THE COURT OF DEATH
Now the curtains were open. Before us appeared a chamber hollowed from
the thickness of the altar, and in its centre a throne, and on the
throne a figure clad in waves of billowy white flowing from the head
over the arms of the throne down to its marble steps. We could see no
more in the comparative darkness of that place, save that beneath the
folds of the drapery the Oracle held in its hand a loop-shaped, jewelled
sceptre.
Moved by some impulse, we did as Oros had done, prostrating ourselves,
and there remained upon our knees. At length we heard a tinkling as of
little bells, and, looking up, saw that the sistrum-shaped sceptre was
stretched towards us by the draped arm which held it. Then a thin, clear
voice spoke, and I thought that it trembled a little. It spoke in Greek,
but in a much purer Greek than all these people used.
“I greet you, Wanderers, who have journeyed so far to visit this most
ancient shrine, and although doubtless of some other faith, are not
ashamed to do reverence to that unworthy one who is for this time its
Oracle and the guardian of its mysteries. Rise now and have no fear of
me; for have I not sent my Messenger and servants to conduct you to this
Sanctuary?”
Slowly we rose, and stood silent, not knowing what to say.
“I greet you, Wanderers,” the voice repeated. “Tell me thou”--and the
sceptre pointed towards Leo--“how art thou named?”
“I am named Leo Vincey,” he answered.
“Leo Vincey! I like the name, which to me well befits a man so goodly.
And thou, the companion of--Leo Vincey?”
“I am named Horace Holly.”
“So. Then tell me, Leo Vincey and Horace Holly, what came ye so far to
seek?”
We looked at each other, and I said--“The tale is long and strange.
O--but by what title must we address thee?”
“By the name which I bear here, Hes.”
“O Hes,” I said, wondering what name she bore elsewhere.
“Yet I desire to hear that tale,” she went on, and to me her voice
sounded eager. “Nay, not all to-night, for I know that you both are
weary; a little of it only. In sooth, Strangers, there is a sameness in
this home of contemplations, and no heart can feed only on the past, if
such a thing there be. Therefore I welcome a new history from the world
without. Tell it me, thou, Leo, as briefly as thou wilt, so that thou
tell the truth, for in the Presence of which I am a Minister, may
nothing else be uttered.”
“Priestess,” he said, in his curt fashion, “I obey. Many years ago when
I was young, my friend and foster-father and I, led by records of the
past, travelled to a wild land, and there found a certain divine woman
who had conquered time.”
“Then that woman must have been both aged and hideous.”
“I said, Priestess, that she had conquered time, not suffered it, for
the gift of immortal youth was hers. Also she was not hideous; she was
beauty itself.”
“Therefore stranger, thou didst worship her for her beauty’s sake, as a
man does.”
“I did not worship her; I loved her, which is another thing. The priest
Oros here worships thee, whom he calls Mother. I loved that immortal
woman.”
“Then thou shouldst love her still. Yet, not so, since love is very
mortal.”
“I love her still,” he answered, “although she died.”
“Why, how is that? Thou saidst she was immortal.”
“Perchance she only seemed to die; perchance she changed. At least I
lost her, and what I lost I seek, and have sought this many a year.”
“Why dost thou seek her in my Mountain, Leo Vincey?”
“Because a vision led me to ask counsel of its Oracle. I am come hither
to learn tidings of my lost love, since here alone these may be found.”
“And thou, Holly, didst thou also love an immortal woman whose
immortality, it seems, must bow to death?”
“Priestess,” I answered, “I am sworn to this quest, and where my
foster-son goes I follow. He follows beauty that is dead----”
“And thou dost follow him. Therefore both of you follow beauty as men
have ever done, being blind and mad.”
“Nay,” I answered, “if they were blind, beauty would be naught to them
who could not see it, and if they were mad, they would not know it when
it was seen. Knowledge and vision belong to the wise, O Hes.”
“Thou art quick of wit and tongue, Holly, as----” and she checked
herself, then of a sudden, said, “Tell me, did my servant the Khania of
Kaloon entertain both of you hospitably in her city, and speed you on
your journey hither, as I commanded her?”
“We knew not that she was thy servant,” I replied. “Hospitality we
had and to spare, but we were sped from her Court hitherward by the
death-hounds of the Khan, her husband. Tell us, Priestess, what thou
knowest of this journey of ours.”
“A little,” she answered carelessly. “More than three moons ago my
spies saw you upon the far mountains, and, creeping very close to you at
night, heard you speak together of the object of your wanderings, then,
returning thence swiftly, made report to me. Thereon I bade the Khania
Atene, and that old magician her great-uncle, who is Guardian of the
Gate, go down to the ancient gates of Kaloon to receive you and bring
you hither with all speed. Yet for men who burned to learn the answer to
a riddle, you have been long in coming.”
“We came as fast as we might, O Hes,” said Leo; “and if thy spies could
visit those mountains, where no man was, and find a path down that
hideous precipice, they must have been able also to tell thee the reason
of our delay. Therefore I pray, ask it not of us.”
“Nay, I will ask it of Atene herself, and she shall surely answer me,
for she stands without,” replied the Hesea in a cold voice. “Oros, lead
the Khania hither and be swift.”
The priest turned and walking quickly to the wooden doors by which we
had entered the shrine, vanished there.
“Now,” said Leo to me nervously in the silence that followed, and
speaking in English, “now I wish we were somewhere else, for I think
that there will be trouble.”
“I don’t think, I am sure,” I answered; “but the more the better,
for out of trouble may come the truth, which we need sorely.” Then I
stopped, reflecting that the strange woman before us said that her spies
had overheard our talk upon the mountains, where we had spoken nothing
but English.
As it proved, I was wise, for quite quietly the Hesea repeated after
me--“Thou hast experience, Holly, for out of trouble comes the truth, as
out of wine.”
Then she was silent, and, needless to say, I did not pursue the
conversation.
The doors swung open, and through them came a procession clad in black,
followed by the Shaman Simbri, who walked in front of a bier, upon which
lay the body of the Khan, carried by eight priests. Behind it was Atene,
draped in a black veil from head to foot, and after her marched another
company of priests. In front of the altar the bier was set down and the
priests fell back, leaving Atene and her uncle standing alone before the
corpse.
“What seeks my vassal, the Khania of Kaloon?” asked the Hesea in a cold
voice.
Now Atene advanced and bent the knee, but with little graciousness.
“Ancient Mother, Mother from of old, I do reverence to thy holy Office,
as my forefathers have done for many a generation,” and again she
curtseyed. “Mother, this dead man asks of thee that right of sepulchre
in the fires of the holy Mountain which from the beginning has been
accorded to the royal departed who went before him.”
“It has been accorded as thou sayest,” answered the Hesea, “by those
priestesses who filled my place before me, nor shall it be refused to
thy dead lord--or to thee Atene--when thy time comes.”
“I thank thee, O Hes, and I pray that this decree may be written down,
for the snows of age have gathered on thy venerable head and soon thou
must leave us for awhile. Therefore bid thy scribes that it be written
down, so that the Hesea who rules after thee may fulfil it in its
season.”
“Cease,” said the Hesea, “cease to pour out thy bitterness at that which
should command thy reverence, oh! thou foolish child, who dost not know
but that to-morrow the fire shall claim the frail youth and beauty which
are thy boast. I bid thee cease, and tell me how did death find this
lord of thine?”
“Ask those wanderers yonder, that were his guests, for his blood is on
their heads and cries for vengeance at thy hands.”
“I killed him,” said Leo, “to save my own life. He tried to hunt us down
with his dogs, and there are the marks of them,” and he pointed to my
arm. “The priest Oros knows, for he dressed the hurts.”
“How did this chance?” asked the Hesea of Atene.
“My lord was mad,” she answered boldly, “and such was his cruel sport.”
“So. And was thy lord jealous also? Nay, keep back the falsehood I see
rising to thy lips. Leo Vincey, answer thou me. Yet, I will not ask thee
to lay bare the secrets of a woman who has offered thee her love. Thou,
Holly, speak, and let it be the truth.”
“It is this, O Hes,” I answered. “Yonder lady and her uncle the Shaman
Simbri saved us from death in the waters of the river that bounds
the precipices of Kaloon. Afterwards we were ill, and they treated us
kindly, but the Khania became enamoured of my foster-son.”
Here the figure of the Priestess stirred beneath its gauzy wrappings,
and the Voice asked--“And did thy foster-son become enamoured of the
Khania, as being a man he may well have done, for without doubt she is
fair?”
“He can answer that question for himself, O Hes. All I know is that he
strove to escape from her, and that in the end she gave him a day to
choose between death and marriage with her, when her lord should be
dead. So, helped by the Khan, her husband, who was jealous of him, we
fled towards this Mountain, which we desired to reach. Then the Khan set
his hounds upon us, for he was mad and false-hearted. We killed him and
came on in spite of this lady, his wife, and her uncle, who would have
prevented us, and were met in a Place of Bones by a certain veiled
guide, who led us up the Mountain and twice saved us from death. That is
all the story.”
“Woman, what hast thou to say?” asked the Hesea in a menacing voice.
“But little,” Atene answered, without flinching. “For years I have been
bound to a madman and a brute, and if my fancy wandered towards this man
and his fancy wandered towards me--well, Nature spoke to us, and that is
all. Afterwards it seems that he grew afraid of the vengeance of Rassen,
or this Holly, whom I would that the hounds had torn bone from bone,
grew afraid. So they strove to escape the land, and perchance wandered
to thy Mountain. But I weary of this talk, and ask thy leave to rest
before to-morrow’s rite.”
“Thou sayest, Atene,” said the Hesea, “that Nature spoke to this man
and to thee, and that his heart is thine; but that, fearing thy lord’s
vengeance, he fled from thee, he who seems no coward. Tell me, then,
is that tress he hides in the satchel on his breast thy gage of love to
him?”
“I know nothing of what he hides in the satchel,” answered the Khania
sullenly.
“And yet, yonder in the Gatehouse when he lay so sick he set the lock
against thine own--ah, dost remember now?”
“So, O Hes, already he has told thee all our secrets, though they
be such as most men hide within their breasts;” and she looked
contemptuously at Leo.
“I told her nothing of the matter, Khania,” Leo said in an angry voice.
“Nay, _thou_ toldest me nothing, Wanderer; my watching wisdom told me.
Oh, didst thou think, Atene, that thou couldst hide the truth from the
all-seeing Hesea of the Mountain? If so, spare thy breath, for I know
all, and have known it from the first. I passed thy disobedience by; of
thy false messages I took no heed. For my own purposes I, to whom time
is naught, suffered even that thou shouldst hold these, my guests, thy
prisoners whilst thou didst strive by threats and force to win a love
denied.”
She paused, then went on coldly: “Woman, I tell thee that, to complete
thy sin, thou hast even dared to lie to me here, in my very Sanctuary.”
“If so, what of it?” was the bold answer. “Dost thou love the man
thyself? Nay, it is monstrous. Nature would cry aloud at such a shame.
Oh! tremble not with rage. Hes, I know thy evil powers, but I know also
that I am thy guest, and that in this hallowed place, beneath yonder
symbol of eternal Love, thou may’st shed no blood. More, thou canst not
harm me, Hes, who am thy equal.”
“Atene,” replied the measured Voice, “did I desire it, I could destroy
thee where thou art. Yet thou art right, I shall not harm thee, thou
faithless servant. Did not my writ bid thee through yonder searcher
of the stars, thy uncle, to meet these guests of mine and bring them
straight to my shrine? Tell me, for I seek to know, how comes it that
thou didst disobey me?”
“Have then thy desire,” answered Atene in a new and earnest voice,
devoid now of bitterness and falsehood. “I disobeyed because that man is
not thine, but mine, and no other woman’s; because I love him and have
loved him from of old. Aye, since first our souls sprang into life I
have loved him, as he has loved me. My own heart tells me so; the magic
of my uncle here tells me so, though how and where and when these things
have been I know not. Therefore I come to thee, Mother of Mysteries,
Guardian of the secrets of the past, to learn the truth. At least _thou_
canst not lie at thine own altar, and I charge thee, by the dread name
of that Power to which thou also must render thy account, that thou
answer now and here.
“Who is this man to whom my being yearns? What has he been to me? What
has he to do with thee? Speak, O Oracle and make the secret clear.
Speak, I command, even though afterwards thou dost slay me--if thou
canst.”
“Aye, speak! speak!” said Leo, “for know I am in sore suspense. I also
am bewildered by memories and rent with hopes and fears.”
And I too echoed, “Speak!”
“Leo Vincey,” asked the Hesea, after she had thought awhile, “whom dost
thou believe me to be?”
“I believe,” he answered solemnly, “that thou art that Ayesha at whose
hands I died of old in the Caves of Kôr in Africa. I believe thou art
that Ayesha whom not twenty years ago I found and loved in those same
Caves of Kôr, and there saw perish miserably, swearing that thou wouldst
return again.”
“See now, how madness can mislead a man,” broke in Atene triumphantly.
“‘Not twenty years ago,’ he said, whereas I know well that more than
eighty summers have gone by since my grandsire in his youth saw this
same priestess sitting on the Mother’s throne.”
“And whom dost thou believe me to be, O Holly?” the Priestess asked,
taking no note of the Khania’s words.
“What he believes I believe,” I answered. “The dead come back to
life--sometimes. Yet alone thou knowest the truth, and by thee only it
can be revealed.”
“Aye,” she said, as though musing, “the dead come back to
life--sometimes--and in strange shape, and, mayhap, I know the truth.
To-morrow when yonder body is borne on high for burial we will speak
of it again. Till then rest you all, and prepare to face that fearful
thing--the Truth.”
While the Hesea still spoke the silvery curtains swung to their place
as mysteriously as they had opened. Then, as though at some signal, the
black-robed priests advanced. Surrounding Atene, they led her from the
Sanctuary, accompanied by her uncle the Shaman, who, as it seemed to me,
either through fatigue or fear, could scarcely stand upon his feet, but
stood blinking his dim eyes as though the light dazed him. When these
were gone, the priests and priestesses, who all this time had been
ranged round the walls, far out of hearing of our talk, gathered
themselves into their separate companies, and still chanting, departed
also, leaving us alone with Oros and the corpse of the Khan, which
remained where it had been set down.
Now the head-priest Oros beckoned to us to follow him, and we went
also. Nor was I sorry to leave the place, for its death-like
loneliness--enhanced, strangely enough, as it was, by the flood of light
that filled it; a loneliness which was concentrated and expressed in the
awful figure stretched upon the bier, oppressed and overcame us, whose
nerves were broken by all that we had undergone. Thankful enough was I
when, having passed the transepts and down the length of the vast nave,
we came to the iron doors, the rock passage, and the outer gates, which,
as before, opened to let us through, and so at last into the sweet, cold
air of the night at that hour which precedes the dawn.
Oros led us to a house well-built and furnished, where at his bidding,
like men in a dream, we drank of some liquor which he gave us. I think
that drink was drugged, at least after swallowing it I remembered no
more till I awoke to find myself lying on a bed and feeling wonderfully
strong and well. This I thought strange, for a lamp burning in the room
showed me that it was still dark, and therefore that I could have rested
but a little time.
I tried to sleep again, but was not able, so fell to thinking till I
grew weary of the task. For here thoughts would not help me; nothing
could help, except the truth, “that fearful thing,” as the veiled
Priestess had called it.
Oh! what if she should prove not the Ayesha whom we desired, but some
“fearful thing”? What were the meaning of the Khania’s hints and of
her boldness, that surely had been inspired by the strength of a hidden
knowledge? What if--nay, it could not be--I would rise and dress my arm.
Or I would wake Leo and make him dress it--anything to occupy my mind
until the appointed hour, when we must learn--the best--or the worst.
I sat up in the bed and saw a figure advancing towards me. It was Oros,
who bore a lamp in his hand.
“You have slept long, friend Holly,” he said, “and now it is time to be
up and doing.”
“Long?” I answered testily. “How can that be, when it is still dark?”
“Because, friend, the dark is that of a new night. Many hours have gone
by since you lay down upon this bed. Well, you were wise to rest you
while you may, for who knows when you will sleep again! Come, let me
bathe your arm.”
“Tell me,” I broke in----“Nay, friend,” he interrupted firmly, “I will
tell you nothing, except that soon you must start to be present at
the funeral of the Khan, and, perchance, to learn the answer to your
questions.”
Ten minutes later he led me to the eating-chamber of the house, where I
found Leo already dressed, for Oros had awakened him before he came to
me and bidden him to prepare himself. Oros told us here that the Hesea
had not suffered us to be disturbed until the night came again since we
had much to undergo that day. So presently we started.
Once more we were led through the flame-lit hall till we came to the
loop-shaped apse. The place was empty now, even the corpse of the Khan
had gone, and no draped Oracle sat in the altar shrine, for its silver
curtains were drawn, and we saw that it was untenanted.
“The Mother has departed to do honour to the dead, according to the
ancient custom,” Oros explained to us.
Then we passed the altar, and behind the statue found a door in the
rock wall of the apse, and beyond the door a passage, and a hall as of a
house, for out of it opened other doors leading to chambers. These, our
guide told us, were the dwelling-places of the Hesea and her maidens.
He added that they ran to the side of the Mountain and had windows that
opened on to gardens and let in the light and air. In this hall six
priests were waiting, each of whom carried a bundle of torches beneath
his arm and held in his hand a lighted lamp.
“Our road runs through the dark,” said Oros, “though were it day we
might climb the outer snows, but this at night it is dangerous to do.”
Then taking torches, he lit them at a lamp and gave one to each of us.
Now our climb began. Up endless sloping galleries we went, hewn with
inconceivable labour by the primeval fire-worshippers from the living
rock of the Mountain. It seemed to me that they stretched for miles, and
indeed this was so, since, although the slope was always gentle, it took
us more than an hour to climb them. At length we came to the foot of a
great stair.
“Rest awhile here, my lord,” Oros said, bowing to Leo with the reverence
that he had shown him from the first, “for this stair is steep and long.
Now we stand upon the Mountain’s topmost lip, and are about to climb
that tall looped column which soars above.”
So we sat down in the vault-like place and let the sharp draught of air
rushing to and from the passages play upon us, for we were heated with
journeying up those close galleries. As we sat thus I heard a roaring
sound and asked Oros what it might be. He answered that we were very
near to the crater of the volcano, and that what we heard through the
thickness of the rock was the rushing of its everlasting fires. Then the
ascent commenced.
It was not dangerous though very wearisome, for there were nearly six
hundred of those steps. The climb of the passages had reminded me of
that of the gallery of the Great Pyramid drawn out for whole furlongs;
that of the pillar was like the ascent of a cathedral spire, or rather
of several spires piled one upon another.
Resting from time to time, we dragged ourselves up the steep steps, each
of them quite a foot in height, till the pillar was climbed and only the
loop remained. Up it we went also, Oros leading us, and glad was I that
the stairway still ran within the substance of the rock, for I could
feel the needle’s mighty eye quiver in the rush of the winds which swept
about its sides.
At length we saw light before us, and in another twenty steps emerged
upon a platform. As Leo, who went in front of me, walked from the
stairway I saw Oros and another priest seize him by the arms, and called
to him to ask what they were doing.
“Nothing,” he cried back, “except that this is a dizzy place and they
feared lest I should fall. Mind how you come, Horace,” and he stretched
out his hand to me.
Now I was clear of the tunnel, and I believe that had it not been for
that hand I should have sunk to the rocky floor, for the sight before me
seemed to paralyse my brain. Nor was this to be wondered at, for I doubt
whether the world can show such another.
We stood upon the very apex of the loop, a flat space of rock about
eighty yards in length by some thirty in breadth, with the star-strewn
sky above us. To the south, twenty thousand feet or more below,
stretched the dim Plain of Kaloon, and to the east and west the
snow-clad shoulders of the peak and the broad brown slopes beneath.
To the north was a different sight, and one more awesome. There, right
under us as it seemed, for the pillar bent inwards, lay the vast crater
of the volcano, and in the centre of it a wide lake of fire that broke
into bubbles and flowers of sudden flame or spouted, writhed and twisted
like an angry sea.
From the surface of this lake rose smoke and gases that took fire as
they floated upwards, and, mingling together, formed a gigantic sheet of
living light. Right opposite to us burned this sheet and, the flare of
it passing through the needle-eye of the pillar under us, sped away in
one dazzling beam across the country of Kaloon, across the mountains
beyond, till it was lost on the horizon.
The wind blew from south to north, being sucked in towards the hot
crater of the volcano, and its fierce breath, that screamed through the
eye of the pillar and against its rugged surface, bent the long crest
of the sheet of flame, as an ocean roller is bent over by the gale, and
tore from it fragments of fire, that floated away to leeward like the
blown-out sails of a burning ship.
Had it not been for this strong and steady wind indeed, no creature
could have lived upon the pillar, for the vapours would have poisoned
him; but its unceasing blast drove these all away towards the north. For
the same reason, in the thin air of that icy place the heat was not too
great to be endured.
Appalled by that terrific spectacle, which seemed more appropriate to
the terrors of the Pit than to this earth of ours, and fearful lest the
blast should whirl me like a dead leaf into the glowing gulf beneath, I
fell on to my sound hand and my knees, shouting to Leo to do likewise,
and looked about me. Now I observed lines of priests wrapped in great
capes, kneeling upon the face of the rock and engaged apparently in
prayer, but of Hes the Mother, or of Atene, or of the corpse of the dead
Khan I could see nothing.
Whilst I wondered where they might be, Oros, upon whose nerves this
dread scene appeared to have no effect, and some of our attendant
priests surrounded us and led us onwards by a path that ran perilously
near to the rounded edge of the rock. A few downward steps and we found
that we were under shelter, for the gale was roaring over us. Twenty
more paces and we came to a recess cut, I suppose, by man in the face
of the loop, in such fashion that a lava roof was left projecting half
across its width.
This recess, or rock chamber, which was large enough to shelter a great
number of people, we reached safely, to discover that it was already
tenanted. Seated in a chair hewn from the rock was the Hesea, wearing
a broidered, purple mantle above her gauzy wrappings that enveloped
her from head to foot. There, too, standing near to her were the Khania
Atene and her uncle the old Shaman, who looked but ill at ease, and
lastly, stretched upon his funeral couch, the fiery light beating upon
his stark form and face, lay the dead Khan, Rassen.
We advanced to the throne and bowed to her who sat thereon. The Hesea
lifted her hooded head, which seemed to have been sunk upon her breast
as though she were overcome by thought or care, and addressed Oros the
priest. For in the shelter of those massive walls by comparison there
was silence and folk could hear each other speak.
“So thou hast brought them safely, my servant,” she said, “and I am
glad, for to those that know it not this road is fearful. My guests,
what say you of the burying-pit of the Children of Hes?”
“Our faith tells us of a hell, lady,” answered Leo, “and I think that
yonder cauldron looks like its mouth.”
“Nay,” she answered, “there is no hell, save that which from life to
life we fashion for ourselves within the circle of this little star. Leo
Vincey, I tell thee that hell is here, aye, _here_,” and she struck her
hand upon her breast, while once more her head drooped forward as though
bowed down beneath some load of secret misery.
Thus she stayed awhile, then lifted it and spoke again,
saying--“Midnight is past, and much must be done and suffered before the
dawn. Aye, the darkness must be turned to light, or perchance the light
to eternal darkness.”
“Royal woman,” she went on, addressing Atene, “as is his right, thou
hast brought thy dead lord hither for burial in this consecrated place,
where the ashes of all who went before him have become fuel for the
holy fires. Oros, my priest, summon thou the Accuser and him who makes
defence, and let the books be opened that I may pass my judgment on the
dead, and call his soul to live again, or pray that from it the breath
of life may be withheld.
“Priest, I say the Court of Death is open.”