_Extraordinary Discipline by the King. His Uneasiness Concerning
Our Loyalty. Lentala’s Father. We Must Help Destroy Our Friends.
Earthquakes._
ALTHOUGH the king was greatly shocked when I told him what had really
happened to Gato, his gratification quickly rose, and he regarded
Christopher curiously.
“Why didn’t you tell me at once?” he inquired.
“That is not his way, Sire,” I explained. “He avoids talking.”
“It was a wonderful thing to do,” his Majesty mused as we slowly went to
the Council Chamber.
Something had given him a fearful blow, and I guessed it was the danger
to which Lentala had been exposed. His face was haggard again; his gait
was unsteady; he doddered and mumbled.
As we neared the Council Chamber, he said:
“Come in and stand near me, one on either side.”
We found the soldiers in a huddle near the door, the racial dulness of
their faces somewhat keyed with expectancy. The king gave them but
a glance as he passed them and ascended the throne,--to be more
impressive, no doubt. Christopher and I stood as flanks.
“Form a line facing me,” the king sternly commanded.
The soldiers glanced at one another in wonder as they obeyed, and
furtively had anxious eyes and ears for Gato. They were a fine crowd,
selected for courage and dash.
“You understand,” the king said, “that I am always in supreme command of
the army, including Gato and every other officer. Any person who may be
in immediate charge of you is serving as my agent, and is appointed and
removed by me at my pleasure. All your fealty and loyalty are for me.
You will now acknowledge that with an obeisance to your king.”
The rascals were dazed. They might send shifting glances down the line
if they liked, and wonder and waver if they pleased, but obey they must:
every man felt it in his bones. The line went down.
Etiquette required the maintenance of the posture until the king gave
the word to rise. The obeisance consisted in coming to the knees,
resting the elbows, well advanced, on the floor, pressing the palms
down, and rooting the floor with the forehead,--an easy performance if
quickly finished, but a torturing one if sustained. On this occasion the
king neglected the releasing command; and that was unheard of. In such a
position the men could see nothing.
“A soldier’s first duty,” he resumed, “is to his king. In becoming
a soldier he dedicates his manhood, his strength, his life, to his
sovereign; that is to say, to his country. A true soldier is glad to die
for the happiness and safety of his king. His duties are as sacred as
those of a son to his father. A worthy son will remember the protection
that his father has given him. If he hears him defamed, he will uphold
his name; if blind, will lead him; if threatened, will defend him though
death be the reward. So it is with a soldier and his king.”
His voice weighted his words with a deep emotion, and he spoke slowly,
with pauses. It was like listening to a passage from the Bible,--but
much better read than commonly.
“A king may be kind to his soldiers; that will bring him their love with
their fealty, and give their duty a double force. A king may grow old
and stand in need of the strong, willing arms of young men whom he loves
and who love him. A king may totter under the burden of long service to
his people; his soldiers will then be his stay and comfort, and with joy
in their hearts will do his high will. Serpents may crawl in the weeds
about a king’s throne: his soldiers will beat the weeds clear of them.”
The king could not have failed to see a painful writhing that wormed
through the line. His pause was long.
“A son who hears even his brother speak ill of their father, will
reprove the brother and shame him. If that fails, he will chastise his
brother if he can; but if the brother is stronger, the dutiful one will
take the matter to their father, since the safeguard of the family is
endangered by the disaffection of a single member. If a father discovers
one of his sons jeopardizing the unity, prosperity, and safety of the
family, he will give the faithless son such treatment as the security of
the family demands.”
The pause this time was still longer. Meanwhile, the endurance of the
men had nearly reached an end. Whatever may have been their mental
state, their physical was one of excruciating pain.
“Some men are induced to do wrong through heedlessness or blindness, not
knowing the gravity of their deeds, and not foreseeing a dire result.
Others are weak and easily led; they are untrustworthy tools of their
leaders, and shame is their greatest punishment. Others are cruel and
wicked at heart; they will therefore be ready to betray the men who led
them to betray others. All of those are poisonous serpents in the weeds
about a king’s throne. And it is far worse in a soldier than in any one
else.”
After another pause, he said:
“A king who is kind and wise will be slow to believe evil of his people.
It will be natural for him to think that all will be as wise and kind
as he. Yet he must be watchful; he cannot protect the people unless he
protects himself. If he finds a scandal, he may hide it, lest it weaken
the common faith in the strength and purity of his government. If he
discovers that any are unfaithful, he will not make their treason public
by hanging them before the people, unless he knows that a warning will
stop other traitors. No; he will be merciful and keep them privately for
a time, till they may walk forth erect in their recovered manhood.”
Here and there a gasp or a strangled groan broke the silence of the
line. The king was heeding.
“The man at the right of the line will rise.”
The fellow came painfully to his feet, and stretched the agony out of
his muscles.
“Advance and lay your sword on the dais,” ordered the king.
The man obeyed.
“Return to your obeisance.”
A start thrilled the soldier. He gave the king a desperate, pleading
look, but found eyes with a cold sternness that sent him to obedience.
“The next, rise.”
The performance was repeated with him, and with the rest in turn.
“All rise,” said the king. They stood up. “I will now take you to a room
in the palace, where you may consider in quiet what the soldiers of a
king should be. You,” he ordered Christopher, “walk beside me at the
head, and you,” to me, “follow the soldiers.”
The dignity of a mighty sorrow sat like a grace upon him as he slowly
led the procession. Never were prisoners more securely manacled with
steel than these men, though their members were free; and though there
was a certain pomp in the march, it was that of a funeral, and the
silence was louder than the blare of much brass.
The king turned into the corridor that led to the vaults, and descended
the stair. This brought him and the others to the dungeon door. He
halted, and Christopher unlocked it. It swung wide. The king and
Christopher stood aside, and the men marched in. Christopher closed and
locked the door.
“Your Majesty!” I exclaimed; “you surely have not forgotten that
Gato----”
“My son,” he calmly answered, “what they have already endured has made
the way easier to what they will find in there.”
Without haste the king conducted us back to the chamber in which he had
received us, and seated himself ered: on the divan. He was studying us.
He inflated his cheeks and pursed his lips while his goggling eyes
roamed, and queer wrinkles came and went in his face.
“The white blood,” he grunted, staring at me. “It accounts for your
keenness. The white blood never sleeps. If it is with you, good; if
against you,------”
He rose and glared. “Which love you the more, son,” he growled, “the
white blood or the brown?”
“Your Majesty sees our color. We came freely and offered our hearts, our
arms, and our lives to your Majesty. And it is not forgotten, Sire, that
Lentala sent us.”
“I remember.” The growl died in him, and he brightened. With both hands
he clutched the edge of the couch. “It takes white blood to fight white
blood,” he said. “Did your father tell you that?”
“Not that I recall, Sire.”
“Black blood and red blood and yellow blood and brown blood always fall
before it, soon or late. He said nothing about that?”
“I think not, Sire.”
“You know it is true?”
“My father told me much of the great world.”
“Then he told you that. And I know. I saw it when I went abroad in my
youth. I learned it from Lentala’s father. Does it mean anything to you
that your mother was a Senatra?”
“It is sufficient that your Majesty and Lentala are Senatras.”
The king fixed a keen stare on me.
“You mention Lentala very often,” he said.
“She indorsed us to your Majesty.”
“Something more is here. That is the white blood in her. In you and in
her the white blood knows its own.”
His sudden confirmation of my surmise concerning Lentala choked the
words in my throat.
“Why don’t you speak?” he roughly demanded. “Is it not true?”
I could only gaze at him.
“The white blood finds and knows its own,” he went on. “Two hundred and
fifty of those with white blood are held on this island by a great horde
of those with brown blood. I need a man of the white-blood shrewdness
and boldness and courage to manage those two hundred and fifty to the
safety of my people and my island. But if I take a man with white blood
in his veins, it will side with the white blood that threatens me.”
“Would Lentala hand over to treason and destruction your Majesty and the
queen and all the other Senatras whom she loves, and the people to whom
she belongs and the country that has nourished her?”
“Not wittingly, for she is a daughter of the gods; but the blood, my
son, the blood!”
“Sire, a love early planted endures forever.”
He rose to fight his despair, and walked up and down the room.
“Yes, it is true,” he said at last. “Lentala has proved it. I spared
her father, a castaway, because he stopped a great plague that was
destroying my people. I myself was stricken, and he saved my life I
feared him because he was of the white blood, and because of his wisdom
and power. He held the secrets of the gods, and had no fear. I had
planted deep in my people a hatred of the white blood; and I required
that he not only disguise himself as a native, but remain within the
palace grounds. He taught me many things, but I refused to follow his
advice to instruct my subjects. He educated Lentala.”
“Is he still alive?” I asked.
“He died two years ago. If he were only here now! We became strong
friends. Lentala’s devotion to the islanders is returned by them almost
as idolatry. I know how the white blood can love, but I know also how it
can hate; and it knows its own.”
He suddenly halted, and wheeled upon me.
“You say,” he moaned, “that some of the white men are at large on the
island. What mischief are they doing? What mines digging under me? My
people are children,--I have kept them so, God help them! I need not
alone a wit and a daring to match the white people’s, but Senatra
devotion as well.”
“Your Majesty knows Lentala.”
He blazed on me. “Do you love Lentala?”
A fierce tingling raced through me, and dumbness held me.
“She is beautiful and sweet,” he went on. “She is steadfast; she is
brave and able. There never was a woman to match her. You are big and
strong and brave. She found you. Like finds like. Do you love her as a
man loves a woman?”
I fought blindly for wit and words.
“Yes, Sire,” came the thin, even voice of Christopher.
We both turned in surprise. He beamed on us blandly.
“Does she love him as a woman loves a man?” the king asked him.
“Yes, Sire.”
His audacity held me speechless.
“I can trust her--and you,” the king said to me,--“so far as blood
tempered by love and loyalty may be trusted, which is farther than it
may trust itself. I am old and broken. Come, you two, and stand before
me.”
We obeyed, I wondering.
“I have no other men to equal you, and I need you. You must serve
me. Take time now, and remember your white blood. Remember that it is
stronger than your brown, for I have seen its dominance in you today.
Remember that when your allegiance is tested in a choice between white
blood and brown, the white will be the stronger. Only one thing can save
you and me and all my people.”
“And that, Sire,-----?”
“-----is your manly pride to see and know and overcome your white blood,
and serve and obey your king to the end.”
He paused, and looked from one to the other, as though expecting us to
speak, but we were silent.
“The white blood,” he passionately resumed, “is the most terrible thing
in the world. It is strong and shrewd; it never gives up; it pursues and
fights relentlessly to the ends of the earth; without mercy or pity it
hunts down, plunders, overwhelms, exterminates. Only one thing can hold
it in check, and that is opposing white blood. Brown blood cannot cope
with the white people in the valley, but white blood can; and for the
task, the gods have sent me white blood mingled with brown seeded in my
soil and grown to it with deep roots. That is my hope and trust.”
His gaze of affectionate yearning was on us.
“The duty of your Senatra blood is loyalty to your king; the task of
your white blood is to outwit and outdo the people in the valley. I will
place Lentala in command of the army. You must not take a step without
her full concurrence, and you will obey her without question. Do you
agree?”
“Gladly, Sire.”
“A hundred soldiers guard the passes from the val ley, and are relieved
every day. When not on duty they attend to their private affairs. I
will at once send out messengers summoning these to assemble outside the
palace wall, in the king’s highway passing the main gate. There I will
address them and turn over the command to Lentala.”
He was profoundly studying me. His words, “to outwit and outdo the
people in the valley,” were grinding within me, and I longed to demand
an explanation. A savage ferocity was manifest through his benignity.
To outwit and outdo the people in the valley,--my people, my friends! I
would be his tool to betray and destroy them. The bottomless pit should
have him first, and the hand that he would turn to treachery and murder
would send him thither.
My face must have shown something of what I tried to conceal; for the
king, his look growing desperate and malignant, stepped back a pace.
There came from somewhere a sharp rap, which made me start, and sent my
glance to the curtained window, to which the king had his back. I had
supposed that Beela was with Lentala; but there she was at the window,
her hand upraised in warning. It brought me instant control.
The king also had heard, and looked round sharply, but the curtain was
down.
“What was that?” he inquired.
“My big toe, Sire,” answered Christopher.
“What did you do with it?”
“I cracked the joint.”
“Why?”
“It feels good, Sire.”
His Majesty curiously regarded Christopher’s feet. “It must be a large
joint,” he said.
Christopher stood in gentle silence. The king turned to me, and found me
docile.
“That look of rebellion was the white blood in you,” he said.
“Only for a moment. Your Majesty may trust me.”
Nevertheless, he was troubled, and shook his head.
“He won’t no more, Sire,” said Christopher.
“How do you know?”
“I know him.”
“Explain.”
“He does little things short and big things long.”
My amused smile was fortunate, because it put an end to the king’s
tragic gravity.
“I am satisfied,” he remarked. “Now, the first thing for you two to
do, while the army is assembling, is to go out, find, and bring to the
palace all the white men that have escaped. The next,------”
The sentence was never concluded, for there came a rumble and a sharp,
pervading jolt. The king stiffened, looked about in fear, and groped for
the table. Following was a gentle quiver, which rapidly increased till
it became an oscillation, and with it a deep rumbling. It ended in a
mighty wrench and a violent swaying, accompanied with a hoarse explosive
sound. The stones of the palace were grinding and groaning. The table
slid a yard, stopped, and shot back as the king tried to seize it.
I found myself plunging and lurching for a footing as the oscillation
continued, and so were the king and Christopher. They sat down on
the floor. Surely the violence would ease in a moment. Instead, the
convulsion rose to a fearful crash, which sent my feet away and my body
smashing on Christopher. He caught me with one hand and with the other
diverted the flying table from the king.
The spasm ended abruptly, but the menacing tremble was again in play.
“Be careful!” rasped the king; “the third is the worst.”
As before, the quiver rose through oscillation to a heavy swaying, more
violent than ever, and ended in a tumult of jerks, which sent us sliding
and scrambling as we fought the portable things that were hurled about
the room.
It was suddenly gone. We rose, much dazed. There was no sign of Beela at
the window.
“It is over,” weakly said the king. “The worst in many years. And what
has it done? It has terrified my people into madness. I see them.”
He was losing self-control, and was staring as at a vision. “They are
beginning to rise from the ground. Many are digging out of their ruined
huts.... Their teeth are chattering. They look at one another in
horror. No one has a sister, a brother, a father, a mother, a friend.
All are blind and mad.... They run hither and thither. They----”
A confused screech and roar, as of wild animals driven to a focus by a
surrounding forest fire, rang through the closed door of the room. The
king listened.
“The palace servants,” he mumbled through quivering lips. “They are
seeking me--their father and protestor. Imagine from this how the island
is swarming and groaning, and with a terror that is half vengeance.”
The man was beside himself.
“Peace, Sire!” I begged, but he did not hear.
“The terror does not abate: it increases with the freer flow of their
blood after the shock.... They are beginning to think. They look at one
another and see their kind; then kindred and friends.... ‘The Black
Face!’ says one, softly. ‘Ay, the Black Face!’ is the louder reply.”
The king stood with clasped hands and closed eyes.
“‘This is only the beginning,’ they say. ‘The Black Face has been denied
while it looked down on abundance.’ Who has denied it? The heavens
ring with the answer, ‘Our father whom we loved, our protector whom we
trusted, our king whom we have thought a brother of the gods. Why has
he flouted the Face and challenged its wrath? What terrors or witcheries
have been wrought by the gods of the people in the valley, that our king
has gone driveling behind his walls? ’”
“Your Majesty!” I called, shaking him by the arm.
He opened glazed eyes, and listened to the howling din at his door.
“The guard are leaving the passes. The white people are wise; they
understand, and are joyful. They send scouts.... My soldiers mingle
with my roaring, mobbing people. They all push and roll through the
pools of rain-water in the highways, churning them to mud. They grind
their teeth; they laugh horribly, like imbeciles. The palace is their
aim, and their king sits grinning and mumbling there. All the trouble
has come from the people in the valley. The white blood breeds all there
is of that in the world. May ten thousand curses fall on it!”
He was flinging his arms and lunging about. I woke to the urgency
of action, for undoubtedly in his madness he had correctly seen the
turbulence in the island, and the sweating hordes plunging over all
roads converging to the palace. A glance passed between Christopher
and me, and I nodded toward the door, which a packed, howling mass was
already straining.
“Come,” I said, seizing the tottering king about the waist and dragging
him to the anteroom. I thrust him within, and secured the door back of
the curtain.
When I turned, Christopher, his hand on the key of the door into the
corridor, was listening. There was no sign of Beela at the window.
“What’s going on?” I inquired.
“Her, sir.”
“She’s out there?” I asked in alarm.
“Yes, sir.”
“Open the door,” I ordered, stepping back to guard the anteroom.
He opened it, swinging behind it against the wall.
It was done so suddenly that those pressed against it fell into the
room. The next came tumbling on them, and more on these, squeezing
horrible sounds from the mouths of the lowermost, and bringing
unpleasant grimaces to their faces. In a second the opening was jammed
half way to the top, and still the pile grew. Behind it were frenzied
men and women, vociferating prodigiously, and fighting for the
diminishing passage to the king.
The pressure outside being somewhat relieved, one of the more agile men
leaped on the pile and sprang with a howl to the floor; but Christopher
had emerged, and a blow from him dropped the adventurer. The next, less
active than the first, was scrambling over the heap, and paused as he
found himself grazed by the flying body of the first, for Christopher
had picked him up and tossed him over the heap into the pandemonium
beyond. The following man drew back, and slid down to the corridor
floor.
I had been looking for Beela without, but she was not in range.
Before another maniac could mount the pile, Christopher had dragged
a body off the squirming mass and flung it out. Another followed, and
another, and others, the succession of them so close that none dared
breast the fusillade. Christopher streamed with sweat, and the mildness
in his eyes had become a glare.
All this had a cooling effect in the corridor. Christopher, not waiting
to look for cracked ribs at the bottom of the heap, cleared the last
away, and walked forth. None can say how much his unearthly pale eyes,
minatory expression, and extraordinary figure had to do with what
followed. I went to the door. A hush fell as he advanced on the mob,
which fell back in silent terror. With each hand he seized a man, jammed
their heads together with a murderous thwack, shook them, stood them up,
left them stunned, and immediately snatched two others and treated them
similarly. A third pair and a fourth nursed aching skulls. Christopher
swept through the groups with two long, strong arms for scythes, mowing
a wide swath as he brushed women along, sent a man spinning from a blow,
dashed another against the wall, and brought them into subjugation with
a counter-panic of his own manufacture. He came upon two men with some
appearance of character, and ordered them to finish the work and send
the people to their quarters. They obeyed him promptly. At last he
sauntered back to me, calm but puffing.
Beela approached from the opposite direction. I stepped forward in
gladness to meet her.