DISASTER
Strangely enough, from that day onwards our circumstances seemed to
improve all round. If we had seen ourselves encircled in mystery, and
detected vague menaces in what we had heard, now it became increasingly
apparent that for some reason or other we were looked on more
favourably by the people of the valley. That atmosphere of suspicion,
which I had come to feel no less than Poyning, was melting away. We had
several audiences with the "King," as we found ourselves dropping into
the way of calling Philipson, and though he said little to us of the
inner politics of the city, we gathered he was steadily consolidating
his position and winning over the disaffected party of Kalliphanes.
He even told us one day that he thought he could now count on the
unanimous support of the Nine Shadows, and considerably startled us by
mentioning that Kalliboas was one of that sinister secret body. The
names of the rest I never learned, though it is likely I saw and spoke
to all before the end of my sojourn in Hellas.
Towards his old comrades, in private at least, Philipson's manner was
always as affable and unpretending as if the great change had not come;
yet I couldn't help noticing as time went on that he was sinking deeper
and deeper into the austere spirit of this land and leaving off one by
one his old traits of an adventurer with a dim future. Also, behind
all his friendliness, there seemed to peep out a shadow of anxiety
for us; and though he never betrayed the fact in words, I felt he was
hoping that we, like himself and his Chinese servants, should gradually
throw down roots here and lose our desire to return to the outer world.
The notion appalled me, yet I couldn't doubt it had entered the mind
of Saunders Philipson. Everything that could be done to attract us
towards this land was being done; we were given more splendid quarters,
our servants were increased, we were presented to all the highest
nobles--and, as I noticed with alarm, to their daughters; during one
week of festival, when there were dramatic and musical performances and
banquets and exhibitions of dancing and Olympian games, we took our
place among the first of the land; and generally we were advanced to a
state little short of princely ourselves.
We were even instructed in the elements of mind-culture, though it must
be confessed our success was meagre. Clairvoyance and soul-projection
were utterly beyond us, and even as hypnotic subjects we were both
highly unsatisfactory. The professors complained of the difficulty
of putting us asleep, though it's true they never entirely failed
to do this, even at the first--that is, the most difficult trial, of
which I retain a most agonising recollection. I think the difficulty
of reducing me on that occasion was really responsible for the awful
sense of mental strangulation I felt: it was like being surrounded
by clouds of intense darkness, which seemed to _drench_ my brain and
bring all thought to a frozen standstill. Poyning was hypnotised at
the same time, and on comparing notes afterwards I found his symptoms
had been pretty similar to my own. This the professors attributed,
unflatteringly enough, not to the strength of our will power, but to
the sluggishness of our wits: so unresponsive were we, they said, that
they had to resort, as it were, to a sort of mental bludgeoning by
sheer force.
One consolation we had, however, and that was the rapid progress we
made in the art of flight. And thereby hangs an episode which was to
turn the whole stream of our fortunes.
We had been learning to fly for some weeks now. Our great difficulty
at first, I need hardly say, was to overcome our amazement at finding
we actually could rise from the ground on wings, and even when we had
got the better of this it was some time before we could bring ourselves
to ascend to any height. There must have been always lurking at the
back of our heads the notion that if we lost control, we should stand
a better chance of escape by being at a low altitude. In point of
fact, quite the reverse was really the case: greater experience would
have told us, as the tutors did tell us, that a few hundred feet
between us and earth would afford a breathing space in which to recover
wing-purchase, whereas twenty feet would certainly not; but it must
be remembered the art was utterly strange to us, and that we started
handicapped with all the pedestrian prejudices of the biped without
feathers.
After a few days we gained confidence, and with this growing
proficiency came to me at least a tremendous keenness for the sport. I
wouldn't have missed my morning fly for all the rest of the day, for
over and above its mere fascination it took us up into the bracing
air of the higher levels, and by dint of the magnificent exercise it
afforded, kept us in the very cream of condition and muscular strength.
One morning, when we were beginning to manage our wings with some
pretensions to skill, we were flying together over the school at about
three hundred feet from the plain, when Poyning suddenly headed off
towards the city.
'Where are you going?' I shouted.
'Home,' he yelled back. 'I want to see what our house looks like from
up here.'
I'd never seen anybody fly directly over the city, and I had good
reason to believe there was a law forbidding it. I called to Poyning to
come back, and heard a faint cry from below, which also I imagine was
a command to turn about, but Poyning was by this time drawn well ahead
and apparently out of earshot. Cursing his foolhardiness I gave chase,
moved, I've no doubt, by a sort of schoolboyish idea that if there was
going to be a row it would be shabby to back down out of it; and very
soon we were soaring over the very heart of the great sea of white
buildings.
Now our troubles began. We were fairly well acquainted with the city as
it appeared from the ground level: from above, there was a bewildering
similarity about those marble roofs and courtyards. We wheeled round,
until Poyning thought he had descried our house from the maze, and with
a shout to me he began to descend, confidently enough. Then, suddenly,
he checked his flight.
'This is the wrong place,' he cried, and I saw him flap his wings in an
effort to get up again.
But it was too late. He had no room to manœuvre. His wing-tip struck
the great eave of a building at the edge of the courtyard, and to my
horror I saw his arms fly up and his body shoot straight down, dropping
to the marble paving with a thud that turned me sick to hear.
I managed to alight without mishap, and a moment later was tearing off
my wings and running to his assistance. Poyning lay on his side, in the
tangled wreck of his gear.
'It's only my foot,' he groaned, but as he said the word he rolled over
and fainted.
In a few seconds I had his body clear of the mess and was examining
him for injuries. Poyning came to himself almost at once, but when I
touched his right ankle he winced and uttered a sharp cry.
'Better get a litter, Mirlees,' he muttered between his clenched teeth.
'There's a bone broken.'
At this moment I heard a sound of light footsteps behind me, and
looking round beheld a woman, who had apparently just emerged from the
pillared doorway of the building. Poyning raised himself on one elbow,
staring at her as at some enthralling vision, and I'm afraid I so far
forgot my manners as to do likewise. The sudden apparition of such
beauty as hers might have set any man off his balance. It robbed me
of speech. The woman's skin was white as the marble everywhere around
us, her eyes more deeply purple than the skies out of which we had
fallen, her features of a clean-chiselled magnificence that literally
struck the breath from your lips as you beheld, while her hair, pure
blue-black in hue, tumbled over her shoulders in cascades of sombre
splendour. There was no mistaking the identity of that woman. She was
the princess of the blood royal, to whom we had seen Saunders Philipson
betrothed.
With a grace I cannot hope to describe she knelt beside Poyning, her
features melting into a look of compassion that almost made me regret I
wasn't the injured party myself.
'It is the little stranger,' she murmured musically. 'He has been bold
enough to soar into the heavens like Ikaros of old, and like Ikaros he
has fallen.'
She rose suddenly to her feet, and clapped her hands, whereupon several
attendants hurried out, manifestly scandalised, to the injured man.
Then a physician appeared, to whom the Princess turned with an air of
haughty command.
'There is an injury to the little stranger's foot,' she said. 'You will
bind it here, and as you value my favour you will give him no pain in
the binding. You will then see him borne to his own house and tend him
till he is recovered.'
The physician lowered his forehead almost to the pavement and at once
knelt on one side of Poyning, the Princess kneeling on the other. While
his foot was being put into a padded splint she laid her wonderful
white hand on his brow. I saw her speak to the physician, then to
Poyning, in a tone so low that I could only catch the tail end of what
she said. She was looking into his eyes with an expression that seemed
most curiously to combine tenderness with an astonishing intensity of
will.
'Have no fear for your injury, little one,' she said slowly. 'Our most
skilful healers will give you of their utmost skill, and within three
days from now you will walk and fly again. These things will assuredly
be as I have said. Farewell!'
Poyning's lips began to move, but I heard no sound come from them.
Bewilderment and frank adoration struggled for the mastery of his
face; and if there was any shadow of pain, I didn't see it. His broken
foot he seemed to have forgotten. A moment later the Princess had
disappeared. Poyning was raised on a litter borne by eight attendants,
and we moved off towards our own quarters.
Kalliboas, unusually stern and grim, was there almost as soon as we.
He had evidently heard of our flight over the city and our descent
into the courtyard of the royal palaces--that was the place where we
had blundered; yet beyond directing the physicians who were to treat
Poyning, he said no word.
And now once more I witnessed an exhibition of the amazing surgery of
these people of the valley. I can be perfectly sure of every word I
write about it, for I saw the whole thing from no farther away, this
time, than the side of the couch on which my companion had been laid.
The broken bone had been set before he left the royal courtyard, and
that ingenious padded splint was not removed now. The physicians bathed
the leg above and such surfaces of Poyning's ankle as were exposed, in
warm water which I shrewdly suspected to be merely a more concentrated
essence of the healing water we used in our baths. Then two of the
curious wooden boxes were produced and laid one on either side of
the damaged foot. The physician fixed into each a silver appliance
shaped for all the world like a boat-rowlock--I imagine a specially
fashioned "lead" was kept for various parts of the body--slid the horns
of the rowlock over Poyning's leg just below the calf, and made some
adjustment of the silent "battery." This was left in position for fully
half an hour, then removed.
The physician gave Poyning a draught from a small vial, and began
to speak to him. I heard the same words spoken over and over again,
from which I knew hypnotism formed part of the treatment and that a
suggestion was being made to the patient.
'You will now sleep,' the level, monotonous voice said. 'On awaking you
will be already well towards recovery. The bone will be united and the
pain and swelling vanished. In three days from now you will set your
foot to the ground and you will find it strong as ever. These things
cannot possibly happen otherwise, for thus it has been said and the
speaking is true. You will now sleep. On awaking--'
This went on for two or three minutes, and I veritably declare I was
almost asleep myself. I pulled myself up with an effort, and noticed
that the physician had passed from assurances to questions; he was, as
it were, driving the suggestion home.
'What will you do now?' he demanded.
'I am going to sleep,' came the drowsy voice of Poyning.
'And on awaking?'
'I shall be already well towards recovery.'
'And after three days?'
'I shall set my foot to the ground. It will be strong as ever. In three
days....'
Poyning's words ran off into an incoherent mumble. Then silence. The
physician turned to me.
'He will sleep for twenty-four hours,' he said. 'Try not to wake him
before, and when he wakes, tell him nothing of what I have said to him
now, for he will not remember. But in three days his other soul will
remember for him, and he will walk again.'
That night Kalliboas came to me as I sat alone in our guest-room, and
rated me soundly for allowing Poyning to stray from the flying school,
and over a forbidden quarter at that. The old man seemed to regard
me, being a good deal the elder, as responsible for both of us; and I
judged well at that moment to pretend a contrition I assuredly didn't
feel. I particularly wanted to be in the good graces of Kalliboas, for
I was determined to extract from him the secret of those mysterious
boxes, if it were humanly possible. But it wasn't.
'They contain,' said the old man icily, in answer to my question, 'a
force not to be understood of untaught minds. Beware lest you pry too
deeply into our secrets, stranger, and the knowledge be too strong for
you.'
With that he was gone, leaving me to solve the riddle as best I
might. I lay awake hour after hour, striving to imagine what that
force could be, and when at last I had exhausted every possibility
suggested by my scant knowledge of natural science, and come to the
only conclusion left, I had to confess that my solution was more
bewildering than the riddle itself. Kalliboas had mentioned, as I
remembered, what he conceived to be the greatest force in the world,
and I had long suspected that those healing boxes and the mechanism of
the power-driven wings were only different manifestations of the same
thing. It seemed to me that by some wizard process--perhaps analogous
to the way electricity is imprisoned in the material substances of an
accumulator--_both had been charged with the force of the human mind_.
Poyning awoke in the following forenoon, remembering nothing of what
had happened after he swallowed the draught. I stayed beside his
couch most of that day, doing what I could to cheer him, but Poyning
was curiously moody and depressed, and beyond remarking absently once
or twice that Philipson's betrothed seemed to him to be an uncommonly
pleasant lady and that it was a lucky disaster, after all, that had
dropped him into the wrong courtyard--I didn't think worth while to let
him know the views of Kalliboas on this point--he said little.
The second day passed in the same way, without event or visitors,
but during the second night a rather unusual thing happened. I heard
Poyning talking in his sleep. Our bedchambers lay cheek to cheek, and
we always slept with merely a hanging curtain over the doorways--there
were, indeed, no internal doors in the building; and as I lay awake
somewhere after midnight I caught a distinct whisper of talk from
Poyning's room. I had slept by his side for many weeks during our
journey across the mountains, and had often listened to his small
lady-like snores; but never in all my experience of him had I heard
Poyning utter one word of dream-talk. What struck me as additionally
strange about the affair of this night was the way the sound came to
me. Generally, I have found that when a man talks in his sleep the
talk is continuous. Poyning's was disjointed, for all the world like a
dialogue of which the one half has been blotted out.
On the morrow I watched him closely, for I was greatly curious to see
whether that post-hypnotic suggestion the physician had left imprinted
on his mind was going to work. Normally, of course, I should have
had no doubt of it, for I know something of the queer phenomena of
hypnotism; but it is one thing to be enjoined to wind up the clock or
post letters, and quite another to be told that in three days you will
recover from a broken ankle. Very soon I saw something was stirring in
Stephen Poyning. His manner became more and more excited, and at last,
about eleven o'clock, he threw the sheet off his injured foot and felt
it tentatively.
'It's sheer black magic and devilry, of course,' he muttered, 'but--'
He was tugging at the fastenings of the splint. I next heard that
ingenious contrivance clatter on the marble as he tossed it out of bed.
'I shan't want _that_ any more, I can feel. Now let's see--'
He had set his foot to the floor and was very gingerly trying his
weight upon it. The next moment he was standing. I hurried to him and
gave him my arm.
'For God's sake be easy on it!' I cried. 'If you break the bone again
it'll take months to mend.'
He threw off my arm impatiently. 'Many thanks, Mirlees,' he said, 'but
I don't think I require any. Isn't it amazing? The Princess Helene said
I would walk again in three days, and--'
'How do you know her name is Helene?' I demanded.
Poyning gave me a queer look. 'Eh? That is her name, anyhow,' he said.
'Didn't you know?'
'I didn't. And I'm hanged if I can fathom how you did. I've never heard
her name mentioned.'
He ran his fingers through his hair in a curiously abstracted manner.
'That's odd,' he muttered. 'You must have forgotten. If Kalliboas
hadn't mentioned the name to the pair of us I should hardly know it
myself, should I? But I say, look at this, Mirlees!'
He was skipping round the floor, pausing now and then on one leg to
flex and unflex the ankle which three days ago had been broken.
We were so familiar with the city by this time that we often went out
without Kalliboas or any other attendant, but up to the present, save
on one occasion, it had always been by day. That one exception was a
week or two before Poyning's accident. Where he went I don't know, but
he told me next day--I was abed and asleep before he came back--that he
had been out to see the valley by moonlight. Now, on the first night
after his recovery, I noticed he had again left the house by himself.
The same thing happened on the following night, and once or twice again
afterwards. I began to get uneasy. I was still sore, I suppose, over
the wigging he'd let me in for by foolishly flying over the city, but
there was more in it than that. For some time past I had been conscious
of a change in Stephen Poyning. That overlay of "exquisiteness" the boy
had had when we brought him out of China was pretty well all rubbed
off; he was hardening up under experience, developing a will of his
own--and a secretive one, it seemed to me; and with Ronald Mirlees,
at least, he was drifting out of touch. It seemed incredible this
could happen with two men living together as we were in the midst of a
strange race, but it was a palpable fact nevertheless, and it hurt me
a little, though naturally my own pride kept me from saying anything
to Poyning on the subject. When, however, about the eighth night in
succession he took himself off alone after dark, and I saw one of
our attendants slip out behind him, I judged the affair had gone far
enough. If there was any spying to be done, I would take a hand in it
myself.
I slid noiselessly out into the courtyard and the street, which was
fickly illuminated by a young horned moon. Poyning I couldn't see; but
the attendant was just ahead of me, advancing furtively and taking
advantage of the shadow of every building he passed. To move silently
in the sandals worn in the valley was easy enough; moreover, there were
still a few belated foot-passengers abroad--it was only about eleven
o'clock, but the city folk were for the most part early bedgoers and
early risers--and I don't think the watcher suspected he was being
himself watched. After some while, however, the chase brought me to a
quarter of the city entirely deserted, and I had to let him get farther
and farther ahead. I noticed, too, that the moon was now in front of
me instead of behind, as at starting; our course had swept round in
a half-circle. He disappeared under a dark portico and was entirely
lost to my view for about two minutes. I edged nearer, keeping as much
as possible in under walls and trees of the roadside. At last, some
thirty yards ahead, a figure emerged and peered in every direction
as if to satisfy himself he was not observed. A wall here ruled off
the broad street into a sort of blind square. I saw the figure draw
in under that wall, set his foot, apparently, on a plinth about three
feet from the ground, then swing himself to the top and disappear over
the other side. I may say, however, that I can be none too sure of his
movements, for the moonlight was treacherous, and the effect of the
man's white garments against the all-prevailing marble of the city was
such that I had often to strain my eyes to keep him in view at all.
I crept up to the wall and listened, but could hear no sound. Now it
seemed I must take a bold step or lose my quarry altogether. I found
the plinth, rested my foot on it, and threw myself up. The wall, I
found, was surmounted by a feather-edged coping so broad and gently
sloped that it might have been the glacis of a fortification rather
than the sept of a courtyard. As a point to spy from it was ideal. I
lay quite still, peeping over the inner edge. At some way off rose the
mass of a block of buildings, glistening white and majestic in the
silvery light, but nearer to where I lay was a small pavilion with
domed roof supported by fluted pillars. Out of the shadow of this
structure suddenly emerged a figure, but I was now so near that I saw
immediately by his height it wasn't our tall attendant. An instant
later I had recognised the man as Stephen Poyning. Of the attendant I
could see no vestige either in the courtyard inside the wall or the
street without.
Then, from the far side of the court, appeared another figure--a
woman's. She swept across the gleaming marble pavement with the grace
of a goddess and the silence of a ghost, and soon I knew who she was,
for with that superb face turned towards me, what light there was
fell directly upon it. This was the woman who had come to Poyning's
help on the day of his accident, whom he called the Princess Helene,
Philipson's plighted queen.
Now followed the queerest part of the whole affair. To say I was
embarrassed would be scarcely correct: it frightened me.
With a little cry of joy the woman ran up to Poyning and folded him in
her arms and kissed him passionately on the lips. Poyning reached up
his arms, and placed them round her neck, and kissed her again; and
there the pair remained, locked in one another's embrace, for fully
a minute. I imagine that no scene in which that superb creature took
part could appear undignified, or this would have appeared so--even
ludicrous, for the crown of Poyning's head could hardly have reached
higher than the level of her lips, and as she stooped to kiss him he
seemed literally lost in the loose shimmer of her white robe. I could
hear nothing of what Poyning said, if he said anything, but from her
came the repeated cry, accented in an ecstasy of tenderness:
'My little one! My little one!'
They withdrew into the shadow of the domed pavilion, and I heard their
voices in low, earnest talk. I had seen enough--too much; I dropped
noiselessly into the street and stood there under the wall, quivering
with astonishment and alarm.
What utter folly, what unheard-of treachery was this? Of the woman
I knew nothing definitely beyond that she was betrothed to the
new sovereign of the state. Yet from vague allusions dropped by
Kalliboas--though Poyning was wrong in stating that Kalliboas had ever
mentioned the woman's name in my hearing--I had gathered something
regarding her status. There dwelt in the palaces, it seemed, several
maidens of the ancient blood royal in its purest. By long tradition
they were vowed to take no husband but the reigning prince, who chose
from among their number on ascending the throne, and this, as we had
seen, happened recently at the time of the abdication ceremony. The
rest would now remain true to a vow of celibacy till a new prince
succeeded. How the line was maintained, or what happened to these
maidens with their advancing years I never discovered, though I suspect
there was a mystery enshrouding them more amazing than any other in
all this amazing land, and that by some wizard tampering with what we
regard as nature's laws they preserved their youth far beyond the span
given to mortal women. But now, with this woman newly betrothed, or it
may have been wedded--the exact force of the union I didn't know--to
the man we had called Philipson, and indulging a secret passion with
Poyning--a mere adventurer like myself--I could see nothing ahead of
us but certain destruction, from which it would be equally futile and
monstrous to expect the Prince to save us.
I was so staggered by what I had seen that I even forgot the need of
concealment; and when, some minutes later, Poyning made his retreat by
the way he had come, he almost fell on me. He recoiled in astonishment,
and something he was carrying tinkled to the ground.
'Mirlees!' he gasped. 'What are you after here?'
'I ought to ask you that,' I retorted. 'Good God, man, d'you want to
ruin the pair of us?'
'I see,' he almost sneered. 'My coming here is likely to run you into
danger too. Is that the reason you thought it worth while to spy on me?'
'Not altogether,' I said, keeping my temper with difficulty. 'You were
followed from the house by one of our servants. I followed him, to see
what he was up to. I thought it was him I'd tracked here. Not until I
got to the top of that wall did I see it was you. And I'd give a good
deal _not_ to have seen what I've seen to-night.'
'Really? I don't understand how it concerns you.'
'Good God!' I cried hotly. 'I should have thought Philipson was worth a
little better treatment than that. He's kept pretty much on the square
with us--'
'Philipson? What's he to do with it?'
'_What!_ If a man I'd thought my friend fooled around with _my_ wife--'
'Wife? You're mistaken, Mirlees. The lady I've just left is not
Philipson's wife.'
'Huh! Affianced wife, then. What's the use in quibbling?'
'She is not even that.'
'D'you mean to tell me we didn't see him betrothed to her?'
'We certainly did not. Helene is a twin sister of the Princess. The
resemblance is exact enough, though, I'll admit.'
This might have been true or not, but it was certainly new to me. 'Why
didn't you tell me before?' I said.
'You hardly gave me a chance,' replied Poyning coldly. 'You seemed so
ready to believe me a cad.'
'I'm sorry for that,' I said. 'But you know what that woman is. Have
you considered what's likely to happen to both of us--and perhaps
Philipson too--if you're caught in a business like to-night's?'
'I know a good deal more of her than you do, Mirlees,' he said quietly.
'I know that I love her more than my own body and soul, and that if
loving her means death to me I shall meet it--with open arms.'
I was silent for some moments. There was a ring in Poyning's words that
I knew, that told me beyond any shade of doubt that he was fallen into
the state which knows no prudence nor does it listen to logic.
'But remember,' he continued, 'it's my risk, not yours. If I come to
grief over this, I fail to see why you should be any the worse off
unless you're caught in it with me. Now let me go. I'm going to run
into fresh danger.'
'Where are you going?'
'Listen, Mirlees. We all three had an object when we came on this
adventure. Philipson's was a lost kingdom, yours a great discovery,
mine--my own quest. I'm going on it to-night.'
'What is it?'
'I'm going to the tomb on the southern foothills. Don't ask me why,
for I can't tell you, and don't try to come with me. If there's danger
attaching to it, I'll face it alone.'
I stood still, considering the position. Stephen Poyning, aged about
twenty-one, well favoured in mind and body and with all the world
before him, was saying yes to a perilous adventure. Myself, thirty-six,
a widower, with something at least of my life-work behind me and no
very great prospects of happiness in front, was declining the gambit.
Had it been daylight I've no doubt he would have seen me redden a
little.
'I don't know that it's altogether outside the scope of _my_ quest,' I
said.
He paused, undecided. 'What do you mean?' he queried.
'This. I don't attach as much importance to that grave as you seem to,
Poyning, but the identity of the stranger who lies in it is still a
riddle I'd be sorry to leave the valley without solving. I therefore
suggest that if anybody's to go to the tomb at all, we might as well
both go.'
For all his valiant flourishes I caught a note of relief in Poyning's
answer. 'You're a good fellow, Mirlees,' he said, 'and I've talked
like a yahoo to-night. But why should you risk your life too--for I'm
convinced it may easily amount to that?'
I picked up the lanthorn--it was a lanthorn--that he had dropped.
'Let's get away,' I said, 'or it will be daylight before we're out of
the city.'
'Very well,' he assented, 'though frankly I'd rather you didn't.' He
was groping on the pavement at his feet. 'Wait a minute, or I shall be
no better off than I was last time.'
'You've been there before?'
'Some weeks ago. But the place was very effectively locked. Now--ah,
here it is.' He picked up a long silvery-looking strip of metal and
slipped it into the bosom of his robe.
'How far is the tomb?'
'Five good miles, not counting climbing. It took me four hours before,
but then I lost time finding the way.'
We set off at once through the silent streets of the city, stealing
from shadow to shadow and pausing every now and then to assure
ourselves that the attendant, who had so mysteriously disappeared, was
not following us now. If he was, I never from first to last detected
the least trace of him. We made fair time, considering the need of
caution, and were soon come to the standing crops southward of the
city, then on to the grassy foothills. For all the signs of life we
saw, we might have been in the middle of a desert.
Poyning's recollection of the ground stood him in good stead. He had
learned on his former sally that the best way to find the tomb was to
strike for the new stream that had recently burst out of the mountains
and follow it up. This water, though much shrunken from what it had
been when we saw it from the watch-tower, still showed well in the
moonlight, and sounded distinctly on the still night air, and we found
it without much difficulty. The going was bad, however; over and above
the earthworks which the engineers had thrown up, the hillside itself
was rough and strangely soggy for ground at such a slant, and it must
have been fully two hours before we sighted the tomb. It rose from
behind a low hump on the hillside, a small but beautifully designed
building, with pillars and steps in the eternal marble; except that
the entrance in the middle of the façade was a good deal larger in
proportion, the structure might have passed for a model of our own
house. Poyning discovered the aperture for the key, thrust in the
long silver bar, tried it one way and another, and I heard the gentle
screech of metal against metal. We leaned our shoulders against the
dark teak-like wood. It gave. The tomb was open before us.
'Wait,' I said, catching his arm. 'There's no need to scatter clews
abroad.'
With that I carefully confused our tracks round the door, loosened
my sandals, and stepped out of them barefoot on to the lowest marble
stair, motioning Poyning to do the same. Then we entered.
The mausoleum was in pitchy darkness, for there was no aperture but
the door, and that we shut as soon as we had passed inside. I heard
Poyning's heart pounding, and saw his hand shake like a man in an ague
as he struck a light with his flint--the people of the valley used a
very ingenious implement of this type to kindle fire--and lit the lamp.
He held it up, and together we swept our gaze round the interior of the
tomb.
There was little to see. The floor, walls and ceiling were plain
polished marble, while the nave was almost filled by a bier, of the
same material but beautifully carved with groups representing, as it
seemed to me, ancient myths of the nether world. Upon this rested
a sarcophagus, in shape surprisingly reminiscent of an Egyptian
mummy-case, and fashioned of an opaque plaster so cunningly finished
that at the first glance you would have said that it too was solid
marble.
Poyning stared at this for fully a minute, his features drawn into an
expression I had never seen on them before. He then raised the lamp
to the blank walls, and we scanned them closely all over, but it was
Poyning who spotted the inscription. I had to look twice before I could
locate it at all--the carving was so fine and small. It was a short
legend, but it seemed to me to compress into ten short words a whole
world of grimness.
"A stranger strayed into the valley and died. Disturb him not."
That was all: no date appeared, no name, no clew of any sort to the old
tragedy.
Poyning continued to examine the interior of the tomb inch by inch.
Suddenly I saw him drop to one knee.
'Come round to this side,' he said, in a high, cracked voice.
He was pointing to something on the marble floor. There was no
mistaking that mark. It was the print of a bare foot, larger than
Poyning's but not so large as mine.
'It isn't fresh,' said Poyning. 'Nor is it very old. Somebody else has
been here, recently, somebody who also preferred to leave no trace of
his visit. Only he wasn't quite careful enough. What did he come for?'
'God knows.'
'I think I do, too. It seems pretty evident.'
'What do you mean?'
Poyning rose and tapped the sarcophagus. 'This was not here when we
came into the valley,' he said. 'It's been made since. Why? Hide the
lamp, Mirlees. I'm going out.'
I screened the light under my robe, while Poyning opened the door and
left the chamber. When he returned he was carrying a heavy snag of
stone.
'This appears to be the only way now,' he muttered, and to my dismay
began to tap the plaster casing, first gently, then harder. The white
material cracked right across. Poyning laid down the stone and tugged
at the broken plaster with his hands. A big, cup-shaped shard came
away. He bent over the exposed face, and staggered back with a hoarse
scream. It is scarce to be wondered at that Poyning did this.
There was an inner casing of some crystal-like material, also moulded
to mummy-case shape, and through this we could see distinctly--even
too distinctly--the head of the dead man. The body had evidently been
embalmed with skill, for the face was preserved as if life had only
just gone out of it. That rather added to the ghastliness. I have said
I do not wonder that Poyning screamed. I could have screamed aloud
myself, for on those dead features was imprinted the most intense
despairing horror I have ever seen: it was the countenance of a damned
soul being dragged down into hell. At the moment of death, I imagine,
those eyes had been wide and staring, for it had been necessary to sew
the lids together to close them. But most frightful of all, to both
of us, was the identity of that face. In spite of all its horrible
distortion, it was quite unmistakably the face of an older Stephen
Poyning.
He stared transfixed at the apparition for a moment, stooped and kissed
the crystal casing above the forehead, and rushed out of the tomb.
I replaced the broken plaster, cleared away as best I could the
evidences of our invasion, and followed him, going back to lock the
door when I had got the key from Poyning. Not a word did he utter as we
hurried sliding and stumbling down the hill. When I told him to wash
the mud from his sandals in the rushing stream he did so mechanically,
in silence, and strode on, his face set in a granite mask that
concealed anguish and horror alike.
I judged well to approach our house with extreme caution. The breaking
of the plaster envelope to the sarcophagus might remain undiscovered
for years, but it also might come to light to-morrow, in which case
our having been abroad would naturally draw the first suspicion upon
ourselves. Poyning, however, seemed to have thrown prudence behind him.
He stalked up the steps as if the hour had been noon, flung open the
doors and entered.
None of the attendants appeared to be about, or even awake, and I had
certainly seen nobody outside the house. It looked as if we had been
lucky enough to elude observation from start to finish of the gruesome
adventure.
Poyning was in the very act of striking his flint when I snatched it
out of his hand. 'It's late, you know, old man,' I said. 'Better go to
bed in the dark to-night.'
Even as I said this I had a most strange and uncanny sense that we were
being looked at. I peered all round the dark central hall of the house,
but could see nothing; at last, however, against the slender white
pillars that marked the entrance to our inner chambers and were faintly
discernible even in the gloom, my eyes came to rest on something a
shade whiter. There was at the same moment a sharp sound like the hiss
of a snake. Then I'm afraid my nerves, already strung taut by what we
had seen that night, got the better of me.
'Who's there?' I cried, in a voice I wouldn't have known for my own.
There came no answer. I struck the flint I had taken from Poyning, and
kindled the big hanging lamp over my head.
The flame flickered, then rose steadily, and as the chamber grew
brighter a tall form stood out clear between the pillars of the party
wall. It was Kalliboas, his great frame quivering, his stern features
livid with fury.