Chapter XIIIA Strange Story
What had befallen during my captivity I shall now relate in the words of my comrade, Gaston Lestrade. It was long after that he thus set forth the matter, and I transcribe it, leaving nothing out, not even such reflections on me as have no bearing on the story, but with which, nevertheless, he saw fit to garnish his strange tale.
It was with pain [said he] that I saw you, my good friend Dering, vanish in the distance in the company of that black priest and his followers.
It was my folly, and mine alone, that had brought you to that pass, but I did not let the thought deaden my hopes, or cause me to dwell less confidently on plans for our escape.
The beautiful, the adorable Lah, she wouldsee to it, I felt sure, that two gallant gentlemen be not foully murdered; and I set myself to compose on the moment a love ditty in which I should relate to her not only my admiration for her charms, but also my earnest expectation of rescue at her fair hands and speedy safety for my friend as for myself.
Meanwhile I too was borne along out from that blood-stained and evil Council Room, and at a sign from that arch-traitor Agno, I was carried down a long passage, hewn also from solid rock, and ending in a massive door.
This, after some delay, was opened, and I was set once more upon my feet; my bonds were loosed and my guards left me, going out by the way they had come.
I was alone in an immense hall ornamented with colored marbles and hung with colored lights, but quite bare of furniture of any kind. At one end of this apartment hung a heavy curtain embroidered with mystic symbols in both gold and silver.
Soft music and the rippling laughter ofwomen came faintly from beyond, and without more ado I pressed forward, for the sound was strangely sweet and inviting to a man perilously encompassed with dangers as I was.
I found that the tapestry of which I have spoken hid another door. This stood ajar, and I entered without mishap into the next chamber.
You, Dering, cold Puritan that you are, cannot imagine the delight that filled my heart as I stood on that threshold and gazed about me.
Every sad thought fled on the instant, for I had strayed before my time into Mahomet’s paradise, and the houris that inhabit it were not wanting.
That room, Dering, was lovely beyond a poet’s dream and rich above a miser’s wildest hopes. But it was not the room, beautiful as it was, that caught and held me spellbound. It was the multitude of fair and gracious women that it contained, each one a rare and perfect flower, and each bending low in welcome and a kind of worship, as Iapproached. The foremost—a tall, willowy creature, Dering, with blue-black waving mass of hair and glorious violet eyes—advanced and kneeling bade me look upon her and her companions as my slaves.
“For seven days it is our mission to do you homage,” said she; “for seven days you are our lord, and your pleasure, ours.”
Then as she paused, I gallantly, as became a gentleman, raised her up and taking the thread of her discourse, I said:—
“And the seven days passing, what then, loveliest of women?”
But she pointed back to the way by which I had come.
“The door behind the veil shall open, and we shall know you no more,” she answered. “Yet till then what is the pleasure of my lord?”
Now I am a man who lives from one hour to the next. In this wise have I escaped much bitterness of spirit, and garnered in great store of sweet. It was plainly, then, the part of wisdom to let the future be, just as it was the part of a chivalrousman to let no shadow hang upon the converse that I should hold with this beauteous maid and her companions. So I drank of the wine they pressed upon me. I tasted of this flower-wreathed dish and that. I listened to the songs they sang, and sang in turn for their entertaining.
I was a king, but I was none the less a gentleman. I think I may say with truth, these fair ladies of my court grew fast to think with dread on that veiled door, and the moment that should mean farewell for them and me.
So the time went smoothly. I had it even in my heart to thank the dark-browed priest to whose command I owed this interval.
Had it not been for the captivity of my friend Dering and doubts of his fate, for the continued absence of the lady we had come to rescue, and for the cold reserve of Lah, the Queen, I could have flung myself with my whole soul into the delights that by some unknown chance encompassed me, a victim.
But as I have said, mine is a light andjoyous nature, and so it was that when I kissed the little hand that held my trencher, my thoughts were more with the slender fingers that I pressed and their beauteous owner, than with black parting and divers other sorrows yet to come.
And now I have to relate a strange thing, and one, beginning with what was to me an impulse stranger yet.
It was the evening of the sixth day. I sat in the midst of my fair court, and was glad of the event, however sinister, that had brought me to that place.
Then on a sudden a yearning came to me to be alone. I am ever one to spare a woman’s feelings. If an ungracious thing must indeed be said, I say it, but I wrap the words about with tender nothings, and the wound is dealt so gracefully, that oft times the stricken one forgets the hurt in dreaming on the manner of its coming.
Not so, alas! on this occasion, though I grieve to say it. For I turned as bluntly as ever did my trusty comrade Dering, whose breadth of shoulder does with thefair sex what his tongue would ever again undo, only that there is no counting on a petticoat, and it is oft times the whim of the fickle ones to follow, spaniel-like, him who most derides them.
Well, as I have said, I turned in the midst of the pretty tinkle of feminine laughter and silvery speech, and asked almost roughly, if there were not some spot in all that Palace, where a man, prisoner though he be, might find a welcome solitude.
Then she who chiefly tended on my wants bent her sweet head, and with a new timidity besought that I should go with her.
As in a dream I left behind the now silent and wondering bevy of maidens, and my guide, pointing to a door I oft had noted, told me that beyond that portal I could rest undisturbed by the idle chatter of my slaves.
“We are forbidden to enter there,” she said, “but to the King all things are possible.”
So I pushed open the door and passed within, and the cold air as of a vault struck full on my face as I did so. My heart, too,felt that icy chill, but I pushed on, as one driven by another’s will, and when my eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom of the place, I looked about, and the truth came to me: I stood within the Burial Hall of Kings.
The chamber was hewn from stone resembling granite, and was supported by pillars of the same dull gray hue. Lamps hanging from these lit the Hall but dimly, yet I could see with all distinctness the thrones, also of massive rock, that lined the walls. Save one in the centre each was filled.
I love not the company of such as these, yet something held me fast. I thought with longing of that outer room, so bright, so gay; of the flower-like faces and graceful forms I had but now left behind, and all the while I stood rooted to the spot, in the dark shadow of a column, and waited, though I knew it not, for that which was to be. The flickering light of the lamps did strange things to the grim faces about me.
There they sat, those kings who once had ruled the people of the Walled City.A greater Ruler than they had touched each with His sceptre, and the passing of centuries was to each as the dry leaves that are blown from the trees, in autumn, by the wind.
I gazed upon them, and their silent majesty awed me, as a living, breathing presence never could have done. Even now the dead king at my right grasped in his hand the staff of power. Crowned and robed with royalty sat he, yet the mouse that gnawed his sandal’s strap was more potent far, for good or ill.
As the thought crossed my mind I heard a faint noise like the trailing of garments upon the floor. It was an eerie sound in such a place, but as before, I stood motionless, held still by the same curious spell, and the sound came nearer.
Then from between two thrones at the Hall’s further end there glided a woman clad all in white. It was impossible to mistake that grace and dignity. I would fain have flung myself at her feet, but something in the hushed look of her faceheld me back. I even closed my eyes, that look so plainly was not meant for me. For the mask had fallen, and I saw straight into the bared heart of her who was at once more and less than other women, the heart of Lah, the Queen. A stifled sob reached my ears, and behold, she had thrown herself upon the hard stone of the floor, and with clasped hands, knelt, a suppliant, before the unmoved figures of the royal dead.
Then her voice, her wonderful, beautiful voice, broke the silence.
“O Rulers of the people of the Walled City! I cry out to you. The gods have turned away in anger. Edba, herself once a woman, heeds me no longer. I am not of your race. I have come a stranger to this land, but I ask you, have I not given back good measure for all that the land has given me? Surely, has prosperity come upon your people, O Throned Ones who sit and answer not. Much riches have I brought to them; my rule has been strong; my justice known abroad. The wicked tremble before my face, and the doer of brave deeds have I exalted!See, an empty throne awaits me in your midst. Does that anger you that I, a woman and a stranger, should there take my place? Then listen, Great Ones. Give me but a single little gift from out your store. Turn to me the heart of the stranger. Behold, I kneel to you, I, Lah, who kneel not even to the gods. Hear then my oath: my throne shall remain empty throughout the ages. Take back your kingdom if it please you. Strip from me my riches. Take all—I care not, but turn to me this one heart. Leave but my beauty and my lover.”
Her voice died away, and again there was silence. Then the Queen rose from her knees, and a splendid passion clothed her from head to foot.
“Ye answer not, O Rulers of the people of the Walled City! In peace have I come to you. Look to it that I come not again in war. For neither the dead nor the living shall stay my will. Ye sit upon thrones indeed, but at my pleasure. If the stranger love me, it is well, for me and for ye also. For I can scatter your ashes to the winds,and I can fling ye, one and all, upon a funeral pyre. For Lah can hate, as well as love, and when she comes again, she comes your friend or foe.”
Then she passed. And I, in mute amazement that was half terror, stayed her not, but went back softly, groping in the dark for the door that had let me within this sepulchre.
For this woman was not as other women, and her words were not meant for me to hear. So I locked them away in my breast, and only thus after many days do I set them down, that he, my friend, may take from them some comfort.
For I know now, without room for doubt, whose love it was for which the Queen pleaded of the silent dead, within the Burial Hall of Kings.