That night I passed in Leo’s room, but he slumbered through it like the dead, never once stirring. I also slept well, as, indeed, I needed to do, but my sleep was full of dreams of all the horrors and wonders I had undergone. Chiefly, however, I was haunted by that frightful piece of diablerie by which Ayesha left her finger-marks upon her rival’s hair. There was something so terrible about her swift, snake-like movement, and the instantaneous blanching of that threefold line, that, if the results to Ustane had been much more tremendous, I doubt if they would have impressed me so deeply. To this day I often dream of that awful scene, and see the weeping woman, bereaved, and marked like Cain, cast a last look at her lover, and creep from the presence of her dread Queen.
Another dream which troubled me originated in the huge pyramid of bones. I dreamed that they all arose and marched past me in thousands and tens of thousands—in squadrons, companies, and armies—with the sunlight shining through their hollow ribs. On they rushed across the plain to Kôr, their imperial home; I saw the drawbridges fall before them, and heard their skeletons clank beneath the brazen gates. On they went, up the splendid streets, on past fountains, palaces, and temples such as the eye of mortal never saw. But there was no man to greet them in the market-place, and no woman’s face appeared at the windows—only a bodiless voice went before them, calling: “Fallen is Imperial Kôr!—fallen!—fallen!—fallen!” On, through the city, marched those gleaming phalanxes, and the rattle of their bony tread echoed in the silent air as they pressed grimly forward. They passed through the city and clomb the wall, and strode along the great roadway that was made upon the wall, till at length once more they reached the drawbridge. Then, as the sun was sinking, they returned again towards their sepulchre, and his light shone luridly in the sockets of their empty eyes, throwing gigantic shadows of their bones, that stretched away, and crept and crept like huge spiders’ legs as their armies wound across the plain. Now they came to the cave, and once more one by one they flung themselves in unending files through the hole into the pit of death, and I awoke, shuddering, to see She, who had been standing between my couch and Leo’s, glide like a shadow from the room.
After this I slept again, soundly this time, till morning, when I awoke much refreshed, and rose. At last the hour drew near when, according to Ayesha, Leo was to awake, and with it came the veiled She herself.
“Thou shalt see, O Holly,” she said: “presently he will awake in his right mind, the fever having left him.”
Hardly were the words out of her mouth when Leo turned round and, stretching out his arms, yawned, opened his eyes, then, perceiving a female form bending over him, threw his arms about her and kissed her, in mistake, perhaps, for Ustane. At any rate, he said, in Arabic, “Hullo, Ustane! why have you tied your head up like that? Have you got the toothache?” and then in English, “I say, I’m awfully hungry. Why, Job, you old son of a gun, where the deuce have we got to now—eh?”
“I am sure I wish I knew, Mr. Leo,” said Job, suspiciously edging past Ayesha, whom he still regarded with the utmost disgust and horror, being by no means sure that she was not an animated corpse; “but you mustn’t talk, Mr. Leo, you’ve been very ill, and given us a great deal of anxiety, and if this lady,” looking at Ayesha, “would be so kind as to move, I’ll bring you your soup.”
This turned Leo’s attention to the “lady,” who was standing by in perfect silence. “Why!” he said, “that is not Ustane—where is Ustane?”
Then, for the first time, Ayesha spoke to him, and her first words were a lie. “She has gone from hence upon a visit,” she said; “and, behold! I am here in her place as thine handmaiden.”
Ayesha’s silver notes seemed to puzzle Leo’s half-awakened intellect as much as did her corpse-like wrappings. However, he said nothing in answer, but, drinking off his soup greedily, turned over and slept again till the evening. When he woke for the second time he saw me, and began to question me as to what had happened, but I put him off as best I could till the morrow, when he awoke miraculously better. Then I told him something of his illness and of my doings, but as Ayesha was present I could not tell him much, except that she was the Queen of the country, and well disposed towards us, and that it was her pleasure to go veiled; for though of course I spoke in English, I was afraid that she might understand what we were saying from the expression of our faces; besides, I remembered her warning.
On the following morning Leo rose almost entirely recovered. The flesh wound in his side was healed, and his constitution, naturally a vigorous one, had shaken off the exhaustion consequent on his terrible fever with a rapidity that I can only attribute to the effects of the wonderful drug which Ayesha had given to him, and perhaps to the fact that his illness had been too short to reduce him very much. With his returning health came back full recollection of all his adventures up to the time when he had lost consciousness in the marsh, and of course of Ustane also, to whom I discovered he had grown considerably attached. Indeed, he overwhelmed me with questions about the poor girl, which I did not dare to answer, for after Leo’s first awakening She had sent for me, and again warned me solemnly that I was to reveal nothing of the story to him, delicately hinting that if I did it would be the worse for me. Further, for the second time, she cautioned me not to tell Leo anything more than I was obliged about herself, saying that she would reveal all to him in her own hour.
Indeed, her whole manner changed. After all that I had learned I expected that she would take the earliest opportunity of claiming the man whom she believed to be her old-world lover, but this, for some reason of her own, which at the time was quite inscrutable to me, she did not do. All that she did do was to attend to his wants quietly, and with a humility which was in striking contrast to her former imperious bearing, addressing him always in a tone of something very like respect, and keeping him with her as much as possible. Of course his curiosity was as much excited about this mysterious woman as my own had been, and he was particularly anxious to see her face, which, without entering into particulars, I had told him was as lovely as were her form and voice. This in itself was enough to raise the expectations of any young man to a dangerous pitch, and, had it not been that he was still suffering from the effects of his illness, and much troubled in mind about Ustane, of whose tenderness and brave devotion he spoke in touching terms, I have no doubt but that he would have entered into Ayesha’s plans, and fallen in love with her by anticipation. As it chanced, however, he was merely curious, and also, like myself, somewhat awed, for, though no hint had been given to him by She of her extraordinary age, not unnaturally he came to identify her with the woman spoken of on the potsherd. At last, quite driven into a corner by his continual questions, which he showered on me while he was dressing on this third morning, I referred him to Ayesha, saying, with perfect truth, that I did not know where Ustane was. Accordingly, after Leo had eaten a hearty breakfast, we adjourned into She’s presence, for her mutes had orders to admit us at all hours.
As usual, she was seated in what, for want of a better term, we called her boudoir, and on the curtains being drawn she rose from her couch and, stretching out both hands, came forward to greet us, or rather Leo; for, as may be imagined, I was now left quite in the cold. It was a pretty sight to see her veiled form gliding towards the sturdy young Englishman, dressed in his grey flannel suit; for, though he is half a Greek by blood, with the exception of his hair, Leo is one of the most English-looking men I ever saw. He has nothing of the supple form or slippery manner of the modern Greek about him, though I presume that he inherits his personal beauty from his foreign mother, whose portrait he resembles not a little. He is very tall and broad-chested, and yet not awkward, as so many big men are, and his head is set upon him in such a fashion as to give him a proud and vigorous air, which was well described by his Amahagger name of “Lion.”
“Greeting to thee, my lord and guest,” Ayesha said in her softest voice. “Right glad am I to see thee standing upon thy feet. Believe me, had I not sav
ed thee at the last, never wouldst thou have stood upon those feet again. But the danger is done, and it shall be my care”—she flung a world of meaning into these words—“that it returns no more.”
Leo bowed; then, in his best Arabic, he thanked her for all her kindness and courtesy in tending an unknown stranger.
“Nay,” she answered softly, “ill could the world spare such a man. Beauty is too rare upon it. Give me no thanks, who am made happy by thy coming.”
“Humph! old fellow,” said Leo aside to me in English, “the lady is very civil. We seem to have tumbled into clover. I hope that you have made the most of your opportunities. By Jove! what a pair of arms!”
I signed to him to be quiet, for I had caught a suspicious gleam from Ayesha’s veiled eyes, which were watching me curiously.
“I trust,” she went on, “that my servants have attended thee well; if there can be comfort in this poor place, be sure it waits on thee. Is there aught else that thou desirest?”
“Yes, O She,” answered Leo hastily. “I would learn whither the woman who was with me has vanished.”
“Ah!” said Ayesha: “the girl—yes, I saw her. Nay, I know not; she said that she would go, I know not where. Perchance she will return, perchance not. It is wearisome waiting on the sick, and these savage women are fickle.”
Leo looked both puzzled and distressed at this intelligence.
“It’s very odd,” he said to me in English; and then addressing She, he added: “I cannot understand; the young lady and I—well—we had a regard for each other.”
Ayesha laughed a little, very musically, and changed the subject.
XIX
“GIVE ME A BLACK GOAT!”
The conversation after this was of so desultory an order that I do not quite recollect it. For some reason, perhaps from a desire to keep her identity and character in reserve, Ayesha did not talk freely, as was her custom. Presently, however, she informed Leo that she had arranged a dance that night for our amusement. I was astonished to hear this, imagining that the Amahagger were much too gloomy a folk to indulge in any such frivolity; but, as will presently appear more clearly, it proved that an Amahagger dance has little in common with these fantastic festivities in other countries, savage or civilised. Then, as we were about to withdraw, she suggested that Leo might like to see some of the wonders of the caves, and accordingly thither we departed, accompanied by Job and Billali.
To describe our visit would only be to repeat a great deal of what I have already said. The tombs we entered were different indeed, for the whole rock is a honeycomb of sepulchres,* but their contents varied but little. Afterwards we visited the pyramid of bones that had haunted my dreams on the previous night, and thence went down a long passage to one of the great vaults occupied by the remains of the poorer citizens of Imperial Kôr. These bodies were not nearly so well preserved as were those of the wealthier classes. Many of them had no linen covering on them; also, from five hundred to one thousand of them were buried in a single large vault, the corpses in some instances being piled thickly one upon another, like a heap of slain.
Of course Leo was intensely interested in this stupendous and unequalled sight, which, indeed, was enough to awaken into the most active life all the imagination a man possessed. But to poor Job it did not prove attractive. As may be imagined, his nerves, already seriously shaken by what he had undergone since we had reached this terrible country, were yet further disturbed by the spectacle of these masses of departed humanity, whereof the forms still remained perfect before his eyes, though their voices were for ever lost in the eternal silence of the tomb. Nor was he comforted when old Billali, by way of soothing his evident agitation, informed him that he should not be frightened of these dead men, as he would soon be like them himself.
“That’s a nice thing to say of a man, sir,” he ejaculated, when I translated this little remark; “but there, what can one expect of an old cannibal savage? Not but what I dare say he’s right,” and Job sighed.
When we had finished inspecting the caves we returned and ate our meal, for it was now past four in the afternoon, and we all needed food and rest—especially Leo. At six o’clock, together with Job, we waited on Ayesha, who proceeded to terrify our poor servant still more by showing him pictures on the pool of water in the font-like vessel. She learnt from me that he was one of seventeen children, and then bid him think of all his brothers and sisters, or as many of them as he could, gathered together in his father’s cottage. Next she told him to look into the water, and there, reflected on its stilly surface, appeared that dead scene of many years gone by, as it was recalled to our retainer’s brain. Some of the faces were clear enough, but some were mere blurs and blotches, or had one feature grossly exaggerated; the fact being that, in these instances, Job was unable to recall the exact appearances of the individuals, or recollected them only by a peculiarity of his tribe, and the water could but reflect what he saw with his mind’s eye. It must be remembered, indeed, that She’s power in this matter was strictly limited; since, except in very rare instances, she could merely photograph upon the water what was in the mind of someone present, and then only through his will. But if she was personally acquainted with a locality, as in the case of ourselves and the whaleboat, she could throw its reflection upon the water, and also, it seems, the reflection of anything extraneous that was passing there at the time. This power, however, did not extend to the minds of others. For instance, she could show me the interior of my college chapel, as I remembered it, but not as it was at the moment of vision; since, where other people were concerned, her art was limited strictly to the facts or memories present to their consciousness at the moment. So much was this the case that when we tried, for her amusement, to show her pictures of noted buildings, such as St. Paul’s or the Houses of Parliament, the result was most imperfect; for, of course, though we had a general idea of their appearance, we were unable to recall the architectural details, and therefore the minutiæ necessary to a perfect reflection were wanting. But Job could not be made to understand this, and, so far from accepting a natural explanation of the matter, which, though strange enough in all conscience, was nothing more than an instance of glorified and perfected telepathy, he set the phenomenon down as a manifestation of the blackest magic. I shall never forget the howl of terror which he uttered when he saw the more or less perfect portraits of his long-scattered brethren staring at him from the quiet water, or the merry peal of laughter with which Ayesha greeted his consternation. Nor did Leo altogether like the performance, but ran his fingers through his yellow curls, and remarked that it gave him “the creeps.”
After about an hour of this amusement, in the latter part of which Job did not participate, the mutes indicated by signs that Billali was waiting for an audience. Accordingly he was told to “crawl up,” which he did as awkwardly as usual, and announced that the dance was ready to begin if She and the white strangers would be pleased to attend. Shortly afterwards we all rose, and, Ayesha having thrown a dark cloak over her white wrappings (the same, by the way, that she had worn when I saw her cursing by the fire), we started. The dance was to be held in the open air, on the smooth rocky plateau in front of the great cave, and thither we made our way. About fifteen paces from the mouth of the cave we found three chairs placed, and here we sat and waited, for as yet no dancers were to be seen. The night was almost, but not quite, dark, the moon not having risen as yet, which made us wonder how we should be able to see the dancing.
“Thou wilt understand presently,” said Ayesha, with a little laugh, when Leo questioned her.
Scarcely were the words out of her mouth when from every point we saw dark forms rushing along, each of them bearing what at first we took to be an enormous flaming torch. Whatever these were, they burned furiously, for the flames stood out a yard or more behind their bearers. On came the men, fifty or more of them, carrying their blazing burdens and looking like so many devils from hell. Leo was the first to discover what these burden
s were.
“Great heavens!” he said, “they are corpses on fire!”
I stared and stared again. He was perfectly right—the torches that were to light our entertainment were human mummies from the caves!
On rushed the bearers of the flaming corpses, and, meeting at a spot about twenty paces in front of us, built their ghastly loads crossways into a huge bonfire. Heavens! how they roared and flared! No tar barrel could have burnt as did those mummies. Nor was this all. Suddenly I saw one great fellow seize a flaming human arm that had fallen from its parent frame, and rush off into the darkness. Presently he stopped, and a tall streak of fire shot up into the air, illuminating the gloom, and also the lamp from which it sprang. That lamp was the mummy of a woman tied to a stout stake let into the rock, and he had fired her hair. On he went a few paces and touched a second, then a third, and a fourth, till at last we were surrounded on all three sides by a great ring of bodies flaring furiously, the material with which they were preserved having rendered them so inflammable that literally the flames would spout out of the ears and mouth in tongues of fire a foot or more in length.
19.1 Lanterns in Kôr.
Nero illuminated his gardens with living Christians soaked in tar, and we were now treated to a similar spectacle, probably for the first time since his day, only happily our lamps were not alive.
But although, fortunately, this element of horror was wanting, to describe the awful and hideous grandeur of the spectacle thus presented to us is, I feel, so absolutely beyond my poor powers that I scarcely dare attempt it. To begin with, it appealed to the moral as well as to the physical susceptibilities. There was something very terrible, and yet most fascinating, about this employment of the remote dead to illumine the orgies of the living; in itself the thing was a satire, both on the living and the dead. Cæsar’s dust—or is it Alexander’s?—may stop a bunghole, but the office of these dead Cæsars of the past was to light a savage fetish dance. To such base uses may we come, of so little account may we be in the minds of the eager multitudes that we shall breed, many of whom, so far from revering our memory, will live to curse us for begetting them into such a world of woe.
She: A History of Adventure Page 23
