Produced by John Bickers; Dagny; David Widger
RED EVE
by H. Rider Haggard
First Published 1911.
DEDICATION
Ditchingham, May 27, 1911. My dear Jehu:
For five long but not unhappy years, seated or journeying side by side,
we have striven as Royal Commissioners to find a means whereby our
coasts may be protected from “the outrageous flowing surges of the
sea” (I quote the jurists of centuries ago), the idle swamps turned to
fertility and the barren hills clothed with forest; also, with small
success, how “foreshore” may be best defined!
What will result from all these labours I do not know, nor whether grave
geologists ever read romance save that which the pen of Time inscribes
upon the rocks. Still, in memory of our fellowship in them I offer to
you this story, written in their intervals, of Red Eve, the dauntless,
and of Murgh, Gateway of the Gods, whose dreadful galley still sails
from East to West and from West to East, yes, and evermore shall sail.
Your friend and colleague, H. Rider Haggard. To Dr. Jehu, F.G.S., St.
Andrews, N.B.
RED EVE
MURGH THE DEATH
They knew nothing of it in England or all the Western countries in those
days before Crecy was fought, when the third Edward sat upon the throne.
There was none to tell them of the doom that the East, whence come light
and life, death and the decrees of God, had loosed upon the world. Not
one in a multitude in Europe had ever even heard of those vast lands of
far Cathay peopled with hundreds of millions of cold-faced yellow
men, lands which had grown very old before our own familiar states and
empires were carved out of mountain, of forest, and of savage-haunted
plain. Yet if their eyes had been open so that they could see, well
might they have trembled. King, prince, priest, merchant, captain,
citizen and poor labouring hind, well might they all have trembled when
the East sent forth her gifts!
Look across the world beyond that curtain of thick darkness. Behold! A
vast city of fantastic houses half buried in winter snows and reddened
by the lurid sunset breaking through a saw-toothed canopy of cloud.
Everywhere upon the temple squares and open spaces great fires burning a
strange fuel--the bodies of thousands of mankind. Pestilence was king
of that city, a pestilence hitherto unknown. Innumerable hordes had died
and were dying, yet innumerable hordes remained. All the patient East
bore forth those still shapes that had been theirs to love or hate, and,
their task done, turned to the banks of the mighty river and watched.
Down the broad street which ran between the fantastic houses advanced a
procession toward the brown, ice-flecked river. First marched a company
of priests clad in black robes, and carrying on poles lanterns of black
paper, lighted, although the sun still shone. Behind marched another
company of priests clad in white robes, and bearing white lanterns, also
lighted. But at these none looked, nor did they listen to the dirges
that they sang, for all eyes were fixed upon him who filled the centre
space and upon his two companions.
The first companion was a lovely woman, jewel-hung, wearing false
flowers in her streaming hair, and beneath her bared breasts a kirtle of
white silk. Life and love embodied in radiance and beauty, she danced
in front, looking about her with alluring eyes, and scattering petals
of dead roses from a basket which she bore. Different was the second
companion, who stalked behind; so thin, so sexless that none could
say if the shape were that of man or woman. Dry, streaming locks of
iron-grey, an ashen countenance, deep-set, hollow eyes, a beetling,
parchment-covered brow; lean shanks half hidden with a rotting rag,
claw-like hands which clutched miserably at the air. Such was its awful
fashion, that of new death in all its terrors.
Between them, touched of neither, went a man, naked save for a red
girdle and a long red cloak that was fastened round his throat and hung
down from his broad shoulders. There was nothing strange about this man,
unless it were perhaps the strength that seemed to flow from him and the
glance of his icy eyes. He was just a burly yellow man, whose age none
could tell, for the hood of the red cloak hid his hair; one who seemed
to be far removed from youth, and yet untouched by time. He walked on
steadily, intently, his face immovable, taking no heed.
Only now and again he turned those long eyes of his upon one of the
multitude who watched him pass crouched upon their knees in solemn
silence, always upon one, whether it were man, woman, or child, with a
glance meant for that one and no other. And ever the one upon whom it
fell rose from the knee, made obeisance, and departed as though filled
with some inspired purpose.
Down to the quay went the black priests, the white priests, and the
red-cloaked man, preceded by rose life, followed by ashen death. Through
the funeral fires they wended, and the lurid sunset shone upon them all.
To the pillars of this quay was fastened a strange, high-pooped ship
with crimson sails set upon her masts. The white priests and the black
priests formed lines upon either side of the broad gangway of that
ship and bowed as the red-cloaked man walked over it between them quite
alone, for now she with the dead roses and she of the ashen countenance
had fallen back. As the sun sank, standing on the lofty stern, he cried
aloud:
“Here the work is done. Now I, the Eating Fire, I the Messenger, get me
to the West. Among you for a while I cease to burn; yet remember me, for
I shall come again.”
As he spoke the ropes of the ship were loosened, the wind caught her
crimson sails, and she departed into the night, one blood-red spot
against its blackness.
The multitude watched until they could see her no longer. Then they
flamed up with mingled joy and rage. They laughed madly. They cursed him
who had departed.
“We live, we live, we live!” they cried. “Murgh is gone! Murgh is gone!
Kill his priests! Make sacrifice of his Shadows. Murgh is gone bearing
the curse of the East into the bosom of the West. Look, it follows him!”
and they pointed to a cloud of smoke or vapour, in which terrible shapes
seemed to move dimly, that trailed after the departing, red-sailed ship.
The black priests and the white priests heard. Without struggle, without
complaint, as though they were but taking part in some set ceremony,
they kneeled down in lines upon the snow. Naked from the waist up,
executioners with great swords appeared. They advanced upon the kneeling
lines without haste, without wrath, and, letting fall the heavy swords
upon the patient, outstretched necks, did their grim office till all
were dead. Then they turned to find her of the flowers who had danced
before, and her of the tattered weeds who had followed after, purposing
to cast them to the funeral flames. But these were gone, though none
had seen them go. Only out of the gathering darkness from some temple or
pagoda-top a voice spoke like a moaning wind.
“Fools,” wailed the voice, “still with you is Murgh, the second Thing
created; Murgh, who was made to be man’s minister. Murgh the Messenger
shall reappear from beyond the setting sun. Ye cannot kill, ye cannot
spare. Those priests you seemed to slay he had summoned to be his
officers afar. Fools! Ye do but serve as serves Murgh, Gateway of the
Gods. Life and death are not in your hands or in his. They are in the
hands of the Master of Murgh, Helper of man, of that Lord whom no eye
hath seen, but whose behests all who are born obey--yes, even the mighty
Murgh, Looser of burdens, whom in your foolishness ye fear.”
So spoke this voice out of the darkness, and that night the sword of the
great pestilence was lifted from the Eastern land, and there the funeral
fires flared no more.
CHAPTER I
THE TRYSTING-PLACE
On the very day when Murgh the Messenger sailed forth into that
uttermost sea, a young man and a maiden met together at the Blythburgh
marshes, near to Dunwich, on the eastern coast of England. In this, the
month of February of the year 1346, hard and bitter frost held Suffolk
in its grip. The muddy stream of Blyth, it is true, was frozen only in
places, since the tide, flowing up from the Southwold harbour, where
it runs into the sea between that ancient town and the hamlet of
Walberswick, had broken up the ice. But all else was set hard and fast,
and now toward sunset the cold was bitter.
Stark and naked stood the tall, dry reeds. The blackbirds and starlings
perched upon the willows seemed swollen into feathery balls, the fur
started on the backs of hares, and a four-horse wain could travel in
safety over swamps where at any other time a schoolboy dared not set his
foot.
On such an eve, with snow threatening, the great marsh was utterly
desolate, and this was why these two had chosen it for their meeting
place.
To look on they were a goodly pair--the girl, who was clothed in the red
she always wore, tall, dark, well shaped, with large black eyes and a
determined face, one who would make a very stately woman; the man broad
shouldered, with grey eyes that were quick and almost fierce, long
limbed, hard, agile, and healthy, one who had never known sickness, who
looked as though the world were his own to master. He was young, but
three-and-twenty that day, and his simple dress, a tunic of thick wool
fastened round him with a leathern belt, to which hung a short sword,
showed that his degree was modest.
The girl, although she seemed his elder, in fact was only in her
twentieth year. Yet from her who had been reared in the hard school of
that cruel age childhood had long departed, leaving her a ripened woman
before her time.
This pair stood looking at each other.
“Well, Cousin Eve Clavering,” said the man, in his clear voice, “why did
your message bid me meet you in this cold place?”
“Because I had a word to say to you, Cousin Hugh de Cressi,” she
answered boldly; “and the marsh being so cold and so lonesome I thought
it suited to my purpose. Does Grey Dick watch yonder?”
“Ay, behind those willows, arrow on string, and God help him on whom
Dick draws! But what was that word, Eve?”
“One easy to understand,” she replied, looking him in the
eyes--“Farewell!”
He shivered as though with the cold, and his face changed.
“An ill birthday greeting, yet I feared it,” he muttered huskily, “but
why more now than at any other time?”
“Would you know, Hugh? Well, the story is short, so I’ll let it out. Our
great-grandmother, the heiress of the de Cheneys, married twice, did she
not, and from the first husband came the de Cressis, and from the second
the Claverings. But in this way or in that we Claverings got the
lands, or most of them, and you de Cressis, the nobler stock, took to
merchandise. Now since those days you have grown rich with your
fishing fleets, your wool mart, and your ferry dues at Walberswick and
Southwold. We, too, are rich in manors and land, counting our acres by
the thousand, but yet poor, lacking your gold, though yonder manor”--and
she pointed to some towers which rose far away above the trees upon
the high land--“has many mouths to feed. Also the sea has robbed us at
Dunwich, where I was born, taking our great house and sundry streets
that paid us rent, and your market of Southwold has starved out ours at
Blythburgh.”
“Well, what has all this to do with you and me, Eve?”
“Much, Hugh, as you should know who have been bred to trade,” and she
glanced at his merchant’s dress. “Between de Cressi and Clavering there
has been rivalry and feud for three long generations. When we were
children it abated for a while, since your father lent money to mine,
and that is why they suffered us to grow up side by side. But then they
quarrelled about the ferry that we had set in pawn, and your father
asked his gold back again, and, not getting it, took the ferry, which I
have always held a foolish and strife-breeding deed, since from that day
forward the war was open. Therefore, Hugh, if we meet at all it must be
in these frozen reeds or behind the cover of a thicket, like a village
slut and her man.”
“I know that well enough, Eve, who have spoken with you but twice in
nine months.” And he devoured her beautiful face with hungry eyes. “But
of that word, ‘Farewell’----”
“Of that ill word, this, Hugh: I have a new suitor up yonder, a fine
French suitor, a very great lord indeed, whose wealth, I am told, none
can number. From his mother he has the Valley of the Waveney up to
Bungay town--ay, and beyond--and from his father, a whole county in
Normandy. Five French knights ride behind his banner, and with them ten
squires and I know not how many men-at-arms. There is feasting yonder at
the manor, I can tell you. Ere his train leaves us our winter provender
will be done, and we’ll have to drink small beer till the wine ships
come from France in spring.”
“And what is this lord’s name?”
“God’s truth, he has several,” she answered. “Sir Edmund Acour in
England, and in France the high and puissant Count of Noyon, and in
Italy, near to the city of Venice--for there, too, he has possessions
which came to him through his grandmother--the Seigneur of Cattrina.”
“And having so much, does he want you, too, as I have heard, Eve? And if
so, why?”
“So he swears,” she answered slowly; “and as for the reason, why, I
suppose you must seek it in my face, which by ill-fortune has pleased
his lordship since first he saw it a month ago. At the least he has
asked me in marriage of my father, who jumped at him like a winter pike,
and so I’m betrothed.”
“And do you want him, Eve?”
“Ay, I want him as far as the sun is from the moon or the world from
either. I want him in heaven or beneath the earth, or anywhere away from
me.”
At these words a light shone in Hugh’s keen grey eyes.
“I’m glad of that, Eve, for I’ve been told much of this fine
fellow--amongst other things that he is a traitor come here to spy on
England. But should I be a match for him, man to man, Eve?” he asked
after a little pause.
She looked him up and down; then answered:
“I think so, though he is no weakling; but not for him and the five
knights and the ten squires, and my noble father, and my brother, and
the rest. Oh, Hugh, Hugh!” she added bitterly, “cannot you understand
that you are but a merchant’s lad, though your blood be as noble as any
in this realm--a merchant’s lad, the last of five brothers? Why were
you not born the first of them if you wished for Eve Clavering, for then
your red gold might have bought me.”
“Ask that of those who begot me,” said Hugh. “Come now, what’s in
your mind? You’re not one to be sold like a heifer at a faring and go
whimpering to the altar, and I am not one to see you led there while I
stand upon my feet. We are made of a clay too stiff for a French lord’s
fingers, Eve, though it is true that they may drag you whither you would
not walk.”
“No,” she answered, “I think I shall take some marrying against my wish.
Moreover, I am Dunwich born.”
“What of that, Eve?”
“Go ask your godsire and my friend, Sir Andrew Arnold, the old priest.
In the library of the Temple there he showed me an ancient roll, a
copy of the charter granted by John and other kings of England to the
citizens of Dunwich.”
“What said this writing, Eve?”
“It said, among other things, that no man or maid of Dunwich can be
forced to marry against their will, even in the lifetime of their
parents.”
“But will it hold to-day?”
“Ay, I think so. I think that is why the holy Sir Andrew showed it to
me, knowing something of our case, for he is my confessor when I can get
to him.”
“Then, sweet, you are safe!” exclaimed Hugh, with a sigh of relief.
“Ay, so safe that to-morrow Father Nicholas, the French chaplain in his
train, has been warned to wed me to my lord Acour--that is, if I’m there
to wed.”
“And if this Acour is here, I’ll seek him out to-night and challenge
him, Eve,” and Hugh laid hand upon his sword.
“Doubtless,” she replied sarcastically, “Sir Edmund Acour, Count of
Noyon, Seigneur of Cattrina, will find it honour to accept the challenge
of Hugh de Cressi, the merchant’s youngest son. Oh, Hugh, Hugh! are your
wits frozen like this winter marsh? Not thus can you save me.”
The young man thought a while, staring at the ground and biting his
lips. Then he looked up suddenly and said:
“How much do you love me, Eve?”
With a slow smile, she opened her arms, and next moment they were
kissing each other as heartily as ever man and maid have kissed since
the world began, so heartily, indeed, that when at length she pushed him
from her, her lovely face was as red as the cloak she wore.
“You know well that I love you, to my sorrow and undoing,” she said, in
a broken voice. “From childhood it has been so between us, and till the
grave takes one or both it will be so, and for my part beyond it, if
the priests speak true. For, whatever may be your case, I am not one to
change my fancy. When I give, I give all, though it be of little worth.
In truth, Hugh, if I could I would marry you to-night, though you are
naught but a merchant’s son, or even----” And she paused, wiping her
eyes with the back of her slim, strong hand.
“I thank you,” he answered, trembling with joy. “So it is with me. For
you and no other woman I live and die; and though I am so humble I’ll
be worthy of you yet. If God keeps me in breath you shall not blush for
your man, Eve. Well, I am not great at words, so let us come to deeds.
Will you away with me now? I think that Father Arnold would find you
lodging for the night and an altar to be wed at, and to-morrow our ship
sails for Flanders and for France.”
“Yes, but would your father give us passage in it, Hugh?”
“Why not? It could not deepen the feud between our Houses, which already
has no bottom, and if he refused, we would take one, for the captain is
my friend. And I have some little store set by; it came to me from my
mother.”
“You ask much,” she said; “all a woman has, my life, perchance, as well.
Yet there it is; I’ll go because I’m a fool, Hugh; and, as it chances,
you are more to me than aught, and I hate this fine French lord. I tell
you I sicken at his glance and shiver when he touches me. Why, if he
came too near I should murder him and be hanged. I’ll go, though God
alone knows the end of it.”
“Our purpose being honest, the end will be good, Eve, though perhaps
before all is done we may often think it evil. And now let’s away,
though I wish that you were dressed in another colour.”
“Red Eve they name me, and red is my badge, because it suits my dark
face best. Cavil not at my robe, Hugh, for it is the only dowry you will
get with Eve Clavering. How shall we go? By the Walberswick ferry? You
have no horses.”
“Nay, but I have a skiff hidden in the reeds five miles furlongs off. We
must keep to the heath above Walberswick, for there they might know your
red cloak even after dark, and I would not have you seen till we are
safe with Sir Arnold in the Preceptory. Mother of Heaven! what is that?”
“A peewit, no more,” she answered indifferently.
“Nay, it is my man Dick, calling like a peewit. That is his sign when
trouble is afoot. Ah, here he comes.”
As he spoke a tall, gaunt man appeared, advancing towards them. His
gait was a shambling trot that seemed slow, although, in truth, he was
covering the ground with extraordinary swiftness. Moreover, he moved so
silently that even on the frost-held soil his step could not be heard,
and so carefully that not a reed stirred as he threaded in and out among
their clumps like an otter, his head crouched down and his long bow
pointed before him as though it were a spear. Half a minute more, and he
was before them--a very strange man to see. His years were not so many,
thirty perhaps, and yet his face looked quite old because of its lack
of colouring, its thinness, and the hard lines that marked where
the muscles ran down to the tight, straight mouth and up to the big
forehead, over which hung hair so light that at a little distance he
seemed ashen-grey. Only in this cold, rocky face, set very far apart,
were two pale-blue eyes, which just now, when he chose to lift their
lids that generally kept near together, as though he were half asleep,
were full of fire and quick cunning.
Reaching the pair, this strange fellow dropped to his knee and raised
his cap to Eve, the great lady of the Claverings--Red Eve, as they
called her through that country-side. Then he spoke, in a low, husky
voice:
“They’re coming, master! You and your mistress must to earth unless you
mean to face them in the open,” and the pale eyes glittered as he tapped
his great black bow.
“Who are coming, Dick? Be plain, man!”
“Sir John Clavering, my lady’s father; young John, my lady’s brother;
the fine French lord who wears a white swan for a crest; three of the
nights, his companions; and six--no seven--men-at-arms. Also from the
other side of the grieve, Thomas of Kessland, and with him his marsh men
and verderers.”
“And what are they coming for?” he asked again. “Have they hounds, and
hawk on wrist?”
“Nay, but they have swords and knife on thigh,” and he let his pale eyes
fall on Eve.
“Oh, have done!” she broke in. “They come to take me, and I’ll not be
taken! They come to kill you, and I’ll not see you slain and live. I had
words with my father this morning about the Frenchman and, I fear, let
out the truth. He told me then that ere the Dunwich roses bloomed again
she who loved you would have naught but bones to kiss. Dick, you know
the fen; where can we hide till nightfall?”
“Follow me,” said the man, “and keep low!”
Plunging into the dense brake of reeds, through which he glided like a
polecat, Dick led them over ground whereon, save in times of hard frost,
no man could tread, heading toward the river bank. For two hundred paces
or more they went thus, till, quite near to the lip of the stream, they
came to a patch of reeds higher and thicker than the rest, in the centre
of which was a little mound hid in a tangle of scrub and rushes. Once,
perhaps a hundred or a thousand years before, some old marsh dweller
had lived upon this mound, or been buried in it. At any rate, on its
southern side, hidden by reeds and a withered willow, was a cavity of
which the mouth could not be seen that might have been a chamber for the
living or the dead.
Thrusting aside the growths that masked it, Dick bade them enter and lie
still.
“None will find us here,” he said as he lifted up the reeds behind them,
“unless they chance to have hounds, which I did not see. Hist! be still;
they come!”