In the Cage
Though I knew from all that had gone before that change of quarters was
little likely to bring me comfort, pleasure, or ease, either of mind or
of body, my spirits rose, despite my better sense, as I turned my back
upon the place of torment that had held me captive.
Neither did the triumphant malice of Agno’s dark countenance daunt me.
Whatever befell, it was good. Good to be alive and breathe again the
pure open air; good to be dazzled, half-blinded even, by a sun I had
thought never to shine on me again save in death.
But I had not long in which to rejoice over my shackled freedom; for,
still chained, I was thrust rudely into a new and curious prison; a
barbarous invention of a barbarous people, a cage like a wild beast’s
den.
In this, still closely guarded, I was borne along, and through its open
bars of stout bamboo, a gaping crowd beheld me, and it sent a hot wave
of righteous wrath surging through my veins to feel that I could not, at
least, stand upright like a man, and fling back scorn for scorn; but on
account of the lowness of my prison, needs must crouch, beast-like, in
shameful silence before the taunts of the rabble, this offscouring of
the people of the Walled City.
Thus with ignominy was I carried through the broad streets of Lah’s
capital, and still caged thus, I was placed upon the central stone of
the great open market-place, and here, at the High Priest’s command, was
I left with the staring crowd for company.
Agno himself had gone. I noted, through the open bars of my foul den,
that the walls of the storehouses about were hung with gay carpets, and
that the business of buying and selling had ceased in favor of the still
more urgent and exciting business of seeing an enemy put to scorn,
mayhap to death.
The multitude were wreathed with flowers as for a festal day. They
jostled one another, it is true, to get a nearer look at the man about
to suffer the extremest wrath of the mighty gods; they pushed one
another aside, but with merry words and no anger. Their anger was all
for him who had defiled the sanctuary. The very women held up their
children and taught them words of infamy for me, the captive.
A man loves not to be called a coward. It was not for this that with
patience I had learned from Astolba’s lips the language of this people.
The time was long. The sun beat down upon my unprotected head. I shook
the bars of my cage with savage strength, and the people shrank back,
only to return with new-born laughter at my impotence.
And Lah came not.
Thus dragged the weary hours. At last, a few of them that tormented me,
bolder or more cruel than the rest, began to fling not only taunts, but
stones. Yet some unknown power restrained even these, for the stones
they chose were small, and did but sting and bruise the flesh, nor did
one of all draw blood. But it was merry sport for them, my enemies. As
they warmed to it, ’twas like enough that the unknown bond that held
them would have snapped, and I been given over, then and there, to an
easy death thus at their hands, when once more an ever-watchful fate
stepped between me and vengeance.
The sound of chanting and of bells rose faint from the distance, and, as
at a command, the throng fell back, while I, with straining ears and
beating heart, waited for what this might portend.
Was it the Queen bent on rescue?
The thought thrilled me with new hope, but the strange chant came nearer
yet, and hope died. For I heard it now for the third time. The song of
wrath, the song of the Temple of Edba, of the High Priest’s Council—the
song of death to the stranger, to him within the gates.
The dull beating of drums and the clash of weapons mingled with the
hymn. Then the first of a band of warrior priests came into sight, and
the people herded together, near to the walls, that the holy ones might
have room to pass.
The strange procession circled about my cage. Of them that marched, some
bore shields and swords; some carried wands of office; others swung open
silver cups laden with sweet-scented spices consumed to the honor of the
gods. Some bore wreaths of many-colored flowers. All were in spotless
white, and all kept step with order and rhythm to the cadenced measures
of that horrible hymn of praise.
But now an awed murmur rose from the waiting throng. Some fell on their
faces, and some, and these were women, rushed forward in a kind of
frenzied joy of welcome. The men drew aside with reverent haste to let
them pass, and the object of their devotion came in sight.
I saw a canopied litter swung aloft; I saw fan-bearers and all the
jewelled trappings of royalty. And again my pulse beat thick with joy,
for a veiled figure sat within the litter, and for one fleeting moment I
believed that Lah had come to claim me, prisoner. Another instant
pricked the bubble of my hope.
One woman and another from out the throng fell, face downward, on the
wayside, in the path of her who rode thus immovable, in state, herself,
no woman truly, but Edba, the Moon Goddess, come to behold her fallen
enemy.
The priests marched steadily along over the prostrate bodies in the
dust, nor turned aside for any self-devoted victim. Only when the silver
statue reached the centre of the cleared space before my cage, was a
halt called. Then with much speech-making, and many strange observances,
was I once more committed to my doom.
Surely had I no need to complain of lack of ceremony about my end, save
only the incivility with which these pious persons received my own
attempt at answer.
But of a truth they may have feared, and rightly, the effect of
Christian eloquence. For though I be but a plain man, and one more of
deed than of word, I was roused in that hour to a flow of language, a
subtlety of wit, and a power of rebuke, that would, I think, have shamed
the boldest into silence, and carried me perchance a conqueror, victor
not victim, from that place of torment.
But it was not so to be. The beat of drums drowned my voice; at a sign,
the bearers of the litter resumed their march.
Edba, too, had gone; another hour had sped. I was still caged, still
fettered, still a prisoner.
Some of the people, my former tormentors, had gone on with the Moon
Goddess and her train. Others stayed to bear away the victims left
behind her in the market-place. Of these some groaned mournfully, others
rent the air with cries, and one, a tall woman of some beauty, rose,
swayed for a moment, and then fell heavily, and lay motionless, but with
a strange smile on her parted lips.
I still had a few spectators of my misery, but their zest at the sight
had somehow departed. No one now flung either taunts or pebbles. I began
to solace myself with the idea of an hour’s quiet before nightfall in
which to think; bitter comfort undisturbed my own thoughts, when a group
of chattering slave girls neared my prison. They gathered round it with
unseemly jests and laughter. Their tinkling anklets were of gold, and of
gold also were the bracelets on their bare brown arms. They belonged, I
saw, to some great house, but the thought of them and their concerns did
not affect me.
Lestrade, now, in such a case, even such an evil case as mine, would
have held discourse with them. He would have saluted, I doubt not, with
flattering words, such as through their hampering veils seemed comely.
But I am of sterner stuff. Their chatter irked me, and their
light-heartedness was an insult and a cruelty. I would not be a show and
a delight to such as these. So I held my head down, and drew my cloak
about me, and alike to their questioning and their jibes, maintained a
sullen silence. Seeing which, she who seemed the leader in their
merriment drew nearer.
“I will have speech of the monster,” she cried, somewhat in this wise:
“Behold neither sweet words from fair lips, nor jibes, nor hard stones
move him. Yet, by the Veiled One I swear it, this I warrant shall
quicken his sense—the moody one;” and she drew from her hair a long gold
pin. “At least, will I see if his blood be red like that of other
mortals.”
At these words the other slaves fell back, and some would have stayed
her, but with a light laugh she flung aside alike their restraining
hands and words, and came close, close to the bars of the cage. Now, I
am not a man to fear the prick of a weapon wielded by a woman, nor, for
that matter, in fair fight with any man; but I was mad that my quiet be
broken, and over and above that, her boldness vexed me, for I was one
who never could bear the forwardness of maids.
So, as the pin-point touched my flesh, I seized the bodkin ’twixt thumb
and finger, and in my grasp it broke, or came apart, I know not which,
and I saw that it was hollow.
At the instant the slave’s veil slipped aside a little. I saw her finger
seek her lip to caution me to silence. The next moment her shrill scream
rang through the air.
“The brute! He has my golden pin,” she cried, and wrung her hands, and
thus bewailing her loss, passed, after a little, with her companions out
of sight.
Then, as soon as I could, being unobserved, I looked closer on the
bodkin, and, as I held it this way and that, to catch the meaning of
some characters graven faintly on the surface, a small round pellet
slipped from out the hollow pin, and rolled along the floor of my cage.
It lay upon the very edge, but I had caught the Queen’s name in the
short sentence before me, so stooped not to pick it up, until I read:
“Within, find help when all fails;”
and the royal signet,
“Lah.”
I scanned the words with all care. Then my eager fingers sought the
fallen pellet, but, in my haste I jarred the cage so that the little
ball rolled over the edge, and was gone.
As I gazed upon it, lying there on the bare earth not four feet away,
but as much out of my reach as though the world’s breadth was between it
and me, a dog came up, one of the many that hunt for scraps and offal
among the refuse of the market-place. One of these scraps, a strip of
dried beef, I think it was, lay, as luck would have it, close to my
treasure. The half-starved brute greedily seized on the fragment, and
his long tongue licked up as well the pellet,—gift to me from the Queen.
With a wrathful cry I shook my clenched hand at the already retreating
brute.
He was not three paces off, but almost on the instant a convulsive
tremor seized upon the creature. The mongrel’s legs stiffened, he raised
his head and gave a despairing howl, a sound choked in the uttering;
for, with another shuddering spasm, he dropped and lay still.
A cry of terror rose from the multitude.
“Behold, the captive looked upon the dog in anger, and he is dead! Let
us leave this place! Let us fly!”
A panic seized the people at the words. Women snatched up their
offspring, covering them from harm beneath their mantles. Strong men
trampled upon the weak, that they might escape.
The crowd melted away as if by magic. The sun beat down pitilessly as
before, but on an empty market-place. Empty, save for the hapless
prisoner crouched within his cage, and for the dead body of the brute
beside it,—victim to the mercy of Lah, the Queen.