_ Now the curtains were open. Before us appeared a chamber hollowed from
the thickness of the altar, and in its centre a throne, and on the
throne a figure clad in waves of billowy white flowing from the head
over the arms of the throne down to its marble steps. We could see no
more in the comparative darkness of that place, save that beneath the
folds of the drapery the Oracle held in its hand a loop-shaped,
jewelled sceptre.
Moved by some impulse, we did as Oros had done, prostrating ourselves,
and there remained upon our knees. At length we heard a tinkling as of
little bells, and, looking up, saw that the sistrum-shaped sceptre was
stretched towards us by the draped arm which held it. Then a thin,
clear voice spoke, and I thought that it trembled a little. It spoke
in Greek, but in a much purer Greek than all these people used.
"I greet you, Wanderers, who have journeyed so far to visit this most
ancient shrine, and although doubtless of some other faith, are not
ashamed to do reverence to that unworthy one who is for this time its
Oracle and the guardian of its mysteries. Rise now and have no fear of
me; for have I not sent my Messenger and servants to conduct you to
this Sanctuary?"
Slowly we rose, and stood silent, not knowing what to say.
"I greet you, Wanderers," the voice repeated. "Tell me thou"--and the
sceptre pointed towards Leo--"how art thou named?"
"I am named Leo Vincey," he answered.
"Leo Vincey! I like the name, which to me well befits a man so goodly.
And thou, the companion of--Leo Vincey?"
"I am named Horace Holly."
"So. Then tell me, Leo Vincey and Horace Holly, what came ye so far to
seek?"
We looked at each other, and I said--
"The tale is long and strange. O--but by what title must we address
thee?"
"By the name which I bear here, Hes."
"O Hes," I said, wondering what name she bore elsewhere.
"Yet I desire to hear that tale," she went on, and to me her voice
sounded eager. "Nay, not all to-night, for I know that you both are
weary; a little of it only. In sooth, Strangers, there is a sameness
in this home of contemplations, and no heart can feed only on the
past, if such a thing there be. Therefore I welcome a new history from
the world without. Tell it me, thou, Leo, as briefly as thou wilt, so
that thou tell the truth, for in the Presence of which I am a
Minister, may nothing else be uttered."
"Priestess," he said, in his curt fashion, "I obey. Many years ago
when I was young, my friend and foster-father and I, led by records of
the past, travelled to a wild land, and there found a certain divine
woman who had conquered time."
"Then that woman must have been both aged and hideous."
"I said, Priestess, that she had conquered time, not suffered it, for
the gift of immortal youth was hers. Also she was not hideous; she was
beauty itself."
"Therefore stranger, thou didst worship her for her beauty's sake, as
a man does."
"I did not worship her; I loved her, which is another thing. The
priest Oros here worships thee, whom he calls Mother. I loved that
immortal woman."
"Then thou shouldst love her still. Yet, not so, since love is very
mortal."
"I love her still," he answered, "although she died."
"Why, how is that? Thou saidst she was immortal."
"Perchance she only seemed to die; perchance she changed. At least I
lost her, and what I lost I seek, and have sought this many a year."
"Why dost thou seek her in my Mountain, Leo Vincey?"
"Because a vision led me to ask counsel of its Oracle. I am come
hither to learn tidings of my lost love, since here alone these may be
found."
"And thou, Holly, didst thou also love an immortal woman whose
immortality, it seems, must bow to death?"
"Priestess," I answered, "I am sworn to this quest, and where my
foster-son goes I follow. He follows beauty that is dead----"
"And thou dost follow him. Therefore both of you follow beauty as men
have ever done, being blind and mad."
"Nay," I answered, "if they were blind, beauty would be naught to them
who could not see it, and if they were mad, they would not know it
when it was seen. Knowledge and vision belong to the wise, O Hes."
"Thou art quick of wit and tongue, Holly, as----" and she checked
herself, then of a sudden, said, "Tell me, did my servant the Khania
of Kaloon entertain both of you hospitably in her city, and speed you
on your journey hither, as I commanded her?"
"We knew not that she was thy servant," I replied. "Hospitality we had
and to spare, but we were sped from her Court hitherward by the death-
hounds of the Khan, her husband. Tell us, Priestess, what thou knowest
of this journey of ours."
"A little," she answered carelessly. "More than three moons ago my
spies saw you upon the far mountains, and, creeping very close to you
at night, heard you speak together of the object of your wanderings,
then, returning thence swiftly, made report to me. Thereon I bade the
Khania Atene, and that old magician her great-uncle, who is Guardian
of the Gate, go down to the ancient gates of Kaloon to receive you and
bring you hither with all speed. Yet for men who burned to learn the
answer to a riddle, you have been long in coming."
"We came as fast as we might, O Hes," said Leo; "and if thy spies
could visit those mountains, where no man was, and find a path down
that hideous precipice, they must have been able also to tell thee the
reason of our delay. Therefore I pray, ask it not of us."
"Nay, I will ask it of Atene herself, and she shall surely answer me,
for she stands without," replied the Hesea in a cold voice. "Oros,
lead the Khania hither and be swift."
The priest turned and walking quickly to the wooden doors by which we
had entered the shrine, vanished there.
"Now," said Leo to me nervously in the silence that followed, and
speaking in English, "now I wish we were somewhere else, for I think
that there will be trouble."
"I don't think, I am sure," I answered; "but the more the better, for
out of trouble may come the truth, which we need sorely." Then I
stopped, reflecting that the strange woman before us said that her
spies had overheard our talk upon the mountains, where we had spoken
nothing but English.
As it proved, I was wise, for quite quietly the Hesea repeated after
me--
"Thou hast experience, Holly, for out of trouble comes the truth, as
out of wine."
Then she was silent, and, needless to say, I did not pursue the
conversation.
The doors swung open, and through them came a procession clad in
black, followed by the Shaman Simbri, who walked in front of a bier,
upon which lay the body of the Khan, carried by eight priests. Behind
it was Atene, draped in a black veil from head to foot, and after her
marched another company of priests. In front of the altar the bier was
set down and the priests fell back, leaving Atene and her uncle
standing alone before the corpse.
"What seeks my vassal, the Khania of Kaloon?" asked the Hesea in a
cold voice.
Now Atene advanced and bent the knee, but with little graciousness.
"Ancient Mother, Mother from of old, I do reverence to thy holy
Office, as my forefathers have done for many a generation," and again
she curtseyed. "Mother, this dead man asks of thee that right of
sepulchre in the fires of the holy Mountain which from the beginning
has been accorded to the royal departed who went before him."
"It has been accorded as thou sayest," answered the Hesea, "by those
priestesses who filled my place before me, nor shall it be refused to
thy dead lord--or to thee Atene--when thy time comes."
"I thank thee, O Hes, and I pray that this decree may be written down,
for the snows of age have gathered on thy venerable head and soon thou
must leave us for awhile. Therefore bid thy scribes that it be written
down, so that the Hesea who rules after thee may fulfil it in its
season."
"Cease," said the Hesea, "cease to pour out thy bitterness at that
which should command thy reverence, oh! thou foolish child, who dost
not know but that to-morrow the fire shall claim the frail youth and
beauty which are thy boast. I bid thee cease, and tell me how did
death find this lord of thine?"
"Ask those wanderers yonder, that were his guests, for his blood is on
their heads and cries for vengeance at thy hands."
"I killed him," said Leo, "to save my own life. He tried to hunt us
down with his dogs, and there are the marks of them," and he pointed
to my arm. "The priest Oros knows, for he dressed the hurts."
"How did this chance?" asked the Hesea of Atene.
"My lord was mad," she answered boldly, "and such was his cruel
sport."
"So. And was thy lord jealous also? Nay, keep back the falsehood I see
rising to thy lips. Leo Vincey, answer thou me. Yet, I will not ask
thee to lay bare the secrets of a woman who has offered thee her love.
Thou, Holly, speak, and let it be the truth."
"It is this, O Hes," I answered. "Yonder lady and her uncle the Shaman
Simbri saved us from death in the waters of the river that bounds the
precipices of Kaloon. Afterwards we were ill, and they treated us
kindly, but the Khania became enamoured of my foster-son."
Here the figure of the Priestess stirred beneath its gauzy wrappings,
and the Voice asked--
"And did thy foster-son become enamoured of the Khania, as being a man
he may well have done, for without doubt she is fair?"
"He can answer that question for himself, O Hes. All I know is that he
strove to escape from her, and that in the end she gave him a day to
choose between death and marriage with her, when her lord should be
dead. So, helped by the Khan, her husband, who was jealous of him, we
fled towards this Mountain, which we desired to reach. Then the Khan
set his hounds upon us, for he was mad and false-hearted. We killed
him and came on in spite of this lady, his wife, and her uncle, who
would have prevented us, and were met in a Place of Bones by a certain
veiled guide, who led us up the Mountain and twice saved us from
death. That is all the story."
"Woman, what hast thou to say?" asked the Hesea in a menacing voice.
"But little," Atene answered, without flinching. "For years I have
been bound to a madman and a brute, and if my fancy wandered towards
this man and his fancy wandered towards me--well, Nature spoke to us,
and that is all. Afterwards it seems that he grew afraid of the
vengeance of Rassen, or this Holly, whom I would that the hounds had
torn bone from bone, grew afraid. So they strove to escape the land,
and perchance wandered to thy Mountain. But I weary of this talk, and
ask thy leave to rest before to-morrow's rite."
"Thou sayest, Atene," said the Hesea, "that Nature spoke to this man
and to thee, and that his heart is thine; but that, fearing thy lord's
vengeance, he fled from thee, he who seems no coward. Tell me, then,
is that tress he hides in the satchel on his breast thy gage of love
to him?"
"I know nothing of what he hides in the satchel," answered the Khania
sullenly.
"And yet, yonder in the Gatehouse when he lay so sick he set the lock
against thine own--ah, dost remember now?"
"So, O Hes, already he has told thee all our secrets, though they be
such as most men hide within their breasts;" and she looked
contemptuously at Leo.
"I told her nothing of the matter, Khania," Leo said in an angry
voice.
"Nay, /thou/ toldest me nothing, Wanderer; my watching wisdom told me.
Oh, didst thou think, Atene, that thou couldst hide the truth from the
all-seeing Hesea of the Mountain? If so, spare thy breath, for I know
all, and have known it from the first. I passed thy disobedience by;
of thy false messages I took no heed. For my own purposes I, to whom
time is naught, suffered even that thou shouldst hold these, my
guests, thy prisoners whilst thou didst strive by threats and force to
win a love denied."
She paused, then went on coldly: "Woman, I tell thee that, to complete
thy sin, thou hast even dared to lie to me here, in my very
Sanctuary."
"If so, what of it?" was the bold answer. "Dost thou love the man
thyself? Nay, it is monstrous. Nature would cry aloud at such a shame.
Oh! tremble not with rage. Hes, I know thy evil powers, but I know
also that I am thy guest, and that in this hallowed place, beneath
yonder symbol of eternal Love, thou may'st shed no blood. More, thou
canst not harm me, Hes, who am thy equal."
"Atene," replied the measured Voice, "did I desire it, I could destroy
thee where thou art. Yet thou art right, I shall not harm thee, thou
faithless servant. Did not my writ bid thee through yonder searcher of
the stars, thy uncle, to meet these guests of mine and bring them
straight to my shrine? Tell me, for I seek to know, how comes it that
thou didst disobey me?"
"Have then thy desire," answered Atene in a new and earnest voice,
devoid now of bitterness and falsehood. "I disobeyed because that man
is not thine, but mine, and no other woman's; because I love him and
have loved him from of old. Aye, since first our souls sprang into
life I have loved him, as he has loved me. My own heart tells me so;
the magic of my uncle here tells me so, though how and where and when
these things have been I know not. Therefore I come to thee, Mother of
Mysteries, Guardian of the secrets of the past, to learn the truth. At
least /thou/ canst not lie at thine own altar, and I charge thee, by
the dread name of that Power to which thou also must render thy
account, that thou answer now and here.
"Who is this man to whom my being yearns? What has he been to me? What
has he to do with thee? Speak, O Oracle and make the secret clear.
Speak, I command, even though afterwards thou dost slay me--if thou
canst."
"Aye, speak! speak!" said Leo, "for know I am in sore suspense. I also
am bewildered by memories and rent with hopes and fears."
And I too echoed, "Speak!"
"Leo Vincey," asked the Hesea, after she had thought awhile, "whom
dost thou believe me to be?"
"I believe," he answered solemnly, "that thou art that Ayesha at whose
hands I died of old in the Caves of Kor in Africa. I believe thou art
that Ayesha whom not twenty years ago I found and loved in those same
Caves of Kor, and there saw perish miserably, swearing that thou
wouldst return again."
"See now, how madness can mislead a man," broke in Atene triumphantly.
"'Not twenty years ago,' he said, whereas I know well that more than
eighty summers have gone by since my grandsire in his youth saw this
same priestess sitting on the Mother's throne."
"And whom dost thou believe me to be, O Holly?" the Priestess asked,
taking no note of the Khania's words.
"What he believes I believe," I answered. "The dead come back to life
--sometimes. Yet alone thou knowest the truth, and by thee only it can
be revealed."
"Aye," she said, as though musing, "the dead come back to life--
sometimes--and in strange shape, and, mayhap, I know the truth.
To-morrow when yonder body is borne on high for burial we will speak
of it again. Till then rest you all, and prepare to face that fearful
thing--the Truth."
While the Hesea still spoke the silvery curtains swung to their place
as mysteriously as they had opened. Then, as though at some signal,
the black-robed priests advanced. Surrounding Atene, they led her from
the Sanctuary, accompanied by her uncle the Shaman, who, as it seemed
to me, either through fatigue or fear, could scarcely stand upon his
feet, but stood blinking his dim eyes as though the light dazed him.
When these were gone, the priests and priestesses, who all this time
had been ranged round the walls, far out of hearing of our talk,
gathered themselves into their separate companies, and still chanting,
departed also, leaving us alone with Oros and the corpse of the Khan,
which remained where it had been set down.
Now the head-priest Oros beckoned to us to follow him, and we went
also. Nor was I sorry to leave the place, for its death-like
loneliness--enhanced, strangely enough, as it was, by the flood of
light that filled it; a loneliness which was concentrated and
expressed in the awful figure stretched upon the bier, oppressed and
overcame us, whose nerves were broken by all that we had undergone.
Thankful enough was I when, having passed the transepts and down the
length of the vast nave, we came to the iron doors, the rock passage,
and the outer gates, which, as before, opened to let us through, and
so at last into the sweet, cold air of the night at that hour which
precedes the dawn.
Oros led us to a house well-built and furnished, where at his bidding,
like men in a dream, we drank of some liquor which he gave us. I think
that drink was drugged, at least after swallowing it I remembered no
more till I awoke to find myself lying on a bed and feeling
wonderfully strong and well. This I thought strange, for a lamp
burning in the room showed me that it was still dark, and therefore
that I could have rested but a little time.
I tried to sleep again, but was not able, so fell to thinking till I
grew weary of the task. For here thoughts would not help me; nothing
could help, except the truth, "that fearful thing," as the veiled
Priestess had called it.
Oh! what if she should prove not the Ayesha whom we desired, but some
"fearful thing"? What were the meaning of the Khania's hints and of
her boldness, that surely had been inspired by the strength of a
hidden knowledge? What if--nay, it could not be--I would rise and
dress my arm. Or I would wake Leo and make him dress it--anything to
occupy my mind until the appointed hour, when we must learn--the best
--or the worst.
I sat up in the bed and saw a figure advancing towards me. It was
Oros, who bore a lamp in his hand.
"You have slept long, friend Holly," he said, "and now it is time to
be up and doing."
"Long?" I answered testily. "How can that be, when it is still dark?"
"Because, friend, the dark is that of a new night. Many hours have
gone by since you lay down upon this bed. Well, you were wise to rest
you while you may, for who knows when you will sleep again! Come, let
me bathe your arm."
"Tell me," I broke in----
"Nay, friend," he interrupted firmly, "I will tell you nothing, except
that soon you must start to be present at the funeral of the Khan,
and, perchance, to learn the answer to your questions."
Ten minutes later he led me to the eating-chamber of the house, where
I found Leo already dressed, for Oros had awakened him before he came
to me and bidden him to prepare himself. Oros told us here that the
Hesea had not suffered us to be disturbed until the night came again
since we had much to undergo that day. So presently we started.
Once more we were led through the flame-lit hall till we came to the
loop-shaped apse. The place was empty now, even the corpse of the Khan
had gone, and no draped Oracle sat in the altar shrine, for its silver
curtains were drawn, and we saw that it was untenanted.
"The Mother has departed to do honour to the dead, according to the
ancient custom," Oros explained to us.
Then we passed the altar, and behind the statue found a door in the
rock wall of the apse, and beyond the door a passage, and a hall as of
a house, for out of it opened other doors leading to chambers. These,
our guide told us, were the dwelling-places of the Hesea and her
maidens. He added that they ran to the side of the Mountain and had
windows that opened on to gardens and let in the light and air. In
this hall six priests were waiting, each of whom carried a bundle of
torches beneath his arm and held in his hand a lighted lamp.
"Our road runs through the dark," said Oros, "though were it day we
might climb the outer snows, but this at night it is dangerous to do."
Then taking torches, he lit them at a lamp and gave one to each of us.
Now our climb began. Up endless sloping galleries we went, hewn with
inconceivable labour by the primeval fire-worshippers from the living
rock of the Mountain. It seemed to me that they stretched for miles,
and indeed this was so, since, although the slope was always gentle,
it took us more than an hour to climb them. At length we came to the
foot of a great stair.
"Rest awhile here, my lord," Oros said, bowing to Leo with the
reverence that he had shown him from the first, "for this stair is
steep and long. Now we stand upon the Mountain's topmost lip, and are
about to climb that tall looped column which soars above."
So we sat down in the vault-like place and let the sharp draught of
air rushing to and from the passages play upon us, for we were heated
with journeying up those close galleries. As we sat thus I heard a
roaring sound and asked Oros what it might be. He answered that we
were very near to the crater of the volcano, and that what we heard
through the thickness of the rock was the rushing of its everlasting
fires. Then the ascent commenced.
It was not dangerous though very wearisome, for there were nearly six
hundred of those steps. The climb of the passages had reminded me of
that of the gallery of the Great Pyramid drawn out for whole furlongs;
that of the pillar was like the ascent of a cathedral spire, or rather
of several spires piled one upon another.
Resting from time to time, we dragged ourselves up the steep steps,
each of them quite a foot in height, till the pillar was climbed and
only the loop remained. Up it we went also, Oros leading us, and glad
was I that the stairway still ran within the substance of the rock,
for I could feel the needle's mighty eye quiver in the rush of the
winds which swept about its sides.
At length we saw light before us, and in another twenty steps emerged
upon a platform. As Leo, who went in front of me, walked from the
stairway I saw Oros and another priest seize him by the arms, and
called to him to ask what they were doing.
"Nothing," he cried back, "except that this is a dizzy place and they
feared lest I should fall. Mind how you come, Horace," and he
stretched out his hand to me.
Now I was clear of the tunnel, and I believe that had it not been for
that hand I should have sunk to the rocky floor, for the sight before
me seemed to paralyse my brain. Nor was this to be wondered at, for I
doubt whether the world can show such another.
We stood upon the very apex of the loop, a flat space of rock about
eighty yards in length by some thirty in breadth, with the star-strewn
sky above us. To the south, twenty thousand feet or more below,
stretched the dim Plain of Kaloon, and to the east and west the snow-
clad shoulders of the peak and the broad brown slopes beneath. To the
north was a different sight, and one more awesome. There, right under
us as it seemed, for the pillar bent inwards, lay the vast crater of
the volcano, and in the centre of it a wide lake of fire that broke
into bubbles and flowers of sudden flame or spouted, writhed and
twisted like an angry sea.
From the surface of this lake rose smoke and gases that took fire as
they floated upwards, and, mingling together, formed a gigantic sheet
of living light. Right opposite to us burned this sheet and, the flare
of it passing through the needle-eye of the pillar under us, sped away
in one dazzling beam across the country of Kaloon, across the
mountains beyond, till it was lost on the horizon.
The wind blew from south to north, being sucked in towards the hot
crater of the volcano, and its fierce breath, that screamed through
the eye of the pillar and against its rugged surface, bent the long
crest of the sheet of flame, as an ocean roller is bent over by the
gale, and tore from it fragments of fire, that floated away to leeward
like the blown-out sails of a burning ship.
Had it not been for this strong and steady wind indeed, no creature
could have lived upon the pillar, for the vapours would have poisoned
him; but its unceasing blast drove these all away towards the north.
For the same reason, in the thin air of that icy place the heat was
not too great to be endured.
Appalled by that terrific spectacle, which seemed more appropriate to
the terrors of the Pit than to this earth of ours, and fearful lest
the blast should whirl me like a dead leaf into the glowing gulf
beneath, I fell on to my sound hand and my knees, shouting to Leo to
do likewise, and looked about me. Now I observed lines of priests
wrapped in great capes, kneeling upon the face of the rock and engaged
apparently in prayer, but of Hes the Mother, or of Atene, or of the
corpse of the dead Khan I could see nothing.
Whilst I wondered where they might be, Oros, upon whose nerves this
dread scene appeared to have no effect, and some of our attendant
priests surrounded us and led us onwards by a path that ran perilously
near to the rounded edge of the rock. A few downward steps and we
found that we were under shelter, for the gale was roaring over us.
Twenty more paces and we came to a recess cut, I suppose, by man in
the face of the loop, in such fashion that a lava roof was left
projecting half across its width.
This recess, or rock chamber, which was large enough to shelter a
great number of people, we reached safely, to discover that it was
already tenanted. Seated in a chair hewn from the rock was the Hesea,
wearing a broidered, purple mantle above her gauzy wrappings that
enveloped her from head to foot. There, too, standing near to her were
the Khania Atene and her uncle the old Shaman, who looked but ill at
ease, and lastly, stretched upon his funeral couch, the fiery light
beating upon his stark form and face, lay the dead Khan, Rassen.
We advanced to the throne and bowed to her who sat thereon. The Hesea
lifted her hooded head, which seemed to have been sunk upon her breast
as though she were overcome by thought or care, and addressed Oros the
priest. For in the shelter of those massive walls by comparison there
was silence and folk could hear each other speak.
"So thou hast brought them safely, my servant," she said, "and I am
glad, for to those that know it not this road is fearful. My guests,
what say you of the burying-pit of the Children of Hes?"
"Our faith tells us of a hell, lady," answered Leo, "and I think that
yonder cauldron looks like its mouth."
"Nay," she answered, "there is no hell, save that which from life to
life we fashion for ourselves within the circle of this little star.
Leo Vincey, I tell thee that hell is here, aye, /here/," and she
struck her hand upon her breast, while once more her head drooped
forward as though bowed down beneath some load of secret misery.
Thus she stayed awhile, then lifted it and spoke again, saying--
"Midnight is past, and much must be done and suffered before the dawn.
Aye, the darkness must be turned to light, or perchance the light to
eternal darkness."
"Royal woman," she went on, addressing Atene, "as is his right, thou
hast brought thy dead lord hither for burial in this consecrated
place, where the ashes of all who went before him have become fuel for
the holy fires. Oros, my priest, summon thou the Accuser and him who
makes defence, and let the books be opened that I may pass my judgment
on the dead, and call his soul to live again, or pray that from it the
breath of life may be withheld.
"Priest, I say the Court of Death is open." _