A DREAMER'S TALES

LORD DUNSANY

1910

CONTENTS

Preface

Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean

Blagdaross

The Madness of Andelsprutz

Where the Tides Ebb and Flow

Bethmoora

Idle Days on the Yann

The Sword and the Idol

The Idle City

The Hashish Man

Poor Old Bill

The Beggars

Carcassonne

In Zaccarath

The Field

The Day of the Poll

The Unhappy Body

PREFACE

I hope for this book that it may come into the hands of those that werekind to my others and that it may not disappoint them. 

--Lord Dunsany

POLTARNEES, BEHOLDER OF OCEAN

Toldees, Mondath, Arizim, these are the Inner Lands, the lands whosesentinels upon their borders do not behold the sea. Beyond them to theeast there lies a desert, for ever untroubled by man: all yellow it is, and spotted with shadows of stones, and Death is in it, like a leopardlying in the sun. To the south they are bounded by magic, to the west by amountain, and to the north by the voice and anger of the Polar wind. Likea great wall is the mountain to the west. It comes up out of the distanceand goes down into the distance again, and it is named Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean. To the northward red rocks, smooth and bare of soil, and without any speck of moss or herbage, slope up to the very lips of thePolar wind, and there is nothing else there by the noise of his anger. Very peaceful are the Inner Lands, and very fair are their cities, andthere is no war among them, but quiet and ease. And they have no enemy butage, for thirst and fever lie sunning themselves out in the mid-desert, and never prowl into the Inner Lands. And the ghouls and ghosts, whosehighway is the night, are kept in the south by the boundary of magic. Andvery small are all their pleasant cities, and all men are known to oneanother therein, and bless one another by name as they meet in thestreets. And they have a broad, green way in every city that comes in outof some vale or wood or downland, and wanders in and out about the citybetween the houses and across the streets, and the people walk along itnever at all, but every year at her appointed time Spring walks along itfrom the flowery lands, causing the anemone to bloom on the green way andall the early joys of hidden woods, or deep, secluded vales, or triumphantdownlands, whose heads lift up so proudly, far up aloof from cities. 

Sometimes waggoners or shepherds walk along this way, they that have comeinto the city from over cloudy ridges, and the townsmen hinder them not, for there is a tread that troubleth the grass and a tread that troublethit not, and each man in his own heart knoweth which tread he hath. And inthe sunlit spaces of the weald and in the wold's dark places, afar fromthe music of cities and from the dance of the cities afar, they make therethe music of the country places and dance the country dance. Amiable, nearand friendly appears to these men the sun, and as he is genial to them andtends their younger vines, so they are kind to the little woodland thingsand any rumour of the fairies or old legend. And when the light of somelittle distant city makes a slight flush upon the edge of the sky, and thehappy golden windows of the homesteads stare gleaming into the dark, thenthe old and holy figure of Romance, cloaked even to the face, comes downout of hilly woodlands and bids dark shadows to rise and dance, and sendsthe forest creatures forth to prowl, and lights in a moment in her bowerof grass the little glowworm's lamp, and brings a hush down over the greylands, and out of it rises faintly on far-off hills the voice of a lute. There are not in the world lands more prosperous and happy than Toldees, Mondath, Arizim. 

From these three little kingdoms that are named the Inner Lands the youngmen stole constantly away. One by one they went, and no one knew why theywent save that they had a longing to behold the Sea. Of this longing theyspoke little, but a young man would become silent for a few days, andthen, one morning very early, he would slip away and slowly climbPoltarnee's difficult slope, and having attained the top pass over andnever return. A few stayed behind in the Inner Lands and became the oldmen, but none that had ever climbed Poltarnees from the very earliesttimes had ever come back again. Many had gone up Poltarnees sworn toreturn. Once a king sent all his courtiers, one by one, to report themystery to him, and then went himself; none ever returned. 

Now, it was the wont of the folk of the Inner Lands to worship rumours andlegends of the Sea, and all that their prophets discovered of the Sea waswrit in a sacred book, and with deep devotion on days of festival ormourning read in the temples by the priests. Now, all their temples layopen to the west, resting upon pillars, that the breeze from the Sea mightenter them, and they lay open on pillars to the east that the breezes ofthe Sea might not be hindered by pass onward wherever the Sea list. Andthis is the legend that they had of the Sea, whom none in the Inner Landshad ever beholden. They say that the Sea is a river heading towardsHercules, and they say that he touches against the edge of the world, andthat Poltarnees looks upon him. They say that all the worlds of heaven gobobbing on this river and are swept down with the stream, and thatInfinity is thick and furry with forests through which the river in hiscourse sweeps on with all the worlds of heaven. Among the colossal trunksof those dark trees, the smallest fronds of whose branches are man nights, there walk the gods. And whenever its thirst, glowing in space like agreat sun, comes upon the beast, the tiger of the gods creeps down to theriver to drink. And the tiger of the gods drinks his fill loudly, whelmingworlds the while, and the level of the river sinks between its banks erethe beast's thirst is quenched and ceases to glow like a sun. And manyworlds thereby are heaped up dry and stranded, and the gods walk not amongthem evermore, because they are hard to their feet. These are the worldsthat have no destiny, whose people know no god. And the river sweepsonwards ever. And the name of the River is Oriathon, but men call itOcean. This is the Lower Faith of the Inner Lands. And there is a HigherFaith which is not told to all. Oriathon sweeps on through the forests ofInfinity and all at once falls roaring over an Edge, whence Time has longago recalled his hours to fight in his war with the gods; and falls unlitby the flash of nights and days, with his flood unmeasured by miles, intothe deeps of nothing. 

Now as the centuries went by and the one way by which a man could climbPoltarnees became worn with feet, more and more men surmounted it, not toreturn. And still they knew not in the Inner Lands upon what mysteryPoltarnees looked. For on a still day and windless, while men walkedhappily about their beautiful streets or tended flocks in the country, suddenly the west wind would bestir himself and come in from the Sea. Andhe would come cloaked and grey and mournful and carry to someone thehungry cry of the Sea calling out for bones of men. And he that heard itwould move restlessly for some hours, and at last would rise suddenly, irresistibly up, setting his face to Poltarnees, and would say, as is thecustom of those lands when men part briefly, "Till a man's heartremembereth, " which means "Farewell for a while"; but those that lovedhim, seeing his eyes on Poltarnees, would answer sadly, "Till the godsforget, " which means "Farewell. "

Now the king of Arizim had a daughter who played with the wild woodflowers, and with the fountains in her father's court, and with the littleblue heaven-birds that came to her doorway in the winter to shelter fromthe snow. And she was more beautiful than the wild wood flowers, or thanall the fountains in her father's court, or than the blue heaven-birds intheir full winter plumage when they shelter from the snow. The old wisekings of Mondath and of Toldees saw her once as she went lightly down thelittle paths of her garden, and turning their gaze into the mists ofthought, pondered the destiny of their Inner Lands. And they watched herclosely by the stately flowers, and standing alone in the sunlight, andpassing and repassing the strutting purple birds that the king's fowlershad brought from Asagéhon. When she was of the age of fifteen years theKing of Mondath called a council of kings. And there met with him thekings of Toldees and Arizim. And the King of Mondath in his Council said:

"The call of the unappeased and hungry Sea (and at the word 'Sea' thethree kings bowed their heads) lures every year out of our happy kingdomsmore and more of our men, and still we know not the mystery of the Sea, and no devised oath has brought one man back. Now thy daughter, Arizim, islovelier than the sunlight, and lovelier than those stately flowers ofthine that stand so tall in her garden, and hath more grace and beautythan those strange birds that the venturous fowlers bring in creakingwagons out of Asagéhon, whose feathers are alternate purple and white. Now, he that shall love thy daughter, Hilnaric, whoever he shall be, isthe man to climb Poltarnees and return, as none hath ever before, and tellus upon what Poltarnees looks; for it may be that they daughter is morebeautiful than the Sea. "

Then from his Seat of Council arose the King of Arizim. He said: "I fearthat thou hast spoken blasphemy against the Sea, and I have a dread thatill will come of it. Indeed I had not thought she was so fair. It is sucha short while ago that she was quite a small child with her hair stillunkempt and not yet attired in the manner of princesses, and she would goup into the wild woods unattended and come back with her robes unseemlyand all torn, and would not take reproof with a humble spirit, but madegrimaces even in my marble court all set about with fountains. "

Then said the King of Toldees:

"Let us watch more closely and let us see the Princess Hilnaric in theseason of the orchard-bloom when the great birds go by that know the Sea, to rest in our inland places; and if she be more beautiful than thesunrise over our folded kingdoms when all the orchards bloom, it may bethat she is more beautiful than the Sea. "

And the King of Arizim said:

"I fear this is terrible blasphemy, yet will I do as you have decided incouncil. "

And the season of the orchard-bloom appeared. One night the King of Arizimcalled his daughter forth on his outer balcony of marble. And the moon wasrising huge and round and holy over dark woods, and all the fountains weresinging to the night. And the moon touched the marble palace gables, andthey glowed in the land. And the moon touched the heads of all thefountains, and the grey columns broke into fairy lights. And the moon leftthe dark ways of the forest and lit the whole white palace and itsfountains and shone on the forehead of the Princess, and the palace ofArizim glowed afar, and the fountains became columns of gleaming jewelsand song. And the moon made a music at its rising, but it fell a littleshort of mortal ears. And Hilnaric stood there wondering, clad in white, with the moonlight shining on her forehead; and watching her from theshadows on the terrace stood the kings of Mondath and Toldees. They said. 

"She is more beautiful than the moonrise. " And the season of theorchard-bloom appeared. One night the King of Arizim called his daughterforth on his outer balcony of marble. And the moon was rising huge andround and holy over dark woods, and all the fountains were singing to thenight. And the moon touched the marble palace gables, and they glowed inthe land. And the moon touched the heads of all the fountains, and thegrey columns broke into fairy lights. And the moon left the dark ways ofthe forest and lit the whole white palace and its fountains and shone onthe forehead of the Princess, and the palace of Arizim glowed afar, andthe fountains became columns of gleaming jewels and song. And the moonmade a music at its rising, but it fell a little short of mortal ears. AndHilnaric stood there wondering, clad in white, with the moonlight shiningon her forehead; and watching her from the shadows on the terrace stoodthe kings of Mondath and Toldees. They said:

"She is more beautiful than the moonrise. " And on another day the King ofArizim bade his daughter forth at dawn, and they stood again upon thebalcony. And the sun came up over a world of orchards, and the sea-mistswent back over Poltarnees to the Sea; little wild voices arose in all thethickets, the voices of the fountains began to die, and the song arose, inall the marble temples, of the birds that are sacred to the Sea. AndHilnaric stood there, still glowing with dreams of heaven. 

"She is more beautiful, " said the kings, "than morning. "

Yet one more trial they made of Hilnaric's beauty, for they watched her onthe terraces at sunset ere yet the petals of the orchards had fallen, andall along the edge of neighbouring woods the rhododendron was bloomingwith the azalea. And the sun went down under craggy Poltarnees, and thesea-mist poured over his summit inland. And the marble temples stood upclear in the evening, but films of twilight were drawn between themountain and the city. Then from the Temple ledges and eaves of palacesthe bats fell headlong downwards, then spread their wings and floated upand down through darkening ways; lights came blinking out in goldenwindows, men cloaked themselves against the grey sea-mist, the sound ofsmall songs arose, and the face of Hilnaric became a resting-place formysteries and dreams. 

"Than all these things, " said the kings, "she is more lovely: but who cansay whether she is lovelier than the Sea?"

Prone in a rhododendron thicket at the edge of the palace lawns a hunterhad waited since the sun went down. Near to him was a deep pool where thehyacinths grew and strange flowers floated upon it with broad leaves; andthere the great bull gariachs came down to drink by starlight; and, waiting there for the gariachs to come, he saw the white form of thePrincess leaning on her balcony. Before the stars shone out or the bullscame down to drink he left his lurking-place and moved closer to thepalace to see more nearly the Princess. The palace lawns were full ofuntrodden dew, and everything was still when he came across them, holdinghis great spear. In the farthest corner of the terraces the three oldkings were discussing the beauty of Hilnaric and the destiny of the InnerLands. Moving lightly, with a hunter's tread, the watcher by the pool camevery near, even in the still evening, before the Princess saw him. When hesaw her closely he exclaimed suddenly:

"She must be more beautiful than the Sea. "

When the Princess turned and saw his garb and his great spear she knewthat he was a hunter of gariachs. 

When the three kings heard the young man exclaim they said softly to oneanother:

"This must be the man. "

Then they revealed themselves to him, and spoke to him to try him. Theysaid:

"Sir, you have spoken blasphemy against the Sea. "

And the young man muttered:

"She is more beautiful than the Sea. "

And the kings said:

"We are older than you and wiser, and know that nothing is more beautifulthan the Sea. "

And the young man took off the gear of his head, and became downcast, andhe knew that he spake with kings, yet he answered:

"By this spear, she is more beautiful than the Sea. "

And all the while the Princess stared at him, knowing him to be a hunterof gariachs. 

Then the king of Arizim said to the watcher by the pool:

"If thou wilt go up Poltarnees and come back, as none have come, andreport to us what lure or magic is in the Sea, we will pardon thyblasphemy, and thou shalt have the Princess to wife and sit among theCouncil of Kings. "

And gladly thereunto the young man consented. And the Princess spoke tohim, and asked him his name. And he told her that his name was Athelvok, and great joy arose in him at the sound of her voice. And to the threekings he promised to set out on the third day to scale the slope ofPoltarnees and to return again, and this was the oath by which they boundhim to return:

"I swear by the Sea that bears the worlds away, by the river of Oriathon, which men call Ocean, and by the gods and their tiger, and by the doom ofthe worlds, that I will return again to the Inner Lands, having beheld theSea. "

And that oath he swore with solemnity that very night in one of thetemples of the Sea, but the three kings trusted more to the beauty ofHilnaric even than to the power of the oath. 

The next day Athelvok came to the palace of Arizim with the morning, overthe fields to the East and out of the country of Toldees, and Hilnariccame out along her balcony and met him on the terraces. And she asked himif he had ever slain a gariach, and he said that he had slain three, andthen he told her how he had killed his first down by the pool in the wood. For he had taken his father's spear and gone down to the edge of the pool, and had lain under the azaleas there waiting for the stars to shine, bywhose first light the gariachs go to the pools to drink; and he had gonetoo early and had had long to wait, and the passing hours seemed longerthan they were. And all the birds came in that home at night, and the batwas abroad, and the hour of the duck went by, and still no gariach camedown to the pool; and Athelvok felt sure that none would come. And just asthis grew to a certainty in his mind the thicket parted noiselessly and ahuge bull gariach stood facing him on the edge of the water, and his greathorns swept out sideways from his head, and at the ends curved upwards, and were four strides in width from tip to tip. And he had not seenAthelvok, for the great bull was on the far side of the little pool, andAthelvok could not creep round to him for fear of meeting the wind (forthe gariachs, who can see little in the dark forests, rely on hearing andsmell). But he devised swiftly in his mind while the bull stood there withhead erect just twenty strides from him across the water. And the bullsniffed the wind cautiously and listened, then lowered his great head downto the pool and drank. At that instant Athelvok leapt into the water andshot forward through its weedy depths among the stems of the strangeflowers that floated upon broad leaves on the surface. And Athelvok kepthis spear out straight before him, and the fingers of his left hand heheld rigid and straight, not pointing upwards, and so did not come to thesurface, but was carried onward by the strength of his spring and passedunentangled through the stems of the flowers. When Athelvok jumped intothe water the bull must have thrown his head up, startled at the splash, then he would have listened and have sniffed the air, and neither hearingnor scenting any danger he must have remained rigid for some moments, forit was in that attitude that Athelvok found him as he emerged breathlessat his feet. And, striking at once, Athelvok drove the spear into histhroat before the head and the terrible horns came down. But Athelvok hadclung to one of the great horns, and had been carried at terrible speedthrough the rhododendron bushes until the gariach fell, but rose at onceagain, and died standing up, still struggling, drowned in its own blood. 

But to Hilnaric listening it was as though one of the heroes of old timehad come back again in the full glory of his legendary youth. 

And long time they went up and down the terraces, saying those thingswhich were said before and since, and which lips shall yet be made to sayagain. And above them stood Poltarnees beholding the Sea. 

And the day came when Athelvok should go. And Hilnaric said to him:

"Will you not indeed most surely come back again, having just looked overthe summit of Poltarnees?"

Athelvok answered: "I will indeed come back, for thy voice is morebeautiful than the hymn of the priests when they chant and praise the Sea, and though many tributary seas ran down into Oriathon and he and all theothers poured their beauty into one pool below me, yet would I returnswearing that thou were fairer than they. "

And Hilnaric answered:

"The wisdom of my heart tells me, or old knowledge or prophecy, or somestrange lore, that I shall never hear thy voice again. And for this I givethee my forgiveness. "

But he, repeating the oath that he had sworn, set out, looking oftenbackwards until the slope became to step and his face was set to the rock. It was in the morning that he started, and he climbed all the day withlittle rest, where every foot-hole was smooth with many feet. Before hereached the top the sun disappeared from him, and darker and darker grewthe Inner Lands. Then he pushed on so as to see before dark whatever thingPoltarnees had to show. The dusk was deep over the Inner Lands, and thelights of cities twinkled through the sea-mist when he came toPoltarnees's summit, and the sun before him was not yet gone from the sky. 

And there below him was the old wrinkled Sea, smiling and murmuring song. And he nursed little ships with gleaming sails, and in his hands were oldregretted wrecks, and mast all studded over with golden nails that he hadrent in anger out of beautiful galleons. And the glory of the sun wasamong the surges as they brought driftwood out of isles of spice, tossingtheir golden heads. And the grey currents crept away to the south likecompanionless serpents that love something afar with a restless, deadlylove. And the whole plain of water glittering with late sunlight, and thesurges and the currents and the white sails of ships were all togetherlike the face of a strange new god that has looked at a man for the firsttime in the eyes at the moment of his death; and Athelvok, looking on thewonderful Sea, knew why it was that the dead never return, for there issomething that the dead feel and know, and the living would neverunderstand even though the dead should come and speak to them about it. And there was the Sea smiling at him, glad with the glory of the sun. Andthere was a haven there for homing ships, and a sunlit city stood upon itsmarge, and people walked about the streets of it clad in the unimaginedmerchandise of far sea-bordering lands. 

An easy slope of loose rock went from the top of Poltarnees to the shoreof the Sea. 

For a long while Athelvok stood there regretfully, knowing that there hadcome something into his soul that no one in the Inner Lands couldunderstand, where the thoughts of their minds had gone no farther than thethree little kingdoms. Then, looking long upon the wandering ships, andthe marvelous merchandise from alien lands, and the unknown colour thatwreathed the brows of the Sea, he turned his face to the darkness and theInner Lands. 

At that moment the Sea sang a dirge at sunset for all the harm that he haddone in anger and all the ruin wrought on adventurous ships; and therewere tears in the voice of the tyrannous Sea, for he had loved thegalleons that he had overwhelmed, and he called all men to him and allliving things that he might make amends, because he had loved the bonesthat he had strewn afar. And Athelvok turned and set one foot upon thecrumbled slope, and then another, and walked a little way to be nearer tothe Sea, and then a dream came upon him and he felt that men had wrongedthe lovely Sea because he had been angry a little, because he had beensometimes cruel; he felt that there was trouble among the tides of the Seabecause he had loved the galleons who were dead. Still he walked on andthe crumbled stones rolled with him, and just as the twilight faded and astar appeared he came to the golden shore, and walked on till the surgeswere about his knees, and he heard the prayer-like blessings of the Sea. Long he stood thus, while the stars came out above him and shone again inthe surges; more stars came wheeling in their courses up from the Sea, lights twinkled out through all the haven city, lanterns were slung fromthe ships, the purple night burned on; and Earth, to the eyes of the godsas they sat afar, glowed as with one flame. Then Athelvok went into thehaven city; there he met many who had left the Inner Lands before him;none of them wished to return to the people who had not seen the Sea; manyof them had forgotten the three little kingdoms, and it was rumoured thatone man, who had once tried to return, had found the shifting, crumbledslope impossible to climb. 

Hilnaric never married. But her dowry was set aside to build a templewherein men curse the ocean. 

Once every year, with solemn rite and ceremony, they curse the tides ofthe Sea; and the moon looks in and hates them. 

BLAGDAROSS

On a waste place strewn with bricks in the outskirts of a town twilightwas falling. A star or two appeared over the smoke, and distant windowslit mysterious lights. The stillness deepened and the loneliness. Then allthe outcast things that are silent by day found voices. 

An old cork spoke first. He said: "I grew in Andalusian woods, but neverlistened to the idle songs of Spain. I only grew strong in the sunlightwaiting for my destiny. One day the merchants came and took us all awayand carried us all along the shore of the sea, piled high on the backs ofdonkeys, and in a town by the sea they made me into the shape that I amnow. One day they sent me northward to Provence, and there I fulfilled mydestiny. For they set me as a guard over the bubbling wine, and Ifaithfully stood sentinel for twenty years. For the first few years in thebottle that I guarded the wine slept, dreaming of Provence; but as theyears went on he grew stronger and stronger, until at last whenever a manwent by the wind would put out all his might against me, saying, 'Let mego free; let me go free!' And every year his strength increased, and hegrew more clamourous when men went by, but never availed to hurl me frommy post. But when I had powerfully held him for twenty years they broughthim to the banquet and took me from my post, and the wine arose rejoicingand leapt through the veins of men and exalted their souls within themtill they stood up in their places and sang Provençal songs. But me theycast away--me that had been sentinel for twenty years, and was still asstrong and staunch as when first I went on guard. Now I am an outcast in acold northern city, who once have known the Andalusian skies and guardedlong ago Provençal suns that swam in the heart of the rejoicing wine. "

An unstruck match that somebody had dropped spoke next. "I am a child ofthe sun, " he said, "and an enemy of cities; there is more in my heart thanyou know of. I am a brother of Etna and Stromboli; I have fires lurking inme that will one day rise up beautiful and strong. We will not go intoservitude on any hearth nor work machines for our food, but we will takeout own food where we find it on that day when we are strong. There arewonderful children in my heart whose faces shall be more lively than therainbow; they shall make a compact with the North wind, and he shall leadthem forth; all shall be black behind them and black above them, and thereshall be nothing beautiful in the world but them; they shall seize uponthe earth and it shall be theirs, and nothing shall stop them but our oldenemy the sea. "

Then an old broken kettle spoke, and said: "I am the friend of cities. Isit among the slaves upon the hearth, the little flames that have been fedwith coal. When the slaves dance behind the iron bars I sit in the middleof the dance and sing and make our masters glad. And I make songs aboutthe comfort of the cat, and about the malice that is towards her in theheart of the dog, and about the crawling of the baby, and about the easethat is in the lord of the house when we brew the good brown tea; andsometimes when the house is very warm and slaves and masters are glad, Irebuke the hostile winds that prowl about the world. "

And then there spoke the piece of an old cord. "I was made in a place ofdoom, and doomed men made my fibres, working without hope. Therefore therecame a grimness into my heart, so that I never let anything go free whenonce I was set to bind it. Many a thing have I bound relentlessly formonths and years; for I used to come coiling into warehouses where thegreat boxes lay all open to the air, and one of them would be suddenlyclosed up, and my fearful strength would be set on him like accurse, andif his timbers groaned when first I seized them, or if they creaked aloudin the lonely night, thinking of woodlands out of which they came, then Ionly gripped them tighter still, for the poor useless hate is in my soulof those that made me in the place of doom. Yet, for all the things thatmy prison-clutch has held, the last work that I did was to set somethingfree. I lay idle one night in the gloom on the warehouse floor. Nothingstirred there, and even the spider slept. Towards midnight a great flockof echoes suddenly leapt up from the wooden planks and circled round theroof. A man was coming towards me all alone. And as he came his soul wasreproaching him, and I saw that there was a great trouble between the manand his soul, for his soul would not let him be, but went on reproachinghim. 

"Then the man saw me and said, 'This at least will not fail me. ' When Iheard him say this about me, I determined that whatever he might requireof me it should be done to the uttermost. And as I made this determinationin my unfaltering heart, he picked me up and stood on an empty box that Ishould have bound on the morrow, and tied one end of me to a dark rafter;and the knot was carelessly tied, because his soul was reproaching him allthe while continually and giving him no ease. Then he made the other endof me into a noose, but when the man's soul saw this it stoppedreproaching the man, and cried out to him hurriedly, and besought him tobe at peace with it and to do nothing sudden; but the man went on with hiswork, and put the noose down over his face and underneath his chin, andthe soul screamed horribly. 

"Then the man kicked the box away with his foot, and the moment he didthis I knew that my strength was not great enough to hold him; but Iremembered that he had said I would not fail him, and I put all my grimvigour into my fibres and held by sheer will. Then the soul shouted to meto give way, but I said:

"'No; you vexed the man. '

"Then it screamed for me to leave go of the rafter, and already I wasslipping, for I only held on to it by a careless knot, but I gripped withmy prison grip and said:

"'You vexed the man. '

"And very swiftly it said other things to me, but I answered not; and atlast the soul that vexed the man that had trusted me flew away and lefthim at peace. I was never able to bind things any more, for every one ofmy fibres was worn and wrenched, and even my relentless heart was weakenedby the struggle. Very soon afterwards I was thrown out here. I have donemy work. "

So they spoke among themselves, but all the while there loomed above themthe form of an old rocking-horse complaining bitterly. He said: "I amBlagdaross. Woe is me that I should lie now an outcast among these worthybut little people. Alas! for the days that are gathered, and alas for theGreat One that was a master and a soul to me, whose spirit is now shrunkenand can never know me again, and no more ride abroad on knightly quests. Iwas Bucephalus when he was Alexander, and carried him victorious as far asInd. I encountered dragons with him when he was St. George, I was thehorse of Roland fighting for Christendom, and was often Rosinante. Ifought in tournays and went errant upon quests, and met Ulysses and theheroes and the fairies. Or late in the evening, just before the lamps inthe nursery were put out, he would suddenly mount me, and we would gallopthrough Africa. There we would pass by night through tropic forests, andcome upon dark rivers sweeping by, all gleaming with the eyes ofcrocodiles, where the hippopotamus floated down with the stream, andmysterious craft loomed suddenly out of the dark and furtively passedaway. And when we had passed through the forest lit by the fireflies wewould come to the open plains, and gallop onwards with scarlet flamingoesflying along beside us through the lands of dusky kings, with goldencrowns upon their heads and scepters in their hands, who came running outof their palaces to see us pass. Then I would wheel suddenly, and the dustflew up from my four hooves as I turned and we galloped home again, and mymaster was put to bed. And again he would ride abroad on another day tillwe came to magical fortresses guarded by wizardry and overthrew thedragons at the gate, and ever came back with a princess fairer than thesea. 

"But my master began to grow larger in his body and smaller in his soul, and then he rode more seldom upon quests. At last he saw gold and nevercame again, and I was cast out here among these little people. "

But while the rocking-horse was speaking two boys stole away, unnoticed bytheir parents, from a house on the edge of the waste place, and werecoming across it looking for adventures. One of them carried a broom, andwhen he saw the rocking-horse he said nothing, but broke off the handlefrom the broom and thrust it between his braces and his shirt on the leftside. Then he mounted the rocking-horse, and drawing forth the broomstick, which was sharp and spiky at the end, said, "Saladin is in this desertwith all his paynims, and I am Coeur de Lion. " After a while the other boysaid: "Now let me kill Saladin too. " But Blagdaross in his wooden heart, that exulted with thoughts of battle, said: "I am Blagdaross yet!"

THE MADNESS OF ANDELSPRUTZ

I first saw the city of Andelsprutz on an afternoon in spring. The day wasfull of sunshine as I came by the way of the fields, and all that morningI had said, "There will be sunlight on it when I see for the first timethe beautiful conquered city whose fame has so often made for me lovelydreams. " Suddenly I saw its fortifications lifting out of the fields, andbehind them stood its belfries. I went in by a gate and saw its houses andstreets, and a great disappointment came upon me. For there is an airabout a city, and it has a way with it, whereby a man may recognized onefrom another at once. There are cities full of happiness and cities fullof pleasure, and cities full of gloom. There are cities with their facesto heaven, and some with their faces to earth; some have a way of lookingat the past and others look at the future; some notice you if you comeamong them, others glance at you, others let you go by. Some love thecities that are their neighbours, others are dear to the plains and to theheath; some cities are bare to the wind, others have purple cloaks andothers brown cloaks, and some are clad in white. Some tell the old tale oftheir infancy, with others it is secret; some cities sing and some mutter, some are angry, and some have broken hearts, and each city has her way ofgreeting Time. 

I had said: "I will see Andelsprutz arrogant with her beauty, " and I hadsaid: "I will see her weeping over her conquest. "

I had said: "She will sing songs to me, " and "she will be reticent, " "shewill be all robed, " and "she will be bare but splendid. "

But the windows of Andelsprutz in her houses looked vacantly over theplains like the eyes of a dead madman. At the hour her chimes soundedunlovely and discordant, some of them were out of tune, and the bells ofsome were cracked, her roofs were bald and without moss. At evening nopleasant rumour arose in her streets. When the lamps were lit in thehouses no mystical flood of light stole out into the dusk, you merely sawthat there were lighted lamps; Andelsprutz had no way with her and no airabout her. When the night fell and the blinds were all drawn down, then Iperceived what I had not thought in the daylight. I knew then thatAndelsprutz was dead. 

I saw a fair-haired man who drank beer in a café, and I said to him:

"Why is the city of Andelsprutz quite dead, and her soul gone hence?"

He answered: "Cities do not have souls and there is never any life inbricks. "

And I said to him: "Sir, you have spoken truly. "

And I asked the same question of another man, and he gave me the sameanswer, and I thanked him for his courtesy. And I saw a man of a moreslender build, who had black hair, and channels in his cheeks for tears torun in, and I said to him:

"Why is Andelsprutz quite dead, and when did her soul go hence?"

And he answered: "Andelsprutz hoped too much. For thirty years would shestretch out her arms toward the land of Akla every night, to Mother Aklafrom whom she had been stolen. Every night she would be hoping andsighing, and stretching out her arms to Mother Akla. At midnight, once ayear, on the anniversary of the terrible day, Akla would send spies to laya wreath against the walls of Andelsprutz. She could do no more. And onthis night, once in every year, I used to weep, for weeping was the moodof the city that nursed me. Every night while other cities slept didAndelsprutz sit brooding here and hoping, till thirty wreaths laymouldering by her walls, and still the armies of Akla could not come. 

"But after she had hoped so long, and on the night that faithful spies hadbrought her thirtieth wreath, Andelsprutz went suddenly mad. All the bellsclanged hideously in the belfries, horses bolted in the streets, the dogsall howled, the stolid conquerors awoke and turned in their beds and sleptagain; and I saw the grey shadowy form of Andelsprutz rise up, decking herhair with the phantasms of cathedrals, and stride away from her city. Andthe great shadowy form that was the soul of Andelsprutz went awaymuttering to the mountains, and there I followed her--for had she not beenmy nurse? Yes, I went away alone into the mountains, and for three days, wrapped in a cloak, I slept in their misty solitudes. I had no food toeat, and to drink I had only the water of the mountain streams. By day noliving thing was near to me, and I heard nothing but the noise of thewind, and the mountain streams roaring. But for three nights I heard allround me on the mountain the sounds of a great city: I saw the lights oftall cathedral windows flash momentarily on the peaks, and at times theglimmering lantern of some fortress patrol. And I saw the huge mistyoutline of the soul of Andelsprutz sitting decked with her ghostlycathedrals, speaking to herself, with her eyes fixed before her in a madstare, telling of ancient wars. And her confused speech for all thosenights upon the mountain was sometimes the voice of traffic, and then ofchurch bells, and then of bugles, but oftenest it was the voice of redwar; and it was all incoherent, and she was quite mad. 

"The third night it rained heavily all night long, but I stayed up thereto watch the soul of my native city. And she still sat staring straightbefore her, raving; but here voice was gentler now, there were more chimesin it, and occasional song. Midnight passed, and the rain still swept downon me, and still the solitudes of the mountain were full of the mutteringsof the poor mad city. And the hours after midnight came, the cold hourswherein sick men die. 

"Suddenly I was aware of great shapes moving in the rain, and heard thesound of voices that were not of my city nor yet of any that I ever knew. And presently I discerned, though faintly, the souls of a great concourseof cities, all bending over Andelsprutz and comforting her, and theravines of the mountains roared that night with the voices of cities thathad lain still for centuries. For there came the soul of Camelot that hadso long ago forsaken Usk; and there was Ilion, all girt with towers, stillcursing the sweet face of ruinous Helen; I saw there Babylon andPersepolis, and the bearded face of bull-like Nineveh, and Athens mourningher immortal gods. 

"All these souls if cities that were dead spoke that night on the mountainto my city and soothed her, until at last she muttered of war no longer, and her eyes stared wildly no more, but she hid her face in her hands andfor some while wept softly. At last she arose, and walking slowly and withbended head, and leaning upon Ilion and Carthage, went mournfullyeastwards; and the dust of her highways swirled behind her as she went, aghostly dust that never turned to mud in all that drenching rain. And sothe souls of the cities led her away, and gradually they disappeared fromthe mountain, and the ancient voices died away in the distance. 

"Now since then have I seen my city alive; but once I met with a travelerwho said that somewhere in the midst of a great desert are gatheredtogether the souls of all dead cities. He said that he was lost once in aplace where there was no water, and he heard their voices speaking all thenight. "

But I said: "I was once without water in a desert and heard a cityspeaking to me, but knew not whether it really spoke to me or not, for onthat day I heard so many terrible things, and only some of them weretrue. "

And the man with the black hair said: "I believe it to be true, thoughwhither she went I know not. I only know that a shepherd found me in themorning faint with hunger and cold, and carried me down here; and when Icame to Andelsprutz it was, as you have perceived it, dead. "

WHERE THE TIDES EBB AND FLOW

I dreamt that I had done a horrible thing, so that burial was to be deniedme either in soil or sea, neither could there be any hell for me. 

I waited for some hours, knowing this. Then my friends came for me, andslew me secretly and with ancient rite, and lit great tapers, and carriedme away. 

It was all in London that the thing was done, and they went furtively atdead of night along grey streets and among mean houses until they came tothe river. And the river and the tide of the sea were grappling with oneanother between the mud-banks, and both of them were black and full oflights. A sudden wonder came in to the eyes of each, as my friends camenear to them with their glaring tapers. All these things I saw as theycarried me dead and stiffening, for my soul was still among my bones, because there was no hell for it, and because Christian burial was deniedme. 

They took me down a stairway that was green with slimy things, and so cameslowly to the terrible mud. There, in the territory of forsaken things, they dug a shallow grave. When they had finished they laid me in thegrave, and suddenly they cast their tapers to the river. And when thewater had quenched the flaring lights the tapers looked pale and small asthey bobbed upon the tide, and at once the glamour of the calamity wasgone, and I noticed then the approach of the huge dawn; and my friendscast their cloaks over their faces, and the solemn procession was turnedinto many fugitives that furtively stole away. 

Then the mud came back wearily and covered all but my face. There I layalone with quite forgotten things, with drifting things that the tideswill take no farther, with useless things and lost things, and with thehorrible unnatural bricks that are neither stone nor soil. I was rid offeeling, because I had been killed, but perception and thought were in myunhappy soul. The dawn widened, and I saw the desolate houses that crowdedthe marge of the river, and their dead windows peered into my dead eyes, windows with bales behind them instead of human souls. I grew so wearylooking at these forlorn things that I wanted to cry out, but could not, because I was dead. Then I knew, as I had never known before, that for allthe years that herd of desolate houses had wanted to cry out too, but, being dead, were dumb. And I knew then that it had yet been well with theforgotten drifting things if they had wept, but they were eyeless andwithout life. And I, too, tried to weep, but there were no tears in mydead eyes. And I knew then that the river might have cared for us, mighthave caressed us, might have sung to us, but he swept broadly onwards, thinking of nothing but the princely ships. 

At last the tide did what the river would not, and came and covered meover, and my soul had rest in the green water, and rejoiced and believedthat it had the Burial of the Sea. But with the ebb the water fell again, and left me alone again with the callous mud among the forgotten thingsthat drift no more, and with the sight of all those desolate houses, andwith the knowledge among all of us that each was dead. 

In the mournful wall behind me, hung with green weeds, forsaken of thesea, dark tunnels appeared, and secret narrow passages that were clampedand barred. From these at last the stealthy rats came down to nibble meaway, and my soul rejoiced thereat and believed that he would be freeperforce from the accursed bones to which burial was refused. Very soonthe rats ran away a little space and whispered among themselves. Theynever came any more. When I found that I was accursed even among the ratsI tried to weep again. 

Then the tide came swinging back and covered the dreadful mud, and hid thedesolate houses, and soothed the forgotten things, and my soul had easefor a while in the sepulture of the sea. And then the tide forsook meagain. 

To and fro it came about me for many years. Then the County Council foundme, and gave me decent burial. It was the first grave that I had everslept in. That very night my friends came for me. They dug me up and putme back again in the shallow hold in the mud. 

Again and again through the years my bones found burial, but always behindthe funeral lurked one of those terrible men who, as soon as night fell, came and dug them up and carried them back again to the hole in the mud. 

And then one day the last of those men died who once had done to me thisterrible thing. I heard his soul go over the river at sunset. 

And again I hoped. 

A few weeks afterwards I was found once more, and once more taken out ofthat restless place and given deep burial in sacred ground, where my soulhoped that it should rest. 

Almost at once men came with cloaks and tapers to give me back to the mud, for the thing had become a tradition and a rite. And all the forsakenthings mocked me in their dumb hearts when they saw me carried back, forthey were jealous of me because I had left the mud. It must be rememberedthat I could not weep. 

And the years went by seawards where the black barges go, and the greatderelict centuries became lost at sea, and still I lay there without anycause to hope, and daring not to hope without a cause, because of theterrible envy and the anger of the things that could drift no more. 

Once a great storm rode up, even as far as London, out of the sea from theSouth; and he came curving into the river with the fierce East wind. Andhe was mightier than the dreary tides, and went with great leaps over thelistless mud. And all the sad forgotten things rejoiced, and mingled withthings that were haughtier than they, and rode once more amongst thelordly shipping that was driven up and down. And out of their hideous homehe took my bones, never again, I hoped, to be vexed with the ebb and flow. And with the fall of the tide he went riding down the river and turned tothe southwards, and so went to his home. And my bones he scattered amongmany isles and along the shores of happy alien mainlands. And for amoment, while they were far asunder, my soul was almost free. 

Then there arose, at the will of the moon, the assiduous flow of the tide, and it undid at once the work of the ebb, and gathered my bones from themarge of sunny isles, and gleaned them all along the mainland's shores, and went rocking northwards till it came to the mouth of the Thames, andthere turned westwards its relentless face, and so went up the river andcame to the hole in the mud, and into it dropped my bones; and partly themud covered them, and partly it left them white, for the mud cares not forits forsaken things. 

Then the ebb came, and I saw the dead eyes of the houses and the jealousyof the other forgotten things that the storm had not carried thence. 

And some more centuries passed over the ebb and flow and over theloneliness of things for gotten. And I lay there all the while in thecareless grip of the mud, never wholly covered, yet never able to go free, and I longed for the great caress of the warm Earth or the comfortable lapof the Sea. 

Sometimes men found my bones and buried them, but the tradition neverdied, and my friends' successors always brought them back. At last thebarges went no more, and there were fewer lights; shaped timbers no longerfloated down the fairway, and there came instead old wind-uprooted treesin all their natural simplicity. 

At last I was aware that somewhere near me a blade of grass was growing, and the moss began to appear all over the dead houses. One day somethistledown went drifting over the river. 

For some years I watched these signs attentively, until I became certainthat London was passing away. Then I hoped once more, and all along bothbanks of the river there was anger among the lost things that anythingshould dare to hope upon the forsaken mud. Gradually the horrible housescrumbled, until the poor dead things that never had had life got decentburial among the weeds and moss. At last the may appeared and theconvolvulus. Finally, the wild rose stood up over mounds that had beenwharves and warehouses. Then I knew that the cause of Nature hadtriumphed, and London had passed away. 

The last man in London came to the wall by the river, in an ancient cloakthat was one of those that once my friends had worn, and peered over theedge to see that I still was there. Then he went, and I never saw menagain: they had passed away with London. 

A few days after the last man had gone the birds came into London, all thebirds that sing. When they first saws me they all looked sideways at me, then they went away a little and spoke among themselves. 

"He only sinned against Man, " they said; "it is not our quarrel. "

"Let us be kind to him, " they said. 

Then they hopped nearer me and began to sing. It was the time of therising of the dawn, and from both banks of the river, and from the sky, and from the thickets that were once the streets, hundreds of birds weresinging. As the light increased the birds sang more and more; they grewthicker and thicker in the air above my head, till there were thousands ofthem singing there, and then millions, and at last I could see nothing buta host of flickering wings with the sunlight on them, and little gaps ofsky. Then when there was nothing to be heard in London but the myriadnotes of that exultant song, my soul rose up from the bones in the hole inthe mud and began to climb heavenwards. And it seemed that a lane-wayopened amongst the wings of the birds, and it went up and up, and one ofthe smaller gates of Paradise stood ajar at the end of it. And then I knewby a sign that the mud should receive me no more, for suddenly I foundthat I could weep. 

At this moment I opened my eyes in bed in a house in London, and outsidesome sparrows were twittering in a tree in the light of the radiantmorning; and there were tears still wet upon my face, for one's restraintis feeble while one sleeps. But I arose and opened the window wide, andstretching my hands out over the little garden, I blessed the birds whosesong had woken me up from the troubled and terrible centuries of my dream. 

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 Véhi. 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 Véhi. 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 Véhi, 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. 

IDLE DAYS ON THE YANN

So I came down through the wood on the bank of Yann and found, as had beenprophesied, the ship _Bird of the River_ about to loose her cable. 

The captain sat cross-legged upon the white deck with his scimitar lyingbeside him in its jeweled scabbard, and the sailors toiled to spread thenimble sails to bring the ship into the central stream of Yann, and allthe while sang ancient soothing songs. And the wind of the eveningdescending cool from the snowfields of some mountainous abode of distantgods came suddenly, like glad tidings to an anxious city, into thewing-like sails. 

And so we came into the central stream, whereat the sailors lowered thegreater sails. But I had gone to bow before the captain, and to inquireconcerning the miracles, and appearances among men, of the most holy godsof whatever land he had come from. And the captain answered that he camefrom fair Belzoond, and worshipped gods that were the least and humblest, who seldom sent the famine or the thunder, and were easily appeased withlittle battles. And I told how I came from Ireland, which is of Europe, whereat the captain and all the sailors laughed, for they said, "There areno such places in all the land of dreams. " When they had ceased to mockme, I explained that my fancy mostly dwelt in the desert of Cuppar-Nombo, about a beautiful blue city called Golthoth the Damned, which wassentinelled all round by wolves and their shadows, and had been utterlydesolate for years and years, because of a curse which the gods once spokein anger and could never since recall. And sometimes my dreams took me asfar as Pungar Vees, the red walled city where the fountains are, whichtrades with the Isles and Thul. When I said this they complimented me uponthe abode of my fancy, saying that, though they had never seen thesecities, such places might well be imagined. For the rest of that evening Ibargained with the captain over the sum that I should pay him for any fareif God and the tide of Yann should bring us safely as far as the cliffs bythe sea, which are named Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate of Yann. 

And now the sun had set, and all the colours of the world and heaven hadheld a festival with him, and slipped one by one away before the imminentapproach of night. The parrots had all flown home to the jungle on eitherbank, the monkeys in rows in safety on high branches of the trees weresilent and asleep, the fireflies in the deeps of the forest were going upand down, and the great stars came gleaming out to look on the face ofYann. Then the sailors lighted lanterns and hung them round the ship, andthe light flashed out on a sudden and dazzled Yann, and the ducks that fedalong his marshy banks all suddenly arose, and made wide circles in theupper air, and saw the distant reaches of the Yann and the white mist thatsoftly cloaked the jungle, before they returned again to their marshes. 

And then the sailors knelt on the decks and prayed, not all together, butfive or six at a time. Side by side there kneeled down together five orsix, for there only prayed at the same time men of different faiths, sothat no god should hear two men praying to him at once. As soon as any onehad finished his prayer, another of the same faith would take his place. Thus knelt the row of five or six with bended heads under the flutteringsail, while the central stream of the River Yann took them on towards thesea, and their prayers rose up from among the lanterns and went towardsthe stars. And behind them in the after end of the ship the helmsmanprayed aloud the helmsman's prayer, which is prayed by all who follow histrade upon the River Yann, of whatever faith they be. And the captainprayed to his little lesser gods, to the gods that bless Belzoond. 

And I too felt that I would pray. Yet I liked not to pray to a jealous Godthere where the frail affectionate gods whom the heathen love were beinghumbly invoked; so I bethought me, instead, of Sheol Nugganoth, whom themen of the jungle have long since deserted, who is now unworshipped andalone; and to him I prayed. 

And upon us praying the night came suddenly down, as it comes upon all menwho pray at evening and upon all men who do not; yet our prayers comfortedour own souls when we thought of the Great Night to come. 

And so Yann bore us magnificently onwards, for he was elate with moltensnow that the Poltiades had brought him from the Hills of Hap, and theMarn and Migris were swollen with floods; and he bore us in his full mightpast Kyph and Pir, and we saw the lights of Goolunza. 

Soon we all slept except the helmsman, who kept the ship in the mid-streamof Yann. 

When the sun rose the helmsman ceased to sing, for by song he cheeredhimself in the lonely night. When the song ceased we suddenly all awoke, and another took the helm, and the helmsman slept. 

We knew that soon we should come to Mandaroon. We made a meal, andMandaroon appeared. Then the captain commanded, and the sailors loosedagain the greater sails, and the ship turned and left the stream of Yannand came into a harbour beneath the ruddy walls of Mandaroon. Then whilethe sailors went and gathered fruits I came alone to the gate ofMandaroon. A few huts were outside it, in which lived the guard. Asentinel with a long white beard was standing in the gate, armed with arusty pike. He wore large spectacles, which were covered with dust. Through the gate I saw the city. A deathly stillness was over all of it. The ways seemed untrodden, and moss was thick on doorsteps; in themarket-place huddled figures lay asleep. A scent of incense came waftedthrough the gateway, of incense and burned poppies, and there was a hum ofthe echoes of distant bells. I said to the sentinel in the tongue of theregion of Yann, "Why are they all asleep in this still city?"

He answered: "None may ask questions in this gate for fear they will wakethe people of the city. For when the people of this city wake the godswill die. And when the gods die men may dream no more. " And I began to askhim what gods that city worshipped, but he lifted his pike because nonemight ask questions there. So I left him and went back to the _Bird of theRiver_. 

Certainly Mandaroon was beautiful with her white pinnacles peering overher ruddy walls and the green of her copper roofs. 

When I came back again to the _Bird of the River_, I found the sailorswere returned to the ship. Soon we weighed anchor, and sailed out again, and so came once more to the middle of the river. And now the sun wasmoving toward his heights, and there had reached us on the River Yann thesong of those countless myriads of choirs that attend him in his progressround the world. For the little creatures that have many legs had spreadtheir gauze wings easily on the air, as a man rests his elbows on abalcony and gave jubilant, ceremonial praises to the sun, or else theymoved together on the air in wavering dances intricate and swift, orturned aside to avoid the onrush of some drop of water that a breeze hadshaken from a jungle orchid, chilling the air and driving it before it, asit fell whirring in its rush to the earth; but all the while they sangtriumphantly. "For the day is for us, " they said, "whether our great andsacred father the Sun shall bring up more life like us from the marshes, or whether all the world shall end tonight. " And there sang all thosewhose notes are known to human ears, as well as those whose far morenumerous notes have been never heard by man. 

To these a rainy day had been as an era of war that should desolatecontinents during all the lifetime of a man. 

And there came out also from the dark and steaming jungle to behold andrejoice in the Sun the huge and lazy butterflies. And they danced, butdanced idly, on the ways of the air, as some haughty queen of distantconquered lands might in her poverty and exile dance, in some encampmentof the gipsies, for the mere bread to live by, but beyond that would neverabate her pride to dance for a fragment more. 

And the butterflies sung of strange and painted things, of purple orchidsand of lost pink cities and the monstrous colours of the jungle's decay. And they, too, were among those whose voices are not discernible by humanears. And as they floated above the river, going from forest to forest, their splendour was matched by the inimical beauty of the birds who dartedout to pursue them. Or sometimes they settled on the white and wax-likeblooms of the plant that creeps and clambers about the trees of theforest; and their purple wings flashed out on the great blossoms as, whenthe caravans go from Nurl to Thace, the gleaming silks flash out upon thesnow, where the crafty merchants spread them one by one to astonish themountaineers of the Hills of Noor. 

But upon men and beasts the sun sent drowsiness. The river monsters alongthe river's marge lay dormant in the slime. The sailors pitched apavilion, with golden tassels, for the captain upon the deck, and thenwent, all but the helmsman, under a sail that they had hung as an awningbetween two masts. Then they told tales to one another, each of his owncity or of the miracles of his god, until all were fallen asleep. Thecaptain offered me the shade of his pavillion with the gold tassels, andthere we talked for a while, he telling me that he was taking merchandiseto Perdóndaris, and that he would take back to fair Belzoond thingsappertaining to the affairs of the sea. Then, as I watched through thepavilion's opening the brilliant birds and butterflies that crossed andrecrossed over the river, I fell asleep, and dreamed that I was a monarchentering his capital underneath arches of flags, and all the musicians ofthe world were there, playing melodiously their instruments; but no onecheered. 

In the afternoon, as the day grew cooler again, I awoke and found thecaptain buckling on his scimitar, which he had taken off him while herested. 

And now we were approaching the wide court of Astahahn, which opens uponthe river. Strange boats of antique design were chained there to thesteps. As we neared it we saw the open marble court, on three sides ofwhich stood the city fronting on colonnades. And in the court and alongthe colonnades the people of that city walked with solemnity and careaccording to the rites of ancient ceremony. All in that city was ofancient device; the carving on the houses, which, when age had broken it, remained unrepaired, was of the remotest times, and everywhere wererepresented in stone beasts that have long since passed away fromEarth--the dragon, the griffin, the hippogriffin, and the differentspecies of gargoyle. Nothing was to be found, whether material or custom, that was new in Astahahn. Now they took no notice at all of us as we wentby, but continued their processions and ceremonies in the ancient city, and the sailors, knowing their custom, took no notice of them. But Icalled, as we came near, to one who stood beside the water's edge, askinghim what men did in Astahahn and what their merchandise was, and with whomthey traded. He said, "Here we have fettered and manacled Time, who wouldotherwise slay the gods. "

I asked him what gods they worshipped in that city, and he said, "Allthose gods whom Time has not yet slain. " Then he turned from me and wouldsay no more, but busied himself in behaving in accordance with ancientcustom. And so, according to the will of Yann, we drifted onwards and leftAstahahn. The river widened below Astahahn, and we found in greaterquantities such birds as prey on fishes. And they were very wonderful intheir plumage, and they came not out of the jungle, but flew, with theirlong necks stretched out before them, and their legs lying on the windbehind, straight up the river over the mid-stream. 

And now the evening began to gather in. A thick white mist had appearedover the river, and was softly rising higher. It clutched at the treeswith long impalpable arms, it rose higher and higher, chilling the air;and white shapes moved away into the jungle as though the ghosts ofshipwrecked mariners were searching stealthily in the darkness for thespirits of evil that long ago had wrecked them on the Yann. 

As the sun sank behind the field of orchids that grew on the matted summitof the jungle, the river monsters came wallowing out of the slime in whichthey had reclined during the heat of the day, and the great beasts of thejungle came down to drink. The butterflies a while since were gone torest. In little narrow tributaries that we passed night seemed already tohave fallen, though the sun which had disappeared from us had not yet set. 

And now the birds of the jungle came flying home far over us, with thesunlight glistening pink upon their breasts, and lowered their pinions assoon as they saw the Yann, and dropped into the trees. And the widgeonbegan to go up the river in great companies, all whistling, and then wouldsuddenly wheel and all go down again. And there shot by us the small andarrow-like teal; and we heard the manifold cries of flocks of geese, whichthe sailors told me had recently come in from crossing over the Lispasianranges; every year they come by the same way, close by the peak of Mluna, leaving it to the left, and the mountain eagles know the way they comeand--men say--the very hour, and every year they expect them by the sameway as soon as the snows have fallen upon the Northern Plains. But soon itgrew so dark that we heard those birds no more, and only heard thewhirring of their wings, and of countless others besides, until they allsettled down along the banks of the river, and it was the hour when thebirds of the night went forth. Then the sailors lit the lanterns for thenight, and huge moths appeared, flapping about the ship, and at momentstheir gorgeous colours would be revealed by the lanterns, then they wouldpass into the night again, where all was black. And again the sailorsprayed, and thereafter we supped and slept, and the helmsman took ourlives into his care. 

When I awoke I found that we had indeed come to Perdóndaris, that famouscity. For there it stood upon the left of us, a city fair and notable, andall the more pleasant for our eyes to see after the jungle that was solong with us. And we were anchored by the market-place, and the captain'smerchandise was all displayed, and a merchant of Perdóndaris stood lookingat it. And the captain had his scimitar in his hand, and was beating withit in anger upon the deck, and the splinters were flying up from the whiteplanks; for the merchant had offered him a price for his merchandise thatthe captain declared to be an insult to himself and his country's gods, whom he now said to be great and terrible gods, whose curses were to bedreaded. But the merchant waved his hands, which were of great fatness, showing the pink palms, and swore that of himself he thought not at all, but only of the poor folk in the huts beyond the city to whom he wished tosell the merchandise for as low a price as possible, leaving noremuneration for himself. For the merchandise was mostly the thicktoomarund carpets that in the winter keep the wind from the floor, andtollub which the people smoke in pipes. Therefore the merchant said if heoffered a piffek more the poor folk must go without their toomarunds whenthe winter came, and without their tollub in the evenings, or else he andhis aged father must starve together. Thereat the captain lifted hisscimitar to his own throat, saying that he was now a ruined man, and thatnothing remained to him but death. And while he was carefully lifting hisbeard with his left hand, the merchant eyed the merchandise again, andsaid that rather than see so worthy a captain die, a man for whom he hadconceived an especial love when first he saw the manner in which hehandled his ship, he and his aged father should starve together andtherefore he offered fifteen piffeks more. 

When he said this the captain prostrated himself and prayed to his godsthat they might yet sweeten this merchant's bitter heart--to his littlelesser gods, to the gods that bless Belzoond. 

At last the merchant offered yet five piffeks more. Then the captain wept, for he said that he was deserted of his gods; and the merchant also wept, for he said that he was thinking of his aged father, and of how he soonwould starve, and he hid his weeping face with both his hands, and eyedthe tollub again between his fingers. And so the bargain was concluded, and the merchant took the toomarund and tollub, paying for them out of agreat clinking purse. And these were packed up into bales again, and threeof the merchant's slaves carried them upon their heads into the city. Andall the while the sailors had sat silent, cross-legged in a crescent uponthe deck, eagerly watching the bargain, and now a murmur of satisfactionarose among them, and they began to compare it among themselves with otherbargains that they had known. And I found out from them that there areseven merchants in Perdóndaris, and that they had all come to the captainone by one before the bargaining began, and each had warned him privatelyagainst the others. And to all the merchants the captain had offered thewine of his own country, that they make in fair Belzoond, but could in nowise persuade them to it. But now that the bargain was over, and thesailors were seated at the first meal of the day, the captain appearedamong them with a cask of that wine, and we broached it with care and allmade merry together. And the captain was glad in his heart because he knewthat he had much honour in the eyes of his men because of the bargain thathe had made. So the sailors drank the wine of their native land, and soontheir thoughts were back in fair Belzoond and the little neighbouringcities of Durl and Duz. 

But for me the captain poured into a little jar some heavy yellow winefrom a small jar which he kept apart among his sacred things. Thick andsweet it was, even like honey, yet there was in its heart a mighty, ardentfire which had authority over souls of men. It was made, the captain toldme, with great subtlety by the secret craft of a family of six who livedin a hut on the mountains of Hian Min. Once in these mountains, he said, he followed the spoor of a bear, and he came suddenly on a man of thatfamily who had hunted the same bear, and he was at the end of a narrow waywith precipice all about him, and his spear was sticking in the bear, andthe wound was not fatal, and he had no other weapon. And the bear waswalking towards the man, very slowly because his wound irked him--yet hewas now very close. And what he captain did he would not say, but everyyear as soon as the snows are hard, and travelling is easy on the HianMin, that man comes down to the market in the plains, and always leavesfor the captain in the gate of fair Belzoond a vessel of that pricelesssecret wine. 

And as I sipped the wine and the captain talked, I remembered me ofstalwart noble things that I had long since resolutely planned, and mysoul seemed to grow mightier within me and to dominate the whole tide ofthe Yann. It may be that I then slept. Or, if I did not, I do not nowminutely recollect every detail of that morning's occupations. Towardsevening, I awoke and wishing to see Perdóndaris before we left in themorning, and being unable to wake the captain, I went ashore alone. Certainly Perdóndaris was a powerful city; it was encompassed by a wall ofgreat strength and altitude, having in it hollow ways for troops to walkin, and battlements along it all the way, and fifteen strong towers on itin every mile, and copper plaques low down where men could read them, telling in all the languages of those parts of the earth--one language oneach plaque--the tale of how an army once attacked Perdóndaris and whatbefell that army. Then I entered Perdóndaris and found all the peopledancing, clad in brilliant silks, and playing on the tambang as theydanced. For a fearful thunderstorm had terrified them while I slept, andthe fires of death, they said, had danced over Perdóndaris, and now thethunder had gone leaping away large and black and hideous, they said, overthe distant hills, and had turned round snarling at them, shoving hisgleaming teeth, and had stamped, as he went, upon the hilltops until theyrang as though they had been bronze. And often and again they stopped intheir merry dances and prayed to the God they knew not, saying, "O, Godthat we know not, we thank Thee for sending the thunder back to hishills. " And I went on and came to the market-place, and lying there uponthe marble pavement I saw the merchant fast asleep and breathing heavily, with his face and the palms of his hands towards the sky, and slaves werefanning him to keep away the flies. And from the market-place I came to asilver temple and then to a palace of onyx, and there were many wonders inPerdóndaris, and I would have stayed and seen them all, but as I came tothe outer wall of the city I suddenly saw in it a huge ivory gate. For awhile I paused and admired it, then I came nearer and perceived thedreadful truth. The gate was carved out of one solid piece!

I fled at once through the gateway and down to the ship, and even as I ranI thought that I heard far off on the hills behind me the tramp of thefearful beast by whom that mass of ivory was shed, who was perhaps eventhen looking for his other tusk. When I was on the ship again I feltsafer, and I said nothing to the sailors of what I had seen. 

And now the captain was gradually awakening. Now night was rolling up fromthe East and North, and only the pinnacles of the towers of Perdóndarisstill took the fallen sunlight. Then I went to the captain and told himquietly of the thing I had seen. And he questioned me at once about thegate, in a low voice, that the sailors might not know; and I told him howthe weight of the thing was such that it could not have been brought fromafar, and the captain knew that it had not been there a year ago. Weagreed that such a beast could never have been killed by any assault ofman, and that the gate must have been a fallen tusk, and one fallen nearand recently. Therefore he decided that it were better to flee at once; sohe commanded, and the sailors went to the sails, and others raised theanchor to the deck, and just as the highest pinnacle of marble lost thelast rays of the sun we left Perdóndaris, that famous city. And night camedown and cloaked Perdóndaris and hid it from our eyes, which as thingshave happened will never see it again; for I have heard since thatsomething swift and wonderful has suddenly wrecked Perdóndaris in aday--towers, walls and people. 

And the night deepened over the River Yann, a night all white with stars. And with the night there rose the helmsman's song. As soon as he hadprayed he began to sing to cheer himself all through the lonely night. Butfirst he prayed, praying the helmsman's prayer. And this is what Iremember of it, rendered into English with a very feeble equivalent of therhythm that seemed so resonant in those tropic nights. 

To whatever god may hear. 

Wherever there be sailors whether of river or sea: whether their way bedark or whether through storm: whether their peril be of beast or of rock:or from enemy lurking on land or pursuing on sea: wherever the tiller iscold or the helmsman stiff: wherever sailors sleep or helmsmen watch:guard, guide and return us to the old land, that has known us: to the farhomes that we know. 

To all the gods that are. 

To whatever god may hear. 

So he prayed, and there was silence. And the sailors laid them down torest for the night. The silence deepened, and was only broken by theripples of Yann that lightly touched our prow. Sometimes some monster ofthe river coughed. 

Silence and ripples, ripples and silence again. 

And then his loneliness came upon the helmsman, and he began to sing. Andhe sang the market songs of Durl and Duz, and the old dragon-legends ofBelzoond. 

Many a song he sang, telling to spacious and exotic Yann the little talesand trifles of his city of Durl. And the songs welled up over the blackjungle and came into the clear cold air above, and the great bands ofstars that look on Yann began to know the affairs of Durl and Duz, and ofthe shepherds that dwelt in the fields between, and the flocks that theyhad, and the loves that they had loved, and all the little things thatthey had hoped to do. And as I lay wrapped up in skins and blankets, listening to those songs, and watching the fantastic shapes of the greattrees like to black giants stalking through the night, I suddenly fellasleep. 

When I awoke great mists were trailing away from the Yann. And the flow ofthe river was tumbling now tumultuously, and little waves appeared; forYann had scented from afar the ancient crags of Glorm, and knew that theirravines lay cool before him wherein he should meet the merry wild Irillionrejoicing from fields of snow. So he shook off from him the torpid sleepthat had come upon him in the hot and scented jungle, and forgot itsorchids and its butterflies, and swept on turbulent, expectant, strong;and soon the snowy peaks of the Hills of Glorm came glittering into view. And now the sailors were waking up from sleep. Soon we all ate, and thenthe helmsman laid him down to sleep while a comrade took his place, andthey all spread over him their choicest furs. 

And in a while we heard the sound that the Irillion made as she came downdancing from the fields of snow. 

And then we saw the ravine in the Hills of Glorm lying precipitous andsmooth before us, into which we were carried by the leaps of Yann. And nowwe left the steamy jungle and breathed the mountain air; the sailors stoodup and took deep breaths of it, and thought of their own far off Acroctianhills on which were Durl and Duz--below them in the plains stands fairBelzoond. 

A great shadow brooded between the cliffs of Glorm, but the crags wereshining above us like gnarled moons, and almost lit the gloom. Louder andlouder came the Irillion's song, and the sound of her dancing down fromthe fields of snow. And soon we saw her white and full of mists, andwreathed with rainbows delicate and small that she had plucked up near themountain's summit from some celestial garden of the Sun. Then she wentaway seawards with the huge grey Yann and the ravine widened, and openedupon the world, and our rocking ship came through to the light of the day. 

And all that morning and all the afternoon we passed through the marshesof Pondoovery; and Yann widened there, and flowed solemnly and slowly, andthe captain bade the sailors beat on bells to overcome the dreariness ofthe marshes. 

At last the Irusian mountains came in sight, nursing the villages ofPen-Kai and Blut, and the wandering streets of Mlo, where priestspropitiate the avalanche with wine and maize. Then night came down overthe plains of Tlun, and we saw the lights of Cappadarnia. We heard thePathnites beating upon drums as we passed Imaut and Golzunda, then all butthe helmsman slept. And villages scattered along the banks of the Yannheard all that night in the helmsman's unknown tongue the little songs ofcities that they knew not. 

I awoke before dawn with a feeling that I was unhappy before I rememberedwhy. Then I recalled that by the evening of the approaching day, accordingto all foreseen probabilities, we should come to Bar-Wul-Yann, and Ishould part from the captain and his sailors. And I had liked the manbecause he had given me of his yellow wine that was set apart among hissacred things, and many a story he had told me about his fair Belzoondbetween the Acroctian hills and the Hian Min. And I had liked the waysthat his sailors had, and the prayers that they prayed at evening side byside, grudging not one another their alien gods. And I had a liking toofor the tender way in which they often spoke of Durl and Duz, for it isgood that men should love their native cities and the little hills thathold those cities up. 

And I had come to know who would meet them when they returned to theirhomes, and where they thought the meetings would take place, some in avalley of the Acroctian hills where the road comes up from Yann, others inthe gateway of one or another of the three cities, and others by thefireside in the home. And I thought of the danger that had menaced us allalike outside Perdóndaris, a danger that, as things have happened, wasvery real. 

And I thought too of the helmsman's cheery song in the cold and lonelynight, and how he had held our lives in his careful hands. And as Ithought of this the helmsman ceased to sing, and I looked up and saw apale light had appeared in the sky, and the lonely night had passed; andthe dawn widened, and the sailors awoke. 

And soon we saw the tide of the Sea himself advancing resolute betweenYann's borders, and Yann sprang lithely at him and they struggled awhile;then Yann and all that was his were pushed back northward, so that thesailors had to hoist the sails and, the wind being favorable, we stillheld onwards. 

And we passed Gondara and Narl and Haz. And we saw memorable, holy Golnuz, and heard the pilgrims praying. 

When we awoke after the midday rest we were coming near to Nen, the lastof the cities on the River Yann. And the jungle was all about us onceagain, and about Nen; but the great Mloon ranges stood up over all things, and watched the city from beyond the jungle. 

Here we anchored, and the captain and I went up into the city and foundthat the Wanderers had come into Nen. 

And the Wanderers were a weird, dark, tribe, that once in every sevenyears came down from the peaks of Mloon, having crossed by a pass that isknown to them from some fantastic land that lies beyond. And the people ofNen were all outside their houses, and all stood wondering at their ownstreets. For the men and women of the Wanderers had crowded all the ways, and every one was doing some strange thing. Some danced astounding dancesthat they had learned from the desert wind, rapidly curving and swirlingtill the eye could follow no longer. Others played upon instrumentsbeautiful wailing tunes that were full of horror, which souls had taughtthem lost by night in the desert, that strange far desert from which theWanderers came. 

None of their instruments were such as were known in Nen nor in any partof the region of the Yann; even the horns out of which some were made wereof beasts that none had seen along the river, for they were barbed at thetips. And they sang, in the language of none, songs that seemed to be akinto the mysteries of night and to the unreasoned fear that haunts darkplaces. 

Bitterly all the dogs of Nen distrusted them. And the Wanderers told oneanother fearful tales, for though no one in Nen knew ought of theirlanguage yet they could see the fear on the listeners' faces, and as thetale wound on the whites of their eyes showed vividly in terror as theeyes of some little beast whom the hawk has seized. Then the teller of thetale would smile and stop, and another would tell his story, and theteller of the first tale's lips would chatter with fear. And if somedeadly snake chanced to appear the Wanderers would greet him as a brother, and the snake would seem to give his greetings to them before he passed onagain. Once that most fierce and lethal of tropic snakes, the giantlythra, came out of the jungle and all down the street, the central streetof Nen, and none of the Wanderers moved away from him, but they all playedsonorously on drums, as though he had been a person of much honour; andthe snake moved through the midst of them and smote none. 

Even the Wanderers' children could do strange things, for if any one ofthem met with a child of Nen the two would stare at each other in silencewith large grave eyes; then the Wanderers' child would slowly draw fromhis turban a live fish or snake. And the children of Nen could do nothingof that kind at all. 

Much I should have wished to stay and hear the hymn with which they greetthe night, that is answered by the wolves on the heights of Mloon, but itwas now time to raise the anchor again that the captain might return fromBar-Wul-Yann upon the landward tide. So we went on board and continueddown the Yann. And the captain and I spoke little, for we were thinking ofour parting, which should be for long, and we watched instead thesplendour of the westerning sun. For the sun was a ruddy gold, but a faintmist cloaked the jungle, lying low, and into it poured the smoke of thelittle jungle cities, and the smoke of them met together in the mist andjoined into one haze, which became purple, and was lit by the sun, as thethoughts of men become hallowed by some great and sacred thing. Some timesone column from a lonely house would rise up higher than the cities'smoke, and gleam by itself in the sun. 

And now as the sun's last rays were nearly level, we saw the sight that Ihad come to see, for from two mountains that stood on either shore twocliffs of pink marble came out into the river, all glowing in the light ofthe low sun, and they were quite smooth and of mountainous altitude, andthey nearly met, and Yann went tumbling between them and found the sea. 

And this was Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate of Yann, and in the distance throughthat barrier's gap I saw the azure indescribable sea, where littlefishing-boats went gleaming by. 

And the sun set, and the brief twilight came, and the exultation of theglory of Bar-Wul-Yann was gone, yet still the pink cliffs glowed, thefairest marvel that the eye beheld--and this in a land of wonders. Andsoon the twilight gave place to the coming out of stars, and the coloursof Bar-Wul-Yann went dwindling away. And the sight of those cliffs was tome as some chord of music that a master's hand had launched from theviolin, and which carries to Heaven or Faëry the tremulous spirits of men. 

And now by the shore they anchored and went no further, for they weresailors of the river and not of the sea, and knew the Yann but not thetides beyond. 

And the time was come when the captain and I must part, he to go back tohis fair Belzoond in sight of the distant peaks of the Hian Min, and I tofind my way by strange means back to those hazy fields that all poetsknow, wherein stand small mysterious cottages through whose windows, looking westwards, you may see the fields of men, and looking eastwardssee glittering elfin mountains, tipped with snow, going range on rangeinto the region of Myth, and beyond it into the kingdom of Fantasy, whichpertain to the Lands of Dream. Long we regarded one another, knowing thatwe should meet no more, for my fancy is weakening as the years slip by, and I go ever more seldom into the Lands of Dream. Then we clasped hands, uncouthly on his part, for it is not the method of greeting in hiscountry, and he commended my soul to the care of his own gods, to hislittle lesser gods, the humble ones, to the gods that bless Belzoond. 

THE SWORD AND THE IDOL

It was a cold winter's evening late in the Stone Age; the sun had gonedown blazing over the plains of Thold; there were no clouds, only thechill blue sky and the imminence of stars; and the surface of the sleepingEarth began to harden against the cold of the night. Presently from theirlairs arose, and shook themselves and went stealthily forth, those ofEarth's children to whom it is the law to prowl abroad as soon as the duskhas fallen. And they went pattering softly over the plain, and their eyesshone in the dark, and crossed and recrossed one another in their courses. Suddenly there became manifest in the midst of the plain that fearfulportent of the presence of Man--a little flickering fire. And the childrenof Earth who prowl abroad by night looked sideways at it and snarled andedged away; all but the wolves, who came a little nearer, for it waswinter and the wolves were hungry, and they had come in thousands from themountains, and they said in their hearts, "We are strong. " Around the firea little tribe was encamped. They, too, had come from the mountains, andfrom lands beyond them, but it was in the mountains that the wolves firstwinded them; they picked up bones at first that the tribe had dropped, butthey were closer now and on all sides. It was Loz who had lit the fire. Hehad killed a small furry beast, hurling his stone axe at it, and hadgathered a quantity of reddish-brown stones, and had laid them in a longrow, and placed bits of the small beast all along it; then he lit a fireon each side, and the stones heated, and the bits began to cook. It was atthis time that the tribe noticed that the wolves who had followed them sofar were no longer content with the scraps of deserted encampments. A lineof yellow eyes surrounded them, and when it moved it was to come nearer. So the men of the tribe hastily tore up brushwood, and felled a small treewith their flint axes, and heaped it all over the fire that Loz had made, and for a while the great heap hid the flame, and the wolves came trottingin and sat down again on their haunches much closer than before; and thefierce and valiant dogs that belonged to the tribe believed that their endwas about to come while fighting, as they had long since prophesied itwould. Then the flame caught the lofty stack of brushwood, and rushed outof it, and ran up the side of it, and stood up haughtily far over the top, and the wolves seeing this terrible ally of Man reveling there in hisstrength, and knowing nothing of this frequent treachery to his masters, went slowly away as though they had other purposes. And for the rest ofthat night the dogs of the encampment cried out to them and besought themto come back. But the tribe lay down all round the fire under thick fursand slept. And a great wind arose and blew into the roaring heart of thefire till it was red no longer, but all pallid with heat. With the dawnthe tribe awoke. 

Loz might have known that after such a mighty conflagration nothing couldremain of his small furry beast, but there was hunger in him and littlereason as he searched among the ashes. What he found there amazed himbeyond measure; there was no meat, there was not even his row ofreddish-brown stones, but something longer than a man's leg and narrowerthan his hand, was lying there like a great flattened snake. When Lozlooked at its thin edges and saw that it ran to a point, he picked upstones to chip it and make it sharp. It was the instinct of Loz to sharpenthings. When he found that it could not be chipped his wondermentincreased. It was many hours before he discovered that he could sharpenthe edges by rubbing them with a stone; but at last the point was sharp, and all one side of it except near the end, where Loz held it in his hand. And Loz lifted it and brandished it, and the Stone Age was over. Thatafternoon in the little encampment, just as the tribe moved on, the StoneAge passed away, which, for perhaps thirty or forty thousand years, hadslowly lifted Man from among the beasts and left him with his supremacybeyond all hope of reconquest. 

It was not for many days that any other man tried to make for himself aniron sword by cooking the same kind of small furry beast that Loz hadtried to cook. It was not for many years that any thought to lay the meatalong stones as Loz had done; and when they did, being no longer on theplains of Thold, they used flints or chalk. It was not for manygenerations that another piece of iron ore was melted and the secretslowly guessed. Nevertheless one of Earth's many veils was torn aside byLoz to give us ultimately the steel sword and the plough, machinery andfactories; let us not blame Loz if we think that he did wrong, for he didall in ignorance. The tribe moved on until it came to water, and there itsettled down under a hill, and they built their huts there. Very soon theyhad to fight with another tribe, a tribe that was stronger than they; butthe sword of Loz was terrible and his tribe slew their foes. You mightmake one blow at Loz, but then would come one thrust from that iron sword, and there was no way of surviving it. No one could fight with Loz. And hebecame ruler of the tribe in the place of Iz, who hitherto had ruled itwith his sharp axe, as his father had before him. 

Now Loz begat Lo, and in his old age gave his sword to him, and Lo ruledthe tribe with it. And Lo called the name of the sword Death, because itwas so swift and terrible. 

And Iz begat Ird, who was of no account. And Ird hated Lo because he wasof no account by reason of the iron sword of Lo. 

One night Ird stole down to the hut of Lo, carrying his sharp axe, and hewent very softly, but Lo's dog, Warner, heard him coming, and he growledsoftly by his master's door. When Ird came to the hut he heard Lo talkinggently to his sword. And Lo was saying, "Lie still, Death. Rest, rest, oldsword, " and then, "What, again, Death? Be still. Be still. "

And then again: "What, art thou hungry, Death? Or thirsty, poor old sword?Soon, Death, soon. Be still only a little. "

But Ird fled, for he did not like the gentle tone of Lo as he spoke to hissword. 

And Lo begat Lod. And when Lo died Lod took the iron sword and ruled thetribe. 

And Ird begat Ith, who was of no account, like his father. 

Now when Lod had smitten a man or killed a terrible beast, Ith would goaway for a while into the forest rather than hear the praises that wouldbe given to Lod. 

And once, as Ith sat in the forest waiting for the day to pass, hesuddenly thought he saw a tree trunk looking at him as with a face. AndIth was afraid, for trees should not look at men. But soon Ith saw that itwas only a tree and not a man, though it was like a man. Ith used to speakto this tree, and tell it about Lod, for he dared not speak to any oneelse about him. And Ith found comfort in speaking about Lod. 

One day Ith went with his stone axe into the forest, and stayed there manydays. 

He came back by night, and the next morning when the tribe awoke they sawsomething that was like a man and yet was not a man. And it sat on thehill with its elbows pointing outwards and was quite still. And Ith wascrouching before it, and hurriedly placing before it fruits and flesh, andthen leaping away from it and looking frightened. Presently all the tribecame out to see, but dared not come quite close because of the fear thatthey saw on the face of Ith. And Ith went to his hut, and came back againwith a hunting spear-head and valuable small stone knives, and reached outand laid them before the thing that was like a man, and then sprang awayfrom it. 

And some of the tribe questioned Ith about the still thing that was like aman, and Ith said, "This is Ged. " Then they asked, "Who is Ged?" and Ithsaid, "Ged sends the crops and the rain; and the sun and the moon areGed's. "

Then the tribe went back to their huts, but later in the day some cameagain, and they said to Ith, "Ged is only as we are, having hands andfeet. " And Ith pointed to the right hand of Ged, which was not as hisleft, but was shaped like the paw of a beast, and Ith said, "By this yemay know that he is not as any man. "

Then they said, "He is indeed Ged. " But Lod said, "He speaketh not, nordoth he eat, " and Ith answered, "The thunder is his voice and the famineis his eating. "

After this the tribe copied Ith, and brought little gifts of meat to Ged;and Ith cooked them before him that Ged might smell the cooking. 

One day a great thunderstorm came trampling up from the distance and ragedamong the hills, and the tribe all hid away from it in their huts. And Ithappeared among the huts looking unafraid. And Ith said little, but thetribe thought that he had expected the terrible storm because the meatthat they had laid before Ged had been tough meat, and not the best partsof the beasts they slew. 

And Ged grew to have more honour among the tribe than Lod. And Lod wasvexed. 

One night Lod arose when all were asleep, and quieted his dog, and tookhis iron sword and went away to the hill. And he came on Ged in thestarlight, sitting still, with his elbows pointing outwards, and hisbeast's paw, and the mark of the fire on the ground where his food hadbeen cooked. 

And Lod stood there for a while in great fear, trying to keep to hispurpose. Suddenly he stepped up close to Ged and lifted his iron sword, and Ged neither hit nor shrank. Then the thought came into Lod's mind, "Ged does not hit. What will Ged do instead?"

And Lod lowered his sword and struck not, and his imagination began towork on that "What will Ged do instead?"

And the more Lod thought, the worse was his fear of Ged. 

And Lod ran away and left him. 

Lod still ruled the tribe in battle or in the hunt, but the chiefestspoils of battle were given to Ged, and the beasts that they slew wereGed's; and all questions that concerned war or peace, and questions of lawand disputes, were always brought to him, and Ith gave the answers afterspeaking to Ged by night. 

At last Ith said, the day after an eclipse, that the gifts which theybrought to Ged were not enough, that some far greater sacrifice wasneeded, that Ged was very angry even now, and not to be appeased by anyordinary sacrifice. 

And Ith said that to save the tribe from the anger of Ged he would speakto Ged that night, and ask him what new sacrifice he needed. 

Deep in his heart Lod shuddered, for his instinct told him that Ged wantedLod's only son, who should hold the iron sword when Lod was gone. 

No one would dare touch Lod because of the iron sword, but his instinctsaid in his slow mind again and again, "Ged loves Ith. Ith has said so. Ith hates the sword-holders. "

"Ith hates the sword-holders. Ged loves Ith. "

Evening fell and the night came when Ith should speak with Ged, and Lodbecame ever surer of the doom of his race. 

He lay down but could not sleep. 

Midnight had barely come when Lod arose and went with his iron sword againto the hill. 

And there sat Ged. Had Ith been to him yet? Ith whom Ged loved, who hatedthe sword-holders. 

And Lod looked long at the old sword of iron that had come to hisgrandfather on the plains of Thold. 

Good-bye, old sword! And Lod laid it on the knees of Ged, then went away. 

And when Ith came, a little before dawn, the sacrifice was foundacceptable unto Ged. 

THE IDLE CITY

There was once a city which was an idle city, wherein men told vain tales. 

And it was that city's custom to tax all men that would enter in, with thetoll of some idle story in the gate. 

So all men paid to the watchers in the gate the toll of an idle story, andpassed into the city unhindered and unhurt. And in a certain hour of thenight when the king of that city arose and went pacing swiftly up and downthe chamber of his sleeping, and called upon the name of the dead queen, then would the watchers fasten up the gate and go into that chamber to theking, and, sitting on the floor, would tell him all the tales that theyhad gathered. And listening to them some calmer mood would come upon theking, and listening still he would lie down again and at last fall asleep, and all the watchers silently would arise and steal away from the chamber. 

A while ago wandering, I came to the gate of that city. And even as I camea man stood up to pay his toll to the watchers. They were seatedcross-legged on the ground between him and the gate, and each one held aspear. Near him two other travellers sat on the warm sand waiting. And theman said:

"Now the city of Nombros forsook the worship of the gods and turnedtowards God. So the gods threw their cloaks over their faces and strodeaway from the city, and going into the haze among the hills passed throughthe trunks of the olive groves into the sunset. But when they had alreadyleft the Earth, they turned and looked through the gleaming folds of thetwilight for the last time at their city; and they looked half in angerand half in regret, then turned and went away for ever. But they sent backa Death, who bore a scythe, saying to it: 'Slay half in the city thatforsook us, but half of them spare alive that they may yet remember theirold forsaken gods. '

"But God sent a destroying angel to show that He was God, saying unto him:'Go into that city and slay half of the dwellers therein, yet spare a halfof them that they may know that I am God. '

"And at once the destroying angel put his hand to his sword, and the swordcame out of the scabbard with a deep breath, like to the breath that abroad woodman takes before his first blow at some giant oak. Thereat theangel pointed his arms downwards, and bending his head between them, fellforward from Heaven's edge, and the spring of his ankles shot himdownwards with his wings furled behind him. So he went slanting earthwardthrough the evening with his sword stretched out before him, and he waslike a javelin that some hunter hath hurled that returneth again to theearth: but just before he touched it he lifted his head and spread hiswings with the under feathers forward, and alighted by the bank of thebroad Flavro that divides the city of Nombros. And down the bank of theFlavro he fluttered low, like to a hawk over a new-cut cornfield when thelittle creatures of the corn are shelterless, and at the same time downthe other bank the Death from the gods went mowing. 

"At once they saw each other, and the angel glared at the Death, and theDeath leered back at him, and the flames in the eyes of the angelillumined with a red glare the mist that lay in the hollows of the socketsof the Death. Suddenly they fell on one another, sword to scythe. And theangel captured the temples of the gods, and set up over them the sign ofGod, and the Death captured the temples of God, and led into them theceremonies and sacrifices of the gods; and all the while the centuriesslipped quietly by, going down the Flavro seawards. 

"And now some worship God in the temple of the gods, and others worship thegods in the temple of God, and still the angel hath not returned again tothe rejoicing choirs, and still the Death hath not gone back to die withthe dead gods; but all through Nombros they fight up and down, and stillon each side of the Flavro the city lives. "

And the watchers in the gate said, "Enter in. "

Then another traveler rose up, and said:

"Solemnly between Huhenwazy and Nitcrana the huge grey clouds camefloating. And those great mountains, heavenly Huhenwazi and Nitcrana, theking of peaks, greeted them, calling them brothers. And the clouds wereglad of their greeting, for they meet with companions seldom in the lonelyheights of the sky. 

"But the vapours of evening said unto the earth-mist, 'What are thoseshapes that dare to move above us and to go where Nitcrana is andHuhenwazi?'

"And the earth-mist said in answer unto the vapours of evening, 'It isonly an earth-mist that has become mad and has left the warm andcomfortable earth, and has in his madness thought that his place is withHuhenwazi and Nitcrana. '

"'Once, ' said the vapours of evening, 'there were clouds, but this wasmany and many a day ago, as our forefathers have said. Perhaps the mad onethinks he is the clouds. '

"Then spake the earth-worms from the warm deeps of the mud, saying 'Oearth-mist, thou art indeed the clouds, and there are no clouds but thou. And as for Huhenwazi and Nitcrana, I cannot see them, and therefore theyare not high, and there are no mountains in the world but those that Icast up every morning out of the deeps of the mud. '

"And the earth-mist and the vapours of evening were glad at the voice ofthe earth-worms, and looking earthward believed what they had said. 

"And indeed it is better to be as the earth-mist, and to keep close to thewarm mud at night, and to hear the earth-worm's comfortable speech, andnot to be a wanderer in the cheerless heights, but to leave the mountainsalone with their desolate snow, to draw what comfort they can from theirvast aspect over all the cities of men, and from the whispers that theyhear at evening of unknown distant gods. "

And the watchers in the gate said, "Enter in. "

Then a man stood up who came out of the west, and told a western tale. Hesaid:

"There is a road in Rome that runs through an ancient temple that once thegods had loved; it runs along the top of a great wall, and the floor ofthe temple lies far down beneath it, of marble, pink and white. 

"Upon the temple floor I counted to the number of thirteen hungry cats. 

"'Sometimes, ' they said among themselves, 'it was the gods that livedhere, sometimes it was men, and now it's cats. So let us enjoy the sun onthe hot marble before another people comes. '

"For it was at that hour of a warm afternoon when my fancy is able to hearsilent voices. 

"And the awful leanness of all those thirteen cats moved me to go into aneighbouring fish shop, and there to buy a quantity of fishes. Then Ireturned and threw them all over the railing at the top of the great wall, and they fell for thirty feet, and hit the sacred marble with a smack. 

"Now, in any other town but Rome, or in the minds of any other cats, thesight of fishes falling out of heaven had surely excited wonder. They roseslowly, and all stretched themselves, then they came leisurely towards thefishes. 'It is only a miracle, ' they said in their hearts. "

And the watchers in the gate said, "Enter in. "

Proudly and slowly, as they spoke, drew up to them a camel, whose ridersought entrance to the city. His face shone with the sunset by which forlong he had steered for the city's gate. Of him they demanded toll. Whereat he spoke to his camel, and the camel roared and kneeled, and theman descended from him. And the man unwrapped from many silks a box ofdivers metals wrought by the Japanese, and on the lid of it were figuresof men who gazed from some shore at an isle of the Inland Sea. This heshowed to the watchers, and when they had seen it, said, "It has seemed tome that these speak to each other thus:

"'Behold now Oojni, the dear one of the sea, the little mother sea thathath no storms. She goeth out from Oojni singing a song, and she returnethsinging over her sands. Little is Oojni in the lap of the sea, and scarceto be perceived by wondering ships. White sails have never wafted herlegends afar, they are told not by bearded wanderers of the sea. Herfireside tales are known not to the North, the dragons of China have notheard of them, nor those that ride on elephants through Ind. 

"'Men tell the tales and the smoke ariseth upwards; the smoke departethand the tales are told. 

"'Oojni is not a name among the nations, she is not know of where themerchants meet, she is not spoken of by alien lips. 

"'Indeed, but Oojni is a little among the isles, yet is she loved by thosethat know her coasts and her inland places hidden from the sea. 

"Without glory, without fame, and without wealth, Oojni is greatly lovedby a little people, and by a few; yet not by few, for all her dead stilllove her, and oft by night come whispering through her woods. Who couldforget Oojni even among the dead?

"For here in Oojni, wot you, are homes of men, and gardens, and goldentemples of the gods, and sacred places inshore from the sea, and manymurmurous woods. And there is a path that winds over the hills to go intomysterious holy lands where dance by night the spirits of the woods, orsing unseen in the sunlight; and no one goes into these holy lands, forwho that love Oojni could rob her of her mysteries, and the curious alienscome not. Indeed, but we love Oojni though she is so little; she is thelittle mother of our race, and the kindly nurse of all seafaring birds. 

"And behold, even now caressing her, the gentle fingers of the mother sea, whose dreams are far with that old wanderer Ocean. 

"And yet let us forget not Fuzi-Yama, for he stands manifest over cloudsand sea, misty below, and vague and indistinct, but clear above for allthe isles to watch. The ships make all their journeys in his sight, thenights and the days go by him like a wind, the summers and winters underhim flicker and fade, the lives of men pass quietly here and hence, andFuzi-Yama watches there--and knows. "

And the watchers in the gate said, "Enter in. "

And I, too, would have told them a tale, very wonderful and very true; onethat I had told in many cities, which as yet had no believers. But now thesun had set, and the brief twilight gone, and ghostly silences were risingfrom far and darkening hills. A stillness hung over that city's gate. Andthe great silence of the solemn night was more acceptable to the watchersin the gate than any sound of man. Therefore they beckoned to us, andmotioned with their hands that we should pass untaxed into the city. Andsoftly we went up over the sand, and between the high rock pillars of thegate, and a deep stillness settled among the watchers, and the stars overthem twinkled undisturbed. 

For how short a while man speaks, and withal how vainly. And for how longhe is silent. Only the other day I met a king in Thebes, who had beensilent already for four thousand years. 

THE HASHISH MAN

I was at a dinner in London the other day. The ladies had gone upstairs, and no one sat on my right; on my left there was a man I did not know, buthe knew my name somehow apparently, for he turned to me after a while, andsaid, "I read a story of yours about Bethmoora in a review. "

Of course I remembered the tale. It was about a beautiful Oriental citythat was suddenly deserted in a day--nobody quite knew why. I said, "Oh, yes, " and slowly searched in my mind for some more fitting acknowledgmentof the compliment that his memory had paid me. 

I was greatly astonished when he said, "You were wrong about the gnousarsickness; it was not that at all. "

I said, "Why! Have you been there?"

And he said, "Yes; I do it with hashish. I know Bethmoora well. " And hetook out of his pocket a small box full of some black stuff that lookedlike tar, but had a stranger smell. He warned me not to touch it with myfinger, as the stain remained for days. "I got it from a gipsy, " he said. "He had a lot of it, as it had killed his father. " But I interrupted him, for I wanted to know for certain what it was that had made desolate thatbeautiful city, Bethmoora, and why they fled from it swiftly in a day. "Was it because of the Desert's curse?" I asked. And he said, "Partly itwas the fury of the Desert and partly the advice of the Emperor ThubaMleen, for that fearful beast is in some way connected with the Desert onhis mother's side. " And he told me this strange story: "You remember thesailor with the black scar, who was there on the day that you describedwhen the messengers came on mules to the gate of Bethmoora, and all thepeople fled. I met this man in a tavern, drinking rum, and he told me allabout the flight from Bethmoora, but knew no more than you did what themessage was, or who had sent it. However, he said he would see Bethmooraonce more whenever he touched again at an eastern port, even if he had toface the Devil. He often said that he would face the Devil to find out themystery of that message that emptied Bethmoora in a day. And in the end hehad to face Thuba Mleen, whose weak ferocity he had not imagined. For oneday the sailor told me he had found a ship, and I met him no more afterthat in the tavern drinking rum. It was about that time that I got thehashish from the gipsy, who had a quantity that he did not want. It takesone literally out of oneself. It is like wings. You swoop over distantcountries and into other worlds. Once I found out the secret of theuniverse. I have forgotten what it was, but I know that the Creator doesnot take Creation seriously, for I remember that He sat in Space with allHis work in front of Him and laughed. I have seen incredible things infearful worlds. As it is your imagination that takes you there, so it isonly by your imagination that you can get back. Once out in aether I met abattered, prowling spirit, that had belonged to a man whom drugs hadkilled a hundred years ago; and he led me to regions that I had neverimagined; and we parted in anger beyond the Pleiades, and I could notimagine my way back. And I met a huge grey shape that was the Spirit ofsome great people, perhaps of a whole star, and I besought It to show memy way home, and It halted beside me like a sudden wind and pointed, and, speaking quite softly, asked me if I discerned a certain tiny light, and Isaw a far star faintly, and then It said to me, 'That is the SolarSystem, ' and strode tremendously on. And somehow I imagined my way back, and only just in time, for my body was already stiffening in a chair in myroom; and the fire had gone out and everything was cold, and I had to moveeach finger one by one, and there were pins and needles in them, anddreadful pains in the nails, which began to thaw; and at last I could moveone arm, and reached a bell, and for a long time no one came, becauseevery one was in bed. But at last a man appeared, and they got a doctor;and HE said that it was hashish poisoning, but it would have been allright if I hadn't met that battered, prowling spirit. 

"I could tell you astounding things that I have seen, but you want to knowwho sent that message to Bethmoora. Well, it was Thuba Mleen. And this ishow I know. I often went to the city after that day you wrote of (I usedto take hashish of an evening in my flat), and I always found ituninhabited. Sand had poured into it from the desert, and the streets wereyellow and smooth, and through open, swinging doors the sand had drifted. 

"One evening I had put the guard in front of the fire, and settled into achair and eaten my hashish, and the first thing that I saw when I came toBethmoora was the sailor with the black scar, strolling down the street, and making footprints in the yellow sand. And now I knew that I should seewhat secret power it was that kept Bethmoora uninhabited. 

"I saw that there was anger in the Desert, for there were storm cloudsheaving along the skyline, and I heard a muttering amongst the sand. 

"The sailor strolled on down the street, looking into the empty houses ashe went; sometimes he shouted and sometimes he sang, and sometimes hewrote his name on a marble wall. Then he sat down on a step and ate hisdinner. After a while he grew tired of the city, and came back up thestreet. As he reached the gate of green copper three men on camelsappeared. 

"I could do nothing. I was only a consciousness, invisible, wandering: mybody was in Europe. The sailor fought well with his fists, but he wasover-powered and bound with ropes, and led away through the Desert. 

"I followed for as long as I could stay, and found that they were going bythe way of the Desert round the Hills of Hap towards Utnar Véhi, and thenI knew that the camel men belonged to Thuba Mleen. 

"I work in an insurance office all day, and I hope you won't forget me ifever you want to insure--life, fire, or motor--but that's no part of mystory. I was desperately anxious to get back to my flat, though it is notgood to take hashish two days running; but I wanted to see what they woulddo to the poor fellow, for I had heard bad rumours about Thuba Mleen. Whenat last I got away I had a letter to write; then I rang for my servant, and told him that I must not be disturbed, though I left my door unlockedin case of accidents. After that I made up a good fire, and sat down andpartook of the pot of dreams. I was going to the palace of Thuba Mleen. 

"I was kept back longer than usual by noises in the street, but suddenly Iwas up above the town; the European countries rushed by beneath me, andthere appeared the thin white palace spires of horrible Thuba Mleen. Ifound him presently at the end of a little narrow room. A curtain of redleather hung behind him, on which all the names of God, written inYannish, were worked with a golden thread. Three windows were small andhigh. The Emperor seemed no more than about twenty, and looked small andweak. No smiles came on his nasty yellow face, though he titteredcontinually. As I looked from his low forehead to his quivering under lip, I became aware that there was some horror about him, though I was not ableto perceive what it was. And then I saw it--the man never blinked; andthough later on I watched those eyes for a blink, it never happened once. 

"And then I followed the Emperor's rapt glance, and I saw the sailor lyingon the floor, alive but hideously rent, and the royal torturers were atwork all round him. They had torn long strips from him, but had notdetached them, and they were torturing the ends of them far away from thesailor. " The man that I met at dinner told me many things which I mustomit. "The sailor was groaning softly, and every time he groaned ThubaMleen tittered. I had no sense of smell, but I could hear and see, and Ido not know which was the most revolting--the terrible condition of thesailor or the happy unblinking face of horrible Thuba Mleen. 

"I wanted to go away, but the time was not yet come, and I had to staywhere I was. 

"Suddenly the Emperor's face began to twitch violently and his under lipquivered faster, and he whimpered with anger, and cried with a shrillvoice, in Yannish, to the captain of his torturers that there was a spiritin the room. I feared not, for living men cannot lay hands on a spirit, but all the torturers were appalled at his anger, and stopped their work, for their hands trembled in fear. Then two men of the spear-guard slippedfrom the room, and each of them brought back presently a golden bowl, withknobs on it, full of hashish; and the bowls were large enough for heads tohave floated in had they been filled with blood. And the two men fell torapidly, each eating with two great spoons--there was enough in eachspoonful to have given dreams to a hundred men. And there came upon themsoon the hashish state, and their spirits hovered, preparing to go free, while I feared horribly, but ever and anon they fell back again to theirbodies, recalled by some noise in the room. Still the men ate, but lazilynow, and without ferocity. At last the great spoons dropped out of theirhands, and their spirits rose and left them. I could not flee. And thespirits were more horrible than the men, because they were young men, andnot yet wholly moulded to fit their fearful souls. Still the sailorgroaned softly, evoking little titters from the Emperor Thuba Mleen. Thenthe two spirits rushed at me, and swept me thence as gusts of wind sweepbutterflies, and away we went from that small, pale, heinous man. Therewas no escaping from these spirits' fierce insistence. The energy in myminute lump of the drug was overwhelmed by the huge spoonsful that thesemen had eaten with both hands. I was whirled over Arvle Woondery, andbrought to the lands of Snith, and swept on still until I came to Kragua, and beyond this to those bleak lands that are nearly unknown to fancy. Andwe came at last to those ivory hills that are named the Mountains ofMadness, and I tried to struggle against the spirits of that frightfulEmperor's men, for I heard on the other side of the ivory hills thepittering of those beasts that prey on the mad, as they prowled up anddown. It was no fault of mine that my little lump of hashish could notfight with their horrible spoonsful. . . . "

Some one was tugging at the hall-door bell. Presently a servant came andtold our host that a policeman in the hall wished to speak to him at once. He apologised to us, and went outside, and we heard a man in heavy boots, who spoke in a low voice to him. My friend got up and walked over to thewindow, and opened it, and looked outside. "I should think it will be afine night, " he said. Then he jumped out. When we put our astonished headsout of the window to look for him, he was already out of sight. 

POOR OLD BILL

On an antique haunt of sailors, a tavern of the sea, the light of day wasfading. For several evenings I had frequented this place, in the hope ofhearing something from the sailors, as they sat over strange wines, abouta rumour that had reached my ears of a certain fleet of galleons of oldSpain still said to be afloat in the South Seas in some uncharted region. 

In this I was again to be disappointed. Talk was low and seldom, and I wasabout to leave, when a sailor, wearing ear-rings of pure gold, lifted uphis head from his wine, and looking straight before him at the wall, toldhis tale loudly:

(When later on a storm of rain arose and thundered on the tavern's leadedpanes, he raised his voice without effort and spoke on still. The darkerit got the clearer his wild eyes shone. )

"A ship with sails of the olden time was nearing fantastic isles. We hadnever seen such isles. 

"We all hated the captain, and he hated us. He hated us all alike, therewas no favouritism about him. And he never would talk a word with any ofus, except sometimes in the evening when it was getting dark he would stopand look up and talk a bit to the men he had hanged at the yard-arm. 

"We were a mutinous crew. But Captain was the only man that had pistols. He slept with one under his pillow and kept one close beside him. Therewas a nasty look about the isles. They were small and flat as though theyhad come up only recently from the sea, and they had no sand or rocks likehonest isles, but green grass down to the water. And there were littlecottages there whose looks we did not like. Their thatches came almostdown to the ground, and were strangely turned up at the corners, and underthe low eaves were queer dark windows whose little leaded panes were toothick to see through. And no one, man or beast, was walking about, so thatyou could not know what kind of people lived there. But Captain knew. Andhe went ashore and into one of the cottages, and someone lit lightsinside, and the little windows wore an evil look. 

"It was quite dark when he came aboard again, and he bade a cheerygood-night to the men that swung from the yard-arm and he eyed us in a waythat frightened poor old Bill. 

"Next night we found that he had learned to curse, for he came on a lot ofus asleep in our bunks, and among them poor old Bill, and he pointed at uswith a finger, and made a curse that our souls should stay all night atthe top of the masts. And suddenly there was the soul of poor old Billsitting like a monkey at the top of the mast, and looking at the stars, and freezing through and through. 

"We got up a little mutiny after that, but Captain comes up and pointswith his finger again, and this time poor old Bill and all the rest areswimming behind the ship through the cold green water, though their bodiesremain on deck. 

"It was the cabin-boy who found out that Captain couldn't curse when hewas drunk, though he could shoot as well at one time as another. 

"After that it was only a matter of waiting, and of losing two men whenthe time came. Some of us were murderous fellows, and wanted to killCaptain, but poor old Bill was for finding a bit of an island, out of thetrack of ships, and leaving him there with his share of our year'sprovisions. And everybody listened to poor old Bill, and we decided tomaroon Captain as soon as we caught him when he couldn't curse. 

"It was three whole days before Captain got drunk again, and poor old Billand all had a dreadful time, for Captain invented new curses every day, and wherever he pointed his finger our souls had to go; and the fishes gotto know us, and so did the stars, and none of them pitied us when we frozeon the masts or were hurried through forests of seaweed and lost ourway--both stars and fishes went about their businesses with cold, unastonished eyes. Once when the sun had set and it was twilight, and themoon was showing clearer and clearer in the sky, and we stopped our workfor a moment because Captain seemed to be looking away from us at thecolours in the sky, he suddenly turned and sent our souls to the Moon. Andit was colder there than ice at night; and there were horrible mountainsmaking shadows; and it was all as silent as miles of tombs; and Earth wasshining up in the sky as big as the blade of a scythe, and we all gothomesick for it, but could not speak nor cry. It was quite dark when wegot back, and we were very respectful to Captain all the next day, but hecursed several of us again very soon. What we all feared most was that hewould curse our souls to Hell, and none of us mentioned Hell above awhisper for fear that it should remind him. But on the third evening thecabin-boy came and told us that Captain was drunk. And we all went to hiscabin, and we found him lying there across his bunk, and he shot as he hadnever shot before; but he had no more than the two pistols, and he wouldonly have killed two men if he hadn't caught Joe over the head with theend of one of his pistols. And then we tied him up. And poor old Bill putthe rum between the Captain's teeth, and kept him drunk for two days, sothat he could not curse, till we found a convenient rock. And beforesunset of the second day we found a nice bare island for Captain, out ofthe track of ships, about a hundred yards long and about eighty wide; andwe rowed him along to it in a little boat, and gave him provisions for ayear, the same as we had ourselves, because poor old Bill wanted to befair. And we left him sitting comfortable with his back to a rock singinga sailor's song. 

"When we could no longer hear Captain singing we all grew very cheerfuland made a banquet out of our year's provisions, as we all hoped to behome again in under three weeks. We had three great banquets every day fora week--every man had more than he could eat, and what was left over wethrew on the floor like gentlemen. And then one day, as we saw SanHuëgédos, and wanted to sail in to spend our money, the wind changed roundfrom behind us and beat us out to sea. There was no tacking against it, and no getting into the harbour, though other ships sailed by us andanchored there. Sometimes a dead calm would fall on us, while fishingboats all around us flew before half a gale, and sometimes the wind wouldbeat us out to sea when nothing else was moving. All day we tried, and atnight we laid to and tried again the next day. And all the sailors of theother ships were spending their money in San Huëgédos and we could notcome nigh it. Then we spoke horrible things against the wind and againstSan Huëgédos, and sailed away. 

"It was just the same at Norenna. 

"We kept close together now and talked in low voices. Suddenly poor oldBill grew frightened. As we went all along the Siractic coast-line, wetried again and again, and the wind was waiting for us in every harbourand sent us out to sea. Even the little islands would not have us. Andthen we knew that there was no landing yet for poor old Bill, and everyone upbraided his kind heart that had made them maroon Captain on a rock, so as not to have his blood upon their heads. There was nothing to do butto drift about the seas. There were no banquets now, because we fearedthat Captain might live his year and keep us out to sea. 

"At first we used to hail all passing ships, and used to try to board themin the boats; but there was no towing against Captain's curse, and we hadto give that up. So we played cards for a year in Captain's cabin, nightand day, storm and fine, and every one promised to pay poor old Bill whenwe got ashore. 

"It was horrible to us to think what a frugal man Captain really was, hethat used to get drunk every other day whenever he was at sea, and here hewas still alive, and sober too, for his curse still kept us out of everyport, and our provisions were gone. 

"Well, it came to drawing lots, and Jim was the unlucky one. Jim only keptus about three days, and then we drew lots again, and this time it was thenigger. The nigger didn't keep us any longer, and we drew again, and thistime it was Charlie, and still Captain was alive. 

"As we got fewer one of us kept us longer. Longer and longer a mate usedto last us, and we all wondered how ever Captain did it. It was five weeksover the year when we drew Mike, and he kept us for a week, and Captainwas still alive. We wondered he didn't get tired of the same old curse;but we supposed things looked different when one is alone on an island. 

"When there was only Jakes and poor old Bill and the cabin-boy and Dick, we didn't draw any longer. We said that the cabin-boy had had all theluck, and he mustn't expect any more. Then poor old Bill was alone withJakes and Dick, and Captain was still alive. When there was no more boy, and the Captain still alive, Dick, who was a huge strong man like poor oldBill, said that it was Jakes' turn, and he was very lucky to have lived aslong as he had. But poor old Bill talked it all over with Jakes, and theythought it better than Dick should take his turn. 

"Then there was Jakes and poor old Bill; and Captain would not die. 

"And these two used to watch one another night and day, when Dick was goneand no one else was left to them. And at last poor old Bill fell down in afaint and lay there for an hour. Then Jakes came up to him slowly with hisknife, and makes a stab at poor old Bill as he lies there on the deck. Andpoor old Bill caught hold of him by the wrist, and put his knife into himtwice to make quite sure, although it spoiled the best part of the meat. Then poor old Bill was all alone at sea. 

"And the very next week, before the food gave out, Captain must have diedon his bit of an island; for poor old Bill heard the Captain's soul goingcursing over the sea, and the day after that the ship was cast on a rockycoast. 

"And Captain's been dead now for over a hundred years, and poor old Billis safe ashore again. But it looks as if Captain hadn't done with him yet, for poor old Bill doesn't ever get any older, and somehow or other hedoesn't seem to die. Poor old Bill!"

When this was over the man's fascination suddenly snapped, and we alljumped up and left him. 

It was not only his revolting story, but it was the fearful look in theeyes of the man who told it, and the terrible ease with which his voicesurpassed the roar of the rain, that decided me never again to enter thathaunt of sailors--the tavern of the sea. 

THE BEGGARS

I was walking down Piccadilly not long ago, thinking of nursery rhymes andregretting old romance. 

As I saw the shopkeepers walk by in their black frock-coats and theirblack hats, I thought of the old line in nursery annals: "The merchants ofLondon, they wear scarlet. "

The streets were all so unromantic, dreary. Nothing could be done forthem, I thought--nothing. And then my thoughts were interrupted by barkingdogs. Every dog in the street seemed to be barking--every kind of dog, notonly the little ones but the big ones too. They were all facing Easttowards the way I was coming by. Then I turned round to look and had thisvision, in Piccadilly, on the opposite side to the houses just after youpass the cab-rank. 

Tall bent men were coming down the street arrayed in marvelous cloaks. Allwere sallow of skin and swarthy of hair, and most of them wore strangebeards. They were coming slowly, and they walked with staves, and theirhands were out for alms. 

All the beggars had come to town. 

I would have given them a gold doubloon engraven with the towers ofCastile, but I had no such coin. They did not seem the people to who itwere fitting to offer the same coin as one tendered for the use of ataxicab (O marvelous, ill-made word, surely the pass-word somewhere ofsome evil order). Some of them wore purple cloaks with wide green borders, and the border of green was a narrow strip with some, and some wore cloaksof old and faded red, and some wore violet cloaks, and none wore black. And they begged gracefully, as gods might beg for souls. 

I stood by a lamp-post, and they came up to it, and one addressed it, calling the lamp-post brother, and said, "O lamp-post, our brother of thedark, are there many wrecks by thee in the tides of night? Sleep not, brother, sleep not. There were many wrecks an it were not for thee. "

It was strange: I had not thought of the majesty of the street lamp andhis long watching over drifting men. But he was not beneath the notice ofthese cloaked strangers. 

And then one murmured to the street: "Art thou weary, street? Yet a littlelonger they shall go up and down, and keep thee clad with tar and woodenbricks. Be patient, street. In a while the earthquake cometh. "

"Who are you?" people said. "And where do you come from?"

"Who may tell what we are, " they answered, "or whence we come?"

And one turned towards the smoke-stained houses, saying, "Blessed be thehouses, because men dream therein. "

Then I perceived, what I had never thought, that all these staring houseswere not alike, but different one from another, because they helddifferent dreams. 

And another turned to a tree that stood by the Green Park railings, saying, "Take comfort, tree, for the fields shall come again. "

And all the while the ugly smoke went upwards, the smoke that has stifledRomance and blackened the birds. This, I thought, they can neither praisenor bless. And when they saw it they raised their hands towards it, towards the thousand chimneys, saying, "Behold the smoke. The oldcoal-forests that have lain so long in the dark, and so long still, aredancing now and going back to the sun. Forget not Earth, O our brother, and we wish thee joy of the sun. "

It had rained, and a cheerless stream dropped down a dirty gutter. It hadcome from heaps of refuse, foul and forgotten; it had gathered upon itsway things that were derelict, and went to somber drains unknown to man orthe sun. It was this sullen stream as much as all other causes that hadmade me say in my heart that the town was vile, that Beauty was dead init, and Romance fled. 

Even this thing they blessed. And one that wore a purple cloak with broadgreen border, said, "Brother, be hopeful yet, for thou shalt surely comeat last to the delectable Sea, and meet the heaving, huge, and travelledships, and rejoice by isles that know the golden sun. " Even thus theyblessed the gutter, and I felt no whim to mock. 

And the people that went by, in their black unseemly coats and theirmisshapen, monstrous, shiny hats, the beggars also blessed. And one ofthem said to one of these dark citizens: "O twin of Night himself, withthy specks of white at wrist and neck like to Night's scattered stars. Howfearfully thou dost veil with black thy hid, unguessed desires. They aredeep thoughts in thee that they will not frolic with colour, that they say'No' to purple, and to lovely green 'Begone. ' Thou hast wild fancies thatthey must needs be tamed with black, and terrible imaginings that theymust be hidden thus. Has thy soul dreams of the angels, and of the wallsof faëry that thou hast guarded it so utterly, lest it dazzle astonishedeyes? Even so God hid the diamond deep down in miles of clay. 

"The wonder of thee is not marred by mirth. 

"Behold thou art very secret. 

"Be wonderful. Be full of mystery. "

Silently the man in the black frock-coat passed on. And I came tounderstand when the purple beggar had spoken, that the dark citizen hadtrafficked perhaps with Ind, that in his heart were strange and dumbambitions; that his dumbness was founded by solemn rite on the roots ofancient tradition; that it might be overcome one day by a cheer in thestreet or by some one singing a song, and that when this shopman spokethere might come clefts in the world and people peering over at the abyss. 

Then turning towards Green Park, where as yet Spring was not, the beggarsstretched out their hands, and looking at the frozen grass and the yetunbudding trees they, chanting all together, prophesied daffodils. 

A motor omnibus came down the street, nearly running over some of the dogsthat were barking ferociously still. It was sounding its horn noisily. 

And the vision went then. 

_In a letter from a friend whom I have never seen, one of those that readmy books, this line was quoted--"But he, he never came to Carcassonne. " Ido not know the origin of the line, but I made this tale about it. _

CARCASSONNE

When Camorak reigned at Arn, and the world was fairer, he gave a festivalto all the weald to commemorate the splendour of his youth. 

They say that his house at Arn was huge and high, and its ceiling paintedblue; and when evening fell men would climb up by ladders and light thescores of candles hanging from slender chains. And they say, too, thatsometimes a cloud would come, and pour in through the top of one of theoriel windows, and it would come over the edge of the stonework as thesea-mist comes over a sheer cliffs shaven lip where an old wind has blownfor ever and ever (he has swept away thousands of leaves and thousands ofcenturies, they are all one to him, he owes no allegiance to Time). Andthe cloud would re-shape itself in the hall's lofty vault and drift onthrough it slowly, and out to the sky again through another window. Andfrom its shape the knights in Camorak's hall would prophesy the battlesand sieges of the next season of war. They say of the hall of Camorak atArn that there hath been none like it in any land, and foretell that therewill be never. 

Hither had come in the folk of the Weald from sheepfold and from forest, revolving slow thoughts of food, and shelter, and love, and they sat downwondering in that famous hall; and therein also were seated the men ofArn, the town that clustered round the King's high house, and all wasroofed with red, maternal earth. 

If old songs may be trusted, it was a marvelous hall. 

Many who sat there could only have seen it distantly before, a clear shapein the landscape, but smaller than a hill. Now they beheld along the wallthe weapons of Camorak's men, of which already the lute-players madesongs, and tales were told at evening in the byres. There they describedthe shield of Camorak that had gone to and fro across so many battles, andthe sharp but dinted edges of his sword; there were the weapons of Gadriolthe Leal, and Norn, and Athoric of the Sleety Sword, Heriel the Wild, Yarold, and Thanga of Esk, their arms hung evenly all round the hall, lowwhere a man could reach them; and in the place of honour in the midst, between the arms of Camorak and of Gadriol the Leal, hung the harp ofArleon. And of all the weapons hanging on those walls none were morecalamitous to Camorak's foes than was the harp of Arleon. For to a manthat goes up against a strong place on foot, pleasant indeed is the twangand jolt of some fearful engine of war that his fellow-warriors areworking behind him, from which huge rocks go sighing over his head andplunge among his foes; and pleasant to a warrior in the wavering light arethe swift commands of his King, and a joy to him are his comrades' instantcheers exulting suddenly at a turn of the war. All this and more was theharp to Camorak's men; for not only would it cheer his warriors on, butmany a time would Arleon of the Harp strike wild amazement into opposinghosts by some rapturous prophecy suddenly shouted out while his hand sweptover the roaring strings. Moreover, no war was ever declared till Camorakand his men had listened long to the harp, and were elate with the musicand mad against peace. Once Arleon, for the sake of a rhyme, had made warupon Estabonn; and an evil king was overthrown, and honour and glory won;from such queer motives does good sometimes accrue. 

Above the shields and the harps all round the hall were the paintedfigures of heroes of fabulous famous songs. Too trivial, because tooeasily surpassed by Camorak's men, seemed all the victories that the earthhad known; neither was any trophy displayed of Camorak's seventy battles, for these were as nothing to his warriors or him compared with thosethings that their youth had dreamed and which they mightily purposed yetto do. 

Above the painted pictures there was darkness, for evening was closing in, and the candles swinging on their slender chain were not yet lit in theroof; it was as though a piece of the night had been builded into theedifice like a huge natural rock that juts into a house. And there sat allthe warriors of Arn and the Weald-folk wondering at them; and none weremore than thirty, and all were skilled in war. And Camorak sat at the headof all, exulting in his youth. 

We must wrestle with Time for some seven decades, and he is a weak andpuny antagonist in the first three bouts. 

Now there was present at this feast a diviner, one who knew the schemes ofFate, and he sat among the people of the Weald and had no place of honour, for Camorak and his men had no fear of Fate. And when the meat was eatenand the bones cast aside, the king rose up from his chair, and havingdrunken wine, and being in the glory of his youth and with all his knightsabout him, called to the diviner, saying, "Prophesy. "

And the diviner rose up, stroking his grey beard, and spakeguardedly--"There are certain events, " he said, "upon the ways of Fatethat are veiled even from a diviner's eyes, and many more are clear to usthat were better veiled from all; much I know that is better unforetold, and some things that I may not foretell on pain of centuries ofpunishment. But this I know and foretell--that you will never come toCarcassonne. "

Instantly there was a buzz of talk telling of Carcassonne--some had heardof it in speech or song, some had read of it, and some had dreamed of it. And the king sent Arleon of the Harp down from his right hand to minglewith the Weald-folk to hear aught that any told of Carcassonne. But thewarriors told of the places they had won to--many a hard-held fortress, many a far-off land, and swore that they would come to Carcassonne. 

And in a while came Arleon back to the king's right hand, and raised hisharp and chanted and told of Carcassonne. Far away it was, and far and faraway, a city of gleaming ramparts rising one over other, and marbleterraces behind the ramparts, and fountains shimmering on the terraces. ToCarcassonne the elf-kings with their fairies had first retreated from men, and had built it on an evening late in May by blowing their elfin horns. Carcassonne! Carcassonne!

Travellers had seen it sometimes like a clear dream, with the sunglittering on its citadel upon a far-off hilltop, and then the clouds hadcome or a sudden mist; no one had seen it long or come quite close to it;though once there were some men that came very near, and the smoke fromthe houses blew into their faces, a sudden gust--no more, and thesedeclared that some one was burning cedarwood there. Men had dreamed thatthere is a witch there, walking alone through the cold courts andcorridors of marmorean palaces, fearfully beautiful and still for all herfourscore centuries, singing the second oldest song, which was taught herby the sea, shedding tears for loneliness from eyes that would maddenarmies, yet will she not call her dragons home--Carcassonne is terriblyguarded. Sometimes she swims in a marble bath through whose deeps a rivertumbles, or lies all morning on the edge of it to dry slowly in the sun, and watches the heaving river trouble the deeps of the bath. It flowsthrough the caverns of earth for further than she knows, and coming tolight in the witch's bath goes down through the earth again to its ownpeculiar sea. 

In autumn sometimes it comes down black with snow that spring has moltenin unimagined mountains, or withered blooms of mountain shrubs gobeautifully by. 

When there is blood in the bath she knows there is war in the mountains;and yet she knows not where those mountains are. 

When she sings the fountains dance up from the dark earth, when she combsher hair they say there are storms at sea, when she is angry the wolvesgrow brave and all come down to the byres, when she is sad the sea is sad, and both are sad for ever. Carcassonne! Carcassonne!

This city is the fairest of the wonders of Morning; the sun shouts when hebeholdeth it; for Carcassonne Evening weepeth when Evening passeth away. 

And Arleon told how many goodly perils were round about the city, and howthe way was unknown, and it was a knightly venture. Then all the warriorsstood up and sang of the splendour of the venture. And Camorak swore bythe gods that had builded Arn, and by the honour of his warriors that, alive or dead, he would come to Carcassonne. 

But the diviner rose and passed out of the hall, brushing the crumbs fromhim with his hands and smoothing his robe as he went. 

Then Camorak said, "There are many things to be planned, and counsels tobe taken, and provender to be gathered. Upon what day shall we start?" Andall the warriors answering shouted, "Now. " And Camorak smiled thereat, forhe had but tried them. Down then from the walls they took their weapons, Sikorix, Kelleron, Aslof, Wole of the Axe; Huhenoth, Peace-breaker;Wolwuf, Father of War; Tarion, Lurth of the Warcry and many another. Little then dreamed the spiders that sat in that ringing hall of theunmolested leisure they were soon to enjoy. 

When they were armed they all formed up and marched out of the hall, andArleon strode before them singing of Carcassonne. 

But the talk of the Weald arose and went back well fed to byres. They hadno need of wars or of rare perils. They were ever at war with hunger. Along drought or hard winter were to them pitched battles; if the wolvesentered a sheep-fold it was like the loss of a fortress, a thunder-stormon the harvest was like an ambuscade. Well-fed, they went back slowly totheir byres, being at truce with hunger; and the night filled with stars. 

And black against the starry sky appeared the round helms of the warriorsas they passed the tops of the ridges, but in the valleys they sparklednow and then as the starlight flashed on steel. 

They followed behind Arleon going south, whence rumours had always come ofCarcassonne: so they marched in the starlight, and he before them singing. 

When they had marched so far that they heard no sound from Arn, and eveninaudible were her swinging bells, when candles burning late far up intowers no longer sent them their disconsolate welcome; in the midst of thepleasant night that lulls the rural spaces, weariness came upon Arleon andhis inspiration failed. It failed slowly. Gradually he grew less sure ofthe way to Carcassonne. Awhile he stopped to think, and remembered the wayagain; but his clear certainty was gone, and in its place were efforts inhis mind to recall old prophecies and shepherd's songs that told of themarvelous city. Then as he said over carefully to himself a song that awanderer had learnt from a goatherd's boy far up the lower slope ofultimate southern mountains, fatigue came down upon his toiling mind likesnow on the winding ways of a city noisy by night, stilling all. 

He stood, and the warriors closed up to him. For long they had passed bygreat oaks standing solitary here and there, like giants taking hugebreaths of the night air before doing some furious deed; now they had cometo the verge of a black forest; the tree-trunks stood like those greatcolumns in an Egyptian hall whence God in an older mood received thepraise of men; the top of it sloped the way of an ancient wind. Here theyall halted and lighted a fire of branches, striking sparks from flint intoa heap of bracken. They eased them of their armour, and sat round thefire, and Camorak stood up there and addressed them, and Camorak said: "Wego to war with Fate, who has doomed that I shall not come to Carcassonne. And if we turn aside but one of the dooms of Fate, then the whole futureof the world is ours, and the future that Fate has ordered is like the drycourse of an averted river. But if such men as we, such resoluteconquerors, cannot prevent one doom that Fate has planned, then is therace of man enslaved for ever to do its petty and allotted task. "

Then they all drew their swords, and waved them high in the firelight, anddeclared war on Fate. 

Nothing in the somber forest stirred or made any sound. 

Tired men do not dream of war. When morning came over the gleaming fieldsa company that had set out from Arn discovered the discovered thecamping-place of the warriors, and brought pavilions and provender. Andthe warriors feasted, and the birds in the forest sang, and theinspiration of Arleon awoke. 

Then they rose, and following Arleon, entered the forest, and marched awayto the South. And many a woman of Arn sent her thoughts with them as theyplayed alone some old monotonous tune, but their own thoughts were farbefore them, skimming over the bath through whose deeps the river tumblesin marble Carcassonne. 

When butterflies were dancing on the air, and the sun neared the zenith, pavilions were pitched, and all the warriors rested; and then they feastedagain, and then played knightly games, and late in the afternoon marchedon once more, singing of Carcassonne. 

And night came down with its mystery on the forest, and gave theirdemoniac look again to the trees, and rolled up out of misty hollows ahuge and yellow moon. 

And the men of Arn lit fires, and sudden shadows arose and leapedfantastically away. And the night-wind blew, arising like a ghost, andpassed between the tree trunks, and slipped down shimmering glades, andwaked the prowling beasts still dreaming of day, and drifted nocturnalbirds afield to menace timorous things, and beat the roses of thebefriending night, and wafted to the ears of wandering men the sound of amaiden's song, and gave a glamour to the lutanist's tune played in hisloneliness on distant hills; and the deep eyes of moths glowed like agalleon's lamps, and they spread their wings and sailed their familiarsea. Upon this night-wind also the dreams of Camorak's men floated toCarcassonne. 

All the next morning they marched, and all the evening, and knew they werenearing now the deeps of the forest. And the citizens of Arn kept closetogether and close behind the warriors. For the deeps of the forest wereall unknown to travellers, but not unknown to those tales of fear that mentell at evening to their friends, in the comfort and the safety of theirhearths. Then night appeared, and an enormous moon. And the men of Camorakslept. Sometimes they woke, and went to sleep again; and those that stayedawake for long and listened heard heavy two-footed creatures pad throughthe night on paws. 

As soon as it was light the unarmed men of Arn began to slip away, andwent back by bands through the forest. When darkness came they did notstop to sleep, but continued their flight straight on until they came toArn, and added there by the tales they told to the terror of the forest. 

But the warriors feasted, and afterwards Arleon rose, and played his harp, and led them on again; and a few faithful servants stayed with them still. And they marched all day through a gloom that was as old as night, butArleon's inspiration burned in his mind like a star. And he led them tillthe birds began to drop into the treetops, and it was evening and they allencamped. They had only one pavilion left to them now, and near it theylit a fire, and Camorak posted a sentry with drawn sword just beyond theglow of the firelight. Some of the warriors slept in the pavilion andothers round about it. 

When dawn came something terrible had killed and eaten the sentry. But thesplendour of the rumours of Carcassonne and Fate's decree that they shouldnever come there, and the inspiration of Arleon and his harp, all urgedthe warriors on; and they marched deeper and deeper all day into theforest. 

Once they saw a dragon that had caught a bear and was playing with it, letting it run a little way and overtaking it with a paw. 

They came at last to a clear space in the forest just before nightfall. Anodour of flowers arose from it like a mist, and every drop of dewinterpreted heaven unto itself. 

It was the hour when twilight kisses Earth. 

It was the hour when a meaning comes into senseless things, and treesout-majesty the pomp of monarchs, and the timid creatures steal abroad tofeed, and as yet the beasts of prey harmlessly dream, and Earth utters asigh, and it is night. 

In the midst of the wide clearing Camorak's warriors camped, and rejoicedto see stars again appearing one by one. 

That night they ate the last of their provisions, and slept unmolested bythe prowling things that haunt the gloom of the forest. 

On the next day some of the warriors hunted stags, and others lay inrushes by a neighbouring lake and shot arrows at water-fowl. One stag waskilled, and some geese, and several teal. 

Here the adventurers stayed, breathing the pure wild air that cities knownot; by day they hunted, and lit fires by night, and sang and feasted, andforgot Carcassonne. The terrible denizens of the gloom never molestedthem, venison was plentiful, and all manner of water-fowl: they loved thechase by day, and by night their favourite songs. Thus day after day wentby, thus week after week. Time flung over this encampment a handful ofmoons, the gold and silver moons that waste the year away; Autumn andWinter passed, and Spring appeared; and still the warriors hunted andfeasted there. 

One night of the springtide they were feasting about a fire and tellingtales of the chase, and the soft moths came out of the dark and flauntedtheir colours in the firelight, and went out grey into the dark again; andthe night wind was cool upon the warriors' necks, and the camp-fire waswarm in their faces, and a silence had settled among them after some song, and Arleon all at once rose suddenly up, remembering Carcassonne. And hishand swept over the strings of his harp, awaking the deeper chords, likethe sound of a nimble people dancing their steps on bronze, and the musicrolled away into the night's own silence, and the voice of Arleon rose:

"When there is blood in the bath she knows there is war in the mountainsand longs for the battle-shout of kingly men. "

And suddenly all shouted, "Carcassonne!" And at that word their idlenesswas gone as a dream is gone from a dreamer waked with a shout. And soonthe great march began that faltered no more nor wavered. Unchecked bybattles, undaunted in lonesome spaces, ever unwearied by the vulturousyears, the warriors of Camorak held on; and Arleon's inspiration led themstill. They cleft with the music of Arleon's harp the gloom of ancientsilences; they went singing into battles with terrible wild men, and cameout singing, but with fewer voices; they came to villages in valleys fullof the music of bells, or saw the lights at dusk of cottages shelteringothers. 

They became a proverb for wandering, and a legend arose of strange, disconsolate men. Folks spoke of them at nightfall when the fire was warmand rain slipped down the eaves; and when the wind was high small childrenfeared the Men Who Would Not Rest were going clattering past. Strangetales were told of men in old grey armour moving at twilight along thetops of the hills and never asking shelter; and mothers told their boyswho grew impatient of home that the grey wanderers were once so impatientand were now hopeless of rest, and were driven along with the rainwhenever the wind was angry. 

But the wanderers were cheered in their wandering by the hope of coming toCarcassonne, and later on by anger against Fate, and at last they marchedon still because it seemed better to march on than to think. 

For many years they had wandered and had fought with many tribes; oftenthey gathered legends in villages and listened to idle singers singingsongs; and all the rumours of Carcassonne still came from the South. 

And then one day they came to a hilly land with a legend in it that onlythree valleys away a man might see, on clear days, Carcassonne. Tiredthough they were and few, and worn with the years which had all broughtthem wars, they pushed on instantly, led still by Arleon's inspirationwhich dwindled in his age, though he made music with his old harp still. 

All day they climbed down into the first valley and for two days ascended, and came to the Town That May Not Be Taken In War below the top of themountain, and its gates were shut against them, and there was no wayround. To left and right steep precipices stood for as far as eye couldsee or legend tell of, and the pass lay through the city. ThereforeCamorak drew up his remaining warriors in line of battle to wage theirlast war, and they stepped forward over the crisp bones of old, unburiedarmies. 

No sentinel defied them in the gate, no arrow flew from any tower of war. One citizen climbed alone to the mountain's top, and the rest hidthemselves in sheltered places. 

Now, in the top of the mountain was a deep, bowl-like cavern in the rock, in which fires bubbled softly. But if any cast a boulder into the fires, as it was the custom for one of those citizens to do when enemiesapproached them, the mountain hurled up intermittent rocks for three days, and the rocks fell flaming all over the town and all round about it. Andjust as Camorak's men began to batter the gate they heard a crash on themountain, and a great rock fell beyond them and rolled into the valley. The next two fell in front of them on the iron roofs of the town. Just asthey entered the town a rock found them crowded in a narrow street, andshattered two of them. The mountain smoked and panted; with every pant arock plunged into the streets or bounced along the heavy iron roof, andthe smoke went slowly up, and up, and up. 

When they had come through the long town's empty streets to the lockedgate at the end, only fifteen were left. When they had broken down thegate there were only ten alive. Three more were killed as they went up theslope, and two as they passed near the terrible cavern. Fate let the restgo some way down the mountain upon the other side, and then took three ofthem. Camorak and Arleon alone were left alive. And night came down on thevalley to which they had come, and was lit by flashes from the fatalmountain; and the two mourned for their comrades all night long. 

But when the morning came they remembered their war with Fate, and theirold resolve to come to Carcassonne, and the voice of Arleon rose in aquavering song, and snatches of music from his old harp, and he stood upand marched with his face southwards as he had done for years, and behindhim Camorak went. And when at last they climbed from the third valley, andstood on the hill's summit in the golden sunlight of evening, their agedeyes saw only miles of forest and the birds going to roost. 

Their beards were white, and they had travelled very far and hard; it wasthe time with them when a man rests from labours and dreams in light sleepof the years that were and not of the years to come. 

Long they looked southwards; and the sun set over remoter forests, andglow-worms lit their lamps, and the inspiration of Arleon rose and flewaway for ever, to gladden, perhaps, the dreams of younger men. 

And Arleon said: "My King, I know no longer the way to Carcassonne. "

And Camorak smiled, as the aged smile, with little cause for mirth, andsaid: "The years are going by us like huge birds, whom Doom and Destinyand the schemes of God have frightened up out of some old grey marsh. Andit may well be that against these no warrior may avail, and that Fate hasconquered us, and that our quest has failed. "

And after this they were silent. 

Then they drew their swords, and side by side went down into the forest, still seeking Carcassonne. 

I think they got not far; for there were deadly marshes in that forest, and gloom that outlasted the nights, and fearful beasts accustomed to itsways. Neither is there any legend, either in verse or among the songs ofthe people of the fields, of any having come to Carcassonne. 

IN ZACCARATH

"Come, " said the King in sacred Zaccarath, "and let our prophets prophesybefore us. "

A far-seen jewel of light was the holy palace, a wonder to the nomads onthe plains. 

There was the King with all his underlords, and the lesser kings that didhim vassalage, and there were all his queens with all their jewels uponthem. 

Who shall tell of the splendour in which they sat; of the thousand lightsand the answering emeralds; of the dangerous beauty of that hoard ofqueens, or the flash of their laden necks?

There was a necklace there of rose-pink pearls beyond the art of thedreamer to imagine. Who shall tell of the amethyst chandeliers, wheretorches, soaked in rare Bhyrinian oils, burned and gave off a scent ofblethany?

(This herb marvellous, which, growing near the summit of Mount Zaumnos, scents all the Zaumnian range, and is smelt far out on the Kepuscranplains, and even, when the wind is from the mountains, in the streets ofthe city of Ognoth. At night it closes its petals and is heard to breathe, and its breath is a swift poison. This it does even by day if the snowsare disturbed about it. No plant of this has ever been captured alive by ahunter. )

Enough to say that when the dawn came up it appeared by contrast pallidand unlovely and stripped bare of all its glory, so that it hid itselfwith rolling clouds. 

"Come, " said the King, "let our prophets prophesy. "

Then the heralds stepped through the ranks of the King's silk-cladwarriors who lay oiled and scented upon velvet cloaks, with a pleasantbreeze among them caused by the fans of slaves; even their casting-spearswere set with jewels; through their ranks the heralds went with mincingsteps, and came to the prophets, clad in brown and black, and one of themthey brought and set him before the King. And the King looked at him andsaid, "Prophesy unto us. "

And the prophet lifted his head, so that his beard came clear from hisbrown cloak, and the fans of the slaves that fanned the warriors waftedthe tip of it a little awry. And he spake to the King, and spake thus:

"Woe unto thee, King, and woe unto Zaccarath. Woe unto thee, and woe untothy women, for your fall shall be sore and soon. Already in Heaven thegods shun thy god: they know his doom and what is written of him: he seesoblivion before him like a mist. Thou hast aroused the hate of themountaineers. They hate thee all along the crags of Droom. The evilness ofthy days shall bring down the Zeedians on thee as the suns of springtidebring the avalanche down. They shall do unto Zaccarath as the avalanchedoth unto the hamlets of the valley. " When the queens chattered ortittered among themselves, he merely raised his voice and still spake on:"Woe to these walls and the carven things upon them. The hunter shall knowthe camping-places of the nomads by the marks of the camp-fires on theplain, but he shall not know the place of Zaccarath. "

A few of the recumbent warriors turned their heads to glance at theprophet when he ceased. Far overhead the echoes of his voice hummed onawhile among the cedarn rafters. 

"Is he not splendid?" said the King. And many of that assembly beat withtheir palms upon the polished floor in token of applause. Then the prophetwas conducted back to his place at the far end of that mighty hall, andfor a while musicians played on marvellous curved horns, while drumsthrobbed behind them hidden in a recess. The musicians were sittingcrosslegged on the floor, all blowing their huge horns in the brillianttorchlight, but as the drums throbbed louder in the dark they arose andmoved slowly nearer to the King. Louder and louder drummed the drums inthe dark, and nearer and nearer moved the men with the horns, so thattheir music should not be drowned by the drums before it reached the King. 

A marvellous scene it was when the tempestuous horns were halted beforethe King, and the drums in the dark were like the thunder of God; and thequeens were nodding their heads in time to the music, with their diademsflashing like heavens of falling stars; and the warriors lifted theirheads and shook, as they lifted them, the plumes of those golden birdswhich hunters wait for by the Liddian lakes, in a whole lifetime killingscarcely six, to make the crests that the warriors wore when they feastedin Zaccarath. Then the King shouted and the warriors sang--almost theyremembered then old battle-chants. And, as they sang, the sound of thedrums dwindled, and the musicians walked away backwards, and the drummingbecame fainter and fainter as they walked, and altogether ceased, and theyblew no more on their fantastic horns. Then the assemblage beat on thefloor with their palms. And afterwards the queens besought the King tosend for another prophet. And the heralds brought a singer, and placed himbefore the King; and the singer was a young man with a harp. And he sweptthe strings of it, and when there was silence he sang of the iniquity ofthe King. And he foretold the onrush of the Zeedians, and the fall and theforgetting of Zaccarath, and the coming again of the desert to its own, and the playing about of little lion cubs where the courts of the palacehad stood. 

"Of what is he singing?" said a queen to a queen. 

"He is singing of everlasting Zaccarath. "

As the singer ceased the assemblage beat listlessly on the floor, and theKing nodded to him, and he departed. 

When all the prophets had prophesied to them and all the singers sung, that royal company arose and went to other chambers, leaving the hall offestival to the pale and lonely dawn. And alone were left the lion-headedgods that were carven out of the walls; silent they stood, and their rockyarms were folded. And shadows over their faces moved like curious thoughtsas the torches flickered and the dull dawn crossed the fields. And thecolours began to change in the chandeliers. 

When the last lutanist fell asleep the birds began to sing. 

Never was greater splendour or a more famous hall. When the queens wentaway through the curtained door with all their diadems, it was as thoughthe stars should arise in their stations and troop together to the West atsunrise. 

And only the other day I found a stone that had undoubtedly been a part ofZaccarath, it was three inches long and an inch broad; I saw the edge ofit uncovered by the sand. I believe that only three other pieces have beenfound like it. 

THE FIELD

When one has seen Spring's blossom fall in London, and Summer appear andripen and decay, as it does early in cities, and one is in London still, then, at some moment or another, the country places lift their floweryheads and call to one with an urgent, masterful clearness, upland behindupland in the twilight like to some heavenly choir arising rank on rank tocall a drunkard from his gambling-hell. No volume of traffic can drown thesound of it, no lure of London can weaken its appeal. Having heard itone's fancy is gone, and evermore departed, to some coloured pebble agleamin a rural brook, and all that London can offer is swept from one's mindlike some suddenly smitten metropolitan Goliath. 

The call is from afar both in leagues and years, for the hills that callone are the hills that were, and their voices are the voices of long ago, when the elf-kings still had horns. 

I see them now, those hills of my infancy (for it is they that call), withtheir faces upturned to the purple twilight, and the faint diaphanousfigures of the fairies peering out from under the bracken to see ifevening is come. I do not see upon their regal summits those desirablemansions, and highly desirable residences, which have lately been builtfor gentlemen who would exchange customers for tenants. 

When the hills called I used to go to them by road, riding a bicycle. Ifyou go by train you miss the gradual approach, you do not cast off Londonlike an old forgiven sin, nor pass by little villages on the way that musthave some rumour of the hills; nor, wondering if they are still the same, come at last upon the edge of their far-spread robes, and so on to theirfeet, and see far off their holy, welcoming faces. In the train you seethem suddenly round a curve, and there they all are sitting in the sun. 

I imagine that as one penetrated out from some enormous forest of thetropics, the wild beasts would become fewer, the gloom would lighten, andthe horror of the place would slowly lift. Yet as one emerges nearer tothe edge of London, and nearer to the beautiful influence of the hills, the houses become uglier, the streets viler, the gloom deepens, the errorsof civilisation stand bare to the scorn of the fields. 

Where ugliness reaches the height of its luxuriance, in the dense miseryof the place, where one imagines the builder saying, "Here I culminate. Let us give thanks to Satan, " there is a bridge of yellow brick, andthrough it, as through some gate of filigree silver opening on fairyland, one passes into the country. 

To left and right, as far as one can see, stretches that monstrous city;before one are the fields like an old, old song. 

There is a field there that is full of king-cups. A stream runs throughit, and along the stream is a little wood of osiers. There I used often torest at the streams edge before my long journey to the hills. 

There I used to forget London, street by street. Sometimes I picked abunch of king-cups to show them to the hills. 

I often came there. At first I noticed nothing about the field except itsbeauty and its peacefulness. 

But the second time that I came I thought there was something ominousabout the field. 

Down there among the king-cups by the little shallow stream I felt thatsomething terrible might happen in just such a place. 

I did not stay long there, because I thought that too much time spent inLondon had brought on these morbid fancies and I went on to the hills asfast as I could. 

I stayed for some days in the country air, and when I came back I went tothe field again to enjoy that peaceful spot before entering London. Butthere was still something ominous among the osiers. 

A year elapsed before I went there again. I emerged from the shadow ofLondon into the gleaming sun; the bright green grass and the king-cupswere flaming in the light, and the little stream was singing a happy song. But the moment I stepped into the field my old uneasiness returned, andworse than before. It was as though the shadow was brooding there of somedreadful future thing and a year had brought it nearer. 

I reasoned that the exertion of bicycling might be bad for one, and thatthe moment one rested this uneasiness might result. 

A little later I came back past the field by night, and the song of thestream in the hush attracted me down to it. And there the fancy came to methat it would be a terribly cold place to be in the starlight, if for somereason one was hurt and could not get away. 

I knew a man who was minutely acquainted with the past history of thatlocality, and him I asked if anything historical had ever happened in thatfield. When he pressed me for my reason in asking him this, I said thatthe field had seemed to me such a good place to hold a pageant in. But hesaid that nothing of any interest had ever occurred there, nothing at all. 

So it was from the future that the field's terrible trouble came. 

For three years off and on I made visits to the field, and every time moreclearly it boded evil things, and my uneasiness grew more acute every timethat I was lured to go and rest among the cool green grass under thebeautiful osiers. Once to distract my thoughts I tried to gauge how fastthe stream was trickling, but I found myself wondering if it flowed fasterthan blood. 

I felt that it would be a terrible place to go mad in, one would hearvoices. 

At last I went to a poet whom I knew, and woke him from huge dreams, andput before him the whole case of the field. He had not been out of Londonall that year, and he promised to come with me and look at the field, andtell me what was going to happen there. It was late in July when we went. The pavement, the air, the houses and the dirt had been all baked dry bythe summer, the weary traffic dragged on, and on, and on, and Sleepspreading her wings soared up and floated from London and went to walkbeautifully in rural places. 

When the poet saw the field he was delighted, the flowers were out inmasses all along the stream, he went down to the little wood rejoicing. Bythe side of the stream he stood and seemed very sad. Once or twice helooked up and down it mournfully, then he bent and looked at theking-cups, first one and then another, very closely, and shaking his head. 

For a long while he stood in silence, and all my old uneasiness returned, and my bodings for the future. 

And then I said, "What manner of field is it?"

And he shook his head sorrowfully. 

"It is a battlefield, " he said. 

THE DAY OF THE POLL

In the town by the sea it was the day of the poll, and the poet regardedit sadly when he woke and saw the light of it coming in at his windowbetween two small curtains of gauze. And the day of the poll wasbeautifully bright; stray bird-songs came to the poet at the window; theair was crisp and wintry, but it was the blaze of sunlight that haddeceived the birds. He heard the sound of the sea that the moon led up theshore, dragging the months away over the pebbles and shingles and pilingthem up with the years where the worn-out centuries lay; he saw themajestic downs stand facing mightily south-wards; saw the smoke of thetown float up to their heavenly faces--column after column rose calmlyinto the morning as house by house was waked by peering shafts of thesunlight and lit its fires for the day; column by column went up towardthe serene downs' faces, and failed before they came there and hung allwhite over houses; and every one in the town was raving mad. 

It was a strange thing that the poet did, for he hired the largest motorin the town and covered it with all the flags he could find, and set outto save an intelligence. And he presently found a man whose face was hot, who shouted that the time was not far distant when a candidate, whom henamed, would be returned at the head of the poll by a thumping majority. And by him the poet stopped and offered him a seat in the motor that wascovered with flags. When the man saw the flags that were on the motor, andthat it was the largest in the town, he got in. He said that his voteshould be given for that fiscal system that had made us what we are, inorder that the poor man's food should not be taxed to make the rich manricher. Or else it was that he would give his vote for that system oftariff reform which should unite us closer to our colonies with ties thatshould long endure, and give employment to all. But it was not to thepolling-booth that the motor went, it passed it and left the town and cameby a small white winding road to the very top of the downs. There the poetdismissed the car and let that wondering voter on to the grass and seatedhimself on a rug. And for long the voter talked of those imperialtraditions that our forefathers had made for us and which he should upholdwith his vote, or else it was of a people oppressed by a feudal systemthat was out of date and effete, and that should be ended or mended. Butthe poet pointed out to him small, distant, wandering ships on the sunlitstrip of sea, and the birds far down below them, and the houses below thebirds, with the little columns of smoke that could not find the downs. 

And at first the voter cried for his polling-booth like a child; but aftera while he grew calmer, save when faint bursts of cheering came twitteringup to the downs, when the voter would cry out bitterly against themisgovernment of the Radical party, or else it was--I forget what the poettold me--he extolled its splendid record. 

"See, " said the poet, "these ancient beautiful things, the downs and theold-time houses and the morning, and the grey sea in the sunlight goingmumbling round the world. And this is the place they have chosen to go manin!"

And standing there with all broad England behind him, rolling northward, down after down, and before him the glittering sea too far for the soundof the roar of it, there seemed to the voter to grow less important thequestions that troubled the town. Yet he was still angry. 

"Why did you bring me here?" he said again. 

"Because I grew lonely, " said the poet, "when all the town went mad. "

Then he pointed out to the voter some old bent thorns, and showed him theway that a wind had blown for a million years, coming up at dawn from thesea; and he told him of the storms that visit the ships, and their namesand whence they come, and the currents they drive afield, and the way thatthe swallows go. And he spoke of the down where they sat, when the summercame, and the flowers that were not yet, and the different butterflies, and about the bats and the swifts, and the thoughts in the heart of man. He spoke of the aged windmill that stood on the down, and of how tochildren it seemed a strange old man who was only dead by day. And as hespoke, and as the sea-wind blew on that high and lonely place, there beganto slip away from the voter's mind meaningless phrases that had crowded itlong--thumping majority--victory in the fight--terminologicalinexactitudes--and the smell of paraffin lamps dangling in heatedschoolrooms, and quotations taken from ancient speeches because the wordswere long. They fell away, though slowly, and slowly the voter saw a widerworld and the wonder of the sea. And the afternoon wore on, and the winterevening came, and the night fell, and all black grew the sea, and aboutthe time that the stars come blinking out to look upon our littleness, thepolling-booth closed in the town. 

When they got back the turmoil was on the wane in the streets; night hidthe glare of the posters; and the tide, finding the noise abated and beingat the flow, told an old tale that he had learned in his youth about thedeeps of the sea, the same which he had told to coastwise ships thatbrought it to Babylon by the way of Euphrates before the doom of Troy. 

I blame my friend the poet, however lonely he was, for preventing this manfrom registering his vote (the duty of every citizen); but perhaps itmatters less, as it was a foregone conclusion, because the losingcandidate, either through poverty or sheer madness, had neglected tosubscribe to a single football club. 

THE UNHAPPY BODY

"Why do you not dance with us and rejoice with us?" they said to a certainbody. And then that body made the confession of its trouble. It said: "Iam united with a fierce and violent soul, that is altogether tyrannous andwill not let me rest, and he drags me away from the dances of my kin tomake me toil at his detestable work; and he will not let me do the littlethings, that would give pleasure to the folk I love, but only cares toplease posterity when he has done with me and left me to the worms; andall the while he makes absurd demands of affection from those that arenear to me, and is too proud even to notice any less than he demands, sothat those that should be kind to me all hate me. " And the unhappy bodyburst into tears. 

And they said: "No sensible body cares for its soul. A soul is a littlething, and should not rule a body. You should drink and smoke more till heceases to trouble you. " But the body only wept, and said, "Mine is afearful soul. I have driven him away for a little while with drink. But hewill soon come back. Oh, he will soon come back!"

And the body went to bed hoping to rest, for it was drowsy with drink. Butjust as sleep was near it, it looked up, and there was its soul sitting onthe windowsill, a misty blaze of light, and looking into the river. 

"Come, " said the tyrannous soul, "and look into the street. "

"I have need of sleep, " said the body. 

"But the street is a beautiful thing, " the soul said vehemently; "ahundred of the people are dreaming there. "

"I am ill through want of rest, " the body said. 

"That does not matter, " the soul said to it. "There are millions like youin the earth, and millions more to go there. The people's dreams arewandering afield; they pass the seas and mountains of faëry, threading theintricate passes led by their souls; they come to golden temples a-ringwith a thousand bells; they pass up steep streets lit by paper lanterns, where the doors are green and small; they know their way to witches'chambers and castles of enchantment; they know the spell that brings themto the causeway along the ivory mountains--on one side looking downwardthey behold the fields of their youth and on the other lie the radiantplains of the future. Arise and write down what the people dream. "

"What reward is there for me, " said the body, "if I write down what youbid me?"

"There is no reward, " said the soul. 

"Then I shall sleep, " said the body. 

And the soul began to hum an idle song sung by a young man in a fabulousland as he passed a golden city (where fiery sentinels stood), and knewthat his wife was within it, though as yet but a little child, and knew byprophecy that furious wars, not yet arisen in far and unknown mountains, should roll above him with their dust and thirst before he ever came tothat city again--the young man sang it as he passed the gate, and was nowdead with his wife a thousand years. 

"I cannot sleep for that abominable song, " the body cried to the soul. 

"Then do as you are commanded, " the soul replied. And wearily the bodytook a pen again. Then the soul spoke merrily as he looked through thewindow. "There is a mountain lifting sheer above London, part crystal andpart myst. Thither the dreamers go when the sound of the traffic hasfallen. At first they scarcely dream because of the roar of it, but beforemidnight it stops, and turns, and ebbs with all its wrecks. Then thedreamers arise and scale the shimmering mountain, and at its summit findthe galleons of dream. Thence some sail East, some West, some into thePast and some into the Future, for the galleons sail over the years aswell as over the spaces, but mostly they head for the Past and the oldenharbours, for thither the sighs of men are mostly turned, and thedream-ships go before them, as the merchantmen before the continualtrade-winds go down the African coast. I see the galleons even now raiseanchor after anchor; the stars flash by them; they slip out of the night;their prows go gleaming into the twilight of memory, and night soon liesfar off, a black cloud hanging low, and faintly spangled with stars, likethe harbour and shore of some low-lying land seen afar with its harbourlights. "

Dream after dream that soul related as he sat there by the window. He toldof tropical forests seen by unhappy men who could not escape from London, and never would--forests made suddenly wondrous by the song of somepassing bird flying to unknown eyries and singing an unknown song. He sawthe old men lightly dancing to the tune of elfin pipes--beautiful danceswith fantastic maidens--all night on moonlit imaginary mountains; he heardfar off the music of glittering Springs; he saw the fairness of blossomsof apple and may thirty years fallen; he heard old voices--old tears cameglistening back; Romance sat cloaked and crowned upon southern hills, andthe soul knew him. 

One by one he told the dreams of all that slept in that street. Sometimeshe stopped to revile the body because it worked badly and slowly. Itschill fingers wrote as fast as they could, but the soul cared not forthat. And so the night wore on till the soul heard tinkling in Orientalskies far footfalls of the morning. 

"See now, " said the soul, "the dawn that the dreamers dread. The sails oflight are paling on those unwreckable galleons; the mariners that steerthem slip back into fable and myth; that other sea the traffic is turningnow at its ebb, and is about to hide its pallid wrecks, and to comeswinging back, with its tumult, at the flow. Already the sunlight flashesin the gulfs behind the east of the world; the gods have seen it fromtheir palace of twilight that the built above the sunrise; they warm theirhands at its glow as it streams through their gleaming arches, before itreaches the world; all the gods are there that have ever been, and all thegods that shall be; they sit there in the morning, chanting and praisingMan. "

"I am numb and very cold for want of sleep, " said the body. 

"You shall have centuries of sleep, " said the soul, "but you must notsleep now, for I have seen deep meadows with purple flowers flaming talland strange above the brilliant grass, and herds of pure white unicornsthat gambol there for joy, and a river running by with a glitteringgalleon on it, all of gold, that goes from an unknown inland to an unknownisle of the sea to take a song from the King of Over-the-Hills to theQueen of Far-Away. 

"I will sing that song to you, and you shall write it down. "

"I have toiled for you for years, " the body said. "Give me now but onenight's rest, for I am exceeding weary. "

"Oh, go and rest. I am tired of you. I am off, " said the soul. 

And he arose and went, we know not whither. But the body they laid in theearth. And the next night at midnight the wraiths of the dead camedrifting from their tombs to felicitate that body. 

"You are free here, you know, " they said to their new companion. 

"Now I can rest, " said the body. 

FINIS