ever you want to insure--life, fire, or motor--but that's no part of my
story. I was desperately anxious to get back to my flat, though it is not
good to take hashish two days running; but I wanted to see what they would
do to the poor fellow, for I had heard bad rumours about Thuba Mleen. When
at last I got away I had a letter to write; then I rang for my servant,
and told him that I must not be disturbed, though I left my door unlocked
in case of accidents. After that I made up a good fire, and sat down and
partook of the pot of dreams. I was going to the palace of Thuba Mleen.
"I was kept back longer than usual by noises in the street, but suddenly I
was up above the town; the European countries rushed by beneath me, and
there appeared the thin white palace spires of horrible Thuba Mleen. I
found him presently at the end of a little narrow room. A curtain of red
leather hung behind him, on which all the names of God, written in
Yannish, were worked with a golden thread. Three windows were small and
high. The Emperor seemed no more than about twenty, and looked small and
weak. No smiles came on his nasty yellow face, though he tittered
continually. As I looked from his low forehead to his quivering under lip,
I became aware that there was some horror about him, though I was not able
to perceive what it was. And then I saw it--the man never blinked; and
though later on I watched those eyes for a blink, it never happened once.
"And then I followed the Emperor's rapt glance, and I saw the sailor lying
on the floor, alive but hideously rent, and the royal torturers were at
work all round him. They had torn long strips from him, but had not
detached them, and they were torturing the ends of them far away from the
sailor." The man that I met at dinner told me many things which I must
omit. "The sailor was groaning softly, and every time he groaned Thuba
Mleen tittered. I had no sense of smell, but I could hear and see, and I
do not know which was the most revolting--the terrible condition of the
sailor or the happy unblinking face of horrible Thuba Mleen.
"I wanted to go away, but the time was not yet come, and I had to stay
where I was.
"Suddenly the Emperor's face began to twitch violently and his under lip
quivered faster, and he whimpered with anger, and cried with a shrill
voice, in Yannish, to the captain of his torturers that there was a spirit
in the room. I feared not, for living men cannot lay hands on a spirit,
but all the torturers were appalled at his anger, and stopped their work,
for their hands trembled in fear. Then two men of the spear-guard slipped
from the room, and each of them brought back presently a golden bowl, with
knobs on it, full of hashish; and the bowls were large enough for heads to
have floated in had they been filled with blood. And the two men fell to
rapidly, each eating with two great spoons--there was enough in each
spoonful to have given dreams to a hundred men. And there came upon them
soon the hashish state, and their spirits hovered, preparing to go free,
while I feared horribly, but ever and anon they fell back again to their
bodies, recalled by some noise in the room. Still the men ate, but lazily
now, and without ferocity. At last the great spoons dropped out of their
hands, and their spirits rose and left them. I could not flee. And the
spirits were more horrible than the men, because they were young men, and
not yet wholly moulded to fit their fearful souls. Still the sailor
groaned softly, evoking little titters from the Emperor Thuba Mleen. Then
the two spirits rushed at me, and swept me thence as gusts of wind sweep
butterflies, and away we went from that small, pale, heinous man. There
was no escaping from these spirits' fierce insistence. The energy in my
minute lump of the drug was overwhelmed by the huge spoonsful that these
men had eaten with both hands. I was whirled over Arvle Woondery, and
brought to the lands of Snith, and swept on still until I came to Kragua,
and beyond this to those bleak lands that are nearly unknown to fancy. And
we came at last to those ivory hills that are named the Mountains of
Madness, and I tried to struggle against the spirits of that frightful
Emperor's men, for I heard on the other side of the ivory hills the
pittering of those beasts that prey on the mad, as they prowled up and
down. It was no fault of mine that my little lump of hashish could not
fight with their horrible spoonsful...."
Some one was tugging at the hall-door bell. Presently a servant came and
told our host that a policeman in the hall wished to speak to him at once.
He apologised to us, and went outside, and we heard a man in heavy boots,
who spoke in a low voice to him. My friend got up and walked over to the
window, and opened it, and looked outside. "I should think it will be a
fine night," he said. Then he jumped out. When we put our astonished heads
out of the window to look for him, he was already out of sight.
POOR OLD BILL
On an antique haunt of sailors, a tavern of the sea, the light of day was
fading. For several evenings I had frequented this place, in the hope of
hearing something from the sailors, as they sat over strange wines, about
a rumour that had reached my ears of a certain fleet of galleons of old
Spain still said to be afloat in the South Seas in some uncharted region.
In this I was again to be disappointed. Talk was low and seldom, and I was
about to leave, when a sailor, wearing ear-rings of pure gold, lifted up
his head from his wine, and looking straight before him at the wall, told
his tale loudly:
(When later on a storm of rain arose and thundered on the tavern's leaded
panes, he raised his voice without effort and spoke on still. The darker
it got the clearer his wild eyes shone.)
"A ship with sails of the olden time was nearing fantastic isles. We had
never seen such isles.
"We all hated the captain, and he hated us. He hated us all alike, there
was no favouritism about him. And he never would talk a word with any of
us, except sometimes in the evening when it was getting dark he would stop
and look up and talk a bit to the men he had hanged at the yard-arm.
"We were a mutinous crew. But Captain was the only man that had pistols.
He slept with one under his pillow and kept one close beside him. There
was a nasty look about the isles. They were small and flat as though they
had come up only recently from the sea, and they had no sand or rocks like
honest isles, but green grass down to the water. And there were little
cottages there whose looks we did not like. Their thatches came almost
down to the ground, and were strangely turned up at the corners, and under
the low eaves were queer dark windows whose little leaded panes were too
thick to see through. And no one, man or beast, was walking about, so that
you could not know what kind of people lived there. But Captain knew. And
he went ashore and into one of the cottages, and someone lit lights
inside, and the little windows wore an evil look.
"It was quite dark when he came aboard again, and he bade a cheery
good-night to the men that swung from the yard-arm and he eyed us in a way
that frightened poor old Bill.
"Next night we found that he had learned to curse, for he came on a lot of
us asleep in our bunks, and among them poor old Bill, and he pointed at us
with a finger, and made a curse that our souls should stay all night at
the top of the masts. And suddenly there was the soul of poor old Bill
sitting like a monkey at the top of the mast, and looking at the stars,
and freezing through and through.
"We got up a little mutiny after that, but Captain comes up and points
with his finger again, and this time poor old Bill and all the rest are
swimming behind the ship through the cold green water, though their bodies
remain on deck.
"It was the cabin-boy who found out that Captain couldn't curse when he
was drunk, though he could shoot as well at one time as another.
"After that it was only a matter of waiting, and of losing two men when
the time came. Some of us were murderous fellows, and wanted to kill
Captain, but poor old Bill was for finding a bit of an island, out of the
track of ships, and leaving him there with his share of our year's
provisions. And everybody listened to poor old Bill, and we decided to
maroon Captain as soon as we caught him when he couldn't curse.
"It was three whole days before Captain got drunk again, and poor old Bill
and all had a dreadful time, for Captain invented new curses every day,
and wherever he pointed his finger our souls had to go; and the fishes got
to know us, and so did the stars, and none of them pitied us when we froze
on the masts or were hurried through forests of seaweed and lost our
way--both stars and fishes went about their businesses with cold,
unastonished eyes. Once when the sun had set and it was twilight, and the
moon was showing clearer and clearer in the sky, and we stopped our work
for a moment because Captain seemed to be looking away from us at the
colours in the sky, he suddenly turned and sent our souls to the Moon. And
it was colder there than ice at night; and there were horrible mountains
making shadows; and it was all as silent as miles of tombs; and Earth was
shining up in the sky as big as the blade of a scythe, and we all got
homesick for it, but could not speak nor cry. It was quite dark when we
got back, and we were very respectful to Captain all the next day, but he
cursed several of us again very soon. What we all feared most was that he
would curse our souls to Hell, and none of us mentioned Hell above a
whisper for fear that it should remind him. But on the third evening the
cabin-boy came and told us that Captain was drunk. And we all went to his
cabin, and we found him lying there across his bunk, and he shot as he had
never shot before; but he had no more than the two pistols, and he would
only have killed two men if he hadn't caught Joe over the head with the
end of one of his pistols. And then we tied him up. And poor old Bill put
the rum between the Captain's teeth, and kept him drunk for two days, so
that he could not curse, till we found a convenient rock. And before
sunset of the second day we found a nice bare island for Captain, out of
the track of ships, about a hundred yards long and about eighty wide; and
we rowed him along to it in a little boat, and gave him provisions for a
year, the same as we had ourselves, because poor old Bill wanted to be
fair. And we left him sitting comfortable with his back to a rock singing
a sailor's song.
"When we could no longer hear Captain singing we all grew very cheerful
and made a banquet out of our year's provisions, as we all hoped to be
home again in under three weeks. We had three great banquets every day for
a week--every man had more than he could eat, and what was left over we
threw on the floor like gentlemen. And then one day, as we saw San
Huëgédos, and wanted to sail in to spend our money, the wind changed round
from behind us and beat us out to sea. There was no tacking against it,
and no getting into the harbour, though other ships sailed by us and
anchored there. Sometimes a dead calm would fall on us, while fishing
boats all around us flew before half a gale, and sometimes the wind would
beat us out to sea when nothing else was moving. All day we tried, and at
night we laid to and tried again the next day. And all the sailors of the
other ships were spending their money in San Huëgédos and we could not
come nigh it. Then we spoke horrible things against the wind and against
San Huëgédos, and sailed away.
"It was just the same at Norenna.
"We kept close together now and talked in low voices. Suddenly poor old
Bill grew frightened. As we went all along the Siractic coast-line, we
tried again and again, and the wind was waiting for us in every harbour
and sent us out to sea. Even the little islands would not have us. And
then we knew that there was no landing yet for poor old Bill, and every
one upbraided his kind heart that had made them maroon Captain on a rock,
so as not to have his blood upon their heads. There was nothing to do but
to drift about the seas. There were no banquets now, because we feared
that Captain might live his year and keep us out to sea.
"At first we used to hail all passing ships, and used to try to board them
in the boats; but there was no towing against Captain's curse, and we had
to give that up. So we played cards for a year in Captain's cabin, night
and day, storm and fine, and every one promised to pay poor old Bill when
we got ashore.
"It was horrible to us to think what a frugal man Captain really was, he
that used to get drunk every other day whenever he was at sea, and here he
was still alive, and sober too, for his curse still kept us out of every
port, and our provisions were gone.
"Well, it came to drawing lots, and Jim was the unlucky one. Jim only kept
us about three days, and then we drew lots again, and this time it was the
nigger. The nigger didn't keep us any longer, and we drew again, and this
time it was Charlie, and still Captain was alive.
"As we got fewer one of us kept us longer. Longer and longer a mate used
to last us, and we all wondered how ever Captain did it. It was five weeks
over the year when we drew Mike, and he kept us for a week, and Captain
was still alive. We wondered he didn't get tired of the same old curse;
but we supposed things looked different when one is alone on an island.
"When there was only Jakes and poor old Bill and the cabin-boy and Dick,
we didn't draw any longer. We said that the cabin-boy had had all the
luck, and he mustn't expect any more. Then poor old Bill was alone with
Jakes and Dick, and Captain was still alive. When there was no more boy,
and the Captain still alive, Dick, who was a huge strong man like poor old
Bill, said that it was Jakes' turn, and he was very lucky to have lived as
long as he had. But poor old Bill talked it all over with Jakes, and they
thought it better than Dick should take his turn.
"Then there was Jakes and poor old Bill; and Captain would not die.
"And these two used to watch one another night and day, when Dick was gone
and no one else was left to them. And at last poor old Bill fell down in a
faint and lay there for an hour. Then Jakes came up to him slowly with his
knife, and makes a stab at poor old Bill as he lies there on the deck. And
poor old Bill caught hold of him by the wrist, and put his knife into him
twice to make quite sure, although it spoiled the best part of the meat.
Then poor old Bill was all alone at sea.
"And the very next week, before the food gave out, Captain must have died
on his bit of an island; for poor old Bill heard the Captain's soul going
cursing over the sea, and the day after that the ship was cast on a rocky
coast.
"And Captain's been dead now for over a hundred years, and poor old Bill
is safe ashore again. But it looks as if Captain hadn't done with him yet,
for poor old Bill doesn't ever get any older, and somehow or other he
doesn't seem to die. Poor old Bill!"
When this was over the man's fascination suddenly snapped, and we all
jumped up and left him.
It was not only his revolting story, but it was the fearful look in the
eyes of the man who told it, and the terrible ease with which his voice
surpassed the roar of the rain, that decided me never again to enter that
haunt of sailors--the tavern of the sea.
THE BEGGARS
I was walking down Piccadilly not long ago, thinking of nursery rhymes and
regretting old romance.
As I saw the shopkeepers walk by in their black frock-coats and their
black hats, I thought of the old line in nursery annals: "The merchants of
London, they wear scarlet."
The streets were all so unromantic, dreary. Nothing could be done for
them, I thought--nothing. And then my thoughts were interrupted by barking
dogs. Every dog in the street seemed to be barking--every kind of dog, not
only the little ones but the big ones too. They were all facing East
towards the way I was coming by. Then I turned round to look and had this
vision, in Piccadilly, on the opposite side to the houses just after you
pass the cab-rank.
Tall bent men were coming down the street arrayed in marvelous cloaks. All
were sallow of skin and swarthy of hair, and most of them wore strange
beards. They were coming slowly, and they walked with staves, and their
hands were out for alms.
All the beggars had come to town.
I would have given them a gold doubloon engraven with the towers of
Castile, but I had no such coin. They did not seem the people to who it
were fitting to offer the same coin as one tendered for the use of a
taxicab (O marvelous, ill-made word, surely the pass-word somewhere of
some evil order). Some of them wore purple cloaks with wide green borders,
and the border of green was a narrow strip with some, and some wore cloaks
of old and faded red, and some wore violet cloaks, and none wore black.
And they begged gracefully, as gods might beg for souls.
I stood by a lamp-post, and they came up to it, and one addressed it,
calling the lamp-post brother, and said, "O lamp-post, our brother of the
dark, are there many wrecks by thee in the tides of night? Sleep not,
brother, sleep not. There were many wrecks an it were not for thee."
It was strange: I had not thought of the majesty of the street lamp and
his long watching over drifting men. But he was not beneath the notice of
these cloaked strangers.
And then one murmured to the street: "Art thou weary, street? Yet a little
longer they shall go up and down, and keep thee clad with tar and wooden
bricks. Be patient, street. In a while the earthquake cometh."
"Who are you?" people said. "And where do you come from?"
"Who may tell what we are," they answered, "or whence we come?"
And one turned towards the smoke-stained houses, saying, "Blessed be the
houses, because men dream therein."
Then I perceived, what I had never thought, that all these staring houses
were not alike, but different one from another, because they held
different dreams.
And another turned to a tree that stood by the Green Park railings,
saying, "Take comfort, tree, for the fields shall come again."
And all the while the ugly smoke went upwards, the smoke that has stifled
Romance and blackened the birds. This, I thought, they can neither praise
nor bless. And when they saw it they raised their hands towards it,
towards the thousand chimneys, saying, "Behold the smoke. The old
coal-forests that have lain so long in the dark, and so long still, are
dancing now and going back to the sun. Forget not Earth, O our brother,
and we wish thee joy of the sun."
It had rained, and a cheerless stream dropped down a dirty gutter. It had
come from heaps of refuse, foul and forgotten; it had gathered upon its
way things that were derelict, and went to somber drains unknown to man or
the sun. It was this sullen stream as much as all other causes that had
made me say in my heart that the town was vile, that Beauty was dead in
it, and Romance fled.
Even this thing they blessed. And one that wore a purple cloak with broad
green border, said, "Brother, be hopeful yet, for thou shalt surely come
at last to the delectable Sea, and meet the heaving, huge, and travelled
ships, and rejoice by isles that know the golden sun." Even thus they
blessed the gutter, and I felt no whim to mock.
And the people that went by, in their black unseemly coats and their
misshapen, monstrous, shiny hats, the beggars also blessed. And one of
them said to one of these dark citizens: "O twin of Night himself, with
thy specks of white at wrist and neck like to Night's scattered stars. How
fearfully thou dost veil with black thy hid, unguessed desires. They are
deep thoughts in thee that they will not frolic with colour, that they say
'No' to purple, and to lovely green 'Begone.' Thou hast wild fancies that
they must needs be tamed with black, and terrible imaginings that they
must be hidden thus. Has thy soul dreams of the angels, and of the walls
of faëry that thou hast guarded it so utterly, lest it dazzle astonished
eyes? Even so God hid the diamond deep down in miles of clay.
"The wonder of thee is not marred by mirth.
"Behold thou art very secret.
"Be wonderful. Be full of mystery."
Silently the man in the black frock-coat passed on. And I came to
understand when the purple beggar had spoken, that the dark citizen had
trafficked perhaps with Ind, that in his heart were strange and dumb
ambitions; that his dumbness was founded by solemn rite on the roots of
ancient tradition; that it might be overcome one day by a cheer in the
street or by some one singing a song, and that when this shopman spoke
there might come clefts in the world and people peering over at the abyss.
Then turning towards Green Park, where as yet Spring was not, the beggars
stretched out their hands, and looking at the frozen grass and the yet
unbudding trees they, chanting all together, prophesied daffodils.
A motor omnibus came down the street, nearly running over some of the dogs
that were barking ferociously still. It was sounding its horn noisily.
And the vision went then.
_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." I
do not know the origin of the line, but I made this tale about it._
CARCASSONNE
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 cliffs 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 all was
roofed with red, maternal earth.
If old songs may be trusted, it was a marvelous 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 described
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, 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 light are
the swift commands of his King, and a joy to him are his comrades' instant
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.