CHAPTER XXII
IN THE SANCTUARY
Nya ceased her singing, and the dwarf women their beating on the drums.
"Hast thou been a journey, Maiden?" she asked, looking at Rachelcuriously.
"Aye, Mother," she answered in a faint voice, "and a journey far andstrange."
"And thou, Noie, my niece?"
"Aye, Mother," she answered, shivering as though with cold or fear, "but Iwent not with my Sister here, I went alone--for years and years."
"A far journey thou sayest, Inkosazana, and one that was for years andyears, thou sayest, Noie, yet the eyes of both of you have been shut forso long only as it takes a burnt moth to fall from the lamp flame to theground. I think that you slept and dreamed a moment, that is all."
"Mayhap, Mother," replied Rachel, "but if so mine was a most wondrousdream, such as has never visited me before, and as I pray, never mayagain. For I was borne beyond the stars into the glorious cities of thedead, and I saw all the dead, and those that I had known in life werebrought to me by Shapes and Powers whereof I could only see the eyes."
"And didst thou find him whom thou soughtest most of all?"
"Nay," she answered, "him alone I did not find. I sought him, I prayed theGuardians of the dead to show him to me, and they called up all the dead,and I scanned them every one, and they summoned him by his name, but hewas not of their number, and he came not. Only they spoke in my heart,bidding me to look for him in some other world."
"Ah!" exclaimed Nya starting a little, "they said that to thee, did they?Well, worlds are many, and such a search would be long." Then as though toturn the subject, she added, "And what sawest thou, Noie?"
"I, Mother? I went not beyond the stars, I climbed down endless laddersinto the centre of the earth, my feet are still sore with them. I reachedvast caves full of a blackness that shone, and there many dead folk werewalking, going nowhere, and coming back from nowhere. They seemedstrengthless but not unhappy, and they looked at me and asked me tidingsof the upper world, but I could not answer them, for whenever I opened mylips to speak a cold hand was laid upon my mouth. I wandered among themfor many moons, only there was no moon, nothing but the blackness thatshone like polished coal, wandered from cave to cave. At length I came toa cave in which sat my father, Seyapi, and near to him my mother, and myother mothers, his wives, and my brothers and sisters, all of whom theZulus killed, as the wild beast, Ibubesi, told them to do."
"I saw Ibubesi, and he prayed me for my pardon, and I granted it to him,"broke in Rachel.
"I did not see him," went on Noie fiercely, "nor would I have pardoned himif I had. Nor do I think that my father and his family pardon him; I thinkthat they wait to bear testimony against him before the Lord of the dead."
"Did Seyapi tell you so?" asked Rachel.
"Nay, he sat there beneath a black tree whereof I could not see the top,and gazed into a bowl of black water, and in that bowl he showed me manypictures of things that have been and things that are to come, but theyare secret, I may say nothing of them."
"And what was the end of it, my niece?" asked Nya, bending forwardeagerly.
"Mother, the end of it was that the black tree which was shaped like thetree of our tribe above us, took fire and went up in a fierce flame. Thenthe roofs of the caves fell in and all the people of the dwarfs flewthrough the roofs, singing and rejoicing, into a place of light; only,"she added slowly, "it seemed to me that I was left alone amidst the ruinsof the caves, I and the white ghost of the tree. Then a voice cried to meto make my heart bold, to bear all things with patience, since to thosewho dare much for love's sake, much will be forgiven. So I woke, but whatthose words mean I cannot guess, seeing that I love no man, and nevershall," and she rested her chin upon her hand and sat there musing.
"No," replied Nya, "thou lovest no man, and therefore the riddle is hard,"but as she spoke her eyes fell upon Rachel.
"Mother," said Rachel presently, "my heart is the hungrier for all that ithas fed upon. Can thy magic send me back to that country of the dead thatI may search for him again? If so, for his sake I will dare the journey."
"Not so," answered Nya shaking her head; "it is a road that very few havetravelled, and none may travel twice and live."
Now Rachel began to weep.
"Weep not, Maiden, there are other roads and perchance to-morrow thoushall walk them. Now lie down and sleep, both of you, and fear no dreams."
So they laid themselves down and slept, but the old witch-wife, Nya, satwaiting and watched them.
"I think I understand," she murmured to herself, as She gazed at theslumbering Rachel, "for to her who is so pure and good, and who hassuffered such cruel wrong, the Guardians would not lie. I think that Iunderstand and that I can find a path. Sleep on, sweet maiden, sleep on inhope."
Then she looked at Noie and shook her grey head.
"I do not understand," she muttered. "The black tree shaped like the Treeof our Tribe, and Seyapi of the old blood seated beneath it. The tree thatwent up in fire, and the maid of the old blood left alone with the ghostof it, while the dwarf people fled into light and freedom. What does itmean? Ah! that picture in the bowl! Now I can guess. 'Those who dare muchfor love.' It did not say for love of man, and woman can love woman. Butwould she dare a deed that none of our race could even dream? Well, theZulu blood is bold. Perhaps, perhaps. Oh! Eddo, thou black sorcerer,whither art thou leading the Children of the Tree? On thy head be it,Eddo, not on mine; on thy head for ever and for ever."
When Rachel awoke, refreshed, on the following day, she lay a whilethinking. Every detail of her vision was perfectly clear in her mind, onlynow she was sure that it had been but a dream. Yet what a wonderful dream!How, even in her sleep, had she found the imagination to conceivecircumstances so inconceivable? That magic rush beyond the stars; thatmighty world set round with black cliffs against which rolled the waves ofspace; that changeful, wondrous world which unfolded itself petal by petallike a rose, every petal lovelier and different from the last; that greyhall roofed with tilted precipices; and then those dead, those multitudesof the dead!
What power had been born in her that she could imagine such things asthese? Vision she had, like her mother, but not after this sort. Perhapsit was but an aftermath of her madness, for into the minds of the madcreep strange sights and sounds, and this place, and the people amongstwhom she sojourned, the Ghost-people, the grey Dwarf-people, the Dealersin dreams, the Dwellers in the sombre forest, might well open new doors insuch a soul as hers. Or perhaps she was still mad. She did not know, shedid not greatly care. All she knew was that her poor heart ached with lovefor a man who was dead, and yet whom she could not find even among thedead. She had wished to die, but now she longed for death no more, fearinglest after all there should be something in that vision which the magic ofNya had summoned up, and that when she reached the further shore she mightnot find him who dwelt in a different world. Oh! if only she could findhim, then she would be glad enough to go wherever it was that he had gone.
Now Noie was awake at her side, and they talked together.
"We must have dreamt dreams, Noie," she said. "Perhaps the Mother mingledsome drug with our food."
"I do not know, Zoola," answered Noie; "but, if so, I want no more ofthose dreams which bode no good to me. Besides, who can tell what is dreamand what is truth? Mayhap this world is the dream, and the truth is suchthings as we saw last night," and she would say no more on the matter.
Nothing happened within the Wall that day--that is, nothing out of thecommon. A certain number of the privileged, priestly caste of the dwarfswere carried or conducted into the holy place, and up to the Fence ofDeath that they might die there, and a certain number were brought out forburial. Some of those who came in were folk weary of life, or, in otherwords, suicides, and these walked; and some were sick of various diseases,and these were carried. But the end was the same, they always died, thoughwhether this result was really brought about by some poison distilled fromthe tree, as N
ya alleged, or whether it was the effect of a physicalcollapse induced by that inherited belief, Rachel never discovered.
At least they died, some almost at once, and some within a day or two ofentering that deadly shade, and were borne away to burial by the mutes whospent their spare time in the digging of little graves which they mustfill. Indeed, these mutes either knew, or pretended that they knew whowould be the occupant of each grave. At least they intimated by signs thatthis was revealed to them in their bowls, and when the victims appearedwithin the Wall, took pleasure in leading them to the holes they hadprepared, and showing to them with what care these had been dug to suittheir stature. For this service they received a fee that such moribundpersons brought with them, either of finely woven robes, or of mats, or ofdifferent sorts of food, or sometimes of gold and copper ringsmanufactured by the Umkulu or other subject savages, which they wore upontheir wrists and ankles.
Certain of these doomed folk, however, went to their fate with no lighthearts, which was not wonderful, as it seemed that these were neither illnor sought a voluntary euthanasia. They were political victims sentthither by Eddo as an alternative to the terror of the Red Death, wherebyaccording to their strange and ancient creed, they would have risked thespilling of their souls. For the most part the crime of these poor peoplewas that they had been adherents and supporters of the old Mother of theTree, Nya, over whom Eddo was at last triumphant. On their way up to theFence such individuals would stop to exchange a last few, sad words withtheir dethroned priestess.
Then without any resistance they went on with the rest, but from them themutes received scant offerings, or none at all, with the result that theywere cast into the worst situated and most inconvenient graves, or eventumbled two or three together into some shapeless corner hole. But, afterall, that mattered nothing to them so long as they received sepulchrewithin the Wall, which was their birth-or, rather, their death-right.
The priest-mutes themselves were a strange folk, and, oddly enough, Rachelobserved, by comparison, quite cheerful in their demeanour, for when offduty they would smile and gibber at each other like monkeys, and carry ona kind of market between themselves. They lived in that part of thecircumference of the Wall which was behind the hill whereon grew thesacred tree. Here no burials took place, and instead of graves appearedtheir tiny huts arranged in neat streets and squares. In these they andtheir forefathers had dwelt from time immemorial; indeed, each little hutwith a few yards of fenced-in ground about it ornamented with dwarf trees,was a freehold that descended from father to son. For the mutes married,and were given in marriage, like other folk, though their children werefew, a family of three being considered very large, while many of thecouples had none at all. But those who were born to them were alldeaf-mutes, although their other senses seemed to be singularly acute.
These mutes had their virtues; thus some of them were very kind to eachother, and especially to those from the outer forest world who came hitherto bid farewell to that world, and others, renouncing marriage and allearthly joys, devoted their lives, which appeared to be long, to theworship of the Spirit of the Tree. Also they had their vices, such astheft, and the seducing away of the betrothed of others, but the chief ofthem was jealousy, which sometimes led to murder by poisoning, an artwhereof they were great masters.
When such a crime was discovered, and a case of it happened during thefirst days of Rachel's sojourn among them, the accused was put upon histrial before the chief of the mutes, evidence for and against him beinggiven by signs which they all understood. Then if a case were establishedagainst him, he was forced to drink a bowl of medicine. If he did thiswith impunity he was acquitted, but if it disagreed with him his guilt washeld to be established. Now came the strange part of the matter. All hislife the evil-doer had been accustomed to go within the Fence about hisbusiness and take no harm, but after such condemnation he was conductedthere with the usual ceremonies and very shortly perished like any otheruninitiated person. Whether this issue was due to magic or to mentalcollapse, or to the previous administration of poison, no one seemed toknow, not even Nya herself. So, at least, she declared to Rachel.
At each new moon these mutes celebrated what Rachel was informed theylooked upon as a festival. That is, they climbed the Tree of the Tribe andscattered themselves among its enormous branches, where for several hoursthey mumbled and gibbered in the dark like a troop of baboons. Then theycame down, and mounting the huge, surrounding wall, crept around itscircumference. Occasionally this journey resulted in an accident, as oneof them would fall from the wall and be dashed to pieces, although it wasnoticed that the unfortunate was generally a person who, although guiltyof no actual crime, chanced to be out of favour with the other priests andpriestesses. After the circuit of the wall had been accomplished, with orwithout accidents, the dwarfs feasted round a fire, drinking some spiritthat threw them into a sleep in which wonderful visions appeared to them.Such was their only entertainment, if so it could be called, sincedoubtless the ceremony was of a religious character. For the rest theyseldom if ever left the holy place, which was known as "Within the Wall,"most of them never doing so in the course of a long life.
Beyond the burial of the dead they did no work, as their food was broughtto them daily by outside people, who were called "the slaves of the Wall."Their only method of conversation was by signs, and they seemed to desireno other. Indeed, if, as occasionally happened, a child was born to any ofthem who could hear or speak like other human beings, it was either givenover to the other dwarfs, or if the discovery was not made until it wasold enough to observe, it was sacrificed by being bound to the trunk ofthe tribal tree "lest it should tell the secret of the Tree."
Such were the weird, half-human folk among whom Rachel was destined todwell. The Zulus had been bad and bloodthirsty, but compared to theselittle wizards they seemed to her as angels. The Zulus at any rate hadleft her her thoughts, but these stunted wretches, she was sure, priedinto them and read them with the help of their bowls, for often she caughtsight of them signing to each other about her as she passed, and pointingwith grins to pictures which they saw in the water.
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