XL
THE TEMPLE OF THE BELL
It was hard for Chick to remember all the details of that great day.Throughout all the morning and afternoon he remained in his apartments.Breakfast over, the Rhamdas told him his part in certain ceremonies,such as need not be detailed here. They were very solicitous as tohis food and comfort, and as to his feelings and anticipations. Hisnonchalance pleased them greatly. Afterward he had a bath and rub-down.
A combat to the death, was it to be? Suits me, thought Watson. He wasnever in finer form.
The Jan Lucar was particularly interested. He pinched and strokedChick's muscles with the caressing pride of a connoisseur. Watsonstepped out of the fountain bath in all the vigour of health. Heplayfully reached out for the Lucar and tripped him up. He sought tolearn just what the Thomahlians knew in the art of self-defence.
The brief struggle that ensued taught him that he need expect no easyconquest. The Jan was quick, active and the possessor of a sciencepeculiarly effective. The Thomahlians did not box in the manner of theAnglo-Saxons; their mode was peculiar. Chick foresaw that he wouldbe compelled to combine the methods of three kinds of combat: boxing,ju-jitsu, and the good old catch-as-catch-can wrestling. If the Senestrowere superior to the Jan, he would have a time indeed. Though Watsonconquered, he could not but concede that the Jan was not only clever butscientific to an oily, bewildering degree. The Lucar paused.
"Enough, my lord! You are a man indeed. Do not overdo; save yourself forthe Senestro."
Clothes were brought, and Chick taken back to his apartment. The timepassed with Rhamdas constantly at his side.
The Geos was not present, nor the little queen. Chick sought permissionto sit by the window--permission that was granted after the guards hadplaced screens that would withhold any view from outside, yet permitChick to look out.
As far as he could see, the avenues were packed with people. Only, thistime the centres of the streets were clear; on the curbs he could seethe opposing lines of the blue and crimson, holding back the waitingthousands. In the distance he could hear chimes, faint but distinct,like silver bells tinkling over water.
At intervals rose strange choruses of weird, holy music. The full sweepof the city's domes and minarets was spread out before him. From eavesto basements the rolling luxuriance of orchidian beauty; banners, music,parade; a day of pageant, pomp, and fulfilment.
He could catch the excitement in the air, the strange, ladenundercurrent of spiritual salvation-something esoteric, undefinable, theecstasy of a million souls pulsing to the throb of a supreme moment. Hedrew back, someone had touched him.
"What is it?"
It was one of the Rhamdas. He had in his hand a small metal clover, ofthe design of the Jarados.
"What do I do?" asked Watson.
"This," said the Rhamda, "was sent to you by one of the Bars."
"By a Bar! What does it mean?"
The other shook his head. "It was sent to you by one who wished it to beknown by us that he is your friend, even though a Bar."
Just then Watson noted something sticking out of the edge of one of theclover leaves. He pulled it out. It was a piece of paper. On it werescrawled words IN ENGLISH.
The writing was pencil script, done in a poor hand and ill-spelled, butstill English. Chick read:
"Be of good cheer; there ain't a one in this world that can top a ladfrom Frisco. And it's Pat MacPherson that says it. Yer the finest laddiethat ever got beyond the old Witch of Endor. You and me, if we hold on,is just about goin' to play hell with the haythen. Hold on and fightlike the divil! Remember that Pat is with ye!
"We're both spooks.
"PAT MACPHERSON"
Said Watson: "Who gave you this? Did you see the man?"
"It was sent up my lord. The man was a high Bar in the Senestro'sguard."
Watson could not understand this. Was it possible that there were othersin this mysterious region besides himself? At any rate, he wasn't whollyalone. He felt that he could count upon the Irishman--or was thisfellow Scotch? Anyhow, such a man would find the quick means of wit at acrucial moment.
Suddenly Watson noted a queer feeling of emptiness. He looked out of thewindow. The music had ceased, and the incessant hum of the throngs haddeadened to silence. It was suspended, awesome, threatening. At the sametime, the Jan Lucar came to attention, at the opposite door stood theRhamda Geos, black clad, surrounded by a group of his fellows.
"Come, my lord," he said.
The crimson guard fell in behind Watson, the black-gowned took theirplaces ahead, and the Jan Lucar and the Geos walked on either side. Theystepped out into the corridor. By the indicator of a vertical clock,Chick noted that it was nine. He did not know the day of the year otherthan from the Thomahlian calendar; but he knew that it was close tosunset. He did not ask where they were going; there was no need. Thevery solemnity of his companions told him more than their answers wouldhave. In a moment they were in the streets.
Watson had thought that they would be taken by aircraft, or thatthey would pass through the building. He did not know that it was aconcession to the Bar Senestro; that the Senestro was but playing a bitof psychology that is often practised by lesser champions. If Watson'snerve was not broken it was simply because of the iron indifference ofconfident health. Chick had never been defeated. He had no fear. He wasfar more curious as to the scenes and events about him than he was ofthe outcome. He was hoping for some incident that would link itself upinto explanation.
At the door a curious car of graceful lines was waiting, an odd affairthat might be classed as a cross between a bird and a gondola, streamingwith colours and of magnificent workmanship and design. On the deck ofthis the three men took their places; on the one side the Rhamda Geos,tall, sombre, immaculate; on the other, the magnificent Jan Lucar in thegorgeous crimson uniform, gold-braided and studded with jewels; on hishead he wore the shako of purple down, and by his side a peculiar blackweapon which he wore much in the manner of a sword.
In the centre, Watson--bareheaded, his torso bare and his arms naked.He had been given a pair of soft sandals, and a short suit, whose oneredeeming feature in his eyes was a pocket into which he had thrust theautomatic that he valued so much. It was more like a picture of Romethan anything else. Whatever the civilisation of the Thomahlians, theirritual in Watson's eyes smacked still of barbarism.
But he was intensely interested in all about him. The avenues werelarge. On either side the guards were drawn up eight deep, holding backthe multitude that pressed and jostled with the insistence of curiosity.He looked into the myriad faces; about him, splendid features, ofintelligent man and women.
Not one face suggested the hideous; the women were especially beautiful,and, from what he could see, finely formed and graceful. Many of themsmiled; he could hear the curious buzz of conjecturing whispers. Somewere indifferent, while others, from the expression of their faces, wereopenly hostile.
Chick was in the middle of a procession, the Rhamdas marching before andthe crimson guard bringing up the rear. A special guard: the inner one,Rhamdas, the outer one of crimson surrounding them all.
The car started. There was no trace of friction; it was noiseless,automatic. Chick could only conjecture as to its mechanism. The blackcolumn of Rhamdas moved ahead rhythmically, with the swing of solemngrandeur. For some minutes they marched through the streets of theMahovisal. There was no cheering; it was a holy, awesome occasion. Chickcould sense the undercurrent of the staring thousands, the reverenceand the piety. It was the Day of the Prophet. They were staring at amiracle.
The column turned a corner. For the first time Watson was staggered bysheer immensity; for the first time he felt what it might be to see withthe eyes of an insect. Had he been an ant looking up at the columnsof Karnak, he would still have been out of proportion. It was immense,colossal, beyond man. It was of the omnipotent--the pillared portal ofthe Temple of the Bell.
Such a building a genius might dream of, in a moment of unhampered,inspired
imagination. It was stupendous. The pillars were hexagonalin shape, and in diameter each of about the size of an ordinary house.Dropping from an immense height, it seemed as if they had originallypoured out in the form of molten metal from immense bell-like flaresthat fell from the vaulted architrave. Such was the design.
Chick got the impression that the top of the structure, somehow, wasnot supported by the foundation, but rather the reverse--the floor wassuspended from the ceiling. It was the work of the Titans--so highand stupendous that at the first instant Watson felt numb withinsignificance. What chance had he against men of such colossalconception.
How large the building was he could not see. The Gargantuan facadeitself was enough to smother comprehension. It was laid out in theform of a triangle, one end of which was open towards the city; thetwo sections of the facade met under a huge, arched opening--the dooritself. Watson recognised the structure as the one he had seen fromthe June Bug on the outskirts of the Mahovisal. The enormous plaza waspacked with people, leaving only a narrow lane for the procession; andas far back as Chick could see crowds in the streets converged towardsthis vast space. Their numbers were incalculable.
The car stopped. The guards, both crimson and blue, formed a twenty-foldcordon. Watson could feel the suspended breath of the waiting multitude.The three men stepped out--the Geos first, then the Jan Lucar, andWatson last. Chick caught the Lucar's eye; it was confident; the man wasspringing with vigour, jovial in spite of the moment.
They passed between two of the huge pillars, and under the giant arch.For a few minutes they walked through what seemed, to Chick, a perfectmaze of those titanic columns. And every foot was marked by the lines ofcrimson and blue, flanking either side.
An immense sea of people rose high into the forest of pillars as far ashis eye could reach. He had never been in such a concourse of humanity.
They passed through an inner arch, a smaller and lower one, into whatChick guessed was the temple proper. And if Chick had thought theanteroom stupendous, he saw that a new word, one which went beyond allprevious experience, was needed to describe what he now saw.
It was almost too immense to be grasped in its entirety. Gone was themaze of columns; instead, far, far away to the right and to the left,stood single rows of herculean pillars. There were but seven on a side,separated by great distances; and between them stretched a space soimmense, so incredibly vast, that a small city could have been housedwithin it. And over it all was not the open sky, but a ceiling of suchterrific grandeur that Chick almost halted the procession while hegazed.
For that ceiling was the under side of a cloud, a grey-black, forbiddingthundercloud. And the fourteen pillars, seven on either side, wereprodigious waterspouts, monster spirals of the hue of storm, withflaring sweeps at top and bottom that welded roof and floor into oneterrific whole. Sheer from side to side stretched that portentous levelcloud; it was a span of an epoch; and on either side it was rooted inthose awful columns, seemingly alive, as though ready at any instant tosuck up the earth into the infinite.
By downright will-power Watson tore his attention away and directed itupon the other features of that unprecedented interior. It was lighted,apparently, by great windows behind the fourteen pillars; windowstoo far to be distinguishable. And the light revealed, directly aheadsomething that Chick at first thought to be a cascade of black water.It leaped out of the rear wall of the temple, and at its crest itwas bordered with walls of solid silver, cut across and designed withscrolls of gold and gem work; walls that swooped down and ended with twohuge green columns at the base of that fantastic fall.
As they approached a swarm of tiny bronze objects, silver winged,fluttered out through the temple--tiny birds, smaller than swallows,beautiful and swift-winged, elusive. They were without number; in amoment the air of the temple was alive with flitting, darting spots ofglinting colour.
Then Chick saw that there were two people sitting high on the crestof that cascade. Wondering, Chick and the rest marched on through thesilent crowd; all standing with bared heads and bated breaths. Theworshipping Thomahlians filled every inch of that enormous place. Onlya narrow lane permitted the procession to pass towards that puzzling,silent, black waterfall.
They were almost at its base when Chick saw the vanguard of the Rhamdasunhesitatingly stride straight against the torrent, and then mount uponit. Up they marched; and Chick knew that the black water was black jade,and that the two people at its crest were seated upon a landing at thetop of the grandest stairway he had ever seen.
Up went the Rhamdas deploying to right and left against the silverwalls. The crimson and blue uniformed guards remained behind, liningthe lane through the throng. At the foot of the steps Chick stopped andlooked around, and again he felt numb at the sheer vastness of it all.
For he was looking back now at the portal through which the processionhad marched; a portal now closed; and above it, covering a great expanseof that wall and extending up almost into the brooding cloud above, wasspread a mighty replica of the tri-coloured Sign of the Jarados.
For the first time Chick felt the full significance of symbolism.Whereas before it had been but an incident of adventure, now it was thesymbol of mystic revelation. It was not only the motif for all otherdecoration upon the walls and minor elements of the temple; it was theemblem of the trinity, deep, holy, significant of the mystery ofthe universe and the hereafter. There was something deeper than merefatalism; behind all was the fact-rooted faith of a civilisation.
But at that moment, as Chick paused with one foot on the bottom step ofthe flight, something happened that sent quivers of joy and confidenceall through him. Someone was talking--talking in English!
Chick looked. The speaker was a man in the blue garb of the Senestro'sguard. He was standing at the end of the line nearest the stair, andslightly in front of his fellows. Like the rest, he was holding hisweapon, a black, needled-pointed sword, at the salute. Chick gave himonly a glance, then had the presence of mind to look elsewhere as a mansaid, in a low, guarded voice:
"Y' air right, me lad; don't look at me. I know what ye're thinkin'. Butshe ain't as bad as she looks! Keep yer heart clear; never fear. You an'me can lick all Thomahlia! Go straight up them stairs, an' stand thatblackguard Senestro on his 'ead, just like y'd do in Frisco!"
"Who are you?" asked Watson, intent upon the great three-leafed clover.He used the same low, cautious tone the other had employed. "Who areyou, friend?"
"Pat MacPherson, of course," was the answer. "An' Oi've said a plenty.Now, go aboot your business."
Watson did not quibble. There was no time to learn more. He did not wishit to be noticed; yet he could not hide it from the Jan Lucar and theRhamda Geos, who were still at his side. They had heard that tonguebefore. The looks they exchanged told, however, that they were gratifiedrather than displeased by the interruption. Certainly all feelings ofdepression left Chick, and he ascended the stairs with a glad heart anda resilient stride that could not but be noticed.
He was ready for the Senestro.
The Blind Spot Page 42