Without more ado they set to, and ate like famished men.
At the end of the repast the girls brought quaintly shaped glasses, like the old goblets of Florence, in which was a colourless liquid. Ronald sipped the liquid gingerly, and put the glass down.
“Liqueurs and all,” Ralph said, preparing to swallow the draught in one gulp.
“Stop!” Ronald almost shouted. “Don’t touch it!”
“What’s wrong?
“It’s got a bitter taste I don’t like. I shouldn’t risk anything. We must not take things too much for granted.”
“As you like. But to me this seems a top-hole place. They do us well, and seem friendly enough.”
The girls seemed to have no eyes but for Ronald. The muscles of his arms showing from the sleeveless peplus, and his great frame, seemed to fascinate them, but Ralph only noticed that they were good-looking, and the dress they wore, a sort of petticoat to the knees which displayed their well-made forms to perfection, gave him much satisfaction.
“I say,” he said in a drowsy voice — the bath and the meal having made them both sleepy — “I wonder whether the old priest has made us a present of these beauties. I wish I could speak their lingo.”
“Shut up!” said Ronald, laughing. “We’ve other things to do than to start that sort of thing.”
They lay down where they were on the soft cushions, the sound of the fountain in the court soothing them, and in a few minutes they were fast asleep.
“You know these men?”
Ronald, still with the drowsiness of sleep upon him, opened his eyes slowly. Then he composed himself to sleep again; it was evidently a dream.
Another voice — a woman’s — spoke. “I know them,” the voice said, in halting Greek. “One is my brother, and the other I also know.”
Ronald was wide awake now, and sat up quickly. Before him were the old priest and Doris.
Doris — yet how changed! She was clothed in the white robes of the people, but adorned with golden devices and symbols, and a circlet of jewels surrounded her head. But it was the face at which Ronald stared. Her complexion was a perfect creamy pink, and her eyes large and bright. The expression was cold and blank, and she spoke as one in a dream.
“Doris!” he exclaimed, springing up. The sound woke Ralph, who rubbed his eyes, and then rose and went to her.
“Well, of all the luck — ” he began, and then stopped. She edged away from him, her hands held out before her.
“Doris!” Ralph said in alarm. “Don’t you know me?”
“Of course I know you, Ralph,” she said, in dull, lifeless tones. “You are Ralph, and that is Ronald.” She picked her words in English, as though speaking in a foreign language.
“Won’t you even shake hands?” There was a break in Ralph’s voice.
She looked at him coldly, and began, as though reciting a lesson: “When you deserted me in the snowstorm and went off by yourselves, Dr. Smart and I nearly died of cold and exposure. We wandered for days, searching for you, but you did not, I suppose, think it worth while bothering about us. We managed to find this place by the help of the Bulgars, and have been most kindly entertained.”
“Doris, what on earth’s the matter?” There was pain in Ralph’s voice.
“Then Smart is here too?” Ronald asked.
“Dr. Smart is here, and doing very good work. They needed a doctor badly.”
“But I don’t understand!” Ralph said wildly. “You talk to us as though we were strangers. What is it, Doris? I can explain exactly what happened to us, but it’s a long story. It certainly wasn’t our fault that we got separated, and afterwards could not find you. Do be reasonable.”
Her expression was one of calm, lofty contempt — utterly at variance with her usual manner. Ralph, who had risen, threw himself back on his divan.
“Tell me, Doris, is Diana here?” Ronald asked, perplexed as Ralph, but resolute to probe the mystery.
She drew herself up to her full height, as a Guardsman when the drums roll for the opening bars of “God Save the King.”
“She is here — yes — but she is too high for you. Think no more of her.”
“But this is ridiculous!” Ronald was fast losing his restraint. “You know we have come all this way to rescue her, and now you talk this nonsense. I wish we’d left you behind now.”
Her eyes fairly blazed at him. “Rescue her! From what? Perhaps, if your minds are humbled and you approach with due meekness, you may see her from a distance. That is all. As for me, I am dedicated. Seek not to know further.”
The old priest had been watching with keen eyes, searching their faces for some hint at the conversation. He now broke in impatiently.
“You have seen them, Jegeria; they are the men we were waiting for — that is enough.” He turned to Ronald as the spokesman. “To-night you shall be honoured greatly. You are to be conducted to the Temple. Prepare yourselves by contemplation and deep thought. Never before have strangers been so favoured; but it is the command of the Goddess.” He bowed low at the word. “The sacred Artemis Nemorensis, and of the King of the Woods.”
Stepping aside to allow Doris to pass, he followed her from the room.
“What the devil does it mean, Ronald? Has she gone mad, or are we mad? Curse this place!”
“Steady, Ralph. There is some mystery here — don’t judge your sister. If it were not for the fact that the old man could not possibly talk English, I should have said she was acting a part. That can’t be, but she may be hypnotised. I don’t like that colour,” he added disconnectedly.
“The fact of the matter is, we’re all flummoxed. I know you feel the same. We expected, if we ever go to this place, to have to watch warily, and perhaps have a scrap or two, and find a savage lot of pagans who, from old tradition, showed scant ceremony with strangers. In fact, they murdered them out of hand. That was the tradition of the worship of Nemi. Instead of which, we find an unarmed, peaceful people, limp and effete, who give us of their best and seem to want to be nice. Nothing could be better than the reception we’ve had. No; there’s something behind it all, but we can only keep our eyes open . . . Don’t worry about Doris. I’m sure it will come right.”
The curtain was drawn back and the old priest stood before them; he was alone.
“I am instructed to ask you to show me the token whereby you enter the Kingdom of the Woods, the sacred Nemi. Doubtless you know of what I speak.”
Ronald knew only too well. Cold fear gripped him.
“Oh, priest,” he answered, “we had such a token. You refer to a certain sprig of mistletoe, with golden berries. Unfortunately, it was stolen from us by a villain in Italy. My friend’s sister knows of the theft, and the doctor who came here, he knows as well. Ask them.”
A quick change came over the face of the old man, an ugly look of mistrust and anger. “You lie,” he said in furious tones. “Now I know you for impostors. The King of the Woods must be told. Base slaves and spies! Unless you can win through and pluck the sacred bough from beneath the guardianship of Him who watches the holy tree — ” He shook his fist in uncontrollable fury, and left them hurriedly. Ronald translated.
“Pleasant old gentleman,” Ralph said. “What difference can that make? I suppose that’s the sprig you had from Sinclair. It seems rather an Open Sesame.”
Ronald could not take the matter so lightly. Somehow the mysterious sprig had played a grim part all through, and he cursed himself for not having kept it more securely.
The waiting time was hard to bear — the uncertainty. There was no imprisonment, as at the monastery, no restraint. They could walk out unmolested, but a certain power stronger than their wills kept them in this chamber.
At last, when they had almost determined to issue forth and explore the town, now shrouded in darkness, sounds of voices broke the stillness, and torches flickered in the outer hall. The curtain was flung back, and the old priest entered, with half a dozen of the white-clad, golden-haired men.
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br /> They rose to their feet, knowing the crisis had come.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE TEMPLE OF DIANA
They were conducted through the streets of the city, down a broad sandy road into which their feet sank. There was no mark of vehicle, or hoof of beast. On both sides were the dim shapes of beautiful Greek houses. The scent of rose and syringa was about them. The road took a steep slant downwards and ended in stone steps which led to the lakeside.
A large barge-like boat awaited them, and as soon as they had taken their places the rowers silently dipped their oars and made for the further side, where lights were flashing in the dark, and towards which many other boats were making their way like ghosts in a mist.
A white haze wrapped them round like a thin gauze. In deathlike stillness they reached the further margin — the people made no sound as they stepped ashore on a landing-stage of stone. In the glimmering light cast by the moon, which had risen over the ridge of the mountains, they saw a white stone stairway, leading up through the dense woods. It was of pure white marble of great breadth, and the steps were few and deep. Straight it led in three tiers, with platforms between, to the crowning glory at the top.
Here, perched on a plateau in the mountain-side, a marvellous temple glittered in elusive unreality in the moonlight.
From the distance at which they stood it appeared to be shaped like the Parthenon at Athens, deep-pillared, and surrounded by a courtyard, round which the dark woods made a fitting background, while the mountain towered behind, keeping watch over this fane of Diana. In spite of his anxiety Ronald paused to gaze in wonder at the beauty of the scene. White-clothed people passed by, mounting the stairs in twos and three, but silent as spirits.
Presently they stood on the platform itself, a great plaza on which were set statues beautiful as the works of Phidias or Praxiteles, but perfect and sublime — not marred by time and rough usage.
The temple was built in pure Doric style, with a double row of slender columns, an outer and an inner. Between the inner row of pillars the spaces were filled by curtains of some heavy dark green fabric. Those at the entrance were drawn back in graceful folds, and a bright glow issued from within. The worshippers showed black in silhouette against the light as they passed inside.
The strangers were led by their conductors past the curtain doors, into the very temple itself, and stopped in wonder. The vast space was devoid of statue or decoration. The roof was pure white marble, and the floor of tessellated pavement. Curtains hung round the walls — curtains of white, shimmering stuff worked with gold thread. The place was nearly filled with kneeling worshippers, men and women, garlanded with flowers, the scent of which filled the air with, a sickly, sweet perfume.
A triple row of silvery lamps gave light. The centre row was lower than the other two, and each lamp was a globe of fire suspended from the distant roof by a fine silver chain which was hardly visible, giving the impression of stars in a vaulted sky.
The perfect proportions of the building masked its size, and only the number of worshippers, perhaps three thousand, who were crowded into the building, indicated the great space beneath the pillared roof.
At the further end was a raised platform, bare of ornament, but having in its centre a grim black stone shaped like an altar, the sombre colour contrasting vividly with the all-pervading whiteness of wall and roof. That was all: for simple grandeur Ronald had never seen anything to approach the beauty of this pagan temple of Diana.
At the bidding of the priests, they were led past the kneeling crowds up the central aisle to the threshold of the dais, beneath the ominous black stone, and knelt there with the rest. It would have been impossible to stand in that dim, awesome temple, and amid the silence of the worshippers.
For perhaps half an hour they waited in the hush till the silence weighed on them like a living presence. Upon the great black stone a gold brazier stood, in which a flame flickered and twirled like a tongue of livid blue, giving out a sickly, overpowering odour which mingled with that of the flowers banked along the sides of the temple in white masses.
Presently a faint sound was heard from behind the veil, a low, sweet sound as of elfin bells played in the woodland; the people stirred at the sound with a faint rustle which passed down the temple like a wave-ripple on a quiet sea.
An eerie sound of children singing came, a chant gradually growing louder, in billowy waves of sound, till the curtains at the far end were thrown back.
A double line of young girls, flower-crowned and clad only in flimsy garments of some transparent fabric, advanced, singing, and swaying gently from side to side in a pretty floral dance.
As they sang they threw flowers from quaint little baskets they held. The song became louder, a dithy-rambic in praise of Diana — a hymn beseeching her to bless the fertility of the women and the fruit of the fields.
At intervals the children stopped, and the kneeling crowds took up a chorus, swaying their bodies from side to side till the sound filled the place and echoed from the roof. The hidden orchestra was joined by cymbals, and the crash of these, rising louder and louder, made an intoxicating volume of sound. The girls separated and took their stand round the platform in a semi-circle, and the song stopped suddenly, There was a pause. The hymn, which stirred the heart with its sad yearning, was over, and the people bowed their heads. The curtains parted again and a figure entered, at the sight of which Ronald took in a quick breath.
In all his golden beauty, Carstairs — or he who had called himself by that name — stood there, crowned and splendid. A myrtle wreath was about his golden hair, and a shimmering white garment without sleeves, on which the image of the sun was wrought in gold, fell to his feet, setting off his magnificent figure. Upright he stood, unutterable pride on his clear-cut Grecian face, dominating the assembly of effete people beneath him like a god.
In his right hand he held a golden sickle which he raised high above his head, and the worshippers grovelled on the ground.
In the fine tenor voice which Ronald had admired so much in the quiet rooms of far-off Cambridge, he sang a monotonous chant which rose and fell in a queer cadence, like a Gregorian hymn — chanting of the summer and of the plenty which the teeming fields would yield, and of Apollo, the giver of bounty, and his sister Diana. The song ended at length, and Ronald cast a rapid glance at the people round him, but saw only apathy and indifference stamped on their sad features. It was evidently all too familiar to them — the prayers to a god who heeded not — an appeal of hopeless misery from a dying race. The little maidens chanted a rhythmic chorus which conveyed a sense of abiding melancholy.
The setting of the white temple and white-clad people, the silver lamps and the deadly smell of camellias and syringa, mingled with the aromatic perfume of the brazier-smoke, which rose like a blue wraith to the distant roof, all combined to give a sense of infinite sadness to the scene — beauty in decay — the beauty of dead gods stricken.
Then Carstairs spoke in slow, musical accents, and the crowds stirred like dead leaves. Evidently this was something new in the ritual. He told them that an ancient prophecy had been fulfilled — that strangers had come to the land, brought by the power of the goddess to save the people, and to raise them to their former greatness. He had, he told them, been the humble means of bringing them to the golden valley: that the King of the Woods, whose minister he was, had sent a message of welcome, since he could not leave his wardship.
And then she came — in dread silence through the curtains Diana stepped, glorious and holy — clad only in her golden hair, with no single adornment, flower or jewel or crown. Glorious in pure, unearthly beauty.
Aphrodite new-sprung from the sea-foam — Galatea flushed to life from cold marble — must have appeared even as she.
She held a great bunch of mistletoe, the berries as golden as her hair. Slowly she advanced to the black stone and stood motionless. Her blue eyes, deep as the lake itself, were fixed on the further corner of the roof, an
d her mouth showed a sadness beyond human thought. Then she sang in a soft, low, thrilling voice, the old chant of the Bacchae:
“When shall they come to me again — those long, long dances?”
There was a stirring among the women, and here and there some rose and crept forward to the edge of the dais, kneeling there reverently, as though about to partake of the Blessed Sacrament — praying for the blessing of children.
The whole space, from side to side, was filled with them. Diana passed along the kneeling women, and lightly touched each with the Golden Bough. Then with bent heads they returned to their places.
The whole ceremony was beautiful in its barbaric simplicity.
Music rose from beyond — soft sounds rising to a triumphant chorus, the cymbals clashing with exultant melody; and the music died away as it had come, with a sigh like the flutter of the night-wind in autumnal woods.
Diana stood for a moment gazing at the throng with a look of infinite pity on her lovely face. The ceremony was ended. The maidens filed out in silence, and Carstairs stood rigid, with downcast eyes, as though he dared not look upon the virgin goddess, or her who represented her. And then, for a brief moment, she saw, Ronald gazing at her in adoration — truly she was too high for him, as Doris had said.
Her face blanched, and she swayed as though about to fall. Her mouth became a round O, and a look of frozen horror came to her eyes. She stood like a statue carved from marble. Then a blush spread over her face and passed to her snowy bosom. She turned quickly and staggered with uncertain steps to the secret place behind the veil, and the curtains closed.
“Did you see her?” Ralph whispered fatuously, hardly knowing what he said.
“My God! — see her? She’s lost forever. They’ve made her a goddess, as I feared.” He laid his head in his hands, in utter misery.
The Yellow Mistletoe Page 17
