astronomy, if knowledge it could be called. Indeed, if he had known
anything he would have perplexed Morano more, and his little pieces of
ignorance were well adapted for comfort. But Morano had given up hope,
having long been taught to expect this very fire: his spirit was no
wiser than it had been on Earth, it was merely freed of the
imperfections of the five senses and so had observation and expression
beyond those of any artist the world has known. This was the natural
result of being freed of the body; but he was not suddenly wiser; and
so, as he moved towards this boundless flame, he expected every moment
to see Satan charge out to meet him: and having no hope for the future
he turned to the past and fondled the memory of that one spring day.
His was a backsliding, unrepentant spirit.
As that monstrous sea of flame grew ruthlessly larger Rodriguez felt no
fear, for spirits have no fear of material things: but Morano feared.
He feared as spirits fear spiritual things; he thought he neared the
home of vast spirits of evil and that the arena of conflict was
eternity. He feared with a fear too great to be borne by bodies.
Perhaps the fat body that slept on a chair on earth was troubled in
dreams by some echo of that fear that gripped the spirit so sorely. And
it may be from such far fears that all our nightmares come.
When they had travelled nearly ten minutes from Earth and were about to
pass into the midst of the flame, that magician who controlled their
journey halted them suddenly in Space, among the upper mountain-peaks
of the Sun. There they hovered as the clouds hover that leave their
companions and drift among crags of the Alps: below them those awful
mountains heaved and thundered. All Atlas, and Teneriffe, and lonely
Kenia might have lain amongst them unnoticed. As often as the
earthquake rocked their bases it loosened from near their summits wild
avalanches of gold that swept down their flaming slopes with
unthinkable tumult. As they watched, new mountains rode past them,
crowned with their frightful flames; for, whether man knew it or not,
the Sun was rotating, but the force of its gravity that swung the
planets had no grip upon spirits, who were held by the power of that
tremendous spell that the Professor had learned one midnight at
Saragossa from one of that dread line who have their secrets from a
source that we do not know in a distant age.
There is always something tremendous in the form of great mountains;
but these swept by, not only huger than anything Earth knows, but
troubled by horrible commotions, as though overtaken in flight by some
ceaseless calamity.
Rodriguez and Morano, as they looked at them, forgetting the gardens of
Earth, forgetting Spring and Summer and the sweet beneficence of
sunshine, felt that the purpose of Creation was evil! So shocking a
thought may well astound us here, where green hills slope to lawns or
peer at a peaceful sea; but there among the flames of those dreadful
peaks the Sun seemed not the giver of joy and colour and life, but only
a catastrophe huger than everlasting war, a centre of hideous violence
and ruin and anger and terror. There came by mountains of copper
burning everlasting, hurling up to unthinkable heights their mass of
emerald flame. And mountains of iron raged by and mountains of salt,
quaking and thundering and clothed with their colours, the iron always
scarlet and the salt blue. And sometimes there came by pinnacles a
thousand miles high that from base to summit were fire, mountains of
pure flame that had no other substance. And these explosive mountains,
born of thunder and earthquake, hurling down avalanches the size of our
continents, and drawing upward out of the deeps of the Sun new material
for splendour and horror, this roaring waste, this extravagant
destruction, were necessary for every tint that our butterflies wear on
their wings. Without those flaming ranges of mountains of iron they
would have no red to show; even the poppy could have no red for her
petals: without the flames that were blasting the mountains of salt
there could be no answering blue in any wing, or one blue flower for
all the bees of Earth: without the nightmare light of those frightful
canyons of copper that awed the two spirits watching their ceaseless
ruin, the very leaves of the woods we love would be without their green
with which to welcome Spring; for from the flames of the various metals
and wonders that for ever blaze in the Sun, our sunshine gets all its
colours that it conveys to us almost unseen, and thence the wise little
insects and patient flowers softly draw the gay tints that they glory
in; there is nowhere else to get them.
And yet to Rodriguez and Morano all that they saw seemed wholly and
hideously evil.
How long they may have watched there they tried to guess afterwards,
but as they looked on those terrific scenes they had no way to separate
days from minutes: nothing about them seemed to escape destruction, and
time itself seemed no calmer than were those shuddering mountains.
Then the thundering ranges passed; and afterwards there came a gleaming
mountain, one huge and lonely peak, seemingly all of gold. Had our
whole world been set beside it and shaped as it was shaped, that golden
mountain would yet have towered above it: it would have taken our moon
as well to reach that flashing peak. It rode on toward them in its
golden majesty, higher than all the flames, save now and then when some
wild gas seemed to flee from the dread earthquakes of the Sun, and was
overtaken in the height by fire, even above that mountain.
As that mass of gold that was higher than all the world drew near to
Rodriguez and Morano they felt its unearthly menace; and though it
could not overcome their spirits they knew there was a hideous terror
about it. It was in its awful scale that its terror lurked for any
creature of our planet. Though they could not quake or tremble they
felt that terror. The mountain dwarfed Earth.
Man knows his littleness, his own mountains remind him; many countries
are small, and some nations: but the dreams of Man make up for our
faults and failings, for the brevity of our lives, for the narrowness
of our scope; they leap over boundaries and are away and away. But this
great mountain belittled the world and all: who gazed on it knew all
his dreams to be puny. Before this mountain Man seemed a trivial thing,
and Earth, and all the dreams Man had of himself and his home.
The golden mass drew opposite those two watchers and seemed to
challenge with its towering head the pettiness of the tiny world they
knew. And then the whole gleaming mountain gave one shudder and fell
into the awful plains of the Sun. Straight down before Rodriguez and
Morano it slipped roaring, till the golden peak was gone, and the
molten plain closed over it; and only ripples remained, the size of
Europe, as when a tumbling river strikes the rocks of its bed and on
its surface heaving circles widen and disappear. And then, as though
this horror left nothing more to be shown, they felt the Professor
beckon to them from Earth.
Over the plains of the Sun a storm was sweeping in gusts of howling
flame as they felt the Professor's spell drawing them home. For the
magnitude of that storm there are no words in use among us; its
velocity, if expressed in figures, would have no meaning; its heat was
immeasurable. Suffice it to say that if such a tempest could have swept
over Earth for a second, both the poles would have boiled. The
travellers left it galloping over that plain, rippled from underneath
by the restless earthquake and whipped into flaming foam by the force
of the storm. The Sun already was receding from them, already growing
smaller. Soon the storm seemed but a cloud of light sweeping over the
empty plain, like a murderous mourner rushing swiftly away from the
grave of that mighty mountain.
And now the Professor's spell gripped them in earnest: rapidly the Sun
grew smaller. As swiftly as he had sent them upon that journey he was
now drawing them home. They overtook thunders that they had heard
already, and passed them, and came again to the silent spaces which the
thunders of the Sun are unable to cross, so that even Mercury is
undisturbed by them.
I have said that spirits neither fade nor weary. But a great sadness
was on them; they felt as men feel who come whole away from periods of
peril. They had seen cataclysms too vast for our imagination, and a
mournfulness and a satiety were upon them. They could have gazed at one
flower for days and needed no other experience, as a wounded man may be
happy staring at the flame of a candle.
Crossing the paths of Mercury and Venus, they saw that these planets
had not appreciably moved, and Rodriguez, who knew that planets wander
in the night, guessed thereby that they had not been absent from Earth
for many hours.
They rejoiced to see the Sun diminishing steadily. Only for a moment as
they started their journey had they seen that solar storm rushing over
the plains of the Sun; but now it appeared to hang halted in its mid
anger, as though blasting one region eternally.
Moving on with the pace of light, they saw Earth, soon after crossing
the path of Venus, beginning to grow larger than a star. Never had home
appeared more welcome to wanderers, who see their house far off,
returning home.
And as Earth grew larger, and they began to see forms that seemed like
seas and mountains, they looked for their own country, but could not
find it: for, travelling straight from the Sun, they approached that
part of the world that was then turned towards it, and were heading
straight for China, while Spain lay still in darkness.
But when they came near Earth and its mountains were clear, then the
Professor drew them across the world, into the darkness and over Spain;
so that those two spirits ended their marvellous journey much as the
snipe ends his, a drop out of heaven and a swoop low over marshes. So
they came home, while Earth seemed calling to them with all her voices;
with memories, sights and scents, and little sounds; calling anxiously,
as though they had been too long away and must be home soon. They heard
a cock crow on the edge of the night; they heard more little sounds
than words can say; only the organ can hint at them. It was Earth
calling. For, talk as we may of our dreams that transcend this sphere,
or our hopes that build beyond it, Mother Earth has yet a mighty hold
upon us; and her myriad sounds were blending in one cry now, knowing
that it was late and that these two children of hers were nearly lost.
For our spirits that sometimes cross the path of the angels, and on
rare evenings hear a word of their talk, and have brief equality with
the Powers of Light, have the duty also of moving fingers and toes,
which freeze if our proud spirits forget their task for too long.
And just as Earth was despairing they reached the Professor's mountain
and entered the room in which their bodies were.
Blue and cold and ugly looked the body of Morano, but for all its
pallor there was beauty in the young face of Rodriguez.
The Professor stood before them as he had stood when their spirits
left, with the table between him and the bodies, and the bowl on the
table which held the green flame, now low and flickering desperately,
which the Professor watched as it leaped and failed, with an air of
anxiety that seemed to pinch his thin features.
With an impatience strange to him he waved a swift hand towards each of
the two bodies where they sat stiff, illumined by the last of the green
light; and at those rapid gestures the travellers returned to their
habitations.
They seemed to be just awakening out of deep sleep. Again they saw the
Professor standing before them. But they saw him only with blinking
eyes, they saw him only as eyes can see, guessing at his mind from the
lines of his face, at his thoughts from the movements of his hands,
guessing as men guess, blindly: only a moment before they had known him
utterly. Now they were dazed and forgetting: slow blood began to creep
again to their toes and to come again to its place under fingernails:
it came with intense pain: they forgot their spirits. Then all the woes
of Earth crowded their minds at once, so that they wished to weep, as
infants weep.
The Professor gave this mood time to change, as change it presently
did. For the warm blood came back and lit their cheeks, and a tingling
succeeded the pain in their fingers and toes, and a mild warmth
succeeded the tingling: their thoughts came back to the things of every
day, to mundane things and the affairs of the body. Therein they
rejoiced, and Morano no less than Rodriguez; though it was a coarse and
common body that Morano's spirit inhabited. And when the Professor saw
that the first sorrow of Earth, which all spirits feel when they land
here, had passed away, and that they were feeling again the joy of
mundane things, only then did he speak.
"Señor," he said, "beyond the path of Mars run many worlds that I would
have you know. The greatest of these is Jupiter, towards whom all that
follow my most sacred art show reverent affection. The smallest are
those that sometimes strike our world, flaming all green upon November
nights, and are even as small as apples." He spoke of our world with a
certain air and a pride, as though, through virtue of his transcendent
art, the world were only his. "The world that we name Argola," he said,
"is far smaller than Spain and, being invisible from Earth, is only
known to the few who have spoken to spirits whose wanderings have
surpassed the path of Mars. Nearly half of Argola you shall find
covered with forests, which though very dense are no deeper than moss,
and the elephants in them are not larger than beetles. You shall see
many wonders of smallness in this world of Argola, which I desire in
especial to show you, since it is the orb with which we who study the
Art are most familiar, of all the worlds that the vulgar have not
known. It is indeed the prize of our traffic in those things that far
transcend the laws that have forbidden them."
And as he said this the green flame in the bowl before him died, and he
moved towards his cupboard of wonder. Rodriguez hastily thanked the
Professor for his great courtesy in laying bare before him secrets that
the centuries hid, and then he referred to his own great unworthiness,
to the lateness of the hour, to the fatigue of the Professor, and to
the importance to Learning of adequate rest to refresh his illustrious
mind. And all that he said the Professor parried with bows, and drew
enchantments from his cupboard of wonder to replenish the bowl on the
table. And Rodriguez saw that he was in the clutch of a collector, one
who having devoted all his days to a hobby will exhibit his treasures
to the uttermost, and that the stars that magic knows were no less to
the Professor than all the whatnots that a man collects and insists on
showing to whomsoever enters his house. He feared some terrible
journey, perhaps some bare escape; for though no material thing can
quite encompass a spirit, he knew not what wanderers he might not meet
in lonely spaces beyond the path of Mars. So when his last polite
remonstrance failed, being turned aside with a pleasant phrase and a
smile from the grim lips, and looking at Morano he saw that he shared
his fears, then he determined to show whatever resistance were needed
to keep himself and Morano in this old world that we know, or that
youth at least believes that it knows.
He watched the Professor return with his packets of wonder; dust from a
fallen star, phials of tears of lost lovers, poison and gold out of
elf-land, and all manner of things. But the moment that he put them
into the bowl Rodriguez' hand flew to his sword-hilt. He heaved up his
elbow, but no sword came forth, for it lay magnetised to its scabbard
by the grip of a current of magic. When Rodriguez saw this he knew not
what to do.
The Professor went on pouring into the bowl. He added an odour
distilled out of dream-roses, three drops from the gall-bladder of a
fabulous beast, and a little dust that had been man. More too he added,
so that my reader might wonder were I to tell him all; yet it is not so
easy to free our spirits from the gross grip of our bodies. Wonder not
then, my reader, if the Professor exerted strange powers. And all the
while Morano was picking at a nail that fastened on the handle to his
frying-pan.
And just as the last few mysteries were shaken into the bowl,--and
there were two among them of which even Asia is ignorant,--just as the
dews were blended with the powers in a grey-green sinister harmony,
Morano untwisted his nail and got the handle loose.
The Professor kindled the mixture in the bowl; again green flame arose,
again that voice of his began to call to their spirits, and its beauty
and the power of its spell were as of some fallen angel. The spirit of
Rodriguez was nearly passing helplessly forth again on some frightful
journey, when Morano losed his scabbard and sword from its girdle and
tied the handle of his frying-pan across it a little below the hilt
with a piece of string. Across the table the Professor intoned his
spell, across a narrow table, but it seemed to come from the far side
of the twilight, a twilight red and golden in long layers, of an
evening wonderfully long ago. It seemed to take its music out of the
lights that it flowed through and to call Rodriguez from immediately
far away, with a call which it were sacrilege to refuse, and anguish
even, and hard toil such as there was no strength to do. And then
Morano held up the sword in its scabbard with the handle of the
frying-pan tied across. Rodriguez, disturbed by a stammer in the spell,
looked up and saw the Professor staring at the sword where Morano held
it up before his face in the green light of the flame from the bowl. He
did not seem like a fallen angel now. His spell had stopped. He seemed
like a professor who had forgotten the theme of his lecture, while the
class waits. For Morano was holding up the sign of the cross.
"You have betrayed me!" shouted the Slave of Orion: the green flame
died, and he strode out of the room, his purple cloak floating behind
him.
"Master," Morano said, "it was always good against magic."
The sword was loose in the scabbard as Rodriguez took it back; there
was no longer a current of magic gripping the steel.
A little uneasily Rodriguez thanked Morano: he was not sure if Morano
had behaved as a guest's servant should. But when he thought of the
Professor's terrible spells, which had driven them to the awful crags
of the sun, and might send them who knows where to hob-nob with who
knows what, his second thoughts perceived that Morano was right to cut
short those arts that the Slave of Orion loved, even by so extreme a
step: and he praised Morano as his ready shrewdness deserved.
"We were very nearly too late back from that outing, master," remarked
Morano.
"How know you that?" said Rodriguez.
"This old body knew," said Morano. "Those heart-thumpings, this
warmness, and all the things that make a fat body comfortable, they
were stopping, master, they were spoiling, they were getting cold and
strange: I go no more errands for that señor."
A certain diffidence about criticising his host even now; and a very
practical vein that ran through his nature, now showing itself in
anxiety for a bed at so late an hour, led Rodriguez to change the
subject. He wanted that aged butler, yet dare not ring the bell; for he
feared lest with all the bells there might be in use that frightful
practice that he had met by the outer door, a chain connected with some
hideous hook that gave anguish to something in the basement whenever
one touched the handle, so that the menials of that grim Professor were
shrilly summoned by screams. And therefore Rodriguez sought counsel of
Morano, who straightway volunteered to find the butler's quarters, by a
certain sense that he had of the fitness of things: and forth he went,
but would not leave the room without the scabbard and the handle of the
frying-pan lashed to it, which he bore high before him in both his
hands as though he were leading some austere procession. And even so he
returned with that aged man the butler, who led them down dim corridors
of stone; but, though he showed the way, Morano would go in front,
still holding up that scabbard and handle before him, while Rodriguez
held the bare sword. And so they came to a room lit by the flare of one
candle, which their guide told them the Professor had prepared for his
guest. In the vastness of it was a great bed. Shadows and a whir as of
wings passed out of the door as they entered. "Bats," said the ancient
guide. But Morano believed he had routed powers of evil with the handle
of his frying-pan and his master's scabbard. Who could say what they
were in such a house, where bats and evil spirits sheltered perennially
from the brooms of the just? Then that ancient man with the lips of
some woodland thing departed, and Rodriguez went to the great bed. On a
pile of straw that had been cast into the room Morano lay down across
the door, setting the scabbard upright in a rat-hole near his head,
while Rodriguez lay down with the bare sword in his hand. There was
only one door in the room, and this Morano guarded. Windows there were,
but they were shuttered with raw oak of enormous thickness. He had
already enquired with his sword behind the velvet curtains. He felt
secure in the bulk of Morano across the only door, at least from
creatures of this world: and Morano feared no longer either spirit or
spell, believing that he had vanquished the Professor with his symbol,
and all such allies as he may have had here or elsewhere. But not thus
easily do we overcome the powers of evil.
A step was heard such as man walks with at the close of his later
years, coming along the corridor of stone; and they knew it for the
Professor's butler returning. The latch of the door trembled and
lifted, and the great oak door bumped slowly against Morano, who arose
grumbling, and the old man appeared.
"The Professor," he said, while Morano watched him grudgingly, "returns
with all his household to Saragossa at once, to resume those studies
for which his name resounds, a certain conjunction of the stars having
come favourably."
Even Morano doubted that so suddenly the courses of the stars, which he
deemed to be gradual, should have altered from antagonism towards the
Professor's art into a favourable aspect. Rodriguez sleepily
acknowledged the news and settled himself to sleep, still sword in
hand, when the servitor repeated with as much emphasis as his aged
voice could utter, "With all his household, señor."
"Yes," muttered Rodriguez. "Farewell."
And repeating again, "He takes his household with him," the old man
shuffled back from the room and hesitatingly closed the door. Before
the sound of his slow footsteps had failed to reach the room Morano was
asleep under his cross. Rodriguez still watched for a while the shadows
leaping and shuddering away from the candle, riding over the ceiling,
striding hugely along the walls, towards him and from him, as draughts
swayed the ruddy flame; then, gripping his sword still firmer in his
hand, as though that could avail against magic, he fell into the sleep
of tired men.
No sound disturbed Rodriguez or Morano till both awoke in late morning
upon the rocks of the mountain. The sun had climbed over the crags and
now shone on their faces. Rodriguez was still lying with his sword
gripped in his hand, but the cross had fallen by Morano and now lay on
the rocks beside him with the handle of the frying-pan still tied in
its place by string. A young, wild, woodland squirrel gambolled near,
though there were no woods for it anywhere within sight: it leaped and
played as though rejoicing in youth, with such merriment as though
youth had but come to it newly or been lost and restored again.
All over the mountain they looked but there was no house, nor any sign
of dwelling of man or spirit.
THE FIFTH CHRONICLE
HOW HE RODE IN THE TWILIGHT AND SAW SERAFINA
Rodriguez, who loved philosophy, turned his mind at once to the journey
that lay before him, deciding which was the north; for he knew that it
was by the north that he must leave Spain, which he still desired to
leave since there were no wars in that country.
Morano knew not clearly what philosophy was, yet he wasted no thoughts
upon the night that was gone; and, fitting up his frying-pan
immediately, he brought out what was left of his bacon and began to
look for material to make a fire. The bacon lay waiting in the
frying-pan for some while before this material was gathered, for
nothing grew on the mountain but a heath; and of that there were few
bushes, scattered here and there.