13. THE BURYING ALIVE OF NAIS
There is no denying that the wishes of Phorenice were carried into quickeffect in the city of Atlantis. Her modern theory was that the countryand all therein existed only for the good of the Empress, and when shehad a desire, no cost could possibly be too great in its carrying out.
She had given forth her edict concerning the burying alive of Nais, andthough the words were that I was to build the throne of stone, it was anunderstood thing that the manual labour was to be done for me by others.Heralds made the proclamation in every ward of the city, and masons,labourers, stonecutters, sculptors, engineers, and architects took handsfrom whatever was occupying them for the moment, and hastened to therendezvous. The architects chose a chief who gave directions, and thelesser architects and the engineers saw these carried into effect. Anymaterial within the walls of the city on which they set their seal,was taken at once without payment or compensation; and as the blocks ofstone they chose were the most monstrous that could be got, they wereforced to demolish no few buildings to give them passage.
I have before spoken of the modern rage for erecting new palaces andpyramids, and even though at the moment an army of rebels was batteringwith war engines at the city walls, the building guilds were steadilyat work, and their skill (with Phorenice's marvellous invention to aidthem) was constantly on the increase. True, they could not move suchmassive blocks of stone as those which the early Gods planted for thesacred circle of our Lord the Sun, but they had got rams and trucks andcranes which could handle amazing bulks.
The throne was to be erected in the open square before the royalpyramid. Seven tiers of stone were there for a groundwork, each aknee-height deep, and each cut in the front with three steps. In theuppermost layer was a cavity made to hold the body of Nais, and abovethis was poised the vast block which formed the seat of the throneitself.
Throughout the night, to the light of torches, relay after relay of thestonecutters, and the masons, and the sweating labourers had toiled overbringing up the stone and dressing it into fit shape, and laying it indue position; and the engineers had built machines for lifting, and thearchitects had proved that each stone lay in its just and perfect place.Whips cracked, and men fainted with the labour, but so soon as one wasincapable another pressed forward into his place. No delay was brookedwhen Phorenice had said her wish.
And finally, as the square began to fill with people come to gape at thepageant of to-day, the chippings and the scaffolding were cleared away,and with it the bodies of some half-score of workmen who had died fromaccidents or their exertions during the building, and there stood thethrone, splendid in its carvings, and all ready for completion. Thelower part stood more than two man-heights above the ground, and nostone of its courses weighed less than twenty men; the upper part wasdouble the weight of any of these, and was carved so that the royalsnake encircled the chair, and the great hooded head overshadowed it.But at present the upper part was not on its bed, being held up high bylifting rams, for what purposes all men knew.
It was to face this scene, then, that I came out from the royal pyramidat the summons of the chamberlains in the cool of next morning. Eachgreat man who had come there before me had banner-bearers and trumpetersto proclaim his presence; the middle classes were in all their braveryof apparel; and even poor squalid creatures, with ribs of hunger showingthrough their dusty skins, had turbans and wisps of colour wrapped abouttheir heads to mark the gaiety of the day.
The trumpets proclaimed my coming, and the people shouted welcome, andwith the gorgeous chamberlains walking backwards in advance, I wentacross to a scarlet awning that had been prepared, and took my seat uponthe cushions beneath it.
And then came Phorenice, my bride that was to be that day, fresh fromsleep, and glorious in her splendid beauty. She was borne out from thepyramid in an open litter of gold and ivory by fantastic savages fromEurope, her own refinement of feature being thrown up into all thehigher relief by contrast with their brutish ugliness. One could hearthe people draw a deep breath of delight as their eyes first fell uponher; and it is easy to believe there was not a man in that crowd whichthronged the square who did not envy me her choice, nor was there asoul present (unless Ylga was there somewhere veiled) who could by anystretch imagine that I was not overjoyed in winning so lovely a wife.
For myself, I summoned up all the iron of my training to guard theexpression of my face. We were here on ceremonial to-day; a ghastlyenough affair throughout all its acts, if you choose, but stillceremonial; and I was minded to show Phorenice a grand manner that wouldleave her nothing to cavil at. After all that had been gone through andendured, I did not intend a great scheme to be shattered by letting myagony and pain show themselves, in either a shaking hand or a twitchingcheek. When it came to the point, I told myself, I would lay the livingbody of my love in the hollow beneath the stone as calmly, and with aslittle outward emotion, as though I had been a mere priest carrying outthe burial of some dead stranger. And she, on her part, would not,I knew, betray our secret. With her, too, it was truly "Before allAtlantis."
I think it spared a pang to find that there was to be no mockery orflippancy in what went forward. All was solemn and impressive; and,though a certain grandeur and sombreness which bit deep into my breastwas lost to the vulgar crowd, I fancy that the outward shape of thedouble sacrifice they witnessed that day would not be forgotten by anyof them, although the inner meaning of it all was completely hidden fromtheir minds. When it suited her fancy, none could be more strict on theritual of a ceremony than this many-mooded Empress, and it appearedthat on this occasion she had given command that all things were to becarried out with the rigid exactness and pomp of the older manner.
So she was borne up by her Europeans to the scarlet awning, and I handedher to the ground. She seated herself on the cushions, and beckonedme to her side, entwining her fingers with mine as has always been thecustom with rulers of Atlantis and their consorts. And there before usas we sat, a body of soldiery marched up, and opening out showed Naisin their midst. She had a collar of metal round her neck, with chainsdepending from it firmly held by a brace of guards, so that she shouldnot run in upon the spears of the escort, and thus get a quick andeasy death, which is often the custom of those condemned to the morelingering punishments.
But it was pleasant to see that she still wore her clothing. Raiment,whether of fabric or skin, has its value, and custom has always giventhe garments of the condemned to the soldiers guarding them. So as Naiswas not stripped, I could not but see that some one had given moneysto the guards as a recompense, and in this I thought I saw the hand ofYlga, and felt a gratitude towards her.
The soldiers brought her forward to the edge of the pavilion's shade,and she was bidden prostrate herself before the Empress, and this shewisely did and so avoided rough handling and force. Her face waspale, but showed neither fear nor defiance, and her eyes were calmand natural. She was remembering what was due to Atlantis, and I wasthrilled with love and pride as I watched her.
But outwardly I, too, was impassive as a man of stone, and though I knewthat Phorenice's eye was on my face, there was never anything on it fromfirst to last that I would not have had her see.
"Nais," said the Empress, "you have eaten from my platter when you werefan-girl, and drunk from my cup, and what was yours I gave you. Youshould have had more than gratitude, you should have had knowledge alsothat the arm of the Empress was long and her hand consummately heavy.But it seems that you have neither of these things. And, moreover, youhave tried to take a certain matter that the Empress has set apart forherself. You were offered pardon, on terms, and you rejected it. Youwere foolish. But it is a day now when I am inclined to clemency.Presently, seated on that carved throne of granite which he has built meyonder, I shall take my Lord Deucalion to husband. Give me a plain wordthat you are sorry, girl, and name a man whom you would choose, and Iwill remember the brightness of the occasion, you shall be pardoned andwed before we rise from these cushions."
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"I will not wed," she said quietly.
"Think for the last time, Nais, of what is the other choice. You willbe taken, warm, and quick, and beautiful as you stand there this minute,and laid in the hollow place that is made beneath the throne-stone.Deucalion, that is to be my husband, will lay you in that awful bed, asa symbol that so shall perish all Phorenice's enemies, and then he willrelease the rams and lower the upper stone into place, and the worldshall see your face no more. Look at the bright sky, Nais, fill yourchest with the sweet warm air, and then think of what this death willmean. Believe me, girl, I do not want to make you an example unless youforce me."
"I will not wed," said the prisoner quietly.
The Empress loosed her fingers from my arm, and lay back against thecushions. "If the girl presumes on our old familiarity, or thinks that Ijest, show her now, Deucalion, that I do not."
"The Empress is far from jesting," I said. "I will do this thing becauseit is the wish of the Empress that it should be done, and because it isthe command of the Empress that a symbol of it shall remain for ever asan example for others. Lead your prisoner to the place."
The soldiers wheeled, and the two guards with the chains of the collarwhich was on the neck of Nais prepared to put out force to drag herup the steps. But she walked with them willingly, and with a colourunchanged, and I rose from my seat, and made obeisance to the Empressand followed them.
Before all those ten thousand eyes, we two made no display of emotionthen, not only for Atlantis' sake, but also because both Nais and I hada nicety and a pride in our natures. We were not as Phorenice to flauntendearments before others.
Yet, when I had bidden the guards unhasp the collar which held theprisoner's neck, and clapped my arms around her, showing all theroughness of one who has no mind that his captive shall escape or evenunduly struggle, a thrill gushed through me so potent that I was liketo have fainted, and it was only by supreme strain of will that I heldunbrokenly on with the ceremonial. I, who had never embraced a womanwith aught but the arm of roughness before, now held pressed to me onewhom I loved with an infinite tenderness, and the revelation of how lovecan come out and link with love was almost my undoing. Yet, outwardly,Nais made so sign, but lay half-strangled in my arms, as any woman doesthat is being borne away by a spoiler.
I trod with her to the uppermost step, the vast throne-stone overhangingus, and then so that all of those who were gazing from the sides of thepyramids and the roofs of the buildings round might see, though we werebeyond Phorenice's view, I used a force that was brutal in dragging heracross the level, and putting her down into the hollow. And yet the girlresisted me with no one effort whatever.
So that the victim might not struggle out and be crushed, and so gainan easy death when the stone descended, there were brazen clamps to fitinto grooves of the stones above the hollow where she lay, and these Ifitted in place above her, and fastened one by one, doing this butcher'swork with one hand, and still fiercely holding her down by the other.Gods! and the sweat of agony dripped from me on to the thirsty stone asI worked. I could not keep that in.
I clamped and locked the last two bars in place, and took my brute'shand away from her throat.
The hateful fingermarks showed as bloodless furrows in the whitenessof her skin. For the life of me, yes, even for the fate of Atlantis, Icould not help dropping my glance upon her face. But she was strongerthan I. She gave me no last look. She kept her eyes steadfastly fixed onthe cruel stone above, and so I left her, knowing that it was best notto tarry longer.
I came out from under the stone, and gave the sign to the engineers whostood by the rams. The fires were taken away from their sides, andthe metal in them began to contract, and slowly the vast bulk of thethrone-stone began to creep down towards its bed.
But ah, so slowly! Gods! how my soul was torn as I watched and waited.
Yet I kept my face impassive, overlooking as any officer might a pieceof work which others were carrying out under his direction, and on whichhis credit rested; and I stood gravely in my place till the rams hadlet the stone come down on its final resting place, and had been carriedaway by the engineers; and then I went round with the master architectwith his plumbline and level, whilst he tested this last piece of thebuilding and declared it perfect.
It was a useless form, this last, seeing that by calculation they knewexactly how the stone must rest; but the guilds have their formsand customs, and on these occasions of high ceremonial, they arepunctiliously carried out, because these middle-class people wish alwaysto appear mysterious and impressive to the poor vulgar folk who aretheir inferiors. But perhaps I am hard there on them. A man who isneedlessly taken round to plumb and duly level the tomb where his lovelies buried living, may perhaps be excused by the assessors on high alittle spirit of bitterness.
I had gone up the steps to do my hateful work a man full of grief,though outwardly unmoved. As I came down again I had a feeling ofincompleteness; it seemed as though half my inwards had been left behindwith Nais in the hollow of the stone, and their place was taken by avoid which ached wearily; but still I carried a passive face, and memorythat before all these private matters stood the command of the HighCouncil, which sat before the Ark of the Mysteries.
So I went and stood before Phorenice, and said the words which theancient forms prescribed concerning the carrying out of her wish.
"Then, now," she said, "I will give myself to you as wife. We are not asothers, you and I, Deucalion. There is a law and a form set down forthe marrying of these other people, but that would be useless for ourpurposes. We will have neither priest nor scribe to join us and set downthe union. I am the law here in Atlantis, and you soon will be part ofme. We will not be demeaned by profaner hands. We will make the ceremonyfor ourselves, and for witnesses, there are sufficient in waiting.Afterwards, the record shall be cut deep in the granite throne you havebuilt for me, and the lettering filled in with gold, so that it shallendure and remain bright for always."
"The Empress can do no wrong," I said formally, and took the hand sheoffered me, and helped her to rise. We walked out from the scarletawning into the glare of the sunshine, she leaning on me, flushing, andso radiantly lovely that the people began to hail her with rapturousshouts of "A Goddess; our Goddess Phorenice." But for me they had nowelcoming word. I think the set grimness of my face both scared andrepelled them.
We went up the steps which led to the throne, the people still shouting,and I sat her in the royal seat beneath the snake's outstretched head,and she drew me down to sit beside her.
She raised her jewelled hand, and a silence fell on that great throng,as though the breath had been suddenly cut short for all of them.
Then Phorenice made proclamation:
"Hear me, O my people, and hear me, O High Gods from whom I am come.I take this man Deucalion, to be my husband, to share with me theprosperity of Atlantis, and join me in guarding our great possession.May all our enemies perish as she is now perishing above whom we sit."And then she put her arms around my neck, and kissed me hotly on themouth.
In turn I also spoke: "Hear me, O most High Gods, whose servant I am,and hear me also, O ye people. I take this Empress, Phorenice, towife, to help with her the prosperity of Atlantis, and join with her inguarding the welfare of that great possession. May all the enemies ofthis country perish as they have perished in the past."
And then, I too, who had not been permitted by the fate to touch thelips of my love, bestowed the first kiss I had ever given woman toPhorenice, that was now being made my wife.
But we were not completely linked yet.
"A woman is one, and man is one," she proclaimed, following for thefirst time the old form of words, "but in marriage they merge, so thatwife and husband are no more separate, but one conjointly. In token ofthis we will now make the symbolic joining together, so that all may seeand remember." She took her dagger, and pricking the brawn on my forearmtill a head of blood appeared, set her red lips to it, and took it intoherself.
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br /> "Ah," she said, with her eyes sparkling, "now you are part of me indeed,Deucalion, and I feel you have strengthened me already." She pulled downthe neck of her robe. "Let me make you my return."
I pricked the rounded whiteness of her shoulder. Gods! when I rememberedwho was beneath us as we sat on that throne, I could have driven theblade through to her heart! And then I, too, put down my lips, and tookthe drop of her blood that was yielded to me.
My tongue was dry, my throat was parched, and my face suffused, and Ithought I should have choked.
But the Empress, who was ordinarily so acute, was misled then. "Itthrills you?" she cried. "It burns within you like living fire? I havejust felt it. By my face! Deucalion, if I had known the pleasure itgives to be made a wife, I do not think I should have waited this longfor you. Ah, yes; but with another man I should have had no thrill. Imight have gone through the ceremony with another, but it would haveleft me cold. Well, they say this feeling comes to a woman but once inher time, and I would not change it for the glory of all my conquestsand the whirl of all my power." She leaned in close to me so that thered curls of her hair swept my cheek, and her breath came hot against mymouth. "Tasted you ever any sweet so delicious as this knowledge that weare made one now, Deucalion, past all possible dissolving?"
I could not lie to her any more just then. The Gods know how honestly Ihad striven to play the part commanded me for Atlantis' good, but thereis a limit to human endurance, and mine was reached. I was not all angertowards her. I had some pity for this passion of hers, which had grownof itself certainly, but which I had done nothing to check; and theindecent frankness with which it was displayed was only part of thelivery of potentates who flaunt what meaner folk would coyly hide. Butalways before my eyes was a picture of the girl on whom her jealousy hadtaken such a bitter vengeance, and to invent spurious lover's talk thenwas a thing my tongue refused to do.
"Words are poor things," I said, "and I am a man unused to women, andhave but a small stock of any phrases except the dryest. Remember,Phorenice, a week agone, I did not know what love was, and now that Ihave learned the lesson, somewhat of the suddenest, the language remainsstill to come to me. My inwards speak; indeed they are full of speech;but I cannot translate into bald cold words what they say."
And here, surely the High Gods took pity on my tied tongue and mymisery, and made an opportunity for bringing the ceremony to an end. Aman ran into the square shouting, and showing a wound that dripped,and presently all that vast crowd which stood on the pavements, and thesides of the pyramids, and the roofs of the temples, took up the cry,and began to feel for their weapons.
"The rebels are in!" "They have burrowed a path into the city!" "Theyhave killed the cave-tigers and taken a gate!" "They are putting thewhole place to the storm!" "They will presently leave no poor soul of ushere alive!"
There then was a termination of our marriage cooings. With rebels merelybiting at the walls, it was fine to put strong trust in the defences,and easy to affect contempt for the besiegers' powers, and to keepthe business of pageants and state craft and marryings turning on easywheels. But with rebel soldiers already inside the city (and hordes ofothers doubtless pressing on their heels), the affairs took a differentlight. It was no moment for further delay, and Phorenice was the firstto admit it. The glow that had been in her eyes changed to the glare ofthe fighter, as the fellow who had run up squalled out his tidings.
I stood and stretched my chest. I seemed in need of air. "Here," I said,"is work that I can understand more clearly. I will go and sweep thisrabble back to their burrows, Phorenice."
"But not alone, sir. I come too. It is my city still. Nay, sir, we aretoo newly wed to be parted yet."
"Have your will," I said, and together we went down the steps of thethrone to the pavement below. Under my breath I said a farewell to Nais.
Our armour-bearers met us with weapons, and we stepped into litters, andthe slaves took us off hot foot. The wounded man who had first broughtthe news had fallen in a faint, and no more tidings was to be got fromhim, but the growing din of the fight gave us the general direction, andpresently we began to meet knots of people who dwelt near the place ofirruption, running away in wild panic, loaded down with their householdgoods.
It was useless to stop these, as fight they could not, and if they hadstayed they would merely have been slaughtered like flies, and wouldin all likelihood have impeded our own soldiery. And so we let them runscreaming on their blind way, but forced the litters through them withbut very little regard for their coward convenience.
Now the advantage of the rebels, when it came to be looked upon by asoldier's eye, was a thing of little enough importance. They had drivena tunnel from behind a covering mound, beneath the walls, and had openedit cleverly enough through the floor of a middle-class house. They hadcome through into this, collecting their numbers under its shelter, anddoubtless hoping that the marriage of the Empress (of which spies hadgiven them information) would sap the watchfulness of the city guards.But it seems they were discovered and attacked before they werethoroughly ready to emerge, and, as a fine body of troops were barrackednear the spot, their extermination would have been merely a matter oftime, even if we had not come up.
It did not take a trained eye long to decide on this, and Phorenice,with a laugh, lay back on the cushions of the litter, and returned herweapons to the armour-bearer who came panting up to receive them. "Wegrow nervous with our married life, my Deucalion," she said. "We arefearful lest this new-found happiness be taken from us too suddenly."
But I was not to be robbed of my breathing-space in this wise. "Let mecrave a wedding gift of you," I said.
"It is yours before you name it."
"Then give me troops, and set me wide a city gate a mile away fromhere."
"You can gather five hundred as you go from here to the gate, taking twohundred of those that are here. If you want more, they must be fetchedfrom other barracks along the walls. But where is your plan?"
"Why, my poor strategy teaches me this: these foolish rebels have setall their hopes on this mine, and all their excitement on its presentsuccess. If they are kept occupied here by a Phorenice, who will givethem some dainty fighting without checking them unduly, they will presson to the attack and forget all else, and never so much as dream of asortie. And meanwhile, a Deucalion with his troop will march out of thecity well away from here, without tuck of drum or blare of trumpet, andfall most unpleasantly upon their rear. After which, a Phorenice willburn the house here at the mine's head, which is of wood, and strawthatched, to discourage further egress, and either go to the walls towatch the fight from there, or sally out also and spur on the rout asher fancy dictates."
"Your scheme is so pretty, I would I could rob you of it for my owncredit's sake, and as it is, I must kiss you for your cleverness. Butyou got my word first, you naughty fellow, and you shall have the menand do as you ask. Eh, sir, this is a sad beginning of our wedded life,if you begin to rob your little wife of all the sweets of conquest fromthe outset."
She took back the weapons and target she had given to the armour-bearer,and stepped over the side of the litter to the ground. "But at least,"she said, "if you are going to fight, you shall have troops that will docredit to my drill," and thereupon proceeded to tell off the companiesof men-at-arms who were to accompany me. She left herself few enough tostem the influx of rebels who poured ceaselessly in through thetunnel; but as I had seen, with Phorenice, heavy odds added only to herenjoyment.
But for the Empress, I will own at the time to have given little enoughof thought. My own proper griefs were raw within me, and I thirsted forthat forgetfulness of all else which battle gives, so that for awhile Imight have a rest from their gnawings.
It made my blood run freer to hear once more the tramp of practisedtroops behind me, and when all had been collected, we marched outthrough a gate of the city, and presently were charging through andthrough the straggling rear of the enemy. By the Gods! for the momenteven Nai
s was blotted from my wearied mind. Never had I loved more tolet my fierceness run madly riot. Never have I gloated more abundantlyover the terrible joy of battle.
Nais must forgive my weakness in seeking to forget her even for abreathing-space. Had that opportunity been denied me, I believe theagony of remembering would have snapped my brain-strings for always.