by Anthology
The mist fell; the eyes gleamed out again, inscrutable.
And groping out of the radiance, pausing at the verge of the dais, leaping down from it, came Larry, laughing, filled with life, blinking as one who draws from darkness into sunshine. He saw Lakla, sprang to her, gripped her in his arms.
"Lakla!" he cried. "Mavourneen!" She slipped from his embrace, blushing, glancing at the Three shyly, half-fearfully. And again I saw the tenderness creep into the inky, flame-shot orbs of the woman being; and a tenderness in the others too--as though they regarded some well-beloved child.
"You lay in the arms of Death, Larry," she said. "And the Silent Ones drew you from him. Do homage to the Silent Ones, Larry, for they are good and they are mighty!"
She turned his head with one of the long, white hands--and he looked into the faces of the Three; looked long, was shaken even as had been Olaf and myself; was swept by that same wave of power and of--of--what can I call it?--holiness that streamed from them.
Then for the first time I saw real awe mount into his face. Another moment he stared--and dropped upon one knee and bowed his head before them as would a worshipper before the shrine of his saint. And--I am not ashamed to tell it--I joined him; and with us knelt Lakla and Olaf and Rador.
The mist of fiery opal swirled up about the Three; hid them.
And with a long, deep, joyous sigh Lakla took Larry's hand, drew him to his feet, and silently we followed them out of that hall of wonder.
But why, in going, did the thought come to me that from where the Three sat throned they ever watched the cavern mouth that was the door into their abode; and looked down ever into the unfathomable depth in which glowed and pulsed that mystic flower, colossal, awesome, of green flame that had seemed to me fire of life itself?
CHAPTER XXVI
The Wooing of Lakla
I had slept soundly and dreamlessly; I wakened quietly in the great chamber into which Rador had ushered O'Keefe and myself after that culminating experience of crowded, nerve-racking hours--the facing of the Three.
Now, lying gazing upward at the high-vaulted ceiling, I heard Larry's voice:
"They look like birds." Evidently he was thinking of the Three; a silence--then: "Yes, they look like birds--and they look, and it's meaning no disrespect to them I am at all, they look like lizards"--and another silence--"they look like some sort of gods, and, by the good sword-arm of Brian Boru, they look human, too! And it's none of them they are either, so what--what the--what the sainted St. Bridget are they?" Another short silence, and then in a tone of awed and absolute conviction: "That's it, sure! That's what they are--it all hangs in--they couldn't be anything else--"
He gave a whoop; a pillow shot over and caught me across the head.
"Wake up!" shouted Larry. "Wake up, ye seething caldron of fossilized superstitions! Wake up, ye bogy-haunted man of scientific unwisdom!"
Under pillow and insults I bounced to my feet, filled for a moment with quite real wrath; he lay back, roaring with laughter, and my anger was swept away.
"Doc," he said, very seriously, after this, "I know who the Three are!"
"Yes?" I queried, with studied sarcasm.
"Yes?" he mimicked. "Yes! Ye--ye" He paused under the menace of my look, grinned. "Yes, I know," he continued. "They're of the Tuatha De, the old ones, the great people of Ireland, that's who they are!"
I knew, of course, of the Tuatha De Danann, the tribes of the god Danu, the half-legendary, half-historical clan who found their home in Erin some four thousand years before the Christian era, and who have left so deep an impress upon the Celtic mind and its myths.
"Yes," said Larry again, "the Tuatha De--the Ancient Ones who had spells that could compel Mananan, who is the spirit of all the seas, an' Keithor, who is the god of all green living things, an' even Hesus, the unseen god, whose pulse is the pulse of all the firmament; yes, an' Orchil too, who sits within the earth an' weaves with the shuttle of mystery and her three looms of birth an' life an' death--even Orchil would weave as they commanded!"
He was silent--then:
"They are of them--the mighty ones--why else would I have bent my knee to them as I would have to the spirit of my dead mother? Why else would Lakla, whose gold-brown hair is the hair of Eilidh the Fair, whose mouth is the sweet mouth of Deirdre, an' whose soul walked with mine ages agone among the fragrant green myrtle of Erin, serve them?" he whispered, eyes full of dream.
"Have you any idea how they got here?" I asked, not unreasonably.
"I haven't thought about that," he replied somewhat testily. "But at once, me excellent man o' wisdom, a number occur to me. One of them is that this little party of three might have stopped here on their way to Ireland, an' for good reasons of their own decided to stay a while; an' another is that they might have come here afterward, havin' got wind of what those rats out there were contemplatin', and have stayed on the job till the time was ripe to save Ireland from 'em; the rest of the world, too, of course," he added magnanimously, "but Ireland in particular. And do any of those reasons appeal to ye?"
I shook my head.
"Well, what do you think?" he asked wearily.
"I think," I said cautiously, "that we face an evolution of highly intelligent beings from ancestral sources radically removed from those through which mankind ascended. These half-human, highly developed batrachians they call the Akka prove that evolution in these caverned spaces has certainly pursued one different path than on earth. The Englishman, Wells, wrote an imaginative and very entertaining book concerning an invasion of earth by Martians, and he made his Martians enormously specialized cuttlefish. There was nothing inherently improbable in Wells' choice. Man is the ruling animal of earth today solely by reason of a series of accidents; under another series spiders or ants, or even elephants, could have become the dominant race.
"I think," I said, even more cautiously, "that the race to which the Three belong never appeared on earth's surface; that their development took place here, unhindered through aeons. And if this be true, the structure of their brains, and therefore all their reactions, must be different from ours. Hence their knowledge and command of energies unfamiliar to us--and hence also the question whether they may not have an entirely different sense of values, of justice--and that is rather terrifying," I concluded.
Larry shook his head.
"That last sort of knocks your argument, Doc," he said. "They had sense of justice enough to help me out--and certainly they know love--for I saw the way they looked at Lakla; and sorrow--for there was no mistaking that in their faces.
"No," he went on. "I hold to my own idea. They're of the Old People. The little leprechaun knew his way here, an' I'll bet it was they who sent the word. An' if the O'Keefe banshee comes here--which save the mark!--I'll bet she'll drop in on the Silent Ones for a social visit before she an' her clan get busy. Well, it'll make her feel more at home, the good old body. No, Doc, no," he concluded, "I'm right; it all fits in too well to be wrong."
I made a last despairing attempt.
"Is there anything anywhere in Ireland that would indicate that the Tuatha De ever looked like the Three?" I asked--and again I had spoken most unfortunately.
"Is there?" he shouted. "Is there? By the kilt of Cormack MacCormack, I'm glad ye reminded me. It was worryin' me a little meself. There was Daghda, who could put on the head of a great boar an' the body of a giant fish and cleave the waves an' tear to pieces the birlins of any who came against Erin; an' there was Rinn--"
How many more of the metamorphoses of the Old People I might have heard, I do not know, for the curtains parted and in walked Rador.
"You have rested well," he smiled, "I can see. The handmaiden bade me call you. You are to eat with her in her garden."
Down long corridors we trod and out upon a gardened terrace as beautiful as any of those of Yolara's city; bowered, blossoming, fragrant, set high upon the cliffs beside the domed castle. A table, as of milky jade, was spread at one corner, but the
Golden Girl was not there. A little path ran on and up, hemmed in by the mass of verdure. I looked at it longingly; Rador saw the glance, interpreted it, and led me up the stepped sharp slope into a rock embrasure.
Here I was above the foliage, and everywhere the view was clear. Below me stretched the incredible bridge, with the frog people hurrying back and forth upon it. A pinnacle at my side hid the abyss. My eyes followed the cavern ledge. Above it the rock rose bare, but at the ends of the semicircular strand a luxuriant vegetation began, stretching from the crimson shores back into far distances. Of browns and reds and yellows, like an autumn forest, was the foliage, with here and there patches of dark-green, as of conifers. Five miles or more, on each side, the forests swept, and then were lost to sight in the haze.
I turned and faced an immensity of crimson waters, unbroken, a true sea, if ever there was one. A breeze blew--the first real wind I had encountered in the hidden places; under it the surface, that had been as molten lacquer, rippled and dimpled. Little waves broke with a spray of rose-pearls and rubies. The giant Medusae drifted--stately, luminous kaleidoscopic elfin moons.
Far down, peeping around a jutting tower of the cliff, I saw dipping with the motion of the waves a floating garden. The flowers, too, were luminous--indeed sparkling--gleaming brilliants of scarlet and vermilions lighter than the flood on which they lay, mauves and odd shades of reddish-blue. They gleamed and shone like a little lake of jewels.
Rador broke in upon my musings.
"Lakla comes! Let us go down."
It was a shy Lakla who came slowly around the end of the path and, blushing furiously, held her hands out to Larry. And the Irishman took them, placed them over his heart, kissed them with a tenderness that had been lacking in the half-mocking, half-fierce caresses he had given the priestess. She blushed deeper, holding out the tapering fingers--then pressed them to her own heart.
"I like the touch of your lips, Larry," she whispered. "They warm me here"--she pressed her heart again--"and they send little sparkles of light through me." Her brows tilted perplexedly, accenting the nuance of diablerie, delicate and fascinating, that they cast upon the flower face.
"Do you?" whispered the O'Keefe fervently. "Do you, Lakla?" He bent toward her. She caught the amused glance of Rador; drew herself aside half-haughtily.
"Rador," she said, "is it not time that you and the strong one, Olaf, were setting forth?"
"Truly it is, handmaiden," he answered respectfully enough--yet with a current of laughter under his words. "But as you know the strong one, Olaf, wished to see his friends here before we were gone--and he comes even now," he added, glancing down the pathway, along which came striding the Norseman.
As he faced us I saw that a transformation had been wrought in him. Gone was the pitiful seeking, and gone too the just as pitiful hope. The set face softened as he looked at the Golden Girl and bowed low to her. He thrust a hand to O'Keefe and to me.
"There is to be battle," he said. "I go with Rador to call the armies of these frog people. As for me--Lakla has spoken. There is no hope for--for mine Helma in life, but there is hope that we destroy the Shining Devil and give mine Helma peace. And with that I am well content, ja! Well content!" He gripped our hands again. "We will fight!" he muttered. "Ja! And I will have vengeance!" The sternness returned; and with a salute Rador and he were gone.
Two great tears rolled from the golden eyes of Lakla.
"Not even the Silent Ones can heal those the Shining One has taken," she said. "He asked me--and it was better that I tell him. It is part of the Three's--punishment--but of that you will soon learn," she went on hurriedly. "Ask me no questions now of the Silent Ones. I thought it better for Olaf to go with Rador, to busy himself, to give his mind other than sorrow upon which to feed."
Up the path came five of the frog-women, bearing platters and ewers. Their bracelets and anklets of jewels were tinkling; their middles covered with short kirtles of woven cloth studded with the sparkling ornaments.
And here let me say that if I have given the impression that the Akka are simply magnified frogs, I regret it. Frog-like they are, and hence my phrase for them--but as unlike the frog, as we know it, as man is unlike the chimpanzee. Springing, I hazard, from the stegocephalia, the ancestor of the frogs, these batrachians followed a different line of evolution and acquired the upright position just as man did his from the four-footed folk.
The great staring eyes, the shape of the muzzle were frog-like, but the highly developed brain had set upon the head and shape of it vital differences. The forehead, for instance, was not low, flat, and retreating--its frontal arch was well defined. The head was, in a sense, shapely, and with the females the great horny carapace that stood over it like a fantastic helmet was much modified, as were the spurs that were so formidable in the male; colouration was different also. The torso was upright; the legs a little bent, giving them their crouching gait--but I wander from my subject. *1
*1 The Akka are viviparous. The female produces progeny at five-year intervals, never more than two at a time. They are monogamous, like certain of our own Ranidae. Pending my monograph upon what little I had time to learn of their interesting habits and customs, the curious will find instruction and entertainment in Brandes and Schvenichen's Brutpfleige der Schwanzlosen Bat rachier, p. 395; and Lilian V. Sampson's Unusual Modes of Breeding among Anura, Amer. Nat. xxxiv., 1900.--W. T. G.
They set their burdens down. Larry looked at them with interest.
"You surely have those things well trained, Lakla," he said.
"Things!" The handmaiden arose, eyes flashing with indignation. "You call my Akka things!"
"Well," said Larry, a bit taken aback, "what do you call them?"
"My Akka are a people," she retorted. "As much a people as your race or mine. They are good and loyal, and they have speech and arts, and they slay not, save for food or to protect themselves. And I think them beautiful, Larry, beautiful!" She stamped her foot. "And you call them--things!"
Beautiful! These? Yet, after all, they were, in their grotesque fashion. And to Lakla, surrounded by them, from babyhood, they were not strange, at all. Why shouldn't she think them beautiful? The same thought must have struck O'Keefe, for he flushed guiltily.
"I think them beautiful, too, Lakla," he said remorsefully. "It's my not knowing your tongue too well that traps me. Truly, I think them beautiful--I'd tell them so, if I knew their talk."
Lakla dimpled, laughed--spoke to the attendants in that strange speech that was unquestionably a language; they bridled, looked at O'Keefe with fantastic coquetry, cracked and boomed softly among themselves.
"They say they like you better than the men of Muria," laughed Lakla.
"Did I ever think I'd be swapping compliments with lady frogs!" he murmured to me. "Buck up, Larry--keep your eyes on the captive Irish princess!" he muttered to himself.
"Rador goes to meet one of the ladala who is slipping through with news," said the Golden Girl as we addressed ourselves to the food. "Then, with Nak, he and Olaf go to muster the Akka--for there will be battle, and we must prepare. Nak," she added, "is he who went before me when you were dancing with Yolara, Larry." She stole a swift, mischievous glance at him. "He is headman of all the Akka."
"Just what forces can we muster against them when they come, darlin'?" said Larry.
"Darlin'?"--the Golden Girl had caught the caress of the word--"what's that?"
"It's a little word that means Lakla," he answered. "It does--that is, when I say it; when you say it, then it means Larry."
"I like that word," mused Lakla.
"You can even say Larry darlin'!" suggested O'Keefe.
"Larry darlin'!" said Lakla. "When they come we shall have first of all my Akka--"
"Can they fight, mavourneen?" interrupted Larry.
"Can they fight! My Akka!" Again her eyes flashed. "They will fight to the last of them--with the spears that give the swift rotting, covered, as they are, with the jelly of those Saddu the
re--" She pointed through a rift in the foliage across which, on the surface of the sea, was floating one of the moon globes--and now I know why Rador had warned Larry against a plunge there. "With spears and clubs and with teeth and nails and spurs--they are a strong and brave people, Larry--darlin', and though they hurl the Keth at them, it is slow to work upon them, and they slay even while they are passing into the nothingness!"
"And have we none of the Keth?" he asked.
"No"--she shook her head--"none of their weapons have we here, although it was--it was the Ancient Ones who shaped them."
"But the Three are of the Ancient Ones?" I cried. "Surely they can tell--"
"No," she said slowly. "No--there is something you must know--and soon; and then the Silent Ones say you will understand. You, especially, Goodwin, who worship wisdom."
"Then," said Larry, "we have the Akka; and we have the four men of us, and among us three guns and about a hundred cartridges--an'--an' the power of the Three--but what about the Shining One, Fireworks--"
"I do not know." Again the indecision that had been in her eyes when Yolara had launched her defiance crept back. "The Shining One is strong--and he has his--slaves!"
"Well, we'd better get busy good and quick!" the O'Keefe's voice rang. But Lakla, for some reason of her own, would pursue the matter no further. The trouble fled from her eyes--they danced.
"Larry darlin'?" she murmured. "I like the touch of your lips--"
"You do?" he whispered, all thought flying of anything but the beautiful, provocative face so close to his. "Then, acushla, you're goin' to get acquainted with 'em! Turn your head, Doc!" he said.
And I turned it. There was quite a long silence, broken by an interested, soft outburst of gentle boomings from the serving frog-maids. I stole a glance behind me. Lakla's head lay on the Irishman's shoulder, the golden eyes misty sunpools of love and adoration; and the O'Keefe, a new look of power and strength upon his clear-cut features, was gazing down into them with that look which rises only from the heart touched for the first time with that true, all-powerful love, which is the pulse of the universe itself, the real music of the spheres of which Plato dreamed, the love that is stronger than death itself, immortal as the high gods and the true soul of all that mystery we call life.