For Life, for Love, for Freedom
It was near to midnight. I was weary, mind and body, for I had been
urging the Queen to tell me plainly of the fate of my friends, and she
had pleaded ignorance, and either could not or would not give me
satisfaction.
To a reasonable man like myself it is a tedious process and one bearing
little fruit, to thread the mazes of a woman’s mind, yet this had been
my task, and after all these hours I now laid me to rest with the
comfortable knowledge that I had perchance been cajoled, and at any rate
altogether baffled.
Yet she was beautiful, my Queen, and I could not be wholly discontent.
Her very contrariness was a charm, or would have been, had I felt less
bondsman to the cause of my friends. And this was the more strange, in
that I have always loved obedience in a woman, and reckoned docility the
chief of female virtues.
I put this down that men may read. You that wonder at my folly may
perchance go further and with less cause, when the touch of the blind
god comes to you as to me. As for you who smile on, knowing no better,
from your lonely height, you have missed wholly the inwardness of life
and its savor, and so my pity may well match your own and with the
greater reason.
Well, I have said that it was close to midnight when I sought my couch,
and not five minutes after when I was wrapped in deepest slumber,
therefore I cannot say when the scent of coming trouble filled my
nostrils, or when the heavy burden of the foreknowledge of sorrow broke
my rest. But this I do know: I breathed with difficulty. A heavy weight
seemed pressing on my chest, and in the distance, even in my sleep, I
heard a thunderous rumble as of the chariot wheels of the gods.
With that thought I woke, and waking, knew that the air was full of
sulphur and that something lay across me, motionless, in the darkness. I
put forth my strength and pushed the thing away, and it was cold, and it
rolled from off the couch, and fell on the floor beside it, with a dull
sound I liked but little.
The lamp that lit my chamber had gone out, and the slave that was wont
to sleep at my feet had left his accustomed place. With a strange inward
shrinking I passed my hand swiftly over the huddled shape on the
pavement, and as I thus learned the sickening truth, a lurid flash of
lightning showed the distorted features of him whom I had called, and
proved the reason of his silence.
Then a clap of thunder shook the very Palace. I heard the shrill scream
of a frightened woman, and I groped my way to the door. As I reached it,
a dull red glare lit up faintly the stone corridor, and I saw that it
came from without and through a loophole that pierced the massive wall.
There was an indescribable murmur also that was deadened by the
thickness of outer stone of the fortress Palace. This murmur sounded to
me very much like the angry hum of a horde of bees. Hurrying feet, bare
of sandals, ran this way and that. The royal household was astir and
affrighted.
Soon I saw again a blinding flash of blue light and heard the deafening
peal of thunder that followed. All this time there was no sound of
falling rain, but the air was heavy and stagnant and full of a curious
mineral odor that stank in my nostrils.
Then as I groped my way onward through the tangled labyrinth that lay
between me and the Queen, I felt a hand fall on my shoulder, and a voice
spoke low in my ear through all the tumult. I turned, and the voice
whined on, and in a moment I had caught the sense of that which it
uttered.
“For behold, I have given gifts of price to the Temple, yet doth fire
from heaven even now destroy my household. Woe is me! but the magic of
the white stranger is strong. Follow, my lord, and I will lead you to
your friends. So shall the shadow of your protecting mantle fall upon
me, and my miserable life be spared.”
Thus the creature grovelled before me, and even as he spoke, a forked
tongue of light struck a cornice above our heads, and a great fragment
of carved stone fell at my feet.
I bade the whimpering fellow rise and be a man and lead me, as he valued
his black skin, with all speed, to the dungeon where lay my comrade and
the maid.
So at his word I turned me back once more, and, drawing my knife, I let
the shivering wretch gaze on the bright polish of its metal, that he
might forswear all thought of treachery. I think, however, that the
deadly fear of the storm that consumed him would have kept him true.
At least, without mischance, he led me downward, by a way new to me,
till at length, in the bowels of the earth, I rejoined my friends. It
was a hasty, if a joyous, greeting that we gave one another. There was
no time to lose. Astolba’s face told me that, as did the feverish
pressure with which my good comrade Lestrade grasped my hands.
So with eloquent maledictions in the native tongue, and in round
English, I swore the jailer, my trembling guide, to silence, and once
again we three together began the business of escape.
Well for us that the friendly darkness covered us, and that before the
dreadful onslaught of the storm the sentinels had fled. Our hard-earned
knowledge of the network of dungeon, chamber, and corridor stood us in
good stead; fear lent us strength and pricked us onward, and it was not
long as we count by minutes before we paused for breath—we three
together without the Palace, and so far safe, within the shadow of its
wall.
Then it was that my heart sank like lead within my bosom. In the
excitement of the flight, I had not thought of the Queen, and that
escape meant farewell and forever.
One lives long in an hour like that, and in a flash I saw that I was
bound to Lah by a stronger chain than any that could be forged by the
word of a heathen priest before Edba’s altar.
But awful peril faced us, and if ever a maid needed the service of two
stalwart men, such a one was Astolba, in the midst of this terrible
danger alike from the heavens and from the beasts about us.
So, privately in the darkness, I kissed the ruby that lay upon my
breast. This also I set down,—I care not who reads it,—and with the kiss
I sealed a compact that led me from my desire to my duty.
Then I resolutely turned my back upon the Palace.
The dull roar was not so distant or so muffled now. It came from a
maddened crowd that surged about the royal entrance gates.
Ghostly figures joined the mob, by twos and threes, showing not white,
but black, against the red glare of burning buildings; and over all hung
the sulphurous vapor; from above, peal upon peal of deafening
thunder—the serpent flash of light.
The people of the Walled City were mad with fear, and in their terror
lay our best pledge of safety. Lestrade supported the maid and tenderly
urged her onward, and I in silence led the way, with naked sword to
answer him who should unwisely question us.
My comrade bore with him such weapons as he had time to choose in our
hasty flight, and Astolba, with a woman’s foresight, had carried from
the cell provisions and a flask of water.
The secret door of the outer wall was near, and freedom within our
grasp, but I took no joy of it. Lah’s face, beautiful and reproachful,
rose before me and filled me with a mighty longing that would not be
stilled. I even half hoped that we, or at least that I, would be
challenged, captured, and so stand once more a prisoner in that queenly
presence; but no man stayed us, and without let or hindrance we passed
through the door in the wall, and stood once again beyond the boundaries
of the City of the worshippers of Edba and of Hed.
But even in that moment the shrill voice of Hubla reached my ears,
strangely broken with wild, strangling sobs, and though I knew it not,
the voice of Hubla was the voice of fate. How or by what means she had
tracked us, I cannot tell.
Lestrade, mindful of her past malice, strode forth quickly with upraised
spear, but I withheld his hand.
There was no power for evil in the shrunken, huddled figure at my feet.
Even her witch’s deviltry had fallen from her as a garment.
It was not the sorceress who clasped my knees, but an old old woman,
half-mad with frantic grief and terror; and at her first words my blood
leaped in my veins, for she bade me save the Queen.
I saw Astolba come forward from the shelter of Lestrade’s protecting
arm, and as in a dream, I heard her, with a strange hardness in her
voice, bid the red witch cease her lamentations, for she said coldly,
“What is Lah’s fate to you?”
Then with something of her old fire, Hubla stood upright.
“What is the Queen to me?” she repeated, with scorn in look and tone.
“For whom have I toiled? For whom have I betrayed the secrets of the
gods? Who sits, by my contriving, upon the throne of Kings? For whom
have I shed without mercy the blood of friend and foe? And she is all in
all to me. The wrath of Edba and Hed strike me alone. I am their
rightful victim; let them spare my child.”
“Your child!” I cried in amazement, but she turned upon me with her old
savagery.
“And you, her lover, waste the time in idle words. You stand here
prating, while the mob, maddened by the priests, fire the Palace and
tear in pieces Lah, their Queen.”
I turned, stricken dumb by the horror of her words, and it was Lestrade
who put the question that trembled on my lips.
“The hag is distraught or worse,” he said, with contempt. “Think not to
cheat us by so clumsy a trick. Did not Agno himself at the wrestling do
homage to the Queen?”
Hubla answered, but it was to me she spoke.
“If you have pity, hasten. By the gods I swear I tell nothing but the
bare truth. This storm has set the people wild with fear, and the crafty
priests have dared to say that Edba and Hed have sent it in punishment
of the Queen’s sins. In mercy, come quickly, for the end is near.”
“And if we believe this likely tale,” sneered Lestrade, “what can one
man do? what is my friend among so many?”
“The fire of the pit smite you!” raved the witch, beside herself with
passion. Then once again she clung to me, beseeching, “Come; for she
loves you.”
And I answered, “I will come.”
Then it was that Astolba spoke, and I knew not till then how pitiless
can be a woman’s voice.
“Is this thing true?” she asked. “Promised to me as you are, do you love
this woman?”
The lash of her scorn cut me like a knife, but I felt that the time for
half-truths was over. So I said humbly but yet steadfastly, “I do not
know. Nevertheless I cannot leave her to perish. Remember she has saved
your life and mine.”
“Go then,” she cried bitterly. “We waste time. I thank Heaven there
beats yet one loyal heart; one who will stand my friend. If we part
here, it is forever.”
“Forever if it be your will,” I answered, with sad pride.
And with that I saw Lestrade draw the maid close, and together, without
a word, they passed from me, and the darkness swallowed them; and I,
turning, bade Hubla lead onward to the Queen.