The Martian told me of a merchant boat with ten rowers which was going
up to the capital in a couple of hours, and as the skipper was a friend
of his they would no doubt take me as supercargo, thereby saving the
necessity of passenger fees, which was obviously a consideration with
me. It was not altogether a romantic approach to the dungeon of an
imprisoned beauty, but it was practical, which is often better if not
so pleasant. So the offer was gladly closed with, and curling myself in
a rug of foxskins, for I was tired with much walking, sailors never
being good foot-gangers, I slept soundly fill they came to tell me it
was time to go on board.
The vessel was more like a canal barge than anything else, lean and
long, with the cargo piled in a ridge down the centre as farmers store
their winter turnips, the rowers sitting on either side of this plying
oars like dessert-spoons with long handles, while they chanted a
monotonous cadence of monosyllables:
Oh, ho, oh,
Oh, ho, oh,
How high, how high.
and then again after a pause--
How high, how high
Oh, ho, oh,
Oh, ho, oh.
the which was infinitely sleep-provoking if not a refrain of a high
intellectual order.
I shut my eyes as we pulled away from the wharfs of that nameless
emporium and picked a passage through a crowd of quaint shipping,
wondering where I was, and asking myself whether I was mentally rising
equal to my extraordinary surroundings, whether I adequately
appreciated the immensity of my remove from those other seas on which I
had last travelled, tiller-ropes in hand, piloting a captain's galley
from a wharf. Good heavens, what would my comrades on my ship say if
they could see me now steering a load of hairy savages up one of those
waterways which our biggest telescopes magnify but to the thickness of
an indication? No, I was not rising equal to the occasion, and could
not. The human mind is of but limited capacity after all, and such
freaks of fortune are beyond its conception. I knew I was where I was,
but I knew I should probably never get the chance of telling of it, and
that no one would ever believe me if I did, and I resigned myself to
the inevitable with sullen acquiescence, smothering the wonder that
might have been overwhelming in passing interests of the moment.
There is little to record of that voyage. We passed through a fleet of
Ar-hap's warships, empty and at anchor in double line, serviceable
half-decked cutters, built of solid timber, not pumpkin rind it was
pleasant to notice, and then the town dropped away as we proceeded up a
stream about as broad as the Hudson at its widest, and profusely
studded with islands. This water was bitterly salt and joined another
sea on the other side of the Martian continent. Yet it had a
pronounced flow against us eastward, this tide running for three spring
months and being followed, I learned, as ocean temperatures varied, by
a flow in the opposite direction throughout the summer.
Just at present the current was so strong eastwards, the moisture
beaded upon my rowers' tawny hides as they struggled against it, and
their melancholy song dawdled in "linked sweetness long drawn out,"
while the swing of their oars grew longer and longer. Truly it was
very hot, far hotter than was usual for the season, these men declared,
and possibly this robbed me of my wonted energy, and you, gentle
reader, of a description of all the strange things we passed upon that
highway.
Suffice it to say we spent a scorching afternoon, the greater part of a
stifling night moored under a mud-bank with a grove of trees on top
from which gigantic fire-flies hung as though the place were
illuminated for a garden fete, and then, rowing on again in the
comparatively cool hours before dawn, turned into a backwater at
cock-crow.
The skipper of our cargo boat roused me just as we turned, putting
under my sleepy nostrils a handful of toasted beans on a leaf, and a
small cup full of something that was not coffee, but smelt as good as
that matutinal beverage always does to the tired traveller.
Over our prow was an immense arch of foliage, and underneath a long
arcade of cool black shadows, sheltering still water, till water and
shadow suddenly ended a quarter of a mile down in a patch of brilliant
colour. It was as peaceful as could be in the first morning light, and
to me over all there was the inexpressible attraction of the unknown.
As our boat slipped silently forward up this leafy lane, a thin white
"feather" in her mouth alone breaking the steely surface of the stream,
the men rested from their work and began, as sailors will, to put on
their shore-going clothes, the while they chatted in low tones over the
profits of the voyage. Overhead flying squirrels were flitting to and
fro like bats, or shelling fruit whereof the husks fell with a pleasant
splash about us, and on one bank a couple of early mothers were washing
their babies, whose smothered protests were almost the only sound in
this morning world.
Another silent dip or two of the oars and the colour ahead crystallised
into a town. If I said it was like an African village on a large
scale, I should probably give you the best description in the fewest
words. From the very water's edge up to the crown of a low hill inland,
extended a mass of huts and wooden buildings, embowered and partly
hidden in bright green foliage, with here and there patches of millet,
or some such food plant, and the flowers that grow everywhere so
abundantly in this country. It was all Arcadian and peaceful enough at
the moment, and as we drew near the men were just coming out to the
quays along the harbour front, the streets filling and the town waking
to busy life.
A turn to the left through a watergate defended by towers of wood and
mud, and we were in the city harbour itself; boats of many kinds moored
on every side; quaint craft from the gulfs and bays of Nowhere, full of
unheard-of merchandise, and manned by strange-faced crews, every vessel
a romance of nameless seas, an epitome of an undiscovered world, and
every moment the scene grew busier as the breakfast smoke arose, and
wharf and gangway set to work upon the day's labours.
Our boat--loaded, as it turned out, with spoil from Seth--was run to a
place of honour at the bottom of the town square, and was an object of
much curiosity to a small crowd which speedily collected and lent a
hand with the mooring ropes, the while chatting excitedly with the crew
about further tribute and the latest news from overseas. At the same
time a swarthy barbarian, whose trappings showed him to be some sort of
functionary, came down to our "captain," much wagging of heads and
counting of notched sticks taking place between them.
I, indeed, was apparently the least interesting item of the cargo, and
this was embarrassing. No hero likes to be neglected, it is fatal to
his part. I had said my prayers and steeled myself to all sorts of
fine endurance on the way up, and here, when it came to the crisis, no
one was anxious to play the necessary villain. They just helped me
ashore civilly enough, the captain nodded his head at me, muttering
something in an indifferent tone to the functionary about a ghost who
had wandered overseas and begged a passage up the canal; the group
about the quay stared a little, but that was all.
Once I remember seeing a squatting, life-size heathen idol hoisted from
a vessel's hold and deposited on a sugar-box on a New York quay. Some
ribald passer-by put a battered felt hat upon Vishnu's sacred curls,
and there the poor image sat, an alien in an indifferent land, a sack
across its shoulders, a "billycock" upon its head, and honoured at most
with a passing stare. I thought of that lonely image as almost as
lonely I stood on the Thither men's quay, without the support of
friends or heroics, wondering what to do next.
However, a cheerful disposition is sometimes better than a banking
account, and not having the one I cultivated the other, sunning myself
amongst the bales for a time, and then, since none seemed interested in
me, wandered off into the town, partly to satisfy my curiosity, and
partly in the vague hope of ascertaining if my princess was really
here, and, if possible, getting sight of her.
Meanwhile it turned hot with a supernatural, heavy sort of heat
altogether, I overheard passersby exclaiming, out of the common, and
after wandering for an hour through gardens and endless streets of
thatched huts, I was glad enough to throw myself down in the shadow of
some trees on the outskirts of the great central pile of buildings, a
whole village in itself of beam-built towers and dwelling-place,
suggesting by its superior size that it might actually be Ar-hap's
palace.
Hotter and hotter it grew, while a curious secondary sunrise in the
west, the like of which I never saw before seemed to add to the heat,
and heavier and heavier my eyelids, till I dozed at last, and finally
slept uncomfortably for a time.
Rousing up suddenly, imagine my surprise to see sitting, chin on knees,
about a yard away, a slender girlish figure, infinitely out of place in
that world of rough barbarians. Was it possible? Was I dreaming? No,
there was no doubt about it, she was a girl of the Hither folk, slim
and pretty, but with a wonderfully sad look in her gazelle eyes, and
scarcely a sign of the indolent happiness of Seth in the pale little
face regarding me so fixedly.
"Good gracious, miss," I said, still rubbing my eyes and doubting my
senses, "have you dropped from the skies? You are the very last person
I expected to see in this barbarian place."
"And you too, sir. Oh, it is lovely to see one so newly from home, and
free-seeming--not a slave."
"How did you know I was from Seth?"
"Oh, that was easy enough," and with a little laugh she pointed to a
pebble lying between us, on which was a piece of battered sweetmeat in
a perforated bamboo box. Poor An had given me something just like that
in a playful mood, and I had kept it in my pocket for her sake, being,
as you will have doubtless observed, a sentimental young man, and now I
clapped my hand where it should have been, but it was gone.
"Yes," said my new friend, "that is yours. I smelt the sweetmeat
coming up the hill, and crossed the grass until I found you here
asleep. Oh, it was lovely! I took it from your pocket, and white Seth
rose up before my swimming eyes, even at the scent of it. I am Si,
well named, for that in our land means sadness, Si, the daughter of
Prince Hath's chief sweetmeat-maker, so I should know something of such
stuff. May I, please, nibble a little piece?"
"Eat it all, my lass, and welcome. How came you here? But I can
guess. Do not answer if you would rather not."
"Ay, but I will. It is not every day I can speak to ears so friendly
as yours. I am a slave, chosen for my luckless beauty as last year's
tribute to Ar-hap."
"And now?"
"And now the slave of Ar-hap's horse-keeper, set aside to make room for
a fresher face."
"And do you know whose face that is?"
"Not I, a hapless maid sent into this land of horrors, to bear ignominy
and stripes, to eat coarse food and do coarse work, the miserable
plaything of some brute in semi-human form, with but the one
consolation of dying early as we tribute-women always die. Poor
comrade in exile, I only know her as yet by sympathy."
"What if I said it was Heru, the princess?"
The Martian girl sprang to her feet, and clasping her hands exclaimed,
"Heru, the Slender! Then the end comes, for it is written in our books
that the last tribute is paid when the best is paid. Oh, how splendid
if she gave herself of free will to this slavery to end it once for
all. Was it so?"
"I think, Si, your princess could not have known of that tradition; she
did not come willingly. Besides, I am come to fetch her back, if it
may be, and that spoils the look of sacrifice."
"You to fetch her back, and from Ar-hap's arms? My word, Sir Spirit,
you must know some potent charms; or, what is less likely, my
countrymen must have amazingly improved in pluck since I left them.
Have you a great army at hand?"
But I only shook my head, and, touching my sword, said that here was
the only army coming to rescue Heru. Whereon the lady replied that she
thought my valour did me more honour than my discretion. How did I
propose to take the princess from her captors?
"To tell the truth, damsel, that is a matter which will have to be left
to your invention, or the kindness of such as you. I am here on a
hare-brained errand, playing knight-errant in a way that shocks my
common sense. But since the matter has gone so far I will see it
through, or die in the attempt. Your bully lord shall either give me
Heru, stock, lock, and block, or hang me from a yard-arm. But I would
rather have the lady. Come, you will help me; and, as a beginning, if
she is in yonder shanty get me speech with her."
Poor Si's eyes dilated at the peril of the suggestion, and I saw the
sluggish Martian nature at war against her better feelings. But
presently the latter conquered. "I will try," she said. "What matter
a few stripes more or less?" pointing to her rosy shoulders where red
scars crisscross upon one another showed how the Martian girls fared in
Ar-hap's palace when their novelty wore off. "I will try to help you;
and if they kill me for it--why, that will not matter much." And
forthwith in that blazing forenoon under the flickering shadow of the
trees we put our heads together to see what we might do for Heru.
It was not much for the moment. Try what we would that afternoon, I
could not persuade those who had charge of the princess to let me even
approach her place of imprisonment, but Si, as a woman, was more
successful, actually seeing her for a few moments, and managed to
whisper in her ear that I had come, the
Spirit-with-the-gold-buttons-down-his front, afterwards describing to
me in flowing Martian imagery--but doubtless not more highly coloured
than poor Heru's emotion warranted--how delightedly that lady had
received the news.
Si also did me another service, presenting me to the porter's wife, who
kept a kind of boarding-house at the gates of Ar-hap's palace for
gentlemen and ladies with grievances. I had heard of lobbying before,
and the presentation of petitions, though I had never indulged myself
in the pastime; but the crowd of petitioners here, with petitions as
wild and picturesque as their own motley appearances, was surely the
strangest that ever gathered round a seat of supreme authority.
Si whispered in the ear of that good woman the nature of my errand,
with doubtless some blandishment of her own; and my errand being one so
much above the vulgar and so nearly touching the sovereign, I was at
once accorded a separate room in the gate-house, whence I could look
down in comparative peace on the common herd of suitors, and listen to
the buzz of their invective as they practised speeches which I
calculated it would take Ar-hap all the rest of his reign to listen to,
without allowing him any time for pronouncing verdicts on them.
Here I made myself comfortable, and awaited the return of the sovereign
as placidly as might be. Meanwhile fate was playing into my feeble
hands.
I have said it was hot weather. At first this seemed but an outcome of
the Martian climate, but as the hours went by the heat developed to an
incredible extent. Also that red glare previously noted in the west
grew in intensity, till, as the hours slipped by, all the town was
staring at it in panting horror. I have seen a prairie on fire,
luckily from the far side of a comfortably broad river, and have ridden
through a pine-forest when every tree for miles was an uplifted torch,
and pungent yellow smoke rolled down each corrie side in grey rivers
crested with dancing flame. But that Martian glare was more sombre and
terrible than either.
"What is it?" I asked of poor Si, who came out gasping to speak to me
by the gate-house.
"None of us know, and unless the gods these Thither folk believe in are
angry, and intend to destroy the world with yonder red sword in the
sky, I cannot guess. Perhaps," she added, with a sudden flash of
inspiration, "it comes by your machinations for Heru's help."
"No!"
"If not by your wish, then, in the name of all you love, set your wish
against it. If you know any incantations suitable for the occasion,
oh, practise them now at once, for look, even the very grass is
withering; birds are dropping from trees; fishes, horribly bloated, are
beginning to float down the steaming rills; and I, with all others,
have a nameless dread upon me."
Hotter and hotter it grew, until about sunset the red blaze upon the
sky slowly opened, and showed us for about half an hour, through the
opening a lurid, flame-coloured meteor far out in space beyond; then
the cleft closed again, and through that abominable red curtain came
the very breath of Hades.
What was really happening I am not astronomer enough to say, though on
cooler consideration I have come to the conclusion that our planet, in
going out to its summer pastures in the remoter fields of space, had
somehow come across a wandering lesser world and got pretty well singed
in passing. This is purely my own opinion, and I have not yet
submitted it to the kindly authorities of the Lick Observatory for
verification. All I can say for certain is that in an incredibly short
space of time the face of the country changed from green to sear,
flowers drooped; streams (there were not many in the neighbourhood
apparently) dried up; fishes died; a mighty thirst there was nothing to
quench settled down on man and beast, and we all felt that unless
Providence listened to the prayers and imprecations which the whole
town set to work with frantic zeal to hurl at it, or that abominable
comet in the sky sheered off on another tack with the least possible
delay, we should all be reduced to cinders in a very brief space of
time.