‘I am a traveller, Lycaon. I come from . . . the north. I ask hospitality in the name of Zeus, patron of all such as I.’
Lycaon stared at him in astonishment. ‘In the name of what?’
‘Zeus,’ said the stranger softly. ‘Do you not honour him here?’
Lycaon’s astonishment seemed to increase. He stared down the table at his sons and the guests among them who had come from the farthest parts of the land to do him homage. Then he said in a tone of wonderment, ‘In the name of Zeus, eh? Well, well . . . we mustn’t disappoint him, must we? Holy Zeus would be angry. Hm! We might have a bad thunderstorm—’ He stopped. He could contain himself no longer. He grinned; he laughed; he roared with laughter and the table joined him till the banqueting hall shook with it. Several times he pointed to the silent traveller and tried to speak; but each time laughter overcame him. At last he managed: ‘You – you insolent wretch! Better – far better if you’d asked in the name of Lycaon! He is the only Zeus you’re likely to see! Do you really imagine the kings and great ones of this world pay any heed to snivelling tales of gods? Do – do you take us for children?’
He wiped his eyes; and, with a scrape of his chair on the bronze-leafed floor, he stood up. There was a knife held loosely in his deep-veined hand. He pricked a piece of meat from the steaming bowl before him and slowly ate it.
‘I am going to kill you, fellow,’ he said gently – then turned to the avenue of curving lips and hooded eyes that watched eagerly. ‘Shall I cut his throat, or—?’
He smiled. A woman, halfway down the table, her mouth still greasy from the feast, gazed at him with shining eyes.
‘Do it, Lycaon!’ she shrieked in wild excitement. ‘Do it now!’
Her passion spread. Like fire it leaped from heart to heart till all the table was ablaze with it – and the king burned hottest of all.
Two of his sons ran to shut the door, to cut off the stranger’s escape. It clanged to with a dreadful brazen roar . . . and the trapped stranger was seen to shudder at it.
Then all at the table rose with a squeaking clamour of sandalled feet and began to advance, pointing and laughing. The women, no less deadly than the men, jeered shrilly at the doomed, staring traveller who had dared to suppose that there was any other Olympus than the palace of Lycaon – or any other gods than the great mortals he now beheld.
‘Zeus! Zeus!’ shouted Lycaon, his fierce voice crowning the uproar. ‘I am Zeus! See—!’
The greasy-mouthed woman was helpless with laughter. The god-like Arcadian was whistling and quacking and flapping his long, powerful arms. ‘A bird! I’m a bird! A quail! A cuckoo! Beware! Zeus comes—!’
He rushed on her, screeching and beating the air. He bore down on her and she shrieked with comic alarm—
‘Zeus loves! Quack-quack! Zeus nests! The god has wings!’
Silently the traveller watched. The expression on his face was strange. Those who saw it were momentarily chilled. They took it for the look of a man who has seen his own death racing down upon him. They had not seen anything like it before.
Then the woman with the king screamed eagerly: ‘The feast! Give him the divine portion! Great Lycaon – make him gnaw the bones like a dog! Then the knife. Make him beg; make him bark and plead! Immortal Lycaon—!’ She struggled away from the inspired king and stumbled to the table where the bowls still steamed.
Lycaon followed, panting with laughter. He dug his knife into the great bronze jar from which all had been served. ‘Here!’ he shouted, to the unlucky traveller from the north. ‘Lycaon gives you the gods’ portion to fill your guts before you die! Beg and take it like a dog!’
Lycaon withdrew the knife and offered it, dripping with rich liquid. Hanging from its point was the bony remnant of a young man’s hand. Such was the feast of Lycaon.
‘Take it!’ He thrust it to the full stretch of his arm; and behind him, the crowding revellers grinned as the stranger seemed to tremble and recoil.
‘Lycaon commands—’ began the terrible Arcadian; then he stopped. He faltered. The knife bearing the still-knotted bones seemed intolerably heavy. He looked up – and saw the stranger’s eyes. They were blazing like suns in a merciless sky. Their radiance was blinding – unendurable. Lycaon could not look away. He tried to cry out; but no words came – only a queer snarling grunt of dismay. He tried to move; but a fiery pain stabbed his back.
He could not stay upright. The pain was enormous. The stranger raised his hand; and Lycaon sank under the burden of his agony. The knife clattered on the bronze floor – and the bony hand fell away and lay, seeming to beckon to his own . . .
He reached for it. Again he gave vent to the queer snarling sound. What was happening to him? His hand! Before his eyes it was changing. The dark hairs thickened and turned grey. They covered his skin, and his fingers withered away into claws. His palms hardened and turned black.
‘Bark, Lycaon,’ he heard the mighty stranger say. ‘Howl and whine and moan – not like a dog, but like the wolf you are!’
Then Lycaon turned and faced his sons and their wives and the guests who had come to do him homage. He glared at them with maddened, bloodshot eyes. His jaws dripped and he laid back his pointed ears. He howled for pity – and they screamed with terror. He whined and moaned for them to help him. But they turned to fly. They scrambled backwards, falling over the upturned chairs, scalding themselves in the spilled stew . . . clawing at each other desperately – shrieking in the extremity of their terror. But it was not terror of Lycaon the wolf. It was terror of the tall stranger. For the smallest instant they had seen a radiance that blistered their eyes and printed on their fading minds the image of a figure, part manlike, that shimmered in the midst of the light. Then this radiance diminished till all that remained of it was in the stranger’s eyes. ‘No – no—!’ pleaded the sons of Lycaon. It was too late. The stranger raised his hand . . .
Wolves ran howling and moaning through the fair palace of Lycaon. Like gaunt shadows, they flickered down passages and across halls where once they’d walked in the semblance of men and women. Their eyes were red and mad with fear – for everywhere they turned they saw the blinding vision that lingered in their brains.
Then they ran out into the moonlit courtyard and fled like grey ghosts to hide in the grim dark pinewoods of Lycaeus, to moan and howl forever under the silver arrows of the moon.
The palace of Lycaon lay quiet and still. Then a strange wind began to blow. It whistled down the empty passages and high across the empty halls. It blew out the fires and burst open the bolted doors. Then it passed through the pillared portico, and the traveller crossed the silver courtyard, leaving Lycaon’s marble palace as still and lonely as death. The god returned to Olympus. His brow was dark with a huge anger . . .
The wind began to blow from the south. Day and night it blew – and no other winds interrupted it. It was as if they had been imprisoned in the cave of Aeolus by divine command. Men stared up to where the south wind gathered his dark harvest. Clouds – clouds bulking in ramparts and layers of dreadful black. From all the corners of the sky the unceasing south wind piled them up like sinister towns and evil palaces of toppling weight.
In vain the wild wolves of Lycaeus howled and moaned their warnings. But none could understand them – and men fled before their savage aspect.
By night, strange unearthly mists seemed to rise from the beds of rivers and drift down towards the sea. Sometimes in these mists there seemed to be vague, naked shapes of grim and often frightening appearance.
Men who were passing saw them, and reported of it; but none could tell what they were or suspect what they were about. The conflicting passions that man had inherited prevented the blazing clarity of vision that might have told them where they were going and for what purpose. Thus what might have been done was neglected for ideas that seemed better at the time.
But far in the north, in the bitter freezing region of the Caucasus, there was one whose vision was mercilessly clear. P
rometheus, the Titan, saw the hostile sky; he saw, too, the river gods go down menacingly to the council of Poseidon.
He raged in his chains as he understood what was to come. The mountains about him trembled and the wide glaciers cracked. Then he raised his vast, tragic head and shouted across the world. He shouted to his children even as the eternal vulture plucked and ate at him.
But the implacable south wind still blew, and his words whirled back and were lost.
He shouted again – across the black, starless night. Thinly, his words beat against the wind like birds whose southward journey will end in an ocean death. But this time, he was heard. In Phthia, northward of Arcadia, Deucalion started up in his bed. The words that had reached him, out of the night, seemed like a dream. Quickly he roused Pyrrha, his wife, and told her of them. She was a daughter of Pandora and Epimetheus, and had inherited much of her great father’s gentleness as well as her mother’s beauty. She loved and honoured Deucalion, who was a good and upright man.
‘What must we do, my lord?’
‘We must make a vessel sea-worthy, Pyrrha. We must do it now. So my dream has told me. We must stock the vessel with meat and grain . . . and we must pray to Zeus.’
The south wind had stopped. The air grew still and heavy. Frightened birds flew into the tree tops – and the wolves of Lycaeus whimpered at the dreadful sky.
And then it fell: the Deluge. It seemed as if a thunderbolt had been hurled at the black cities in the sky. They blazed and split and, with a mighty roar, they toppled down. Rain, such as no man had seen, rushed down in blinding torrents. It smashed the orchards and the harvests. It ran hissing down the marble columns like a plague of silver snakes to swirl round the pedestals in ever-rising coils . . . and it filled up the cradles that had been left in porches and gardens so that infants were drowned before their shrieking, gasping mothers could drag them in.
Then men who lived by the sea saw the waves writhing under the steaming torrents; and, for an instant, seemed to see a wild radiance rise out of the waters and strike them with a triple lightning. The waves reared up like ranges of black mountains and moved towards the shore. Slowly at first, then faster they came, gathering height till they were capped with foam that seemed to boil.
But they did not break and fall when they reached their natural limits. Instead they rushed on, over the sands and beaches, engulfing the stone quays of harbours, and tearing off the stout iron rings to which ships had been tied and flinging them up like black motes in the savage sky. Then the terrible waves met the advancing streams and rivers in mid-career. Up they leaped and, with double mouths, gaped at the heavens, before they fell with a wild roar and swallowed up the land.
The river gods had kept their appointment with their mighty overlord of the sea. And over and above them all, the father of the gods continued to hurl down the wrath of the sky. Almighty Zeus had resolved to wash the earth clean of the foul stain of mankind.
The gods looked down and shuddered; but they dared not oppose great Zeus who crouched like a god of stone amid his terrible clouds.
Higher and higher rose the waters, now rushing darkly through the high casements of buildings and sending up vast silver bubbles like the ghosts of murdered towns.
And everywhere, like feebly twitching flies, tossed the remnants of mankind. Some had been washed from rooftops; some had been harvested, like ripe fruit, from the topmost branches of trees. But many, many more were dead beneath the waters where they had been drowned in the treacherous safety of their homes. Eerily they moved among dim halls and passages, while strange sea-creatures nosed and nibbled them from pillar to post.
Now the waters began to creep up the slopes of the mountains where the last men had fled for refuge. At first, they helped each other, brother pulling brother up the sharp rocks and carrying wives and children in straining arms. Some even went back for those who were trapped in muddy crevices and dragged them free.
Then savage Ares, god of hateful war, opened their eyes to the dwindling land on which they were crowding together. They began to struggle and fight for their places. They began to hack at one another with such weapons as they had, and the water round the mountain tops swirled with red.
Those who still climbed were kicked back to their deaths; and one by one, those who had achieved safety were hurled from it by those who were stronger.
Fathers abandoned their children and husbands thrust out their wives. Then at last the waters put an end to their savagery and engulfed them all, dragging away the last two men who were locked in a murderous embrace. But they were not drowned. Their hands still grasped their knives which were lodged each in the belly of his brother.
At last, the black clouds drained away and the sun stared down. There was a great silence everywhere; the kingdom of Poseidon stretched over the earth like a silver winding sheet. Beneath it, the drowned palaces and proud colonnades that had once rivalled Olympus, lay like pale, uneasy dreams; and the shadowy pinewoods of Lycaeus swayed in the currents, putting out tangled branches to catch the inquiring fish – like the fingers of a nightmare.
Gigantic crabs tottered among deep forsaken market-places, and weird grey serpentine creatures wove greasy webs among the dim pillars of cold temples.
Then, in that enormous quiet, a single, tiny voice was heard. So frail and distant was it that the very words seemed unthreaded when they reached the sky and drifted like seedlings . . .
It was a prayer. Someone was thanking the father of the gods for sparing them. The ark of Pyrrha and Deucalion had survived the flood.
The greatest of the gods looked down and saw the small roofed vessel drifting over the shoulder of a mountain. It was Parnassus, whose twin peaks pricked up like the ears of some ancient beast turned to stone.
‘Shall I strike again, brother?’ great Poseidon shouted from his enlarged estate.
‘Enough, brother. Return within your boundaries. Retreat, Poseidon. Go back.’
The earth-shaker scowled. The power he had tasted was sweet. But even he stood in awe of the thunderbolt.
Then greedy Hades called from his grim kingdom. ‘The last two. Send them to me, brother. They are mine—’
‘Peace, brother. They prayed to me. They are mine.’
‘By what right?’
‘By the right of my will, brother. And the thunderbolt.’
Secure in their ark, Deucalion and Pyrrha waited. The dispute between the three great brothers they heard as the muttering of distant thunder, which continued for nine nights and days. Such was the measurement of man beside the scope of the gods.
Then, suddenly, wonderfully, they felt their vessel scrape against rock. Pyrrha’s lovely eyes shone. She reached for Deucalion’s hands and grasped them with her own. The vessel jarred and shuddered; its endless course was halted.
‘Almighty Zeus has heard our prayer. We have reached land!’
TWELVE
MOTHERS’ BONES . . . STONES . . .
The waters began to drain away. At first, they moved slowly, with seeming reluctance, then with a growing haste so that everywhere there was heard a soft rushing and kissing sound as if of some gigantic farewell. Trees rose up and lifted their shining trunks aloft with sudden cascades of silver foliage. Tumbled rocks and the upper slopes of hillsides grew like dreams, with deep sighs and suckings as the water found veins and crevices in the earth to rush through. And everywhere there pricked up the million tiny spears of grass – as if multitudes of little warriors were waiting under the shrinking tide. Then the water whispered away, leaving sparkling chains and jewels to wind among the green.
At last the ocean returned to its natural boundaries, where the waves sighed and muttered as they licked at the shore. The taste of the mountains had been sweet.
The great golden sun shone down on the quiet world. Homes, palaces and temples dripped emptily. Torn robes and broken sandals littered the rooftops in attitudes of silent madness and haste. Of those who had worn them, there was no sign. It seemed as if t
hey were all hiding – playing some enormous game – and, at any moment, would come shouting and laughing out of the silent shadows and leaping through the curtained seaweed that overhung their doors and casements. But nothing stirred, and the game grew cold.
Then, suddenly, a child’s sandal, all on its own, scraped weirdly across a courtyard. It tottered back and forth as if seeking its pair. A crab had taken it for its fortress and, thus armoured, was looking for the sea.
Halfway down the steeps of Mount Parnassus, Deucalion and Pyrrha looked back to where their ark lay cradled against the sky.
They were alone in the world, and frightened. Again they prayed to the father of the gods – but there was no sound save for the dripping of water as it drained from branches and dropped to the puddled ground. Tresses of green and brown weeds hung from the trees like grief-torn hair; and the groves and glades reeked of the ancient sea.
‘Look!’ whispered Pyrrha, her fingers tightening on her husband’s hand. They had not let go of each other since they’d left their vessel. Each dreaded that if that desperate grip were broken, even for a moment, the other would be swallowed up in the universal mystery. ‘Look, Deucalion!’
Pyrrha pointed as if in confirmation of a dream. High in the branches of the trees, there glinted and shone the strangest fruit.
They saw them everywhere. Little fishes that had been caught and had perished, amazed, in such unlikely nets.
More than anything, it was this weird, unnatural sight that made Deucalion and his wife feel how enormous was their loneliness.
Neither of them wept nor even whispered now. Tears and words alike had lost their meaning in the face of emptiness.
Silently they walked through the quiet glades, while everywhere the sea water dripped.
Suddenly they stopped. Their faces grew pale; their limbs trembled and their entwined fingers whitened with the fierceness of their grip.
They stood at the edge of a glade that had an air of glimmering secrecy. Within it stood a great stone basin, over which, quiet and intent, crouched a strange, uncanny youth. His bright limbs were naked, and on his feet were curious golden sandals that had wings.
The God Beneath the Sea Page 9
