IN THE GATE
Oh! that rush through space! Folk falling thus are supposed to lose
consciousness, but I can assert that this is not true. Never were my
wits and perceptions more lively than while I travelled from that broken
glacier to the ground, and never did a short journey seem to take a
longer time. I saw the white floor, like some living thing, leaping up
through empty air to meet me, then--_finis!_
Crash! Why, what was this? I still lived. I was in water, for I could
feel its chill, and going down, down, till I thought I should never rise
again. But rise I did, though my lungs were nigh to bursting first. As I
floated up towards the top I remembered the crash, which told me that
I had passed through ice. Therefore I should meet ice at the surface
again. Oh! to think that after surviving so much I must be drowned like
a kitten and beneath a sheet of ice. My hands touched it. There it was
above me shining white like glass. Heaven be praised! My head broke
through; in this low and sheltered gorge it was but a film no thicker
than a penny formed by the light frost of the previous night. So I rose
from the deep and stared about me, treading water with my feet.
Then I saw the gladdest sight that ever my eyes beheld, for on the
right, not ten yards away, the water running from his hair and beard,
was Leo. Leo alive, for he broke the thin ice with his arms as he
struggled towards the shore from the deep river.[2] He saw me also, and
his grey eyes seemed to start out of his head.
[2] Usually, as we learned afterwards, the river at this
spot was quite shallow; only a foot or two in depth. It was
the avalanche that by damming it with fallen heaps of snow
had raised its level very many feet. Therefore, to this
avalanche, which had threatened to destroy us, we in reality
owed our lives, for had the stream stood only at its normal
height we must have been dashed to pieces upon the stones.
--L. H. H.
“Still living, both of us, and the precipice passed!” he shouted in a
ringing, exultant voice. “I told you we were led.”
“Aye, but whither?” I answered as I too fought my way through the film
of ice.
Then it was I became aware that we were no longer alone, for on the
bank of the river, some thirty yards from us, stood two figures, a man
leaning upon a long staff and a woman. He was a very old man, for his
eyes were horny, his snow-white hair and beard hung upon the bent breast
and shoulders, and his sardonic, wrinkled features were yellow as wax.
They might have been those of a death mask cut in marble. There, clad in
an ample, monkish robe, and leaning upon the staff, he stood still as
a statue and watched us. I noted it all, every detail, although at the
time I did not know that I was doing so, as we broke our way through the
ice towards them and afterwards the picture came back to me. Also I saw
that the woman, who was very tall, pointed to us.
Nearer the bank, or rather to the rock edge of the river, its surface
was free of ice, for here the stream ran very swiftly. Seeing this, we
drew close together and swam on side by side to help each other if need
were. There was much need, for in the fringe of the torrent the strength
that had served me so long seemed to desert me, and I became helpless;
numbed, too, with the biting coldness of the water. Indeed, had not Leo
grasped my clothes I think that I should have been swept away by the
current to perish. Thus aided I fought on a while, till he said--“I am
going under. Hold to the rope end.”
So I gripped the strip of yak’s hide that was still fast about him, and,
his hand thus freed, Leo made a last splendid effort to keep us both,
cumbered as we were with the thick, soaked garments that dragged us down
like lead, from being sucked beneath the surface. Moreover, he succeeded
where any other swimmer of less strength must have failed. Still, I
believe that we should have drowned, since here the water ran like a
mill-race, had not the man upon the shore, seeing our plight and urged
thereto by the woman, run with surprising swiftness in one so aged, to a
point of rock that jutted some yards into the stream, past which we were
being swept, and seating himself, stretched out his long stick towards
us.
With a desperate endeavour, Leo grasped it as we went by, rolling over
and over each other, and held on. Round we swung into the eddy, found
our feet, were knocked down again, rubbed and pounded on the rocks. But
still gripping that staff of salvation, to his end of which the old
man clung like a limpet to a stone, while the woman clung to him, we
recovered ourselves, and, sheltered somewhat by the rock, floundered
towards the shore. Lying on his face--for we were still in great
danger--the man extended his arm. We could not reach it; and worse,
suddenly the staff was torn from him; we were being swept away.
Then it was that the woman did a noble thing, for springing into the
water--yes, up to her armpits--and holding fast to the old man by
her left hand, with the right she seized Leo’s hair and dragged him
shorewards. Now he found his feet for a moment, and throwing one arm
about her slender form, steadied himself thus, while with the other he
supported me. Next followed a long confused struggle, but the end of it
was that three of us, the old man, Leo and I, rolled in a heap upon the
bank and lay there gasping.
Presently I looked up. The woman stood over us, water streaming from her
garments, staring like one in a dream at Leo’s face, smothered as it was
with blood running from a deep cut in his head. Even then I noticed how
stately and beautiful she was. Now she seemed to awake and, glancing
at the robes that clung to her splendid shape, said something to her
companion, then turned and ran towards the cliff.
As we lay before him, utterly exhausted, the old man, who had risen,
contemplated us solemnly with his dim eyes. He spoke, but we did not
understand. Again he tried another language and without success. A third
time and our ears were opened, for the tongue he used was Greek; yes,
there in Central Asia he addressed us in Greek, not very pure, it is
true, but still Greek.
“Are you wizards,” he said, “that you have lived to reach this land?”
“Nay,” I answered in the same tongue, though in broken words--since of
Greek I had thought little for many a year--“for then we should have
come otherwise,” and I pointed to our hurts and the precipice behind us.
“They know the ancient speech; it is as we were told from the Mountain,”
he muttered to himself. Then he asked--“Strangers, what seek you?”
Now I grew cunning and did not answer, fearing lest, should he learn
the truth, he would thrust us back into the river. But Leo had no such
caution, or rather all reason had left him; he was light-headed.
“We seek,” he stuttered out--his Greek, which had always been feeble,
now was simply barbarous and mixed with various Thibetan dialects--“we
seek the land of the Fire Mountain that is crowned with the Sign of
Life.”
The man stared at us. “So you know,” he said, then broke off and added,
“and _whom_ do you seek?”
“Her,” answered Leo wildly, “the Queen.” I think that he meant to say
the priestess, or the goddess, but could only think of the Greek for
Queen, or rather something resembling it. Or perhaps it was because the
woman who had gone looked like a queen.
“Oh!” said the man, “you seek a queen--then you _are_ those for whom we
were bidden to watch. Nay, how can I be sure?”
“Is this a time to put questions?” I gasped angrily. “Answer me one
rather: who are you?”
“I? Strangers, my title is Guardian of the Gate, and the lady who was
with me is the Khania of Kaloon.”
At this point Leo began to faint.
“That man is sick,” said the Guardian, “and now that you have got your
breath again, you must have shelter, both of you, and at once. Come,
help me.”
So, supporting Leo on either side, we dragged ourselves away from that
accursed cliff and Styx-like river up a narrow, winding gorge. Presently
it opened out, and there, stretching across the glade, we saw the Gate.
Of this all I observed then, for my memory of the details of this scene
and of the conversation that passed is very weak and blurred, was
that it seemed to be a mighty wall of rock in which a pathway had been
hollowed where doubtless once passed the road. On one side of this
passage was a stair, which we began to ascend with great difficulty, for
Leo was now almost senseless and scarcely moved his legs. Indeed at the
head of the first flight he sank down in a heap, nor did our strength
suffice to lift him.
While I wondered feebly what was to be done, I heard footsteps, and
looking up, saw the woman who had saved him descending the stair,
and after her two robed men with a Tartar cast of countenance, very
impassive; small eyes and yellowish skin. Even the sight of us did
not appear to move them to astonishment. She spoke some words to them,
whereon they lifted Leo’s heavy frame, apparently with ease, and carried
him up the steps.
We followed, and reached a room that seemed to be hewn from the rock
above the gateway, where the woman called Khania left us. From it we
passed through other rooms, one of them a kind of kitchen, in which
a fire burned, till we came to a large chamber, evidently a sleeping
place, for in it were wooden bedsteads, mattresses and rugs. Here Leo
was laid down, and with the assistance of one of his servants, the old
Guardian undressed him, at the same time motioning me to take off my own
garments. This I did gladly enough for the first time during many days,
though with great pain and difficulty, to find that I was a mass of
wounds and bruises.
Presently our host blew upon a whistle, and the other servant appeared
bringing hot water in a jar, with which we were washed over. Then the
Guardian dressed our hurts with some soothing ointment, and wrapped us
round with blankets. After this broth was brought, into which he mixed
medicine, and giving me a portion to drink where I lay upon one of the
beds, he took Leo’s head upon his knee and poured the rest of it down
his throat. Instantly a wonderful warmth ran through me, and my aching
brain began to swim. Then I remembered no more.
After this we were very, very ill. What may be the exact medical
definition of our sickness I do not know, but in effect it was such as
follows loss of blood, extreme exhaustion of body, paralysing shock
to the nerves and extensive cuts and contusions. These taken together
produced a long period of semi-unconsciousness, followed by another
period of fever and delirium. All that I can recall of those weeks while
we remained the guests of the Guardian of the Gate, may be summed up in
one word--dreams, that is until at last I recovered my senses.
The dreams themselves are forgotten, which is perhaps as well, since
they were very confused, and for the most part awful; a hotch-potch of
nightmares, reflected without doubt from vivid memories of our recent
and fearsome sufferings. At times I would wake up from them a little,
I suppose when food was administered to me, and receive impressions
of whatever was passing in the place. Thus I can recollect that
yellow-faced old Guardian standing over me like a ghost in the
moonlight, stroking his long beard, his eyes fixed upon my face, as
though he would search out the secrets of my soul.
“They are the men,” he muttered to himself, “without doubt they are the
men,” then walked to the window and looked up long and earnestly, like
one who studies the stars.
After this I remember a disturbance in the room, and dominating it, as
it were, the rich sound of a woman’s voice and the rustle of a woman’s
silks sweeping the stone floor. I opened my eyes and saw that it was she
who had helped to rescue us, who _had_ rescued us in fact, a tall and
noble-looking lady with a beauteous, weary face and liquid eyes which
seemed to burn. From the heavy cloak she wore I thought that she must
have just returned from a journey.
She stood above me and looked at me, then turned away with a gesture
of indifference, if not of disgust, speaking to the Guardian in a low
voice. By way of answer he bowed, pointing to the other bed where Leo
lay, asleep, and thither she passed with slow, imperious movements. I
saw her bend down and lift the corner of a wrapping which covered his
wounded head, and heard her utter some smothered words before she turned
round to the Guardian as though to question him further.
But he had gone, and being alone, for she thought me senseless, she drew
a rough stool to the side of the bed, and seating herself studied Leo,
who lay thereon, with an earnestness that was almost terrible, for
her soul seemed to be concentrated in her eyes, and to find expression
through them. Long she gazed thus, then rose and began to walk swiftly
up and down the chamber, pressing her hands now to her bosom and now
to her brow, a certain passionate perplexity stamped upon her face, as
though she struggled to remember something and could not.
“Where and when?” she whispered. “Oh! where and when?”
Of the end of that scene I know nothing, for although I fought hard
against it, oblivion mastered me. After this I became aware that the
regal-looking woman called Khania, was always in the room, and that she
seemed to be nursing Leo with great care and tenderness. Sometimes even
she nursed me when Leo did not need attention, and she had nothing else
to do, or so her manner seemed to suggest. It was as though I excited
her curiosity, and she wished me to recover that it might be satisfied.
Again I awoke, how long afterwards I cannot say. It was night, and
the room was lighted by the moon only, now shining in a clear sky. Its
steady rays entering at the window-place fell on Leo’s bed, and by them
I saw that the dark, imperial woman was watching at his side. Some sense
of her presence must have communicated itself to him, for he began to
mutter in his sleep, now in English, now in Arabic. She became intensely
interested; as her every movement showed. Then rising suddenly she
glided across the room on tiptoe to look at me. Seeing her coming I
feigned to be asleep, and so well that she was deceived.
For I was also interested. Who was this lady whom the Guardian had
called the Khania of Kaloon? Could it be she whom we sought? Why not?
And yet if I saw Ayesha, surely I should know her, surely there would be
no room for doubt.
Back she went again to the bed, kneeling down beside Leo, and in the
intense silence which followed--for he had ceased his mutterings--I
thought that I could hear the beating of her heart. Now she began to
speak, very low and in that same bastard Greek tongue, mixed here and
there with Mongolian words such as are common to the dialects of Central
Asia. I could not hear or understand all she said, but some sentences I
did understand, and they frightened me not a little.
“Man of my dreams,” she murmured, “whence come you? Who are you? Why did
the Hesea bid me to meet you?” Then some sentences I could not catch.
“You sleep; in sleep the eyes are opened. Answer, I bid you; say what
is the bond between you and me? Why have I dreamt of you? Why do I know
you? Why----?” and the sweet, rich voice died slowly from a whisper into
silence, as though she were ashamed to utter what was on her tongue.
As she bent over him a lock of her hair broke loose from its jewelled
fillet and fell across his face. At its touch Leo seemed to wake, for
he lifted his gaunt, white hand and touched the hair, then said in
English--“Where am I? Oh! I remember;” and their eyes met as he strove
to lift himself and could not. Then he spoke again in his broken,
stumbling Greek, “You are the lady who saved me from the water. Say, are
you also that queen whom I have sought so long and endured so much to
find?”
“I know not,” she answered in a voice as sweet as honey, a low,
trembling voice; “but true it is I am a queen--if a Khania be a queen.”
“Say, then, Queen, do you remember me?”
“We have met in dreams,” she answered, “I think that we have met in a
past that is far away. Yes; I knew it when first I saw you there by the
river. Stranger with the well remembered face, tell me, I pray you, how
you are named?”
“Leo Vincey.”
She shook her head, whispering--“I know not the name, yet you I know.”
“You know me! How do you know me?” he said heavily, and seemed to sink
again into slumber or swoon.
She watched him for a while very intently. Then as though some force
that she could not resist drew her, I saw her bend down her head over
his sleeping face. Yes; and I saw her kiss him swiftly on the lips, then
spring back crimson to the hair, as though overwhelmed with shame at
this victory of her mad passion.
Now it was that she discovered me.
Bewildered, fascinated, amazed, I had raised myself upon my bed, not
knowing it; I suppose that I might see and hear the better. It was
wrong, doubtless, but no common curiosity over-mastered me, who had my
share in all this story. More, it was foolish, but illness and wonder
had killed my reason.
Yes, she saw me watching them, and such fury seemed to take hold of her
that I thought my hour had come.
“Man, have you dared----?” she said in an intense whisper, and snatching
at her girdle. Now in her hand shone a knife, and I knew that it was
destined for my heart. Then in this sore danger my wit came back to me
and as she advanced I stretched out my shaking hand, saying--“Oh! of
your pity, give me to drink. The fever burns me, it burns,” and I looked
round like one bewildered who sees not, repeating, “Give me drink, you
who are called Guardian,” and I fell back exhausted.
She stopped like a hawk in its stoop, and swiftly sheathed the dagger.
Then taking a bowl of milk that stood on a table near her, she held
it to my lips, searching my face the while with her flaming eyes, for
indeed passion, rage, and fear had lit them till they seemed to flame.
I drank the milk in great gulps, though never in my life did I find it
more hard to swallow.
“You tremble,” she said; “have dreams haunted you?”
“Aye, friend,” I answered, “dreams of that fearsome precipice and of the
last leap.”
“Aught else?” she asked.
“Nay; is it not enough? Oh! what a journey to have taken to befriend a
queen.”
“To befriend a queen,” she repeated puzzled. “What means the man? You
swear you have had no other dreams?”
“Aye, I swear by the Symbol of Life and the Mount of the Wavering Flame,
and by yourself, O Queen from the ancient days.”
Then I sighed and pretended to swoon, for I could think of nothing else
to do. As I closed my eyes I saw her face that had been red as dawn turn
pale as eve, for my words and all which might lie behind them, had gone
home. Moreover, she was in doubt, for I could hear her fingering the
handle of the dagger. Then she spoke aloud, words for my ears if they
still were open.
“I am glad,” she said, “that he dreamed no other dreams, since had he
done so and babbled of them it would have been ill-omened, and I do not
wish that one who has travelled far to visit us should be hurled to
the death-dogs for burial; one, moreover, who although old and hideous,
still has the air of a wise and silent man.”
Now while I shivered at these unpleasant hints--though what the
“death-dogs” in which people were buried might be, I could not
conceive--to my intense joy I heard the foot of the Guardian on the
stairs, heard him too enter the room and saw him bow before the lady.
“How go these sick men, niece?”[3] he said in his cold voice.
[3] I found later that the Khania, Atene, was not Simbri’s
niece but his great-niece, on the mother’s side.--L. H. H.
“They swoon, both of them,” she answered.
“Indeed, is it so? I thought otherwise. I thought they woke.”
“What have you heard, Shaman (i.e. wizard)?” she asked angrily.
“I? Oh! I heard the grating of a dagger in its sheath and the distant
baying of the death-hounds.”
“And what have you seen, Shaman?” she asked again, “looking through the
Gate you guard?”
“Strange sight, Khania, my niece. But--men awake from swoons.”
“Aye,” she answered, “so while this one sleeps, bear him to another
chamber, for he needs change, and the lord yonder needs more space and
untainted air.”
The Guardian, whom she called “Shaman” or Magician, held a lamp in his
hand, and by its light it was easy to see his face, which I watched
out of the corner of my eye. I thought that it wore a very strange
expression, one moreover that alarmed me somewhat. From the beginning
I had misdoubted me of this old man, whose cast of countenance was
vindictive as it was able; now I was afraid of him.
“To which chamber, Khania?” he said with meaning.
“I think,” she answered slowly, “to one that is healthful, where he
will recover. The man has wisdom,” she added as though in explanation,
“moreover, having the word from the Mountain, to harm him would be
dangerous. But why do you ask?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“I tell you I heard the death-hounds bay, that is all. Yes, with you I
think that he has wisdom, and the bee which seeks honey should suck the
flower--before it fades! Also, as you say, there are commands with which
it is ill to trifle, even if we cannot guess their meaning.”
Then going to the door he blew upon his whistle, and instantly I heard
the feet of his servants upon the stairs. He gave them an order, and
gently enough they lifted the mattress on which I lay and followed him
down sundry passages and past some stairs into another chamber shaped
like that we had left, but not so large, where they placed me upon a
bed.
The Guardian watched me awhile to see that I did not wake. Next he
stretched out his hand and felt my heart and pulse; an examination
the results of which seemed to _puzzle_ him, for he uttered a little
exclamation and shook his head. After this he left the room, and I heard
him bolt the door behind him. Then, being still very weak, I fell asleep
in earnest.
When I awoke it was broad daylight. My mind was clear and I felt better
than I had done for many a day, signs by which I knew that the fever had
left me and that I was on the high road to recovery. Now I remembered
all the events of the previous night and was able to weigh them
carefully. This, to be sure, I did for many reasons, among them that I
knew I had been and still was, in great danger.
I had seen and heard too much, and this woman called Khania guessed that
I had seen and heard. Indeed, had it not been for my hints about the
Symbol of Life and the Mount of Flame, after I had disarmed her first
rage by my artifice, I felt sure that she would have ordered the old
Guardian or Shaman to do me to death in this way or the other; sure also
that he would not have hesitated to obey her. I had been spared partly
because, for some unknown reason, she was afraid to kill me, and partly
that she might learn how much I knew, although the “death-hounds had
bayed,” whatever that might mean. Well, up to the present I was safe,
and for the rest I must take my chance. Moreover it was necessary to
be cautious, and, if need were, to feign ignorance. So, dismissing the
matter of my own fate from my mind, I fell to considering the scene
which I had witnessed and what might be its purport.
Was our quest at an end? Was this woman Ayesha? Leo had so dreamed, but
he was still delirious, therefore here was little on which to lean.
What seemed more to the point was that she herself evidently appeared to
think that there existed some tie between her and this sick man. Why
had she embraced him? I was sure that she could be no wanton, nor indeed
would any woman indulge for its own sake in such folly with a stranger
who hung between life and death. What she had done was done because
irresistible impulse, born of knowledge, or at least of memories, drove
her on, though mayhap the knowledge was imperfect and the memories were
undefined. Who save Ayesha could have known anything of Leo in the past?
None who lived upon the earth to-day.
And yet, why not, if what Kou-en the abbot and tens of millions of his
fellow-worshippers believed were true? If the souls of human beings were
in fact strictly limited in number, and became the tenants of an endless
succession of physical bodies which they change from time to time as we
change our worn-out garments, why should not others have known him? For
instance that daughter of the Pharaohs who “caused him through love to
break the vows that he had vowed” knew a certain Kallikrates, a priest
of “Isis whom the gods cherish and the demons obey;” even Amenartas, the
mistress of magic.
Oh! now a light seemed to break upon me, a wonderful light. What if
Amenartas and this Khania, this woman with royalty stamped on every
feature, should be the same? Would not that “magic of my own people
that I have” of which she wrote upon the Sherd, enable her to pierce the
darkness of the Past and recognize the priest whom she had bewitched to
love her, snatching him out of the very hand of the goddess? What if it
were not Ayesha, but Amenartas re-incarnate who ruled this hidden land
and once more sought to make the man she loved break through his vows?
If so, knowing the evil that must come, I shook even at its shadow. The
truth must be learned, but how?
Whilst I wondered the door opened, and the sardonic,
inscrutable-old-faced man, whom this Khania had called Magician, and who
called the Khania, niece, entered and stood before me.