The dark forest seemed to shut behind as I entered the gateway of thedeserted Hither town, against which my wood-cutter friend had warnedme, while inside the soft mist hung in the starlight like grey drapery overendless vistas of ruins. What was I to do? Without all was black andcheerless, inside there was at least shelter. Wet and cold, my couragewas not to be put down by the stories of a silly savage; I would go onwhatever happened. Besides, the soft sound of crying, now apparentlyall about, seemed companionable, and I had heard so much of ghosts oflate, the sharp edge of fear at their presence was wearing off.
So in I went: up a broad, decayed street, its flagstones heavedeverywhere by the roots of gnarled trees, and finding nothing save ruin,tried to rest under a wall. But the night air was chilly and the shelterpoor, so out I came again, with the wailing in the shadows so close aboutnow that I stopped, and mustering up courage called aloud:
"Hullo, you who weep there in the dark, are you living or dead?"And after a minute from the hollows of the empty hearths around came thesad little responsive echo:
"Are you living or dead?" It was very delusive and un- satisfactory,and I was wondering what to do next when a slant of warmer wind cameup behind me under the mist, and immediately little tongues of blue flameblossomed with- out visible cause in every darksome crevice; pale flickersof miasmic light rising pallid from every lurking nook and corner in theblack desolation as though a thousand lamps were lit by unseen fingers,and, knee high, floated out into the thoroughfare where they oscillatedgently in airy grace, and then, forming into procession, began drifting before the tepid air towards the city centre. At once I thought of what thewoodcutter had seen, but was too wet and sulky by this time to care. Thefascination of the place was on me, and dropping into rear of the march, Iwent forward with it. By this time the wailing had stopped, though nowand then it seemed a dark form moved in the empty door- ways on eitherhand, while the mist, parting into gossamers before the wind, tookmarvellously human forms in every alley and lane we passed.
Thus I, a sodden giant, led by those elfin torches, paced through thecity until we came to an open square with a great lumber of ruins in thecentre all marred and spoiled by vegetation; and here the lights wavered,and went out by scores and hundreds, just as the petals drop from spentflowers, while it seemed, though it may have been only wind in the rankgrass, that the air was full of most plaintive sighs as each little lampslipped into oblivion.
The big pile was a mass of fallen masonry, which, from the brokenpillars all about, might have been a palace or temple once. I pushed in,but it was as dark as Hades here, so, after struggling for a time in alabyrinth of chambers, chose a sandy recess, with some dry herbage byway of bedding in a corner, and there, thankful at least for shel- ter, mynight's wanderings came to an end and I coiled myself down, ate a lasthandful of dry fruit, and, strange as it may seem, was soon sleepingpeacefully.
I dreamed that night that a woman, with a face as white as ivory, cameand bent over me. She led a babe by either hand, while behind her werescores of other ones, with lovely faces, but all as pale as the starsthemselves, who looked and sighed, but said nothing, and when they hadstared their fill, dropped out one by one, leaving a wonderful blank in themonotony where they had been; but beyond that dream nothing happened.
It was a fine morning when I woke again, and ob- viously broad dayoutside, the sunshine coming down through cracks in the old palace roof,and lying in golden pools on the floor with dazzling effect.
Rubbing my eyes and sitting up, it took me some time to get my sensestogether, and at first an uneasy feeling possessed me that I was somehowdematerialised and in an unreal world. But a twinge of cramp in my leftarm, and a healthy sneeze, which frightened a score of bats overheadnearly out of their senses, was reassuring on this point, and rubbing awaythe cramp and staggering to my feet, I looked about at the strangesurroundings. It was cavernous chaos on every side: magnificentarchitecture reduced to the confusion of a debris-heap, only the hollowchambers being here and there preserved by massive columns meetingoverhead. Into these the yellow light filtered wher- ever a rent in a cupola or side-wall admitted it, and allured by the vision of corridors onebeyond the other, I presently set off on a tour of discovery.
Twenty minutes' scrambling brought me to a place where the fallenjambs of a fine doorway lay so close together that there was barely roomto pass between them. However, seeing light beyond, I squeezed through,and I found my- self in the best-preserved chamber of all--a wide, roomyhall with a domed roof, a haze of mural paintings on the walls, and amarble floor nearly hidden in a century of fallen dust. I stumbled oversomething at the threshold, and picking it up, found it was a baby's skull!
And there were more of them now that my eyes became accustomed to thelight. The whole floor was mottled with them--scores and hundreds ofbones and those poor little relics of humanity jutting out of the sandeverywhere. In the hush of that great dead nursery the little whitetrophies seemed inexpressibly pathetic, and I should have turned backreverently from that chamber of forgotten sorrows but that somethingcaught my eye in the centre of it.
It was an oblong pile of white stone, very ill-used and chipped, wrist-deep in dust, yet when a slant of light came in from above and fell straightupon it, the marble against the black gloom beyond blazed like living pearl.
It was dazzling; and shading my eyes and going tenderly over through thepoor dead babes, I looked, and there, full in the shine, lay a woman'sskeleton, still wrapped in a robe of which little was left save the hard goldembroidery. Her brown hair, wonderful to say, still lay like lank, deadsea- weed about her, and amongst it was a fillet crown of plain iron setwith gems such as eye never looked upon before. There were not many,but enough to make the proud sim- plicity of that circlet glisten like a littleband of fire--a gleaming halo on her dead forehead infinitely fascinating.
At her sides were two other little bleached human flowers, and I stoodbefore them for a long time in silent sympathy.
Could this be Queen Yang, of whom the woodcutter had told me? Itmust be--who else? And if it were, what strange chance had brought mehere--a stranger, yet the first to come, since her sorrow, from her distantkindred? And if it were, then that fillet belonged of right to Heru, the lastrep- resentative of her kind. Ought I not to take it to her rather than leave it as spoil to the first idle thief with pluck enough to deride the mysteriesof the haunted city? Long time I thought over it in the faint, heavyatmosphere of that hall, and then very gently unwound the hair, lifted thecirclet, and, scarcely knowing what I did, put it in my shoulder-bag.
After that I went more cheerfully into the outside sun- shine, andsetting my clothes to dry on a stone, took stock of the situation. Theplace was, perhaps, not quite so romantic by day as by night, and thescattered trees, matted by creepers, with which the whole were overgrown,prevented anything like an extensive view of the ruined city being obtained. But what gave me great satisfaction was to note over these treesto the eastward a two-humped mountain, not more than six or seven milesdistant--the very one I had mislaid the day before. Here was reality and achance of getting back to civilisation. I was as glad as if home were insight, and not, perhaps, the less so because the hill meant villages and food;and you who have doubtless lunched well and lately will please bear inmind I had had nothing since breakfast the day before; and though thismay look picturesque on paper, in practice it is a painful item in one'sprogramme.
Well, I gave my damp clothes but a turn or two more in the sun, andthen, arguing that from the bare ground where the forest ended half-wayup the hill, a wide view would be obtained, hurried into my garments andset off thither right gleefully. A turn or two down the blank streets, nowprosaic enough, an easy scramble through a gap in the crumblingbattlements, and there was the open forest again, with a friendly path wellmarked by the passage of those wild animals who made the city their lairtrending towards my landmark.
A light breakfast of soft green nuts, plucked on the way, and then theground began to bend upwards and the woods to thin a little. Withinfinite ardour, just before mid- day, I scrambled on to a bare knoll on thevery hillside, and fell exhausted before the top could be reached.
But what were hunger or fatigue to the satisfaction of that moment?
There was the sea before me, the clear, strong, gracious sea, blue leaguesof it, furrowed by the white ridges of some distant storm. I could smellthe scent of it even here, and my sailor heart rose in pride at the companion- ship of that alien ocean. Lovely and blessed thing! howoften have I turned from the shallow trivialities of the land and foundconsolation in the strength of your stately soli- tudes! How often have Iturned from the tinselled presence of the shore, the infinite pretensions ofdry land that make life a sorry, hectic sham, and found in the black bosomof the Great Mother solace and comfort! Dear, lovely sea, man- half ofevery sphere, as far removed in the sequence of your strong emotions fromthe painted fripperies of the woman-land as pole from pole--the gratefulblessing of the humblest of your followers on you!
The mere sight of salt water did me good. Heaven knows ourseparation had not been long, and many an unkind slap has the Mothergiven me in the bygone; yet the mere sight of her was tonic, a lethe oftroubles, a sedative for tired nerves; and I gazed that morning at theillimitable bl............