Then there was the physical side of the spectacle, and a wild and splendid one it was. Those old citizens of Kôr burnt as, to judge from their sculptures and inscriptions, they had lived, very fast, and with the utmost liberality. What is more, there were plenty of them. So soon as a mummy was consumed to the ankles, which happened in about twenty minutes, the feet were kicked away, and another was put in its place. The bonfire was fed on the same generous scale, and its flames shot up, with a hiss and a crackle, twenty or thirty feet into the air, throwing great flashes of light far out into the gloom, through which the dark forms of the Amahagger flitted to and fro like devils replenishing the infernal fires. We all stood and stared aghast—shocked, and yet fascinated at so strange a spectacle, and half expecting to see the spirits those flaming forms had once enclosed come creeping from the shadows to work vengeance on their desecrators.
“I promised thee a strange sight, my Holly,” laughed Ayesha, whose nerves alone did not seem to be affected; “and, behold! I have not failed thee. Also, it hath its lesson. Trust not to the future, for who knows what the future may bring! Therefore, live for the day, and endeavour not to escape the dust which seems to be man’s end. What thinkest thou that those long-forgotten nobles and ladies would have felt had they known that in an age to be their delicate bodies should flare to light the dance of savages? But see, here come the mummers; a merry crew—are they not? The stage is lit—now for the play.”
As she spoke we perceived advancing round the human bonfire two lines of figures, one of males and the other of females, to the number of about a hundred, each arrayed only in the usual leopard and buck skins. They formed up, in perfect silence, facing each other between us and the fire, and then the dance—a sort of infernal and fiendish cancan—began. To describe it is quite impossible, but, though there was a good deal of tossing of legs and double-shuffling, it seemed to our untutored minds to be a play rather than a dance, and, as is usual among this dreadful people, whose character takes its colour from the caves wherein they live, and whose jokes and amusements are drawn from the inexhaustible stores of preserved mortality with which they share their homes, the subject was most ghastly.
In the first place it represented an attempted murder, then the burial alive of the victim and his struggling from the grave; each act of the abominable drama, which was carried on in perfect silence, being rounded off and finished with a furious and very revolting dance about the supposed victim, who writhed upon the ground in the red light of the bonfire.
Suddenly, however, this pleasing piece was interrupted. There was a slight commotion, and a large powerful woman, whom I had noted as one of the most vigorous of the dancers, made mad and drunken with unholy excitement, bounded and staggered towards us, shrieking out as she came:—
“I want a Black Goat, I must have a Black Goat, bring me a Black Goat!” and down she fell upon the rocky floor, foaming and writhing, and shrieking for a Black Goat, affording as hideous a spectacle as can be conceived.
Instantly most of the dancers assembled themselves round her, though some still continued their capers in the background.
“She has a Devil,” called out one of them. “Run and get a black goat. There, Devil, keep quiet! keep quiet! You shall have the goat presently. They have gone to fetch it, Devil.”
“I want a Black Goat, I must have a Black Goat!” shrieked the foaming rolling creature again.
“All right, Devil, the goat will be here presently; keep quiet, there’s a good Devil!”
And so on till the goat, taken from a neighbouring kraal, arrived at last, being dragged bleating to the scene by its horns.
“Is it a Black One? is it a Black One?” shrieked the possessed.
“Yes, yes, Devil, as black as night;” then aside, “keep it behind thee, don’t let the Devil see that it has got a white spot on its rump and another on its belly. In one minute, Devil. There, cut its throat quick. Where is the saucer?”
“The Goat! the Goat! the Goat! Give me the blood of my black goat! I must have it, don’t you see I must have it? Oh! oh! oh! give me the blood of the goat.”
At this moment a terrified bah! announced that the poor animal had been sacrificed, and presently a woman ran up with a saucer full of the blood. This the possessed creature, who was then raving and foaming her wildest, seized and drank, and was instantly recovered, and without a trace of hysteria, or fits, or possession, or whatever dreadful thing it was from which she suffered. She stretched out her arms, smiled faintly, and walked back to the dancers, who then withdrew in a double line as they had come, leaving the space between us and the bonfire deserted.
I thought that the entertainment was now over, and, feeling sickened, was about to ask She if we could rise, when suddenly what at first I took to be a baboon came hopping round the fire, to be met upon the other side by a lion, or rather by a human being dressed in a lion’s skin. Then appeared a goat, then a man wrapped in an ox-hide, with the horns swinging ludicrously to and fro. After him followed a blesbok, then an impala, then a koodoo, then more goats, and many other animals, including a girl sewn up in the shining scaly skin of a boa-constrictor, several yards of which trailed along the ground behind her. When all the maskers had collected they began to dance about in a lumbering, unnatural fashion, and to imitate the sounds produced by the respective animals they represented, until the air was alive with roars and bleating and the hissing of snakes.
This went on for a long time, till, tiring of the pantomime, I asked Ayesha if Leo and myself could walk round to inspect the human torches, and, as she did not object, we started, turning to the left. After looking at one or two of the flaming bodies, we were about to return, thoroughly disgusted with the grotesque weirdness of the spectacle, when our attention was attracted by one of the dancers, a particularly active leopard, that had separated itself from its fellow-beasts, and was whisking about in our immediate neighbourhood, but gradually drawing towards a spot where the shadow was darkest, equidistant between two of the burning mummies. Led by curiosity, we followed it, when suddenly it darted past us into the gloom beyond, and as it went erected itself and whispered, “Come,” in a voice which we both recognised as that of Ustane. Without waiting to consult me Leo turned and followed her into the outer darkness, and, filled with fear, I hurried after them. The leopard crawled on for about fifty paces—a sufficient distance to be quite beyond the light of the fire and torches—and then Leo overtook it, or rather Ustane.
“Oh, my lord,” I heard her whisper, “at length I have found thee! Listen. I am in peril of my life from ‘She-who-must-be-obeyed.’ Surely the Baboon has told thee how she drove me from thee? I love thee, my lord, and thou art mine according to the custom of this country. I saved thy life; then canst thou cast me off, my love, my love!”
“Of course not,” ejaculated Leo; “I have been seeking thee, Ustane. Let us go and explain to the Queen.”
“Nay, nay, she would slay us. Thou knowest not her power—the Baboon there, he knoweth, for he saw. Hearken! There is but one way: if thou wilt cleave to me, thou must flee with me across the marshes this very hour, and then perchance we may escape.”
“For Heaven’s sake, Leo,” I began, but she broke in—
“Nay, listen not to him. Swift—be swift—death is in the air we breathe. Even now, mayhap, She hears us,” and without more ado she proceeded to enforce her arguments by throwing herself into his arms. As she did so the leopard’s head slipped from her hair, and I saw the three white finger-marks upon it, gleaming faintly in the starlight. Terrified by the desperate nature of the position, once more I was about to interpose, for I knew that Leo is not too strong-minded where women are concerned, when I heard a little silvery laugh behind me. I turned round, and—oh horror!—there was She herself, and with her Billali and two male mutes. I gasped and nearly fell, for I was certain that such a situation must result in some dreadful tragedy, of which it seemed exceedingly probable that I should be the first victim. As for Ustane, loosin
g her lover, she covered her eyes with her hands, while Leo, not knowing the full terror of the position, merely coloured, and looked foolish, as a man caught in such a trap would naturally do.
*For a long while it puzzled me to know how the enormous quantities of rock that must have been dug out of these vast caves had been disposed of; but I discovered afterwards that it was, for the most part, built into the walls and palaces of Kôr. Also it was used to line the reservoirs and sewers.—L. H. H.
XX
TRIUMPH
Then followed a moment of the most painful silence that I ever endured. It was broken by Ayesha, who addressed herself to Leo.
“Nay, now, my lord and guest,” she said in her softest tones, which yet had the ring of steel about them, “look not so bashful. Surely the sight was a pretty one—the leopard and the lion!”
“Oh, bother!” said Leo in English.
“And thou, Ustane,” she went on, “in truth I should have passed thee by, had not the light fallen on the stripes across thy hair,” and she pointed to the bright edge of the rising moon which was now appearing above the horizon. “Well! well! the dance is done—see, the tapers have burnt down, and all things end in silence and in ashes. So thou thoughtest it a fit time for love, Ustane, my servant—and I, dreaming not that I could be disobeyed, deemed thee already far away.”
“Play not with me,” moaned the wretched woman; “kill me, and let there be an end.”
“Nay, why? It is not well to go so swift from the hot lips of love down to the cold mouth of the grave,” and Ayesha motioned to the mutes, who instantly stepped up and caught the girl by either arm. With an oath Leo sprang upon the nearest, and hurled him to the ground, and then stood over him with his face set and his fist ready.
Again Ayesha laughed. “It was well thrown, my guest; thou hast a strong arm for one who so late was sick. But now of thy courtesy I pray thee let that man live and do my bidding. He shall not harm the girl; the night air grows chill, and I would welcome her in mine own place. Surely she whom thou dost favour shall be favoured of me also.”
I took Leo by the arm, dragging him from the prostrate mute, and, half bewildered, he yielded and left the man. Then we set out for the cave across the plateau, whence the dancers had vanished, and where a pile of white human ashes was all that remained of the fire which had lit their dancing.
In due course we gained Ayesha’s boudoir—all too soon it seemed to me, having a sad presage of what was to come lying heavy on my heart.
Ayesha seated herself upon her cushions, and, having dismissed Job and Billali, by signs she bade the mutes tend the lamps and retire—all save one girl, who was her favourite personal attendant. We three remained standing, the unfortunate Ustane a little to the left of the rest of us.
“Now, O Holly,” Ayesha began, “how came it that thou who didst hear my words bidding this evil-doer”—and she pointed to Ustane—“to go hence—thou at whose prayer I weakly spared her life—how came it, I say, that thou hadst part in what I saw to-night? Answer, and for thine own sake, I say, speak all the truth, for I am not minded to hear lies upon this matter!”
“It was by accident, O Queen,” I answered. “I knew nothing of it.”
“I believe thee, Holly,” she answered coldly, “and well it is for thee that I do. Then does the whole guilt rest upon her.”
“I do not find any guilt herein,” interrupted Leo. “She is no other man’s wife, and it seems that she has married me according to the custom of this awful place, so who is harmed? Any way, madam, whatever she has done I have done, so if she is to be punished let me be punished also; and I tell thee,” he went on, working himself up into a fury, “that if thou biddest one of those deaf and dumb villains to touch her again I will tear him to pieces!”
Ayesha listened in icy silence, and made no remark. When he had finished, however, she addressed Ustane.
“Hast thou aught to say, woman? Thou silly straw, thou feather, who didst think to float towards thy passion’s petty ends, even against the great wind of my will! Tell me, for I fain would understand, why didst thou this thing?”
Then I think that I saw the most wonderful example of moral courage and intrepidity which it is possible to conceive. For this poor doomed girl, knowing what she had to expect at the hands of her terrible Queen, knowing, too, from bitter experience, how great was her adversary’s power, yet stood unshaken, and out of the very depths of her despair drew the strength to defy her.
“I did it, O She,” she answered, drawing herself up to the full of her stately height, and throwing back the panther skin from her head, “because my love is deeper than the grave. I did it because my life without this man whom my heart chose would be but a living death. Therefore I risked my life, and now, when I know that it is forfeit to thine anger, still am I glad that I risked it, and must pay it away in the risking, ay, because he embraced me once, and told me that he loved me yet.”
Here Ayesha half rose from her couch, and then sank down again.
“I have no magic,” went on Ustane, her rich voice ringing strong and full, “and I am not a Queen, nor do I live for ever: but a woman’s heart is heavy to sink through waters, however deep, O Queen! and a woman’s eyes are quick to see—even through thy veil, O Queen!
“Listen: I know it, thou dost love this man thyself, and therefore wouldst thou destroy me who stand across thy path. Ay, I die—I die, and go into the darkness, nor know I whither I go. But this I know. There is a light shining in my breast, and by that light, as by a lamp, I see the truth, and the future that I shall not share, unroll itself before me like a scroll. When first I knew my lord,” and she pointed to Leo, “I knew also that death would be the bridal gift he gave me—it rushed upon me of a sudden, but I turned not back, being ready to pay the price, and, behold, death is here! And now, even as I knew this, so, standing on the steps of doom, do I know that thou shalt not reap the profit of thy crime. Mine he is, and, though thy beauty shine like a sun among the stars, mine he shall remain for thee. Never here in this life shall he look thee in the eyes and call thee spouse. Thou too art doomed, I see”—and her voice rose like the cry of an inspired prophetess; “ah, I see——”
Then there rang an answering cry of rage and terror. I turned my head. Ayesha had risen, and was standing with her outstretched hand pointing at Ustane, who had suddenly become silent. I gazed at the poor woman, and as I gazed there fell upon her face that same woful, fixed expression of terror which I had seen before when she broke into her wild chant. Her eyes grew large, her nostrils dilated, and her lips blanched.
Ayesha said nothing, she made no sound, she only drew herself up, stretched out her arm, and, her tall veiled frame quivering like an aspen leaf, appeared to look fixedly at her victim. Even as she looked Ustane put her hands to her head, uttered one piercing scream, turned round twice, and then fell backwards with a thud—prone upon the floor. Both Leo and myself rushed to her. She was stone dead—blasted into death by some mysterious electric agency or overwhelming willforce whereof the dread She had command.
For a moment Leo did not quite understand what had happened. But, when it came home to him, his face was awful to see. With a savage oath he rose from beside the corpse, and, turning, literally sprang at Ayesha. But she was watching, and, seeing him come, stretched out her hand again, and he went staggering back towards me, and would have fallen, had I not caught him. Afterwards he told me that he felt as though he had suddenly received a violent blow in the chest, and, what is more, utterly cowed, as if all the manhood had been taken out of him.
Then Ayesha spoke. “Forgive me, my guest,” she said softly, addressing him, “if I have shocked thee with my justice.”
“Forgive thee, thou fiend!” shouted poor Leo, wringing his hands in his rage and grief. “Forgive thee, thou murderess! By Heaven, I will kill thee if I can!”
“Nay, nay,” she answered in the same soft voice, “thou dost not understand—the time has come for thee to learn. Thou art my lo
ve, my Kallikrates, my Beautiful, my Strong! For two thousand years, Kallikrates, I have waited for thee, and now at length thou hast come back to me; and as for this woman,” pointing to the corpse, “she stood between me and thee, therefore have I laid her in the dust, Kallikrates.”
“It is a lie!” said Leo. “My name is not Kallikrates! I am Leo Vincey; my ancestor was Kallikrates—at least, I believe he was.”
“Ah, thou sayest it—thine ancestor was Kallikrates, and thou, even thou, art Kallikrates reborn, come back—and mine own dear lord!”
“I am not Kallikrates, and as for being thy lord, or having aught to do with thee, I had sooner be the lord of a fiend from hell, for she would be better than thou.”
“Sayest thou so—sayest thou so, Kallikrates? Nay, but thou hast not seen me for so long a time that no memory remains. Yet am I very fair, Kallikrates!”
“I hate thee, murderess, and I have no wish to see thee. What is it to me how fair thou art? I hate thee, I say.”
“Yet within a very little space shalt thou creep to my knee, and swear that thou dost love me,” answered Ayesha, with a sweet, mocking laugh. “Come, there is no time like the present time. Here, before this dead girl who loved thee, let us put it to the proof.
“Look now on me, Kallikrates!” and with a sudden motion she shook her gauzy covering from her, and stood forth in her low kirtle and her snaky zone, in her glorious radiant beauty and her imperial grace, rising from her wrappings, as it were, like Venus from the wave, or Galatea from her marble, or a beatified spirit from the tomb. She stood forth, and fixed her deep and glowing eyes upon Leo’s eyes, and I saw his clenched fists unclasp, and his set and quivering features relax beneath her gaze. I saw his wonder and astonishment grow into admiration, then into longing, and the more he struggled the more I saw the power of her dread beauty fasten on him and take hold of his senses, drugging them, and drawing the heart out of him. Did I not know the process? Had not I, who was twice his age, gone through it myself? Was I not going through it afresh even then, although her sweet and passionate gaze was not for me? Yes, alas! I was. Alas! that I should have to confess that at this very moment I was rent by mad and furious jealousy. I could have flown at him, shame upon me! This woman had confounded and almost destroyed my moral sense, as indeed she must confound all who looked upon her superhuman loveliness. But—I do not know how—I mastered myself, and once more turned to see the climax of the awful tragedy.
She: A History of Adventure Page 24
