“Aye,” she said bitterly, “there’s my reward. All your concern’s for the
message, none for the carrier. Well, good my lord, you are husband to
the dainty Phorenice no longer.”
“This is news.”
“And true enough, too. She will have no more of you, divorces you,
spurns you, thrusts you from her, and, after the first splutter of wrath
is done, then come pains and penalties.”
“The Empress can do no wrong. I will have you speak respectful words of
the Empress.”
“Oh, be done with that old fable! It sickens me. The woman was mad for
love of you, and now she’s mad with jealousy. She knows that you gave
Nais some of your priest’s magic, and that she sleeps till you choose to
come and claim her, even though the day be a century from this. And if
you wish to know the method of her enlightenment, it is simple. There
is another airshaft next to the one down which you did your cooing and
billing, and that leads to another cell in which lay another prisoner.
The wretch heard all that passed, and thought to buy enlargement by
telling it.
“But his news came a trifle stale. It seems that with the pressure of
the morning’s ceremonies, they forgot to bring a ration, and when at
last his gaoler did remember him, it was rather late, seeing that by
then Phorenice had tied herself publicly to a husband, and poor Nais had
doubtless eaten her green drug. However, the fools must needs try and
barter his tale for what it would fetch; and, as was natural, had such
a silly head chopped off for his pains; and after that your Phorenice
behaved as you may guess. And now you may thank me, sir, for coming to
warn you not to go back to Atlantis.”
“But I shall go back. And if the Empress chooses to cut my head also
from its proper column, that is as the High Gods will.”
“You are more sick of life than I thought. But I think, sir, our
Phorenice judges your case very accurately. It was permitted me to hear
the outbursting of this lady’s rage. ‘Shall I hew off his head?’ said
she. ‘Pah! Shall I give him over to my tormentors, and stand by whilst
they do their worst? He would not wrinkle his brow at their fiercest
efforts. No; he must have a heavier punishment than any of these, and
one also which will endure. I shall lop off his right hand and his left
foot, so that he may be a fighting man no longer, and then I shall drive
him forth crippled into the dangerous lands, where he may learn Fear.
The beasts shall hunt him, the fires of the ground shall spoil his rest.
He shall know hunger, and he shall breathe bad air. And all the while he
shall remember that I have Nais near me, living and locked in her coffin
of stone, to play with as I choose, and to give over to what insults may
come to my fancy.’ That is what she said, Deucalion. Now I ask you again
will you go back to meet her vengeance?”
“No,” I said, “it is no part of my plan to be mutilated and left to
live.”
“So, being a woman of some sense, I judged. And, moreover, having some
small kindness still left for you, I have taken it upon myself to make
a plan for your further movement which may fall in with your whim. Does
the name of Tob come back to your memory?”
“One who was Captain of Tatho’s navy?”
“That same Tob. A gruff, rude fellow, and smelling vile of tar, but
seeming to have a sturdy honesty of his own. Tob sails away this night
for parts unknown, presumably to found a kingdom with Tob for king. It
seems he can find little enough to earn at his craft in Atlantis these
latter days, and has scruples at seeing his wife and young ones hungry.
He told me this at the harbour side when I put my neck under the axe by
saying I wanted carriage for you, sir, and so having me under his thumb,
he was perhaps more loose-lipped than usual. You seem to have made
a fine impression on Tob, Deucalion. He said--I repeat his hearty
disrespect--you were just the recruit he wanted, but whether you joined
him or not, he would go to the nether Gods to do you service.”
“By the fellow’s side, I gained some experience in fighting the greater
sea beasts.”
“Well, go and do it again. Believe me, sir, it is your only chance. It
would grieve me much to hear the searing-iron hiss on your stumps. I
bargained with Tob to get clear of the harbour forts before the chain
was up for the night, and as he is a very daring fellow, with no fear of
navigating under the darkness, he himself said he would come to a point
of the shore which we agreed upon, and there await you. Come, Deucalion,
let me lead you to the place.”
“My girl,” I said, “I see I owe you many thanks for what you have done
on my poor behalf.”
“Oh, your thanks!” she said. “You may keep them. I did not come out here
in the dark and the dangers for mere thanks, though I knew well enough
there would be little else offered.”--She plucked at my sleeve.--“Now
show me your walking pace, sir. They will begin to want your countenance
in the camp directly, and we need hanker after no too narrow inquiries
for what’s along.”
So thereon we set off, Ylga and I, leaving the lights of the bivouac
behind us, and she showed the way, whilst I carried my weapons ready to
ward off attacks whether from beasts or from men. Few words were passed
between us, except those which had concern with the dangers natural
to the way. Once only did we touch one another, and that was where
a tree-trunk bridged a rivulet of scalding water which flowed from a
boil-spring towards the sea.
“Are you sure of footing?” I asked, for the night was dark, and the heat
of the water would peel the flesh from the bones if one slipped into it.
“No,” she said, “I am not,” and reached out and took my hand. I helped
her over and then loosed my grip, and she sighed, and slowly slipped her
hand away. Then on again we went in silence, side by side, hour after
hour, and league after league.
But at last we topped a rise, and below us through the trees I could see
the gleam of the great estuary on which the city of Atlantis stands. The
ground was soggy and wet beneath us, the trees were full of barbs and
spines, the way was monstrous hard. Ylga’s breath was beginning to come
in laboured pants. But when I offered to take her arm, and help her,
as some return against what she had done for me, she repulsed me rudely
enough. “I am no poor weakling,” said she, “if that is your only reason
for wanting to touch me.”
Presently, however, we came out through the trees, and the roughest part
of our journey was done. We saw the ship riding to her anchors in
shore a mile away, and a weird enough object she was under the faint
starlight. We made our way to her along the level beaches.
Tob was keeping a keen watch. We were challenged the moment we came
within stone or arrow shot, and bidden to halt and recite our business;
but he was civil enough when he heard we were those whom he expected.
He called a crew and slacked out his anchor-rope till his ship ground
against the shingle, and then thrust out his two steering oars to help
us clamber aboard.
I turned to Ylga with words of thanks and farewell. “I will never forget
what you have done for me this night; and should the High Gods see fit
to bring me back to Atlantis and power, you shall taste my gratitude.”
“I do not want to return. I am sick of this old life here.”
“But you have your palace in the city, and your servants, and your
wealth, and Phorenice will not disturb you from their possession.”
“Oh, as for that, I could go back and be fan-girl tomorrow. But I do not
want to go back.”
“Let me tell you it is no time for a gently nurtured lady like yourself
to go forward. I have been viceroy of Yucatan, Ylga, and know somewhat
of making a foothold in these new countries. And that was nothing
compared with what this will be. I tell you it entails hardships, and
privations, and sufferings which you could not guess at. Few survive
who go to colonise in the beginning, and those only of the hardiest, and
they earn new scars and new batterings every day.”
“I do not care, and, besides, I can share the work. I can cook, I can
shoot a good arrow, and I can make garments, yes, though they were
cut from the skins of beasts and had to be sewn with backbone sinews.
Because you despise fine clothes, and because you have seen me only
decked out as fan-girl, you think I am useless. Bah, Deucalion! Never
let people prate to me about your perfection. You know less about a
woman than a boy new from school.”
“I have learned all I care to know about one woman, and because of the
memory of her, I could not presume to ask her sister to come with me
now.”
“Aye,” she said bitterly, “kick my pride. I knew well enough it was only
second place to Nais I could get all the time I was wanting to come. Yet
no one but a boor would have reminded me of it. Gods! and to think that
half the men in Atlantis have courted me, and now I am arrived at this!”
“I must go alone. It would have made me happier to take your esteem with
me. But as it is, I suppose I shall carry only your hate.”
“That is the most humiliating thing of all; I cannot bring myself to
hate you. I ought to, I know, after the brutal way you have scorned me.
But I do not, and there is the truth. I seem to grow the fonder of you,
and if I thought there was a way of keeping you alive, and unmutilated,
here in Atlantis, I do not think I should point out that Tob is tired
of waiting, and will probably be off without you.” She flung her arms
suddenly about my neck, and kissed me hotly on the mouth. “There, that
is for good-bye, dear. You see I am reckless. I care not what I do now,
knowing that you cannot despise me more than you have done all along for
my forwardness.”
She ran back from me into the edge of the trees.
“But this is foolishness,” I said. “I must take you through the dangers
that lie between here and some gate of the city, and then come back to
the ship.”
“You need not fear for me. The unhappy are always safe. And, besides, I
have a way. It is my solace to know that you will remember me now. You
will never forget that kiss.”
“Fare you well, Ylga,” I cried. “May the High Gods keep you entirely in
their holy care.”
But no reply came back. She had gone off into the forest. And so I
turned down to the beach, and splashed into the water, and climbed on
board the ship up the steering oars. Tob gave the word to haul-to the
anchor, and get her away from the beach.
“Greeting, my lord,” said he, “but I’d have been pleased to see you
earlier. We’ve small enough force and slow enough heels in this vessel,
and it’s my idea that the sooner we’re away from here and beyond range
of pursuit, the safer it will be for my woman and brats who are in that
hutch of an after-castle. It’s long enough since I sailed in such a
small old-fashioned ship as this. She’s no machines, and she’s not even
a steering mannikin. Look at the meanness of her furniture and (in your
ear) I’ve suspicions that there’s rottenness in her bottom. But she’s
the best I’d the means to buy, and if she reaches the place at the
farther end I’ve got my eye on, we shall have to make a home there, or
be content to die, for she’ll never have strength to carry us farther
or back. She’s been a ship in the Egypt trade, and you know what that is
for getting worm and rot in the wood.”
“You’d enough hands for your scheme before I came?”
“Oh yes. I’ve fifty stout lads and eight women packed in the ship
somehow, and trouble enough I’ve had to get them away from the city.
That thief of a port-captain wellnigh skinned us clean before he could
see it lawful that so many useful fighting men might go out of harbour.
Times are not what they were, I tell you, and the sea trade’s about
done. All sailor men of any skill have taken a woman or two and gone
out in companies to try their fortunes in other lands. Why, I’d trouble
enough to get half a score to help me work this ship. All my balance are
just landsmen raw and simple, and if I land half of them alive at the
other end, we shall be doing well.”
“Still with luck and a few good winds it should not take long to get
across to Europe.”
Tob slapped his leg. “No savage Europe for me, my lord. Now, see the
advantage of being a mariner. I found once some islands to the north
of Europe, separated from the main by a strait, which I called the Tin
Islands, seeing that tin ore litters many of the beaches. I was driven
there by storm, and said no word of the find when I got back, and here
you see it comes in useful. There’s no one in all Atlantis but me knows
of those Tin Islands to-day, and we’ll go and fight honestly for our
ground, and build a town and a kingdom on it.”
“With Tob for king?”
“Well, I have figured it out as such for many a day, but I know when I
meet my better, and I’m content to serve under Deucalion. My lord would
have done wiser to have brought a wife with him, though, and I thought
it was understood by the good lady that spoke to me down at the harbour,
or I’d have mentioned it earlier. The savages in my Tin Islands go naked
and stain themselves blue with woad, and are very filthy and brutish to
look upon. They are sturdy, and should make good slaves, but one would
have to get blunted in the taste before one could wish to be father to
their children.”
“I am still husband to Phorenice.”
Tob grinned. “The Gods give you joy of her. But it is part of a
mariner’s creed--and you will grow to be a mariner here--that wedlock
does not hold across the seas. However, that matter may rest. But,
coming to my Tin Islands again: they’ll delight you. And I tell you, a
kingdom will not be so hard to carve out as it was in Egypt, or as you
found in Yucatan. There are beasts there, of course, and no one who
can hunt need ever go hungry. But the greater beasts are few. There
are cave-bears and cave-tigers in small numbers, to be sure, and some
river-horses and great snakes. But the greater lizards seem to avoid the
land; and as for birds, there is rarely seen one that can hurt a grown
man. Oh, I tell you, it will be a most desirable kingdom.”
“Tob seems to have imagined himself king of the Tin Islands with much
reality.”
He sighed a little. “In truth I did, and there is no denying it, and I
tell you plain, there is not another man living that I would have broken
this voyage for but Deucalion. But don’t think I regret it, and don’t
think I want to push myself above my place. This breeze and the ebb are
taking the old ship finely along her ways. See those fire baskets on the
harbour forts? We’re abreast of them now. We’ll have dropped them and
the city out of sight by daylight, and the flood will not begin to run
up till then. But I fear unless the wind hardens down with the dawn
we’ll have to bring up to an anchor when the flood makes. Tides run very
hard in these narrow seas. Aye, and there are some shrewdish tide-rips
round my Tin Islands, as you shall see when we reach them.”
There were many fearful glances backwards when day came and showed the
waters, and the burning mountains that hemmed them in beyond the shores.
All seemed to expect some navy of Phorenice to come surging up to take
them back to servitude and starvation in the squalid wards of the city;
and I confess ingenuously that I was with them in all truth when they
swore they would fight the ship till she sank beneath them, before they
would obey another of the commands of Phorenice. However, their brave
heroics were displayed to no small purpose. For the full flow of the
tide we hung in our place, barely moving past the land, but yet not
seeing either oar or sail; and then, when the tide turned, away we went
once more with speed, mightily comforted.
Tob’s woman must needs bring drink on deck, and bid all pour libations
to her as a future queen. But Tob cuffed her back into the after-castle,
slamming to the hatch behind her heels, and bidding the crew send the
liquor down their dusty throats. “We are done with that foolery,” said
he. “My Lord Deucalion will be king of this new kingdom we shall
build in the Tin Islands, and a right proper king he’ll make, as you
untravelled ones would know, if you’d sailed the outer seas with him as
I have done.” Beneath which I read a regret, but said nothing, having
made my plans from the moment of stepping on board, as will appear on a
later sheet.
So on down the great estuary we made our way, and though it pleasured
the others on board when they saw that the seas were desolate of sails,
it saddened me when I recalled how once the waters had been whitened
with the glut of shipping.
They had started off on their voyage with a bare two days’ provision
in their equipment, and so, of necessity even after leaving the great
estuary, we were forced to voyage coastwise, putting into every likely
river and sheltered beach to slay fish and meat for future victualling.
“And when the winter comes,” said Tob, “as its gales will be heavier
than this old ship can stomach, I had determined to haul up and make a
permanent camp ashore, and get a crop of grain grown and threshed before
setting sail again. It is the usual custom in these voyages. And I shall
do it still, subject to my lord’s better opinion.”
So here, having by this time completed a two months’ leisurely journey
from the city, I saw my opportunity to speak what I had always carried
in my mind. “Tob,” I said, “I am a poor, weak, defenceless man, and I am
quite at your mercy, but what if I do not voyage all the way to the Tin
Islands, and oust you of this kingship?”
He brightened perceptibly. “Aye,” he grunted, “you are very weak, my
lord, and mighty defenceless. We know all about that. But what’s
else? You must tell all your meaning plain. I’m a common mariner, and
understand little of your fancy talk.”
“Why, this. That it is not my wish to leave the continent of Atlantis.
If you will put me down on any part of this side that faces Europe, I
will commend you strongly to the Gods. I would I could give you
money, or (better still) articles that would be useful to you in your
colonising; but as it is, you see me destitute.”
“As to that, you owe me nothing, having done vastly more than your share
each time we have put in shore for the hunting. But it will not do, this
plan of yours. I will shamedly confess that the sound of that kingship
in my Tin Islands sounds sweet to me. But no, my lord, it will not do.
You are no mariner yet, and understand little of geography, but I must
tell you that the part of Atlantis there”--he jerked his thumb towards
the line of trees, and the mountains which lay beyond the fringe
of surf--“is called the Dangerous Lands, and a man must needs be a
salamander and be learned in magic (so I am told) before he can live
there.”
I laughed. “We of the Priests’ Clan have some education, Tob, though
it may not be on the same lines as your own. In fact, I may say I was
taught in the colleges concerning the boundaries and the contents of
our continent with a nicety that would surprise you. And once ashore, my
fate will still be under the control of the most High Gods.”
He muttered something in his profane seaman’s way about preferring to
keep his own fate under control of his own most strong right arm, but
saying that he would keep the matter in his thoughts, he excused himself
hurriedly to go and see to somewhat concerning the working of the ship,
and there left me.
But I think the sweets of kingly rule were a strong argument in favour
of letting me have my way (which I should have had otherwise if it had
not been given peacefully), and on the third day after our talk he
put the ship inshore again for re-victualling. We lurched into a
river-mouth, half swamped over a roaring bar, and ran up against the
bank and made fast there to trees, but booming ourselves a safe distance
off with oars and poles, so that no beast could leap on board out of the
thicket.
Fish-spearing and meat-hunting were set about with promptitude, and
on the second day we were happy enough to slay a yearling river-horse,
which gave provisions in all sufficiency. A space was cleared on the
bank, fires were lit, and the meat hung over the smoke in strips, and
when as much was cured as the ship would carry, the shipmen made a final
gorge on what remained, filled up a great stack of hollow reeds with
drinking water, and were ready to continue the voyage.
With sturdy generosity did Tob again attempt to make me sail on with
them as their future king, and as steadfastly did I make refusal; and
at last stood alone on the bank amongst the gnawed bones of their feast,
with my weapons to bear me company, and he, and his men, and the women
stood in the little old ship, ready to drop down river with the current.
“At least,” said Tob, “we’ll carry your memory with us, and make it big
in the Tin Islands for everlasting.”
“Forget me,” I said, “I am nothing. I am merely an incident that has
come in your way. But if you want to carry some memory with you that
shall endure, preserve the cult of the most High Gods as it was taught
to you when you were children here in Atlantis. And afterwards, when
your colony grows in power, and has come to sufficient magnificence, you
may send to the old country for a priest.”
“We want no priest, except one we shall make ourselves, and that will
be me. And as for the old Gods--well, I have laid my ideas before the
fellows here, and they agree to this: We are done with those old Gods
for always. They seem worn out, if one may judge from Their present lack
of usefulness in Atlantis, and, anyway, there will be no room for Them
on the Tin Islands.--Let go those warps there aft, and shove her head
out.--We are under weigh now, my lord, and beyond recall, and so I am
free to tell you what we have decided upon for our religious exercises.
We shall set up the memory of a living Hero on earth, and worship that.
And when in years to come the picture of his face grows dim, we shall
doubtless make an image of him, as accurate as our art permits, and
build him a temple for shelter, and bring there our offerings and
prayers. And as I say, my lord, I shall be priest, and when I am dead,
the sons of my body shall be priests after me, and the eldest a king
also.”
“Let me plead with you,” I said. “This must not be.”
The ship was drifting rapidly away with the current, and they were
hoisting sail. Tob had to shout to make himself heard. “Aye, but it
shall be. For I, too, am a strong man after my kind, and I have ordered
it so. And if you want the name of our Hero that some day shall be God,
you wear it on yourself. Deucalion shall be God for our children.”
“This is blasphemy,” I cried. “Have a care, fool, or this impiety will
sink you.”
“We will risk it,” he bawled back, “and consider the odds against us are
small. Regard! Here is thy last horn of wine in the ship, and my woman
has treasured it against this moment. Regard, all men, together
with Those above and Those below! I pour this wine as a libation to
Deucalion, great lord that is to-day, Hero that shall be to-morrow, God
that will be in time to come!” And then all those on the ship joined
in the acclaim till they were beyond the reach of my voice, and were
battling their way out to sea through the roaring breakers of the bar.
Solitary I stood at the brink of the forest, looking after them and
musing sadly. Tob, despite his lowly station, was a man I cared for more
than many. Like all seamen, I knew that he paid his devotions to one
of the obscurer Gods, but till then I had supposed him devout in his
worship. His new avowal came to me as a desolating shock. If a man like
Tob could forsake all the older Gods to set up on high some poor mortal
who had momentarily caught his fancy, what could be expected from
the mere thoughtless mob, when swayed by such a brilliant tongue as
Phorenice’s? It seemed I was to begin my exile with a new dreariness
added to all the other adverse prospects of Atlantis.
But then behind me I heard the rustle of some great beast that had
scented me, and was coming to attack through the thicket, and so I had
other matters to think upon. I had to let Tob and his ship go out over
the rim of the horizon unwatched.