Kurelen bent towards Jelmi, chuckling: “Thou hast never seen the like! Observe closely.”
Jelmi smiled with his perfect gentle courtesy, and fixed his eyes on the Shaman, ringed about with scores of glittering eyes and entranced faces. He held his prayer-wheel in his hands, and spun it absently. He whispered: “God appears in many forms, and whatsoever this man produces is part of the eternal manifestation.”
Kurelen pursed his lips, but did not answer. He watched Kokchu with enjoyment, proof against any witchery or magic. Yet he was not insensible to the mysterious silence that stood over everything, as though the universe held its breath and waited.
Kokchu lifted his arms slowly; his dark face had turned the color of lead, and upon it lay drops of quicksilver, starting from every pore. The cords of his throat rose like ropes under his skin. There was no sign of physical struggle about him, yet every one was aware of enormous strain and conflict within the Shaman. He began to pray, first in a whisper, then in a mounting voice, high and hysterical:
“O ye Spirits of the Eternal Blue Sky! I call upon ye; I command ye! Ye have given unto us a man-child of great beauty and strength, and have put in his hand an omen. It is not always given unto men to see the future, but because we desire to accord this child his proper honors, we pray that ye give us a sign of his greatness and his mystery!”
The quicksilver drops slowly moved down his face; red veins sprang out in the whites of his eyes. He shuddered; his fists clenched. He fixed his unblinking and somehow terrible gaze unmovingly on the heavens. Now he was silent, but the struggle within him flowed out to infect the watchers with an eerie restlessness and vague fright. The huge fire had suddenly died down, so that only a vast ring of fiery shifting coals lay on the earth. These coals threw out a blood-red light, a ring in which the Shaman seemed to stand, the upper part of his body in semidarkness, his feet and knees seemingly burning.
All at once a faint groaning came from the watchers. Kurelen leaned forward, and gazed at the fire, which the warriors were watching with expression of fixed horror and fear and superstition. He saw nothing, nothing but the red, radiant coals. He glanced humorously at Jelmi, but to his surprise Jelmi was looking at the coals solemnly, his face pale and transfixed. The priest, Seljuken, was staring, too, mouth and eyes agape. His hair was slowly rising.
“It is impossible,” Kurelen muttered, shrugging. And then he was silent. For in the falling ring of coals something was taking shape. A cool thrill ran down Kurelen’s twisted spine; a tingling invaded his hands and feet. Slowly the Things within the fire brightened into outline. Slowly the form of a mountain lion, crouching on his belly, manifested itself. It was an enormous lion; its head was lifted with pride and courage and ferocity; its red eyes glittered in the incandescent light. Kurelen could see its flexed paws, its white fangs and white claws. About its rippling body was coiled a thick scarlet serpent; Kurelen could see the markings on the serpent’s scaly skin. But it was not crushing the lion; rather, its coils were quiet, its long flat head resting on the head of the beast. Its evil eyes, green and opalescent, shone; between its jaws a tongue flickered incessantly. Beast and serpent lay together in peace, frightful eyes full of mystery and unearthly meditation. They appeared to breathe together, coils and body rising together in unison. And near them, looking only at the sky, stood the Shaman, the leaden tint of his flesh deepening, the sweat coursing down his face, his lips open and gaping.
Kurelen felt his hair rising. His body, affrighted, recoiled. But his mind repudiated what he saw. “It is not possible,” he said aloud, enraged. He leaned forward, the better to see the beast and the serpent. And slowly, as if they felt the infuriated impact of his eyes, the Things turned their heads together in unison in the fire and gazed at him. He saw the pointed slash of their dilated pupils; he heard their hissing breath; he saw their wet fangs. His heart began to beat like a struck cymbal with terror and anger.
The Shaman began to speak in a low droning voice, broken by gasps.
“O ye Spirits, eternal and terrible, ye have answered my prayers, and have given us a sign! Strong and fierce as the mountain lion is this child, and wise and all-embracing as the serpent! What man shall withstand him? What creature of air and earth and mountain shall defy him?”
Kurelen’s body was running with ice-cold sweat. He was leaning forward farther than ever. He was looking directly into the eyes of the awful Things that regarded him so steadfastly from the fire. He felt that they saw him and understood him, yet they saw and understood with a horrible indifference, with a supernatural awareness which was yet as aloof and impersonal as death. He felt himself face to face with monstrous things beyond the pale rim of reality and sanity, things of madness before which men were impotent and threatened and which, once seen, would drive them to madness, also.
Every one else vanished from Kurelen’s consciousness. There were only himself and these ghastly visitants that had moved from nightmare into reality. Dimly, in the background, he heard the Shaman’s droning voice, his weird incantations. But he looked only into the shimmering incandescent eyes of the Things and they looked back only at him, breathing steadily, the coals faintly seen through their transparent bodies. He thought to himself, numbly: I must defy them, and declare they do not exist, that they are foul emanations from the Shaman’s own soul. And as he thought this thought, the Things seemed to gaze at him the more intensely, and now with enmity and fearful menace.
Slowly, with an almost superhuman effort, he turned his eyes from the fire and glanced at the Shaman. His heart plunged foolishly, for he saw that Kokchu was watching him obliquely, and that the Shaman was smiling as though with gloating irony.
Kurelen’s pale lips twisted into a faint grin. He turned to Jelmi, who was watching the Things with profound gravity. “They do not exist,” he made himself say. But Jelmi did not turn his head. An expression of deep sorrow and despair moved like a cloud over his yellowed features.
“Yes,” he whispered, “they do exist, it is true they come from the soul of an evil man. But evil lives apart and in men, and can be conjured into the eye. ’Tis only goodness which is a dream.”
The Shaman was exhausted; he was trembling visibly. He said faintly : “We have seen, O ye Spirits!” His hands fell to his sides; his head dropped on his chest.
Slowly, before Kurelen’s incredulous gaze, the Things stirred a little, then began to pale. Their outlines dimmed; lion and serpent dissolved again to red coals. But to the last their incandescent eyes were fixed on Kurelen in an obscene but awful warning, and long after the coals were black he felt their influence in his soul.
A deep subterranean groan burst from the warriors. Superstitious terror filled them. They emitted hysterical cries and incoherent words. Kokchu smiled. He sat down on the other side of the fire, folded his hands in his sleeves, seemed to give himself up to meditation. But he met Kurelen’s eyes, and again he smiled, subtly. Thou art a fraud, said Kurelen to him, in his mind, and his own eyes flashed with the message. He had no doubt that the Shaman read the message, and was maddened by the other’s answering the contemptuous look.
Yesukai was beside himself with joy. He wept and beamed. The cups of wine were handed about, again. The fiddlers played hysterically, their fingers flashing up and down the strings in an ecstasy of rejoicing. Then some one suggested that the captive monk and priest be induced to prophesy in behalf of the child, Temujin. The drunken Nestorian priest, full of wine, meat and bombast, was only too willing. His inflamed mind was intoxicated by what he had seen. Verily, he had witnessed a holy miracle! His mind became confused; legends and strange tales, gleaned from his own faith, swam through his chaotic consciousness. He was helped to his feet. His bearded face shone with exaltation, though he swayed in the arms of those who held him upright. He flung out his own arms, and so violent was the gesture that he would have fallen into the fire but for the firm grip of the two Mongol warriors who held him.
He began to shout. He had seen a vision in
his soul! God had vouchsafed to him the sight of wonders and miracles! What glories had he seen, what secrets of past and future! His protruding eyes gleamed like wet stones in the firelight: froth appeared on his bearded lips. His chest heaved and shuddered, and sweat ran down from his forehead. He panted. Every one regarded him with awe and fear, except the Shaman, who had begun to frown, and Kurelen, who was laughing silently.
The priest flung up his arms and now his whole expression took on the aspect of madness. He stood rigid, unmoving, like a statue, or rather like a tree that had been stricken with lightning, and now vibrated. His voice, when it emerged again from his foam-lined lips, was shrill and broken.
“What a vision is this! Darkly through the mists do I see a virgin, clothed in garments of the moon, standing on a red star! Upon her head is a crown of fire, and in her hands she holdeth a sphere of flame! The sphere bursts into fragments, and behold! they form into seven stars! But one of these stars is the largest, and it too bursts, and forms itself into glowing letters! What is that sacred name, that terrible name, that most dreadful and holy name!”
The crowding warriors leaned forward, lips dropping, eyes glazed with terror and joy. A mad and frenetic ecstasy lit up the priest’s ghastly face. He seemed to be regarding something wondrous written in the sky. Slowly, one by one, the warriors followed his fixed gaze, as if they, too, might see something there, some wonder written by the finger of a god.
The priest, in that pent silence, suddenly howled, and every man jumped violently. He howled again. The Shaman and Kurelen winced, and then exchanged a wry glance.
“I see the name!” shrieked the priest. “It is the name of the Child which was born before the rising of the sun! It is the name of Temujin!”
The warriors groaned joyfully. Many wept, wiping away their tears with the backs of their hands. Yesukai was white and stricken with emotion.
The priest’s madness increased. He leaped into the air in his drunken rapture. He clapped his hands with a sharp sound. His beard and hair flew together.
“The Child born of a Virgin!” he screamed. “Seven generations have passed, but it is as only yesterday! Seven stars and seven generations, and this Child is born! This is he, the Conqueror, the King of all men, the sword and the whip of God!”
Kurelen leaned towards Jelmi, and whispered: “I have heard this tale before, in Cathay, from the Christians. But the name they named was not Temujin!”
Jelmi, without looking at Kurelen, smiled faintly. He seemed painfully intent upon the priest.
The priest was shouting again, but incoherently now, and all at once he pitched towards the fire, and would have fallen in it but for the alert hands of the warriors. But he was unconscious, from wine and emotion. They laid him down, carefully, and some one threw a blanket over him. He began to snore. But the warriors were full of excitement. The seventh generation rising from a virgin! No wonder such signs and portents had surrounded the birth of this child! Each warrior began to relate, in turn, several curious things he had observed lately, which he had been at a loss to explain. The more imaginative had strange tales. A hawk had been observed scattering eagles. The sun had stood still in the heavens a day or two ago, far beyond his sojourn. Flowers, far out of season, had been seen growing along the river, whose edge had been frozen hard in the morning. Others had seen red shadows drifting across the moon. The excitement became more vociferous and incoherent
Jelmi whispered to Kurelen, with his slight smile: “It is a strange story, but an old one. It is said even of the Lord Buddha, by some of his worshippers, that he is descended from a virgin. It was suggested for Lao-Tse, but he repudiated it, angrily. I have heard that our present emperor regarded it kindly, for himself, but my father and others laughed him out of it. It is a very unwholesome idea, but there are some, perverted and unclean, who admire it.”
Kurelen shrugged. “It will do no harm, and may insure their loyalty to my sister’s child. But I can see that our Shaman is green with envy. He wishes he had thought of it first.”
But Jelmi now observed that many of the warriors were looking and pointing at him eagerly. Then all at once a concerned shout arose that this holy man must prophesy also. Jelmi paled and tried to shrink back from the firelight. But hands were already seizing him, thrusting him to the front.
“Prophesy! Prophesy!” cried the warriors, and many of them struck their lacquered shields with the hilts of their daggers.
The poor monk stood, uncertain and bewildered, before the fire. He looked at all the wild dark faces ringed about him. Kurelen tugged the hem of his yellow robe and urged, with a laugh: “Thou surely hast as much imagination as that foul priest!”
Jelmi regarded the warriors humbly. He said, in his soft and gentle voice: “I am only the lowliest of the lowliest. Who am I, that God should speak unto me? I dare not even pray; I must only stand in His presence, like a worm deserving of a crushing foot. How will the Lord see me, who am smaller than a grain of sand, of less worth than a drop of water?”
Each ferocious face wrinkled in perplexity, not comprehending. A low muttering rose from the warriors. “Prophesy!” they shouted again, impatiently.
Jelmi hesitated, his expression becoming more sad than ever. He folded his hands together, with great humility. His face emerged from the shadow of his hood like a delicately carved image of the most fragile ivory. He closed his eyes, and whispered: “I can only wait.”
Kurelen was alarmed. The warriors were in no mood to be balked. He felt some anger against Jelmi. Surely the man was not a fool; he was not without wit. A few shouts, a few disordered gestures, a scream or two, some idiot extravagance, and the warriors would be satisfied. It was necessary for holy men to treat others like imbeciles, otherwise of what use were they? If they could not excite the people with happy and delirious lies, they might as well go back to labor and sheep-herding. Priests and philosophers were buffoons, but like buffoons, they must mystify and terrify and entrance, to earn the bread for which they had not honestly worked.
But Jelmi stood in humble silence, his head bent, his eyes closed, his hands clasped, his lips moving. All at once he seemed to become rigid; his lips stopped their silent movements. He turned as pale as death. He seemed to be listening to some frightful and portentous message. His head fell on his chest, as though he had been mortally struck. Kurelen smiled, relieved. The warriors leaned forward again, waiting for the words of mystery and prophecy.
Then very slowly, Jelmi lifted his head, opened his eyes, and gazed at the sky. He seemed to have aged; his yellowed skin was taut and dry as bleached sheepskin. In his eyes stood an awesome expression, horrified and stricken and appalled, as though he were seeing a vision too terrible for the mind to endure. He began to speak in so low a voice that it was almost a whisper:
“It is not possible that I have seen so awful a vision, and it is not possible that it is true! Who could endure such a sight, or such knowledge, and not die at the contemplation? Who can contemplate such agony and such despair, such fire and such ravishment, and hear such cries, without madness! Why hast thou afflicted me so, Lord Buddha? Why hast thou given me such a vision?”
Kurelen’s smile widened. Jelmi was a clever man after all. But surely he hardly needed such extravagance—At this, some thought wiped the smile abruptly from Kurelen’s face. This was a strange prophecy, indeed, spoken of in such a despairing and agonized voice! He stared at Jelmi, piercingly. The monk’s face was wet with tears; he was wringing his hands as though overcome with frantic sorrow. It is not possible! thought Kurelen, amazed. The man believes he has seen a vision!
Jelmi wept; the warriors gazed at him, wetting their lips, glancing at each other, alarmed and mystified. The Shaman spat contemptuously at the fire, and subsided into gloom.
In a broken voice, the monk resumed: “Better had it been for me to have died, then to see this. Better had I never issued from the womb and drawn breath. For who can contemplate the monstrous soul of man, and live again? Who can endur
e the light of the sun. with this knowledge? What days remain to me must be days of grief and torment, and unending suffering.”
The warriors muttered; the muttering increased to a dull roar. Every man turned to his neighbor, with an astounded question in his eyes. Face after face began to scowl. Kurelen, greatly alarmed, tugged urgently at the monk’s hem. The Shaman brightened; his smile was a smile of intense amusement. Yesukai, whose simple soul was bewildered, stood in silence, grimacing, plucking at his lip.
But Jelmi paid no heed to any one. His weeping became more violent; he wrung his hands over and over as though in the utmost extremity of despair.
“For what has God given His sons to the earth? For what have they died? Their voices are lost in the winds; their footsteps are covered over with sand. The streams lose the mark of their passing; the rocks reveal no sign. Over their dust move the bloody legions of the mad and the wicked, the haters of men and the destroyers of men. Where they have trod are planted the banners of the damned; where they have spoken is the screech of the vulture, seeking for the dead. The fires of hatred have destroyed the harvests they have planted. The iron foot has trod out the grapes they tended, and has squeezed forth a poisonous brew. For what is good is dissolved in the earth, but what is evil is an immortal sword.”
His voice, sorrowful and passionate, and full of grief, rose stronger and stronger upon the suddenly quiet air, like a lamentation addressed only to the ear of God. He raised his face; he flung out his arms as though he saw the face of the Inscrutable One, who listened.
“Why hast Thou given us Thy sons, O Master of Chaos? We have destroyed them, and have poured out their blood, and have given adulation to monsters and worshipped them because they have willed us death and agony! Thy sons gave us love, and we have cried out that we hate love, and desire hatred, which delivereth our helpless brother into our murderous hands! We are an abomination unto Thine eyes, and a foul noise unto Thine ears. We are the breeders of the cursed, the lovers of the despoilers, the adorers of madmen and mountebanks. Generation after generation, we spew forth a fiend, each fouler than the last, until all reason and all love and goodness are stamped into the dust, and the bones of innocent men lie crumbling in the sun. Generation after generation, the bloody dream is born again, until the skies are reddened, and the convulsed earth groans in her loathing!”