“Once upon a time,” said Bevis, closing his eyes now, “there was a great
traveller who went sailing all round every sea--”
“Except the New Sea,” said Mark.
“Yes, except the New Sea which we found, and went riding over all the
lands and countries, and climbing up all the mountains, and tramping
through all the forests, and shooting the elephants and Indians and
sticking pigs, and skinning boa-constrictors, and finding magicians--”
“What did the magicians do?”
“O! they did nothing very particular, one turned himself into a tree and
was chopped up and burned in a bonfire and walked out of the smoke, and
little things like that; and he went spying everywhere, and learned
everything, and--”
“Go on--what next?”
“He went on till he said it was all no good, because if you went into
the biggest forest that ever was you walked through it in about three
years--”
“Like they did through Africa?”
“Just like it; and if you climbed up a mountain, after a day or two you
got to the top; and if you sailed across the sea, if it was the greatest
sea there ever was, you came to the other side in six months or so; so
that it did not matter what you did, there was always an end to it.”
“Very stupid.”
“Very stupid, very; and he got tired of it always coming to the other
side. He did so hate the other side, and he used to dawdle through the
forests and lose his way, and he used to pull down the sails and let the
ship go anyhow, and never touch the helm. But it was no use he always
dawdled through the forest after awhile, and--”
“The wind always took the ship somewhere.”
“Yes, to the hateful other side, and he got so miserable and what to do
he did not know, and he could not stop still very well--nobody can stop
still--and that’s why people have got a way of spinning on their heels
in some countries, I forget their names--”
“Dervishes?”
“Dervishes of course; well, he became a Dervish, and used to spin round
and round furiously, but you know a top always runs down, and so he got
to the other side again.”
“Stupid.”
“Awful stupid. Now tell me what else he did and could not help coming
to the other side?” said Bevis.
“But it’s you who are telling the story.”
“O! but you can put some of that in.”
“Well,” said Mark, “if you walk across this island, you come to the
other side, or sail down the New Sea in the Pinta, or if you swim out to
Serendib, or if you climb up the fir-tree to the cones--”
“Always the other side,” continued Bevis, “and so he said that this was
such a little world he hated it, you could go all round the earth and
come back to yourself and meet yourself in your own house at home in no
time.”
“It’s not very big, is it?” said Mark. “Nothing is very big that you
could go round like that.”
“No, and the quicker you get round the smaller it is, though it’s
thousands and thousands of miles, so he said; and so he set out again to
find a place where he could wander and never get to the other side, and
after he had walked across Persia and Khorasan and Beloochistan--”
“And Afghanistan?”
“Yes, and crossed the Indus and Ganges, and been over the Himalayas, and
inquired at every temple and of all the wise men who live in caves and
hang themselves up with hooks stuck through their backs--”
“Fakirs.”
“At last a very old man took pity on him, seeing how miserable he was,
and whispered to him where to go, and so he went on--”
“Where?”
“To Thibet.”
“But nobody is allowed to enter Thibet.”
“No; but he had the pass-word, which the aged man whispered to him, and
so they let him come in, and then he wandered about again for a long
while, and by this time he was getting very old himself and could not
walk so fast, so that it took longer and longer to get to the other side
each time. Till at last, inquiring at all the temples as he went, they
promised to show him a forest to which there was no other side. But he
had to bathe and be purified first, and they burned incense and did a
lot of magical things--”
“In circles?”
“I suppose so. And then one night in the darkness, so that he should
not see which way they went, they led him along, and in the morning he
was in a very narrow valley with a wall across so that you could not go
any farther down the valley, nor could you climb up, because the rocks
were so steep. Now, when they came to the wall he saw a little narrow
bronze door in it--very low and very narrow--and the door was all
covered with carvings and curious inscriptions--”
“Magic?”
“Yes, very magic. And the man who showed it to him, and who wore a
crimson robe, over which his white beard flowed nearly down to the
ground--I am sure that is right, flowed nearly down to the ground, that
is just what my grandpa said--the old man went to the door and spoke to
it in some language he did not understand and a voice answered, and then
he saw the door open a little way, just a chink. Then he had to go on
his hands and knees, and press his head and neck through the chink
between the bronze door and the wall, and he could see over the country
which has no other side to it. Though you may wander straight on for a
thousand years, or ten thousand years, you can never get to the other
side, but you always go on, and go on, and go on--”
“And what was it like?”
“Well, the air was so clear that he was certain he could see over at
least a hundred miles of the plain, just as you can see over twenty
miles of sea from the top of a cliff. But this was not a cliff, it was
a level plain, and he could see at least a hundred miles. Now, behind
him he had left the sun shining brightly, and he could feel the hot
sunshine on his back--”
“Just as I did on my foot while I was fishing in the shadow?”
“Very likely--he could feel the hot sunshine on his back. But inside
the wall there was no sun--”
“No sun?”
“No. Ever so far away, hung up as our sun looks hung up like a lamp
when you are on the hill by Jack’s house--ever so far away and not so
very high up, there was an opal star. It was a very large star and so
bright that you could see the beams of light shooting out from it, but
so soft and gentle and pleasant that you could look straight at it
without hurting your eyes, and see the flashes change exactly like an
opal--a beautiful great opal star. All the air seemed full of the soft
light from the star, so that the trees and plants and the ground even
seemed to float in it, just like an island seems to float in the water
when it is very still, and there was no shadow--”
“_No_ shadow?”
“No. Nothing cast any shadow, because the light came all round
everything, and he put his hand out into it and it did not cast any
shadow, but instead his hand looked transparent, and as if there was a
light underneath it--”
“Go on.”
“And among the trees,” said Bevis, pouring out the story from his memory
word for word, exactly as he had heard it, like water from a pitcher
filled at the spring, “among the trees the blue sky came down and they
stood in it, just close by you could not see it, but farther off it was
blue like a mist in the forest, only you could see through it and it
shimmered blue like the blue-bells in the copse.
“He could see thousands of flowers, but he forgot what they were like
except one which was like a dome of gold and larger than any temple he
had ever seen. The grass grew up round it so tall he could not see the
stalk, so that it looked as if it hung from the sky, and though it was
gold he could see through it and see the blue the other side which
looked purple through the gold, and the opal star was reflected on the
dome. Nor could he remember all about the trees, having so much to look
at, except one with a jointed stem like a bamboo which grew not far from
the bronze door. This one rose up, up, till he could not strain his
neck back to see to the top, and it was as large round as our round
summer-house at home, but transparent, so that you could see the sap
bubbling and rushing up inside in a running stream, and a sweet odour
came down like rain from the boughs above.
“Now, while he was straining his neck to try and see the top of this
tree, as his eyes were turned away from the opal sun, he could see the
stars of heaven, and immediately heard the flute of an organ. For these
stars--which were like our stars--were not scattered about, but built up
in golden pipes or tubes; there were twelve tubes, all of stars, one
larger than the other, and behind these other pipes, and behind these
others tier on tier. Only there were twelve in front, the rest he could
not count, and it was from these that the flute sound came and filled
him with such transport that he quite forgot himself, and only lived in
the music. At last his neck wearied of looking up, and he looked down
again, and instantly he did not hear the starry organ, but saw instead
the opal sun, and the shimmering sky among the trees.
“From the bronze door there was a footpath leading out, out, winding a
little, but always out and out, and so clear was the air, that though it
was only a footpath, he could trace it for nearly half the hundred miles
he could see. The footpath was strewn with leaves fallen from the
trees, oval-pointed leaves, some were crimson, and some were gold, and
some were black, and all had marks on them.
“One of these was lying close to the bronze door, and as he had put his
hand through, as you know, he stretched himself and reached it, and when
he held it up the light of the opal sun came through it--it was
transparent--and he could see words written on it which he read, and
they told him the secret of the tree from which it had fallen.
“Now, all these leaves that were strewn on the footpath each of them had
a secret written on it--a magic secret about the trees, and the plants,
and the birds, and the stars, and the opal sun--every one had a magic
secret on it, and you might go on first picking up one and then another,
till you had travelled a hundred miles, and then another hundred miles,
a thousand years, or ten thousand years, and there was always a fresh
secret and a fresh leaf.
“Or you might sit down under one of the trees whose branches came to the
ground like the weeping ash at home, or you might climb up into
another--but no matter how, if you took hold of the leaves and turned
them aside, so that the light of the opal sun came through, you could
read a magic secret on every one, and it would take you fifty years to
read one tree. Some of the leaves strewed the footpath, and some lay on
the grass, and some floated on the water, but they did not decay, and
the one he held in his hand went throb, throb, like the pulse in your
wrist.
“And from secret to secret you might wander, always a new secret, till
you went beyond the horizon, and then there was another horizon, and
after that another, and you could go on and on, and on, and though you
could walk for ever without weariness, because the air was so pure and
delicious, still you could never, never, never get to the other side.
“Some have been walking there these millions of years, and some have
been sitting up in the trees, and some have been lying under the golden
dome flowers all that time, and never found and never will find the
other side, which is why they are so happy. They do not sleep, because
they never feel sleepy; they just turn over from the opal sun and look
up at the stars and then the music begins, and as it plays they become
strong, and then they go on again gathering more of the leaves, and
travelling towards the opal sun, and the nearer they get the happier
they are, and yet they can never get to it.
“While he looked he felt as if he must get through and go on too, and he
struggled and struggled, but the bronze door was hard and the wall hard,
so that it was no use. His mind though and soul had gone through; and
he saw a white shoulder, like alabaster, pure, white, and transparent
among the grass by the golden dome flower, and a white arm stretched out
towards him, so white it gleamed polished, and a white hand, soft,
warm-looking, delicious, transparent white, beckoning to him. So he
struggled and struggled till it seemed as if he would get through to his
soul, which had gone on down the footpath, when the aged man behind
dragged him back, and the bronze door shut with an awful resonance--”
“What was that?”
“Hark!”
“Hark!”
Mark seized his spear; Bevis his bow.
“Is it something coming from the wave?”
“No, it’s in the sky.”
“Listen!”
There was a whirr above like wheels in the air, and a creaking sound
with it. They stood up, but could not see what it was, though it grew
louder and came nearer with a rushing noise. Suddenly something white
appeared above the trees which had concealed its approach, and a swan
passed over descending. It was the noise of its wings and their
creaking which sounded like wheels. The great bird descended aslant
quite a quarter of a mile into the water to the south in front of them,
and there floated among the glittering ripples.
“I thought it was the roc,” said Mark, sitting down again.
“Or a genie,” said Bevis. “What a creaking and whirring it made!”
Rooks’ wings often creak as they go over like stiff leather, but the
noise of a swan’s flight is audible a mile or more.
“Go on with the story,” said Mark.
“It’s finished.”
“But what did he do when they pulled him back? Didn’t he burst the door
open?”
“He couldn’t. When he was pulled back it was night on that side of the
wall, and the sudden change made him so bewildered that they led him
away as if he was walking in his sleep down to the temple.”
“What did he do with the magic leaf he had in his hand?”
“O! the wind of the bronze door as it slammed up blew it out of his
hand. But when he came to himself and began to reproach them for
pulling him away before he had had time even to look, they told him he
had been looking three days and that it was the third night when the
door was shut--”
“I see--it went so quick.”
“It went so quick, like when you go to sleep and wake up next minute,
and it’s morning. But when he came to himself he found that his right
hand which he had put through and which had cast no shadow was changed,
it was white and smooth and soft, while the other hand and his face (as
he was so old) was wrinkled and hard, so he was quite sure that what he
had seen was real and true.”
“Didn’t he try to go back and find the door.”
“Of course he did. But there was nothing but jungle, and he could not
find the narrow valley; nor would they show him the way there again.
They told him that only one was let through about every thousand years,
and the reason they are so careful people shall not enter Thibet is that
they may not stumble on the bronze door.”
“And what became of him?”
“O! he lived to be the oldest man there ever was, which was because he
had breathed the delicious air, and his hand was always white and soft
like Frances’s. Every night when he went to sleep, he could hear some
of the star flute music of the organ, and dreamed he could see it; but
he could hear it plainly. At last he died and went to join his soul,
which had travelled on down the footpath, you know, towards the opal
sun.”
“How stupid to keep the door shut, and never let any one find it!”
“Ah, but don’t you see the reason is because if it was open and people
could find it, they would all run there and squeeze through, one after
the other, like sheep through a gap, till the world was left empty
without anybody in it, and they told him that was the reason. Grandpa
says it is a pleasant thought that at least one goes through in a
thousand years; if only one, that is something. My grandpa told me the
story, and the son of the man told him--I mean the man who just looked
through, or else it was his grandson or his great-great-grandson, for I
know it was a long time ago. And there is no other side to that place.”
“Let’s go there,” said Mark, after a pause, “you and me, and take some
powder and blow the door open.”
“If we could find it.”
“O! we could find it; let’s go to Thibet.”
“So we will.”
“And blow the bronze door open.”
“And read the magic leaves.”
“And go on down the footpath.”
“And talk to the people under the golden dome flowers.”
“I’m sure _we_ could find the door.”
“We _will_ find it.”
“Very soon.”
“Some day.”
Watching the swan among the glittering ripples, they cracked the rest of
the nuts, and did not get up to go till the sun was getting low. It was
not a wild swan, but one whose feathers had not been clipped. The wind
rose a little, and sighed dreamily through the tops of the tall firs as
they walked under them. They returned along the shore where the weeds
came to the island, and had gone some way, when Mark suddenly caught
hold of Bevis and drew him behind a bush.
Volume Three, Chapter VI.