THE THIRD CHRONICLE
HOW HE CAME TO THE HOUSE OF WONDER
It was the gross Morano. Here he had tracked Rodriguez, for where laGarda goes is always known, and rumour of it remains long behind them,like the scent of a fox. He told no tale of his escape more than a dogdoes who comes home some hours late; a dog comes back to his master,that is all, panting a little perhaps; someone perhaps had caught himand he escaped and came home, a thing too natural to attempt to speakof by any of the signs that a dog knows.
Part of Morano's method seems to have resembled Rodriguez', for just asRodriguez spoke Latin, so Morano fell back upon his own natural speech,that he as it were unbridled and allowed to run free, the coarseness ofwhich had at first astounded, and then delighted, la Garda.
"And did they not suspect that you were yourself?" said Rodriguez.
"No, master," Morano answered, "for I said that I was the brother ofthe King of Aragon."
"The King of Aragon!" Rodriguez said, going to the length of showingsurprise. "Yes, indeed, master." said Morano, "and they recognised me."
"Recognised you!" exclaimed the Priest.
"Indeed so," said Morano, "for they said that they were themselves theKings of Aragon; and so, father, they recognised me for their brother."
"That you should not have said," the Priest told Morano.
"Reverend father," replied Morano, "as Heaven shines, I believed thatwhat I said was true." And Morano sighed deeply. "And now," he said, "Iknow it is true no more."
Whether he sighed for the loss of his belief in that exaltedrelationship, or whether for the loss of that state of mind in whichsuch beliefs come easily, there was nothing in his sigh to show. Theyquestioned him further, but he said no more: he was here, there was nomore to say: he was here and la Garda was gone.
And then the reverend man brought for them a great supper, even at thatlate hour, for many an hour had slipped softly by as he heard the sinsof the sword; and wine he set out, too, of a certain golden vintage,long lost--I fear--my reader: but this he gave not to Morano lest heshould be once more, what the reverend father feared to entertain, thatdread hidalgo, the King of Aragon's brother. And after that, the starshaving then gone far on their ways, the old Priest rose and offered abed to Rodriguez; and even as he eyed Morano, wondering where to puthim, and was about to speak, for he had no other bed, Morano went to acorner of the room and curled up and lay down. And by the time his hosthad walked over to him and spoken, asking anxiously if he needednothing more, he was almost already asleep, and muttered in answer,after having been spoken to twice, no more than "Straw, reverendfather, straw."
An armful of this the good man brought him, and then showed Rodriguezto his room; and they can scarcely have reached it before Morano wasback in Aragon again, walking on golden shoes (which were sometimeswings), proud among lesser princes.
As precaution for the night Rodriguez took one more glance at hishost's kind face; and then, with sword out of reach and an unlockeddoor, he slept till the songs of birds out of the deeps of the ilicesmade sleep any longer impossible.
The third morning of Rodriguez' wandering blazed over Spain like brass;flowers and grass and sky were twinkling all together.
When Rodriguez greeted his host Morano was long astir, having awakenedwith dawn, for the simpler and humbler the creature the nearer it isakin to the earth and the sun. The forces that woke the birds andopened the flowers stirred the gross lump of Morano, ending his sleepas they ended the nightingale's song.
They breakfasted hurriedly and Rodriguez rose to depart, feeling thathe had taken hospitality that had not been offered. But against hisdeparture was the barrier of all the politeness of Spain. The house washis, said his host, and even the small grove of ilices.
If I told you half of the things that the reverend man said, you wouldsay: "This writer is affected. I do not like all this flowery mush." Ithink it safer, my reader, not to tell you any of it. Let us supposethat he merely said, "Quite all right," and that when Rodriguez thankedhim on one knee he answered, "Not at all;" and that so Rodriguez andMorano left. If here it miss some flash of the fair form of Truth it isthe fault of the age I write for.
The road again, dust again, birds and the blaze of leaves, these werethe background of my wanderers, until the eye had gone as far as theeye can roam, and there were the tips of some far pale-blue mountainsthat now came into view.
They were still in each other's clothes; but the village was not behindthem very far when Morano explained, for he knew the ways of la Garda,that having arrested two men upon this road, they would now arrest twomen each on all the other roads, in order to show the impartiality ofthe Law, which constantly needs to be exhibited; and that therefore allmen were safe on the road they were on for a long while to come.
Now there seemed to Rodriguez to be much good sense in what Morano hadsaid; and so indeed there was for they had good laws in Spain, and theydiffered little, though so long ago, from our own excellent system.Therefore they changed once more, giving back to each other everythingbut, alas, those delicate black moustachios; and these to Rodriguezseemed gone for ever, for the growth of new ones seemed so far ahead tothe long days of youth that his hopes could scarce reach to them.
When Morano found himself once more in those clothes that had been withhim night and day for so many years he seemed to expand; I mean nometaphor here; he grew visibly fatter.
"Ah," said Morano after a huge breath, "last night I dreamed, in yourillustrious clothes, that I was in lofty station. And now, master, I amcomfortable."
"Which were best, think you," said Rodriguez, "if you could have butone, a lofty place or comfort?" Even in those days such a question wastrite, but Rodriguez uttered it only thinking to dip in the store ofMorano's simple wisdom, as one may throw a mere worm to catch a worthyfish. But in this he was disappointed; for Morano made no neatcomparison nor even gave an opinion, saying only, "Master, while I havecomfort how shall I judge the case of any who have not?" And no morewould he say. His new found comfort, lost for a day and night, seemedso to have soothed his body that it closed the gates of the mind, astoo much luxury may, even with poets.
And now Rodriguez thought of his quest again, and the two of thempushed on briskly to find the wars.
For an hour they walked in silence an empty road. And then they cameupon a row of donkeys; piled high with the bark of the cork-tree, thatmen were bringing slowly from far woods. Some of the men were singingas they went. They passed slow in the sunshine.
"Oh, master," said Morano when they were gone, "I like not thatlascivious loitering."
"Why, Morano?" said Rodriguez. "It was not God that made hurry."
"Master," answered Morano, "I know well who made hurry. And may he notovertake my soul at the last. Yet it is bad for our fortunes that thesemen should loiter thus. You want your castle, master; and I, I want notalways to wander roads, with la Garda perhaps behind and no certainplace to curl up and sleep in front. I look for a heap of straw in thecellar of your great castle."
"Yes, yes, you shall have it," his master said, "but how do these folkshinder you?" For Morano was scowling at them over his shoulder in a waythat was somehow spoiling the gladness of Spring.
"The air is full of their singing," Morano said. "It is as though theirsouls were already flying to Hell, and cawing hoarse with sin all theway as they go. And they loiter, and they linger..." Oh, but Morano wasangry.
"But," said Rodriguez, "how does their lingering harm you?"
"Where are the wars, master? Where are the wars?" blurted Morano, hisround face turning redder. "The donkeys would be dead, the men would berunning, there would be shouts, cries, and confusion, if the wars wereanywhere near. There would be all things but this."
The men strolled on singing and so passed slow into distance. Moranowas right, though I know not how he knew.
And now the men and the donkeys were nearly out of sight, but had notyet at all emerged from the wrath of Morano. "Lascivious knaves,"muttered t
hat disappointed man. And whenever he faintly heard dimsnatches of their far song that a breeze here, and another there,brought over the plain as it ran on the errands of Spring, he cursedtheir sins under his breath. Though it seemed not so much their sinsthat moved his wrath as the leisure they had for committing them.
"Peace, peace, Morano," said Rodriguez.
"It is that," said Morano, "that is troubling me."
"What?"
"This same peace."
"Morano," said Rodriguez, "I had when young to study the affairs ofmen; and this is put into books, and so they make history. Now Ilearned that there is no thing in which men have taken delight, that isever put away from them; for it seems that time, which altereth everycustom, hath altered none of our likings: and in every chapter theytaught me there were these wars to be found."
"Master, the times are altered," said Morano sadly. "It is not now asin old days."
And this was not the wisdom of Morano, for anger had clouded hisjudgment. And a faint song came yet from the donkey-drivers, waveringover the flowers.
"Master," Morano said, "there are men like those vile sin-mongers, whohave taken delight in peace. It may be that peace has been brought uponthe world by one of these lousy likings."
"The delight of peace," said Rodriguez, "is in its contrast to war. Ifwar were banished this delight were gone. And man lost none of hisdelights in any chapter I read."
The word and the meaning of CONTRAST were such as is understood byreflective minds, the product of education. Morano felt rather thanreflected; and the word CONTRAST meant nothing to him. This ended theirconversation. And the songs of the donkey-drivers, light though theywere, being too heavy to be carried farther by the idle air of Spring,Morano ceased cursing their sins.
And now the mountains rose up taller, seeming to stretch themselves andraise their heads. In a while they seemed to be peering over the plain.They that were as pale ghosts, far off, dim like Fate, in the earlypart of the morning, now appeared darker, more furrowed, more sinister,more careworn; more immediately concerned with the affairs of Earth,and so more menacing to earthly things.
Still they went on and still the mountains grew. And noon came, whenSpain sleeps.
And now the plain was altering, as though cool winds from the mountainsbrought other growths to birth, so that they met with bushes stragglingwild; free, careless and mysterious, as they do, where there is none toteach great Nature how to be tidy.
The wanderers chose a clump of these that were gathered near the way,like gypsies camped awhile midway on a wonderful journey, who at dawnwill rise and go, leaving but a bare trace of their resting and noguess of their destiny; so fairy-like, so free, so phantasmal thosedark shrubs seemed.
Morano lay down on the very edge of the shade of one, and Rodriguez layfair in the midst of the shade of another, whereby anyone passing thatway would have known which was the older traveller. Morano, accordingto his custom, was asleep almost immediately; but Rodriguez, withwonder and speculation each toying with novelty and pulling itdifferent ways between them, stayed awhile wakeful. Then he too slept,and a bird thought it safe to return to an azalea of its own; which itlately fled from troubled by the arrival of these two.
And Rodriguez the last to sleep was the first awake, for the shade ofthe shrub left him, and he awoke in the blaze of the sun to see Moranostill sheltered, well in the middle now of the shadow he chose. Thegross sleep of Morano I will not describe to you, reader. I have chosena pleasant tale for you in a happy land, in the fairest time of year,in a golden age: I have youth to show you and an ancient sword, birds,flowers and sunlight, in a plain unharmed by any dream of commerce: whyshould I show you the sleep of that inelegant man whose bulk laycumbering the earth like a low, unseemly mountain?
Rodriguez overtook the shade he had lost and lay there resting untilMorano awoke, driven all at once from sleep by a dream or by merechoking. Then from the intricacies of his clothing, which to him afterthose two days was what home is to some far wanderer, Morano drew outonce more a lump of bacon. Then came the fry-pan and then a fire: itwas the Wanderers' Mess. That mess-room has stood in many lands and hasonly one roof. We are proud of that roof, all we who belong to thatMess. We boast of it when we show it to our friends when it is all setout at night. It has Aldebaran in it, the Bear and Orion, and at theother end the Southern Cross. Yes we are proud of our roof when it isat its best.
What am I saying? I should be talking of bacon. Yes, but there is a wayof cooking it in our Mess that I want to tell you and cannot. I'vetasted bacon there that isn't the same as what you get at the Ritz. AndI want to tell you how that bacon tastes; and I can't so I talk aboutstars. But perhaps you are one of us, reader, and then you willunderstand. Only why the hell don't we get back there again where theEvening Star swings low on the wall of the Mess?
When they rose from table, when they got up from the earth, and thefrying-pan was slung on Morano's back, adding grease to the meresurface of his coat whose texture could hold no more, they pushed onbriskly for they saw no sign of houses, unless what Rodriguez saw nowdimly above a ravine were indeed a house in the mountains.
They had walked from eight till noon without any loitering. They musthave done fifteen miles since the mountains were pale blue. And now,every mile they went, on the most awful of the dark ridges the objectRodriguez saw seemed more and more like a house. Yet neither then, noras they drew still nearer, nor when they saw it close, nor looking backon it after years, did it somehow seem quite right. And Moranosometimes crossed himself as he looked at it, and said nothing.
Rodriguez, as they walked ceaselessly through the afternoon, seeing hisservant show some sign of weariness, which comes not to youth, pointedout the house looking nearer than it really was on the mountain, andtold him that he should find there straw, and they would sup and staythe night. Afterwards, when the strange appearance of the house,varying with different angles, filled him with curious forebodings,Rodriguez would make no admission to his servant, but held to the planhe had announced, and so approached the queer roofs, neglecting thefriendly stars.
Through the afternoon the two travellers pushed on mostly in silence,for the glances that house seemed to give him from the edge of itsperilous ridge, had driven the mirth from Rodriguez and had evenchecked the garrulity on the lips of the tougher Morano, if garrulitycan be ascribed to him whose words seldom welled up unless some simplephilosophy troubled his deeps. The house seemed indeed to glance athim, for as their road wound on, the house showed different aspects,different walls and edges of walls, and different curious roofs; allthese walls seemed to peer at him. One after another they peered, newones glided imperceptibly into sight as though to say, We see too.
The mountains were not before them but a little to the right of theirpath, until new ones appeared ahead of them like giants arising fromsleep, and then their path seemed blocked as though by a mighty wallagainst which its feeble wanderings went in vain. In the end it turneda bit to its right and went straight for a dark mountain, where a wildtrack seemed to come down out of the rocks to meet it, and upon thistrack looked down that sinister house. Had you been there, my reader,you would have said, any of us had said, Why not choose some otherhouse? There were no other houses. He who dwelt on the edge of theravine that ran into that dark mountain was wholly without neighbours.
And evening came, and still they were far from the mountain.
The sun set on their left. But it was in the eastern sky that thegreater splendour was; for the low rays streaming across lit up somestormy clouds that were brooding behind the mountain and turned theirgloomy forms to an astounding purple.
And after this their road began to rise toward the ridges. Themountains darkened and the sinister house was about to merge withtheir shadows, when he who dwelt there lit candles.
The act astonished the wayfarers. All through half the day they hadseen the house, until it seemed part of the mountains; evil it seemedlike their ridges, that were black and bleak and forbidding, a
ndstrange it seemed with a strangeness that moved no fears they couldname, yet it seemed inactive as night.
Now lights appeared showing that someone moved. Window after windowshowed to the bare dark mountain its gleaming yellow glare; there inthe night the house forsook the dark rocks that seemed kin to it, byglowing as they could never glow, by doing what the beasts that hauntedthem could not do: this was the lair of man. Here was the light offlame but the rocks remained dark and cold as the wind of night thatwent over them, he who dwelt now with the lights had forsaken therocks, his neighbours.
And, when all were lit, one light high in a tower shone green. Theselights appearing out of the mountain thus seemed to speak to Rodriguezand to tell him nothing. And Morano wondered, as he seldom troubled todo.
They pushed on up the steepening path.
"Like you the looks of it?" said Rodriguez once.
"Aye, master," answered Morano, "so there be straw."
"You see nothing strange there, then?" Rodriguez said.
"Master," Morano said, "there be saints for all requirements."
Any fears he had felt about that house before, now as he neared it weregone; it was time to put away fears and face the event; thus workedMorano's philosophy. And he turned his thoughts to the achievementsupon earth of a certain Saint who met Satan, and showed to thesovereign of Hell a discourtesy alien to the ways of the Church.
It was dark now, and the yellow lights got larger as they drew nearerthe windows, till they saw large shadows obscurely passing from room toroom. The ascent was steep now and the pathway stopped. No track of anykind approached the house. It stood on a precipice-edge as though oneof the rocks of the mountain: they climbed over rocks to reach it. Thewindows flickered and blinked at them.
Nothing invited them there in the look of that house, but they were nowin such a forbidding waste that shelter had to be found; they were allamong edges of rock as black as the night and hard as the material ofwhich Cosmos was formed, at first upon Chaos' brink. The sound of theirclimbing ran noisily up the mountain but no sound came from the house:only the shadows moved more swiftly across a room, passed into otherrooms and came hurrying back. Sometimes the shadows stayed and seemedto peer; and when the travellers stood and watched to see what theywere they would disappear and there were no shadows at all, and therooms were filled instead with their wondering speculation. Then theypushed on over rocks that seemed never trodden by man, so sharp werethey and slanting, all piled together: it seemed the last waste, towhich all shapeless rocks had been thrown.
Morano and these black rocks seemed shaped by a different scheme;indeed the rocks had never been shaped at all, they were just rawpieces of Chaos. Morano climbed over their edges with moans anddiscomfort. Rodriguez heard him behind him and knew by his moans whenhe came to the top of each sharp rock.
The rocks became savager, huger, even more sharp and more angular. Theywere there in the dark in multitudes. Over these Rodriguez staggered,and Morano clambered and tumbled; and so they came, breathing hard, tothe lonely house.
In the wall that their hands had reached there was no door, so theyfelt along it till they came to the corner, and beyond the corner wasthe front wall of the house. In it was the front door. But so nearlydid this door open upon the abyss that the bats that fled from theircoming, from where they hung above the door of oak, had little more todo than fall from their crannies, slanting ever so slightly, to findthemselves safe from man in the velvet darkness, that lay betweencliffs so lonely they were almost strangers to Echo. And here theyfloated upon errands far from our knowledge; while the travellerscoming along the rocky ledge between destruction and shelter, knockedon the oaken door.
The sound of their knocking boomed huge and slow through the house asthough they had struck the door of the very mountain. And no one came.And then Rodriguez saw dimly in the darkness the great handle of abell, carved like a dragon running down the wall: he pulled it and acry of pain arose from the basement of the house.
Even Morano wondered. It was like a terrible spirit in distress. It waslong before Rodriguez dare touch the handle again. Could it have beenthe bell? He felt the iron handle and the iron chain that went up fromit. How could it have been the bell! The bell had not sounded: he hadnot pulled hard enough: that scream was fortuitous. The night on thatrocky ledge had jangled his nerves. He pulled again and more firmly.The answering scream was more terrible. Rodriguez could doubt nolonger, as he sprang back from the bell-handle, that with the chain hehad pulled he inflicted some unknown agony.
The scream had awakened slow steps that now came towards thetravellers, down corridors, as it sounded, of stone. And then chainsfell on stone and the door of oak was opened by some one older thanwhat man hopes to come to, with small, peaked lips as those of somewoodland thing.
"Senores," the old one said, "the Professor welcomes you."
They stood and stared at his age, and Morano blurted uncouthly whatboth of them felt. "You are old, grandfather," he said.
"Ah, Senores," the old man sighed, "the Professor does not allow me tobe young. I have been here years and years but he never allowed it. Ihave served him well but it is still the same. I say to him, 'Master, Ihave served you long ...' but he interrupts me for he will have none ofyouth. Young servants go among the villages, he says. And so, and so..."
"You do not think your master can give you youth!" said Rodriguez.
The old man knew that he had talked too much, voicing that grievanceagain of which even the rocks were weary. "Yes," he said briefly, andbowed and led the way into the house. In one of the corridors runningout of the hall down which he was leading silently, Rodriguez overtookthat old man and questioned him to his face.
"Who is this professor?" he said.
By the light of a torch that spluttered in an iron clamp on the wallRodriguez questioned him with these words, and Morano with hiswondering, wistful eyes. The old man halted and turned half round, andlifted his head and answered. "In the University of Saragossa," he saidwith pride, "he holds the Chair of Magic."
Even the names of Oxford or Cambridge, Harvard or Yale or Princeton,move some respect, and even yet in these unlearned days. What wonderthen that the name of Saragossa heard on that lonely mountain awoke inRodriguez some emotion of reverence and even awed Morano. As for theChair of Magic, it was of all the royal endowments of that illustriousUniversity the most honoured and dreaded.
"At Saragossa!" Rodriguez muttered.
"At Saragossa," the old man affirmed.
Between that ancient citadel of learning and this most savage mountainappeared a gulf scarce to be bridged by thought.
"The Professor rests in his mountain," the old man said, "because of aconjunction of the stars unfavourable to study, and his class have goneto their homes for many weeks." He bowed again and led on along thatcorridor of dismal stone. The others followed, and still as Rodriguezwent that famous name Saragossa echoed within his mind.
And then they came to a door set deep in the stone, and their guideopened it and they went in; and there was the Professor in a mysticalhat and a robe of dim purple, seated with his back to them at a table,studying the ways of the stars. "Welcome, Don Rodriguez," said theProfessor before he turned round; and then he rose, and with smallsteps backwards and sideways and many bows, he displayed all thoseformulae of politeness that Saragossa knew in the golden age and whichher professors loved to execute. In later years they became moreelaborate still, and afterwards were lost.
Rodriguez replied rather by instinct than knowledge; he came of a housewhose bows had never missed graceful ease and which had in somegenerations been a joy to the Court of Spain. Morano followed behindhim; but his servile presence intruded upon that elaborate ceremony,and the Professor held up his hand, and Morano was held in mid strideas though the air had gripped him. There he stood motionless, havingnever felt magic before. And when the Professor had welcomed Rodriguezin a manner worthy of the dignity of the Chair that he held atSaragossa, he made an easy gesture and Mor
ano was free again.
"Master," said Morano to the Professor, as soon as he found he couldmove, "master, it looks like magic." Picture to yourself some yokelshown into the library of a professor of Greek at Oxford, taking downfrom a shelf one of the books of the Odyssey, and saying to theProfessor, "It looks like Greek"!
Rodriguez felt grieved by Morano's boorish ignorance. Neither he norhis host answered him.
The Professor explained that he followed the mysteries dimly, owing toa certain aspect of Orion, and that therefore his class were gone totheir homes and were hunting; and so he studied alone underunfavourable auspices. And once more he welcomed Rodriguez to his roof,and would command straw to be laid down for the man that Rodriguez hadbrought from the Inn of the Dragon and Knight; for he, the Professor,saw all things, though certain stars would hide everything.
And when Rodriguez had appropriately uttered his thanks, he added withall humility and delicate choice of phrase a petition that he might beshown some mere rudiment of the studies for which that illustriouschair in Saragossa was famous. The Professor bowed again and, inaccepting the well-rounded compliments that Rodriguez paid to thehonoured post he occupied, he introduced himself by name. He had beenonce, he said, the Count of the Mountain, but when his astral studieshad made him eminent and he had mastered the ways of the planet nearestthe sun he took the title Magister Mercurii, and by this had long beenknown; but had now forsaken this title, great as it was, for a moreglorious nomenclature, and was called in the Arabic language the Slaveof Orion. When Rodriguez heard this he bowed very low.
And now the Professor asked Rodriguez in which of the activities oflife his interest lay; for the Chair of Magic at Saragossa, he said,was concerned with them all.
"In war," said Rodriguez.
And Morano unostentatiously rubbed his hands; for here was one, hethought, who would soon put his master on the right way, and matterswould come to a head and they would find the wars. But far fromconcerning himself with the wars of that age, the Slave of Orionexplained that as events came nearer they became grosser or morematerial, and that their grossness did not leave them until they weresome while passed away; so that to one whose studies were withaetherial things, near events were opaque and dim. He had a window, heexplained, through which Rodriguez should see clearly the ancient wars,while another window beside it looked on all wars of the future exceptthose which were planned already or were coming soon to earth, andwhich were either invisible or seen dim as through mist.
Rodriguez said that to be privileged to see so classical an example ofmagic would be to him both a delight and honour. Yet, as is the way ofyouth, he more desired to have a sight of the wars than he cared forall the learning of the Professor.
And to him who held the Chair of Magic at Saragossa it was a preciousthing that his windows could be made to show these marvels, while theguest to whom he was about to display these two gems of his learningwas thinking of little but what he should see through the windows, andnot at all of what spells, what midnight oil, what incantations, whatwitchcrafts, what lonely hours among bats, had gone to thegratification of his young curiosity. It is usually thus.
The Professor rose: his cloak floated out from him as he left thechamber, and Rodriguez following where he guided saw, by the torchlightin the corridors, upon the dim purple border signs that, to hisuntutored ignorance of magic, were no more than hints of the affairs ofthe Zodiac. And if these signs were obscure it were better they wereobscurer, for they dealt with powers that man needs not to possess, whohas the whole earth to regulate and control; why then should he seek togovern the course of any star?
And Morano followed behind them, hoping to be allowed to get a sight ofthe wars.
They came to a room where two round windows were; each of them largerthan the very largest plate, and of very thick glass indeed, and of awonderful blue. The blue was like the blue of the Mediterranean atevening, when lights are in it both of ships and of sunset, and lightsof harbours being lit one by one, and the light of Venus perhaps andabout two other stars, so deeply did it stare and so twinkled, near itsedges, with lights that were strange to that room, and so triumphedwith its clear beauty over the night outside. No, it was more magicalthan the Mediterranean at evening, even though the peaks of theEsterels be purple and their bases melting in gold and the blue sealying below them smiling at early stars: these windows were moremysterious than that; it was a more triumphant blue; it was like theMediterranean seen with the eyes of Shelley, on a happy day in hisyouth, or like the sea round Western islands of fable seen by the fancyof Keats. They were no windows for any need of ours, unless our dreamsbe needs, unless our cries for the moon be urged by the same Necessityas makes us cry for bread. They were clearly concerned only with magicor poetry; though the Professor claimed that poetry was but a branch ofhis subject; and it was so regarded at Saragossa, where it was taughtby the name of theoretical magic, while by the name of practical magicthey taught dooms, brews, hauntings, and spells.
The Professor stood before the left-hand window and pointed to itsdeep-blue centre. "Through this," he said, "we see the wars that were."
Rodriguez looked into the deep-blue centre where the great bulge of theglass came out towards him; it was near to the edges where the glassseemed thinner that the little strange lights were dancing; Moranodared to tiptoe a little nearer. Rodriguez looked and saw no nightoutside. Just below and near to the window was white mist, and the dimlines and smoke of what may have been recent wars; but farther away ona plain of strangely vast dimensions he saw old wars that were. Warafter war he saw. Battles that long ago had passed into history and hadbeen for many ages skilled, glorious and pleasant encounters he saweven now tumbling before him in their savage confusion and dirt. He sawa leader, long glorious in histories he had read, looking roundpuzzled, to see what was happening, and in a very famous fight that hehad planned very well. He saw retreats that History called routs, androuts that he had seen History calling retreats. He saw men winningvictories without knowing they had won. Never had man pried before soshamelessly upon History, or found her such a liar. With his eyes onthe great blue glass Rodriguez forgot the room, forgot time, forgot hishost and poor excited Morano, as he watched those famous fights.
And now my reader wishes to know what he saw and how it was that he wasable to see it.
As regards the second, my reader will readily understand that thesecrets of magic are very carefully guarded, and any smatterings of itthat I may ever have come by I possess, for what they are worth,subjects to oaths and penalties at which even bad men shudder. Myreader will be satisfied that even those intimate bonds between readerand writer are of no use to him here. I say him as though I had onlymale readers, but if my reader be a lady I leave the situationconfidently to her intuition. As for the things he saw, of all of theseI am at full liberty to write, and yet, my reader, they would differfrom History's version: never a battle that Rodriguez saw on all theplain that swept away from that circular window, but History wrotedifferently. And now, my reader, the situation is this: who am I?History was a goddess among the Greeks, or is at least a distinguishedpersonage, perhaps with a well-earned knighthood, and certainly withwidespread recognition amongst the Right Kind of People. I have none ofthese things. Whom, then, would you believe?
Yet I would lay my story confidently before you, my reader, trusting inthe justice of my case and in your judicial discernment, but for oneother thing. What will the Goddess Clio say, or the well-deservingknight, if I offend History? She has stated her case, Sir Bartimeus haswritten it, and then so late in the day I come with a different story,a truer but different story. What will they do? Reader, the future isdark, uncertain and long; I dare not trust myself to it if I offendHistory. Clio and Sir Bartimeus will make hay of my reputation; aninnuendo here, a foolish fact there, they know how to do it, and not asoul will suspect the goddess of personal malice or the great historianof pique. Rodriguez gazed then through the deep blue window, forgetfulof all around, on battles that
had not all the elegance or neatness ofwhich our histories so tidily tell. And as he gazed upon a merryencounter between two men on the fringe of an ancient fight he felt atouch on his shoulder and then almost a tug, and turning round beheldthe room he was in. How long he had been absent from it in thought hedid not know, but the Professor was still standing with folded armswhere he had left him, probably well satisfied with the wonder that hismost secret art had awakened in his guest. It was Morano who touchedhis shoulder, unable to hold back any longer his impatience to see thewars; his eyes as Rodriguez turned round were gazing at his master withdog-like wistfulness.
The absurd eagerness of Morano, his uncouth touch on his shoulder,seemed only pathetic to Rodriguez. He looked at the Professor's face,the nose like a hawk's beak, the small eyes deep down beside it, darkof hue and dreadfully bright, the silent lips. He stood there utteringno actual prohibition, concerning which Rodriguez's eyes had sought;so, stepping aside from his window, Rodriguez beckoned Morano, who atonce ran forward delighted to see those ancient wars.
A slight look of scorn showed faint upon the Professor's face such asyou may see anywhere when a master-craftsman perceives the gaze of theignorant turned towards his particular subject. But he said no word,and soon speech would have been difficult, for the loud clamour ofMorano filled the room: he had seen the wars and his ecstasies wereungoverned. As soon as he saw those fights he looked for the Infidels,for his religious mind most loved to see the Infidel slain. And if myreader discern or suppose some gulf between religion and the recentbusiness of the Inn of the Dragon and Knight, Morano, if driven toadmit any connection between murder and his daily bread, would havesaid, "All the more need then for God's mercy through the intercessionof His most blessed Saints." But these words had never passed Morano'slips, for shrewd as he was in enquiry into any matter that he desiredto know, his shrewdness was no less in avoiding enquiry where theremight be something that he desired not to know, such as the origin ofhis wages as servant of the Inn of the Dragon and Knight, thosedelicate gold rings with settings empty of jewels.
Morano soon recognized the Infidel by his dress, and after that noother wars concerned him. He slapped his thigh, he shoutedencouragement, he howled vile words of abuse, partly because hebelieved that this foul abuse was rightly the due of the Infidel, andpartly because he believed it delighted God.
Rodriguez stood and watched, pleased at the huge joy of the simple man.The Slave of Orion stood watching in silence too, but who knows if hefelt pleasure or any other emotion? Perhaps his mind was simply likeours; perhaps, as has been claimed by learned men of the best-informedperiod, that mind had some control upon the comet, even when farthestout from the paths we know. Morano turned round for a moment toRodriguez:
"Good wars, master, good wars," he said with a vast zest, and at oncehis head was back again at that calm blue window. In that flash of thehead Rodriguez had seen his eyes, blue, round and bulging; the roundman was like a boy who in some shop window has seen, unexpected, hugeforbidden sweets. Clearly, in the war he watched things were going wellfor the Cross, for such cries came from Morano as "A pretty stroke,""There now, the dirty Infidel," "Now see God's power shown," "Spare himnot, good knight; spare him not," and many more, till, uttered fasterand faster, they merged into mere clamorous rejoicing.
But the battles beyond the blue window seemed to move fast, and now achange was passing across Morano's rejoicings. It was not that he sworemore for the cause of the Cross, but brief, impatient, meaninglessoaths slipped from him now; he was becoming irritable; a puzzled look,so far as Rodriguez could see, was settling down on his features. For awhile he was silent except for the little, meaningless oaths. Then heturned round from the glass, his hands stretched out, his face full ofurgent appeal.
"Masters," he said, "God's enemy wins!"
In answer to Morano's pitiful look Rodriguez' hand went to hissword-hilt; the Slave of Orion merely smiled with his lips; Moranostood there with his hands still stretched out, his face still allappeal, and something more for there was reproach in his eyes that mencould tarry while the Cross was in danger and the Infidel lived. He didnot know that it was all finished and over hundreds of years ago, apage of history upon which many pages were turned, and which lay asunalterable as the fate of some warm swift creature of early Eocenedays over whose fossil today the strata lie long and silent.
"But can nothing be done, master?" he said when Rodriguez told himthis. And when Rodriguez failed him here, he turned away from thewindow. To him the Infidel were game, but to see them defeatingChristian knights violated the deeps of his feelings.
Morano sulky excited little more notice from his host and his masterwho had watched his rejoicings, and they seem to have forgotten thishumble champion of Christendom. The Professor slightly bowed toRodriguez and extended a graceful hand. He pointed to the other window.
Reader, your friend shows you his collection of stamps, his fossils,his poems, or his luggage labels. One of them interests you, you lookat it awhile, you are ready to go away: then your friend shows youanother. This also must be seen; for your friend's collection is aprecious thing; it is that point upon huge Earth on which his spirithas lit, on which it rests, on which it shelters even (who knows fromwhat storms?). To slight it were to weaken such hold as his spirit has,in its allotted time, upon this sphere. It were like breaking the twigof a plant upon which a butterfly rests, and on some stormy day andlate in the year.
Rodriguez felt all this dimly, but no less surely; and went to theother window.
Below the window were those wars that were soon coming to Spain, hoodedin mist and invisible. In the centre of the window swam as profound ablue, dwindling to paler splendour at the edge, the wandering lightswere as lovely, as in the other window just to the left; but in theview from the right-hand window how sombre a difference. A bare yardseparated the two. Through the window to the left was colour, courtesy,splendour; there was Death at least disguising himself, well cloaked,taking mincing steps, bowing, wearing a plume in his hat and a decentmask. In the right-hand window all the colours were fading, war afterwar they grew dimmer; and as the colours paled Death's sole purposeshowed clearer. Through the beautiful left-hand window were killings tobe seen, and less mercy than History supposes, yet some of the fighterswere merciful, and mercy was sometimes a part of Death's courtly pose,which went with the cloak and the plume. But in the other windowthrough that deep, beautiful blue Rodriguez saw Man make a new ally, anally who was only cruel and strong and had no purpose but killing, whohad no pretences or pose, no mask and no manner, but was only the slaveof Death and had no care but for his business. He saw it grow biggerand stronger. Heart it had none, but he saw its cold steel corescheming methodical plans and dreaming always destruction. Before itfaded men and their fields and their houses. Rodriguez saw the machine.
Many a proud invention of ours that Rodriguez saw raging on thatruinous plain he might have anticipated, but not for all Spain would hehave done so: it was for the sake of Spain that he was silent aboutmuch that he saw through that window. As he looked from war to war hesaw almost the same men fighting, men with always the same attitude tothe moment and with similar dim conception of larger, vaguer things;grandson differed imperceptibly from grandfather; he saw them fightsometimes mercifully, sometimes murderously, but in all the wars beyondthat twinkling window he saw the machine spare nothing.
Then he looked farther, for the wars that were farthest from him intime were farther away from the window. He looked farther and saw theruins of Peronne. He saw them all alone with their doom at night, alldrenched in white moonlight, sheltering huge darkness in their strickenhollows. Down the white street, past darkness after darkness as he wentby the gaping rooms that the moon left mourning alone, Rodriguez saw acaptain going back to the wars in that far-future time, who turned hishead a moment as he passed, looking Rodriguez in the face, and so wenton through the ruins to find a floor on which to lie down for thenight. When he was gone the street was all alone with disas
ter, andmoonlight pouring down, and the black gloom in the houses.
Rodriguez lifted his eyes and glanced from city to city, to Albert,Bapaume, and Arras, his gaze moved over a plain with its harvest ofdesolation lying forlorn and ungathered, lit by the flashing clouds andthe moon and peering rockets. He turned from the window and wept.
The deep round window glowed with serene blue glory. It seemed afoolish thing to weep by that beautiful glass. Morano tried to comforthim. That calm, deep blue, he felt, and those little lights, surely,could hurt no one.
What had Rodriguez seen? Morano asked. But that Rodriguez would notanswer, and told no man ever after what he had seen through that window.
The Professor stood silent still: he had no comfort to offer; indeedhis magical wisdom had found none for the world.
You wonder perhaps why the Professor did not give long ago to the worldsome of these marvels that are the pride of our age. Reader, let us putaside my tale for a moment to answer this. For all the darkness of hissinister art there may well have been some good in the Slave of Orion;and any good there was, and mere particle even, would surely havespared the world many of those inventions that our age has not sparedit. Blame not the age, it is now too late to stop; it is in the grip ofinventions now, and has to go on; we cannot stop content withmustard-gas; it is the age of Progress, and our motto is Onwards. Andif there was no good in this magical man, then may it not have been hewho in due course, long after he himself was safe from life, caused ourinventions to be so deadly divulged? Some evil spirit has done it, thenwhy not he?
He stood there silent: let us return to our story.
Perhaps the efforts of poor clumsy Morano to comfort him cheeredRodriguez and sent him back to the window, perhaps he turned from themto find comfort of his own; but, however he came by it, he had a hopethat this was a passing curse that had come on the world, whose welfarehe cared for whether he lived or died, and that looking a littlefarther into the future he would see Mother Earth smiling and herchildren happy again. So he looked through the deep-blue luminouswindow once more, beyond the battles we know. From this he turned backshuddering.
Again he saw the Professor smile with his lips, though whether at hisown weakness, or whether with cynical mirth at the fate of the world,Rodriguez could not say.