by Jack London
The Sun Priest prostrated his aged frame till he lay stretched flat out on the floor, his old forehead burrowing into the grass mat. The rest remained upright, although Torres evidenced by a crumpling at the knees that he would have followed the priest’s action had his companions shown signs of accompanying him. As it was, his knees did partly crumple, but straightened again and stiffened under the controlled example of Leoncia and the Morgans.
At first the Lady had no eyes for aught but Leoncia; and, after a careful looking over of her, with a curt upward lift of head she commanded her to approach. Too imperative by far was it, in Leoncia’s thought, to proceed from so etherially beautiful a creature, and she sensed with immediacy an antagonism that must exist between them. So she did not move, until the Sun Priest muttered harshly that she must obey. She approached, regardless of the huge, long-haired hound, threading between the tripods and past the beast, nor would stop until commanded by a second nod as curt as the first. For a long minute the two women gazed steadily into each other’s eyes, at the end of which, with a flicker of triumph, Leoncia observed the other’s eyes droop. But the flicker was temporary, for Leoncia saw that the Lady was studying her dress with haughty curiosity. She even reached out her slender, pallid hand and felt the texture of the cloth and caressed it as only a woman can.
“Priest!” she summoned sharply. “This is the third day of the Sun in the House of Manco. Long ago I told you something concerning this day. Speak.”
Writhing in excess of servility, the Sun Priest quavered:
“That on this day strange events were to occur. They have occurred, Queen.”
Already had the Queen forgotten. Still caressing the cloth of Leoncia’s dress, her eyes were bent upon it in curious examination.
“You are very fortunate,” the Queen said, at the same time motioning her back to rejoin the others. “You are well loved of men. All is not clear, yet does it seem that vou are too well loved of men.” Her voice, mellow and low, tranquil as silver, modulated in exquisite rhythms of sound, was almost as a distant temple bell calling believers to worship or sad souls to quiet judgment. But to Leoncia it was not given to appreciate the wonderful voice. Instead, only was she aware oi anger flaming up to her cheeks and burning in her pulse.
“I have seen you before, and often,” the Queen went on.
“Never!” Leoncia cried out.
“Hush!” the Sun Priest hissed at her.
“There,” the Queen said, pointing at the great golden bowl. “Before, and often, have I seen you there.
“You also, there,” she addressed Henry.
“And you,” she confirmed to Francis, although her great blue eyes opened wider and she gazed at him long too long to suit Leoncia, who knew the stab of jealousy that only a woman can thrust into a woman’s heart.
The Queen’s eyes glinted when they had moved on to rest on Torres.
“And who are you, stranger, so strangely appareled, the helmet of a knight upon your head, upon your feet the sandals of a slave?”
“I am Da Vasco,” he answered stoutly.
“The name has an ancient ring,” she smiled.
“I am the ancient Da Vasco,” he pursued, advancing unsummoiied. She smiled at his temerity but did not stay him. “This is the helmet I wore four hundred years ago when I led the ancestors of the Lost Souls into this valley.” The Queen smiled quiet unbelief, as she quietly asked:
“Then you were born four hundred years ago?”
“Yes, and never. I was never born. I am Da Vasco. I have always been. My home is in the sun.”
Her delicately stenciled brows drew quizzically to interrogation, though she said nothing. From a gold-wrought box beside her on the divan she pinched what seemed a powder between a fragile and almost transparent thumb and forefinger, and her thin beautiful lips curved to gentle mockery as she casually tossed the powder into the great tripod. A sheen of smoke arose and in a moment was lost to sight.
“Look!” she commanded.
And Torres, approaching the great bowl, gazed into it. What he saw, the rest of his party never learned. But the Queen herself leaned forward and gazing down from above, saw with him, her face a beautiful advertisement of gentle and pitying mockery. And what Torres himself saw was a bedroom and a birth in the second story of the Bocas del Tore house he had inherited. Pitiful it was, with its last secrecy exposed, as was the gently smiling pity in the Queen’s face. And, in that flashing glimpse of magic vision, Torres saw confirmed about himself what he had always guessed and suspected.
“Would you see more,” the Queen softly mocked. “I have shown you the beginning of you. Look now, and behold your ending.”
But Torres, too deeply impressed by what he had already seen, shuddered away in recoil.
“Forgive me, Beautiful Woman,” he pleaded. “And let me pass. Forget, as I shall hope ever to forget.”
“It is gone,” she said, with a careless wave of her hand over the bowl. “But I cannot forget. The record will persist always in my mind. But you, O Man, so young of life, so ancient of helmet, have I beheld before this day, there in my Mirror of the World. You have vexed me much of late with your portending. Yet not with the helmet.” She smiled with quiet wisdom. “Always, it seems to me, I saw a chamber of the dead, of the long dead, upright on their unmoving legs and guarding through eternity mysteries alien to their faith and race. And in that dolorous company did it seern. that I saw one who wore your ancient helmet��� Shall I speak further?”
“No, no,” Torres implored.
She bowed and nodded him back. Next, her scrutiny centred on Francis, whom she nodded forward. She stood up upon the dais as if to greet him, and, as if troubled by the fact that she must gaze down on him, stepped from the dais to the floor so that she might gaze up into his face as she extended her hand. Hesitatingly he took her hand in his, then knew not what next to do. Almost did it appear that she read his thought, for she said:
“Do it. I have never had it done to me before. I have never seen it done, save in my dreams and in the visions shown me in my Mirror of the World.”
And Francis bent and kissed her hand. And, because she did not signify to withdraw it, he continued to hold it, while, against his palm, he felt the faint but steady pulse of her pink finger-tips. And so they stood in pose, neither speaking, Francis embarrassed, the Queen sighing faintly, while the sex anger of woman tore at Leoncia’s heart, until Henry blurted out in gleeful English:
“Do it again, Francis! She likes it!”
The Sun Priest hissed silencing command at him. But the Queen, half withdrawing her hand with a startle like a maiden’s, relumed it as deeply as before into Francis’ clasp, and addressed herself to Henry.
“I, too, know the language you speak,” she admonished. “Yet am I unashamed, I, who have never known a man, do admit that I like it. It is the first kiss that I have ever had. Francis for such your friend calls you obey your friend. I like it. I do like it. Once again kiss my hand.”
Francis obeyed, waited while her hand still lingered in his, and while she, oblivious to all else, as if toying with some beautiful thought, gazed lingeringly up into his eyes. By a visible effort she pulled herself together, released his hand abruptly, gestured him back to the others, and addressed the Sun Priest.
“Well, priest,” she said, with a return of the sharpness in her voice, “You have brought these captives here for a reason which I already know. Yet would I hear you state it yourself.”
“Lady Who Dreams, shall we not kill these intruders as has ever been our custom? The people are mystified and in doubt of my judgment, and demand decision from you.”
“And you would kill?”
“Such is my judgment. I seek now your judgment that yours and mine may be one.”
She glanced over the faces of the four captives. For Torres, her brooding expression portrayed only pity. To Leoncia she extended a frown; to Henry, doubt. And upon Francis she gazed a full minute, her face growing tender, at le
ast to Leoncia’s angry observation.
“Are any of you unmarried?” the Queen asked suddenly. “Nay,” she anticipated them. “It is given me to know that you are all unmarried.” She turned quickly to Leoncia. “Is it well,” she demanded, “that a woman should have two husbands?”
Both Henry and Francis could not refrain from smiling their amusement at so absurdly irrelevant a question. But to Leoncia it was neither absurd nor irrelevant, and in her cheeks arose the flush of anger again. This was a woman, she knew, with whom she had to deal, and who was dealing with her like a woman.
“It is not well,” Leoncia answered, with clear, ringing voice.
“It is very strange,” the Queen pondered aloud. “It is very strange. Yet is it not fair. Since there are equal numbers of men and women in the world, it cannot be fair for one woman to have two husbands, for, if so, it means that another woman shall have no husband.”
Another pinch of dust she tossed into the great bowl of gold. The sheen of smoke arose and vanished as before.
“The Mirror of the World will tell me, priest, what disposition shall be made of our captives.”
Just ere she leaned over to gaze into the bowl, a fresh thought deflected her. With an embracing wave of arm she invited them all up to the bowl.
“We may all look,” she said. “I do not promise you we will see the same visions of our dreams. Nor shall I know what you will have seen. Each for himself will see and know. You, too, priest.”
They found the bowl, six feet in diameter that it was, halffull of some unknown metal liquid.
It might be quicksilver, but it isn’t,” Henry whispered to Francis. “I have never seen the like of any similar metal. It strikes me as hotly molten.”
“It is very cold,” the Queen corrected him in English. “Yet is it fire. You, Francis, feel the bowl outside.”
He obeyed, laying his full palm unhesitatingly to the yellow outer surface.
“Colder than the atmosphere of the room,” he adjudged. But look!” the Queen, cried, tossing more powder upon the contents. “It is fire that remains cold.”
“It is the powder that smokes with the heat of its own containment,” Torres blurted out, at the same time feeling into the bottom of his coat pocket. He drew forth a pinch of crumbs of tobacco, match splinters, and cloth-fluff. “This will not burn,” he challenged, inviting invitation by extending the pinch of rubbish over the bowl as if to drop it in.
The Queen nodded consent, and all saw the rubbish fall upon the liquid metal surface. The particles made no indentation on that surface. Only did they transform into smoke that sheened upward and was gone. No remnant of ash remained. “Still is it cold,” said Torres, imitating Francis and feeling the outside of the bowl.
“Thrust your finger into the contents,” the Queen suggested to Torres.
“No,” he said.
“You are right,” she confirmed. “Had you done so, you would now be with one finger less than the number with which you w r ere born.” She tossed in more powder. “Now shall each behold what he alone will behold.”
And it was so.
To Leoncia was it given to see an ocean separate her and Francis. To Henry was it given to see the Queen and Francis married by so strange a ceremony, that scarcely did he realise, until at the close, that it was a wedding taking place. The Queen, from a flying gallery in a great house, looked down into a magnificent drawing-room that Francis would have recognized as builded by his father had her vision been his. And, beside her, his arm about her, she saw Francis. Francis saw but one thing, vastly perturbing, the face of Leoncia, immobile as death, with thrust into it, squarely between the eyes, a slended-bladed dagger. Yet he did not see any blood flowing from the wound of the dagger. Torres glimpsed the beginning of what he knew must be his end, crossed himself, and alone of all of them shrank back, refusing to see further. While the Sun Priest saw the vision of his secret sin, the face and form of the woman for whom he had betrayed the Worship of the Sun, and th face and form of the maid of the village at the Long House.
As all drew back by common consent when the visions faded, Leoncia turned like a tigress, with flashing eyes, upon the Queen, crying:
“Your mirror lies! Your Mirror of the World lies!”
Francis and Henry, still under the heavy spell of what they had themselves beheld, were startled and surprised by Leoncia’s outburst. But the Queen, speaking softly, replied: My Mirror of the World has never lied. I know not what you saw. But I do know, whatever it was, that it is truth.”
“You are a monster!” Leoncia cried on. “You are a vile witch that lies!”
You and I are women,” the Queen chided with sweet gentleness, “and may not know of ourselves, being women. Men will decide whether or not I am a witch that lies or a woman with a woman’s heart of love. In the meanwhile, being women and therefore weak, let us be kind to each other.”
“And now, Priest of the Sun, to judgment. You, as priest under the Sun God, know more of the ancient rule and procedure than do I. You know more than do I about myself and how I came to be here. You know that always, mother and daughter, and by mother and daughter, has the tribe maintained a Queen of Mystery, a Lady of Dreams. The time has come when we must consider the future generations. The strangers have come, and they are unmarried. This must be the wedding day decreed, if the generations to come after of the tribe are to possess a Queen to dream for them. It is well, and time and need and place are met. I have dreamed to judgment. And the judgment is that I shall marry, of these strangers, the stranger alloted to me before the foundations of the world were laid. The test is this: If no one of these will marry, then shall they die and their warm blood be offered up by you before the altar of the Sun. If one will marry me, then all shall live, and Time hereafter will register our futures.”
The Sun Priest, trembling with anger, strove to protest, but she commanded:
“Silence, priest! By me. only do you rule the people. At a word from me to the people well, you know. It is not any easy way to die.”
She turned to the three men, saying:
“And who will marry me?”
They looked embarrassment and consternation at one another, but none spoke.
“I am a woman,” the Queen went on teasingly. “And therefore am I not desirable to men? Is it that I am not young? Is it, as women go, that I am not beautiful? Is it that men’s tastes are so strange that no man cares to clasp the sweet of me in his arms and press his lips on mine as good Francis there did on my hand?”
She turned her eyes on Leoncia.
You be judge. You are a woman well loved of men.
Am I not such a woman as you, and shall I not be loved?”
You will ever be kinder to men than to women, ” Leoncia answered cryptically as regarded the three men who heard, but clearly to the woman’s brain of the Queen. “And as a woman,” Leoncia continued, “you are strangely beautiful and luring; and there are men in this world, many men, who could be made mad to clasp you in their arms. But I warn you, Queen, that in this world are men, and men, and men.”
Having heard and debated this, the Queen turned abruptly to the priest.
“You have heard, priest. This day a man shall marry me. If no man marries me, these three men shall be offered up on your altar. So shall be offered up this woman, who, it would seem, would put shame upon me by having me less than she.”
Still, she addressed the priest, although her message was for the others.
“There are three men of them, one of whom, long cycles before he was born, was destined to marry me. So, priest, I say, take the captives away into some other apartment, and let them decide among themselves which is the man.”
“Since it has been so long destined,” Leoncia flamed forth, “then why put it to the chance of their decision? You know the man. Why put it to the risk? Name the man, Queen, and name him now.”
M The man shall be selected in the way I have indicated,” the Queen replied, as, at the same time, a
bsently she tossed a pinch of powder into the great bowl and absently glanced therein. “So now depart, and let the inevitable choice be made.”
They were already moving away out of the room, when a cry from the Queen stopped them.
“Wait!” she ordered. “Come, Francis. I have seen something that concerns you. Come, gaze with me upon the Mirror of the World.”
And while the others paused, Francis gazed with her upon the strange liquid metal surface. He saw himself in the library of his New York house, and he saw beside him the Lady Who Dreams, his arm around her. Next, he saw her curiosity at sight of the stock-ticker. As he tried to explain it to her, he glanced at the tape and read such disturbing information thereon that he sprang to the nearest telephone and, as the vision faded, saw himself calling up his broker.
“What was it you saw?” Leoncia questioned, as they passed out.
And Francis lied. He did not mention seeing the Lady Who Dreams in his New York library. Instead, he replied:
“It was a stock-ticker, and it showed a bear market on Wall Street somersaulting into a panic. Now how did she know I was interested in Wall Street and stock-tickers?”
CHAPTER XIX
“SOMEBODY’S got to marry that crazy woman,” Leoncia spoke up, as they lolled upon the mats of the room to which the priest had taken them. “Not only will he be a hero by saving our lives, but he will save his own life as well. Now, Senor Torres, is your chance to save all our lives and your own.”
“Br-r-r!” Torres shivered. “I would not marry her for ten million gold. She is too wise. She is terrible. She how shall I say? she, as you Americans say, gets my goat. I am a brave man. But before her I am not brave. The flesh of me melts in a sweat of fear. Not for less than ten million would I dare to overcome my fear. Now Henry and Francis are braver than I. Let one of them marry her.”
