CHAPTER IX.
TALAITI DE TALT.
I woke with daylight, and roused Haigh. "We should get away at once," Isaid to him. "We've dawdled woefully. If we'd possessed a grain ofsense between us we should have started the moment we stepped ashore.Weems may be cooped up still, but that's only guess-work on our parts.It's quite possible he cleared himself directly after you left, andwent to the Talayot straight away."
Haigh blinked at me sleepily. "You're in the deuce of a flurry, oldman. Been having evil dreams? That's the rancid oil they cook withhere. It always has that effect at first. But you'll get used to itsoon and like it, and think ordinary oil insipid."
"Oh, confound you, dry up. Look here, we must start at once."
"How?"
"Tramp it. Funds won't run to a vehicle."
"My dear chappie, you don't know the extent of my feebleness. Icouldn't walk two miles to save my life. Nature may have intended mefor a pirate or a highwayman, because on shipboard or horse-back I cando tolerable service. But the good dame never built me to be a footpad.So if this old pyramid place is to be looted, you must go and do ityourself."
"But, my good fellow, think what there is at stake. Dash it all, man,how do you know I shan't collar the thing and make a clean bolt withit?"
Haigh grinned. "I'll take my chance of that."
"You'd better not. I've never set up for being obtrusively honest."
"Oh, go to Aden."
"But really, I'd take it as a favour if you would come."
"Well, if you make a point of it, I suppose I must, though I fail tosee the necessity for a pair of us making ourselves uncomfortable. Lookout of window. The sky's Prussian blue, and there isn't a breath ofwind. It's going to be a broiling day. However, dear boy, at yourbehest I'll make a martyr of myself; and if transport is to be procuredon tick, I'll overhaul you. Only understand clearly that neither foryou nor any one else can I do a physical impossibility. It isabsolutely out of the question for me to walk."
That was all I could get out of him, and so I set off, very uncertainas to whether or no he would follow.
I walked out through the clean uneven streets just as the townspeoplewere beginning to stir, passed under the massive towered gateway in theold walls, and got on to the level road which reaches half-way acrossthe island. The waking hour was earlier here. The hawks and eagles werepatrolling the morning air with diligent sweeps. The country-folk werebringing in loads of farm-produce on big brown donkeys and little graydonkeys. These last all gave a courteous "Bon di tenga,"[1] and Inoticed that most of them stared at me somewhat curiously. It was notmy dress that they looked at--it was my face that drew their stares;and after a mile or so's pacing it was borne in upon me that anxiousthoughts had caused my forehead to knit and my mouth to pucker. I madethe discovery with some contempt. Haigh had told me more than once thatI should never make a gambler, and he was right. In principle Iaccepted the theory that "what was written was written," but inpractice I couldn't help imagining that a ready-penned Fate might bepartly erased by much rubbing.
[1] The common salutation throughout the Balearic Islands is _Bon di tenga_ from an inferior to a superior, to which the reply would be _Bon di_. Frequently, however, the first of these is clipped down to the last word, which is pronounced "T[=a][=i]n-g[)a]." After dark it becomes _Bon nit_, or _Bon nit tenga_, according to social standing.
I refilled my pipe and looked around me. Old Lully had shown some_nous_ in choosing a country to carry his secret. There is smallfear of Minorca's population ever growing excessive. Not even Connemaracan show such stone heaps. The walls which divide up the tiny fieldsare often ten feet thick; there are rubble cairns on all the manyoutcrops of rock; there are boulder-girdles round the trees; and yet,despite these collections, the corn and the beans and the grass growmore in stone than soil. One almost wonders that the Minorcan does notbuild up stone circles round the cows' legs whilst they are grazing.Perhaps the _Doctor Illuminatus_ might have hesitated if hisprophetic eye had seen an invasion of British; for the Briton is adestructive animal with pig-like instincts of rootling up everything.But the foreigner's tenure of the soil (and stones) was not a long one,and I fancy that the country's face, save for some of the better roadsthat seam it, is much the same as it was in the year of our Lordthirteen hundred and nothing.
Now, the Minorcan is not possessed of the slenderest reverence for theprehistoric monuments that spot his island, and if he wanted them fordomestic purposes, he would not hesitate to take the top from aduolithic stone altar, or the roofing flags from a subterraneangallery. And he would quarry from the pyramids to find the wherewithalfor his pig-yard gateposts without the smallest flush of shame, forvandalism is a word that has no Minorquin equivalent. But the abundanceof stone elsewhere has saved the fashioned stone that those dead racespiled up when this world was young, and the gray Talayots squat upontheir old sites in undiminished numbers. Indeed, in a way, one mightsay that there are more of them now than there were in the venerablealchemist's time, for spurious Talayots may be seen in every direction.These latter-day edifices have one advantage over the hoary prototypes.Their purpose is clearly defined. We know that they were not intendedfor the burial-places of kings, or for temples to conceal sacerdotalrights, or for observatories, or even for granaries. They were simplyrun up by men who wanted to build shelters for cattle or pigs or sheepon some plan which would expend a maximum of material on a minimum ofbasement. They simply represent an incident in the perpetual waragainst the stones, and show the way in which crude minds attain theirends. If Minorca had been peopled by Americans (as once, indeed, nearlyhappened), light tramways would be laid down in every direction, andthe stones carted to the edges of the island, and there tipped into thesea; and then the ground would be free, the farmer rich and unhappy.But as matters are ordered at present, these things are beyond the manof the soil's grasp; and so he remains poor and hard-working andcontented.
The broad road led on past whitewashed farm-houses and pink-floweredalmond gardens, past peasants and mule-teams scratching up the rockysoil with primitive one-handled ploughs, past patches of brownvine-stumps and gnarled olive-trees squirming out from among theboulders; and close on either hand ran the low wooded hills, with theirburden of ilexes still filmy with the morning mists. The road was aroad a London suburb might have felt pride in, so smart was theengineering that made cuttings and embankments to reduce the gradients,and culverts to carry off the side-water, and dressed freestone bridgesto cross the many streamlets. But at the eighth kilometre post (I thinkit was the eighth) this road showed itself worthy of the sunnygovernment of Spain by ending abruptly in a fence of wheelbarrows andgang-planks. The continuation was to be gone on with, _manana_;meanwhile young wheat had sprouted eight green inches in the track.
At this point the diligence course to Ciudadella branches off to thenorthward, turning again after a while due west on to GeneralStanhope's road. But that was nothing to me then. Turning my back uponit, I took another path, in woeful disrepair, which led me down by manywindings between high stone walls and straggling clumps of pricklypear. There were few houses to stop the view--only some two or threefarm buildings. Cottages can scarcely be said to exist. The labourereither lives in the towns, or else he lodges under his master's roof.But the high walls and the hummocks shut one in, and I was perpetuallyhaving to climb one or the other to make sure of my whereabouts, for mysailing directions to the Talayot had been rather vague ones.
The air was still and close, and already the sun had crept high and wasburning fiercely. It was blazing hot, but in spite of that, and theruggedness of the track, I was walking my fastest. Talaiti de Talt wassomewhere close ahead, and the knowledge made me tingle from ear totoe. Forced stoicism wouldn't act.
At last, getting on a rise of the road where I could see over thewinding walls ahead, I made out a Talayot sprouting gray from amid itsgreen jacketing, barely half a kilometre away; and from the descriptiongiven at Mahon, that must be
the very one I had worked so hard toreach.
The limit of self-containment was passed. Excitement bubbled over. Ipicked up my feet and ran for all I was worth.
Just past the bottom of the slope was a small farmhouse, lying a littleway back from the road. The Talayot was close beyond. A thought struckme, and I pulled up, panting and, in spite of myself, laughing. A newcomplication seemed to crop up. From the moment of reading old Lully'sjournal in the Genovese _caffe_, it had never occurred to me tillthen that the Talayot belonged less to me than to anybody else. Now,seeing the whitewashed farm buildings close beside this old pyramid Ihad come to loot, the idea that the modern owner might raise objectionscame upon me in a flash; and although the matter was serious enough, asHeaven knows, still its grimly humorous side cropped uppermost, and forthe life of me I could not help being tickled.
Of course any one will see that I might have waited till dark, and havedone my searching when all the world of provincial Minorca was snuglyslumbering. But that idea did not occur to me then, and if it had done,I should not have listened to it. I was far too keen on going aheadwithout further stoppages. The grasping fingers of Weems loomed alwaysin the near distance.
If I had only possessed a spare dollar or two, the thing would havebeen simple; but not owning a peseta, I had tremors. Still there was nohelp for it, and so following the _en avant_ principle, I swungthe gate, and walked up between the orange-bushes to the littlefarmhouse. Two dogs sprang out from somewhere, barking furiously; but Ilike dogs, and never feared one yet, and that pair were soon reduced tooppressive civility. A small girl appeared, drawn by the uproar; butthe sight of a stranger made her bolt mutely within doors. And then awoman came--a fat, tall, slatternly woman, whose husband was dead (shesaid), and who owned the farm which circled Talaiti de Talt.
She was garrulous to a degree, and her voice--as is usual with thevoices of cats and women out there--was harsh and grating. But I didnot dam the flood of her eloquence (outwardly, at any rate), and so shewent on till she was tired. Then I thanked her, and blarneyed her aswell as I was able, although that wasn't much, as I never have beenmuch of a hand with women. But the outcome of it all was that I mightmost certainly overhaul the old stone heap (which was her irreverentname for the historical pyramid) as much as ever I chose. And when shehad given the permission, it struck me that I could have got it just aseasily without having spent an hour and a half in the baking sun-blazebeating about the bush. But then, you see, I was so confoundedlynervous, and didn't guess that beforehand.
However, as I was turning off down the orange grove again, the bulkysenora seemed to think that something might be made out of it afterall, for she called out to know whether I wouldn't like Isabelita toaccompany me--Isabelita being the small girl, then engaged atunravelling a bamboo for a whitewash brush under the shade of thefamily date-palm. Or was there nothing else she could do for me?Everything of her poor stock was entirely at my disposition. My thankswere profuse--most profuse--but I would not rob her of anything, noteven of the _hermosita's_ time. It would be my great pleasure tomake that little angel some trifling present as I came back that waytoward Mahon; at which time I might also wish to buy an orange or two.So until then.
"_'Tenga_," said the woman, with a large fat smile.
"_Bon di, senora_," said I, with a sweep of the hat, and turned offdown the path and into the road again. Gad! wasn't I feeling jubilantthen?
I felt that the woman was following me with her eyes, and didn't dareto hurry; for it seemed to me, so worked up was I, that if I had brokeninto a run she would have seen at once what I had come for, and wouldhave contrived to get this great thing for herself. The mere fact of mydisplaying any interest at all in such a useless cumbersome hulk as aTalayot must have filled her with suspicion. But then I had thought ofthis, and had corrected her when she guessed me for French, telling hermy true nationality, knowing that the Continental reputation of theEnglishman stands good for any unexplainable eccentricity. And so Iclogged my feet with an effort, and walked on, soberly looking ahead ofme.
So great was the maze of walls that it was difficult to tell where theroad ran for more than a score or so of yards ahead. But at last Itraced its sweep close by where a great single-slab altar stood on itsmassive pillar, with a sacred stone-circle jutting out of the bushesaround it. On the other side was the pyramid, sorely broken by man andthe weather, but still showing dressed gray stone courses in patchesamongst the rank scrub which bristled over it. Even from there I couldmake out that the general contour of its base was circular, and notsquare as I had somehow or other expected, and I began to see troublein finding that side "nearest the sea" where Lully had dug into theentrance-way.
As I drew nearer, the tumbled nature of the stone-work disclosed itselffurther, and I began to have fears lest the central chamber should havecaved in and hidden the Recipe effectually and for always by crumblingits lettering into dust. But then I called to mind other Talayots I hadseen before near Mahon and Alayor and Mercadal and Ciudadella, wherethe entering passage led from aboveground by a rapid incline, and wherethe cavity, when it existed, had doubtless been near the apex; and fromthis I took heart, thinking that whether or no there had been a chamberin the upper part of the building, and whether or no it existed still,didn't particularly matter to me. The Diary had certainly pointed to aroom stowed away beneath the very keel of the edifice; and as long asthat stood firm, the rest might telescope to any extent for all Icared.
By this time my leisurely pace had brought me up alongside the Talayot,which loomed big and squat at the other side of the wall. I turned andlooked behind me. The fat woman at the farm was out of sight. Then Iclimbed the wall, and from the top glanced down the road which led fromAlayor, and saw a sight which made me curse like a kicked_arriero_. Walking briskly up the stony track was a little man inunmistakably British tweeds. "An infernal prying tourist," thought I,"by all the powers of evil. Bear-led by a native, and coming to seeTalaiti de Talt for a thousand. If he sees me he'll spot me at once andwant to chum, and then he'll get inquisitive and won't go away."
Down I dropped into cover.