6. THE BITERS OF THE CITY WALLS
Here then was the manner of my reception back in the capital ofAtlantis, and some first glimpse at her new policies. I freely confessto my own inaction and limpness; but it was all deliberate. The old tiesof duty seemed lost, or at least merged in one another. Beforetime, toserve the king was to serve the Clan of the Priests, from which he hadbeen chosen, and whose head he constituted. But Phorenice was self-made,and appeared to be a rule unto herself; if Zaemon was to be trusted,he was the mouthpiece of the Priests, and their Clan had set her atdefiance; and how was a mere honest man to choose on the instant betweenthe two?
But cold argument told me that governments were set up for the goodof the country at large, and I said to myself that there would be mychoice. I must find out which rule promised best of Atlantis, and do mypoor best to prop it into full power. And here at once there opened upanother path in the maze: I had heard some considerable talk of rebels;of another faction of Atlanteans who, whatever their faults might be,were at any rate strong enough to beleaguer the capital; and beforecoming to any final decision, it would be as well to take their claimsin balance with the rest. So on the night of that very same day on whichI had just re-planted my foot on the old country's shores, I set out toglean for myself tidings on the matter.
No one inside the royal pyramid gainsaid me. The banquet had endedabruptly with the terrible scene that I have set down above on thesetablets, for with Tarca writhing on the floor, and thrusting out thegruesome scars of his leprosy, even the most gluttonous had littleenough appetite for further gorging. Phorenice glowered on the feastersfor a while longer in silent fury, but saying no further word; and thenher eyes turned on me, though softened somewhat.
"You may be an honest man, Deucalion," she said, at length, "but you area monstrous cold one. I wonder when you will thaw?" And here she smiled."I think it will be soon. But for now I bid you farewell. In the morningwe will take this country by the shoulders, and see it in some neworder."
She left the banqueting-hall then, Ylga following; and takingprecedence of my rank, I went out next, whilst all others stood and madesalutation. But I halted by Tarca first, and put my hand on his uncleanflesh. "You are an unfortunate man," I said, "but I can admire a bravesoldier. If relief can be gained for your plague, I will use interest toprocure it for you."
The man's thanks came in a mumble from his wrecked mouth, and some ofthose near shuddered in affected disgust. I turned on them with ablack brow: "Your charity, my lords, seems of as small account asyour courage. You affected a fine disbelief of Zaemon's sayings, anda simpering contempt for his priesthood, but when it comes to layinga hand on him, you show a discretion which, in the old days, we shouldhave called by an ugly name. I had rather be Tarca, with all hisuncleanness, than any of you now as you stand."
With which leave-taking I waited coldly till they gave me my duesalutation, and then walked out of the banqueting-hall without offeringa soul another glance. I took my way to the grand gate of the pyramid,called for the officer of the guard, and demanded exit. The man wasobsequious enough, but he opened with some demur.
"My lord's attendants have not yet come up?"
"I have none."
"My lord knows the state of the streets?"
"I did twenty years back. I shall be able to pick my way."
"My lord must remember that the city is beleaguered," the fellowpersisted. "The people are hungry. They prowl in bands after nightfall,and--I make no question that my lord would conquer in a fight againstwhatever odds, but--"
"Quite right. I covet no street scuffle to-night. Lend me, I pray you,a sufficiency of men. You will know best what are needed. For me, I amaccustomed to a city with quiet streets."
A score of sturdy fellows were detailed off for my escort, and with themin a double file on either hand, I marched out from the close perfumedair of the pyramid into the cool moonlight of the city. It was mypurpose to make a tour of the walls and to find out somewhat of thedisposition of these rebels.
But the Gods saw fit to give me another education first. The city, as Isaw it during that night walk, was no longer the old capital that I hadknown, the just accretion of the ages, the due admixture of comfort andsplendour. The splendour was there, vastly increased. Whole wards hadbeen swept away to make space for new palaces, and new pyramids of thewealthy, and I could not but have an admiration for the skill and thebrain which made possible such splendid monuments.
And, indeed, gazing at them there under the silver of the moonlight,I could almost understand the emotions of the Europeans and otherbarbarous savages which cause them to worship all such great buildingsas Gods, since they deem them too wonderful and majestic to be set up byhuman hands unaided.
Still, if it was easy to admire, it was simple also to see plainadvertisement of the cost at which these great works had been reared.From each grant of ground, where one of these stately piles earnedsilver under the moon, a hundred families had been evicted and left toharbour as they pleased in the open; and, as a consequence, now everyniche had its quota of sleepers, and every shadow its squad of fiercewild creatures, ready to rush out and rob or slay all wayfarers of lessforce than their own.
Myself, I am no pamperer of the common people. I say that, if a man beleft to hunger and shiver, he will work to gain him food and raiment;and if not, why then he can die, and the State is well rid of aworthless fellow. But here beside us, as we marched through many wards,were marks of blind oppression; starved dead bodies, with the bonesstarting through the lean skin, sprawled in the gutter; and indeedit was plain that, save for the favoured few, the people of the greatcapital were under a most heavy oppression.
But at this, though I might regret it abominably, I could make no strongcomplaint. By the ancient law of the land all the people, great andsmall, were the servants of the king, to be put without question to whatpurposes he chose; and Phorenice stood in the place of the king. So Itried to think no treason, but with a sigh passed on, keeping my eyesabove the miseries and the squalors of the roadway, and sending out mythoughts to the stars which hung in the purple night above, and tothe High Gods which dwelt amongst them, seeking, if it might be, forguidance for my future policies. And so in time the windings of thestreets brought us to the walls, and, coursing beside these and givingfitting answer to the sentries who beat their drums as we passed, wecame in time to that great gate which was a charge to the captain of thegarrison.
Here it was plain there was some special commotion. A noise of laughterwent up into the still night air, and with it now and again the snarland roar of a great beast, and now and again the shriek of a hurt man.But whatever might be afoot, it was not a scene to come upon suddenly.The entrance gates of our great capital were designed by their ancientbuilders to be no less strong than the walls themselves. Four pairsof valves were there, each a monstrous block of stone two man-heightssquare, and a man-height thick, and the wall was doubled to receivethem, enclosing an open circus between its two parts. The four gatesthemselves were set one at the inner, one at the outer side of each ofthese walls, and a hidden machinery so connected them, that of each setone could not open till the other was closed; and as for forcing themwithout war engines, one might as foolishly try to push down the royalpyramid with the bare hand.
My escort made outcry with the horn which hung from the wall invitingsuch a summons, and a warder came to an arrow-slit, and did inspectionof our persons and business. His survey was according to the ancientform of words, which is long, and this was made still more tedious bythe noise from within, which ever and again drowned all speech betweenus entirely.
But at last the formalities had been duly complied with, and he shotback the massive bars and bolts of stone, and threw ajar one monstrousstone valve of the door. Into the chamber within--a chamber made fromthe thickness of the wall between the two doors--I and my fellowscrowded, and then the warder with his machines pulled to the valve whichhad been opened, and came to me again through the press of my escort,bowing
low to the ground.
"I have no vail to give you," I said abruptly. "Get on with your duty.Open me that other door."
"With respect, my lord, it would be better that I should first announcemy lord's presence. There is a baiting going forward in the circus, andthe tigers are as yet mere savages, and no respecters of persons."
"The what?"
"The tigers, if my lord will permit them the name. They are baiting abatch of prisoners with the two great beasts which the Empress (whosename be adored) has sent here to aid us keep the gate. But if mylord will, there are the ward rooms leading off this passage, and thegalleries which run out from them commanding the circus, and from theremy lord can see the sport undisturbed."
Now, the mere lust for killing excites only disgust in me, but Isuspected the orders of the Empress in this matter, and had a curiosityto see her scheme. So I stepped into the warder's lodge, and on intothe galleries which commanded the circus with their arrow-slits. The oldbuilders of the place had intended these for a second line of defence,for, supposing the outer doors all forced, an enemy could be speedilyshot down in the circus, without being able to give a blow in return,and so would only march into a death-trap. But as a gazing-place on aspectacle they were no less useful.
The circus was bright lit by the moonlight, and the air which came in tome from it was acrid with the reek of blood. There was no sport inwhat was going forward: as I said, it was mere killing, and the sightdisgusted me. I am no prude about this matter. Give a prisoner hisweapons, put him in a pit with beasts of reasonable strength, and lethim fight to a finish if you choose, and I can look on there and applaudthe strokes. The war prisoner, being a prisoner, has earned death bynatural law, and prefers to get his last stroke in hot blood than tobe knocked down by the headsman's axe. And it is any brave man's luxuryeither to help or watch a lusty fight. But this baiting in the circusbetween the gates was no fair battle like that.
To begin with, the beasts were no fair antagonists for single men. Infact, twenty men armed might well have fled from them. When the wardersaid tigers, I supposed he meant the great cats of the woods. But here,in the circus, I saw a pair of the most terrific of all the fur-bearingland beasts, the great tigers of the caves--huge monsters, of suchponderous strength that in hunger they will oftentimes drag down amammoth, if they can find him away from his herd.
How they had been brought captive I could not tell. Hunter of beaststhough I had been for all my days, I take no shame in saying thatI always approached the slaying of a cave-tiger with stratagem andinfinite caution. To entrap it alive and bring it to a city on a chainwas beyond my most daring schemes, and I have been accredited with morenew things than one. But here it was in fact, and I saw in these captivebeasts a new certificate for Phorenice's genius.
The purpose of these two cave-tigers was plain: whilst they were inthe circus, and loose, no living being could cross from one gate tothe other. They were a new and sturdy addition to the defences of thecapital. A collar of bronze was round the throat of each, and on thecollar was a massive chain which led to the wall, where it could bepayed out or hauled in by means of a windlass in one of the hiddengalleries. So that at ordinary moments the two huge beasts could betethered, one close to either end of the circus, as the litter of bonesand other messes showed, leaving free passage-way between the two setsof doors.
But when I stood there by the arrow-slit, looking down into themoonlight of the circus, these chains were slackened (though men stoodby the windlass of each), and the great striped brutes were prowlingabout the circus with the links clanking and chinking in their wake.Lying stark on the pavement were the bodies of some eight men, deadand uneaten; and though the cave-tigers stopped their prowlings now andagain to nuzzle these, and beat them about with playful paw-blows, theymade no pretence at commencing a meal. It was clear that this cruelsport had grown common to them, and they knew there were other victimsyet to be added to the tally.
Presently, sure enough, as I watched, a valve of the farther gate swungback an arm's length, and a prisoner, furiously resisting, was thrustout into the circus. He fell on his face, and after one look around himhe lay resolutely still, with eyes on the ground passively awaitinghis fate. The ponderous stone of the gate clapped to in its place; thecave-tigers turned in their prowlings; and a chatter of wagers ran toand fro amongst the watchers behind the arrow-slits.
It seemed there were niceties of cruelty in this wretched game. Therewas a sharp clank as the windlasses were manned, and the tetheringchains were drawn in by perhaps a score of links. One of the cave-tigerscrouched, lashed its tail, and launched forth on a terrific spring.The chain tautened, the massive links sang to the strain, and the greatbeast gave a roar which shook the walls. It had missed the prone man bya hand's breadth, and the watchers behind the arrow-slits shrieked forththeir delight. The other tiger sprang also and missed, and again therewere shouts of pleasure, which mingled with the bellowing voices of thebeasts. The man lay motionless in his form. One more cowardly, orone more brave, might have run from death, or faced it; but this poorprisoner chose the middle course--he permitted death to come to him, andhad enough of doggedness to wait for it without stir.
The great cave-tigers were used, it appeared, to this disgusting sport.There were no more wild springs, no more stubbings at the end of themassive chains. They lay down on the pavement, and presently began topurr, rolling on to their sides and rubbing themselves luxuriously. Theprisoner still lay motionless in his form.
By slow degrees the monstrous brutes each drew to the end of its chainand began to reach at the man with out-stretched forepaw. The male couldnot touch him; the female could just reach him with the far tip of aclaw; and I saw a red scratch start up in the bare skin of his side atevery stroke. But still the prisoner would not stir. It seemed to methat they must slack out more links of one of the tigers' chains, or letthe vile play linger into mere tediousness.
But I had more to learn yet. The male tiger, either taught by hisown devilishness, or by those brutes that were his keepers, had stillanother ruse in store. He rose to his feet and turned round, backingagainst the chain. A yell of applause from the hidden men behindthe arrow-slits told that they knew what was in store; and then themonstrous beast, stretched to the utmost of its vast length, kickedsharply with one hind paw.
I heard the crunch of the prisoner's ribs as the pads struck him, and atthat same moment the poor wretch's body was spurned away by the blow, asone might throw a fruit with the hand. But it did not travel far. It wasclear that the she-tiger knew this manoeuvre of her mate's. She caughtthe man on his bound, nuzzling over him for a minute, and then tossinghim high into the air, and leaping up to the full of her splendid heightafter him.
Those other onlookers thought it magnificent; their gleeful shouts saidas much. But for me, my gorge rose at the sight. Once the tigershad reached him, the man had been killed, it is true, without anyunnecessary lingering. Even a light blow from those terrific paws wouldslay the strongest man living. But to see the two cave-tigers toyingwith the poor body was an insult to the pride of our race.
However, I was not there to preach the superiority of man to thebeasts, and the indecency and degradation of permitting man to be undulyinsulted. I had come to learn for myself the new balance of thingsin the kingdom of Atlantis, and so I stood at my place behind thearrow-slit with a still face. And presently another scene in thisghastly play was enacted.
The cave-tigers tired of their sport, and first one and then the otherfell once more to prowling over the littered pavements, with the heavychains scraping and chinking in their wake. They made no beginning tofeast on the bodies provided for them. That would be for afterwards. Inthe present, the fascination of slaughter was big in them, and theyhad thought that it would be indulged further. It seemed that they knewtheir entertainers.
Again the windlass clanked, and the tethering chains drew the greatbeasts clear of the doorway; and again a valve of the farther door swungajar, and another prisoner was thrust st
ruggling into the circus. Asickness seized me when I saw that this was a woman, but still, in viewof the object I had in hand, I made no interruption.
It was not that I had never seen women sent to death before. A general,who has done his fighting, must in his day have killed women equallywith men; yes, and seen them earn their death-blow by lusty battling.Yet there seemed something so wanton in this cruel helpless sacrificeof a woman prisoner, that I had a struggle with myself to avoidinterference. Still it is ever the case that the individual must besacrificed to a policy, and so as I say, I watched on, outwardly coldand impassive.
I watched too (I confess it freely) with a quickening heart. Here was nosullen submissive victim like the last. She may have been more cowardly(as some women are), she may have been braver (as many women have shownthemselves); but, at any rate, it was clear that she was going to make astruggle for her life, and to do vicious damage, it might be, beforeshe yielded it up. The watchers behind the arrow-slits recognized this.Their wagers, and the hum of their appreciation, swept loudly round thering of the circus.
They stripped their prisoners, before they thrust them out to thisdeath, of all the clothes they might carry, for clothes have a value;and so the woman stood there bare-limbed in the moonlight.
She clapped her back to the great stone door by which she had entered,and faced fate with glowing eye. Gods! there have been times in earlyyears when I could have plucked out sword and jumped down, and foughtfor her there for the sheer delight of such a battle. But now policyrestrained me. The individual might want a helping hand, but it wasbecoming more and more clear that Atlantis wanted a minister also; andbefore these great needs, the lesser ones perforce must perish. Still,be it noted that, if I did not jump down, no other man there that nighthad sufficient manhood remaining to venture the opportunity.
My heart glowed as I watched her. She picked a bone from the litter onthe pavement and beat off its head by blows against the wall. Then withher teeth she fashioned the point to still further sharpness. I couldsee her teeth glisten white in the moonrays as she bit with them.
The huge cave-tigers, which stood as high as her head as they walked,came nearer to her in their prowlings, yet obviously neglected her. Thiswas part of their accustomed scheme of torment, and the woman knew itwell. There was something intolerable in their noiseless, ceaselesspaddings over the pavement. I could see the prisoner's breast heave asshe watched them. A terror such as that would have made many a victimsick and helpless.
But this one was bolder than I had thought. She did not wait for aspring: she made the first attack herself. When the she-tiger made itsstroll towards her, and was in the act of turning, she flung herselfinto a sudden leap, striking viciously at its eye with her sharpenedbone. A roar from the onlookers acknowledged the stroke. Thecave-tiger's eye remained undarkened, but the puny weapon had dealt ita smart flesh wound, and with a great bellow of surprise and pain itscampered away to gain space for a rush and a spring.
But the woman did not await its charge. With a shrill scream she spedforward, running at the full of her speed across the moonlight directlytowards that shadowed part of the encircling wall within whose thicknessI had my gazing place; and then, throwing every tendon of her body intothe spring, made the greatest leap that surely any human beingever accomplished, even when spurred on by the utmost of terror anddesperation. In an after day I measured it, and though of a certaintyshe must have added much to the tally by the sheer force of her run,which drove her clinging up the rough surface of the wall, it is a surething that in that splendid leap her feet must have dangled a man-heightand a half above the pavement.
I say it was prodigious, but then the spur was more than the ordinary,and the woman herself was far out of the common both in thews andintelligence; and the end of the leap left her with five fingers lodgedin the sill of the arrow-slit from which I watched. Even then she musthave slipped back if she had been left to herself, for the sill sloped,and the stone was finely smooth; but I shot out my hand and grippedhers by the wrist, and instantly she clambered up with both knees on thesills, and her fingers twined round to grip my wrist in her turn.
And now you will suppose she gushed out prayers and promises, thinkingonly of safety and enlargement. There was nothing of this. With savagepanting wordlessness she took fresh grip on the sharpened bone with herspare hand, and lunged with it desperately through the arrow-slit. Withthe hand that clutched mine she drew me towards her, so as to give theblows the surer chance, and so unprepared was I for such an attack, andwith such fierce suddenness did she deliver it, that the first blow wasnear giving me my quietus. But I grappled with the poor frantic creatureas gently as might be--the stone of the wall separating us always--andstripped her of her weapon, and held her firmly captive till she mightcalm herself.
"That was an ungrateful blow," I said. "But for my hand you'd haveslipped and be the sport of a tiger's paw this minute."
"Oh, I must kill some one," she panted, "before I am killed myself."
"There will be time enough to think upon that some other day; but fornow you are far enough off meeting further harm."
"You are lying to me. You will throw me to the beasts as soon as I loosemy grip. I know your kind: you will not be robbed of your sport."
"I will go so far as to prove myself to you," said I, and called out forthe warder who had tended the doors below. "Bid those tigers be tetheredon a shorter chain," I ordered, "and then go yourself outside into thecircus, and help this lady delicately to the ground."
The word was passed and these things were done; and I too came out intothe circus and joined the woman, who stood waiting under the moonlight.But the others who had seen these doings were by no means suited at thechange of plan. One of the great stone valves of the farther door openedhurriedly, and a man strode out, armed and flushed. "By all the Gods!"he shouted. "Who comes between me and my pastime?"
I stepped quietly to the advance. "I fear, sir," I said, "that you mustlaunch your anger against me. By accident I gave that woman sanctuary,and I had not heart to toss her back to your beasts."
His fingers began to snap against his hilt.
"You have come to the wrong market here with your qualms. I am captainhere, and my word carries, subject only to Phorenice's nod. Do youhear that? Do you know too that I can have you tossed to those stripedgate-keepers of mine for meddling in here without an invitation?" Helooked at me sharp enough, but saw plainly that I was a stranger. "Butperhaps you carry a name, my man, which warrants your impertinence?"
"Deucalion is my poor name," I said, "but I cannot expect you will knowit. I am but newly landed here, sir, and when I left Atlantis some scoreof years back, a very different man to you held guard over these gates."He had his forehead on my feet by this time. "I had it from the Empressthis night that she will to-morrow make a new sorting of this kingdom'sdignities. Perhaps there is some recommendation you would wish me to laybefore her in return for your courtesies?"
"My lord," said the man, "if you wish it, I can have a turn with thosecave-tigers myself now, and you can look on from behind the walls andsee them tear me."
"Why tell me what is no news?"
"I wish to remind my lord of his power; I wish to beg of his clemency."
"You showed your power to these poor prisoners; but from what remainshere to be seen, few of them have tasted much of your clemency."
"The orders were," said the captain of the gate, as though he thought aword might be said here for his defence, "the orders were, my lord, thatthe tigers should be kept fierce and accustomed to killing."
"Then, if you have obeyed orders, let me be the last to chide you.But it is my pleasure that this woman be respited, and I wish now toquestion her."
The man got to his feet again with obvious relief, though still bowinglow.
"Then if my lord will honour me by sitting in my room that overlooks theouter gate, the favour will never be forgotten."
"Show the way," I said, and took the woman by the fingers, lea
ding hergently. At the two ends of the circus the tigers prowled about on shortchains, growling and muttering.
We passed through the door into the thickness of the outer wall, and thecaptain of the gate led us into his private chamber, a snug enough boxoverlooking the plain beyond the city. He lit a torch from his lampand thrust it into a bracket on the wall, and bowing deeply and walkingbackwards, left us alone, closing the door in place behind him. He wasan industrious fellow, this captain, to judge from the spoil withwhich his chamber was packed. There could have come very few traders inthrough that gate below without his levying a private tribute; and so,judging that most of his goods had been unlawfully come by, I had littlequalm at making a selection. It was not decent that the woman, beingan Atlantean, should go bereft of the dignity of clothes, as thoughshe were a mere savage from Europe; and so I sought about amongst thecaptain's spoil for garments that would be befitting.
But, as I busied myself in this search for raiment, rummaging amongstthe heaps and bales, with a hand and eye little skilled in suchbusiness, I heard a sound behind which caused me to turn my head, andthere was the woman with a dagger she had picked from the floor, in theact of drawing it from the sheath.
She caught my eye and drew the weapon clear, but seeing that I made noadvance towards her, or move to protect myself, waited where she was,and presently was took with a shuddering.
"Your designs seem somewhat of a riddle," I said. "At first youwished to kill me from motives which you explained, and which I quiteunderstood. It lay in my power next to confer some small benefitupon you, in consequence of which you are here, and not--shall wesay?--yonder in the circus. Why you should desire now to kill the onlyman here who can set you completely free, and beyond these walls, is athing it would gratify me much to learn. I say nothing of the trifle ofingratitude. Gratitude and ingratitude are of little weight here. Thereis some far greater in your mind."
She pressed a hand hard against her breasts. "You are Deucalion," shegasped; "I heard you say it."
"I am Deucalion. So far, I have known no reason to feel shame for myname."
"And I come of those," she cried, with a rising voice, "who bite againstthis city, because they have found their fate too intolerable with theland as it is ordered now. We heard of your coming from Yucatan. It waswe who sent the fleet to take you at the entrance to the Gulf."
"Your fleet gave us a pretty fight."
"Oh, I know, I know. We had our watchers on the high land who brought usthe tidings. We had an omen even before that. Where we lay with our armybefore the walls here, we saw great birds carrying off the slain to themountains. But where the fleet failed, I saw a chance where I, a woman,might--"
"Where you might succeed?" I sat me down on a pile of the captain'sstuffs. It seemed as if here at last that I should find a solution formany things. "You carry a name?" I asked.
"They call me Nais."
"Ah," I said, and signed to her to take the clothes that I had soughtout. She was curiously like, so both my eyes and hearing said, to Ylga,the fan-girl of Phorenice, but as she had told me of no parentage Iasked for none then. Still her talk alone let me know that she was bredof none of the common people, and I made up my mind towards definiteunderstanding. "Nais," I said, "you wish to kill me. At the same time Ihave no doubt you wish to live on yourself, if only to get credit fromyour people for what you have done. So here I will make a contract withyou. Prove to me that my death is for Atlantis' good, and I swear by ourLord the Sun to go out with you beyond the walls, where you can stab meand then get you gone. Or the--"
"I will not be your slave."
"I do not ask you for service. Or else, I wished to say, I shall liveso long as the High Gods wish, and do my poor best for this country. Andfor you--I shall set you free to do your best also. So now, I pray you,speak."