The Lost Continent Part 19

"Oh, sir," she pleaded mockingly, "do not make your rule over us too ascetic. I have given no orders for this change, but to-night there are no perfumes in the air; the food is so plain and I have half a mind to burn the cook; and as for the clothes and gauds of these diners, by my face! they might have come straight from the old King's reign before I stepped in here to show how tasteful could be colours on a robe, or how pretty the glint of a jewel. It's done by no orders of mine, Deucalion.

They have swung round to this change by sheer courtier instinct. Why, look at the beards of the men! There is not half the curl about many of them to-day that they showed with such exquisiteness yesterday. By my face! I believe they'd reap their chins to-morrow as smooth as yours, if you go on setting the fas.h.i.+ons at this prodigious rate and I do not interfere."

"Why hinder them if they feel more cleanly shaven?"

"No, sir. There shall be only one clean chin where a beard can grow in all Atlantis, and that shall be carried by the man who is husband to the Empress. Why, my Deucalion, would you have no sumptuary laws? Would you have these good folk here and the common people outside imitate us in every cut of the hair and every fold of a garment which it pleases us to discover? Come, sir, if you and I chose to say that our sovereignty was marked only by our superior strength of arm and wit, they would hate us at once for our arrogance; whereas, if we keep apart to ourselves a few mere personal decorations, these become just objects to admire and pleasantly envy."

"You show me that there is more in the office of a ruler than meets the eye."

"And yet they tell me, and indeed show me, that you have ruled with some success."

"I employed the older method. It requires a Ph.o.r.enice to invent these nicer flights."

"Flatterer!" said she, and smote me playfully with the back of her little fingers on my arm. "You are becoming as great a courtier as any of them. You make me blush with your fine pleasantries, Deucalion, and there is no fan-girl here to-night to cool my cheek. I must choose me another fan-girl. But it shall not be Ylga. Ylga seems to have more of a kindness for you than I like, and if she is wise she will go live in her palace at the other side of the city, and there occupy herself with the ordering of her slaves, and the makings of embroideries. I shall not be hard on Ylga unless she forces me, but I will have no woman in this kingdom treat you with undue civility."

"And how am I to act," said I, falling in with her mood, "when I see and hear all the men of Atlantis making their protestations before you? By your own confession they all love you as ardently as they seem to have loved you hopelessly."

"Ah, now," she said, "you must not ask me to do impossibilities. I am powerful if you will. But I have no force which will govern the hearts of these poor fellows on matters such as that. But if you choose, you make proclamation that I am given now body and inwards to you, and if they continue to offend your pride in this matter, you may take your culprits, and give them over to the tormentors. Indeed, Deucalion, I think it would be a pretty attention to me if you did arrange some such ceremony. It seems to me a present," she added with a frown, "that the jealousy is too much on one side."

"You must not expect that a man who has been divorced from love for all of a busy life can learn all its niceties in an instant. Myself, I was feeling proud of my progress. With any other schoolmistress than you, Ph.o.r.enice, I should not be near so forward. In fact (if one may judge by my past record), I should not have begun to learn at all."

"I suppose you think I should be satisfied with that? Well, I am not. I can be finely greedy over some matters."

The banquet this night did not extend to inordinate length. Ph.o.r.enice had gone through much since last she slept, and though she had declared herself G.o.ddess in the meantime, it seemed that her body remained mortal as heretofore. The black rings of weariness had grown under her wondrous eyes, and she lay back amongst the cus.h.i.+ons of the divan with her limbs slackened and listless. When the dancers came and postured before us, she threw them a jewel and bade them begone before they had given a half of their performance, and the poet, a silly swelling fellow who came to sing the deeds of the day, she would not hear at all.

"To-morrow," she said wearily, "but for now grant me peace. My Lord Deucalion has given me much food for thought this day, and presently I go to my chamber to muse over the future policies of this State throughout the night. To-morrow come to me again, and if your poetry is good and short, I will pay you surprisingly. But see to it that you are not long-winded. If there are superfluous words, I will pay you for those with the stick."

She rose to her feet then, and when the banqueters had made their salutation to us, I led her away from the banqueting-hall and down the pa.s.sages with their secret doors which led to her private chambers.

She clung on my arm, and once when we halted whilst a great stone block swung slowly ajar to let us pa.s.s, she drooped her head against my shoulder. Her breath came warm against my cheek, and the loveliness of her face so close at hand surpa.s.ses the description of words. I think it was in her mind that I should kiss the red lips which were held so near to mine, but willing though I was to play the part appointed, I could not bring myself to that. So when the stone block had swung, she drew away with a sigh, and we went on without further speech.

"May the High G.o.ds treat you tenderly," I said, when we came to the door of her bed-chamber.

"I am my own G.o.d," said she, "in all things but one. By my face! you are a tardy wooer, Deucalion. Where do you go now?"

"To my own chamber."

"Oh, go then, go."

"Is there anything more I could do?"

"Nothing that your wit or your will would prompt you to. Yes, indeed, you are finely decorous, Deucalion, in your old-fas.h.i.+oned way, but you are a mighty poor wooer. Don't you know, my man, that a woman esteems some things the more highly if they are taken from her by rude force?"

"It seems I know little enough about women."

"You never said a truer word. Bah! And I believe your coldness brings you more benefit in a certain matter than any show of pa.s.sion could earn. There, get you gone, if the atmosphere of a maiden's bed-chamber hurts your rustic modesty, and your G.o.ds keep you, Deucalion, if that's the phrase, and if you think They can do it. Get you gone, man, and leave me solitary."

I had taken the plan of the pyramid out of the archives before the banquet and learned it thoroughly, and so was able to thread my way through its angular mazes without pause or blunder. I, too, was heavily wearied with what I had gone through since my last s.n.a.t.c.h of sleep, but I dare set apart no time for rest just then. Nais must be sacrificed in part for the needs of Atlantis; but a plan had come to me by which it seemed that she need not be sacrificed wholly; and to carry this through there was need for quick thought and action.

Help came to me also from a quarter I did not expect. As I pa.s.sed along the tortuous way between the ponderous stones of the pyramid, which led to the apartments that had been given me by Ph.o.r.enice, a woman glided up out of the shadows of one of the side pa.s.sages, and when I lifted my hand lamp, there was Ylga.

She regarded me half-sullenly. "I have lost my place," she said, "and it seems I need never have spoken. She intended to have you all along, and it was not a thing like that which could put her off. And you--you just think me officious, if, indeed, you have ever given me another thought till now."

"I never forget a kindness."

"Oh, you will learn that trick soon now. And you are going to marry her, you! The city is ringing with it. I thought at least you were honest, but when there is a high place to be got by merely taking a woman with it, you are like the rest. I thought, too, that you would be one of those men who have a distrust for ruddy hair. And, besides she is little."

"Ylga," I said, "you have taught me that these walls are full of crannies and ears. I will listen to no word against Ph.o.r.enice. But I would have further converse with you soon. If you still have a kindness for me, go to the chamber that is mine and wait for me there. I will join you shortly."

She drooped her eyes. "What do you want of me, Deucalion?"

"I want to say something to you. You will learn who it concerns later."

"But is it--is it fitting for a maiden to come to a man's room at this hour?"

"I know little of your conventions here in this new Atlantis. I am Deucalion, girl, and if you still have qualms, remembering that, do not come."

She looked up at me with a sneer. "I was foolish," she said. "My lord's coldness has grown into a proverb, and I should have remembered it. Yes; I will come."

"Go now, then," said I, and waited till she had pa.s.sed on ahead and was out of sight and hearing. With Ylga to help me, my tasks were somewhat lightened, and their sequence changed. In the first instance, now, I had got to make my way with as little delay and show as possible into a certain sanctuary which lay within the temple of our Lady the Moon. And here my knowledge as one of the Seven stood me in high favour.

All the temples of the city of Atlantis are in immediate and secret connection with the royal pyramid, but the pa.s.sages are little used, seeing that they are known only to the Seven and to the Three above them, supposing that there are three men living at one time sufficiently learned in the highest of the highest mysteries to be installed in that sublime degree of the Three. And, even by these, the secret ways may only be used on occasions of the greatest stress, so that a generation well may pa.s.s without their being trodden by a human foot.

It was with some trouble, and after no little experiment that I groped my way into this secret alley; but once there, the rest was easy. I had never trodden it before certainly, but the plan of it had been taught me at my initiation as one of the Seven, and the course of the windings came back to me now with easy accuracy. I walked quickly, not only because the air in those deep crannies is always full of lurking evils, but also because the hours were fleeting, and much must be done before our Lord the Sun again rose to make another day.

I came to the spy-place which commands the temple, and found the holy place empty, and, alas! dust-covered, and showing little trace that wors.h.i.+ppers ever frequented it these latter years. A vast stone of the wall swung outwards and gave me entrance, and presently (after the solemn prayer which is needful before attempting these matters), I took the metal stair from the place where it is kept, and climbed to the lap of the G.o.ddess, and then, pulling the stair after me, climbed again upwards till my length lay against her calm mysterious face.

A s.h.i.+vering seized me as I thought of what was intended, for even a warrior hardened to horrid sights and deeds may well have qualms when he is called upon to juggle with life and death, and years and history, with the welfare of his country in one hand, and the future of a woman who is as life to him in the other. But again I told myself that the hours flew, and laid hold of the jewel which is studded into the forehead of the image with one hand, and then stretching out, thrust at a corner of the eyebrow with the other. With a faint creak the ma.s.sive eyeball below, a stone that I could barely have covered with my back, swung inwards. I stepped off the stair, and climbed into the gap. Inside was the chamber which is hollowed from the head of the G.o.ddess.

It was the first time I had seen this most secret place, but the aspect of it was familiar to me from my teaching, and I knew where to find the thing which would fill my need. Yet, occupied though I might be with the stress of what was to befall, I could not help having a wonder and an admiration for the cleverness with which it was hidden.

High as I was in the learning and mysteries of the Priestly Clan, the structure of what I had come to fetch was hidden from me. Beforetime I had known only of their power and effect; and now that I came to handle them, I saw only some roughly rounded b.a.l.l.s, like nut kernels, gra.s.s green in colour, and in hardness like the wax of bees. There were three of these b.a.l.l.s in the hidden place, and I took the one that was needful, concealing the others as I had found them. It may have been a drug, it may have been something more; what exactly it was I did not know; only of its power and effect I was sure, as that was set forth plainly in the teaching I had learned; and so I put it in a pouch of my garment, returning by the way I had come, and replacing all things in due order behind me.

One look I took at the image of the G.o.ddess before I left the temple.

The jet of earth-breath which burns eternally from the central altar lit her from head to toe, and threw sparkles from the great jewel in her forehead. Vast she was, and calm and peaceful beyond all human imaginings, a perfect symbolism of that rest and quietness which many sigh for so vainly on this rude earth, but which they will never attain unless by their piety they earn a place in the hereafter, where our Lady the Moon and the rest of the High Ones reign in Their eternal glorious majesty.

It was with tired dragging limbs that I made my way back again to the royal pyramid, and at last came to my own private chamber. Ylga awaited me there, though at first I did not see her. The suspicions of these modern days had taken a deep hold of the girl, and she must needs crouch in hiding till she made sure it was I who came to the chamber, and, moreover, that I came alone.

"Oh, frown at me if you choose," said she sullenly, "I am past caring now for your good opinion. I had heard so much of Deucalion, and I thought I read honesty in you when first you came ash.o.r.e; but now I know that you are no better than the rest. Ph.o.r.enice offers you a high place, and you marry her blithely to get it. And why, indeed, should you not marry her? People say she is pretty, and I know she can be warm. I have seen her warm and languis.h.i.+ng to scores of men. She is clever, too, with her eyes, is our great Empress; I grant her that. And as for you, it tickles you to be courted."

"I think you are a very silly woman," I said.

"If you flatter yourself it matters a rap to me whom you marry, you are letting conceit run away with you."

"Listen," I said. "I did not ask you here to make foolish speeches which seem largely beyond my comprehension. I asked you to help me do a service to one of your own blood-kin."

She stared at me wonderingly. "I do not understand."

"It rests largely with you as to whether Nais dies to-morrow, or whether she is thrown into a sleep from which she may waken on some later and more happy day."

"Nais!" she gasped. "My twin, Nais? She is not here. She is out in the camp with those nasty rebels who bite against the city walls, if, indeed, still she lives."