Axel nodded. “A love spell eh? Then you have made heaven on earth indeed. Not a single trouble is left to mar your perfect joy.”
“You are happy here?” she asked softly.
“Yes—infinitely. It is like having been born again fully grown into a new and better existence—yet I would not be happy if it were not for you.”
She shifted her position slightly and stretched up one bare arm to place it round his neck. Her breast was heaving gently against his side. “You do not know how I honour you for the restraint you must have placed upon yourself at those two Festivals,” she murmured, “and all this week that we have been together.”
“Honour,” he repeated with gentle mockery, “but I would have something more. How I wish that I had been born an Atlantean.”
“Why?” she enquired with a flutter of her dark curling eyelashes.
“Because they have qualities which would commend me to you in a different way.”
She shook her head. “I prefer you as you are. Our life is so limited here in spite of our spirit journeys whereas you have really travelled and read much. You lack some of our special powers perhaps but your mind is deeper. I could laugh and talk with you for years; with our men only for a few months.”
“Only talk?” he whispered as he caressed her hair.
“And laugh” she reminded him, her breath warm on his cheek.
He bent close above her and his voice trembled as he said: “Won’t you teach me that secret sorcery Lulluma so that I can cast a spell on you?”
“My dear one,” her eyes were moist and languorous, her breathing a little fast. “Forgive me that I made the test so hard for you; it was only because I wished our love to last. No spells are necessary between us two.”
Three and a half weeks slipped by as though they had only been as many days and nights for the three pairs of lovers in that enchanted island. Almost imperceptibly the strangers from the upper world dropped into the easy carefree Atlantean habits; accustoming themselves to light meals, healthy exercise, dreamless sleep and the spirit of laughter which seemed to lurk behind every bush and tree.
The Atlanteans went no more upon their spiritual journeys for the time being. They were still far too interested in talking to and questioning the new settlers in their island to wish to observe their counterparts, with whom they could not speak, in the world above. In addition one of their harvest periods had come round, for which, in any case, they would have returned to get in their crops.
Lulluma and Axel alone refrained from helping since she had claimed from Menes an Atlantean honeymoon for them both. They held interminable conversations together in the gardens and slept each night in a recess of the jungle. At meal times they seemed dreamy and abstracted, only anxious to get away to one of their retreats so that Semiramis commented upon it; chiding Lulluma with gentle humour because they missed her deep chuckling laughter and feared that she had become serious for life. Axel could have informed them however that his warm passionate sweetheart had lost none of her divine merriment but reserved it for himself.
The McKay, Vladimir, Camilla and Sally had curtailed their life of complete idleness by their own wish and found the work allotted, which sometimes separated them for an hour or two, only lent fresh stimulus to their passion and gave a new interest to their lives.
Nicky had been passably good humoured for a few days after his last private encounter with Rahossis and she treated him on all occasions now with a special gentleness, but when the harvest time came he sank back into his previous discontented mood.
He prowled uneasily about the garden on his own, cast scowling looks at Quet, and alone among the people in the island behaved on occasion with downright discourtesy. The happiness of his friends, which they could hardly have concealed had they wished, drove him to silent frenzies of envy at their lot. Lulluma’s passion for Axel particularly goaded him into sneers and bitter witticisms with which he fruitlessly endeavoured to irritate these two whom he termed contemptuously ‘the turtle doves’. The thought that one of the beautiful Atlantean girls could surrender her every moment to ‘that dry stick of a Count who was not even really handsome’ which was his view of Axel, while another would not even grant him half an hour alone, was a never ceasing torture.
The island was not large enough for him to get clear of the others for any length of time, and he was constantly coming upon them in attitudes which did not shock him in the least but inflamed his jealousy and desire. His cup of misery was filled to the brim by the knowledge that he was a prisoner there for life.
For a few days he played up to Danöe. Partly in the hope of making Rahossis jealous and partly because he felt that a success with her would restore his self-respect and ease his feelings, although her slender golden beauty did not attract him half as much as more vital girls of the same type whom he had toyed with in the past at Hollywood.
Danöe, however, was having a purely platonic affair with Karnoum, her dark apparently boyish uncle, by whom she would bear her first child in a few years’ time. She was by no means inexperienced already for Nicky had learned that girls did not reach even the physical age of twenty in Atlantis without having been initiated into the arts of love, but her relations with the Egyptian looking Karnoum appeared to be perfectly innocent. As they were both learning Spanish they spent a good portion of their time talking together in that language in order to practise it.
In response to Nicky’s suggestions, Danöe turned an enormous pair of blue eyes upon him which showed mild surprise and, after what he considered the infuriating courtesies that all these people used, told him very sweetly that, she thanked him for his offer but would be too busy with her Spanish to accept it for some months to come.
“They’re all a damn sight too highbrow in this place,” Nicky told himself furiously. He forgot that, just as Camilla had become of no more interest to him than a bathing beauty now she could no longer attract him by the lure of her millions so he, robbed of his glamour as a film star, had little power to appeal to women on his looks alone. He had never been even a passably good lover in actual fact, since he was a hopeless psychologist and had never had to study women with a view to pleasing them. His easy successes in the past had all been temporary affairs with doll-like females who had become infatuated by his face and voice on the talking screen. Those casual conquests were an added handicap now for they had given him a completely false picture of himself and fostered both his impatience and conceit.
After his failure with Danöe he returned to Rahossis, upon whom the Danöe episode had had a completely negative result. She only noticed it to bless herself that she was rid of his constant spying whenever she was alone with Quet.
Once only did he succeed in getting her on his own during the harvest fortnight and that by invading her apartment in the middle of the night. She kept her temper remarkably well in the circumstances even allowing for the fact that she, and all her people, had been trained to a consideration for others as a first rule of their lives since, not content with breaking in and rousing her from her sleep he kept her up for a couple of hours with a repetition of all his old tricks.
She let him rave, posture, and weep but this time she was quite firm about the matter. Finally she told him that she had no intention of allowing him to make love to her any more, at least for three or four years to come, by which time he might have acquired some manners and a little sense. The possible time limit in her declaration shattered him more than any flat refusal. It silenced his weeping and sent him out into the night convinced that all the Atlanteans were stark staring mad and that this woman Rahossis could have no conception she was rejecting the world-famous screen star, Nicholas Costello, whose fan mail was immense.
That check served to sober him for a day or two and both Axel and Menes, who were observing him shrewdly, felt that he had calmed down. He might then even have sunk into an apathetic despair had not the Harvest Festival Banquet come along.
At the Feast they were all
assembled and ate heavily as before. By midnight the wine was passing freely and a joyous Saturnalia beginning. The lovers sat with arms entwined feeding each other titbits of dessert and pledging each other in the Nektar of the Gods. Camilla was lolling against Vladimir, both had approached nearer to the Atlanteans than any other members of their party in all but wisdom now, and Vladimir, who absolutely revelled in playing at being a cave man, had made a bedroom for them by arranging a platform in the fork of a high tree. Even Sally, safely embraced by the muscular arm of the McKay, had had as much wine as she could carry and no longer saw anything improper in the love dance which Peramon and Laötzii were performing as a turn in the unofficial cabaret.
Nicky squatted a little apart from the rest watching Rahossis and Quet with brooding eyes. They had not sat near each other at the meal but proceeded to do so shortly afterwards. As he watched every tentative movement in the age-old game they played together his jealousy flamed up into a burning hatred. In spite of Nahou’s gentle remonstrance he insisted on abandoning the Nektar for that potent green liqueur with which they had been fortified on their exhausted arrival in the island.
At length Quet and Rahossis stood up, just a shade unsteadily, and left the Feast. Nicky rapidly swallowed a fifth portion of that fiery liquid which made his inside feel like a furnace as it went down, then he got to his feet and followed.
No one paid any attention to the departure of the three but Menes, who looked at Semiramis and then pointed to Nicky’s form retreating in the shadows.
“That youth needs guidance and help. I will speak to him to-morrow and explain that he must restrain his desires for a little time. Then, if Rahossis still proves obdurate when her passion for Quet is ended you had best teach him the secret rites which will ensure her willing acceptance of him.”
Had Axel been present and seen Nicky’s state, he would not have left the matter until the next day but gone after him at once, in order to intervene if necessary. As it was he and Lulluma had left the party hours before, passing into the darkness as two silent shadows wrapped in a divine content.
Rahossis and Quet made their way to the jungle and finding a convenient spot sat down. Nicky stole after them, his drunken brain seething with chaotic thoughts engendered by his pent-up passion.
He’d show this laughter maker, he told himself. He’d show him who was who! Yes Sir—an’ how. The dirty wisecracking Mexican—and that would learn Rahossis too. Every woman liked a man who was a man. Someone who wasn’t afraid to fight for her. They loved that, damn their hard little souls. Particularly these savages. That ’ud get her for sure. He’d show her—yes Sir and the world. Why the hell hadn’t he thought of this before?
He nearly fell into the lake but recovered and stumbled on until, directed by their voices, he found Rahossis and Quet lying side by side in one of the jungle clearings.
Rahossis gave a heavy sigh as he appeared. “Oh, dear, it’s you again! This is too much. Why must you follow me even here?”
“Want to talk to you,” said Nicky thickly.
He had ignored Quet for the moment but the dark man stood up apparently in a high good humour.
“You wish to speak with Rahossis?” he said in the English which did not come at all naturally to him. “You choose a curious time. However—” he gave a shrug which was purely French and broke into that language—“Messieurs les Anglais tirez le premier.”
Nicky did not understand the jest and thought that Quet was carrying Atlantean politeness to extremes because he was frightened of a fight.
Actually the Atlantean was completely certain of himself and the situation. As he parted the bushes to walk away he said to Rahossis in their own tongue:
“This fool becomes a positive nuisance. I must speak to Menes about him in the morning. Get rid of him as quickly as you can and in the meantime I will bring fruit for our breakfast.”
“Huh!” exclaimed Nicky with disgust on Quet’s departure. “You see he’s yellow. That’s what he is—yellow. Good thing for him he cleared out when he did though—otherwise I would have shown him.”
“You are an unpleasant creature and extremely stupid,” said Rahossis quietly. “If Quet wished he could paralyse you with one glance from his eyes.”
“What me!” Nicky did not take her words literally and only thought she meant that Quet could scare him with a look. He laughed contemptuously. “Jus’ let him put his dirty head roun’ the bushes again an’ I’ll show him! I’m not a feller to be trifled with. I’ll show you too—by God I will.”
Without further preamble he fell upon her.
Rahossis was big limbed and muscular. There was never the least likelihood that she would be the victim of Nicky’s assault before Quet’s return. Disdaining to cry out she fought her attacker off as he ripped her tunic from breast to thigh. But the panting struggle only lasted a moment. There was a rustling of the shrubs and Doctor Tisch appeared. In one glance he had taken in the full significance of the scene.
After copious potations of Tokay at the Feast he had suddenly remembered that there was one Atlantean flower which he particularly wished to see and that it only blossomed at night. He had collected his torch and come to the jungle in search of it.
“Why, Nicky!” he exclaimed. “What do you do! This is not right!”
Nicky staggered to his feet and confronted the little doctor. “Get to hell out of here, you dirty spy,” he yelled, swaying drunkenly.
The Doctor held his ground. “But, Nicky …” he expostulated.
“Get out, you little rat!” Losing all control Nicky followed up his words with a smashing blow.
It caught the Doctor full in the face. He dropped his torch, staggered and fell, his head coming into collision with the trunk of a tree.
Little Doctor Tisch lay quite still where he had fallen. Nicky grabbed up the torch and flashed it on him. A trickle of blood was oozing from his temple.
Rahossis turned over on her face and moaned just as though she had received the blow herself. In a moment her moans had become a wild wailing.
Nicky, terribly sober now, propped up the Doctor’s body and strove to rouse him, but he remained limp and silent. The blood fell in slow drops on Nicky’s hands and it seemed to him that they fell in time to Rahossis’ heartrending cries.
The Doctor was quite dead. In his fall he had cracked his skull upon the tree against which Axel had leaned when a little over a month before he had said so thoughtlessly to Lulluma:
“This is like Eden—to make it complete you only need the Serpent.”
CHAPTER XXII
DEATH IN THE GARDEN
Axel and Lulluma were sleeping peacefully, her dark head pillowed on his shoulder, when Rahossis’ screams roused them to the awful knowledge that some terrible thing had shattered the peace of the island.
Without a word they sprang up and raced along the tortuous paths through the jungle towards the sound of that dreadful wailing. They found the small clearing and pulled up with a jerk in its entrance. One glance was enough to tell them what had happened. For a second they stood there silent, too overwhelmed to speak, then Axel gasped:
“Good God, man! What have you done? You’ve killed him.”
Nicky still held the torch and was kneeling by the Doctor. “I—I didn’t mean to,” he stammered. “It was his fault—he tried to interfere but—Oh, God, I didn’t mean to.”
Lulluma was clinging to Axel’s arm. Her eyes were distended with terror, then the beam of the torch lit the Doctor’s head again.
“Blood!” she whispered. “Blood!” and her voice trailed away into a whisper.
“Beloved!” Axel sought to comfort her, passing his arm round her waist so that he could press her closer. “Don’t look if it frightens you. We’ll—we’ll …” He broke off not knowing what next to say and she began to wail like Rahossis; just as though she were about to die.
The bushes rustled and Quet thrust his way through into the other side of the glade. He said something in At
lantean which neither Axel nor Nicky understood. His accent was harsh yet held a note of underlying terror. Only Lulluma caught the meaning of his exclamation.
“Blood!—blood has been spilled—who caused this awful thing?”
He looked at Axel with dark fiery eyes and Axel made a helpless gesture towards Nicky.
“I couldn’t help it,” Nicky said heavily. “I only hit him, then he fell and cracked his head against that tree. I never meant to kill him! It was an accident, I tell you.”
Without a word Quet fixed his eyes upon him and held his gaze. To Nicky those eyes seemed to become Quet’s whole body, the rest of it became shadowy and was swallowed up; the bushes and the clearing disappeared. Those eyes were forcing him down into the black depths of unconsciousness. He struggled for a second, whimpered and slipped to the ground beside the Doctor.
“Did—did you do something to him—or has he fainted?” Axel asked shakily.
“I have placed him so that he can bring no more evil among us for the moment,” Quet answered in a hushed voice.
Danöe and Karnoum appeared. Immediately their glance fell on the Doctor’s face Karnoum began to tremble and the girl added her wailing to that of Rahossis and Lulluma.
It was a dreadful sound. Axel felt that he had never heard anything so terrible. The high piercing note seemed to drag at his very heart-strings. Within five minutes every member of the island’s population was gathered about the clearing and other voices had been added to that ghastly chorus.
None of these screaming women had ever had more than a casual friendliness for the poor little doctor and it was not for him they beat their breasts and tore their lungs in such uncontrollable grief and terror. It was because blood had been spilled in anger.
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