PLEASANT DAYS PASSED AMONG THE MIKKAMENKIES, AND WONDERFUL THINGS
SEEN BY US.—THE SPECTRAL GARDEN, AND A DESCRIPTION OF IT.—OUR
MEETING WITH DAMOZEL GLOW STONE, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
From now on Lord Bulger and I made ourselves perfectly at home among the
Mikkamenkies. One of the royal barges was placed at our disposal, and
when we grew tired of walking about and gazing at the wonders of this
beautiful city of the under world, we stepped aboard our barge and were
rowed hither and thither on the glassy river; and if I had not seen it
myself I never would have believed that any kind of shellfish could ever
be taught to be so obliging as to swim to the surface and offer one of
their huge claws for our dinner, politely dropping it in our hand the
moment we had laid hold of it. On one of the river banks I noticed a
long row of wooden compartments looking very much like a grocer’s bins;
but you may think how amused Bulger and I were upon coming closer to
this long row of little houses to find that they were turtle nests, and
that quite a number of the turtles were sitting comfortably in their
nests busy laying their eggs—which, let me assure you, were the most
dainty tidbits I ever tasted.
I think I informed you that the river flowing through Goggle Land was
fairly swarming with delicious fish, the carp and sole being
particularly delicate in flavor; and knowing, as I did, what a
tender-hearted folk the Mikkamenkies are, I had been not a little
puzzled in my mind as to how they had ever been able to summon up
courage enough to drive a spear into one of these fish, which were as
tame and playful as a lot of kittens or puppies, and followed our barge
hither and thither, snapping up the food we tossed to them, and leaping
into the air, where they glistened like burnished silver as the white
light sparkled on their scales.
But the mystery was solved one day when I saw one of the fishermen
decoying a score or more of fish into a sort of pen shut off from the
river by a wire netting. Scarcely had he closed the gates when, to my
amazement, I saw the fish one after the other come to the surface and
float about on their sides, stone dead.
“This, little baron,” explained the man in charge, “is the death
chamber. Hidden at the bottom of this dark pool lie several electric
eels of great size and power, and when our people want a fresh supper of
fish we simply open these gates and decoy a shoal of them inside by
tossing their favorite food into the water. The executioners are
awaiting them, and in a few instants the fish, while enjoying their
repast and suspecting no harm, are painlessly put to death, as thou hast
seen.”
One part of the city of the Transparent Folk which attracted Bulger and
me very much was the royal gardens. It was a weird and uncanny place,
and upon my first visit I walked through its paths and beneath its
arbors upon my toes and with bated breath, as you might steal into some
bit of fairy-land, looking anxiously from side to side as if at every
step you expected some sprite or goblin to trip you up with a tough
spider-web, or brush your cheeks with their cold and satiny wings.
Now, dear friends, you must first be told that with the loss of sunshine
and the open air, the flowers and shrubs and vines of this underground
world gradually parted with their perfumes and colors, their leaves and
petals and stems and tendrils growing paler and paler in hue, like
lovelorn maids whose sweethearts had never come back from the war. Month
by month the dark greens, the blush pinks, the golden yellows, and the
deep blues pined away, longing for the lost sunshine and the wooing
breeze they loved so dearly, until at last the transformation was
complete, and there they all stood or hung bleached to utter whiteness,
like those fantastic clumps of flowers and wreaths of vines which the
feathery snow of April builds in the leafless shrubs and trees.
I cannot tell you, dear friends, what a strange feeling came over me as
I stepped within this spectral garden where ghost-like vines clung in
fantastic forms and figures to the dark trellises, and where tall
lilies, whiter than the down of eider, stood bolt upright like spirits
doomed to eternal silence, denied even the speech of perfume, and where
huge clusters of snowy chrysanthemums, fluffy feathery forms, seemed
pressing their soft bodies together like groups of banished celestials
in a sort of silent despair as they felt the warmth and glow of sunlight
slowly and gradually quitting their souls; where lower down, great roses
with snowy petals whiter than the sea-shells hung motionless, bursting
open with eager effort, as if listening for some signal that would
dissolve the spell put upon them, and give them back the sunshine, and
with it their color and their perfume; where lower still beds of violets
bleached white as fleecy clouds seemed wrapt in silent sorrow at loss of
the heavenly perfume which had been theirs on earth; where, above the
lilies’ heads shot long, slender, spectral stalks of sunflowers almost
invisible, loaded at their ends with clusters of snowy flowers thus
suspended like white faces looking down through the silent air, and
waiting, waiting for the sunshine that never came; and higher still all
over and above these spectral flowers, intwining and inwrapping and
falling festoon and garland-wise, crept and ran like unto long lines of
escaping phantoms, ghostly vines with ghostly blossoms, bent and twisted
and wrapped and coiled into a thousand strange and fantastic forms and
figures which the white light with its inky shadows made alive and half
human, so that movement and voice alone were needful to make this garden
seem peopled with sorrowing sprites banished to these subterranean
chambers for strange misdeeds done on earth and condemned to wait ten
thousand years ere sunlight and their color and their perfume should be
given back to them again.
While strolling through the royal gardens one day, Bulger suddenly gave
a low cry and bounded on ahead, as if his eyes had fallen upon the
familiar form of some dear friend.
When I came up with him he was crouching beside the damozel Glow Stone
who, seated on one of the garden benches, was caressing Bulger’s head
and ears with one of her soft hands with its filmy-like skin, while the
other held its black fan pressed tightly against her bosom.
She looked up at me with her crystal eyes, and smiled faintly as I drew
near.
“Thou seest, little baron,” she murmured, “Lord Bulger and I have not
forgotten each other.” Since our presentation at court I had been going
through and through my mind in search of some reason for Bulger’s sudden
affection for damozel Glow Stone, but had found none.
I was the more perplexed as she was but the maid of honor, while the
fair princess Crystallina sat on the very steps of the throne.
But I said nothing save to reply that I was greatly pleased to see it
and to add that where Bulger’s love went, mine was sure to follow.
“Oh, little baron, if I could but believe that!” sighed the fair
damozel.
“Thou mayst,” said I, “indeed thou mayst.”
“Then, if I may, little baron,” she replied, “I will, and prithee come
and sit beside me here, only till I bid thee, look not through me. Dost
promise?”
“I do, fair damozel,” was my answer.
“And thou, Lord Bulger, lie there at my feet,” she continued, “and keep
thy wise eyes fixed upon me and thy keen ears wide open.”
“Little baron, if both thine and our worlds were filled with sorrowing
hearts, mine would be the heaviest of them all. List! oh, list to the
sad, sad tale of the sorrowing maid with the speck in her heart, and,
when thou knowest all, give me of thy wisdom.”
[Illustration: CRYSTALLINA’S HEART ON A SCREEN.]