CHAPTER V

THE PRIEST OF THE MEGATHERIUM

As far as the eye can reach, the shore is covered with a forest, such as only the most extravagant fancy can picture to itself. Broad shadowy trees, which take root again in the soil with their branches, seem to be building huge temples, with living rows of columns, whose roof is the thick dark foliage, whose ornaments are the flowers of the ivy-like creepers which climb up the branches, and look down from their heights with a thousand wide-open blue and scarlet shining eyes. The hedges consist of tiny silvery bushes, with rosy red pointed branches, and the lofty grasses with their woolly spear-heads shoot up so high, that a tall man walking amongst them would not overtop them. Here and there above the arcades of the dark bananas, tower groups of cocoanut palms, those gigantic flowers, with their huge calices of fruit, most noble of the Creator's works, for they only raise their heads the higher for their heavy burdens, and bear with modesty the crown which He has given them.

On the top of one of these palms squats a human shape, engaged in pitching down from thence the nuts, each as big as a child's head; but below, at the foot of the trees, amongst the luxuriant grasses, lies a gigantic megatherium, which in its recumbent position is scarcely distinguishable from a shapeless mass of rock. Its length is fully four and twenty feet; in shape it resembles a sloth, and its unshapely back rises like a small hillock out of the lofty grasses whilst it thrusts its huge head with the tiny eyes and the little round ears into the thicket. The whole of the huge body is cased in a brown warty skin, traversed by deep furrows, and covered round the loins by hundreds of small sea-mussels, the fruits of its evening wallowings in the sea-slime; only the beast's nostrils, ears, and the point of its short tail are sprinkled with sharp, tough bristles.

The sea-farer from Tyre had no sooner brought his beloved and the Ark of the Covenant ashore, than he fell with his face to the ground, thanked the Lord for his wondrous deliverance, and reverentially sang a song of praise.

At the sound of this song, the monster, prone in the grass, raised its unwieldy head, and opening its frightful jaws, uttered a protracted, screeching roar, which was more like a wail of distress than a note of defiance.

In his first alarm Bar Noemi grasped his sword, and his heart beat quickly as he saw this huge head, with its neck twelve feet long, stretched out towards him; but immediately afterwards he let his sword glide back into its sheath, and stroking Byssenia's light locks as she clung trembling to him, calmly soothed and encouraged her. "Fear not! The teeth of this monster are blunt and black. He is a plant eater, and does not attack men. Such like monsters live also in Migraim, in the great ocean, where they are called 'Behemoth,' though they are not so monstrously big."

The man in the tree had, in the mean time, perceived the strangers, and after throwing a few more cocoanuts into the jaws of the monster below, he clambered down from the tree.

The megatherium grew calmer; its jaws sank to the ground again, and it crunched the hard nuts with its teeth as if they had been grains of corn.

The man threw a few more nuts into its jaws, which attention the monster accepted with the same stupid helplessness with which fledglings, a day or two old, allow their dam to feed them, uttering at the same time a grunt of lazy satisfaction.

And now the man approached Bar Noemi.

He was a wretched-looking object. His head and cheeks were quite hairless; his wrinkled face was of a sickly grey tinge; his limbs seemed to be wasting away; his back was crooked; his knee was bent outwards, his chest inwards. Although it was a hot summer day, he seemed to be freezing, despite the thick fur mantle in which he was closely wrapped.

Bar Noemi's astonishment increased when he was addressed by this strange shape, in that out-of-the-way corner of the world, in a corrupt but perfectly intelligible Carthaginian dialect.

"Thou hast come from Carthage, eh?"

"Yes, we come from Carthage," repeated Bar Noemi, "and have suffered shipwreck. But who art thou, and how is it that thou dost address us in our own language?"

The man shivered in the warmth of the equinoctial summer, and wrapping himself closer in his woollen mantle, which was interwoven with gold and silver flowers, he came still closer. It was evidently a labour for him to speak to them from a distance, for his voice was not strong enough to do so without very great exertion.

"If you come from Carthage, you must have heard of Hanno's tables, for though it is forbidden to as much as mention them there under pain of death, they must be known to every Carthaginian, for thousands have already come from Africa's coasts to the Fortunate Islands as Hanno called this continent."

"Then we are on the Fortunate Islands?" cried Bar Noemi, who had often heard the legend from the lips of his sailors.

"This is no island, but a continent ten times as large as the continent beyond the seas. Those who dwell on one side of it do not even know the names of those who dwell on the other. The boldest travellers do not yet know the boundaries of this continent, and whatsoever direction they take they always come upon new lands, new mountains, and new peoples, a hundred-fold more numerous than those of Rome and Greece put together, as described by them who come from thence. The Fortunate Islands have no limit, they are infinity itself."

"And does the land really deserve to be called fortunate?"

"Throw thyself to the ground and kiss it. This land is the Paradise where everything for which men toil and labour elsewhere, grows of its own accord. One tree bears wool whiter than the wool of sheep; in the flowers of another tree you will find sweet honey; a third gives milk and butter which is fatter than the milk of cows; and yon branches which nod their heads towards thee supply in abundance wine and bread and luscious fruits. And then, too, each one of our natural juices has its own peculiar intoxicating joy. The sleep-compelling juice of the Areka transports thee into very Paradise; drink thyself drunken with the sweet juice of the Batata, and the love of a thousand women at once will burn in thy breast; drink deeply of the burnt beans of the coffee plant, and thou wilt feel two souls within thee instead of one; whilst all the other joys of life are as nothing compared with the ecstatic vibrations which thrill through every nerve when thou dost taste of the fermented juice of the sugar-cane. Ah! stranger, here are a thousand different kinds of bliss which other lands wot not of. Shame it is that one cannot live longer. Shame that life vanishes like a dream. I myself am not far from my dotage, for thirty summers have already passed over my head!"

Bar Noemi felt very dejected. Thirty years in this place actually mean old age! And certainly this man resembled a dotard of seventy; he was a bent and broken-down old man with nothing of the dignity of age about him. His own words seemed to have deeply afflicted him, and despite the great heat, he was shivering. By his side hung a round ivory vessel the gold stopper of which he unscrewed, and taking a good pull at it, handed the bottle to Bar Noemi.

But the young man would none of it. "I drink of the running stream," said he.

The native of the Fortunate Islands laughed. The liquor he had just taken instantly flew to his cheeks and forehead, bringing out large red patches which grew redder every moment. His eyes sparkled with that offensive glare which betokens madness. With an embarrassed leer he turned towards Byssenia, and regardless of her husband's presence, thus addressed her: "Pretty lady! do not stay with that moody water-drinker! Come with me, and I'll steep thee in delights. I am a beauteous, ardent youth; my lips are honey, my heart a flaming fire. Forsake this beggar, and come to me, for I am a rich man. I'll give thee a gold ring for every one of thy golden hairs, and for thy glistening eyes thou shalt have two gleaming carbuncle stones. I'll bring thee into my palace whose top is lost in the clouds, whose lofty golden cupola compels the very sun to change his course. Have no fear of this husband of thine. I am a strong, invincible hero! With a single wave of my hand I can dash him to the ground"--and for all these brave words, the wretched creature could scarce keep his feet, and his hands trembled like aspens.

Bar Noemi stepped back with a shudder, at the same time throwing his arms round his beloved, who, full of disgust, concealed her face from the repulsive figure before her.

Again the megatherium raised his head and uttered a roar. He was hungry.

This roar brought the islander back to his senses. He quickly shut up his drinking-flask and tottered back to the monster, which opened wide its jaws while he was still a long way off, showed its large black fangs, and patiently awaited the great cocoanuts which the man, collecting from the earth, hurled into its jaws.

Byssenia would have fled from the uncanny sight, but Bar Noemi encouraged her to await the end of the scene. "The fellow is disgusting when drunk," said he, "but there is no cause for alarm; perhaps he will listen to reason when he is sober."

The exertion of feeding the monster gradually drove the fumes of the liquor out of the man's head. After a while, the megatherium stretched itself in the grass and went to sleep, whereupon the man, now sober, came back, showing the same pale and trembling countenance as before--in fact, his labour had so exhausted him that he was almost in a state of collapse, and in a faint voice he begged Bar Noemi to lend him his arm and help him on his way to the city where he would entertain them as his guests. Only with great repugnance did Bar Noemi take the arm of the young old man, but, at the same time, he could not forbear from asking the question: "What hideous beast is that which thou art at so much pains to feed?"

The old young man looked at him with consternation.

"Oh, stranger, guard thy lips, and speak not so, for that which thou callest a beast is a god!"

"What!" cried Bar Noemi, wrathfully, "that bellowing monster, with divided hoofs, blotched and cracked hide and loathsome body, a god!"

"Yea, in very truth," answered the man, in a tone of awe and reverence. "Every city here has a living god whom all the people serve in turn--I to-day, another to-morrow. Each one of them has as many priests as there are days in the year. When our fathers came hither, centuries ago, these superhuman beings ruled the whole land and their favour could only be won by sacrifice, submission, and prayer. Since then, all the first-fruits of the land have belonged to them, the best of the bread, of the fruit, nay, even the first-born of man and beast are offered to them, for they are the Lords over this land who never die."

Bar Noemi sighed.

"Would that I were in a rudderless ship on a stormy sea rather than on this accursed rock."

Thereupon he reverentially raised the Ark of the Covenant on to his head, seized Byssenia's arm with his right hand and the hilt of his sword with his left, and when the old young man asked him what was inside the case which he carried on his shoulders with so much care, he answered--

"It contains a treasure, the like of which is not to be found in the whole empire of the Fortunate Islands. This is the only treasure in the whole land."

And as he went, his thoughts ran on. "And she whom my right hand holds is the only true woman, and the sword in my left hand is the only true weapon in the whole of the Fortunate Islands, for my heart tells me that there is not a single man beneath this sun."

And the old young man led them towards the city.