Chapter 6

rang in his ears, and he thought that he too must bring a gift and scatter lilies on her grave; handfuls of lilies; but they must be unfading flowers, wet with immortal tears. He pondered on this gift. It must be a gift of song, a temple built in verse. But he was still unsatisfied. No dirge, however tender and solemn; no elegy, however soft and majestic; no song, however piteous, could be a sufficient offering for the glorious being who had died in her youth and beauty. But what could he fashion or build? He thought with envy of Arnolfo and of Giotto: the one with his bricks could have built a tomb which would prove to be one of the wonders of the world, and the other with his brush could have fixed her features for ever, for the wonder of future generations. And yet was not his instrument the most potent of all, his vehicle the most enduring? Stones decayed, and colours faded, but verse remained, outliving bronze and marble. Yes, his monument should be more lasting than all the masterpieces of Giotto, than all the proud designs of Arnolfo; but how should it be?

He had reached a narrow lane at the foot of a steep hill covered with corn and dotted with olives. He lay down under a hedge in the shade. The sun was shining on two large bramble bushes which grew on the hedge opposite him. Above him, on his right, was a tall cypress tree standing by itself, and the corn plots stretched up behind him till they reached the rocky summits tufted with firs. Between the two bramble bushes a spider had spun a large web, and he was sitting in the midst of it awaiting his prey. But the bramble and the web were still wet with the morning dew, whose little drops glistened in the sunshine like diamonds. Every tiny thread and filament of the web was dewy and lit by the newly-awakened sun. He lay on his back in the shade and pondered on the shape and nature of his gift of song, and on the deathless flowers that he must grow and gather and lay upon her tomb.

The spider’s web caught his eye, and from where he lay the sight was marvellous. The spider seemed like a small globe of fire in the midst of a number of concentric silvery lines studded with dewy gems; it was like a miniature sun in the midst of a system of gleaming stars. The delicate web with its shining films and dewdrops seemed to him as he lay there to be a vision of the whole universe, with all its worlds and stars revolving around the central orb of light. It was as though a veil had been torn away and he were looking on the naked glory of the spheres, the heart of Heaven, the very home of God.

He looked and looked, his whole spirit filled with ineffable awe and breathless humility. He lay gazing on the chance miracle of nature till a passing cloud obscured the sun, and the spider’s web wore once more its ordinary appearance. Then he arose with tears in his eyes and gave a great sigh of thankfulness.

“I have found it,” he thought, “I will say of her what has never yet been said of any woman. I will paint all Hell, all Purgatory, and all that is in them, to make more glorious the glory of her abode, and I will reveal to man that glory. I will show her in the circle of spotless flame, among the rivers and rings of eternal light, which revolve around the inmost heart, the fiery rose, and move obedient to the Love which moves the sun.” And his thought shaped itself into verse and he murmured to himself:

L’amor che muove il sole e l’altre stelle.

EDWARD II. AT BERKELEY CASTLE BY AN EYE-WITNESS (With apologies to Mr. H. Belloc)

The King had not slept for three nights. He looked at his face in the muddy pool of water which had settled in the worn flagstones of his prison floor, and noticed that his beard was of a week’s growth. Beads of sweat stood on his forehead, and his eyes were bloodshot. In the room next door, which was the canteen, the soldiers were playing on a drum. Over the tall hills the dawn was ruffling the clouds. There was a faint glimmer on the waters of the river. The footsteps of the gaolers were heard on the outer rampart. At seven o’clock they brought the King a good dinner: they allowed him burgundy from France, and yellow mead, and white bread baked in the ovens of the Abbey, although he was constrained to drink out of pewter, and plates were forbidden him. Eustace, his page, timidly offered him music. The King bade him sing the “Lay of the Sussex Lass,” which begins thus:

Triumphant, oh! triumphant now she stands, Above my Sussex, and above my sea! She stretches out her thin ulterior hands Across the morning . . .

But the King, to whom memories were portentous, called for another song and Eustace sang a stave of that ballad which was made on the Pyrenees, and which is still unfinished (for the modern world has no need of these things), telling of how Lord Raymond drank in a little tent with Charlemagne:

Enormous through the morning the tall battalions run: The men who fought with Charlemagne are very dearly done; The wine is dark beneath the night, the stars are in the sky, The hammer’s in the blacksmith’s hand in case he wants to try. We’ll ride to Fontarabia, we’ll storm the stubborn wall, And I call.

And Uriel and his Seraphim are hammering a shield; And twice along the valley has the horn of Roland pealed; And Cleopatra on the Nile, Iseult in Brittany, And Lancelot in Camelot, and Drake upon the sea; And behind the young Republic are the fellows with the flag, And I brag!

The King listlessly opened his eyes and said that he had no stomach for such song, and from the next door came the mutter of the drums. For on that night--which was Candlemas--Thursday, or as we should now call it “Friday”--the gaolers were keeping holiday, and drinking English beer brewed in Sussex; for the beer of West England was not to their liking, as any one who has walked down the old Roman Road through Daglingworth, Brimpsfield, and Birdlip towards Cardigan on a warm summer’s day can know. For a man may tramp that road and stop and ask for drink at an inn, and receive nothing but Imperialist whisky, and drinks that annoy rather than satisfy the great thirst of a Christian.

Outside, a little breeze had crept out of the West. The morning star was paling over the Quantock Hills, and the King was mortally weary. “This day three years ago,” he thought, “I was spurred and harnessed for the lists in a tunic of mail, with an emerald on my shoulder-strap, and I was tilting with my lord of Cleremont before Queen Isabella of France. The birds were singing in Touraine, and the sun was beating on the lists; and the minstrels of Val-es-Dunes were chanting the song of the men who died for the Faith when they stormed Jerusalem. What is the lilt of that song,” said the King, “which the singers of Val-es-Dunes sang?” And Eustace pondered, for his memory was weak and he was overwrought by nights of watching and days of vigilance; but presently he touched his strings and sang:

The captains came from Normandy In clamorous ships across the sea; And from the trees in Gascony The masts were cloven, tall and free. And Turpin swung the helm and sang; And stars like all the bells at Brie From cloudy steeples rang.

The rotten leaves are whirling down Dishevelled from September’s crown; The Emperors have left the town; The Weald of Sussex, burnt and brown, Is trampled by the kings. And Harmuth gallops up the Down, And, as he rides, he sings.

He sings of battles and of wine, Of boats that leap the bellowing brine, Of April eyes that smile and shine, Of Raymond and Lord Catiline And Carthage by the sea, Of saints, and of the Muses Nine That dwell in Gascony.

And to the King, as he heard this stave, came visions of his youth; of how he had galloped from Woodstock to Stonesfield on a night of June within eleven hours, with a company of minstrels, and of how during that long feast at Arundel he made a song in the vernacular in praise of St. Anselm. And he remembered that he owed a candle to that saint. For he had vowed that if the wife of Westermain should meet him after the tournament he would burn a tall candle at Canterbury before Michaelmas. But this had escaped his mind, for it had been tossed hither and thither during days of conflict which had come later, and he was not loth to believe that the neglect of this service and the idle vow had been corner-stone of his misfortunes, and had helped to bring about his miserable plight.

While these threads of memory glimmered in his mind the small tallow rush-light which lit the dungeon flickered and went out. The chapel clock struck six. The King made a gesture which meant that the time of music was over, and Eustace went back to the canteen, where the men of the guard were playing at dice by the light of smoky rush-lights. The King lay down on his wooden pallet, whose linen was delicate and of lawn, embroidered with his own cipher and crown. The pillow, which was stuffed with scented rushes, was delicious to the cheek, and yielding.

* * * * *

All that night in London Queen Isabella had been waiting for the news from France. A storm was blowing across the Channel, and the ships (their pilots were Germans, and bungled in reading the stars) making for the port turned back towards Dunquerque. It was a storm such as, if you are in a small boat, turns you back from Broughty Ferry to the Goodwin Sands. The Queen, who took counsel of no one, was in two minds as to her daring deed, and her hostage trembled in an uncertain grasp. In Saxony the banished favourites talked wildly, cursing the counsels of London; but Saxony was heedless and unmoved. And Piers Gaveston spoke heated words in vain.

The King, who was in that lethargic state of slumber, between sleep and waking, heard a shuffle of steps beyond the door; a cold sweat broke once more on his forehead, and he waved his left hand listlessly. Outside the sun had risen, and a broad daylight flooded the wet meadows and the brimming tide of the Severn, catching the sails of the boats that were heeling and trembling on the ripple of the water, which was stirred by the South wind. The King looked towards the window with weariness, expecting, as far as his lethargy allowed, the advent of another monotonous day.

The door opened. The faces he saw by the gaoler’s torch were not those he expected. The King, I say, looked towards them, and his hands trembled, and the moisture on them glistened. They were dark, and one of them was concealed by a silken mask.

Three men entered the dungeon. In the hands of the foremost of the three glowed a red-hot iron, which was to be the manner of his doom.

THE ISLAND

“Perhaps we had better not land after all,” said Lewis as he was stepping into the boat; “we can explore this island on our way home.”

“We had much better land now,” said Stewart; “we shall get to Teneriffe to-morrow in any case. Besides, an island that’s not on the chart is too exciting a thing to wait for.”

Lewis gave in to his younger companion, and the two ornithologists, who were on their way to the Canary Islands in search of eggs, were rowed to shore.

“They had better fetch us at sunset,” said Lewis as they landed.

“Perhaps we shall stay the night,” responded Stewart.

“I don’t think so,” said Lewis; but after a pause he told the sailors that if they should be more than half an hour late they were not to wait, but to come back in the morning at ten. Lewis and Stewart walked from the sandy bay up a steep basaltic cliff which sloped right down to the beach.

“The island is volcanic,” said Stewart.

“All the islands about here are volcanic,” said Lewis. “We shan’t be able to climb much in this heat,” he added.

“It will be all right when we get to the trees,” said Stewart. Presently they reached the top of the cliff. The basaltic rock ceased and an open grassy incline was before them covered with myrtle and cactus bushes; and further off a thick wood, to the east of which rose a hill sparsely dotted with olive trees. They sat down on the grass, panting. The sun beat down on the dry rock; there was not a cloud in the sky nor a ripple on the emerald sea. In the air there was a strange aromatic scent; and the stillness was heavy.

“I don’t think it can be inhabited,” said Lewis.

“Perhaps it’s merely a volcanic island cast up by a sea disturbance,” suggested Stewart.

“Look at those trees,” said Lewis, pointing to the wood in the distance.

“What about them?” asked Stewart.

“They are oak trees,” said Lewis. “Do you know why I didn’t want to land?” he asked abruptly. “I am not superstitious, you know, but as I got into the boat I distinctly heard a voice calling out: ‘Don’t land!’”

Stewart laughed. “I think it was a good thing to land,” he said. “Let’s go on now.”

They walked towards the wood, and the nearer they got to it the more their surprise increased. It was a thick wood of large oak trees which must certainly have been a hundred years old. When they had got quite close to it they paused.

“Before we explore the wood,” said Lewis, “let us climb the hill and see if we can get a general view of the island.”

Stewart agreed, and they climbed the hill in silence. When they reached the top they found it was not the highest point of the island, but only one of several hills, so that they obtained only a limited view. The valleys seemed to be densely wooded, and the oak wood was larger than they had imagined. They laid down and rested and lit their pipes.

“No birds,” remarked Lewis gloomily.

“I haven’t seen one--the island is extraordinarily still,” said Stewart. The further they had penetrated inland the more oppressive and sultry the air had become; and the pungent aroma they had noticed directly was stronger. It was like that of mint, and yet it was not mint; and although sweet it was not agreeable. The heat seemed to weigh even on Stewart’s buoyant spirits, for he sat smoking in silence, and no longer urged Lewis to continue their exploration.

“I think the island is inhabited,” said Lewis, “and that the houses are on the other side. There are some sheep and some goats on that hill opposite. Do you see?”

“Yes,” said Stewart, “I think they are mouflon, but I don’t think the island is inhabited all the same.” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he started, and rising to his feet, cried: “Look there!” and he pointed to a thin wreath of smoke which was rising from the wood. Their languor seemed to leave them, and they ran down the hill and reached the wood once more. Just as they were about to enter it Lewis stooped and pointed to a small plant with white flowers and three oval-shaped leaves rising from the root.

“What’s that?” he asked Stewart, who was the better botanist of the two. The flowers were quite white, and each had six pointed petals.

“It’s a kind of garlic, I think,” said Stewart. Lewis bent down over it. “It doesn’t smell,” he said. “It’s not unlike moly (_Allium flavum_), only it’s white instead of yellow, and the flowers are larger. I’m going to take it with me.” He began scooping away the earth with a knife so as to take out the plant by the roots. After he had been working for some minutes he exclaimed: “This is the toughest plant I’ve ever seen; I can’t get it out.” He was at last successful, but as he pulled the root he gave a cry of surprise.

“There’s no bulb,” he said. “Look! Only a black root.”

Stewart examined the plant. “I can’t make it out,” he said.

Lewis wrapped the plant in his handkerchief and put it in his pocket. They entered the wood. The air was still more sultry here than outside, and the stillness even more oppressive. There were no birds and not a vestige of bird life.

“This exploration is evidently a waste of time as far as birds are concerned,” remarked Lewis. At that moment there was a rustle in the undergrowth, and five pigs crossed their path and disappeared, grunting. Lewis started, and for some reason he could not account for, shuddered; he looked at Stewart, who appeared unconcerned.

“They are not wild,” said Stewart. They walked on in silence. The place and its heavy atmosphere had again affected their spirits. When they spoke it was almost in a whisper. Lewis wished they had not landed, but he could give no reason to himself for his wish. After they had been walking for about twenty minutes they suddenly came on an open space and a low white house. They stopped and looked at each other.

“It’s got no chimney!” cried Lewis, who was the first to speak. It was a one-storeyed building, with large windows (which had no glass in them) reaching to the ground, wider at the bottom than at the top. The house was overgrown with creepers; the roof was flat. They entered in silence by the large open doorway and found themselves in a low hall. There was no furniture and the floor was mossy.

“It’s rather like an Egyptian tomb,” said Stewart, and he shivered. The hall led into a further room, which was open in the centre to the sky, like the _impluvium_ of a Roman house. It also contained a square basin of water, which was filled by water bubbling from a lion’s mouth carved in stone. Beyond the _impluvium_ there were two smaller rooms, in one of which there was a kind of raised stone platform. The house was completely deserted and empty. Lewis and Stewart said little; they examined the house in silent amazement.

“Look,” said Lewis, pointing to one of the walls. Stewart examined the wall and noticed that there were traces on it of a faded painted decoration.

“It’s like the wall paintings at Pompeii,” he said.

“I think the house is modern,” remarked Lewis. “It was probably built by some eccentric at the beginning of the nineteenth century, who did it up in Empire style.”

“Do you know what time it is?” said Stewart, suddenly. “The sun has set and it’s growing dark.”

“We must go at once,” said Lewis, “we’ll come back here to-morrow.” They walked on in silence. The wood was dim in the twilight, a fitful breeze made the trees rustle now and again, but the air was just as sultry as ever. The shapes of the trees seemed fantastic and almost threatening in the dimness, and the rustle of the leaves was like a human moan. Once or twice they seemed to hear the grunting of pigs in the undergrowth and to catch sight of bristly backs.

“We don’t seem to be getting any nearer the end,” said Stewart after a time. “I think we’ve taken the wrong path.” They stopped. “I remember that tree,” said Stewart, pointing to a twisted oak; “we must go straight on from there to the left.” They walked on and in ten minutes’ time found themselves once more at the back of the house. It was now quite dark.

“We shall never find the way now,” said Lewis. “We had better sleep in the house.” They walked through the house into one of the furthest rooms and settled themselves on the mossy platform. The night was warm and starry, the house deathly still except for the splashing of the water in the basin.

“We shan’t get any food,” Lewis said.

“I’m not hungry,” said Stewart, and Lewis knew that he could not have eaten anything to save his life. He felt utterly exhausted and yet not at all sleepy. Stewart, on the other hand, was overcome with drowsiness. He lay down on the mossy platform and fell asleep almost instantly. Lewis lit a pipe; the vague forebodings he had felt in the morning had returned to him, only increased tenfold. He felt an unaccountable physical discomfort, an inexplicable sensation of uneasiness. Then he realised what it was. He felt there was someone in the house besides themselves, someone or something that was always behind him, moving when he moved and watching him. He walked into the _impluvium_, but heard nothing and saw nothing. There were none of the thousand little sounds, such as the barking of a dog, or the hoot of a night-bird, which generally complete the silence of a summer night. Everything was uncannily still. He returned to the room. He would have given anything to be back on the yacht, for besides the physical sensation of discomfort and of the something watching him he also felt the unmistakable feeling of impending danger that had been with him nearly all day.

He lay down and at last fell into a doze. As he dozed he heard a subdued noise, a kind of buzzing, such as is made by a spinning wheel or a shuttle on a loom, and more strongly than ever he felt that he was being watched. Then all at once his body seemed to grow stiff with fright. He saw someone enter the room from the _impluvium_. It was a dim, veiled figure, the figure of a woman. He could not distinguish her features, but he had the impression that she was strangely beautiful; she was bearing a cup in her hands, and she walked towards Stewart and bent over him, offering him the cup.

Something in Lewis prompted him to cry out with all his might: “Don’t drink! Don’t drink!” He heard the words echoing in the air, just as he had heard the voice in the boat; he felt that it was imperative to call out, and yet he could not: he was paralysed; the words would not come. He formed them with his lips, but no sound came. He tried with all his might to rise and scream, and he could not move. Then a sudden cold faintness came upon him, and he remembered no more till he woke and found the sun shining brightly. Stewart was lying with his eyes closed, moaning loudly in his sleep.

Lewis tried to wake him. He opened his eyes and stared with a fixed, meaningless stare. Lewis tried to lift him from the platform, and then a horrible thing happened. Stewart struggled violently and made a snarling noise, which froze the blood in Lewis’s veins. He ran out of the house with cold beads of sweat on his forehead. He ran through the wood to the shore, and there he found the boat. He rowed back to the yacht and fetched some quinine. Then, together with the skipper, the steward, and some other sailors, he returned to the ominous house. They found it empty. There was no trace of Stewart. They shouted in the wood till they were hoarse, but no answer broke the heavy stillness.

Then sending for the rest of the crew, Lewis organised a regular search over the whole island. This lasted till sunset, and they returned in the evening without having found any trace of Stewart or of any other human being. In the night a high wind rose, which soon became a gale; they were obliged to weigh anchor so as not to be dashed against the island, and for twenty-four hours they underwent a terrific tossing. Then the storm subsided as quickly as it had come.

They made for the island once more and reached the spot where they had anchored three days before. There was no trace of the island. It had completely disappeared.

When they reached Teneriffe the next day they found that everybody was talking of the great tidal wave which had caused such great damage and destruction in the islands.

THE MAN WHO GAVE GOOD ADVICE

To Henry Cust