Chapter VIThe Cup of the Beast
On the noonday that followed Astolba’s last visit, our usual meal was not brought to us, but on the hour, a turbaned slave appeared, bearing rich vestments of the barbarous kind worn by the attendants at the Queen’s court. These he flung upon the floor of our gilded cage, and by signs, showed us that we were to divest ourselves of our Christian garments and don instead these heathenish trappings.
Lestrade, glad of any divertisement—for of a surety our enforced leisure had become a burden to him—Lestrade, I say, bent himself with something of a child’s glee to this mummery, and I must needs confess showed in the issue bravely enough. But I, with some stubbornness to the messenger’s muteimportunities, shook my head, and having now achieved some knowledge of the language, I put to the fellow a few questions as to our state, and the term of our imprisonment.
But the slave was silent; and at length, wearied by his sullenness, I seized him by the shoulder, and (it shames me) with no gentle grip, for I was bent on forcing something more reasonable from between his thick lips than the senseless gibbering with which he had so far replied to my inquiries.
The fellow’s eyes rolled with fear, and opening his mouth, he pointed inward, dumbly, and I saw that his tongue had been shorn off close to the roots. The sight filled me with such mingled feelings of rage at the hellish cruelty that had been practised, and of pity for the helpless victim, that when the poor creature took from beneath his cloak two covered silver goblets, and with mute entreaties offered one to me and one to Gaston, I followed without a thought my friend’s example, and drank off at a draught the spiced wine that the cup contained.
Almost on the instant a mist arose before my eyes, and I saw, as in a dream, Lestrade fall on the marble floor of our prison house. The slave vanished as he had come; sweet music from a distance sounded in my ears, a great joy took hold upon my heart. I looked up and beheld the unveiled countenance of Lah, shining with its wondrous beauty, like a star, above me. I stretched forth my arms to draw the vision nearer, and—I knew no more.
How many hours passed while I lay close wrapped in that dreamless sleep, I cannot say. After a time, long or short as it may be, I awoke, and, piece by piece, what had befallen came back to my mind. I was still calm, still strangely happy, and loth to break the charmed spell that held my being. But after a little my manhood struggled in the toils. I opened my eyes, and saw, without wholly understanding all as yet, that I was in another chamber, hewn, it appeared, out of solid rock, yet softly draped with silken tapestries. I lay upon a couch covered with the skin of a lion. I idly noted that theclaws were of gold and the eyes of emerald. I saw that I was dressed in the garments that the slave had brought; but the sight awoke no anger. I glanced about me, and I beheld Lestrade, sitting motionless, with bowed head, in a distant corner of the room. I spoke to him, but he did not reply. Then I roused me, and again I spoke, and still silence. At this, the fumes of that accursed potion left my brain, and springing to my feet, I went swiftly to him, and again spoke; and this time Gaston raised his head, and his eyes encountered mine. His eyes! Not his, but those of an unthinking beast, with no show of meaning, of friendliness, aye, of barest humanity, in their depths. With trembling hand I touched him upon the shoulder.
“Gaston!” I cried. “Gaston! what has happened? Speak! do you not know me?”
Then, as he answered not, I shook him roughly, in my terror and amazement, and he turned,—turned like a savage dog that is disturbed,—and snapped at my hand. His lips drew back over his white teeth inan angry snarl, a beast-like snarl, and I, sick with horror, let go my hold, and there, with the same smile of cruel, conscious sovereignty, by my side stood Lah.
Then the rage that was in me broke loose; and forgetting everything, her womanhood with her power, I saw only the foul wrong that had been wrought upon the body of my friend, and I seized her soft arm in my hand, and gripped it savagely.
“Cursed sorceress,” I cried, “this is your work!”
For an instant the Queen’s eyes blazed, and had I not been beside myself with rage, I needs must have blanched before them; then a look of wonderful sweetness came into her face, and she said, with simple dignity, in the language of her people:—
“I will cure your friend.”
I let go my hold and such a flood of mingled feeling overbore me, that I knew not what to do or say, or what construction to put upon the matter.
My usual slow thinking but unmoved self was far from me. I was on fire with newthoughts, new feelings, that I knew not how to meet.
I turned from my friend, crouched in bestial fear in the royal presence, to the red marks that I had just brought in my blind fury to the satin surface of the Queen’s beautiful bare arm.
Then, with an effort, I shook off the spell of Lah’s wonderful presence. I felt myself once more my own master. My eyes looked into her eyes, and I did not flinch.
“Is this your work?” I asked.
Again a subtile change passed over the Queen’s face, but whether of anger or no, I could not tell. She motioned me to sit beside her on the couch from which I had just now risen, and I obeyed.
Then she pointed to the marks of my fingers on her flesh.
“This is your work,” she answered, “and you yet live.”
I looked in silence on Lestrade’s cowering form, and again my heart was hot within me. The Queen followed my gaze, and once more she spoke.
“Do you not fear?” she asked. “See towhat an end I can bring the gay spirit of your friend. Like a whipped hound he will come to my call. See him cringe as to the lash before my face. Take heed lest his fate be your fate, and your pride in like manner be humbled.”
“O Queen,” I answered, and my anger made me now again as cold and as calm as I had before been hot and troubled within me. “In your power we are indeed; nevertheless, think not that it can touch, as you have said, the spirit of your captives. Lestrade’s body indeed trembles before you, your cruelty has lost him his reason, but his soul has but fled to its innermost retreat. You cannot lay so much as your little finger upon Gaston’s real self. It defies you, it remains unchanged despite you. You have turned his outer being by your devilish arts into the likeness of a beast. I doubt not your will or your power to do the same to me.”
“Doubt not my power,” said Lah, gently, “but doubt my will. Think you another could have done so to me?” and she touchedher bruised arm again. “Could so have used me, the Queen, and have not repaid the insult by a thousand deaths in one? But in you, my Dering,” and the name took music on her tongue, “I behold my mate. The people and the priests cry out for your blood. The one shall be appeased; the other balked.” She laid her hand, light as a snow flake upon my brawny arm, and her beautiful face was raised to mine. “What matters this broken slave, once friend to you? I do not command your fear, O my prisoner! but I do beseech your love.”
Beneath her touch all my slow nature turned to fire. Her wonderful loveliness beat upon my soul, like the unclouded vision of the noonday sun, unbearable to the eyes. I felt a wave of turbulent and searching passion flood my being, my veins throbbed with the quick pulsing of my heart, and then—then the shivering, grovelling form of my once gallant friend came between me and the sunlight, and I shut my eyes to the beauty that tempted me to disloyalty and dishonor.
Once more Lah’s spell was broken. Oncemore I was my own master. But with self-control came prudence coldly back. I felt that Gaston’s life and mine trembled in the balance, and life is strangely sweet. And so it was that I turned to the Queen and bent my head, and kissed in silence the bruise upon her arm, and I felt her tremble, and knew that, for the time at least, I was her master also. And I knew then what to do, and did it as readily as one possessing intimately the knowledge of an instrument plays upon its keys.
“Give back first to my friend his reason,” I said and somewhat coldly, and Lah with meekness took from her bosom a golden box, and opening it, plucked forth a strange-shaped nut. With the dagger from her girdle she scraped part of this off to a powder, and this in turn she mixed with water from a pitcher at hand, and poured the whole into a bowl. This cup she raised to Gaston’s lips, and he drank greedily and with noise, lapping up the water like a beast. Then at a word he crouched before her, and after a moment his limbs relaxed,—the vacant look passedfrom his face, he breathed quietly, now once more asleep.
“He will wake,” said the Queen to my mute question, “in an hour, and you will once more have your friend.”
“I thank you,” I answered.
“And is that all?” she asked, still tenderly, but with a warning note of passion in her voice. “Is that all, when men have died, and joyfully, that they might but kiss the hem of my garment, the print of my sandal in the dust?”
“No,” said I, boldly, “that is not all; but, Lah, in my country, men’s hearts beat not to the ordering of aught save their own will. Neither do they love as slaves, but as masters. Beautiful above all women as you are, O my Queen, think not I will stoop before you. I am not cold. I could love, strongly, faithfully, to the uttermost, with a passion far outweighing that of these servants who you have said have died content but to kiss the hem of your robe, the print of your sandal. But not, O my Queen, as they, not as the subject to the ruler, not as vassal to his mistress.You can rend my soul from my body if you will. You cannot make me bend my heart to your ordering. Not fear, not even love, shall sway me. For I love, O most proud, most beautiful of women, even as I have said, not as the slave, but as the master.”
Lah turned quickly as if stung. I waited breathless in silence for her answer. Then at last she spoke, and there was new majesty in her bearing, and though she bent her head with a strange humility, I knew not the secret of her inmost thought. Yet the words came. “Be it so,” she answered, and in obedience to a secret signal, the door of the cell slowly opened, Lah passed through beyond, and I, save for the presence of my sleeping comrade, was again alone.