I noticed an entering figure darken the patch of sunlight formed by
the open door at the other end of the byre. It was Mr Davies returned
from his fern cutting and now bent on an inspection of his stock. He
saw nothing unusual however in my seeking thus the society of his new
servant, who was now diligently cleaning the racks overhead. I delayed
for a few minutes' talk with the farmer before bidding him good-morning
and walking back to the inn.
In the verandah I found Dr Wayne smoking a pipe and enjoying the rare
sunshine of this fleeting St Luke's Summer. We smiled at one another as
I passed within, but I did not pause to converse, for I was impatient
to open my concealed parcel. So I went upstairs and seated myself on
a chair in the full light shed from the open window. Having unwound
some folds of cloth I extricated the mirror of which Fajal had spoken,
and found it to be a moderate-sized rectangular piece of thick glass
without any frame and offering no peculiarity of aspect. Taking it in
both my hands and in full glare of the sunlit window, I set to gaze
intently in the expectation of some development whose nature I already
half divined. As I prepared for this careful inspection of myself, or
rather my counterfeit, I recalled to mind a picture I had seen years
ago in the Wiertz Museum in what was then the capital of the Belgian
kingdom, representing a youthful courtesan of the Mid-Victorian
era stripped bare to the waist and contemplating herself in a
cheval-glass. But in the painter's canvas the glass itself returned no
true image of her comely complacent face and her swelling breasts, but
in their stead a leering female skeleton, a revelation that seemed in
no wise to shake the lady's composure. So in my own case I had a shrewd
premonition I was destined to receive some shock of this nature out of
the innocent-looking mirror lately presented to me. Of this shadowy
encounter before me however I experienced no dread; very possibly
the glass would reveal to me my own anatomy as a suitable _memento
mori_ to dissipate any lingering notions I might still entertain as
to the undesirability of prolonging my life by a refusal to return to
Meleager. But why, I asked myself, should I be afraid to survey my own
basic framework? Are we not all mere skeletons clothed in an exiguous
garment of skin and tissue, and animated by some mysterious internal
engine which keeps intact the fleshy envelope and supplies the motive
power of mind and muscle?
The perfectly smooth complexion that confronted my inquiring look
suggested nothing save the early stages of manhood, though there was
perceptible in the eyes a weary nervous expression, that hinted at a
youth marred or tempered by experience and disillusion. Many minutes
must have been occupied in contemplation of this beautiful and yet
spurious specimen of juvenile physiognomy before I began to note a very
slight alteration in the skin and outlines of the face before me; tiny
delicate pencillings like the ghosts of hoar-frost tracery were forming
below the lids and at the corners of the temples; the rotundity of
the cheeks seemed to shrink; queer vindictive lines started here and
there on the countenance, spoiling its fixed impression of repose and
announcing anxiety and discontent. I grew overwhelmingly interested in
this whimsical exhibition of scientific magic (if I may so describe
it); of alarm or disgust I felt no scintilla as yet, so absorbed was I
in my attitude of inquisitive observation. Having once declared itself
visibly, this metamorphosis of the face seemed to develop more rapidly;
the skin was bereft of its freshness and became sallow and somewhat
transparent; I could tell the staring bones within, and the contours
of the skull were clearly defined. The hair had lost its sheen, and
the throat its firmness and fulness. But it no more horrified me to
detect my own skeleton peeping forth through the imprisoning flesh
than it would have startled me to see my naked body on stripping to
bathe. Whatever might be my final decision, whether to remain on
Earth and perish, or to proceed to Meleager and live, Fajal's device
could exercise no sort of influence over my well-ordered mind. It was
uncanny, unwholesome, unnatural; but as a practical argument for its
acknowledged purpose it must prove utterly unavailing, and was in truth
almost childish in its conception.
I was still absorbed in watching this phenomenon of the disunion of
body and bones with complete unconcern, when my nimble imagination
suddenly darted into a diverse channel of speculation. From my present
medical or scientific abstraction I found myself sharply recalling
Benozzo Gozzoli's frescoes in the Campo Santo of Pisa, wherein are
depicted for the edification of the careless Christian the three stages
of human decay after death. It was a morbid but persistent theme, and
not only did I fail to exclude it from my unwilling brain, but other
paintings and representations equally or even more gruesome, such as
the decadent artists of the days of the later Medicean princes loved
to depict, arose to my prolific fancy. I recalled Zumbo's horrible
wax figures, exhibiting at once the loathsome corruption of the flesh
and the exquisite torments of hell-fire, wherewith a certain Tuscan
Grand Duchess was wont to stimulate to self-denying piety a mind
engrossed by the pomps of rank and riches. With these unwelcome but
spontaneous memories there now supervened a physical sensation that
was most repugnant. The room itself, despite the fresh sea breeze
and the cheerful sunshine, grew close and oppressive; there arose an
intolerable smell of putrefaction, the unmistakable bouquet of the
charnel-house; and this insidious encroaching odour filled my whole
being with a sense of disgust that I found impossible to expel.
Meanwhile in the mirror itself the process of disintegration was
advancing apace. At first I sought to ignore the changing tints of
the rotting flesh and the entry of the worms and other vermin of
the abandoned dead, and haply I might have succeeded in my mental
struggle, had it not been for the increasing and well-nigh overpowering
stench of the tomb which seemed to gather and enfold me in its dank
miasmatic embrace. The pure light of the sunlit room had yielded to
a dingy crepuscule, in which alone was plainly visible that accursed
rectangle of glass with its surface churning out horror upon horror
not only for the retina but also for the nostrils. And in the midst of
this dissolving creeping mutating picture of human corruption there
still shone out intact the feverish unfaded eyes that were stretched
wide with a blank despair. I searched and searched with questioning
dilated pupils their awful counterparts in the cruel glass, as though
I were striving to force them to surrender up their appalling secret.
At length I seemed to obtain the solution I sought yet dreaded to
receive: it was Finality. What I saw being enacted before me by proxy
was my own fate, my utter blotting out from the page of life, and not
a mere stage, painful and ugly doubtless, but nevertheless only an
intermediate stage to another phase of existence, as I had hitherto
devoutly held. At last I realised that my own appointed portion was
but this mean trilogy: the grave, corruption and nothingness; for the
Hereafter owned no longer any concern with myself, the amphibian of
two worlds, who had evaded his manifest duties alike on Earth and in
Meleager. I remembered with a shudder Fajal's solemn warning as to the
dire effects of that youth-bestowing and yet death-dealing fountain
wherein I had so often been immersed. Was it really so? Had I in my
flight from my kingdom lost that priceless yet elusive endowment, the
soul? A faint gleam of hope in the midst of my terror shot suddenly
into the mirk of my anguish, when I recalled Anzoni's farewell greeting
to myself and his expressed desire for a mutual meeting in the halls of
the Hereafter. Ah, but then Anzoni had assumed I was going to meet my
fate like a hero, and had no intention of slinking back to Earth!
Thus, despite this vague consoling thought, this clutching at a fescue
in the whirlpool of my despair, I became obsessed with a fierce longing
and determination at all costs to cheat death and to cling to every
chance that is vital and physical. Fajal's mission had triumphed. I
grew frenzied at the fearful prospect adumbrated for me on this glassy
screen; I was frantic to quit the Earth, and equally frantic to stake
anything and everything on a second translation to Meleager. I tried
to dash the mirror from my hands, only to discover that, like Medea's
poisoned coronet, the accursed thing clung to the flesh of my palms
and fingers, and refused to be shaken off. In my madness of terror I
screamed aloud, and with the glass still adhering like burning wax to
my skin I dashed myself against the wall repeatedly till I shattered
to atoms the devilish instrument of torture in my ravings.
* * * * *
I can call to mind nothing further until I returned to sufficient
consciousness again to see Dr Wayne's anxious and expectant face
bent over me, as I lay prone on the boards surrounded by a mass of
glittering fragments and splinters. My hands were cut and bleeding,
but already the kind Doctor was tending them with some soothing
antiseptic, and the pain was endurable. I allowed myself to be enticed
to bed, where I passed the remainder of the day recovering from the
double shock of mind and body I had so lately sustained. As usual, Dr
Wayne spoke very little, and though his honest face betrayed his keen
curiosity over my latest adventure, he asked no questions, and indeed
scarcely ventured any comment, except the remark that there was a most
peculiar scent of violets in the room, which was odd, seeing it was
mid-October.
Violets!
XI
It required two or three days of repose and nursing before I could
recover from my recent shock and the injuries to my hands. When at
last I was sufficiently restored to leave the house for a walk, I felt
small inclination to proceed to Pen Maelgwyn, and after hesitating as
to my direction I eventually turned my steps towards a small beach that
nestled below the northern promontory of the bay. In this sheltered
fissure of the coast I used sometimes to sit on the shaly rocks covered
with soft tussocks of faded sea-pinks, or else used to linger by the
tide idly seeking amongst the wet shining pebbles for stray moss-agates
or the tiny cowries like roseate pearls that a westerly gale invariably
cast on these shores. Accordingly I followed a path towards this cove
and descended the cart track that finally lost itself in the dry sand
and globular boulders of the upper portion of this little haven. On
advancing thus far I perceived to my surprise and annoyance that I
should not obtain solitary possession of my accustomed haunt, for close
to the water's edge stood a horse and cart; whilst I could detect the
grating sound of shovelling sea-gravel by some person who for the
moment was hidden by the cart itself. I strolled down the long narrow
space to discover with a start of astonishment that the individual
occupied in digging the gravel was none other than Fajal. He seemed in
no wise disconcerted at my apparition, but merely continued to ply his
task till I almost touched him, when he immediately dropped his spade
and sank on his knees amidst the dripping stones and weeds. He then
proceeded to kiss my hands, my knees, and even my feet, but of this
behaviour I took no heed.
"I have examined my face in your mirror, Fajal----" I began.
"Your Majesty has no need to tell this to your servant," replied he,
with a sad, weary smile on his face, which expressed neither pleasure
nor interest in my statement.
"--And I am now wholly convinced of the necessity for my immediate
return to Meleager," continued I, rather nettled by Fajal's nonchalance.
"A few minutes' study of self in its surface is of more avail than a
month spent in book-lore or close meditation," retorted Fajal dryly.
"It is our last resource, our irresistible argument, although to the
best of my knowledge there has never arisen any occasion to resort to
it hitherto. Yet you perceive we are fore-armed in Meleager against
every emergency, even for the case of a recalcitrant monarch who will
not return to the people he has deserted."
"I should never have deserted Meleager," I cried with some heat, "had
not your caste set before me the choice of death or flight."
"Your Majesty then holds that any deviation from the course of fixed
duty can be legitimately excused?" replied Fajal, arching his eyebrows.
"But this is neither the hour nor place to raise a thorny question
of political ethics which I look forward some day to discussing at
our leisure. I have only to regret that in the course of my mission
I have been compelled to perturb your Majesty so greatly in mind and
body before I could impress on you the inevitability of your return to
Meleager. It grieves and shames me to reflect that the arguments and
entreaties of myself and my colleagues here and in London should have
proved so futile and barren of success."
Fajal then gently took my hands in his, removed their wrappings of
lint, and from a box of salve carefully anointed the still sore and
angry flesh. (They were completely cured by the following morning.)
He then began to speak to me of many matters concerning my return
to Meleager and my subsequent duties there which I do not deem it
desirable to inscribe in this place, and he ended by enumerating the
arrangements already made for my second translation to my expectant
subjects.
"This very night," said he, "I shall be dismissed with ignominy from
Pen Maelgwyn. John Lewis, the old labourer, is already jealous and
hostile, and there will shortly arise a quarrel between us, wherein
I shall unsheathe this knife. A hubbub will then ensue; Mrs Davies
will uphold her servant, and Mr Davies, who seems less unworthy than
the majority of his type, will reluctantly consent to my immediate
dismissal. I shall be given my wages; I shall collect my humble store
of clothing; and at early dawn to-morrow I shall quit Pen Maelgwyn.
This day week, which will be the twenty-seventh day of the month, you
will prepare for my secret return. Wait until midnight in your room,
and then listen for the unmistakable call for your presence without
delay at the farthest point of the headland yonder. All will be in
readiness for your easy departure from the inn; even the lurcher in the
stable-yard will be silenced that night. Have no qualms or fears; your
Majesty will only have to traverse the two furlongs of ground between
the inn and the rocky cape, whereat our craft will rest till we have
embarked.
"One other matter however I wish your Majesty to understand. Is it not
the case that you dispatched a manuscript to Earth some three years
ago?" (I nodded assent.) "That scroll was duly delivered on Earth,
was found, read, discussed and printed, with the only possible result
that could arise therefrom. The person who gave your narrative to the
world was one Edward Cayley, a learned recluse, and he was naturally
only accounted a credulous fool for his pains. The book was certainly
published, and though the absurd venture scarcely deserved their
serious attention, our envoys here have contrived to destroy nearly all
copies of the volume. Perhaps also Cayley himself might have succumbed
later to some of our peculiar methods of removal, had he not suddenly
expired of the heart disease from which he had long suffered. The whole
matter of your communication from Meleager has however been entrusted
unconditionally to myself, and as I apprehend no danger whatsoever
from anything you may publish, it is open to you to act freely in this
connection. Here is Mr Cayley's book--keep it for any purpose you may
require. I assure your Majesty I fear no ill result will accrue either
from the late Mr Cayley's romance or from the manuscript which you
yourself" (here I gave a start of genuine astonishment) "have been
inditing almost daily in your chamber at Glanymôr. I cannot conceive
either the contemporary pleasure or the ultimate object of your
Majesty's constant occupation with the pen; it may be the old literary
bacillus of Earth that is not yet eradicated from your semi-divine
system; it may be some fanciful desire to benefit the planet of your
birth by showing its leaders that human happiness is not necessarily
involved in human progress, which is the fundamental error of these
modern Herthians; it may be that a sheer sense of humorous amusement
prompts you to this action. But whatsoever your goal, it is clear that
you intend to charge your excellent friend Dr Wayne with the editing
of your manuscript." (Again I gave an involuntary start.) "Be it so.
I have not the wish or the intention to thwart your Majesty in this
innocuous pastime; nor shall I seek to disappoint Dr Wayne in his
hungry expectation of the unveiling of the complicated enigma whose
nature he dimly realises. Indeed, I am anxious to do a service to that
interesting man, for whose hospitality to our errant King on Earth I
am grateful, and whose rare spiritual qualities I admire and respect.
Let him publish what you have written here in Glanymôr; what benefit
can happen to you or what injury to us from proclaiming such a farrago
of the impossible and the improbable? Very few will read the book, and
none will give credence to its contents. Yours is not so much a mad
world, as it has been arraigned by your leading poet, as an unbelieving
world, which rejects with fury of derision all evidence of whatsoever
is not obvious to its recognised scholars and astronomers."
I acquiesced in silence. It was astounding to me to learn that so
much was known of my most private concerns, and I saw little use in
arguing or asking questions. It was evident too that Fajal regarded my
return to Meleager as a settled matter past all debate, and this mental
admission induced in me a welcome sense of peace and deliverance.
Thus we stood on this misty solemn October afternoon beside the grey
placid sea, surely the most extraordinary pair of mortals--if as
mortals we could be faithfully so described--on the surface of the
globe. No sound save the regular silvery tinkle of the tiny waves
lapping on the beach and an occasional movement from the stolid
cart-horse beside us broke the spell of oppressive stillness, so that
when finally Fajal spoke, his voice seemed to proceed from some far-off
unseen place, which had no connection with our present environment.
"Has your Majesty no other aim than to escape the terrors of the grave
in thus deciding once more to exchange your Mother Earth for Meleager?
Do the loyalty and the prayers of your subjects weigh as nothing in the
scales of your predilection? Has your abandoned palace no remembered
charms? Our temple bells, our sunlit city, our shining harbour, our
dawns and our sunsets, do these count for naught? O King, have none
of the fibres of your once generous heart struck root in our soil?
Have you already forgotten your splendour, your kingdom, your people,
your friends in these few weeks spent upon your blood-soaked insurgent
Earth?"
With a look of sorrowful reproach accompanying these words of rebuke,
Fajal bade me examine a small tablet of crystal or of some transparent
substance that he held in the hollow of his left hand. I gladly lowered
my ashamed and burning face in its direction, but could perceive no
more than a mass of variegated colours that seemed to be perpetually
shifting and changing. I strained my eyes for long, vainly seeking to
identify any of the minute objects thus depicted, till at last I ceased
from the attempt in despair of success. With a sigh of resignation,
Fajal now presented me with a pair of large horn-rimmed spectacles,
which I adjusted to my eyes, with the immediate result that the scenes
in the crystal seemed enlarged and clarified. I saw distinctly my
palace at Tamarida with the warm sunbeams flickering on marble pillars
and dancing in golden bars on the frescoed vaulting; I saw the gardens,
cool and umbrageous, with their many fountains spurting their foamy
jets upon the drenched fronds of fern and palm; I saw my aery balcony
with its table of audience and faithful Hiridia standing disconsolate
beside my favourite chair; under the external awnings of blue and
yellow I saw the deep purple line of the harbour beyond the enclosing
balustrade. A veritable wave of nostalgia seemed to engulph me, as I
watched thus every familiar scene of my Meleagrian existence pass in
procession before my gaze.
As a lost soul might gaze on Paradise I beheld the pillared court of
the great temple displayed before me, with its sunlit space filled
with the usual throng of worshippers upon a holy day. There was the
medley of colours, like some huge bed of gorgeous tulips, the white of
the hierarchy, the crimson of the nobles, the green of the merchants,
and the many varied tints of the garments of the populace; what past
memories of my reign did not such a vision evoke in me! I fretted to
be gone, so as to regain that rich and varied crowd beneath that
glowing sky, to reassume my accustomed place of honour and adoration
in their midst. And then, even as I yearned, chafing at the ties which
still bound me to Earth, my companion was able to inflame yet further
my longing to return. With his disengaged right hand he searched
the pocket of his coat and a moment later I beheld in his fingers a
strange-looking instrument bearing some resemblance to the mystical
sistrum of ancient Egypt. Bidding me continue to fix my eyes on the
crystal before me, Fajal waved aloft this curved and stringed spherule,
whereupon a soft murmuring seemed to fill the languid heavy autumnal
air, and this muttering again developed into advancing waves of harmony
that concentrated in an ultimate crashing note of triumph in my very
face. The sounds now appeared to shrink and retreat, now to advance and
expand in volume, but after some moments of vague, desultory, erratic
come-and-go the music at length seemed to collect and pour as through
some invisible funnel into the actual crystal lying in Fajal's palm.
The ambient air was now completely free of its reverberations, and the
music subsided into moderate compass, convenable with the scale and
setting of the variegated scene that still lay exposed on the crystal
tablet. Finally, the compressed sound blended with the multitude of
figures in this miniature reproduction of the temple of Tamarida, so
that I could distinguish the articulation of the many worshippers as
well as the canticles of the choristers wafted from afar to my ears.
So might the Olympian Zeus in heroic days have heard the daily orisons
of his earth-born suppliants, and have sought for the sparse note of
sincerity amidst that vast uproar of human prayer ascending from a
thousand altars to his ivory throne set amidst the unattainable clouds
of highest heaven. But here from Meleager the issuing petition rang out
unanimous, solemn and unfeigned....