THE PRIEST OF THE MEGATHERIUM
As far as the eye can reach, the shore is covered with a forest, such as
only the most extravagant fancy can picture to itself. Broad shadowy
trees, which take root again in the soil with their branches, seem to be
building huge temples, with living rows of columns, whose roof is the
thick dark foliage, whose ornaments are the flowers of the ivy-like
creepers which climb up the branches, and look down from their heights
with a thousand wide-open blue and scarlet shining eyes. The hedges
consist of tiny silvery bushes, with rosy red pointed branches, and the
lofty grasses with their woolly spear-heads shoot up so high, that a
tall man walking amongst them would not overtop them. Here and there
above the arcades of the dark bananas, tower groups of cocoanut palms,
those gigantic flowers, with their huge calices of fruit, most noble of
the Creator's works, for they only raise their heads the higher for
their heavy burdens, and bear with modesty the crown which He has given
them.
On the top of one of these palms squats a human shape, engaged in
pitching down from thence the nuts, each as big as a child's head; but
below, at the foot of the trees, amongst the luxuriant grasses, lies a
gigantic megatherium, which in its recumbent position is scarcely
distinguishable from a shapeless mass of rock. Its length is fully four
and twenty feet; in shape it resembles a sloth, and its unshapely back
rises like a small hillock out of the lofty grasses whilst it thrusts
its huge head with the tiny eyes and the little round ears into the
thicket. The whole of the huge body is cased in a brown warty skin,
traversed by deep furrows, and covered round the loins by hundreds of
small sea-mussels, the fruits of its evening wallowings in the
sea-slime; only the beast's nostrils, ears, and the point of its short
tail are sprinkled with sharp, tough bristles.
The sea-farer from Tyre had no sooner brought his beloved and the Ark of
the Covenant ashore, than he fell with his face to the ground, thanked
the Lord for his wondrous deliverance, and reverentially sang a song of
praise.
At the sound of this song, the monster, prone in the grass, raised its
unwieldy head, and opening its frightful jaws, uttered a protracted,
screeching roar, which was more like a wail of distress than a note of
defiance.
In his first alarm Bar Noemi grasped his sword, and his heart beat
quickly as he saw this huge head, with its neck twelve feet long,
stretched out towards him; but immediately afterwards he let his sword
glide back into its sheath, and stroking Byssenia's light locks as she
clung trembling to him, calmly soothed and encouraged her. "Fear not!
The teeth of this monster are blunt and black. He is a plant eater, and
does not attack men. Such like monsters live also in Migraim, in the
great ocean, where they are called 'Behemoth,' though they are not so
monstrously big."
The man in the tree had, in the mean time, perceived the strangers, and
after throwing a few more cocoanuts into the jaws of the monster below,
he clambered down from the tree.
The megatherium grew calmer; its jaws sank to the ground again, and it
crunched the hard nuts with its teeth as if they had been grains of
corn.
The man threw a few more nuts into its jaws, which attention the monster
accepted with the same stupid helplessness with which fledglings, a day
or two old, allow their dam to feed them, uttering at the same time a
grunt of lazy satisfaction.
And now the man approached Bar Noemi.
He was a wretched-looking object. His head and cheeks were quite
hairless; his wrinkled face was of a sickly grey tinge; his limbs seemed
to be wasting away; his back was crooked; his knee was bent outwards,
his chest inwards. Although it was a hot summer day, he seemed to be
freezing, despite the thick fur mantle in which he was closely wrapped.
Bar Noemi's astonishment increased when he was addressed by this strange
shape, in that out-of-the-way corner of the world, in a corrupt but
perfectly intelligible Carthaginian dialect.
"Thou hast come from Carthage, eh?"
"Yes, we come from Carthage," repeated Bar Noemi, "and have suffered
shipwreck. But who art thou, and how is it that thou dost address us in
our own language?"
The man shivered in the warmth of the equinoctial summer, and wrapping
himself closer in his woollen mantle, which was interwoven with gold and
silver flowers, he came still closer. It was evidently a labour for him
to speak to them from a distance, for his voice was not strong enough to
do so without very great exertion.
"If you come from Carthage, you must have heard of Hanno's tables, for
though it is forbidden to as much as mention them there under pain of
death, they must be known to every Carthaginian, for thousands have
already come from Africa's coasts to the Fortunate Islands as Hanno
called this continent."
"Then we are on the Fortunate Islands?" cried Bar Noemi, who had often
heard the legend from the lips of his sailors.
"This is no island, but a continent ten times as large as the continent
beyond the seas. Those who dwell on one side of it do not even know the
names of those who dwell on the other. The boldest travellers do not yet
know the boundaries of this continent, and whatsoever direction they
take they always come upon new lands, new mountains, and new peoples, a
hundred-fold more numerous than those of Rome and Greece put together,
as described by them who come from thence. The Fortunate Islands have no
limit, they are infinity itself."
"And does the land really deserve to be called fortunate?"
"Throw thyself to the ground and kiss it. This land is the Paradise
where everything for which men toil and labour elsewhere, grows of its
own accord. One tree bears wool whiter than the wool of sheep; in the
flowers of another tree you will find sweet honey; a third gives milk
and butter which is fatter than the milk of cows; and yon branches which
nod their heads towards thee supply in abundance wine and bread and
luscious fruits. And then, too, each one of our natural juices has its
own peculiar intoxicating joy. The sleep-compelling juice of the Areka
transports thee into very Paradise; drink thyself drunken with the sweet
juice of the Batata, and the love of a thousand women at once will burn
in thy breast; drink deeply of the burnt beans of the coffee plant, and
thou wilt feel two souls within thee instead of one; whilst all the
other joys of life are as nothing compared with the ecstatic vibrations
which thrill through every nerve when thou dost taste of the fermented
juice of the sugar-cane. Ah! stranger, here are a thousand different
kinds of bliss which other lands wot not of. Shame it is that one cannot
live longer. Shame that life vanishes like a dream. I myself am not far
from my dotage, for thirty summers have already passed over my head!"
Bar Noemi felt very dejected. Thirty years in this place actually mean
old age! And certainly this man resembled a dotard of seventy; he was a
bent and broken-down old man with nothing of the dignity of age about
him. His own words seemed to have deeply afflicted him, and despite the
great heat, he was shivering. By his side hung a round ivory vessel the
gold stopper of which he unscrewed, and taking a good pull at it, handed
the bottle to Bar Noemi.
But the young man would none of it. "I drink of the running stream,"
said he.
The native of the Fortunate Islands laughed. The liquor he had just
taken instantly flew to his cheeks and forehead, bringing out large red
patches which grew redder every moment. His eyes sparkled with that
offensive glare which betokens madness. With an embarrassed leer he
turned towards Byssenia, and regardless of her husband's presence, thus
addressed her: "Pretty lady! do not stay with that moody water-drinker!
Come with me, and I'll steep thee in delights. I am a beauteous, ardent
youth; my lips are honey, my heart a flaming fire. Forsake this beggar,
and come to me, for I am a rich man. I'll give thee a gold ring for
every one of thy golden hairs, and for thy glistening eyes thou shalt
have two gleaming carbuncle stones. I'll bring thee into my palace whose
top is lost in the clouds, whose lofty golden cupola compels the very
sun to change his course. Have no fear of this husband of thine. I am a
strong, invincible hero! With a single wave of my hand I can dash him to
the ground"--and for all these brave words, the wretched creature could
scarce keep his feet, and his hands trembled like aspens.
Bar Noemi stepped back with a shudder, at the same time throwing his
arms round his beloved, who, full of disgust, concealed her face from
the repulsive figure before her.
Again the megatherium raised his head and uttered a roar. He was
hungry.
This roar brought the islander back to his senses. He quickly shut up
his drinking-flask and tottered back to the monster, which opened wide
its jaws while he was still a long way off, showed its large black
fangs, and patiently awaited the great cocoanuts which the man,
collecting from the earth, hurled into its jaws.
Byssenia would have fled from the uncanny sight, but Bar Noemi
encouraged her to await the end of the scene. "The fellow is disgusting
when drunk," said he, "but there is no cause for alarm; perhaps he will
listen to reason when he is sober."
The exertion of feeding the monster gradually drove the fumes of the
liquor out of the man's head. After a while, the megatherium stretched
itself in the grass and went to sleep, whereupon the man, now sober,
came back, showing the same pale and trembling countenance as before--in
fact, his labour had so exhausted him that he was almost in a state of
collapse, and in a faint voice he begged Bar Noemi to lend him his arm
and help him on his way to the city where he would entertain them as his
guests. Only with great repugnance did Bar Noemi take the arm of the
young old man, but, at the same time, he could not forbear from asking
the question: "What hideous beast is that which thou art at so much
pains to feed?"
The old young man looked at him with consternation.
"Oh, stranger, guard thy lips, and speak not so, for that which thou
callest a beast is a god!"
"What!" cried Bar Noemi, wrathfully, "that bellowing monster, with
divided hoofs, blotched and cracked hide and loathsome body, a god!"
"Yea, in very truth," answered the man, in a tone of awe and reverence.
"Every city here has a living god whom all the people serve in turn--I
to-day, another to-morrow. Each one of them has as many priests as there
are days in the year. When our fathers came hither, centuries ago, these
superhuman beings ruled the whole land and their favour could only be
won by sacrifice, submission, and prayer. Since then, all the
first-fruits of the land have belonged to them, the best of the bread,
of the fruit, nay, even the first-born of man and beast are offered to
them, for they are the Lords over this land who never die."
Bar Noemi sighed.
"Would that I were in a rudderless ship on a stormy sea rather than on
this accursed rock."
Thereupon he reverentially raised the Ark of the Covenant on to his
head, seized Byssenia's arm with his right hand and the hilt of his
sword with his left, and when the old young man asked him what was
inside the case which he carried on his shoulders with so much care, he
answered--
"It contains a treasure, the like of which is not to be found in the
whole empire of the Fortunate Islands. This is the only treasure in the
whole land."
And as he went, his thoughts ran on. "And she whom my right hand holds
is the only true woman, and the sword in my left hand is the only true
weapon in the whole of the Fortunate Islands, for my heart tells me that
there is not a single man beneath this sun."
And the old young man led them towards the city.