by Percy Greg
CHAPTER XXVIII - DARKER YET.
Leading Eveena from the room, I hastily dictated every precaution thatcould diminish the danger to her and others. Velna had run risks thatcould not well be increased, and on her and on myself must devolvewhat remained to be done. I sent an amba to summon Davilo, gatheredthe garments that Eveena had thrown off, and removed them to thedeath-chamber. When the first arrangements were made, and I had paidthe fee of Astona, the woman-physician, I passed out into the garden,and Davilo met me at the door of the peristyle. A few words explainedall that was necessary. It was still almost dark; and as we stoodclose by the door, speaking in the low tone partly of sadness, partlyof precaution, two figures were dimly discernible just inside, and wecaught a few broken words.
"You have heard," said a harsh voice, which seemed to be Astona's,"there is no doubt now. You have your part to play, and can do itquickly and safely."
I paid little attention to words whose dangerous significance would atanother moment have been plain to me. But Davilo, greatly alarmed,laid his hand upon my arm. As he did so, another voice thrilled mewith intensest pain and amazement.
"Be quick to bear your message," Eive said, in rapid guarded tones."They have means of vengeance certain and prompt, and they neverspare."
Astona departed without seeing us. Eive closed the door, and Daviloand I, hastily and unperceived, followed the spy to the gate of theenclosure. Some one waited for her there. What passed we could nothear; but, as we saw Astona and another depart, Davilo spokeimprudently aloud--
"She has the secret, and she must die. 'Nay' (as I would haveexpostulated), she is spy, traitress, and assassin, and merits herdoom most richly."
"Hist!" said I, "your words may have fallen into other ears;" for Ithought that beyond the wall I discerned a crouching figure. If thatof a man, however, it was too far off, and dressed in colours toodark, to be clearly seen; and in another instant it had certainlyvanished.
"Remember," he urged, "you have heard that one quite as dangerous isunder your own roof; and, once more, it is not only your life that isat stake. What you call courage, what seems to us sheer folly, maycost you and others what you value far more than your life. An errorof softness now may make your future existence one long and uselessremorse."
Half-an-hour later, having warned the women to their rooms--ordering avariety of disinfecting measures in which Martial science excelledwhile they were needed there--I opened the door of the death chamberto those who carried in a coffer hollowed out of a dark, exceedinglydense natural stone, and half-filled with a liquid of enormousdestructive power. Then I lifted tenderly the lifeless form, laid iton cushions arranged therein, kissed the lips, and closed the coffer.Two of Davilo's attendants had meantime adjusted the electricmachinery. We carried the coffer into the apartment where this workedto heat the stove, to keep the lights burning, to raise, warm, anddiffuse the water through the house, and perform many other importanthousehold services. Two strong bars of conducting metal were attachedto the apparatus, and fitted into two hollows of the coffer. A flash,a certain hissing sound, followed. After a few moments the coffer wasopened, and Davilo, carefully gathering a few handfuls of solid whitematerial, something resembling pumice stone in appearance, placed themin a golden chest about twelve inches cube, which was then soldereddown by the heat derived from the electric power. Then all infectedclothes and the contents of the death chamber were carried out fordestruction; while, with a tool adjusted to the machinery, one of theattendants engraved a few characters upon the chest. Whatever therisk, I could not part with every relic of her we had lost; and, afterpassing them through such chemical purification as Martial sciencesuggested, I took the three long chestnut locks I had preserved.Velna's quick fingers wove them into plaits, one of which I left withher, one bound around my own neck, and one reserved for Eveena. Assoon as the sun had risen, I had despatched a message to the Prince,explaining the danger of infection to which I had been subjected, andasking permission notwithstanding to wait upon him. The emergency wasso pressing that neither sorrow nor peril would allow me to neglect anembassy on which the lives of hundreds, and perhaps the safety of hiskingdom, might depend. Passing Eive as I turned towards Eveena's room,and fevered with intense thirst, I bade her bring me thither a cup ofthe carcara. I need not dwell on the terribly painful moments in whichI bound round Eveena's arm a bracelet prized above all the choicestornaments she possessed. To calm her agitation and my own by means ofthe charny, I sought the keys. They were not at my belt, and I asked,"Have I returned them to you?"
"Certainly not," said Eveena, startled. "Can you not find them?"
At this moment Eive entered the room and presented me with the cup forwhich I had asked. It struck me with surprise, even at that moment,that Eveena took it from my hand and carried it first to her own lips.Eive had turned to leave the room; but before she had reached thethreshold Eveena had sprung up, placed her foot upon the spring thatclosed the door, and snatching the test-stone from my watch chaindipped it into the cup. Her face turned white as death, while she heldup to my eyes the discoloured disc which proved the presence of thedeadliest Martial poison.
"Be calm," she said, as a cry of horror burst from my lips. "Thekeys!"
"_You_ have them," Eive said with a gasp, her face still averted.
"I took them from Eveena myself," I answered sternly. "Stand back intothat corner, Eive," as I opened the door and called sharply the othermembers of the household. When they entered, unable to stand, I hadfallen back upon a chair, and called Eive to my side. As I laid myhand on her arm she threw herself on the floor, screaming and writhinglike a terrified child rather than a woman detected in a crime, theconception and execution of which must have required an evil courageand determination happily seldom possessed by women.
"Stand up!" I said. "Lift her, then, Enva and Eirale. Unfasten theshoulder-clasps and zone."
As her outer robe dropped, Eive snatched at an object in its folds,but too late; and the electric keys, which gave access to all mycases, papers, and to the medicine-chest above all, lay glittering onthe ground.
"That cup Eive brought to me. Which of you saw her?"
"I did," said Enva quietly, all feelings of malice and curiosity alikeawed into silence by the evidence of some terrible, though as yet tothem unknown, secret. "She mixed it and brought it hither herself."
"And," I said, "it contains a poison against which, had I drunkone-half the draught, no antidote could have availed--a poison towhich these keys only could have given access."
Again the test-stone was applied, and again the discolorationtestified to the truth of the charge.
"You have seen?" I said.
"We have seen," answered Enva, in the same tone of horror, too deep tobe other than quiet.
We all left the room, closing the door upon the prisoner. Dismissingthe girls to their own chambers, with strict injunctions not to quitthem unpermitted, I was left alone with Eveena. We were silent forsome minutes, my own heart oppressed with mingled emotions, allintensely painful, but so confused that, while conscious of acutesuffering, I scarcely realised anything that had occurred. Eveena, whoknelt beside me, though deeply horror-struck, was less surprised andwas far less agitated than I. At last, leaning forward with her armson my knee and looking up in my face, she was about to speak. But thetouch and look seemed to break a spell, and, shuddering from head tofoot, I burst into tears like those of an hysterical girl. When, withthe strongest effort that shame and necessity could prompt, aided byher silent soothing, I had somewhat regained my self-command, Eveenaspoke, in the same attitude and with the same look:--
"You said once that you could pardon such an attempt. That you shouldever forgive at heart cannot be. That punishment should not follow soterrible a crime, even I cannot desire. But for _my_ sake, do not giveher up to the doom she has deserved. Do you know" (as I was silent)"what that doom is?"
"Death, I suppose."
"Yes!" she said, shuddering, "but death with torture--death on t
hevivisection-table. Will you, whatever the danger--_can_ you, give upto such a fate, to such hands, one whom your hand has caressed, whosehead has rested on your heart?"
"It needs not that, Eveena," I answered; "enough that she is woman. Iwould face that death myself rather than, for whatever crime, send awoman, above all a young girl, to such an end. I would rather by farslay my worst enemy with my own hand than consign him to a death oftorture. But, more than that, my conscience would not permit me tocall on the law to punish a household treason, where householdauthority is so strong and so arbitrary as here. Assassination is theweapon of the oppressed and helpless; and it is not for me so to bejudge in my own cause as to pronounce that Eive has had noprovocation."
"Shame upon her!" said Eveena indignantly. "No one under your roofever had or could have reason to raise a hand, I do not say againstyour life, but to give you a moment's pain. I do not ask, I do notwish you to spare her; only I am glad to think you will deal with heryourself--remember she has herself removed all limit to yourpower--and not by the shameless and merciless hands to which the lawwould give her."
We returned to Eveena's chamber. The scene that followed I cannot bearto recall. Enough that Eive knew as well as Eveena the law she hadbroken and the penalty she had incurred; and, petted darling as shehad been, she utterly lacked all faith in the tenderness she had knownso well, or even in the mercy to which Eveena had confidentlyappealed. Understanding at last that she was safe from the law, theexpression of her gratitude was as vehement as her terror had beenintense. But the new phase of passion was not the less repugnant. Notthat there was anything strange in the violent revulsion of feeling.Born and trained among a race who fear to forgive, Eive was familiarby report at least with the merciless vengeance of cowards. Whateverthey might have done later, few would have promised mercy in the verymoment of escape to an ordinary assassin; and if Eive understood anyaspect of my character, that she could best appreciate was theoutraged tenderness which forbade me to look on hers as ordinaryguilt. Acutely sensitive to pain and fear, she had both known thebetter to what terror might prompt the injured, and was the moreappalled by the prospect. Her eagerness to accept by anticipationwhatever degradation and pain domestic power could inflict, whenreleased by the terrible alternative of legal prosecution from itsusual limits, breathed more of doubt and terror than of shame orpenitence. But at first it keenly affected me. It was with somethingakin to a bodily pang that I heard this fragile girl, so easilysubdued by such rebuke or menace as her companions would scarcely haveaffected to fear, now pleading for punishment such as would havequelled the pride and courage of the most high-spirited of her sex. Ifelt the deepest pity, not so much for the fear with which she stilltrembled as for the agony of terror she must have previously endured.Eveena averted from her abject supplications a face in which I readmuch pain, but more of what would have been disgust in a lessintensely sympathetic nature. And ere long I saw or felt in Eive'smanner that which caused me suddenly to dismiss Eveena from the room,as from a presence unfit for her spotless purity and exquisitedelicacy. Finding in me no sign of passionate anger, no readiness, butreluctance to visit treason with physical pain, Eive's own expressionchanged. Unable to conceive the feeling that rendered the course shehad at first expected simply impossible to me, a nature I had utterlymisconceived caught at an idea few women, not experienced in the worstof life's lessons, would have entertained. The tiny fragile form, theslight limbs whose delicate proportions seemed to me almost those ofinfancy, their irrepressible quivering plainly revealed by the absenceof robe and veil, no man worthy of the name could have beheld withoutintense compassion. But such a feeling she could not realise. As herfeatures lost the sincerity of overwhelming fear, as the drooping lidsfailed for one moment to conceal a look of almost assured exultationin the dark eyes, my soul was suddenly and thoroughly revolted. I hadforgiven the hand aimed at a heart that never throbbed with a pulseunkind to her. I might have forgotten the treason that requitedtenderness and trust by seeking my life; but I could never forget,never recover, that moment's insight into thoughts that so outraged anaffection which, if my conscience belied me not, was absolutelystainless and unselfish.
It cost a strong persistent effort of self-control to address heragain. But a confession full and complete my duty to others compelledme to enforce. The story of the next hour I never told or can tell. Toone only did I give a confidence that would have rendered explanationnatural; and that one was the last to whom I could have spoken on thissubject. Enough that the charming infantine simplicity had disguisedan elaborate treachery of which I reluctantly learned that humannature is capable. The caressed and caressing child had sold my life,if not her own soul, for the promise of wealth that could purchasenothing I denied her, and of the first place among the women of herworld. That promise I soon found had not been warranted, directly orindirectly, by him who alone could at present fulfil it. Needless torelate the details either of the confession or its extortion. Enoughthat Eive learnt at last perforce that though I had, as it seemed toher, been fool enough to spare her the vengeance of the law, and tospare her still as far as possible, her power to fool me further wasgone for ever. Needless to speak of the lies repeated and sustained,till truth was wrung from quivering lips and sobbing voice; of thelooks that appealed long and incredulously to a love as utterlyforfeited as misunderstood. To the last Eive could not comprehend thenature that, having spared her so much, would not spare wholly; themercy felt for the weakness, not for the charms of youth and sex.Shamed, grieved, wounded to the quick, I quitted the presence of onewho, I fear, was as little worth the anguish I then endured for her,as the tenderness she had so long betrayed; and left the late darlingof my house a prisoner under strict guard, necessary for the safety ofothers than ourselves.
Finding a message awaiting me, I sought at once the interview whichthe Sovereign fearlessly granted.
"I see," said the Prince with much feeling, as he received my salute,"that you have gone through deeper pain than such domestic losses canwell cause to us. I am sorry that you are grieved. I can say no more,and perhaps the less I say the less pain I shall give. Only permit methis remark. Since I have known you, it has seemed to me that theutter distinction between our character and yours, showing as it doesat so many points, springs from some single root-difference. We, socareful of our own life and comfort, care little for those of others.We, so afraid of pain, are indifferent to its infliction, unless wehave to witness it, and only some of us flinch from the sight. Thesoftness of heart you show in this trouble seems in some strange wayassociated with the strength of heart which you have proved indangers, the least of which none of us would have encounteredwillingly, and which, forced on us, would have unnerved us all. I amglad to prove to you that to some extent I depart from my nationalcharacter and approach, however, distantly, to yours. I can feel for afriend's sorrow, and I can face what you seem to consider a realdanger. But you had a purpose in asking this audience. My ears areopen--your lips are unsealed."
"Prince," I replied, "what you have said opens the way to that Iwished to ask. You say truly that courage and tenderness have a commonroot, as have the unmanly softness and equally unmanly hardness commonamong your subjects. Those for whom death ends all utterly and forever will of necessity, at least as soon as the training of years andof generations has rendered their thought consistent, dread death withintensest fear, and love to brighten and sweeten life with everypossible enjoyment. Animal enjoyment becomes the most precious, sinceit is the keenest. Higher pleasures lose half their value, when thedistinction between the two is reduced to the distinction between thesensations of higher and lower nerve centres. Thus men care too muchfor themselves to care for others; and after all, strong deepaffection, entwined with the heartstrings, can only torture and tearthe hearts for which death is a final parting. Such love as I havefelt for woman--even such love as I felt for her, your gift, whom Ihave lost--would be pain intolerable if the thought were ever presentthat one day we must, and any day we might,
part for ever. I put theknife against my breast, my life in your hand, when I say this, and Iask of you no secrecy, no favour for myself; but that, as I trust you,you will guard the life that is dearest to me if you take from me thepower to guard it.... There are those among your subjects who are notthe cowards you find around your throne, who are not brutal in theirhouseholds, not incapable of tenderness and sacrifice for others."
As I spoke I carefully watched the Prince's face, on which no shade ofdispleasure was visible; rather the sentiment of one who is somewhatgratified to hear a perplexing problem solved in a manner agreeable tohis wishes.
"And the reason is," I continued, "that these men and women believe orknow that they are answerable to an eternal Sovereign mightier thanyourself, and that they will reap, not perhaps here, but after deathas they shall have sown; that if they do not forfeit the promise bytheir own deed, they shall rejoin hereafter those dearest to themhere."
"There are such?" he said. "I would they were known to me. I had notdreamed that there were in my realm men who would screen the heart ofanother with their own palm."
"Prince," I replied earnestly, "I as their ambassador as one of theirleaders, appeal to you to know and to protect them. They can defendthemselves at need, and, it may be, might prevail though matched oneagainst a thousand. For their weapons are those against which nodistance, no defences, no numbers afford protection. But in such astrife many of their lives must be lost, and infinite suffering andhavoc wrought on foes they would willingly spare. They are threatenedwith extermination by secret spite or open force; but open force willbe the last resort of enemies well aware that those who strike at theStar have ever been smitten by the lightning."
A slight change in his countenance satisfied me that the Emblem wasnot unknown to him.
"You say," he replied, "that there is an organised scheme to destroythese people by force or fraud?"
"The scheme, Prince, was confessed in my own hearing by one of itsinstruments; and in proof thereof, my own life, as a Chief of theOrder, was attempted this morning."
The Prince sprang to his feet in all the passion of a man who for thefirst time receives a personal insult; of an Autocrat stung to thequick by an unprecedented outrage to his authority and dignity.
"Who has dared?" he said. "Who has taken on himself to make law, orform plans for carrying out old law, without my leave? Who has daredto strike at the life over which I have cast the shadow of my throne?Give me their names, my guest, and, before the evening mist closes into-morrow, pronounce their doom."
"I cannot obey your royal command. I have no proof against the onlyman who, to my knowledge, can desire my death. Those who actually andimmediately aimed at my life are shielded by the inviolable weaknessof sex from the revenge and even the justice of manhood."
"Each man," returned the Prince, but partially conceiving my meaning,"is master at home. I wish I were satisfied that your heart will letyou deal justly and wisely with the most hateful offspring of the mosthateful of living races--a woman who betrays the life of her lord. Butthose who planned a general scheme of destruction--a purpose of publicpolicy--without my knowledge, must aim also at my life and throne; foreven were their purpose such as I approved, attempted without mypermission, they know I would never pardon the presumption. I do notsit in Council with dull ears, or silent lips, or empty hands; and itis not for the highest more than for the lowest under me to snatch mysceptre for a moment."
"Guard then your own," I said. "Without your leave and in yourlifetime, open force will scarcely he used against us; and if againstsecret murder or outrage we appeal to the law, you will see that thelaw does justice?"
"I will," he replied; "and I pardon your advice to guard my own,because you judge me by my people. But a Prince's life is the chargeof his guards; the lives of his people are his care."
He was silent for a few minutes, evidently in deep reflection.
"I thank you," he said at last, "and I give you one warning in partialreturn for yours. There is a law which can be used against the membersof a secret society with terrible effect. Not only are they exposed todeath if detected, but those who strike them are legally exempt frompunishment. I will care that that law shall not menace you long.Whilst it remains guard yourselves; I am powerless to break it."
As I quitted the Palace, Ergimo joined me and mounted my carriage.Seizing a moment when none were within sight or hearing, he said--
"Astona was found two hours ago dead, as an enemy or a traitor dies.She was seen to fall from the roof of her house, and none was near herwhen she fell. But Davilo has already been arrested as her murderer,on the ground that he was heard before sunrise this morning to saythat she must die."
"Who heard that must have heard more. Let this news be quickly knownto whom it concerns."
I checked the carriage instantly, and turned into a road thatconducted us in ten minutes to a public telegraph office.
"Come with me," I said, "quickly. As an officer of the Campta yourpresence may ensure the delivery of letters which might otherwise bestopped."
He seized the hint at once, and as we approached a vacant desk he saidto the nearest officer, "In the Campta's name;" a form which ensuredthat the most audacious and curious spy, backed by the highestauthority save that invoked, dared neither stop nor search into amessage so warranted. Before I left the desk every Chief of the Zintaat his several post had received, through that strange symboliclanguage of which I have already given samples, from me advice of whathad occurred and from Esmo warning to meet at an appointed place andtime.
The day at whose close we should meet was that of Davilo's trial. Imingled with the crowd around the Court doors, a crowd manifestingbitter hostility to the prisoner and to the Order, of whose secrets arevelation was eagerly expected. Easily forcing my way through themass, I felt on a sudden a touch, a sign; and turning my eyes saw aface I had surely never looked on before. Yet the sign could only havebeen given by a colleague. That which followed implied the presence ofthe Signet itself.
"I told you," whispered a voice I knew well, "how completely we canchange even countenance at will."
It was so; but though acquainted with the process, I had neverbelieved that the change could be so absolute. By help of my strengthand height, still more perhaps by the subtle influence of his ownpowerful will acting none the less imperiously on minds unconscious ofits influence, Esmo made his way with me into the Court.
Around five sides of the hexagon were seats, tier above tier,appropriated to the public who wish to see as well as hear. Thephonograph reported every word uttered to hundreds of distant offices.Against the sixth side were placed the seats of the seven judges; infront, at an equal elevation, the chair of the prisoner, the seats ofthe advocates on right and left, and the place from which each witnessmust deliver his testimony in full view and within easy hearing bothof the bench, the bar, and the audience. Davilo sat in his chairunguarded, but in an attitude strangely constrained and motionless.Only his bright eyes moved freely, and his head turned a little fromside to side. He recognised us instantly, and his look expressed notrace of fear.
"The _quarry_" whispered Esmo, observing my perplexity.
"It paralyses the nerves of motion, leaving those of sensation active;and is administered to a prisoner on the instant of his arrest, so asto keep him absolutely helpless till his sentence is executed, or tillon his acquittal an antidote is administered."
The counsel for the prosecution stated in the briefest possible wordsthe story of Astona, from the moment when she left my house to that atwhich she was found dead, and the method of her death; relatedDavilo's words, and then proceeded to call his witnesses. Of coursethe one vital question was whether by possibility Davilo, who hadnever left my premises since the words were uttered, could havebrought about a death, evidently accidental in its immediate cause, ata distance of many miles. His words were attested by one whom Irecognised as an officer of Endo Zampta, and I was called to confirmor contradict them. The presiding judge, as
I took my place, read abrief telling terrible menace, expounding the legal penalties ofperjury.
"You will speak the truth," he said, "or you know the consequences."
As he spoke, he encountered Esmo's eyes, and quailed under the gaze,sinking back into his seat motionless as the bird under the allegedfascination of the serpent. I admitted that the words in question hadbeen addressed to me; and I proved that Davilo had been busily engagedwith me from that moment until an hour later than that of the fatalaccident. There being thus no dispute as to the facts, a keen contestof argument proceeded between the advocates on either side. Thedefenders of the prisoner ridiculed with an affectation of scientificcontempt--none the less effective because the chief pleader washimself an experienced member of our Order--the idea that the actionsor fate of a person at a distance could be affected by the mere willof another; and related, as absurd and incredible traditions of old tothis purport, some anecdotes which had been communicated to me asamong the best attested and most striking examples of the historicalexercise of the mystic powers. The able and bigoted sceptics, whoprosecuted this day in the interests of science, insisted, with equalinconsistency and equal skill, on the innumerable recorded andattested instances of some diabolical power possessed by certainsupposed members of a detested and malignant sect. A year ago thejudges would probably have sided unanimously with the former. But thefeeling that animated the conspiracy, if it should be so called,against the Zinta, had penetrated all Martial society; and in order todestroy the votaries of religion, Science, in the persons of her mostdistinguished students, was this day ready to abjure her character,and forswear her most cherished tenets. As has often happened in Mars,and may one day happen on Earth as the new ideas come into greaterforce, proven fact was deliberately set against logical impossibility;and for once--what probably had not happened in Mars for ten thousandyears--proven fact and common sense carried the day against scienceand "universal experience;" but, unhappily, against the prisoner.After retiring separately for about an hour, the Judges returned.Their brief and very confused decisions were read by the Secretary.The reasons were seldom intelligible, each contradicting himself andall his colleagues, and not one among the judgments having even theappearance of cohesion and consistency. But, by six to one, theydoomed the prisoner to the vivisection-table. As he was carried forthhis eyes met ours, and the perfect calm and steadiness of their glanceastounded me not a little.
My natural thought prompted, of course, an appeal to the mercy of theThrone. In every State a power of giving effect in the law's despiteto public policy, or of commanding that, in certain strange andunforeseen circumstances, common sense and practical justice shalloverride a sentence which no court bound by the letter of the law canwithhold, must rest with the Sovereign. But in Mars the prerogative ofmercy, in the proper sense of the word--judicial rather than politicalmercy--is exercised less by the Prince himself than by a small councilof judges advising him and pronouncing their decision in his name.Even if we could have relied on the Campta with absolute confidence,there were many reasons against an appeal which would, in fact, haveasked him to declare himself on our side. While such a declarationmight, in the existing state of public feeling, have caused revolt orriot, it would have put on their guard, perhaps driven to a prematureattempt which he was not prepared to meet, the traitors whose schemeagainst his life the Prince felt confident that he should speedilydetect and punish.
All these considerations were brought before our Council, whose debatewas brief but not hurried or excited. The supreme calm of Esmo'sdemeanour communicated itself to all the eleven, in not one of whomcould I recognise till they spoke my colleagues of our last Council.The order went forth that a party should attend Esmo's orders at apoint about half a mile distant from the studio in which, for thebenefit of a great medical school, my unhappy friend was to be put totorture indescribable.
"Happily," said Esmo, "the first portion of the experiment will bemade by the Vivisector-General alone, and will commence at midnight.Half an hour before that time our party will be assembled."
I had insisted on being one of the band, and Esmo had very reluctantlyyielded to the unanimous approval of colleagues who thought that onthis occasion physical strength might render essential service at someunforeseen crisis. Moreover, the place lying within my geographicalprovince, several of those engaged looked up to me as their immediatechief, and it was thought well to place me on such an occasion attheir head.
The night was, as had been predicted, absolutely dark, but the roadswere brilliantly lighted. Suddenly, however, as we drew towards thepoint of meeting, the lights went out, an accident unprecedented inMartial administration.
"But they will be relighted!" said one of my companions.
"Can human skill relight the lamps that the power of the Star hasextinguished?" was the reply of another.
We fell in military order, with perfect discipline and steadiness,under the influence of Esmo's silent will and scarcely discerniblegestures. The wing of the college in which the dissection was to takeplace was guarded by some forty sentinels, armed with the spear andlightning gun. But as we came close to them, I observed that eachstood motionless as a statue, with eyes open, but utterly devoid ofsight.
"I have been here before you," murmured Esmo. "To the left."
The door gave way at once before the touch of some electric instrumentor immaterial power wielded by his hand. We passed in, guided by him,through one or two chambers, and along a passage, at the end of whicha light shone through a crystal door. Here proof of Esmo's superiorjudgment was afforded. He would fain have had the party much smallerthan it was, and composed exclusively of the very few old andexperienced members of the Zinta within reach at the moment. We werenearly a score in number, some even more inexperienced than myself,half the party my own immediate followers; and I remembered far betterthe feelings of a friend and a soldier than the lessons of the collegeor the Shrine. As the door opened, and we caught sight of our friendstretched on the vivisection table, the younger of the company,hurried on by my own example, lost their heads and got, so to speak,out of hand. We rushed tumultuously forward and fell on the Vivisectorand two assistants, who stood motionless and perhaps unconscious, butwith glittering knives just ready for their fiendish work. Before Esmocould interpose, these executioners were cut down with the "crimsonblade" (cold steel); and we bore off our friend with more of eagernessand triumph than at all befitted our own consciousness of power, orsuited the temper of our Chief.
Never did Esmo speak so sharply or severely as in the brief reprimandhe gave us when we reassembled; the justice of which. I instinctivelyacknowledged, as he ceased, by the salute I had given so often at theclose of less impressive and less richly deserved reprimands on theparade ground or the march. Uninjured, and speedily relieved from theeffects of the _quarry_, Davilo was carried off to a place oftemporary concealment, and we dispersed.
Eveena heard my story with more annoyance than interest, mortified nota little by the reproof I had drawn upon myself and my followers; and,despite her reluctance to seem to acknowledge a fault in me,apparently afraid that a similar ebullition of feeling might on somefuture occasion lead to serious disaster.
