THE HALL OF WANDERING SOULS
I rose to my feet and swayed like a drunken man, a furious throbbing in
my temples and buzzing in my ears. For an instant I fancied we were the
victims of an illusion; yet the men looked solid enough, and there was
no doubting the way Ah Sing dropped a knee to the floor and saluted us
with his old ingratiating grin.
Philipson turned to the servants. 'You are to speak to Mr. Mirlees,' he
said, 'and convince him you are real.'
'You, Lo Eng,' I said, 'do you remember what happened to you?'
'When we got well, Mr. Philipson asked for us,' he replied with
dignity. 'We live in the palace and wait upon him.'
'What about you, Ah Sing?'
The Celestial's grin broadened. 'Ah Sing fallum one big bang,' he
said. 'Him tinkee die. Nex' time him sabbee, _tai-fu_ hab come, makee
numbah-one topside pidgin. Gib Ah Sing plenty good dlink. Jus' now him
headum walkee plopah, no makee seeck.'
Then the pair of them withdrew. As body-servants to Philipson they were
clearly enjoying some consequence, and I couldn't help feeling that in
the bow they gave us there was just a shade of patronage.
'What does it mean?' I cried, staring at Philipson. 'We thought those
men were dead. They _were_ dead--or what we've always been taught to
call dead.'
'That is just the crux of the matter,' he replied, gravely. 'What one
has been accustomed to regard as death. The world we came from is
rather easily satisfied on that point, but the physicians of my people
here hold other views.'
I noticed throughout this interview that Philipson had dropped into
speaking of the people of the valley as his, as if he had never
belonged to the outer world. Also, while I have written his words in
fluent English, this was not how we heard them. Often he paused at a
loss for an expression, and strange though it seemed to us, it was none
the less manifest that Saunders Philipson was already beginning to
forget the English tongue.
He must have sensed what was passing through my mind. 'And how do _you_
manage with _our_ language?' he inquired.
'Poyning had it pat almost from the first,' said I. 'I've got a decent
hang of it myself now--like him, I'd learned the language at school,
and I had only to adapt it the way it is pronounced here. But you,
Philipson, were perfectly familiar with both words and pronunciation
before you came.'
He started at the directness of the remark. 'You knew that?' he queried
sharply.
'I heard you speaking to the doctors who attended you on the mountain
side,' I said, 'and--'
His eyes were on my face as palpably as if he had touched me with his
fingers. 'And--and that,' I concluded, 'seemed pretty conclusive.'
Philipson preserved a tense silence for about half a minute, as if
debating with himself.
'You have been faithful comrades to me,' he said at last, in a low,
earnest voice, 'and it is time for you to know the whole truth. That
you have not learned it from me before is only because I was myself
not sure--only the upshot of this adventure could reveal the truth,
and before I have finished you will confess that I had good reason for
hesitating to speak out. It is enough to say that I knew I was more
than I purported to be when I met you. Upon you I practised a deception
which I have practised on the world at large--if deception it could
be called. I told you my name was the rather humdrum British one of
Saunders Philipson. That was the name I had adopted in England, where
I was educated and became a naturalised Englishman. But I was not of
English birth. I was born in Greece, near the modern city of Salonika,
and was known to the people of that region as Alexandre Philipides. The
surname had been borne by my family from very early times, and was held
by us, among other evidences, to indicate our descent from the ancient
kings. From my boyhood I had brooded deeply on the circumstance of my
ancestry. I had also dreamed strange visions--I think your English
expression "voices" would best describe these visitations--all of
which seemed to tell me my destiny lay in the East, where some great
mystery lay waiting to be revealed to me. Sometimes there would seem
to be a voice speaking in my ear and calling to me, sometimes a human
figure rose before my eyes, and once, gentlemen, I solemnly assure you
that I dreamed a vision of the magnificent panorama of this valley
exactly as it burst upon our view when we emerged from the mountains a
few weeks ago.
'By the time I came to man's estate my impulse to travel in the East
was irresistible, and my parents being then both dead, I set out on my
quest. In my mind I had put together all the evidence of my visions,
and it seemed to me that somewhere among these tremendous mountains lay
the heart of the mystery which I was destined to discover. I explored
the wild interior of Asia in a way that no other man living has done,
and then at last I came upon that strange inscription of the obo.
You already know how I secured an interpretation of it, and you need
not be told of the exultation I felt when I recognised in it a solid
confirmation of all that my visions had told me. Then, Mirlees, as if
the gods were determined to aid me, they threw you in my path, and
later, you, Poyning. Your help, I thought, would be precious, and if
you will allow me to say so, I was not wrong in my expectations. I made
known to both of you the secret of the obo, which I knew to be sound
fact, but said nothing of my "voices," which, real as they were to me,
might only have disposed you to believe you were dealing with a madman.
Then again, at Nanking, I had a vision so vivid that it convinced me
finally I was following no mere chimera; and again in the pass of the
_obo_ came a visitation that I could not doubt.'
Philipson paused, eyeing me very keenly before he resumed his
narrative. I imagine he was wondering how much I knew or suspected of
these affairs already.
'Though,' he continued at length, almost hastily, 'once more I shrank
from communicating a matter so wild and incredible. And from then on,
that vision was before my eyes night and day, leading me by safe paths.
Otherwise, not I nor any other man of this earth could have found a way
as I did over that last awful wilderness of snow. The rest is known to
you. We came to the rim of the valley, and I knew it was the valley
of my dreams. I think I should have told you everything on that last
morning, but then came the avalanche, and after that, as you saw, I
was borne away from you in the midst of a bodyguard. There now seemed
to ensue several periods of unconsciousness, which I found afterwards
were part of the treatment given me by our physicians, and when at last
I came to my normal self I learned that I had been chosen King of this
city. I asked for you and for my servants. The latter were brought to
me a day later. I did not know then that they had been picked up on the
hillside for dead, so their appearance did not greatly surprise me. I
then inquired why you had not come to me. I was informed that the Nine
Shadows advised delay. It was my first knowledge of the existence of
that body, but from the way their name was mentioned I realised they
were a force to be reckoned with, and subsequent developments have more
than confirmed me in the belief. Bit by bit I have come to understand
my position. I can tell you it is by no means so simple as might have
appeared to a casual onlooker the other day when I was crowned and
publicly betrothed to a maiden of the ancient blood royal.'
'You mean your power is limited?' put in Poyning.
Philipson leaned further forward and sunk his voice lower. 'The
situation seems to be this,' he said. 'The Nine Shadows are
all-powerful. As soon as they had satisfied themselves I was the
true Alexander who should come, they advised the reigning Prince,
Kalliphanes, to abdicate. "Advise"--that is the word generally used of
the acts of the Nine, but I have already apprehended that it might be
bad for the man who neglected that advice. Although Kalliphanes retired
with apparently good grace, I do not know that he is reconciled to his
retirement. He has behind him a faction, some of whom even question
my claim to the throne, and though he can do nothing so long as the
Nine are with me, I am disposed to venture little authority on my own
account until my position is more securely established. So you see,' he
concluded, 'it is not all honey to be King of the lost city of Hellas.
But now tell me something about yourselves. What have you been doing
all this while?
'We saw the abdication ceremony,' said Poyning, 'but after that
Kalliboas disappeared and we were little better than prisoners for
about eight days. When he came back he told us it was your wish that
we should see the city. We have already seen much. We have had the
mystery of the great birds cleared up for us, and we have been taught
something of the art of flight, and we know what it says on the obelisk
of Alexander.'
'That was good,' said Philipson with quiet enthusiasm. 'There you went
to the very heart of our existence. So now you have seen the devils
of ghostly face and the great birds. What else does the legend speak
about? The white gems--have you seen them?'
Philipson saw by our faces we had not.
'Then it is obvious you have not yet visited any of our private
dwellings,' he said.
'How does that follow?'
'If you had, you would have seen the children playing with the white
gems very much as your English children play with marbles. They come
from the river which flows into the lake from the north-east. Sbrang
Chikya was quite right about it. Diamonds as big as walnuts roll down
its course by the hundred; the bed of the lake must be thick with them.
You must ask Kalliboas to take you there, but I would suggest you do
not betray any great excitement about the stones. Although my people
do not hold such things precious they know that in the outer world the
greed of men for diamonds passes all understanding; and they regard
that lust with the utmost horror and contempt.'
'That matter is still a great riddle to us,' I said. 'We've had plenty
of hints that your people are not unaware of what is going on outside
the valley. How is that knowledge obtained?'
His voice became suddenly graver. 'If I tell you here,' he said, 'you
will not be able to believe. Kalliboas will show you for yourselves,
and much more to astonish.'
We left Philipson shortly after this. His forecast was abundantly
fulfilled. We did see much to astonish us, and much that I but vaguely
understand to this day. I saw with these eyes the method by which
this strange people informed themselves of the events of the rest of
the earth--a sight which leaves me still amazed and bewildered, even
sceptic; and yet on the other hand there remains the undoubted fact
that they _were_ aware of what was transpiring beyond their mountain
barriers. Of that, at least, I am certain.
The day after our audience with Philipson, Kalliboas came to our
quarters and bade us get ready to accompany him. It seemed clear enough
now that Philipson's influence was making itself felt: more and more
candidly did the old man answer our hosts of questions, and he even
volunteered information on many strange matters the mere existence of
which we hadn't suspected.
Through the streets, fragrant with the aromatic scent of the bordering
trees, we followed him on foot to a place about a quarter of a mile
from the royal palaces, where we came to a courtyard into which, as it
seemed, the populace weren't allowed access. It was a vast enclosure,
with walls nowhere less than fifty yards from the group of buildings
in the middle of it, and each of these was a good deal bigger than any
single structure we had yet seen. In the main building, too, there was
a marked difference in the design of the interior, its halls--and it
had many--being built one within another like kernels of a nut. Some
chambers through which we passed, though panelled and paved with the
magnificent marble we had grown familiar with in our own guest-house,
were manifestly laboratories, containing scientific apparatus of a
pattern entirely new to us; and in one passage near the centre of the
building we came upon a superb life-sized statue of the Pallas Athene,
a deity I don't remember, curiously enough in a city given over to
mental culture, to have seen portrayed elsewhere.
Kalliboas whispered to us here that we must preserve unbroken silence
until we emerged again from these inner chambers. For myself, I found
this injunction none too easy to obey: I could have cried out time and
again with amazement over what we saw. In the first place I couldn't
for the life of me fathom how these enclosed halls were lighted and
ventilated, yet they were both. Sweet air, and a queer diffused rosy
illumination pervaded them all, though I felt no draught that could
have accounted for the clean atmosphere nor saw any lamp that could
have furnished the light.
We had now entered a square corridor the wall of which was built
with many cubicles, all small and furnished with bier-like couches
of marble upon which lay forms in varying degrees of inertia. Some
were already still and pale as the marble all round them, so that
you would have said life was extinct, but in others we saw the
trance-production--for such it was--in actual process. As the subject
lay down on the couch he fixed his eyes on a curious bright blue
spark in the low ceiling, produced I don't know how, but apparently
by some cut gem illuminated from behind. I looked at one of these
things for some minutes, and most strange the appearance of it was:
although the light in its immediate neighbourhood was brilliant, in
some mysterious way this did not radiate, so that the rest of the
niche was no whit the brighter for it. The state of trance appeared
to be secured very easily, and very profoundly. In one case we halted
outside a recess while its occupant was in the act of lying down. He
took no notice whatever of us, but at once concentrated his gaze on the
blue spark in the ceiling and barely half a minute later was rigid,
of a dead-pallor, deep in the self-induced sleep. They were all ages,
these trance-subjects, from fresh youth to grey hair; yet on all their
features I noticed the one stamp of profound spirituality. Some of
them moved their lips in sleep, muttering, and we came to one recess
where an attendant had seated himself beside the trance-subject and was
listening closely to his words--but not writing anything down.
The next chamber inward was the hub of the whole building. It measured
about twenty yards square, and contained absolutely nothing beyond a
pedestal of solid marble surmounted by a big globe of some glassy
substance which radiated that curious rose-tinted light I had noticed
everywhere throughout the building. The sight of this lamp was ordinary
enough, but when I came to reflect what it meant, I could have fallen
down in my astonishment. In the corridor of recesses we had just left,
we had seen a brilliant blue light that didn't radiate. Here was a
soft rosy light which had been visible to us for the last half-hour,
_through endless walls of solid marble_. I had this explained to me
afterwards, but I must in common honesty confess the explanation was
beyond my scant scientific understanding, and the mystery of how
this people contrived to enhance or stifle the radiation of light
at will--to reverse, in fact, what we regard as the eternal laws of
physics--remains a mystery to me still.
Kalliboas now took us back to the courtyard, and across to another
building, from which came a subdued hum of voices. On entering the hall
we discovered a large gathering of youths seated on low benches, and a
tall greyheaded old man not unlike Kalliboas in appearance addressing
them. This, it seemed, was the tutor. At a sign from Kalliboas the
lecture went on, and although this elder spoke a good deal less
measuredly than our old guide, I found I could understand him with a
fair fluency. He was explaining to his students the secrets of the
human mind; from time to time he would call out a pupil, hypnotise
him with astonishing ease, and demonstrate to the rest the strangely
exaggerated powers of a person in hypnosis. Then students were set to
hypnotise one another, the most skilful being greeted with acclaim by
their fellows, and the least accomplished, whose laborious long-drawn
efforts reminded me acutely of performances I had seen on the public
stage in Europe, witheringly derided for their clumsiness. A youth
Kalliboas described to us as leader of the school succeeded in reducing
no less than six of his fellows simultaneously--an amazing exhibition;
he seemed to retain absolute control of their minds, plunging them
just as deeply into the sleep as he chose, and toying with his power
as a child may play with a coloured balloon. So lightly hypnotised was
one boy that I thought the operator had failed to put him to sleep at
all, and I remarked as much to the tutor, who shot me a curious little
glance, half amused, half malicious, and requested me to question the
youth.
This took me distinctly by surprise. I had imagined that all that was
claimed for the youth was that he had been successfully hypnotised by
his fellow student, in which case he might obey any command given him
by the latter, but wouldn't necessarily be susceptible to any words
of mine. Now it seemed the tutor wanted to represent him as not only
hypnotised, but clairvoyant.
I felt Poyning jog my elbow. 'Ask him,' he whispered in English, 'what
the ground is like near the tomb on the southern foothills.'
As I put the question I knew the eyes of both Kalliboas and the tutor
were on me very keenly. The boy hesitated for fully a minute, then
murmured that streams were pouring swiftly down the slope. 'I see also
men working,' he added.
I glanced at Poyning. His face expressed dry scepticism. I felt
incredulous myself, and inclined to be angry into the bargain. I could
hardly have believed that this people, who had so much to show that was
genuinely wonderful, would descend to trickery for so paltry a purpose
as impressing strangers, yet it seemed clear enough that was what had
happened. The supposedly hypnotised boy had thought--hence his long
hesitation--what the hillside at that point would most probably be like
now, and was offering his mere guess as an act of second sight. In any
case the test was unsatisfactory, as we had no means of verifying his
statement. This I pointed out to Kalliboas, and the tutor again gave
me that little half-malicious glance, which only deepened my suspicion
that we were being bluffed. Before very long I was wishing I'd kept my
suspicions under my own hat.
'We will give the stranger more convincing proof,' said the tutor,
rather grimly, and began questioning the hypnotised youth himself.
'What does the stranger carry under his robes?' he asked.
Without a moment's hesitation came the answer: 'He carries a book.'
'Of what kind?'
'Not our fashion.'
'What does it contain?'
'Much writing.'
'What does the writing say?'
'It is in an unknown tongue.'
There was a pause. I thought now that I could see through the whole
ingenious trick. The tutor could have got the knowledge of my
notebook in two ways: he might have seen the outline of it under
my garments--though I didn't look down, and am unaware that it was
particularly noticeable--or he may have learned from Kalliboas, who
might easily have got it from my own language tutor, that I was in
the habit of writing notes and carried the record next my skin. The
very fact that the tutor had suggested to his student the idea of
something under my garments argued that he himself had foreknowledge of
the book, and that he was passing the knowledge on by a simple act of
thought-transference. But for what followed I was quite unprepared.
The tutor placed a slate and a stylus in the boy's hand.
'You will now,' he said very firmly, 'copy the last of the writing that
you see.'
To my amazement the pupil at once began to write, slowly and
laboriously. He filled about three lines, then stopped short.
'Why do you write no more?' demanded the tutor.
'There is no writing after.'
'What are the words you have written?'
'I do not understand.'
The tutor handed the slate to me. 'Is that, stranger,' he said, 'the
writing you have made in your book?'
I took the slate, and at the same instant nearly dropped it. The
writing had manifestly been copied line for line like a drawing, and
without comprehension of its meaning, yet it was perfectly legible. It
read:
"Poyning rather pointedly asks _why_ we are not allowed to visit the
tomb on the southern foothills."
I remembered that as the last entry I had made, and I could have kicked
myself for making it, still more for having it brought to light now. We
had by this time come, as I have already remarked, to the stage when
we could believe pretty well anything of this uncanny people. What if
they knew English? The sentence I had written was not particularly
incriminating, but quite enough to give a hint of our mistrust, and to
arouse mistrust in return.
To my surprise, Poyning seemed rather gratified than alarmed over the
upshot of the affair. When he had read the writing he gave Kalliboas a
very straight look in which there was almost a touch of defiance, and
told him coolly enough that we were now satisfied with the test. Then
we withdrew.
If the old man's suspicions had been awakened he concealed them to
perfection. He threw himself on to a couch in the sunshine and began to
talk as if nothing out of the common had occurred.
'You have understood all that you have seen to-day, strangers?' he
inquired.
'Not everything,' said I. 'In the recesses that surround the great hall
many had cast themselves into the false sleep. To what end?'
'In that way,' replied the old man, 'we are able to know matters which
take place at great distances from this city. Otherwise how should we,
who have never visited the world of the outer peoples, know what they
do?'
'Do you mean to say you _do_ know?' cried Poyning.
Kalliboas bowed his head. 'It is even so,' he said. 'And is that
strange hearing to you?'
'Strange! It is impossible!'
There was a shade of the pity that is akin to contempt in the old man's
answer. 'Why impossible?' he said quietly. 'Can it be that you are so
steeped in ignorance as not to know that by far the greatest power
upon this earth is the mind of man? Which is master of the world--man
or the forces of nature, the sentient mind or the blundering violence
that acts it knows not how? Even your peoples of the outer world, who
have not studied these matters, have advanced thus far: to know that
mind may control matter and act far from the human brain which is its
source. How much more should we know of the powers of mind, who have
lived in this valley untouched by the lust and greed and superstition
which have kept you barbarous, and down through the centuries have
steadily pressed onwards in the search for light? The art of projecting
the human soul was very early understood and practised among us.
To-day, we have brought it to a high effectiveness.'
'But how is it done?' I cried.
'You have even now seen our wise ones at work,' said Kalliboas. 'They
induce the false sleep, and while the body lies on the couch, the soul
goes wandering forth over the world. The sleep affects different of our
wise ones in different ways. In some there is what we call the shadow
soul, which goes abroad while the brain which gave it birth remains in
relation to it at home, active, causing the lips to speak. A recorder
is always beside those wise ones during their sleep. Others, who are
the more numerous, only at the awakening know what they have seen, and
record for themselves. Every day our wise ones are at work in those
halls. Their visions are collected and compared; thus we build up a
complete picture of the world. Not that the picture'--the old man's
words rang out in scorn--'is often to be looked upon with profit, save
as a warning to ourselves. Well we know how your peoples have lived and
died in a squalid turmoil of cruelty and hatred and intolerance; how
you have spurned and persecuted your wise and noble, and exalted your
knaves; how jealousy and suspicion are rife among your races, how far
you yet stand below the ideals our great founder held. But not wholly
profitless are the soul-wanderings of our wise ones. Through them we
learn of the few discoveries made by your few philosophers--though in
truth there is little you discover which was not already known to us
many centuries ago.'
'Tell me, Kalliboas,' I said, 'are only your wise ones skilled in
mind-projection?'
'Indeed, no,' he replied. 'Only those judged to possess strength,
however, are elected novices at the Hall of Wandering Souls, to become
eventually our wise ones, our scouts over the rest of the earth.'
'And when one of your wise ones has projected his soul,' I inquired,
'could he be seen by any person of the outer world?'
'Only to the eyes of the soul can the soul be visible. How many of your
outer world possess such vision? Yet to one possessing it, the vision
must seem as real as an actual bodily presence.'
'And could any other person see it?' I said, concealing my eagerness
with an effort.
The old man's glittering puce-black eyes were looking clean through me.
'The point is an obscure one,' he said, 'and our wise men hesitate to
pronounce upon it. We have strange evidence both for and against.'
There was again that unmistakable hint in his manner that to question
him further would be useless, and so far as solving the mystery of the
queer episode at Nanking went, I had to be content then with what I had
heard. I was determined to find out, however, how this people explained
Philipson's advent to them from the outer world. It was too much to
suppose that men so astonishingly advanced in exact knowledge would
base their expectations on the mere traditional prophecy of Alexander
before his death.
Kalliboas answered me without hesitation. 'Our wise ones suppose,'
he said, 'that this universe in which we live is composed of a
finite number of elementary forms, which act and react upon one
another perpetually. Therefore the number of possible regroupings and
chains of events is limited. But the time in which they so react is
infinite. Therefore every event which happens must have happened an
infinite number of times before, and will be repeated an infinite
number of times in the future--not only that exact event, but others
approximating to it in all degrees of similarity. Thus, the existence
of our great founder upon this earth, being one of that limited number
of possible events, is repeated after the comparatively short lapse of
twenty-two centuries, which in the life-history of the universe is a
mere moment. But there is a difference. Then he came to this valley a
great conqueror despairing of the world and mankind. Now he has come to
find his own lost people.'
Poyning glanced at me. 'Pretty odd,' he muttered in English, 'to meet
old Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence so far from home as this!'
Kalliboas cocked his ear at the name. 'That philosopher of yours has
indeed rediscovered old truths,' he said. 'But it is better to discover
old truths than to repeat old lies.'
'Your people, then,' said Poyning, 'were looking for the return of the
King. Yet was it not strange they all should recognise him immediately
they saw his face?'
Kalliboas rose in silence and led the way to another part of the
courtyard, where we came in front of a grotto-like chamber. There
was only one object here--a statue about half life-size, apparently
in iron having the surface treated in some way to resist rust. The
features were a marvellously exact image of Saunders Philipson,
and that was startling enough; but what astonished me more was that
the statue seemed to be supported on one wire little thicker than a
knitting-needle.
'We have many images of our great founder,' said Kalliboas, 'with which
all our people are perfectly acquainted, but we value none so much as
this. It was made by his friend Deinokrates, the sculptor, one of that
faithful band who followed him here.'
'But--but how is it supported? One wire is not enough to hold its
weight?'
There was a fleeting light of amusement over the old man's austere
face. 'The wire is there to hold it down,' he said. 'It was an idle
fancy of the sculptor's. The roof of this chamber is of great slabs
of the stone that attracts iron, which was dug from the mountains
westward. Do not go near if you have anything of iron about your
persons.'
Before leaving Kalliboas that day we walked with him along the eastern
margin of the lake, and came to a tall circular tower in white marble,
which was visible from a considerable distance away. We ascended this
by an inner stairway and at last stood upon the roof, where we found a
sentinel and one of the most ingenious devices imaginable. The platform
was surrounded by a parapet about breast-high, topped by a continuation
in some transparent pebble-like rock, while outside this was a similar
parapet in the same material, the two arranged so as to act as a
continuous telescope. How the difficulty of varying focus was overcome
I couldn't understand, but the fact remains that in whatever direction
we looked the surrounding valleys and foothills--even the upper slopes
of the mountains themselves--seemed amazingly near to us.
The words of Kalliboas sounded behind us in a sort of grim caress. 'See
now, strangers,' he said, 'is it even as the student told when he cast
his mind out over the valley?'
Poyning was staring southward. 'There are men,' he said in a queer
voice. 'What do they do?'
'They build a wall to protect the tomb. Since the great snow fell, new
streams have burst out of the mountains in that quarter. Our engineers
are busy with works to direct the water down to the lake by channels
where it shall not injure the crops of our valley. Now it flows
lawlessly, and though the tomb which you see is founded in solid rock,
we have judged it wise to build the protecting wall.'
Poyning remained staring through the crystal for some time,
particularly towards the tomb and the direction from which we ourselves
had entered the valley. I imagine we were both thinking that probably
from this tower our first approach was signalled; and I know I was
wondering how it came about, since a watcher was apparently posted here
always, that the approach of the Tibetan, Sbrang Chikya, could have
escaped observation.
We descended from the tower and followed Kalliboas to a point on the
north-eastern bank of the lake. The stream which entered here was of
no great dimension, but even so, it flowed fast enough to have flooded
the entire valley in a few weeks but for--as I imagine--the enormous
degree of evaporation caused by the bone-dry climate, and the extensive
irrigation works into which the water of the lake was deflected.
Suddenly, with a heavy swirl, there arose in midstream a gigantic fish,
which made straight for the bank where we stood. So startling was the
creature's appearance and so swift its approach that I must confess
for an instant I'd half an inclination to run, and I noticed Poyning
took a quick step backwards from the water's edge. Then we realised
our mistake. It was no fish at all, but a man, completely clad in a
close-fitting diving costume; there were circles of transparent horn
over the eyes, and gloved receptacles for the arms, but the legs went
into one great sleeve stiffened to copy the tail of a fish; and we saw
it was from this the diver got his power in swimming, an evolution he
performed with singular ease and speed. How he was able to breathe and
to sink at will we had no thought to examine then: our attention was
very fully absorbed by a basket the man had been carrying in his hands
under water and now laid on the bank.
He rolled out, divested himself of the fish-like skin--which he was
able to do without assistance--and made a profound obeisance to
Kalliboas.
'This fellow,' said the latter, turning to us, 'is to our children the
most beloved man in the city. It is his duty to swim to the bed of the
river and the lake and gather for them these pretty playthings.'
Kalliboas stooped over the basket, took out a handful of pebbles, and
handed them to me. They were curious pebbles, looking like scarred
rough glass, but now and then out of the roughness came a fierce flash
of light as the sun's rays caught an exposed face. There was no room
for doubt about these things. They were large diamonds.
Poyning took one of them, as if to examine it, and as he did so I felt
him nudge me very gently.
'Would it not be easier,' he said, 'to get the stones by dragging the
river for them?'
Then for the first and last time in our acquaintance Kalliboas
chuckled. It was a grim chuckle, but the nearest approach to tenderness
I ever knew him show.
'The children value the stones more for having been obtained in this
way,' he said. 'Often they come to see Old Fish diving for them.'
He scooped up another large handful and gave me. 'Take as many as you
can carry,' he said, the grim half-smile still on his features. 'It may
be that children in the city will ask you for them. It is true that in
the world from which you have come men commit crimes to obtain these
things, but you at least are above such temptation.'
Was it a hint, a threat that we were never again to see lands where men
take the lives of their fellows for these bits of crystallised carbon?