Chapter VIIIIn the Cage

Though I knew from all that had gone before that change of quarters was little likely to bring me comfort, pleasure, or ease, either of mind or of body, my spirits rose, despite my better sense, as I turned my back upon the place of torment that had held me captive.

Neither did the triumphant malice of Agno’s dark countenance daunt me. Whatever befell, it was good. Good to be alive and breathe again the pure open air; good to be dazzled, half-blinded even, by a sun I had thought never to shine on me again save in death.

But I had not long in which to rejoice over my shackled freedom; for, still chained, I was thrust rudely into a new and curious prison;a barbarous invention of a barbarous people, a cage like a wild beast’s den.

In this, still closely guarded, I was borne along, and through its open bars of stout bamboo, a gaping crowd beheld me, and it sent a hot wave of righteous wrath surging through my veins to feel that I could not, at least, stand upright like a man, and fling back scorn for scorn; but on account of the lowness of my prison, needs must crouch, beast-like, in shameful silence before the taunts of the rabble, this offscouring of the people of the Walled City.

Thus with ignominy was I carried through the broad streets of Lah’s capital, and still caged thus, I was placed upon the central stone of the great open market-place, and here, at the High Priest’s command, was I left with the staring crowd for company.

Agno himself had gone. I noted, through the open bars of my foul den, that the walls of the storehouses about were hung with gay carpets, and that the business of buying and selling had ceased in favor of the still moreurgent and exciting business of seeing an enemy put to scorn, mayhap to death.

The multitude were wreathed with flowers as for a festal day. They jostled one another, it is true, to get a nearer look at the man about to suffer the extremest wrath of the mighty gods; they pushed one another aside, but with merry words and no anger. Their anger was all for him who had defiled the sanctuary. The very women held up their children and taught them words of infamy for me, the captive.

A man loves not to be called a coward. It was not for this that with patience I had learned from Astolba’s lips the language of this people.

The time was long. The sun beat down upon my unprotected head. I shook the bars of my cage with savage strength, and the people shrank back, only to return with new-born laughter at my impotence.

And Lah came not.

Thus dragged the weary hours. At last, a few of them that tormented me, bolder or more cruel than the rest, began to fling notonly taunts, but stones. Yet some unknown power restrained even these, for the stones they chose were small, and did but sting and bruise the flesh, nor did one of all draw blood. But it was merry sport for them, my enemies. As they warmed to it, ’twas like enough that the unknown bond that held them would have snapped, and I been given over, then and there, to an easy death thus at their hands, when once more an ever-watchful fate stepped between me and vengeance.

The sound of chanting and of bells rose faint from the distance, and, as at a command, the throng fell back, while I, with straining ears and beating heart, waited for what this might portend.

Was it the Queen bent on rescue?

The thought thrilled me with new hope, but the strange chant came nearer yet, and hope died. For I heard it now for the third time. The song of wrath, the song of the Temple of Edba, of the High Priest’s Council—the song of death to the stranger, to him within the gates.

The dull beating of drums and the clash ofweapons mingled with the hymn. Then the first of a band of warrior priests came into sight, and the people herded together, near to the walls, that the holy ones might have room to pass.

The strange procession circled about my cage. Of them that marched, some bore shields and swords; some carried wands of office; others swung open silver cups laden with sweet-scented spices consumed to the honor of the gods. Some bore wreaths of many-colored flowers. All were in spotless white, and all kept step with order and rhythm to the cadenced measures of that horrible hymn of praise.

But now an awed murmur rose from the waiting throng. Some fell on their faces, and some, and these were women, rushed forward in a kind of frenzied joy of welcome. The men drew aside with reverent haste to let them pass, and the object of their devotion came in sight.

I saw a canopied litter swung aloft; I saw fan-bearers and all the jewelled trappings of royalty. And again my pulse beat thick withjoy, for a veiled figure sat within the litter, and for one fleeting moment I believed that Lah had come to claim me, prisoner. Another instant pricked the bubble of my hope.

One woman and another from out the throng fell, face downward, on the wayside, in the path of her who rode thus immovable, in state, herself, no woman truly, but Edba, the Moon Goddess, come to behold her fallen enemy.

The priests marched steadily along over the prostrate bodies in the dust, nor turned aside for any self-devoted victim. Only when the silver statue reached the centre of the cleared space before my cage, was a halt called. Then with much speech-making, and many strange observances, was I once more committed to my doom.

Surely had I no need to complain of lack of ceremony about my end, save only the incivility with which these pious persons received my own attempt at answer.

But of a truth they may have feared, and rightly, the effect of Christian eloquence. For though I be but a plain man, and onemore of deed than of word, I was roused in that hour to a flow of language, a subtlety of wit, and a power of rebuke, that would, I think, have shamed the boldest into silence, and carried me perchance a conqueror, victor not victim, from that place of torment.

But it was not so to be. The beat of drums drowned my voice; at a sign, the bearers of the litter resumed their march.

Edba, too, had gone; another hour had sped. I was still caged, still fettered, still a prisoner.

Some of the people, my former tormentors, had gone on with the Moon Goddess and her train. Others stayed to bear away the victims left behind her in the market-place. Of these some groaned mournfully, others rent the air with cries, and one, a tall woman of some beauty, rose, swayed for a moment, and then fell heavily, and lay motionless, but with a strange smile on her parted lips.

I still had a few spectators of my misery, but their zest at the sight had somehow departed. No one now flung either taunts or pebbles. I began to solace myself with theidea of an hour’s quiet before nightfall in which to think; bitter comfort undisturbed my own thoughts, when a group of chattering slave girls neared my prison. They gathered round it with unseemly jests and laughter. Their tinkling anklets were of gold, and of gold also were the bracelets on their bare brown arms. They belonged, I saw, to some great house, but the thought of them and their concerns did not affect me.

Lestrade, now, in such a case, even such an evil case as mine, would have held discourse with them. He would have saluted, I doubt not, with flattering words, such as through their hampering veils seemed comely.

But I am of sterner stuff. Their chatter irked me, and their light-heartedness was an insult and a cruelty. I would not be a show and a delight to such as these. So I held my head down, and drew my cloak about me, and alike to their questioning and their jibes, maintained a sullen silence. Seeing which, she who seemed the leader in their merriment drew nearer.

“I will have speech of the monster,” shecried, somewhat in this wise: “Behold neither sweet words from fair lips, nor jibes, nor hard stones move him. Yet, by the Veiled One I swear it, this I warrant shall quicken his sense—the moody one;” and she drew from her hair a long gold pin. “At least, will I see if his blood be red like that of other mortals.”

At these words the other slaves fell back, and some would have stayed her, but with a light laugh she flung aside alike their restraining hands and words, and came close, close to the bars of the cage. Now, I am not a man to fear the prick of a weapon wielded by a woman, nor, for that matter, in fair fight with any man; but I was mad that my quiet be broken, and over and above that, her boldness vexed me, for I was one who never could bear the forwardness of maids.

So, as the pin-point touched my flesh, I seized the bodkin ’twixt thumb and finger, and in my grasp it broke, or came apart, I know not which, and I saw that it was hollow.

At the instant the slave’s veil slipped asidea little. I saw her finger seek her lip to caution me to silence. The next moment her shrill scream rang through the air.

“The brute! He has my golden pin,” she cried, and wrung her hands, and thus bewailing her loss, passed, after a little, with her companions out of sight.

Then, as soon as I could, being unobserved, I looked closer on the bodkin, and, as I held it this way and that, to catch the meaning of some characters graven faintly on the surface, a small round pellet slipped from out the hollow pin, and rolled along the floor of my cage. It lay upon the very edge, but I had caught the Queen’s name in the short sentence before me, so stooped not to pick it up, until I read:

“Within, find help when all fails;”

and the royal signet,

“Lah.”

I scanned the words with all care. Then my eager fingers sought the fallen pellet, but, in my haste I jarred the cage so that the little ball rolled over the edge, and was gone.

As I gazed upon it, lying there on the bare earth not four feet away, but as much out of my reach as though the world’s breadth was between it and me, a dog came up, one of the many that hunt for scraps and offal among the refuse of the market-place. One of these scraps, a strip of dried beef, I think it was, lay, as luck would have it, close to my treasure. The half-starved brute greedily seized on the fragment, and his long tongue licked up as well the pellet,—gift to me from the Queen.

With a wrathful cry I shook my clenched hand at the already retreating brute.

He was not three paces off, but almost on the instant a convulsive tremor seized upon the creature. The mongrel’s legs stiffened, he raised his head and gave a despairing howl, a sound choked in the uttering; for, with another shuddering spasm, he dropped and lay still.

A cry of terror rose from the multitude.

“Behold, the captive looked upon the dog in anger, and he is dead! Let us leave this place! Let us fly!”

A panic seized the people at the words. Women snatched up their offspring, covering them from harm beneath their mantles. Strong men trampled upon the weak, that they might escape.

The crowd melted away as if by magic. The sun beat down pitilessly as before, but on an empty market-place. Empty, save for the hapless prisoner crouched within his cage, and for the dead body of the brute beside it,—victim to the mercy of Lah, the Queen.

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