CHAPTER XI

THE DWELLERS AMONG THE GLACIERS

Beyond the mountains quite another world began.

At the foot of a group of eleven glaciers are populous villages, with cultivated fields, and happy, peaceful dwellings. Here dwell those happy ones who have from time to time withdrawn from the world of bliss below, and sought the unfrequented mountains where solitude abides. Here they have built their houses, and in the lapse of years have grown into a people which passes its days in innocence and industry. The only radiance and brightness visible there is in their bright and radiant faces; they carry their treasures in their hearts, not on their garments, and to listen to the prattling of their children is their highest felicity.

These stalwart men and tender women receive the new-comers with joy, and employ their united strength in building them a hut by the side of the other huts; give them a little garden; provide them, in the meantime, with the necessaries of life, and lend them a helping hand in their first labours, and when at last their house is finished, and everything set in order; when their heart diffuses its genial warmth, and the oxen low and stamp in their stalls, Bar Noemi and Byssenia are summoned to the elders, who dwell in the midst of the highest mountain and there judge and rule the people.

The grey-headed chief of the little community dwelt in a hut like the rest of the people; his wisdom alone distinguished him from his subjects, and although he did not go about in purple, every little child knew who he was. To him Bar Noemi related all his wonderful adventures, his marvellous deliverance from the ocean on a sailless, rudderless raft, the loathsome spectacles in Triton's corrupted city, and his fight with the godless giant. He also told him of that mysterious sign in the heavens which showed him the city turned upside down.

Whilst Bar Noemi was speaking, the head of the aged man sank lower and lower, and when he heard of these last scenes, he threw himself with his face to the ground and began to weep bitterly. Much disturbed, Bar Noemi inquired the cause of his grief. With tearful eyes, the old man replied: "What thou, O youth, hast just told me, convinces me that the time is at hand when the Lord will separate the righteous from the wicked, and judge this evil world; when millions will vanish from the face of the earth, and the earth herself will open her mouth and swallow them up because she can endure no longer the sins of mankind."

And the old man bitterly bewailed the doomed continent.

Bar Noemi dried the old man's tears and raised him from the ground.

"Weep not!" said he, "the Lord is not a man that His wrath should not be appeased. In the history of my people have I read that the Lord had once pronounced His judgment over a great city which He had doomed to perish. And He sent His prophet to warn the people to repent them of their sins if they would not be utterly destroyed, both they and their city. And the city repented and so turned away the chastisement of the Lord, and it was preserved. And again it came to pass that the Lord condemned eight cities to be consumed by a fiery rain from heaven, and a fiery torrent from out of the earth, which should change them into a lake of sulphur. And near to one of these cities dwelt a single righteous man, who carried God in his heart, and the Lord revealed His fearful judgment to this man. Then this righteous man threw himself down before God and prayed: 'O Lord! wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked?'--And God answered and said: 'If I find five righteous men in Sodom, I will spare the city.'--Dost thou hear, my father, what God has spoken? He doth ever keep His promise, for His word standeth faster than the stars in heaven. And therefore I say to thee, choose me four men out of the people who are righteous in all their ways, men of clean lips, who have neither defrauded their neighbour nor lusted after the wife of the stranger, nor denied their God in word or deed. Them will I take with me to Triton's city, and God, for the sake of five righteous men, will not let a whole city perish."

The old man kissed Bar Noemi, and said: "Of a truth thou art that prophet of the Lord of whom our traditions speak, for it is the Lord who hath put these thoughts into thy heart. My own four sons shall go with thee. Their souls are as pure as crystal and their hearts know no fear. Five men shall save a people."

With that the old man sent for his sons, who, after bathing together with Bar Noemi in pure rain water, knelt down before the old man to receive his blessing.

Now as they were setting off, Byssenia threw her arms round the neck of her husband and asked him--

"Whither goest thou?"

Bar Noemi never lied, yet he did not wish to grieve his wife, so he answered--

"To Paradise!"

And he spoke the truth, for Triton's city was the Paradise of Bliss.

Byssenia walked beside her husband, kissed him once more, and asked again--

"If thou goest into Paradise, wherefore dost thou not take me with thee? Speak the truth? Whither goest thou?"

And now, too, Bar Noemi did not lie, as he answered his wife the second time--

"I go to hell!"

Triton's city was indeed a hell.

But the woman threw herself weeping on his bosom, and asked a third time--

"Oh, my husband! Oh, Bar Noemi, whither wouldst thou go?"

And stretching out his hands towards heaven, Bar Noemi answered the third time--

"I go into the presence of God!"

And, indeed, the road that lay before him led even to God's judgment-seat.

When they came to that rocky plateau from whence they could survey the whole plain, the wondrous phantom of the Fata Morgana again appeared before them--the aerial palaces, the hanging gardens, and the toppling towers which, as they dissolved away, left behind them a sea that covered mountain and valley, so that only the distant pinnacles and the heads of the idols emerged above the billowy flood.

"'Tis the finger of God!" said the old man, with reverential awe, and he blessed the five men and bade them be strong that they might wrestle with God for a continent and the people of a continent. And pressing Bar Noemi's hand to his lips, he breathed in his palm, and said: "Blessed be he whom thou blessest and cursed whom thou cursedst!"

The five men descended the mountain.

But the old man led Byssenia back to his hut among his daughters, who welcomed her as a sister, and when he saw that the woman secretly bewailed her husband who had exposed himself to such dangers, he comforted her, and said--

"Fear nothing, for I know that Bar Noemi will return."