A Voyage to Arcturus Part 12

"Well, you seem to be identified in my mind with that action--but what it all means I can't say, Maskull."

"Accept it as a good omen, for Panawe never lies, and never speaks thoughtlessly."

"There must be some confusion. These are heights beyond me," said Maskull calmly, but looking rather contemplative.

"Where do you come from?"

"From the planet of a distant sun, called Earth."

"What for?"

"I was tired of vulgarity," returned Maskull laconically. He intentionally avoided mentioning his fellow voyagers, in order that Krag's name should not come to light.

"That's an honourable motive," said Panawe. "And what's more, it may be true, though you spoke it as a prevarication."

"As far as it goes, it's quite true," said Maskull, staring at him with annoyance and surprise.

The swampy lake extended for about half a mile from where they were standing to the lower b.u.t.tresses of the mountain. Feathery purple reeds showed themselves here and there through the shallows. The water was dark green. Maskull did not see how they were going to cross it.

Joiwind caught his arm. "Perhaps you don't know that the lake will bear us?"

Panawe walked onto the water; it was so heavy that it carried his weight. Joiwind followed with Maskull. He instantly started to slip about--nevertheless the motion was amusing, and he learned so fast, by watching and imitating Panawe, that he was soon able to balance himself without a.s.sistance. After that he found the sport excellent.

For the same reason that women excel in dancing, Joiwind's half falls and recoveries were far more graceful and sure than those of either of the men. Her slight, draped form--dipping, bending, rising, swaying, twisting, upon the surface of the dark water--this was a picture Maskull could not keep his eyes away from.

The lake grew deeper. The gnawl water became green-black. The crags, gullies, and precipices of the sh.o.r.e could now be distinguished in detail. A waterfall was visible, descending several hundred feet.

The surface of the lake grew disturbed--so much so that Maskull had difficulty in keeping his balance. He therefore threw himself down and started swimming on the face of the water. Joiwind turned her head, and laughed so joyously that all her teeth flashed in the sunlight.

They landed in a few more minutes on a promontory of black rock. The water on Maskull's garment and body evaporated very quickly. He gazed upward at the towering mountain, but at that moment some strange movements on the part of Panawe attracted his attention. His face was working convulsively, and he began to stagger about. Then he put his hand to his mouth and took from it what looked like a bright-coloured pebble. He looked at it carefully for some seconds. Joiwind also looked, over his shoulder, with quickly changing colors. After this inspection, Panawe let the object--whatever it was--fall to the ground, and took no more interest in it.

"May I look?" asked Maskull; and, without waiting for permission, he picked it up. It was a delicately beautiful egg-shaped crystal of pale green.

"Where did this come from?" he asked queerly.

Panawe turned away, but Joiwind answered for him. "It came out of my husband."

"That's what I thought, but I couldn't believe it. But what is it?"

"I don't know that it has either name or use. It is merely an overflowing of beauty."

"Beauty?"

Joiwind smiled. "If you were to regard nature as the husband, and Panawe as the wife, Maskull, perhaps everything would be explained."

Maskull reflected.

"On Earth," he said after a minute, "men like Panawe are called artists, poets, and musicians. Beauty overflows into them too, and out of them again. The only distinction is that their productions are more human and intelligible."

"Nothing comes from it but vanity," said Panawe, and, taking the crystal out of Maskull's hand, he threw it into the lake.

The precipice they now had to climb was several hundred feet in height.

Maskull was more anxious for Joiwind than for himself. She was evidently tiring, but she refused all help, and was in fact still the nimbler of the two. She made a mocking face at him. Panawe seemed lost in quiet thoughts. The rock was sound, and did not crumble under their weight.

The heat of Branchspell, however, was by this time almost killing, the radiance was shocking in its white intensity, and Maskull's pain steadily grew worse.

When they got to the top, a plateau of dark rock appeared, bare of vegetation, stretching in both directions as far as the eye could see.

It was of a nearly uniform width of five hundred yards, from the edge of the cliffs to the lower slopes of the chain of hills inland. The hills varied in height. The cup-shaped Poolingdred was approximately a thousand feet above them. The upper part of it was covered with a kind of glittering vegetation which he could not comprehend.

Joiwind put her hand on Maskull's shoulder, and pointed upward. "Here you have the highest peak in the whole land--that is, until you come to the Ifdawn Marest."

On hearing that strange name, he experienced a momentary unaccountable sensation of wild vigour and restlessness--but it pa.s.sed away.

Without losing time, Panawe led the way up the mountainside. The lower half was of bare rock, not difficult to climb. Halfway up, however, it grew steeper, and they began to meet bushes and small trees. The growth became thicker as they continued to ascend, and when they neared the summit, tall forest trees appeared.

These bushes and trees had pale, gla.s.sy trunks and branches, but the small twigs and the leaves were translucent and crystal. They cast no shadows from above, but still the shade was cool. Both leaves and branches were fantastically shaped. What surprised Maskull the most, however, was the fact that, as far as he could see, scarcely any two plants belonged to the same species.

"Won't you help Maskull out of his difficulty?" said Joiwind, pulling her husband's arm.

He smiled. "If he'll forgive me for again trespa.s.sing in his brain. But the difficulty is small. Life on a new planet, Maskull, is necessarily energetic and lawless, and not sedate and imitative. Nature is still fluid--not yet rigid--and matter is plastic. The will forks and sports incessantly, and thus no two creatures are alike."

"Well, I understand all that," replied Maskull, after listening attentively. "But what I don't grasp is this--if living creatures here sport so energetically, how does it come about that human beings wear much the same shape as in my world?"

"I'll explain that too," said Panawe. "All creatures that resemble Shaping must of necessity resemble one another."

"Then sporting is the blind will to become like Shaping?"

"Exactly."

"It is most wonderful," said Maskull. "Then the brotherhood of man is not a fable invented by idealists, but a solid fact."

Joiwind looked at him, and changed colour. Panawe relapsed into sternness.

Maskull became interested in a new phenomenon. The jale-coloured blossoms of a crystal bush were emitting mental waves, which with his breve he could clearly distinguish. They cried out silently, "To me To me!" While he looked, a flying worm guided itself through the air to one of these blossoms and began to suck its nectar. The floral cry immediately ceased.

They now gained the crest of the mountain, and looked down beyond.

A lake occupied its crater-like cavity. A fringe of trees partly intercepted the view, but Maskull was able to perceive that this mountain lake was nearly circular and perhaps a quarter of a mile across. Its sh.o.r.e stood a hundred feet below them.

Observing that his hosts did not propose to descend, he begged them to wait for him, and scrambled down to the surface. When he got there, he found the water perfectly motionless and of a colourless transparency.

He walked onto it, lay down at full length, and peered into the depths.

It was weirdly clear: he could see down for an indefinite distance, without arriving at any bottom. Some dark, shadowy objects, almost out of reach of his eyes, were moving about. Then a sound, very faint and mysterious, seemed to come up through the gnawl water from an immense depth. It was like the rhythm of a drum. There were four beats of equal length, but the accent was on the third. It went on for a considerable time, and then ceased.

The sound appeared to him to belong to a different world from that in which he was travelling. The latter was mystical, dreamlike, and unbelievable--the drumming was like a very dim undertone of reality.

It resembled the ticking of a clock in a room full of voices, only occasionally possible to be picked up by the ear.

He rejoined Panawe and Joiwind, but said nothing to them about his experience. They all walked round the rim of the crater, and gazed down on the opposite side. Precipices similar to those that had overlooked the desert here formed the boundary of a vast moorland plain, whose dimensions could not be measured by the eye. It was solid land, yet he could not make out its prevailing colour. It was as if made of transparent gla.s.s, but it did not glitter in the sunlight. No objects in it could be distinguished, except a rolling river in the far distance, and, farther off still, on the horizon, a line of dark mountains, of strange shapes. Instead of being rounded, conical, or hogbacked, these heights were carved by nature into the semblance of castle battlements, but with extremely deep indentations.

The sky immediately above the mountains was of a vivid, intense blue.

It contrasted in a most marvellous way with the blue of the rest of the heavens. It seemed more luminous and radiant, and was in fact like the afterglow of a gorgeous blue sunset.

Maskull kept on looking. The more he gazed, the more restless and n.o.ble became his feelings.