CHAPTER XVII
The evening of the second day had already come, when Ar-hap arrivedhome after weekending amongst a tribe of rebellious subjects. But anyimposing State entry which might have been intended was renderedimpossible by the heat and the threat of that baleful world in thewestern sky.
It was a lurid but disordered spectacle which I witnessed from my roomin the gate-house just after nightfall. The returning army hadapparently fallen away exhausted on its march through the town; onlysome three hundred of the bodyguard straggled up the hill, limp andsweating, behind a group of pennons, in the midst of which rode ahorseman whose commanding presence and splendid war harness impressedme, though I could not make out his features; a wild, impressionistscene of black outlines, tossing headgear, and spears glittering andvanishing in front of the red glare in the sky, but nothing more. Eventhe dry throats of the suitors in the courtyard hardly mustered a huskycry of welcome as the cavalcade trooped into the enclosure, and thenthe shadows enfolded them up in silence, and, too hot and listless tocare much what the morrow brought forth, I threw myself on the barefloor, tossing and turning in a vain endeavour to sleep until dawn cameonce more.
A thin mist which fell with daybreak drew a veil over the horribleglare in the west for an hour or two, and taking advantage of theslight alleviation of heat, I rose and went into the gardens to enjoy adip in a pool, making, with its surrounding jungle of flowers, one ofthe pleasantest things about the wood-king's forest citadel. The veryearth seemed scorched and baking underfoot--and the pool was gone! Ithad run as dry as a limekiln; nothing remained of the pretty fall whichhad fed it but a miserable trickle of drops from the cascade above.Down beyond the town shone a gleam of water where the bitter canalsteamed and simmered in the first grey of the morning, but up here sixmonths of scorching drought could not have worked more havoc. The veryleaves were dropping from the trees, and the luxuriant growths of theday before looked as though a simoon had played upon them.
I staggered back in disgust, and found some show of official activityabout the palace. It was the king's custom, it appeared, to hearpetitions and redress wrongs as soon after his return as possible, buttoday the ceremony was to be cut short as his majesty was going outwith all his court to a neighbouring mountain to "pray away the comet,"which by this time was causing dire alarm all through the city.
"Heaven's own particular blessing on his prayers, my friend," I said tothe man who told me this. "Unless his majesty's orisons are fruitful,we shall all be cooked like baked potatoes before nightfall, and thoughI have faced many kinds of death, that is not the one I would choose bypreference. Is there a chance of myself being heard at the throne?Your peculiar climate tempts me to hurry up with my business and begoneif I may."
"Not only may you be heard, sir, but you are summoned. The king hasheard of you somehow, and sent me to find and bring you into hispresence at once."
"So be it," I said, too hot to care what happened. "I have no leveedress with me. I lost my luggage check some time ago, but if you willwait outside I will be with you in a moment."
Hastily tidying myself up, and giving my hair a comb, as though justoff to see Mr. Secretary for the Navy, or on the way to get a senatorto push a new patent medicine for me, I rejoined my guide outside, andtogether we crossed the wide courtyard, entered the great log-builtportals of Ar-hap's house, and immediately afterwards found ourselvesin a vast hall dimly lit by rays coming in through square spaces underthe eaves, and crowded on both sides with guards, courtiers, andsupplicants. The heat was tremendous, the odour of Thither men and theill-dressed hides they wore almost overpowering. Yet little I reckedfor either, for there at the top of the room, seated on a dais made ofrough-hewn wood inlet with gold and covered with splendid furs, wasAr-hap himself.
A fine fellow, swarthy, huge, and hairy, at any other time or place Icould have given him due admiration as an admirable example of thesavage on the borderland of grace and culture, but now I only glancedat him, and then to where at his side a girl was crouching, a gem ofhuman loveliness against that dusky setting. It was Heru, my ravishedprincess, and, still clad in her diaphanous Hither robes, her facewhite with anxiety, her eyes bright as stars, the embodiment ofhelpless, flowery beauty, my heart turned over at sight of her.
Poor girl! When she saw me stride into the hall she rose swiftly fromAr-hap's side, clasped her pretty hands, and giving a cry of joy wouldhave rushed towards me, but the king laid a mighty paw upon her, underwhich she subsided with a shiver as though the touch had blanched allthe life within.
"Good morning, your majesty," I said, walking boldly up to the lowerstep of the dais.
"Good morning, most singular-looking vagrant from the Unknown,"answered the monarch. "In what way can I be of service to you?''
"I have come about that girl," I said, nodding to where Heru layblossoming in the hot gloom like some night-flowering bud. "I do notknow whether your majesty is aware how she came here, but it is ahighly discreditable incident in what is doubtless your otherwiseblameless reign. Some rough scullions intrusted with the duty ofcollecting your majesty's customs asked Prince Hath of the Hitherpeople to point out the most attractive young person at his weddingfeast, and the prince indicated that lady there at your side. It was adirty trick, and all the worse because it was inspired by malice, whichis the meanest of all weaknesses. I had the pleasure of knocking downsome of your majesty's representatives, but they stole the girl awaywhile I slept, and, briefly, I have come to fetch her back."
The monarch had followed my speech, the longest ever made in my life,with fierce, blinking eyes, and when it stopped looked at poorshrinking Heru as though for explanation, then round the circle of hisawestruck courtiers, and reading dismay at my boldness in their faces,burst into a guttural laugh.
"I suppose you have the great and puissant Hither nation behind you inthis request, Mr. Spirit?"
"No, I came alone, hoping to find justice here, and, if not, thenprepared to do all I could to make your majesty curse the day yourservants maltreated my friends."
"Tall words, stranger! May I ask what you propose to do if Ar-hap, inhis own palace, amongst his people and soldiers, refuses to disgorge apretty prize at the bidding of one shabby interloper--muddy andfriendless?"
"What should I do?"
"Yes," said the king, with a haughty frown. "What would you do?"
I do not know what prompted the reply. For a moment I was completelyat a loss what to say to this very obvious question, and then all on asudden, remembering they held me to be some kind of disembodied spirit,by a happy inspiration, fixing my eyes grimly on the king, I answered,
"What would I do? Why, I WOULD HAUNT YOU!"
It may not seem a great stroke of genius here, but the effect on theMartian was instantaneous. He sat straight up, his hands tightened,his eyes dilated, and then fidgeting uneasily, after a minute hebeckoned to an over-dressed individual, whom Heru afterwards told mewas the Court necromancer, and began whispering in his ear.
After a minute's consultation he turned again, a rather frightenedcivility struggling in his face with anger, and said, "We have no wish,of course, stranger, to offend you or those who had the honour of yourpatronage. Perhaps the princess here was a little roughly handled,and, I confess, if she were altogether as reluctant as she seems, alesser maid would have done as well. I could have wooed this one inSeth, where I may shortly come, and our espousals would possibly havelent, in the eyes of your friends, quite a cheerful aspect to myarrival. But my ambassadors have had no great schooling in diplomacy;they have brought Princess Heru here, and how can I hand her over toone I know nothing of? How do I know you are a ghost, after all? Howdo I know you have anything but a rusty sword and much impertinence toback your astounding claim?"
"Oh, let it be just as you like," I said, calmly shelling and eating anut I had picked up. "Only if you do not give the maid back, why,then--" And I stopped as though the sequel were too painful to put intowords.
&nb
sp; Again that superstitious monarch of a land thronged with maliciousspirits called up his magician, and, after they had consulted a moment,turned more cheerfully to me.
"Look here, Mister-from-Nowhere, if you are really a spirit, and havethe power to hurt as you say, you will have the power also to go andcome between the living and the dead, between the present and the past.Now I will set you an errand, and give you five minutes to do it in."
"Five minutes!" I exclaimed in incautious alarm.
"Five minutes," said the monarch savagely. "And if in that time theerrand is not done, I shall hold you to be an impostor, an impudentthief from some scoundrel tribe of this world of mine, and will make ofyou an example which shall keep men's ears tingling for a century ortwo."
Poor Heru dropped in a limp and lovely heap at that dire threat, whileI am bound to say I felt somewhat uncomfortable, not unnaturally whenall the circumstances are considered, but contented myself withremarking, with as much bravado as could be managed,
"And now to the errand, Ar-hap. What can I do for your majesty?"
The king consulted with the rogue at his elbow, and then nodding andchuckling in expectancy of his triumph, addressed me.
"Listen," he cried, smiting a huge hairy hand upon his knee, "listen,and do or die. My magician tells me it is recorded in his books thatonce, some five thousand years ago, when this land belonged to theHither people, there lived here a king. It is a pity he died, for heseems to have been a jovial old fellow; but he did die, and, accordingto their custom, they floated him down the stream that flows to theregions of eternal ice, where doubtless he is at this present moment,caked up with ten million of his subjects. Now just go and find thatsovereign for me, oh you bold-tongued dweller in other worlds!"
"And if I go how am I to know your ancient king, as you say, amongstten million others?"
"That is easy enough," quoth Ar-hap lightly. "You have only to pass toand fro through the ice mountains, opening the mouths of the dead menand women you meet, and when you come to a middle-sized man with afillet on his head and a jaw mended with gold, that will be he whom youlook for. Bring me that fillet here within five minutes and the maid isyours."
I started, and stared hard in amazement. Was this a dream? Was theroyal savage in front playing with me? By what incredible chance hadhe hit upon the very errand I could answer to best, the very trophy Ihad brought away from the grim valley of ice and death, and had stillin my shoulder-bag? No, he was not playing; he was staring hard inturn, joying in my apparent confusion, and clearly thinking he hadcornered me beyond hope of redemption.
"Surely your mightiness is not daunted by so simple a task," scowledthe sovereign, playing with the hilt of his huge hunting-knife, "andall amongst your friends' kindred too. On a hot day like this it oughtto be a pleasant saunter for a spirit such as yourself."
"Not daunted," I answered coldly, turning on my heels towards the door,"only marvelling that your majesty's skull and your necromancer's couldnot between them have devised a harder task."
Out into the courtyard I went, with my heart beating finely in spite ofmy assumed indifference; got the bag from a peg in my sleeping-room,and was back before the log throne ere four minutes were gone.
"The old Hither king's compliments to your majesty," I said, bowing,while a deathly hush fell on all the assembly, "and he says though yourancestors little liked to hear his voice while alive, he says he has noobjection to giving you some jaw now he is dead," and I threw down onthe floor the golden circlet of the frozen king.
Ar-hap's eyes almost started from his head as, with his courtiers, heglared in silent amazement at that shining thing while the great dropsof fear and perspiration trickled down his forehead. As for poor Heru,she rose like a spirit behind them, gazed at the jaw-bone of hermythical ancestor, and then suddenly realising my errand was done andshe apparently free, held out her hands, and, with a tremulous cry,would have come to me.
But Ar-hap was too quick for her. All the black savage blood swelledinto his veins as he swept her away with one great arm, and then withhis foot gave the luckless jaw a kick that sent it glittering andspinning through the far doorway out into the sunshine.
"Sit down," he roared, "you brazen wench, who are so eager to leave aking's side for a nameless vagrant's care! And you, sir," turning tome, and fairly trembling with rage and dread, "I will not gainsay thatyou have done the errand set you, but it might this once be chance thatgot you that cursed token, some one happy turn of luck. I will notyield my prize on one throw of the dice. Another task you must do.Once might be chance, but such chance comes not twice."
"You swore to give me the maid this time."
"And why should I keep my word to a half-proved spirit such as you?"
"There are some particularly good reasons why you should," I said,striking an attitude which I had once seen a music-hall dramatist takewhen he was going to blast somebody's future--a stick with a star ontop of it in his hand and forty lines of blank verse in his mouth.
The king writhed, and begged me with a sign to desist.
"We have no wish to anger you. Do us this other task and none willdoubt that you are a potent spirit, and even I, Ar-hap, will listen toyou."
"Well, then," I answered sulkily, "what is it to be this time?"
After a minute's consultation, and speaking slowly as though consciousof how much hung on his words, the king said,
"Listen! My soothsayer tells me that somewhere there is a city lost ina forest, and a temple lost in the city, and a tomb lost in the temple;a city of ghosts and djins given over to bad spirits, wherefore allhuman men shun it by day and night. And on the tomb is she who wasonce queen there, and by her lies her crown. Quick! oh you to whom alldistances are nothing, and who see, by your finer essence, into alltimes and places. Away to that city! Jostle the memories of theunclean things that hide in its shadows; ask which amongst them knowswhere dead Queen Yang still lies in dusty state. Get guides amongstyour comrade ghosts. Find Queen Yang, and bring me here in fiveminutes the bloody circlet from her hair."
Then, and then for the first time, I believed the planet was hauntedindeed, and I myself unknowingly under some strange and watchfulinfluence. Spirits, demons! Oh! what but some incomprehensible power,some unseen influence shaping my efforts to its ends, could have movedthat hairy barbarian to play a second time into my hands like this, tochoose from the endless records of his world the second of the twoincidents I had touched in hasty travel through it? I was almostovercome for a minute; then, pulling myself together, strode forwardfiercely, and, speaking so that all could hear me, cried, "Base king,who neither knows the capacities of a spirit nor has learned as yet todread its anger, see! your commission is executed in a thought, just asyour punishment might be. Heru, come here." And when the girl,speechless with amazement, had risen and slipped over to me, Istraightened her pretty hair from her forehead, and then, in a waywhich would make my fortune if I could repeat it at a conjuror's table,whipped poor Yang's gemmy crown from my pocket, flashed its balefulsplendour in the eyes of the courtiers, and placed it on the tresses ofthe first royal lady who had worn it since its rightful owner died ahundred years before.
A heavy silence fell on the hall as I finished, and nothing was heardfor a time save Heru sobbing on my breast and a thirsty baby somewhereoutside calling to its mother for the water that was not to be had. Butpresently on those sounds came the fall of anxious feet, and amessenger, entering the doorway, approached the throne, laid himselfout flat twice, after which obeisance he proceeded to remind the kingof the morning's ceremonial on a distant hill to "pray away the comet,"telling his majesty that all was ready and the procession anxiouslyawaiting him.
Whereon Ar-hap, obviously very well content to change the subject,rose, and, coming down from the dais, gave me his hand. He was a finefellow, as I have said, strong and bold, and had not behaved badly foran autocrat, so that I gripped his mighty fist with great pleasure.
"I cannot deny, stra
nger," he said, "that you have done all that hasbeen asked of you, and the maid is fairly yours. Yet before you takeaway the prize I must have some assurance of what you yourself will dowith her. Therefore, for the moment, until this horrible thing in thesky which threatens my people with destruction has gone, let it betruce between us--you to your lodgings, and the princess back,unharmed, amongst my women till we meet again."
"But--"
"No, no," said the king, waving his hand. "Be content with youradvantage. And now to business more important than ten thousand sillywenches," and gathering up his robes over his splendid war-gear thewood king stalked haughtily from the hall.
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