“_A horror of outer darkness._”
A vast hall of darkness, so great that it seemed to have no end; a
place blacker than the deepest night, with no glint of light or life.
Yet life was there, for out of the gloomy depths came the buzz of a
multitude, eager and suppressed, now nothing more than a sighing
breath, again a loud excited whisper that rose and echoed away until
space swallowed it up.
The sighing breath took an upward rush, resounding through the
darkness like the thunder of surf, to die away again in whispering,
waiting silence.
A speck of light appeared, a pin-prick in the vast gloom. Gradually it
came closer, and halted, shining high above everything.
The light showed a girl with a tired, white face, clad in a robe of
purple gauze that swathed her with the billowy softness of a cloud.
Her bare arms and shoulders were loaded with barbaric jewels--a
rainbow mass of glittering color, looking almost too heavy for her to
carry.
Her appearance made a wild shout come up from beneath.
“Hail, Star, Bride of the Night. All darkness gives you welcome.”
Leslie had no idea what was said, only a roar of savage sound came
from the depths her strained eyes were trying to fathom.
The noise died away, to be followed by a silence so still that it
seemed to whisper.
Then from a long way off a voice spoke in cultured English.
“Come, dearest, there’s nothing to fear.”
Leslie came of a race that died fighting. Although the voice left her
cold and shivering, it reminded her that a debt had to be paid.
She stepped forward into the gloom. Each step brought frantic,
hysterical courage; a determination to wipe off, if possible, her
father’s infamy; to give this big, strange cousin all he wanted; never
to let him know the depths of her aversion.
She reached the bottom of the long flight of rude stone steps. The
lantern she carried showed nothing but empty space, and from beyond
came the murmur of thousands.
She went forward. Other steps appeared, leading upwards. When she
reached the top of these, out of the gloom some one leant towards her,
whispering to her not to be afraid.
As the two met, suddenly a thousand torches flared up at all points of
the vast underground hall, and a minute later a hundred bonfires burst
into life.
Leslie gazed around. It was darkness no longer, but yellow curling
mist and smoke and flames. The flare revealed great arches stretching
away on either side, until they looped out into a gigantic circle. In
each a bonfire danced, lighting the enclosed ring, but accentuating
the gloom beyond. There was an inner circle of men, five deep, with
spears and shields, all holding torches--men with scarred black faces
and fang-like teeth. In front of these again were shadowy figures
draped from head to foot in black, with nothing but their rolling eyes
to tell they were alive.
Behind them was a sea of faces, all black, all watching her,
stretching away until they became nothing more than gleaming eyes.
Leslie’s gaze came back from the countless wild faces to her immediate
surroundings.
She was standing on a square block of black rock. Close behind loomed
what appeared to be a great night cloud spreading away until it was
lost in the shadows. At the first glance it was nothing more than a
cloud, cunningly represented by some sculptor of forgotten ages. As
she gazed, out of the billowy mass form came. It held her fascinated.
It was not a cloud banked up behind the place where she was standing,
but a great shape, neither God, nor beast, nor devil, yet all three so
blended that they were lost in one. A fearsome Thing, yet strangely
human.
She closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at it once more. It was
a cloud again, slowly taking shape as she gazed. Its face was bestial,
devilish and divine, with eyes that glowed dully in the firelight.
Eyes, which, on first inspection, appeared to be two stars peeping out
from the night. Some long-dead artist’s conception of the darkness
from which all life sprang.
Her eyes left the cloud and went back to Lebrassa. There they stayed,
frightened and fascinated.
He was clad in a long, straight, black gown, his massive bare arms
flashing with golden armlets. A worn circlet of gold, with strange
signs and symbols, was on his crisp, wavy hair. The sight sent a chill
through her. There was so little of the Englishman left. So much of
the savage, negro Sultan.
His voice broke in on her thoughts.
“You mustn’t watch that beast, darling, or he’ll gather you into
everlasting darkness.”
His voice brought back the knowledge of his English side, and her own
determination.
“But it isn’t quite a beast. One way it looks almost god-like.”
“I’ve watched it for days on end, and seen nothing but the beast and
devil.”
“Perhaps you haven’t looked at it in the right way.”
“Or with the right eyes, little rose.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“Doomana, the shadow of all things. The darkness from which all earth
sprang, according to the legend of my mother’s people. A lowering mass
of evil that has brooded over this temple since time past all memory.
That gathered me into its clutches more than twenty years ago.”
Gently she touched his arm. At that moment the knowledge of her debt
loomed large before her.
The light touch brought him bending over her, anxious and eager.
“Little cousin, if I’d come to you clean-handed, my father’s son, not
the Sultan of Kallu, could you have overlooked the black if there had
been no red of my own making?”
Bravely she answered, with no hint of the ice that seemed to freeze
her heart and stop its beating.
“There would have been no red, Essel dear, but for my father.”
The endearment, the first that had passed her lips, brought a smile
that took all the lines of cruelty from his mouth. He drew her arm
through his, where it stayed, cold, but unresisting.
Leslie stood, staring straight in front of her, until a burst of wild
music brought her mind back to earth again.
A procession was winding its way through the gloom beyond the arches,
all wearing straight black gowns. Leslie guessed them to be priests.
There were perhaps fifty of them, headed by an old man carrying a tray
of carved ebony on which reposed a wreath of golden stars, a crown
similar to the one worn by the girl-queen, Irena.
From the shadow a voice chanted some old, weird melody, wild and
haunting. Now and again, thousands answered it in a chorus that was
deafening.
As Leslie watched the approaching procession of priests, it seemed to
her they looked at her in anything but a friendly manner--almost as if
they hated her. Quite different from the way the black soldiers used
to look at her when she went with her cousin among his people. She
glanced up at him, wondering if he had noticed it. But he had eyes for
her and nothing else.
“What is it, dearest?” he asked, when their eyes met.
“I shall be glad when it’s all over.”
“It will soon come to an end,” he whispered.
Leslie wondered whether it would be a month, a year, or whether old
age would come before the debt was settled and a welcome death claimed
her.
At the foot of the steps leading to the rocky throne where she and
Lebrassa stood, the procession halted. Silence fell on the multitude.
A silence broken only by the crackle of the flames as the assembly
stood waiting for the high-priest to begin the ceremony.
Then Mhaki’s voice came.
“Hail, Essel, Sultan of Kallu. Lord of Doomana. Ruler of the Night.
Heir of all Darkness. Hail, Star, Bride of the Night, set to shine
high on the Throne of Night, a gift from the Sultan to his people.”
Leslie was aware that her cousin drew her in front of him, holding her
close against him.
Over her head his voice came thundering.
“Hail, all Kallu. A Star has risen to shine in the Heart of Darkness.”
Next came Mhaki’s voice.
Mounting half-way up the steps, he stood facing the crowd, holding on
high the glittering crown.
“See, all Kallu! What is set above the night, as night is set above
the earth?”
“The stars. And a star was sent to earth to wed with the one who first
ruled in Kallu, in the shadow of the Night, as Lord of Doomana. And to
his heirs, forever, a star. Our Sultan has chosen, and we would see
him crown her.”
Question and answer came like the repetition of some old formula.
The high-priest’s voice again wailed through the temple.
“The Sultan has chosen, and we would see him crown her.”
There was a touch of menace in Mhaki’s voice that made one or two of
the dusky warriors glance at him sharply. But Lebrassa had eyes and
ears only for the girl within his arms.
As the high-priest mounted higher, to bow before the Sultan and the
Star of his choice, holding the crown on its ebony salver, there was a
stir among the shrouded figures of the priests forming the circle
immediately in front of the warriors.
When Lebrassa took the crown and placed it on Leslie’s head, a sort of
sigh passed through them, like an indrawn, hissing breath. Then it
died away, and all eyes were fixed on him as he stood proudly smiling
over her small head where golden stars now glittered. Over the murmur
of the seething crowd, above the crackle and roar of the bonfires, his
voice came, loud, arrogant, and all-commanding.
“Is there no greeting for my Queen?”
Ten thousand voices answered him.
“We are star-worshipers, we spawn of the night. In Kallu there is
always welcome for such as she.”
As the volume of sound died away, from one corner came a solitary
burst of hyena’s laughter. Ten thousand took up the wild war cry. The
great hall trembled as the roar thundered through it. Long after
Lebrassa’s hand was raised for silence the sound came echoing up from
the darkness, to die away in a feeble, jeering laugh and a final
sobbing sigh.
There was silence again, a silence that hissed and whispered.
Then, once more, the high-priest spoke:
“In Kallu there is always welcome for such as she. Red welcome.”
It did not need the added phrase to bring Lebrassa’s eyes from Leslie
to the black face watching him in fanatical hatred. The menace of the
voice had reached him before the clause of Mhaki’s own adding.
Before he had time to say or do anything, almost before the words had
left the high-priest’s lips, a hundred voices bellowed:
“Traitor!”
The word was one that raised all the wild beast in the Kalluians. Who
and what the traitor was no one knew, save fifty priests and the same
number of probationers attached to the temple. The word had come. It
raised the blood-lust of a crowd already excited almost beyond bounds.
A savage roar went up, demanding the name of the traitor, and his
death for daring to desecrate the Sultan’s nuptials with his presence.
The mass surged up to Lebrassa as he stood with surprise, savage anger
and a glint of uneasiness on his face.
They stopped at the foot of the throne, not aware the one they sought
was there, demanding that the Sultan should deliver this traitor into
their hands. Their sudden onward rush swallowed up the priests, who
went through the seething crowd whispering, insinuating, hinting.
No name was said, only one sentence.
“The daughter of the murderer is here.”
In the writhing mist and smoke and darkness no one knew where the
words came from. They were whispered from the shadows, murmured out of
the blackness, echoed through the vaulted arches. From mouth to mouth
the words went.
There were men among the soldiers who remembered an argument between
the Sultan and his cousin, Nanza, more than eighteen months before, in
a hut near Calabar, five hundred miles away: an argument concerning
the identity of two white women. They numbered only twenty-eight of
the warriors, but what they said was listened to and repeated again
and again, till ten thousand heard it.
In less than a quarter of an hour what had been an orderly crowd was a
wild pandemonium. Question and answer were hurled out of the mist and
smoke and shadows.
Then an ominous lull fell on the surging mass. The wild shouts died
down to thick, hoarse growls. All eyes were turned on Lebrassa. His
voice came thundering through the vast hall.
“By all darkness! What madness has seized you?”
He stood a picture of unbridled savagery and arrogance, enraged beyond
measure, conscious of Leslie’s heart thumping in wild terror beneath
his hand. He realized that some inkling of who she really was had
reached Kallu. He never doubted but what he could quell the riot. But
he did not know the extent and completeness of the evidence against
him.
As yet no one had set foot on the Throne of Night. Lebrassa’s voice
and attitude held those immediately beneath in check.
Over the growl of the multitude Mhaki’s voice answered, coming from
the crowd just below.
“What madness has seized _you_, Essel, Sultan of Kallu, that you would
set the daughter of your mother’s murderer on the Throne of Night? A
gift of the Sultan to his people. A gift you promised full twenty
years ago. But a gift of vengeance, of blood, an offering to Doomana.
Not a star to shine as Queen of Kallu. There is a law which says,
‘Death to all traitors.’”
No savage roar greeted the word now. The growl died away to a
whispering hiss. The multitude stood with strained ears, awaiting
their Sultan’s defense.
“What madness has seized you in your dotage, Mhaki, that you accuse
_me_, your Sultan, of black treachery? Death to you that you should
dare to foul the name of the Star now shining over Kallu. Say, dogs,
do you stand quiet and hear your leader called a traitor? By Mhaki
who, with his own eyes, saw the daughter of the murderer die. Shot by
Cooper, her husband.”
Lebrassa’s appeal to the soldiers had its effect. A roar greeted him.
With a wild rush the warriors swept toward the high-priest, who stood
surrounded by his supporters. It was just as well Mhaki had retired
beyond his master’s reach. After his accusations he had backed down
the steps of the throne and a surge of his friends and followers had
swallowed him up. Had he remained within the Sultan’s reach the royal
hand might have choked him.
Until order was restored, Lebrassa dared not leave the high rock where
he was standing. He did not know what the mob might do to Leslie if
she were left alone. He did not think about his own danger. As once
before all his wits were concentrated on saving the girl he held
pressed close against him in fierce protection. He thought he could
keep the surging mass immediately beneath in check until the soldiers
cleared a way so that he could get her out of the temple and in some
place of safety. Then he would return and pacify the mob.
As he watched, the oncoming soldiers wavered, hesitated, came on
uncertainly and then stopped altogether.
Lebrassa had reckoned without the women who had been gathered in the
shadows beyond the lights. Chaos had brought them out among the men. A
fortnight of wild revelry had preceded the Sultan’s marriage. This had
given the hearts of the dusky warriors very much into the keeping of
their womenfolk. Black hands could cling and hinder and make their
power felt just as easily as white ones on men who were husbands,
sweethearts and would-be lovers. The women clustering around the
soldiers had fathers and brothers among the priests, and they had no
wish to see their relatives killed. They clung to the arms of the
soldiers, pleading and imploring, whispering that what Mhaki said
might be true, that love plays havoc with the hearts of men, and the
Sultan was but human, begging them to talk matters out quietly, to
have no bloodshed. And all the time the priests were talking,
whispering no longer, but declaring plainly that Nanza had returned
and had brought proof beyond all doubt of the Sultan Essel’s
treachery.
The soldiers’ halt left Lebrassa aghast. Through the babel of sound
separate voices reached him. He heard how the news had come to Kallu
and who had brought it, and he realized how poor was his chance of
quelling the riot.
There was but one way of saving Leslie.
He glanced round calculatingly, knowing he could keep the mob in check
for a few moments, sufficiently long to carry out the plan of escape
that had come to him.
But first he desired a personal interview with Mhaki--to get within
touch of the high-priest and silence that worthy for ever. But before
doing this, he wanted to have Leslie where she could not see him act
according to the instincts of his savage ancestors.
He was a picture of sultanic fury as he stood thundering for the
silence he was gradually obtaining.
Over the mad babel his voice was heard at last.
“Who is the cur that heads this rabble? Let him come forward and prove
his statements. If what he says is true, then I have been deceived
about this girl I would make my wife.”
At his words a listening silence fell on the horde. To Mhaki’s face
there came an expression of relief. But Nanza, disguised as one of the
shrouded temple probationers, shrank back into the shadows.
Breathless silence reigned as the Sultan’s defense went on.
“Mhaki saw the murderer’s daughter die. A woman who told me her father
was the man who slew Irena. And I thought then that she did not know
who I was. But if what Mhaki says is true, then she knew me, what my
motive was, and misled me purposely. For the woman whom I thought to
be the daughter of that foul murderer was smitten with a disease that
made her days numbered. Moreover, she had a friend whom she loved
beyond all else--the Star I would have set to shine over Kallu. If the
news my cousin Nanza has brought is true, then the woman who is dead
deceived me purposely, hoping to save her friend. If it can be proved
that Bhessu’s wife was not the child of the murderer, but it is her
friend whose blood is wanted, she who is with me now as my bride, say,
all Kallu, would there be anything but hatred in my heart, and a
desire to deal with her as her father dealt with my mother? I, also,
would know the truth. If all Mhaki says is fair and just, proof past
all doubting, no plot of his and Nanza’s, then there will be no love
in my heart for the Star, but hatred. And I will give her over to you
to do with as you please, and say I am a fool, I, the Sultan of Kallu,
to be so deceived by a woman.”
The explanation sent the crowd surging over to Lebrassa’s side.
Even the high-priest’s fanatical old heart was eased. The son of his
beloved Irena was no traitor after all! But a man deluded by a woman,
ensnared by the beauty of another as is ever the lot of man, not
knowing who and what she really was.
Lebrassa watched the effect of his words on the crowd surging beneath
the rock where he stood alone with the girl he was endeavoring to
save. As he watched he made a gradual backward movement toward the
brooding shape that loomed behind him, so slowly that in the
flickering shadows it was hardly noticeable.
Just as Mhaki reached the foot of the steps the mulatto touched some
point in the carved mass behind him, at the same time assuming a stiff
unnatural position as though both feet and one elbow were working for
some desired effect. There was a heavy stealthy noise as of a great
stone moving. Leslie felt herself being lowered with quick haste and a
voice whispered:
“Have no fear, little cousin, go straight on and I’ll join you.”
By then the unsuspecting priest had reached the top of the steps. The
mulatto sprang forward, seized him in the grip of a madman, swung him
on high, then dashed him with all his giant strength down against the
black rock.
The roar of ten thousand wild beasts greeted this action. But Mhaki
lay quite still, his sharp old brains bespattered about the Throne of
Night, the only person, besides Lebrassa, who knew how to open the
entrance to the Chamber of Musing, or who knew where, in the forest,
was the door of the secret way leading from it.
Lebrassa turned to join Leslie, his idea being to take her on through
the passage, and out into the forest, trusting to his own great
strength, skill, cunning and savage lore to make his way through the
wilderness until he reached what would be a place of safety for her,
the first British outpost more than two hundred miles away.
As he turned to open the rock again, which had swung to the moment his
hand left it, Nanza drew a revolver from beneath his cloak and fired
wildly.
One shot reached home. Just as Lebrassa was about to move the rock
again and join Leslie in her temporary refuge, he reeled and fell,
lamed by a bullet through his ankle. He was up again almost at once,
but just too late. Before he could reach sanctuary fifty hands seized
him and dragged him down as he fought with the strength of Samson and
the fury of a mad elephant.
In spite of everything there was a small orderly section in the mob.
The hands holding Lebrassa were mostly priestly ones; the probationers
formed a circle around him, keeping off the herd bellowing for his
life.
Over the pandemonium Nanza’s voice came thundering. The fact of his
presence sent a further howl echoing through the vast hall--a howl of
welcome. A call for silence went round. Gradually the wild babel died
down and his voice was heard.
“Hail, all Kallu. The truth has come, and with it the death of a
Sultan. My cousin would have us think he knew not that the Star was
the daughter of Irena’s murderer. Are we fools to be beguiled by such
a tale? If what he said was true, why did he hide the girl, and then
kill the high-priest, Mhaki? He lied to you and killed Mhaki in order
to save himself and her, for only he and Mhaki knew that beyond lies a
secret passage leading to the heart of the forest. And only he and
Mhaki knew the secret that moves the stone. Does not all this prove
that he knew who and what the girl was, and that it was his intention
to defraud you of the blood that is your due?”
This speech resulted in a further dash to reach Lebrassa who now lay,
bound and helpless, surrounded by a guard sufficiently strong to keep
the rabble at bay.
Over their fury Nanza’s voice came again.
“You would give him an easy death,” he cried. “Not one worthy of
Kallu. Let me ask him if he is willing to give the Star back into our
keeping, and we will deal with him according to his answer.”
Nanza turned to his prostrate cousin.
“Tell me, Essel, the secret that moves Doomana, that I may enter and
bring back the Star to shine over Kallu. A gift from the Sultan to his
people.”
There was no reply.
The mulatto’s eyes blazed back at his tormentor as he writhed in a
giant effort to burst his bonds and reach the one responsible for his
capture. He was in an agony of helplessness at the thought of Leslie
alone in the rock chamber, yet he knew that death by slow starvation
would be preferable to the one this mob would deal out to her if she
fell into their hands.
“See, he will tell me nothing,” Nanza cried. “What shall we do? Shall
we persuade him?”
There was order now, the order of a multitude all of one mind.
The throne was cleared of all except Nanza, half a dozen priests and
the prisoner. Wild figures rushed round the circle, mending and poking
fires the happenings of the last hour had allowed to smolder
unattended. There must be light--light to show what was about to
happen.
The fires blazed up on a mass of figures, all squatted on their
haunches, with the lurid light playing on their black, shining skins
and eyes that had an inward red gleam fixed on the square rock, high
above, where another fire gleamed.
Through the waiting hall Nanza’s voice came, full of savagery and
hate.
“Tell us, my cousin, how to reach the Star set to shine over Kallu? We
would have her in our midst, this Light from the Skies.”
There was a long pause, but no reply.
The question came again, but it still met with no answer.
At a gesture from Nanza, one of the priests drew a red hot bar of iron
from the fire.
A moment later there was a faint hissing sound, and with it came the
smell of live flesh scorching. This was followed by a laugh, loud,
arrogant and defiant. Nanza’s voice came again.
“Come, Essel, son of my mother’s sister. Give us the Star. We are
anxious to welcome our Queen.”
Again there was no response. And again there came that sickly,
scorching smell.
Another laugh followed, but it died away in a stifled groan.
A crowd sat and watched, but there was no laughter now, only the smell
of scorching flesh and a sort of suppressed panting.