by Robert Reed
must look to the living .”
At intervals along the hall Daphne served curtains, and stopping
before one of them, Thoth drew it aside and revealed a small cell .
Crouching at the back, like a terrified animal, lay a woman, scant-
ily clad in a tattered garment made of coarse hair .
Her figure seemed robust and healthy, but was rendered hideous
by glaring streaks of paint and devices of unclean animals branded
on the skin . Still more horrible was her head . She was evidently
young, but she had no ears, no eyebrows, no hair . Her mouth had
been distended, and her teeth were sharpened to fine points. She
grovelled on the ground, as if awaiting torture, and Daphne’s heart
stood still with horror and indignation .
Suddenly Thoth addressed the creature in an unknown tongue,
and after repeating the same thing over and over again, apparently
THOTH, by Joseph Shield Nicholson | 614
made the woman understand and believe what he said, for suddenly
she gave a sobbing laugh and crouched to kiss his feet .
“I have told her,” said Thoth, “that she need labour no more at
her appointed tasks, and will never again be punished . But the thing
which pleased her most, and which she could not believe, was that
without her request she would never see any of the masked rulers .”
“What were her tasks?” Daphne asked .
“It would be difficult to explain,” said Thoth. “They were all
most irksome, most useless, most trifling, but they were exacted
with dreadful punishments . She had to count grains of sand, to un-
ravel tangled knots, to learn by rote strings of meaningless sounds,
and to discover all kinds of intricate puzzles .”
To confirm his words, Thoth destroyed the various instruments
of labour, scattered the sand, tore up the parchments, and stamped
upon the fragments of the broken toys . The woman seemed stupe-
fied with incredulous surprise, like a dazed child just recovered from
a fit of terror.
They passed on, and Thoth drew the curtain of another cell . Here
again the occupant was a woman, but she was exquisitely clothed
and both face and form were extremely beautiful . She shuddered
when the masks entered and hastily began to arrange in a harmoni-
ous manner various shades of coloured stuffs . She looked anxiously,
too, at the walls of the cell which were covered with pictures . To
Daphne the pictures were perfectly unintelligible, and yet they
seemed excellent both in colour and drawing . They were such pic-
tures as might be painted by a great artist whose reason had been
destroyed by some calamity .
“Her task,” said Thoth, “is to live entirely for colour and form—
in all other respects she is less intelligent than a butterfly.”
Daphne looked into her eyes, and saw at once that she was quite
distraught .
Again Thoth repeated the same gibberish, and at last seemed
to make the woman understand in a blinking manner that her life
would no longer be made a burden . To Daphne, however, it seemed
THOTH, by Joseph Shield Nicholson | 615
that the message of release had come too late—like longed-for rain
after the tree has perished with drought .
Suddenly a thought flashed through her mind, and without asking
Thoth’s permission, she threw off her disguise and addressed the
artist . At once she uttered a low cry of pleasure, and ran to em-
brace Daphne . Then she turned to Thoth and spoke to him in broken
words . At Daphne’s request Thoth acted as interpreter, and told her
the woman wished Daphne to remain as her companion . Daphne
wept with pity, and Thoth led her away, the artist in vain trying to
repress a cry of despair .
Thus they visited room after room, and through all the variety of
occupations in which the miserable women were engaged, the same
features were conspicuous . Their labour was, without exception,
either most irksome, most useless, most trifling, or else degrading,
and yet it evidently required the highest degree of cunning and per-
severance .
In appearance, many of the women had been made physically
most repulsive,—some maimed, some blind, some almost shape-
less with distortion; and those whose bodies had escaped, had been
deformed to a much worse extent in mind . Without exception they
shuddered on the entry of the masks, and showed their terror in the
most undisguised manner . Apparently Thoth tried to take away their
fears, and to inform them that for the future they would live happily;
but they listened with dull incredulity, and seemed quite hopeless .
In the whole of this vast building there was not a single creature
who could have kindled a spark of love in the heart of the most
impassioned of men .
Daphne was sickened by the spectacle, and oppressed with a
heavy weight of sadness . She tried to escape, but her companion
told her it was necessary for her to see more, and that he would show
her the least revolting of the women . Daphne shrank from imagining
what worse horrors the building might contain .
When they at last emerged the very sunlight seemed polluted,
and the fresh air laden with pestilence .
THOTH, by Joseph Shield Nicholson | 616
As they made their way to the gate, Thoth spoke to the hideous
giantess, and she showed the same surprise as her captives . To her
Thoth spoke in a tongue which Daphne understood, and told her
that she was to be replaced, and that until another guardian came,
she was to leave the women unmolested . The ogress ventured to re-
monstrate, but at the first sentence Thoth sternly cried, “Darest thou
question me?” and touched her hand with the end of his golden staff,
whereupon the monster fell as one dead . As if to excuse himself,
Thoth said—
“There is no further use for her: it is better thus .”
Then said Daphne, “Is she dead?”
“Yes,” he replied,—“dead beyond all aid; and to all her kind will
I do likewise .”
They passed through the gate, and as before, every one they saw
treated Thoth with the utmost respect and reverence . But Daphne
was silent, weary, and despondent .
The horrors she had witnessed seemed to pervade every nook and
cranny of the place . Helplessly she walked by the side of Thoth, and
the salutations of her little servants when she entered her dwelling
seemed to be as unreal and distant as if they came from the sky .
She felt for the first time her reason totter—she had not strength
sufficient to wish to flee from the place, or to rush upon her death. At
last she wept passionately, and sank into a troubled sleep .
CHAPTER X
THE MYSTERY OF THE WOMEN RESOLVED
For some days Daphne was utterly prostrated with the scenes
which she had been compelled to witness . The present was joyless,
the future hopeless . If she requested to be sent back to Greece, she
knew not if the whole land would not be desolate; and, worse than
all, she again distrusted Thoth, and doubted if
he would keep his
promise . She began to fear that she was reserved for some dreadful
fate .
THOTH, by Joseph Shield Nicholson | 617
Thoth neither came to see her nor sent any message, but, as be-
fore, left the seeds of hope to spring up in quietness . And as the days
passed by, slowly and gradually the youth and health of Daphne
began to dissipate the gloomy memories, and wonder and love of
life took the place of heaviness of spirit and fear of death .
To her own surprise she again formed the wish to see Thoth, and
at times almost believed that he would in some wonderful manner
convert the scenes which she had witnessed into an unreal dream .
But the belief was momentary and evanescent, and she shuddered as
she thought of the plight of the miserable women and their deplor-
able state . Alive they were certainly, and living a life worse than
death . Hope rose again, however, when she thought of the apparent
kindness of Thoth, and then she tried to imagine that he was to be
the saviour of the women who had been cruelly ill-treated by others .
Surely, she thought, he himself can never have been guilty of such
crimes .
When her thoughts had become thus kindly disposed towards
Thoth, he suddenly appeared, almost as if he had been able to read
what was passing in her mind .
His face was as impassive and immobile as ever, and he made
inquiries concerning Daphne’s welfare as if nothing extraordinary
had happened .
But she shuddered at his callousness, and indignantly cried, “Un-
less thou canst and wilt explain to me the mystery of these women,
never look on me again .”
“That,” said he, “is my present purpose . Listen with care .”
Daphne signified her assent, and Thoth continued—
“In order to resolve this mystery, I must first make thee under-
stand how much this city is different from others in every respect—a
fact, indeed, thou canst not have failed to observe . Tell me, apart
from these women, what thinkest thou of our people?”
“They are truly a wonderful race, and surpass dreams in their
knowledge of arts and sciences .”
“And, apart from the women, what sayest thou of the govern-
ment?”
THOTH, by Joseph Shield Nicholson | 618
“The people seem happy and contented, and they appear to live
in the utmost obedience to their rulers through mere love and re-
spect—except these women .”
“That,” replied Thoth, “is the plain truth . There is no city under
the sun in which the people are so happy, contented, and so easily
governed—except these women .
“And how,” he continued, “dost thou imagine this wonderful
state of affairs has arisen? But it is impossible to divine, and I will
tell thee .
“Many hundred years ago the father of the rulers of our people, a
man of a Grecian tribe, held a high office in Egypt. In knowledge he
surpassed all men, and in knowledge lay his authority . He devised
many just laws, and was honoured and revered both by the multitude
and by the king and his rulers . Had he not been thwarted, he would
have made the Egyptians the most powerful people of the world . But
he was betrayed and deluded: some time I may tell thee the full his-
tory—suffice it to say that he was ruined and subjected to dishonour
through the love of a beautiful woman .
“Mark this—for it is the key-stone of our policy . He contrived to
seize the woman, and with a number of devoted followers he fled
away and founded this city . Of the pure Greek race were only my
ancestor and this woman, and about half a score of women and men .
The rest were aliens, but all devoted to him, and prepared to pay him
most implicit obedience, and his knowledge both of men and things
was so great that he could exact any obedience .
“He determined to found a new state entirely according to reason .
The government was to be entirely in the hands of the wisest man,
and this wisest man was to be first-born of this new royal race. For
Thoth the first, as he is called of us, forced the woman who deceived
him to become the mother of his children . And he believed, through
the secrets which he had wrested from nature, that, by the careful
choice of a mother, he could combine for the future the right by birth
with the right by power and wisdom .
“It is this careful choice according to types which has provided
this city with dwarfs and giants, and with workers of all kinds, with
THOTH, by Joseph Shield Nicholson | 619
aptitudes for peculiar forms of art or science . Thou hast seen for
thyself the results of the wisdom of the first Thoth. But as regards
the rulers, he was determined that he would, in the course of time,
utterly stamp out the love of woman, and replace it with loathing
and disgust . To this end he himself treated the woman who had
changed his love into hatred with the utmost cruelty and contempt .
At the same time, in order to render her offspring healthy and intel-
ligent, he compelled her to labour both with mind and body, and to
live so as to unfold her utmost powers . How meet she was to be the
mother of a race of kings thou canst judge thyself, if thou hast not
yet forgotten the statue which was her image . Her sons were taught
from their infancy to loathe their mother, and to regard their sisters
as necessary evils .
“It would only be painful and useless were I to tell thee more in
detail; suffice it to say that in the building of the women thou hast
seen the natural result of this policy, acted upon for many hundred
years . Our women of the race of rulers are simply intended to be
mothers of particular kinds of men, and in the course of generations
the men of this race have succeeded in acquiring for women a natu-
ral hatred and loathing .
“Now thou canst understand why it was my fellows—who were
also of the rulers, though inferior to me—treated thee and thy com-
panions with such contempt, and also thou canst to some extent ex-
plain the mystery of the women whom I showed to thee . Thou seest
only the will of the first Thoth manifested through his descendants.
Two principles he has planted in all his people—perfect obedience
to his vice-regent, for we say that our king is not dead but asleep,
and love of knowledge and of toil . Thus in all and in us of the ruling
race, our strongest passion is hatred and contempt for women .”
As he ended his narration Daphne shuddered, for she thought she
read in his eyes signs of lust depraved by malignant cruelty, and that
he regarded her with all the loathing he had just described . Then
she reflected on her helpless condition and on the misery she had
witnessed, and swiftly determined to seek a refuge in death . Already
with this notion in her mind she had provided herself with a dagger,
THOTH, by Joseph Shield Nicholson | 620
and with a trembling hand she seized it . Then she raised her courage,
and looking Thoth steadfastly in the face, she
cried—
“I at least will never be degraded, and thus I escape from thy
snare .”
She raised the knife, and was about to plunge it into her heart
when Thoth seized her arm, and said—
“Stay thy hand,—thou hast heard but half the story . Dost thou not
wonder why, hating women as we do, and being most strict in keep-
ing our race pure, we have notwithstanding sought to bring strange
women from beyond the sea, and that we have paid them honour—I
at least to thee,—thou dost not doubt that?”
But Daphne replied with undisguised doubtfulness, “Perchance
it is but some horrible device to make the cruelty more exquisite .”
* * * *
“Nay,” said he,—“listen . A generation back one of our vice-
regents, who was my predecessor in government and also my father,
thought he observed signs of decay in the race of rulers . He applied
various tests, and all gave the same result . There was a falling off
both in mental and bodily power . It seemed to him that in some man-
ner the training and the selection of the women had been faulty, and
being confident of the good results of the plan of Thoth the first, he
ascribed the fault to a want of rigour . Accordingly he redoubled the
labours and increased the tasks of the women, and, at the same time,
treated them with still greater cruelty, for his object was to bring the
mind of women absolutely under control. But desirous of confirm-
ing his view by reasoning from the opposite, he brought over from
Greece a female child and caused her to be received with affection
by the common people, and at the proper age made her one of his
own wives . But the hatred of women was so strongly implanted in
him that, though he treated her with forced respect and kindness, he
could not show her any real love . Yet such is the nature of women,
she loved him though she lived in constant fear and wretchedness .
So much did her lord despise her, that he took no pains to conceal
from her the secrets of our government . He allowed her to discover
THOTH, by Joseph Shield Nicholson | 621
that she was only the subject of an experiment, and that if her child
did not show at an early age signs of superiority, he would be de-
stroyed . The mother’s instinct was alarmed, and, by the aid of her
old nurse, she contrived to exchange her son with another infant
