleep that had come upon him in the hot and scented jungle, and forgot its orchids and its butterflies, and swept on turbulent, expectant, strong; and soon the snowy peaks of the Hills of Glorm came glittering into view. And now the sailors were waking up from sleep. Soon we all eat, and then the helmsman laid him down to sleep while a comrade took his place, and they all spread over him their choicest furs.
And in a while we heard the sound that the Irillion made as she came down dancing from the fields of snow.
And then we saw the ravine in the Hills of Glorm lying precipitous and smooth before us, into which we were carried by the leaps of Yann. And now we left the steamy jungle and breathed the mountain air; the sailors stood up and took deep breaths of it, and thought of their own far-off Acroctian hills on which were Durl and Duz—below them in the plains stands fair Belzoond.
A great shadow brooded between the cliffs of Glorm, but the crags were shining above us like gnarled moons, and almost lit the gloom. Louder and louder came the Irillion’s song, and the sound of her dancing down from the fields of snow. And soon we saw her white and full of mists, and wreathed with rainbows delicate and small that she had plucked up near the mountain’s summit from some celestial garden of the Sun. Then she went away seawards with the huge grey Yann and the ravine widened, and opened upon the world, and our rocking ship came through to the light of the day.
And all that morning and all the afternoon we passed through the marshes of Pondoovery; and Yann widened there, and flowed solemnly and slowly, and the captain bade the sailors beat on bells to overcome the dreariness of the marshes.
At last the Irusian mountains came in sight, nursing the villages of Pen-Kai and Blut, and the wandering streets of Mlo, where priests propitiate the avalanche with wine and maize. Then night came down over the plains of Tlun, and we saw the lights of Cappadarnia. We heard the Pathnites beating upon drums as we passed Imaut and Golzunda, then all but the helmsman slept. And villages scattered along the banks of the Yann heard all that night in the helmsman’s unknown tongue the little songs of cities that they knew not.
I awoke before dawn with a feeling that I was unhappy before I remembered why. Then I recalled that by the evening of the approaching day, according to all foreseen probabilities, we should come to Bar-Wul-Yann, and I should part from the captain and his sailors. And I had liked the man because he had given me of his yellow wine that was set apart among his sacred things, and many a story he had told me about his fair Belzoond between the Acroctian hills and the Hian Min. And I had liked the ways that his sailors had, and the prayers that they prayed at evening side by side, grudging not one another their alien gods. And I had a liking too for the tender way in which they often spoke of Durl and Duz, for it is good that men should love their native cities and the little hills that hold those cities up.
And I had come to know who would meet them when they returned to their homes, and where they thought the meetings would take place, some in a valley of the Acroctian hills where the road comes up from Yann, others in the gateway of one or another of the three cities, and others by the fireside in the home. And I thought of the danger that had menaced us all alike outside Perdóndaris, a danger that, as things have happened, was very real.
And I thought too of the helmsman’s cheery song in the cold and lonely night, and how he had held our lives in his careful hands. And as I thought of this the helmsman ceased to sing, and I looked up and saw a pale light had appeared in the sky, and the lonely night had passed; and the dawn widened, and the sailors awoke.
And soon we saw the tide of the Sea himself advancing resolute between Yann’s borders, and Yann sprang lithely at him and they struggled awhile; then Yann and all that was his were pushed back northward, so that the sailors had to hoist the sails and, the wind being favourable, we still held onwards.
And we passed Góndara and Narl and Haz. And we saw memorable, holy Golnuz, and heard the pilgrims praying.
When we awoke after the midday rest we were coming near to Nen, the last of the cities on the River Yann. And the jungle was all about us once again, and about Nen; but the great Mloon ranges stood up over all things, and watched the city from beyond the jungle.
Here we anchored, and the captain and I went up into the city and found that the Wanderers had come into Nen.
And the Wanderers were a weird, dark tribe, that once in every seven years came down from the peaks of Mloon, having crossed by a pass that is known to them from some fantastic land that lies beyond. And the people of Nen were all outside their houses, and all stood wondering at their own streets. For the men and women of the Wanderers had crowded all the ways, and every one was doing some strange thing. Some danced astounding dances that they had learned from the desert wind, rapidly curving and swirling till the eye could follow no longer. Others played upon instruments beautiful wailing tunes that were full of horror, which souls had taught them lost by night in the desert, that strange far desert from which the Wanderers came.
None of their instruments were such as were known in Nen nor in any part of the region of the Yann; even the horns out of which some were made were of beasts that none had seen along the river, for they were barbed at the tips. And they sang, in the language of none, songs that seemed to be akin to the mysteries of night and to the unreasoned fear that haunts dark places.
Bitterly all the dogs of Nen distrusted them. And the Wanderers told one another fearful tales, for though no one in Nen knew ought of their language yet they could see the fear on the listeners’ faces, and as the tale wound on the whites of their eyes showed vividly in terror as the eyes of some little beast whom the hawk has seized. Then the teller of the tale would smile and stop, and another would tell his story, and the teller of the first tale’s lips would chatter with fear. And if some deadly snake chanced to appear the Wanderers would greet him as a brother, and the snake would seem to give his greetings to them before he passed on again. Once that most fierce and lethal of tropic snakes, the giant lythra, came out of the jungle and all down the street, the central street of Nen, and none of the Wanderers moved away from him, but they all played sonorously on drums, as though he had been a person of much honour; and the snake moved through the midst of them and smote none.
Even the Wanderers’ children could do strange things, for if any one of them met with a child of Nen the two would stare at each other in silence with large grave eyes; then the Wanderers’ child would slowly draw from his turban a live fish or snake. And the children of Nen could do nothing of that kind at all.
Much I should have wished to stay and hear the hymn with which they greet the night, that is answered by the wolves on the heights of Mloon, but it was now time to raise the anchor again that the captain might return from Bar-Wul-Yann upon the landward tide. So we went on board and continued down the Yann. And the captain and I spoke little, for we were thinking of our parting, which should be for long, and we watched instead the splendour of the westerning sun. For the sun was a ruddy gold, but a faint mist cloaked the jungle, lying low, and into it poured the smoke of the little jungle cities, and the smoke of them met together in the mist and joined into one haze, which became purple, and was lit by the sun, as the thoughts of men become hallowed by some great and sacred thing. Some times one column from a lonely house would rise up higher than the cities’ smoke, and gleam by itself in the sun.
And now as the sun’s last rays were nearly level, we saw the sight that I had come to see, for from two mountains that stood on either shore two cliffs of pink marble came out into the river, all glowing in the light of the low sun, and they were quite smooth and of mountainous altitude, and they nearly met, and Yann went tumbling between them and found the sea.
And this was Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate of Yann, and in the distance through that barrier’s gap I saw the azure indescribable sea, where little fishing-boats went gleaming by.
And the sun set, and the brief twilight came, and the exultation of the glory of Bar-Wul-Yann was gone, yet still the pink cliffs glowed, the fairest marvel that the eye beheld—and this in a land of wonders. And soon the twilight gave place to the coming out of stars, and the colours of Bar-Wul-Yann went dwindling away. And the sight of those cliffs was to me as some chord of music that a master’s hand had launched from the violin, and which carries to Heaven or Faëry the tremulous spirits of men.
And now by the shore they anchored and went no further, for they were sailors of the river and not of the sea, and knew the Yann but not the tides beyond.
And the time was come when the captain and I must part, he to go back again to his fair Belzoond in sight of the distant peaks of the Hian Min, and I to find my way by strange means back to those hazy fields that all poets know, wherein stand small mysterious cottages through whose windows, looking westwards, you may see the fields of men, and looking eastwards see glittering elfin mountains, tipped with snow, going range on range into the region of Myth, and beyond it into the kingdom of Fantasy, which pertain to the Lands of Dream. Long we regarded one another, knowing that we should meet no more, for my fancy is weakening as the years slip by, and I go ever more seldom into the Lands of Dream. Then we clasped hands, uncouthly on his part, for it is not the method of greeting in his country, and he commended my soul to the care of his own gods, to his little lesser gods, the humble ones, to the gods that bless Belzoond.
A Shop in Go-by Street
I said I must go back to Yann again and see if Bird of the River still plies up and down and whether her bearded captain commands her still or whether he sits in the gate of fair Belzoond drinking at evening the marvellous yellow wine that the mountaineer brings down from the Hian Min. And I wanted to see the sailors again who came from Durl and Duz and to hear from their lips what befell Perdóndaris when its doom came up without warning from the hills and fell on that famous city. And I wanted to hear the sailors pray at night each one to his own god, and to feel the wind of the evening coolly arise when the sun went flaming away from that exotic river. For I thought never again to see the tide of Yann, but when I gave up politics not long ago8 the wings of my fancy strengthened, though they had erstwhile drooped, and I had hopes of coming behind the East once more where Yann like a proud white war-horse goes through the Lands of Dream.
Yet had I forgotten the way to those little cottages on the edge of the fields we know whose upper windows, though dim with antique cobwebs, look out on the fields we know not and are the starting-point of all adventure in all the Lands of Dream.
I therefore made enquiries. And so I came to be directed to the shop of a dreamer who lives not far from the Embankment in the City. Among so many streets as there are in the city it is little wonder that there is one that has never been seen before: it is named Go-by Street and runs out of the Strand if you look very closely. Now when you enter this man’s shop you do not go straight to the point but you ask him to sell you something, and if it is anything with which he can supply you he hands it you and wishes you good-morning. It is his way. And many have been deceived by asking for some unlikely thing, such as the oyster-shell from which was taken one of those single pearls that made the gates of Heaven in Revelations,9 and finding that the old man had it in stock.
He was comatose when I went into his shop, his heavy lids almost covered his little eyes; he sat, and his mouth was open. I said “I want some of Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus.” “How much?” he said. “Two and a half yards of each, to be delivered at my flat.” “That is very tiresome,” he muttered, “very tiresome. We do not stock it in that quantity.” “Then I will take all you have,” I said.
He rose laboriously and looked among some bottles. I saw one labelled “Nilos, river of Aegyptos” and others Holy Ganges, Phlegethon, Jordan; I was almost afraid he had it, when I heard him mutter again, “This is very tiresome,” and presently he said, “We are out of it.” “Then,” I said, “I wish you to tell me the way to those little cottages in whose upper chambers poets look out upon the fields we know not, for I wish to go into the Lands of Dream and to sail once more upon mighty, sea-like Yann.”
At that he moved heavily and slowly in way-worn carpet slippers, panting as he went, to the back part of his shop, and I went with him. This was a dingy lumber-room full of idols: the near end was dingy and dark but at the far end was a blue caerulean glow in which stars seemed to be shining and the heads of the idols glowed. “This,” said the fat old man in carpet slippers, “is the heaven of the gods who sleep.” I asked him what gods slept and he mentioned names that I had never heard as well as names that I knew. “All those,” he said, “that are not worshipped now are asleep.”
“Then does Time not kill the gods?” I said to him and he answered, “No. But for three or four thousand years a god is worshipped and for three or four he sleeps. Only Time is wakeful always.”
“But they that teach us of new gods”—I said to him, “are they not new?”
“They hear the old ones stirring in their sleep being about to wake, because the dawn is breaking and the priests crow. These are the happy prophets: unhappy are they that hear some old god speak while he sleeps being still deep in slumber, and prophesy and prophesy and no dawn comes, they are those that men stone saying, ‘Prophesy where this stone shall hit you, and this.’ ”
“Then shall Time never slay the gods,” I said. And he answered, “They shall die by the bedside of the last man. Then Time shall go mad in his solitude and shall not know his hours from his centuries of years and they shall clamour round him crying for recognition and he shall lay his stricken hands on their heads and stare at them blindly and say, ‘My children, I do not know you one from another,’ and at these words of Time empty worlds shall reel.”
And for some while then I was silent, for my imagination went out into those far years and looked back at me and mocked me because I was the creature of a day.
Suddenly I was aware by the old man’s heavy breathing that he had gone to sleep. It was not an ordinary shop: I feared lest one of his gods should wake and call for him: I feared many things, it was so dark, and one or two of those idols were something more than grotesque. I shook the old man hard by one of his arms.
“Tell me the way to the cottages,” I said, “on the edge of the fields we know.”
“I don’t think we can do that,” he said.
“Then supply me,” I said, “with the goods.”
That brought him to his senses. He said, “You go out by the back door and turn to the right”; and he opened a little, old, dark door in the wall through which I went, and he wheezed and shut the door. The back of the shop was of incredible age. I saw in antique characters upon a mouldering board, “Licensed to sell weasels and jade earrings.” The sun was setting now and shone on little golden spires that gleamed along the roof which had long ago been thatched and with a wonderful straw. I saw that the whole of Go-by Street had the same strange appearance when looked at from behind. The pavement was the same as the pavement of which I was weary and of which so many thousand miles lay the other side of those houses, but the street was of most pure untrampled grass with such marvellous flowers in it that they lured downward from great heights the flocks of butterflies as they travelled by, going I know not whence. The other side of the street there was pavement again but no houses of any kind, and what there was in place of them I did not stop to see, for I turned to my right and walked along the back of Go-by Street till I came to the open fields and the gardens of the cottages that I sought. Huge flowers went up out of these gardens like slow rockets and burst into purple blooms and stood there huge and radiant on six-foot stalks and softly sang strange songs. Others came up beside them and bloomed and began singing too. A very old witch came out of her cottage by the back door and into the garden in which I stood.
“What are these wonderful flowers?” I said to her.
“Hush! Hush!” she said, “I am putting the poets to bed. These flowers are their dreams.”
And in a lower voice I said: “What wonderful song are they singing?” and she said, “Be still and listen.”
And I listened and found they were singing of my own childhood and of things that happened there so far away that I had quite forgotten them till I heard the wonderful song.
“Why is the song so faint?” I said to her.
“Dead voices,” she said, “dead voices,” and turned back again to her cottage saying: “Dead voices” still, but softly for fear that she should wake the poets. “They sleep so badly while they live,” she said.
I stole on tiptoe upstairs to the little room from whose windows, looking one way, we see the fields we know and, looking another, those hilly lands that I sought—almost I feared not to find them. I looked at once toward the mountains of faëry; the afterglow of the sunset flamed on them, their avalanches flashed on their violet slopes coming down tremendous from emerald peaks of ice; and there was the old gap in the blue-grey hills above the precipice of amethyst whence one sees the Lands of Dream.
All was still in the room where the poets slept when I came quietly down. The old witch sat by a table with a lamp, knitting a splendid cloak of gold and green for a king that had been dead a thousand years.
“Is it any use,” I said “to the king that is dead that you sit and knit him a cloak of gold and green?”
“Who knows?” she said.
“What a silly question to ask,” said her old black cat who lay curled by the fluttering fire.
Already the stars were shining on that romantic land when I closed the witch’s door; already the glow-worms were mounting guard for the night around those magical cottages. I turned and trudged for the gap in the blue-grey mountains.
Already when I arrived some colour began to show in the amethyst precipice below the gap although it was not yet morning. I heard a rattling and sometimes caught a flash from those golden dragons far away below me that are the triumph of the goldsmiths of Sirdoo and were given life by the ritual incantations of the conjurer Amargrarn. On the edge of the opposite cliff, too near I thought for safety, I saw the ivory palace of Singanee that mighty elephant-hunter; small lights appeared in windows, the slaves were awake, and beginning with heavy eyelids the work of the day.
And now a ray of sunlight topped the world. Others than I must describe how it swept from the amethyst cliff the shadow of the black one that opposed it, how that one shaft of sunlight pierced the amethyst for leagues, and how the rejoicing colour leaped up to welcome the light and shot back a purple glow on the walls of the palace of ivory while down in that incredible ravine the golden dragons still played in the darkness.
At this moment a female slave came out by a door of the palace and tossed a basketfull of sapphires over the edge. And when day was manifest on those marvellous heights and the flare of the amethyst precipice filled the abyss, then the elephant-hunter arose in his ivory palace and took his terrific spear and going out by a landward door went forth to avenge Perdóndaris.
I turned then and looked upon the Lands of Dream, and the thin white mist that never rolls quite away was shifting in the morning. Rising like isles above it I saw the Hills of Hap and the city of copper, old, deserted Bethmoora, and Utnar Véhi and Kyph and Mandaroon and the wandering leagues of Yann. Rather I guessed than saw the Hian Min whose imperturbable and aged heads scarce recognize for more than clustered mounds the round Acroctian hills, that are heaped about their feet and that shelter, as I remembered, Durl and Duz. But most clearly I discerned that ancient wood through which one going down to the bank of Yann whenever the moon is old may come on Bird of the River anchored there, waiting three days for travellers, as has been prophesied of her. And as it was now that season I hurried down from the gap in the blue-grey hills by an elfin path that was coeval with fable, and came by means of it to the edge of the wood. Black though the darkness was in that ancient wood the beasts that moved in it were blacker still. It is very seldom that any dreamer travelling in Lands of Dream is ever seized by these beasts, and yet I ran; for if a man’s spirit is seized in the Lands of Dream his body may survive it for many years and well know the beasts that mouthed him far away and the look in their little eyes and the smell of their breath; that is why the recreation field at Hanwell10 is so dreadfully trodden into restless paths.
And so I came at last to the sea-like flood of proud, tremendous Yann, with whom there tumbled streams from incredible lands—with these he went by singing. Singing he carried drift-wood and whole trees, fallen in far-away, unvisited forests, and swept them mightily by; but no sign was there either out in the river or in the olden anchorage near by of the ship I came to see.
And I built myself a hut and roofed it over with the huge abundant leaves of a marvellous weed and ate the meat that grows on the targar-tree and waited there three days. And all day long the river tumbled by and all night long the tolulu-bird sang on and the huge fireflies had no other care than to pour past in torrents of dancing sparks, and nothing rippled the surface of Yann by day and nothing disturbed the tolulu-bird by night. I know not what I feared for the ship I sought and its friendly captain who came from fair Belzoond and its cheery sailors out of Durl and Duz; all day long I looked for it on the river and listened for it by night until the dancing fireflies danced me to sleep. Three times only in those three nights the tolulu-bird was soared and stopped his song, and each time I awoke with a start and found no ship and saw that he was only scared by the dawn. Those indescribable dawns upon the Yann came up like flames in some land over the hills where a magician burns by secret means enormous amethysts in a copper pot. I used to watch them in wonder while no bird sang—till all of a sudden the sun came over a hill and every bird but one began to sing, and the tolulu-bird slept fast, till out of an opening eye he saw the stars.
I would have waited there for many days, but on the third day I had gone in my loneliness to see the very spot where first I met Bird of the River at her anchorage with her bearded captain sitting on the deck. And as I looked at the black mud of the harbour and pictured in my mind that band of sailors whom I had not seen for two years, I saw an old hulk peeping from the mud. The lapse of centuries seemed partly to have rotted and partly to have buried in the mud all but the prow of the boat and on the prow I faintly saw a name. I read it slowly—it was Bird of the River. And then I knew that, while in Ireland and London two years had barely passed over my head, ages had gone over the region of Yann and wrecked and rotted that once familiar ship, and buried years ago the bones of the youngest of my friends, who so often sang to me of Durl and Duz or told the dragon-legends of Belzoond. For beyond the world we know there roars a hurricane of centuries whose echo only troubles—though sorely—our fields; while elsewhere there is calm.
I stayed a moment by that battered hulk and said a prayer for whatever may be immortal of those who were wont to sail it down the Yann, and I prayed for them to the gods to whom they loved to pray, to the little lesser gods that bless Belzoond. Then leaving the hut that I built to those ravenous years I turned my back to the Yann and entering the forest at evening just as its orchids were opening their petals to perfume the night came out of it in the morning, and passed that day along the amethyst gulf by the gap in the blue-grey mountains. I wondered if Singanee, that mighty elephant-hunter, had returned again with his spear to his lofty ivory palace or if his doom had been one with that of Perdóndaris. I saw a merchant at a small back door selling new sapphires as I passed the palace, then I went on and came as twilight fell to those small cottages where the elfin mountains are in sight of the fields we know. And I went to the old witch that I had seen before and she sat in her parlour with a red shawl round her shoulders still knitting the golden cloak, and faintly through one of her windows the elfin mountains shone and I saw again through another the fields we know.
“Tell me something,” I said, “of this strange land?”
“How much do you know?” she said. “Do you know that dreams are illusion?”
“Of course I do,” I said. “Every one knows that.”
“Oh no they don’t,” she said, “the mad don’t know it.”
“That is true,” I said.
“And do you know,” she said, “that Life is illusion?”
“Of course it is not,” I said, “Life is real, Life is earnest—.”
At that both the witch and her cat (who had not moved from her old place by the hearth) burst into laughter. I stayed some time, for there was much that I wished to ask, but when I saw that the laughter would not stop I turned and went away.
The Avenger of Perdóndaris
I was rowing on the Thames not many days after my return from the Yann and drifting eastwards with the fall of the tide away from Westminster Bridge, near which I had hired my boat. All kinds of things were on the water with me,—sticks drifting, and huge boats—and I was watching, so absorbed, the traffic of that great river that I did not notice I had come to the City until I looked up and saw that part of the Embankment that is nearest to Go-by Street. And then I suddenly wondered what befell Singanee, for there was a stillness about his ivory palace when last I passed it by, which made me think that he had not then returned. And though I had seen him go forth with his terrific spear, and mighty elephant-hunter though he was, yet his was a fearful quest for I knew that it was none other than to avenge Perdóndaris by slaying that monster with the single tusk who had overthrown it suddenly in a day. So I tied up my boat as soon as I came to some steps, and landed and left the Embankment, and about the third street I came to I began to look for the opening of Go-by Street; it is very narrow, you hardly notice it at first, but there it was, and soon I was in the old man’s shop. But a young man leaned over the counter. He had no information to give me about the old man—he was sufficient in himself. As to the little old door in the back of the shop, “We know nothing about that, sir.” So I had to talk to him and humour him. He had for sale on the counter an instrument for picking up a lump of sugar in a new way. He was pleased when I looked at it and he began to praise it. I asked him what was the use of it, and he said that it was of no use but that it had only been invented a week ago and was quite new and was made of real silver and was being very much bought. But all the while I was straying towards the back of the shop. When I enquired about the idols there he said that they were some of the season’s novelties and were a choice selection of mascots; and while I made pretence of selecting one I suddenly saw the wonderful old door. I was through it at once and the young shop-keeper after me. No one was more surprised than he when he saw the street of grass and the purple flowers in it; he ran across in his frock-coat on to the opposite pavement and only just stopped in time, for the world ended there. Looking downward over the pavement’s edge he saw, instead of accustomed kitchen-windows, white clouds and a wide, blue sky. I led him to the old back door of the shop, looking pale and in need of air, and pushed him lightly and he went limply through, for I thought that the air was better for him on the side of the street that he knew. As soon as the door was shut on that astonished man I turned to the right and went along the street till I saw the gardens and the cottages, and a little red patch moving in a garden, which I knew to be the old witch wearing her shawl.
“Come for a change of illusion again?” she said.
“I have come from London,” I said. “And I want to see Singanee. I want to go to his ivory palace over the elfin mountains where the amethyst precipice is.”
“Nothing like changing your illusions, she said, “or you grow tired. London’s a fine place but one wants to see the elfin mountains sometimes.”
“Then you know London?” I said.
“Of course I do,” she said. “I can dream as well as you. You are not the only person that can imagine London.” Men were toiling dreadfully in her garden; it was in the heat of the day and they were digging with spades; she suddenly turned from me to beat one of them over the back with a long black stick that she carried. “Even my poets go to London sometimes,” she said to me.
“Why did you beat that man?” I said.
“To make him work,” she answered.
“But he is tired,” I said.
“Of course he is,” said she.
And I looked and saw that the earth was difficult and dry and that every spadeful that the tired men lifted was full of pearls; but some men sat quite still and watched the butterflies that flitted about the garden and the old witch did not beat them with her stick. And when I asked her who the diggers were she said, “They are my poets, they are digging for pearls.” And when I asked her what so many pearls were for she said to me: “To feed the pigs of course.”
“But do the pigs like pearls?” I said to her.
“Of course they don’t,” she said. And I would have pressed the matter further but that old black cat had come out of the cottage and was looking at me whimsically and saying nothing so that I knew I was asking silly questions. And I asked instead why some of the poets were idle and were watching butterflies without being beaten. And she said: “The butterflies know where the pearls are hidden and they are waiting for one to alight above the buried treasure. They cannot dig till they know where to dig.” And all of a sudden a faun came out of a rhododendron forest and began to dance upon a disk of bronze in which a fountain was set; and the sound of his two hooves dancing on the bronze was beautiful as bells.
“Tea-bell,” said the witch; and all the poets threw down their spades and followed her into the house, and I followed them; but the witch and all of us followed the black cat, who arched his back and lifted his tail and walked along the garden-path of blue enamelled tiles and through the black-thatched porch and the open, oaken door and into a little room where tea was ready. And in the garden the flowers began to sing and the fountain tinkled on the disk of bronze. And I learned that the fountain came from an otherwise unknown sea, and sometimes it threw gilded fragments up from the wrecks of unheard-of galleons, foundered in storms of some sea that was nowhere in the world; or battered to bits in wars waged with we know not whom. Some said that it was salt because of the sea and others that it was salt with mariners’ tears. And some of the poets took large flowers out of vases and threw their petals all about the room, and others talked two at a time and others sang. “Why they are only children after all,” I said.
“Only children!” repeated the witch who was pouring out cowslip wine.
“Only children,” said the old black cat. And every one laughed at me.
“I sincerely apologize,” I said. “I did not mean to say it. I did not intend to insult any one.”
“Why he knows nothing at all,” said the old black cat. And everybody laughed till the poets were put to bed.
And then I took one look at the fields we know, and turned to the other window that looks on the elfin mountains. And the evening looked like a sapphire. And I saw my way though the fields were growing dim, and when I had found it I went downstairs and through the witch’s parlour, and out of doors; and came that night to the palace of Singanee.
Lights glittered through every crystal slab—and all were uncurtained—in the palace of ivory. The sounds were those of a triumphant dance. Very haunting indeed was the booming of the bassoon, and like the dangerous advance of some galloping beast were the blows wielded by a powerful man on the huge, sonorous drum. It seemed to me as I listened that the contest of Singanee with the more than elephantine destroyer of Perdóndaris had already been set to music. And as I walked in the dark along the amethyst precipice I suddenly saw across it a curved white bridge. It was one ivory tusk. And I knew it for the triumph of Singanee. I knew at once that this curved mass of ivory that had been dragged by ropes to bridge the abyss was the twin of the ivory gate that once Perdóndaris had, and had itself been the destruction of that once famous city—towers and walls and people. Already men had begun to hollow it and to carve human figures life-size along its sides. I walked across it; and half way across, at the bottom of the curve, I met a few of the carvers fast asleep. On the opposite cliff by the palace lay the thickest end of the tusk and I came down by a ladder which leaned against the tusk for they had not yet carved steps.
Outside the ivory palace it was as I had supposed and the sentry at the gate slept heavily; and though I asked of him permission to enter the palace he only muttered a blessing on Singanee and fell asleep again. It was evident that he had been drinking bak. Inside the ivory hall I met with servitors who told me that any stranger was welcome there that night, because they extolled the triumph of Singanee. And they offered me bak to drink to commemorate his splendour but I did not know its power nor whether a little or much prevailed over a man so I said that I was under an oath to a god to drink nothing beautiful; and they asked me if he could not be appeased by prayer, and I said, “In nowise,” and went towards the dance; and they commiserated me and abused that god bitterly, thinking to please me thereby, and then they fell to drinking bak to the glory of Singanee. Outside the curtains that hung before the dance there stood a chamberlain and when I told him that though a stranger there, yet I was well known to Mung and Sish and Kib, the gods of Pegāna, whose signs I made, he bade me ample welcome. Therefore I questioned him about my clothes asking if they were not unsuitable to so august an occasion and he swore by the spear that had slain the destroyer of Perdóndaris that Singanee would think it a shameful thing that any stranger not unknown to the gods should enter the dancing hall unsuitably clad; and therefore he led me to another room and took silken robes out of an old sea-chest of black and seamy oak with green copper hasps that were set with a few pale sapphires, and requested me to choose a suitable robe. And I chose a bright green robe, with an under-robe of light blue which was seen here and there, and a light blue sword-belt. I also wore a cloak that was dark purple with two thin strips of dark-blue along the border and a row of large dark sapphires sewn along the purple between them; it hung down from my shoulders behind me. Nor would the chamberlain of Singanee let me take any less than this, for he said that not even a stranger, on that night, could be allowed to stand in the way of his master’s munificence which he was pleased to exercise in honour of his victory. As soon as I was attired we went to the dancing hall and the first thing that I saw in that tall, scintillant chamber was the huge form of Singanee standing among the dancers and the heads of the men no higher than his waist. Bare were the huge arms that had held the spear that had avenged Perdóndaris. The chamberlain led me to him and I bowed, and said that I gave thanks to the gods to whom he looked for protection; and he said that he had heard my gods well spoken of by those accustomed to pray but this he said only of courtesy, for he knew not whom they were.
Singanee was simply dressed and only wore on his head a plain gold band to keep his hair from falling over his forehead, the ends of the gold were tied at the back with a bow of purple silk. But all his queens wore crowns of great magnificence, though whether they were crowned as the queens of Singanee or whether queens were attracted there from the thrones of distant lands by the wonder of him and the splendour I did not know.
All there wore silken robes of brilliant colours and the feet of all were bare and very shapely for the custom of boots was unknown in those regions. And when they saw that my big toes were deformed in the manner of Europeans, turning inwards towards the others instead of being straight, one or two asked sympathetically if an accident had befallen me. And rather than tell them truly that deforming our big toes was our custom and our pleasure I told them that I was under the curse of a malignant god at whose feet I had neglected to offer berries in infancy. And to some extent I justified myself, for Convention is a god though his ways are evil; and had I told them the truth I would not have been understood. They gave me a lady to dance with who was of marvellous beauty, she told me that her name was Sāranoora a princess from the North, who had been sent as tribute to the palace of Singanee. And partly she danced as Europeans dance and partly as the fairies of the waste who lure, as legend has it, lost travellers to their doom. And if I could get thirty heathen men out of fantastic lands, with their long black hair and little elfin eyes and instruments of music even unknown to Nebuchadnezzar the King; and if I could make them play those tunes that I heard in the ivory palace on some lawn, gentle reader, at evening near your house then you would understand the beauty of Sāranoora and the blaze of light and colour in that stupendous hall and the lithesome movement of those mysterious queens that danced round Singanee. Then gentle reader you would be gentle no more but the thoughts that run like leopards over the far free lands would come leaping into your head even were it in London, yes, even in London: you would rise up then and beat your hands on the wall with its pretty pattern of flowers, in the hope that the bricks might break and reveal the way to that palace of ivory by the amethyst gulf where the golden dragons are. For there have been men who have burned prisons down that the prisoners might escape, and even such incendiaries those dark musicians are who dangerously burn down custom that the pining thoughts may go free. Let your elders have no fear, have no fear. I will not play those tunes in any streets we know. I will not bring those strange musicians here, I will only whisper the way to the Lands of Dream, and only a few frail feet shall find the way, and I shall dream alone of the beauty of Sāranoora and sometimes sigh. We danced on and on at the will of the thirty musicians, but when the stars were paling and the wind that knew the dawn was ruffling up the edge of the skirts of night, then Sāranoora the princess from the North led me out into a garden. Dark groves of trees were there which filled the night with perfume and guarded night’s mysteries from the arising dawn. There floated over us, wandering in that garden, the triumphant melody of those dark musicians, whose origin was unguessed even by those that dwelt there and knew the Lands of Dream. For only a moment once sang the tolulu-bird, for the festival of that night had seared him and he was silent. For a moment once we heard him singing in some far grove because the musicians rested and our bare feet made no sound; for a moment we heard that bird of which once our nightingale dreamed and handed on the tradition to his children. And Sāranoora told me that they have named the bird the Sister of Song; but for the musicians, who presently played again, she said they had no name, for no one knew who they were or from what country. Then some one sang quite near us in the darkness to an instrument of strings telling of Singanee and his battle against the monster. And soon we saw him sitting on the ground and singing to the night of that spear-thrust that had found the thumping heart of the destroyer of Perdóndaris; and we stopped awhile and asked him who had seen so memorable a struggle and he answered none but Singanee and he whose tusk had scattered Perdóndaris, and now the last was dead. And when we asked him if Singanee had told him of the struggle he said that that proud hunter would say no word about it and that therefore his mighty deed was given to the poets and become their trust forever, and he struck again his instrument of strings and so sang on.
When the strings of pearls that hung down from her neck began to gleam all over Sāranoora I knew that dawn was near and that that memorable night was all but gone. And at last we left the garden and came to the abyss to see the sunrise shine on the amethyst cliff. And first it lit up the beauty of Sāranoora and then it topped the world and blazed upon those cliffs of amethyst until it dazzled our eyes, and we turned from it and saw the workmen going along the tusk to hollow it and to carve a balustrade of fair processional figures. And those who had drunken bak began to awake and to open their dazzled eyes at the amethyst precipice and to rub them and turn them away. And now those wonderful kingdoms of song that the dark musicians established all night by magical chords dropped back again to the sway of that ancient silence who ruled before the gods, and the musicians wrapped their cloaks about them and covered up their marvellous instruments and stole away to the plains; and no one dared to ask them whither they went or why they dwelt there, or what god they served. And the dance stopped and all the queens departed. And then the female slave came out again by a door and emptied her basket of sapphires down the abyss as I saw her do before. Beautiful Sāranoora said that those great queens would never wear their sapphires more than once and that every day at noon a merchant from the mountains sold new ones for that evening. Yet I suspect that something more than extravagance lay at the back of that seemingly wasteful act of tossing sapphires into an abyss, for there were in the depths of it those two dragons of gold of whom nothing seemed to be known. And I thought, and I think so still, that Singanee, terrific though he was in war with the elephants, from whose tusks he had built his palace, well knew and even feared those dragons in the abyss, and perhaps valued those priceless jewels less than he valued his queens, and that he to whom so many lands paid beautiful tribute out of their dread of his spear, himself paid tribute to the golden dragons. Whether those dragons had wings I could not see; nor, if they had, could I tell if they could bear that weight of solid gold from the abyss; nor by what paths they could crawl from it did I know. And I know not what use to a golden dragon should sapphires be or a queen. Only it seemed strange to me that so much wealth of jewels should be thrown by command of a man who had nothing to fear—to fall flashing and changing their colours at dawn into an abyss.
I do not know how long we lingered there watching the sunrise on those miles of amethyst. And it is strange that that great and famous wonder did not move me more than it did, but my mind was dazzled by the fame of it and my eyes were actually dazzled by the blaze, and as often happens I thought more of little things and remember watching the daylight in the solitary sapphire that Sāranoora had and that she wore upon her finger in a ring. Then, the dawn wind being all about her, she said that she was cold and turned back into the ivory palace. And I feared that we might never meet again, for time moves differently over the Lands of Dream than over the fields we know; like ocean-currents going different ways and bearing drifting ships. And at the doorway of the ivory palace I turned to say farewell and yet I found no words that were suitable to say. And often now when I stand in other lands I stop and think of many things to have said; yet all I said was “Perhaps we shall meet again.” And she said that it was likely that we should often meet for that this was a little thing for the gods to permit, not knowing that the gods of the Lands of Dream have little power upon the fields we know. Then she went in through the doorway. And having exchanged for my own clothes again the raiment that the chamberlain had given me I turned from the hospitality of mighty Singanee and set my face towards the fields we know. I crossed that enormous tusk that had been the end of Perdóndaris and met the artists carving it as I went; and some by way of greeting as I passed extolled Singanee, and in answer I gave honour to his name. Daylight had not yet penetrated wholly to the bottom of the abyss but the darkness was giving place to a purple haze and I could faintly see one golden dragon there. Then looking once towards the ivory palace, and seeing no one at its windows, I turned sorrowfully away; and going by the way that I knew passed through the gap in the mountains and down their slopes till I came again in sight of the witch’s cottage. And as I went to the upper window to look for the fields we know, the witch spoke to me; but I was cross, as one newly waked from sleep, and I would not answer her. Then the cat questioned me as to whom I had met, and I answered him that in the fields we know cats kept their place and did not speak to man. And then I came downstairs and walked straight out of the door, heading for Go-by Street. “You are going the wrong way,” the witch called through the window; and indeed I had sooner gone back to the ivory palace again, but I had no right to trespass any further on the hospitality of Singanee and one cannot stay always in the Lands of Dream, and what knowledge had that old witch of the call of the fields we know or the little though many snares that bind our feet therein? So I paid no heed to her, but kept on, and came to Go-by Street. I saw the house with the green door some way up the street but thinking that the near end of the street was closer to the Embankment where I had left my boat I tried the first door I came to, a cottage thatched like the rest, with little golden spires along the roof-ridge, and strange birds sitting there and preening marvellous feathers. The door opened, and to my surprise I found myself in what seemed like a shepherd’s cottage; a man who was sitting on a log of wood in a little low dark room said something to me in an alien language, I muttered something and hurried through to the street. The house was thatched in front as well as behind. There were no golden spires in front, no marvellous birds; but there was no pavement. There was a row of houses, byres and barns but no other sign of a town. Far off I saw one or two little villages. Yet there was the river;—and no doubt the Thames, for it was of the width of the Thames and had the curves of it, if you can imagine the Thames in that particular spot without a city round it, without any bridges, and Embankment fallen in. I saw that there had happened to me permanently and in the light of day some such thing as happens to a man, but to a child more often, when he awakes before morning in some strange room and sees a high, grey window where the door ought to be and unfamiliar objects in wrong places and though knowing where he is yet knows not how it can be that the place should look like that.
A flock of sheep came by me presently looking the same as ever, but the man who led them had a wild, strange look. I spoke to him and he did not understand me. Then I went down to the river to see if my boat was there and at the very spot where I had left it, in the mud (for the tide was low) I saw a half-buried piece of blackened wood that might have been part of a boat, but I could not tell. I began to feel that I had missed the world. It would be a strange thing to travel from far away to see London and not to be able to find it among all the roads that lead there, but I seemed to have travelled in Time and to have missed it among the centuries. And when as I wandered over the grassy hills I came on a wattled shrine that was thatched with straw and saw a lion in it more worn with time than even the Sphinx at Gizeh and when I knew it for one of the four in Trafalgar Square then I saw that I was stranded far away in the future with many centuries of treacherous years between me and anything that I had known. And then I sat on the grass by the worn paws of the lion to think out what to do. And I decided to go back through Go-by Street and, since there was nothing left to keep me any more to the fields we know, to offer myself as a servant in the palace of Singanee, and to see again the face of Sāranoora and those famous, wonderful, amethystine dawns upon the abyss where the golden dragons play. And I stayed no longer to look for remains of the ruins of London; for there is little pleasure in seeing wonderful things if there is no one at all to hear of them and to wonder. So I returned at once to Go-by Street, the little row of huts, and saw no other record that London had been except that one stone lion. I went to the right house this time. It was very much altered and more like one of those huts that one sees on Salisbury plain than a shop in the city of London, but I found it by counting the houses in the street for it was still a row of houses though pavement and city were gone. And it was still a shop. A very different shop to the one I knew, but things were for sale there—shepherd’s crooks, food and rude axes. And a man with long hair was there who was clad in skins. I did not speak to him for I did not know his language. He said to me something that sounded like “Everkike.” It conveyed no meaning to me; but when he looked towards one of his buns, light suddenly dawned in my mind and I knew that England was even England still and that still she was not conquered, and that though they had tired of London they still held to their land; for the words that the man had said were, “Av er kike,” and then I knew that that very language that was carried to distant lands by the old, triumphant Cockney was spoken still in his birthplace and that neither his politics nor his enemies had destroyed him after all these thousand years. I had always disliked the Cockney dialect—and with the arrogance of the Irishman who hears from rich and poor the English of the splendour of Elizabeth; and yet when I heard those words my eyes felt sore as with impending tears—it should be remembered how far away I was. I think I was silent for a little while. Suddenly I saw that the man who kept the shop was asleep. That habit was strangely like the ways of a man who if he were then alive would be (if I could judge from the timeworn look of the lion) over a thousand years old. But then how old was I? It is perfectly clear that Time moves over the Lands of Dream swifter or slower than over the fields we know. For the dead, and the long dead, live again in our dreams; and a dreamer passes through the events of days in a single moment of the Town-Hall’s clock. Yet logic did not aid me and my mind was puzzled. While the old man slept—and strangely like in face he was to the old man who had shown me first the little, old backdoor—I went to the far end of his wattled shop. There was a door of a sort on leather hinges. I pushed it open and there I was again under the notice-board at the back of the shop, at least the back of Go-by Street had not changed. Fantastic and remote though this grass street was with its purple flowers and the golden spires, and the world ending at its opposite pavement, yet I breathed more happily to see something again that I had seen before. I thought I had lost forever the world I knew, and now that I was at the back of Go-by Street again I felt the loss less than when I was standing where familiar things ought to be; and I turned my mind to what was left me in the vast Lands of Dream and thought of Sāranoora. And when I saw the cottages again I felt less lonely even at the thought of the cat though he generally laughed at the things I said. And the first thing that I said when I saw the witch was that I had lost the world and was going back for the rest of my days to the palace of Singanee. And the first thing that she said was: “Why! You’ve been through the wrong door,” quite kindly for she saw how unhappy I looked. And I said “Yes, but it’s all the same street. The whole street’s altered and London’s gone and the people I used to know and the houses I used to rest in, and everything; and I’m tired.”
“What did you want to go through the wrong door for?” she said.
“O, that made no difference,” I said.
“O, didn’t it?” she said in a contradictory way.
“Well I wanted to get to the near end of the street so as to find my boat quickly by the Embankment. And now my boat, and the Embankment and—and—.”
“Some people are always in such a hurry,” said the old black cat. And I felt too unhappy to be angry and I said nothing more.
And the old witch said, “Now which way do you want to go?” and she was talking rather like a nurse to a small child. And I said, “I have nowhere to go to.”
And she said, “Would you rather go home or go to the ivory palace of Singanee?” And I said, “I’ve got a headache, and I don’t want to go anywhere, and I’m tired of the Lands of Dream.”
“Then suppose you try going in through the right door,” she said.
“That’s no good,” I said. “Everyone’s dead and gone, and they’re selling buns there.”
“What do you know about Time?” she said.
“Nothing,” answered the old, black cat, though nobody spoke to him.
“Run along,” said the old witch.
So I turned and trudged away to Go-by Street again. I was very tired. “What does he know about anything?” said the old black cat behind me. I knew what he was going to say next. He waited a moment and then said, “Nothing.” When I looked over my shoulder he was strutting back to the cottage. And when I got to Go-by Street I listlessly opened the door through which I had just now come. I saw no use in doing it, I just did wearily as I was told. And the moment I got inside I saw it was just the same as of old, and the sleepy old man was there who sold idols. And I bought a vulgar thing that I did not want, for the sheer joy of seeing accustomed things. And when I turned from Go-by Street which was just the same as ever, the first thing that I saw was a taximeter running into a hansom cab. And I took off my hat and cheered. And I went to the Embankment and there was my boat, and the stately river full of dirty, accustomed things. And I rowed back and bought a penny paper, (I had been away it seemed for one day) and I read it from cover to cover—patent remedies for incurable illnesses and all—and I determined to walk, as soon as I was rested, in all the streets that I knew and to call on all the people that I had ever met, and to be content for long with the fields we know.
The Bride of the Man-Horse
In the morning of his two hundred and fiftieth year Shepperalk the centaur went to the golden coffer, wherein the treasure of the centaurs was, and taking from it the hoarded amulet that his father, Jyshak, in the years of his prime, had hammered from mountain gold and set with opals bartered from the gnomes, he put it upon his wrist, and said no word, but walked from his mother’s cavern. And he took with him too that clarion of the centaurs, that famous silver horn, that in its time had summoned to surrender seventeen cities of Man, and for twenty years had brayed at star-girt walls in the Siege of Tholdenblarna, the citadel of the gods, what time the centaurs waged their fabulous war and were not broken by any force of arms, but retreated slowly in a cloud of dust before the final miracle of the gods that They brought in Their desperate need from Their ultimate armoury. He took it and strode away, and his mother only sighed and let him go.
She knew that to-day he would not drink at the stream coming down from the terraces of Varpa Niger, the inner land of the mountains, that to-day he would not wonder awhile at the sunset and afterwards trot back to the cavern again to sleep on rushes pulled by rivers that know not Man. She knew that it was with him as it had been of old with his father, and with Goom the father of Jyshak, and long ago with the gods. Therefore she only sighed and let him go.
But he, coming out from the cavern that was his home, went for the first time over the little stream, and going round the corner of the crags saw glittering beneath him the mundane plain. And the wind of the autumn that was gilding the world, rushing up the slopes of the mountain, beat cold on his naked flanks. He raised his head and snorted.
“I am a man-horse now!” he shouted aloud; and leaping from crag to crag he galloped by valley and chasm, by torrent-bed and scar of avalanche, until he came to the wandering leagues of the plain, and left behind him for ever the Athraminaurian mountains.
His goal was Zretazoola, the city of Sombelenë. What legend of Sombelenë’s inhuman beauty or of the wonder of her mystery had ever floated over the mundane plain to the fabulous cradle of the centaurs’ race, the Athraminaurian mountains, I do not know. Yet in the blood of man there is a tide, an old sea-current rather, that is somehow akin to the twilight, which brings him rumours of beauty from however far away, as drift-wood is found at sea from islands not yet discovered: and this spring-tide of current that visits the blood of man comes from the fabulous quarter of his lineage, from the legendary, the old; it takes him out to the woodlands, out to the hills; he listens to ancient song. So it may be that Shepperalk’s fabulous blood stirred in those lonely mountains away at the edge of the world to rumours that only the airy twilight knew and only confided secretly to the bat, for Shepperalk was more legendary even than man. Certain it was that he headed from the first for the city of Zretazoola, where Sombelenë in her temple dwelt; though all the mundane plain, its rivers and mountains, lay between Shepperalk’s home and the city he sought.
When first the feet of the centaur touched the grass of that soft alluvial earth he blew for joy upon the silver horn, he pranced and caracoled, he gambolled over the leagues; peace came to him like a maiden with a lamp, a new and beautiful wonder; the wind laughed as it passed him. He put his head down low to the scent of the flowers, he lifted it up to be nearer the unseen stars, he revelled through kingdoms, took rivers in his stride; how shall I tell you, ye that dwell in cities, how shall I tell you what he felt as he galloped? He felt for strength like the towers of Bel-Narana; for lightness like those gossamer palaces that the fairy-spider builds ’twixt heaven and sea along the coasts of Zith; for swiftness like some bird racing up from the morning to sing in some city’s spires before daylight comes. He was the sworn companion of the wind. For joy he was as a song; the lightnings of his legendary sires, the earlier gods, began to mix with his blood; his hooves thundered. He came to the cities of men, and all men trembled, for they remembered the ancient mythical wars, and now they dreaded new battles and feared for the race of man. Not by Clio are these wars recorded; history does not know them, but what of that? Not all of us have sat at historians’ feet, but all have learned fable and myth at their mothers’ knees. And there were none that did not fear strange wars when they saw Shepperalk swerve and leap along the public ways. So he passed from city to city.
By night he lay down unpanting in the reeds of some marsh or a forest; before dawn he rose triumphant, and hugely drank of some river in the dark, and splashing out of it would trot to some high place to find the sunrise, and to send echoing eastwards the exultant greetings of his jubilant horn. And lo! the sunrise coming up from the echoes, and the plains new-lit by the day, and the leagues spinning by like water flung from a top, and that gay companion, the loudly laughing wind, and men and the fears of men and their little cities; and, after that, great rivers and waste spaces and huge new hills, and then new lands beyond them, and more cities of men, and always the old companion, the glorious wind. Kingdom by kingdom slipt by, and still his breath was even. “It is a golden thing to gallop on good turf in one’s youth,” said the young man-horse, the centaur. “Ha, ha,” said the wind of the hills, and the winds of the plain answered.
Bells pealed in frantic towers, wise men consulted parchments, astrologers sought of the portent from the stars, the aged made subtle prophecies. “Is he not swift?” said the young. “How glad he is,” said children.
Night after night brought him sleep, and day after day lit his gallop, till he came to the lands of the Athalonian men who live by the edges of the mundane plain, and from them he came to the lands of legend again such as those in which he was cradled on the other side of the world, and which fringe the marge of the world and mix with the twilight. And there a mighty thought came into his untired heart, for he knew that he neared Zretazoola now, the city of Sombelenë.
It was late in the day when he neared it, and clouds coloured with evening tolled low on the plain before him; he galloped on into their golden mist, and when it hid from his eyes the sight of things, the dreams in his heart awoke and romantically he pondered all those rumours that used to come to him from Sombelenë, because of the fellowship of fabulous things. She dwelt (said evening secretly to the bat) in a little temple by a lone lake-shore. A grove of cypresses screened her from the city, from Zretazoola of the climbing ways. And opposite her temple stood her tomb, her sad lake-sepulchre with open door, lest her amazing beauty and the centuries of her youth should ever give rise to the heresy among men that lovely Sombelenë was immortal: for only her beauty and her lineage were divine.
Her father had been half centaur and half god; her mother was the child of a desert lion and that sphinx that matches the pyramids;—she was more mystical than Woman.
Her beauty was as a dream, was as a song; the one dream of a lifetime dreamed an enchanted dews, the one song sung to some city by a deathless bird blown far from his native coasts by storm in Paradise. Dawn after dawn on mountains of romance or twilight after twilight could never equal her beauty; all the glow-worms had not the secret among them nor all the stars of night; poets had never sung it nor evening guessed its meaning; the morning envied it, it was hidden from lovers.
She was unwed, unwooed.
The lions came not to woo her because they feared her strength, and the gods dared not love her because they knew she must die.
This was what evening had whispered to the bat, this was the dream in the heart of Shepperalk as he cantered blind through the mist. And suddenly there at his hooves in the dark of the plain appeared the cleft in the legendary lands, and Zretazoola sheltering in the cleft, and sunning herself in the evening.
Swiftly and craftily he bounded down by the upper end of the cleft, and entering Zretazoola by the outer gate which looks out sheer on the stars, he galloped suddenly down the narrow streets. Many that rushed out on to balconies as he went clattering by, many that put their heads from glittering windows, are told of in olden song. Shepperalk did not tarry to give greetings or to answer challenges from martial towers, he was down through the earthward gateway like the thunderbolt of his sires, and, like Leviathan11 who has leapt at an eagle, he surged into the water between temple and tomb.
He galloped with half-shut eyes up the temple-steps, and, only seeing dimly through his lashes, seized Sombelenë by the hair, undazzled as yet by her beauty, and so haled her away; and, leaping with her over the floorless chasm where the waters of the lake fall unremembered away into a hole in the world, took her we know not where, to be her slave for all centuries that are allowed to his race.
Three blasts he gave as he went upon that silver horn that is the world-old treasure of the centaurs. These were his wedding bells.
III.
PROSE POEMS
Where the Tides Ebb and Flow
I dreamt that I had done a horrible thing, so that burial was to be denied me either in soil or sea, neither could there be any hell for me.
I waited for some hours, knowing this. Then my friends came for me, and slew me secretly and with ancient rite, and lit great tapers, and carried me away.
It was all in London that the thing was done, and they went furtively at dead of night along grey streets and among mean houses until they came to the river. And the river and the tide of the sea were grappling with one another between the mud-banks, and both of them were black and full of lights. A sudden wonder came into the eyes of each, as my friends came near to them with their glaring tapers. All these things I saw as they carried me dead and stiffening, for my soul was still among my bones, because there was no hell for it, and because Christian burial was denied me.
They took me down a stairway that was green with slimy things, and so came slowly to the terrible mud. There, in the territory of forsaken things, they dug a shallow grave. When they had finished they laid me in the grave, and suddenly they cast their tapers to the river. And when the water had quenched the flaring lights the tapers looked pale and small as they bobbed upon the tide, and at once the glamour of the calamity was gone, and I noticed then the approach of the huge dawn; and my friends cast their cloaks over their faces, and the solemn procession was turned into many fugitives that furtively stole away.
Then the mud came back wearily and covered all but my face. There I lay alone with quite forgotten things, with drifting things that the tides will take no farther, with useless things and lost things, and with the horrible unnatural bricks that are neither stone nor soil. I was rid of feeling, because I had been killed, but perception and thought were in my unhappy soul. The dawn widened, and I saw the desolate houses that crowded the marge of the river, and their dead windows peered into my dead eyes, windows with bales behind them instead of human souls. I grew so weary looking at these forlorn things that I wanted to cry out, but could not, because I was dead. Then I knew, as I had never known before, that for all the years that herd of desolate houses had wanted to cry out too, but, being dead, were dumb. And I knew then that it had yet been well with the forgotten drifting things if they had wept, but they were eyeless and without life. And I, too, tried to weep, but there were no tears in my dead eyes. And I knew then that the river might have cared for us, might have caressed us, might have sung to us, but he swept broadly onwards, thinking of nothing but the princely ships.
At last the tide did what the river would not, and came and covered me over, and my soul had rest in the green water, and rejoiced and believed that it had the Burial of the Sea. But with the ebb the water fell again, and left me alone again with the callous mud among the forgotten things that drift no more, and with the sight of all those desolate houses, and with the knowledge among all of us that each was dead.
In the mournful wall behind me, hung with green weeds, forsaken of the sea, dark tunnels appeared, and secret narrow passages that were clamped and barred. From these at last the stealthy rats came down to nibble me away, and my soul rejoiced thereat and believed that he would be free perforce from the accursed bones to which burial was refused. Very soon the rats ran away a little space and whispered among themselves. They never came any more. When I found that I was accursed even among the rats I tried to weep again.
Then the tide came swinging back and covered the dreadful mud, and hid the desolate houses, and soothed the forgotten things, and my soul had ease for a while in the sepulture of the sea. And then the tide forsook me again.
To and fro it came about me for many years. Then the County Council found me, and gave me decent burial. It was the first grave that I had ever slept in. That very night my friends came for me. They dug me up and put me back again in the shallow hole in the mud.
Again and again through the years my bones found burial, but always behind the funeral lurked one of those terrible men who, as soon as night fell, came and dug them up and carried them back again to the hole in the mud.
And then one day the last of those men died who once had done to me this terrible thing. I heard his soul go over the river at sunset.
And again I hoped.
A few weeks afterwards I was found once more, and once more taken out of that restless place and given deep burial in sacred ground, where my soul hoped that it should rest.
Almost at once men came with cloaks and tapers to give me back to the mud, for the thing had become a tradition and a rite. And all the forsaken things mocked me in their dumb hearts when they saw me carried back, for they were jealous of me because I had left the mud. It must be remembered that I could not weep.
And the years went by seawards where the black barges go, and the great derelict centuries became lost at sea, and still I lay there without any cause to hope, and daring not to hope without a cause, because of the terrible envy and the anger of the things that could drift no more.
Once a great storm rode up, even as far as London, out of the sea from the South; and he came curving into the river with the fierce East wind. And he was mightier than the dreary tides, and went with great leaps over the listless mud. And all the sad forgotten things rejoiced, and mingled with things that were haughtier than they, and rode once more amongst the lordly shipping that was driven up and down. And out of their hideous home he took my bones, never again, I hoped, to be vexed with the ebb and flow. And with the fall of the tide he went riding down the river and turned to the southwards, and so went to his home. And my bones he scattered among many isles and along the shores of happy alien mainlands. And for a moment, while they were far asunder, my soul was almost free.
Then there arose, at the will of the moon, the assiduous flow of the tide, and it undid at once the work of the ebb, and gathered my bones from the marge of sunny isles, and gleaned them all along the mainland’s shores, and went rocking northwards till it came to the mouth of the Thames, and there turned westwards its relentless face, and so went up the river and came to the hole in the mud, and into it dropped my bones; and partly the mud covered them and partly it left them white, for the mud cares not for its forsaken things.
Then the ebb came, and I saw the dead eyes of the houses and the jealousy of the other forgotten things that the storm had not carried thence.
And some more centuries passed over the ebb and flow and over the loneliness of things forgotten. And I lay there all the while in the careless grip of the mud, never wholly covered, yet never able to go free, and I longed for the great caress of the warm Earth or the comfortable lap of the Sea.
Sometimes men found my bones and buried them, but the tradition never died, and my friends’ successors always brought them back. At last the barges went no more, and there were fewer lights; shaped timbers no longer floated down the fair-way, and there came instead old wind-uprooted trees in all their natural simplicity.
At last I was aware that somewhere near me a blade of grass was growing, and the moss began to appear all over the dead houses. One day some thistledown went drifting over the river.
For some years I watched these signs attentively, until I became certain that London was passing away. Then I hoped once more, and all along both banks of the river there was anger among the lost things that anything should dare to hope upon the forsaken mud. Gradually the horrible houses crumbled, until the poor dead things that never had had life got decent burial among the weeds and moss. At last the may appeared and the convolvulus. Finally, the wild rose stood up over mounds that had been wharves and warehouses. Then I knew that the cause of Nature had triumphed, and London had passed away.
The last man in London came to the wall by the river, in an ancient cloak that was one of those that once my friends had worn, and peered over the edge to see that I still was there. Then he went, and I never saw men again: they had passed away with London.
A few days after the last man had gone the birds came into London, all the birds that sing. When they first saw me they all looked sideways at me, then they went away a little and spoke among themselves.
“He only sinned against Man,” they said; “it is not our quarrel.”
“Let us be kind to him,” they said.
Then they hopped nearer me and began to sing. It was the time of the rising of the dawn, and from both banks of the river, and from the sky, and from the thickets that were once the streets, hundreds of birds were singing. As the light increased the birds sang more and more; they grew thicker and thicker in the air above my head, till there were thousands of them singing there, and then millions, and at last I could see nothing but a host of flickering wings with the sunlight on them, and little gaps of sky. Then when there was nothing to be heard in London but the myriad notes of that exultant song, my soul rose up from the bones in the hole in the mud and began to climb up the song heavenwards. And it seemed that a laneway opened amongst the wings of the birds, and it went up and up, and one of the smaller gates of Paradise stood ajar at the end of it. And then I knew by a sign that the mud should receive me no more, for suddenly I found that I could weep.
At this moment I opened my eyes in bed in a house in London, and outside some sparrows were twittering in a tree in the light of the radiant morning; and there were tears still wet upon my face, for one’s restraint is feeble while one sleeps. But I arose and opened the window wide, and, stretching my hands out over the little garden, I blessed the birds whose song had woken me up from the troubled and terrible centuries of my dream.
The Raft-Builders
All we who write put me in mind of sailors hastily making rafts upon doomed ships.
When we break up under the heavy years and go down into eternity with all that is ours our thoughts like small lost rafts float on awhile upon Oblivion’s sea. They will not carry much over those tides, our names and a phrase or two and little else.
They that write as a trade to please the whim of the day, they are like sailors that work at the rafts only to warm their hands and to distract their thoughts from their certain doom; their rafts go all to pieces before the ship breaks up.
See now Oblivion shimmering all around us, its very tranquillity deadlier than tempest. How little all our keels have troubled it. Time in its deeps swims like a monstrous whale; and, like a whale, feeds on the littlest things—small tunes and little unskilled songs of the olden, golden evenings—and anon turneth whale-like to overthrow whole ships.
See now the wreckage of Babylon floating idly, and something there that once was Nineveh; already their kings and queens are in the deeps among the weedy masses of old centuries that hide the sodden bulk of sunken Tyre and make a darkness round Persepolis.1
For the rest I dimly see the forms of foundered ships on the sea-floor strewn with crowns.
Our ships were all unseaworthy from the first.
There goes the raft that Homer made for Helen.
The Prayer of the Flowers
It was the voice of the flowers on the West wind, the lovable, the old, the lazy West wind, blowing ceaselessly, blowing sleepily, going Greecewards.
“The woods have gone away, they have fallen and left us; men love us no longer, we are lonely by moonlight. Great engines rush over the beautiful fields, their ways lie hard and terrible up and down the land.
“The cancerous cities spread over the grass, they clatter in their lairs continually, they glitter about us blemishing the night.
“The woods are gone, O Pan, the woods, the woods. And thou art far, O Pan, and far away.”
I was standing by night between two railway embankments on the edge of a Midland city. On one of them I saw the trains go by, once in every two minutes, and on the other, the trains went by twice in every five.
Quite close were the glaring factories, and the sky above them wore the fearful look that it wears in dreams of fever.
The flowers were right in the stride of that advancing city, and thence I heard them sending up their cry. And then I heard, beating musically up wind, the voice of Pan reproving them from Arcady—“Be patient a little, these things are not for long.”
The Workman
I saw a workman fall with his scaffolding right from the summit of some vast hotel. And as he came down I saw him holding a knife and trying to cut his name on the scaffolding. He had time to try and do this for he must have had nearly three hundred feet to fall. And I could think of nothing but his folly in doing this futile thing, for not only would the man be unrecognizably dead in three seconds, but the very pole on which he tried to scratch whatever of his name he had time for was certain to be burnt in a few weeks for firewood.
Then I went home for I had work to do. And all that evening I thought of the man’s folly, till the thought hindered me from serious work.
And late that night while I was still at work, the ghost of the workman floated through my wall and stood before me laughing.
I heard no sound until after I spoke to it; but I could see the grey diaphanous form standing before me shuddering with laughter.
I spoke at last and asked what it was laughing at, and then the ghost spoke. It said: “I’m a-laughin’ at you sittin’ and workin’ there.”
“And why,” I said, “do you laugh at serious work?”
“Why, yer bloomin’ life ’ull go by like a wind,” he said, “and yer ’ole silly civilization ’ull be tidied up in a few centuries.”
Then he fell to laughing again and this time audibly; and, laughing still, faded back through the wall again and into the eternity from which he had come.
Charon
Charon2 leaned forward and rowed. All things were one with his weariness.
It was not with him a matter of years or of centuries, but of wide floods of time, and an old heaviness and a pain in the arms that had become for him part of the scheme that the gods had made and was of a piece with Eternity.
If the gods had even sent him a contrary wind it would have divided all time in his memory into two equal slabs.
So grey were all things always where he was that if any radiance lingered a moment among the dead, on the face of such a queen perhaps as Cleopatra, his eyes could not have perceived it.
It was strange that the dead nowadays were coming in such numbers. They were coming in thousands where they used to come in fifties. It was neither Charon’s duty nor his wont to ponder in his grey soul why these things might be. Charon leaned forward and rowed.
Then no one came for a while. It was not usual for the gods to send no one down from Earth for such a space. But the gods knew best.
Then one man came alone. And the little shade sat shivering on a lonely bench and the great boat pushed off. Only one passenger; the gods knew best. And great and weary Charon rowed on and on beside the little, silent, shivering ghost.
And the sound of the river was like a mighty sigh that Grief in the beginning had sighed among her sisters, and that could not die like the echoes of human sorrow failing on earthly hills, but was as old as time and the pain in Charon’s arms.
Then the boat from the slow, grey river loomed up to the coast of Dis3 and the little, silent shade still shivering stepped ashore, and Charon turned the boat to go wearily back to the world. Then the little shadow spoke, that had been a man.
“I am the last,” he said.
No one had ever made Charon smile before, no one before had ever made him weep.
Carcassonne
In a letter from a friend whom I have never seen, one of those that read my books, this line was quoted—“But he, he never came to Carcassonne.”4 I do not know the origin of the line, but I made this tale about it.
When Camorak reigned at Arn, and the world was fairer, he gave a festival to all the Weald to commemorate the splendour of his youth.
They say that his house at Arn was huge and high, and its ceiling painted blue; and when evening fell men would climb up by ladders and light the scores of candles hanging from slender chains. And they say, too, that sometimes a cloud would come, and pour in through the top of one of the oriel windows, and it would come over the edge of the stonework as the sea-mist comes over a sheer cliff’s shaven lip where an old wind has blown for ever and ever (he has swept away thousands of leaves and thousands of centuries, they are all one to him, he owes no allegiance to Time). And the cloud would re-shape itself in the hall’s lofty vault and drift on through it slowly, and out to the sky again through another window. And from its shape the knights in Camorak’s hall would prophesy the battles and sieges of the next season of war. They say of the hall of Camorak at Arn that there hath been none like it in any land, and foretell that there will be never.
Hither had come in the folk of the Weald from sheepfold and from forest, revolving slow thoughts of food, and shelter, and love, and they sat down wondering in that famous hall; and therein also were seated the men of Arn, the town that clustered round the King’s high house, and was all roofed with the red, maternal earth.
If old songs may be trusted, it was a marvellous hall.
Many who sat there could only have seen it distantly before, a clear shape in the landscape, but smaller than a hill. Now they beheld along the wall the weapons of Camorak’s men, of which already the lute-players made songs, and tales were told at evening in the byres. There they descried the shield of Camorak that had gone to and fro across so many battles, and the sharp but dinted edges of his sword; there were the weapons of Gadriol the Leal,5 and Norn, and Athoric of the Sleety Sword, Heriel the Wild, Yarold, and Thanga of Esk, their arms hung evenly all round the hall, low where a man could reach them; and in the place of honour in the midst, between the arms of Camorak and of Gadriol the Leal, hung the harp of Arleon. And of all the weapons hanging on those walls none were more calamitous to Camorak’s foes than was the harp of Arleon. For to a man that goes up against a strong place on foot, pleasant indeed is the twang and jolt of some fearful engine of war that his fellow-warriors are working behind him, from which huge rocks go sighing over his head and plunge among his foes; and pleasant to a warrior in the wavering fight are the swift commands of his King, and a joy to him are his comrades’ distant cheers exulting suddenly at a turn of the war. All this and more was the harp to Camorak’s men; for not only would it cheer his warriors on, but many a time would Arleon of the Harp strike wild amazement into opposing hosts by some rapturous prophecy suddenly shouted out while his hand swept over the roaring strings. Moreover, no war was ever declared till Camorak and his men had listened long to the harp, and were elate with the music and mad against peace. Once Arleon, for the sake of a rhyme, had made war upon Estabonn; and an evil king was overthrown, and honour and glory won; from such queer motives does good sometimes accrue.
Above the shields and the harps all round the hall were the painted figures of heroes of fabulous famous songs. Too trivial, because too easily surpassed by Camorak’s men, seemed all the victories that the earth had known; neither was any trophy displayed of Camorak’s seventy battles, for these were as nothing to his warriors or him compared with those things that their youth had dreamed and which they mightily purposed yet to do.
Above the painted pictures there was darkness, for evening was closing in, and the candles swinging on their slender chain were not yet lit in the roof; it was as though a piece of the night had been builded in to the edifice like a huge natural rock that juts into a house. And there sat all the warriors of Arn and the Weald-folk wondering at them; and none were more than thirty, and all were skilled in war. And Camorak sat at the head of all, exulting in his youth.
We must wrestle with Time for some seven decades, and he is a weak and puny antagonist in the first three bouts.
Now there was present at this feast a diviner, one who knew the schemes of Fate, and he sat among the people of the Weald and had no place of honour, for Camorak and his men had no fear of Fate. And when the meat was eaten and the bones cast aside, the king rose up from his chair, and having drunken wine, and being in the glory of his youth and with all his knights about him, called to the diviner, saying, “Prophesy.”
And the diviner rose up, stroking his grey beard, and spake guardedly—“There are certain events,” he said, “upon the ways of Fate that are veiled even from a diviner’s eyes, and many more are clear to us that were better veiled from all; much I know that is better unforetold, and some things that I may not foretell on pain of centuries of punishment. But this I know and foretell—that you will never come to Carcassonne.”
Instantly there was a buzz of talk telling of Carcassonne—some had heard of it in speech or song, some had read of it, and some had dreamed of it. And the king sent Arleon of the Harp down from his right hand to mingle with the Weald-folk to hear aught that any told of Carcassonne. But the warriors told of the places they had won to—many a hard-held fortress, many a far-off land, and swore that they would come to Carcassonne.
And in a while came Arleon back to the king’s right hand, and raised his harp and chanted and told of Carcassonne. Far away it was, and far and far away, a city of gleaming ramparts rising one over other, and marble terraces behind the ramparts, and fountains shimmering on the terraces. To Carcassonne the elf-kings with their fairies had first retreated from men, and had built it on an evening late in May by blowing their elfin horns. Carcassonne! Carcassonne!
Travellers had seen it sometimes like a clear dream, with the sun glittering on its citadel upon a far-off hill-top, and then the clouds had come or a sudden mist; no one had seen it long or come quite close to it; though once there were some men that came very near, and the smoke from the houses blew into their faces, a sudden gust—no more, and these declared that some one was burning cedarwood there. Men had dreamed that there is a witch there, walking alone through the cold courts and corridors of marmorean palaces, fearfully beautiful still for all her fourscore centuries, singing the second oldest song, which was taught her by the sea, shedding tears for loneliness from eyes that would madden armies, yet will she not call her dragons home—Carcassonne is terribly guarded. Sometimes she swims in a marble bath through whose deeps a river tumbles, or lies all morning on the edge of it to dry slowly in the sun, and watches the heaving river trouble the deeps of the bath. It flows through the caverns of earth for further than she knows, and coming to light in the witch’s hath goes down through the earth again to its own peculiar sea.
In autumn sometimes it comes down black with snow that spring has molten in unimagined mountains, or withered blooms of mountain shrubs go beautifully by.
When there is blood in the bath she knows there is war in the mountains; and yet she knows not where those mountains are.
When she sings the fountains dance up from the dark earth, when she combs her hair they say there are storms at sea, when she is angry the wolves grow brave and all come down to the byres, when she is sad the sea is sad, and both are sad for ever. Carcassonne! Carcassonne!
This city is the fairest of the wonders of Morning; the sun shouts when he beholdeth it; for Carcassonne Evening weepeth when Evening passeth away.
And Arleon told how many goodly perils were round about the city, and how the way was unknown, and it was a knightly venture. Then all the warriors stood up and sang of the splendour of the venture. And Camorak swore by the gods that had builded Arn, and by the honour of his warriors that, alive or dead, he would come to Carcassonne.
But the diviner rose and passed out of the hall, brushing the crumbs from him with his hands and smoothing his robe as he went.
Then Camorak said, “There are many things to be planned, and counsels to be taken, and provender to be gathered. Upon what day shall we start?” And all the warriors answering shouted, “Now.” And Camorak smiled thereat, for he had but tried them. Down then from the walls they took their weapons, Sikorix, Kelleron, Aslof, Wole of the Axe; Huhenoth, Peace-breaker; Wolwuf, Father of War; Tarion, Lurth of the War-cry and many another. Little then dreamed the spiders that sat in that ringing hall of the unmolested leisure they were soon to enjoy.
When they were armed they all formed up and marched out of the hall, and Arleon strode before them singing of Carcassonne.
But the folk of the Weald arose and went back well-fed to their byres. They had no need of wars or of rare perils. They were ever at war with hunger. A long drought or hard winter were to them pitched battles; if the wolves entered a sheep-fold it was like the loss of a fortress, a thunder-storm on the harvest was like an ambuscade. Well-fed, they went back slowly to their byres, being at truce with hunger: and the night filled with stars.
And black against the starry sky appeared the round helms of the warriors as they passed the tops of the ridges, but in the valleys they sparkled now and then as the starlight flashed on steel.
They followed behind Arleon going south, whence rumours had always come of Carcassonne: so they marched in the starlight, and he before them singing.
When they had marched so far that they heard no sound from Arn, and even inaudible were her swinging bells, when candles burning late far up in towers no longer sent them their disconsolate welcome; in the midst of the pleasant night that lulls the rural spaces, weariness came upon Arleon and his inspiration failed. It failed slowly. Gradually he grew less sure of the way to Carcassonne. Awhile he stopped to think, and remembered the way again; but his clear certainty was gone, and in its place were efforts in his mind to recall old prophecies and shepherd’s songs that told of the marvellous city. Then as he said over carefully to himself a song that a wanderer had learnt from a goatherd’s boy far up the lower slope of ultimate southern mountains, fatigue came down upon his toiling mind like snow on the winding ways of a city noisy by night, stilling all.
He stood, and the warriors closed up to him. For long they had passed by great oaks standing solitary here and there, like giants taking huge breaths of the night air before doing some furious deed; now they had come to the verge of a black forest; the tree-trunks stood like those great columns in an Egyptian hall whence God in an older mood received the praise of men; the top of it sloped the way of an ancient wind. Here they all halted and lighted a fire of branches, striking sparks from flint into a heap of bracken. They eased them of their armour, and sat round the fire, and Camorak stood up there and addressed them, and Camorak said: “We go to war with Fate, who has doomed that I shall not come to Carcassonne. And if we turn aside but one of the dooms of Fate, then the whole future of the world is ours, and the future that Fate has ordered is like the dry course of an averted river. But if such men as we, such resolute conquerors, cannot prevent one doom that Fate has planned, then is the race of man enslaved for ever to do its petty and allotted task.”
Then they all drew their swords, and waved them high in the firelight, and declared war on Fate.
Nothing in the sombre forest stirred or made any sound.
Tired men do not dream of war. When morning came over the gleaming fields a company that had set out from Arn discovered the camping-place of the warriors, and brought pavilions and provender. And the warriors feasted, and the birds in the forest sang, and the inspiration of Arleon awoke.
Then they arose, and following Arleon, entered the forest, and marched away to the South. And many a woman of Arn sent her thoughts with them as they played alone some old monotonous tune, but their own thoughts were far before them, skimming over the bath through whose deeps the river tumbles in marble Carcassonne.
When butterflies were dancing on the air, and the sun neared the zenith, pavilions were pitched, and all the warriors rested; and then they feasted again, and then played knightly games, and late in the afternoon marched on once more, singing of Carcassonne.
And night came down with its mystery on the forest, and gave their demoniac look again to the trees, and rolled up out of misty hollows a huge and yellow moon.
And the men of Arn lit fires, and sudden shadows arose and leaped fantastically away. And the night-wind blew, arising like a ghost, and passed between the tree-trunks, and slipped down shimmering glades, and waked the prowling beasts still dreaming of day, and drifted nocturnal birds afield to menace timorous things, and beat the roses against cottagers’ panes, and whispered news of the befriending night, and wafted to the ears of wandering men the sound of a maiden’s song, and gave a glamour to the lutanist’s tune played in his loneliness on distant hills; and the deep eyes of moths glowed like a galleon’s lamps, and they spread their wings and sailed their familiar sea. Upon this night-wind also the dreams of Camorak’s men floated to Carcassonne.
All the next morning they marched, and all the evening, and knew they were nearing now the deeps of the forest. And the citizens of Arn kept close together and close behind the warriors. For the deeps of the forest were all unknown to travellers, but not unknown to those tales of fear that men tell at evening to their friends, in the comfort and the safety of their hearths. Then night appeared, and an enormous moon. And the men of Camorak slept. Sometimes they woke, and went to sleep again; and those that stayed awake for long and listened heard heavy two-footed creatures pad through the night on paws.
As soon as it was light the unarmed men of Arn began to slip away, and went back by bands through the forest. When darkness came they did not stop to sleep, but continued their flight straight on until they came to Arn, and added there by the tales they told to the terror of the forest.
But the warriors feasted, and afterwards Arleon rose, and played his harp, and led them on again; and a few faithful servants stayed with them still. And they marched all day through a gloom that was as old as night, but Arleon’s inspiration burned in his mind like a star. And he led them till the birds began to drop into the tree-tops, and it was evening and they all encamped. They had only one pavilion left to them now, and near it they lit a fire, and Camorak posted a sentry with drawn sword just beyond the glow of the firelight. Some of the warriors slept in the pavilion and others round about it.
When dawn came something terrible had killed and eaten the sentry. But the splendour of the rumours of Carcassonne and Fate’s decree that they should never come there, and the inspiration of Arleon and his harp, all urged the warriors on; and they marched deeper and deeper all day into the forest.
Once they saw a dragon that had caught a bear and was playing with it, letting it run a little way and overtaking it with a paw.
They came at last to a clear space in the forest just before nightfall. An odour of flowers arose from it like a mist, and every drop of dew interpreted heaven unto itself.
It was the hour when twilight kisses Earth.
It was the hour when a meaning comes into senseless things, and trees out-majesty the pomp of monarchs, and the timid creatures steal abroad to feed, and as yet the beasts of prey harmlessly dream, and Earth utters a sigh, and it is night.
In the midst of the wide clearing Camorak’s warriors camped, and rejoiced to see the stars again appearing one by one.
That night they ate the last of their provisions, and slept unmolested by the prowling things that haunt the gloom of the forest.
On the next day some of the warriors hunted stags, and others lay in rushes by a neighboring lake and shot arrows at water-fowl. One stag was killed, and some geese, and several teal.
Here the adventurers stayed, breathing the pure wild air that cities know not; by day they hunted, and lit fires by night, and sang and feasted, and forgot Carcassonne. The terrible denizens of the gloom never molested them, venison was plentiful, and all manner of water-fowl: they loved the chase by day, and by night their favourite songs. Thus day after day went by, thus week after week. Time flung over this encampment a handful of moons, the gold and silver moons that waste the year away; Autumn and Winter passed, and Spring appeared; and still the warriors hunted and feasted there.
One night of the springtide they were feasting about a fire and telling tales of the chase, and the soft moths came out of the dark and flaunted their colours in the firelight, and went out grey into the dark again; and the night wind was cool upon the warriors’ necks, and the camp-fire was warm in their faces, and a silence had settled among them after some song, and Arleon all at once rose suddenly up, remembering Carcassonne. And his hand swept over the strings of his harp, awaking the deeper chords, like the sound of a nimble people dancing their steps on bronze, and the music rolled away into the night’s own silence, and the voice of Arleon rose:
“When there is blood in the bath she knows there is war in the mountains, and longs for the battle-shout of kingly men.”
And suddenly all shouted, “Carcassonne!” And at that word their idleness was gone as a dream is gone from a dreamer waked with a shout. And soon the great march began that faltered no more nor wavered. Unchecked by battles, undaunted in lonesome spaces, ever unwearied by the vulturous years, the warriors of Camorak held on; and Arleon’s inspiration led them still. They cleft with the music of Arleon’s harp the gloom of ancient silences; they went singing into battles with terrible wild men, and came out singing, but with fewer voices; they came to villages in valleys full of the music of bells, or saw the lights at dusk of cottages sheltering others.
They became a proverb for wandering, and a legend arose of strange, disconsolate men. Folks spoke of them at nightfall when the fire was warm and rain slipped down the eaves; and when the wind was high small children feared the Men Who Would Not Rest were going clattering past. Strange tales were told of men in old grey armour moving at twilight along the tops of the hills and never asking shelter; and mothers told their boys who grew impatient of home that the grey wanderers were once so impatient and were now hopeless of rest, and were driven along with the rain whenever the wind was angry.
But the wanderers were cheered in their wandering by the hope of coming to Cacassonne, and later on by anger against Fate, and at last they marched on still because it seemed better to march on than to think.
For many years they had wandered and had fought with many tribes; often they gathered legends in villages and listened to idle singers singing songs; and all the rumours of Carcassonne still came from the South.
And then one day they came to a hilly land with a legend in it that only three valleys away a man might see, on clear days, Carcassonne. Tired though they were and few, and worn with the years which had all brought them wars, they pushed on instantly, led still by Arleon’s inspiration which dwindled in his age, though he made music with his old harp still.
All day they climbed down into the first valley and for two days ascended, and came to the Town That May Not Be Taken In War below the top of the mountain, and its gates were shut against them, and there was no way round. To left and right steep precipices stood for as far as eye could see or legend tell of, and the pass lay through the city. Therefore Camorak drew up his remaining warriors in line of battle to wage their last war, and they stepped forward over the crisp bones of old, unburied armies.
No sentinel defied them in the gate, no arrow flew from any tower of war. One citizen climbed alone to the mountain’s top, and the rest hid themselves in sheltered places.
Now, in the top of the mountain was a deep, bowl-like cavern in the rock, in which fires bubbled softly. But if any cast a boulder into the fires, as it was the custom for one of those citizens to do when enemies approached them, the mountain hurled up intermittent rocks for three days, and the rocks fell flaming all over the town and all round about it. And just as Camorak’s men began to batter the gate they heard a crash on the mountain, and a great rock fell beyond them and rolled into the valley. The next two fell in front of them on the iron roofs of the town. Just as they entered the town a rock found them crowded in a narrow street, and shattered two of them. The mountain smoked and panted; with every pant a rock plunged into the streets or bounced along the heavy iron roof, and the smoke went slowly up, and up, and up.
When they had come through the long town’s empty streets to the locked gate at the end, only fifteen were left. When they had broken down the gate there were only ten alive. Three more were killed as they went up the slope, and two as they passed near the terrible cavern. Fate let the rest go some way down the mountain upon the other side, and then took three of them. Camorak and Arleon alone were left alive. And night came down on the valley to which they had come, and was lit by flashes from the fatal mountain; and the two mourned for their comrades all night long.
But when the morning came they remembered their war with Fate, and their old resolve to come to Carcassonne, and the voice of Arleon rose in a quavering song, and snatches of music from his old harp, and he stood up and marched with his face southwards as he had done for years, and behind him Camorak went. And when at last they climbed from the third valley, and stood on the hill’s summit in the golden sunlight of evening, their aged eyes saw only miles of forest and the birds going to roost.
Their beards were white, and they had travelled very far and hard; it was the time with them when a man rests from labours and dreams in light sleep of the years that were and not of the years to come.
Long they looked southwards; and the sun set over remoter forests, and glow-worms lit their lamps, and the inspiration of Arleon rose and flew away for ever, to gladden, perhaps, the dreams of younger men.
And Arleon said: “My King, I know no longer the way to Carcassonnne.”
And Camorak smiled, as the aged smile, with little cause for mirth, and said: “The years are going by us like huge birds, whom Doom and Destiny and the schemes of God have frightened up out of some old grey marsh. And it may well be that against these no warrior may avail, and that Fate has conquered us, and that our quest has failed.”
And after this they were silent.
Then they drew their swords, and side by side went down into the forest, still seeking for Carcassonne.
I think they got not far; for there were deadly marshes in that forest, and gloom that outlasted the nights, and fearful beasts accustomed to its ways. Neither is there any legend, either in verse or among the songs of the people of the fields, of any having come to Carcassonne.
Roses
I know a roadside where the wild rose blooms with a strange abundance. There is a beauty in the blossoms too of an almost exotic kind, a taint of deeper pink that shocks the Puritan flowers. Two hundred generations ago (generations, I mean, of roses) this was a village street; there was a floral decadence when they left their simple life and the roses came from the wilderness to clamber round houses of men.
Of all the memories of that little village, of all the cottages that stood there, of all the men and women whose homes they were, nothing remains but a more beautiful blush on the faces of the roses.
I hope that when London is clean passed away and the defeated fields come back again, like an exiled people returning after a war, they may find some beautiful thing to remind them of it all; because we have loved a little that swart old city.
The City
In time as well as in space my fancy roams far from here. It led me once to the edge of certain cliffs that were low and red and rose up out of a desert: a little way off in the desert there was a city. It was evening, and I sat and watched the city.
Presently I saw men by threes and fours come softly stealing out of that city’s gate to the number of about twenty. I heard the hum of men’s voices speaking at evening.
“It is well they are gone,” they said. “It is well they are gone. We can do business now. It is well they are gone.” And the men that had left the city sped away over the sand and so passed into the twilight.
“Who are these men?” I said to my glittering leader.
“The poets,” my fancy answered. “The poets and artists.”
“Why do they steal away?” I said to him. “And why are the people glad that they have gone?”
He said: “It must be some doom that is going to fall on the city, something has warned them and they have stolen away. Nothing may warn the people.”
I heard the wrangling voices, glad with commerce, rise up from the city. And then I also departed, for there was an ominous look on the face of the sky.
And only a thousand years later I passed that way, and there was nothing, even among the weeds, of what had been that city.
IV.
FANTASY AND REALITY
The Wonderful Window
The old man in the Oriental-looking robe was being moved on by the police, and it was this that attracted to him and the parcel under his arm the attention of Mr. Sladden, whose livelihood was earned in the emporium of Messrs. Mergin and Chater, that is to say in their establishment.
Mr. Sladden had the reputation of being the silliest young man in Business; a touch of romance—a mere suggestion of it—would send his eyes gazing away as though the walls of the emporium were of gossamer and London itself a myth, instead of attending to customers.
Merely the fact that the dirty piece of paper that wrapped the old man’s parcel was covered with Arabic writing was enough to give Mr. Sladden the idea of romance, and he followed until the little crowd fell off and the stranger stopped by the kerb and unwrapped his parcel and prepared to sell the thing that was inside it. It was a little window in old wood with small panes set in lead; it was not much more than a foot in breadth and was under two feet long. Mr. Sladden had never before seen a window sold in the street, so he asked the price of it.
“Its price is all you possess,” said the old man.
“Where did you get it?” said Mr. Sladden, for it was a strange window.
“I gave all that I possessed for it in the streets of Baghdad.”
“Did you possess much?” said Mr. Sladden.
“I had all that I wanted,” he said, “except this window.”
“It must be a good window,” said the young man.
“It is a magical window,” said the old one.
“I have only ten shillings on me, but I have fifteen-and-six at home.”
The old man thought for a while.
“Then twenty-five-and-sixpence is the price of the window,” he said.
It was only when the bargain was completed and the ten shillings paid and the strange old man was coming for his fifteen-and-six and to fit the magical window into his only room that it occurred to Mr. Sladden’s mind that he did not want a window. And then they were at the door of the house in which he rented a room, and it seemed too late to explain.
The stranger demanded privacy while he fitted up the window, so Mr. Sladden remained outside the door at the top of a little flight of creaky stairs. He heard no sound of hammering.
And presently the strange old man came out with his faded yellow robe and his great beard, and his eyes on far-off places. “It is finished,” he said, and he and the young man parted. And whether he remained a spot of colour and an anachronism in London, or whether he ever came again to Baghdad, and what dark hands kept on the circulation of his twenty-five-and-six, Mr. Sladden never knew.
Mr. Sladden entered the bare-boarded room in which he slept and spent all his indoor hours between closing-time and the hour at which Messrs. Mergin and Chater commenced. To the Penates of so dingy a room his neat frock-coat must have been a continual wonder. Mr. Sladden took it off and folded it carefully; and there was the old man’s window rather high up in the wall. There had been no window in that wall hitherto, nor any ornament at all but a small cupboard, so when Mr. Sladden had put his frock-coat safely away he glanced through his new window. It was where his cupboard had been in which he kept his tea-things: they were all standing on the table now. When Mr. Sladden glanced through his new window it was late in a summer’s evening; the butterflies some while ago would have closed their wings, though the bat would scarcely yet be drifting abroad—but this was in London: the shops were shut and street-lamps not yet lighted.
Mr. Sladden rubbed his eyes, then rubbed the window, and still he saw a sky of blazing blue, and far, far down beneath him, so that no sound came up from it or smoke of chimneys, a mediaeval city set with towers; brown roofs and cobbled streets, and then white walls and buttresses, and beyond them bright green fields and tiny streams. On the towers archers lolled, and along the walls were pikemen, and now and then a wagon went down some old-world street and lumbered through the gateway and out to the country, and now and then a wagon drew up to the city from the mist that was rolling with evening over the fields. Sometimes folk put their heads out of lattice windows, sometimes some idle troubadour seemed to sing, and nobody hurried or troubled about anything. Airy and dizzy though the distance was, for Mr. Sladden seemed higher above the city than any cathedral gargoyle, yet one dear detail he obtained as a clue: the banners floating from every tower over the idle archers had little golden dragons all over a pure white field.
He heard motor-buses roar by his other window, he heard the newsboys howling.
Mr. Sladden grew dreamier than ever after that on the premises, in the establishment of Messrs. Mergin and Chater. But in one matter he was wise and wakeful: he made continuous and careful enquiries about golden dragons on a white flag, and talked to no one of his wonderful window. He came to know the flags of every king in Europe, he even dabbled in history, he made enquiries at shops that understood heraldry, but nowhere could he learn any trace of little dragons or on a field argent. And when it seemed that for him alone those golden dragons had fluttered he came to love them as an exile in some desert might love the lilies of his home or as a sick man might love swallows when he cannot easily live to another spring.
As soon as Messrs. Mergin and Chater closed, Mr. Sladden used to go back to his dingy room and gaze through the wonderful window until it grew dark in the city and the guard would go with a lantern round the ramparts and the night came up like velvet, full of strange stars. Another clue he tried to obtain one night by jotting down the shapes of the constellations, but this led him no further, for they were unlike any that shone upon either hemisphere.
Each day as soon as he woke he went first to the wonderful window, and there was the city, diminutive in the distance, all shining in the morning, and the golden dragons dancing in the sun, and the archers stretching themselves or swinging their arms on the tops of the windy towers. The window would not open, so that he never heard the songs that the troubadours sang down there beneath gilded balconies; he did not even hear the belfries’ chimes, though he saw the jackdaws routed every hour from their homes. And the first thing that he always did was to cast his eye round all the little towers that rose up from the ramparts to see that the little golden dragons were flying there on their flags. And when he saw them flaunting themselves on white folds from every tower against the marvellous deep blue of the sky he dressed contentedly, and, taking one last look, went off to his work with a glory in his mind. It would have been difficult for the customers of Messrs. Mergin and Chater to guess the precise ambition of Mr. Sladden as he walked before them in his neat frock-coat: it was that he might be a man-at-arms or an archer in order to fight for the little golden dragons that flew on a white flag for an unknown king in an inaccessible city. At first Mr. Sladden used to walk round and round the mean street that he lived in, but he gained no clue from that; and soon he noticed that quite different winds blew below his wonderful window from those that blew on the other side of the house.
In August the evenings began to grow shorter: this was the very remark that the other employés made to him at the emporium, so that he almost feared that they suspected his secret, and he had much less time for the wonderful window, for lights were few down there and they blinked out early.
One morning late in August, just before he went to Business, Mr. Sladden saw a company of pikemen running down the cobbled road towards the gateway of the mediaeval city—Golden Dragon City he used to call it alone in his own mind, but he never spoke of it to anyone. The next thing that he noticed was that the archers on the towers were talking a good deal together and were handling round bundles of arrows in addition to the quivers which they wore. Heads were thrust out of windows more than usual, a woman ran out and called some children indoors, a knight rode down the street, and then more pikemen appeared along the walls, and all the jackdaws were in the air. In the street no troubadour sang. Mr. Sladden took one look along the towers to see that the flags were flying, and all the golden dragons were streaming in the wind. Then he had to go to Business. He took a ’bus back that evening and ran upstairs. Nothing seemed to be happening in Golden Dragon City except a crowd in the cobbled street that led down to the gateway; the archers seemed to be reclining as usual lazily in their towers, then a white flag went down with all its golden dragons; he did not see at first that all the archers were dead. The crowd was pouring towards him, towards the precipitous wall from which he looked; men with a white flag covered with golden dragons were moving backwards slowly, men with another flag were pressing them, a flag on which there was one huge red bear. Another banner went down upon a tower. Then he saw it all: the golden dragons were being beaten—his little golden dragons. The men of the bear were coming under the window; whatever he threw from that height would fall with terrific force: fire-irons, coal, his clock, whatever he had—he would fight for his little golden dragons yet. A flame broke out from one of the towers and licked the feet of a reclining archer; he did not stir. And now the alien standard was out of sight directly underneath. Mr. Sladden broke the panes of the wonderful window and wrenched away with a poker the lead that held them. Just as the glass broke he saw a banner covered with golden dragons fluttering still, and then as he drew back to hurl the poker there came to him the scent of mysterious spices, and there was nothing there, not even the daylight, for behind the fragments of the wonderful window was nothing but that small cupboard in which he kept his tea-things.
And though Mr. Sladden is older now and knows more of the world, and even has a Business of his own, he has never been able to buy such another window, and has not ever since, either from books or men, heard any rumour at all of Golden Dragon City.
The Coronation of Mr. Thomas Shap
It was the occupation of Mr. Thomas Shap to persuade customers that the goods were genuine and of an excellent quality, and that as regards the price their unspoken will was consulted. And in order to carry on this occupation he went by train very early every morning some few miles nearer to the City from the suburb in which he slept. This was the use to which he put his life.
From the moment when he first perceived (not as one reads a thing in a book, but as truths are revealed to one’s instinct) the very beastliness of his occupation, and of the house that he slept in, its shape, make and pretensions, and of even the clothes that he wore; from that moment he withdrew his dreams from it, his fancies, his ambitious, everything in fact except that ponderable Mr. Shap that dressed in a frock-coat, bought tickets and handled money and could in turn be handled by the statistician. The priest’s share in Mr. Shap, the share of the poet, never caught the early train to the City at all.
He used to take little flights with his fancy at first, dwelt all day in his dreamy way on fields and rivers lying in the sunlight where it strikes the world more brilliantly further South. And then he began to imagine butterflies there; after that, silken people and the temples they built to their gods.
They noticed that he was silent, and even absent at times, but they found no fault with his behaviour with customers, to whom he remained as plausible as of old. So he dreamed for a year, and his fancy gained strength as he dreamed. He still read halfpenny papers in the train, still discussed the passing day’s ephemeral topic, still voted at elections, though he no longer did these things with the whole Shap—his soul was no longer in them.
He had had a pleasant year, his imagination was all new to him still, and it had often discovered beautiful things away where it went, southeast at the edge of the twilight. And he had a matter-of-fact and logical mind, so that he often said, “Why should I pay my twopence at the electric theatre when I can see all sorts of things quite easily without?” Whatever he did was logical before anything else, and those that knew him always spoke of Shap as “a sound, sane, level-headed man.”
On far the most important day of his life he went as usual to town by the early train to sell plausible articles to customers, while the spiritual Shap roamed off to fanciful lands. As he walked from the station, dreamy but wide awake, it suddenly struck him that the real Shap was not the one walking to Business in black and ugly clothes, but he who roamed along a jungle’s edge near the ramparts of an old and Eastern city that rose up sheer from the sand, and against which the desert lapped with one eternal wave. He used to fancy the name of that city was Larkar. “After all, the fancy is as real as the body,” he said with perfect logic. It was a dangerous theory.
For that other life that he led he realized, as in Business, the importance and value of method. He did not let his fancy roam too far until it perfectly knew its first surroundings. Particularly he avoided the jungle—he was not afraid to meet a tiger there (after all it was not real), but stranger things might crouch there. Slowly he built up Larkar: rampart by rampart, towers for archers, gateway of brass, and all. And then one day he argued, and quite rightly, that all the silk-clad people in its streets, their camels, their wares that came from Inkustahn, the city itself, were all the things of his will—and then he made himself King. He smiled after that when people did not raise their hats to him in the street, as he walked from the station to Business; but he was sufficiently practical to recognize that it was better not to talk of this to those that only knew him as Mr. Shap.
Now that he was King in the city of Larkar and in all the desert that lay to the East and North he sent his fancy to wander further afield. He took the regiments of his camel-guard and went jingling out of Larkar, with little silver bells under the camels’ chins, and came to other cities far-off on the yellow sand, with clear white walls and towers, uplifting themselves in the sun. Through their gates he passed with his three silken regiments, the light-blue regiment of the camel-guard being upon his right and the green regiment riding at his left, the lilac regiment going on before. When he had gone through the streets of any city and observed the ways of its people, and had seen the way that the sunlight struck its towers, he would proclaim himself King there, and then ride on in fancy. So he passed from city to city and from land to land. Clear-sighted though Mr. Shop was, I think he overlooked the lust of aggrandizement to which kings have so often been victims: and so it was that when the first few cities had opened their gleaming gates and he saw peoples prostrate before his camel, and spearmen cheering along countless balconies, and priests come out to do him reverence, he that had never had even the lowliest authority in the familiar world became unwisely insatiate. He let his fancy ride at inordinate speed, he forsook method, scarce was he king of a land but he yearned to extend his borders; so he journeyed deeper and deeper into the wholly unknown. The concentration that he gave to this inordinate progress through countries of which history is ignorant and cities so fantastic in their bulwarks that, though their inhabitants were human, yet the foe that they feared seemed something less or more; the amazement with which he beheld gates and towers unknown even to art, and furtive people thronging intricate ways to acclaim him as their sovereign—all these things began to affect his capacity for Business. He knew as well as any that his fancy could not rule these beautiful lands unless that other Shap, however unimportant, were well sheltered and fed: and shelter and food meant money, and money, Business. His was more like the mistake of some gambler with cunning schemes who overlooks human greed. One day his fancy, riding in the morning, came to a city gorgeous as the sunrise, in whose opalescent wall were gates of gold, so huge that a river poured between the bars, floating in, when the gates were opened, large galleons under sail. Thence there came dancing out a company with instruments, and made a melody all round the wall; that morning Mr. Shap, the bodily Shap in London, forgot the train to town.
Until a year ago he had never imagined at all; it is not to be wondered at that all these things now newly seen by his fancy should play tricks at first with the memory of even so sane a man. He gave up reading the papers altogether, he lost all interest in politics, he cared less and less for things that were going on around him. This unfortunate missing of the morning train even occurred again, and the firm spoke to him severely about it. But he had his consolation. Were not Aráthrion and Argun Zeerith and all the level coasts of Oora his? And even as the firm found fault with him his fancy watched the yaks on weary journeys, slow specks against the snow-fields, bringing tribute; and saw the green eyes of the mountain men who had looked at him strangely in the city of Nith when he had entered it by the desert door. Yet his logic did not forsake him; he knew well that his strange subjects did not exist, but he was prouder of having created them with his brain, than merely of ruling them only; thus in his pride he felt himself something more great than a king, he did not dare to think what! He went into the temple of the city of Zorra and stood some time there alone: all the priests kneeled to him when he came away.
He cared less and less for the things we care about, for the affairs of Shap, a business-man in London. He began to despise the man with a royal contempt.
One day when he sat in Sowla, the city of the Thuls, throned on one amethyst, he decided, and it was proclaimed on the moment by silver trumpets all along the land, that he would be crowned as king over all the lands of Wonder.
By that old temple where the Thuls were worshipped, year in, year out, for over a thousand years, they pitched pavilions in the open air. The trees that blew there threw out radiant scents unknown in any countries that know the map; the stars blazed fiercely for that famous occasion. A fountain hurled up, clattering, ceaselessly into the air armfuls on armfuls of diamonds. A deep hush waited for the golden trumpets, the holy coronation night was come. At the top of those old, worn steps, going down we know not whither, stood the king in the emerald-and-amethyst cloak, the ancient garb of the Thuls; beside him lay that Sphinx that for the last few weeks had advised him in his affairs.
Slowly, with music when the trumpets sounded, came up towards him from we know not where, one-hundred-and-twenty archbishops, twenty angels and two archangels, with that terrific crown, the diadem of the Thuls. They knew as they came up to him that promotion awaited them all because of this night’s work. Silent, majestic, the king awaited them.
The doctors downstairs were sitting over their supper, the warders softly slipped from room to room, and when in that cosy dormitory of Hanwell1 they saw the king still standing erect and royal, his face resolute, they came up to him and addressed him: “Go to bed,” they said—“pretty bed.” So he lay down and soon was fast asleep: the great day was over.
The City on Mallington Moor
Besides the old shepherd at Lingwold whose habits render him unreliable I am probably the only person that has ever seen the city on Mallington Moor.2
I had decided one year to do no London season; partly because of the ugliness of the things in the shops, partly because of the unresisted invasions of German bands, partly perhaps because some pet parrots in the oblong where I lived had learned to imitate cab-whistles; but chiefly because of late there had seized me in London a quite unreasonable longing for large woods and waste spaces, while the very thought of little valleys underneath copses full of bracken and foxgloves was a torment to me and every summer in London the longing grew worse till the thing was becoming intolerable. So I took a stick and a knapsack and began walking northwards, starting at Tetherington and sleeping at inns, where one could get real salt, and the waiter spoke English and where one had a name instead of a number; and though the tablecloth might be dirty the windows opened so that the air was clean, where one had the excellent company of farmers and men of the wold, who could not be thoroughly vulgar, because they had not the money to be so even if they had wished it. At first the novelty was delightful, and then one day in a queer old inn up Uthering way, beyond Lingwold, I heard for the first time the rumour of the city said to be on Mallington Moor. They spoke of it quite casually over their glasses of beer, two farmers at the inn. “They say the queer folk be at Mallington with their city,” one farmer said. “Travelling they seem to be,” said the other. And more came in then and the rumour spread. And then, such are the contradictions of our little likes and dislikes and all the whims that drive us, that I, who had come so far to avoid cities, had a great longing all of a sudden for throngs again and the great hives of Man, and then and there determined on that bright Sunday morning to come to Mallington and there search for the city that rumour spoke of so strangely.
Mallington Moor, from all that they said of it, was hardly a likely place to find a thing by searching. It was a huge high moor, very bleak and desolate and altogether trackless. It seemed a lonely place from what they said. The Normans when they came had called it Mal Lieu and afterwards Mallintown and so it changed to Mallington. Though what a town can ever have had to do with a place so utterly desolate I do not know. And before that some say that the Saxons called it Baplas, which I believe to be a corruption of Bad Place.
And beyond the mere rumour of a beautiful city all of white marble and with a foreign look up on Mallington Moor, beyond this I could not get. None of them had seen it himself, “only heard of it like,” and my questions, rather than stimulating conversation, would always stop it abruptly. I was no more fortunate on the road to Mallington until the Tuesday, when I was quite near it; I had been walking two days from the inn where I had heard the rumour and could see the great hill steep as a headland on which Mallington lay, standing up on the skyline: the hill was covered with grass, where anything grew at all, but Mallington Moor is all heather; it is just marked Moor on the map; nobody goes there and they do not trouble to name it. It was there where the gaunt hill first came into sight, by the roadside as I enquired for the marble city of some labourers by the way, that I was directed, partly I think in derision, to the old shepherd of Lingwold. It appeared that he, following sometimes sheep that had strayed, and wandering far from Lingwold, came sometimes up to the edge of Mallington Moor, and that he would come back from these excursions and shout through the villages, raving of a city of white marble and gold-tipped minarets. And hearing me asking questions of this city they had laughed and directed me to the shepherd of Lingwold. One well-meant warning they gave me as I went—the old man was not reliable.
And late that evening I saw the thatches of Lingwold sheltering under the edge of that huge hill that Atlas-like held up those miles of moor to the great winds and heaven.
They knew less of the city in Lingwold than elsewhere but they knew the whereabouts of the man I wanted, though they seemed a little ashamed of him. There was an inn in Lingwold that gave me shelter, whence in the morning, equipped with purchases, I set out to find their shepherd. And there he was on the edge of Mallington Moor standing motionless, gazing stupidly at his sheep; his hands trembled continually and his eyes had a blear look, but he was quite sober, wherein all Lingwold had wronged him.
And then and there I asked him of the city and he said he had never heard tell of any such place. And I said, “Come, come, you must pull yourself together.” And he looked angrily at me; but when he saw me draw from amongst my purchases a full bottle of whiskey and a big glass he became more friendly. As I poured out the whiskey I asked him again about the marble city on Mallington Moor but he seemed quite honestly to know nothing about it. The amount of whiskey he drank was quite incredible, but I seldom express surprise and once more I asked him the way to the wonderful city. His hand was steadier now and his eyes more intelligent and he said that he had heard something of some such city, but his memory was evidently blurred and he was still unable to give me useful directions. I consequently gave him another tumbler, which he drank off like the first without any water, and almost at once he was a different man. The trembling in his hands stopped altogether, his eye became as quick as a younger man’s, he answered my questions readily and frankly, and, what was more important to me still, his old memory became alert and clear for even minutest details. His gratitude to myself I need not mention, for I make no pretence that I bought the bottle of whiskey that the old shepherd enjoyed so much without at least some thought of my own advantage. Yet it was pleasant to reflect that it was due to me that he had pulled himself together and steadied his shaking hand and cleared his mind, recovered his memory and his self-respect. He spoke to me quite clearly, no longer slurring his words; he had seen the city first one moonlight night when he was lost in the mist on the big moor, he had wandered far in the mist, and when it lifted he saw the city by moonlight. He had no food, but luckily had his flask. There never was such a city, not even in books. Travellers talked sometimes of Venice seen from the sea, there might be such a place or there might not, but, whether or no, it was nothing to the city on Mallington Moor. Men who read books had talked to him in his time, hundreds of books, but they never could tell of any city like this. Why, the place was all of marble, roads, walls and palaces, all pure white marble, and the tops of the tall thin spires were entirely of gold. And they were queer folk in the city even for foreigners. And there were camels, but I cut him short for I thought I could judge for myself, if there was such a place, and, if not, I was wasting my time as well as a pint of good whiskey. So I got him to speak of the way, and after more circumlocution than I needed and more talk of the city he pointed to a tiny track on the black earth just beside us, a little twisty way you could hardly see.
I said the moor was trackless; untrodden of man or dog it certainly was and seemed to have less to do with the ways of man than any waste I have seen, but the track the old shepherd showed me, if track it was, was no more than the track of a hare—an elf-path the old man called it, Heaven knows what he meant. And then before I left him he insisted on giving me his flask with the queer strong rum it contained. Whiskey brings out in some men melancholy, in some rejoicing, with him it was clearly generosity and he insisted until I took his rum, though I did not mean to drink it. It was lonely up there, he said, and bitter cold and the city hard to find, being set in a hollow, and I should need the rum, and he had never seen the marble city except on days when he had had his flask: he seemed to regard that rusted iron flask as a sort of mascot, and in the end I took it.
I followed that odd, faint track on the black earth under the heather till I came to the big grey stone beyond the horizon, where the track divides into two, and I took the one to the left as the old man told me. I knew by another stone that I saw far off that I had not lost my way, nor the old man lied.
And just as I hoped to see the city’s ramparts before the gloaming fell on that desolate place, I suddenly saw a long high wall of whiteness with pinnacles here and there thrown up above it, floating towards me silent and grim as a secret, and knew it for that evil thing the mist. The sun, though low, was shining on every sprig of heather, the green and scarlet mosses were shining with it too, it seemed incredible that in three minutes’ time all those colours would be gone and nothing left all round but a grey darkness. I gave up hope of finding the city that day, a broader path than mine could have been quite easily lost. I hastily chose for my bed a thick patch of heather, wrapped myself in a waterproof cloak, and lay down and made myself comfortable. And then the mist came. It came like the careful pulling of lace curtains, then like the drawing of grey blinds; it shut out the horizon to the north, then to the east and west; it turned the whole sky white and hid the moor; it came down on it like a metropolis, only utterly silent, silent and white as tombstones.
And then I was glad of that strange strong rum, or whatever it was in the flask that the shepherd gave me, for I did not think that the mist would clear till night, and I feared the night would be cold. So I nearly emptied the flask; and, sooner than I expected, I fell asleep, for the first night out as a rule one does not sleep at once but is kept awake some while by the little winds and the unfamiliar sound of the things that wander at night, and that cry to one another far-off with their queer, faint voices; one misses them afterwards when one gets to houses again. But I heard none of these sounds in the mist that evening.
And then I woke and found that the mist was gone and the sun was just disappearing under the moor, and I knew that I had not slept for as long as I thought. And I decided to go on while I could, for I thought that I was not very far from the city.
I went on and on along the twisty track, bits of the mist came down and filled the hollows but lifted again at once so that I saw my way. The twilight faded as I went, a star appeared, and I was able to see the track no longer. I could go no further that night, yet before I lay down to sleep I decided to go and look over the edge of a wide depression in the moor that I saw a little way off. So I left the track and walked a few hundred yards, and when I got to the edge the hollow was full of mist all white underneath me. Another star appeared and a cold wind arose, and with the wind the mist flapped away like a curtain. And there was the city.
Nothing the shepherd had said was the least untrue or even exaggerated. The poor old man had told the simple truth, there is not a city like it in the world. What he had called thin spires were minarets, but the little domes on the top were clearly pure gold as he said. There were the marble terraces he described and the pure white palaces covered with carving and hundreds of minarets. The city was obviously of the East and yet where there should have been crescents on the domes of the minarets there were golden suns with rays, and wherever one looked one saw things that obscured its origin. I walked down to it, and, passing through a wicket gate of gold in a low wall of white marble, I entered the city. The heather went right up to the city’s edge and beat against the marble wall whenever the wind blew it. Lights began to twinkle from high windows of blue glass as I walked up the white street, beautiful copper lanterns were lit up and let down from balconies by silver chains, from doors ajar came the sound of voices singing, and then I saw the men. Their faces were rather grey than black, and they wore beautiful robes of coloured silk with hems embroidered with gold and some with copper, and sometimes pacing down the marble ways with golden baskets hung on each side of them I saw the camels of which the old shepherd spoke.
The people had kindly faces, but, though they were evidently friendly to strangers, I could not speak with them being ignorant of their language, nor were the sounds of the syllables they used like any language I had ever heard: they sounded more like grouse.
When I tried to ask them by signs whence they had come with their city they would only point to the moon, which was bright and full and was shining fiercely on those marble ways till the city danced in light. And now there began appearing one by one, slipping softly out through windows, men with stringed instruments in the balconies. They were strange instruments with huge bulbs of wood, and they played softly on them and very beautifully, and their queer voices softly sang to the music weird dirges of the griefs of their native land wherever that may be. And far off in the heart of the city others were singing too, the sound of it came to me wherever I roamed, not loud enough to disturb my thoughts, but gently turning the mind to pleasant things. Slender carved arches of marble, as delicate almost as lace, crossed and re-crossed the ways wherever I went. There was none of that hurry of which foolish cities boast, nothing ugly or sordid so far as I could see. I saw that it was a city of beauty and song. I wondered how they had travelled with all that marble, how they had laid it down on Mallington Moor, whence they had come and what their resources were, and determined to investigate closely next morning, for the old shepherd had not troubled his head to think how the city came, he had only noted that the city was there (and of course no one believed him, though that is partly his fault for his dissolute ways). But at night one can see little and I had walked all day, so I determined to find a place to rest in. And just as I was wondering whether to ask for shelter of those silk-robed men by signs or whether to sleep outside the walls and enter again in the morning, I came to a great archway in one of the marble houses with two black curtains, embroidered below with gold, hanging across it. Over the archway were carved apparently in many tongues the words: “Here strangers rest.” In Greek, Latin and Spanish the sentence was repeated and there was writing also in the language that you see on the walls of the great temples of Egypt, and Arabic and what I took to be early Assyrian and one or two languages I had never seen. I entered through the curtains and found a tesselated marble court with golden braziers burning sleepy incense swinging by chains from the roof, all round the walls were comfortable mattresses lying upon the floor covered with cloths and silks. It must have been ten o’clock and I was tired. Outside the music still softly filled the streets, a man had set a lantern down on the marble way, five or six sat down round him, and he was sonorously telling them a story. Inside there were some already asleep on the beds, in the middle of the wide court under the braziers a woman dressed in blue was singing very gently, she did not move, but sung on and on, I never heard a song that was so soothing. I lay down on one of the mattresses by the wall, which was all inlaid with mosaics, and pulled over me some of the cloths with their beautiful alien work, and almost immediately my thoughts seemed part of the song that the woman was singing in the midst of the court under the golden braziers that hung from the high roof, and the song turned them to dreams, and so I fell asleep.
A small wind having arisen, I was awakened by a sprig of heather that beat continually against my face. It was morning on Mallington Moor, and the city was quite gone.
The Bureau d’Echange de Maux
I often think of the Bureau d’Echange de Maux and the wondrously evil old man that sate therein. It stood in a little street that there is in Paris, its doorway made of three brown beams of wood, the top one overlapping the others like the Greek letter pi, all the rest painted green, a house far lower and narrower than its neighbours and infinitely stranger, a thing to take one’s fancy. And over the doorway on the old brown beam in faded yellow letters this legend ran, Bureau Universel d’Echanges de Maux.
I entered at once and accosted the listless man that lolled on a stool by his counter. I demanded the wherefore of his wonderful house, what evil wares he exchanged, with many other things that I wished to know, for curiosity led me; and indeed had it not I had gone at once from the shop, for there was so evil a look in that fattened man, in the hang of his fallen cheeks and his sinful eye, that you would have said he had had dealings with Hell and won the advantage by sheer wickedness.
Such a man was mine host; but above all the evil of him lay in his eyes, which lay so still, so apathetic, that you would have sworn that he was drugged or dead; like lizards motionless on a wall they lay, then suddenly they darted, and all his cunning flamed up and revealed itself in what one moment before seemed no more than a sleepy and ordinary wicked old man. And this was the object and trade of that peculiar shop, the Bureau Universel d’Echanges de Maux: you paid twenty francs, which the old man proceeded to take from me, for admission to the bureau and then had the right to exchange any evil or misfortune with anyone on the premises for some evil or misfortune that he “could afford,” as the old man put it.
There were four or five men in the dingy ends of that low-ceilinged room who gesticulated and muttered softly in twos as men who make a bargain, and now and then more came in, and the eyes of the flabby owner of the house leaped up at them as they entered, seemed to know their errands at once and each one’s peculiar need, and fell back again into somnolence, receiving his twenty francs in an almost lifeless hand and biting the coin as though in pure absence of mind.
“Some of my clients,” he told me. So amazing to me was the trade of this extraordinary shop that I engaged the old man in conversation, repulsive though he was, and from his garrulity I gathered these facts. He spoke in perfect English though his utterance was somewhat thick and heavy; no language seemed to come amiss to him. He had been in business a great many years, how many he would not say, and was far older than he looked. All kinds of people did business in his shop. What they exchanged with each other he did not care except that it had to be evils, he was not empowered to carry on any other kind of business.
There was no evil, he told me, that was not negotiable there; no evil the old man knew had ever been taken away in despair from his shop. A man might have to wait and come back again next day, and next day and the day after, paying twenty francs each time, but the old man had the addresses of his clients and shrewdly knew their needs, and soon the right two met and eagerly changed their commodities. “Commodities” was the old man’s terrible word, said with a gruesome smack of his heavy lips, for he took a pride in his business and evils to him were goods.
I learned from him in ten minutes very much of human nature, more than I have ever learned from any other man; I learned from him that a man’s own evil is to him the worst thing that there is or could be, and that an evil so unbalances all men’s minds that they always seek for extremes in that small grim shop. A woman that had no children had exchanged with an impoverished half-maddened creature with twelve. On one occasion a man had exchanged wisdom for folly.
“Why on earth did he do that?” I said.
“None of my business,” the old man answered in his heavy indolent way. He merely took his twenty francs from each and ratified the agreement in the little room at the back opening out of the shop where his clients do business. Apparently the man that had parted with wisdom had left the shop upon the tips of his toes with a happy though foolish expression all over his face, but the other went thoughtfully away wearing a troubled and very puzzled look. Almost always it seemed they did business in opposite evils.
But the thing that puzzled me most in all my talks with that unwieldy man, the thing that puzzles me still, is that none that had once done business in that shop ever returned again; a man might come day after day for many weeks, but once do business and he never returned; so much the old man told me, but when I asked him why, he only muttered that he did not know.
It was to discover the wherefore of this strange thing and for no other reason at all that I determined myself to do business sooner or later in the little room at the back of that mysterious shop. I determined to exchange some very trivial evil for some evil equally slight, to seek for myself an advantage so very small as scarcely to give Fate as it were a grip, for I deeply distrusted these bargains, knowing well that man has never yet benefited by the marvellous and that the more miraculous his advantage appears to be the more securely and tightly do the gods or the witches catch him. In a few days more I was going back to England and I was beginning to fear that I should be sea-sick: this fear of sea-sickness, not the actual malady but only the mere fear of it, I decided to exchange for a suitably little evil. I did not know with whom I should be dealing, who in reality was the head of the firm (one never does when shopping) but I decided that neither Jew nor Devil could make very much on so small a bargain as that.
I told the old man my project, and he scoffed at the smallness of my commodity trying to urge me to some darker bargain, but could not move me from my purpose. And then he told me tales with a somewhat boastful air of the big business, the great bargains that had passed through his hands. A man had once run in there to try and exchange death, he had swallowed poison by accident and had only twelve hours to live. That sinister old man had been able to oblige him. A client was willing to exchange the commodity.
“But what did he give in exchange for death?” I said.
“Life,” said that grim old man with a furtive chuckle.
“It must have been a horrible life,” I said.
“That was not my affair,” the proprietor said, lazily rattling together as he spoke a little pocketful of twenty-franc pieces.
Strange business I watched in that shop for the next few days, the exchange of odd commodities, and heard strange mutterings in corners amongst couples who presently rose and went to the back room, the old man following to ratify.
Twice a day for a week I paid my twenty francs, watching life with its great needs and its little needs morning and afternoon spread out before me in all its wonderful variety.
And one day I met a comfortable man with only a little need, he seemed to have the very evil I wanted. He always feared the lift was going to break. I knew too much of hydraulics to fear things as silly as that, but it was not my business to cure his ridiculous fear. Very few words were needed to convince him that mine was the evil for him, he never crossed the sea, and I on the other hand could always walk upstairs, and I also felt at the time, as many must feel in that shop, that so absurd a fear could never trouble me. And yet at times it is almost the curse of my life. When we both had signed the parchment in the spidery back room and the old man had signed and ratified (for which we had to pay him fifty francs each) I went back to my hotel, and there I saw the deadly thing in the basement. They asked me if I would go upstairs in the lift, from force of habit I risked it, and I held my breath all the way and clenched my hands. Nothing will induce me to try such a journey again. I would sooner go up to my room in a balloon. And why? Because if a balloon goes wrong you have a chance, it may spread out into a parachute after it has burst, it may catch in a tree, a hundred and one things may happen, but if the lift falls down its shaft you are done. As for sea-sickness I shall never be sick again, I cannot tell you why except that I know that it is so.
And the shop in which I made this remarkable bargain, the shop to which none return when their business is done: I set out for it next day. Blindfold I could have found my way to the unfashionable quarter out of which a mean street runs, where you take the alley at the end, whence runs the cul de sac where the queer shop stood. A shop with pillars, fluted and painted red, stands on its near side, its other neighbour is a low-class jeweller’s with little silver brooches in the window. In such incongruous company stood the shop with beams with its walls painted green.
In half an hour I stood in the cul de sac to which I had gone twice a day for the last week, I found the shop with the ugly painted pillars and the jeweller that sold brooches, but the green house with the three beams was gone.
Pulled down, you will say, although in a single night. That can never be the answer to the mystery, for the house of the fluted pillars painted on plaster and the low-class jeweller’s shop with its silver brooches (all of which I could identify one by one) were standing side by side.
The Exiles’ Club
It was an evening party; and something someone had said to me had started me talking about a subject that to me is full of fascination, the subject of old religions, forsaken gods. The truth (for all religions have some of it), the wisdom, the beauty, of the religions of countries to which I travel have not the same appeal for me; for one only notices in them their tyranny and intolerance and the abject servitude that they claim from thought; but when a dynasty has been dethroned in heaven and goes forgotten and outcast even among men, one’s eyes no longer dazzled by its power find something very wistful in the faces of fallen gods suppliant to be remembered, something almost tearfully beautiful, like a long warm summer twilight fading gently away after some day memorable in the story of earthly wars. Between what Zeus, for instance, has been once and the half-remembered tale he is to-day there lies a space so great that there is no change of fortune known to man whereby we may measure the height down which he has fallen. And it is the same with many another god at whom once the ages trembled and the twentieth century treats as an old wives’ tale. The fortitude that such a fall demands is surely more than human.
Some such things as these I was saying, and being upon a subject that much attracts me I possibly spoke too loudly, certainly I was not aware that standing close behind me was no less a person than the ex-King of Eritivaria, the thirty islands of the East, or I would have moderated my voice and moved away a little to give him more room. I was not aware of his presence until his satellite, one who had fallen with him into exile but still revolved about him, told me that his master desired to know me; and so to my surprise I was presented though neither of them even knew my name. And that was how I came to be invited by the ex-King to dine at his club.
At the time I could only account for his wishing to know me by supposing that he found in his own exiled condition some likeness to the fallen fortunes of the gods of whom I talked unwitting of his presence; but now I know that it was not of himself he was thinking when he asked me to dine at that club.
The club would have been the most imposing building in any street in London, but in that obscure mean quarter of London in which they had built it it appeared unduly enormous. Lifting right up above those grotesque houses and built in that Greek style that we call Georgian, there was something Olympian about it. To my host an unfashionable street could have meant nothing, through all his youth wherever he had gone had become fashionable the moment he went there; words like the East End could have had no meaning to him.
Whoever built that house had enormous wealth and cared nothing for fashion, perhaps despised it. As I stood gazing at the magnificent upper windows draped with great curtains, indistinct in the evening, on which huge shadows flickered my host attracted my attention from the doorway, and so I went in and met for the second time the ex-King of Eritivaria.
In front of us a stairway of rare marble led upwards, he took me through a side-door and downstairs and we came to a banqueting-hall of great magnificence. A long table ran up the middle of it, laid for quite twenty people, and I noticed the peculiarity that instead of chairs there were thrones for everyone except me, who was the only guest and for whom there was an ordinary chair. My host explained to me when we all sat down that everyone who belonged to that club was by rights a king.
In fact none was permitted, he told me, to belong to the club until his claim to a kingdom made out in writing had been examined and allowed by those whose duty it was. The whim of a populace or the candidate’s own misrule were never considered by the investigators, nothing counted with them but heredity and lawful descent from kings, all else was ignored. At that table there were those who had once reigned themselves, others lawfully claimed descent from kings that the world had forgotten, the kingdoms claimed by some had even changed their names. Hatzgurh, the mountain kingdom, is almost regarded as mythical.
I have seldom seen greater splendour than that long hall provided below the level of the street. No doubt by day it was a little sombre, as all basements are, but at night with its great crystal chandeliers, and the glitter of heirlooms that had gone into exile, it surpassed the splendour of palaces that have only one king. They had come to London suddenly most of those kings, or their fathers before them, or forefathers; some had come away from their kingdoms by night, in a light sleigh, flogging the horses, or had galloped clear with morning over the border, some had trudged roads for days from their capital in disguise, yet many had had time just as they left to snatch up some small thing without price in markets, for the sake of old times as they said, but quite as much, I thought, with an eye to the future. And there these treasures glittered on that long table in the banqueting-hall of the basement of that strange club. Merely to see them was much, but to hear their story that their owners told was to go back in fancy to epic times on the romantic border of fable and fact, where the heroes of history fought with the gods of myth. The famous silver horses of Gilgianza were there climbing their sheer mountain, which they did by miraculous means before the time of the Goths. It was not a large piece of silver but its workmanship outrivalled the skill of the bees.
A yellow Emperor had brought out of the East a piece of that incomparable porcelain that had made his dynasty famous though all their deeds are forgotten, it had the exact shade of the right purple.
And there was a little golden statuette of a dragon stealing a diamond from a lady, the dragon had the diamond in his claws, large and of the first water. There had been a kingdom whose whole constitution and history were founded on the legend, from which alone its kings had claimed their right to the sceptre, that a dragon stole a diamond from a lady. When its last king left that country, because his favourite general used a peculiar formation under the fire of artillery, he brought with him the little ancient image that no longer proved him a king outside that singular club.
There was the pair of amethyst cups of the turbaned King of Foo, the one that he drank from himself, and the one that he gave to his enemies, eye could not tell which was which.
All these things the ex-King of Eritivaria showed me, telling me a marvellous tale of each; of his own he had brought nothing, except the mascot that used once to sit on the top of the water tube of his favourite motor.
I have not outlined a tenth of the splendour of that table, I had meant to come again and examine each piece of plate and make notes of its history; had I known that this was the last time I should wish to enter that club I should have looked at its treasures more attentively, but now as the wine went round and the exiles began to talk I took my eyes from the table and listened to strange tales of their former state.
He that has seen better times has usually a poor tale to tell, some mean and trivial thing has been his undoing, but they that dined in that basement had mostly fallen like oaks on nights of abnormal tempest, had fallen mightily and shaken a nation. Those who had not been kings themselves, but claimed through an exiled ancestor, had stories to tell of even grander disaster, history seeming to have mellowed their dynasty’s fate as moss grows over an oak a great while fallen. There were no jealousies there as so often there are among kings, rivalry must have ceased with the loss of their navies and armies, and they showed no bitterness against those that had turned them out, one speaking of the error of his Prime Minister by which he had lost his throne as “poor old Friedrich’s Heaven-sent gift of tactlessness.”
They gossiped pleasantly of many things, the tittle-tattle we all had to know when we were learning history, and many a wonderful story I might have heard, many a sidelight on mysterious wars had I not made use of one unfortunate word. That word was “upstairs.”
The ex-King of Eritivaria having pointed out to me those unparalleled heirlooms to which I have alluded, and many more besides, hospitably asked me if there was anything else that I would care to see, he meant the pieces of plate that they had in the cupboards, the curiously graven swords of other princes, historic jewels, legendary seals, but I who had had a glimpse of their marvellous staircase, whose balustrade I believed to be solid gold and wondering why in such a stately house they chose to dine in the basement, mentioned the word “upstairs.” A profound hush came down on the whole assembly, the hush that might greet levity in a cathedral.
“Upstairs!” he gasped. “We cannot go upstairs.”
I perceived that what I had said was an ill-chosen thing. I tried to excuse myself but knew not how.
“Of course,” I muttered, “members may not take guests upstairs.”
“Members!” he said to me. “We are not the members!”
There was such reproof in his voice that I said no more, I looked at him questioningly, perhaps my lips moved, I may have said “What are you?” A great surprise had come on me at their attitude.
“We are the waiters,” he said.
That I could not have known, here at least was honest ignorance that I had no need to be ashamed of, the very opulence of their table denied it.
“Then who are the members?” I asked.
Such a hush fell at that question, such a hush of genuine awe, that all of a sudden a wild thought entered my head, a thought strange and fantastic and terrible. I gripped my host by the wrist and hushed my voice.
“Are they too exiles?” I asked.
Twice as he looked in my face he gravely nodded his head.
I left that club very swiftly indeed, never to see it again, scarcely pausing to say farewell to those menial kings, and as I left the door a great window opened far up at the top of the house and a flash of lightning streamed from it and killed a dog.
Thirteen at Table
In front of a spacious fireplace of the old kind, when the logs were well alight, and men with pipes and glasses were gathered before it in great easeful chairs, and the wild weather outside and the comfort that was within, and the season of the year—for it was Christmas—and the hour of the night, all called for the weird or uncanny, then out spoke the ex-master of fox-hounds and told this tale.
I once had an odd experience too. It was when I had the Bromley and Sydenham,3 the year I gave them up—as a matter of fact it was the last day of the season. It was no use going on because there were no foxes left in the county, and London was sweeping down on us. You could see it from the kennels all along the skyline like a terrible army in grey, and masses of villas every year came skirmishing down our valleys. Our coverts were mostly on the hills, and as the town came down upon the valleys the foxes used to leave them and go right away out of the county and they never returned. I think they went by night and moved great distances. Well it was early April and we had drawn blank all day, and at the last draw of all, the very last of the season, we found a fox. He left the covert with his back to London and its railways and villas and wire and slipped away towards the chalk country and open Kent. I felt as I once felt as a child on one summer’s day when I found a door in a garden where I played left luckily ajar, and I pushed it open and the wide lands were before me and waving fields of corn.
We settled down into a steady gallop and the fields began to drift by under us, and a great wind arose full of fresh breath. We left the clay lands where the bracken grows and came to a valley at the edge of the chalk. As we went down into it we saw the fox go up the other side like a shadow that crosses the evening, and glide into a wood that stood on the top. We saw a flash of primroses in the wood and we were out the other side, hounds hunting perfectly and the fox still going absolutely straight. It began to dawn on me then that we were in for a great hunt, I took a deep breath when I thought of it; the taste of the air of that perfect Spring afternoon as it came to one galloping, and the thought of a great run, were together like some old rare wine. Our faces now were to another valley, large fields led down to it, with easy hedges, at the bottom of it a bright blue stream went singing and a rambling village smoked, the sunlight on the opposite slopes danced like a fairy; and all along the top old woods were frowning, but they dreamed of Spring. The “field” had fallen off and were far behind and my only human companion was James, my old first whip, who had a hound’s instinct, and a personal animosity against a fox that even embittered his speech.
Across the valley the fox went as straight as a railway line, and again we went without a check straight through the woods at the top. I remember hearing men sing or shout as they walked home from work, and sometimes children whistled; the sounds came up from the village to the woods at the top of the valley. After that we saw no more villages, but valley after valley arose and fell before us as though we were voyaging some strange and stormy sea, and all the way before us the fox went dead upwind like the fabulous Flying Dutchman.4 There was no one in sight now but my first whip and me, we had both of us got on to our second horses as we drew the last covert.
Two or three times we checked in those great lonely valleys beyond the village, but I began to have inspirations, I felt a strange certainty within me that this fox was going on straight up-wind till he died or until night came and we could hunt no longer, so I reversed ordinary methods and only cast straight ahead and always we picked up the scent again at once. I believe that this fox was the last one left in the villa-haunted lands and that he was prepared to leave them for remote uplands far from men, that if we had come the following day he would not have been there, and that we just happened to hit off his journey.
Evening began to descend upon the valleys, still the hounds drifted on, like the lazy but unresting shadows of clouds upon a summer’s day, we heard a shepherd calling to his dog, we saw two maidens move towards a hidden farm, one of them singing softly; no other sounds, but ours, disturbed the leisure and the loneliness of haunts that seemed not yet to have known the inventions of steam and gun-powder (even as China, they say, in some of her furthest mountains does not yet know that she has fought Japan).
And now the day and our horses were wearing out, but that resolute fox held on. I began to work out the run and to wonder where we were. The last landmark I had ever seen before must have been over five miles back and from there to the start was at least ten miles more. If only we could kill! Then the sun set. I wondered what chance we had of killing our fox. I looked at James’ face as he rode beside me. He did not seem to have lost any confidence, yet his horse was as tired as mine. It was a good clear twilight and the scent was as strong as ever, and the fences were easy enough, but those valleys were terribly trying and they still rolled on and on. It looked as if the light would outlast all possible endurance both of the fox and the horses, if the scent held good and he did not go to ground, otherwise night would end it. For long we had seen no houses and no roads, only chalk slopes with the twilight on them, and here and there some sheep, and scattered copses darkening in the evening. At some moment I seemed to realise all at once that the light was spent and that darkness was hovering, I looked at James, he was solemnly shaking his head. Suddenly in a little wooded valley we saw climb over the oaks the red-brown gables of a queer old house, at that instant I saw the fox scarcely heading by fifty yards. We blundered through a wood into full sight of the house, but no avenue led up to it or even a path nor were there any signs of wheel-marks anywhere. Already lights shone here and there in windows. We were in a park, and a fine park, but unkempt beyond credibility; brambles grew everywhere. It was too dark to see the fox any more but we knew he was dead beat, the hounds were just before us,—and a four-foot railing of oak. I shouldn’t have tried it on a fresh horse at the beginning of a run, and here was a horse near his last gasp. But what a run! an event standing out in a lifetime, and the hounds close up on their fox, slipping into the darkness as I hesitated. I decided to try it. My horse rose about eight inches and took it fair with his breast, and the oak log flew into handfuls of wet decay—it was rotten with years. And then we were on a lawn and at the far end of it the hounds were tumbling over their fox. Fox, horses and light were all done together at the end of a twenty-mile point.5 We made some noise then, but nobody came out of the queer old house.
I felt pretty stiff as I walked round to the hall door with the mask and the brush while James went with the hounds and the two horses to look for the stables. I rang a bell marvellously encrusted with rust, and after a long while the door opened a little way revealing a hall with much old armour in it and the shabbiest butler that I have ever known.
I asked him who lived there. Sir Richard Arlen. I explained that my horse could go no further that night and that I wished to ask Sir Richard Arlen for a bed for the night.
“O, no one ever comes here, sir,” said the butler.
I pointed out that I had come.
“I don’t think it would be possible, sir,” he said.
This annoyed me and I asked to see Sir Richard, and insisted until he came. Then I apologised and explained the situation. He looked only fifty, but a ’Varsity oar on the wall with the date of the early seventies, made him older than that; his face had something of the shy look of the hermit; he regretted that he had not room to put me up. I was sure that this was untrue, also I had to be put up there, there was nowhere else within miles, so I almost insisted. Then to my astonishment he turned to the butler and they talked it over in an undertone. At last they seemed to think that they could manage it, though clearly with reluctance. It was by now seven o’clock and Sir Richard told me he dined at half past seven. There was no question of clothes for me other than those I stood in, as my host was shorter and broader. He showed me presently to the drawing-room and there he reappeared before half past seven in evening dress and a white waistcoat. The drawing-room was large and contained old furniture but it was rather worn than venerable, an Aubusson carpet flapped about the floor, the wind seemed momently to enter the room, and old draughts haunted corners; the stealthy feet of rats that were never at rest indicated the extent of the ruin that time had wrought in the wainscot; somewhere far off a shutter flapped to and fro, the guttering candles were insufficient to light so large a room. The gloom that these things suggested was quite in keeping with Sir Richard’s first remark to me after he entered the room: “I must tell you, sir, that I have led a wicked life. O, a very wicked life.”
Such confidences from a man much older than oneself after one has known him for half an hour are so rare that any possible answer merely does not suggest itself. I said rather slowly, “O, really,” and chiefly to forestall another such remark I said,
“What a charming house you have.”
“Yes,” he said, “I have not left it for nearly forty years. Since I left the ’Varsity. One is young there, you know, and one has opportunities; but I make no excuses, no excuses.” And the door slipping its rusty latch, came drifting on the draught into the room, and the long carpet flapped and the hangings upon the walls, then the draught fell rustling away and the door slammed to again.
“Ah, Marianne,” he said, “we have a guest to-night. Mr. Linton. This is Marianne Gib.” And everything became clear to me. “Mad,” I said to myself, for no one had entered the room.
The rats ran up the length of the room behind the wainscot ceaselessly, and the wind unlatched the door again and the folds of the carpet fluttered up to our feet and stopped there, for our weight held it down.
“Let me introduce Mr. Linton,” said my host—“Lady Mary Errinjer.”
The door slammed back again. I bowed politely. Even had I been invited I should have humoured him, but it was the very least that an uninvited guest could do.
This kind of thing happened eleven times, the rustling, and the fluttering of the carpet, and the footsteps of the rats, and the restless door, and then the sad voice of my host introducing me to phantoms. Then for some while we waited while I struggled with the situation; conversation flowed slowly. And again the draught came trailing up the room, while the flaring candles filled it with hurrying shadows. “Ah, late again, Cicely,” said my host in his soft, mournful way. “Always late, Cicely.” Then I went down to dinner with that man and his mind and the twelve phantoms that haunted it. I found a long table with fine old silver on it and places laid for fourteen. The butler was now in evening dress, there were fewer draughts in the dining-room, the scene was less gloomy there. “Will you sit next to Rosalind at the other end,” Sir Richard said to me. “She always takes the head of the table, I wronged her most of all.” I said, “I shall be delighted.”
I looked at the butler closely, but never did I see by any expression of his face or by anything that he did any suggestion that he waited upon less than fourteen people in the complete possession of all their faculties. Perhaps a dish appeared to be refused more often than taken but every glass was equally filled with champagne. At first I found little to say, but when Sir Richard speaking from the far end of the table said, “You are tired, Mr. Linton,” I was reminded that I owed something to a host upon whom I had forced myself. It was excellent champagne and with the help of a second glass I made the effort to begin a conversation with a Miss Helen Errold for whom the place upon one side of me was laid. It came more easy to me very soon, I frequently paused in my monologue, like Mark Anthony, for a reply,6 and sometimes I turned and spoke to Miss Rosalind Smith. Sir Richard at the other end talked sorrowfully on, he spoke as a condemned man might speak to his judge, and yet somewhat as a judge might speak to one that he once condemned wrongly. My own mind began to turn to mournful things. I drank another glass of champagne, but I was still thirsty. I felt as if all the moisture in my body had been blown away over the downs of Kent by the wind up which we had galloped. Still I was not talking enough; my host was looking at me. I made another effort, after all I had something to talk about, a twenty-mile point is not often seen in a lifetime, especially south of the Thames. I began to describe the run to Rosalind Smith. I could see then that my host was pleased, the sad look in his face gave a kind of a flicker, like mist upon the mountains on a miserable day when a faint puff comes from the sea and the mist would lift if it could. And the butler refilled my glass very attentively. I asked her first if she hunted, and paused and began my story. I told her where we had found the fox and how fast and straight he had gone, and how I had got through the village by keeping to the road, while the little gardens and wire, and then the river, had stopped the rest of the field. I told her the kind of country that we crossed and how splendid it looked in the Spring, and how mysterious the valleys were as soon as the twilight came, and what a glorious horse I had and how wonderfully he went. I was so fearfully thirsty after the great hunt that I had to stop for a moment now and then, but I went on with my description of that famous run, for I had warmed to the subject, and after all there was nobody to tell of it but me except my old whipper-in, and “the old fellow’s probably drunk by now,” I thought. I described to her minutely the exact spot in the run at which it had come to me clearly that this was going to be the greatest hunt in the whole history of Kent. Sometimes I forgot incidents that had happened as one well may in a run of twenty miles, and then I had to fill in the gaps by inventing. I was pleased to be able to make the party go off well by means of my conversation, and besides that the lady to whom I was speaking was extremely pretty: I do not mean in a flesh and blood kind of way but there were little shadowy lines about the chair beside me that hinted at an unusually graceful figure when Miss Rosalind Smith was alive; and I began to perceive that what I first mistook for the smoke of guttering candles and a table-cloth waving in the draught was in reality an extremely animated company who listened, and not without interest, to my story of by far the greatest hunt that the world had ever known: indeed I told them that I would confidently go further and predict that never in the history of the world would there be such a run again. Only my throat was terribly dry. And then as it seemed they wanted to hear more about my horse. I had forgotten that I had come there on a horse, but when they reminded me it all came back; they looked so charming leaning over the table intent upon what I said, that I told them everything they wanted to know. Everything was going so pleasantly if only Sir Richard would cheer up. I heard his mournful voice every now and then—these were very pleasant people if only he would take them the right way. I could understand that he regretted his past, but the early seventies seemed centuries away and I felt sure that he misunderstood these ladies, they were not revengeful as he seemed to suppose. I wanted to show him how cheerful they really were, and so I made a joke and they all laughed at it, and then I chaffed them a bit, especially Rosalind, and nobody resented it in the very least. And still Sir Richard sat there with that unhappy look, like one that has ended weeping because it is vain and has not the consolation even of tears.
We had been a long time there and many of the candles had burned out, but there was light enough. I was glad to have an audience for my exploit, and being happy myself I was determined Sir Richard should be. I made more jokes and they still laughed good-naturedly; some of the jokes were a little broad perhaps but no harm was meant. And then—I do not wish to excuse myself—but I had had a harder day than I ever had had before and without knowing it I must have been completely exhausted; in this state the champagne had found me, and what would have been harmless at any other time must somehow have got the better of me when quite tired out—anyhow I went too far, I made some joke—I cannot in the least remember what—that suddenly seemed to offend them. I felt all at once a commotion in the air, I looked up and saw that they had all arisen from the table and were sweeping towards the door: I had not time to open it but it blew open on a wind, I could scarcely see what Sir Richard was doing because only two candles were left, I think the rest blew out when the ladies suddenly rose. I sprang up to apologise, to assure them—and then fatigue overcame me as it had overcome my horse at the last fence, I clutched at the table but the cloth came away and then I fell. The fall, and the darkness on the floor and the pent up fatigue of the day overcame me all three together.
The sun shone over glittering fields and in at a bedroom window and thousands of birds were chanting to the Spring, and there I was in an old four-poster bed in a quaint old panelled bedroom, fully dressed and wearing long muddy boots; someone had taken my spurs and that was all. For a moment I failed to realise and then it all came back, my enormity and the pressing need of an abject apology to Sir Richard. I pulled an embroidered bell rope until the butler came. He came in perfectly cheerful and indescribably shabby. I asked him if Sir Richard was up, and he said he had just gone down, and told me to my amazement that it was twelve o’clock. I asked to be shown in to Sir Richard at once. He was in his smoking-room. “Good morning,” he said cheerfully the moment I went in. I went directly to the matter in hand. “I fear that I insulted some ladies in your house—” I began,
“You did indeed,” he said, “You did indeed.” And then he burst into tears and took me by the hand. “How can I ever thank you?” he said to me then. “We have been thirteen at table for thirty years and I never dared to insult them because I had wronged them all, and now you have done it and I know they will never dine here again.” And for a long time he still held my hand, and then he gave it a grip and a kind of a shake which I took to mean “Good-bye” and I drew my hand away then and left the house. And I found James in the stables with the hounds and asked him how he had fared, and James, who is a man of very few words, said he could not rightly remember, and I got my spurs from the butler and climbed on to my horse and slowly we rode away from that queer old house, and slowly we wended home, for the hounds were footsore but happy and the horses were tired still. And when we recalled that the hunting season was ended we turned our faces to Spring and thought of the new things that try to replace the old. And that very year I heard, and have often heard since, of dances and happier dinners at Sir Richard Arlen’s house.
The Last Dream of Bwona Khubla
From steaming lowlands down by the equator, where monstrous orchids blow, where beetles big as mice sit on the tent-ropes, and fireflies glide about by night like little moving stars, the travellers went three days through forests of cactus till they came to the open plains where the oryx are.
And glad they were when they came to the water-hole, where only one white man had gone before, which the natives know as the camp of Bwona Khubla, and found the water there.
It lies three days from the nearest other water, and when Bwona Khubla had gone there three years ago, what with malaria with which he was shaking all over, and what with disgust at finding the water-hole dry, he had decided to die there, and in that part of the world such decisions are always fatal. In any case he was overdue to die, but hitherto his amazing resolution, and that terrible strength of character that so astounded his porters, had kept him alive and moved his safari on.
He had had a name no doubt, some common name such as hangs as likely as not over scores of shops in London; but that had gone long ago, and nothing identified his memory now to distinguish it from the memories of all the other dead but “Bwona Khubla,” the name the Kikuyus7 gave him.
There is no doubt that he was a fearful man, a man that was dreaded still for his personal force when his arm was no longer able to lift the kiboko, when all his men knew he was dying, and to this day though he is dead.
Though his temper was embittered by malaria and the equatorial sun, nothing impaired his will, which remained a compulsive force to the very last, impressing itself upon all, and after the last, from what the Kikuyus say. The country must have had powerful laws that drove Bwona Khubla out, whatever country it was.
On the morning of the day that they were to come to the camp of Bwona Khubla all the porters came to the travellers’ tents asking for dow. Dow is the white man’s medicine, that cures all evils; the nastier it tastes, the better it is. They wanted dow this morning to keep away devils, for they were near the place where Bwona Khubla died.
The travellers gave them quinine.
By sunset they came to Campini Bwona Khubla and found water there. Had they not found water many of them must have died, yet none felt any gratitude to the place, it seemed too ominous, too full of a doom, too much harassed almost by unseen, irresistible things.
And all the natives came again for dow as soon as the tents were pitched, to protect them from the last dreams of Bwona Khubla; which they say had stayed behind when the last safari left taking Bwona Khubla’s body back to the edge of civilization to show to the white men there that they had not killed him, for the white men might not know that they durst not kill Bwona Khubla.
And the travellers gave them more quinine, so much being bad for their nerves, and that night by the camp-fires there was no pleasant talk, all talking at once of meat they had eaten and cattle that each one owned, but a gloomy silence hung by every fire and the little canvas shelters. They told the white men that Bwona Khubla’s city, of which he had thought at the last (and where the natives believed he was once a king), of which he had raved till the loneliness rang with his raving, had settled down all about them; and they were afraid, for it was so strange a city, and wanted more dow. And the two travellers gave them more quinine, for they saw real fear in their faces, and knew they might run away and leave them alone in that place, that they, too, had come to fear with an almost equal dread, though they knew not why. And as the night wore on their feeling of boding deepened, although they had shared three bottles or so of champagne that they meant to keep for days when they killed a lion.
This is the story that each of those two men tell, and which their porters corroborate, but then a Kikuyu will always say whatever he thinks is expected of him.
The travellers were both in bed and trying to sleep but not able to do so because of an ominous feeling. That mournfullest of all the cries of the wild, the hyaena like a damned soul lamenting, strangely enough had ceased. The night wore on to the hour when Bwona Khubla had died three or four years ago, dreaming and raving of “his city”; and in the hush a sound softly arose, like a wind at first, then like the roar of beasts, then unmistakably the sound of motors—motors and motor busses.
And then they saw, clearly and unmistakably they say, in that lonely desolation where the equator comes up out of the forest and climbs over jagged hills,—they say they saw London.
There could have been no moon that night, but they say there was a multitude of stars. Mists had come rolling up at evening about the pinnacles of unexplored red peaks that clustered round the camp. But they say the mist must have cleared later on; at any rate they swear they could see London, see it and hear the roar of it. Both say they saw it not as they knew it at all, not debased by hundreds of thousands of lying advertisements, but transfigured, all its houses magnificent, its chimneys rising grandly into pinnacles, its vast squares full of the most gorgeous trees, transfigured and yet London.
Its windows were warm and happy, shining at night, the lamps in their long rows welcomed you, the public-houses were gracious jovial places; yet it was London.
They could smell the smells of London, hear London songs, and yet it was never the London that they knew; it was as though they had looked on some strange woman’s face with the eyes of her lover. For of all the towns of the earth or cities of song; of all the spots there be, unhallowed or hallowed, it seemed to those two men then that the city they saw was of all places the most to be desired by far. They say a barrel organ played quite near them, they say a coster was singing, they admit that he was singing out of tune, they admit a Cockney accent, and yet they say that that song had in it something that no earthly song had ever had before, and both men say that they would have wept but that there was a feeling about their heart-strings that was far too deep for tears. They believe that the longing of this masterful man, that was able to rule a safari by a glance of his eye, and could terrify natives without raising a hand, had been so strong at the last that it had impressed itself deeply upon nature and had caused a mirage that may not fade wholly away, perhaps for several years.
I tried to establish by questions the truth or reverse of this story, but the two men’s tempers had been so spoiled by Africa that they were not up to a cross-examination. They would not even say if their camp-fires were still burning. They say that they saw the London lights all round them from eleven o’clock till midnight, they could hear London voices and the sound of the traffic clearly; and over all, a little misty perhaps, but unmistakably London, arose the great metropolis.
About midnight London quivered a little and grew more indistinct, the sound of the traffic began to dwindle away, voices seemed farther off, ceased altogether, and all was quiet once more where the mirage shimmered and faded, and a bull rhinoceros coming down through the stillness snorted, and watered at the Carlton Club.8
V.
JORKENS
The Tale of the Abu Laheeb
When I met my friend Murcote in London he talked much of his Club. I had seldom heard of it, and the name of the street in which Murcote told me it stood was quite unknown to me, though I think I had driven through it in a taxi, and remembered the houses as being mean and small. And Murcote admitted that it was not very large, and had no billiard-table and very few rooms; and yet there seemed something about the place that entirely filled his mind and made that trivial street for him the centre of London. And when he wanted me to come and see it, I suggested the following day; but he put me off, and again when I suggested the next one. There was evidently nothing much to see, no pictures, no particular wines, nothing that other Clubs boast of; but one heard tales there, he said; very odd ones sometimes; and if I cared to come and see the Club, it would be a good thing to come some evening when old Jorkens was there. I asked who Jorkens was; and he said he had seen a lot of the world. And then we parted, and I forgot about Jorkens, and saw nothing more of Murcote for some days. And then one day Murcote rang me up, and asked me if I’d come to the Club that evening.
I had agreed to come; but before I left my house Murcote surprised me by coming round to see me. There was something he wanted to tell me about Jorkens. He sat and talked to me for some time about Jorkens before we started, though all he said of him might be expressed by one word. Jorkens was a good-hearted fellow, he said, and would always tell a story in the evening to anyone who offered him a small drink; whiskey and soda was what he preferred; and he really had seen a good deal of the world, and the Club relied on stories in the evening; it was quite a feature of it; and the Club wouldn’t be the Club without them, and it helped the evening to pass, anyway; but one thing he must warn me, and that was never to believe a word he said. It wasn’t Jorkens’ fault; he didn’t mean to be inaccurate; he merely wished to interest his fellow-members and to make the evening pass pleasantly; he had nothing to gain by any inaccuracies, and had no intention to deceive; he just did his best to entertain the Club, and all the members were grateful to him. But once more Murcote warned me never to believe one of his tales nor any part of them, not even the smallest detail of local colour.
“I see,” I said, “a bit of a liar.”
“Oh, poor old Jorkens,” said Murcote, “that’s rather hard. But still, I’ve warned you, haven’t I?”
And, with that quite clearly understood, we went down and hailed a taxi.
It was after dinner that we arrived at the Club; and we went straight up into a small room, in which a group of members was sitting about near the fire, and I was introduced to Jorkens, who was sitting gazing into the glow, with a small table at his right hand. And then he turned to Murcote to pour out what he had probably already said to all the other members.
“A most unpleasant episode occurred here last evening,” he said, “a thing I have never known before, and shouldn’t have thought possible in any decent club, shouldn’t have thought possible.”
“Oh, really,” said Murcote. “What happened?”
“A young fellow came in yesterday,” said Jorkens. “They tell me he’s called Carter. He came in here after dinner, and I happened to be speaking about a curious experience I had once had in Africa, over the watershed of the Congo, somewhere about latitude six, a long time ago. Well, never mind the experience, but I had no sooner finished speaking about it when the young fellow, Carter or whatever he is, said simply he didn’t believe me, simply and unmistakably that he disbelieved my story; claimed to know something of geography or zoology which did not tally in his impudent mind with the actual experience that I had had on the Congo side of the watershed. Now, what are you to do when a young fellow has the effrontery, the brazen-faced audacity . . .”
“Oh, but we must have him turned out,” said Murcote. “A case like that should come before the Committee at once. Don’t you think so?”
And his eye turned to the other members, roving till it fell on a weary and weak individual who was evidently one of the Committee.
“Oh, er, yes,” said he unconvincingly.
“Well, Mr. Jorkens,” said Murcote, “we’ll get that done at once.”
And one or two more members muttered Yes, and Jorkens’ indignation sank now to minor mutterings, and to occasional ejaculations that shot out petulantly, but in an undertone. The waters of his imagination were troubled still, though the storm was partly abated.
“It seems to me outrageous,” I said, but hardly liked to say any more, being a guest in the Club.
“Outrageous!” the old man replied, and we seemed no nearer to getting any story.
“I wonder if I might ask for a whiskey and soda?” I said to Murcote, for a silence had fallen; and at the same time I nodded sideways towards Jorkens to suggest the destination of the whiskey. I had waited for Murcote to do this without being asked, and now he ordered three whiskies and sodas listlessly, as though he thought there weren’t much good in it. And when the whiskey drew near the lonely table that waited desolate at Jorkens’ right hand, Jorkens said, “Not for me.”
I thought I saw surprise for a moment pass like a ghost through that room, although no one said anything.
“No,” said old Jorkens, “I never drink whiskey. Now and then I use it in order to stimulate my memory. It has a wonderful effect on the memory. But as a drink I never touch it. I dislike the taste of it.”
So his whiskey went away. We seemed no nearer that story.
I took my glass with very little soda, sitting in a chair near Jorkens. I had nowhere to put it down.
“Might I put my glass on your table?” I said to Jorkens.
“Certainly,” he said, with the utmost indifference in his voice, but not entirely in his eye, which caught the deep yellow flavour as I put it close to his elbow.
We sat for a long time in silence; everyone wanted to hear him talk. And at last his right hand opened wide enough to take a glass, and then closed again. And a while later it opened once more, and moved a little along the table and then drew back, as though for a moment he had thought the drink was his and then had realised his mistake. It was a mere movement of the hand, and yet it showed that here was a man who would not consciously take another man’s drink. And, that being clearly established, a dreamy look came over his face as though he thought of far-off things, and his hand moved very absently. It reached the glass unguided by his eye and brought it to his lips, and he drained it, thinking of far other things.
“Dear me,” he said suddenly, “I hope I haven’t drunk your whiskey.”
“Not at all,” I said.
“I was thinking of a very curious thing,” he said, “and hardly noticed what I was doing.”
“Might I ask what it was you were thinking of?” I said.
“I really hardly like to tell you,” he said, “to tell anyone, after the most unpleasant incident that occurred yesterday.”
As I looked at Murcote he seemed to divine my thoughts, and ordered three more whiskies.
It was wonderful how the whiskey did brighten old Jorkens’ memory, for he spoke with a vividness of little details that could only have been memory; imagination could not have done it. I leave out the details and give the main points of his story for its zoological interest; for it touches upon a gap in zoology which I believe is probably there, and if the story is true it bridges it.
Here then is the story: “One that you won’t often hear in London,” said Jorkens, “but in towns at the Empire’s edge it’s told of often. There’s probably not a mess out there in which it’s not been discussed, scarcely a bungalow where it’s not been talked of, and always with derision. In places like Malakal1 there’s not a white man that hasn’t heard of it, and not one that believes it. But the last white man that you meet on lonely journeys, the last white man that there is before the swamps begin and you see nothing for weeks but papyrus, he believes in it.
“I have noticed that more than once. Where a lot of men get together, all knowing equally little, and this subject comes up, one will laugh, and they will all laugh at it, and none will trust his imagination to study the rumour; and it remains a rumour, no more. But when a man gets all alone by himself, somewhere on the fringe of that country out of which the rumour arises, and there’s no silly laughter to scare his imagination—why, then he can study the thing and develop it, and get much nearer to facts than mere incredulity will ever get him. I find a touch of fever helps in working out problems like that.
“Well, the problem is a very simple one; it is simply the question whether man with his wisdom and curiosity has discovered all the animals that there are in the world, or whether there’s one, and a very curious one too, hidden amongst the papyrus, that white men have never seen. And that’s not quite what I mean, for there are white men that have seen things that not every young whipper-snapper will believe. I should rather have said an animal that our civilisation has not yet taken cognisance of. At Kosti,2 more than twenty years ago, I first heard two men definitely speak of it, the abu laheeb they called it, and I think they both believed in it too; but Khartoum was only a hundred and fifty miles off, and they had evening clothes with them, and used to wear them at dinner, and they had china plates and silver forks, and ornaments on their mantelpiece, and one thing and another; and all these things seemed to appal their imagination, and they wouldn’t honestly let themselves believe it. ‘Had three or four fires round his tent,’ said one of them, telling of someone, ‘and says that the abu laheeb came down about two a.m., and he saw it clear in the firelight.’ ‘Did it get what it wanted?’ said the other. ‘Yes, went away hugging it.’
“And one of them said in a rather wandering tone: ‘The only animal that uses . . .’ He was lowering his voice, and looking round, and he saw me, and said no more. They turned it all away at once with a laugh or two, as Columbus might have turned away from the long low line of land and refused to believe a new continent. I questioned them, but got no information that could be of any use; they seemed to like laughter more than imagination, so I got jokes instead of truth.
“It was weeks later and far southwards that I found a man who was ready to approach this most interesting point of zoology in the proper spirit of a scientist, a white man all alone in a hut that he had near the mouth of the Bahr el Zeraf.3 There are things in Africa that you couldn’t believe, and the Bahr el Zeraf is one of them. It rises out of the marshes of the White Nile, and flows forty or fifty miles, and into the White Nile again. And one can’t easily believe in a white man living all alone in such a place as that, but somebody has to be the last white man you see as you go through the final fringes of civilisation, and it was him. He had had full opportunities of studying the whole question of the abu laheeb, he had had years of leisure to compare all the stories the natives brought him, which they shyly told when he had won their confidence, though what he won it with he never told. He had sifted the evidence and knew all that was told about it; and in long malarial nights, with no one and nothing to care for him but quinine, he had pictured the beast so clearly that he could make me a very good drawing of it. I have that drawing to this very day, a beast on his hind legs something like a South American sloth that I once saw, stuffed, in a museum; built rather on the lines of a kangaroo, but much stouter and bigger, and with nothing pointed about his face; it was square and blunt, with great teeth. He had hand-like paws on shortish arms or forelegs.
“I must tell you that I was in a small dahabeeyah4 going up those great rivers, any great rivers I might meet, leaving civilisation because I was tired of it, and looking for wonders in Africa. And I came to this lonely man, Lindon his name was, full of curiosity aroused by those words that I had heard in Malakal. And talking to Lindon like two old friends that have spent all their schooldays together, as white men will who meet in that part of Africa, I soon came to the abu laheeb, thinking he would know more of it than they knew in Malakal. And I
found a man grown sensitive, as you only can grow in loneliness; he feared I would disbelieve him, and would scarcely say a word. Yes, the natives believed in some such animal, but his own opinion he would not expose to the possibility of my ridicule. The more questions I asked, the shorter the answers became. And then I drew him by saying, ‘Well, there’s one thing he uses that no other animal ever did,’ the one mysterious thing about this beast that had haunted my mind for weeks, though I did not know what on earth the mystery was. And that got him talking. He saw that I was committed to belief in the beast, and was no longer shy of his own. He told me that the upper reaches of the Bahr el Zeraf were a god-forsaken place: ‘And if God forsook the Zeraf,’ he said, ‘He certainly didn’t go to the Jebel,’ for the Bahr el Jebel was worse. And somewhere between those two rivers in the desolation of papyrus the abu laheeb certainly lived. He very reasonably said that there were beasts in the plains, beasts in the forests, and beasts in the sea; why not in the huge area of the papyrus into which no man had ever penetrated? If I chose to go to these god-forsaken places I could see the abu laheeb, he said. ‘But, of course,’ he added, ‘you must never go up wind on him.’ ‘Down wind?’ I said.
“ ‘No, nor down wind either,’ he answered. ‘He can smell as well as a rhino. That’s the difficulty; you have to go just between up wind and down wind; and you always find the north wind blowing there.’
“It was some while before I discovered why one can’t go up wind on him. I didn’t like to over-question Lindon, for questions are akin to criticism, and you cannot apply criticism and cross-examination to the patient work of imagination upon rumour; it is liable to destroy the whole fabric, and one loses valuable scientific data. Nor was Lindon in the mood for the superior disbelief of a traveller only just come from civilisation; he had had malaria too recently to put up with that sort of thing. It was as he was giving me various clear proofs of the existence of some such animal that I suddenly realised what it all meant. He was telling me how more than once he had seen fires in the reeds, not only earlier in the year than the Dinkas5 light their fires, but in marshes where no Dinka would ever come, nor a Shillook6 either, or any kind of man, marshes utterly desolate and for ever shut to humanity. It was then that the truth flashed on me; truth, sir, that I have since verified with my own eyes: that the abu laheeb plays with fire.
“Well, I needn’t tell you how the idea flared up in my mind to be the first white man that had ever seen the abu laheeb, and to shoot him and bring his huge skin home, and have something to show for all that lonely wandering. It was a fascinating idea. I asked Lindon if he thought my rifle was big enough, I only had a .350, and whether to use soft-nosed or solid bullets. ‘Soft,’ he said. I sat up late and asked him many questions. And he warned me about those marshes. I needn’t tell you of all the things he warned me against, because you see me alive before you; but they were there all right, they were there. And I went down the little path he’d made from his house to the bank of the river, and went on board my sailing boat under huge white bands of stars, and lay down on board and looked up at them from under my blankets until I fell asleep, while the Arabs cast off and the north wind held good. And when the sun blazed on me at dawn I woke to the Bahr el Zeraf. Scarlet trees with green foliage at first; we were not yet come to those marshes.
“Well, for days we went up the Zeraf, past the white fish-eagles, haughty and silent and watchful on queer trees, with birds sailing over us that I daren’t describe to you for fear you should think I exaggerate the brilliancy of their colours. And so we came to those marshes where anything might hide, and be utterly hidden by those miles of rushes, and be well enough protected from explorers by a region of monotony more dismal than any other desolate land I’ve seen. And all the while the sailors were talking a language I did not know, till my imagination, brooding in that monotony, seemed to hear clear English phrases now and then starting suddenly out of their talk, commonest phrases of our daily affairs, on the other side of the earth. I would swear that I heard one of them say one evening, ‘Stop the bus a moment.’ But it couldn’t have been, for they were talking Dinka talk, and not one of them knew a single word of English; I used to talk Arabic of a sort to the reis.
“Well, at last we came on fires in the reeds, burning at different points. Who lit them I couldn’t say; there were no men there, black, white, or grey (the Dinkas are grey, you know). But I wanted absolute proof; and then one day I found his tracks in the rushes. He bounds through the rushes, you know, often breaking several of them where he takes off, and sometimes scattering mud on the tips of them as he springs through; then alighting and taking off again, leaving another huge mark.
“I examined the rushes carefully, till I was sure that I had his tracks. And then I followed them, always watching the wind. It was a dreadful walk. I went alone so as to make less noise. I wanted to get quite close and make sure of my shot. I had a haversack tied close round my neck, and my cartridges were in that. Even then it got wet sometimes. The water was always up to my waist, and often it came higher. I had to hold up my rifle in one hand all the time. The reeds were far over my head.
“Sometimes one came to open spaces of water, with huge blue water-lilies floating on them. And it was always deeper there. Sometimes one walked upon the roots of the rushes, and all the rushes trembled round one for yards, and sometimes one found a bottom of good hard clay and knew one could sink no further. And all the while I was tracking the abu laheeb.
“The north wind blew as usual. I was too old a shikari7 to be walking down wind, but I was not always able to act strictly on Lindon’s advice about never going up wind on the abu laheeb, because his tracks sometimes led that way. At any rate, that was better than the other direction, for he would have been off at once. You wouldn’t believe how tired one can be of blue water-lilies. At any rate the water was not cold, but the weariness of lifting each foot was terrible. Each foot, as one lifted it for every step, one would rather have left just where it was for ever. I don’t know how many hours I tracked that beast, I don’t know what time was doing while I walked in those marshes. But in all that weariness of spirit and utter fatigue of limb I suddenly saw a scrap of quite fresh mud on the tip of one of the reeds, and knew that I was getting near him at last. I put the safety catch of my rifle over, and suddenly saw in my mind what I was so nearly doing for Science. Of all the steps Science had taken from out of the early darkness toward that distant point of which we cannot guess, which shall be full of revelations to man, one of her footsteps would be due to me. I could, as it were, write my name on that one footprint, and no one would question my right to.
“I got nearer and nearer, I was no longer weary now; and suddenly, closer than I had dared to hope, was a little puff of smoke above the rushes. I stopped for one moment to steady my breath, and got my rifle ready. In that moment I named him; yes, I called him Prometheus Jorkensi. There was a patch of dry land ahead, and the rushes still protected me. I moved with ten-inch paces so as to make no ripple, but I couldn’t keep the rushes quiet; perhaps the north wind blew stronger than I thought, for he never seemed to hear me. And then, oh so close that it couldn’t have been ten yards, I saw the little fire on a patch of earth; and the rushes still hid me completely. I saw a patch of brown fur and a huge body crouching. I could only guess what part of the body I saw, but a vital part I thought, and I raised my rifle. Still it had no idea I was anywhere near it. And then I saw its hands stretched out to the fire, warming themselves by the edge of those bleak marshes. I don’t cut much ice, you know; I didn’t then; no one had ever heard my name, or, if they had, it meant nothing; and here was I on the verge of this discovery, with the proof of it ten yards away just waiting for a rifle bullet. I’d shoot a monkey, I’d shoot an ape, I’d shoot a poor old hippo; I wouldn’t mind shooting a horse if it had to be killed, though lots of men can’t bear that; but those black hands stretched out over the fire were the one thing I couldn’t destroy. The idea that flashed on me standing amongst those reeds I have been turning over in my mind for years, and it always seemed sound to me, and it does even now. You see, of all the links in the world that there are between us, and of all the barriers against those that are not as us, it seems to me that there is one link, one barrier, more outstanding than any other you could possibly name. We talk of our human reason, that may or may not be superior to the dream of the dog or the elephant: we say it is; that is all. We say that we alone have belief in an after-life, and that the lion has not: we say so; that’s all. Some of them are stronger, some live longer than us, many may be more cunning. But there is one thing, gentlemen, one thing they haven’t got, and that is the knowledge of fire. That seems to me the great link, the great bond between all who have it and the barrier against all who have not. Look what we’ve done with it: look at those fire-irons, that fender, the bricks of which this house is made, and the steel structure of it; look at this whole city. That’s our one great possession, knowledge of fire. And, when I saw those dark hands stretched out to that fire on the edge of the marshes, that is what I thought of all at once, not at such length as I have told you of course; it flashed all through my mind in a moment; but during that moment I hesitated, and the abu laheeb saw the sun on the tip of my rifle or heard me breathing there, for he suddenly craned his great neck over the rushes, then stooped again and scattered the fire with his forepaws with one swift jerk into the reeds all round me. They were alight at once, and through the flame and smoke I only dimly caught sight of him leaping away, but, above the crackle of the burning reeds and the thump of his hind legs leaping, I heard him uttering gusts of human-like laughter.”
He paused a moment. We were all quite silent, thinking what he had lost. He had lost a famous name. He shook his head, and seemed full of the same thoughts as the rest of us.
“I never went after him again,” he said. “I had seen him, but who’ll believe that? I have never quite been able to bring myself any more to try to shoot a creature that shared that great secret with us.”
There was silence again; we were wondering, I think, whether his scruples should have prevented him from doing so much for Science. I suppose that the too-sensitive and overscrupulous seldom make famous names. A man leaning forward, and smoking a pipe, took his pipe out of his mouth and broke the silence at last.
“Mightn’t you have photographed him?” he said.
“Photographed him!” said Mr. Jorkens, straightening himself up in his chair. “Photographed him! Aren’t half the photographs fakes? Here, look at the Evening Picture; look at that, now. There’s a child handing a bouquet to someone with its left hand, so that both of them may expose as much of their surface as possible to the camera. And here’s a man welcoming his brother from abroad. Welcoming indeed! They are both of them being photographed, and that’s obviously all that they’re doing.”
We looked at the paper and it was so; they were almost turning their backs on one another in order to be photographed.
“No,” he said, and he looked me straight in the eyes, and flashed that glance of his from face to face. “If Truth cannot stand alone, she scorns the cheap aid of photography.”
So dominant was his voice as he said these words, so flashed his eyes in the dim light of the room, that none of us spoke any more. I think we felt that our voices would shock the silence. And we all went quietly away.
Our Distant Cousins
I was elected a member of the club to which Jorkens belongs. The Billiards Club it is called, though they don’t play much billiards there. I went there many days before I met Jorkens again; and heard many tales after lunch, when we sat round the fire; but somehow there seemed something missing in all of them, to one who was waiting for one of Jorkens’. One heard tales of many lands and of many peoples, some of them strange enough; and yet, just when the story promised to grip one, there was something that was not there. Or perhaps there was too much; too many facts, too impartial a love of truth, that led so many of them to throw everything into their tales, apart from its interest, merely because it was true. I do not mean that Jorkens’ tales were not true, as to some extent his biographer I should be the last to suggest that; it would be unfair to a man from whom I have had so much entertainment. I give the words as they fell from his lips, so far as I can remember them, and leave the reader to judge.
Well, about the fifth time I came in, to my great delight there was Jorkens. He was not very talkative at lunch, nor for some time after; and it was not till he had been awhile in his usual arm-chair, with his whiskey and soda at hand on a little table, that he began to mutter. I, who had made a point of sitting beside him, was one of the few that heard him. “There’s a lot of loose talk,” he was saying, “goes on in clubs. People say things. They don’t mean them. But they say things. A lot of loose talk.”
“Yes,” I said, “I suppose there is rather. There oughtn’t to be.”
“Of course there oughtn’t,” said Jorkens. “Now I’ll give you an instance. Only to-day; before you came in; but only to-day I heard a man saying to another (they’ve both gone out now, so never mind who they were) I heard him saying ‘There’s no one tells taller tales than Jorkens.’ Merely because he hasn’t travelled, or, if he has, has kept all the time to roads and paths and railways, merely because he has never been off a good wide path he thinks that things that I may have seen hundreds of times merely weren’t there.”
“Oh, he can’t really have meant it,” I said.
“No,” said Jorkens, “but he shouldn’t have said it. Now, just to prove to you, as I happen to be able to do, that his remark is definitely inaccurate, I can show you a man not a mile from here who tells very much taller stories than I do; and they happen to be perfectly true.”
“Oh, I’m sure they are,” I said, for Jorkens was distinctly annoyed.
“Care to come and see him?” said Jorkens.
“Well, I’d just as soon hear one of your own stories of things you’ve seen,” I said, “if you’d care to tell me one.”
“Not till I’ve cleared myself,” said Jorkens, “of that loose assertion.”
“Yes, I’ll come,” I said.
So we left the club together.
“I’d take a taxi,” said Jorkens, “only I happen to have run out of change.”
Though Jorkens was once a great traveller I was not sure what training he was in to walk a mile just then. So I hailed a taxi, Jorkens insisting that he must owe me the money, as it was he who was taking me. We went eastwards, and soon arrived at our destination, Jorkens generously placing himself in debt to me for the fare.
It was a small lodging house beyond Charing Cross Road, and we were shown upstairs by a maid to a carpetless room; and there was Jorkens’ friend Terner, a man probably still in the thirties, though he obviously smoked too much, and that made him look a bit older; and besides that he had pure-white hair, which gave a queer venerable appearance to a face that seemed somehow unsuited to it.
They greeted each other, and I was introduced.
“He has come to hear your story,” said Jorkens.
“You know I never tell it,” answered Terner.
“I know,” said Jorkens; “not to sneering fools. But he’s not one of those. He can tell when a man’s speaking the truth.”
They looked at each other, but Terner still seemed uncertain, still seemed to cling to the reticence of a man that has often been doubted.
“It’s all right,” said Jorkens. “I’ve told him lots of my tales. He’s not one of those sneering fools.”
“Told him about the Abu Laheeb?” asked Terner suddenly.
“Oh, yes,” said Jorkens.
Terner looked at me.
“A very interesting experience,” I said.
“Well,” said Terner, taking another cigarette in his stained fingers, “I don’t mind telling you. Take a chair.”
He lit his cigarette and began.
“It was in 1924; when Mars was about its nearest to the earth. I took off from Ketling aerodrome,8 and was away two months. Where did they think I was? I certainly hadn’t enough petrol to fly about in our atmosphere for two months. If I came down, where did I come down? It was their business to find out and to prove it; and, if not, to believe my story.”
1924, and Ketling aerodrome. I did remember now. Yes, a man had claimed to have flown to Mars; had been reluctant to say much at first, because of some horror that he had seen, would not give cheery interviews, was too grimly solemn about it, and so encouraged doubts that might otherwise not have been, and was soured by them, and overwhelmed by a rush of them.
“Why, yes, I remember, of course,” I said. “You flew to . . .”
“A thousand letters by one post, calling me a liar,” said Terner. “So after that I refused to tell my story. They wouldn’t have believed it in any case. Mars isn’t quite what we think it.
“Well, this is what happened. I’d thought of it ever since I realised that aeroplanes could do it. But about 1920, with Mars coming nearer and nearer, and 1924 the only year that would be possible, I began my calculations. I worked at them steadily for three years; I have the figures still: I will not ask you to read them, but the whole point of my work was this, that there was only one motive power that could possibly get me to Mars before all my provisions gave out, and that power was the pace of the world. An aeroplane can do over two hundred miles an hour, and mine got up to nearly three hundred by means of the propeller alone; and in addition to that I had a rocket attachment that gradually increased my pace to an enormous extent; but the world, which is ninety-three million miles from the Sun, goes right round it in a year; and nothing we know on its surface has any pace like that. My petrol and my rocket were merely to pull clear of the earth’s attraction, but my journey was made by the force that is moving you in that chair at this moment at something like a thousand miles a minute. One doesn’t lose that pace merely by leaving the earth; it remains with one. But my calculations were to direct it; and I found that the pace of the earth would only carry me to Mars when Mars was a bit ahead of us. Unfortunately Mars is never straight ahead, but a bit out to the right, and I had to calculate at what angle I was to aim my plane away to the right of our orbit, in order that the combined pull of my little plane and my rockets, and the vast pace of the earth, should give me the right direction. It had to be as precise as aiming a rifle, with this slight advantage on my side, to make up for all the forces that grudged my journey, that the target would attract any missile that was going a little too wide.
“But how to get back? That doubled the complexity of my calculations. If the pace of the world sent me forwards, so would the pace of Mars. Mars would be ahead of the world when I started. Where would the pace of Mars send me?”
I saw a flash of doubt even on Jorkens’ face at that.
“But it was fairly simple,” continued Terner. “Our world has the inside berth, a much shorter journey round the sun at ninety-three million miles than Mars at an average of a hundred and thirty-nine million. It consequently soon passes its neighbour, and I found that just as I was to shoot forward from Earth to Mars, so, by leaving at the right hour, I could shoot forwards from Mars to Earth. As I said, these calculations took me three years, and of course my life depended on them.
“There was no difficulty in taking food for two months. Water was more cumbersome; so I took the great risk of carrying water for only a month, and trusting to find it in Mars. After all, we have seen it there. It seemed a certainty, and yet it was an anxiety all the while, and I drank so sparingly that, as it turned out, I had ten full days’ supply when I got to Mars. A far more complicated matter was my supply of compressed air in cylinders, my method of releasing it for use, and my utilisation of exhaled air to the utmost that it could be utilised.”
I was about to ask some questions about those cylinders when Jorkens interrupted. “You know my theory about Jules Verne and the men in the moon?” he said.
“No,” I replied.
“So many things he describes have been done since, and have become commonplace,” said Jorkens; “Zeppelins, submarines, and one thing and another; and are described so minutely and vividly; that it’s my theory, I don’t know what you think, that he actually experienced these, especially the trip to the moon, and then told them as fiction.”
“No, I never heard that theory,” I said.
“Why not?” said Jorkens. “Why shouldn’t he? There are innumerable ways of recording events. There’s history, journalism, ballads, and many more. People don’t believe any of them very devoutly. They may disbelieve fiction too, now and then. But look how often you hear it said ‘That’s Little Dorrit’s home, that’s where Sam Weller lived, that’s Bleak House,’ and so on and so on. That shows you they believe fiction more than most things; so why shouldn’t he have left his record in that form? But I am interrupting you. I beg your pardon.”
“Never mind,” said Terner. “Another thing that perplexed me greatly, and gave rise to immense discomfort, was the loss of the pressure of the atmosphere, to which we are accustomed. I shall always regard this as the greatest of all the handicaps that anyone has to face on a journey from Earth. Indeed without the most careful and thorough binding with bandages one’s body would be crushed, by the pressure within it working outwards when the weight of the air was gone. I should have published details of all these things if it hadn’t been for that outbreak of disbelief; which would not have occurred if I had had a publicity agent.”
“Most annoying,” said Jorkens.
Terner got up and paced about the room, still smoking as always.
There certainly had been an outbreak of disbelief. It was just one of those things that the public had turned against, like Epstein’s Rima,9 only far more so. Some men are unlucky. It was largely his own fault. It was as he had said; if he had had a good publicity agent, the outbreak would not have occurred. They would have believed him without his troubling to make the journey at all.
He paced up and down, a few long strides, in silence.
“I spent every penny I’d got,” he went on, “on the aeroplane and the outfit. I had no dependants. And if my calculations were wrong and I missed the red planet I shouldn’t want the cash. If I found it and got safely back to Earth, I imagined it wouldn’t be hard to earn all I needed. I was mistaken there. Well, one never knows. Achievement by itself is not enough. The necessary thing is for people to admit your achievement. I had not thought of that. And the bigger the achievement, the less ready people may be to admit it. Lear was recognised much quicker than Keats.”10
He lit another cigarette, as he did throughout his story as soon as he had finished one.
“Well, the planet came nearer and nearer. It was quite large now every night, distinctly coloured. Orange perhaps, rather than red. I used to go out and look at it at night. The awful thought occurred to me more than once that that orange glow might well come from a waste of deserts, yellow sand without a drop of water for me; but I was consoled by the thought of those vast canals that had been seen with our telescopes, for I believed like everyone else that they were canals.
“I had finished all my calculations by then, by the winter of 1923; and Mars, as I said, was coming nearer and nearer. I grew pretty calm about it as the time approached. All my calculations were done, and it seemed to me that any peril that threatened me was all decided months ago, one way or the other. The dangers seemed all behind me; they were in my calculations. If they were right they would take me through; if they were wrong I was doomed two or three years ago. The same way with those tawny deserts that I used to think I saw. I gave up worrying about them too. I had decided that the telescope could see better than I could, so that was the end of them. I wouldn’t tell anyone I was going; I hate to talk about things I am going to do. Apparently one has to on a stunt like that. Any way I didn’t. There was a girl I used to see a good deal of in those days. Amely her name was. I didn’t even tell her. It would have soon got out if I had. And there would I have been, the silly hero of an adventure that as yet I was only talking about. I told her I was going in my ’plane on a long journey. She thought I meant to America. I said I would be away two months; and that puzzled her; but I wouldn’t say more.
“Every night I took a look at Mars. He was large and ruddy now, so that everyone noticed him. Just think of the different interests with which they were looking at Mars; admiration of his beauty glowing with that bright colour, casual curiosity, apathy, scientists waiting the chance that would not come round again for years, witch-doctors making spells, astrologers working out portents, reporters making their articles, and I alone looking at that distant neighbour with lonely thoughts unshared by anyone on our planet. For, as I told you, not even Amely had the very slightest idea.
“Mars was not at his nearest on the night that I started; still over forty million miles away. The reason of this I told you: I had to shoot forwards while Mars was ahead of us. He came within thirty-five million in 1924. But I set off before that.
“I started, naturally, from the night side of the earth, as Mars was lying beyond us away from the sun, and this enabled me to aim accurately at my target. It was a far trickier job coming back. When I say I aimed at my target, I aimed of course far in front of it. That will be understood by anyone who has ever done any shooting. Well, I went to Ketling aerodrome on the night in question, where my ’plane was. There were one or two fellows there that I knew, and of course my rig-out astonished them.
“ ‘Going to keep warm,’ I remember one of them said.
“Well, I was. Because in addition to my system of bandages to hold me in when I lost the pressure of our atmosphere, I had to wrap up against the absolute cold of Space. I should have that inconceivable cold in my face, while on my back I should need all the clothes I could wear, to protect me from the blaze of the sun; for those clothes would be the only protection there was, when our fifty miles of air were behind me. Sunstroke and frost-bite could very easily have overcome me at the same moment. Well, they are very keen at Ketling about nobody going up if he’s in the least bit biffed. You know: a bit the better for his dinner. So they started asking me questions with that in view. I wouldn’t tell them where I was going. It wasn’t till I actually got the ’plane out that I told two of the mechanics, so as to have my start recorded. One of them merely thought I was making a joke, and laughed, not at me exactly, but in order to show that he appreciated my having a joke with him. He merely thought it was funny in some way that he couldn’t see. The other laughed too, but at least he knew what I was talking about. ‘How much juice are you taking, sir?’ he said.
“ ‘Fifteen gallons,’ I said, which as a matter of fact he knew. It’s good for three hundred miles, which gave me plenty to spare if I wanted to cruise a bit over Mars.
“ ‘Going there and back in three hours, sir?’ he said.
“He was quite right. That’s as long as you can fly on fifteen gallons.
“ ‘I’m going there,’ I said.
“ ‘Well, good-night, sir,’ he answered. I told a third man too.
“‘To Mars are you, sir,’ he said. He was annoyed that I should, as he thought, play a joke on him.
“Then we were off. I had a system of sights that gave me a perfect aim all the time that I was in the darkness of Earth and within its atmosphere, and could still see Mars and still steer. Before I left our atmosphere I accelerated with my system of rockets, and broke away by a dozen explosions from the pull of our planet. Then I shut off my engines and fired no more rockets, and a most enormous stillness wrapped us about. The sun shone, and Mars and all the stars went out, and there we were perfectly still in that most absolute stillness. Yet I was moving, as you are now, at a thousand miles a minute. The soundless-ness was amazing, the discomforts beyond description; the difficulties of eating alone, without being frost-bitten, and without being crushed by the awful emptiness of Space, which we are not built to inhabit, were enough to make the most resolute man turn back, except that you can neither turn nor steer without air to turn in.
“I was sure of my aim: it was accurate enough according to my calculations, the last I saw of Mars: I was pretty sure of arriving: but I soon began to doubt my capacity to hold out for a month of it. Days and nights can go by pretty slowly sometimes even on Earth, but this was one interminable day.
“The compressed air worked all right: of course I had practised it on Earth. But the machinery for letting out continually the exactly right quantities into a kind of metal helmet, from which I breathed it, was so complicated, that I could never sleep for more than two hours on end, without having to wake and attend to it. For this purpose I had to have an alarm clock quite close to my ear. My discomforts would, I think, be no more interesting than a record of a long and tedious illness. But, to put it briefly, a little after half-way they got the better of me and I was going to give up and die; when suddenly I saw Mars. In the broad glare of the daylight I saw a pale white circle, like the very littlest of moons, nearly ahead of me and a bit to the right. It was this that saved me. I gazed at it and forgot my great discomforts.
“It was no more visible than a small bird’s feather, high in the air, in sunlight. But it was Mars unmistakably, and just where it ought to be if I was to reach it. With nothing else to look at through that endless day, I gazed too much at Mars. That brought it no nearer; and I found that if I was to get any comfort from it in my weariness I must look away from it for a bit. That wasn’t easy with nothing else to look at, but when I did look away from it for an hour or so, and looked again, I could see a change. I noticed now that it was not entirely lit, being dark on the right hand side, and illuminated about as much as the moon on its eleventh day, three days from full. I looked away again and then looked back at it, and so I passed about two hundred hours of that long weary day. Gradually the canals, as we call them, came in view, gradually the seas. It grew to the size of our moon, and then grew larger, exhibiting a spectacle the like of which no human eye had ever seen before. From then on I forgot my discomforts. Now I saw mountains clearly, and presently rivers, and the flashing panorama widened before me, giving up secrets at which our astronomers have guessed for over a century. There came the time when after a spell of sleep I looked at Mars again, and found that it had lost the look of a planet, or any celestial body, and appeared now like a landscape. Soon after that I got the feeling that, though my course was quite unchanged, Mars was no longer ahead of me but underneath. And then I began to feel the pull of the planet. Things rocked in my ’plane: kegs, tins and such; and began to shift, as far as their lashings would let them. I felt the pull too where I sat. Then I got ready for entering the atmosphere of Mars.”
“What did you have to do?” said Jorkens.
“Had to be very careful,” said Terner. “Or I’d have burned up like a meteorite. Of course I was overtaking it, not meeting it, so that our two speeds largely neutralised each other; and luckily the atmosphere is only thin at first, like ours, so you don’t strike it bang. But the plane took some handling for all that. Once I’d steadied her, flying is much the same there as it is here. Of course I’d turned on my engines as soon as I struck Mars’ atmosphere. I came down pretty straight, not wishing to show over too wide an area, so as not to excite too much curiosity amongst whatever might be there. I may say that I expected to find men there, not through any knowledge I had or researches I’d made, but because most people do. I don’t mean that I was persuaded by that, but what vaguely persuaded them had vaguely persuaded me. I came down over a country that was considerably covered with forests, though with plenty of clearings for a landing. The spot I chose was a clearing down in a valley, as it gave the best cover for my aeroplane, and I didn’t want to show too much. I expected human beings, but thought it just as well to keep out of sight if I could: they’re not always as friendly as all that even here. In a little over ten minutes from the time I turned on my engines I landed in this valley. I had been away from Earth a month, just as I’d calculated. It wasn’t so very unlike Earth when I stepped out. All the trees were different, and of course twigs of these were the first things I had meant to bring back. I actually picked a bunch from five different ones and laid them down in my aeroplane. But the very first thing I did was to replenish my water-supply, and to have a good drink, at a stream that I had spotted before I came down, running out of the forest and down that valley. The water was all right. I had had some fear that it might be full of salt, or some wholly unknown chemical; but it was all right. And the next thing I did was to take off those infernal bandages and my breathing-helmet, and to have a bath in the stream, the first I had had for a month. I didn’t put them on again, but left them in the ’plane, and dressed decently, as I wanted to show the inhabitants something human. After all, I would be the first one they had seen from here, and I didn’t want them to think we were like caterpillars in a cocoon. I took a .450 revolver with me too. Well, you have to do that here sometimes. Then I started off to look for these remote neighbours of ours. I passed wonderful flowers but did not stop to pick one: I was only looking for man. I had seen no sign of buildings as I came down. Yet I had not walked a mile through the wood when I came to open land, and there by the very edge of the trees, quite close to me, I saw what was clearly a building made by some intelligent being: and a very odd building it was.
“It was a long rectangle, barely fifteen feet high, and about ten yards wide. At one end of it four windowless walls and a flat roof shut out all light for about twenty yards, but the rest of it was a stretch of quite fifty yards guarded by roof and walls of open metal-work, a stout mesh of the same material of which the whole building was made.
“And at once I saw that our scientists’ dreams were true, for walking in that enclosure so carefully protected by metal I saw a large party of the human race.”
“Human!” I exclaimed.
“Yes,” said Terner, “human. Folk like ourselves. And not only that, but, as I had often gathered from books was likely to be the case on account of the smaller planet cooling sooner than ours and so starting life earlier, rather more refined than the best of our people. I never saw anything more graceful; ages had given them a refinement that has not yet come to us. I never saw anything more delicate than their women’s beauty. There was a stately simplicity in their walk alone that was lovelier to see than our dances.”
Then he strode on, up and down the room, in silence awhile, smoking furiously.
“Oh, it is an accursed planet,” he said once, and went on with his rapid smoking. I was going to say something to get him back to his story; but Jorkens saw me and held up his hand. He evidently knew this point of the story, and the strong effect that it had upon Terner. So we left him awhile to his pacing and to his cigarettes.
And after a bit he continued calmly, as though there had been no pause. “When I saw that mesh I got my revolver ready, for it seemed to me a pretty obvious protection against some powerful animal. Otherwise, I thought, why not walk about in the open instead of in that narrow enclosure?
“There were about thirty of them there, dressed simply and gracefully, though their dress was a bit oriental from our point of view. Everything about them was graceful except that dingy-looking flat house. I came up to the mesh and greeted them. I knew that taking my hat off would probably have no meaning to them, but I took it off with a wide sweep and bowed. It was the best I could do, and I hoped that it might convey my feelings. And it did too. They were sympathetic and quick, and every sign that I made to them, except when too utterly clumsy, they understood at once. And when they didn’t understand they seemed to laugh at themselves, not me. They were like that. Here was I utterly crude and uncouth, half savage, compared to them; and they treated me with every courtesy that they could get my poor wits to understand. How I’d like to go back with a thousand more of us . . . but it’s no good, they won’t believe me. Well, I stood there with my hands on the mesh, and found it was good stout metal though much less than half an inch wide: I could easily get my thumb through the round apertures, so that we could see each other quite clearly. Well, I stood there talking to them, or whatever you call it, as well as I could, and remembering all the time that there must be something pretty bad in those forests for all that thick wire to be necessary. I never guessed what.
“I pointed to the sky, in the direction in which they would have seen Earth shining at night; and they understood me. Fancy understanding a thing like that just from my uncouth gestures. And they obviously did. But they won’t believe me here. And then they tried to tell me all about their world, and of course I understood nothing. And it wasn’t just being ignorant of their language that I felt as my greatest handicap: it was my awful lack of every kind of refinement, in comparison with those gracious gentle creatures, that weighed on me the most heavily all the time I was there. One thing I was able to understand from them. Would you like to hear about those canals?”
“Yes, very much,” I said.
“Well, they aren’t canals at all,” he replied. “There was one in sight of where we stood, a huge expanse of water with a straight edge to it, going through flat plains. I pointed and asked them about it. And they all pointed up, and there I saw a little moon of Mars, lit up and shining like ours. Well that conveyed nothing to me. I knew Mars had two moons, but I saw no connection with canals. So I pointed to the water again, and again they all pointed up. This still conveyed absolutely nothing, so they pointed then to the far end of the great canal out in the plains; and at length after a great while I was able to see that the water was moving, which is what they were trying to explain by signs to me. Then they pointed up to their moon again. And in the end I was able to understand them. That moon passes so close over plains of mud that its attraction drags the mud along after it, and the water pours in behind. Once I had seen it, it seemed simple enough. No one would dig a canal fifty miles wide, and they are at least that. Whereas pulling water along is just the job for a moon.”
“But are the canals as wide as that?” I said.
“You’d never see them from Earth if they weren’t,” said Terner.
I’d never thought of that.
“There was one girl there that was extraordinarily lovely,” said Terner. “But to describe any of them you’d need the language of a lover, and then turn that into poetry. No one will believe me. Not a soul will believe me. I talked to her, though of course my words meant nothing; I trusted so much to her bright intelligence that I almost expected her to understand every word; and so she often did. Strange bright birds flew often over us going to and from the forest, and she told me the names of them in the queer Martial language. Mpah and Nto are two that I can remember, as far as I can spell it; and then there was Ingu, bright orange and black, with a long tail like our magpie. She was trying to tell me something about Ingu, who was just then flying over us, squawking, away from the trees; when suddenly she pointed. I looked, and sure enough something was coming out of the forest.”
For a while he puffed rapidly in silence.
“I can’t describe it to you. We have nothing like it here. At any rate not on land. An octopus has some slight resemblance to it in its obese body and thin long legs, though this had only two, and two long thin arms. But the head and the huge mouth were like nothing one knows. I have never seen anything so horrible. It came straight to the wire netting. I slipped away at once before it saw me, as that lovely girl was warning me to do. I had no idea that the thick wire had not been woven as a protection against this very beast. I hid amongst some sort of flowering scrub. I can smell the scent of it to this day; a sweet aroma unlike any on Earth. I had no idea that they were not perfectly safe from it. And then it came straight towards them, and up to the wire. I saw it close, all nude and flabby, except for those wiry limbs. It lifted a lid in the roof before I knew what it was doing, and put in a long horrible arm. It groped about with extraordinary rapidity, and seized a girl and drew her up through the lid. I was on the far side of the wire from it and couldn’t shoot. It wrung her neck in a moment and threw her down, and slipped in that arm again. I ran out from my covert, but before I got near it had caught a young man and drawn him up, and was wringing his neck as I came round the corner. They had made little effort to avoid that gruesome hand, just dodging as it swept by them; though when it singled one out there was little chance to dodge, as they seemed to know. And they were all standing together now in the corner as I came by them, with a dignified resignation in their faces.”
“Couldn’t they have done anything?” I asked. For the idea of a branch of the human race quite helpless before such a horror was too new for me to accept it. But he had seen it, and understood.
“It was nothing more than a chicken-run,” he said. “What could they do? They belonged to this beast.”
“Belonged to it!” I exclaimed.
“You see,” said Jorkens, “you don’t understand. Man isn’t top dog there.”
“What!” I gasped.
“No,” said Terner, “that’s it.”
“Another race, you see,” said Jorkens.
“Yes,” said Terner. “It’s an older planet, you know. And somehow in all that time it’s got ahead of them.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Ran up to the beast,” he answered. “I somehow thought he wouldn’t be afraid of a man, from the way he treated them, so I didn’t trouble to stalk him, but just ran after him as he was moving off and swinging those two young bodies by their ankles. Then he turned round on me and reached out an arm and I let him have one from the four-fifty. He spun round and dropped the bodies and stumbled away, waving his arms above him and bleating out of his great mouth. He was evidently not accustomed to being hurt. He went bleating away and I went after him and gave him two or three more, and left him dead or dying, I didn’t care which.
“At the sound of my shots the whole wood had awoken. Birds soared up piping and whistling, and animals I had not seen began to hoot in the shadows. And amongst the general clamour I thought I detected some sounds that might have come from mouths like that of the beast I had killed. It was clearly time to go.
“I turned back to the cage, and there they were all gazing at the dead creature in silence and curiosity. I went up to them but they continued to gaze at it. None of them spoke to me. I saw then that I had done the wrong thing. It seemed that one did not kill these beasts. Only the girl I had spoken with about the birds turned to me, and she pointed swiftly up to the sky, towards Earth. The clamour was increasing in the forest. She was right; it was time to go. I said farewell to her. I wonder what my eyes told her. I said farewell more sadly than I have ever said it before. I nearly stayed. If it hadn’t been for what I had to tell our own people I would have stayed, and shared out my two dozen cartridges amongst those hideous beasts; but I thought I owed it to Earth to bring home the news. And in the end they never believed me!
“I heaved a rock at that horrible body as I went by, not liking to spare another cartridge, on account of the clamour in the forest. But those poor people in the chicken-run didn’t approve. One could see that in a moment. To be eaten by that beast was their fate, and no interference with that seemed right to them.
“I got back to my ’plane as fast as I could. Nothing had found it. It was still safe in the valley. Perhaps I felt a moment of regret when I found my retreat to Earth was not cut off. It would have made things so simple. And yet it would never have done. Well, there was my ’plane, and I jumped in and began to wrap on those bindings, without which it is impossible to keep together in the bleak emptiness between our atmosphere and theirs. Something peered out of the wood at me as it heard me get into the ’plane. It looked to me like some sort of a fox, and I went on with my wrappings. All the noises in the wood seemed coming nearer. Then all of a sudden I thought: what if it was a dog, and not a fox at all! Whose side would a dog be on in Mars? I could hardly imagine a dog on anyone’s side but man’s.11 But I had seen such horrible things, that I wondered. What if it belonged to those beasts! As man did, for that matter. It would go and tell them I was here. I hurried with my wrappings. But the brushwood was being trodden quite close. Then I saw branches waving. And a lot of them came pouring out of the forest, hurrying towards their chicken-run. They were not a hundred yards away, and they all saw me. Then the filthy things turned to their left and came towards me. I gave them one shot, and started my engines. One seemed hit, but I couldn’t hear its noises on account of the sound of my engines. They seemed puzzled by the shot for a moment, then came towards me, with a queer look on their hideous faces, hands stretched out. I only just cleared them. With their great height they could almost have gripped my ’plane as I went over them. And away I went with all my bindings flapping. Of course I couldn’t face Space like that. And I couldn’t dress myself and steer at the same time, with such steering as I had to do. One degree out and I should have missed Earth. I hadn’t much petrol either. It is petrol that I had economised on. Obviously. As it was of no use to me except for about one millionth part of my journey at each end. You can’t churn up Space. Well, I went about twenty miles, and lit down in the wide plain through which that moon was dragging its fifty-mile groove of mud, for us to look at through telescopes. And I had to fly up and down a good deal before I was sure of a landing in which I wouldn’t be bogged; as happened to me later. Well, I lit down and got on with my dressing. And all the while I had the idea that Mars knew a lot more about my presence there than I had hoped for. Birds seemed ill at ease, and there seemed too much scurrying. At any rate I was in the open and could see what was coming. Yet I should have liked to have gone a hundred miles or so further, except for the uneasy feeling it gave me to be left without any reserve of petrol beyond what I knew I should want. So I stayed there and saved up my petrol; and it was lucky I did. Well, I got my bandages on, but I still had my observations to make from the sun in order to find my way home, when I saw some of those foul creatures a long way off. Whether they were coming after me or not I never knew, but they hurried my calculations, and did not encourage me to go gathering Martial rocks and flora, which of course would have made all this vehement disbelief impossible. And the samples from five different trees that I had got in the wood were of course all blown away when I went off in a hurry the first time.”
“And you brought back nothing at all?” I asked. For there was the ring of truth in his story and I was hoping it could be proved.
“Nothing except an old match-box broken in a very peculiar way. And, if you can’t see what broke it, that will prove nothing to you either. I’ll show it you later.”
“What broke it?” I asked.
“When we come to it,” he said, “you shall tell me. I’ll show it you and you shall see for yourself.”
Jorkens nodded his head.
“Well, I didn’t go gathering flowers or anything else, except for those twigs that I lost. I ought to have, I know. And perhaps I was in too much of a hurry to get away when I saw that second lot in the distance. But I had seen the faces of the beasts, and they were all I was thinking of. I had a large camera and took a few shots at the landscape, which ought to have been conclusive. But I didn’t get it home. I’ll tell you what happened to that afterwards.
“Well, all that incredulity here was the last thing that I thought of; and the mouths of those loathsome beasts were filling all my imagination. I hurried my calculations and was off, homewards towards the sun, I saw several more of those chicken-runs as I went; but little else besides forest, and plains of mud. I might have seen more if the sun had not been in my eyes. Very soon Mars turned a lovely cobalt blue, and the beauty of it made me even sadder.
“Then began again that long weary day, with sun and ’plane apparently motionless. Engines shut off, no sound, no movement, no weather; and the weeks dragging by with no sign that time was passing at all. It is an awful place; time seems dead there.
“Again I began to despair, nearly to death; when suddenly I saw ahead of me, like a swan’s feather all alone in Space, the familiar curved shape of a world, a quarter lit by the sun. There is no mistaking a planet. And yet, rejoiced as I was to be nearing home, one thing strangely perplexed me: I seemed to be ten days ahead of my time. What amazing luck, I thought, that part of my calculations must have been wrong, and yet I had not missed Earth.
“I had not seen it as soon as I had seen Mars, on account of its being so near to the line of the Sun. Consequently it was large when I did see it. As it grew larger and larger I tried to work out what continent I was approaching, not that it greatly mattered, as I had petrol enough to make a good landing unless I was very unlucky. Though it couldn’t be where I had expected to land, as I was so much ahead of my time. Well, I couldn’t make out anything, as most of the orb was in darkness. And when I got into that darkness it was a blessed thing, after the glare of the sun in that endless lonely day. For there is no light there really, only glare. In that awful loneliness there is nowhere for light to fall; it just goes by you in a glare. I got into the darkness at last and switched on my engines, and flew till I came to the very first edge of twilight that gave light enough for me to land, for I was tired of staring at the sun. And that was how I came to make a bad landing, with my wheels deep down in a marsh. It was not that that whitened my hair. I felt my scalp go cold, and my hair whitened; but it was not being stuck in a marsh that whitened it. It was the knowledge I had, the very moment I landed, that I was on the wrong planet. I should have seen it before, coming down, although in the dark: the whole thing was much too small. But I saw it now: I was on the wrong planet and didn’t even know which. The awful concentrated loneliness of the accident at first froze my thoughts. And, when I did begin to think, all was bewilderment. What lay inside of Mars? Only Earth, Venus and Mercury. The size pointed at Mercury. But I was ahead of my time, not behind it. Or was my chronometer all wrong? But the sun had appeared no larger, five minutes ago than it appears from Earth. In fact rather smaller. Perhaps, I thought, it was Venus in spite of this; though it was too small even for Venus. And the asteroids were behind me, outside Mars.
“What I did not know then was how Eros12 (and perhaps others too), on account of the tilt of the planes of some of the asteroids, comes at certain times within fourteen million miles of us. So that though his path round the sun lies outside Mars, whose nearest is thirty-five million, Eros at certain times is Earth’s neighbour. Of this I knew nothing; and yet, when I began to think reasonably, the facts at last spoke for themselves: I was on a strayed or an unknown asteroid. It should be easier to examine such a body when one is actually on it, with its continents all spread round one, than when it appears no more than a small pin’s head in a telescope. But the calm, the safety, above all that feeling of Home, which lie about the astronomer, are aids to accurate thought which cannot be estimated.
“I saw that I had blundered when leaving Mars, making some wrong calculation in my hurry, and was very lucky to have got anywhere. Who can say when he thinks of all the things he might have become, who can say as I can that I nearly became a comet?”
“Very true,” said Jorkens.
Terner said this with the utmost seriousness. The danger had evidently been near to him.
“When I realised where I must be,” continued Terner, “I set to work to pull my ’plane out of the marsh, standing up to my knees in it. It was easier than I thought. And, when I had got it up I lifted it over my head and carried it about nine miles on to good dry land.”
“But an aeroplane?” I said. “What does it weigh?”
“Over a ton,” said Terner.
“And you carried it?’
“With one hand,” he said. “The pull of those asteroids is a weak and puny thing to anyone accustomed to Earth. I felt pretty strong on Mars, but that’s nothing to what one could do here, in Eros, or whichever it was.
“I got out at the edge of a forest of minute scrub-oak, the size of the ones that are dwarfed by the Japanese. I looked out for any disgusting beasts such as those foul things on Mars, but saw nothing of any sort. A few small moths, as I thought them, flew by me out of the trees; though, looking back on it, I think they were birds. Well, then I settled down to work out my new calculations. I was so near Earth now, that I might get it if I could pull away from the asteroid, and if only I was close in my guess (and it could be no more) at the pace that the asteroid was doing. More than a guess I could not make, for I did not even know on what little planet I was, and guesses are bad things for calculations. But you must use them when you’ve got nothing else. I knew at least where the path of these asteroids lay, so I knew how far they had to go, but the time that they took to do it I could only guess from the time that I knew their neighbours took. Had I been further from Earth these guesses would have ruined my calculations, and I should never have found my way home.
“Well, I sat there undisturbed by anything except my own rapid breathing, and worked out those calculations as near as I could. I had to breathe three or four times as fast as one does on Earth, for there didn’t seem as much air as there is here. And of course there wouldn’t be in a little place like Eros. What troubled me far more than the breathing was the thought that I had only my engines to pull me clear of the planet, having used the last of my rockets in leaving Mars, and never guessing I should need them again. Imagine a passenger from Southampton to New York being suddenly landed at an island in the Atlantic. He would be far less surprised than I was at landing here, and I was not prepared for it. The pull of Eros, or whatever small world it was, was not much to get away from; but the amount of atmosphere I should have in which to pull away from it was bound to be diminutive also, like the planet round which it was wrapped. I knew I could get up enough speed to pull clear of Eros, if only I had long enough to do it, if only the air went far enough, I knew roughly how far it went, as I had felt it in the wings of my ’plane on the way down. But would it go far enough? That was the thought that was troubling me as I worked at my figures, and breathed as men breathe in high fevers. I wouldn’t use my compressed air while I had air of any kind to breathe outside. For the hours that I could live before I reached Earth were numbered by my supply of compressed air. Well, I made my plans, and arranged my aim at the Earth, in leisure, such as I had not had on Mars, while the little planet spun towards the sun, and its day was dawning where I had landed in twilight. Then I had time to look round at the oak-forest, whose billowy tops were rolling away below me. Take a look now at this match-box. Handle it gently. Now what would you say made that hole in it?”
I took from his hand a Bryant and May’s match-box, considerably shattered; shattered from the inside; leaving a hole large enough for a mouse to run through.
“It looks as if something had gone through it pretty hard,” I said.
“Not through it,” he answered. “There’s only a hole on one side.”
“Well into it,” I said.
“Nor into it. Look again,” said Terner.
Sure enough it was all burst outwards. But what had done it was more than I could see. And so I told Terner.
Then he took it over to the mantelpiece, where he had two little cottages made of china, and put it between the two, and put a little thatch over the match-box, that he had made to fit it. The little cottages on each side of it were just about the same size.
“Now what do you make of it?” he asked.
I didn’t know, and I had told him so, but I had to say something.
“It looks as if an elephant had broken out of a cottage,” I said.
Terner looked round at Jorkens who was nodding an approving head, almost benevolent except for a certain slyness.
I didn’t understand this vehement exchange of glances.
“What?” I said.
“The very thing,” said Terner.
“An elephant?” I said.
“There were herds of them in the oak-forest,” said Terner. “I was stooping down to pick a branch of a tree to bring back, when I suddenly saw them in the dawn. They stampeded and I caught one, a magnificent tusker, and none of them bigger than mice. This I knew must be absolute proof. I threw away the branch; after all, they were only small oak-leaves; and I put the elephant into that match-box and put an elastic band round it to keep it shut. The match-box I threw into a haversack that I wore over my bandages.
“Well, I might have collected lots more things; but, as I said, I had absolute proof, and I had hanging over me all the while, and oppressing me with its weight, that feeling that I was on the wrong planet. It is a feeling that no one who experiences it can shake off for a single moment. You Jorkens, you have travelled a good deal too; you’ve been in deserts and queer places.”
“Yes, the papyrus-marshes,” muttered Jorkens.
“But,” continued Terner, “not even there, nor far out with the Sahara all round you, can you have had so irresistibly, so unremittingly, that feeling I spoke of. It is no mere homesickness, it is an always-present overwhelming knowledge that you are in the wrong place, so strong that it amounts to a menacing warning that your very spirit repeats to you with every beat of the pulse. It is a thing I cannot explain to anyone who has not been lost outside Earth, an emotion I can share with no one.”
“Very natural,” said Jorkens.
“Well, so I got everything ready,” Terner went on, “not only for myself but for the little elephant. I had a tin into which I meant to drop him before we left the atmosphere of Eros, and I had found a way of renewing the air in it from my own breathing supply often enough to keep the little beast alive. I had a handful of green stuff, branches of oak-trees, just as one does with a caterpillar. And water and all for him. Then I threw over everything that I could do without, in order to lighten the ’plane for the dash away from Eros. My revolver and cartridges I threw into the marsh, and that is where my camera went too. Then I started off and flew back into night, to the one part of Eros from which I could just see Earth, hanging low above her little neighbour’s horizon. It shone in the night of Eros like a small moon, like a cricket ball of pale turquoise set in silver. I aimed exactly, with all the allowances that I had calculated, and shot homewards flying low where the air of Eros was densest. At that low level I merely got my speed. Then came the crucial moment when I tilted upward to my aim. Would the air be heavy enough for my wings to work on? It was: I was heading in exactly the right direction, just as I got clear of night and Earth paled away. Now would the speed I had last? I couldn’t make much more in that thin air. I wondered if someone from Earth would ever find my bones, if Eros pulled me back, and my ’plane beside them. But I did not forget my elephant, and reached for the match-box to drop it into the tin; when I found what I’ve shown you.”
“Gone?” I said.
“Charged out, as an elephant would,” said Terner. “He must have gone before I left Eros. You see for yourself, now that you get the proper proportions, that that match-box would be to him no more than a hut of laths to one of our own elephants. And he had magnificent tusks. You wouldn’t try to shut up an elephant here in a hut of the very thinnest boards. But I never thought of that. You saw it at once. But then I had put those cottages just beside it so as to give you the right scale. Well, I didn’t grudge him his liberty at the time. I had no idea of the bitter incredulity that I should have to face. I was thinking more of the tug-of-war on which my life depended, the speed of my ’plane against the pull of Eros.
“And all of a sudden we did it. There was a slight rocking of all my kegs and tins as Eros let go. Then the long day started once more. I spent it mostly thinking over all the things that I was to tell our learned societies about Mars, and that asteroid which I believe to have been Eros. But they were too busy with their learning to look at a new truth. Their ears were turned to the past: they were deaf to the present. Well, well.” And he smoked in silence.
“Your aim was all right,” said Jorkens.
“Good enough,” said Terner. “Of course the pull of the Earth helped me. I suddenly saw it shining in the day, and I didn’t seem much out. Oh, what a feeling it is to be coming home. Earth pale at first, then slowly turning to silver; and growing larger and larger. Then it takes a faint touch of gold, an enormous pale-gold crescent in the sky; to the mere eye a sight of the utmost beauty, but saying something more to the whole being, which the understanding fails to grip. Perhaps one does take it in after all, but if one does one can never pass it on, never tell a soul of all that golden beauty. Words cannot do it. Music might, but I can’t play. I’d like to make a tune, you know, about Earth calling one home with all that changing light; only it would be so damned unpopular, because it is nothing like what they experience every day.
“Well, I hit it. With the help of that great pull that Earth flings out so far, I got home again. The Atlantic was the only thing I was afraid of, and I missed that by a good deal. I came down in the Sahara, which might have been little better than the Atlantic. But I got out and walked about, and hadn’t been looking round for five minutes when I came on a copper coin the size of a sixpence, and on it the head of Constantine. I had recognised the Sahara at once, but I knew then that I was in the north of it, where the old Roman Empire had been, and knew I had petrol enough to get to the towns. I started off again northwards, and flew till I saw some Arabs with a flock of sheep or goats: you can’t tell which till you are quite close. I landed near them and said I had come from England. I had no vulgar wish to astonish, as the bare truth would have done, so I said I had flown from England. And I saw that they did not believe me. I had a foretaste then of the world’s incredulity.
“Well, I got home, and I told my tale. The press weren’t hostile at first. They interviewed me. But they wanted cheery interviews. They wanted a photograph of me waving my handkerchief up towards Mars, to friends I had left there. But how could I be cheery after seeing what I had seen? My blood grows colder even now when I think of it. And I think of it always. How could I wave my handkerchief towards those poor people, when I knew that one by one they were being eaten by a beast more foul than our imaginations can picture? I would not even smile when they photographed me. I insisted on deleting little jokes from the interviews. I became irritated. Morose, they said. Well, I was. And after that they turned against me. Bitterest of all, Amely would not believe me. When I think what we were to each other! She might have.”
“In common politeness,” said Jorkens.
“Oh she was polite enough,” said Terner. “I asked her straight out if she believed me; and she said ‘I believe you absolutely. ’ ”
“Well, there you are,” said Jorkens cheerfully. “Of course she believes you.”
“No, no,” said Terner, smoking harder than ever. “No, she didn’t. When I told her about that lovely girl in Mars, she never asked me a single question. That wasn’t like Amely. Never a word about her.”
For a long time then he went up and down that room, smoking with rapid puffs. For so long he was silent and quite unobservant of us that Jorkens caught my eye, and we left him alone and walked away from the house.
The Walk to Lingham
“There’s a kind of idea that I can’t tell a story,” said Jorkens, “without some kind of a drink. How such ideas get about I haven’t the faintest notion. A story crossed my mind only this afternoon, if you call an actual experience a story. It’s a little bit out of the way, and if you’d care to hear it I’ll tell it you. But I can assure you that a drink is absolutely unnecessary.”
“Oh, I know,” I said.
“All I ask,” said Jorkens, “is that if you pass it on, you’ll tell it in such a way that people will believe you. There have been people, I don’t say many, but there have been people that treat those tales I told you as pure fabrication. One man even compared me to Munchausen,13 compared me favourably I admit, but still he made the comparison. Painful to me, and painful, I should think, to your publisher. It’s the way you told those tales; they were true enough every one of them; but it was the way you told them, that somehow started those doubts. You’ll be more careful in future, won’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, “I’ll make a note of it.”
And with that he started the story.
“Yes, it’s distinctly out of the way. Distinctly. But I imagine you will not disbelieve it on that account. Otherwise everyone that ever told a story of any experience he’d had would have to select the dullest and most ordinary, so as to be believed; an account of a railway journey, we’ll say, from Penge to Victoria station. We’ve not come to that, I trust.”
“No, no,” I said.
“Very well,” said Jorkens.
A couple of other members sat down near us then, and Jorkens said: “I can remember as if it was yesterday a long road in the East of England, with a border of poplars. It must have been three miles long, and poplars standing along it all the way on both sides of the road; right across flat fen-country. They had drained the fens, but patches of marsh remained, and here and all along ditches the pennons of the rushes were waving, like an army that had warred with ill success against man, scattered but not annihilated. And they hadn’t contented themselves with draining the fens, for they had begun to cut down the poplars. That was what they were at when I first saw the road, with its two straight rows of poplars over the plain like green and silvery plumes, and I must say they were felling them very neatly. They were bringing them down across the road, as it was easier that way to get them on to the carts, and the amount of traffic they interfered with wasn’t worth bothering over: in any case they could see it coming for three miles each way, if any ever came, and I never saw any, except the thing that I’ll tell you about. Well, they were cutting one down that had to fall between two others across the road without making a mess of their branches, and there was only just room to do it with not two feet to spare. And they did it so neatly that it never touched a leaf: it came down with a huge sigh between the two other trees, and all the little leaves that were turned towards it waved and fluttered anxiously as it went past them with that great last breath. It was done so neatly that I took off my hat and cheered. Anyone might have done so. One doesn’t set out to rejoice over those that are down, at least not openly. But one does not always stop to think, and it was perhaps five minutes before I began to be ashamed of that cry of triumph of mine echoing down the doomed avenue.
“It was the last tree they felled that day, and soon I was walking back alone to the village of Lingham14 where stood the nearest human habitations, three miles away over the fenland. And the glimmers of evening began to mellow the poplars. The woodmen with their carts and their fallen trees went the other way; their loud clear voices in talk, and their calls to their horses, soon fading out of all hearing. And then I was in a silence all unbroken but for my own footfall, and but for the faintest sound that seemed sometimes to murmur behind me, that I took for the sound of the wind in the tops of the poplars, though there was no wind blowing.
“I hadn’t gone a mile when I had a sense, based on no clue, yet a deeply intense feeling, growing stronger and stronger for the last ten minutes, growing up from a mere suspicion to sheer intuitive certainty, that I was being furtively followed. I looked round and saw nothing. Or rather, partly obscured by a slight curve of the road I must have seen what I afterwards saw too clearly, and yet never credited what was happening. After that the more my sense of being followed increased, the less I dared look round. And none of the kinds of men that I tried to imagine as being what was after me seemed quite to fit my fears. I hadn’t gone another quarter mile; I’d barely done another four hundred yards, when: but look here, I’m damned dry. I never had another experience like it, and looking back on it even today has parched my throat till I can hardly speak. I doubt if any of you have ever known anything of the kind.”
“I’m sure we haven’t,” I said, and signed to the waiter, for there was no doubt that there was something in Jorkens’ memory that could shake him even now. When he was quite himself again the first thing he did was to thank me, like the good old fellow he is, and then he went on with his tale.
“I hadn’t gone another four hundred yards, when it was clear to me with some awful certainty that whatever was after me was nothing human. The shock of that was perhaps worse than the first knowledge that I was followed. There was no longer the very faintest doubt of pursuit; I could hear the measured steps. But they were not human. And, you know, looking over the fields all empty of men, level and low and marshy, I got the feeling, one got it very easily all alone as I was, that if there was anything there that had something against man, I was the one on whom its anger must fall. And the more that the fading illumination of evening made all things dim and mysterious, the more that feeling got hold of me. I think I may say that I bore up fairly well, going resolutely on with those steps getting louder behind me. Only I daren’t look round. I was afraid when I knew I was followed; I freely admit it; I was more afraid when I knew it was nothing human, yet I held on with a certain determination not to give way to my fears, except that one about not looking round. It wasn’t the memory of anything I’ve told you yet that made my throat go dry just now.” Jorkens stopped and took another long drink: in fact he emptied his tumbler.
“A frightful terror was still in store for me, a blasting fear that so shook me then that I nearly dropped on the road, and that sometimes even now comes shivering back on me, and often haunts my nights. We, you know, we are all so proud of the animal kingdom, and so absolutely preoccupied with it, that any attack from outside leaves us staggered and gasping. It was so with me now when I learned that whatever was after me was certainly nothing animal. I heard the clod clod of the steps, and a certain prolonged swish, but never a sound of breathing. It was fully time to look round, and yet I daren’t. The hard heavy steps had nothing of the softness of flesh. Paws they were not, nor even hooves. And they were so near now that there must have been sounds of large breathing, had it been anything animal. And at such moments there are spiritual wisdoms that guide us, intuitions, inner feelings; call them what you will. They told me clearly that this was none of us. Nothing soft and mortal. Nor was it. Nor was it.
“Those moments of making up my mind to look round, while I walked on at the same steady pace, were the most frightful in my life. I could not turn my head. And then I stopped and turned completely round. I don’t know why I did it that way. There was perhaps a certain boldness in the movement that gave me some mastery over myself which just saved me from panic, and that would have of course been the end of me. Had I run I must have been done for. I spun right round and back again, and saw what was after me.
“I told you how I had cheered when the poplar fell. I was standing right under its neighbour. And men had been cutting down poplars for weeks. I remembered the look of that tree by which I had stood and cheered; chanced to note the hang of its branches. And I recognised it now. It was right in the middle of the road. One root was lifted up with clods of earth clinging to it, and it was stumping after me down the road to Lingham. Don’t think from any calmness I have as I tell you this, that I was calm then. To say that I wasn’t utterly racked with terror, would be merely to tell you a lie. One thing alone my reeling mind remained master of, and that was that one must not run. Old tales came back to me of men that were followed by lions, and my mind was able to hold them, and to act as they had taught. Never run. It was the last piece of wisdom left to my poor wits.
“Of course I tried to quicken my pace unnoticed. Whether I succeeded or not I do not know: the tree was terribly close. I turned round no more, but I knew what it looked like from the sound of its awful steps, coming up crab-like and elephantine and stumping grimly down, and I knew from the sigh in the leaves that the twigs were all bending back as it hurried after me. And I never ran.
“And the others seemed to be watching me. There was not that air of aloofness that inanimate things, if they really be inanimate, should have towards us; far less was there the respect that is due to man. I was terribly alone amongst the anger of all those poplars; and, mind you, I’d never cut one of them.
“My knees weren’t too weak to have run: I could have done it: it was only my good sense that held me back, the last steady sense that was left to me. I knew that if I ran I should be helpless before the huge pursuit of the tree. It stands to reason, looking at it reasonably, as one can sitting here, that anything that is after you, whatever it is, is not going to let you get right away from it, and the more you try to escape the more you must excite it. And then there were the others: I didn’t know what they would do. They were merely watchful as yet, but I was so frightfully alone there, with nothing human in sight, that it was best to go calmly on as though nothing was wrong, and making the most of that arrogance, as I suppose one must call it, that marks our attitude towards all inanimate things. As evening darkened the snipe began to drum, over the empty waste that lay flat and lonely all round me. And I might have felt some companionship, in my awful predicament, from these little voices of the animal kingdom, only that somehow or other I could not feel so certain as to what side they’d be on. And it is a very uneasy sound, the drumming of snipe, when you cannot be sure that it is friendly: the whole air moans with it. Certainly nothing in the sound decreased the pursuit of the tree, as one might have hoped it would, had any allies of the animal kingdom been gathering to befriend me. Rooks moved over, utterly unconcerned, and still the pursuit continued. I began to forget, in my terror, that I was a man. I remembered only that I was animal. I had some foolish hope that, as the rooks went over and the snipe’s feathers cut through the air, these awful watchful poplars and the terror that came behind me might drop back to their proper station. Yet the sound of the snipe seemed only to add to the loneliness, and the rooks seemed only to aid the gathering darkness, and nothing turned the poplar as yet from its terrible usurpation. I was left to my miserable subterfuges; walking with a limp as though tired, and yet making a longer or quicker step with one leg than the other. Sometimes longer, sometimes quicker; varying it; and seeing which deceived the best. But these poor antics are not much good; for whatever is quietly following you is likely to judge your pace by the space between it and its prey, as much as by watching your gait, and to match its own accordingly. So, though I did increase my lead now and then, there soon grew louder again the swish of the air in the branches, and that clod-clod that I hear at nights even now, whenever my dreams are troubled, a sound to be instantly recognized from any other whatever.
“Three miles doesn’t sound far: it’s no more than from here to Kensington: but I knew a man who was followed for far less by only a lion, and he swore it was longer than any walk he had ever walked before, or any ten. And only a lion, with breath and blood like himself; death perhaps, yet a death such as comes to thousands; but here was I with a terror from outside human experience, a thing against which no man had ever had to steel himself, a thing that I never knew I should one day have to face. And still I did not run.
“A change at last seemed coming over the loneliness. It wasn’t merely the lights that began to shine from Lingham, nor the smoke from chimneys, the banner of man in the air; nor any warmth from the houses that could beat out as far as this: it was a certain feeling wider than warmth could go, a certain glow that one felt from the presence of man. And it was not only I that felt it: the poplars along the road were no longer watching me with quite that excited interest with which a while ago they had seemed to expect my slaughter.”
“How did they show it?” said Terbut, who can never leave Jorkens alone.
“If you had studied poplars for years and years,” said Jorkens, “or if you had watched them as I watched them on that walk, when vast stretches of time seem condensed in one dreadful experience, you too would have been able to tell when poplars were watching you. I have seldom seen it since, and never again so as to be quite certain, but it was unmistakable then, a certain strained tensity in every leaf, twigs like the fingers of a spectre saying Hush to a village; you could not mistake it. But now the leaves were moving again in the soft evening air, the twigs seemed to be menacing nothing, and nothing about the trees was pointing or hinting or waiting; if you can use so mild a word as ‘waiting’ for their dreadfully strained expectancy. And better than all that, I had a hope—I could not yet call it any more—that my frightful pursuer was slowly dropping behind. And as I neared the windows the hope grew. Their mellow light, some reflecting the evening, some shining from lamps already, seemed throwing far over the marshes the influence of man. I heard a dog bark then, and, immediately after, the healthy clip clap clop of a good cart-horse, going home to his byre. The influence of these sounds on all nature can scarcely be estimated. I knew at once that there had been no revolution. I knew the animal kingdom was still supreme. I heard now unmistakably a certain hesitance come in the frightful footsteps behind me. And still I plodded on with my regular steps, whatever my pulse was doing. And now I began to hear the sound of geese and ducks, more cart-horses and now and then a boy shouting at them, and dogs joining in, and I knew I was back again within the lines of the animal kingdom; and had it not been for that terrible clod clod clod that I still heard behind me, though fainter, I could have almost brought myself to disbelieve in the tree. Yes, as easily as you can, Terbut,” for Jorkens saw he was about to say something, “sitting safely here.” And in the end Terbut said nothing.
“When at last I reached the village the steps were far fainter, and yet I was still pursued, and only my fears could guess how far the revengeful tree would dare to penetrate into Lingham to face the arrogant mastery, and even the incredulity, of our kind. I hurried on, still without running, till I came to an inn with a good stout door. For a moment I stood and looked at it, door, roof and front wall, to satisfy myself that it could not easily be battered in, and when I saw it was really the shelter I sought, I slipped in like a rabbit.
“The brave appearance I kept up in front of the poplar dropped from me like a falling cloak, as I sat or lay on a wooden chair by a table, part of me on the table and part on the chair; till people came up and began to speak to me. But I couldn’t speak. Three or four working men, in there for their glass of beer, and the landlord of the Mug of Ale, all came round me. I couldn’t speak at all.
“They were very good to me. And, when I found that the words would come again, I said I had had an attack. I didn’t say of what, as I might have blundered on to something that whiskey was bad for, and my life depended on a drink. And they gave me one. I will indeed say that for them. They gave me a tumbler of neat whiskey. I just drank it. And they gave me another. Do you know, the two glasses had no effect on me whatever. Not the very slightest. I wanted another, but before I took that there was one thing I had to be sure of. Was there anything waiting for me outside? I daren’t ask straight out.
“ ‘A nice village,’ I said, lifting up my head from the table. ‘Nice tree outside.’
“ ‘No tree out there,’ said one of the men.
“ ‘No tree?’ I said. ‘I’ll bet you five shillings there is.’
“ ‘No,’ he said, and stuck to it. He didn’t even want to bet.
“ ‘I thought I noticed something like a’ I daren’t even say the word ‘poplar,’ so I said ‘a tree’ instead. ‘Just outside the door,’ I added.
“‘No, no tree,’ he repeated.
“ ‘I’ll bet you ten shillings,’ I said.
“He took that.
“ ‘Well, go and have a look, governor,’ he said.
“You don’t think I was going outside that door again. So I said, ‘No, you shall decide. I mayn’t trust your memory against mine, but if you go outside and look, and say whether it’s there or not, that’s quite good enough for me.’
“He smiled and thought me a bit dotty. Oh Lord, what would he have thought me if I’d told him the bare truth.
“Well, he came back with the news that thrilled all through me, the golden glorious news that I’d lost my ten shillings. And at that I paid my bet and had my third tumbler of whiskey, which I did not dare to risk while I didn’t know how things were. And that third whiskey won. It beat my misery, it beat my fatigue and my terror, and the awful suspicion which partly haunted my reason, that this unquestioned dominion that animal life believes itself to have established was possibly overthrown. It beat everything, and I dropped into a deep sleep there at the table.
“I woke next day at noon immensely refreshed, where the good fellows had laid me upstairs on a bed. I looked out over ruddy tiles; there was a yard below, with poultry, among walls of red brick, and a goat was tied up there, and a woman went out to feed him; and from beyond came all the ancient sounds of the farm, against which time can do nothing. I revelled in all these sounds of animal mastery, and felt a safety there in the light of that bright morning that somehow told me my dreadful experience was over.
“Of course you may say it was all a dream; but one doesn’t remember a dream all those years like that. No, that frightful poplar had something against man, and with cause enough I’ll admit.
“What it would have done if I’d run doesn’t bear thinking of.” And Jorkens didn’t think of it; with a cheery wave of his hand he made the sign to the waiter, that drowns memory.
The Development of the Rillswood Estate
A few of us at the Billiards Club one day were sitting in the bay window: no one that day had any particular idea as to what the Government ought to do, or what things were coming to, or indeed about any topic whatever; so we were looking out at the street. Not only had conversation drooped and then died away; but, as often happens when things are dull in the club, they seemed dull in the street too. I for one would not have watched the street at all if I had had anything else to do; and that, I think, was the feeling of all of us. It was dull, and dull people passed through it. And then came an open motor, and in it reclined a man with sun-tanned skin, sharp aquiline features, small grey beard and rather foreign expression, in a coat of luxurious fur; with a cigar in the fingers of his right hand and one large diamond shining on one of them. His passage through the street seemed to change its whole aspect: it was dull no longer. I turned to my next neighbour, who chanced to be Jorkens, to make some comment on this rare personality; and I saw as I turned that everyone else seemed a little stirred by him too.
“He’s gone up a lot in the world,” said Jorkens.
Was it envy that made him say this?
“Who?” I said in order to draw Jorkens.
“That fellow,” said Jorkens pointing to the man in the new car. “Satyrides, the Greek financier.”
I had heard the name. “Is that who he is?” I said.
“Yes,” said Jorkens. “He is not Greek really.”
“What is he?” two or three of us asked.
“I’ll tell you his story,” said Jorkens.
And there and then he did; and it only shows us that one can wander the countryside for years, and at the end of all that time find something one knew nothing about; or, as is very often the case, never find it at all.
“There was a painter called Meddin,” said Jorkens, “who lived in a very large cottage, or perhaps one should call it a farmhouse, a really delightful building covered with honey-suckle and built in the way they used to build in Kent, with large flints and mortar. It had a garden behind it, and beyond that a small orchard, and beyond the orchard a wood. Meddin’s property ended at the further edge of the orchard: the wood belonged to the Rillswood estate. Meddin lived there with his sister. All through the warm weather he used to sit and paint in the garden, until there was no light left. I think he preferred the dim gloaming to good light, as he did imaginative pictures and could fancy classical figures between the wood and his orchard more easily when the glare of day was gone. It is not easy to describe in words a picture painted with oils, but an evident love of trees and an interest in old mythology, that was showed by his dim figures, often haunting a wood, rather suggested Corot.15 He was not imitative; but, if he had a master during the last hundred years, Corot would have been the man. Even in actual fact there can have been few places pleasanter than that garden of Meddin’s, and in his pictures it was doubly delightful. And then they developed, as they call it, the Rillswood estate; and one day they began to cut the wood down. In a month it was all gone, and in two months bungalows were going up.
“At this time Meddin and his sister Lucy both began to notice scratchings in their lawn: buttercups were being scratched up and larger plants, and sometimes they saw a bulb, all white in the earth, that had been exposed by these scratchings and then left where it grew, as though whatever had laid it bare had been scared away before eating it. They put it down to a badger. And then the tulips, that they had in the orchard, began to be scratched up. Meddin and his sister went all round the garden and could find nothing. Sometimes they listened from their windows at night, and both distinctly heard noises. Then they talked it all over, and they decided that the best thing to do would be for Meddin to sit up later than usual in the garden, with a gun. They had a shotgun with which Meddin used to shoot pigeons, until the houses of the Rillswood estate began to grow round them, and the pigeons came no longer.
“ ‘But you mustn’t shoot it if it’s a fox,’ said Lucy.
“ ‘No, no, that would never do,’ said Meddin.
“All this, I may say, was more than thirty years ago, and the shooting of a fox would have meant the placing of the Meddins for the rest of their lives in a class or caste to which the nearest approach would perhaps be the Indian Untouchables.
“Whatever it was seemed to avoid the house, and the scratchings in the lawn were all on the far side, and there were more of them in the orchard, deep scratchings to uncover small roots, which had apparently been eaten. Meddin had never had any more exciting sport than shooting an occasional pigeon, and when he left the house with his loaded shotgun and crossed the lawn, all hushed except for the birds’ last songs coming from shrubs and hedge, I gather that some of those thrills that come to men who sit up at nightfall for tigers came as near to Meddin as they were ever to come. The mystery with which evening always leaves us, and the uncertainty of sport, helped to bring such feelings to Meddin in his villa-surrounded garden. He crossed the lawn to the orchard in the direction in which the scratchings were thickest, and a new look came to the apple-trees; for hitherto he had looked at them as an artist, and beyond them to catch fancies stealing out from the wood, but now he approached them as a hunter. The difference was immense, for the fancies that lurked on the orchard’s edge for the artist were all friendly, while he carried a gun for them now; and whatever haunted the evening seemed hostile to Meddin, as he was hostile to it. As an artist he would almost have wept at that hour to see all the solemnity and mystery that had haunted the wood gone, and all its beauty, and the very earth that the wood had enchanted lying bare and untidy; but as a man with a gun, looking for something that lurked, he felt glad that it had less hiding-place than it had a month ago, if only the whole evening, stealing swiftly towards night, were not hiding-place enough for anything that might lurk. He went cautiously to a rhododendron just at the edge of the orchard, and got into it and sat down on a small camp-stool he carried, and was pretty well hidden, but could see the orchard. Darkness came to the desolate land where the wood had been, and Meddin had not hidden in his rhododendron long, when he heard the sound of steps that seemed soft and heavy stealing amongst his apple-trees. He shoved forward the safety-catch of his gun, which his sister had told him, quite rightly, not to do until the very last moment, and peered through his leafy screen. Whatever was coming came from where the wood had been, but it kept so persistently behind apple-trees that, though Meddin could hear where it was, he could not catch a glimpse of it. It stopped to scratch up some roots from the earth, still hidden from view: Meddin knew which apple-tree was giving it covert, but could not move to see round it without disturbing the whole rhododendron, which must have scared whatever it was away. Then, when the thing had eaten whatever it had scratched up, it came forward again, slipping slowly round the apple-tree. Meddin says that he knew what it was the moment he saw it, though I don’t set much store by what men tell you afterwards about such moments as that. Anyway it was a satyr.”
“A satyr!” exclaimed Terbut, who was on the window-seat with us.
“Yes,” said Jorkens, “and a full-grown one. A young satyr, Meddin thought, but quite full-grown; and it was looking straight at Meddin from round the trunk of the apple-tree, as he hadn’t hidden himself very well.”
“Do you usually get satyrs in suburban gardens?” said Terbut.
“No,” said Jorkens, “that’s just the point of it. They live in woods. But this wood had been cut down; and the satyr had nowhere to go. When it first put its head round the apple-tree, Meddin says, its lips were twitching as though it were hungry. Then it saw him, and surprise spread over its face, and it gave a low whistle. Meddin’s first thought, as he put his gun down on the ground, was that he had got a model, such a model as even Corot had probably never had. But there were many more thoughts to come, thoughts that worried Meddin and his sister for weeks, until Lady Rillswood called.”
“How did she come into it?” asked Terbut.
“I’m getting ahead of my story,” said Jorkens. “The first thing was what on earth Meddin was to do with the satyr. It was cold and had no wood to go to; and he couldn’t leave it there in his garden, hiding behind apple-trees for one of the neighbours to find it, quite naked.
“The first to speak was Meddin. ‘Come here,’ he said. And the satyr whistled again. ‘Come here,’ repeated Meddin, ‘and don’t make that noise. Where do you come from?’
“ ‘The wood,’ said the satyr.
“ ‘What’s your name?’ asked Meddin.
“And the satyr laughed.
“ ‘Are you hungry?’ said Meddin.
“The satyr nodded quickly.
“ ‘What do you get to eat?’ asked Meddin.
“ ‘Roots,’ said the satyr.
“ ‘Out of my garden, I suppose,’ said Meddin.
“ ‘Yes,’ said the satyr. ‘They’re good.’
“It was many years before the B.B.C. spoke to everyone every evening, and the satyr’s accent was wild and beastly. But Meddin understood him.
“ ‘Where do you sleep?’ he asked.
“ ‘I hide,’ said the satyr.
“ ‘So I thought,’ said Meddin.
“And looking round he saw that there were few hiding-places left, now that the wood was gone, and it could not be many hours before someone would see the satyr. What was to be done? The question perplexed Meddin, for a reason that I find it rather hard to make clear. Briefly, then, at the dawn of this century there was a certain system of civilization in England, remnants of which still survive; and it had its definite rules. For instance, if a newcomer in any neighbourhood called first on an oldcomer, the act was classed with burglaries: nobody ever did call thus on an older resident, but, if anyone had, that is how it would have been looked on. That was one of the rules. The rules were not written out, because everyone knew them. And another of the rules, which everyone knew instinctively, but which was never even mentioned, let alone written, because no one ever contemplated a breach of it, was that you did not keep a satyr in your garden.
“ ‘Well, hide now,’ said Meddin. ‘You’d better get into this rhododendron bush, while I get you some clothes.’
“ ‘Don’t wear clothes,’ said the satyr.
“ ‘Then you don’t eat food,’ said Meddin.
“ ‘Roots?’ said the satyr.
“ ‘Yes, plenty of roots,’ said Meddin. For he had a heap of potatoes in a shed, and several tulip bulbs.
“So the satyr took a dive into the rhododendron, and Meddin went to get him some clothes.
“ ‘Lucy,’ he said when he got back to the house and found his sister waiting for news, ‘you know those things Corot used to put into his landscapes.’
“‘Satyrs?’ she said.
“ ‘Yes,’ replied Meddin. ‘I wonder if he ever saw one.’
“ ‘No,’ said Lucy, ‘they’re all nonsense.’
“ ‘Well, there’s one in the garden now,’ said her brother.
“ ‘In the garden now?’ said Lucy.
“ ‘Yes,’ said Meddin, ‘in the rhododendron. And it’s only a matter of time before one of the neighbours will see it.’
“Lucy saw at once that her brother really meant it, so she saved time on exclamations or wonder, and got her mind instantly to the thing that really mattered, which was to protect the respectability of their garden. If a neighbour should see that satyr, or even anything half so odd, she knew that their house would not be a place at which anybody would call. And if no one called on you; well, you would not be much better than this thing, whatever it was, in the garden. They must hide the satyr; that was clear to both of them; or the satyr would drag them down.
“‘No clothes of course,’ said Meddin.
“ ‘No,’ said Lucy.
“ ‘We’ve got that old suit that Thomas had.’
“For they had had an odd man to do the work of the house, but had sent him away for economy. Such fluctuations depended upon the sale of pictures. And now they had only a cook, and a charwoman occasionally.
“They got the old suit out, and some hyacinth bulbs, that had been intended for pots in a window, and were the nearest roots to hand: Meddin knew they were edible, because pheasants had come to his garden in the days of the wood and had always gone for those bulbs. And with the suit of clothes and a handful of bulbs he went back to the rhododendron. The boots of his former employé had walked away with that odd man, so Meddin had to bring an old pair of his own. He hoped that the rule would apply to the satyr that seemed to apply to tramps, which was that any pair of old boots always fitted. And so it fortunately did. But he had the greatest difficulty with the suit of clothes; for not only had the satyr never put on any clothes before, but the breeches were tight for him. Well, he got them on eventually, and back they came to the house and Meddin took the satyr straight up to his room and said: ‘Now shave off that beard.’
“But he might just as well have told a goat to shave, as of course he soon realized; and then he shaved off the satyr’s small pointed beard himself and carefully clipped the tufts from the tops of his ears, while the satyr munched the bulbs.
“ ‘I expect you’d have got many already if I’d planted them out in the garden,’ said Meddin as he pointed at the last of his hyacinth bulbs, which was already sprouting.
“ ‘Yes,’ said the satyr. ‘They’re good.’
“Then they came downstairs to the parlour, the satyr hobbling uncomfortably, for of course no boots could have really fitted him; boots were for him a concealment, not a fit. He wanted to take them off, but curtly received from Meddin the words that he heard so often at this period that at a later date he took them for his motto: ‘It can’t be done.’
“‘What do you think of him now?’ said Meddin to Lucy. And to the satyr, ‘This is my sister.’
“Lucy held out her hand to the satyr, and he licked it. That was only one of a thousand things that they taught him not to do later. They brought him into the dining-room there and then, and taught him to hand them dishes while they had supper; and from that very hour they both of them concentrated on hiding away all traces by which the neighbours might guess that they kept a satyr. Their work was difficult and, though they got an odd man for no wages, who seemed delighted to work for them and who could be fed on much cheaper roots than the bulbs of tulips and hyacinths, it would have been a relief to get rid of him. But whenever the question of sending him back arose, as at first it often did, there came the answer at once, ‘But the wood is gone.’ So they kept their secret and lived in perpetual fear, either because they were too kind-hearted to get rid of the satyr, or because they couldn’t think of a way to do it.
“One day when Lucy was not in the room Meddin said to the satyr: ‘Were there any nymphs in the wood?’
“ ‘Oh, yes,’ said the satyr.
“‘What happened to them?’ asked Meddin.
“ ‘They ran,’ said the satyr and began to cry, so that Meddin could get no more information about them.
“It had dog-like gratitude and was perpetually willing, so that they were even able to teach it to make tea for them, though it was always afraid of fire. As for appearance, which counted so much in those days, as to some extent it does still, its clumsiness in boots, and the tight breeches, were drawbacks, but on the other hand its face was distinctly handsome, and its eyes were alert and so were most of its movements. With the beard gone and the ears clipped there was only the light-brown skin to hint that this was a creature of the woods, and it was barely a hint.
“I gather there was tension and strain on the two Meddins for some time; and then one anxious day the Vicar’s wife called. They saw her at the door ringing the bell.
“ ‘It is Mrs. Speldridge,’ said Lucy.
“‘What shall we do?’ said Meddin.
“ ‘Make it answer the door,’ said Lucy. ‘It’s got to start somewhere. And look here, we must stop calling it it.’
“So the satyr opened the door and did it quite well, asking, as they had taught it to ask, ‘Who shall I say?’ in its forest accent. And then it brought in tea, carrying everything in with the grace which goes with strength.
“ ‘Our man is always basking in the sun, Mrs. Speldridge,’ said Meddin.
“ ‘Whenever we let him off for a moment,’ ” said Lucy, ‘he always goes out and basks.’
“ ‘I haven’t seen him in church,’ said Mrs. Speldridge.
“ ‘Of course he must go,’ said Meddin.
“ ‘Yes, of couse,’ said Lucy.
“ ‘I was wondering,’ said Mrs. Speldridge, and she launched out into a parochial matter, and the talk was for a while of bazaars and of Lady Rillswood, who ran them, and the satyr came in and out two or three times, doing just as he had been told; and everything went well. And when it showed Mrs. Speldridge out, always turning towards her, as one should to a lady, in spite of the tight breeches she saw no sign of a tail.
“And so the Meddins were left over the remnants of tea in triumph. It was perhaps more wonderful that there had been no suspicion in their own kitchen; but they had not expected there would be, and they were right. They knew Mrs. Smew’s attitude to any man in the kitchen: with every odd man they had had, it was always the same.
“‘What do you think of him?’ Lucy had asked her straight out, the day after the satyr came.
“ ‘Looks like the devil, and probably is,’ said Mrs. Smew and went on with her work.
“It was just the same attitude she had taken with Thomas, when he had worn those breeches; and Lucy was satisfied. That she was satisfied did not mean that the fear had entirely lifted. I think I mentioned that at the beginning of this century you could not possibly keep a satyr in your garden. They were keeping one in the house; and had he not been so docile, so grateful and so obedient, but had gone about in the village, as other odd men did, discovery would have come immediately. There is a great deal to be said for convention; and I am not at all sure that it would not save the world from the disasters that seem to be coming. There was only one convention in those days really; the convention that you did the thing that was done, and that nothing else was possible. But the convention grew old and wore out, or the world grew too strong for it. Of course there were exceptions, and here was one of them, two people on whom the Vicar’s wife called once a year hiding a common satyr in the house. Never a day passed but that the Meddins talked it all over; and they never found a way of getting rid of their satyr, and they never felt quite safe.”
“I don’t know that people objected to satyrs so much at the end of the Victorian era,” said Terbut, who was quite as old as Jorkens. “You see satyrs in every kind of ornament, and in hundreds of pictures of that period. You mentioned Corot yourself.”
“Yes,” said Jorkens. “But satyrs at a distance, satyrs far away among willows, as Corot painted them, satyrs high up on walls, or in poems or fanciful pictures, satyrs as fabulous things. But here was one in the house, opening the door for you, handing round plates. That is quite a different thing. There are many romantic things that cannot be tolerated for a moment in a parlour; certainly not in a parlour to which a vicar’s wife would ever come again if they were, or any of her husband’s parishioners. And, you know, there was a great deal to be said for their point of view. Well, here they were, Meddin and his sister, with their problem, and they would have done well to have concentrated all their attention on it, for to hide that satyr was not an easy problem. And for a while they did concentrate all their attention upon it; and then one day the artist broke out in Meddin and he insisted on painting the satyr. It was a risky business, whatever way you looked at it: first of all there was the danger of being found out while at it, for of course he stripped the satyr, and he painted it out in his orchard. And then there was the evidence that the picture provided against the Meddin household; for anybody could see that the picture was done from life, and quite close, and that it was no imaginary thing such as a fanciful painter might put into one of his landscapes. Lucy implored him not to do it, but Meddin was adamant: he had seen the light one day on the satyr’s skin, and had formed the idea that he must paint him at all costs. And paint him he did. He got him hidden by a trunk in the orchard, the great bole of an old tree, and only went out with the satyr to paint late in the evening. The little dark beard of course had to go in from memory, but the dim light on the satyr’s skin and on the mossy trunk beside him made a picture that would have been hung in any exhibition, had Meddin dared to show it. He noticed in those evenings that birds on their way home had no fear of the satyr, and would go as close to him as they would to a horse, and stay there undisturbed, till they saw Meddin.
“To avoid tiring the satyr by keeping it standing too long Meddin used to allow it, or him, as they now called it, to grub up bulbs for a bit, so long as he kept himself hidden. Lucy all that time was full of alarm and implored her brother never to paint the satyr again, and when the picture was finished he gave the promise that she had found it impossible to cajole him to give her before.
“The brother and sister discussed the question of food for the satyr.
“ ‘I’d like to extend his range of diet a bit,’ said Meddin. ‘We owe him a bit more than tulip-bulbs for all the work he is doing for us.’
“For he worked in the garden for them as well as in the house, and cut up wood for the fire and carried in buckets of water.
“ ‘It’s not our tulip-bulbs that I grudge him,’ said Lucy. ‘It’s our respectability. It’s everything. Who would ever call on either of us again if they knew that we kept a satyr?’
“‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Meddin. ‘He isn’t a satyr any longer.’
“ ‘Isn’t a satyr?’ said Lucy.
“ ‘Not in those trousers,’ said Meddin. ‘And not unless Mrs. Speldridge says he is.’
“ ‘Someone will see him one of these days,’ she said, ‘slinking about in the orchard, and they’ll see what he is, and say that we keep a satyr.’
“ ‘No, no, they won’t,’ said Meddin reassuringly. But he felt the fear too.
“Noticing some resemblance in the satyr’s habits to those of the badger, Meddin decided to try him with honey; and this, provided that it was offered him in the comb, the satyr ate with delight.
“ ‘He must have a name, of course,’ said Meddin.
“ ‘He has got Thomas’ clothes,’ said Lucy; ‘he can have his name too.’
“ ‘I’ll tell him,’ said Meddin.
“So the satyr became Thomas. He worked all day; he waited at table, cleaned up after, washed Meddin’s brushes in turpentine and then in soap and water, did everything that used to be done by the charwoman, looked after the garden; in fact did the work of two men and two women, and all for no wages. Yet Meddin had to work too. For instance he could not trust the thing with a razor, and dare not let its hair grow; so he shaved the satyr every morning himself. And all the while Meddin and Lucy were constantly inventing devices that should prevent the neighbours from finding out the secret their house hid. And it’s all very well to be critical of those people’s conventions, but I doubt if many of you would care to call at a house in which they kept a perfectly wild satyr; for, however much they had dressed him and shaved him, you don’t alter the character of any woodland thing by keeping it for a few days in a house. More than once during those days Lucy had said: ‘I only wish we could take him back to a wood.’
“And Meddin had replied: ‘There aren’t any left.’
“ ‘We could find one further off,’ insisted Lucy.
“ ‘Oh, we can’t get rid of Thomas,’ Meddin said.
“‘I suppose not,’ said Lucy, and sighed. And the clouds of anxiety that hope had lifted for a few seconds came down upon her again. And Meddin was under the same cloud too. They did not often travel beyond the village of Rillswood, and had nowhere to go if they did. If Rillswood refused to call on them, they could be exiled as well in their garden as in the remote lands to which Romans or Greeks sent their exiles. And they knew well enough that a house that kept a satyr was not a house on which Rillswood people would call. And so things were for some days, uncertain and full of anxieties. Those warm Spring evenings, and the birds singing happily, gave no hint of the fears that hid in the hearts of the Meddins. And then one day the thunderbolt seemed to be over their heads. A note for Lucy came by hand after breakfast. It asked if Lady Rillswood would find them in, if she came to tea that afternoon. Lady Rillswood was the widow of the man who had bought the Rillswood estate, which she was now developing. She was good-looking and energetic; indeed she had ample energies for all the activities that the village of Rillswood needed, and all these she largely directed. She did not admit to being forty, nor did she look it. Rumour spoke often of her remarriage, but, with a curious deficiency in anything so well-informed as rumour, it had never yet named a new husband. She loomed as a thunderbolt threatening to ruin the Meddins, because not only had Lady Rillswood travelled widely, but she had actually all round her in her house all kinds of antique marbles; and Lucy knew well enough and so did Meddin, that, however simple Mrs. Speldridge might be, Lady Rillswood would know a satyr the moment she saw one. And if Lady, Rillswood gave up calling on them that would be the exile I spoke of. I do not mean that it would have mattered if she had not called on them for ten years, but if she had any reason for not doing so, that reason would get out, and no one else in Rillswood would go near them. Well, they drilled the satyr the whole morning, and after they had had lunch they felt more easy about him. So willing, alert and active was he, and even intelligent in a woodland sort of way, that but for the tight breeches and the very alien profile and the tanned skin, he would have seemed the perfect servant; and, after all, the profile was a very fine one and the sun-tanned skin was handsome, if only it did not remind people of a satyr. This is how Meddin summed it all up to Lucy as tea-time drew near: ‘She’s got to notice him first, then she’s got to see what he is, and then she’s got to prove it.’
“But comfort that was not real was rejected by Lucy. ‘She’ll only have to say it,’ she said, ‘No one will ask Lady Rillswood to prove it.’
“This was true, for it was not only that she owned all Rillswood, but she actively worked all its committees and leagues, so much that neither of the Meddins knew for what purpose she was coming to see them; nor did they ever find out for certain.
“ ‘She’ll not notice Thomas,’ said Meddin again.
“And then Lady Rillswood arrived. And the first thing they saw was that her eyes were fixed on the satyr, as it showed her into the parlour. Then it had to bring in the tea; but the moment that Lucy heard the step of the satyr she turned to Lady Rillswood and said, ‘We think that my brother does such clever pictures. But we are afraid that they might not interest you. But we would be so glad if you cared to look at them.’
“Lady Rillswood did not run all Rillswood by not being interested in things that her neighbours had to show. She got up at once and was away with Meddin before the satyr returned to the room. Suddenly a dark thought came to Lucy: could Alfred (that was her brother) be trusted to keep the new picture hid? She rose, and hurried after them. Lady Rillswood was charmed with all the pictures she saw; and then she turned to one with its face to the wall saying, ‘And may I see that one?’
“ ‘Oh, that one’s unfinished, Lady Rillswood,’ said Lucy.
“And Lady Rillswood turned away, seeing by Lucy’s attitude, and hearing by the tone of her voice, before she had finished her sentence, that she did not want that picture to be looked at. She was walking out of the studio. And then Meddin blurted out: ‘Oh, that one. I really think you might like it. The light of a late evening on brown skin. And an apple-tree too, an old one with lichen on it. I think you might like it.’
“And he went to the picture.
“ ‘I think,’ said Lucy, but she found no more to say, and felt that she stood upon the edge of her world, and that the edge was crumbling. The words checked Meddin, but his hand had already gone to the canvas, and he saw no way of telling Lady Rillswood that he did not mean to show it her after all.
“ ‘The light, you see,’ he said, ‘on . . .’
“ ‘Yes, charming,’ said Lady Rillswood.
“Then they came back to the parlour. Meddin watched his guest at the tea-table, and her eyes seemed full of thought. He could not make out whether she knew or not. But to Lucy one thing was certain, and that was that if Lady Rillswood saw the satyr again, after seeing that picture, any doubts that she might yet have would be gone for ever. And she could not think of any means of keeping Thomas out of the way in their little house. And so she sat there helpless. Meddin, from whom I had a full account of all this, has not the slightest remembrance of what they talked of all tea-time, but he remembers very vividly that all the time he was wondering when the satyr would next appear. And then Lady Rillswood said, ‘If I might ask for my carriage.’
“And there was nothing to do but to ring the bell. And the satyr came hopping in. Lady Rillswood took one glance at him. Worse than that, it turned its back on her; or at any rate allowed her to see behind it, the tight breeches and the trace of its tail. Meddin saw that, and Lucy saw it, and both knew Lady Rillswood knew everything.
“Lady Rillswood said goodbye to them both with all her usual charm. Then they sat there looking greyly into the future, barely speaking a word to each other.
“I think it’s good for people to look at ruin sometimes, and then to turn away from the dark chasm to find all the world more radiant, as Alfred and Lucy did.”
“What happened?” I asked Jorkens, for he was sitting quite silent.
“She married it almost at once,” said Jorkens.
“Who? What?” said Terbut.
“Lady Rillswood married the satyr,” said Jorkens. “I believe she was extraordinarily happy with him, till she died three or four years ago. And, as for him, you saw it go by just now.”
A Life’s Work
Whatever actual fact there is in the following story, which Jorkens told in our club, however true it may ring, I must admit at the outset that he distinctly told us that not only names were fictitious, but whole incidents and all surrounding geography. This alteration of names and events he said was absolutely necessary, because he said that otherwise there were several people who would write to him, and even perhaps to the papers, to say that that was not the way they did things, or that things were done at all; and in that case, Jorkens said, he would be faced with the alternatives of proving that they were really done in that way, and always had been, or, by remaining silent, to allow the impression to gain currency that he had exaggerated, or even invented. And, things being like that, the reader will probably suit himself in deciding whether the story is to be regarded as bearing the stamp of truth, or whether it should be classed with those anecdotes that tell of things which, in historical fact, have never really occurred. Be that as it may, Jorkens, one day in the Club, was asked, by one of our members, in a manner that appeared to make the question one put for mere information, whether he had not met several very interesting people.
“Yes, at one time or another,” said Jorkens.
I was afraid he was going to say no more, so I asked him who was the most interesting of all these.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Jorkens. “That’s hard to say. You can say who does the most work, but you can’t always say he is more interesting than someone who may have done a good deal less.”
“Who’s done the most work of all the people you’ve met, Jorkens?” I asked, for I was afraid he was evading the question, and that he might reveal to us none of his experiences at all.
“That,” said Jorkens, “is more easily answered, I was passing once through a country whose name I will not give you, because the man I will tell you about was one of its most important citizens, and for various reasons I had better not identify him.”
And he gave us some of the reasons that I have already mentioned.
“I saw the man walking one day into the Royal Market Place: it was some sort of gala day. As a matter of fact it was Onion-selling Day, which doesn’t mean much to us, but it commemorated the opening of the market about a thousand years ago, and is the principal day of their year. Well, we won’t go into that. But it was a lovely bright summer day, and I saw this man walking slowly along in a dark blue tail-coat and wearing two huge silver stars, upon which I commented to the man who was showing me round. Well, I’m not especially observant, but my noticing those two stars evidently pleased my foreign friend a good deal, for he explained to me that I had noticed something that to them was quite memorable, and practically unique. There are only two parties in that country, and only two important decorations, one to each party, and this old fellow in the blue coat had both of them. ‘Very lucky,’ I said, for they were very fine stars, and I had to make some comment.
“ ‘No, no,’ he said, ‘it wasn’t luck at all. That is one of the most industrious men our country has ever had.’
“ ‘What did he do?’ I asked.
“And then he told me the story. To begin with he explained at some length, and with what seemed like perfectly fair impartiality, what the two parties stood for. One party was for the old things that always had been, and he had a great deal to say about those things: they shaped our forbears, he said, and they shaped us, and our outlook harmonised with these old things and there was no getting away from them; to alter them was like disfiguring yourself, or destroying a part of your mind, and certainly a part of one’s contentment. Shaped as one was by these things one could not get on without them, and so on and so on and so on. The other party, he explained, were more practical. In fact the practical thing was their sole test. And he said a good deal about that too. Well, the old fellow that I had seen walking into the Royal Market Place, in his blue tail-coat and two stars, belonged to that party and started working for it as soon as he grew up, and no one ever worked harder.
“There was a hill in those days at the end of the main street of the city, just between it and the harbour, quite a low hill, in fact no more than a mound, and yet it blotted out from that street the whole view of the sea. The practical party were in power in those days, and they were unanimous about removing the mound and thereby letting in a wide and splendid view, which it almost entirely obscured, but the difficulty was getting the labour and drawing a sum to pay for it; and that is where the opposition were able to hamper them, and even delay them for years. Well, he told me again that this man was the most industrious man that their state had ever known; and he was not the only man that was industrious, but what he did, that many an industrious man does not, was to get down to the work at once, the moment the question was raised, and work at it for thirty years.”
“Work at what?” one of us asked him.
“The hill,” said Jorkens. “While the others were debating about estimates he got down to it with a pick and a shovel alone, and in thirty years he shovelled it all away. I don’t know if a man has ever earned a high order of knighthood for work with a pick and a shovel or if he has not, but, however that may be, he earned his knighthood. Sometimes when he was young he worked as much as ten hours a day, and at the end of thirty years he had beaten the hill and let into the principal street of their capital city this splendid view of the sea, and the tips of a range of mountains that lay beyond it. He earned that decoration if ever a man did, in the opinion of the man who told me his story.
“Well, they thought he would rest then; after all, he was approaching fifty. But he was one of those men who never rest on their oars. He did not spend six months thinking over what he had done, or looking at the fine view that he had brought to their city. He hardly looked at it for three months, and then very soon old memories began to come flocking round him of the city as he had known it as a boy, and the hill at the end of the street. He was about the time of life when those sort of memories come, and somehow the further he got away from them, the more vivid they all became. And they were not only vivid, they were strong too, and they seemed to pull at his heart-strings. Well, as I told you, he wasn’t a man to sit idle, and no sooner did he see that he had made a mistake and that the old ways were the best, than he got out his shovel again. He didn’t take the pick this time, just his shovel, and he shovelled the small hill back to its old place. He was older now, but he did not let that stop him. He had scattered the earth over two or three acres, where it lay fairly light and came up easily. But it took him thirty years. And by the time he finished, the other party got into power, and with a big majority, the party that cared for the old things. They didn’t need their big majority to reward the old fellow then: no one grudged him the star that they gave him, and there was scarcely any semblance of opposition to the bestowal of it. ‘No one else in our country,’ said my foreign friend, ‘had those two stars, and I don’t think anybody grudges either of them to him. He has spent a hard, hard life, a model for all of us.”
We had a good deal of discussion about this story of Jorkens, and when it died away some of us tried to get him to tell us where the country was. But he would not tell us that; and the only clue he gave, so far as I can remember, were the few words he said as he got up from the table, which were: “It wasn’t so very far away.”
VI.
SOME LATE TALES
The Policeman’s Prophecy
“Going by a cross-roads at that pace,” said the policeman to my taxi-driver; “and when I held my hand up. You’ll kill yourself and everybody else.”
The rebuke stuck in my mind, until I began to wonder what would happen if he did; and what it would be like when he had done it.
No doubt the motor buses and private cars would help him; and then the traffic would begin to slow down: one day it would stop. And at once the brambles and convolvulus on each side of every road would get to know of it, and their tendrils would slip out softly on some still evening and begin to scout over the tar. But in London, where the forces of Nature seem so weak and few; what would happen there?
Why, the very window-boxes would know of it. Small tendrils would stray over sills and peer about to welcome the weeds that would soon creep up from below. The seed of the plane trees would go abroad in their season and sweep along pavements like dust, till they found the homes that they sought in cracks and in crannies; and the winged seed of the limes, travelling farther than anyone guesses, would find hard lodging at first, but would rustle a little farther with every breeze till they also came to their rest in soil however scanty.
The news of the work of that taxi-driver would spread to flies as rapidly as the swiftest winds could carry it, and not only would they come from incredible distances to settle down upon London in one rejoicing cloud, but billions would be born for this very occasion, and in all our empty cathedrals, in all our trafficless streets, their hum would be the first anthem to announce the passing of man. It seems to me that an important duty would fall on the flies, to tidy up after the taxi-driver, and to make the Thames valley habitable for whatever forms of life were coming there next.
Birds would follow the flies and of course kill millions, but could never check their rejoicing. The air would be full of swallows all through summer, and the swifts sailing above them; the little dun-coloured fly-catcher would perch on abandoned walls, and leap up to catch his prey, and return again to his perch; and the predatory birds in far woods would immediately know of the sport, and would come swooping in to prey on the lesser hunters.
The abandoned food of London would become a patrimony for more rats than there are in the whole of the Thames valley, and they would increase until their numbers were worthy of that opportunity. The cats would never check them; and though there might be cats that would think the houses of men were now their own, curling up cosily in soft chairs in the best rooms, they would learn soon that there dwelt in each house a vast population that cared little enough for them and their dainty airs.
And what new alliance would the dog make when his old master was gone? Would he oust the jackal and serve the lion? In Africa perhaps. But what would he do in London? He would be lonely at first. And then he would form into packs running wild through parks and through squares, in at doors and out of windows, hunting down streets become populous with all manner of things except man. And some trace, though I can’t think what, of us and our customs would still be felt in his packs; for it is always so when something great has gone; there remains a trace of it amongst lesser folk for century after century. What sport those packs would have, free to follow for ever that instinct that they had learned for a whole geological era, yet touched now and then by the memory of a friendship which, though it had only started a little before history, might be poignant enough.
And all the while the little weeds would be growing; every wind would do their work, every shower soften their beds for them; and great far-travelling gales would come in from the hills, bringing flowers new to London. It would probably not be long before the traces of man’s supremacy began to grow indistinct, the outlines of all his work in steel or stone being blurred by weeds till they grew as vague as old footprints. And at that weedy touch a certain angular look, a certain feeling of hardness, would be all gone from the houses, so that all the wild things would know at a glance they could enter and be at rest.
What kind of habitation will they make for those that are other than us? Some know them already, the cat, the mouse, and the spider; the jackdaw, too, has known the chimneys of man. Will these be our heirs when the work of the taxi-driver is finished? Or will others oust them? And another question one cannot help asking: will the world be the worse for the change? We cannot answer that: we are too much absorbed by our point of view to be able to say if the greenery of grass and moss and ivy tenanted by all manner of creatures, molested no longer by us, be a better or worse habitation than our pavements trodden by men. That green will rise like a tide, bringing with it forgetfulness, and drowning a little deeper with every leaf of the buttercup, and every downy clock of the dandelion, the fear and remembrance of man.
What a noise we made! But it will all be forgotten. What a mess we made with our hoardings, what a glare in the sky. But a few clean winds will tidy the hoardings up, and the sky above London will return to its stars as a patient from fever to health.
And who will remember, when all these things are forgotten? Who will remember at all? Who will look at the soft green mounds and recall man’s angular houses and remember that we were here? The dog. The dog will remember. On some night when he is not hunting some dog may stray from his pack; and in a clearing of young woods of lime, growing dense by the banks of the Thames, may suddenly see his old enemy the full moon rising huge over weed-covered houses. At once he will lift his head and cry out to warn man. Not a voice will answer him, not a harsh ungrateful cry, which he never resented of old, for he never asked for man’s gratitude: it used to be enough to warn him and guard him, without looking for recompense.
And now not a voice would come, except perhaps for a dog far off in the marshes passing the warning on, and the quiet mutter of geese. And suddenly he will remember then, man has not been seen for years. He’ll be sorry, at that, and think of all we’ve done, so far as he can understand it, and will think of our motives and praise them: not the motives we knew; even historians, likely as not, miss them; but those divine purposes, mysterious, almost inscrutable, that he guessed at and credited to us and humbly revered. Don’t let us be too greatly elated at that reverence that may outlast us, for it will not come so much from our own deserts as from the depths of the fathomless loyalty that is in the heart of the dog.
The mouse will remember houses, the cat will remember soft rugs, the jackdaw for many a year will remember chimneys, but the dog will remember man. And what an odd memory it will be, that memory lingering on in the marshes and woods of the Thames, a memory of something that once was here, so wise, so powerful and so far-seeing that it could alter the face of the earth; and yet so blind that it could not see by starlight, so deaf that a footfall coming up from behind could not be heard till too late, and quite unable even to smell at all.
One who never even knew who his enemies were; never guessed the plotting of wild things, the disloyalty of cats, nor the emnity of the full moon. And in the end the face of the earth, for all that man had done to it, went back in spite of him to its old, old way. And here were the cats and the rats, the foxes and the full moon, all quietly triumphant over the end of that mysterious figure that was so much mightier, wiser, and kinder than they. And just when a thought arises too deep for tears, that watchful dog by the marshes under the moon will turn to another thought more swiftly than we can turn, for I know the ways of the dog, and will raise a hind leg to scratch at his neck with a sudden vigour. Ah, yes, that flea will interest him more than man.
We must be content with whatever memory we can get when we are gone. When nature is busy everywhere hiding our work away, belfry and factory alike dumb under cascades of clematis, it will be something to have even that much memory, even though it come briefly and rarely on nights of a full moon.
And, after all, that policeman may have exaggerated, though he spoke so deliberately and calmly and seemed so sure, and though I myself have long thought on similar lines, and have not at all supposed that machines were for ever. I had always thought that machines in the end would overthrow machines, the bombing plane and the pullman cancelling out, and that Nature at last would return; so that when I suddenly heard the policeman’s prophecy, and saw his confident hearing, I did not doubt at first that what he predicted was true.
But after reflection, and in the policeman’s absence, it seems there may well be a chance that the taxi-driver may kill himself before he has time to kill everybody, and that he may be buried by folk of our race, who only dimly and rarely guess with what he had threatened us all. What will they write on his tombstone? I can think of no more fitting inscription, if after all we survive him, than those words so often uttered over the dead in London: The Driver Was Exonerated From All Blame.
The Two Bottles of Relish
Smethers is my name. I’m what you might call a small man, and in a small way of business. I travel for Numnumo, a relish for meats and savouries; the world-famous relish I ought to say. It’s really quite good, no deleterious acids in it, and does not affect the heart; so it is quite easy to push. I wouldn’t have got the job if it weren’t. But I hope some day to get something that’s harder to push, as of course the harder they are to push, the better the pay. At present I can just make my way, with nothing at all over; but then I live in a very expensive flat. It happened like this, and that brings me to my story. And it isn’t the story you’d expect from a small man like me, yet there’s nobody else to tell it. Those that know anything of it besides me, are all for hushing it up. Well, I was looking for a room to live in in London when first I got my job; it had to be in London, to be central; and I went to a block of buildings, very gloomy they looked, and saw the man that ran them and asked him for what I wanted; flats they called them; just a bedroom and a sort of a cupboard. Well, he was showing a man round at the time who was a gent, in fact more than that, so he didn’t take much notice of me, the man that ran all those flats didn’t, I mean. So I just ran behind for a bit, seeing all sorts of rooms, and waiting till I could be shown my class of thing. We came to a very nice flat, a sitting-room, bedroom and bath-room, and a sort of little place that they called a hall. And that’s how I came to know Linley. He was the bloke that was being shown round.
“Bit expensive,” he said.
And the man that ran the flats turned away to the window and picked his teeth. It’s funny how much you can show by a simple thing like that. What he meant to say was that he’d hundreds of flats like that, and thousands of people looking for them, and he didn’t care who had them or whether they all went on looking. There was no mistaking him, somehow. And yet he never said a word, only looked away out of the window and picked his teeth. And I ventured to speak to Mr. Linley then; and I said, “How about it, sir, if I paid half, and shared it? I wouldn’t be in the way, and I’m out all day, and whatever you said would go, and really I wouldn’t be no more in your way than a cat.”
You may be surprised at my doing it; and you’ll be much more surprised at him accepting it; at least, you would if you knew me, just a small man in a small way of business; and yet I could see at once that he was taking to me more than he was taking to the man at the window.
“But there’s only one bedroom,” he said.
“I could make up my bed easy in that little room there,” I said.
“The hall,” said the man looking round from the window, without taking his tooth-pick out.
“And I’d have the bed out of the way and hid in the cupboard by any hour you like,” I said.
He looked thoughtful, and the other man looked out over London; and in the end, do you know, he accepted.
“Friend of yours?” said the flat man.
“Yes,” answered Mr. Linley.
It was really very nice of him.
I’ll tell you why I did it. Able to afford it? Of course not. But I heard him tell the flat man that he had just come down from Oxford and wanted to live for a few months in London. It turned out he wanted just to be comfortable and do nothing for a bit while he looked things over and chose a job, or probably just as long as he could afford it. Well, I said to myself, what’s the Oxford manner worth in business, especially a business like mine? Why, simply everything you’ve got. If I picked up only a quarter of it from this Mr. Linley I’d be able to double my sales, and that would soon mean I’d be given something a lot harder to push, with perhaps treble the pay. Worth it every time. And you can make a quarter of an education go twice as far again, if you’re careful with it. I mean you don’t have to quote the whole of the Inferno to show that you’ve read Milton; half a line may do it.
Well, about that story I have to tell. And you mightn’t think that a little man like me could make you shudder. I soon forgot about the Oxford manner when we settled down in our flat. I forgot it in the sheer wonder of the man himself. He had a mind like an acrobat’s body, like a bird’s body. It didn’t want education. You didn’t notice whether he was educated or not. Ideas were always leaping up in him, things you’d never have thought of. And not only that, but if any ideas were about, he’d sort of catch them. Time and again I’ve found him knowing just what I was going to say. Not thought-reading, but what they call intuition. I used to try to learn a bit about chess,1 just to take my thoughts off Numnumo in the evening, when I’d done with it. But problems I never could do. Yet he’d come along and glance at my problem and say, “You probably move that piece first,” and I’d say, “But where?” and he’d say, “Oh, one of those three squares.” And I’d say, “But it will be taken on all of them.” And the piece a queen all the time, mind you. And he’d say, “Yes, it’s doing no good there: you’re probably meant to lose it.”
And, do you know, he’d be right.
You see, he’d been following out what the other man had been thinking. That’s what he’d been doing.
Well, one day there was that ghastly murder at Unge. I don’t know if you remember it. But Steeger had gone down to live with a girl in a bungalow on the North Downs, and that was the first we had heard of him.
The girl had £200, and he got every penny of it and she utterly disappeared. And Scotland Yard couldn’t find her.
Well I’d happened to read that Steeger had bought two bottles of Numnumo; for the Otherthorpe police had found out everything about him, except what he did with the girl; and that of course attracted my attention, or I should have never thought again about the case or said a word of it to Linley. Numnumo was always on my mind, as I always spent every day pushing it, and that kept me from forgetting the other thing. And so one day I said to Linley, “I wonder with all that knack you have for seeing through a chess problem, and thinking of one thing and another, that you don’t have a go at that Otherthorpe mystery. It’s a problem as much as chess,” I said.
“There’s not the mystery in ten murders that there is in one game of chess,” he answered.
“It’s beaten Scotland Yard,” I said.
“Has it?” he asked.
“Knocked them endwise,” I said.
“It shouldn’t have done that,” he said. And almost immediately after he said, “What are the facts?”
We were both sitting at supper and I told him the facts, as I had them straight from the papers. She was a pretty blonde, she was small, she was called Nancy Elth, she had £200, they lived at the bungalow for five days. After that he stayed there for another fortnight, but nobody ever saw her alive again. Steeger said she had gone to South America, but later said he had never said South America, but South Africa. None of her money remained in the Bank, where she had kept it, and Steeger was shewn to have come by at least £150 just at that time. Then Steeger turned out to be a vegetarian, getting all his food from the greengrocer; and that made the constable in the village of Unge suspicious of him, for a vegetarian was something new to the constable. He watched Steeger after that, and it’s well he did, for there was nothing that Scotland Yard asked him that he couldn’t tell them about him, except of course the one thing. And he told the police at Otherthorpe five or six miles away, and they came and took a hand at it too. They were able to say for one thing that he never went outside the bungalow and its tidy garden ever since she disappeared. You see, the more they watched him the more suspicious they got, as you naturally do if you’re watching a man; so that very soon they were watching every move he made, but if it hadn’t been for his being a vegetarian they’d never have started to suspect him, and there wouldn’t have been enough evidence even for Linley. Not that they found out anything much against him, except that £150 dropping in from nowhere; and it was Scotland Yard that found that, not the police of Otherthorpe. No, what the constable of Unge found out was about the larch-trees, and that beat Scotland Yard utterly, and beat Linley up to the very last, and of course it beat me. There were ten larch-trees in the bit of a garden, and he’d made some sort of an arrangement with the landlord, Steeger had, before he took the bungalow, by which he could do what he liked with the larch-trees. And then, from about the time that little Nancy Elth must have died, he cut every one of them down. Three times a day he went at it for nearly a week, and when they were all down he cut them all up into logs no more than two foot long and laid them all in neat heaps. You never saw such work. And what for? To give an excuse for the axe was one theory. But the excuse was bigger than the axe: it took him a fortnight, hard work every day. And he could have killed a little thing like Nancy Elth without an axe, and cut her up too. Another theory was that he wanted firewood, to make away with the body. But he never used it. He left it all standing there in those neat stacks. It fairly beat everybody.
Well, those are the facts I told Linley. Oh, yes, and he bought a big butcher’s knife. Funny thing, they all do. And yet it isn’t so funny after all; if you’ve got to cut a woman up, you’ve got to cut her up; and you can’t do that without a knife. Then, there were some negative facts. He hadn’t burned her. Only had a fire in the small stove now and then, and only used it for cooking. They got on to that pretty smartly, the Unge constable did, and the men that were lending him a hand from Otherthorpe. There were some little woody places lying round, shaws they call them in that part of the country, the country people do, and they could climb a tree handy and unobserved and get a sniff at the smoke in almost any direction it might be blowing. They did that now and then and there was no smell of flesh burning, just ordinary cooking. Pretty smart of the Otherthorpe police that was, though of course it didn’t help to hang Steeger. Then later on the Scotland Yard men went down and got another fact, negative but narrowing things down all the while. And that was that the chalk under the bungalow and under the little garden had none of it been disturbed. And he’d never been outside it since Nancy disappeared. Oh, yes, and he had a big file besides the knife. But there was no sign of any ground bones found on the file, or any blood on the knife. He’d washed them of course. I told all that to Linley.
Now I ought to warn you before I go any further; I am a small man myself and you probably don’t expect anything horrible from me. But I ought to warn you this man was a murderer, or at any rate somebody was; the woman had been made away with, a nice pretty little girl too, and the man that had done that wasn’t necessarily going to stop at things you might think he’d stop at. With the mind to do a thing like that, and with the long thin shadow of the rope to drive him further, you can’t say what he’d stop at. Murder tales seem nice things sometimes for a lady to sit and read all by herself by the fire. But murder isn’t a nice thing, and when a murderer’s desperate and trying to hide his tracks he isn’t even as nice as he was before. I’ll ask you to bear that in mind. Well, I’ve warned you.
So I says to Linley, “And what do you make of it?”
“Drains?” said Linley.
“No,” I says, “you’re wrong there. Scotland Yard has been into that. And the Otherthorpe people before them. They’ve had a look in the drains, such as they are, a little thing running into a cesspool beyond the garden; and nothing has gone down it, nothing that oughtn’t to have, I mean.”
He made one or two other suggestions, but Scotland Yard had been before him in every case. That’s really the crab of my story, if you’ll excuse the expression.2 You want a man who sets out to be a detective to take his magnifying glass and go down to the spot; to go to the spot before everything; and then to measure the footmarks and pick up the clues and find the knife that the police have overlooked. But Linley never even went near the place and he hadn’t got a magnifying glass, not as I ever saw, and Scotland Yard were before him every time.
In fact they had more clues than anybody could make head or tail of. Every kind of clue to show that he’d murdered the poor little girl; every kind of clue to show that he hadn’t disposed of the body; and yet the body wasn’t there. It wasn’t in South America either, and not much more likely in South Africa. And all the time, mind you, that enormous bunch of chopped larch wood, a clue that was staring everyone in the face and leading nowhere. No, we didn’t seem to want any more clues, and Linley never went near the place. The trouble was to deal with the clues we’d got. I was completely mystified; so was Scotland Yard; and Linley seemed to be getting no for-warder; and all the while the mystery was hanging on me. I mean, if it were not for the trifle I’d chanced to remember, and if it were not for one chance word I said to Linley, that mystery would have gone the way of all the other mysteries that men have made nothing of, a darkness, a little patch of night in history.
Well, the fact was Linley didn’t take much interest in it at first, but I was so absolutely sure that he could do it, that I kept him to the idea. “You can do chess problems,” I said.
“That’s ten times harder,” he said sticking to his point.
“Then why don’t you do this?” I said.
“Then go and take a look at the board for me,” said Linley.
That was his way of talking. We’d been a fortnight together, and I knew it by now. He meant go down to the bungalow at Unge. I know you’ll say why didn’t he go himself, but the plain truth of it is that if he’d been tearing about the countryside he’d never have been thinking, whereas sitting there in his chair by the fire in our flat there was no limit to the ground he could cover, if you follow my meaning. So down I went by train next day, and got out at Unge station. And there were the North Downs rising up before me, somehow like music.
“It’s up there, isn’t it?” I said to the porter.
“That’s right,” he said. “Up there by the lane; and mind to turn to your right when you get to the old yew-tree, a very big tree, you can’t mistake it, and then . . .” and he told me the way so that I couldn’t go wrong. I found them all like that, very nice and helpful. You see it was Unge’s day at last; everyone had heard of Unge now; you could have got a letter there any time just then without putting the county or post-town; and this was what Unge had to show. I dare say if you tried to find Unge now . . . ; well, anyway, they were making hay while the sun shone.
Well, there the hill was, going up into sunlight, going up like a song. You don’t want to hear about the Spring, and all the may rioting, and the colour that came down over everything later on in the day, and all those birds; but I thought, “What a nice place to bring a girl to.” And then when I thought that he’d killed her there, well, I’m only a small man, as I said, but when I thought of her on that hill with all the birds singing, I said to myself, “Wouldn’t it be odd if it turned out to be me after all that got that man killed, if he did murder her.” So I soon found my way up to the bungalow and began prying about, looking over the hedge into the garden. And I didn’t find much, and I found nothing at all that the police hadn’t found already, but there were those heaps of larch-logs staring me in the face and looking very queer.
I did a lot of thinking, leaning against the hedge, breathing the smell of the may, and looking over the top of it at the larch-logs, and the neat little bungalow the other side of the garden. Lots of theories I thought of; till I came to the best thought of all; and that was that if I left the thinking to Linley, with his Oxford-and-Cambridge education, and only brought him the facts, as he had told me, I should be doing more good in my way than if I tried to do any big thinking. I forgot to tell you that I had gone to Scotland Yard in the morning. Well, there wasn’t really much to tell. What they asked me was, what I wanted. And, not having an answer exactly ready, I didn’t find out very much from them. But it was quite different at Unge; everyone was most obliging; it was their day there, as I said. The constable let me go indoors, so long as I didn’t touch anything, and he gave me a look at the garden from the inside. And I saw the stumps of the ten larch-trees, and I noticed one thing that Linley said was very observant of me, not that it turned out to be any use, but any way I was doing my best; I noticed that the stumps had been all chopped anyhow. And from that I thought that the man that did it didn’t know much about chopping. The constable said that was a deduction. So then I said that the axe was blunt when he used it; and that certainly made the constable think, though he didn’t actually say I was right this time. Did I tell you that Steeger never went outdoors, except to the little garden to chop wood, ever since Nancy disappeared? I think I did. Well, it was perfectly true. They’d watched him night and day, one or another of them, and the Unge constable told me that himself. That limited things a good deal. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that I felt Linley ought to have found all that out instead of ordinary policemen, and I felt that he could have too. There’d have been romance in a story like that. And they’d never have done it if the news hadn’t gone round that the man was a vegetarian and only dealt at the greengrocers. Likely as not even that was only started out of pique by the butcher. It’s queer what little things may trip a man up. Best to keep straight is my motto. But perhaps I’m straying a bit away from my story. I should like to do that for ever; forget that it ever was; but I can’t.
Well, I picked up all sorts of information; clues I suppose I should call it in a story like this; though they none of them seemed to lead anywhere. For instance, I found out everything he ever bought at the village, I could even tell you the kind of salt he bought, quite plain with no phosphates in it, that they sometimes put in to make it tidy. And then he got ice from the fishmongers, and plenty of vegetables, as I said, from the greengrocer, Mergin and Sons. And I had a bit of a talk over it all with the constable. Slugger he said his name was. I wondered why he hadn’t come in and searched the place as soon as the girl was missing. “Well, you can’t do that,” he said. “And besides, we didn’t suspect at once, not about the girl that is. We only suspected there was something wrong about him on account of him being a vegetarian. He stayed a good fortnight after the last that was seen of her. And then we slipped in like a knife. But, you see, no one had been enquiring about her, there was no warrant out.”
“And what did you find,” I asked Slugger, “when you went in?”
“Just a big file,” he said, “and the knife and the axe that he must have got to chop her up with.”
“But he got the axe to chop trees with,” I said.
“Well, yes,” he said, but rather grudgingly.
“And what did he chop them for?” I asked.
“Well of course, my superiors has theories about that,” he said, “that they mightn’t tell to everybody.”
You see, it was those logs that were beating them.
“But did he cut her up at all?” I asked.
“Well, he said that she was going to South America,” he answered. Which was really very fair-minded of him.
I don’t remember now much else that he told me. Steeger left the plates and dishes all washed up and very neat, he said.
Well, I brought all this back to Linley, going up by the train that started just about sunset. I’d like to tell you about the late Spring evening, so calm over that grim bungalow, closing in with a glory all round it, as though it were blessing it; but you’ll want to hear of the murder. Well, I told Linley everything, though much of it didn’t seem to me to be worth the telling. The trouble was that the moment I began to leave anything out, he’d know it, and make me drag it in. “You can’t tell what may be vital,” he’d say. “A tin-tack swept away by a house-maid might hang a man.”
All very well, but be consistent even if you are educated at Eton and Harrow, and whenever I mentioned Numnumo, which after all was the beginning of the whole story, because he wouldn’t have heard of it if it hadn’t been for me, and my noticing that Steeger had bought two bottles of it, why then he said that things like that were trivial and we should keep to the main issues. I naturally talked a bit about Numnumo, because only that day I had pushed close on fifty bottles of it in Unge. A murder certainly stimulates people’s minds, and Steeger’s two bottles gave me an opportunity that only a fool could have failed to make something of. But of course all that was nothing at all to Linley.
You can’t see a man’s thoughts and you can’t look into his mind, so that all the most exciting things in the world can never be told of. But what I think happened all that evening with Linley, while I talked to him before supper, and all through supper, and sitting smoking afterwards in front of our fire, was that his thoughts were stuck at a barrier there was no getting over. And the barrier wasn’t the difficulty of finding ways and means by which Steeger might have made away with the body, but the impossibility of finding why he chopped those masses of wood every day for a fortnight, and paid as I’d just found out, £25 to his landlord to be allowed to do it. That’s what was beating Linley. As for the ways by which Steeger might have hidden the body, it seemed to me that every way was blocked by the police. If you said he buried it they said the chalk was undisturbed, if you said he carried it away they said he never left the place, if you said he burned it they said no smell of burning was ever noticed when the smoke blew low, and when it didn’t they climbed trees after it. I’d taken to Linley wonderfully, and I didn’t have to be educated to see there was something big in a mind like his, and I thought that he could have done it. When I saw the police getting in before him like that, and no way that I could see of getting past them, I felt real sorry.
Did anyone come to the house? he asked me once or twice. Did anyone take anything away from it? But we couldn’t account for it that way. Then perhaps I made some suggestion that was no good, or perhaps I started talking of Numnuno again, and he interrupted me rather sharply.
“But what would you do, Smethers?” he said. “What would you do yourself?”
“If I’d murdered poor Nancy Elth?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“I can’t ever imagine doing of such a thing,” I told him.
He sighed at that, as though it were something against me.
“I suppose I should never be a detective,” I said. And he just shook his head.
Then he looked broodingly into the fire for what seemed an hour. And then he shook his head again. We both went to bed after that.
I shall remember the next day all my life. I was out till evening, as usual, pushing Numnumo. And we sat down to supper about nine. You couldn’t get things cooked at those flats, so of course we had it cold. And Linley began with a salad. I can see it now, every bit of it. Well, I was still a bit full of what I’d done in Unge, pushing Numnumo. Only a fool, I know, would have been unable to push it there; but still, I had pushed it; and about fifty bottles, forty-eight to be exact, are something in a small village, whatever the circumstances. So I was talking about it a bit; and then all of a sudden I realized that Numnumo was nothing to Linley, and I pulled myself up with a jerk. It was really very kind of him; do you know what he did? He must have known at once why I stopped talking, and he just stretched out a hand and said: “Would you give me a little of your Numnumo for my salad?”
I was so touched I nearly gave it him. But of course you don’t take Numnumo with salad. Only for meats and savouries. That’s on the bottle.
So I just said to him, “Only for meats and savouries.” Though I don’t know what savouries are. Never had any.
I never saw a man’s face go like that before.
He seemed still for a whole minute. And nothing speaking about him but that expression. Like a man that’s seen a ghost, one is tempted to write. But it wasn’t really at all. I’ll tell you what he looked like. Like a man that’s seen something that no one has ever looked at before, something he thought couldn’t be.
And then he said in a voice that was all quite changed, more low and gentle and quiet it seemed, “No good for vegetables, eh?”
“Not a bit,” I said.
And at that he gave a kind of sob in his throat. I hadn’t thought he could feel things like that. Of course I didn’t know what it was all about; but, whatever it was, I thought all that sort of thing would have been knocked out of him at Eton and Harrow, an educated man like that. There were no tears in his eyes but he was feeling something horribly.
And then he began to speak with big spaces between his words, saying, “A man might make a mistake perhaps, and use Numnumo with vegetables.”
“Not twice,” I said. What else could I say?
And he repeated that after me as though I had told of the end of the world, and adding an awful emphasis to my words, till they seemed all clammy with some frightful significance, and shaking his head as he said it.
Then he was quite silent.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Smethers,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Smethers,” said he.
And I said, “Well?”
“Look here, Smethers,” he said, “you must ’phone down to the grocer at Unge and find out from him this.”
“Yes?” I said.
“Whether Steeger bought those two bottles, as I expect he did, on the same day, and not a few days apart. He couldn’t have done that.”
I waited to see if any more was coming, and then I ran out and did what I was told. It took me some time, being after nine o’clock, and only then with the help of the police. About six days apart they said; and so I came back and told Linley. He looked up at me so hopefully when I came in, but I saw that it was the wrong answer by his eyes.
You can’t take things to heart like that without being ill, and when he didn’t speak I said: “What you want is a good brandy, and go to bed early.”
And he said: “No. I must see someone from Scotland Yard. ’Phone round to them. Say here at once.”
“But,” I said, “I can’t get an inspector from Scotland Yard to call on us at this hour.”
His eyes were all lit up. He was all there all right.
“Then tell them,” he said, “they’ll never find Nancy Elth. Tell one of them to come here and I’ll tell him why.” And he added, I think only for me, “They must watch Steeger, till one day they get him over something else.”
And, do you know, he came. Inspector Ulton; he came himself.
While we were waiting I tried to talk to Linley. Partly curiosity, I admit. But I didn’t want to leave him to those thoughts of his, brooding away by the fire. I tried to ask him what it was all about. But he wouldn’t tell me. “Murder is horrible” is all he would say. “And as a man covers his tracks up it only gets worse.”
He wouldn’t tell me. “There are tales,” he said, “that one never wants to hear.”
That’s true enough. I wish I’d never heard this one. I never did actually. But I guessed it from Linley’s last words to Inspector Ulton, the only ones that I overheard. And perhaps this is the point at which to stop reading my story, so that you don’t guess it too; even if you think you want murder stories. For don’t you rather want a murder story with a bit of a romantic twist, and not a story about real foul murder? Well, just as you like.
In came Inspector Ulton, and Linley shook hands in silence, and pointed the way to his bedroom; and they went in there and talked in low voices, and I never heard a word.
A fairly hearty-looking man was the inspector when they went into that room.
They walked through our sitting-room in silence when they came out, and together they went into the hall, and there I heard the only words they said to each other. It was the inspector that first broke that silence.
“But why,” he said, “did he cut down the trees?”
“Solely,” said Linley, “in order to get an appetite.”
The Cut
A curious thing happened a while ago in Kent, and has rather come to a head during the last week. It was near a little village so secluded in one of the folds of the downs that it is no use giving its name, because you would never have heard of it. It is no more than a cluster of houses, round the tiniest church I know: you get to it, whichever way you come, by going down a steep slope that, all through the dog-days, is covered with thyme, great mauve patches of it, and the taller blooms of the mint. Sometimes you see the bright blue borage there, and the little harebells astray like lost fairies. In spring the same slopes are blue and yellow with speedwell and maywort. On the tops of the hills are straggling woods that we call shaws in Kent, full of foxes, badgers, owls, and many other wild things that like to shelter from man among hazels, birches, yew-trees, and briar-rose. To be brief, the place that I tell of is rural and out of the way.
Well, close to this village there lives a man called Wichers, who owned an ordinary, fairly intelligent dog, and used to teach it tricks. One of the tricks he taught it was to run to the village every morning, three or four hundred yards away, with a penny in his mouth, and go to the shop and put his paws up on the counter; when old Jeggins, that is the shopkeeper, would take the penny out of the dog’s mouth and give him the Daily Mail, which he would take back to his master. There was no harm in that, and nothing out of the ordinary. But that’s how it all began.
Then Wichers taught the dog to take sixpence to a farmer living two hundred yards away, and to bring back a basket with half a dozen eggs. He was always teaching him tricks. At first he taught him the trick about the paper and the penny in order to save himself trouble. “After all,” he used to say, “what is a dog for?” But, by the time the dog had learned his second trick, Wichers’ only motive in teaching him anything more was a certain vainglorious delight in exhibiting his accomplishments as a teacher. And so he taught the dog some other trick with a shilling; and so the dog, that like most dogs was a good deal shrewder than his master supposed, began to get some idea of the value of money.
And that’s where my story really starts; for before that happened the dog was merely doing tricks that were not essentially different from other dog-tricks. I mean, the penny might just as well have been a lump of sugar. But once the dog began to see the difference between what the various coins could do, everything was altered. From that point it almost seems to me, if one knows what thought is, that the dog had begun to think.
Tim was his name. And one day he got tired of his tricks and slipped out of his master’s house and went off on a long walk; and then all the trouble began. For he went into Sevenoaks,3 and made his way into a comfortable house at the edge of the town, and sold himself to Mr. Murchens for five pounds. That is what he did. He went right in and sat up and begged, and refused food and went on begging, till Mr. Murchens saw what he wanted; for Wichers’ boasts had spread far and wide and everybody knew that the dog wanted money.
Well, he refused coppers and silver as he had refused food, and still he went on begging; and then Mr. Murchens offered him a pound note, which Tim took at once and went on begging, leaving it on the floor beside him and growling if anyone put a hand near it. Then Mr. Murchens offered him another pound note, and Tim took it and laid it neatly on the other. Mr. Murchens was greatly excited, and a little reckless, and he gave him five pounds in all; and when they were all lying in a little heap beside Tim he said: “Now, that is enough.” And the dog seemed to agree and stopped begging.
“You mustn’t let the dog have all that money,” said Mrs. Murchens then.
“But what’s he going to do next?” was all Murchens said.
And for a while the dog sat there, and growled if anyone went near the five pounds. And suddenly he gathered it all up and ran out of the house with the five pounds in his mouth, and went away and put it all in a bank. I don’t mean the kind of bank that you may be thinking of: it was a green bank outside the town under a hedge, where a good many rabbits used to come out in the evening; and he burrowed into it and put the five pounds in, just as they do with bones, and covered it all up. Then he ran back to Mr. Murchens’ house and curled up on the hearth-rug in the drawing-room and stayed there. You see, he’d sold himself. He’d sold Wichers’ dog, as a matter of fact. But then he was Wichers’ dog.
What the rights of it are I can’t make out; and, as it has never been done before, there is nothing to guide one. That is where precedent and custom come in, making a great many things, that would be otherwise horribly complicated, quite easy to deal with. Were it not for precedent I don’t know where we should be. And they didn’t seem quite to know where they were in Sevenoaks in this particular case. Of course Wichers tried to get back his dog, but the dog stuck to his bargain, and, when Wichers at last traced him, refused to stir from the hearth-rug where he had taken up his new lodgings.
Murchens seemed to take the same view of it as Tim did; and, however critical my hearers may be of his attitude, it must be remembered that he had paid good money for the dog, money that Mrs. Murchens says is too much for any dog, at any rate with all the taxes one has to pay, not to mention rates. I thought for a moment that I heard someone laugh, though how the sound reached me I can’t say, but wireless sometimes does queer things. Yet it is no matter for laughter, and Mrs. Murchens is perfectly right; it is a difficult thing to run any house properly nowadays; and if you were to buy things for five pounds and part with them almost immediately, it would be practically impossible.
Murchens stuck to his point, which was that he had bought the dog; and Wichers stuck to his, which was that nobody could sell his dog but himself; and in the end it came before the magistrates. There had been a lot of argument for and against Murchens, with which I will not trouble you; but none of the magistrates had taken any part in it, which is as it should be; and the case was very simply decided, as cases about the ownership of dogs very often are, by the dog himself, who ran joyfully up to Murchens and would not look at Wichers; and the magistrates decided that Tim was clearly Murchens’ dog.
There is still nothing in this story to trouble the town of Sevenoaks to its very foundations, though that is what soon occurred. So far it is no more than a slightly unusual story: dogs have begged for sticks, stones, bones, balls, and food before now, though probably not for pound notes; and they have changed owners before. But from now on the unusual definitely colours my story, increasing until unusual is hardly the adequate word for it.
The dog ran to his bank and drew out a pound of his money, carefully covering up the hole through which he had drawn it out; and with this he went to a shop that sold collars: not dog-collars; that is the whole point of my story.4 He bought an ordinary collar, a starched linen collar with ends that turned back, not the kind of collar that I should have chosen myself, but yet an ordinary collar. He bought it by running in with the pound note in his mouth and putting up his paws on the counter, just as he used to when fetching the Daily Mail, and then going and yapping at the collar that he could see in the window.
They got the wrong article for him at first, as often happens when you buy a thing from the window; but he went on yapping until they got him the right one, and his joy when they did that was manifested as only a dog can manifest joy, so that there was no doubt whatever that it was the collar he wanted. When they saw that, one of them must needs go and fasten it on for him with one of those little studs that one gets from the laundry, and which cost the shop nothing. And the head man gave him exactly the correct change: he had to do that, with all the assistants watching and taking so much interest in the dog. Though he would have done it in any case: I know him well and he is quite honest.
Change was a thing that the dog had never had before, and it made him all the keener on shopping. He ran back to his bank and deposited it there; and next day he drew out half a crown and was back again at the shop. This time he bought a tie, a green and pink one in stripes, which he was able to do for one and sixpence, and got his shilling change, and was learning all the time more and more about money. The assistant tied the tie for him as neatly as if they had been putting the gaudy thing round one of their own necks for a Bank Holiday; and away the dog went again, put the shilling into the bank, chased a rabbit that was loitering about too close, and went back to his lodgings with Mr. Murchens.
To all appearances he was still an ordinary dog, on whom someone had played a little trick, or had petted fantastically, and nobody as yet took any serious notice. Of course the collar and tie got many a laugh, but evoked no real thought. And then he bought a little walking-stick at a toy-shop. He saw it in the window and went in and played his usual tricks, and bought the thing for a shilling, a little cane about a foot and a half long, with a rather neat handle. Tim got it in his mouth and went down the High Street wearing his collar and tie. And that was when people began to notice something odd.
What was the dog doing, they asked, all on his own with a walking-stick, and that rather natty collar and gaudy tie? Jealousy is too strong a word for it; and there was no jealousy; at any rate not as yet. But people were beginning to ask if those were quite the dress and airs for a dog. And he was giving himself airs; there could be no doubt of that: they increased with each little purchase. And then one day he saw a child’s waistcoat, if that is the right word for it, in a window. And he bought that too.
There was no doubt now that the dog was gradually dressing himself up: he was gradually breaking down the differences that there ought to be, and that there must be, between ourselves and creatures unthinkably lower. And willing hands were helping him in every shop that he went to. It was no longer a mere matter of a laugh or so in the street; but protests were to be heard in the houses at evening. Some said it was a mere trifle; but the necessary barriers are made of trifles. Some said that these barriers were snobbish; while others said that they were the very walls that held up our civilization.
Days went by while the dog’s boastful airs grew more and more lamentable, and Mr. Murchens did nothing. Even taunts failed to move him. “One would think he was one of the family,” said someone to him. But even that drew no action from Mr. Murchens. He seemed to be proud of the dog. And then one day came the incident that has brought it all to a head.
Mr. Slegger, who had been sun-bathing in his garden during the luncheon hour, came away hurriedly to attend to some business at his office. I think the boy had run over from the office to say that the telephone-bell was ringing; but I am not sure. Mr. Slegger had put on his coat and his hat; but the essential point of this episode is that he was not wearing a collar. In this kit he appeared in the High Street, just as Tim was going by. And the dog cut him.
Of course Tim knew Slegger quite well, and had often stopped and wagged his tail in response to the invariable greeting of: “What cheer, Tim,” from Slegger. But on this occasion he would take no notice of Slegger whatever.
The news spread through the town at about the pace of fire in a barn; there were meetings and discussions about it, and the theory that it might be an oversight was tested and dissipated by confronting Tim with another collarless man, with precisely the same result. And that’s the situation with him in Sevenoaks now; and if it wasn’t in the High Street it might be overlooked; but, being in the High Street, the issues are clear.
In Sevenoaks, and in all the district round, we have felt that we are unquestionably above all that sort of thing; that no equality between ourselves and inferior creations is possible, far less any question of superiority of one of those inferior creations to one of us, though he had a hundred collars and we only a dirty neck.
You might think that the whole town would not support Slegger, whether they knew him or not. You might think that there would be some who would even prefer to laugh at him; but that is not the case, for over everyone in Sevenoaks now falls like a shadow the fear that at any moment he may be cut himself; and no one that has not seen a man being cut by a dog can perhaps quite appreciate the sickening drop that that is to one’s self-esteem. An old and comfortable, but untidy, jacket, an unbuttoned waistcoat, a carelessly chosen tie, may at any moment subject a man to this sudden humiliation.
Meanwhile the dog is as dapper and active as ever, and his airs even more insolent, and we are beginning to feel that after all he may be right; for once one’s standards have been overthrown, as they were by the cutting of Slegger, it is hard to build them up again by mere logic. If dress conferred on us, we argue, the respectability that it undoubtedly did confer, in conjunction with a balance at the bank, may not these things confer respectability upon others? And when we start arguing like that, we don’t know where it will lead us. There is uncertainty in the High Street and widespread uneasiness; and through air that is thick and heavy with our misgivings goes twice a day this over-confident dog. And no one knows what he is going to do next. We saw him looking in at a hat shop lately.
And Murchens will do nothing. Perhaps even now these words of mine may persuade him to take some action, should the ether chance to bring them to his ears. A beating would not be out of place. But it’s his dog; that has been settled by the magistrates; and it is for him to decide. Only let us somehow have our old barriers back again. One correction I must make in fairness to Mr. Murchens: it is not entirely true that he will do nothing, for I hear he has promised at last to keep the dog shut up. Let him only do as he says, and the High Street will be again what it always was, a place where one can walk without any loss of dignity. And this may be taken as the end of my story.
I hope such a thing will never occur again. It can very easily be avoided, with all its humiliating consequences, if everyone will only agree, under all circumstances, never to buy a dog except from its owner. As for the facts of the case, you can test all that for yourselves by going to Sevenoaks; where you will probably hear the dog bark, as a dog nearly always does when shut up too long. And you may estimate, if you have the knack of ferreting out such things, how deeply the episode has sunk into the High Street, by the deliberate reticence with which that dog is surrounded. For ask anybody there about the story, or almost anybody, and they will tell you that they know nothing about it whatever.
Poseidon
The sun was slanting towards the Peloponnese when I came to the temple of Poseidon. Its columns by the sheer edge of the land appeared to be absorbing the gold of the sunlight, and almost to be about to turn into golden air. If that was a fancy, it faded when I drew nearer; and when I came to the columns the fancy was gone. Mountains and islands lay in a semicircle round the sea, and were beginning to draw imperceptibly about them the purple cloaks they are wont to wear at evening. When I went into the temple I saw no one there, but after gazing awhile over the sea, I noticed sitting among the weeds a little, quiet, old man. He never spoke a word till I spoke to him; and then, whatever it was that I said, he sighed and told me these days were not like the old days.
“What do you do?” I asked, thinking perhaps he followed some trade which changing times had ruined.
“Nothing now,” he said. “I have retired. I do nothing now.” He sighed and said no more.
“And what used you to do?” I asked.
“Ah,” he said. “Ah, I used to shake the earth. Literally shake it. I used to alarm men living miles inland.”
“Alarm them?” I said.
“Certainly,” he replied. “Nine miles inland, and even further than that. And they used to sacrifice to me in this temple. Bulls. Great numbers of bulls. Fine bulls that bled beautifully. And the very earth shaking while they sacrificed. Those were the days. Those were the days. I used to make storms in those days that shook the very earth.”
“Then you were . . .” I was beginning.
“Certainly I was,” he said. “This is my temple.”
“And they no longer sacrifice to you?” I asked.
“That, certainly, is the case,” he said. “That is the trouble. When they sacrifice again I shall shake the very earth. But men are neglectful and indolent, not like their grandsires. Why, I’ve seen as many as fifty bulls at one time in this temple.”
“And why don’t you shake the earth?” I asked him.
“Well, you can’t do much without the blood of bulls,” he said. “You can’t expect strength to shake the earth without the blood of bulls. Of course they will sacrifice to me again; probably quite soon, but just now they are indolent and neglectful.”
“But why should they sacrifice to you?” I asked.
“It is their duty,” he said sharply.
And then I did what you should never do when talking of any religion: I tried to argue.
“But usen’t they to sacrifice to prevent you shaking the earth?” I asked.
“Certainly,” he replied.
“Then why should they sacrifice to make you strong enough to do it again?” I said.
But the argument got me nowhere. Argument on such subjects never does. He merely lost interest, and as he lost interest he faded; till his outline and face and beard and tattered cloak were little vivider than the evening air. And then a humming-bird hawk-moth came dashing up and hung by a flower upon vibrating wings, and the old god moved away from it. “What is all its hurry about?” I heard him say petulantly. “Why can’t it be placid? I never hurry like that. There is no need for it, no need at all.”
And I think he pretended to me to depart of his own free will; but he was obviously wafted away by the draught, from the wings of the humming-bird hawk-moth.
Helping the Fairies
The young journalist from London on holiday at Rathgeel5 was feeling lonely for want of news. There was plenty of fishing and shooting, but no news; for nothing in Rathgeel ever seemed to happen. The weather may have changed a bit at times in Rathgeel, but not while he was there; the wind blew warm and damp from the south-west all the time, and all the thorn trees sloped the same way, as though that one wind had been blowing for ever.
And the odd thing was, as it seemed to Draffin, the young journalist I have mentioned, nobody seemed to want anything new to happen; they complained a bit while they were talking of the weather and the crops, the price of cattle and one or two other things, but they never seemed in their hearts to want anything new. And Draffin was lonely and homesick for want of news, good as the fishing was, and the shooting too.
And then one day a man called William Smith was found lying dead in a narrow old sunken lane, where nobody went but an odd tramp, and he had been lying there nearly a week when they found him, and there were some bullet-holes in him.
This was like dawn to Draffin after a long night. News at last! And he ran round, with his notebook open in his hand, to all the acquaintances that he had made during his holiday, to get the details of it. And nothing could he get.
“I thought the Irish were a talkative people,” he said to one of them at last, a tall, dark, thin man called Michael Heggarty.
“And so we are,” said Heggarty.
“I think you are the dumbest people in the whole world,” said Draffin. “And that’s not excepting the people in deaf-and-dumb asylums.”
“Is that so?” said Heggarty.
“I am sure it is,” replied Draffin.
“Maybe that’s because you don’t use the right key,” said Heggarty. “You would not say there was no money in the Bank of England because you couldn’t open the vaults. But there’s a key to them.”
“What’s the key here?” asked Draffin.
“Sure, it’s whiskey,” said Heggarty, “if you can find the right man for it.”
“And who’s the right man?” asked Draffin.
“Ah, I’d not like to be telling you,” said Heggarty.
“Well, one must make a beginning,” said Draffin, “so I’ll begin by trying you, if you wouldn’t mind coming in here.”
For they were standing outside the white wall of Jimmy Doyle’s public-house, under its dark thatch.
And they went inside and whiskey was ordered by Draffin and drunk by them both, sitting together at a table, and the heavy silence continued. And Draffin paid for more whiskey, and that was drunk too. And in the few minutes that went by after that the little room seemed to grow darker in the autumn afternoon, but a light was growing in the eyes of Heggarty. And then Draffin said half to himself and half to the far wall at which he was gazing, “I wonder what happened to William Smith.”
“I’ll tell you,” said Heggarty. “It was like this. He comes over here from England, or from some place where they must be very ignorant, about a year ago, and he buys a bit of land to do some farming, and he settles down all alone in the farmhouse on it. I wouldn’t say he didn’t understand farming, but he was terrible ignorant of the land and all the ways of it. And there was a lone thorn in a field that he wanted to plough, an old thorn, what was left of it by the ages, and he said it would get in the way of the plough.
“There was no harm in ploughing the field, but it stands to reason he could have run a plough round the tree, and by bending his head a bit he could have got under the branches, and the horse too, for a horse would have had more sense than what he had. But he couldn’t see that, and he must cut down the tree, a lone thorn of the fairies, one that the Little People had danced round for ages.
“Well, he asks several young men to cut it, but none of them would do anything so foolish and made various excuses. So what does he do but he gets an axe and he cuts it down himself. And nobody says a word at first. We was all too horrified. And then some of us goes to old Timmy Maguire to hear what he will say. And we tells him what William Smith has done, and he had heard already, and old Timmy Maguire says, ‘No matter. You only have to wait. Watch him and wait and see what the Little People will do. For I never knew anybody do anything agin them without they being revenged on him; never yet, and I’ve lived to be ninety.’
“Well, that satisfied all of us, except one young fellow who must always be asking questions.
“ ‘What’ll they do to him?’ he says.
“ ‘You have only to watch,’ says old Timmy Maguire. ‘They will take his luck away. Watch his luck and see what happens to it. I never knew the Little People leave a man’s luck when he had offended them, not a shred of it. I never saw them do that in ninety years.’
“ ‘And did you often see them at it?’ asks the young fellow.
“ ‘Begob,’ says old Timmy Maguire, ‘many’s the time I seen them take all a man’s luck right away to the mountains, nor I never seen it come back.’
“ ‘Sure, that’s terrible,’ says one of us.
“ ‘It’s what they do,’ says old Timmy Maguire.
“Well, we all decides to do what old Timmy Maguire says, and to watch the luck of William Smith and to see what happens to it; and what happens is this: it’s the most extraordinary part of my story, but it’s the truth I’m telling you. William Smith puts five pounds on a horse a few days later that’s running at a hundred to one. Well, that’s tempting your luck to leave you; no horse is going to win at a hundred to one, and it’s throwing five pounds away, and a man who begins like that will throw everything away. But this horse wins and the bookie pays and we all says, ‘What about the Little People?’
“And that isn’t all. There’s a competition next week to guess the number of rabbits that there are in County Meath, with a motor-car for a prize for the man whose guess is nearest. And William Smith guesses the right number within three, and he gets the motor-car. And the Little People says nothing.
“And it doesn’t stop there. For a few days later he sells a horse for a thousand pounds what he had bought out of a cart for twenty-five pounds, either knowing something about a horse or finding a man that thought he did; but it was luck either way. Ay, out of a cart, and he sells it for a thousand pounds. And that wasn’t all, nor nearly all, but I won’t weary you with telling you all of it, and maybe you wouldn’t believe me if I did; but he had a run of luck such as no one ever saw, and it went on week after week, and was an insult to those that dance under the moon.
“And we goes to old Timmy Maguire and says, ‘What about it now?’ And he says, ‘Only wait.’ And that man Smith’s run of luck went on and on. And then he backs another horse in a race and it was three to one on, and he puts on six hundred pounds to win two hundred; and he could afford to do that when he knew that he couldn’t lose. And it was just the same as the horse at a hundred to one, and he gets two hundred pounds.
“Well, that was the limit, and something had to be done. It was no use asking old Timmy Maguire, who would say nothing but ‘Wait’ or ‘Watch him.’ We had to do something ourselves. I had nothing to do with it myself, because I have always kept away from religion and politics and all them kind of things, and I says to the rest of the boys, ‘I’ll have no hand in it’; and they says, ‘Sure, we all respect your principles. At the same time the Little People are being insulted by this man’s luck, as though they didn’t exist, or as though there were nothing sacred in their old thorns, and we can’t allow that kind of thing in a place like Rathgeel.’ And I had to agree that that was so: what else could I say? Though I took no part in it myself.
“Well, when the boys was gone I goes once more to old Timmy Maguire to tell him that the young lads is getting impatient. ‘Sure, they needn’t be,’ says he. ‘For I never knew any man to hold his luck against that people, and they’ll be avenged for their thorn.’
“It was no use telling him of all the good luck that was continually coming to William Smith, for he wouldn’t listen, but only says to me, ‘Wait.’
“Well, the young lads goes that night to the house of William Smith, and they finds him sitting at a table totting up the figures of all the money that had been coming his way ever since he cut down the old thorn, and there was little smiles on his face. That is what the boys told me afterwards, and I only tell you what they told me, but I can’t say exactly what happened when I wasn’t there myself, but was at home with my poor old mother who had a cold and wanted me to look after her.
“But the young lads came to William Smith and say to him, ‘Rathgeel was always a quiet place, where no one takes any part in religion or politics and never interferes with anyone, whatever his religion is. At the same time,’ they says, ‘if anyone thinks that they can come here from England and buy a farm and insult those that dance round the thorn, and make money that many a man would be glad of with an old mother to support, as though his luck hadn’t changed and the Little People didn’t exist, is greatly mistaken, as you’ll soon find out if you don’t give up all the money you’ve made since you desecrated the thorn, and a great deal more besides, till you’ve given up to fellows that will know how to use it properly, as much as you would have lost if your luck had turned against you weeks ago, as it should; if you know what we mean, and if you don’t it’s a bullet you’ll get, which may help to teach you.’
“That’s what the young lads told me they said to him. And William Smith says nothing, and they sees he is in two minds what to do; and Rathgeel being a quiet place, as I told you and as you’ve seen for yourself, where no trouble of any sort ever occurred, and they not wanting its name to become a byword from having a man there that was insulting the Little People and growing fat on it, and interfering with their dancing at night, for a lone thorn is their ballroom, they asks him to step outside with them, before he can make up his mind for fear he would make it up wrong. And they takes him to that bohereen where the body was found, and what happened there they none of them told me, so there’s no knowing, and it’s no use any man saying there is.
“But they goes to old Timmy Maguire and tells him that William Smith is dead, and what ought they to do now? And old Timmy Maguire says, ‘Sure, there’s nothing more for anybody to do. Didn’t I tell you that all you had to do was wait?’ ”
The Romance of His Life
I have a friend who tries to escape from London as soon as his work there is over. Once every three or four years, as his salary increases, he moves farther away from it. But London seems to creep after him with new houses, stealing after him as he goes, and slipping streets like tentacles round him and holding him still, though at last he is at the very edge of it. And in that pleasant suburb to which he has come I was walking with him one day after his late tea, to which he is now able to get even on a weekday from his work near the centre of things. And as we walked by a little sandy bank on which a few harebells were growing, I stopped to peer over a small oak paling and between the trunks of a few trees to a lawn on which there were four young children playing. In sunlight that was now slanting out of the west, but was still warm, their parents were sitting at a table out-of-doors, at which they had had their tea. It was the happiness of the children, the calm content of their parents and the serenity of the whole scene that tempted my inquisitive prying. My friend stopped beside me when I stopped, and waited for me, not troubling to look, evidently too familiar with all his neighbourhood for there to be any novelty there to attract him as it was luring me.
“There,” I said to him as I turned and continued our work, “is the happy life. Doesn’t it show that no great space is needed for it, but that happiness can be found in little grounds round a house of no great size?”
But then I stopped, because I saw that my remarks had got down into one of those grooves worn deep by copybook maxims; although they were true. When I stopped he spoke.
“Well, yes,” he said. “Yes, the children of course are happy.”
“But aren’t they all happy?” I asked. “Does he ill-treat his wife?”
“Oh no, not at all,” he said. “She is happy enough.”
“And isn’t he?” I asked. “He looks pretty cheerful.”
“Well, yes, perhaps,” he said. “But he had a lost romance, a great brief romance of which nothing came. And I rather think that everything after that, even happiness itself, must seem rather flat to him.”
“A great romance?” I said. “Really? Who was the lady?”
“Miss Fells.”
“What? Not the great Miss Fells?” I exclaimed.
“Yes, she,” he said.
“But Miss Lucy Fells,” I said, “world-famous, and that little man. No, never.”
“But it was so,” he said.
“How on earth was such a thing possible?” I asked.
And then he told me the rumour, the collected knowledge that that little suburb had of this small man’s story. It was not the story itself: I gathered that bit by bit with some care from many men. For the astounding contrast between this little bank clerk in a suburb and the lady who is perhaps the most famous actress now living in the world puzzled and interested me. And so I asked my friend if he would be so kind as to introduce me to anybody who, besides himself, might have knowledge of that strange story.
“But everybody knows it round here,” he said. “I can introduce you to anybody you like in the neighbourhood. Anybody will do.”
And he did introduce me to several. And I pieced the story together, which they had often heard from the little man’s own lips when dining out, when the port had gone round a few times. Or, indeed, he would tell it at any time.
He was very domestic and dined mostly at home with his wife; but when he did dine out with a neighbour and the men were all talking after dinner, sooner or later he would talk too, and he had told them all his story. It was really the romance of that suburb. They all knew it there, as people in Eddington near Westbury know about Alfred defeating the Danes, or in Coventry about Lady Godiva. It was their romance, they had made it theirs; and they all told me about it, about their little neighbour’s love, not unreciprocated, mind you, for that world-famous lady. Not unreciprocated, but brief as a beautiful meteor. I pieced it all together from many mouths, and I think I have got it pretty accurate now. It went like this. It was in the 5:15 train from Charing Cross. They all knew that. 5:15 P.M., of course. And this little man was going down to his suburb. Terrup was his name. And in the same carriage, in all her radiance, dazzled Miss Lucy Fells. And Terrup took no notice of her at all. She stirred slightly and looked around: for all her intuitions were aware that any movement is quickly caught by the eye. But still he took no notice. It was not that she was vain, but she had suddenly come upon something that she had not seen for years, sheer apathy in her presence. Was it possible that this little man did not know who she was?
Supposing a tiger striding out of the jungle came on a herd of gazelles, and they all went on quietly feeding; he would naturally be surprised. Lucy Fells’s beauty and fame had gripped the heart of the world and was a power by no means less than that of a tiger: she was surprised, too. Terrup sat perfectly still, perfectly uninterested, gazing out of the window. There was nothing to see out of the window either: it was in November and nearly dark. Terrup was nothing to her, but the situation meant a great deal. It might 8even mean that her grip was failing her, her grip on the heart of the world. It might even mean she was ill. Or was the little man ill? Was he half paralyzed? She must do something for him; she must give him a chance; at least she must let him know who she was. That would help him and no doubt put everything right. She had bought an evening paper, hurrying to catch her train, and had not yet looked at it. There would be sure to be something in that about her journey. Yes, a large headline on the front page: Lucy Fells Goes to Blackheath. 6 That was where she was going. She leaned forward to Terrup, and in her gracious famous voice said, “Would you care to see a paper?”
“Oh thank you,” he said and took it and looked at it and soon turned the front page.
So he was quite uninterested. Now she must let him know who she was, since he had quite evidently not found out. So she opened her small bag and began to rummage in it holding it quite low near the floor; and as she rummaged her gold cigarette case fell out. It had her name written clearly on one side, Lucy Fells in small diamonds. Which side up would it fall, she wondered? But it did not matter. As a matter of fact it fell diamondside upward.
“Oh I have dropped my cigarette case,” she said.
He picked it up for her.
“Thank you so much,” she said. “It was very careless of me. But I can’t really lose it, unless it got stolen, because I have my name writen fairly large on it, as you see.”
And she showed it him. And he said, “Oh yes.”
She saw then unmistakably, though I don’t know exactly how, but unmistakably, that he had never heard her name. The evening paper had printed it half an inch high. But he had never heard of it. Aphrodite coming in from the sea, to find all her temples fallen and nobody noticing her, would not have been more shocked.
I used the simile of a tiger among gazelles that paid no attention to him. A tiger in such a situation would not long remain idle. Nor did Miss Lucy Fells. She struck with her full force, with all her beauty and all her charm. She spoke to Albert Terrup about the weather. She said that the days were drawing in fast. She said that the train was slow. She asked what time it got to Blackheath. She asked if he knew the country round there. She asked what it was like. She said that she thought the gardens must be very nice in spring. She said she was fond of gardens. She asked Albert Terrup if he was fond of gardens, too. She asked if he was much troubled with weeds, and what he did to get rid of them. And she asked what kind of weather they usually got at this time of year.
And when all those questions had been asked and lamely answered, Albert Terrup was at last at her feet, a tremendously happy, though abjectly conquered, heart. Nor was it to be wondered at. She had won the hearts of big audiences in great cities in far less time. It took her much longer than she felt that it ought to leave taken, but she did not grudge a minute of it; for this conquest had to be made. She could not have anyone holding out against her like this, at the height of her glory. What would Alexander have done if some little village of India had ignored him utterly? No, such a thing could not be.
When she had conquered Albert Terrup, he became her abject slave. He made fantastic suggestions: he spoke of flight to the Continent, he spoke of settling down in the suburbs. He even suggested that she should marry him.
To none of these suggestions Lucy Fells turned a deaf ear, or definitely refused to accede to any of them. For a conqueror cannot refuse to accept a surrender. And on that short railway journey from Charing Cross in Blackheath, which was beyond the station at which he should have got out, flowered the romance of Albert Terrup’s life.
What I think happened was that in that railway carriage was a brief but idyllic scene, in which the world-famous actress really did become engaged to Albert Terrup. And at Blackheath they embraced and parted with vows of love, which Albert Terrup remembered all through his quiet life, and always will, as Lucy Fells sincerely intended to do on the platform at Blackheath station. But with all her public engagements, and no record of this in writing, it must have slipped her memory, and I believe that quite honestly she forgot all about it.
The Pirate of the Round Pond
I’ve been reading a lot about great men lately; having to read about them; Julius Caesar, William the Conqueror, Nelson and Mr. Gladstone. But there’s a thing I’ve noticed about grown-ups, and I imagine it applies jolly well to all of them, great and small: they don’t keep at it. They may be great just when they’re having a battle, or whatever it is, but at other times they’ll sit in a chair and read a paper, or talk about the taxes being all wrong, or go out for a walk along a road, when they might be ratting or climbing a tree, or doing anything sensible. Now, Bob Tipling is great the whole time. I should think he is the greatest chap in the world. Any way he is the greatest chap in our school, by a long way. And he’s not only the cleverest, but he’s best at cricket and football too. Once he made a hundred runs. And he’s a fast bowler too. Well, I can’t tell you all about that: there just wouldn’t be time. We beat Blikton by an innings and 70 runs, and all because of Bob Tipling. But what I am going to tell you about is about Bob as a pirate, because lots of people have seen him playing cricket, but I and one other boy are the only people in the world besides Bob who know all about him being a pirate. So, if I don’t tell about it, probably nobody will, and that would be a pity. Not that I like writing, I’d sooner be out-of-doors. Well, Bob was talking to me once, and I was saying what I’d like to be when I grew up, if I could get the job; and of course that isn’t always so easy. What I’d like best of all would be to capture cities, like Alexander and those people; but of course you can’t always do that. And then Bob said that he didn’t want to be anything when he grew up, because grown-ups were always dull and didn’t seem able to enjoy themselves properly, or even to want to: he wanted to be it now. And I asked him what he wanted to be, and he said a pirate. And I asked him what sea he was going to. Now, Bob Tipling always knew all about what he was talking of; more than anybody else; so I can tell you I was pretty surprised when I heard his answer. And yet I knew that Bob wasn’t talking nonsense. He never does. He said, “The Round Pond.”7 Well, I knew the Round Pond quite well; used to go there most Sundays; but I didn’t see how you could be a pirate on the Round Pond. And so I asked Bob. Well, he said he’d had the idea for something like a year, and he’d hung about Kensington Gardens, which was quite near where he lived (both of us for that matter), until he found a boy whose father had lots of money, and he had told the idea to him and he had liked it very much. The idea was to put a pirate ship on the Round Pond, and to fit it out with torpedo-tubes.
“How would you do that?” I asked.
“It’s already been done,” he said. “They’re miniature torpedoes, just as it’s a miniature ship. There’s two of them, one on each side, and we’ve had a dozen torpedoes made. They are shot out by compressed air, like little air-guns, and there’s a good big explosive in them, which goes off when the nose hits anything. They cost a lot to make, but this boy has got lots.”
“Does your ship put to sea?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” he said.
“Then how do you fire them?” I said.
“That cost a lot too,” he told me. “I touch them off by wireless.”
“What will people say,” I asked him, “when they see you shooting off your torpedoes from your wireless-set on the bank at their boats?”
“They won’t see,” said Bob. “But we’ll have to be careful about that. We could have it in a large sailing-boat at the edge of the water, what they call a parent boat; or we could hide it in a tea-basket. Then we wait till a good big ship has put to sea, and we launch the pirate-ship so that it should intercept her. If it doesn’t, we try again and again, until we are lucky. What I want to do is to get the Rakish Craft (that is to be her name) head on to her beam at about 3 or 4 yards, then we fire a torpedo, and if we meet her somewhere about the middle of the pond, she should never reach land. What do you think of it?”
“I think it’s perfectly splendid,” I said. “There’s only one thing seems to be missing like.”
“What’s that?” he asked rather sharply.
“Treasure,” I said. “Isn’t treasure rather the chief part of a pirate’s life?”
“That shows all you know about it,” he said. “The principal part of a pirate’s life is the battles he has, and the thrill of seeing his enemy sink, and the danger, the risk of hanging. I don’t say they’d hang me, but I’d go to prison for years if I was caught. And of course if anybody was drowned as a result of the accident, going in to pull out the ship or anything, then I’d be hanged. And even without that, after all I’m a pirate; it doesn’t matter where: I might be hanged in any case. Now, I’m giving you a chance you’ll probably never have again in a lifetime. Would you like to come in with me?”
Well, of course it was pretty wonderful getting an offer like that from such a tremendous chap as Bob Tipling; because I knew he would be as wonderful as a pirate as he was at everything else. Of course I said, “Yes, rather.”
And then he told me what I would have to do. Carry the tea-basket chiefly, and walk about and look unconcerned. Or look concerned if he told me to, and walk away from him to draw attention off. “It’s full of detectives,” he said.
That was on a Saturday morning, and we get the afternoons off on Saturdays. So Bob Tipling told me to meet him at the Round Pond at 2 o’clock, which I did, and he made me walk up and down looking unconcerned. There were some nice ships there, big sailing-ships and some clockwork ones, and even one that went by petrol, a beauty, a big grey ship. “That’s the one we’ll get if she’s there when we put to sea,” said Bob. “She’ll hole nicely.”
And I made the mistake of saying, “Wouldn’t it be rather a pity to sink a nice ship like that?”
But Bob explained to me that the people who owned it should think themselves very lucky if their ship was sunk without any loss of life, which wasn’t often the case if you were attacked by a pirate. “And, after all, there must be pirates,” he said. “And anyhow,” he said, “I shall only attack those that deserve it, as Robin Hood used to do on land. The money that that boat cost would have kept a poor man and his family in food for a year. I’m helping the Government, really, to swat the rich. Though that’s not the view they’ll take if they catch me.”
“They ought to,” I said.
“We’ll just not get caught,” said Bob Tipling. “Now walk about concernedly, so that they’ll watch you if I want their attention switched off me.”
So I did, and it’s wonderful how soon I saw one or two men mopping their faces with white handkerchiefs, and making funny little signs. We went away then, because we didn’t want people to get to know us.
There were only three of us in it; Bob, me and this rich boy that Bob had found. He had hung about among the trees in Kensington Gardens off and on for nearly a year, before he found this boy walking alone and got a chance to talk to him. He had tried others, of course, but they hadn’t enough money. This one had, and he took to the idea at once, as who wouldn’t? He had always wanted to be a pirate, and knew that he never would be; and then this chance came to him, brought by Bob. Bob had worked it all out, except the actual making of the torpedoes, and he knew there were people who could make them, and send them off by wireless: all he wanted was the money; and this boy had it, or he could get it out of his father, which comes to the same thing. Bob fixed next Sunday week for putting to sea, under the black-and-yellow flag with the skull-and-crossbones; only, Bob said that the actual flag might attract too much attention, and that he would sail under false colours, as pirates often did. We said nothing to each other in school; we almost might have been strangers; but it wouldn’t have done to have let a thing like that get out; we should only have been hanged, if it had, before we started. Bob Tipling said that it wasn’t a hanging matter. And he would be sure to know. At the same time we were pirates, and I never heard of anything else happening to a pirate, if he got caught, in any book that I’ve read. So it seemed best not to risk it.
I learned a lot that week in school, but what it was I couldn’t tell you, because I was only thinking of one thing all the week, that is of being a pirate. They say it’s wicked to be a pirate, and I dare say it is. At the same time nobody could say that it isn’t better than sitting indoors at a desk, learning things; especially the kind of things I was learning that week, whatever they were. I never knew a week go by slower. I’d have liked to have timed it, because I should think that it was the slowest week that ever went by. But it came to an end at last, and I slipped away from my home, which is where I lived, and came to the Round Pond at the time Bob Tipling said, which was 12 o’clock on the Sunday morning. I came along the Broad Walk, because I was to meet Bob and his friend there. It was all black earth by the edge of the walk, or dark grey any way, and there were little trickles of yellow sand in it. I liked the look of the black earth, because it made me think of a wide and desolate moor; and it would have been, if it hadn’t been for the grass. And there was a great row of elm-trees there, and all the little leaves were just coming out, because it was Spring. They looked very small and shiny. And at the end of the row I met Bob and his rich friend. Bob had his arms folded and a coloured handkerchief round his neck, and I thought he looked very like a pirate. We were quite near the Round Pond then. Bob introduces me to the rich boy, and his name turns out to be Algernon, and some other name that I forget. And it’s just as well to forget it, as we were all involved in piracy together. Bob is away where the police can’t catch him now. I’m not going to tell you my name. Algernon was carrying a big luncheon-basket by a handle, and Bob has the ship on the grass beside him, with a bit of a cloth wrapped round it to hide the torpedo-tubes.
“That’s a nice boat,” I says.
“It’s a long low rakish craft,” said Bob.
Bob was giving the orders, and Algernon and I went down with him to the pond to the part of it where he says, where there was a little kind of a bay. There were lots of ducks on it, mostly black-and-white ones, and every now and then they would get up out of the water and shake their wings and splash themselves. I suppose they were having a bath. Algernon said they was tufted ducks. And then there was ducks with green heads, that was just ducks. And there was a couple of geese that swam by, honking. And I saw a swan. And there were sea-gulls, lots of them, flying backwards and forwards over the pond and squawking as they flew. And there were lots of boats. I saw a little sailing-boat far out, nearly becalmed, and some clockwork ones like ours. And then all of a sudden I sees the big grey ship that went by petrol. I stopped breathing for a moment when I saw that, and then I pointed her out to Algernon, and Bob nodded his head. And then we both went round to where she was, just beside our little bay, and there was a boy running it that was about the same age as me, which is thirteen. Bob is fourteen, and knows about as much about most things as grown-ups. I don’t know about Algernon: I should say he was about the same age as Bob, but nothing near so clever. And just as we came up to where the boy was, a fat little brown spaniel with a wide smile ran up to the boy and licked one of his knees, which was bare. And the boy jumped out of the way. And there was a lady with the brown spaniel, and she said to the boy, “Our Billy won’t hurt you.” And the boy says, “I am not accustomed to being licked by dogs.” “Oh, aren’t you?” says Bob.
I don’t know if the boy heard him or not.
And then Bob says to me in a lower voice, “That settles the business of it being a pity to sink his nice ship.”
There was a fat man standing near, smoking a cigar, evidently the boy’s father, and I says to Bob, “Well, it’s he that will lose what he paid for the ship if we sink it.”
“That’s true,” said Bob. And he goes up to the fat man with the cigar and says to him, “That’s a fine boat your boy’s got, sir.”
“Yes. You leave it alone,” says the fat man.
“Certainly, sir,” says Bob.
“Well, that settles it,” he says to me. “The ship is doomed.”
The big ship touched land just then, and Bob hurried back to his bay, to be ready to launch the Rakish Craft, his idea being to launch it just at the right moment to cut off the big grey ship when it sets out again. With the curve that there was on the bay we could send our ship right across her course. I had a very responsible job. I had to unpack the luncheon-basket and get my finger on to a knob of the wireless-set that was hidden under some paper packets, and to press it down whenever Bob gave the sign. I can’t tell you what the sign was, because I took an oath to Bob that I would never reveal it, but it is something he did with his elbow. Well, the big grey ship set out almost at once. “That’s the last she’ll see of land,” said Bob. But he was wrong there, because our ship didn’t quite hit her off, Bob not having had time quite to calculate the speed of the big ship, though he knew the speed of the Rakish Craft, and so we were a bit behind her and never fired a torpedo, and we went right across the pond, and the grey ship went very nearly to the other end of it.
Well, the boy ran round and the fat man walked slowly after him; and, to make a long story short, they puts to sea again. And Bob watches to see about where the grey ship will come in, and goes round and launches the Rakish Craft to intercept her about half-way. And Bob said he had calculated the two speeds exactly, but I think it was pure luck. Anyway, the Rakish Craft, heading towards Bayswater, comes right up to within nearly two yards of the side of the grey ship, which is sailing towards Hyde Park; and just as the grey ship passes our bows Bob makes the sign with his elbow, and I presses the button where I am sitting on the grass beside the luncheon-basket, with my finger inside it touching the wireless-set. And there is a white fountain against the side of the grey ship, and both boats rock a bit, and the big one goes on apparently unconcerned. And I look round, and nobody has noticed a thing. But I couldn’t see anything out of the way, myself, except that white splash and the two boats rocking a little, ours more than the other one. For a moment I thought that Bob’s game did not work, and then to my delight I saw the big ship’s bows dipping a little, or thought I did. Then I saw I was right. She continued straight on her course, but the bows went lower and lower. And all of a sudden her stern went into the air, and she dived right under, and never came up any more. The only thing that could have made it any more perfect would have been a bit of blood on the water. However, one can’t have everything. I wanted to cheer, but I caught Bob’s eye. Bob strolled round with Algernon to the part of the shore to which our ship was heading, and they hardly glanced at the water. Bob wanted to go on and sink some more boats. But that’s where Algernon showed sense, and he told Bob not to do it. That’s what they were talking about when on the grass by the luncheon-basket. And I joined in with Algernon and said, “Don’t do it, Bob. Nobody has suspected a thing, and we can start all fresh next Sunday; but, if you get them suspecting you now, they’ll be waiting for you next time you come, and it will probably be prison for all of us.”
And Algernon says the same, and between us we just persuaded Bob, and stopped him doing any more piracy that day. But he insisted on hoisting the pirate’s flag, the skull-and-crossbones, yellow on black, because he says you ought to do that as soon as you open fire, whatever colours you have been sailing under till then, and, as he wasn’t able to do it at the time, he would do it as soon as he can, and sail across the main once more, as he now called the Round Pond, flying the skull-and-crossbones. I wasn’t easy about it, but nobody seemed to notice, and Bob said it was the right thing to do. I didn’t like to look too much at the fat man or his boy, for fear they should catch me looking at them, so I just went on quietly eating a biscuit, and Bob had the sense not to look at them too much either, though his pirate’s blood was up. But, as far as I could see when I did take a glance, they were puzzled, and unsuspicious of us. So we packed up the luncheon-basket that fired the torpedoes, and Bob put our ship under his arm, and I carried the luncheon-basket, and away we walked over the grass, and I never saw three people that looked more innocent-looking. Bob said that we ought to have drunk rum then. And so we would have, if we could have got any. But even Bob’s rich friend, Algernon, wasn’t able to manage that.
I was pretty pleased when I went home. I’d always wanted to be a pirate, and now I was one, one of the crew of the Rakish Craft, and we’d sunk a big ship. I’m not going to tell you where I lived. Pirates don’t do that, if they’ve got any sense. If there’s people looking for one of them they must find out for themselves, without the pirate helping them. I came home to tea; and I wished I could have brought my mother some gold ingots and a few pearls, as pirates often do when they come home. But I remembered what Bob told me, and knew I must think of the glory of it, and not bother about what it ought to be worth in cash. Of course there should have been heaps of gold taken from ships before they were sunk; but it was good enough seeing the grey ship go down, even without any loot. I was only sorry for the sea-gulls, that they had no corpses floating about. They’d have liked to have pecked at their eyes.
My father and mother wanted to know what I’d been doing, and so did my sister Alice, because they saw that it must have been something. But I couldn’t tell them that. And I’m not going to write about my father and mother. They’re grown up and can write about themselves if they want to; but I’ve got my hands full telling about the great battles Bob fought at sea, and the ships that he sunk.
Well, I learned a lot more at school that week. But I can’t tell you about that. I’ve got more important things to write of. Besides, I’ve forgot it. Bob didn’t say a word to me all that week, so that we shouldn’t be overheard. And that of course was a good precaution. But he didn’t look very precautious. He looked as if his blood was up, and as if he was going on sinking ships till he got hanged, as so many pirates do. I met Bob again at the same place and the same time next Sunday, and he was folding his arms tighter than ever, and wearing that look that I mentioned. I was afraid we would get into trouble. But it was too late to back out now, and, as for warning Bob to go a bit slower, it couldn’t be done. I mentioned it to Algernon, but he didn’t seem to see it. He’d put his money up, or his father’s money, and he wanted to see something for it. So we went to the Round Pond and launched the Rakish Craft from one of the little bays. Then I went back on to the grass and got out some sandwiches from the luncheon-basket, and watched Bob.
I think Bob was trying for a small sailing-boat near the shore, because the Rakish Craft just sailed across the little bay, pretty close to the sailing-boat, but it didn’t come near enough to fire. And when I saw there wasn’t going to be a fight, it gave me time to look round. And what did I see when I looked round but that same fat man again and his son, and another fine boat like the last one, even bigger if anything. Well, I saw that before Bob did, because he was watching the sailing-boat that he didn’t get; and as soon as our Rakish Craft came to land again, as she soon did on the other side of the little bay, I moved up nearer to Bob and Algernon, to a bench that there was near the pond, and signed to them to come over, and told them what I had seen. And, just as I thought, as soon as I’d pointed the big ship out, Bob wanted to go and sink it. And I tells him that would be fatal. “Won’t they be wondering still what happened to their other boat?” I says to him. “And won’t they spend the rest of the day putting two and two together, if they see their new one sink, and see the Rakish Craft quite close again and the same crew standing by?”
“Did you ever hear of a pirate sparing anything, when he had it at his mercy?” said Bob.
“Did you ever hear of a pirate that wasn’t hanged?” I asks.
“Yes,” Bob replies, “all the clever ones.”
“And are you being a clever one?” I asks.
And then Algernon joins in, and I admit he showed sense. “Sink smaller craft today,” he says, “at the other end of the main from those people, and give them time to forget.”
Well, the two of us just succeeded in stopping Bob, and it would have been a bad business if we hadn’t. And Bob goes after a smaller ship, as Algernon says, a long way away from the fat man. It was a clockwork ship some way out, and Bob launched the Rakish Craft so as to cut it off; and when it gets close he gives me the sign and I presses the button, but he wasn’t close enough and it was no good. The torpedo came to the surface then, but it was painted grey so that it wouldn’t show up, and very soon it sank, because it only barely floated, and there was a small hole in it so that it would soon fill with water. Nobody noticed it, and the Rakish Craft sailed on, under the colours of Spain, which Bob fancied, and came to the other shore, and Bob and Algernon went round and got hold of it, and wound it up and brought it back. And there was the same ship that Bob had missed, putting to sea again, and Bob had a better idea of her pace this time, which was very slow, and he launches the Rakish Craft out of the same bay.
It was a lovely day for a fight, and lots of ducks were there enjoying the sun, and the sea-gulls were flying in flocks over the water. Bob didn’t reload the torpedo-tube, so as not to attract attention. He still had his starboard torpedo, and he put to sea with that. And this time the Rakish Craft headed straight for the enemy. And I wanted to fire, but Bob didn’t give the sign until she was quite close, because he had missed the last time. And then he made the sign, and I fired, and both boats rocked a lot when the fountain went up against the side of the enemy’s ship, because they were pretty close, and it was a smaller ship than the one we had sunk last time. And then the enemy sailed on a little way, but not far. And soon her bows began to rise out of the water, and very soon after that she slid to the bottom of the sea; and the Rakish Craft sailed on to the further shore. The boy that owned the boat looked quite surprised, but he didn’t seem to suspect Bob or Algernon, and of course not me, who was sitting quiet on a bench with the luncheon-basket beside me. I watched him so closely that I didn’t see what the fat man was doing, or how much he saw.
He was a long way off, but of course you can see anything on the water at almost any distance, and he must have seen the ship sinking if he looked. Bob went round to the far shore with Algernon, and got the Rakish Craft when it came in, and hauled down the colours of Spain, which were red and yellow, and hoisted the pirate’s flag. I’d sooner he hadn’t hoisted the skull-and-crossbones, but there was no holding Bob over a thing like that. I believed that he had the idea of reloading his two torpedo-tubes and putting to sea again and sinking more ships, for I saw that Algernon was arguing with him as they came back. Anyway, he had the sense not to, and Algernon and I got away as quickly as possible. I did a lot of wondering that week. The boy who owned the small ship that we sunk was still there when we left, and he was looking puzzled. I was wondering what he made out about it when he had thought it over. And I was wondering how much the fat man saw, and how much he knew. Well, it wasn’t any use wondering. But I couldn’t help doing it, for all that. And I was a bit sorry for the boy that had owned the boat, and so I told Bob one day. But Bob said, “Did you ever read of a pirate that was sorry?” And I had to admit that I never had.
“The kites are the only things that I’m sorry for,” he said; “not having any dead bodies to peck at.”
Of course there weren’t any kites; but I saw what he meant; and I saw that it wouldn’t be any use to say anything more on those lines to Bob. Well, he gave me my orders where to meet him next Sunday, the same place. Algernon and I were his crew, and of course we had to obey. In a way I was looking forward to that Sunday all the week, because it is a splendid thing to be a pirate and sink ships. But every now and then I couldn’t help wondering how far Bob would go, and what would happen to us all if he went too far. And I couldn’t ask him. It would have been such cheek.
Well, next Sunday came eventually, and I slipped away as usual and joined Bob and Algernon at the same place. It was a lovely day, and the lilac leaves were all flashing. There would be buds soon. Algernon was there with the luncheon-basket as usual, which I took, and we all went down to the pond. And the first thing Bob looks for is ships to sink. But the first thing I looked for was the fat man. And sure enough there he was, with his son and his big ship. And he was nearer to us this time, having come round to our side of the pond. I walked past him, and took a look as I passed, and he looked at me a bit sideways, and I thought he suspected something. But not the boy; he was only watching his big ship. And it was a fine ship, full of funnels and lifeboats and portholes, even better than the one we had sunk. And another thing I noticed; the boy whose ship we had sunk the Sunday before was there again too, and he also had a rather better ship. Who gave it him, I wondered? And I got the idea that the fat man was at the back of it. So I goes back to Bob and tells him that I think the fat man suspects us. And Bob says, “Aren’t pirates always suspected?”
And he won’t be warned. He has seen the fat man’s new ship, and is going to sink her at all costs. I think it’s dangerous just then to sink another ship at all, but to sink the fat man’s big ship would be absolutely fatal; and so I tell Algernon, and Algernon agrees, and we both of us warn Bob. But Bob says, even if he was going to be hanged for it he would sink that ship first. And when Bob starts talking about the big ship like that, Algernon all of a sudden deserts me and goes in with Bob, and says they will sink her whatever happens. Well, after that I could do nothing, except sit by our wireless-set and obey orders. So I sat on the grass, pretending to eat sandwiches, and watching for Bob’s sign. And then the big ship came steaming past our bay, close in to the shore and Bob times her exactly, and set sail with the Rakish Craft. And it wasn’t more than a few minutes before he gave me the sign with both elbows. And I pressed two buttons, and the ships were quite close, and both torpedoes hit. They were so close that our good ship nearly ran into theirs, but just passed astern of her and went on, rocking down to the gunwales. And the other ship went on, after the two fountains had gone up her side, just as the big one did last time, as though nothing had happened. But very soon she begins to dip by the head. And soon after that she takes her last plunge. Well, of course it was perfectly splendid, even if it did mean prison for years: and I looked at the fat man, and his face was half-turned towards me. And somehow there was an expression in it, and I was sure he had found us out. It certainly looked like prison. I packed up the luncheon-basket and went over to Bob. “You’ve done it now,” I said. “Let’s get away quick, and never come here again.”
But you can’t stop a pirate when once he has tasted blood. They always go on till they are hanged. “I must hoist my flag,” he said, “before I go.”
And there was no stopping him. He goes to where his ship comes in to land, and hoists the skull-and-crossbones and gives the Rakish Craft one more run across the bay. And the fat man stands there watching all the time, smoking his cigar, and says nothing. I was glad to see that at least Bob didn’t reload his torpedo-tubes. And when the Rakish Craft reaches shore he takes her out of the water. And the fat man walks up quite close. Bob did have the sense not to run; but we all walked away pretty fast, and got out of Kensington Gardens, never looking behind us once, because we didn’t dare. But I knew we were being followed. I don’t know how I knew: I just knew. When we got out into Kensington High Street, I said to Bob, “Let’s separate, so that they can only follow one of us.”
But Bob said that was no good, because if they got one of us that would be all they wanted, to unravel the whole plot. So we kept together and walked over half London, so as to tire out whoever was after us. But that was no good, because the fellow who followed us out of Kensington Gardens made a sign to a nasty-looking fellow ahead of us, who watched us as far as he could see, and then made a sign to another. I knew he was watching us, from the way that he looked so straight in the opposite direction, from the moment we came in sight, the direction in which we were going, so that once we were past him he did not have to trouble to turn his head.
I felt that we never got out of sight of those nasty people. Not even when we separated to go home. What I thought was that they hated everybody, and watched them all, because they thought they were all crooks. I seen them before, and that’s what I thought. But we was worse than crooks now. We was pirates. So they were right to watch us. One couldn’t deny that. I tried to do a bit of doubling to throw them off, when I got near my home. But it only made it worse.
Well, all Monday and Tuesday I was wondering what was going to happen. And Bob didn’t say nothing, either because he didn’t believe we had been followed, or because he was pretending that there was nothing wrong. You could never tell with Bob. And Wednesday came, and nothing happened. I still felt uneasy when I went to bed that night; but when I woke up on Thursday morning, and still nothing had happened, I said it was all imagination and nobody had followed us at all, or made little signs at us, silly little signs like lifting their arms and gazing hard at their wrist-watches. But I said as I woke up that Thursday morning that people who lifted their hands up to look at their watches only wanted to see the time, and were meaning no harm to us. So I had a good breakfast and set out to go to school. And there was the fat man walking right past our house, smoking his usual cigar! He was not following me; he was going the other way; but it gave me a feeling like what the man must have had in a poem they taught us at school, which went like this.
As one who walks a lonely road in terror and in dread,
And having once looked round goes on and turns no more his head,
Because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread.8
That’s how I felt that morning, and all that day; and the next day, and the day after. I knew something was after me. I told Bob that morning that the fat man had found out where I lived.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Bob. “He’s got to prove it.”
“He’s got that boy as a witness,” I said, “and probably lots of others.”
“Not he,” said Bob very airily.
But I don’t know how he felt.
“Anyway, I’ll never go there again,” I said. “So, if by any lucky chance he hasn’t got any absolute proof yet, he’ll never get any more.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Bob.
And an awful fear came all over me that Bob would make me go back. Because, if we ever went there again, we hadn’t a chance. I could see that. And Bob isn’t the kind of chap you can disobey, when he says a thing.
Well, the days went on going by, and I was afraid of my own shadow. And they noticed that there was something wrong, at home. But I said it was some work that was worrying me, some lines that I had to learn, and that I couldn’t remember. And my father said, “That’s right. Keep at it.” And my mother said I’d remember them all right. And neither knew the awful thing that was threatening Bob and I. And they tell us at our school that that isn’t grammar. But I can tell you I had much too much to think about, that week, to have any time to bother about grammar, even if it was worth bothering about. And of course they didn’t know about us being pirates. Well, Saturday came at last, and Bob called me over to him that morning. I think he must have seen something too, for he said, “You may be right about those sleuths. It may be a coincidence about the fat man passing your house; but I don’t believe much in coincidences, and we may be up against it.”
“Then you’ll never go back to the main,” I said, as we all called the Round Pond now.
But Bob was silent. I didn’t know what he was going to do, and he wouldn’t say.
And that afternoon he said to me, “We’re going back to the main.”
“We’ll all be hanged,” I said.
“Oh, no we shan’t,” said Bob.
“Prison, then,” I said, “anyway.”
“No,” he said. “You may be right about them suspecting us, but what I’m going to do is to go back there with my ship, and no torpedo-tubes on her. And we’ll sail her right across. Then, if they suspect our ship of being a pirate, they’ll seize her and see their suspicions are groundless. How can they charge us with sinking ships with torpedoes, when ours is quite unarmed?”
It seemed a good idea, and I felt much better; for I feared that Bob would take me and Algernon to the main and sink another ship, and we’d all go to prison that Sunday.
“And we’ll bring the luncheon-basket too,” says Bob. “And do you know what we’ll have in it?”
“No,” I says.
“Luncheon,” says he.
“That’s splendid,” I says.
“And then they can bring their charges for damaging property,” says Bob; “and see how they’ll prove it. Especially when Algernon’s father hires a lawyer to prove we are innocent. Piracy indeed! You don’t only have to catch your pirate. You have to prove he is one. He is only an alleged pirate till then.”
“Yes, we are only alleged pirates,” I says, brightening up.
But Bob folds his arms again, and says, “I am a pirate to the last. But still, they’ll have to prove it.”
That lifted a little of the load off my mind; but I wasn’t easy yet, for the fat man knew where I lived, and he must have been very sure of what we had done, to want to track me down like that. And, when Bob went away, most of the old fears came back, and I couldn’t look into the future without seeing prison. Well, Bob had fixed the same time on Sunday to meet him near to the main; and so I had to go. And I went, and I met him with Algernon. And the luncheon-basket looked lighter. This time, I was glad to see there were no torpedo-tubes on the Rakish Craft. But he had the pirate’s flag flying on her, which seemed a mistake. However, that was Bob’s way. And then we went round to the far side of the pond, meaning to sail her right across and take her out and go straight home. That was the north side; and the first thing I sees is the fat man with his boy and his boat, standing on the east side, where he usually is. And he has a big wireless-set on the ground beside him, playing a tune to amuse the boy, a tune about Teddy bears. Then Bob launches the Rakish Craft, with the skull-and-crossbones flying big and bold from the foremast, and a nice little bit of a wind was making it fly. And he winds her up, and off she goes. There was a small sailing-ship quite near, and I sees Bob look at it with a wistful look; and I was glad he had no torpedoes, because if he had he’d have sunk her for certain, and we should have all been in jail; because you can’t go on and on doing a thing like that and not get caught. But we’ve no torpedoes, and nothing in the luncheon-basket but luncheon, and the sailing-ship goes safe, and the Rakish Craft steams on, and the sound of the tune about the Teddy bears drifts to us over the water. I see the fat man watching us, and I didn’t like it; but I glanced over my shoulder at Bob, and something about the look of him made me see that the more we were watched the better, because the Rakish Craft was going about her lawful business that day, and it was a good thing for people to see it. Still, I knew that I wouldn’t be easy until she had crossed the main, and we were all on our way home. And then I saw a ship about the same size as ours, putting out from the east shore and coming across. She was faster than ours, and looked like cutting across our course. A pity, I thought for a moment, we hadn’t torpedoes. And then I was jolly glad that we had not, because I knew what Bob would have done if his tubes had been loaded.
It was a grey ship, with guns all along her sides; I counted eight of them on each side as she came near, guns that were big enough to have fired a rifle bullet; they seemed rather crowded to me, and I wondered what the ship wanted so many of them for. The ship came on, and the Rakish Craft went on, and I thought the other ship would pass right ahead of her. And then it gave a curve and came straight for the Rakish Craft. Then I thought it would pass astern of her. And then it gave another twist and came straight for our ship again. Bob and I, and I think Algernon too, realized at the same moment that the manoeuvre was too good to be chance. It must be directed! If wireless could fire torpedoes, it could direct a boat. Even aeroplanes have been directed that way. When the strange ship got quite close, she gave a sudden twist to port, which brought her alongside only a few inches away. It was obvious then that the ship was directed. I looked at Bob, and he had his mouth open. Then I looked across the pond at the fat man, and he was sitting beside his big box that was playing the tune for his boy. But I knew that the tune was only camouflage: the box was much larger than what you’d need, for one thing, to play a tune like that. He was sitting there quite unconcernedly. But the boy wasn’t unconcerned: he gave the whole show away, staring at the two ships, glaring would be the right word for it. For a while the two ships kept dead level, quite close; and all of a sudden, bang! And the starboard guns opened fire, the whole broadside. They were pointed downwards, and they hit the Rakish Craft just above the waterline on her port side. Several people looked up when they heard the bang. But there was no smoke to speak of, and I don’t think anyone spotted where the noise came from, except us, who were watching, and that boy.
I could see the holes in our port side, where every shot had hit; and they must have gone right through and made cracks on our starboard side below the waterline. They wouldn’t have been more than cracks, or the Rakish Craft would have sunk, but she remained there, rocking on the water. One of the bullets must have gone right into her engines, for she didn’t go forward any more. Then the strange ship turned round and sailed back the way she had come, and the Rakish Craft stopped rocking. I thought at first that she would keep afloat, and that the breeze, which was proudly flapping her black-and-yellow flag, would blow her ashore in about ten minutes. But she was making water all the time, and she couldn’t last ten minutes. And we saw her go down with her skull-and-crossbones flying, yellow and black from her masthead, as a pirate’s ship should.
There’s not much more to tell, except one funny thing: the fat man launched his grey gunboat again and sent it right across the Round Pond. And she was flying the skull-and-crossbones too.
Explanatory Notes
INTRODUCTION
1 C. L. Moore to H. P. Lovecraft, 30 January 1936, MS, John Hay Library, Brown University.
2 Oscar Wilde, preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891).
3 Dunsany, Patches of Sunlight (London: William Heinemann, 1938), p. 30.
4 See Mark Amory, Biography of Lord Dunsany (London: Collins, 1972), p. 40.
5 Dunsany, Patches of Sunlight, p. 9.
6 Dunsany, Patches of Sunlight, pp. 20-21.
7 H. P. Lovecraft to Fritz Leiber, 15 November 1936, Selected Letters 1934-1937, ed. August Derleth and James Turner (Sauk City, Wis.: Arkham House, 1976), p. 354.
8 Dunsany, While the Sirens Slept (London: Jarrolds, 1944), p. 78.
9 Dunsany, Lord Adrian (1933), in The Ghosts of the Heaviside Layer and Other Fantasms, ed. Darrell Schweitzer (Philadelphia: Owlswick Press, 1980), p. 336.
10 Dunsany, The Strange Journeys of Colonel Polders (London: Jarrolds, 1950), p. 13.
11 W. B. Yeats, introduction to Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsany (1912), in Yeats’s Prefaces and Introductions, ed. William H. O’Donnell (New York: Macmillan, 1989), p. 140.
12 “Irish Academy,” Manchester Guardian, 19 September 1932, p. 9.
13 Dunsany, The Sirens Wake (London: Jarrolds, 1945), p. 6.
14 Brooks Atkinson, “Three One-Acters by Abbe Workshop,” New York Times, 25 May 1950, p. 36.
15 Dunsany, “Nowadays,” in The Ghosts of the Heaviside Layer, p. 138.
I. PEGĀNA AND ENVIRONS
The Gods of Pegaāna was published in October 1905 by Elkin Mathews (London). Its critical and popular success led to the publication, in September 1906, of Time and the Gods by William Heinemann (London). That volume is a direct sequel to The Gods of Pegaāna in the sense that it develops the “Pegāna mythology,” although the tales are more thoroughly developed narratives than the quasi-biblical chapters of The Gods of Pegaāna. Only one story in Time and the Gods appeared previously in a periodical: “Time and the Gods,” first published as “The Lament of the Gods for Sardathrion” in the rare Irish magazine Shanachie, in its undated first issue (1906). The other stories included here—“A Legend of the Dawn,” “In the Land of Time,” and “The Relenting of Sarnidac”—were first published in Time and the Gods. Dunsany virtually abandoned the “Pegāna mythology” in subsequent works, aside from brief allusions to some of his gods in “Idle Days on the Yann” and its two sequels. Thereafter, Dunsany invented mythical realms only for individual tales, such as “The Fall of Babbulkund” (Irish Homestead, Christmas 1907), included in his third volume, The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories (London: George Allen & Sons, 1908).
1Dunsany refers to Polaris, or the Pole Star, the star around which all the other stars appear to revolve. Currently the Pole Star is Alpha Ursae Majoris; about 4,500 years ago the Pole Star was Alpha Draconis; 12,000 years from now it will be the star Vega in the constellation Lyra.
2 The sentiment is reminiscent of the celebrated passage in Book III of Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura, in which he propounds the Epicurean notion that death signifies the utter extinction of all sensation and emotion. “ ‘Unhappy man,’ they cry, ‘unhappily cheated by one treacherous day out of all the uncounted blessings of life!’ But they do not go on to say: ‘And now no repining for those lost joys will oppress you any more.’ ” De Rerum Natura 3.898-901 (trans. R. E. Latham).
3 Archaic variant of nevertheless.
4 For a very different etiology of the dawn, see “A Legend of the Dawn” (p. 53).
5 The conception is analogous to the lares et penates of the ancient Romans—the “household gods” whose small images were placed on the hearth for the protection of the family, the clan, and by extension the entire community.
6 For a poignant tale of such “broken things,” see “Blagdaross” (p. 141).
7 Archaic variant of drove.
8 Cf. the serpent’s tempting of Eve to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5).
9 A commonplace of secularist thought. Cf. David Hume as cited by James Boswell: “I told him [Samuel Johnson] that David Hume said to me, that he was no more uneasy to think he should not be after this life, than that he had not been before he began to exist.” James Boswell, Life of Johnson (1791; reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953), p. 426.
10 The Pleiades are a cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus. Orion is a constellation containing such bright stars as Betelgeuse and Rigel. The “morning star” is the name given to the planet Venus when it appears above the eastern horizon before sunrise.
11 For a much later story on this theme, see “Poseidon” (p. 358); also (by implication) “The Exiles’ Club” (p. 242).
12 Dunsany is probably echoing the account in Xenophon’s Anabasis of the march of the Ten Thousand (Greek mercenaries in the service of the Persian satrap Cyrus), who, after an arduous journey from Asia Minor to the Black Sea, cried: “Thalatta! Thalatta!” (“The sea! The sea!”)
13 Cf. Dunsany’s lament on the increasing prevalence of machinery in modern life: “I know of the boons that machinery has conferred on man, all tyrants have boons to confer, but service to the dynasty of steam and steel is a hard service and gives little leisure to fancy to flit from field to field.” “Romance and the Modern Stage,” National Review, no. 341 (July 1911): 830.
14 For a much more sinister version of this scenario, see The Gods of the Mountain (1911), where seven beggars, impersonating the seven green jade “gods of the mountain,” accept the offerings made by the citizens, including a leg of lamb. As the beggars devour the food, one citizen states skeptically: “It is strange that gods should be thus anxious about the cooking of a leg of lamb.” Five Plays (London: Grant Richards, 1914), p. 22.
15 The name is perhaps meant to evoke Phlegethon, one of the five rivers of the Greek underworld.
II. TALES OF WONDER
The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories and A Dreamer’s Tales (London: George Allen & Sons, 1910) may well constitute the pinnacle of Dunsany’s early short story work. It was at this time that his tales began appearing in the London Saturday Review, where they attracted a wide following. However, the four stories from that volume included here—“The Sword of Welleran,” “The Kith of the Elf-Folk,” “The Ghosts,” and “The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth”—were previously unpublished. “The Kith of the Elf-Folk,” telling of a fairy who finds herself uncomfortable with the possession of a human soul, seems to have served as a nucleus for Dunsany’s later novel The Story of Mona Sheehy (1939), in which a young Irish woman believes she is a child of the fairies (although the reader knows otherwise) and chafes at being forced to work in a factory and conduct her life in the manner of other human beings. “The Ghosts” may represent Dunsany’s first tale of supernatural horror, and the first tale set entirely in the recognizably “real” world. “Sacnoth” has received the unusual tribute of serving as the basis for a fine song, “The Fortress Unvanquishable,” by the heavy metal band Destiny’s End (available on their album Breathe Deep the Dark, 1998).
A Dreamer’s Tales contains two of Dunsany’s most poignant narratives, “Blagdaross” (Saturday Review, 16 May 1908) and “Idle Days on the Yann.” The latter tale (not published periodically) was written in 1908, in anticipation of a trip down the Nile that Dunsany and his wife took in order to relieve a respiratory ailment his wife had developed. It later inspired two sequels, “A Shop in Go-by Street” (Irish Review, November 1912) and “The Avenger of Perdóndaris” (Irish Review, December 1912), both collected in Tales of Three Hemispheres (Boston: John W. Luce, 1919).
The stories in The Book of Wonder (London: William Heinemann, 1912) are generally parodies of Dunsany’s own earlier manner, with the exception of “The Bride of the Man-Horse” (Sketch, 1 February 1911), a splendid tale of heroic adventure.
1Probably an echo of Kurdistan, the region in the Middle East comprising portions of eastern Turkey, northeastern Syria, and northern Iraq and Iran.
2 Abana and Pharpar are rivers in Syria mentioned jointly in the Bible: “Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?” (2 Kings 5:12).
3 Nineveh was one of the capitals of Assyria, located on the east bank of the Tigris River near the modern city of Mosul, Iraq. It flourished from at least the eighteenth century B.C.E. to 612 B.C.E., when it fell to a combined force of Medes and Babylonians.
4 The reference is to proposition 13 in Book 1 of Euclid’s Elements.
5 Mount Etna, the highest active volcano in Europe, is in eastern Sicily, eighteen miles north of Catania. Stromboli is a volcano on an island of that name north of Sicily.
6 Bucephalus was Alexander the Great’s horse. It died in 326 B.C.E. while Alexander was in India. Saint George, the patron saint of England, probably flourished in the early fourth century C.E. He is reputed to have slain a dragon while astride a horse, although this legend dates no earlier than the twelfth century. Roland, the hero of the Song of Roland (a chanson de geste dating to the twelfth century), was reputedly Charlemagne’s nephew and rode into battle against the Saracens on a horse. Rosinante is Don Quixote’s horse.
7 Saladin (1138-1193) was sultan of Egypt and Syria. He defeated the Crusaders at Jerusalem in 1187. He was, however, unable to lift the siege of Acre in 1191, and the city fell to Christian forces commanded by Richard I, the Lion-Hearted (Coeur de Lion), king of England (1189-99). Richard was unsuccessful in attempts to recapture Jerusalem, and in 1192 he concluded a truce with Saladin. Paynims are pagans, heathens, or non-Christians in general.
8 Perhaps a reference to Dunsany’s unsuccessful attempt in 1906 to become a Conservative member of Parliament for the district of West Wiltshire; in a heavily Liberal district he lost by only 1,450 votes.
9 “And the twelve gates [of Heaven] were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass” (Revelation 21:21).
10 Hanwell is a northwestern suburb of London where Hanwell Asylum, a mental hospital, was established in 1831. It is now called St. Bernard’s Hospital.
11 Leviathan is a dragon or sea monster mentioned several times in the Old Testament (e.g., Job 41:1, Psalms 104:26).
III. PROSE POEMS
Much of Dunsany’s work, early and late, could be regarded as prose-poetic in its heavy use of metaphor, symbol, and rhythmic repetition, and its careful attention to cadence; but some works stand out as signal instances of prose poetry. A Dreamer’s Tales contains two such specimens, “Where the Tides Ebb and Flow” (Saturday Review, 2 May 1908) and “Carcassonne” (not published periodically). Dunsany’s finest prose poems are found in Fifty-one Tales (London: Elkin Mathews, 1915), most of which appeared in the Saturday Review from 1909 to 1913. Among the stories in this volume are “The Raft-Builders” (Saturday Review, 18 December 1909), “The Prayer of the Flowers” (Saturday Review, 18 December 1909), “The Workman” (Saturday Review, 26 March 1910), “Charon” (Saturday Review, 20 August 1910), “Roses” (Saturday Review, 31 December 1910), and “The City” (Saturday Review, 30 August 1913), many of which not merely predict, but welcome, the eventual extinction of the human race.
1Tyre is an ancient city on the Mediterranean Sea, located about forty-five miles southwest of Beirut, in what is now Lebanon. Established by the Phoenicians no later than the middle of the second millennium B.C.E., it developed into a powerful city-state. It was destroyed by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C.E., but later reemerged as an important port in Graeco-Roman times before being razed by the Muslims in 1291 C.E. Persepolis, located near the modern city of Shiraz, Iran, was founded around 515 B.C.E. by the Persian king Darius the Great as the center of his imperial cult. It was sacked and burned by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C.E.
2 In Greek myth, Charon is the ferryman who, for a fee, conveyed the spirits of the dead across the river Styx to their final resting place in the Underworld.
3 In Roman myth, Dis is the ruler of the Underworld, equivalent to the Greek Pluto.
4 Carcassonne is a city in southeastern France, lying on the Aude River. Founded by the Romans in the first century C.E. as Colonia Julia Carcaso, it was made into a fortress town by the Visigoths beginning in the fifth century. It features the finest surviving remains of medieval fortifications in Europe. It is still inhabited, with a population of about forty-five thousand. Dunsany’s introductory note to the story suggests that he was perhaps unaware of Carcassonne’s actual existence. The line of poetry Dunsany quotes is from Gustave Nadaud’s poem “Carcassonne” (1879), as translated by M. E. W. Sherwood.
5 “Leal” is an archaic variant of loyal.
IV. FANTASY AND REALITY
The Book of Wonder features a number of stories in which the conflict between fantasy and reality is the focus; two of the most poignant of these are “The Wonderful Window” (Saturday Review, 4 February 1911) and “The Coronation of Mr. Thomas Shap” (Sketch, 1 March 1911). The former tale was adapted much later as a play, Golden Dragon City, first produced on BBC radio on 17 September 1934 and included in Plays for Earth and Air (1937). The Last Book of Wonder (London: John W. Luce, 1916; London: Elkin Mathews, 1916 [as Tales of Wonder]) continues the theme in such tales as “The City on Mallington Moor” (Saturday Review, 7 June 1913), “The Bureau d’Echange de Maux” (Smart Set, January 1915), “The Exiles’ Club” (Smart Set, November 1915), and “Thirteen at Table” (not published periodically). “The Bureau d’Echange de Maux” became one of Dunsany’s most frequently reprinted stories, and was also adapted as a play, The Bureau de Change, first produced on BBC radio on 16 April 1934 and included in Plays for Earth and Air. Tales of Three Hemispheres is on the whole a disappointing collection of miscellaneous pieces marking the end of Dunsany’s early fantasy work, but it does contain the striking tale “The Last Dreams of Bwona Khobla” (Atlantic Monthly, September 1919), in which the power of the human imagination is stressed.
1See part 2, note 10.
2 Mallington Moor is imaginary, but the name is probably derived from East and West Malling, communities in Kent about ten miles from Dunsany’s home, Dunstall Priory, in Shoreham. The other places mentioned in the story—Lingwold, Tetherington, and Uthering—are also imaginary, but the first two are similar in form to actual places: Lingfield in Surrey, and Tytherington (the name of several towns in England, in Cheshire, Wiltshire, and elsewhere). Uthering may be Dunsany’s contraction for Wuthering.
3 Bromley is a parish in Kent, about ten miles southeast of central London. Sydenham is now a southeastern suburb of London, about three miles northwest of Bromley.
4 The medieval legend of the Flying Dutchman tells of a ship whose captain dared to sail around the Cape of Good Hope in the teeth of a storm. Warned by an angel to desist, the captain shot at and cursed the angel, thereby condemning himself and his crew to sail perpetually around the cape and lure other ships to their destruction.
5 In hunting jargon, a point is a straight cross-country run.
6 The reference is to Marc Antony’s monologue (“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears”) in act 3, scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, during which he frequently pauses to solicit responses from the “plebeians” he is addressing.
7 The Kikuyus are a Bantu-speaking people living in west-central Kenya.
8 The Carlton Club at 69 St. James’s Street in London was founded by Tory politicians in 1832. It remains an important social and political branch of the Conservative Party. Dunsany was in all likelihood a member.
V. JORKENS
The Travel Tales of Mr. Joseph Jorkens (London and New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1931) included the first thirteen of the adventures of the clubman Joseph Jorkens, and is probably the best of the five published Jorkens volumes. It contains the first Jorkens story, “The Tale of the Abu Laheeb” (Atlantic Monthly, July 1926), along with the bizarre and half-parodic science fiction tale “Our Distant Cousins” (Saturday Evening Post, 23 November 1929). The second Jorkens collection, Jorkens Remembers Africa (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1934; London: William Heinemann, 1934 [as Mr. Jorkens Remembers Africa]), contains a brooding horror tale, “The Walk to Lingham” (Life and Letters, [December 1933-January 1934]). Jorkens Has a Large Whiskey (London: Putnam, 1940) is the third Jorkens collection and contains “The Development of the Rillswood Estate” (Atlantic Monthly, October 1938), which might be considered a genial parody of Dunsany’s early tales of elves and sprites. The Fourth Book of Jorkens (London: Jarrolds, [1947]; Sauk City, Wis.: Arkham House, 1948), contains “A Life’s Work” (Modern Reading, 1945), a seemingly lighthearted tale that carries a grim message on the futility of human effort.
1Malakal is a city in south-central Sudan, on the right bank of the White Nile (Bahr el Jebel).
2 Kosti is a city in central Sudan, about 150 miles south of the nation’s capital, Khartoum (more properly El Khartûm).
3 The Bahr el Zeraf is a river in southern Sudan that emerges out of the White Nile and, flowing northward, empties back into the Nile near Malakal.
4 A dahabeeyah is a large sailing boat used by travelers on the Nile.
5 The Dinkas are an African people inhabiting the southern Sudan just west of the White Nile. They have occupied the region since about the tenth century C.E.
6 The Shilluk are an African people also occupying the western shore of the White Nile.
7 A shikari is a hunter or sportsman. The word is Urdu and entered English through the British colonization of India.
8 Imaginary. The first civil aerodrome in the London area was at Hounslow Heath (1919), followed by Croydon (1920).
9 Sir Jacob Epstein (1880-1959) was a British sculptor whose avant-garde public sculptures often provoked controversy. He executed a memorial to the author W. H. Hudson in Hyde Park in 1923-25, depicting the figure of Rima, the nature spirit who is the heroine of Hudson’s novel Green Mansions (1904). The sculpture’s overt sensuality provoked violent condemnation by the public as well as by such figures as Hilaire Belloc and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but was defended by Bernard Shaw, Sibyl Thorndike, and others. Dunsany was notoriously hostile to modern art; see his witty parody, “The Art of Longjuju,” Saturday Review 39, No. 51 (22 December 1956): 9, p. 9.
10 Dunsany refers to Edward Lear (1812-1888), the British author of nonsense verse. His late article “That Supresensical Lear,” New York Times Book Review, 19 July 1953, pp. 6, 22, is a parody of modern criticism in its pedantic analysis of a poem by Lear.
11 Dunsany’s devotion to dogs was lifelong. See his article “Tales about Dogs,” Tail-Wagger Magazine 23, no. 2 (February 1951): 28-30. In the play The Use of Man the dog displays an effusive and uncritical devotion to humanity: “He is man: that is enough. More is not needed. More could not be needed. All wisdom is in him. All his acts are just; terrible sometimes, but always just. No use can be asked of him, only to be man. Man he is. He is man. The supreme perfection of which life is capable. Man! Man! Man!” Plays for Earth and Air (London: William Heinemann, 1937), p. 59.
12 Eros is one of the largest asteroids in the asteroid belt lying between Mars and Jupiter. Its average radius is 4.3 miles. Its orbit is such that every thirty-one years it comes to within 14 million miles of Earth.
13 Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, freiherr von Münchhausen (1720- 1797) was a German officer and hunter who became celebrated as the teller of eccentric and implausible stories of his adventures. They first appeared in English as Baron Münchhausen’s Narrative of His Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia (1785), compiled by R. E. Raspe.
14 Imaginary. Dunsany may have devised this name not only because it is a plausible-sounding English name (there is a Ling-wood in Norfolk) but because there is a pun on the Latin word lignum (wood).
15 Camille Corot (1796-1875), French landscape painter, chiefly in the naturalist tradition.
VI. SOME LATE TALES
Dunsany gathered some of his later tales in two collections, the first of which is The Man Who Ate the Phoenix (London: Jarrolds, [1949]), which contains “The Policeman’s Prophecy” (Fortnightly Review, January 1930), “The Cut” (a story read by Dunsany on BBC radio on 1 November 1936; published in the Listener, 4 November 1936), and “Poseidon” (Spectator, 13 June 1941). The Little Tales of Smethers and Other Stories (London: Jarrolds, 1952) contains the half-parodic detective tales narrated by the self-effacing Smethers, the first of which is “The Two Bottles of Relish” (Time and Tide, 12 and 19 November 1932), as well as other non-Smethers stories, one of the most delightful of which is “The Pirate of the Round Pond” (not published periodically). But dozens of Dunsany’s tales, early and late, remain uncollected; two of the best of them are “Helping the Fairies” (Strand Magazine, May-June 1947) and “The Romance of His Life” (Harper’s Bazaar, March 1952). The latter suggests the shrewdness of Dunsany’s analysis of human character in a tale that bears not even the faintest trace of fantasy and yet retains the delicacy and wistfulness that typify the entirety of his work.
1Dunsany was one of the greatest amateur chess players of his day, once playing the celebrated champion J. R. Capablanca to a draw. He published many chess problems in the Times Literary Supplement.
2Crab, in this sense, is British slang (dating to c. 1890) for the act of finding fault with something or someone.
3 Sevenoaks is a town in Kent, twenty-two miles southeast of London, and the nearest town of any considerable size to Dunsany’s home in Shoreham, being about five miles south of Dunstall Priory.
4 Cf. the play Mr. Faithful, in which a man, Dick Johnson, desperate for work takes up a “job” as a watchdog: “JAGGERS: Collar comfortable, Captain Johnson? DICK: Not really. The great thing is it’s white. I insisted on having it enamelled white. So much seems to depend on a white collar.” Mr. Faithful (New York: Samuel French, 1935), p. 44.
5 An imaginary but plausible-sounding Irish name: rath means “fort” in Irish.
6 Blackheath is a suburb in southeast London. A railway station opened there in 1849. It was a popular place for musical and other entertainments, chiefly at the Rink Hall, which opened in 1870.
7 The Round Pond is a nearly circular pond, about three hundred by two hundred yards in dimensions, in the western part of Kensington Gardens in the Kensington district of western London. Built in 1728, it long remained popular as a place for sailing model boats.
8 A deliberate misquotation of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798), ll. 446-51: “Like one, that on a lonesome road / Doth walk in fear and dread, / And having turned round walks on, / And turns no more his head; / Because he knows, a frightful fiend / Doth close behind him tread.”
Comments