The Tour Part 23

The natives ate hardly any meat, but mainly vegetables and fruits, or young shoots of trees, or they would suck reed-stalks and lotus-flowers. But they also took blood and milk and cheese; and there was no other food. No, Uncle Catullus would never have stood it here, thought Lucius, when the travellers went still farther south, to the capital of Ethiopia, Meroe, on the island of the same name. And here Lucius discovered that the famous date-wines and topaz-yellow liqueurs of Napata and Meroe were a sheer hoax, that there was no wine or liqueur whatever distilled in Ethiopia and that the delicious drinks with which Master Ghizla and Caleb had provided him and Uncle Catullus came from no farther than Lake Mareotis at Alexandria!

A fabulous vegetation, however, grew luxuriantly over the island. If the people and animals were small, the trees shot up with amazing vigour: the huge palm-trees, the ebony-trees, the ceratia and persea, under whose gigantic domes of thick foliage the green villages of little plaited wicker huts disappeared from view. In the marshes round Lake Psebo the travellers hunted, if not the great snake, at any rate the terrible boa, which even ventures to attack the elephant. And the natives showed them a fight between one of these boas and an elephant and a hippopotamus.

They visited the gold-mines, the copper-mines, the jewel-mines, the temples of Hercules and Pan and of a strange barbaric deity. The dead were buried in the Nile, or else they were kept in the houses under a mica slab of human form. In the middle of the town stood the Golden Temple, where the king dwelt in sacred mystery. There were slabs of gold between bamboo columns. In former ages the priests elected the kings and deposed them at will; but a certain king had caused all the priests to be strangled and since then a law had been pa.s.sed that, if the king were maimed or lost a limb, all the people of his court had to inflict the same injury on themselves, for which reason the king's person was guarded with great care and was divine and sacred; and the travellers did not see him.

CHAPTER XXVI

After the fierce hunting by day, the nights were twinkling mysteries of great s.h.i.+ning, diamond stars; and Sirius shone like a white sun. The rustling silence, the audible stillness of the vast forests lapped the encampment of the caravan, where the fires died out but still glowed sufficiently to keep the wild animals at a distance and where the guards and drivers lay immersed in sound sleep. Lucius was happy in that mystery; and in the silvery sheen of the night the last memories of his grief seemed to lift like wisps of disappearing mist.

The travellers had approached the Land of Ophir; and the pillars of Sesostris would be reached next day. In this last twinkling night of forest-life, with the stars s.h.i.+ning through the foliage like a diamond cupola above an emerald dome, Lucius had left his tent while all the others slept. Next to his tent were those of Thrasyllus, Caleb and Cora. And he saw Cora sitting outside her tent, which was the biggest, because she was a woman, and made of spotted lynx-hides, whose warmth resisted the plentiful dew. And she rose and stretched her hands to the ground, in salutation, and preserved that att.i.tude, shyly.

"Are you not sleeping, Cora?" asked Lucius.

"No, my lord. I cannot sleep when the nights twinkle like this, when the stars send forth such rays that it is really as though they were moving to and fro. I feel that I must go on gazing at them until they fade away."

"Life here in the forest is too wild for you, too lonely...."

"Life in the forest is paradise, my lord. By day Thrasyllus tells me wonderful things about the mountains and the plants and the animals and the savage tribes; and so the hours pa.s.s till you return from hunting...."

"And you sing to us and dance in the light of the fire and charm the rude hunters and Caleb in particular...."

She smiled and made no reply.

Then she continued:

"And the nights are such strange mysteries of sounds and silence and of radiant stars; and it is as though Sirius grew bigger nightly."

"And you are never frightened?"

"I am not frightened, my lord."

"Not even at night?"

"Least of all at night, because ..."

"Because what?"

"Because then you have returned; and I feel safest where you are."

"From that height yonder, Cora, one can see the sea. I love the sea and I often miss the sea in the forest. I am glad that we are near the sea again. As I returned from hunting, I could just catch sight of a streak of sea from there. I should like to see the sea now, at night, with all those twinkling stars above it."

"Yes, my lord."

"Come with me ... that is, if you are not frightened."

"I am not frightened, my lord, where you are."

And her heart throbbed in her throat, but not with fear.

They went past the sleeping guards and left the circle of the watch-fires. She nearly stumbled over the creepers and stones; and he said:

"Give me your hand."

It was the first time that his hand had met hers. He had never touched her before. When she felt the warm strength of his hand around her own small hand, hers lay pa.s.sive like a captive dove.

"Why are you trembling so?" he asked.

"I don't know, my lord," she stammered.

He smiled and did not speak again.

They climbed the rocky height and he helped her, with his fingers still grasping hers. He even put his arm round her slim waist, to support her, and he felt that she was still trembling, as in a fever.

"Look," he said, pointing, "there is the sea."

They both looked out. Around them stretched the forests, all shadow and denseness and gloom and loneliness and mystery. On one horizon, gleaming darkly in the night, lay the line of the sea, the Arabian Gulf, the Erythraean or Red Sea.

"The sea," she stammered. "Yes, the sea, I love it too. I always had it around me, at Cos. I also miss it in the forest, as you do, my lord."

"To-morrow we shall reach the sea again, Cora.... Cora, I want you, to-night, this last night ... to dance to me ... here, in the starlight."

"Yes, my lord," said the slave.

She danced. She softly hummed a tune between scarce-parted lips. The thin folds of her garment flew to either side; and with her veils she mimicked the movements of birds' wings. She hovered round and round on the upland, circling like a swallow.

He stepped towards her; and she ceased dancing.

"Cora," he said, "to-morrow we shall be at Dire, by the pillars of Sesostris. On the opposite side are Ebal and Usal and Saba, Caleb's country, to which he wants to return when he is rich."

"Yes, my lord."

"Cora, if you are really fond of Caleb, I will resign you to him."

She trembled and clasped her hands. She fell on her knees and gave one loud sob.

"What's the matter, Cora?"

"My lord, let me stay with you! Let me dance and sing for you, let me serve you, let me wash your feet; kick me, beat me, torture me! But do not send me away! Do not send me away! Keep me! Keep me with you!... I come from Dryope's slave-school, I have cost you a fortune, my lord! I am not beautiful, but my voice is good and, my lord, I am a clever dancer. But, if your lords.h.i.+p is tired of my voice and my dancing, I will wash your feet; and, when you are angry and want to beat a slave, you shall beat me and ill-treat me! But keep me, keep me, wherever you may be!"

She had thrown herself before him and was sobbing and kissing his feet.

And he said: