HE STRIKES
Drorathusa began her story. Lathendra Lepraylya leaned forward, rested
her chin on her left hand and listened with the most careful attention.
So still were the listeners that, as the saying has it, you could,
anywhere in that great hall, have heard a pin drop.
At times, so expressive were her gestures, Rhodes and I had no
difficulty whatever in following Drorathusa; but only at times. I have,
however, had access to a transcript of the stenographic record of her
story (the Dromans, despite the remarkable polysyllabic character of
their language, have most excellent tachygraphers) and I wish that
space would permit inclusion of it here.
When Drorathusa had finished, the queen, who had several times
interrupted with some interrogation, put a number of questions. With
two or three exceptions, the answers given by our Sibyl seemed to be
satisfactory. But those exceptions gave us something to think about. It
was obvious that the queen was troubled not a little by those answers;
and she was not, I believed, a woman who would lightly suffer the mask
to reveal her thoughts or her feelings.
When the queen had done, came the turn of that high priest, whose name
was Brendaldoombro. Up he rose and addressed a few words to Lathendra
Lepraylya. Her answer was laconic, accompanied by an assenting motion
of her right hand. For a few seconds her look rested upon Milton Rhodes
and me, and it was as though across those strange, wondrous pale eyes
of hers a shadow had fallen.
As for the high priest, he had instantly, and with a fierceness that he
could not bridle, turned to Drorathusa.
How Rhodes and I, as we sat there, wished that we could understand the
words being spoken!
"Always, O Drorathusa," said Brendaldoombro, "has your spirit been
strange and wayward. Always have you been a seeker after that which is
dark and mysterious. And, of a truth, dark and mysterious is the evil
which you have brought down upon Drome.
"Never content with what it is given us to know! Always seeking
the obscure, the concealed! Sometimes, I fear, even _that which is
forbidden_!"
At those words the eyes of Drorathusa flashed, but she made no answer.
"Cursed was that hour--cursed, I say, be that peeking and searching
and peering that discovered it to your eyes, that record of those who,
led on by the powers of the Evil One, ventured up into the caves of
darkness and at last up into the World Above itself--a world, as our
holy writings tell us, of fearful and nameless things, of demons who,
to achieve their fell purpose"--here he fixed his vulture-eye upon
Milton and me--"assume the shapes of men.
"But you, O Drorathusa, must needs find that record, that writing which
never should have been written. And you must needs turn a deaf ear to
our words of counsel and admonition. But you must needs beg and beseech
and implore our permission to go yourself up into those fearful places
and there see with your own eyes whether that in the writing was true
or false. And we, alas, in an evil hour and one of weakness--yes, we
did yield to your importunities and your wicked interpretation of our
sacred writings, and we did suffer you to go forth."
It seems, however, that just the opposite was the truth--that
Brendaldoombro, fearing the growing popularity and power of this
extraordinary woman, had been only too glad to see her start for the
caverns of darkness, from the black mysteries of which he, of course,
had hoped that neither she nor a single one of her companions would
ever return.
"Yes, evil was the hour in which you went forth, O Drorathusa the
Wayward One. And evil is this in which we see these demons in the
shapes of men sitting in our very midst, before the very throne of our
queen. Already has God shown His anger, shown it in this darkness which
has sent fear to the stoutest heart--this darkness the like of which no
living man has ever known in Drome.
"Nor," he went on, his voice rising, "will the Divine wrath be
softened so long as we, undutiful children that we are, suffer them
to live--these devils that have come amongst us in the forms of men!
Death!" his voice rising until the hall rang with the fierce tones.
"Death to them, I say! Let death be swift and sure! And thus will Drome
be spared sorrows, blood and miseries that, else, will wring the heart
of the babe newborn and cause it to rise up and fearfully curse father
and mother for bringing it into a world of such madness and woe!"
The effect of this impassioned and fiendish outburst was instantaneous
and fearful. Something that was like a groan, a growl and a roar filled
that great room. One who has never heard it could never believe that
so strange and so frightful a sound could come from human throats. The
Dromans sprang to their feet--not men and women now, but metamorphosed
by the cunning and the diablerie of Brendaldoombro into veritable
fiends.
"We're in for it, Bill!" cried Milton, springing to his feet and
whipping out his revolver.
I sprang to his side, and we faced them.
Drorathusa, with a fierce cry, threw herself between us and the crowd.
We were moving slowly backward, back toward the throne. The voice of
our Sibyl rang out clear and full. A moment or two, and it was evident
that her words were quieting the mad passions of the mob, for mob, at
that moment, it certainly was, though composed of the élite of the
Droman world.
Then of a sudden, full, clear, ringing and aquiver with wrath and
suppressed passion, came the voice of Lathendra Lepraylya.
Oh, what a vision of fierce loveliness was she as she stood there!
Brendaldoombro had come within a hair's-breadth of achieving his
diabolical purpose. And a most ugly vision of thwarted evil was he at
that moment. He knew his auditors, though, and he knew his power. Again
he raised his impassioned voice. Lepraylya, however, turned upon him
fiercely.
"Peace!" she cried. "I bid you, peace--yes, even you, O Brendaldoombro,
High Priest of Drome though you are!
"What! You would still make of this room a shambles, stain the very
throne of your queen with human blood!"
"They are not human!" he shrieked. "They are demons that have assumed
the bodies of men!"
A murmur of superstitious horror arose.
"Ho, guard!" cried the queen. "Guard, ho!"
It is my belief that some cool-headed gentleman had bethought himself
of the guard before ever the queen, for it was only a few moments
before a score or so of armed men had entered the room and taken a
position, in the form of a semicircle, before the throne.
The eyes of Lathendra Lepraylya were blazing like that great jewel on
her brow. Those eyes were fixed upon Brendaldoombro, and I actually
thought that the old raptor quailed a little under that look of
outraged majesty. If this was indeed so, it was for an instant or two
only. His look, one of baffled fury, then became fixed and defiant.
"So!" said Lathendra Lepraylya. "What madness is this that I see?
What blood-howl is this that I hear? No woman or man in Drome may be
deprived of liberty or life without a fair trial; and yet you, yes,
even you, O Brendaldoombro, are here striving to make a shambles of the
very throne itself."
She raised her hand and pointed toward us.
"If these men are indeed--"
"They are not men!" the old villain shouted. "They are demons who have
taken the human shape, to attain here in Drome some fell purpose.
Death, I say! Death to these masqueraded devils! Let death be swift
and--"
"Peace, I say!" exclaimed Lepraylya, stamping her sandaled foot. "And,
if these men from the World Above are indeed but devils counterfeit,
could we kill them, O Brendaldoombro? Since when can mere man kill a
devil?"
"When they are in the human shape, he can! Death! Death to these fiends
who--"
"One can kill their bodies only," interrupted the queen, "and it may be
that he can not do even that much."
"Their bodies only? What more," demanded Brendaldoombro, "can one do to
any woman or man? Death! Death to these demons!"
"Their spirits would be but loosed from the body, O Brendaldoombro, to
move unseen in the air about us, and they could then--if, that is, they
really are devils--the more easily achieve their nefarious designs."
"They would be harmless then!" came the ready answer. "They are
helpless save when they are in the human form."
"Since when?" queried Lepraylya, her eyes widening in surprise. "Since
when did the minions of the Evil One become helpless unless in human
shape?"
"You misapprehend, O Lathendra Lepraylya. These belong to a most
peculiar order, to a most rare species of bad angel. And," cried
Brendaldoombro, "they are the worst devils of all! Death to them before
it is too late! Let us--"
"Have justice," said Lepraylya, "as we hope for mercy and
justice in that dread day when every human soul--even yours, O
Brendaldoombro--must stand and be judged for the sins it has done
in the flesh. No human being may be condemned in Drome without
trial; and I believe that Lord Milton and Lord Bill are true men,
O Brendaldoombro, and no demons. And you would slay them, murder
them, these the first men from the World Above, as you would slay a
_gogrugron_--if you did not fear it, O Brendaldoombro. Who knows what
message they bring to us? Now they stand silent; but, when they will
have learned our language, then we shall learn that which is now so
dark and so mysterious."
"Dark and mysterious indeed!" cried the high priest. "Signs and
portents have been given us, warning us of what is to follow if we
harbor these demons amongst us. And I tell you, O Lathendra Lepraylya,
you and all Drome shall rue this day if you heed not the dread warnings
of the wrath Divine. Darkness I see! Yes, I see, darkness! And
earth-shocks! The roof of our world crashing down! Calamities that will
overwhelm all Drome and--"
"Silence!" Lepraylya commanded. "Silence, croaker of evil! One would
almost think, O Brendaldoombro, that you know more about the angels of
the Evil One than you do about God's own. Hear now my word:
"When Lord Bill and Lord Milton can answer the charge that they are
demons masquerading in the shapes of men, then, O Brendaldoombro, and
not before, shall they be brought to trial--if, indeed, you will prefer
that charge against them _then_.
"Such is my word to you, O Brendaldoombro, and to you, ladies and lords
all, and on the majesty of the Droman law and of the dread law of God
it stands."