by Sarban
Their host spoke again, from behind the ivory lattice and bade them sit on the divan.
They did so, turning their faces expectantly to the lattice. A narrow panel was then folded back and they saw, on the level of their eyes, another divan where a man lay, propped on pillows and covered with a silken sheet. Beyond him was a curtain of metal beads through which the light shone from an unseen source and against which they saw the vague shadow of some other human form move slightly.
The open panel was so narrow that they could see nothing of their host except his head and one shoulder and one bare hand and arm which he stretched out from under the sheet in greeting. Though the manner in which he received them made them jump to the conclusion that he was an invalid or a cripple, the face which he turned, smiling, towards them showed every sign of health. It was a bronzed face, too broad, perhaps, for a pure-blooded Arab’s or Berber’s. His nose was aquiline, but his eyes were very unlike any Arab’s that they had so far seen, being a curious golden grey colour and seeming even to have little bright gold flecks in them which shone in a most strange manner sometimes when he turned his head slightly and caught the light. His brow was broad and high; his eyes, though unusual, attractive and intelligent, but the harmony of his features was spoilt by an excessively wide, thin-lipped mouth, too broad a lower jaw and a shallow chin. Still, with those remarkable eyes and the friendliness of his expression and the brightness and animation of his smile, it was impossible to call him ugly.
His hand was well shaped, strong and sensitive-looking, and the arm he uncovered was muscular. They could not well guess his age, but they thought him young. His hair was raven black, short and curly and he wore neither beard nor moustache.
He spoke slowly, but did not seem at a loss for any English word. After solicitous enquiries whether they had been adequately looked after, he sought to reassure them again about their companions. He listened carefully to an account of their journey from Tagourirt, but asked few questions about their trip as a whole, their plans and ultimate destination. He seemed to find it no matter for comment at all that two young English girls should be driving a jeep across the Sahara, and answered Nicola’s remark that he might not often have visitors with a little deprecating gesture and a smile: ‘A guest is always expected.’
He urged them to tell him if there was anything else they wanted for their comfort, for there was no telling how long the storm might last: it would certainly be morning before they were able to go up on the desert again.
Nicola thought of the filmy gowns that had been offered them and replied that all she wanted for the night was a toothbrush. He laughed. ‘Our bushes provide them. You will find them strange, but not ineffective.’
‘There’s just one other thing,’ Nicola then said in a bold rush. ‘Can we go out and explore—I mean, just wander about by ourselves, we don’t want to bother any of your people. But this is such a strange place to us. We’ve never seen anything like it. And the lake. . . . We’ve been driving for five days over the desert. It would be heaven to have a swim, if we could.’
‘Do you both know how to swim?’ he asked with interest.
‘Yes. Alison does a very pretty crawl.’
‘There is no difficulty at all about that,’ said their host. ‘But you must wait until the sun is a little lower. Ah, yes. You will want costumes, I suppose, too. Well, I am sure we can provide you with something. And my people will take you to a good place. Excellent. We are all swimmers here. In fact we spend half our life in and on the lake.’
‘No crocodiles?’ Nicola asked.
‘No. No crocodiles.’ He considered her, smiling, for a moment. ‘Old stories tell that there were once large amphibious creatures in the lake, but not dangerous. Useful rather, when tamed, and pleasing to the eye. Well, but you must be tired now, after all your adventures since dawn today. Do you not wish to go and sleep? You cannot go out for another hour or so.’
‘I don’t think I shall sleep,’ said Alison. ‘The water has woken me up too much.’
‘Ah! Yes. You have bathed in the spring of life. That water, our people say, has properties to cure all ills, to prolong life and to perpetuate youthful strength. It is, at least, extraordinarily refreshing.’
He pondered for a moment.
‘Well then, as you will not take a siesta, let us spend the time talking. I have nothing to do for a while and I am delighted to receive two people who appreciate my simple cavern in the rocks so highly and love the cool waters as I do. Also, it is a great pleasure to me to use this speech. Languages have been my study, but it is a long time since I had the opportunity to speak yours. Now, if it would interest you, I will tell you something of the history of my home and then it will mean more to you when you go out and see it. First, let us be comfortable, and then I will begin with a legend.’
He called out, in a high, strong voice, and in a few moments some of the serving girls appeared in the alcove bringing trays on which were set dishes of grapes and slices of melon and other fruits with goblets of wine and flagons of cold water. Alison and Nicola tucked their feet up beneath them on the cushions and reclined, looking in through the open panel of the ivory screen and listened to their host’s story.
IV
‘Once upon a time,’ he said, ‘there was a king called Hazroar, and he had three sons, Azito, Menesca and Tathnarzuk. Now Hazroar was a pastoral king and his kingdom was a wide one. From his pastures in the north you could see the snowy mountains and from those in the south you could see the great river. It was all desert except this lake; but in the days when he reigned, long, long ago, the desert was not as it is now. In those days the winter winds blew from the Ocean and carried the grey rain far and wide over the land, so that in spring, wherever you rode the land was green and you might see plains covered with wild flowers, blue, scarlet, mauve and yellow, as far as the eye could range; and streams ran in the valley and the bushes grew thick beside them. In summer when for long months there was no rain and the upland pastures were withered and brown there was always grass in the valleys and low places and pools for the cattle and springs that did not fail.
‘In those days also our lake was many times bigger than this poor pond you have seen. Far away to north and east it extended in a wide marsh which teemed with fish and water-fowl and all its shores and islands were covered with a thick forest in which lived abundant game. Herds of elephants made broad beaten high-roads through the tall reeds and lions had their lairs among the rocks and thickets. Here by our cliffs the water was always clear and deep as it is now, for here the hidden river burst out from the heart of the earth as it does still.
‘King Hazroar in his youth had been a great warrior and had travelled far and wide in search of adventures. Many are the deeds of his that are still remembered, and among other stories that our people tell is the tale of how he swore an eternal friendship with Zuwar, the prince of Mauritania, and how together they fought many battles both against the men of the mountains and against the kings of the naked people beyond the river. The story I am going to tell you now relates something that came of the brotherhood oath of Hazroar and Zuwar.
‘Time passes; kings grow old and die. A day came when Hazroar and Zuwar had to return from adventures in distant places and ride home to govern the kingdoms that their fathers left them. Before they separated they renewed their oath of life-long alliance and to ensure that their two peoples might remain at peace with each other even after their deaths they made a pact that if one of them had a son and the other a daughter that son should marry that daughter, and so with the second son and the second daughter and the third, and with as many children as they had. Then they embraced for the last time and parted; Zuwar rode westwards into Mauritania and Hazroar to the tents of his people far to the east.
‘Thus it came about that before their birth Azito, Menesca and Tathnarzuk were betrothed to the daughters of King Zuwar. And it so happened that there were born to King Zuwar in the course of time three daughters and one
son.
‘Now Azito, the eldest son of King Hazroar, and Menesca the second son were strong and handsome boys; but the youngest, Tathnarzuk, was a misshapen dwarf.
‘It is said that for a long time after he was born the midwives dared not show the child to King Hazroar, but took the baby of one of the herdsmen and pretended that that was his new-born son. But when the mother rose up she took her own small, crooked thing and went boldly before the King and said: ‘Behold I have borne thee a son!’ At first King Hazroar was in a great rage, but when it was proved to him that the child was indeed hers he fell into deep sorrow and mourned that this affliction should have come upon his tribe, for it was accounted an ill-omen for the kingdom.
‘So King Hazroar took counsel with the chiefs of the tribes who were under him what was to be done. Some of the chiefs gave their opinion that the child should immediately be killed lest it bring sickness on the flocks and a drought on the pastures; but when they consulted the augurs and astrologers, these would by no means agree to the killing of the child, or to the exposing of it in an uninhabited desert as some had recommended, for, they said, having examined the little creature, they had formed the opinion that it was not wholly mortal but seemed to them rather to belong to the little dwarfs who inhabit the great marsh and who are a race descended from the spirits, or genii, of water and the earth. If the child were ill-used, said the soothsayers, these spirits would surely take vengeance on King Hazroar’s people and as it was well known that they could command the storms and the clouds and the rain and the winds, it was in their power to devastate the whole kingdom and destroy all its herds.
‘When King Hazroar heard this opinion he was convinced that it was the true one, because soon after he had married this child’s mother he had carried her off with him on a hunting expedition to the forests by the great lake, and he remembered that when he had returned from the chase one evening his bride had told him how she had wandered away with some of her women during the day and had rested from the heat in certain caverns where there was a spring of clear water and she had bathed in this spring. And now when he made enquiry among the old hunters of his tribes and those who knew the lake-country best he learned that that spring was indeed the home of a Genius, one of the sprites of the water. He thereupon questioned the Queen’s women closely and discovered from them that she had gone alone into the cavern and had allowed none to follow her and none had seen what she did there, except that some of the bolder ones who had followed a little way had heard voices and laughter in the depths of the cavern. Then King Hazroar was certain in his heart that his bride had been false to him, but he concealed his wrath at that time because he would not have the scandal known outside the tribe and he gave it out that the child was his own and called him Tathnarzuk, which means Who brings Good Fortune. But later he caused the child to be given to a foster mother and the Queen he had poisoned secretly.
‘Tathnarzuk grew uglier as he grew older. He was so ugly that the herdsmen feared for their mares in foal if he came near them. But King Hazroar, because he was afraid of the vengeance of the water-sprite, commanded all honour to be done to the child and favoured him even above his own sons Azito and Menesca.
‘He was so small and deformed that the other princes and their mothers were not jealous of him but rather pitied him. When he was eighteen years of age and full grown he was a sight at which strangers stood amazed and then roared with laughter. His head was the same size as other men’s, and no uglier than many except that he had light-coloured eyes, which were held, as they still are by the desert people, to be unlucky. His shoulders also were as broad as any young mans, and his arms almost as long, but below that he had only a ridiculous, round little body, like a spider’s, and a pair of short, crooked little legs, as useless to carry him as those of a baby that has not begun to walk. When he stood erect the knuckles of his hands touched the ground and he supported himself on his arms, like a baboon. He had learnt to move, in that way, very quickly, swinging himself forward on his strong arms and giving little leaps with his bandy legs. Only strangers dare laugh at him, for not only had the King commanded that all the respect due to a prince was to be paid him, but if anyone mocked or laughed at his deformity he flew into a violent rage, and though his head did not reach a grown man’s waist, he was so strong in the arms that if he could grip fast with one hand to a tree or rock or tent-pole he could thrust with a spear or sword as well as any warrior, and had indeed so killed a man who mocked him, calling him a Frog of the Marsh.
‘Tathnarzuk’s head was the normal size, but it contained five times the wit and knowledge of any other head in all the tribes his father ruled. From his earliest childhood he began to love learning. Very soon he had all the lore that the wise men of the kingdom could teach him; when he was a little older there could pass no stranger through the land but Tathnarzuk sent for him and questioned him on the foreign land he came from, learnt from him his native language and all the science of his country. He expended the rich gifts his father gave him in rewarding wise men and cunning workmen, artists and all who could teach him any knowledge of the mind or skill of the hands. He learnt all the crafts that were known in the kingdom: the crafts of the smith and the tanner and the weaver, the potter and the dyer: and also he learned from foreigners certain arts that were unknown in the desert; mason-work and glass-making and goldsmith’s work; and he learnt the art of writing.
‘When Tathnarzuk was eighteen years of age he begged the King his father to give him servants and animals that he might make a journey to the Lake, which he had never seen, for he was moved by a desire to find out the little dwarfs whose description he had heard from the soothsayers and the hunters who alone of his father’s people were acquainted with the country bordering the Lake. None else came near it for fear both of the dwarfs and the spirits of the water. When King Hazroar heard this request he was glad, for he thought that the water-sprite had summoned his son to return. It may be, thought the King, that the sprite will keep him there and so the danger will be removed from the tribes. So he gave riding animals and beasts of burden to Tathnarzuk and offered him slaves and fighting men to go with him. But Tathnarzuk chose only three hunters from his mother’s clan and set forth with them.
‘His little legs were quite useless for riding a horse, but he had been used to keep ambling mules so schooled that he could ride them without the aid of his legs and he had designed a particular kind of saddle that was both easy and safe for him. In addition, from very early childhood he had been accustomed to ride on a slave’s shoulders, and when he grew older he devised a kind of harness that a man could wear from his shoulders and in which he could sit or lean, supported safely by a leather strap, while the man carried him as he might carry a knapsack. Tathnarzuk used this manner of riding so much that he became able to travel very long journeys, whether his man went afoot or on horseback or on camelback, without fatigue.
‘In this way then, Tathnarzuk and his three hunters accomplished the journey from the camp of King Hazroar to the Lake and they descended to the shore not far from this very place where we are now. The hunters chose a dry and open place in the forest and prepared to build a hut for their prince, but Tathnarzuk told them they should undertake nothing more for him, but only wait until he returned to them. Then he raised himself onto his own mule and ordering the men on no account to attempt to follow him, he rode away through the forest in search of the little dwarfs.
‘No one knows what Tathnarzuk did or what happened to him in that time. A full month went by before he returned to his three hunters, and when he reappeared to them he told them to return to his father’s camp without him for he had chosen to remain and live with the Lake people for a time. At first the hunters were afraid to go back without him lest it should be said that they had lost him or that he had been killed by wild beasts or by the dwarfs of the marsh and they were telling this tale to hide their own guilt. But his commands were absolute, and finally, he ordered them to say to his father the K
ing: ‘Tathnarzuk bids us say to you that he has bathed in such-and-such a spring.’ Then they knew that King Hazroar would understand from that that he had met the water-sprite. So they departed and after many days’ journey came again to King Hazroar’s camp and delivered their message. Then the King rewarded them with gold and allowed them to return to their own clan.
‘King Hazroar lived many prosperous years after that. His tribes flourished and his flocks and herds increased and because of his alliance with Zuwar, the King of Mauritania, there was unbroken peace throughout his reign.
‘As for Tathnarzuk during these years, it is thought that he lived happily among the little dwarfs of the marsh, for he found in them creatures not unlike himself, of his own stature and just as ugly as he, and like himself, cunning craftsmen, skilled in many arts. He learnt their particular arts from them and taught them certain things they had not known until then. For example, it is said that before Tathnarzuk came the dwarfs had no boats, but only rafts made of logs or bundles of dry reeds. Tathnarzuk taught them how to make light skiffs or canoes by stretching skins over a framework of the light tough wood of the tree called aleb which still grows by the Lake. He showed them also how to temper bronze tools so that they would cut the hardest stone, he invented the drill, and he taught them the mason’s art. Most of all, he gave himself to the study of tongues and of the arts by which the dwarfs could communicate with and command the spirits of the water and the earth. Tathnarzuk learnt the languages of all the beasts and the birds and the insects so that, like the great lord Suleiman, who also commanded the Genii, he could understand the conversations of the mice in the grass when he sat quietly in the wood on a summer night, or the discourse of the cranes as they passed high overhead travelling northwards in the spring, and he listened to the news the ants exchanged as they went hurrying in their busy lines to and from their city. In the end, also, he learned the language of the spirits and the words by which to conjure the wind-genii and the sand-genii and the genii of the springs.