Chapter 9

THE CATACLYSM THE PRIESTESS "LOOK AND FORGET"

Now gazing down full upon me as though in exultation was again the awful face of the Snake, with its diadem the great, bright diamond. Its glare hurt me, and I tried to move my head, but in vain. I was tied fast.

And now I realized that this was no part of an awful dream, but that I lay a hopeless victim in the place of the tortured man I had seen but a day before.

And I knew that I was no longer alone, for though I could see nothing but the grim idol, I could hear around me the murmur of many tongues. Low, but vast in volume, it seemed as though thousands were there below me, hushed and waiting for the consummation of the sacrifice. At times the murmur rose to a mutter as of distant thunder, then again it would be hushed almost into dead silence.

I could not speak or move. I could only lie inert and helpless, filled with the agony of despair, with closed eyes awaiting the stroke, and praying silently that it would come before the mutilation I had seen on the other face.

Now came a single hoarse voice near me intoning words in a chant; and then in response broke out the deep roar of a multitude of voices! Higher and higher it rose until the air vibrated with its thunder, then again it would die away, fainter and fainter till it was nothing but as the sighing of wind through dead men's bones.

Again and again chant and response broke forth, and now too I could distinguish much of its meaning, for the tongue was that of Inyati.

A song of supplication it seemed to me, a song for the Snake's wrath to be appeased to accept the sacrifice offered it, and to send rain upon their dried up fields.

Now it died utterly away, and sweat broke from me in agony as I waited for I knew not what. I tried to make up my mind to die calmly, to resign myself to the inevitable; but my period of liberty and my new- found strength had brought back the old love of life that had burned strong in me before my captivity, and my whole being cried out passionately against this awful end.

Still there was silence, silence for a seeming eternity of waiting for the sharp sting of death . . . and then another voice lifted as though in invocation. Solemn, loud, clear and sonorous, the measured accents rang forth, from close beside me; a voice of unearthly beauty chanting a rhythmic sentence or two, repeated again and again. No hoarse voice of a man this, but of a woman . . . a priestess . . . calling down the fires of Baal to consume the sacrifice.

And, as if in response, came now the peal of heavy thunder.

I had been in terror of the knife before, but had lain silent and with closed eyes awaiting the end, but as the terrible significance of the song of invocation reached me, a hoarse cry of horror broke from my parched throat, and I again tried in vain to struggle free. For now my staring eyes confirmed the terrible thought that had come to me. The sun would soon be exactly overhead, and when it was, its rays would strike exactly through the huge diamond that crowned the Snake, and the intolerable rays, thus concentrated as though by a mighty burning glass, would fall full upon my eyes, torturing and searing me to the semblance of what I had seen on the dead priest.

Screaming and writhing in an agony of apprehension, I lay helpless, whilst the sun sped on, until its rim had almost reached the diamond. But now came peal after peal of terrific thunder, and vivid lightning that made even the sun look pale, and speeding across my field of vision came also a huge black cloud thick and ominous, but to me a most blessed sight a messenger of mercy a miracle! Swiftly it sped, but would it be in time?

The sun had reached the diamond now, and shrink as I would I already felt the roasting heat that beat upon the stone but a few inches from my head. Surely it would reach me, my brain would crack . . . but now, thank God! . . . the cloud had swept across, and for the moment I was safe, at least from this terror.

And now, with the almost incessant roar of thunder came the rain a few huge, stinging drops at first then a downpour such as I had never seen. In incessant sheets it fell like a huge cataract, beating upon my helpless face till I gasped for breath, as one half drowned; and soon the roar of water falling upon water almost drowned the pealing thunder. The shouts of joy that had hailed the first few drops were soon changed to wild cries of alarm, and as still the deluge continued as though the very flood-gates of heaven were opened, the screams of the vast multitude joined the roar of water and the pealing of thunder in one stupendous chorus. I could not see, but I could hear and realize that an awful struggle was going on below me: there in that vast hollow the unseen people would be trapped beyond hope, for into it the water from the plains above would rush in one vast cataract. And still the torrent beat down and the thunder pealed; and I, half mad with my sufferings, yelled and shouted, in mockery of the screams of those who would have immolated me, and who were now themselves perishing all around me. At length the groans and screams of the dying multitude died down to choking gasps, then even these ceased, but still the thunder pealed, and the rain beat down upon my unprotected body till my overwrought senses rebelled, and I sank into a swoon.

A voice the voice that I had heard in invocation came to me in my disordered dreams calling me back. Its insistence troubled me, for I was unwilling to return. But again and again it called, and I at length came back reluctantly to reality.

"Fear not, thy life is thine own again," said the grave, vibrant accents in my ear, and I opened my eyes to find myself still lying upon the altar.

Gazing down upon me was a face that I shall never forget to my dying day the face of a woman, whose skin of ivory whiteness accentuated the unfathomable blackness of the most wonderful eyes I shall ever behold.

They seemed to pierce me through and through, and to search my very soul, as I lay there and gazed back into them as a fascinated bird gazes back into the eyes of the striking snake.

Power infinite there was in those commanding orbs, wisdom and knowledge surpassing that of mere mankind infinite good or infinite evil I know not which!

I shrank in mortal terror at their merciless scrutiny, but I could neither close my eyes nor tear them away, until a hand was passed across my brow, and the spell was broken.

Now a knife cut my bonds, and I was raised by a strong arm to a sitting posture.

How is it possible to describe the horror of the appalling scene that met my shrinking eyes, as for the first time since I had been a prisoner I was able to look upon my surroundings.

The blood-red sun was setting in a stormy sky, from which in the distance the lightning still flickered, close beside me stood the tall form of the priestess, and below, on the lower tiers of the pyramid, were grouped about twenty men priests I judged them to be all robed in white garments, all white men, of fierce and sinister aspect.

But it was not upon these that my eyes rested, but upon the grim and awful holocaust that stretched in all directions below and beyond.

For the pyramid stood as an island in a sea of dead men: from its base, to the mighty walls that encircled the vast floor of the crater, it stretched in an unbroken sheet unbroken, that is, except for the myriad drowned bodies from which the rapidly receding flood was fast draining away.

The glare from the crimson sunset turned it into a sea of blood, and each moment the forms of the drowned multitude showed more and more distinctly; clasping and clinging to each other in the awful contortions of death, as they had struggled with each other in their frantic fight against that awful cataclysm; heap upon heap, line after line, thousands upon thousands of them a multitude a whole nation overwhelmed and destroyed.

Not white men such as the priests, who alone had been saved upon the pyramid, but brown men of Inyati's type, their bodies nude except for a loincloth.

Stunned and dismayed at the fearful sight, I sat inert upon the altar, and gazed upon the mighty hecatomb in utter forgetfulness of my own awful position, till the priestess, who had awakened me, and who also had stood in silent contemplation, turned and once more fixed her glowing eyes upon me.

"Look well, O stranger, look well upon these thy dead," she said in a clear, ringing voice; "upon these who would have sacrificed thee yet who, dying, called upon thee, their bound sacrifice, to save them! 'Save us, Mighty One!' they supplicated, 'thou who art mightier than the Snake save us!' . . . Poor fools they are dead all, all, are dead. . . . And thou, thou helpless 'Mighty One'" she mocked, "art thou content with this thy vengeance, or must we poor servants of the Snake also die to appease thy wrath?"

The look and tone of fierce mockery brought back to me all the fear of hideous torture I had felt before, and I begged that they should mercifully kill me and have done.

"Nay," she replied, "fear not that shall not be I have told thee thy life is safe. Well do I know that thou art but a man, and no god, such as these poor fools thought thee at the last but the Snake hath spared thee, and thy life is sacred. Free shalt thou go, free and with an abundance of the bright stones these dead people deemed sacred and the lust of which brought thee, O stranger, unasked and unwelcome to this our land. Life shall be thine and thou shalt be guided back to the land from whence thou earnest; but thou shalt eat first of the fruit of forgetfulness, and never shalt thou find again the path by which thou earnest hither, or that other by which thou shalt return."

The solemn tone and promise allayed my fears somewhat; at least my life was to be spared; but this talk of not finding the path again did it mean that they would blind me?

Even as the thought entered my mind the mysterious being who held me in her power answered it as though I had spoken it aloud.

"Fear not, I say again," said she, "neither thine eyes, nor a hair of thy head shall be injured. Rather do I grant thee a precious boon, such as many crave for in vain the boon of forgetfulness . . . yet not of all! Stand upon thy feet, O stranger, and look well upon this lake of the dead, then turn and look upon me these things thou shalt not forget."

Weak and shaken by my awful experience, I tottered as I tried to stand upright, and but for her supporting hand I should have fallen. "Aye thou art weak," said she again, "but that which I will give will bring back the strength to thy palsied limbs. . . . Look well, I say, and forget not this!"

Forget! How could I ever forget that awful scene the blood-red water, the countless heaps of drowned men, the upturned faces of the pale priests below me, their dark eyes fixed upon me with looks of hatred and malevolence.

"Aye, they would torture and sacrifice thee," said the strange being who dominated them, and who held my life in her hands, and who again answered my unspoken thought, "but that may not be. . . . And now look thou on me and forget not."

She stood proudly erect, her brow bound by a bronze snake the miniature of the idol above, the diamond set in this strange coronet outdone in splendor by the fires of her wondrous eyes. And now I saw her not as a sphinx-like being of terror, but as a glorious woman, a creature to be adored for her beauty alone, and the long stagnant blood coursed through my veins as I gazed entranced, and for ever enthralled.

No thought of that woman who waited crossed my mind, nothing but mad desire and adoration filled me for this creature of unearthly beauty; and spirit, woman, devil, be she what she might, my one mad longing was to gaze upon her, to worship her, to possess her for ever.

And as I gazed spellbound she spoke again.

"Nay, I see thou wilt never forget," she smiled gravely, "yet must thou eat of the fruit that will bring forgetfulness of all other things."

She called to the priest in another tongue; and one came scowlingly, bringing with him a small box of ebony. The priestess took something from it, and again turned her piercing eyes upon my own, compelling, commanding, dominating me, as she had done when I first opened my eyes. I tried to speak to beg, to implore, that I might remain her slave, if need be, but near her, but she had put a spell upon my tongue, and I could not.

Slowly she held forth her hand, and in the palm I now saw a small withered berry, black and shriveled, but in shape like the scarlet berries I had eaten so often in the crater. "Eat and forget! . . . Eat and forget!" the voice commanded; and now the eyes sought mine again and fascinated and mastered me.

No! I would not eat. ... I would not go! and with all my strength I opposed her will . . . this was poison surely ... I would not eat!

"I seek not thy life rather would I save it," came the warning, as I struggled against the domination, "I have but to hold forth my hand to these my servants, and they would tear thee limb from limb. See, then!"

A gesture, and the crowd of frowning priests sprang up the steps and swarmed round me; their fierce, vulpine faces aglow with terrible joy, their long talon-like nails outstretched to rend me fearful horrifying!

At a word, and just as they had almost reached me, the priestess stayed them; but now their hot breath beat close upon me, and in deadly fear I stretched out my hand and took the berry. "Eat eat, and be safe, no harm shall come thee eat and forget eat and forget!" and with the clarion accents ringing in my ears, and with those unfathomable eyes gazing steadily into my own, I crushed the berry between my teeth and swallowed it. A strange, acrid taste, similar but vastly stronger than the berries I had eaten before . . . a rush of blood to my head, a tingling through all my veins, and then a blackness surging up and hiding all, even blotting out the star-like eyes before me, till all, all was black.

An endless dream of wanderings in thick pathless forests, an endless search for something lost: an eternity of vague formless dreams. Searching searching, and finding nothing: an infinite sorrow for something I could never again find.

Eyes gleaming at me from the dark forest; a myriad eyes, coming and going in the vague shadows, and a voice calling; something I could not understand; and through all, the sorrow for something precious, lost beyond recall.