So this mighty Empress chose to be jealous of a mere woman prisoner!
Now my mind has been trained to work with a soldierly quickness in these
moments of stress, and I decided on my proper course on the instant the
words had left her lips. I was sacrificing myself for Atlantis by
order of the High Council of the Priests, and, if needful, Nais must
be sacrificed also, although in the same flash a scheme came to me for
saving her.
So I bowed gravely before the Empress, and said I, “In this, and in all
other things where a mere human hand is potent, I will carry out your
wishes, Phorenice.” And she on her part patted my arm, and fresh waves
of feeling welled up from the depths of her wondrous eyes. Surely the
Gods won for her half her schemes and half her battles when they gave
Phorenice her shape, and her voice, and the matters which lay within the
outlines of her face.
By this time the merchants, and the other dwellers adjacent to this part
of the harbour, where the royal quay stands, had come down, offering
changes of raiment, and houses to retire into. Phorenice was all
graciousness, and though it was little enough I cared for mere wetness
of my coat, still that part of the harbour into which we had been thrown
by the mammoth was not over savoury, and I was glad enough to follow her
example. For myself, I said no further word to Nais, and refrained even
from giving her a glance of farewell. But a small sop like this was no
meal for Phorenice, and she gave the port-captain strict orders for the
guarding of his prisoner before she left him.
At the house into which I was ushered they gave me a bath, and I eased
my host of the plainest garment in his store, and he was pleased enough
at getting off so cheaply. But I had an hour to spend outside on the
pavement listening to the distant din of bombardment before Phorenice
came out to me again, and I could not help feeling some grim amusement
at the face of the merchant who followed. The fellow was clearly ruined.
He had a store of jewels and gauds of the most costly kind, which were
only in fraction his own, seeing that he had bought them (as the custom
is) in partnership with other merchants. These had pleased Phorenice’s
eye, and so she had taken all and disposed them on her person.
“Are they not pretty?” said she, showing them to me. “See how they flash
under the sun. I am quite glad now, Deucalion, that the mammoth gave us
that furious ride and that spill, since it has brought me such a bonny
present. You may tell the fellow here that some day when he has earned
some more, I will come and be his guest again. Ah! They have brought us
litters, I see. Well, send one away and do you share mine with me, sir.
We must play at being lovers to-day, even if love is a matter which will
come to us both with more certainty to-morrow. No; do not order more
bearers. My own slaves will carry us handily enough. I am glad you
are not one of your gross, overfed men, Deucalion. I am small and slim
myself, and I do not want to be husbanded by a man who will overshadow
me.”
“Back to the royal pyramid?” I asked.
“No, nor to the walls. I neither wish to fight nor to sit as Empress
to-day, sir. As I have told you before, it is my whim to be Phorenice,
the maiden, for a few hours, and if some one I wot of would woo me now,
as other maidens are wooed, I should esteem it a luxury. Bid the slaves
carry us round the harbour’s rim, and give word to these starers that,
if they follow, I will call down fire upon them as I did upon the
sacrifice.”
Now, I had seen something of the unruliness of the streets myself, and
I had gathered a hint also from the officer at the gate of the royal
pyramid that night of Phorenice’s welcoming banquet. But as whatever
there was in the matter must be common knowledge to the Empress, I did
not bring it to her memory then. So I dismissed the guard which had
come up, and drove away with a few sharp words the throng of gaping
sightseers who always, silly creatures, must needs come to stare at
their betters; and then I sat in the litter in the place where I was
invited, and the bearers put their heads to the pole.
They swung away with us along the wide pavement which runs between the
houses of the merchants and the mariner folk and the dimpling waters of
the harbour, and I thought somewhat sadly of the few ships that floated
on that splendid basin now, and of the few evidences of business that
showed themselves on the quays. Time was when the ships were berthed
so close that many had to wait in the estuary outside the walls, and
memorials had been sent to the King that the port should be doubled in
size to hold the glut of trade. And that, too, in the old days of oar
and sail, when machines drawing power from our Lord the Sun were but
rarely used to help a vessel speedily along her course.
The Egypt voyage and a return was a matter of a year then, as against a
brace of months now, and of three ships that set out, one at least could
be reckoned upon succumbing to the dangers of the wide waters and the
terrible beasts that haunt them. But in those old days trade roared with
lusty life, and was ever growing wider and more heavy. Your merchant
then was a portly man and gave generously to the Gods. But now all
the world seemed to be in arms, and moreover trade was vulgar. Your
merchant, if he was a man of substance, forgot his merchandise, swore
that chaffering was more indelicate than blasphemy and curled his beard
after the new fashion, and became a courtier. Where his father had spent
anxious days with cargo tally and ship-master, the son wasted hours in
directing sewing men as they adorned a coat, and nights in vapouring at
a banquet.
Of the smaller merchants who had no substance laid by, taxes and the
constant bickerings of war had wellnigh ground them into starvation.
Besides, with the country in constant uproar, there were few markets
left for most merchandise, nor was there aught made now which could be
carried abroad. If your weaver is pressed as a fire-tube man he does not
make cloth, and if your farmer is playing at rebellion, he does not buy
slaves to till his fields. Indeed, they told me that a month before my
return, as fine a cargo of slaves had been brought into harbour as ever
came out of Europe, and there was nothing for it but to set them ashore
across the estuary, and leave them free to starve or live in the wild
ground there as they chose. There was no man in all Atlantis who would
hold so much as one more slave as a gift.
But though I was grieved at this falling away, all schemes for remedy
would be for afterwards. It would only make ill worse to speak of it as
we rode together in the litter. I was growing to know Phorenice’s moods
enough for that. Still, I think that she too had studied mine, and did
her best to interest me between her bursts of trifling. We went out to
where the westernmost harbour wall joins the land, and there the panting
bearers set us down. She led me into a little house of stone which stood
by itself, built out on a promontory where there is a constant run of
tide, and when we had been given admittance, after much unbarring, she
showed me her new gold collectors.
In the dry knowledge taught in the colleges and groves of the Sacred
Mountain it had been a common fact to us that the metal gold was present
in a dissolved state in all sea water, but of plans for dragging it
forth into yellow hardness, none had ever been discussed. But here this
field-reared upstart of an Empress had stumbled upon the trick as though
it had been written in a book.
She patted my arm laughingly as I stared curiously round the place. “I
tell all others in Atlantis that only the Gods have this secret,” said
she, “and that They gave it to me as one of themselves. But I am no
Goddess to you, am I, Deucalion? And, by my face! I have no other
explanation of how this plan was invented. We’ll suppose I must have
dreamed it. Look! The sea-water sluices in through that culvert, and
passes over these rough metal plates set in the floor, and then flows
out again yonder in its natural course. You see the yellow metal caught
in the ridges of the plates? That is gold. And my fellows here melt it
with fire into bars, and take it to my smith’s in the city. The tides
vary constantly, as you priests know well, as the quiet moon draws them,
and it does not take much figuring to know how much of the sea passes
through these culverts in a month and how much gold to a grain should be
caught in the plates. My fellows here at first thought to cheat me, but
I towed two of them in the water once behind a galley till the cannibal
fish ate them, and since then the others have given me credit for--for
what do you think?”
“More divinity.”
“I suppose it is that. But I am letting you see how it is done. Just
have the head to work out a little sum, and see what an effect can be
gained. You will be a God yet yourself, Deucalion, with these silly
Atlanteans, if only you will use your wit and cleverness.”
Was she laughing at me? Was she in earnest? I could not tell. Sometimes
she pointed out that her success and triumphs were merely the reward
of thought and brilliancy, and next moment she gave me some impossible
explanation and left me to deduce that she must be more than mortal or
the thing could never have been found. In good truth, this little woman
with her supple mind and her supple body mystified me more and more the
longer I stayed by her side; and more and more despairing did I grow
that Atlantis could ever be restored by my agency to peace and the
ancient Gods, even after I had carried out the commands of the High
Council, and taken her to wife.
Only one plan seemed humanly possible, and that was to curb her further
mischievousness by death and then leave the wretched country naturally
to recover. It was just a dagger-stroke, and the thing was done. Yet the
very idea of this revolted me, and when the desperate thought came to my
mind (which it did ever and anon), I hugged to myself the answer that if
it were fitting to do this thing, the High Gods in Their infinite wisdom
would surely have put definite commands upon me for its carrying out.
Yet, such was the fascination of Phorenice, that when presently we
left her gold collectors, and stumbled into such peril, that a little
withholding of my hand would have gained her a passage to the nether
Gods, I found myself fighting when she called upon me, as seldom I have
fought before. And though, of course, some blame for this must be laid
upon that lust of battle which thrills even the coldest of us when blows
begin to whistle and war-cries start to ring, there is no doubt also
that the pleasure of protecting Phorenice, and the distaste for seeing
her pulled down by those rude, uncouth fishers put special nerve and
vehemence into my blows.
The cause of the matter was the unrest and the prevalency to street
violence which I have spoken of above, and the desperate poverty of
the common people, which led them to take any risk if it showed them a
chance of winning the wherewithal to purchase a meal. We had once more
mounted the litter, and once more the bearers, with their heads beneath
the pole, bore us on at their accustomed swinging trot. Phorenice was
telling me about her new supplies of gold. She had made fresh sumptuary
laws, it appeared.
“In the old days,” said she, “when yellow gold was tediously dredged up
grain by grain from river gravels in the dangerous lands, a quill
full would cost a rich man’s savings, and so none but those whose high
station fitted them to be so adorned could wear golden ornaments. But
when the sea-water gave me gold here by the double handful a day, I
found that the price of these river hoards decreased, and one day--could
you credit it?--a common fellow, who was one of my smiths, came to me
wearing a collar of yellow gold on his own common neck. Well, I had
that neck divided, as payment for his presumption; and as I promised
to repeat the division promptly on all other offenders, that special
species of forwardness seems to be checked for the time. There are many
exasperations, Deucalion, in governing these common people.”
She had other things to say upon the matter, but at this point I saw two
clumsy boats of fishers paddling to us from over the ripples, and at the
same time amongst the narrow lanes which led between the houses on
the other side of us, savage-faced men were beginning to run after the
litter in threatening clusters.
“With permission,” I said, “I will step out of the conveyance and
scatter this rabble.”
“Oh, the people always cluster round me. Poor ugly souls, they seem
to take a strange delight in coming to stare at my pretty looks. But
scatter them. I have said I did not wish to be followed. I am taking
holiday now, Deucalion, am I not, whilst you learn to woo me?”
I stepped to the ground. The rough fishers in the boats were beginning
to shout to those who dodged amongst the houses to see to it that we
did not escape, and the numbers who hemmed us in on the shore side were
increasing every moment. The prospect was unpleasant enough. We had come
out beyond the merchants’ quarters, and were level with those small
huts of mud and grass which the fishing population deem sufficient for
shelter, and which has always been a spot where turbulence might be
expected. Indeed, even in those days of peace and good government in
the old King’s time, this part of the city had rarely been without its
weekly riot.
The life of the fisherman is the most hard that any human toilers have
to endure. Violence from the wind and waves, and pelting from firestones
out of the sky are their daily portion; the great beasts that dwell in
the seas hunt them with savage persistence, and it is a rare day when
at least some one of the fishers’ guild fails to come home to answer the
tally.
Moreover, the manner which prevails of catching fish is not without its
risks.
To each man there is a large sea-fowl taken as a nestling, and
trained to the work. A ring of bronze is round its neck to prevent its
swallowing the spoil for which it dives, and for each fish it takes and
flies back with to the boat, the head and tail and inwards are given to
it for a reward, the ring being removed whilst it makes the meal.
The birds are faithful, once they have got a training, and are seldom
known to desert their owners; but, although the fishers treat them more
kindly than they do their wives, or children of their own begetting, the
life of the birds is precarious like that of their masters. The larger
beasts and fish of the sea prey on them as they prey on the smaller
fish, and so whatever care may be lavished upon them, they are most
liable to sudden cutting off.
And here is another thing that makes the life of the fisher most
precarious: if his fishing bird be slain, and the second which he has
in training also come by ill fortune, he is left suddenly bereft of all
utensils of livelihood, and (for aught his guild-fellows care) he may go
starve. For these fishers hold that the Gods of the sea regulate their
craft, and that if one is not pleasing to Them They rob him of his
birds; after which it would be impious to have any truck or dealing
with such a fellow; and accordingly he is left to starve or rob as he
chooses.
All of which circumstances tend to make the fishers rude, desperate
men, who have been forced into the trade because all other callings have
rejected them. They are fellows, moreover, who will spend the gains of
a month on a night’s debauch, for fear that the morrow will rob them of
life and the chance of spending; and, moreover, it is their one point of
honour to be curbed in no desire by an ordinary fear of consequences. As
will appear.
I went quickly towards the largest knot of these people, who were
skulking behind the houses, leaving the litter halted in the path behind
me, and I bade them sharply enough to disperse. “For an employment,”
I added, “put your houses in order, and clean the fish offal from the
lanes between them. To-morrow I will come round here to inspect, and put
this quarter into a better order. But for to-day the Empress (whose name
be adored) wishes for a privacy, so cease your staring.”
“Then give us money,” said a shrill voice from amongst the huts.
“I will send you a torch in an hour’s time,” I said grimly, “and rig you
a gallows, if you give me more annoyance. To your kennels, you!”
I think they would have obeyed the voice of authority if they had been
left to themselves. There was a quick stir amongst them. Those that
stood in the sunlight instinctively slipped into the shadow, and many
dodged into the houses and cowered in dark corners out of sight. But the
men in the two hide-covered fisher-boats that were paddling up, called
them back with boisterous cries.
I signed to the litter-bearers to move on quickly along their road.
There was need of discipline here, and I was minded to deal it out
myself with a firm hand. I judged that I could prevent them following
the Empress, but if she still remained as a glittering bait for them to
rob, and I had to protect her also, it might be that my work would not
be done so effectively.
But it seems I was presumptuous in giving an order which dealt with the
person of Phorenice. She bade the bearers stand where they were, and
stepped out, and drew her weapons from beneath the cushions. She came
towards me strapping a sword on to her hip, and carrying a well-dinted
target of gold on her left forearm. “An unfair trick,” cries she,
laughing. “If you will keep a fight to yourself now, Deucalion, where
will your greediness carry you when I am your shrinking, wistful little
wife? Are these fools truly going to stand up against us?”
I was not coveting a fight, but it seemed as if there would be no
avoidance of it now. The robe and the glittering gauds of which
Phorenice had recently despoiled the merchant, drew the eyes of these
people with keen attraction. The fishers in the boats paddled into
the surf which edged the beach, and leaped overside and left the frail
basket-work structures to be spewed up sound or smashed, as chance
ordered. And from the houses, and from the filthy lanes between them,
poured out hordes of others, women mixed with the men, gathering round
us threateningly.
“Have a care,” shouted one on the outskirts of the crowd. “She called
down fire for the sacrifice once to-day, and she can burn up others here
if she chooses.”
“So much the more for those that are left,” retorted another. “She
cannot burn all.”
“Nay, I will not burn any,” said Phorenice, “but you shall look upon my
sword-play till you are tired.”
I heard her say that with some malicious amusement, knowing (as one of
the Seven) how she had called down the fires of the sky to burn that
cloven-hoofed horse offered in sacrifice, and knowing too, full well,
that she could bring down no fire here. But they gave us little enough
time for wordy courtesies. Their Empress never went far unattended, and,
for aught the wretches knew, an escort might be close behind. So what
pilfering they did, it behoved them to get done quickly.
They closed in, jostling one another to be first, and the reek of their
filthy bodies made us cough. A grimy hand launched out to seize some of
the jewels which flashed on Phorenice’s breast, and I lopped it off
at the elbow, so that it fell at her feet, and a second later we were
engaged.
“Your back to mine, comrade,” cried she, with a laugh, and then drew and
laid about her with fine dexterity. Bah! but it was mere slaughter, that
first bout.
The crowd hustled inwards with such greediness to seize what they could,
that none had space to draw back elbow for a thrust, and we two kept a
circle round us by sheer whirling of steel. It is necessary to do one’s
work cleanly in these bouts, as wounded left on the ground unnoticed
before one are as dangerous as so many snakes. But as we circled round
in our battling I noted that all of Phorenice’s quarry lay peaceful
and still. By the Gods! but she could play a fine sword, this dainty
Empress. She touched life with every thrust.
Yes, it was plain to see, now an example was given, that the throne of
Atlantis had been won, not by a lovely face and a subtle tongue alone;
and (as a fighter myself) I did not like Phorenice the less for the
knowledge. I could but see her out of the corner of my eye, and that
only now and again, for the fishers, despite their ill-knowledge of
fence, and the clumsiness of their weapons, had heavy numbers, and most
savage ferocity; and as they made so confident of being able to pull
us down, it required more than a little hard battling to keep them from
doing it. Ay, by the Gods! it was at times a fight my heart warmed to,
and if I had not contrived to pluck a shield from one fool who came too
vain-gloriously near me with one, I could not swear they would not have
dragged me down by sheer ravening savageness.
And always above the burly uproar of the fight came very pleasantly to
my ears Phorenice’s cry of “Deucalion!” which she chose as her battle
shout. I knew her, of course, to be a past-mistress of the art of
compliment, and it was no new thing for me to hear the name roared out
above a battle din, but it was given there under circumstances which
were peculiar, and for the life of me I could not help being tickled by
the flattery.
Condemn my weakness how you will, but I came very near then to liking
the Empress of Atlantis in the way she wished. And as for that other
woman who should have filled my mind, I will confess that the stress of
the moment, and the fury of the engagement, had driven both her and her
strait completely out beyond the marches of my memory. Of such frail
stuff are we made, even those of us who esteem ourselves the strongest.
Now it is a temptation few men born to the sword can resist, to throw
themselves heart and soul into a fight for a fight’s sake, and it seems
that women can be bitten with the same fierce infection. The attack
slackened and halted. We stood in the middle of a ring of twisted dead,
and the rest of the fishers and their women who hemmed us in shrank back
out of reach of our weapons.
It was the moment for a truce, and the moment when a few strong words
would have sent them back cowering to their huts, and given us free
passage to go where we chose. But no, this Phorenice must needs sing a
hymn to her sword and mine, gloating over our feats and invulnerability;
and then she must needs ask payment for the bearers of her litter whom
they had killed, and then speak balefully of the burnings, and the
skinnings, and the sawings asunder with which this fishers’ quarter
would be treated in the near future, till they learned the virtues of
deportment and genteel manners.
“It makes your backs creep, does it?” said Phorenice. “I do not wonder.
This severity must have its unpleasant side. But why do you not put it
beyond my power to give the order? Either you must think yourselves Gods
or me no Goddess, or you would not have gone on so far. Come now, you
nasty-smelling people, follow out your theory, and if you make a good
fight of it, I swear by my face I will be lenient with those who do not
fall.”
But there was no pressing up to meet our swords. They still ringed us
in, savage and sullen, beyond the ring of their own dead, and would
neither run back to the houses, nor give us the game of further fight.
There was a certain stubborn bravery about them that one could not but
admire, and for myself I determined that next time it became my duty
to raise troops, I would catch a handful of these men, and teach them
handiness with the utensils of war, and train them to loyalty and
faithfulness. But presently from behind their ranks a stone flew, and
though it whizzed between the Empress and myself, and struck down a
fisher, it showed that they had brought a new method into their attack,
and it behoved us to take thought and meet it.
I looked round me up and down the beach. There was no sign of a rescue.
“Phorenice,” I said in the court tongue, which these barbarous fishers
would know little enough of, “I take it that a whiff of the sea-breeze
would come very pleasant after all this warm play. As you can show such
pretty sword work, will you cut me a way down to the beach, and I will
do my poor best to keep these creatures from snapping at our heels?”
“Oh!” cried she. “Then I am to have a courtier for a husband after all.
Why have you kept back your flattering speeches till now? Is that your
trick to make me love you?”
“I will think out the reason for it another time.”
“Ah, these stern, commanding husbands,” said she, “how they do press
upon their little wives!” and with that leaped over the ring of dead
before her, and cut and stabbed a way through those that stood between
her and the waters which creamed and crashed upon the beach. Gods!
what a charge she made. It made me tingle with admiration as I followed
sideways behind her, guarding the rear. And I am a man that has spent so
many years in battling, that it takes something far out of the common to
move me to any enthusiasm in this matter.
There were two boats creaking and washing about in the edge of the surf,
but in one, happily, the wicker-work which made its frame was crushed
by the weight of the waves into a shapeless bundle of sticks, and would
take half a day to replace. So that, let us but get the other craft
afloat, and we should be free from further embroiling. But the fishers
were quick to see the object of this new manoeuvre. “Guard the boat,”
they shouted. “Smash her; slit her skin with your knives! Tear her with
your fingers! Swim her out to sea! Oh, at least take the paddles!”
But, if these clumsy fishers could run, Phorenice was like a legged
snake for speed. She was down beside the boat before any could reach
it, laughing and shouting out that she could beat them at every point.
Myself, I was slower of foot; and, besides, there was some that offered
me a fight on the road, and I was not wishful to baulk them; and
moreover, the fewer we left clamouring behind, the fewer there would be
to speed our going with their stones. Still I came to the beach in good
order, and laid hands on the flimsy boat and tipped her dry.
“Fighting is no trade for, me,” I cried, “whilst you are here,
Phorenice. Guard me my back and walk out into the water.”
I took the boat, thrusting it afloat, and wading with it till two lines
of the surf were past. The fishers swarmed round us, active as fish in
their native element, and strove mightily to get hands on the boat and
slit the hides which covered it with their eager fingers. But I had a
spare hand, and a short stabbing-knife for such close-quarter work, and
here, there, and everywhere was Phorenice the Empress, with her thirsty
dripping sword. By the Gods! I laughed with sheer delight at seeing her
art of fence.
But the swirl of a great fish into the shallows, and the squeal of
a fisher as he was dragged down and home away into the deep, made me
mindful of foes that no skill can conquer, and no bravery avoid. Without
taking time to give the Empress a word of warning, I stooped, and flung
an arm round her, and threw her up out of the water into the boat, and
then thrust on with all my might, driving the flimsy craft out to
sea, whilst my legs crept under me for fear of the beasts which swam
invisible beneath the muddied waters.
To the fishers, inured to these horrid perils by daily association,
the seizing of one of their number meant little, and they pressed on,
careless of their dull lives, eager only to snatch the jewels which
still flaunted on Phorenice’s breast. Of the vengeance that might come
after they recked nothing; let them but get the wherewithal for one
night’s good debauch, and they would forget that such a thing as the
morning of a morrow could have existence.
Two fellows I caught and killed that, diving down beneath, tried to slit
the skin of the boat out of sight under the water; and Phorenice cared
for all those that tried to put a hand on the gunwales. Yes, and she did
more than that. A huge long-necked turtle that was stirred out of the
mud by the turmoil, came up to daylight, and swung its great horn-lipped
mouth to this side and that, seeking for a prey. The fishers near it
dodged and dived. I, thrusting at the stern of the boat, could only hope
it would pass me by and so offered an easy mark. It scurried towards
me, champing its noisy lips, and beating the water into spray with its
flippers.
But Phorenice was quick with a remedy and a rescue. She passed her sword
through one of the fishers that pressed her, and then thrust the body
towards the turtle. The great neck swooped towards it; the long slimy
feelers which protruded from its head quivered and snuffled; and then
the horny green jaws crunched on it, and drew it down out of sight.
The boat was in deep water now, and Phorenice called upon me to come in
over the side, she the while balancing nicely so that the flimsy thing
should not be overset. The fishers had given up their pursuit, finding
that they earned nothing but lopped-off arms and split faces by coming
within swing of this terrible sword of their Empress, and so contented
themselves with volleying jagged stones in the hopes of stunning us or
splitting the boat. However, Phorenice crouched in the stern, holding
the two shields--her own golden target, and the rough hide buckler I
had won--and so protected both of us whilst I paddled, and though many
stones clattered against the shields, and hit the hide covering of the
boat, so that it resounded like a drum, none of them did damage, and we
drew quickly out of their range.