by Lord Dunsany
BETHMOORA
There is a faint freshness in the London night as though some strayedreveler of a breeze had left his comrades in the Kentish uplands and hadentered the town by stealth. The pavements are a little damp and shiny.Upon one's ears that at this late hour have become very acute there hitsthe tap of a remote footfall. Louder and louder grow the taps, filling thewhole night. And a black cloaked figure passes by, and goes tapping intothe dark. One who has danced goes homewards. Somewhere a ball has closedits doors and ended. Its yellow lights are out, its musicians are silent,its dancers have all gone into the night air, and Time has said of it,"Let it be past and over, and among the things that I have put away."
Shadows begin to detach themselves from their great gathering places. Noless silently than those shadows that are thin and dead move homewards thestealthy cats. Thus have we even in London our faint forebodings of thedawn's approach, which the birds and the beasts and the stars are cryingaloud to the untrammeled fields.
At what moment I know not I perceive that the night itself is irrevocablyoverthrown. It is suddenly revealed to me by the weary pallor of thestreet lamps that the streets are silent and nocturnal still, not becausethere is any strength in night, but because men have not yet arisen fromsleep to defy him. So have I seen dejected and untidy guards still bearingantique muskets in palatial gateways, although the realms of the monarchthat they guard have shrunk to a single province which no enemy yet hastroubled to overrun.
And it is now manifest from the aspect of the street lamps, those abasheddependants of night, that already English mountain peaks have seen thedawn, that the cliffs of Dover are standing white to the morning, that thesea-mist has lifted and is pouring inland.
And now men with a hose have come and are sluicing out the streets.
Behold now night is dead.
What memories, what fancies throng one's mind! A night but just nowgathered out of London by the horrific hand of Time. A million commonartificial things all cloaked for a while in mystery, like beggars robedin purple, and seated on dread thrones. Four million people asleep,dreaming perhaps. What worlds have they gone into? Whom have they met? Butmy thoughts are far off with Bethmoora in her loneliness, whose gatesswing to and fro. To and fro they swing, and creak and creak in the wind,but no one hears them. They are of green copper, very lovely, but no onesees them now. The desert wind pours sand into their hinges, no watchmancomes to ease them. No guard goes round Bethmoora's battlements, no enemyassails them. There are no lights in her houses, no footfall on herstreets, she stands there dead and lonely beyond the Hills of Hap, and Iwould see Bethmoora once again, but dare not.
It is many a year, they tell me, since Bethmoora became desolate.
Her desolation is spoken of in taverns where sailors meet, and certaintravellers have told me of it.
I had hoped to see Bethmoora once again. It is many a year ago, they say,when the vintage was last gathered in from the vineyards that I knew,where it is all desert now. It was a radiant day, and the people of thecity were dancing by the vineyards, while here and there one played uponthe kalipac. The purple flowering shrubs were all in bloom, and the snowshone upon the Hills of Hap.
Outside the copper gates they crushed the grapes in vats to make thesyrabub. It had been a goodly vintage.
In the little gardens at the desert's edge men beat the tambang and thetittibuk, and blew melodiously the zootibar.
All there was mirth and song and dance, because the vintage had beengathered in, and there would be ample syrabub for the winter months, andmuch left over to exchange for turquoises and emeralds with the merchantswho come down from Oxuhahn. Thus they rejoiced all day over their vintageon the narrow strip of cultivated ground that lay between Bethmoora andthe desert which meets the sky to the South. And when the heat of the daybegan to abate, and the sun drew near to the snows on the Hills of Hap,the note of the zootibar still rose clear from the gardens, and thebrilliant dresses of the dancers still wound among the flowers. All thatday three men on mules had been noticed crossing the face of the Hills ofHap. Backwards and forwards they moved as the track wound lower and lower,three little specks of black against the snow. They were seen first in thevery early morning up near the shoulder of Peol Jagganoth, and seemed tobe coming out of Utnar Vehi. All day they came. And in the evening, justbefore the lights come out and colours change, they appeared beforeBethmoora's copper gates. They carried staves, such as messengers bear inthose lands, and seemed sombrely clad when the dancers all came round themwith their green and lilac dresses. Those Europeans who were present andheard the message given were ignorant of the language, and only caught thename of Utnar Vehi. But it was brief, and passed rapidly from mouth tomouth, and almost at once the people burnt their vineyards and began toflee away from Bethmoora, going for the most part northwards, though somewent to the East. They ran down out of their fair white houses, andstreamed through the copper gate; the throbbing of the tambang and thetittibuk suddenly ceased with the note of the Zootibar, and the clinkingkalipac stopped a moment after. The three strange travellers went back theway they came the instant their message was given. It was the hour when alight would have appeared in some high tower, and window after windowwould have poured into the dusk its lion-frightening light, and the coopergates would have been fastened up. But no lights came out in windows therethat night and have not ever since, and those copper gates were left wideand have never shut, and the sound arose of the red fire crackling in thevineyards, and the pattering of feet fleeing softly. There were no cries,no other sounds at all, only the rapid and determined flight. They fled asswiftly and quietly as a herd of wild cattle flee when they suddenly see aman. It was as though something had befallen which had been feared forgenerations, which could only be escaped by instant flight, which left notime for indecision.
Then fear took the Europeans also, and they too fled. And what the messagewas I have never heard.
Many believe that it was a message from Thuba Mleen, the mysteriousemperor of those lands, who is never seen by man, advising that Bethmoorashould be left desolate. Others say that the message was one of warningfrom the gods, whether from friendly gods or from adverse ones they knownot.
And others hold that the Plague was ravaging a line of cities over inUtnar Vehi, following the South-west wind which for many weeks had beenblowing across them towards Bethmoora.
Some say that the terrible gnousar sickness was upon the three travellers,and that their very mules were dripping with it, and suppose that theywere driven to the city by hunger, but suggest no better reason for soterrible a crime.
But most believe that it was a message from the desert himself, who ownsall the Earth to the southwards, spoken with his peculiar cry to thosethree who knew his voice--men who had been out on the sand-wastes withouttents by night, who had been by day without water, men who had been outthere where the desert mutters, and had grown to know his needs and hismalevolence. They say that the desert had a need for Bethmoora, that hewished to come into her lovely streets, and to send into her temples andher houses his storm-winds draped with sand. For he hates the sound andthe sight of men in his old evil heart, and he would have Bethmoora silentand undisturbed, save for the weird love he whispers to her gates.
If I knew what that message was that the three men brought on mules, andtold in the copper gate, I think that I should go and see Bethmoora onceagain. For a great longing comes on me here in London to see once morethat white and beautiful city, and yet I dare not, for I know not thedanger I should have to face, whether I should risk the fury of unknowndreadful gods, or some disease unspeakable and slow, or the desert's curseor torture in some little private room of the Emperor Thuba Mleen, orsomething that the travelers have not told--perhaps more fearful still.