Beyond the first flutter of surprise, the Martians had shown no interestin the abrupt termination of the year's divinations. They melted away, atrifle more silently per- haps than usual, when I shattered the magic globe,but with their invariable indifference, and having handed the revivingHeru over to some women who led her away, apparently already halfforgetful of the things that had just happened, I was left alone on thepalace steps, not even An beside me, and only the shadow of a passerbynow and then to break the solitude. Whereon a great lone- liness tookhold upon me, and, pacing to and fro along the ancient terrace with benthead and folded arms, I bewailed my fate. To and fro I walked, heedlessand melancholy, thinking of the old world, that was so far and this nearworld so distant from me in everything making life worth living, thinking,as I strode gloomily here and there, how gladly I would exchange thesepoor puppets and the mockery of a town they dwelt in, for a sight of mycom- rades and a corner in the poorest wine-shop salon in New York or'Frisco; idly speculating why, and how, I came here, as I sauntered downamongst the glistening, shell-like fragments of the shattered globe, andfinding no answer. How could I? It was too fair, I thought, standing therein the open; there was a fatal sweetness in the air, a deadly sufficiency inthe beauty of everything around falling on the lax senses like some sleepydraught of pleasure. Not a leaf stirred, the wide purple roof of the skywas unbroken by the healthy promise of a cloud from rim to rim, thesplendid country, teeming with its spring-time richness, lay in rankperfection everywhere; and just as rank and sleek and passionless werethose who owned it.
Why, even I, who yesterday was strong, began to come under the spellof it. But yesterday the spirit of the old world was still strong within me,yet how much things were now changing. The well-strung musclesloosening, the heart beating a slower measure, the busy mind drowsing offto listlessness. Was I, too, destined to become like these? Was the redstuff in my veins to be watered down to pallid Martian sap? Wasambition and hope to desert me, and idleness itself become laborious, while life ran to seed in gilded uselessness? Little did I guess howunnecessary my fears were, or of the incredible fairy tale of adventure intowhich fate was going to plunge me.
Still engrossed the next morning by these thoughts, I decided I wouldgo to Hath. Hath was a man--at least they said so--he might sympathiseeven though he could not help, and so, dressing finished, I went downtowards the innermost palace whence for an hour or two had come soundsof unwonted bustle. Asking for the way occasion- ally from sleepy folklolling about the corridors, waiting as it seemed for their breakfasts tocome to them, and embarrassed by the new daylight, I wandered to and froin the labyrinths of that stony ant-heap until I chanced upon a curtaineddoorway which admitted to a long cham- ber, high-roofed, ample inproportions, with colonnades on either side separated from the main aisleby rows of flowery figures and emblematic scroll-work, meaning I knewnot what. Above those pillars ran a gallery with many windows lookingout over the ruined city. While at the further end of the chamber stoodthree broad steps leading to a dais. As I entered, the whole place was fullof bustling girls, their yellow garments like a bed of flowers in the sunlighttrickling through the casements, and all intent on the spreading of a feaston long tables ranged up and down the hall. The morning light streamedin on the white cloths. It glittered on the glass and the gold they wereputting on the trestles, and gave resplendent depths of colour to the ribbonbands round the pillars. All were so busy no one noticed me standing inthe twilight by the door, but presently, laying a hand on a worker'sshoulder, I asked who they banqueted for, and why such unwontedpreparation?
"It is the marriage-feast tonight, stranger, and a marvel you did notknow it. You, too, are to be wed.""I had not heard of it, damsel; a paternal forethought of yourGovernment, I suppose? Have you any idea who the lady is?""How should I know?" she answered laughingly. "That is the secretof the urn. Meanwhile, we have set you a place at the table-head nearPrincess Heru, and tonight you dip and have your chance like all of them;may luck send you a rosy bride, and save her from Ar-hap.""Ay, now I remember; An told me of this before; Ar-hap is thesovereign with whom your people have a little difference, and sharesunbidden in the free distribution of brides to-night. This promises to beinteresting; depend on it I will come; if you will keep me a place where Ican hear the speeches, and not forget me when the turtle soup goes round,I shall be more than grateful. Now to another matter. I want to get a fewminutes with your President, Prince Hath. He concentrates the fluidintelligence of this sphere, I am told. Where can I find him?""He is drunk, in the library, sir!""My word! It is early in the day for that, and a singular conjunctionof place and circumstance.""Where," said the girl, "could he safer be? We can always fetch himif we want him, and sunk in blue ob- livion he will not come to harm.""A cheerful view, Miss, which is worthy of the attention of ourreformers. Nevertheless, I will go to him. I have known men tell moretruth in that state than in any other."The servitor directed me to the library, and after deso- late wanderingsup crumbling steps and down mouldering corridors, sunny and lovely indecay, I came to the im- mense lumber-shed of knowledge they had toldme of, a city of dead books, a place of dusty cathedral aisles stored withforgotten learning. At a table sat Hath the purposeless, enthroned inleather and vellum, snoring in divine content amongst all that wastedlabour, and nothing I could do was sufficient to shake him into semblanceof intelligence. So perforce I turned away till he should have come tohim-self, and wandering round the splendid litter of a noble library,presently amongst the ruck of volumes on the floor, amongst those lordlytomes in tattered green and gold, and ivory, my eye lit upon a volumepropped up curiously on end, and going to it through the confusion I sawby the dried fruit rind upon the sticks supporting it, that the grave andreverend tome was set to catch a mouse! It was a splendid book when Ilooked more closely, bound as a king might bind his choicest treasure, thesweet- scented leather on it was no doubt frayed; the golden arabesquesupon the covers had long since shed their eyes of inset gems, the jewelledclasp locking its learning up from vulgar gaze was bent and open. Yet it was a lordly tome with an odour of sanctity about it, and lifting it withdiffi- culty, I noticed on its cover a red stain of mouse's blood. Those whoput it to this quaint use of mouse-trap had already had some sport, butsurely never was a mouse crushed before under so much learning. Andwhile I stood guessing at what the book might hold within, Heru, theprincess, came tripping in to me, and with the abrupt famili- arity of herkind, laid a velvet hand upon my wrist, conned the title over to herself.
"What does it say, sweet girl?" I asked. "The matter is learned, by itsfeel," and that maid, pursing up her pretty lips, read the title to me--"TheSecret of the Gods.""The Secret of the Gods," I murmured. "Was it pos- sible otherworlds had struggled hopelessly to come within the barest ken of that greatknowledge, while here the same was set to catch a mouse with?"I said, "Silver-footed, sit down and read me a passage or two," andpropping the mighty volume upon a table drew a bench before it andpulled her down beside me.
"Oh! a horrid, dry old book for certain," cried that lady, her pinkfingertips falling as lightly on the musty leaves as almond petals on Marchdust. "Where shall I begin? It is all equally dull.""Dip in," was my answer. " 'Tis no great matter where, but near thebeginning. What says the writer of his intention? What sets he out toprove?""He says that is the Secret of the First Great Truth, descended straightto him--""Many have said so much, yet have lied.""He says that which is written in his book is through him but not ofhim, past criticism and beyond cavil. 'Tis all in ancient and crabbedcharacters going back to the threshold of my learning, but here upon thispassage-top where they are writ large I make them out to say, 'ONLY THEMAN WHO HAS DIED MANY TIMES BEGINS TO LIVE.'""A pregnant passage! Turn another page, and try again; I have aninkling of the book already.""'Tis poor, silly stuff," said the girl, slipping a hand covertly into myown. "Why will you make me read it? I have a book on pomatums worth twice as much as this.""Nevertheless, dip in again, dear lady. What says the next heading?"And with a little sigh at the heaviness of her task, Heru read out:
"SOMETIMES THE GODS THEM- SELVES FORGET THE ANSWERSTO THEIR OWN RIDDLES.""Lady, I knew it!
"All this is still preliminary to the great matter of the book, but themutterings of the priest who draws back the cur- tains of the shrine--andhere, after the scribe has left these two yellow pages blank as though to seta space of reverence between himself and what comes next--here speaksthe truth, the voice, the fact of all life." But "Oh! Jones," she said,turning from the dusty pages and clasping her young, milk-warm handsover mine and leaning towards me until her blushing cheek was near tomy shoulder and the incense of her breath upon me. "Oh! GulliverJones," she said. "Make me read no more; my soul revolts from the task,the crazy brown letters swim before my eyes. Is there no learning near athand that would be pleasanter reading than this silly book of yours?
What, after all," she said, growing bolder at the sound of her own voice,"what, after all, is the musty reticence of gods to the whispered secret of amaid? Jones, splendid stranger for whom all men stand aside and womenlook over shoulders, oh, let me be your book!" she whispered, slipping onto my knee and winding her arms round my neck till, through the whiteglimmer of her single vest, I could feel her heart beating against mine.
"Newest and dearest of friends, put by this dreary learning and look in myeyes; is there nothing to be spelt out there?"And I was constrained to do as she bid me, for she was as fresh as analmond blossom touched by the sun, and looking down into twoswimming blue lakes where shyness and passion were contending--bookseasy enough, in truth, to be read, I saw that she loved me, with theunconventional ardour of her nature.
It was a pleasant discovery, if its abruptness was em- barrassing, forshe was a maid in a thousand; and half ashamed and half laughing I let herescalade me, throwing now and then a rueful look at the Secret of theGods, and all that priceless knowledge treated so unworthily.
What else could I do? Besides, I loved her myself! And if therewas a momentary chagrin at having yonder golden knowledge put off bythis lovely interruption, yet I was flesh and blood, the gods could wait-they had to wait long and often before, and when this sweet interpreterwas comforted we would have another try. So it happened I took her intomy heart and gave her the answer she asked for.
For a long time we sat in the dusky grandeur of the royal library, mymind revolving between wonder and ad- miration of the neglectedknowledge all about, and the stir- rings of a new love, while Heru herself,lapsed again into Martian calm, lay half sleeping on my shoulder, but presently, unwinding her arms, I put her down.
"There, sweetheart," I whispered, "enough of this for the moment;tonight, perhaps, some more, but while we are here amongst all this lordlylitter, I can think of nothing else." Again I bid her turn the pages, noting asshe did so how each chapter was headed by the coloured configuration ofa world. Page by page we turned of crackling parchment, until by chance,at the top of one, my eye caught a coloured round I could not fail torecognise--'twas the spinning but- ton on the blue breast of theimmeasurable that yesterday I inhabited. "Read here," I cried, clappingmy finger upon the page midway down, where there were some signslooking like Egyptian writing. "Says this quaint dabbler in all knowledgeanything of Isis, anything of Phra, of Am- mon, of Ammon Top?""And who was Isis? who Ammon Top?" asked the lady.
"Nay, read," I answered, and down the page her slender fingers wentawandering till at a spot of knotted signs they stopped. "Why, here issomething about thy Isis," ex- claimed Heru, as though amused at myperspicuity. "Here, halfway down this chapter of earth-history, it says,"and putting one pink knee across the other to better prop the book sheread:
"And the priests of Thebes were gone; the sand stood un- trampled onthe temple steps a thousand years; the wild bees sang the song ofdesolation in the ears of Isis; the wild cats littered in the stony lap ofAmmon; ay, another thou- sand years went by, and earth was tilled ofunseen hands and sown with yellow grain from Paradise, and the thin veil that separates the known from the unknown was rent, and men walked toand fro.""Go on," I said.
"Nay," laughed the other, "the little mice in their eager-ness have beenbefore you--see, all this corner is gnawed away.""Read on again," I said, "where the page is whole; those sips ofknowledge you have given make me thirsty for more. There, begin wherethis blazonry of initialed red and gold looks so like the carpet spread bythe scribe for the feet of a sovereign truth--what says he here?" And she,half pouting to be set back once more to that task, half won- dering as shegazed on those magic letters, let her eyes run down the page, then began:
"And it was the Beginning, and in the centre void pres- ently therecame a nucleus of light: and the light brightened in the grey primevalmorning and became definite and articulate. And from the midst of thatnatal splendour, behind which was the Unknowable, the life camehitherward; from the midst of that nucleus undescribed, undescribable,there issued presently the primeval sigh that breathed the breath of life intoall things. And that sigh thrilled through the empty spaces of theillimitable: it breathed the breath of promise over the frozen hills of theoutside planets where the night-frost had lasted without beginning: and thewaters of ten thousand nameless oceans, girding nameless planets, werestirred, trembling into their depth. It crossed the il- limitable spaceswhere the herding aerolites swirl forever through space in the wake ofcareering world, and all their whistling wings answered to it. Itreverberated through the grey wastes of vacuity, and crossed the darkoceans of the Outside, even to the black shores of the eternal nightbeyond.
"And hardly had echo of that breath died away in the hollow of theheavens and the empty wombs of a million barren worlds, when the lightbrightened again, and draw- ing in upon itself became definite and tookform, and therefrom, at the moment of primitive conception, there came--"And just then, as she had read so far as that, when all my facultieswere aching to know what came next-- whether this were but the idlescribbling of a vacuous fool, or something else--there rose the sound of soft flutes and tinkling bells in the corridors, as seneschals wandered piping round the palace to call folk to meals, a smell of roast meat andgrilling fish as that procession lifted the curtains between the halls, and-"Dinner!" shouted my sweet Martian, slapping the cov- ers of TheSecret of the Gods together and pushing the stately tome headlong fromthe table. "Dinner! 'Tis worth a hundred thousand planets to thehungry!"Nothing I could say would keep her, and, scarcely know- ing whetherto laugh or to be angry at so unseemly an interruption, but both beingpurposeless I dug my hands into my pockets, and somewhat sulkilyrefusing Heru's invita- tion to luncheon in the corridor (Navy rations hadnot fitted my stomach for these constant debauches of gos- samer food),strolled into the town again in no very pleasant frame of mind.