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<h2> 17. NAIS THE REGAINED </h2>
<p>Now, from where we stood together just below the crest of the Sacred
Mountain, we could see down into the city, which lay spread out below us
like a map. The harbour and the great estuary gleamed at its farther side;
and the fringe of hills beyond smoked and fumed in their accustomed
fashion; the great stone circle of our Lord the Sun stood up grim and bare
in the middle of the city; and nearer in reared up the great mass of the
royal pyramid, the gold on its sides catching new gold from the Sun.
There, too, in the square before the pyramid stood the throne of granite,
dwarfed by the distance to the size of a mole’s hill, in which these nine
years my love had lain sleeping.</p>
<p>Old Zaemon followed my gaze. “Ay,” he said with a sigh, “I know where your
chief interest is. Deucalion when he landed here new from Yucatan was a
strong man. The King whom we have chosen—and who is the best we have
to choose—has his weakness.”</p>
<p>“It can be turned into additional strength. Give me Nais here, living and
warm to fight for, and I am a stronger man by far than the cold viceroy
and soldier that you speak about.”</p>
<p>“I have passed my word to that already, and you shall have her, but at the
cost of damaging somewhat this new kingdom of yours. Maybe too at the same
time we may rid you of this Phorenice and her brood. But I do not think it
likely. She is too wily, and once we begin our play, she is likely to
guess whence it comes, and how it will end, and so will make an escape
before harm can reach her. The High Gods, who have sent all these trials
for our refinement, have seen fit to give her some knowledge of how these
earth tremors may be set a-moving.”</p>
<p>“I have seen her juggle with them. But may I hear your scheme?”</p>
<p>“It will be shown you in good time enough. But for the present I would bid
you sleep. It will be your part to go into the city to-night, and take
your woman (that is my daughter) when she is set free, and bring her here
as best you can. And for that you will need all a strong man’s strength.”—He
stepped back, and looked me up and down.—“There are not many folk
that would take you for the tidy clean-chinned Deucalion now, my brother.
Your appearance will be a fine armour for you down yonder in the city
to-night when we wake it with our earth-shaking and terror. As you stand
now, you are hairy enough, and shaggy enough, and naked enough, and dirty
enough for some wild savage new landed out of Europe. Have a care that no
fine citizen down yonder takes a fancy to your thews, and seizes upon you
as his servant.”</p>
<p>“I somewhat pity him in his household if he does.”</p>
<p>Old Zaemon laughed. “Why, come to think of it, so do I.”</p>
<p>But quickly he got grave again. Laughter and Zaemon were very rare
playmates. “Well, get you to bed, my King, and leave me to go into the Ark
of Mysteries and prepare there with another of the Three the things that
must be done. It is no light business to handle the tremendous powers
which we must put into movement this night. And there is danger for us as
there is for you. So if by chance we do not meet again till we stand up
yonder behind the stars, giving account to the Gods, fare you well,
Deucalion.”</p>
<p>I slept that day as a soldier sleeps, taking full rest out of the hours,
and letting no harassing thought disturb me. It is only the weak who
permit their sleep to be broken on these occasions. And when the dark was
well set, I roused and fetched those who should attend to the rope. Our
Lady the Moon did not shine at that turn of the month: and the air was
full of a great blackness. So I was out of sight all the while they
lowered me.</p>
<p>I reached the tumbled rocks that lay at the deep foot of the cliff, and
then commenced to use a nice caution, because Phorenice’s soldiers
squatted uneasily round their camp-fires, as though they had forebodings
of the coming evil. I had no mind to further stir their wakefulness. So I
crept swiftly along in the darkest of the shadows, and at last came to the
spot where that passage ends which before I had used to get beneath the
walls of the city.</p>
<p>The lamp was in place, and I made my way along the windings swiftly. The
air, so it seemed to me, was even more noxious with vapours than it had
been when I was down there before, and I judged that Zaemon had already
begun to stir those internal activities which were shortly to convulse the
city. But again I had difficulty in finding an exit, and this, not because
there were people moving about at the places where I had to come out, but
because the set of the masonry was entirely changed. In olden times the
Priests’ Clan oversaw all the architects’ plans, and ruled out anything
likely to clash with their secret passages and chambers. But in this
modern day the Priests were of small account, and had no say in this
matter, and the architects often through sheer blundering sealed up and
made useless many of these outlets and hiding-places.</p>
<p>As it was then, I had to get out of the network of tunnels and galleries
where I could, and not where I would, and in the event found myself at the
farther side of the city, almost up to where the outer wall joins down to
the harbour. I came out without being seen, careful even in this moment of
extremity to preserve the ordinances, and closed all traces of exit behind
me. The earth seemed to spring beneath my feet like the deck of a ship in
smooth water; and though there was no actual movement as yet to disturb
the people, and indeed these slept on in their houses and shelters without
alarm, I could feel myself that the solid deadness of the ground was gone,
and that any moment it might break out into devastating waves of movement.</p>
<p>Gods! Should I be too late to see the untombing of my love? Would she be
laid there bare to the public gaze when presently the people swarmed out
into the open spaces through fear at what the great earth tremor might
cause to fall? I could see, in fancy, their rude, cruel hands thrust upon
her as she lay there helpless, and my inwards dried up at the thought.</p>
<p>I ran madly down and down the narrow winding streets with the one thought
of coming to the square which lay in front of the royal pyramid before
these things came to pass. With exquisite cruelty I had been forced with
my own hands to place her alive in her burying-place beneath the granite
throne, and if thews and speed could do it, I would not miss my reward of
taking her forth again with the same strong hands.</p>
<p>Few disturbed that furious hurry. At first here and there some wretch who
harboured in the gutter cried: “A thief! Throw a share or I pursue.” But
if any of these followed, I do not know. At any rate, my speed then must
have out-distanced anyone. Presently, too, as the swing of the earth
underfoot became more keen, and the stonework of the buildings by the
street side began to grate and groan and grit, and sent forth little
showers of dust, people began to run with scared cries from out of their
doors. But none of these had a mind to stop the ragged, shaggy, savage man
who ran so swiftly past, and flung the mud from his naked feet.</p>
<p>And so in time I came to the great square, and was there none too soon.
The place was filling with people who flocked away from the narrow
streets, and it was full of darkness, and noise, and dust, and sickness.
Beneath us the ground rippled in undulations like a sea, which with
terrifying slowness grew more and more intense.</p>
<p>Ever and again a house crashed down unseen in the gloom, and added to the
tumult. But the great pyramid had been planned by its old builders to
stand rude shocks. Its stones were dovetailed into one another with a
marvellous cleverness, and were further clamped and joined by ponderous
tongues of metal. It was a boast that one-half the foundations could be
dug from beneath it, and still the pyramid would stand four-square under
heaven, more enduring than the hills.</p>
<p>Flickering torches showed that its great stone doors lay open, and ever
and again I saw some frightened inmate scurry out and then be lost to
sight in the gloom. But with the royal pyramid and its ultimate fate I had
little concern; I did not even care then whether Phorenice was trapped, or
whether she came out sound and fit for further mischief. I crouched by the
granite throne which stood in the middle of that splendid square, and
heard its stones grate together like the ends of a broken bone as it
rocked to the earth-waves.</p>
<p>In that night of dust and darkness it was hard to see the outline of one’s
own hand, but I think that the Gods in some requital for the love which
had ached so long within me, gave me special power of sight. As I watched,
I saw the great carved rock which formed the capstone of the throne move
slightly and then move again, and then again; a tiny jerk for each
earth-pulse, but still there was an appreciable shifting; and, moreover,
the stone moved always to one side.</p>
<p>There was method in Zaemon’s desperate work, and this in my blind panic of
love and haste, I had overlooked. So I went up the steps of the throne on
the side from which the great capstone was moving, and clung there afire
with expectation.</p>
<p>More and more violent did the earth-swing grow, though the graduations of
its increase could not be perceived, and the din of falling houses and the
shrieks and cries of hurt and frightened people went louder up into the
night. Thicker grew the dust that filled the air, till one coughed and
strangled in the breathing, and more black did the night become as the
dust rose and blotted the rare stars from sight. I clung to an angle of
the granite throne, crouching on the uppermost step but one below the
capstone, and could scarcely keep my place against the violence of the
earth tremors.</p>
<p>But still the huge capstone that was carved with the snake and the
outstretched hand held my love fast locked in her living tomb, and I could
have bit the cold granite at the impotence which barred me from her. The
people who kept thronging into the square were mad with terror, but their
very numbers made my case more desperate every moment. “Phorenice,
Goddess, aid us now!” some cried, and when the prayer did not bring them
instant relief, they fell to yammering out the old confessions of the
faith which they had learned in childhood, turning in this hour of their
dreadful need to those old Gods, which, through so many dishonourable
years, they had spurned and deserted. It was a curious criticism on the
balance of their real religion, if one had cared to make it.</p>
<p>Louder grew the crash of falling masonry; and from the royal pyramid
itself, though indeed I could not even see its outline through the
darkness, there came sounds of grinding stones and cracking bars of metal
which told that even its superb majestic strength had a breaking strain.
There came to my mind the threat that old Zaemon had thundered forth in
that painted, perfumed banqueting-hall: “You shall see,” he had cried to
the Empress, “this royal pyramid which you have polluted with your
debaucheries torn tier from tier, and stone from stone, and scattered as
feathers spread before a wind!”</p>
<p>Still heavier grew the surging of the earth, and the pavement of the great
square gaped and upheaved, and the people who thronged it screamed still
more shrilly as their feet were crushed by the grinding blocks. And now
too the great pyramid itself was commencing to split, and gape, and
topple. The roofs of its splendid chambers gave way, and the ponderous
masonry above shuttered down and filled them. In part, too, one could see
the destruction now, and not guess at it merely from the fearful hearings
of the darkness. Thunders had begun to roar through the black night above,
and add their bellowings to this devil’s orchestration of uproar, and
vivid lightning splashes lit the flying dust-clouds.</p>
<p>It was perhaps natural that she should be there, but it came as a shock
when a flare of the lightning showed me Phorenice safe out in the square,
and indeed standing not far from myself.</p>
<p>She had taken her place in the middle of a great flagstone, and stood
there swaying her supple body to the shocks. Her face was calm, and its
loveliness was untouched by the years. From time to time she brushed away
the dust as it settled on the short red hair which curled about her neck.
There was no trace of fear written upon her face. There was some
weariness, some contempt, and I think a tinge of amusement. Yes, it took
more than the crumbling of her royal pyramid to impress Phorenice with the
infinite powers of those she warred against.</p>
<p>Gods! How the sight of her cool indifference maddened me then. I had it in
me to have strangled her with my hands if she had come within my reach.
But as it was, she stood in her place, swaying easily to the earth-waves
as a sailor sways on a ship’s deck, and beside her, crouched on the same
great flagstone, and overcome with nausea was Ylga, who again was raised
to be her fan-girl. It came to my mind that Ylga was twin sister to Nais,
and that I owed her for an ancient kindness, but I had leisure to do
nothing for her then, and indeed it was little enough I could have done.
With each shock the great capstone of the throne to which I clung jarred
farther and farther from its bed place, and my love was coming nearer to
me. It was she who claimed all my service then.</p>
<p>Once in their blind panic a knot of the people in the square thought that
the granite stone was too solid to be overturned, and saw in it an oasis
of safety. They flocked towards it, many of them dragging themselves up
the steep deep high steps on hands and knees because their feet had been
injured by the billowing flagstones of the square.</p>
<p>But I was in no mood to have the place profaned by their silly tremblings
and stares: I beat at them with my hands, tearing them away, and hurling
them back down the steepness of the steps. They asked me what was my title
to the place above their own, and I answered them with blows and gnashing
teeth. I was careless as to what they thought me or who they thought me.
Only I wished them gone. And so they went, wailing and crying that I was a
devil of the night, for they had no spirit left to defend themselves.</p>
<p>Farther and farther the great stone that made the top of the throne slid
out from its bed, but its slowness of movement maddened me. A life’s
education left me in that moment, and I had no trace of stately patience
left. In my puny fury I thrust at the great block with my shoulder and
head, and clawed at it with my hands till the muscles rose on me in great
ropes and knots, and the High Gods must have laughed at my helplessness as
They looked. All was being ordered by the Three who were Their trusted
servants, in Their good time. The work of the Gods may be done slowly, but
it is done exceeding sure.</p>
<p>But at last, when all the people of the city were numb with terror, and
incapable of further emotion (save only for Phorenice who still had nerve
enough to show no concern), what had been threatened came to pass. The
capstone of the throne slid out till it reached the balance, and the next
shock threw it with a roar and a clatter to the ground. And then a strange
tremor seized me.</p>
<p>After all the scheming and effort, what I had so ardently prayed for had
come about; but yet my inwards sank at the thought of mounting on the
stone where I had mounted before, and taking my dear from the hollow where
my hands had laid her. I knew Phorenice’s vengefulness, and had a high
value for her cleverness. Had she left Nais to lie in peace, or had she
stolen her away to suffer indignities elsewhere? Or had she ended her
sleep with death, and (as a grisly jest) left the corpse for my finding? I
could not tell; I dared not guess. Never during a whole hard-fighting life
have my emotions been so wrenched as they were at that moment. And, for
excuse, it must be owned that love for Nais had sapped my hardihood over a
matter in which she was so privately concerned.</p>
<p>It began to come to my mind, however, that the infernal uproar of the
earth tremor was beginning to slacken somewhat, as though Zaemon knew he
had done the work that he had promised, and was minded to give the
wretched city a breathing space. So I took my fortitude in hand, and
clambered up on to the flat of the stone. The lightning flashes had ceased
and all was darkness again and stifling dust, but at any moment the sky
might be lit once more, and if I were seen in that place, shaggy and
changed though I might be, Phorenice, if she were standing near, would not
be slow to guess my name and errand.</p>
<p>So changed was I for the moment, that I will finely confess that the idea
of a fight was loathsome to me then. I wanted to have my business done and
get gone from the place.</p>
<p>With hands that shook, I fumbled over the face of the stone and found the
clamps and bars of metal still in position where I had clenched them, and
then reverently I let my fingers pass between these, and felt the curves
of my love’s body in its rest beneath. An exultation began to whirl within
me. I did not know if she had been touched since I last left her; I did
not know if the drug would have its due effect, and let her be awakened to
warmth and sight again; but, dead or alive, I had her there, and she was
mine, mine, mine, and I could have yelled aloud in my joy at her
possession.</p>
<p>Still the earth shook beneath us, and masonry roared and crashed into
ruin. I had to cling to my place with one hand, whilst I unhasped the
clamps of metal that made the top of her prison with the other. But at
last I swung the upper half of them clear, and those which pinned down her
feet I let remain. I stooped and drew her soft body up on to the flat of
the stone beside me, and pressed my lips a hundred times to the face I
could not see.</p>
<p>Some mad thought took me, I believe, that the mere fierceness and heat of
my kisses would bring her back again to life and wakefulness. Indeed I
will own plainly, that I did but sorry credit to my training in calmness
that night. But she lay in my arms cold and nerveless as a corpse, and by
degrees my sober wits returned to me.</p>
<p>This was no place for either of us. Let the earth’s tremors cease (as was
plainly threatened), let daylight come, and let a few of these nerveless
people round recover from their panic, and all the great cost that had
been expended might be counted as waste. We should be seen, and it would
not be long before some one put a name to Nais; and then it would be an
easy matter to guess at Deucalion under the beard and the shaggy hair and
the browned nakedness of the savage who attended on her. Tell of fright?
By the Gods! I was scared as the veriest trembler who blundered amongst
the dust-clouds that night when the thought came to me.</p>
<p>With all that ruin spread around, it would be hopeless to think that any
of those secret galleries which tunnelled under the ground would be left
unbroken, and so it was useless to try a passage under the walls by the
old means. But I had heard shouts from that frightened mob which came to
me through the din and the darkness, that gave another idea for escape.
“The city is accursed,” they had cried: “if we stay here it will fall on
us. Let us get outside the walls where there are no buildings to bury us.”</p>
<p>If they went, I could not see. But one gate lay nearest to the royal
pyramid, and I judged that in their panic they would not go farther than
was needful. So I put the body of Nais over my shoulder (to leave my right
arm free) and blundered off as best I could through the stifling darkness.</p>
<p>It was hard to find a direction; it was hard to walk in the inky darkness
over ground that was tossed and tumbled like a frozen sea: and as the
earth still quaked and heaved, it was hard also to keep a footing. But if
I did fall myself a score of times, my dear burden got no bruise, and
presently I got to the skirts of the square, and found a street I knew.
The most venomous part of the shaking was done, and no more buildings
fell, but enough lay sprawled over the roadway to make walking into a
climb, and the sweat rolled from me as I laboured along my way.</p>
<p>There was no difficulty about passing the gate. There was no gate. There
was no wall. The Gods had driven their plough through it, and it lay flat,
and proud Atlantis stood as defenceless as the open country. Though I knew
the cause of this ruin, though, in fact, I had myself in some measure
incited it, I was almost sad at the ruthlessness with which it had been
carried out. The royal pyramid might go, houses and palaces might be
levelled, and for these I cared little enough; but when I saw those
stately ramparts also filched away, there the soldier in me woke, and I
grieved at this humbling of the mighty city that once had been my only
mistress.</p>
<p>But this was only a passing regret, a mere touch of the fighting-man’s
pride. I had a different love now, that had wrapped herself round me far
deeper and more tightly, and my duty was towards her first and foremost.
The night would soon be past, and then dangers would increase. None had
interfered with us so far, though many had jostled us as I clambered over
the ruins; but this forbearance could not be reckoned upon for long. The
earth tremors had almost died away, and after the panic and the storm,
then comes the time for the spoiling.</p>
<p>All men who were poor would try to seize what lay nearest to their hands,
and those of higher station, and any soldiers who could be collected and
still remained true to command, would ruthlessly stop and strip any man
they saw making off with plunder. I had no mind to clash with these
guardians of law and property, and so I fled on swiftly through the night
with my burden, using the unfrequented ways; and crying to the few folk
who did meet me that the woman had the plague, and would they lend me the
shelter of their house as ours had fallen. And so in time we came to the
place where the rope dangled from the precipice, and after Nais had been
drawn up to the safety of the Sacred Mountain, I put my leg in the loop of
the rope and followed her.</p>
<p>Now came what was the keenest anxiety of all. We took the girl and laid
her on a bed in one of the houses, and there in the lit room for the first
time I saw her clearly. Her beauty was drawn and pale. Her eyes were
closed, but so thin and transparent had grown the lids that one could
almost see the brown of the pupil beneath them. Her hair had grown to
inordinate thickness and length, and lay as a cushion behind and beside
her head.</p>
<p>There was no flicker of breath; there was none of that pulsing of the body
which denotes life; but still she had not the appearance of ordinary
death. The Nais I had placed nine long years before to rest in the hollow
of the stone, was a fine grown woman, full bosomed, and well boned. The
Nais that remained for me was half her weight. The old Nais it would have
puzzled me to carry for an hour: this was no burden to impede a grown man.</p>
<p>In other ways too she had altered. The nails of her fingers had grown to
such a great length that they were twisted in spirals, and the fingers
themselves and her hands were so waxy and transparent that the bony core
upon which they were built showed itself beneath the flesh in plain dull
outline. Her clay-cold lips were so white, that one sighed to remember the
full beauty of their carmine. Her shoulders and neck had lost their comely
curves, and made bony hollows now in which the dust of entombment lodged
black and thickly.</p>
<p>Reverently I set about preparing those things which if all went well
should restore her. I heated water and filled a bath, and tinctured it
heavily with those essences of the life of beasts which the Priests
extract and store against times of urgent need and sickness. I laid her
chin-deep in this bath, and sat beside it to watch, maintaining that bath
at a constant blood heat.</p>
<p>An hour I watched; two hours I watched; three hours—and yet she
showed no flicker of life. The heat of her body given her by the bath, was
the same as the heat of my own. But in the feel of her skin when I stroked
it with my hand, there was something lacking still. Only when our Lord the
Sun rose for His day did I break off my watching, whilst I said the
necessary prayer which is prescribed, and quickly returned again to the
gloom of the house.</p>
<p>I was torn with anxiety, and as the time went on and still no sign of life
came back, the hope that had once been so high within me began to sicken
and leave me downcast and despondent. From without, came the din of
fighting. Already Phorenice had sent her troops to storm the passageway,
and the Priests who defended it were shattering them with volleys of
rocks. But these sounds of war woke no pulse within me. If Nais did not
wake, then the world for me was ended, and I had no spirit left to care
who remained uppermost. The Gods in Their due time will doubtless smite me
for this impiety. But I make a confession of it here on these sheets,
having no mind to conceal any portion of this history for the small reason
that it does me a personal discredit.</p>
<p>But as the hours went on, and still no flicker of life came to lessen the
dumb agony that racked me, I grew more venturesome, and added more
essences to the bath, and drugs also such as experience had shown might
wake the disused tissues into life. I watched on with staring eyes,
rubbing her wasted body now and again, and always keeping the heat of the
bath at a constant. From the first I had barred the door against all who
would have come near to help me. With my own hands I had laid my love to
sleep, and I could not bear that others should rouse her, if indeed roused
she should ever be. But after those first offers, no others came, and the
snarl and din of fighting told of what occupied them.</p>
<p>It is hard to take note of small changes which occur with infinite
slowness when one is all the while on the tense watch, and high strung
though my senses were, I think there must have been some indication of
returning life shown before I was keen enough to notice it. For of a
sudden, as I gazed, I saw a faint rippling on the surface of the water of
the bath. Gods! Would it come back again to my love at last—this
life, this wakefulness? The ripple died out as it had come, and I stooped
my head nearer to the bath to try if I could see some faint heaving of her
bosom some small twitching of the limbs. No, she lay there still without
even a flutter of movement. But as I watched, surely it seemed to my
aching eyes that some tinge was beginning to warm that blank whiteness of
skin?</p>
<p>How I filled myself with that sight. The colour was returning to her again
beyond a doubt. Once more the dried blood was becoming fluid and beginning
again to course in its old channels. Her hair floated out in the liquid of
the bath like some brown tangle of the ocean weed, and ever and again it
twitched and eddied to some impulse which in itself was too small for the
eye to see.</p>
<p>She had slept for nine long years, and I knew that the wakening could be
none of the suddenest. Indeed, it came by its own gradations and with
infinite slowness, and I did not dare do more to hasten it. Further drugs
might very well stop eternally what those which had been used already had
begun. So I sat motionless where I was, and watched the colour come back,
and the waxenness go, and even the fullness of her curves in some small
measure return. And when growing strength gave her power to endure them,
and she was racked with those pains which are inevitable to being born
back again in this fashion to life, I too felt the reflex of her agony,
and writhed in loving sympathy.</p>
<p>Still further, too, was I wrung by a torment of doubt as to whether life
or these rackings would in the end be conqueror. After each paroxysm the
colour ebbed back from her again, and for a while she would lie
motionless. But strength and power seemed gradually to grow, and at last
these prevailed, and drove death and sleep beneath them. Her eyelids
struggled with their fastenings. Her lips parted, and her bosom heaved.
With shivering gasps her breath began to pant between her reddening lips.
At first it rattled dryly in her throat, but soon it softened and became
more regular. And then with a last effort her eyes, her glorious loving
eyes, slowly opened.</p>
<p>I leaned over and called her softly by name.</p>
<p>Her eyes met mine, and a glow arose from their depths that gave me the
greatest joy I have met in all the world.</p>
<p>“Deucalion, my love,” she whispered. “Oh, my dear, so you have come for
me. How I have dreamed of you! How I have been racked! But it was worth it
all for this.”</p>
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