So I came down through the wood to the bank of Yann and found, as had
been prophesied, the ship _Bird of the River_ about to loose her
cable.
The captain sate cross-legged upon the white deck with his scimitar
lying beside him in its jewelled scabbard, and the sailors toiled to
spread the nimble sails to bring the ship into the central stream of
Yann, and all the while sang ancient soothing songs. And the wind of
the evening descending cool from the snowfields of some mountainous
abode of distant gods came suddenly, like glad tidings to an anxious
city, into the wing-like sails.
And so we came into the central stream, whereat the sailors lowered
the greater sails. But I had gone to bow before the captain, and to
inquire concerning the miracles, and appearances among men, of the
most holy gods of whatever land he had come from. And the captain
answered that he came from fair Belzoond, and worshipped gods that
were the least and humblest, who seldom sent the famine or the
thunder, and were easily appeased with little battles. And I told how
I came from Ireland, which is of Europe, whereat the captain and all
the sailors laughed, for they said, "There are no such places in all
the land of dreams." When they had ceased to mock me, I explained that
my fancy mostly dwelt in the desert of Cuppar-Nombo, about a beautiful
city called Golthoth the Damned, which was sentinelled all round by
wolves and their shadows, and had been utterly desolate for years and
years, because of a curse which the gods once spoke in anger and could
never since recall. And sometimes my dreams took me as far as Pungar
Vees, the red walled city where the fountains are, which trades with
the Isles and Thul. When I said this they complimented me upon the
abode of my fancy, saying that, though they had never seen these
cities, such places might well be imagined. For the rest of that
evening I bargained with the captain over the sum that I should pay
him for my fare if God and the tide of Yann should bring us safely as
far as the cliffs by the sea, which are named Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate
of Yann.
And now the sun had set, and all the colours of the world and heaven
had held a festival with him, and slipped one by one away before the
imminent approach of night. The parrots had all flown home to the
jungle on either bank, the monkeys in rows in safety on high branches
of the trees were silent and asleep, the fireflies in the deeps of the
forest were going up and down, and the great stars came gleaming out
to look on the face of Yann. Then the sailors lighted lanterns and
hung them round the ship, and the light flashed out on a sudden and
dazzled Yann, and the ducks that fed along his marshy banks all
suddenly arose, and made wide circles in the upper air, and saw the
distant reaches of the Yann and the white mist that softly cloaked the
jungle, before they returned again into their marshes.
And then the sailors knelt on the decks and prayed, not all together,
but five or six at a time. Side by side there kneeled down together
five or six, for there only prayed at the same time men of different
faiths, so that no god should hear two men praying to him at once. As
soon as any one had finished his prayer, another of the same faith
would take his place. Thus knelt the row of five or six with bended
heads under the fluttering sail, while the central stream of the River
Yann took them on towards the sea, and their prayers rose up from
among the lanterns and went towards the stars. And behind them in the
after end of the ship the helmsman prayed aloud the helmsman's prayer,
which is prayed by all who follow his trade upon the River Yann, of
whatever faith they be. And the captain prayed to his little lesser
gods, to the gods that bless Belzoond.
And I too felt that I would pray. Yet I liked not to pray to a jealous
God there where the frail affectionate gods whom the heathen love were
being humbly invoked; so I bethought me, instead, of Sheol Nugganoth,
whom the men of the jungle have long since deserted, who is now
unworshipped and alone; and to him I prayed.
And upon us praying the night came suddenly down, as it comes upon all
men who pray at evening and upon all men who do not; yet our prayers
comforted our own souls when we thought of the Great Night to come.
And so Yann bore us magnificently onwards, for he was elated with
molten snow that the Poltiades had brought him from the Hills of Hap,
and the Marn and Migris were swollen full with floods; and he bore us
in his might past Kyph and Pir, and we saw the lights of Goolunza.
Soon we all slept except the helmsman, who kept the ship in the
midstream of Yann.
When the sun rose the helmsman ceased to sing, for by song he cheered
himself in the lonely night. When the song ceased we suddenly all
awoke, and another took the helm, and the helmsman slept.
We knew that soon we should come to Mandaroon. We made a meal, and
Mandaroon appeared. Then the captain commanded, and the sailors loosed
again the greater sails, and the ship turned and left the stream of
Yann and came into a harbour beneath the ruddy walls of Mandaroon.
Then while the sailors went and gathered fruits I came alone to the
gate of Mandaroon. A few huts were outside it, in which lived the
guard. A sentinel with a long white beard was standing in the gate,
armed with a rusty pike. He wore large spectacles, which were covered
with dust. Through the gate I saw the city. A deathly stillness was
over all of it. The ways seemed untrodden, and moss was thick on
doorsteps; in the market-place huddled figures lay asleep. A scent of
incense and burned poppies, and there was a hum of the echoes of
distant bells. I said to the sentinel in the tongue of the region of
Yann, "Why are they all asleep in this still city?"
He answered: "None may ask questions in this gate for fear they wake
the people of the city. For when the people of this city wake the gods
will die. And when the gods die men may dream no more." And I began to
ask him what gods that city worshipped, but he lifted his pike because
none might ask questions there. So I left him and went back to the
_Bird of the River_.
Certainly Mandaroon was beautiful with her white pinnacles peering
over her ruddy walls and the green of her copper roofs.
When I came back again to the _Bird of the River_, I found the sailors
were returned to the ship. Soon we weighed anchor, and sailed out
again, and so came once more to the middle of the river. And now the
sun was moving towards his heights, and there had reached us on the
River Yann the song of those countless myriads of choirs that attend
him in his progress round the world. For the little creatures that
have many legs had spread their gauze wings easily on the air, as a
man rests his elbows on a balcony and gave jubilant, ceremonial
praises to the sun, or else they moved together on the air in wavering
dances intricate and swift, or turned aside to avoid the onrush of
some drop of water that a breeze had shaken from a jungle orchid,
chilling the air and driving it before it, as it fell whirring in its
rush to the earth; but all the while they sang triumphantly. "For the
day is for us," they said, "whether our great and sacred father the
Sun shall bring up more life like us from the marshes, or whether all
the world shall end to-night." And there sang all those whose notes
are known to human ears, as well as those whose far more numerous
notes have never been heard by man.
To these a rainy day had been as an era of war that should desolate
continents during all the lifetime of a man.
And there came out also from the dark and steaming jungle to behold
and rejoice in the Sun the huge and lazy butterflies. And they danced,
but danced idly, on the ways of the air, as some haughty queen of
distant conquered lands might in her poverty and exile dance, in some
encampment of the gipsies, for the mere bread to live by, but beyond
that would never abate her pride to dance for a fragment more.
And the butterflies sung of strange and painted things, of purple
orchids and of lost pink cities and the monstrous colours of the
jungle's decay. And they, too, were among those whose voices are not
discernible by human ears. And as they floated above the river, going
from forest to forest, their splendour was matched by the inimical
beauty of the birds who darted out to pursue them. Or sometimes they
settled on the white and wax-like blooms of the plant that creeps and
clambers about the trees of the forest; and their purple wings flashed
out on the great blossoms as, when the caravans go from Nurl to Thace,
the gleaming silks flash out upon the snow, where the crafty merchants
spread them one by one to astonish the mountaineers of the Hills of
Noor.
But upon men and beasts the sun sent a drowsiness. The river monsters
along the river's marge lay dormant in the slime. The sailors pitched
a pavilion, with golden tassels, for the captain upon the deck, and
then went, all but the helmsman, under a sail that they had hung as an
awning between two masts. Then they told tales to one another, each of
his own city or of the miracles of his god, until all were fallen
asleep. The captain offered me the shade of his pavilion with the gold
tassels, and there we talked for a while, he telling me that he was
taking merchandise to Perdóndaris, and that he would take back to fair
Belzoond things appertaining to the affairs of the sea. Then, as I
watched through the pavilion's opening the brilliant birds and
butterflies that crossed and recrossed over the river, I fell asleep,
and dreamed that I was a monarch entering his capital underneath
arches of flags, and all the musicians of the world were there,
playing melodiously their instruments; but no one cheered.
In the afternoon, as the day grew cooler again, I awoke and found the
captain buckling on his scimitar, which he had taken off him while he
rested.
And now we were approaching the wide court of Astahahn, which opens
upon the river. Strange boats of antique design were chained there to
the steps. As we neared it we saw the open marble court, on three
sides of which stood the city fronting on colonnades. And in the court
and along the colonnades the people of that city walked with solemnity
and care according to the rites of ancient ceremony. All in that city
was of ancient device; the carving on the houses, which, when age had
broken it remained unrepaired, was of the remotest times, and
everywhere were represented in stone beasts that have long since
passed away from Earth--the dragon, the griffin, and the hippogriffin,
and the different species of gargoyle. Nothing was to be found,
whether material or custom, that was new in Astahahn. Now they took no
notice at all of us as we went by, but continued their processions and
ceremonies in the ancient city, and the sailors, knowing their custom,
took no notice of them. But I called, as we came near, to one who
stood beside the water's edge, asking him what men did in Astahahn and
what their merchandise was, and with whom they traded. He said, "Here
we have fettered and manacled Time, who would otherwise slay the
gods."
I asked him what gods they worshipped in that city, and he said, "All
those gods whom Time has not yet slain." Then he turned from me and
would say no more, but busied himself in behaving in accordance with
ancient custom. And so, according to the will of Yann, we drifted
onwards and left Astahahn, and we found in greater quantities such
birds as prey on fishes. And they were very wonderful in their
plumage, and they came not out of the jungle, but flew, with their
long necks stretched out before them, and their legs lying on the wind
behind straight up the river over the mid-stream.
And now the evening began to gather in. A thick white mist had
appeared over the river, and was softly rising higher. It clutched at
the trees with long impalpable arms, it rose higher and higher,
chilling the air; and white shapes moved away into the jungle as
though the ghosts of shipwrecked mariners were searching stealthily in
the darkness for the spirits of evil that long ago had wrecked them on
the Yann.
As the sun sank behind the field of orchids that grew on the matted
summit of the jungle, the river monsters came wallowing out of the
slime in which they had reclined during the heat of the day, and the
great beasts of the jungle came down to drink. The butterflies a while
since were gone to rest. In little narrow tributaries that we passed
night seemed already to have fallen, though the sun which had
disappeared from us had not yet set.
And now the birds of the jungle came flying home far over us, with the
sunlight glistening pink upon their breasts, and lowered their pinions
as soon as they saw the Yann, and dropped into the trees. And the
widgeon began to go up the river in great companies, all whistling,
and then would suddenly wheel and all go down again. And there shot by
us the small and arrow-like teal; and we heard the manifold cries of
flocks of geese, which the sailors told me had recently come in from
crossing over the Lispasian ranges; every year they come by the same
way, close by the peak of Mluna, leaving it to the left, and the
mountain eagles know the way they come and--men say--the very hour,
and every year they expect them by the same way as soon as the snows
have fallen upon the Northern Plains. But soon it grew so dark that we
saw these birds no more, and only heard the whirring of their wings,
and of countless others besides, until they all settled down along the
banks of the river, and it was the hour when the birds of the night
went forth. Then the sailors lit the lanterns for the night, and huge
moths appeared, flapping about the ship, and at moments their gorgeous
colours would be revealed by the lanterns, then they would pass into
the night again, where all was black. And again the sailors prayed,
and thereafter we supped and slept, and the helmsman took our lives
into his care.
When I awoke I found that we had indeed come to Perdóndaris, that
famous city. For there it stood upon the left of us, a city fair and
notable, and all the more pleasant for our eyes to see after the
jungle that was so long with us. And we were anchored by the
marketplace, and the captain's merchandise was all displayed, and a
merchant of Perdóndaris stood looking at it. And the captain had his
scimitar in his hand, and was beating with it in anger upon the deck,
and the splinters were flying up from the white planks; for the
merchant had offered him a price for his merchandise that the captain
declared to be an insult to himself and his country's gods, whom he
now said to be great and terrible gods, whose curses were to be
dreaded. But the merchant waved his hands, which were of great
fatness, showing his pink palms, and swore that of himself he thought
not at all, but only of the poor folk in the huts beyond the city to
whom he wished to sell the merchandise for as low a price as possible,
leaving no remuneration for himself. For the merchandise was mostly
the thick toomarund carpets that in the winter keep the wind from the
floor, and tollub which the people smoke in pipes. Therefore the
merchant said if he offered a piffek more the poor folk must go
without their toomarunds when the winter came, and without their
tollub in the evenings, or else he and his aged father must starve
together. Thereat the captain lifted his scimitar to his own throat,
saying that he was now a ruined man, and that nothing remained to him
but death. And while he was carefully lifting he beard with his left
hand, the merchant eyed the merchandise again, and said that rather
than see so worthy a captain die, a man for whom he had conceived an
especial love when first he saw the manner in which he handled his
ship, he and his aged father should starve together and therefore he
offered fifteen piffeks more.
When he said this the captain prostrated himself and prayed to his
gods that they might yet sweeten this merchant's bitter heart--to his
little lesser gods, to the gods that bless Belzoond.
At last the merchant offered yet five piffeks more. Then the captain
wept, for he said that he was deserted of his gods; and the merchant
also wept, for he said that he was thinking of his aged father, and of
how soon he would starve, and he hid his weeping face with both his
hands, and eyed the tollub again between his fingers. And so the
bargain was concluded, and the merchant took the toomarund and tollub,
paying for them out of a great clinking purse. And these were packed
up into bales again, and three of the merchant's slaves carried them
upon their heads into the city. And all the while the sailors had sat
silent, cross-legged in a crescent upon the deck, eagerly watching the
bargain, and now a murmur of satisfaction arose among them, and they
began to compare it among themselves with other bargains that they had
known. And I found out from them that there are seven merchants in
Perdóndaris, and that they had all come to the captain one by one
before the bargaining began, and each had warned him privately against
the others. And to all the merchants the captain had offered the wine
of his own country, that they make in fair Belzoond, but could in no
wise persuade them to it. But now that the bargain was over, and the
sailors were seated at the first meal of the day, the captain appeared
among them with a cask of that wine, and we broached it with care and
all made merry together. And the captain was glad in his heart because
he knew that he had much honour in the eyes of his men because of the
bargain that he had made. So the sailors drank the wine of their
native land, and soon their thoughts were back in fair Belzoond and
the little neighbouring cities of Durl and Duz.
But for me the captain poured into a little glass some heavy yellow
wine from a small jar which he kept apart among his sacred things.
Thick and sweet it was, even like honey, yet there was in its heart a
mighty, ardent fire which had authority over souls of men. It was
made, the captain told me, with great subtlety by the secret craft of
a family of six who lived in a hut on the mountains of Hian Min. Once
in these mountains, he said, he followed the spoor of a bear, and he
came suddenly on a man of that family who had hunted the same bear,
and he was at the end of a narrow way with precipice all about him,
and his spear was sticking in the bear, and the wound not fatal, and
he had no other weapon. And the bear was walking towards the man, very
slowly because his wound irked him--yet he was now very close. And
what the captain did he would not say, but every year as soon as the
snows are hard, and travelling is easy on the Hian Min, that man comes
down to the market in the plains, and always leaves for the captain in
the gate of fair Belzoond a vessel of that priceless secret wine.
And as I sipped the wine and the captain talked, I remembered me of
stalwart noble things that I had long since resolutely planned, and my
soul seemed to grow mightier within me and to dominate the whole tide
of the Yann. It may be that I then slept. Or, if I did not, I do not
now minutely recollect every detail of that morning's occupations.
Towards evening, I awoke and wishing to see Perdóndaris before we left
in the morning, and being unable to wake the captain, I went ashore
alone. Certainly Perdóndaris was a powerful city; it was encompassed
by a wall of great strength and altitude, having in it hollow ways for
troops to walk in, and battlements along it all the way, and fifteen
strong towers on it in every mile, and copper plaques low down where
men could read them, telling in all the languages of those parts of
the Earth--one language on each plaque--the tale of how an army once
attacked Perdóndaris and what befell that army. Then I entered
Perdóndaris and found all the people dancing, clad in brilliant silks,
and playing on the tam-bang as they danced. For a fearful thunderstorm
had terrified them while I slept, and the fires of death, they said,
had danced over Perdóndaris, and now the thunder had gone leaping away
large and black and hideous, they said, over the distant hills, and
had turned round snarling at them, showing his gleaming teeth, and had
stamped, as he went, upon the hilltops until they rang as though they
had been bronze. And often and again they stopped in their merry
dances and prayed to the God they knew not, saying, "O, God that we
know not, we thank Thee for sending the thunder back to his hills."
And I went on and came to the market-place, and lying there upon the
marble pavement I saw the merchant fast asleep and breathing heavily,
with his face and the palms of his hands towards the sky, and slaves
were fanning him to keep away the flies. And from the market-place I
came to a silver temple and then to a palace of onyx, and there were
many wonders in Perdóndaris, and I would have stayed and seen them
all, but as I came to the outer wall of the city I suddenly saw in it
a huge ivory gate. For a while I paused and admired it, then I came
nearer and perceived the dreadful truth. The gate was carved out of
one solid piece!
I fled at once through the gateway and down to the ship, and even as I
ran I thought that I heard far off on the hills behind me the tramp of
the fearful beast by whom that mass of ivory was shed, who was perhaps
even then looking for his other tusk. When I was on the ship again I
felt safer, and I said nothing to the sailors of what I had seen.
And now the captain was gradually awakening. Now night was rolling up
from the East and North, and only the pinnacles of the towers of
Perdóndaris still took the fallen sunlight. Then I went to the captain
and told him quietly of the thing I had seen. And he questioned me at
once about the gate, in a low voice, that the sailors might not know;
and I told him how the weight of the thing was such that it could not
have been brought from afar, and the captain knew that it had not been
there a year ago. We agreed that such a beast could never have been
killed by any assault of man, and that the gate must have been a
fallen tusk, and one fallen near and recently. Therefore he decided
that it were better to flee at once; so he commanded, and the sailors
went to the sails, and others raised the anchor to the deck, and just
as the highest pinnacle of marble lost the last rays of the sun we
left Perdóndaris, that famous city. And night came down and cloaked
Perdóndaris and hid it from our eyes, which as things have happened
will never see it again; for I have heard since that something swift
and wonderful has suddenly wrecked Perdóndaris in a day--towers, and
walls, and people.
And the night deepened over the River Yann, a night all white with
stars. And with the night there arose the helmsman's song. As soon as
he had prayed he began to sing to cheer himself all through the lonely
night. But first he prayed, praying the helmsman's prayer. And this is
what I remember of it, rendered into English with a very feeble
equivalent of the rhythm that seemed so resonant in those tropic
nights
To whatever god may hear.
Wherever there be sailors whether of river or sea: whether their
way be dark or whether through storm: whether their perils be of
beast or of rock: or from enemy lurking on land or pursuing on sea:
wherever the tiller is cold or the helmsman stiff: wherever sailors
sleep or helmsman watch: guard, guide, and return us to the old
land, that has known us: to the far homes that we know.
To all the gods that are.
To whatever god may hear.
So he prayed, and there was silence. And the sailors laid them down to
rest for the night. The silence deepened, and was only broken by the
ripples of Yann that lightly touched our prow. Sometimes some monster
of the river coughed.
Silence and ripples, ripples and silence again.
And then his loneliness came upon the helmsman, and he began to sing.
And he sang the market songs of Durl and Duz, and the old
dragon-legends of Belzoond.
Many a song he sang, telling to spacious and exotic Yann the little
tales and trifles of his city of Durl. And the songs welled up over
the black jungle and came into the clear cold air above, and the great
bands of stars that looked on Yann began to know the affairs of Durl
and Duz, and of the shepherds that dwelt in the fields between, and
the flocks that they had, and the loves that they had loved, and all
the little things that they hoped to do. And as I lay wrapped up in
skins and blankets listening to those songs, and watching the
fantastic shapes of the great trees like to black giants stalking
through the night, I suddenly fell asleep.
When I awoke great mists were trailing away from the Yann. And the
flow of the river was tumbling now tumultuously, and little waves
appeared; for Yann had scented from afar the ancient crags of Glorm,
and knew that their ravines lay cool before him wherein he should meet
the merry wild Irillion rejoicing from fields of snow. So he shook off
from him the torpid sleep that had come upon him in the hot and
scented jungle, and forgot its orchids and its butterflies, and swept
on turbulent, expectant, strong; and soon the snowy peaks of the Hills
of Glorm came glittering into view. And now the sailors were waking up
from sleep. Soon we all ate, and then the helmsman laid him down to
sleep while a comrade took his place, and they all spread over him
their choicest furs.
And in a while we heard the sound that the Irillion made as she came
down dancing from the fields of snow.
And then we saw the ravine in the Hills of Glorm lying precipitous and
smooth before us, into which we were carried by the leaps of Yann. And
now we left the steamy jungle and breathed the mountain air; the
sailors stood up and took deep breaths of it, and thought of their own
far-off Acroctian hills on which were Durl and Duz--below them in the
plains stands fair Belzoond.
A great shadow brooded between the cliffs of Glorm, but the crags were
shining above us like gnarled moons, and almost lit the gloom. Louder
and louder came the Irillion's song, and the sound of her dancing down
from the fields of snow. And soon we saw her white and full of mists,
and wreathed with rainbows delicate and small that she had plucked up
near the mountain's summit from some celestial garden of the Sun. Then
she went away seawards with the huge grey Yann and the ravine widened,
and opened upon the world, and our rocking ship came through to the
light of day.
And all that morning and all the afternoon we passed through the
marshes of Pondoovery; and Yann widened there, and flowed solemnly and
slowly, and the captain bade the sailors beat on bells to overcome the
dreariness of the marshes.
At last the Irusian Mountains came in sight, nursing the villages of
Pen-Kai and Blut, and the wandering streets of Mlo, where priests
propitiate the avalanche with wine and maize. Then the night came down
over the plains of Tlun, and we saw the lights of Cappadarnia. We
heard the Pathnites beating upon drums as we passed Imaut and
Golzunda, then all but the helmsman slept. And villages scattered
along the banks of the Yann heard all that night in the helmsman's
unknown tongue the little songs of cities that they know not.
I awoke before dawn with a feeling that I was unhappy before I
remembered why. Then I recalled that by the evening of the approaching
day, according to all forseen probabilities, we should come to
Bar-Wul-Yann, and I should part from the captain and his sailors. And I
had liked the man because he had given me of his yellow wine that was
set apart among his sacred things, and many a story he had told me
about his fair Belzoond between the Acrotian hills and the Hian Min.
And I had liked the ways that his sailors had, and the prayers that
they prayed at evening side by side, grudging not one another their
alien gods. And I had a liking too for the tender way in which they
often spoke of Durl and Duz, for it is good that men should love their
native cities and the little hills that hold those cities up.
And I had come to know who would meet them when they returned to their
homes, and where they thought the meetings would take place, some in a
valley of the Acrotian hills where the road comes up from Yann, others
in the gateway of one or another of the three cities, and others by
the fireside in the home. And I thought of the danger that had menaced
us all alike outside Perdóndaris, a danger that, as things have
happened, was very real.
And I thought too of the helmsman's cheery song in the cold and lonely
night, and how he had held our lives in his careful hands. And as I
thought of this the helmsman ceased to sing, and I looked up and saw a
pale light had appeared in the sky, and the lonely night had passed;
and the dawn widened, and the sailors awoke.
And soon we saw the tide of the Sea himself advancing resolute between
Yann's borders, and Yann sprang lithely at him and they struggled a
while; then Yann and all that was his were pushed back northwards, so
that the sailors had to hoist the sails, and the wind being
favourable, we still held onwards.
And we passed Góndara and Narl and Hoz. And we saw memorable, holy
Golnuz, and heard the pilgrims praying.
When we awoke after the midday rest we were coming near to Nen, the
last of the cities in the River Yann. And the jungle was all about us
once again, and about Nen; but the great Mloon ranges stood up over
all things, and watched the city from beyond the jungle.
Here we anchored, and the captain and I went up into the city and
found that the Wanderers had come into Nen.
And the Wanderers were a weird, dark, tribe, that once in every seven
years came down from the peaks of Mloon, having crossed by a pass that
is known to them from some fantastic land that lies beyond. And the
people of Nen were all outside their houses, and all stood wondering
at their own streets. For the men and women of the Wanderers had
crowded all the ways, and every one was doing some strange thing. Some
danced astounding dances that they had learned from the desert wind,
rapidly curving and swirling till the eye could follow no longer.
Others played upon instruments beautiful wailing tunes that were full
of horror, which souls had taught them lost by night in the desert,
that strange far desert from which the Wanderers came.
None of their instruments were such as were known in Nen nor in any
part of the region of the Yann; even the horns out of which some were
made were of beasts that none had seen along the river, for they were
barbed at the tips. And they sang, in the language of none, songs that
seemed to be akin to the mysteries of night and to the unreasoned fear
that haunts dark places.
Bitterly all the dogs of Nen distrusted them. And the Wanderers told
one another fearful tales, for though no one in Nen knew aught of
their language, yet they could see the fear on the listeners' faces,
and as the tale wound on, the whites of their eyes showed vividly in
terror as the eyes of some little beast whom the hawk has seized. Then
the teller of the tale would smile and stop, and another would tell
his story, and the teller of the first tale's lips would chatter with
fear. And if some deadly snake chanced to appear the Wanderers would
greet him like a brother, and the snake would seem to give his
greetings to them before he passed on again. Once that most fierce and
lethal of tropic snakes, the giant lythra, came out of the jungle and
all down the street, the central street of Nen, and none of the
Wanderers moved away from him, but they all played sonorously on
drums, as though he had been a person of much honour; and the snake
moved through the midst of them and smote none.
Even the Wanderers' children could do strange things, for if any one
of them met with a child of Nen the two would stare at each other in
silence with large grave eyes; then the Wanderers' child would slowly
draw from his turban a live fish or snake. And the children of Nen
could do nothing of that kind at all.
Much I should have wished to stay and hear the hymn with which they
greet the night, that is answered by the wolves on the heights of
Mloon, but it was now time to raise the anchor again that the captain
might return from Bar-Wul-Yann upon the landward tide. So we went on
board and continued down the Yann. And the captain and I spoke little,
for we were thinking of our parting, which should be for long, and we
watched instead the splendour of the westerning sun. For the sun was a
ruddy gold, but a faint mist cloaked the jungle, lying low, and into
it poured the smoke of the little jungle cities, and the smoke of them
met together in the mist and joined into one haze, which became
purple, and was lit by the sun, as the thoughts of men become hallowed
by some great and sacred thing. Sometimes one column from a lonely
house would rise up higher than the cities' smoke, and gleam by itself
in the sun.
And now as the sun's last rays were nearly level, we saw the sight
that I had come to see, for from two mountains that stood on either
shore two cliffs of pink marble came out into the river, all glowing
in the light of the low sun, and they were quite smooth and of
mountainous altitude, and they nearly met, and Yann went tumbling
between them and found the sea.
And this was Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate of Yann, and in the distance
through that barrier's gap I saw the azure indescribable sea, where
little fishing-boats went gleaming by.
And the sunset and the brief twilight came, and the exultation of the
glory of Bar-Wul-Yann was gone, yet still the pink cliffs glowed, the
fairest marvel that the eye beheld-and this in a land of wonders. And
soon the twilight gave place to the coming out of stars, and the
colours of Bar-Wul-Yann went dwindling away. And the sight of those
cliffs was to me as some chord of music that a master's hand had
launched from the violin, and which carries to Heaven of Faëry the
tremulous spirits of men.
And now by the shore they anchored and went no farther, for they were
sailors of the river and not of the sea, and knew the Yann but not the
tides beyond.
And the time was come when the captain and I must part, he to go back
again to his fair Belzoond in sight of the distant peaks of the Hian
Min, and I to find my way by strange means back to those hazy fields
that all poets know, wherein stand small mysterious cottages through
whose windows, looking westwards, you may see the fields of men, and
looking eastwards see glittering elfin mountains, tipped with snow,
going range on range into the region of Myth, and beyond it into the
kingdom of Fantasy, which pertain to the Lands of Dream. Long we
should meet no more, for my fancy is weakening as the years slip by,
and I go ever more seldom into the Lands of Dream. Then we clasped
hands, uncouthly on his part, for it is not the method of greeting in
his country, and he commended my soul to the care of his own gods, to
his little lesser gods, the humble ones, to the gods that bless
Belzoond.