by Zona Gale
CHAPTER XIII
THE LINES LEAD UP
In the late hours of the next afternoon Rollo, with a sigh, uncoiledhimself from the shadow of the altar to the god Melkarth, in theIlex Temple, and stiffly rose. Vicissitudes were not for Rollo, whohad not fathomed the joys of adaptability; and the savour of thesweet herbs which, from Jarvo's wallet, he had that day served, wasforgotten in his longing for a drop of tarragan vinegar and a bulbof garlic with which to dress the herbs. His lean and shadowed facewore an expression of settled melancholy.
"Sorrow's nothing," he sententiously observed. "It's trouble thatdoes for a man, sir."
St. George, who lay at full length on a mossy sill of the king'schapel counting the hours of his inaction, continued to look outover the glistening tops of the ilex trees.
"Speaking of trouble," he said, "what would you say, Rollo, togetting back to the yacht to-night, instead of going up the mountainwith us?"
Rollo dropped his eyes, but his face brightened under, as it were,his never-lifted mask.
"Oh, sir," he said humbly, "a person is always willing to dowhatever makes him the most useful."
"Little Cawthorne and Bennietod," went on St. George, "ten to onewill take to the trail to-night, if they haven't already. They'll becoming to Med and reorganizing the police force, or raising astanding army or starting a subway. You'd do well to drop down andgive them some idea of what's happened, and I fancy you'd better allbe somewhere about on the day after to-morrow, at noon. Not thatthere will be any wedding at that time," explained St. Georgecarefully, "although there may be something to see, all the same.But you might tell them, you know, that Miss Holland is due to marrythe prince then. Can you get back to the yacht alone?"
Rollo hadn't thought of that, and his mask fell once more into itslines of misery.
"I don't know, sir," he said doubtfully, "most men can go up a steepplace all right. It's comin' down that's hard on the knees. And if Iwas to try it alone, sir--"
Jarvo made a sign of reassurance.
"That is not well," he said, "you would be dashed to pieces. Ulfin,one of the six, will wait for us to-night on the edge of the grove.He can conduct the way to the vessel."
"Ah, sir," said Rollo, not without a certain self-satisfaction,"something is always sure to turn up, sir."
From a tour of the temple Amory came listlessly back to the king'schapel. There, where the descendants of Abibaal had worshiped untiltheir idols had been refined by Time to a kind of decoration, theAmericans and Jarvo had spent the night. They had slept stretched onbenches of beveled stone. They had waked to trace the figures in alength of tapestry representing the capture of Io on the coast ofArgolis, doubtless woven by an eye-witness. They had bathed in abrook near the entrance where stood the altar for the sacrificeround which the priests and _hierodouloi_ had been wont to dance,and where huge architraves, metopes and tryglyphs, massive as thoseat Gebeil and Tortosa and hewn from living rock, rose from thefragile green of the wood like a huge arm signaling its eternal"Alas!" They had partaken of Jarvo's fruit and sweet herbs, andRollo had served them, standing with his back to the niche whereonce had looked augustly down the image of the god. And now Amory,with a smile, leaned against a wall where old vines, grownmiraculously in crannies, spread their tendrils upon the friendlyhieroglyphic scoring of the crenelated stone, and summed up hisreflections of the night.
"I've got it," he announced, "I think it was up in the Adirondacks,summer before last. I think I was in a canoe when she went by in alaunch, with the Chiswicks. Why, do you know, I think I dreamedabout Miss Frothingham for weeks."
St. George smiled suddenly and radiantly, and his smile was for thesake of both Rollo and Amory--Rollo whose sense of the commonplacenothing could overpower, Amory who talked about the Chiswicks in theAdirondacks. Why not? St. George thought happily. Here in the templecertain precious and delicate idols were believed to be hidden inalcoves walled up by mighty stone; and here, Jarvo was telling them,were secret exits to the road contrived by the priests of the templeat the time of their oppression by the worshipers of another god;but yet what special interest could he and Amory have in broodingupon these, or the ancient Phoenicians having "invited to traffic bya signal fire," when they could sit still and remember?
"To-night," he said aloud, feeling a sudden fellowship for bothAmory and Rollo, "to-night, when the moon rises, we shall watch itfrom the top of the mountain."
Then he wondered, many hundred times, whether Olivia could possiblyhave recognized him.
When the dark had fallen they set out. The ilex grove was very stillsave for a fugitive wind that carried faint spices, and they took awinding way among trunks and reached the edge of the wood withoutadventure. There Ulfin and another of the six carriers were waiting,as Jarvo had expected, and it was decided that they should bothaccompany Rollo down to the yacht.
Rollo handed the oil-skins to St. George and Amory, and then stoodcrushing his hat in his hands, doing his best to speak.
"Look sharp, Rollo," St. George advised him, "don't step one footoff a precipice. And tell the people on the yacht not to worry. Weshall expect to see them day after to-morrow, somewhere about. Takecare of yourself."
"Oh, sir," said Rollo with difficulty, "good-by, sir. I '_ope_you'll be successful, sir. A person likes to succeed in what theyundertake."
Then the three went on down the glimmering way where, last night,they had pursued the floating pennon of the veil. There were fewupon the highway, and these hardly regarded them. It occurred to St.George that they passed as figures in a dream will pass, in thecasual fashion of all unreality, taking all things for granted. Yet,of course, to the passers-by upon the road to Med, there was nothingremarkable in the aspect of the three companions. All that wasremarkable was the adventure upon which they were bound, and nobodycould possibly have guessed that.
Almost a mile lay between them and the point where the ascent ofthe mountain was to be begun. The road which they were takingfollowed at the foot of the embankment which girt the island, and itled them at last to a stretch of arbourescent heath, piled withblack basaltic rocks. Here, where the light was dim like the glowfrom light reflected upon low clouds, they took their way amonggreat branching cacti and nameless plants that caught at theirankles. A strange odour rose from the earth, mineral, metallic, andthe air was thick with particles stirred by their feet and moreresembling ashes than dust. This was a waste place of the island,and if one were to lift a handful of the soil, St. George thought,it was very likely that one might detect its elements; as, here thedust of a temple, here of a book, here a tomb and here a sacrifice.He felt himself near the earth, in its making. He looked away to thesugar-loaf cone of the mountain risen against the star-lit sky.Above its fortress-like bulk with circular ramparts burned the clearbeacon of the light on the king's palace. As he saw the light, St.George knew himself not only near the earth but at one with the verycurrents of the air, partaker of now a hope, now a task, now aspell, and now a memory. It was as if love had made him one with thedust of dead cities and with their eternal spiritual effluence.
At length they crossed the broad avenue that led from theEurychorus to Melita, and struck into the road that skirted themountain; and where a thicket of trees flung bold branches acrossthe way, three figures rose from the ground before them, and Akkostepped forward and saluted, his white teeth gleaming. ImmediatelyJarvo led the way through a strip of underbrush at the base of themountain, and they emerged in a glade where the light hardlypenetrated.
Here were distinguishable the palanquins in which the ascent was tobe made. These were like long baskets, upborne by a pole of greatflexibility broadening to a wider support beneath the body of thebasket and provided with rubber straps through which the arms werepassed. When St. George and Amory were seated, Jarvo spokehesitatingly:
"We must bandage your eyes, adon," he said.
"Oh really, really," protested St. George, "we don't understand halfwe do see. Do let us see what we can."
"You m
ust be blindfolded, adon," repeated Jarvo firmly.
Amory, passing his arms reflectively through the rubber straps whichAkko held for him, spoke cheerfully:
"I'll go up blindfold," he submitted, "if I can smoke."
"Neither of us will," said St. George with determination. "Seehere, Jarvo, we are both level-headed. We pledge you our word ofhonour, in addition, not to dive overboard. Now--lead on."
"It has never been done," said the little brown man with obstinacy,"you will lose your reason, adon."
"Ah well now, if we do," said St. George, "pitch us over and leaveus. Besides, I think we have. Lead on, please."
Against the will of the others, he prevailed. The light oil-skinswere placed in the baskets, each of which was shouldered by two men,Jarvo bearing the foremost pole of St. George's palanquin. All thecarriers had drawn on long, soft shoes which, perhaps from somepreparation in which they had been dipped, glowed with light,illuminating the ground for a little distance at every step.
"Are you ready, adon?" asked Jarvo and Akko at the same moment.
"Ready!" cried St. George impatiently.
"Ready," said Amory languidly, and added one thought more: "I hopefor Chillingworth's sake," he said, "that Frothingham is a notarypublic. We'll have to have somebody's seal at the bottom of all thiscopy."
The baskets were lightly lifted. Jarvo gave a sharp command, and allfour of the men broke into a rhythmic chant. Jarvo, leading the way,sprang immediately upon the first foothold, where none seemed tobe, and without pause to the next. So perfectly were the men trainedthat it was as if but one set of muscles were inspiring themovements made to the beat of that monotonous measure. In theirstrong hands the flexible pole seemed to give as their bodies gave,and so lightly did they leap upward that the jar of their alightingwas hardly perceptible, as if, as had occurred to St. George as theyascended the lip of the island, gravity were here another matter.So, without pause, save in the rhythm of that strange march music,the remarkable progress was begun.
St. George threw one swift glance upward and looked down,shudderingly. Beetling above them in the great starlight hung thegigantic pile, wall upon wall of rock hewn with such secret footholdthat it was a miracle how any living thing could catch and cling toits forbidding surface. Only lifelong practice of the men, who fromchildhood had been required to make the ascent and whose fathers andfathers' fathers before them had done the same, could have accountedfor that catlike ability to cling to the trail where was no trail.The sensation of the long swinging upward movement was unutterablyalien to anything in life or in dreams, and the sheer height aboveand the momently-deepening chasm below were presences contending forpossession.
Strange fragrance stole from gum and bark of the decreasingvegetation. Dislodged stones rolled bounding from rock to rock intothe abyss. To right and left the way went. There was not even thefriendly beacon of the summit to beckon them. It seemed to St.George that their whole safety lay in motion, that a moment'scessation from the advance would hurl them all down the sides of thedeclivity. Since the ascent began he had not ceased to look down;and now as they rose free of the tree-tops that clothed the base ofthe mountain he could see across the plain, and beyond the boundingembankment of the island to the dark waste of the sea. Somewhere outthere _The Aloha_ was rocking. Somewhere, away to the northwest, thelights of New York harbour shone. _Did_ they, St. George wonderedvaguely; and, when he went back, how would they look to him? Itseemed to him in some indeterminate fashion that when he saw themagain there would be new lines and sides of beauty which he hadnever suspected, and as if all the world would be changed, includedin this new world that he had found.
Half-way up the ascent a resting-place was contrived for thecarriers. The projection upon which the baskets were lowered washardly three feet in width. Its edge dropped into darkness. Withinreach, leaves rustled from the summit of a tree rooted somewhere inthe chasm. The blackness below was vast and to be measured only bythe memory of that upward course. Gemmed by its lighted hamlets thefair plain of the island lay, with Med and Melita glowing like lampsto the huge dusk.
"St. George," said Amory soberly, "if it's all true--if these peopledo understand what the world doesn't know anything about--"
"Yes," said St. George.
"It makes a man feel--"
"Yes," said St. George, "it does."
This, they afterward remembered, was all that they said on theascent. One wonders if two, being met among the "strengthless tribesof the dead," would find much more to say.
Then they went on, scaling that invisible way, with the twinklingfeet of the carriers drawing upward like a thread of thin gold whichthey were to climb. What, St. George thought as the way seemed tolengthen before them, what if there were no end? What if this weresome gigantic trick of Destiny to keep him for the rest of his lifein mid-air, ceaselessly toiling up, a latter-day Sisyphus, in apalanquin? He had dreamed of stairs in the darkness which menmounted and found to have no summits, and suppose this were such astair? Suppose, among these marvels that were related to his dreams,he had, as it were, tossed a ball of twine in the air and, like theIndian jugglers, climbed it? Suppose he had built a castle in theclouds and tenanted it with Olivia, and were now foolhardilyattempting to scale the air? Ah well, he settled it contentedly,better so. For this divine jugglery comes once into every life, andone must climb to the castle with madness and singing if he wouldattain to the temples that lie on the castle-plain.
Gradually, as they approached the summit, the ascent became lessprecipitous. As they neared the cone their way lay over a kind ofnatural fosse at the cone's base; and, although the mountain did notreach the level of perpetual snow, yet an occasional cool breathfrom the dark told where in some natural cavern snow had lainundisturbed since the unremembered eruption of the sullen, volcanicpeak. Then came a breath of over-powering sweetness from some secretthicket, and something was struck from the feet of the bearers thatwas like white pumice gravel. St. George no longer looked downward;the plain and the waste of the sea were in a forgotten limbo, and hesearched eagerly on high for the first rays of the light that markedthe goal of his longing.
Yet he was unprepared when, swerving sharply and skirting an immenseshoulder of rock, Jarvo suddenly emerged upon a broad retaining wallof stone bordering a smooth, moon-lit terrace extending by shallowflights of steps to the white doors of the king's palace itself.
As St. George and Amory freed themselves and sprang to their feettheir eyes were drawn to a glory of light shining over the lowparapet which surrounded the terrace.
"Look," cried St. George victoriously, "the moon!"
From the sea the moon was momently growing, like a giant bubble, anda bright path had issued to the mountain's foot. "See," she woulddoubtless have said if she could, "I would have shown you the wayhere all your life if only you had looked properly." But at allevents St. George's prophecy was fulfilled: From the top of MountKhalak they were watching the moon rise. St. George, however, wasnot yet in the company whose image had pleasantly besieged him whenhe had prophesied. He turned impatiently to the palace. Jarvo,resting on the stones where he had sunk down, signaled them to goon, and the two needed no second bidding. They set off brisklyacross the plateau, Amory looking about him with eager curiosity,St. George on the crest of his divine expectancy.
The palace was set on the west of the gentle slope to which themountain-top had been artificially leveled. The terrace led up onthree sides from the marge of the height to the great portals. Overeverything hung that imponderable essence that was clearer and purerthan any light--"better than any light that ever shone." In itsglamourie, with that far ocean background, the palace of pale stonelooked unearthly, a sky thing, with ramparts of air. The principleof the builders seemed not to have been the ancient dictum that"mass alone is admirable," for the great pile was shaped, withbeauty of unknown line, in three enormous cylinders, one rising fromanother, the last magnificently curved to a huge dome on whosesummit burned with inconceivable brilliance the
light which had beena beacon to the longing eyes turned toward it from the deck of _TheAloha_. In the shadow of the palace rose two high towers,obelisk-shaped from the pure white stone. Scattered about the slopewere detached buildings, consisting of marble monoliths resting upondouble bases and crowned with carved cornices, or of truncatedpyramids and pyramidions. These had plinths of delicately-colouredstone over which the light diffused so that they looked luminous,and the small blocks used to fill the apertures of the courses shonelike precious things. Adjacent to one of the porches were twoconical shrines, for images and little lamps; and, near-by, a fallenpillar of immense proportions lay undisturbed upon the court ofsward across which it had some time shivered down.
But if the palace had been discovered to be the preserved andtransported Temple of Solomon it could not have stayed St. Georgefor one moment of admiration. He was off up the slope, seeing onlythe great closed portals, and with Amory beside him he ran boldly upthe long steps. It was a part of the unreality of the place thatthere seemed absolutely no sign of life about the King's palace. Thewindows glowed with the soft light within, but there were no guards,no servants, no sign of any presence. For the first time, when theyreached the top of the steps, the two men hesitated.
"Personally," said Amory doubtfully, "I have never yet tapped at aking's front door. What does one do?"
St. George looked at the long stone porches, uncovered and girt by aparapet following the curve of the facade.
"Would you mind waiting a minute?" he said.
With that he was off along the balcony to the south--and afterwardhe wondered why, and if it is true that Fate tempts us in the waythat she would have us walk by luring us with unseen roses buddingfrom the air.
Where the porch abruptly widened to a kind of upper terrace, like ahanging garden set with flowering trees, three high archways openedto an apartment whose bright lights streamed across the grass-plots.St. George felt something tug at his heart, something that urged himforward and caught him up in an ecstasy of triumph and hopefulfilled. He looked back at Amory, and Amory was leaning on theparapet, apparently sunk in reflections which concerned nobody. SoSt. George stepped softly on until he reached the first archway, andthere he stopped, and the moment was to him almost past belief.Within the open doorway, so near that if she had lifted her eyesthey must have met his own, was the woman whom he had come acrossthe sea to seek.
St. George hardly knew that he spoke, for it was as if all the worldwere singing her name.
"Olivia!" he said.