the King out of the Past.”
“They would have me deny it,” whispered Sargon.
Bobby raised his eyebrows and nodded his head as who should say,
“They’d do _anything_.”
The little man’s manner changed. “How is one to know?” he said. “How is
one to know?”
He sighed. “Nothing seems certain any more.”
“Can we sit down and talk together?” said Bobby. “There is much to be
said between us.”
Sargon glanced round. There were two chairs in a corner, and in that
corner they might be a little beyond the eavesdropper’s range. “I
cannot understand this madness,” said Sargon as they sat down. “I
cannot understand this Riddle that has been set me. Why does the Power,
why does God, permit men to be mad? When they are mad they are beyond
good and evil. What are they? Men still? What becomes of justice, what
becomes of righteousness--when men go mad?” His voice sank. His eyes
became furtive. “Dreadful things happen here,” he whispered. “Dreadful
things. Quite dreadful things.”
He ceased. For a little while neither he nor Bobby said a word.
“I want to get you out of this,” said Bobby.
“Are my friends doing anything?” asked Sargon. “What is Christina
Alberta doing? Is she well?”
“She is splendid,” he said haphazard. No doubt she was one of this
beastly family of Sargon’s that was content to leave him here. “I want
you to listen to me,” he said.
But Sargon had things to tell. “Everyone in this place is always
thinking about what their friends outside are doing for them. The poor
souls come and talk to me. They know I am different from what they are.
They write letters, petitions. I tell them that when God releases me I
will bear them all in mind. Some mock at me. They have delusions. They
think they are kings or emperors or rich men or great discoverers, and
that the world has plotted against them.... Some are suspicious and
cruel.... Darkened souls.... Some have dreadful habits. You cannot
help but see.... Some are badly sunken--degraded--indescribably.... It
is very painful, very painful.”
The blue eyes stared blankly at unpleasant memories.
“There can be no doubt that I am Sargon,” he said abruptly, and looked
sharply at Bobby.
“I call you by no other name,” said Bobby.
The momentary acuteness faded again. “That man Preemby was unawakened.
He was asleep--scarcely dreaming of life. _But I have seen!_ I have
looked at the world from high places. And from dark places too....
Sargon. Sargon is a different person.... But it is difficult.”
He became silent.
Bobby felt that they were getting nowhere. In his anticipations of this
conversation he had talked and Sargon had listened. And there had been
no one to overhear. But this was all unexpected. Anyhow, the plan had
to be told; Sargon had to be instructed in his part. He glanced warily
at the people nearest to them. “There are those among us,” he said
quietly and quickly, “who would set you free. I want to tell you--” On
the spur of the moment he attempted a code. “When I speak of a city in
Central Asia it will mean this place, the Asylum. Do you understand?”
“This place--Central Asia. If I am Sargon.... Everything is possibly
something else. But we are still in England nevertheless.”
“In reality. But I want to explain to you.”
“Yes, yes. Explain.”
“I shall speak of great discoveries in Central Asia. That will mean
this.”
_Did_ he understand?
“_Rescue!_” whispered Bobby in Sargon’s ear, and glanced at the
attendant and met his eye and was discomposed.
“Tell me about the discoveries,” said Sargon after a little pause as
though he had not heard that whispered word.
“It is a symbol for this place,” said Bobby.
Sargon looked puzzled. The attendant was watching their faces now.
Perhaps he suspected already. Bobby flushed hotly and plunged abruptly
into an account of the discoveries of an amazing Russian he called
Bobinsky. Bobinsky had found a walled city with no way out. “Yes,” said
Sargon, interested. The attendant was now looking away. “Like this
place,” said Bobby, and more explicitly; “I _mean_ this place.” There
was a river ran through the city, the city of confinement, and went
out by the lower part. There it was the helper waited. The rescuers.
That was the place for them to wait. Did he understand? At that point
where the trees grew and the river went out through the wall. They they
waited. There they would wait until the captive king came to them.
“It is a curious story,” said Sargon. “What captive king do you mean?”
“It is meant for you.”
“The river you speak of may be the Euphrates,” said Sargon. “I dream of
the Euphrates.”
He had missed it all! He was out upon some woolgathering of his own.
Euphrates! What had the Euphrates to do with Central Asia? Or the
Asylum?
“Bother!” said Bobby. “I say-- It is a smaller river I mean, a
streamlet--in the grounds here. Don’t you understand?”
A tall sharp-faced woman in a hat of hard black straw came near them
and sat down. Bobby, as he talked, observed her out of the corner of
his eye. Was she the friend of a patient or what was she doing here? “I
speak in symbols,” said Bobby, still watching and thinking about this
woman. “This city is your prison.” He caught the woman exchanging a
glance of intelligence with the male attendant who had moved a couple
of yards up the room. They knew each other. Then she must be another
observer. “I want no other prison than this,” said Sargon, evidently
quite at cross-purposes. “One prison is enough.”
“I don’t mean that,” said Bobby. “Can you walk about here pretty
freely?”
“Not freely,” said Sargon. “No.”
“If you could come out into the grounds. To-morrow.”
The woman turned her long sharp foxy nose towards him, and stared at
him with rather stupid green-blue eyes.
Bobby’s nerve was going to pieces altogether. He was always more
afraid of women than men. This prim sharp-nosed figure so manifestly
listening, and listening with a faint hostility to all he said,
completed his discomfiture. He tried to improvise a story of lost
and recovered cities that would be crystal clear to Sargon and yet
incomprehensible to the listener. But his invention faltered at the
difficult task. Where the river ran out of the city, he repeated;
he harped upon that idea; where there were trees and ivy, there the
faithful waited. When was the propitious hour for the Master to steal
away to them? Everything was prepared. When could it be? When might
it be? Fragmentally and mixed with many irrelevancies Bobby tried to
get the import of these suggestions over to his hearer. Now he would
be explicit; now as the fear of the listener returned, vague and
misleading. He did convey a sense of mystery and intention to Sargon,
that was plain; but he felt he conveyed nothing more. The time was
slipping by. Bobby could have throttled that infernal woman. More and
more did she become audience to his floundering efforts. He maundered
back to his starting point about Bobinsky. “There is no such person as
Bobinsky,” he threw in.
“Then how could he explore cities?” asked Sargon, manifestly more and
more perplexed at Bobby’s rigmarole.
“He is dead,” said Bobby. “He was just a mask.”
“Some men are.”
“Don’t mind about Bobinsky. Could you slip away to that corner? No, no.
She’s looking. Don’t answer.
“Now _answer_.”
“I don’t understand,” said Sargon.
Bobby felt that he was only puzzling Sargon. But what else was to be
done? He could have kicked himself for not having brought a brief
statement of his plan written plainly on a little piece of paper that
he could have slipped into Sargon’s hand--or pocket. It would have been
so simple. He could have made a map and a drawing. Too late to do that
now.
Despair came upon Bobby. Everything had gone wrong. He got up to go and
then sat down again to make another attempt. He felt murderous towards
that woman, towards himself, even towards slow-witted little Sargon.
“It was very good of you to come and see me,” said Sargon.
“_Why_ did you come?...
“Do you think anything will be done about me?...
“You will see Christina Alberta? When I saw you first I thought you
had things to tell me--important things. One lives on such hopes here.
Here--when there are no visitors--nothing happens, nothing pleasant.
And one is distressed....
“I am interested to hear of those cities in Central Asia of course, but
it is a little puzzling. Did you come specially about them? Or just to
see me?
“You will come again. Even to come down here to this sitting-room is an
event....”
Then in a swift whisper. “The food is frightful. So badly cooked. It
disagrees with me....”
“That woman,” said Bobby as he went, “She has spoilt everything. I
can’t stand her.”
“That woman?” said Sargon, and followed the direction of Bobby’s eyes.
“Poor soul,” he said. “She’s a deaf mute. She comes to see her brother.
The whole family is defective or insane.”
A maddened Bobby returned towards his little inn. Should he chuck the
whole thing? Intolerable thought! He must make fresh plans--fresh plans
altogether. He must begin all over again. The little man was evidently
wretched. But it was going to be harder to get hold of him than Bobby
had thought.
Bobby had no sleep that night.
§ 4
In the night just before daybreak suddenly Sargon woke up and
understood. He understood quite clearly what the young man had been
saying to him. He had said “Rescue!” Of course he had meant to say
“Escape”! That city in Central Asia was only a parable; he had said
as much. He had been describing a corner of the asylum grounds,
that corner where the stream ran out beyond the work-fields and the
shrubbery where the patients were supposed not to go. He had been
telling of friends who would wait outside. He had been trying to
arrange an hour when these friends would come there. And Sargon had
failed to understand. He sat up in bed very still.
It was perfectly clear, but through a sort of dulness that came upon
him at times he had not grasped the drift of it at the time. The young
man had shown irritation, naturally enough. What would he do now? Would
he try again? Were the friends still waiting?
Who was this young man? His name was unknown or forgotten. But he
believed. He had said, “I call you by no other name.” Sargon! And there
were these friends he spoke of, who waited outside for the king. They
must know. How could they know, if there was nothing to be known? After
all, perhaps it was no dream. Perhaps the world was awakening.... But
he had failed them. He had not understood.... They waited without....
How still everything was! A strange unusual stillness. It was rare for
this place to be so bereft of noise. It was dark and yet not altogether
dark. The ward was dimly lit by a blue-shaded light. The three nearer
beds were unoccupied, and beyond the man who tossed and muttered almost
incessantly lay for a little while at peace. The man who raved had died
three days ago; the man who gave sudden loud shouts had been taken away
to another ward. Through the open door one could see across the landing
into the little yellow-lit room, where Brand the ward attendant sat
with his arms crossed and chin on his chest and slept, his patience
cards spread out before him. He seemed to be alone and yet he could
sleep like that! Where could the other man be--the new attendant whose
name Sargon did not know? And yet he felt--some one had just gone out!
The uncurtained windows showed the night outside, a darkness that
became translucent, a streak of very black cloud and five pale stars.
Across the lower edge of that oblong picture one could see indistinctly
a tracery of tree branches and the lumpish head of a young oak still
bearing its leaves, the trees along the first hedge. These outlines
grew distincter as he watched. It was like the slow development of a
photographic plate in the dark-room. The stars dissolved. Had there
been five? There were three; the other two had dissolved into the pale
invading light.
Dared one venture on to the landing? If Brand awoke he could make some
natural excuse. He stood well with Brand. But the other fellow----?
There was not a trace of him. Where had he gone?...
_Do it now!_--wisest of maxims.
Very swiftly Sargon slipped out of bed and put on his dressing-gown and
slippers. Hush! _What was that?_... Only some one snoring. Nothing
more. He went out and stood on the landing. Brand slept on like a log.
The stone staircase was lit and empty and from the open door to the
left downstairs came the harsh breathing of a sleeper. All the world
seemed asleep for once, except Sargon and those friendly watchers
outside the walls. Far away there were sounds of bawling and raving,
but these were stifled by distance and an intervening door. They merely
made the nearer silence more perceptible.
Something stirred, a little clicking sound that sent Sargon’s heart
racing. Then a resonant blow. A second blow. It was nothing; it was the
clock downstairs striking six.
Very quietly but very resolutely he walked downstairs. An intuition, an
instinct impelled him. He felt and peered at the door and behold! it
was ajar! Unbolted! Unlocked! Brand’s colleague was abroad upon some
errand of his own. The cold air of freedom blew upon Sargon’s face.
The door opened and closed softly and Sargon stood upon the doorstep of
the left wing of the asylum, facing the dim world of a November dawn.
It was dark but it was clear, a world of ebony outlines and colourless
forms. Everything looked as if it had just been wiped over with a
wet rag. It was cold, but it was cold without any of the hate and
bitterness of wind.
He crossed the gravel drive and came to a stop and stood looking
about him. The heavy building of the left wing rose above him, a vast
bulk that went up into the paler darkness of the sky. It receded in
perspective and the central block beyond looked like the ghost of a
house. Here and there were orange-lit windows and others fainter lit
by some remote reflected light. In the lodge to the left of the gates
there was also a light. For where there is madness there is never
perfect sleep.
But the asylum was as near complete silence that morning as an asylum
can ever be.
He looked and listened. Not a footfall. It would not do to be found
here by that other attendant....
But the man was snugly away somewhere. No one would loiter here in this
chill air.
What was it Sargon had to remember?
The friends and believers were waiting for him. They were waiting now.
Where the river ran out of the city wall; that was to say where the
little streamlet ran out of the grounds. That would be this way--to the
left, where the fields dropped down-hill. He stepped on to the grass,
for his feet made loud sounds on the gravel. The grass hissed crisply.
It was heavy with white frost and his footmarks made black blots in the
wet silvery grey.
He walked past and away from the ponderous dark mass of the asylum into
the open, colder air of freedom. He unlatched and went through the
small iron gate in the iron fencing that separated the trim grass plots
of the front from the cabbage field. It complained a little on its
hinge and he opened and closed it very carefully. He struck across the
field. The path ran before him into a mist. It came out of the mist to
his feet and vanished behind him. It was as if it went past him while
he marked time. He could not remember whither the path ran, nor how it
lay with regard to the corner he sought. But every moment things grew
clearer.
Every moment things grew clearer. There had been something dark and
brooding in the sky that hung over him and seemed to watch him. He had
done his best to ignore the vague presence, because he was afraid of
his own imagination. But suddenly he saw plainly that it was just the
tops of trees showing above the mist. That must be the line of trees
along the hedge parallel to the asylum front. He must go through these
if he wanted to go down-hill. He left the path and made his way slowly
along a frozen ridge of dug earth. He skirted long rows of stalky
cabbages, black and shrivelled and unkempt they looked like Cossack
sentinels afoot. They all leant towards him as though they listened to
the sound of him.
As he drew near the hedge and the trees he heard a sound like the feet
of an army of midgets. It was the drip, drip of moisture from the trees.
Far away behind him and quite invisible to him a motor car scurried
along the high-road.
He had some difficulty in finding a way through the hedge and a bramble
scratched his ankle. He told himself there was no hurry; the friends
waited. Beyond the hedge the ground went down-hill and the mist grew
whiter and thicker. The daylight was strong enough now to show the mist
dead-white. It veiled the stream altogether.
He walked slowly. He had no sense of being pursued. Brand would not go
into the ward for an hour yet; he might not miss him for a long time....
What a wonderful thing, thought Sargon, is daybreak, and how little
one sees of it! Every day begins with this miraculous drama and we
sleep through it as though it did not concern us and rouse ourselves
only for the trite day. A little while ago the world had been an inky
monochrome and now it was touched with colour. The sky was blue. All
the stars had gone--but no! not all. One still shone, a large pale
star, the star of Sargon. And the sky about it was flushed with a faint
increasing pinkiness. That must be the east and that star must be the
morning star, hanging above the outhouse chimneys. Those chimneys were
very distinct. The butt end of the asylum which had been a black and
shapeless monster a little while ago, had now become a dark purple
shape outlined with an exquisite clearness, eaves and ridges and
chimneys and creasings and window-frames. Four windows shone a fading
orange and two of them suddenly blinked and vanished.
Would anyone look out of a window there and see him?
It did not matter. He would go on down towards the stream. This
friendly mist would hide him.
It was wonderful to be in this white mist and yet not in it. It was
always a little way from him. And nevertheless it wetted him. How crisp
the frosted ground was, but if one kicked through the surface, it was
soft.
Overhead the blueness increased and there was now a rippled patch of
pink cloud.
He went deeper and deeper into the soft mist. Presently he was walking
on long wet shrivelled grass. When he turned presently to look back at
the asylum it had altogether disappeared.
_What was that?_ Was it something talking or was it the beating heart
of some busy elfin machine? Listen! Peer! Think!
It was the stream.
Now everything was plain and easy.
He walked beside the stream. Near at hand trees became visible,
attendant trees with mist about their waists, white-clad sentinel
trees. The dry grass was ranker here. And what was this, like a denser
lower mist within the mist? This was the wall. Beyond that wall, almost
within shouting distance now, the friends and believers would be
waiting. How discreet they were! Not a murmur, not a footfall.
For a long time Sargon stood motionless beside the culvert beneath the
wall. At last he roused himself and by a great effort and with the help
of the ivy he scrambled to the top of the wall.
No one waited. Some dim four-footed thing bolted from the frost-bitten
weeds below, and then there was silence. There was no sign of watchers
nor helpers.
No matter. If it was God’s will they would come.
He sat very still. He did not feel deserted nor alone. He was not in
the least dismayed. He felt that the Power who had called him into
being was all about him.
Slowly, steadily the light grew brighter. A little cloud like a
floating feather caught fire very suddenly and then another. A great
beam of light, like the beam of a searchlight, only very much broader,
appeared slanting to the north. Then above a whaleback of distant
downland came a knife-edge of dazzling light, an effulgence, like a
curved knife, like a cap, like a dome, a quivering blazing fire-birth.
And then torn clear of the hill and round and red the November sun had
risen.
§ 5
It was full daylight and the mist had dissolved away. The roofs of
the asylum buildings were now visible over the crest, divested of all
magic, bleak and commonplace. From some point in that direction a dog
was barking.
It was strange that there should be no one here. That young man whose
name he had never known, had made it very plain that there were friends
in waiting here. Perhaps they had gone away and would come back
presently.
Still it did not matter now very much. At any rate he had seen a
sunrise of almost incredible beauty. How good a thing the sun was! The
thing of all visible things that was most like God.
Perhaps there were no helpers here at all. Perhaps he had
misunderstood. He was stupid he knew. He misunderstood more and more.
Perhaps presently keepers would come in search of him and take him back
to the asylum. It might be so that things were decreed. He would not
let it distress him. Life was full of trials and disappointments. He
was feeling now very cold throughout his substance and tired so that
all his energy was gone. With a start he became aware that there was a
man standing up the slope that overlooked the asylum grounds. He felt a
thrill of renewed vitality. This man was standing quite still looking
down at the asylum. It might be one of the staff looking for him. Or
one of the promised helpers. One of the promised helpers?
Sargon was not so calm and apathetic as he had supposed. He was
atremble from head to foot. He was not shivering with cold but
trembling with excitement. He felt he must end this doubt one way or
the other. Could he catch this man’s eye? He waved a hand. Then he drew
a dirty little pocket-handkerchief from his dressing-gown pocket and
began to wave it. Now! Now it seemed the man was looking straight down
at Sargon.
He was moving towards Sargon slowly, as if incredulous. Then he was
signalling and running.
Sargon sat quite still. He knew all along they would come for him.
It was Bobby, close at hand now and crying out, “Sargon! It is you!
Sargon!” Sargon did not wait for him. He turned about and scrambled and
dropped off the wall. They clasped hands. “You have come to fetch me?”
“I was in despair. I didn’t dream you understood me. I’m all amazed....
Let me think; what are we to do? This is splendid. My motor bicycle is
in the inn. Nuisance that. Yes, come along. I must hide you somewhere
and fetch it. Then we will get away. I didn’t think you’d have no
clothes. Clothes? Won’t show much. Cold? May be cold. I’ll get a rug.
There’s a rug in the side-car.”
He led the way back up the slope, glancing ever and again at the asylum
fields. Sargon trotted beside him, calmly confident in God and Bobby,
with the limitless docility of one who trusts his servant.
§ 6
Bobby’s mind was fresh and bright that morning. He had wandered out to
the asylum simply because he could lie in bed in a fever of regrets no
longer. His extreme luck in encountering Sargon had restored all his
confidence in himself and in the propitiousness of things. He made his
plans quickly and with decision. It would be impossible to take Sargon
back to the inn and give him coffee. So soon as he was missed they
would surely go to the village. And every one would note this queer
little figure with its dressing-gown and slippers and scarred ankles.
He must get the little man into hiding somewhere close at hand. In that
small beech-wood just over the next crest. (Pity he was so scantily
clad!) Then the motor bicycle must be fetched as quickly as possible.
Sargon was absolutely trustful and obedient. “It is cold I know,” said
Bobby, “but unavoidable. I wish there were not so many wet dead leaves.”
“Only be quick and fetch help,” said Sargon.
“Don’t stir from here,” said Bobby.