Gulliver of Mars, Edwin Lester Linden Arnold [read full novel txt] 📗

dazed, my senses reeling? I said a space ago that the meteor stood exactly on the mountain-top and if it sunk a hair’s breadth I should note it; and now, why, there WAS a flaw in its lower margin, a flattening of the great red foot that before had been round and perfect. I turned my smarting eyes away a minute,—saw the seventh drop fall with a melodious tingle into the cup, then back again,—there was no mistake—the truant fire was a fraction less, it had shrunk a fraction behind the hill even since I looked, and thereon all my life ran back into its channels, the world danced before me, and “Heru!” I shouted hoarsely, reeling back towards the palace, “Heru, ‘tis well; the worst is past!”

But the little princess was unconscious, and at her feet was poor Si, quite dead, still reclining with her head in her hands just as I had left her. Then my own senses gave out, and dropping down by them I remembered no more.

I must have lain there an hour or two, for when consciousness came again it was night—black, cool, profound night, with an inky sky low down upon the treetops, and out of it such a glorious deluge of rain descending swiftly and silently as filled my veins even to listen to. Eagerly I shuffled away to the porch steps, down them into the swimming courtyard, and ankle-deep in the glorious flood, set to work lapping furiously at the first puddle, drinking with gasps of pleasure, gasping and drinking again, feeling my body filling out like the thirsty steaming earth below me. Then, as I still drank insatiably, there came a gleam of lightning out of the gloom overhead, a brilliant yellow blaze, and by it I saw a few yards away a panther drinking at the same pool as myself, his gleaming eyes low down like mine upon the water, and by his side two apes, the black water running in at their gaping mouths, while out beyond were more pools, more drinking animals. Everything was drinking. I saw their outlined forms, the gleam shining on wet skins as though they were cut out in silver against the darkness, each beast steaming like a volcano as the Heavensent rain smoked from his fevered hide, all drinking for their lives, heedless of aught else—and then came the thunder.

It ran across the cloudy vault as though the very sky were being ripped apart, rolling in mighty echoes here and there before it died away. As it stopped, the rain also fell less heavily for a minute, and as I lay with my face low down I heard the low, contented lapping of numberless tongues unceasing, insatiable. Then came the lightning again, lighting up everything as though it were daytime. The twin black apes were still drinking, but the panther across the puddle had had enough; I saw him lift his grateful head up to the flare; saw the limp red tongue licking the black nose, the green eyes shining like opals, the water dripping in threads of diamonds from the hairy tag under his chin and every tuft upon his chest—then darkness again.

To and fro the green blaze rocked between the thunder crashes. It struck a house a hundred yards away, stripping every shingle from the roof better than a master builder could in a week. It fell a minute after on a tall tree by the courtyard gate, and as the trunk burst into white splinters I saw every leaf upon the feathery top turn light side up against the violet reflection in the sky beyond, and then the whole mass came down to earth with a thud that crushed the courtyard palings into nothing for twenty yards and shook me even across the square.

Another time I might have stopped to marvel or to watch, as I have often watched with sympathetic pleasure, the gods thus at play; but tonight there were other things on hand. When I had drunk, I picked up an earthen crock, filled it, and went to Heru. It was a rough drinking-vessel for those dainty lips, and an indifferent draught, being as much mud as aught else, but its effect was wonderful. At the first touch of that turgid stuff a shiver of delight passed through the drowsy lady. At the second she gave a sigh, and her hand tightened on my arm. I fetched another crockful, and by the flickering light rocking to and fro in the sky, took her head upon my shoulder, like a prodigal new come into riches, squandering the stuff, giving her to drink and bathing face and neck till presently, to my delight, the princess’s eyes opened. Then she sat up, and taking the basin from me drank as never lady drank before, and soon was almost herself again.

I went out into the portico, there snuffing the deep, strong breath of the fragrant black earth receiving back into its gaping self what the last few days had taken from it, while quick succeeding thoughts of escape and flight passed across my brain. All through the fiery time we had just had the chance of escaping with the fair booty yonder had been present. Without her, flight would have been easy enough, but that was not worth considering for a moment. With her it was more difficult, yet, as I had watched the woodmen, accustomed to cool forest shades, faint under the fiery glare of the world above, to make a dash for liberty seemed each hour more easy. I had seen the men in the streets drop one by one, and the spears fall from the hands of guards about the pallisades; I had seen messengers who came to and fro collapse before their errands were accomplished, and the forest women, who were Heru’s gaolers, groan and drop across the thresholds of her prison, until at length the way was clear—a babe might have taken what he would from that half-scorched town and asked no man’s leave. Yet what did it avail me? Heru was helpless, my own spirit burnt in a nerveless frame, and so we stayed.

But with rain strength came back to both of us. The guards, lying about like black logs, were only slowly returning to consciousness; the town still slept, and darkness favoured; before they missed us in the morning light we might be far on the way back to Seth—a dangerous way truly, but we were like to tread a rougher one if we stayed. In fact, directly my strength returned with the cooler air, I made up my mind to the venture and went to Heru, who by this time was much recovered. To her I whispered my plot, and that gentle lady, as was only natural, trembled at its dangers. But I put it to her that no time could be better than the present: the storm was going over; morning would “line the black mantle of the night with a pink dawn of promise”; before any one stirred we might be far off, shaping a course by our luck and the stars for her kindred, at whose name she sighed. If we stayed, I argued, and the king changed his mind, then death for me, and for Heru the arms of that surly monarch, and all the rest of her life caged in these pallisades amongst the uncouth forms about us.

The lady gave a frightened little shiver at the picture, but after a moment, laying her head upon my shoulder, answered, “Oh, my guardian spirit and helper in adversity, I too have thought of tomorrow, and doubt whether that horror, that great swine who has me, will not invent an excuse for keeping me. Therefore, though the forest roads are dreadful, and Seth very far away, I will come; I give myself into your hands. Do what you will with me.”

“Then the sooner the better, princess. How soon can you be prepared?”

She smiled, and stooping picked up her slippers, saying as she did so, “I am ready!”

There were no arrangements to be made. Every instant was of value. So, to be brief, I threw a dark cloak over the damsel’s shoulders, for indeed she was clad in little more than her loveliness and the gauziest filaments of a Hither girl’s underwear, and hand in hand led her down the log steps, over the splashing, ankle-deep courtyard, and into the shadows of the gateway beyond.

Down the slope we went; along towards the harbour, through a score of deserted lanes where nothing was to be heard but the roar of rain and the lapping of men and beasts, drinking in the shadows as though they never would stop, and so we came at last unmolested to the wharf. There I hid royal Seth between two piles of merchandise, and went to look for a boat suitable to our needs. There were plenty of small craft moored to rings along the quay, and selecting a canoe—it was no time to stand on niceties of property—easily managed by a single paddle, I brought it round to the steps, put in a fresh water-pot, and went for the princess.

With her safely stowed in the prow, a helpless, sodden little morsel of feminine loveliness, things began to appear more hopeful and an escape down to blue water, my only idea, for the first time possible. Yet I must needs go and well nigh spoil everything by over-solicitude for my charge.

Had we pushed off at once there can be no doubt my credit as a spirit would have been established for all time in the Thither capital, and the belief universally held that Heru had been wafted away by my enchantment to the regions of the unknown. The idea would have gradually grown into a tradition, receiving embellishments in succeeding generations, until little wood children at their mother’s knees came to listen in awe to the story of how, once upon a time, the Sun-god loved a beautiful maiden, and drove his fiery chariot across the black night-fields to her prison door, scorching to death all who strove to gainsay him. How she flew into his arms and drove away before all men’s eyes, in his red car, into the west, and was never seen again—the foresaid Sun-god being I, Gulliver Jones, a much under-paid lieutenant in the glorious United States navy, with a packet of overdue tailors’ bills in my pocket, and nothing lovable about me save a partiality for meddling with other people’s affairs.

This is how it might have been, but I spoiled a pretty fairy story and changed the whole course of Martian history by going back at that moment in search of a wrap for my prize. Right on top of the steps was a man with a lantern, and half a glance showed me it was the harbour master met with on my first landing.

“Good evening,” he said suspiciously. “May I ask what you are doing on the quay at such an hour as this?”

“Doing? Oh, nothing in particular, just going out for a little fishing.”

“And your companion the lady—is she too fond of fishing?”

I swore between my teeth, but could not prevent the fellow walking to the quay edge and casting his light full upon the figure of the girl below. I hate people who interfere with other people’s business!

“Unless I am very much mistaken your fishing friend is the Hither woman brought here a few days ago as tribute to Ar-hap.”

“Well,” I answered, getting into a nice temper, for I had been very much harrassed of late, “put it at that. What would you do if it were so?”

“Call up my rain-drunk guards, and give you in charge as a thief caught meddling with the king’s property.”

“Thanks, but as my interviews with Ar-hap have already begun to grow tedious,