It was long enough since I had found leisure for a parcel of sleep,
and so during the larger part of that day I am free to confess that I
slumbered soundly, Nais watching me. Night fell, and still we remained
within the privacy of the temple. It was our plan that I should stay
there till the camp slept, and so I should have more chance of reaching
the sea without disturbance.
The night came down wet, with a drizzle of rain, and through the slits
in the temple walls we could see the many fires in the camp well cared
for, the men and women in skins and rags toasting before them, with
steam rising as the heat fought with their wetness. Folk seated in
discomfort like this are proverbially alert and cruel in the temper, and
Nais frowned as she looked on the inclemency of the weather.
“A fine night,” she said, “and I would have sent my lord back to the
city without a soul here being the wiser; but in this chill, people
sleep sourly. We must wait till the hour drugs them sounder.”
And so we waited, sitting there together on that pavement so long
unkissed by worshippers, and it was little enough we said aloud. But
there can be good companionship without sentences of talk.
But as the hours drew on, the night began to grow less quiet. From the
distance some one began to blow on a horn or a shell, sending forth a
harsh raucous note incessantly. The sound came nearer, as we could tell
from its growing loudness, and the voices of those by the fires made
themselves heard, railing at the blower for his disturbance. And
presently it became stationary, and standing up we could see through the
slits in the walls the people of the camp rousing up from their uneasy
rest, and clustering together round one who stood and talked to them
from the pedestal of a war engine.
What he was declaiming upon we could not hear, and our curiosity on
the matter was not keen. Given that all who did not sleep went to weary
themselves with this fellow, as Nais whispered, it would be simple for
me to make an exit in the opposite direction.
But here we were reckoning without the inevitable busybody. A dozen
pairs of feet splashing through the wet came up to the side of the
little temple, and cried loudly that Nais should join the audience. She
had eloquence of tongue, it appeared, and they feared lest this speaker
who had taken his stand on the war engine should make schisms amongst
their ranks unless some skilled person stood up also to refute his
arguments.
Here, then, it seemed to me that I must be elbowed into my skirmish by
the most unexpected of chances, but Nais was firmly minded that there
should be no fight, if courage on her part could turn it. “Come out with
me,” she whispered, “and keep distant from the light of the fires.”
“But how explain my being here?”
“There is no reason to explain anything,” she said bitterly. “They will
take you for my lover. There is nothing remarkable in that: it is the
mode here. But oh, why did not the Gods make you wear a beard, and curl
it, even as other men? Then you could have been gone and safe these two
hours.”
“A smooth chin pleases me better.”
“So it does me,” I heard her murmur as she leaned her weight on the
stone which hung in the doorway, and pushed it ajar; “your chin.” The
ragged men outside--there were women with them also--did not wait to
watch me very closely. A coarse jest or two flew (which I could have
found good heart to have repaid with a sword-thrust) and they stepped
off into the darkness, just turning from time to time to make sure we
followed. On all sides others were pressing in the same direction--black
shadows against the night; the rain spat noisily on the camp fires as we
passed them; and from behind us came up others. There were no sleepers
in the camp now; all were pressing on to hear this preacher who stood on
the pedestal of the war engine; and if we had tried to swerve from the
straight course, we should have been marked at once.
So we held on through the darkness, and presently came within earshot.
Still it was little enough of the preacher’s words we could make out at
first. “Who are your chiefs?” came the question at the end of a fervid
harangue, and immediately all further rational talk was drowned in
uproar. “We have no chiefs,” the people shouted, “we are done with
chiefs; we are all equal here. Take away your silly magic. You may kill
us with magic if you choose, but rule us you shall not. Nor shall
the other priests rule. Nor Phorenice. Nor anybody. We are done with
rulers.”
The press had brought us closer and closer to the man who stood on the
war engine. We saw him to be old, with white hair that tumbled on his
shoulders, and a long white beard, untrimmed and uncurled. Save for a
wisp of rag about the loins, his body was unclothed, and glistened in
the wet.
But in his hand he held that which marked his caste. With it he pointed
his sentences, and at times he whirled it about bathing his wet,
naked body in a halo of light. It was a wand whose tip burned with an
unconsuming fire, which glowed and twinkled and blazed like some star
sent down by the Gods from their own place in the high heaven. It was
the Symbol of our Lord the Sun, a credential no one could forge, and one
on which no civilised man would cast a doubt.
Indeed, the ragged frantic crew did not question for one moment that
he was a member of the Clan of Priests, the Clan which from time out
of numbering had given rulers for the land, and even in their loudest
clamours they freely acknowledged his powers. “You may kill us with your
magic, if you choose,” they screamed at him. But stubbornly they refused
to come back to their old allegiance. “We have suffered too many
things these later years,” they cried. “We are done with rulers now for
always.”
But for myself I saw the old man with a different emotion. Here was
Zaemon that was father to Nais, Zaemon that had seen me yesterday seated
on the divan at Phorenice’s elbow, and who to-day could denounce me as
Deucalion if so he chose. These rebels had expended a navy in their
wish to kill me four days earlier, and if they knew of my nearness, even
though Nais were my advocate, her cold reasoning would have had little
chance of an audience now. The High Gods who keep the tether of our
lives hide Their secrets well, but I did not think it impious to be sure
that mine was very near the cutting then.
The beautiful woman saw this too. She even went so far as to twine her
fingers in mine and press them as a farewell, and I pressed hers in
return, for I was sorry enough not to see her more. Still I could not
help letting my thoughts travel with a grim gloating over the fine mound
of dead I should build before these ragged, unskilled rebels pulled me
down. And it was inevitable this should be so. For of all the emotions
that can ferment in the human heart, the joy of strife is keenest, and
none but an old fighter, face to face with what must necessarily be his
final battle, can tell how deep this lust is embroidered into the very
foundations of his being.
But for the time Zaemon did not see me, being too much wrapped in his
outcry, and so I was free to listen to the burning words which he spread
around him, and to determine their effect on the hearers.
The theme he preached was no new one. He told that ever since the
beginning of history, the Gods had set apart one Clan of the people
to rule over the rest and be their Priests, and until the coming of
Phorenice these had done their duties with exactitude and justice.
They had fought invaders, carried war against the beasts, and studied
earth-movements so that they were able to foretell earthquakes and
eruptions, and could spread warnings that the people might be able
to escape their devastations. They are no self-seekers; their aim was
always to further the interest of Atlantis, and so do honour to the
kingdom on which the High Gods had set their special favour. Under the
Priestly Clan, Atlantis had reached the pinnacle of human prosperity and
happiness.
“But,” cried the old man, waving the Symbol till his wet body glistened
in a halo of light, “the people grew fat and careless with their easy
life. They began to have a conceit that their good fortune was earned
by their own puny brains and thews, and was no gift from the Gods above;
and presently the cult of these Gods became neglected, and Their temples
were barren of gifts and worshippers. Followed a punishment. The Gods
in Their inscrutable way decreed that a wife of one of the Priests (that
was a governor of no inconsiderable province) should see a woman child
by the wayside, and take it for adoption. That child the Gods in their
infinite wisdom fashioned into a scourge for Atlantis, and you who have
felt the weight of Phorenice’s hand, know with what completeness the
High Gods can fashion their instruments.
“Yet, even as they set up, so can they throw down, and those that
shall debase Phorenice are even now appointed. The old rule is to
be re-established; but not till you who have sinned are sufficiently
chastened to cry to it for relief.” He waved the mysterious glowing
Symbol before him. “See,” he cried in his high old quavering voice, “you
know the unspeakable Power of which that is the sign, and for which I
am the mouthpiece. It is for you to make decision now. Are the Gods to
throw down this woman who has scorned Them and so cruelly trodden on
you? Or are you to be still further purged of your pride before you are
ripe for deliverance?”
The old priest broke off with a gesture, and his ragged white beard
sank on to his chest. Promptly a young man, skin clad and carrying his
weapon, elbowed up through the press of listeners, and jumped on to the
platform beside him. “Hear me, brethren!” he bellowed, in his strong
young voice. “We are done with tyrants. Death may come, and we all of us
here have shown how little we fear it. But own rulers again we will not,
and that is our final say. My lord,” he said, turning to the old man
with a brave face, “I know it is in your power to kill me by magic if
you choose, but I have said my say, and can stand the cost if needs be.”
“I can kill you, but I will not,” said Zaemon. “You have said your
silliness. Now go you to the ground again.”
“We have free speech here. I will not go till I choose.”
“Aye, but you will,” said the old man, and turned on him with a sudden
tightening of the brows. There was no blow passed; even the Symbol,
which glowed like a star against the night, was not so much as lifted in
warning; but the young man tried to retort, and, finding himself smitten
with a sudden dumbness, turned with a spasm of fear, and jumped back
whence he had come. The crowd of them thrilled expectantly, and when no
further portent was given, they began to shout that a miracle should be
shown them, and then perchance they would be persuaded back to the old
allegiance.
The old man stooped and glowered at them in fury. “You dogs,” he cried,
“you empty-witted dogs! Do you ask that I should degrade the powers of
the Higher Mysteries by dancing them out before you as though they were
a mummers’ show? Do you tickle yourselves that you are to be tempted
back to your allegiance? It is for you to woo the Gods who are so
offended. Come in humility, and I take it upon myself to declare that
you will receive fitting pardon and relief. Remain stubborn, and the
scourge, Phorenice, may torment you into annihilation before she in turn
is made to answer for the evil she has put upon the land. There is the
choice for you to pick at.”
The turmoil of voices rose again into the wetness of the night, and
weapons were upraised menacingly. It was clear that the party for
independence had by far the greater weight, both in numbers and
lustiness; and those who might, from sheer weariness of strife, have
been willing for surrender, withheld their word through terror of the
consequence. It was a fine comment on the freedom of speech, about which
these unruly fools had made their boast, and, with a sly malice, I could
not help whispering a word on this to Nais as she stood at my elbow. But
Nais clutched at my hand, and implored me for caution. “Oh, be silent,
my lord,” she whispered back, “or they will tear you in pieces. They are
on fire for mischief now.”
“Yet a few hours back you were for killing me yourself,” I could not
help reminding her.
She turned on me with a hot look. “A woman can change her mind, my lord.
But it becomes you little to remind her of her fickleness.”
A man in the press beside me wrenched round with an effort, and stared
at me searchingly through the darkness. “Oh!” he said. “A shaved chin.
Who are you, friend, that you should cut a beard instead of curling it?
I can see no wound on your face.”
I answered him civilly enough that, with “freedom” for a watchword, the
fashion of my chin was a matter of mere private concern. But as that did
not satisfy him, and as he seemed to be one of those quarrelsome fellows
that are the bane of every community, I took him suddenly by the throat
and the shoulder, and bent his neck with the old, quick turn till I
heard it crack, and had unhanded him before any of his neighbours had
seen what had befallen. The fierce press of the crowd held him from
slipping to the ground, and so he stood on there where he was, with his
head nodded forward, as though he had fallen asleep through heaviness,
or had fainted through the crushing of his fellows. I had no desire to
begin that last fight of mine in a place like this, where there was no
room to swing a weapon, nor chance to clear a battle ring.
But all this time the lean preacher from the mountains was sending forth
his angry anathemas, and still holding the strained attention of the
people. And next he set forth before them the cult of the Gods in the
ancient form as is prescribed, and they (with old habit coming back to
them) made response in the words and in the places where the old ritual
enjoins. It was weird enough sight, that time-honoured service of
adoration, forced upon these wild people after so long a period of
irreligion.
They warmed to the old words as the high shrill voice of the priest
cried them forth, and as they listened, and as they realised how
intimate was the care of the Gods for the travails and sorrows of their
daily lives, so much warmer grew their responses.
“... WHO STILLED THE BURNING OF THE MOUNTAINS, AND MADE COOL PLACES ON
THE EARTH FOR US TO LIVE!--PRAISE TO THE MOST HIGH GODS.
“WHO GAVE US MASTERY OVER THE LESSER BEASTS AND SKILL OF TEN TIMES TO
PREVAIL!--PRAISE TO THE MOST HIGH GODS....”
“WHO GAVE US MASTERY OVER THE LESSER BEASTS AND SKILL OF TEN TIMES TO
PREVAIL!--PRAISE TO THE MOST HIGH GODS....”
It thrilled one to hear their earnestness; it sorrowed one to know that
they would yet be obdurate and not return to their old allegiance.
For this is the way with these common people; they will work up an
enthusiasm one minute, and an hour later it will have fled away and left
them cold and empty.
But Zaemon made no further calls upon their loyalty. He finished the
prescribed form of sentences, and stepped down off the platform of the
war engine with the Symbol of our Lord the Sun thrust out resolutely
before him. To all ordinary seeming the crowd had been packed so that no
further compression was possible, but before the advance of the Symbol
the people crushed back, leaving a wide lane for his passage.
And here came the turning point of my life. At first, like, I take
it, every one else in that crowd, I imagined that the old man, having
finished his mission, was making a way to return to the place from which
he had come. But he held steadily to one direction, and as that was
towards myself, it naturally came to my mind that, having dealt with
greater things, he would now settle with the less; or, in plainer words,
that having put his policy before the swarming people, he would now
smite down the man he had seen but yesterday seated as Phorenice’s
minister. Well, I should lose that final fight I had promised myself,
and that mound of slain for my funeral bed. It was clear that Zaemon was
the mouthpiece of the Priests’ Clan, duly appointed; and I also was a
priest. If the word had been given on the Sacred Mountain to those who
sat before the Ark of the Mysteries that Atlantis would prosper more
with Deucalion sent to the Gods, I was ready to bow to the sentence with
submissiveness. That I had regret for this mode of cutting off, I will
not deny. No man who has practised the game of arms could abandon the
promise of such a gorgeous final battle without a qualm of longing.
But I had been trained enough to show none of these emotions on my face,
and when the old man came up to me, I stood my ground and gave him the
salutation prescribed between our ranks, which he returned to me with
circumstance and accuracy. The crowd fell back, being driven away by the
ineffable force of the Symbol, leaving us alone in the middle of a
ring. Even Nais, though she was a priest’s daughter, was ignorant of the
Mysteries, and could not withstand its force. And so we two men stood
there alone together, with the glow of the Symbol bathing us, and
lighting up the sea of ravenous faces that watched.
The people were quick to put their natural explanation on the scene. “A
spy!” they began to roar out. “A spy! Zaemon salutes him as a Priest!”
Zaemon faced round on them with a queer look on his grim old face.
“Aye,” he said, “this is a Priest. If I give you his name, you might
have further interest. This is the Lord Deucalion.”
The word was picked up and yelled amongst them with a thousand emotions.
But at least they were loyal to their policy; they had decided that
Deucalion was their enemy; they had already expended a navy for his
destruction; and now that he was ringed in by their masses, they lusted
to tear him into rags with their fingers. But rave and rave though they
might against me, the glare from the Symbol drove them shuddering back
as though it had been a lava-stream; and Zaemon was not the man to hand
me over to their fury until he had delivered formal sentence as the
emissary of our Clan on the Sacred Mount. So the end was not to be yet.
The old man faced me and spoke in the sacred tongue, which the common
people do not know. “My brother,” he said, “which have you come to
serve, Deucalion or Atlantis?”
“Words are a poor thing to answer a question like that. You will know
all of my record. According to the Law of the Priests, each ship from
Yucatan will have carried home its sworn report to lay at the feet of
their council, and before I went to that vice-royalty, what I did was
written plain here on the face of Atlantis.”
“We know your doings in the past, brother, and they have found approval.
You have governed well, and you have lived austerely. You set up
Atlantis for a mistress, and served her well; but then, you have had no
Phorenice to tempt you into change and fickleness.”
“You can send me where I shall see her no more, if you think me frail.”
“Yes, and lose your usefulness. No, brother, you are the last hope which
this poor land has remaining. All other human means that have been tried
against Phorenice have failed. You have returned from overseas for the
final duel. You are the strongest man we have, and you are our final
champion. If you fail, then only those terrible Powers which are locked
within the Ark of the Mysteries remains to us, and though it is not
lawful to speak even in this hidden tongue of their scope, you at least
have full assurance of their potency.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “It seems that you would save time and pains
if you threw me to these wolves of rebels, and let them end me here and
now.”
The old man frowned on me angrily. “I am bidding you do your duty. What
reason have you for wishing to evade it?”
“I have in my memory the words you spoke in the pyramid, when you came
in amongst the banqueters. ‘PHORENICE,’ was your cry, ‘WHILST YOU ARE
YET EMPRESS, YOU SHALL SEE THIS ROYAL PYRAMID, WHICH YOU HAVE POLLUTED
WITH YOUR DEBAUCHERIES, TORN TIER FROM TIER, AND STONE FROM STONE,
AND SCATTERED AS FEATHERS BEFORE A WIND.’ It seems that you foresee my
defeat.”
The old man shuddered. “I cannot tell what she may force us to do. I
spoke then only what it was revealed to me must happen. Perhaps when
matters have reached that pass, she will repent and submit. But in the
meanwhile, before we use the more desperate weapons of the Gods, it is
fitting that we should expend all human power remaining to us. And so
you must go, my brother, and play your part to the utmost.”
“It is an order. So I obey.”
“You shall be at Phorenice’s side again by the next dawn. She has sent
for you from Yucatan as a husband, and as one who (so she thinks,
poor human conqueror) has the weight of arm necessary to prolong her
tyrannies. You are a Priest, brother, and you are a man of convincing
tongue. It will be your part to make her stubborn mind see the
invincible power that can be loosed against her, to point out to her the
utter hopelessness of prevailing against it.”
“If it is ordered, I will do these things. But there is little enough
chance of success. I have seen Phorenice, and can gauge her will. There
will be no turning her once she has made a decision. Others have tried;
you have tried yourself; all have failed.”
“Words that were wasted on a maiden may go home to a wife. You have been
brought here to be her husband. Well, take your place.”
The order came to me with a pang. I had given little enough heed to
women through all of a busy life, though when I landed, the taking of
Phorenice to wife would not have been very repugnant to me if policy had
demanded it. But the matters of the last two days had put things in a
different shape. I had seen two other women who had strangely attracted
me, and one of these had stirred within me a tumult such as I had never
felt before amongst my economies.
To lead Phorenice in marriage would mean a severance from this other
woman eternally, and I ached as I thought of it. But though these
thoughts floated through my system and gave me harsh wrenches of pain, I
did not thrust my puny likings before the command of the council of the
Priests. I bowed before Zaemon, and put his hand to my forehead. “It is
an order,” I said. “If our Lord the Sun gives me life, I will obey.”
“Then let us begone from this place,” said Zaemon, and took me by the
arm and waved a way for us with the Symbol. No further word did I have
with Nais, fearing to embroil her with these rebels who clustered round,
but I caught one hot glance from her eyes, and that had to suffice
for farewell. The dense ranks of the crowd opened, and we walked
away between them scathless. Fiercely though they lusted for my life,
brimming with hate though they made their cries, no man dared to rush
in and raise a hand against me. Neither did they follow. When we reached
the outskirts of the crowd, and the ranks thinned, they had a mind, many
of them, to surge along in our wake; but Zaemon whirled the Symbol back
before their faces with a blaze of lurid light, and they fell to their
knees, grovelling, and pressed on us no more.
The rain still fell, and in the light of the camp fires as we passed
them, the wet gleamed on the old man’s wasted body. And far before us
through the darkness loomed the vast bulk of the Sacred Mountain, with
the ring of eternal fires encincturing its crest. I sighed as I thought
of the old peaceful days I had spent in its temple and groves.
But there was to be no more of that studious leisure now. There was work
to be done, work for Atlantis which did not brook delay. And so when we
had progressed far out into the waste, and there was none near to view
(save only the most High Gods), we found the place where the passage
was, whose entrance is known only to the Seven amongst the Priests; and
there we parted, Zaemon to his hermitage in the dangerous lands, and I
by this secret way back into the capital.