“It is not wonderful that thou shouldst doubt. Tell me,
Kallikrates: if thou seest me stand in the flame and come forth
unharmed, wilt thou enter also?”
“Yes,” he answered, “I will enter even if it slay me. I have said
that I will enter now.”
“And that will I also,” I cried.
“What, my Holly!” she laughed aloud; “methought that thou wouldst
naught of length of days. Why, how is this?”
“Nay, I know not,” I answered, “but there is that in my heart
that calleth me to taste of the flame and live.”
“It is well,” she said. “Thou art not altogether lost in folly.
See now, I will for the second time bathe me in this living bath.
Fain would I add to my beauty and my length of days if that be
possible. If it be not possible, at the least it cannot harm me.
“Also,” she continued, after a momentary pause, “is there another
and a deeper cause why I would once again dip me in the flame.
When first I tasted of its virtue full was my heart of passion
and of hatred of that Egyptian Amenartas, and therefore, despite
my strivings to be rid thereof, have passion and hatred been
stamped upon my soul from that sad hour to this. But now it is
otherwise. Now is my mood a happy mood, and filled am I with the
purest part of thought, and so would I ever be. Therefore,
Kallikrates, will I once more wash and make me pure and clean,
and yet more fit for thee. Therefore also, when thou dost in turn
stand in the fire, empty all thy heart of evil, and let soft
contentment hold the balance of thy mind. Shake loose thy
spirit’s wings, and take thy stand upon the utter verge of holy
contemplation; ay, dream upon thy mother’s kiss, and turn thee
towards the vision of the highest good that hath ever swept on
silver wings across the silence of thy dreams. For from the germ
of what thou art in that dread moment shall grow the fruit of
what thou shalt be for all unreckoned time.
“Now prepare thee, prepare! even as though thy last hour were at
hand, and thou wast to cross to the Land of Shadows, and not
through the Gates of Glory into the realms of Life made
beautiful. Prepare, I say!”
XXVI.
WHAT WE SAW
Then came a few moments’ pause, during which Ayesha seemed to be
gathering up her strength for the fiery trial, while we clung to
each other, and waited in utter silence.
At last, from far far away, came the first murmur of sound, that
grew and grew till it began to crash and bellow in the distance.
As she heard it, Ayesha swiftly threw off her gauzy wrapping,
loosened the golden snake from her kirtle, and then, shaking her
lovely hair about her like a garment, beneath its cover slipped
the kirtle off and replaced the snaky belt around her and outside
the masses of her falling hair. There she stood before us as Eve
might have stood before Adam, clad in nothing but her abundant
locks, held round her by the golden band; and no words of mine
can tell how sweet she looked—and yet how divine. Nearer and
nearer came the thunder-wheels of fire, and as they came she
pushed one ivory arm through the dark masses of her hair and
flung it round Leo’s neck.
“Oh, my love, my love!” she murmured, “wilt thou ever know how I
have loved thee?” and she kissed him on the forehead, and then
went and stood in the pathway of the flame of Life.
There was, I remember, to my mind something very touching about
her words and that embrace upon the forehead. It was like a
mother’s kiss, and seemed to convey a benediction with it.
On came the crashing, rolling noise, and the sound of it was as
the sound of a forest being swept flat by a mighty wind, and then
tossed up like so much grass, and thundered down a mountain-side.
Nearer and nearer it came; now flashes of light, forerunners of
the revolving pillar of flame, were passing like arrows through
the rosy air; and now the edge of the pillar itself appeared.
Ayesha turned towards it, and stretched out her arms to greet it.
On it came very slowly, and lapped her round with flame. I saw
the fire run up her form. I saw her lift it with both hands as
though it were water, and pour it over her head. I even saw her
open her mouth and draw it down into her lungs, and a dread and
wonderful sight it was.
Then she paused, and stretched out her arms, and stood there
quite still, with a heavenly smile upon her face, as though she
were the very Spirit of the Flame.
The mysterious fire played up and down her dark and rolling
locks, twining and twisting itself through and around them like
threads of golden lace; it gleamed upon her ivory breast and
shoulder, from which the hair had slipped aside; it slid along
her pillared throat and delicate features, and seemed to find a
home in the glorious eyes that shone and shone, more brightly
even than the spiritual essence.
Oh, how beautiful she looked there in the flame! No angel out of
heaven could have worn a greater loveliness. Even now my heart
faints before the recollection of it, as she stood and smiled at
our awed faces, and I would give half my remaining time upon this
earth to see her once like that again.
But suddenly—more suddenly than I can describe—a kind of change
came over her face, a change which I could not define or explain,
but none the less a change. The smile vanished, and in its place
there came a dry, hard look; the rounded face seemed to grow
pinched, as though some great anxiety were leaving its impress
upon it. The glorious eyes, too, lost their light, and, as I
thought, the form its perfect shape and erectness.
I rubbed my eyes, thinking that I was the victim of some
hallucination, or that the refraction from the intense light
produced an optical delusion; and, as I did so, the flaming
pillar slowly twisted and thundered off whithersoever it passes
to in the bowels of the great earth, leaving Ayesha standing
where it had been.
As soon as it was gone, she stepped forward to Leo’s side—it
seemed to me that there was no spring in her step—and stretched
out her hand to lay it on his shoulder. I gazed at her arm. Where
was its wonderful roundness and beauty? It was getting thin and
angular. And her face—by Heaven!—_her face was growing old before
my eyes!_ I suppose that Leo saw it also; certainly he recoiled a
step or two.
“What is it, my Kallikrates?” she said, and her voice—what was
the matter with those deep and thrilling notes? They were quite
high and cracked.
“Why, what is it—what is it?” she said confusedly. “I feel dazed.
Surely the quality of the fire hath not altered. Can the
principle of Life alter? Tell me, Kallikrates, is there aught
wrong with my eyes? I see not clear,” and she put her hand to her
head and touched her hair—and oh, _horror of horrors!_—it all
fell upon the floor.
“Oh, _look!—look!—look!_” shrieked Job, in a shrill falsetto of
terror, his eyes nearly dropping out of his head, and foam upon
his lips. “_Look!—look!—look!_ she’s shrivelling up! she’s
turning into a monkey!” and down he fell upon the ground, foaming
and gnashing in a fit.
True enough—I faint even as I write it in the living presence of
that terrible recollection—she _was_ shrivelling up; the golden
snake that had encircled her gracious form slipped over her hips
and to the ground; smaller and smaller she grew; her skin changed
colour, and in place of the perfect whiteness of its lustre it
turned dirty brown and yellow, like an old piece of withered
parchment. She felt at her head: the delicate hand was nothing
but a claw now, a human talon like that of a badly-preserved
Egyptian mummy, and then she seemed to realise what kind of
change was passing over her, and she shrieked—ah, she
shrieked!—she rolled upon the floor and shrieked!
Smaller she grew, and smaller yet, till she was no larger than a
monkey. Now the skin was puckered into a million wrinkles, and on
the shapeless face was the stamp of unutterable age. I never saw
anything like it; nobody ever saw anything like the frightful age
that was graven on that fearful countenance, no bigger now than
that of a two-months’ child, though the skull remained the same
size, or nearly so, and let all men pray they never may, if they
wish to keep their reason.
At last she lay still, or only feebly moving. She, who but two
minutes before had gazed upon us the loveliest, noblest, most
splendid woman the world has ever seen, she lay still before us,
near the masses of her own dark hair, no larger than a big
monkey, and hideous—ah, too hideous for words. And yet, think of
this—at that very moment I thought of it—it was the _same_ woman!
She was dying: we saw it, and thanked God—for while she lived she
could feel, and what must she have felt? She raised herself upon
her bony hands, and blindly gazed around her, swaying her head
slowly from side to side as a tortoise does. She could not see,
for her whitish eyes were covered with a horny film. Oh, the
horrible pathos of the sight! But she could still speak.
“Kallikrates,” she said in husky, trembling notes. “Forget me
not, Kallikrates. Have pity on my shame; I shall come again, and
shall once more be beautiful, I swear it—it is true! _Oh—h—h—_”
and she fell upon her face, and was still.
On the very spot where more than twenty centuries before she had
slain Kallikrates the priest, she herself fell down and died.
I know not how long we remained thus. Many hours, I suppose. When
at last I opened my eyes, the other two were still outstretched
upon the floor. The rosy light yet beamed like a celestial dawn,
and the thunder-wheels of the Spirit of Life yet rolled upon
their accustomed track, for as I awoke the great pillar was
passing away. There, too, lay the hideous little monkey frame,
covered with crinkled yellow parchment, that once had been the
glorious _She_. Alas! it was no hideous dream—it was an awful and
unparalleled fact!
What had happened to bring this shocking change about? Had the
nature of the life-giving Fire changed? Did it, perhaps, from
time to time send forth an essence of Death instead of an essence
of Life? Or was it that the frame once charged with its
marvellous virtue could bear no more, so that were the process
repeated—it mattered not at what lapse of time—the two
impregnations neutralised each other, and left the body on which
they acted as it was before it ever came into contact with the
very essence of Life? This, and this alone, would account for the
sudden and terrible ageing of Ayesha, as the whole length of her
two thousand years took effect upon her. I have not the slightest
doubt myself but that the frame now lying before me was just what
the frame of a woman would be if by any extraordinary means life
could be preserved in her till she at length died at the age of
two-and-twenty centuries.
But who can tell what had happened? There was the fact. Often
since that awful hour I have reflected that it requires no great
imagination to see the finger of Providence in the matter. Ayesha
locked up in her living tomb waiting from age to age for the
coming of her lover worked but a small change in the order of the
World. But Ayesha strong and happy in her love, clothed in
immortal youth and goddess beauty, and the wisdom of the
centuries, would have revolutionised society, and even perchance
have changed the destiny of Mankind. Thus she opposed herself
against the eternal law, and, strong though she was, by it was
swept back to nothingness—swept back with shame and hideous
mockery!
For some minutes I lay faintly turning these terrors over in my
mind, while my physical strength came back to me, which it
quickly did in that buoyant atmosphere. Then I bethought me of
the others, and staggered to my feet, to see if I could arouse
them. But first I took up Ayesha’s kirtle and the gauzy scarf
with which she had been wont to hide her dazzling loveliness from
the eyes of men, and, averting my head so that I might not look
upon it, covered up that dreadful relic of the glorious dead,
that shocking epitome of human beauty and human life. I did this
hurriedly, fearing lest Leo should recover, and see it again.
Then, stepping over the perfumed masses of dark hair that lay
upon the sand, I stooped down by Job, who was lying upon his
face, and turned him over. As I did so his arm fell back in a way
that I did not like, and which sent a chill through me, and I
glanced sharply at him. One look was enough. Our old and faithful
servant was dead. His nerves, already shattered by all he had
seen and undergone, had utterly broken down beneath this last
dire sight, and he had died of terror, or in a fit brought on by
terror. I had only to look at his face to see it.
It was another blow; but perhaps it may help people to understand
how overwhelmingly awful was the experience through which we had
passed—we did not feel it much at the time. It seemed quite
natural that the poor fellow should be dead. When Leo came to
himself, which he did with a groan and trembling of the limbs
about ten minutes afterwards, and I told him that Job was dead,
he merely said, “_Oh!_” And, mind you, this was from no
heartlessness, for he and Job were much attached to each other;
and he often talks of him now with the deepest regret and
affection. It was only that his nerves would bear no more. A harp
can give out but a certain quantity of sound, however heavily it
is smitten.
Well, I set myself to recovering Leo, who, to my infinite relief,
I found was not dead, but only fainting, and in the end I
succeeded, as I have said, and he sat up; and then I saw another
dreadful thing. When we entered that awful place his curling hair
had been of the ruddiest gold, now it was turning grey, and by
the time we reached the outer air it was snow white. Besides, he
looked twenty years older.
“What is to be done, old fellow?” he said in a hollow, dead sort
of voice, when his mind had cleared a little, and a recollection
of what had happened forced itself upon it.
“Try and get out, I suppose,” I answered; “that is, unless you
would like to go in there,” and I pointed to the column of fire
that was once more rolling by.
“I would go in if I were sure that it would kill me,” he said
with a little laugh. “It was my cursed hesitation that did this.
If I had not been doubtful she might never have tried to show me
the road. But I am not sure. The fire might have the opposite
effect upon me. It might make me immortal; and, old fellow, I
have not the patience to wait a couple of thousand years for her
to come back again as she did for me. I had rather die when my
hour comes—and I should fancy that it isn’t far off either—and go
my ways to look for her. Do you go in if you like.”
But I merely shook my head, my excitement was as dead as
ditch-water, and my distaste for the prolongation of my mortal
span had come back upon me more strongly than ever. Besides, we
neither of us knew what the effects of the fire might be. The
result upon _She_ had not been of an encouraging nature, and of
the exact causes that produced that result we were, of course,
ignorant.
“Well, my boy,” I said, “we cannot stop here till we go the way
of those two,” and I pointed to the little heap under the white
garment and to the stiffening corpse of poor Job. “If we are
going we had better go. But, by the way, I expect that the lamps
have burnt out,” and I took one up and looked at it, and sure
enough it had.
“There is some more oil in the vase,” said Leo indifferently—“if
it is not broken, at least.”
I examined the vessel in question—it was intact. With a trembling
hand I filled the lamps—luckily there was still some of the linen
wick unburnt. Then I lit them with one of our wax matches. While
I did so we heard the pillar of fire approaching once more as it
went on its never-ending journey, if, indeed, it was the same
pillar that passed and repassed in a circle.
“Let’s see it come once more,” said Leo; “we shall never look
upon its like again in this world.”
It seemed a bit of idle curiosity, but somehow I shared it, and
so we waited till, turning slowly round upon its own axis, it had
flamed and thundered by; and I remember wondering for how many
thousands of years this same phenomenon had been taking place in
the bowels of the earth, and for how many more thousands it would
continue to take place. I wondered also if any mortal eyes would
ever again mark its passage, or any mortal ears be thrilled and
fascinated by the swelling volume of its majestic sound. I do not
think that they will. I believe that we are the last human beings
who will ever see that unearthly sight. Presently it had gone,
and we too turned to go.
But before we did so we each took Job’s cold hand in ours and
shook it. It was a rather ghastly ceremony, but it was the only
means in our power of showing our respect to the faithful dead
and of celebrating his obsequies. The heap beneath the white
garment we did not uncover. We had no wish to look upon that
terrible sight again. But we went to the pile of rippling hair
that had fallen from her in the agony of that hideous change
which was worse than a thousand natural deaths, and each of us
drew from it a shining lock, and these locks we still have, the
sole memento that is left to us of Ayesha as we knew her in the
fulness of her grace and glory. Leo pressed the perfumed hair to
his lips.
“She called to me not to forget her,” he said hoarsely; “and
swore that we should meet again. By Heaven! I never will forget
her. Here I swear that if we live to get out of this, I will not
for all my days have anything to say to another living woman, and
that wherever I go I will wait for her as faithfully as she
waited for me.”
“Yes,” I thought to myself, “if she comes back as beautiful as we knew
her. But supposing she came back _like that!_”[1]
[1] What a terrifying reflection it is, by the way, that nearly all
our deep love for women who are not our kindred depends—at any rate,
in the first instance—upon their personal appearance. If we lost them,
and found them again dreadful to look on, though otherwise they were
the very same, should we still love them? —L. H. H.
Well, and then we went. We went, and left those two in the
presence of the very well and spring of Life, but gathered to the
cold company of Death. How lonely they looked as they lay there,
and how ill assorted! That little heap had been for two thousand
years the wisest, loveliest, proudest creature—I can hardly call
her woman—in the whole universe. She had been wicked, too, in her
way; but, alas! such is the frailty of the human heart, her
wickedness had not detracted from her charm. Indeed, I am by no
means certain that it did not add to it. It was after all of a
grand order, there was nothing mean or small about Ayesha.
And poor Job too! His presentiment had come true, and there was
an end of him. Well, he has a strange burial-place—no Norfolk
hind ever had a stranger, or ever will; and it is something to
lie in the same sepulchre as the poor remains of the imperial
_She_.
We looked our last upon them and the indescribable rosy glow in
which they lay, and then with hearts far too heavy for words we
left them, and crept thence broken-down men—so broken down that
we even renounced the chance of practically immortal life,
because all that made life valuable had gone from us, and we knew
even then that to prolong our days indefinitely would only be to
prolong our sufferings. For we felt—yes, both of us—that having
once looked Ayesha in the eyes, we could not forget her for ever
and ever while memory and identity remained. We both loved her
now and for all time, she was stamped and carven on our hearts,
and no other woman or interest could ever raze that splendid die.
And I—there lies the sting—I had and have no right to think thus
of her. As she told me, I was naught to her, and never shall be
through the unfathomed depths of Time, unless, indeed, conditions
alter, and a day comes at last when two men may love one woman,
and all three be happy in the fact. It is the only hope of my
broken-heartedness, and a rather faint one. Beyond it I have
nothing. I have paid down this heavy price, all that I am worth
here and hereafter, and that is my sole reward. With Leo it is
different, and often and often I bitterly envy him his happy lot,
for if _She_ was right, and her wisdom and knowledge did not fail
her at the last, which, arguing from the precedent of her own
case, I think most unlikely, he has some future to look forward
to. But I have none, and yet—mark the folly and the weakness of
the human heart, and let him who is wise learn wisdom from it—yet
I would not have it otherwise. I mean that I am content to give
what I have given and must always give, and take in payment those
crumbs that fall from my mistress’s table, the memory of a few
kind words, the hope one day in the far undreamed future of a
sweet smile or two of recognition, a little gentle friendship,
and a little show of thanks for my devotion to her—and Leo.
If that does not constitute true love, I do not know what does,
and all I have to say is that it is a very bad state of affairs
for a man on the wrong side of middle age to fall into.
XXVII.
WE LEAP
We passed through the caves without trouble, but when we came to
the slope of the inverted cone two difficulties stared us in the
face. The first of these was the laborious nature of the ascent,
and the next the extreme difficulty of finding our way. Indeed,
had it not been for the mental notes that I had fortunately taken
of the shape of various rocks, I am sure that we never should
have managed it at all, but have wandered about in the dreadful
womb of the volcano—for I suppose it must once have been
something of the sort—until we died of exhaustion and despair. As
it was we went wrong several times, and once nearly fell into a
huge crack or crevasse. It was terrible work creeping about in
the dense gloom and awful stillness from boulder to boulder, and
examining it by the feeble light of the lamps to see if I could
recognise its shape. We rarely spoke, our hearts were too heavy
for speech, we simply stumbled about, falling sometimes and
cutting ourselves, in a rather dogged sort of way. The fact was
that our spirits were utterly crushed, and we did not greatly
care what happened to us. Only we felt bound to try and save our
lives whilst we could, and indeed a natural instinct prompted us
to it. So for some three or four hours, I should think—I cannot
tell exactly how long, for we had no watch left that would go—we
blundered on. During the last two hours we were completely lost,
and I began to fear that we had got into the funnel of some
subsidiary cone, when at last I suddenly recognised a very large
rock which we had passed in descending but a little way from the
top. It is a marvel that I should have recognised it, and,
indeed, we had already passed it going at right angles to the
proper path, when something about it struck me, and I turned back
and examined it in an idle sort of way, and, as it happened, this
proved our salvation.
After this we gained the rocky natural stair without much further
trouble, and in due course found ourselves back in the little
chamber where the benighted Noot had lived and died.
But now a fresh terror stared us in the face. It will be
remembered that owing to Job’s fear and awkwardness, the plank
upon which we had crossed from the huge spur to the rocking-stone
had been whirled off into the tremendous gulf below.
How were we to cross without the plank?
There was only one answer—we must try and _jump_ it, or else stop
there till we starved. The distance in itself was not so very
great, between eleven and twelve feet I should think, and I have
seen Leo jump over twenty when he was a young fellow at college;
but then, think of the conditions. Two weary, worn-out men, one
of them on the wrong side of forty, a rocking-stone to take off
from, a trembling point of rock some few feet across to land
upon, and a bottomless gulf to be cleared in a raging gale! It
was bad enough, God knows, but when I pointed out these things to
Leo, he put the whole matter in a nutshell, by replying that,
merciless as the choice was, we must choose between the certainty
of a lingering death in the chamber and the risk of a swift one
in the air. Of course, there was no arguing against this, but one
thing was clear, we could not attempt that leap in the dark; the
only thing to do was to wait for the ray of light which pierced
through the gulf at sunset. How near to or how far from sunset we
might be, neither of us had the faintest notion; all we did know
was, that when at last the light came it would not endure more
than a couple of minutes at the outside, so that we must be
prepared to meet it. Accordingly, we made up our minds to creep
on to the top of the rocking-stone and lie there in readiness. We
were the more easily reconciled to this course by the fact that
our lamps were once more nearly exhausted—indeed, one had gone
out bodily, and the other was jumping up and down as the flame of
a lamp does when the oil is done. So, by the aid of its dying
light, we hastened to crawl out of the little chamber and clamber
up the side of the great stone.
As we did so the light went out.
The difference in our position was a sufficiently remarkable one.
Below, in the little chamber, we had only heard the roaring of
the gale overhead—here, lying on our faces on the swinging stone,
we were exposed to its full force and fury, as the great draught
drew first from this direction and then from that, howling
against the mighty precipice and through the rocky cliffs like
ten thousand despairing souls. We lay there hour after hour in
terror and misery of mind so deep that I will not attempt to
describe it, and listened to the wild storm-voices of that
Tartarus, as, set to the deep undertone of the spur opposite
against which the wind hummed like some awful harp, they called
to each other from precipice to precipice. No nightmare dreamed
by man, no wild invention of the romancer, can ever equal the
living horror of that place, and the weird crying of those voices
of the night, as we clung like shipwrecked mariners to a raft,
and tossed on the black, unfathomed wilderness of air.
Fortunately the temperature was not a low one; indeed, the wind
was warm, or we should have perished. So we clung and listened,
and while we were stretched out upon the rock a thing happened
which was so curious and suggestive in itself, though doubtless a
mere coincidence, that, if anything, it added to, rather than
deducted from, the burden on our nerves.
It will be remembered that when Ayesha was standing on the spur,
before we crossed to the stone, the wind tore her cloak from her,
and whirled it away into the darkness of the gulf, we could not
see whither. Well—I hardly like to tell the story; it is so
strange. As we lay there upon the rocking-stone, this very cloak
came floating out of the black space, like a memory from the
dead, and fell on Leo—so that it covered him nearly from head to
foot. We could not at first make out what it was, but soon
discovered by its feel, and then poor Leo, for the first time,
gave way, and I heard him sobbing there upon the stone. No doubt
the cloak had been caught upon some pinnacle of the cliff, and
was thence blown hither by a chance gust; but still, it was a
most curious and touching incident.
Shortly after this, suddenly, without the slightest previous
warning, the great red knife of light came stabbing the darkness
through and through—struck the swaying stone on which we were,
and rested its sharp point upon the spur opposite.
“Now for it,” said Leo, “now or never.”
We rose and stretched ourselves, and looked at the cloud-wreaths
stained the colour of blood by that red ray as they tore through
the sickening depths beneath, and then at the empty space between
the swaying stone and the quivering rock, and, in our hearts,
despaired, and prepared for death. Surely we could not clear
it—desperate though we were.
“Who is to go first?” said I.
“Do you, old fellow,” answered Leo. “I will sit upon the other
side of the stone to steady it. You must take as much run as you
can, and jump high; and God have mercy on us, say I.”
I acquiesced with a nod, and then I did a thing I had never done
since Leo was a little boy. I turned and put my arm round him,
and kissed him on the forehead. It sounds rather French, but as a
fact I was taking my last farewell of a man whom I could not have
loved more if he had been my own son twice over.
“Good-bye, my boy,” I said, “I hope that we shall meet again,
wherever it is that we go to.”
The fact was I did not expect to live another two minutes.
Next I retreated to the far side of the rock, and waited till one
of the chopping gusts of wind got behind me, and then I ran the
length of the huge stone, some three or four and thirty feet, and
sprang wildly out into the dizzy air. Oh! the sickening terrors
that I felt as I launched myself at that little point of rock,
and the horrible sense of despair that shot through my brain as I
realised that I had _jumped short!_ but so it was, my feet never
touched the point, they went down into space, only my hands and
body came in contact with it. I gripped at it with a yell, but
one hand slipped, and I swung right round, holding by the other,
so that I faced the stone from which I had sprung. Wildly I
stretched up with my left hand, and this time managed to grasp a
knob of rock, and there I hung in the fierce red light, with
thousands of feet of empty air beneath me. My hands were holding
to either side of the under part of the spur, so that its point
was touching my head. Therefore, even if I could have found the
strength, I could not pull myself up. The most that I could do
would be to hang for about a minute, and then drop down, down
into the bottomless pit. If any man can imagine a more hideous
position, let him speak! All I know is that the torture of that
half-minute nearly turned my brain.
I heard Leo give a cry, and then suddenly saw him in mid air
springing up and out like a chamois. It was a splendid leap that
he took under the influence of his terror and despair, clearing
the horrible gulf as if it were nothing, and, landing well on to
the rocky point, he threw himself upon his face, to prevent his
pitching off into the depths. I felt the spur above me shake
beneath the shock of his impact, and as it did so I saw the huge
rocking-stone, that had been violently depressed by him as he
sprang, fly back when relieved of his weight till, for the first
time during all these centuries, it got beyond its balance, fell
with a most awful crash right into the rocky chamber which had
once served the philosopher Noot for a hermitage, and, I have no
doubt, for ever sealed the passage that leads to the Place of
Life with some hundreds of tons of rock.
All this happened in a second, and curiously enough,
notwithstanding my terrible position, I noted it involuntarily,
as it were. I even remember thinking that no human being would go
down that dread path again.
Next instant I felt Leo seize me by the right wrist with both
hands. By lying flat on the point of rock he could just reach me.
“You must let go and swing yourself clear,” he said in a calm and
collected voice, “and then I will try and pull you up, or we will
both go together. Are you ready?”
By way of answer I let go, first with my left hand and then with
the right, and, as a consequence, swayed out clear of the
overshadowing rock, my weight hanging upon Leo’s arms. It was a
dreadful moment. He was a very powerful man, I knew, but would
his strength be equal to lifting me up till I could get a hold on
the top of the spur, when owing to his position he had so little
purchase?
For a few seconds I swung to and fro, while he gathered himself
for the effort, and then I heard his sinews cracking above me,
and felt myself lifted up as though I were a little child, till I
got my left arm round the rock, and my chest was resting on it.
The rest was easy; in two or three more seconds I was up, and we
were lying panting side by side, trembling like leaves, and with
the cold perspiration of terror pouring from our skins.
And then, as before, the light went out like a lamp.
For some half-hour we lay thus without speaking a word, and then
at length began to creep along the great spur as best we might in
the dense gloom. As we drew towards the face of the cliff,
however, from which the spur sprang out like a spike from a wall,
the light increased, though only a very little, for it was night
overhead. After that the gusts of wind decreased, and we got
along rather better, and at last reached the mouth of the first
cave or tunnel. But now a fresh trouble stared as in the face:
our oil was gone, and the lamps were, no doubt, crushed to powder
beneath the fallen rocking-stone. We were even without a drop of
water to stay our thirst, for we had drunk the last in the
chamber of Noot. How were we to see to make our way through this
last boulder-strewn tunnel?
Clearly all that we could do was to trust to our sense of
feeling, and attempt the passage in the dark, so in we crept,
fearing that if we delayed to do so our exhaustion would overcome
us, and we should probably lie down and die where we were.
Oh, the horrors of that last tunnel! The place was strewn with
rocks, and we fell over them, and knocked ourselves up against
them till we were bleeding from a score of wounds. Our only guide
was the side of the cavern, which we kept touching, and so
bewildered did we grow in the darkness that we were several times
seized with the terrifying thought that we had turned, and were
travelling the wrong way. On we went, feebly, and still more
feebly, for hour after hour, stopping every few minutes to rest,
for our strength was spent. Once we fell asleep, and, I think,
must have slept for some hours, for, when we woke, our limbs were
quite stiff, and the blood from our blows and scratches had
caked, and was hard and dry upon our skin. Then we dragged
ourselves on again, till at last, when despair was entering into
our hearts, we once more saw the light of day, and found
ourselves outside the tunnel in the rocky fold on the outer
surface of the cliff that, it will be remembered, led into it.
It was early morning—that we could tell by the feel of the sweet
air and the look of the blessed sky, which we had never hoped to
see again. It was, so near as we knew, an hour after sunset when
we entered the tunnel, so it followed that it had taken us the
entire night to crawl through that dreadful place.
“One more effort, Leo,” I gasped, “and we shall reach the slope
where Billali is, if he hasn’t gone. Come, don’t give way,” for
he had cast himself upon his face. He rose, and, leaning on each
other, we got down that fifty feet or so of cliff—somehow, I have
not the least notion how. I only remember that we found ourselves
lying in a heap at the bottom, and then once more began to drag
ourselves along on our hands and knees towards the grove where
_She_ had told Billali to wait her re-arrival, for we could not
walk another foot. We had not gone fifty yards in this fashion
when suddenly one of the mutes emerged from the trees on our
left, through which, I presume, he had been taking a morning
stroll, and came running up to see what sort of strange animals
we were. He stared, and stared, and then held up his hands in
horror, and nearly fell to the ground. Next, he started off as
hard as he could for the grove some two hundred yards away. No
wonder that he was horrified at our appearance, for we must have
been a shocking sight. To begin, Leo, with his golden curls
turned a snowy white, his clothes nearly rent from his body, his
worn face and his hands a mass of bruises, cuts, and
blood-encrusted filth, was a sufficiently alarming spectacle, as
he painfully dragged himself along the ground, and I have no
doubt that I was little better to look on. I know that two days
afterwards when I inspected my face in some water I scarcely
recognised myself. I have never been famous for beauty, but there
was something beside ugliness stamped upon my features that I
have never got rid of until this day, something resembling that
wild look with which a startled person wakes from deep sleep more
than anything else that I can think of. And really it is not to
be wondered at. What I do wonder at is that we escaped at all
with our reason.
Presently, to my intense relief, I saw old Billali hurrying
towards us, and even then I could scarcely help smiling at the
expression of consternation on his dignified countenance.
“Oh, my Baboon! my Baboon!” he cried, “my dear son, is it indeed
thee and the Lion? Why, his mane that was ripe as corn is white
like the snow. Whence come ye? and where is the Pig, and where
too _She-who-must-be-obeyed_?”
“Dead, both dead,” I answered; “but ask no questions; help us,
and give us food and water, or we too shall die before thine
eyes. Seest thou not that our tongues are black for want of
water? How, then, can we talk?”
“Dead!” he gasped. “Impossible. _She_ who never dies—dead, how
can it be?” and then, perceiving, I think, that his face was
being watched by the mutes who had come running up, he checked
himself, and motioned to them to carry us to the camp, which they
did.
Fortunately when we arrived some broth was boiling on the fire,
and with this Billali fed us, for we were too weak to feed
ourselves, thereby I firmly believe saving us from death by
exhaustion. Then he bade the mutes wash the blood and grime from
us with wet cloths, and after that we were laid down upon piles
of aromatic grass, and instantly fell into the dead sleep of
absolute exhaustion of mind and body.
XXVIII.
OVER THE MOUNTAIN
The next thing I recollect is a feeling of the most dreadful stiffness,
and a sort of vague idea passing through my half-awakened brain that I
was a carpet that had just been beaten. I opened my eyes, and the first
thing they fell on was the venerable countenance of our old friend
Billali, who was seated by the side of the improvised bed upon which I
was sleeping, and thoughtfully stroking his long beard. The sight of
him at once brought back to my mind a recollection of all that we had
recently passed through, which was accentuated by the vision of poor
Leo lying opposite to me, his face knocked almost to a jelly, and his
beautiful crowd of curls turned from yellow to white,[1] and I shut my
eyes again and groaned.
[1] Curiously enough, Leo’s hair has lately been to some extent
regaining its colour—that is to say, it is now a yellowish grey, and I
am not without hopes that it will in time come quite right.—L. H. H.
“Thou hast slept long, my Baboon,” said old Billali.
“How long, my father?” I asked.
“A round of the sun and a round of the moon, a day and a night
hast thou slept, and the Lion also. See, he sleepeth yet.”
“Blessed is sleep,” I answered, “for it swallows up
recollection.”
“Tell me,” he said, “what hath befallen you, and what is this
strange story of the death of Her who dieth not. Bethink thee, my
son: if this be true, then is thy danger and the danger of the
Lion very great—nay, almost is the pot red wherewith ye shall be
potted, and the stomachs of those who shall eat ye are already
hungry for the feast. Knowest thou not that these Amahagger, my
children, these dwellers in the caves, hate ye? They hate ye as
strangers, they hate ye more because of their brethren whom _She_
put to the torment for your sake. Assuredly, if once they learn
that there is naught to fear from Hiya, from the terrible
One-who-must-be-obeyed, they will slay ye by the pot. But let me
hear thy tale, my poor Baboon.”
Thus adjured, I set to work and told him—not everything, indeed,
for I did not think it desirable to do so, but sufficient for my
purpose, which was to make him understand that _She_ was really
no more, having fallen into some fire, and, as I put it—for the
real thing would have been incomprehensible to him—been burnt up.
I also told him some of the horrors we had undergone in effecting
our escape, and these produced a great impression on him. But I
clearly saw that he did not believe in the report of Ayesha’s
death. He believed indeed that we thought that she was dead, but
his explanation was that it had suited her to disappear for a
while. Once, he said, in his father’s time, she had done so for
twelve years, and there was a tradition in the country that many
centuries back no one had seen her for a whole generation, when
she suddenly reappeared, and destroyed a woman who had assumed
the position of Queen. I said nothing to this, but only shook my
head sadly. Alas! I knew too well that Ayesha would appear no
more, or at any rate that Billali would never see her again.
“And now,” concluded Billali, “what wouldst thou do, my Baboon?”
“Nay,” I said, “I know not, my father. Can we not escape from
this country?”
He shook his head.
“It is very difficult. By Kôr ye cannot pass, for ye would be
seen, and as soon as those fierce ones found that ye were alone,
well,” and he smiled significantly, and made a movement as though
he were placing a hat on his head. “But there is a way over the
cliff whereof I once spake to thee, where they drive the cattle
out to pasture. Then beyond the pastures are three days’ journey
through the marshes, and after that I know not, but I have heard
that seven days’ journey from thence is a mighty river, which
floweth to the black water. If ye could come thither, perchance
ye might escape, but how can ye come thither?”
“Billali,” I said, “once, thou knowest, I did save thy life. Now
pay back the debt, my father, and save me mine and my friend’s,
the Lion’s. It shall be a pleasant thing for thee to think of
when thine hour comes, and something to set in the scale against
the evil doing of thy days, if perchance thou hast done any evil.
Also, if thou be right, and if _She_ doth but hide herself,
surely when she comes again she shall reward thee.”
“My son the Baboon,” answered the old man, “think not that I have
an ungrateful heart. Well do I remember how thou didst rescue me
when those dogs stood by to see me drown. Measure for measure
will I give thee, and if thou canst be saved, surely I will save
thee. Listen: by dawn to-morrow be prepared, for litters shall be
here to bear ye away across the mountains, and through the
marshes beyond. This will I do, saying that it is the word of
_She_ that it be done, and he who obeyeth not the word of _She_
food is he for the hyænas. Then when ye have crossed the marshes,
ye must strike with your own hands, so that perchance, if good
fortune go with you, ye may live to come to that black water
whereof ye told me. And now, see, the Lion wakes, and ye must eat
the food I have made ready for you.”
Leo’s condition when once he was fairly aroused proved not to be
so bad as might have been expected from his appearance, and we
both of us managed to eat a hearty meal, which indeed we needed
sadly enough. After this we limped down to the spring and bathed,
and then came back and slept again till evening, when we once
more ate enough for five. Billali was away all that day, no doubt
making arrangements about litters and bearers, for we were
awakened in the middle of the night by the arrival of a
considerable number of men in the little camp.
At dawn the old man himself appeared, and told us that he had by
using _She’s_ dreadful name, though with some difficulty,
succeeded in getting the necessary men and two guides to conduct
us across the swamps, and that he urged us to start at once, at
the same time announcing his intention of accompanying us so as
to protect us against treachery. I was much touched by this act
of kindness on the part of that wily old barbarian towards two
utterly defenceless strangers. A three—or in his case, for he
would have to return, six—days’ journey through those deadly
swamps was no light undertaking for a man of his age, but he
consented to do it cheerfully in order to promote our safety. It
shows that even among those dreadful Amahagger—who are certainly
with their gloom and their devilish and ferocious rites by far
the most terrible savages that I ever heard of—there are people
with kindly hearts. Of course, self-interest may have had
something to do with it. He may have thought that _She_ would
suddenly reappear and demand an account of us at his hands, but
still, allowing for all deductions, it was a great deal more than
we could expect under the circumstances, and I can only say that
I shall for as long as I live cherish a most affectionate
remembrance of my nominal parent, old Billali.
Accordingly, after swallowing some food, we started in the
litters, feeling, so far as our bodies went, wonderfully like our
old selves after our long rest and sleep. I must leave the
condition of our minds to the imagination.
Then came a terrible pull up the cliff. Sometimes the ascent was
more natural, more often it was a zig-zag roadway cut, no doubt,
in the first instance by the old inhabitants of Kôr. The
Amahagger say they drive their spare cattle over it once a year
to pasture outside; all I know is that those cattle must be
uncommonly active on their feet. Of course the litters were
useless here, so we had to walk.
By midday, however, we reached the great flat top of that mighty
wall of rock, and grand enough the view was from it, with the
plain of Kôr, in the centre of which we could clearly make out
the pillared ruins of the Temple of Truth to the one side, and
the boundless and melancholy marsh on the other. This wall of
rock, which had no doubt once formed the lip of the crater, was
about a mile and a half thick, and still covered with clinker.
Nothing grew there, and the only thing to relieve our eyes were
occasional pools of rain-water (for rain had lately fallen)
wherever there was a little hollow. Over the flat crest of this
mighty rampart we went, and then came the descent, which, if not
so difficult a matter as the getting up, was still sufficiently
break-neck, and took us till sunset. That night, however, we
camped in safety upon the mighty slopes that rolled away to the
marsh beneath.
On the following morning, about eleven o’clock, began our dreary
journey across those awful seas of swamps which I have already
described.
For three whole days, through stench and mire, and the
all-prevailing flavour of fear, did our bearers struggle along,
till at length we came to open rolling ground quite uncultivated,
and mostly treeless, but covered with game of all sorts, which
lies beyond that most desolate, and without guides utterly
impracticable, district. And here on the following morning we
bade farewell, not without some regret, to old Billali, who
stroked his white beard and solemnly blessed us.
“Farewell, my son the Baboon,” he said, “and farewell to thee
too, oh Lion. I can do no more to help you. But if ever ye come
to your country, be advised, and venture no more into lands that
ye know not, lest ye come back no more, but leave your white
bones to mark the limit of your journeyings. Farewell once more;
often shall I think of you, nor wilt thou forget me, my Baboon,
for though thy face is ugly thy heart is true.” And then he
turned and went, and with him went the tall and sullen-looking
bearers, and that was the last that we saw of the Amahagger. We
watched them winding away with the empty litters like a
procession bearing dead men from a battle, till the mists from
the marsh gathered round them and hid them, and then, left
utterly desolate in the vast wilderness, we turned and gazed
round us and at each other.
Three weeks or so before four men had entered the marshes of Kôr,
and now two of us were dead, and the other two had gone through
adventures and experiences so strange and terrible that death
himself hath not a more fearful countenance. Three weeks—and only
three weeks! Truly time should be measured by events, and not by
the lapse of hours. It seemed like thirty years since we saw the
last of our whale-boat.
“We must strike out for the Zambesi, Leo,” I said, “but God knows
if we shall ever get there.”
Leo nodded. He had become very silent of late, and we started
with nothing but the clothes we stood in, a compass, our
revolvers and express rifles, and about two hundred rounds of
ammunition, and so ended the history of our visit to the ancient
ruins of mighty and imperial Kôr.
As for the adventures that subsequently befell us, strange and
varied as they were, I have, after deliberation, determined not
to record them here. In these pages I have only tried to give a
short and clear account of an occurrence which I believe to be
unprecedented, and this I have done, not with a view to immediate
publication, but merely to put on paper while they are yet fresh
in our memories the details of our journey and its result, which
will, I believe, prove interesting to the world if ever we
determine to make them public. This, as at present advised, we do
not intend should be done during our joint lives.
For the rest, it is of no public interest, resembling as it does
the experience of more than one Central African traveller.
Suffice it to say, that we did, after incredible hardships and
privations, reach the Zambesi, which proved to be about a hundred
and seventy miles south of where Billali left us. There we were
for six months imprisoned by a savage tribe, who believed us to
be supernatural beings, chiefly on account of Leo’s youthful face
and snow-white hair. From these people we ultimately escaped,
and, crossing the Zambesi, wandered off southwards, where, when
on the point of starvation, we were sufficiently fortunate to
fall in with a half-caste Portuguese elephant-hunter who had
followed a troop of elephants farther inland than he had ever
been before. This man treated us most hospitably, and ultimately
through his assistance we, after innumerable sufferings and
adventures, reached Delagoa Bay, more than eighteen months from
the time when we emerged from the marshes of Kôr, and the very
next day managed to catch one of the steamboats that run round
the Cape to England. Our journey home was a prosperous one, and
we set our foot on the quay at Southampton exactly two years from
the date of our departure upon our wild and seemingly ridiculous
quest, and I now write these last words with Leo leaning over my
shoulder in my old room in my college, the very same into which
some two-and-twenty years ago my poor friend Vincey came
stumbling on the memorable night of his death, bearing the iron
chest with him.
And that is the end of this history so far as it concerns science
and the outside world. What its end will be as regards Leo and
myself is more than I can guess at. But we feel that is not
reached yet. A story that began more than two thousand years ago
may stretch a long way into the dim and distant future.
Is Leo really a reincarnation of the ancient Kallikrates of whom
the inscription tells? Or was Ayesha deceived by some strange
hereditary resemblance? The reader must form his own opinion on
this as on many other matters. I have mine, which is that she
made no such mistake.
Often I sit alone at night, staring with the eyes of the mind
into the blackness of unborn time, and wondering in what shape
and form the great drama will be finally developed, and where the
scene of its next act will be laid. And when that _final_
development ultimately occurs, as I have no doubt it must and
will occur, in obedience to a fate that never swerves and a
purpose that cannot be altered, what will be the part played
therein by that beautiful Egyptian Amenartas, the Princess of the
royal race of the Pharaohs, for the love of whom the Priest
Kallikrates broke his vows to Isis, and, pursued by the
inexorable vengeance of the outraged Goddess, fled down the coast
of Libya to meet his doom at Kôr?