Short Story Collections

The Gods of Pegāna

Time and the Gods
The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories
A Dreamer’s Tales
The Book of Wonder
Fifty-One Tales
Tales of Wonder
Tales of Three Hemispheres

by

Lord Dunsany
 Contents

The Gods Of Pegāna 1

Preface ................................................................................................................ 1
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 2
Of Skarl The Drummer ....................................................................................... 2
Of The Making Of The Worlds........................................................................... 3
Of The Game Of The Gods ................................................................................ 4
The Chaunt Of The Gods.................................................................................... 6
The Sayings Of Kib ............................................................................................ 6
Concerning Sish.................................................................................................. 7
The Sayings Of Slid............................................................................................ 8
The Deeds Of Mung ......................................................................................... 10
The Chaunt Of The Priests ............................................................................... 11
The Sayings Of Limpang-Tung ........................................................................ 12
Of Yoharneth-lahai ........................................................................................... 14
Of Roon, The God Of Going, And The Thousand Home Gods ....................... 15
The Revolt Of The Home Gods ........................................................................ 18
Of Dorozhand ................................................................................................... 20
The Eye In The Waste....................................................................................... 21
Of The Thing That Is Neither God Nor Beast .................................................. 23
Yonath The Prophet .......................................................................................... 25
Yug The Prophet ............................................................................................... 26
Alhireth-Hotep The Prophet ............................................................................. 27
Kabok The Prophet ........................................................................................... 27
Of The Calamity That Befell Yun-Ilara By The Sea, And Of The Building Of
The Tower Of The Ending Of Days ............................................................... 29
Of How The Gods Whelmed Sidith ................................................................. 31
Of How Imbaun Became High Prophet In Aradec Of All The Gods Save One ...
........................................................................................................................ 33
Of How Imbaun Met Zodrak ............................................................................ 35
Pegāna............................................................................................................... 38
The Sayings Of Imbaun .................................................................................... 40
Of How Imbaun Spake Of Death To The King ................................................ 42
Of Ood .............................................................................................................. 43
The River .......................................................................................................... 43
The Bird Of Doom And The End ..................................................................... 45

Time And The Gods 47

Preface .............................................................................................................. 47
Time And The Gods.......................................................................................... 48
The Coming Of The Sea ................................................................................... 51
A Legend Of The Dawn.................................................................................... 55
The Vengeance Of Men .................................................................................... 61
When The Gods Slept ....................................................................................... 65
The King That Was Not .................................................................................... 71
The Cave Of Kai ............................................................................................... 73
The Sorrow Of Search ...................................................................................... 78
The Men Of Yarnith .......................................................................................... 84
For The Honour Of The Gods .......................................................................... 90
Night And Morning .......................................................................................... 93
Usury ................................................................................................................ 95
Mlideen ............................................................................................................. 97
The Secret Of The Gods ................................................................................... 98
The South Wind .............................................................................................. 101
In The Land Of Time ...................................................................................... 103
The Relenting Of Sarnidac ............................................................................. 111
The Jest Of The Gods ..................................................................................... 115
The Dreams Of The Prophet ........................................................................... 116
The Journey Of The King ............................................................................... 119

The Sword Of Welleran And Other Stories 152

Dedicated ........................................................................................................ 152
The Sword of Welleran ................................................................................... 153
The Fall of Babbulkund .................................................................................. 166
The Kith of the Elf Folk ................................................................................. 179
In The Twilight ............................................................................................... 198
The Ghosts ...................................................................................................... 202
The Whirlpool................................................................................................. 206
The Hurricane ................................................................................................. 208
The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save For Sacnoth ........................................... 209
The Lord of Cities .......................................................................................... 226
The Doom of La Traviata ............................................................................... 232
On The Dry Land ............................................................................................ 234

A Dreamer’s Tales 237

Preface ............................................................................................................ 237
Poltarnees, Beholder Of Ocean ...................................................................... 238
Blagdaross ...................................................................................................... 249
The Madness Of Andelsprutz ......................................................................... 253
Where The Tides Ebb And Flow .................................................................... 256
Bethmoora ...................................................................................................... 261
Idle Days On The Yann................................................................................... 265
The Sword And The Idol ................................................................................ 281
The Idle City ................................................................................................... 287
The Hashish Man ............................................................................................ 292
Poor Old Bill................................................................................................... 297
The Beggars .................................................................................................... 302
Carcassonne .................................................................................................... 305
In Zaccarath .................................................................................................... 316
The Field ......................................................................................................... 319
The Day Of The Poll ...................................................................................... 322
The Unhappy Body......................................................................................... 325

The Book Of Wonder 329

Preface ............................................................................................................ 329
The Bride Of The Man-Horse ........................................................................ 330
Distressing Tale Of Thangobrind The Jeweller .............................................. 334
The House Of The Sphinx .............................................................................. 338
Probable Adventure Of The Three Literary Men ........................................... 340
The Injudicious Prayers Of Pombo The Idolater ............................................ 344
The Loot Of Bombasharna ............................................................................. 348
Miss Cubbidge And The Dragon Of Romance ............................................... 352
The Quest Of The Queen’s Tears.................................................................... 355
The Hoard Of The Gibbelins .......................................................................... 360
How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon The Gnoles ......................... 364
How One Came, As Was Foretold, To The City Of Never ............................. 369
The Coronation Of Mr. Thomas Shap ............................................................ 373
Chu-bu And Sheemish .................................................................................... 377
The Wonderful Window ................................................................................. 381
Epilogue .......................................................................................................... 386

Fifty-One Tales 387

The Assignation .............................................................................................. 388
Charon ............................................................................................................ 388
The Death Of Pan ........................................................................................... 389
The Sphinx At Gizeh ...................................................................................... 390
The Hen .......................................................................................................... 391
Wind And Fog ................................................................................................ 392
The Raft-builders ............................................................................................ 393
The Workman ................................................................................................. 394
The Guest........................................................................................................ 395
Death And Odysseus....................................................................................... 396
Death And The Orange ................................................................................... 397
The Prayer Of The Flowers ............................................................................ 398
Time And The Tradesman .............................................................................. 398
The Little City ................................................................................................ 399
The Unpasturable Fields ................................................................................. 400
The Worm And The Angel .............................................................................. 400
The Songless Country..................................................................................... 401
The Latest Thing ............................................................................................. 401
The Demagogue And The Demi-monde ......................................................... 402
The Giant Poppy ............................................................................................. 403
Roses............................................................................................................... 404
The Man With The Golden Ear-rings ............................................................. 404
The Dream Of King Karna-Vootra ................................................................. 405
The Storm ....................................................................................................... 406
A Mistaken Identity ........................................................................................ 407
The True History Of The Hare And The Tortoise........................................... 408
Alone The Immortals ...................................................................................... 410
A Moral Little Tale ......................................................................................... 411
The Return Of Song........................................................................................ 413
Spring In Town ............................................................................................... 413
How The Enemy Came To Thlunrana ............................................................ 415
A Losing Game ............................................................................................... 417
Taking Up Picadilly ........................................................................................ 417
After The Fire ................................................................................................. 418
The City .......................................................................................................... 419
The Food Of Death ......................................................................................... 419
The Lonely Idol .............................................................................................. 420
The Sphinx In Thebes (Massachusetts) .......................................................... 421
The Reward .................................................................................................... 422
The Trouble In Leafy Green Street ................................................................. 423
The Mist.......................................................................................................... 423
Furrow-maker ................................................................................................. 424
Lobster Salad .................................................................................................. 425
The Return Of The Exiles ............................................................................... 427
Nature And Time ............................................................................................ 428
The Song Of The Blackbird............................................................................ 430
The Messengers .............................................................................................. 431
The Three Tall Sons ........................................................................................ 433
Compromise ................................................................................................... 434
What We Have Come To ................................................................................ 434
The Tomb Of Pan ........................................................................................... 435
Tales Of Wonder 436
Preface ............................................................................................................ 436
A Tale of London ............................................................................................ 437
Thirteen at Table ............................................................................................. 440
The City on Mallington Moor ........................................................................ 448
Why the Milkman Shudders When He Perceives the Dawn .......................... 456
The Bad Old Woman in Black ........................................................................ 458
The Bird of the Difficult Eye .......................................................................... 461
The Long Porter’s Tale ................................................................................... 464
The Loot of Loma ........................................................................................... 469
The Secret of the Sea ...................................................................................... 473
How Ali Came to the Black Country .............................................................. 477
The Bureau d’Échange de Maux .................................................................... 480
A Story of Land and Sea ................................................................................. 485
A Tale of the Equator ...................................................................................... 507
A Narrow Escape ............................................................................................ 510
The Watch-tower ............................................................................................ 512
How Plash-Goo Came to the Land of None’s Desire ..................................... 514
The Three Sailors’ Gambit ............................................................................. 516
The Exiles Club .............................................................................................. 524
The Three Infernal Jokes ................................................................................ 529

Tales Of Three Hemispheres 536

The Last Dream Of Bwona Khubla ................................................................ 537
How The Office Of Postman Fell Vacant In Otford-Under-The-Wold .......... 540
The Prayer Of Boob Aheera ........................................................................... 544
East And West ................................................................................................. 547
A Pretty Quarrel .............................................................................................. 550
How The Gods Avenged Meoul Ki Ning ....................................................... 552
The Gift Of The Gods ..................................................................................... 553
The Sack Of Emeralds .................................................................................... 555
The Old Brown Coat ...................................................................................... 558
An Archive Of The Older Mysteries .............................................................. 562
A City Of Wonder ........................................................................................... 563
A Shop In Go-by Street .................................................................................. 564
The Avenger Of Perdóndaris .......................................................................... 572
 The Gods Of Pegāna
1905

Preface
In the mists before THE BEGINNING, Fate and Chance cast
lots to decide whose the Game should be; and he that won strode
through the mists to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI and said: “Now make
gods for Me, for I have won the cast and the Game is to be Mine.”
Who it was that won the cast, and whether it was Fate or whether
Chance that went through the mists before THE BEGINNING to
MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ—none knoweth.
2 The Gods Of Pegāna

Introduction
Before there stood gods upon Olympus, or ever Allah was Allah,
had wrought and rested MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ.
There are in Pegāna Mung and Sish and Kib, and the maker of
all small gods, who is MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ. Moreover, we have a
faith in Roon and Slid.
And it has been said of old that all things that have been were
wrought by the small gods, excepting only MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ,
who made the gods and hath thereafter rested.
And none may pray to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ but only the gods
whom he hath made.
But at the Last will MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ forget to rest, and will
make again new gods and other worlds, and will destroy the gods
whom he hath made.
And the gods and the worlds shall depart, and there shall be only
MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ.

Of Skarl The Drummer

When MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ had made the gods and Skarl, Skarl
made a drum, and began to beat upon it that he might drum for
ever. Then because he was weary after the making of the gods, and
because of the drumming of Skarl, did MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ grow
drowsy and fall asleep.
And there fell a hush upon the gods when they saw that MĀNA
rested, and there was silence on Pegāna save for the drumming of
Skarl. Skarl sitteth upon the mist before the feet of MĀNA-YOOD-
SUSHĀĪ, above the gods of Pegāna, and there he beateth his drum.
Some say that the Worlds and the Suns are but the echoes of the
drumming of Skarl, and others say that they be dreams that arise in
the mind of MĀNA because of the drumming of Skarl, as one may
dream whose rest is troubled by sound of song, but none knoweth,
for who hath heard the voice of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ, or who hath
seen his drummer?
 The Gods Of Pegāna 3

Whether the season be winter or whether it be summer, whether

it be morning among the worlds or whether it be night, Skarl still
beateth his drum, for the purposes of the gods are not yet fulfilled.
Sometimes the arm of Skarl grows weary; but still he beateth his
drum, that the gods may do the work of the gods, and the worlds
go on, for if he cease for an instant then MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ will
start awake, and there will be worlds nor gods no more.
But, when at the last the arm of Skarl shall cease to beat his
drum, silence shall startle Pegāna like thunder in a cave, and
MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ shall cease to rest.
Then shall Skarl put his drum upon his back and walk forth into
the void beyond the worlds, because it is THE END, and the work
of Skarl is over.
There may arise some other god whom Skarl may serve, or it
may be that he shall perish; but to Skarl it shall matter not, for he
shall have done the work of Skarl.

Of The Making Of The Worlds

When MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ had made the gods there were only
the gods, and They sat in the middle of Time, for there was as
much Time before them as behind them, which having no end had
neither a beginning.
And Pegāna was without heat or light or sound, save for the
drumming of Skarl; moreover Pegāna was The Middle of All, for
there was below Pegāna what there was above it, and there lay
before it that which lay beyond.
Then said the gods, making the signs of the gods and speaking
with Their hands lest the silence of Pegāna should blush; then said
the gods to one another, speaking with Their hands; “Let Us make
worlds to amuse Ourselves while MĀNA rests. Let Us make worlds
and Life and Death, and colours in the sky; only let Us not break
the silence upon Pegāna.”
Then raising Their hands, each god according to his sign, They
made the worlds and the suns, and put a light in the houses of the
4 The Gods Of Pegāna

sky.
Then said the gods: “Let Us make one to seek, to seek and never
to find out concerning the wherefore of the making of the gods.”
And They made by the lifting of Their hands, each god accord-
ing to his sign, the Bright One with the flaring tail to seek from the
end of the Worlds to the end of them again, to return again after a
hundred years.
Man, when thou seest the comet, know that another seeketh
besides thee nor ever findeth out.
Then said the gods, still speaking with Their hands: “Let there
be now a Watcher to regard.”
And They made the Moon, with his face wrinkled with many
mountains and worn with a thousand valleys, to regard with pale
eyes the games of the small gods, and to watch throughout the rest-
ing time of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ; to watch, to regard all things, and
be silent.
Then said the gods: “Let Us make one to rest. One not to move
among the moving. One not to seek like the comet, nor to go round
like the worlds; to rest while MĀNA rests.”
And They made the Star of the Abiding and set it in the North.
Man, when thou seest the Star of the Abiding to the North, know
that one resteth as doth MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ, and know that some-
where among the Worlds is rest.
Lastly the gods said: “We have made worlds and suns, and one
to seek and another to regard, let Us now make one to wonder.”
And They made Earth to wonder, each god by the uplifting of
his hand according to his sign.
And Earth was.

Of The Game Of The Gods

A million years passed over the first game of the gods. And
MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ still rested, still in the middle of Time, and the
gods still played with Worlds. The Moon regarded, and the Bright
One sought, and returned again to his seeking.
 The Gods Of Pegāna 5

Then Kib grew weary of the first game of the gods, and raised
his hand in Pegāna, making the sign of Kib, and Earth became
covered with beasts for Kib to play with.
And Kib played with beasts.
But the other gods said one to another, speaking with their
hands: “What is it that Kib has done?”
And They said to Kib: “What are these things that move upon
The Earth yet move not in circles like the Worlds, that regard like
the Moon and yet they do not shine?”
And Kib said: “This is Life.”
But the gods said one to another: “If Kib has thus made beasts
he will in time make Men, and will endanger the Secret of the
gods.”
And Mung was jealous of the work of Kib, and sent down Death
among the beasts, but could not stamp them out.
A million years passed over the second game of the gods, and
still it was the Middle of Time.
And Kib grew weary of the second game, and raised his hand in
the Middle of All, making the sign of Kib, and made Men: out of
beasts he made them, and Earth was covered with Men.
Then the gods feared greatly for the Secret of the gods, and set a
veil between Man and his ignorance that he might not understand.
And Mung was busy among Men.
But when the other gods saw Kib playing his new game They
came and played it too. And this They will play until MĀNA arises
to rebuke Them, saying: “What do ye playing with Worlds and
Suns and Men and Life and Death?” And They shall be ashamed of
Their playing in the hour of the laughter of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ.
It was Kib who first broke the Silence of Pegāna, by speaking
with his mouth like a man.
And all the other gods were angry with Kib that he had spoken
with his mouth.
And there was no longer silence in Pegāna or the Worlds.
6 The Gods Of Pegāna

The Chaunt Of The Gods

There came the voice of the gods singing the chaunt of the gods,
singing: “We are the gods; We are the little games of MĀNA-YOOD-
SUSHĀĪ that he hath played and hath forgotten.
“MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ hath made us, and We made the Worlds
and the Suns.
“And We play with the Worlds and the Sun and Life and Death
until MĀNA arises to rebuke us, saying: ‘What do ye playing with
Worlds and Suns?’
“It is a very serious thing that there be Worlds and Suns, and yet
most withering is the laughter of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ.
“And when he arises from resting at the Last, and laughs at us
for playing with Worlds and Suns, We will hastily put them behind
us, and there shall be Worlds no more.”

The Sayings Of Kib

(Sender of Life in all the Worlds)
Kib said: “I am Kib. I am none other than Kib.”
Kib is Kib. Kib is he and no other. Believe! Kib said: “When
Time was early, when Time was very early indeed — there was
only MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ. MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ was before the be-
ginning of the gods, and shall be after their going.”
And Kib said: “After the going of the gods there will be no
small worlds nor big.”
Kib said: “It will be lonely for MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ.”
Because this is written, believe! For is it not written, or are you
greater than Kib? Kib is Kib.
 The Gods Of Pegāna 7

Concerning Sish
(The Destroyer of Hours)
Time is the hound of Sish.
At Sish’s bidding do the hours run before him as he goeth upon
his way.
Never hath Sish stepped backward nor ever hath he tarried;
never hath he relented to the things that once he knew nor turned to
them again.
Before Sish is Kib, and behind him goeth Mung.
Very pleasant are all things before the face of Sish, but behind
him they are withered and old.
And Sish goeth ceaselessly upon his way.
Once the gods walked upon Earth as men walk and spake with
their mouths like Men. That was in Wornath-Mavai. They walk not
now.
And Wornath-Mavai was a garden fairer than all the gardens
upon Earth.
Kib was propitious, and Mung raised not his hand against it,
neither did Sish assail it with his hours.
Wornath-Mavai lieth in a valley and looketh towards the south,
and on the slopes of it Sish rested among the flowers when Sish
was young.
Thence Sish went forth into the world to destroy its cities, and
to provoke his hours to assail all things, and to batter against them
with the rust and with the dust.
And Time, which is the hound of Sish, devoured all things; and
Sish sent up the ivy and fostered weeds, and dust fell from the
hand of Sish and covered stately things. Only the valley where
Sish rested when he and Time were young did Sish not provoke his
hours to assail.
There he restrained his old hound Time, and at its borders Mung
withheld his footsteps.
Wornath-Mavai still lieth looking towards the south, a garden
among gardens, and still the flowers grow about its slopes as they
8 The Gods Of Pegāna

grew when the gods were young; and even the butterflies live in
Wornath-Mavai still. For the minds of the gods relent towards their
earliest memories, who relent not otherwise at all.
Wornath-Mavai still lieth looking towards the south; but if thou
shouldst ever find it thou art then more fortunate than the gods,
because they walk not in Wornath-Mavai now.
Once did the prophet think that he discerned it in the distance
beyond mountains, a garden exceeding fair with flowers; but Sish
arose, and pointed with his hand, and set his hound to pursue him,
who hath followed ever since.
Time is the hound of the gods; but it hath been said of old that
he will one day turn upon his masters, and seek to slay the gods,
excepting only MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ, whose dreams are the gods
themselves — dreamed long ago.

The Sayings Of Slid

(Whose Soul is by the Sea)
Slid said: “Let no man pray to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ, for who
shall trouble MĀNA with mortal woes or irk him with the sorrows
of all the houses of Earth?
“Nor let any sacrifice to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ, for what glory
shall he find in sacrifices or altars who hath made the gods them-
selves?
“Pray to the small gods, who are the gods of Doing; but MĀNA
is the god of Having Done — the god of Having Done and of the
Resting.
“Pray to the small gods and hope that they may hear thee. Yet
what mercy should the small gods have, who themselves made
Death and Pain; or shall they restrain their old hound Time for
thee?
“Slid is but a small god. Yet Slid is Slid — it is written and hath
been said.
“Pray, thou, therefore, to Slid, and forget not Slid, and it may be
 The Gods Of Pegāna 9

that Slid will not forget to send thee Death when most thou needest
it.”
And the People of Earth said: “There is a melody upon the Earth
as though ten thousand streams all sang together for their homes
that they had forsaken in the hills.”
And Slid said: “I am the Lord of gliding waters and of foaming
waters and of still. I am the Lord of all the waters in the world and
all that long streams garner in the hills; but the soul of Slid is in the
Sea. Thither goes all that glides upon Earth, and the end of all the
rivers is the Sea.”
And Slid said: “The hand of Slid hath toyed with cataracts, and
down the valleys have trod the feet of Slid, and out of the lakes of
the plains regard the eyes of Slid; but the soul of Slid is in the sea.”
Much homage hath Slid among the cities of men and pleasant
are the woodland paths and the paths of the plains, and pleasant
the high valleys where he danceth in the hills; but Slid would be
fettered neither by banks nor boundaries — so the soul of Slid is in
the Sea.
For there may Slid repose beneath the sun and smile at the gods
above him with all the smiles of Slid, and be a happier god than
Those who sway the Worlds, whose work is Life and Death.
There may he sit and smile, or creep among the ships, or moan
and sigh round islands in his great content — the miser lord of
wealth in gems and pearls beyond the telling of all fables.
Or there may he, when Slid would fain exult, throw up his great
arms, or toss with many a fathom of wandering hair the mighty
head of Slid, and cry aloud tumultuous dirges of shipwreck, and
feel through all his being the crashing might of Slid, and sway
the sea. Then doth the Sea, like venturous legions on the eve of
war that exult to acclaim their chief, gather its force together from
under all the winds and roar and follow and sing and crash together
to vanquish all things — and all at the bidding of Slid, whose soul
is in the sea.
There is ease in the soul of Slid and there be calms upon the
sea; also, there be storms upon the sea and troubles in the soul of
Slid, for the gods have many moods. And Slid is in many places,
10 The Gods Of Pegāna

for he sitteth in high Pegāna. Also along the valleys walketh Slid,
wherever water moveth or lieth still; but the voice and the cry of
Slid are from the sea. And to whoever that cry hath ever come he
must needs follow and follow, leaving all stable things; only to be
always with Slid in all the moods of Slid, to find no rest until he
reaches the sea.
With the cry of Slid before them and the hills of their home
behind have gone a hundred thousand to the sea, over whose bones
doth Slid lament with the voice of a god lamenting for his people.
Even the streams from the inner lands have heard Slid’s far-off cry,
and all together have forsaken lawns and trees to follow where Slid
is gathering up his own, to rejoice where Slid rejoices, singing the
chaunt of Slid, even as will at the Last gather all the Lives of the
People about the feet of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ.

The Deeds Of Mung

(Lord of all Deaths between Pegāna and the Rim)
Once, as Mung went his way athwart the Earth and up and down
its cities and across its plains, Mung came upon a man who was
afraid when Mung said: “I am Mung!”
And Mung said: “Were the forty million years before thy com-
ing intolerable to thee?”
And Mung said: “Not less tolerable to thee shall be the forty
million years to come!”
Then Mung made against him the sign of Mung and the Life of
the Man was fettered no longer with hands and feet.
At the end of the flight of the arrow there is Mung, and in the
houses and the cities of Men. Mung walketh in all places at all
times. But mostly he loves to walk in the dark and still, along the
river mists when the wind hath sank, a little before night mee-
teth with the morning upon the highway between Pegāna and the
Worlds.
Sometimes Mung entereth the poor man’s cottage; Mung also
 The Gods Of Pegāna 11

boweth very low before The King. Then do the Lives of the poor
man and of The King go forth among the Worlds.
And Mung said: “Many turnings hath the road that Kib hath
given every man to tread upon the earth. Behind one of these turn-
ings sitteth Mung.”
One day as a man trod upon the road that Kib had given him to
tread he came suddenly upon Mung. And when Mung said: “I am
Mung!” The man cried out: “Alas, that I took this road, for had I
gone by any other way then had I not met with Mung.”
And Mung said: “Had it been possible for thee to go by any
other way then had the Scheme of Things been otherwise and the
gods had been other gods. When MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ forgets to rest
and makes again new gods it may be that They will send thee again
into the Worlds; and then thou mayest choose some other way, and
not meet with Mung.”
Then Mung made the sign of Mung. And the Life of that man
went forth with yesterday’s regrets and all old sorrows and forgot-
ten things — whither Mung knoweth.
And Mung went onward with his work to sunder Life from flesh,
and Mung came upon a man who became stricken with sorrow
when he saw the shadow of Mung. But Mung said: “When at the
sign of Mung thy Life shall float away there will also disappear thy
sorrow at forsaking it.” But the man cried out: “O Mung! Tarry for
a little, and make not the sign of Mung against me now, for I have
a family upon the earth with whom sorrow will remain, though
mine should disappear because of the sign of Mung.”
And Mung said: “With the gods it is always Now. And before
Sish hath banished many of the years the sorrows of thy family for
thee shall go the way of thine.” And the man beheld Mung making
the sign of Mung before his eyes, which beheld things no more.

The Chaunt Of The Priests

This is the chaunt of the Priests.
The chaunt of the priests of Mung.
12 The Gods Of Pegāna

This is the chaunt of the Priests.

All day long to Mung cry out the Priests of Mung, and, yet
Mung harkeneth not. What, then, shall avail the prayers of All the
People?
Rather bring gifts to the Priests, gifts to the Priests of Mung.
So shall they cry louder unto Mung than ever was their wont.
And it may be that Mung shall hear.
Not any longer than shall fall the Shadow of Mung athwart the
hopes of the People.
Not any longer then shall the Tread of Mung darken the dreams
of the people.
Not any longer shall the lives of the People be loosened because
of Mung.
Bring ye gifts to the Priests, gifts to the Priests of Mung.
This is the chaunt of the Priests.
The chaunt of the Priests of Mung.
This is the chaunt of the Priests.

The Sayings Of Limpang-Tung

(The God of Mirth and of Melodious Minstrels)
And Limpang-Tung said: “The ways of the gods are strange.
The flower groweth up and the flower fadeth away. This may be
very clever of the gods. Man groweth from his infancy, and in a
while he dieth. This may be very clever too.
“But the gods play with a strange scheme.
“I will send jests into the world and a little mirth. And while
Death seems to thee as far away as the purple rim of hills; or
sorrow as far off as rain in the blue days of summer, then pray to
Limpang-Tung. But when thou growest old, or ere thou diest, pray
not of Limpang-Tung, for thou becomest part of a scheme that he
doth not understand.
“Go out into the starry night, and Limpang-Tung will dance with
thee who danced since the gods were young, the god of mirth and
 The Gods Of Pegāna 13

of melodious minstrels. Or offer up a jest to Limpang-Tung; only

pray not in thy sorrow to Limpang-Tung, for he saith of sorrow: ‘It
may be very clever of the gods,’ but he doth not understand.”
And Limpang-Tung said: “I am lesser than the gods; pray, there-
fore, to the small gods and not to Limpang-Tung.
“Natheless between Pegāna and the Earth flutter ten thousand
thousand prayers that beat their wings against the face of Death,
and never for one of them hath the hand of the Striker been stayed,
nor yet have tarried the feet of the Relentless One.
“Utter thy prayer! It may accomplish where failed ten thousand
thousand.
“Limpang-Tung is lesser than the gods, and doth not under-
stand.”
And Limpang-Tung said: “Lest men grow weary down on the
great Worlds through gazing always at a changeless sky, I will
paint my pictures in the sky. And I will paint them twice in every
day for so long as days shall be. Once as the day ariseth out of the
homes of dawn will I paint the Blue, that men may see and rejoice;
and ere day falleth under into the night will I paint upon the Blue
again, lest men be sad.
“It is a little,” said Limpang-Tung, “it is a little even for a god to
give some pleasure to men upon the Worlds.”
And Limpang-Tung hath sworn that the pictures that he paints
shall never be the same for so long as the days shall be, and this
he hath sworn by the oath of the gods of Pegāna that the gods may
never break, laying his hand upon the shoulder of each of the gods
and swearing by the light behind Their eyes.
Limpang-Tung hath lured a melody out of the stream and stolen
its anthem from the forest; for him the wind hath cried in lonely
places and the ocean sung its dirges. There is music for Limpang-
Tung in the sounds of the moving of grass and in the voices of the
people that lament or in the cry of them that rejoice.
In an inner mountain land where none hath come he hath carved
his organ pipes out of the mountains, and there when the winds,
his servants, come in from all the world he maketh the melody of
Limpang-Tung. But the song, arising at night, goeth forth like a
14 The Gods Of Pegāna

river, winding through all the world, and here and there amid the
peoples of earth one heareth, and straightaway all that hath voice to
sing crieth aloud in music to his soul.
Or sometimes walking through the dusk with steps unheard by
men, in a form unseen by the people, Limpang-Tung goeth abroad,
and, standing behind the minstrels in cities of song, waveth his
hands above them to and fro, and the minstrels bend to their work,
and the voice of the music ariseth; and mirth and melody abound
in that city of song, and no one seeth Limpang-Tung as he standeth
behind the minstrels.
But through the mists towards morning, in the dark when the
minstrels sleep and mirth and melody have sunk to rest, Limpang-
Tung goeth back again to his mountain land.

Of Yoharneth-lahai
(The God of Little Dreams and Fancies)
Yaoharneth-Lahai is the god of little dreams and fancies.
All night he sendeth little dreams out of Pegāna to please the
people of Earth.
He sendeth little dreams to the poor man and to The King.
He is so busy to send his dreams to all before the night be ended
that oft he forgetteth which be the poor man and which be The
King.
To whom Yoharneth-Lahai cometh not with little dreams and
sleep he must endure all night the laughter of the gods, with high-
est mockery, in Pegāna.
All night long Yoharneth-Lahai giveth peace to cities until the
dawn hour and the departing of Yoharneth-Lahai, when it is time
for the gods to play with men again.
Whether the dreams and the fancies of Yoharneth-Lahai be false
and the Things that are done in the Day be real, or the Things that
are done in the Day be false and the dreams and the fancies of
Yoharneth-Lahai be true, none knoweth saving only MĀNA-YOOD-
 The Gods Of Pegāna 15

SUSHĀĪ, who hath not spoken.

Of Roon, The God Of Going, And The

Thousand Home Gods
Roon said: “There be gods of moving and gods of standing still,
but I am the god of Going.”
It is because of Roon that the worlds are never still, for the
moons and the worlds and the comet are stirred by the spirit of
Roon, which saith: “Go! Go! Go!”
Roon met the Worlds all in the morning of Things, before there
was light upon Pegāna, and Roon danced before them in the Void,
since when they are never still, Roon sendeth all streams to the
Sea, and all the rivers to the soul of Slid.
Roon maketh the sign of Roon before the waters, and lo! they
have left the hills; and Roon hath spoken in the ear of the North
Wind that he may be still no more.
The footfall of Roon hath been heard at evening outside the
houses of men, and thenceforth comfort and abiding know them no
more. Before them stretcheth travel over all the lands, long miles,
and never resting between their homes and their graves — and all at
the bidding of Roon.
The Mountains have set no limit against Roon nor all the seas a
boundary.
Whither Roon hath desired there must Roon’s people go, and the
worlds and their streams and the winds.
I heard the whisper of Roon at evening, saying: “There are is-
lands of spices to the South,” and the voice of Roon saying: “Go.”
And Roon said: “There are a thousand home gods, the little gods
that sit before the hearth and mind the fire — there is one Roon.”
Roon saith in a whisper, in a whisper when none heareth, when
the sun is low: “What doeth MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ?” Roon is no god
that thou mayest worship by thy hearth, nor will he be benignant to
thy home.
16 The Gods Of Pegāna

Offer to Roon thy toiling and thy speed, whose incense is the
smoke of the camp fire to the South, whose song is the sound of
going, whose temples stand beyond the farthest hills in his lands
behind the East.
Yarinareth, Yarinareth, Yarinareth, which signifieth Be-
yond — these words be carved in letters of gold upon the arch of
the great portal of the Temple of Roon that men have builded look-
ing towards the East upon the Sea, where Roon is carved as a giant
trumpeter, with his trumpet pointing towards the East beyond the
Seas.
Whoso heareth his voice, the voice of Roon at evening, he at
once forsaketh the home gods that sit beside the hearth. These be
the gods of the hearth: Pitsu, who stroketh the cat; Hobith who
calms the dog; and Habaniah, the lord of glowing embers; and little
Zumbiboo, the lord of dust; and old Gribaun, who sits in the heart
of the fire to turn the wood to ash — all these be home gods, and
live not in Pegāna and be lesser than Roon.
There is also Kilooloogung, the lord of arising smoke, who
taketh the smoke from the hearth and sendeth it to the sky, who is
pleased if it reacheth Pegāna, so that the gods of Pegāna, speaking
to the gods, say: “There is Kilooloogung doing the work on earth
of Kilooloogung.”
All these are gods so small that they be lesser than men, but
pleasant gods to have beside the hearth; and often men have prayed
to Kilooloogung, saying: “Thou whose smoke ascendeth to Pegāna
send up with it our prayers, that the gods may hear.” And Kilooloo-
gung, who is pleased that men should pray, stretches himself up all
grey and lean, with his arms above his head, and sendeth his serv-
ant the smoke to seek Pegāna, that the gods of Pegāna may know
that the people pray.
And Jabim is the Lord of broken things, who sitteth behind the
house to lament the things that are cast away. And there he sitteth
lamenting the broken things until the worlds be ended, or until
someone cometh to mend the broken things. Or sometimes he
sitteth by the river’s edge to lament the forgotten things that drift
upon it.
 The Gods Of Pegāna 17

A kindly god is Jabim, whose heart is sore if anything be lost.

There is also Triboogie, the Lord of Dusk, whose children are
the shadows, who sitteth in a corner far off from Habaniah and
speaketh to none. But after Habaniah hath gone to sleep and old
Gribaun hath blinked a hundred times, until he forgetteth which be
wood or ash, then doth Triboogie send his children to run about the
room and dance upon the walls, but never disturb the silence.
But when there is light again upon the worlds, and dawn comes
dancing down the highway from Pegāna, then does Triboogie
retire into his corner, with his children all around him, as though
they had never danced about the room. And the slaves of Habaniah
and old Gribaun come and awake them from their sleep upon the
hearth, and Pitsu strokes the cat, and Hobith calms the dog, and
Kilooloogung stretches aloft his arms towards Pegāna, and Tribo-
ogie is very still, and his children asleep.
And when it is dark, all in the hour of Triboogie, Hish creepeth
from the forest, the Lord of Silence, whose children are the bats,
that have broken the command of their father, but in a voice that
is ever so low. Hish husheth the mouse and all the whispers in the
night; he maketh all noises still. Only the cricket rebelleth. But
Hish hath set against him such a spell that after he hath cried a
thousand times his voice may be heard no more but becometh part
of the silence.
And when he hath slain all sounds Hish boweth low to the
ground; then cometh into the house, with never a sound of feet, the
god Yoharneth-Lahai.
But away in the forest whence Hish hath come Wohoon, the
Lord of Noises in the Night, awaketh in his lair and creepeth round
the forest to see whether it be true that Hish hath gone.
Then in some glade Wohoon lifts up his voice and cries aloud,
that all the night may hear, that it is he, Wohoon, who is abroad in
all the forest. And the wolf and the fox and the owl, and the great
beasts and the small, lift up their voices to acclaim Wohoon. And
there arise the sounds of voices and the stirring of leaves.
18 The Gods Of Pegāna

The Revolt Of The Home Gods

There be three broad rivers of the plain, born before memory or
fable, whose mothers are three grey peaks and whose father was
the storm. There names be Eimës, Zänës, and Segástrion.
And Eimës is the joy of lowing herds; and Zänës hath bowed his
neck to the yoke of man, and carries the timber from the forest far
up below the mountain; and Segástrion sings old songs to shepherd
boys, singing of his childhood in a lone ravine and of how he once
sprang down the mountain sides and far away into the plain to see
the world, and of how one day at last he will find the sea. These be
the rivers of the plain, wherein the plain rejoices. But old men tell,
whose fathers heard it from the ancients, how once the lords of the
three rivers of the plain rebelled against the law of the Worlds, and
passed beyond their boundaries, and joined together and whelmed
cities and slew men, saying: “We now play the game of the gods
and slay men for our pleasure, and we be greater than the gods of
Pegāna.”
And all the plain was flooded to the hills.
And Eimës, Zänës, and Segástrion sat upon the mountains, and
spread their hands over their rivers that rebelled by their command.
But the prayer of men going upward found Pegāna, and cried
in the ear of the gods: “There be three home gods who slay us for
their pleasure, and say that they be mightier than Pegāna’s gods,
and play Their game with men.”
Then were all the gods of Pegāna very wroth; but They could
not whelm the lords of the three rivers, because being home gods,
though small, they were immortal.
And still the home gods spread their hands across their rivers,
with their fingers wide apart, and the waters rose and rose, and
the voice of their torrent grew louder, crying: “Are we not Eimës,
Zänës, and Segástrion?”
Then Mung went down into a waste of Afrik, and came upon the
drought Umbool as he sat in the desert upon iron rocks, clawing
with miserly grasp at the bones of men and breathing hot.
And Mung stood before him as his dry sides heaved, and ever as
 The Gods Of Pegāna 19

they sank his hot breath blasted dry sticks and bones.
Then Mung said: “Friend of Mung! Go, thou and grin before the
faces of Eimës, Zänës, and Segástrion till they see whether it be
wise to rebel against the gods of Pegāna.”
And Umbool answered: “I am the beast of Mung.”
And Umbool came and crouched upon a hill upon the other side
of the waters and grinned across them at the rebellious home gods.
And whenever Eimës, Zänës, and Segástrion stretched out their
hands over their rivers they saw before their faces the grinning
of Umbool; and because the grinning was like death in a hot and
hideous land therefore they turned away and spread their hands no
more over their rivers, and the waters sank and sank.
But when Umbool had grinned for thirty days the waters fell
back into the river beds and the lords of the rivers slunk away back
again to their homes: still Umbool sat and grinned.
Then Eimës sought to hide himself in a great pool beneath a
rock, and Zänës crept into the middle of a wood, and Segástrion
lay and panted on the sand — still Umbool sat and grinned.
And Eimës grew lean, and was forgotten, so that the men of the
plain would say: “Here once was Eimës”; and Zänës scarce had
strength to lead his river to the sea; and as Segástrion lay and pant-
ed a man stepped over his stream, and Segástrion said: “It is the
foot of a man that has passed across my neck, and I have sought to
be greater than the gods of Pegāna.”
Then said the gods of Pegāna: “It is enough. We are the gods of
Pegāna, and none are equal.”
Then Mung sent Umbool back to his waste in Afrik to breathe
again upon the rocks, and parch the desert, and to sear the memory
of Afrik into the brains of all who ever bring their bones away.
And Eimës, Zänës, and Segástrion sang again, and walked once
more in their accustomed haunts, and played the game of Life and
Death with fishes and frogs, but never essayed to play it any more
with men, as do the gods of Pegāna.
20 The Gods Of Pegāna

Of Dorozhand
(Whose Eyes Regard The End)
Sitting above the lives of the people, and looking, doth Doro-
zhand see that which is to be.
The god of Destiny is Dorozhand. Upon whom have looked the
eyes of Dorozhand he goeth forward to an end that naught may
stay; he becometh the arrow from the bow of Dorozhand hurled
forward at a mark he may not see — to the goal of Dorozhand.
Beyond the thinking of men, beyond the sight of all the other gods,
regard the eyes of Dorozhand.
He hath chosen his slaves. And them doth the destiny god drive
onward where he will, who, knowing not whither nor even know-
ing why, feel only his scourge behind them or hear his cry before.
There is something that Dorozhand would fain achieve, and,
therefore, hath he set the people striving, with none to cease or rest
in all the worlds. But the gods of Pegāna, speaking to the gods,
say: “What is it that Dorozhand would fain achieve?”
It hath been written and said that not only the destinies of men
are the care of Dorozhand but that even the gods of Pegāna be not
unconcerned by his will.
All the gods of Pegāna have felt a fear, for they have seen a look
in the eyes of Dorozhand that regardeth beyond the gods.
The reason and purpose of the Worlds is that there should be
Life upon the Worlds, and Life is the instrument of Dorozhand
wherewith he would achieve his end.
Therefore the Worlds go on, and the rivers run to the sea, and
Life ariseth and flieth even in all the Worlds, and the gods of
Pegāna do the work of the gods — and all for Dorozhand. But
when the end of Dorozhand hath been achieved there will be need
no longer of Life upon the Worlds, nor any more a game for the
small gods to play. Then will Kib tiptoe gently across Pegāna to
the resting-place in Highest Pegāna of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ, and
touching reverently his hand, the hand that wrought the gods, say:
“MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ, thou hast rested long.”
 The Gods Of Pegāna 21

And MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ shall say: “Not so; for I have rested for
but fifty aeons of the gods, each of them scarce more than ten mil-
lion mortal years of the Worlds that ye have made.”
And then shall the gods be afraid when they find that MĀNA
knoweth that they have made Worlds while he rested. And they
shall answer: “Nay; but the Worlds came all of themselves.”
Then MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ, as one who would have done with an
irksome matter, will lightly wave his hand — the hand that wrought
the gods — and there shall be gods no more.
When there shall be three moons towards the north above the
Star of the Abiding, three moons that neither wax nor wane but
regard towards the North.
Or when the comet ceaseth from his seeking and stands still, not
any longer moving among the Worlds but tarrying as one who rests
after the end of search, then shall arise from resting, because it is
THE END, the Greater One, who rested of old time, even MĀNA-
YOOD-SUSHĀĪ.
Then shall the Times that were be Times no more; and it may be
that the old, dead days shall return from beyond the Rim, and we
who have wept for them shall see those days again, as one who,
returning from long travel to his home, comes suddenly on dear,
remembered things.
For none shall know of MĀNA who hath rested for so long,
whether he be a harsh or merciful god. It may be that he shall have
mercy, and that these things shall be.

The Eye In The Waste

There lie seven deserts beyond Bodrahan, which is the city of
the caravans’ end. None goeth beyond. In the first desert lie the
tracks of mighty travellers outward from Bodrahan, and some
returning. And in the second lie only outward tracks, and none
return.
The third is a desert untrodden by the feet of men.
The fourth is the desert of sand, and the fifth is the desert of
22 The Gods Of Pegāna

dust, and the sixth is the desert of stones, and the seventh is the
Desert of Deserts.
In the midst of the last of the deserts that lie beyond Bodrahan,
in the centre of the Desert of Deserts, standeth the image that
hath been hewn of old out of the living hill whose name is Rano-
rada — the eye in the waste.
About the base of Ranorada is carved in mystic letters that are
vaster than the beds of streams these words:
To the god who knows.
Now, beyond the second desert are no tracks, and there is no
water in all the seven deserts that lie beyond Bodrahan. Therefore
came no man thither to hew that statue from the living hills, and
Ranorada was wrought by the hands of gods. Men tell in Bodrahan,
where the caravans end and all the drivers of the camels rest, how
once the gods hewed Ranorada from the living hill, hammering all
night long beyond the deserts. Moreover, they say that Ranorada
is carved in the likeness of the god Hoodrazai, who hath found the
secret of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ, and knoweth the wherefore of the
making of the gods.
They say that Hoodrazai stands all alone in Pegāna and speaks
to none because he knows what is hidden from the gods.
Therefore the gods have made his image in a lonely land as one
who thinks and is silent — the eye in the waste.
They say that Hoodrazai had heard the murmers of MĀNA-YOOD-
SUSHĀĪ as he muttered to himself, and gleaned the meaning, and
knew; and that he was the god of mirth and of abundant joy, but
became from the moment of his knowing a mirthless god, even as
his image, which regards the deserts beyond the track of man.
But the camel drivers, as they sit and listen to the tales of the old
men in the market-place of Bodrahan, at evening, while the camels
rest, say:
“If Hoodrazai is so very wise and yet is sad, let us drink wine,
and banish wisdom to the wastes that lie beyond Bodrahan.”
Therefore is there feasting and laughter all night long in the city
where the caravans end.
All this the camel drivers tell when the caravans come in from
 The Gods Of Pegāna 23

Bodrahan; but who shall credit tales that camel drivers have heard
from aged men in so remote a city?

Of The Thing That Is Neither God Nor Beast

Seeing that wisdom is not in cities nor happiness in wisdom,
and because Yadin the prophet was doomed by the gods ere he was
born to go in search of wisdom, he followed the caravans to Bod-
rahan. There in the evening, where the camels rest, when the wind
of the day ebbs out into the desert sighing amid the palms its last
farewells and leaving the caravans still, he sent his prayer with the
wind to drift into the desert calling to Hoodrazai.
And down the wind his prayer went calling: “Why do the gods
endure, and play their game with men? Why doth not Skarl forsake
his drumming, and MĀNA cease to rest?” and the echo of seven
deserts answered: “Who knows? Who knows?”
But out in the waste, beyond the seven deserts where Ranorada
looms enormous in the dusk, at evening his prayer was heard; and
from the rim of the waste whither had gone his prayer, came three
flamingoes flying, and their voices said: “Going South, Going
South” at every stroke of their wings.
But as they passed by the prophet they seemed so cool and free
and the desert so blinding and hot that he stretched up his arms
towards them. Then it seemed happy to fly and pleasant to follow
behind great white wings, and he was with the three flamingoes
up in the cool above the desert, and their voices cried before him:
“Going South, Going South,” and the desert below him mumbled:
“Who knows? Who knows?”
Sometimes the earth stretched up towards them with peaks of
mountains, sometimes it fell away in steep ravines, blue rivers
sang to them as they passed above them, or very faintly came the
song of breezes in lone orchards, and far away the sea sang mighty
dirges of old forsaken isles. But it seemed that in all the world
there was nothing only to be going South.
It seemed that somewhere the South was calling to her own, and
24 The Gods Of Pegāna

that they were going South.

But when the prophet saw that they had passed above the edge
of Earth, and that far away to the North of them lay the Moon, he
perceived that he was following no mortal birds but some strange
messengers of Hoodrazai whose nest had lain in one of Pegāna’s
vales below the mountains whereon sit the gods.
Still they went South, passing by all the Worlds and leaving
them to the North, till only Araxes, Zadres, and Hyraglion lay still
to the South of them, where great Ingazi seemed only a point of
light, and Yo and Mindo could be seen no more.
Still they went South till they passed below the South and came
to the Rim of the Worlds.
There there is neither South nor East nor West, but only North
and Beyond; there is only North of it where lie the Worlds, and
Beyond it where lies the Silence, and the Rim is a mass of rocks
that were never used by the gods when They made the Worlds, and
on it sat Trogool. Trogool is the Thing that is neither god nor beast,
who neither howls nor breathes, only It turns over the leaves of a
great book, black and white, black and white for ever until THE
END.
And all that is to be is written in the book is also all that was.
When It turneth a black page it is night, and when It turneth a
white page it is day.
Because it is written that there are gods — there are the gods.
Also there is writing about thee and me until the page where our
names no more are written.
Then as the prophet watched It, Trogool turned a page — a black
one, and night was over, and day shone on the Worlds.
Trogool is the Thing that men in many countries have called by
many names, It is the Thing that sits behind the gods, whose book
is the Scheme of Things.
But when Yadin saw that old remembered days were hidden
away with the part that It had turned, and knew that upon one
whose name is writ no more the last page had turned for ever a
thousand pages back. Then did he utter his prayer in the fact of
Trogool who only turns the pages and never answers prayer. He
 The Gods Of Pegāna 25

prayed in the face of Trogool: “Only turn back thy pages to the
name of one which is writ no more, and far away upon a place
named Earth shall rise the prayers of a little people that acclaim
the name of Trogool, for there is indeed far off a place called Earth
where men shall pray to Trogool.”
Then spake Trogool who turns the pages and never answers
prayer, and his voice was like the murmurs of the waste at night
when echoes have been lost: “Though the whirlwind of the South
should tug with his claws at a page that hath been turned yet shall
he not be able to ever turn it back.”
Then because of words in the book that said that it should be so,
Yadin found himself lying in the desert where one gave him water,
and afterwards carried him on a camel into Bodrahan.
There some said that he had but dreamed when thirst seized him
while he wandered among the rocks in the desert. But certain aged
men of Bodrahan say that indeed there sitteth somewhere a Thing
that is called Trogool, that is neither god nor beast, that turneth the
leaves of a book, black and white, black and white, until he come
to the words: Mai Doon Izahn, which means The End For Ever,
and book and gods and worlds shall be no more.

Yonath The Prophet

Yonath was the first among prophets who uttered unto men.
These are the words of Yonath, the first among all prophets:
There be gods upon Pegāna.
Upon a night I slept. And in my sleep Pegāna came very near.
And Pegāna was full of gods.
I saw the gods beside me as one might see wonted things.
Only I saw not MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ.
And in that hour, in the hour of my sleep, I knew.
And the end and the beginning of my knowing, and all of my
knowing that there was, was this — that Man Knoweth Not.
Seek thou to find at night the utter edge of the darkness, or seek
to find the birthplace of the rainbow where he leapeth upward from
26 The Gods Of Pegāna

the hills, only seek not concerning the wherefore of the making of
the gods.
The gods have set a brightness upon the farther side of the
Things to Come that they may appear more felititous to men than
the Things that Are.
To the gods the Things to Come are but as the Things that Are,
and nothing altereth in Pegāna.
The gods, although not merciful, are not ferocious gods. They
are the destroyers of the Days that Were, but they set a glory about
the Days to Be.
Man must endure the Days that Are, but the gods have left him
his ignorance as a solace.
Seek not to know. Thy seeking will weary thee, and thou wilt
return much worn, to rest at last about the place from whence thou
settest out upon thy seeking.
Seek not to know. Even I, Yonath, the oldest prophet, burdened
with the wisdom of great years, and worn with seeking, know only
that man knoweth not.
Once I set out seeking to know all things. Now I know one thing
only, and soon the Years will carry me away.
The path of my seeking, that leadeth to seeking again, must be
trodden by very many more, when Yonath is no longer even Yo-
nath.
Set not thy foot upon that path.
Seek not to know.
These be the Words of Yonath.

Yug The Prophet

When the Years had carried away Yonath, and Yonath was dead,
there was no longer a prophet among men.
And still men sought to know.
Therefore they said unto Yug: “Be thou our prophet, and know
all things, and tell us concerning the wherefore of It All.”
And Yug said: “I know all things.” And men were pleased.
 The Gods Of Pegāna 27

And Yug said of the Beginning that it was in Yug’s own garden,
and of the End that it was in the sight of Yug.
And men forgot Yug.
One day Yug saw Mung behind the hills making the sign of
Mung. And Yug was Yug no more.

Alhireth-Hotep The Prophet

When Yug was Yug no more men said unto Alhireth-Hotep: “Be
thou our prophet, and be as wise as Yug.”
And Alhireth-Hotep said: “I am as wise as Yug.” And men were
very glad.
And Alhireth-Hotep said of Life and Death: “These be the af-
fairs of Alhireth-Hotep.” And men brought gifts to him.
One day Alhireth-Hotep wrote in a book: “Alhireth-Hotep
knoweth All Things, for he hath spoken with Mung.”
And Mung stepped from behind him, making the sign of Mung,
saying: “Knowest thou All Things, then, Alhireth-Hotep?” And
Alhireth-Hotep became among the Things that Were.

Kabok The Prophet

When Alhireth-Hotep was among the Things that Were, and still
men sought to know, they said unto Kabok: “Be thou as wise as
was Alhireth-Hotep.”
And Kabok grew wise in his own sight and in the sight of men.
And Kabok said: “Mung maketh his signs against men or with-
holdeth it by the advice of Kabok.”
And he said unto one: “Thou hast sinned against Kabok, there-
fore will Mung make the sign of Mung against thee.” And to anoth-
er: “Thou has brought Kabok gifts, therefore shall Mung forbear to
make against thee the sign of Mung.”
One night as Kabok fattened upon the gifts that men had brought
him he heard the tread of Mung treading in the garden of Kabok
28 The Gods Of Pegāna

about his house at night.

And because the night was very still it seemed most evil to
Kabok that Mung should be treading in his garden, without the
advice of Kabok, about his house at night.
And Kabok, who knew All Things, grew afraid, for the treading
was very loud and the night still, and he knew not what lay behind
the back of Mung, which none had ever seen.
But when the morning grew to brightness, and there was light
upon the Worlds, and Mung trod no longer in the garden, Kabok
forgot his fears, and said: “Perhaps it was but a herd of cattle that
stampeded in the garden of Kabok.”
And Kabok went about his business, which was that of knowing
All Things, and telling All Things unto men, and making light of
Mung.
But that night Mung trod again in the garden of Kabok, about
his house at night, and stood before the window of the house like
a shadow standing erect, so that Kabok knew indeed that it was
Mung.
And a great fear fell upon the throat of Kabok, so that his speech
was hoarse; and he cried out: “Thou art Mung!”
And Mung slightly inclined his head, and went on to tread in the
garden of Kabok, about his house at night.
And Kabok lay and listened with horror at his heart.
But when the second morning grew to brightness, and there was
light upon the Worlds, Mung went from treading in the garden of
Kabok; and for a little while Kabok hoped, but looked with great
dread for the coming of the third night.
And when the third night was come, and the bat had gone to his
home, and the wind had sank, the night was very still.
And Kabok lay and listened, to whom the wings of the night
flew very slow.
But, ere night met the morning upon the highway between
Pegāna and the Worlds, there came the tread of Mung in the garden
of Kabok towards Kabok’s door.
And Kabok fled out of his house as flees a hunted beast and
flung himself before Mung.
 The Gods Of Pegāna 29

And Mung made the sign of Mung, pointing towards THE END.
And the fears of Kabok had rest from troubling Kabok any
more, for they and he were among accomplished things.

Of The Calamity That Befell Yun-Ilara

By The Sea, And Of The Building Of The
Tower Of The Ending Of Days
When Kabok and his fears had rest the people sought a prophet
who should have no fear of Mung, whose hand was against the
prophets.
And at last they found Yun-Ilara, who tended sheep and had
no fear of Mung, and the people brought him to the town that he
might be their prophet.
And Yun-Ilara builded a tower towards the sea that looked upon
the setting of the Sun. And he called it the Tower of the Ending of
Days.
And about the ending of the day would Yun-Ilara go up to his
tower’s top and look towards the setting of the Sun to cry his
curses against Mung, crying: “O Mung! whose hand is against the
Sun, whom men abhor but worship because they fear thee, here
stands and speaks a man who fears thee not. Assassin lord of mur-
der and dark things, abhorrent, merciless, make thou the sign of
Mung against me when thou wilt, but until silence settles upon my
lips, because of the sign of Mung, I will curse Mung to his face.”
And the people in the street below would gaze up with wonder to-
wards Yun-Ilara, who had no fear of Mung, and brought him gifts;
only in their homes after the falling of the night would they pray
again with reverence to Mung. But Mung said: “Shall a man curse
a god?”
And still Mung came not nigh to Yun-Ilara as he cried his curses
against Mung from his tower towards the sea.
And Sish throughout the Worlds hurled Time away, and slew
the Hours that had served him well, and called up more out of the
30 The Gods Of Pegāna

timeless waste that lieth beyond the Worlds, and drave them forth
to assail all things. And Sish cast a whiteness over the hairs of Yun-
Ilara, and ivy about his tower, and weariness over his limbs, for
Mung passed by him still.
And when Sish became a god less durable to Yun-Ilara than ever
Mung hath been he ceased at last to cry from his tower’s top his
curses against Mung whenever the sun went down, till there came
the day when weariness of the gift of Kib fell heavily upon Yun-
Ilara.
Then from the tower of the Ending of Days did Yun-Ilara cry
out thus to Mung, crying: “O Mung! O loveliest of the gods! O
Mung, most dearly to be desired! thy gift of Death is the heritage
of Man, with ease and rest and silence and returning to the Earth.
Kib giveth but toil and trouble; and Sish, he sendeth regrets with
each of his hours wherewith he assails the World. Yoharneth-Lahai
cometh nigh no more. I can no longer be glad with Limpang-Tung.
When the other gods forsake him a man hath only Mung.”
But Mung said: “Shall a man curse a god?”
And every day and all night long did Yun-Ilara cry aloud: “Ah,
now for the hour of the mourning of many, and the pleasant gar-
lands of flowers and the tears, and the moist, dark earth. Ah, for
repose down underneath the grass, where the firm feet of the trees
grip hold upon the world, where never shall come the wind that
now blows through my bones, and the rain shall come warm and
trickling, not driven by storm, where is the easeful falling asunder
of bone from bone in the dark.” Thus prayed Yun-Ilara, who had
cursed in his folly and youth, while never heeded Mung.
Still from a heap of bones that are Yun-Ilara still, lying about the
ruined base of the tower that once he builded, goes up a shrill voice
with the wind crying out for the mercy of Mung, if any such there
be.
 The Gods Of Pegāna 31

Of How The Gods Whelmed Sidith

There was dole in the valley of Sidith. For three years there had
been pestilence, and in the last of the three a famine; moreover,
there was imminence of war.
Throughout all Sidith men died night and day, and night and day
within the Temple of All the gods save One (for none may pray to
MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ) did the priests of the gods pray hard.
For they said: “For a long while a man may hear the droning of
little insects and yet not be aware that he hath heard them, so may
the gods not hear our prayers at first until they have been very oft
repeated. But when your praying has troubled the silence long it
may be that some god as he strolls in Pegāna’s glades may come
on one of our lost prayers, that flutters like a butterfly tossed in
storm when all its wings are broken; then if the gods be merciful
they may ease our fears in Sidith, or else they may crush us, being
petulant gods, and so we shall see trouble in Sidith no longer, with
its pestilence and dearth and fears of war.”
But in the fourth year of the pestilence and in the second year of
the famine, and while still there was imminence of war, came all
the people of Sidith to the door of the Temple of All the gods save
One, where none may enter but the priests — but only leave gifts
and go.
And there the people cried out: “O High Prophet of All the gods
save One, Priest of Kib, Priest of Sish, and Priest of Mung, Teller
of the mysteries of Dorozhand, Receiver of the gifts of the People,
and Lord of Prayer, what doest thou within the Temple of All the
gods save One?”
And Arb-Rin-Hadith, who was the High Prophet, answered: “I
pray for all the People.”
But the people answered: “O High Prophet of All the gods save
One, Priest of Kib, Priest of Sish, and Priest of Mung, Teller of
the mysteries of Dorozhand, Receiver of the gifts of the People,
and Lord of Prayer, for four long years hast thou prayed with the
priests of all thine order, while we brought ye gifts and died. Now,
therefore, since They have not heard thee in four grim years, thou
32 The Gods Of Pegāna

must go and carry to Their faces the prayer of the people of Sidith
when They go to drive the thunder to his pasture upon the moun-
tain Aghrinaun, or else there shall no longer be gifts upon thy
temple door, whenever falls the dew, that thou and thine order may
fatten.
“Then thou shalt say before Their faces: ‘O All the gods save
One, Lords of the Worlds, whose child is the eclipse, take back thy
pestilence from Sidith, for ye have played the game of the gods too
long with the people of Sidith, who would fain have done with the
gods’.”
Then in great fear answered the High Prophet, saying: “What if
the gods be angry and whelm Sidith?” And the people answered:
“Then are we sooner done with pestilence and famine and the im-
minence of war.”
That night the thunder howled upon Aghrinaun, which stood a
peak above all others in the land of Sidith. And the people took
Arb-Rin-Hadith from his Temple and drave him to Aghrinaun, for
they said: “There walk to-night upon the mountain All the gods
save One.”
And Arb-Rin-Hadith went trembling to the gods.
Next morning, white and frightened from Aghrinaun, came
Arb-Rin-Hadith back into the valley, and there spake to the people,
saying: “The faces of the gods are iron and their mouths set hard.
There is no hope from the gods.”
Then said the people: “Thou shalt go to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ, to
whom no man may pray: seek him upon Aghrinaun where it lifts
clear into the stillness before morning, and on its summit, where
all things seem to rest surely there rests also MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ.
Go to him, and say: ‘Thou hast made evil gods, and They smite
Sidith.’ Perchance he hath forgotten all his gods, or hath not heard
of Sidith. Thou hast escaped the thunder of the gods, surely thou
shalt also escape the stillness of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ.”
Upon a morning when the sky and lakes were clear and the
world still, and Aghrinaun was stiller than the world, Arb-Rin-
Hadith crept in fear towards the slopes of Aghrinaun because the
people were urgent.
 The Gods Of Pegāna 33

All that day men saw him climbing. At night he rested near the
top. But ere the morning of the day that followed, such as rose
early saw him in the silence, a speck against the blue, stretch up his
arms upon the summit to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ. Then instantly they
saw him not, nor was he ever seen of men again who had dared to
trouble the stillness of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ.
Such as now speak of Sidith tell of a fierce and potent tribe that
smote away a people in a valley enfeebled by pestilence, where
stood a temple to “All the gods save One” in which was no high
priest.

Of How Imbaun Became High Prophet In

Aradec Of All The Gods Save One
Imbaun was to be made High Prophet in Aradec, of All the Gods
save One.
From Ardra, Rhoodra, and the lands beyond came all High
Prophets of the Earth to the Temple in Aradec of All the gods save
One.
And then they told Imbaun how The Secret of Things was upon
the summit of the dome of the Hall of Night, but faintly writ, and
in an unknown tongue.
Midway in the night, between the setting and the rising sun,
they led Imbaun into the Hall of Night, and said to him, chaunting
altogether: “Imbaun, Imbaun, Imbaun, look up to the roof, where is
writ The Secret of Things, but faintly, and in an unknown tongue.”
And Imbaun looked up, but darkness was so deep within the
Hall of Night that Imbaun was not even the High Prophets who
came from Ardra, Rhoodra, and the lands beyond, nor saw he
aught in the Hall of Night at all.
Then called the High Prophets: “What seest thou, Imbaun?”
And Imbaun said: “I see naught.”
Then called the High Prophets: “What knowest thou Imbaun?”
And Imbaun said: “I know naught.”
34 The Gods Of Pegāna

Then spake the High Prophet of Eld of All the gods save One,
who is first on Earth of prophets: “O Imbaun! we have all looked
upwards in the Hall of Night towards the secret of Things, and ever
it was dark, and the Secret faint and in an unknown tongue. And
now thou knowest what all High Prophets know.”
And Imbaun answered: “I know.”
So Imbaun became High Prophet in Aradec of All the gods save
One, and prayed for all the people, who knew not that there was
darkness in the Hall of Night or that the secret was writ faint and in
an unknown tongue.
These are the words of Imbaun that he wrote in a book that all
the people might know:
“In the twentieth night of the nine hundredth moon, as night
came up the valley, I performed the mystic rites of each of the
gods in the temple as is my wont, lest any of the gods should grow
angry in the night and whelm us while we slept.
“And as I uttered the last of certain secret words I fell asleep
in the temple, for I was weary, with my head against the altar of
Dorozhand. Then in the stillness, as I slept, there entered Doro-
zhand by the temple door in the guise of a man, and touched me on
the shoulder, and I awoke.
“But when I saw that his eyes shone blue and lit the whole of the
temple I knew that he was a god though he came in mortal guise.
And Dorozhand said: ‘Prophet of Dorozhand, behold that the
people may know.’ And he showed me the paths of Sish stretching
far down into the future time. Then he bade me arise and follow
whither he pointed, speaking no words but commanding with his
eyes.
“Therefore upon the twentieth night of the nine hundredth moon
I walked with Dorozhand adown the paths of Sish into the future
time.
“And ever beside the way did men slay men. And the sum of
their slaying was greater than the slaying of the pestilence of any
of the evils of the gods.
“And cities arose and shed their houses in dust, and ever the
desert returned again to its own, and covered over and hid the last
 The Gods Of Pegāna 35

of all that had troubled its repose.

“And still men slew men.
“And I came at last to a time when men set their yoke no longer
upon beasts but made them beasts of iron.
“And after that did men slay men with mists.
“Then, because the slaying exceeded their desire, there came
peace upon the world that was brought by the hand of the slayer,
and men slew men no more.
“And cities multiplied, and overthrew the desert and conquered
its repose.
“And suddenly I beheld that THE END was near, for there was
a stirring above Pegāna as of One who grows weary of resting,
and I saw the hound Time crouch to spring, with his eyes upon the
throats of the gods, shifting from throat to throat, and the drum-
ming of Skarl grew faint.
“And if a god may fear, it seemed that there was fear upon the
face of Dorozhand, and he seized me by the hand and led me back
along the paths of Time that I might not see THE END.
“Then I saw cities rise out of the dust again and fall back into
the desert whence they had arisen; and again I slept in the Temple
of All the gods save One, with my head against the altar of Doro-
zhand.
“Then again the Temple was alight, but not with light from the
eyes of Dorozhand; only dawn came all blue out of the East and
shone through the arches of the Temple. Then I awoke and per-
formed the morning rites and mysteries of All the gods save One,
lest any of the gods be angry in the day and take away the Sun.
“And I knew that because I who had been so near to it had not
beheld THE END that a man should never behold it or know the
doom of the gods. This They have hidden.”

Of How Imbaun Met Zodrak

The prophet of the gods lay resting by the river to watch the
stream run by.
36 The Gods Of Pegāna

And as he lay he pondered on the Scheme of Things and the

works of all the gods. And it seemed to the prophet of the gods as
he watched the stream run by that the Scheme was a right scheme
and the gods benignant gods; yet there was sorrow in the Worlds.
It seemed that Kib was bountiful, that Mung calmed all who suffer,
that Sish dealt not too harshly with the hours, and that all the gods
were good; yet there was sorrow in the Worlds.
Then said the prophet of the gods as he watched the stream run
by: “There is some other god of whom naught is writ.” And sud-
denly the prophet was aware of an old man who bemoaned beside
the river, crying: “Alas! alas!”
His face was marked by the sign and the seal of exceeding many
years, and there was yet vigour in his frame. These be the words
of the prophet that he wrote in his book: “I said: ‘Who art thou
that bemoans beside the river?’ And he answered: ‘I am the fool.’
I said: ‘Upon thy brow are the marks of wisdom such as is stored
in books.’ He said: ‘I am Zodrak. Thousands of years ago I tended
sheep upon a hill that sloped towards the sea. The gods have many
moods. Thousands of years ago They were in a mirthful mood.
They said: ‘Let Us call up a man before Us that We may laugh in
Pegāna.’”
“‘And Their eyes that looked on me saw not me alone but also
saw THE BEGINNING and THE END and all the Worlds besides.
Then said the gods, speaking as speak the gods: “Go, back to thy
sheep.”
“‘But I, who am the fool, had heard it said on earth that whoso
seeth the gods upon Pegāna becometh as the gods, if so he demand
to Their faces, who may not slay him who hath looked them in the
eyes.
“‘And I, the fool, said: “I have looked in the eyes of the gods,
and I demand what a man may demand of the gods when he hath
seen Them in Pegāna.” And the gods inclined Their heads and Ho-
odrazai said: “It is the law of the gods.”
“‘And I, who was only a shepherd, how could I know?
“‘I said: “I will make men rich.” And the gods said: “What is
rich?”
 The Gods Of Pegāna 37

“‘And I said: “I will send them love.” And the gods said: “What
is love?” And I sent gold into the Worlds, and, alas! I sent with
it poverty and strife. And I sent love into the Worlds, and with it
grief.
“‘And now I have mixed gold and love most woefully together,
and I can never remedy what I have done, for the deeds of the gods
are done, and nothing may undo them.
“‘Then I said: “I will give men wisdom that they may be glad.”
And those who got my wisdom found that they knew nothing, and
from having been happy became glad no more.
“‘And I, who would make men happy, have made them sad, and
I have spoiled the beautiful scheme of the gods.
“‘And now my hand is for ever on the handle of Their plough. I
was only a shepherd, and how should I have known?
“‘Now I come to thee as thou restest by the river to ask of thee
thy forgiveness, for I would fain have the forgiveness of a man.’
“And I answered: ‘O Lord of seven skies, whose children are the
storms, shall a man forgive a god?’
“He answered: ‘Men have sinned not against the gods as the
gods have sinned against men since I came into Their councils.’
“And I, the prophet, answered: ‘O Lord of seven skies, whose
plaything is the thunder, thou art amongst the gods, what need hast
thou for words from any man?’
“He said: ‘Indeed I am amongst the gods, who speak to me as
they speak to other gods, yet is there always a smile about Their
mouths, and a look in Their eyes that saith: “Thou wert a man.’”
“I said: ‘O Lord of seven skies, about whose feet the Worlds are
as drifted sand, because thou biddest me, I, a man, forgive thee.’
“And he answered: ‘I was but a shepherd, and I could not know.’
Then he was gone.”
38 The Gods Of Pegāna

Pegāna
The prophet of the gods cried out to the gods: “O! All the gods
save One” for none may pray to MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ, “where shall
the life of a man abide when Mung hath made against his body the
sign of Mung? — for the people with whom ye play have sought to
know.”
But the gods answered, speaking through the mist:
“Though thou shouldst tell thy secrets to the beasts, even that the
beasts should understand, yet will not the gods divulge the secret
of the gods to thee, that gods and beasts and men shall be all the
same, all knowing the same things.”
That night Yoharneth-Lahai same to Aradec, and said unto
Imbaun: “Wherefore wouldst thou know the secret of the gods that
not the gods may tell thee?
“When the wind blows not, where, then, is the wind?
“Or when thou art not living, where art thou?
“What should the wind care for the hours of calm or thou for
death?
“Thy life is long, Eternity is short.
“So short that, shouldst thou die and Eternity should pass, and
after the passing of Eternity thou shouldst live again, thou wouldst
say: ‘I closed mine eyes but for an instant.’
“There is an eternity behind thee as well as one before. Hast
thou bewailed the aeons that passed without thee, who art so much
afraid of the aeons that shall pass?”
Then said the prophet: “How shall I tell the people that the gods
have not spoken and their prophet doth not know? For then should
I be prophet no longer, and another would take the people’s gifts
instead of me.”
Then said Imbaun to the people: “The gods have spoken, saying:
‘O Imbaun, Our prophet, it is as the people believe whose wisdom
hath discovered the secret of the gods, and the people when they
die shall come to Pegāna, and there live with the gods, and there
have pleasure without toil. And Pegāna is a place all white with the
peaks of mountains, on each of them a god, and the people shall lie
 The Gods Of Pegāna 39

upon the slopes of the mountains each under the god that he hath
worshipped most when his lot was in the Worlds. And there shall
music beyond thy dreaming come drifting through the scent of all
the orchards in the Worlds, with somewhere someone singing an
old song that shall be as a half-remembered thing. And there shall
be gardens that have always sunlight, and streams that are lost in
no sea beneath skies for ever blue. And there shall be no rain nor
no regrets. Only the roses that in highest Pegāna have achieved
their prime shall shed their petals in showers at thy feet, and only
far away on the forgotten earth shall voices drift up to thee that
cheered thee in thy childhood about the gardens of thy youth.
And if thou sighest for any memory of earth because thou hearest
unforgotten voices, then will the gods send messengers on wings
to soothe thee in Pegāna, saying to them: “There one sigheth who
hath remembered Earth.” And they shall make Pegāna more seduc-
tive for thee still, and they shall take thee by the hand and whisper
in thine ear till the old voices are forgot.
“‘And besides the flowers of Pegāna there shall have climbed by
then until it hath reached to Pegāna the rose that clambered about
the house where thou wast born. Thither shall also come the wan-
dering echoes of all such music as charmed thee long ago.
“‘Moreover, as thou sittest on the orchard lawns that clothe
Pegāna’s mountains, and as thou hearkenest to melody that sways
the souls of the gods, there shall stretch away far down beneath
thee the great unhappy Earth, till gazing from rapture upon sorrows
thou shalt be glad that thou wert dead.
“‘And from the three great mountains that stand aloof and over
all the others — Grimbol, Zeebol, and Trehagobol — shall blow the
wind of the morning and the wind of all the day, borne upon the
wings of all the butterflies that have died upon the Worlds, to cool
the gods and Pegāna.
“‘Far through Pegāna a silvery fountain, lured upward by the
gods from the Central Sea, shall fling its waters aloft, and over
the highest of Pegāna’s peaks, above Trehagobol, shall burst into
gleaming mists, to cover Highest Pegāna, and make a curtain about
the resting-place of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ.
40 The Gods Of Pegāna

“‘Alone, still and remote below the base of one of the inner
mountains, lieth a great blue pool.
“‘Whoever looketh down into its waters may behold all his life
that was upon the Worlds and all the deeds that he hath done.
“‘None walk by the pool and none regard its depths, for all in
Pegāna have suffered and all have sinned some sin, and it lieth in
the pool.
“‘And there is no darkness in Pegāna, for when night hath con-
quered the sun and stilled the Worlds and turned the white peaks of
Pegāna into grey then shine the blue eyes of the gods like sunlight
on the sea, where each god sits upon his mountain.
“‘And at the Last, upon some afternoon, perhaps in summer,
shall the gods say, speaking to the gods: “What is the likeness of
MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ and what THE END?”
“‘And then shall MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ draw back with his hand
the mists that cover his resting, saying: “This is the Face of MĀNA-
YOOD-SUSHĀĪ and this THE END.’””
Then said the people to the prophet: “Shall not black hills draw
round in some forsaken land, to make a vale-wide cauldron where-
in the molten rock shall seethe and roar, and where the crags of
mountains shall be hurled upward to the surface and bubble and go
down again, that there our enemies may boil for ever?”
And the prophet answered: “It is writ large about the bases of
Pegāna’s mountains, upon which sit the gods: ‘Thine Enemies Are
Forgiven.’”

The Sayings Of Imbaun

The Prophet of the gods said: “Yonder beside the road there sit-
teth a false prophet; and to all who seek to know the hidden days
he saith: ‘Upon the morrow the King shall speak to thee as his
chariot goeth by.’”
Moreover, all the people bring him gifts, and the false prophet
hath more to listen to his words than hath the Prophet of the gods.
Then said Imbaun: “What knoweth the Prophet of the gods? I
 The Gods Of Pegāna 41

know only that I and men know naught concerning the gods or
aught concerning men. Shall I, who am their prophet, tell the peo-
ple this?
“For wherefore have the people chosen prophets but that they
should speak the hopes of the people, and tell the people that their
hopes be true?”
The false prophet saith: “Upon the morrow the king shall speak
to thee.”
Shall not I say: “Upon The Morrow the gods shall speak with
thee as thou restest upon Pegāna?”
So shall the people be happy, and know that their hopes be true
who have believed the words that they have chosen a prophet to
say.
But what shall know the Prophet of the gods, to whom none
may come to say: “Thy hopes are true,” for whom none may make
strange signs before his eyes to quench his fear of death, for whom
alone the chaunt of his priests availeth naught?
The Prophet of the gods hath sold his happiness for wisdom, and
hath given his hopes for the people.
Said also Imbaun: “When thou art angry at night observe how
calm be the stars; and shall small ones rail when there is such a
calm among the great ones? Or when thou art angry by day regard
the distant hills, and see the calm that doth adorn their faces. Shalt
thou be angry while they stand so serene?
“Be not angry with men, for they are driven as thou art by
Dorozhand. Do bullocks goad one another on whom the same yoke
rests?
“And be not angry with Dorozhand, for then thou beatest thy
bare fingers against iron cliffs.
“All that is is so because it was to be. Rail not, therefore, against
what is, for it was all to be.”
And Imbaun said: “The Sun ariseth and maketh a glory about all
the things that he seeth, and drop by drop he turneth the common
dew to every kind of gem. And he maketh a splendour in the hills.
“And also man is born. And there rests a glory about the gardens
of his youth. Both travel afar to do what Dorozhand would have
42 The Gods Of Pegāna

them do.
“Soon now the sun will set, and very softly come twinkling in
the stillness all the stars.
“Also man dieth. And quietly about his grave will all the mourn-
ers weep.
“Will not his life arise again somewhere in all the worlds? Shall
he not again behold the gardens of his youth? Or does he set to
end?”

Of How Imbaun Spake Of Death To The

King
There trod such pestilence in Aradec that, the King as he looked
abroad out of his palace saw men die. And when the King saw
Death he feared that one day even the King should die. Therefore
he commanded guards to bring before him the wisest prophet that
should be found in Aradec.
Then heralds came to the temple of All the gods save One, and
cried aloud, having first commanded silence, crying: “Rhazahan,
King over Aradec, Prince by right of Ildun and Ildaun, and Prince
by conquest of Pathia, Ezek, and Azhan, Lord of the Hills, to the
High Prophet of All the gods save One sends salutations.”
Then they bore him before the King.
The King said unto the prophet: “O Prophet of All the gods save
One, shall I indeed die?”
And the prophet answered: “O King! thy people may not rejoice
for ever, and some day the King will die.”
And the King answered: “This may be so, but certainly thou
shalt die. It may be that one day I shall die, but till then the lives of
the people are in my hands.”
Then guards led the prophet away.
And there arose prophets in Aradec who spake not of death to
Kings.
 The Gods Of Pegāna 43

Of Ood
Men say that if thou comest to Sundari, beyond all the plains,
and shalt climb to his summit before thou art seized by the ava-
lanche which sitteth always on his slopes, that then there lie before
thee many peaks. And if thou shalt climb these and cross their
valleys (of which there be seven and also seven peaks) thou shalt
come at last to the land of forgotten hills, where amid many val-
leys and white snow there standeth the “Great Temple of One god
Only.”
Therein is a dreaming prophet who doeth naught, and a drowsy
priesthood about him.
These be the priests of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ.
Within the temple it is forbidden to work, also it is forbidden to
pray. Night differeth not from day within its doors. They rest as
MĀNA rests. And the name of their prophet is Ood.
Ood is a greater prophet than any of all the prophets of Earth,
and it hath been said by some that were Ood and his priests to pray
chaunting all together and calling upon MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ that
MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ would then awake, for surely he would hear
the prayers of his own prophet — then would there be Worlds no
more.
There is also another way to the land of forgotten hills, which
is a smooth road and a straight, that lies through the heart of the
mountains. But for certain hidden reasons it were better for thee to
go by the peaks and snow, even though thou shouldst perish by the
way, that thou shouldst seek to come to the house of Ood by the
smooth, straight road.

The River
There arises a river in Pegāna that is neither a river of water nor
yet a river of fire, and it flows through the skies and the Worlds to
the Rim of the Worlds, a river of silence. Through all the Worlds
are sounds, the noises of moving, and the echoes of voices and
44 The Gods Of Pegāna

song; but upon the River is no sound ever heard, for there all ech-
oes die.
The River arises out of the drumming of Skarl, and flows for
ever between banks of thunder, until it comes to the waste beyond
the Worlds, behind the farthest star, down to the Sea of Silence.
I lay in the desert beyond all cities and sounds, and above me
flowed the River of Silence through the sky; and on the desert’s
edge night fought against the Sun, and suddenly conquered.
Then on the River I saw the dream-built ship of the god Yohar-
neth-Lahai, whose great prow lifted grey into the air above the
River of Silence.
Her timbers were olden dreams dreamed long ago, and poets’
fancies made her tall, straight masts, and her rigging was wrought
out of the people’s hopes.
Upon her deck were rowers with dream-made oars, and the row-
ers were the people of men’s fancies, and princes of old story and
people who had died, and people who had never been.
These swung forward and swung back to row Yoharneth-Lahai
through the Worlds with never a sound of rowing. For ever on
every wind float up to Pegāna the hopes and the fancies of the peo-
ple which have no home in the Worlds, and there Yoharneth-Lahai
weaves them into dreams, to take them to the people again.
And every night in his dream-built ship Yoharneth-Lahai setteth
forth, with all his dreams on board, to take again their old hopes
back to the people and all forgotten fancies.
But ere the day comes back to her own again, and all the con-
quering armies of the dawn hurl their red lances in the face of the
night, Yoharneth-Lahai leaves the sleeping Worlds, and rows back
up the River of Silence, that flows from Pegāna into the Sea of
Silence that lies beyond the Worlds.
And the name of the River is Imrana the River of Silence. All
they that be weary of the sound of cities and very tired of clamour
creep down in the night-time to Yoharneth-Lahai’s ship, and going
aboard it, among the dreams and the fancies of old times, lie down
upon the deck, and pass from sleeping to the River, while Mung,
behind them, makes the sign of Mung because they would have it
 The Gods Of Pegāna 45

so. And, lying there upon the deck among their own remembered
fancies, and songs that were never sung, and they drift up Imrana
ere the dawn, where the sound of the cities comes not, nor the
voice of the thunder is heard, nor the midnight howl of Pain as he
gnaws at the bodies of men, and far away and forgotten bleat the
small sorrows that trouble all the Worlds.
But where the River flows through Pegāna’s gates, between the
great twin constellations Yum and Gothum, where Yum stands
sentinel upon the left and Gothum upon the right, there sits Sirami,
the lord of All Forgetting. And, when the ship draws near, Sirami
looketh with his sapphire eyes into the faces and beyond them of
those that were weary of cities, and as he gazes, as one that looketh
before him remembering naught, he gently waves his hands. And
amid the waving of Sirami’s hands there fall from all that behold
him all their memories, save certain things that may not be forgot-
ten even beyond the Worlds.
It hath been said that when Skarl ceases to drum, and MĀNA-
YOOD-SUSHĀĪ awakes, and the gods of Pegāna know that it is THE
END, that then the gods will enter galleons of gold, and with
dream-born rowers glide down Imrana (who knows whither or
why?) till they come where the River enters the Silent Sea, and
shall there be gods of nothing, where nothing is, and never a sound
shall come. And far away upon the River’s banks shall bay their
old hound Time, that shall seek to rend his masters; while MĀNA-
YOOD-SUSHĀĪ shall think some other plan concerning gods and
worlds.

The Bird Of Doom And The End

For at the last shall the thunder, fleeing to escape from the doom
of the gods, roar horribly among the Worlds; and Time, the hound
of the gods, shall bay hungrily at his masters because he is lean
with age.
And from the innermost of Pegāna’s vales shall the bird of
doom, Mosahn, whose voice is like the trumpet, soar upward with
46 The Gods Of Pegāna

boisterous beatings of his wings above Pegāna’s mountains and the

gods, and there with his trumpet voice acclaim THE END.
Then in the tumult and amid the fury of their hound the gods
shall make for the last time in Pegāna the sign of all the gods, and
go with dignity and quiet down to Their galleons of gold, and sail
away down the River of Silence, not ever to return.
Then shall the River overflow its banks, and a tide come setting
in from the Silent Sea, till all the Worlds and the Skies are drowned
in silence; while MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ in the Middle of All sits deep
in thought. And the hound Time, when all the Worlds and cities are
swept away whereon he used to raven, having no more to devour,
shall suddenly die.
But there are some that hold — and this is the heresy of the
Saigoths — that when the gods go down at the last into their gal-
leons of gold Mung shall turn alone, and, setting his back against
Trehagobol and wielding the Sword of Severing which is called
Death, shall fight out his last fight with the hound Time, his empty
scabbard Sleep clattering loose beside him.
There under Trehagobol they shall fight alone when all the gods
are gone.
And the Saigoths say that for two days and nights the hound
shall leer and snarl before the face of Mung-days and nights that
shall be lit by neither sun nor moons, for these shall go dipping
down the sky with all the Worlds as the galleons glide away, be-
cause the gods that made them are gods no more.
And then shall the hound, springing, tear out the throat of Mung,
who, making for the last time the sign of Mung, shall bring down
Death crashing through the shoulders of the hound, and in the
blood of Time that Sword shall rust away.
Then shall MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ be all alone, with neither Death
nor Time, and never the hours singing in his ears, nor the swish of
the passing lives.
But far away from Pegāna shall go the galleons of gold that bear
the gods away, upon whose faces shall be utter calm, because They
are the gods knowing that it is THE END.
 Time And The Gods
1906

Preface
These tales are of the things that befell gods and men in Yarnith,
Averon, and Zarkandhu, and in the other countries of my dreams.
48 Time And The Gods

PART I.

Time And The Gods

Once when the gods were young and only Their swarthy servant
Time was without age, the gods lay sleeping by a broad river upon
earth. There in a valley that from all the earth the gods had set
apart for Their repose the gods dreamed marble dreams. And with
domes and pinnacles the dreams arose and stood up proudly be-
tween the river and the sky, all shimmering white to the morning.
In the city’s midst the gleaming marble of a thousand steps climbed
to the citadel where arose four pinnacles beckoning to heaven,
and midmost between the pinnacles there stood the dome, vast, as
the gods had dreamed it. All around, terrace by terrace, there went
marble lawns well guarded by onyx lions and carved with effigies
of all the gods striding amid the symbols of the worlds. With a
sound like tinkling bells, far off in a land of shepherds hidden by
some hill, the waters of many fountains turned again home. Then
the gods awoke and there stood Sardathrion. Not to common men
have the gods given to walk Sardathrion’s streets, and not to com-
mon eyes to see her fountains. Only to those to whom in lonely
passes in the night the gods have spoken, leaning through the stars,
to those that have heard the voices of the gods above the morning
or seen Their faces bending above the sea, only to those hath it
been given to see Sardathrion, to stand where her pinnacles gath-
ered together in the night fresh from the dreams of gods. For round
the valley a great desert lies through which no common traveller
may come, but those whom the gods have chosen feel suddenly a
great longing at heart, and crossing the mountains that divide the
desert from the world, set out across it driven by the gods, till hid-
den in the desert’s midst they find the valley at last and look with
eyes upon Sardathrion.
In the desert beyond the valley grow a myriad thorns, and all
pointing towards Sardathrion. So may many that the gods have
 Time And The Gods 49

loved come to the marble city, but none can return, for other cities
are no fitting home for men whose feet have touched Sardathri-
on’s marble streets, where even the gods have not been ashamed
to come in the guise of men with Their cloaks wrapped about their
faces. Therefore no city shall ever hear the songs that are sung in
the marble citadel by those in whose ears have rung the voices of
the gods. No report shall ever come to other lands of the music of
the fall of Sardathrion’s fountains, when the waters which went
heavenward return again into the lake where the gods cool Their
brows sometimes in the guise of men. None may ever hear the
speech of the poets of that city, to whom the gods have spoken.
It stands a city aloof. There hath been no rumour of it — I alone
have dreamed of it, and I may not be sure that my dreams are true.

Above the Twilight the gods were seated in the after years,
ruling the worlds. No longer now They walked at evening in the
Marble City hearing the fountains splash, or listening to the sing-
ing of the men they loved, because it was in the after years and the
work of the gods was to be done.
But often as they rested a moment from doing the work of the
gods, from hearing the prayers of men or sending here the Pesti-
lence or there Mercy, They would speak awhile with one another
of the olden years saying, “Rememberest thou not Sardathrion?”
and another would answer “Ah! Sardathrion, and all Sardathrion’s
mist-draped marble lawns whereon we walk not now.”
Then the gods turned to do the work of the gods, answering the
prayers of men or smiting them, and ever They sent Their swarthy
servant Time to heal or overwhelm. And Time went forth into
the worlds to obey the commands of the gods, yet he cast furtive
glances at his masters, and the gods distrusted Time because he had
known the worlds or ever the gods became.
One day when furtive Time had gone into the worlds to nimbly
smite some city whereof the gods were weary, the gods above the
twilight speaking to one another said:
“Surely we are the lords of Time and gods of the worlds besides.
50 Time And The Gods

See how our city Sardathrion lifts over other cities. Others arise
and perish but Sardathrion standeth yet, the first and the last of cit-
ies. Rivers are lost in the sea and streams forsake the hills, but ever
Sardathrion’s fountains arise in our dream city. As was Sardathrion
when the gods were young, so are her streets to-day as a sign that
we are the gods.”
Suddenly the swart figure of Time stood up before the gods, with
both hands dripping with blood and a red sword dangling idly from
his fingers, and said:
“Sardathrion is gone! I have overthrown it!”
And the gods said:
“Sardathrion? Sardathrion, the marble city? Thou, thou hast
overthrown it? Thou, the slave of the gods?”
And the oldest of the gods said:
“Sardathrion, Sardathrion, and is Sardathrion gone?”
And furtively Time looked him in the face and edged towards
him fingering with his dripping fingers the hilt of his nimble sword.
Then the gods feared with a new fear that he that had over-
thrown Their city would one day slay the gods. And a new cry
went wailing through the Twilight, the lament of the gods for Their
dream city, crying:
“Tears may not bring again Sardathrion.
“But this the gods may do who have seen, and seen with unre-
lenting eyes, the sorrows of ten thousand worlds — thy gods may
weep for thee.
“Tears may not bring again Sardathrion.
“Believe it not, Sardathrion, that ever thy gods sent this doom to
thee; he that hath overthrown thee shall overthrow thy gods.
“How oft when Night came suddenly on Morning playing in the
fields of Twilight did we watch thy pinnacles emerging from the
darkness, Sardathrion, Sardathrion, dream city of the gods, and
thine onyx lions looming limb by limb from the dusk.
“How often have we sent our child the Dawn to play with thy
fountain tops; how often hath Evening, loveliest of our goddesses,
strayed long upon thy balconies.
“Let one fragment of thy marbles stand up above the dust for
 Time And The Gods 51

thine old gods to caress, as a man when all else is lost treasures one
lock of the hair of his beloved.
“Sardathrion, the gods must kiss once more the place where thy
streets were once.
“There were wonderful marbles in thy streets, Sardathrion.”
“Sardathrion, Sardathrion, the gods weep for thee.”

The Coming Of The Sea

Once there was no sea, and the gods went walking over the
green plains of earth.
Upon an evening of the forgotten years the gods were seated on
the hills, and all the little rivers of the world lay coiled at Their feet
asleep, when Slid, the new god, striding through the stars, came
suddenly upon earth lying in a corner of space. And behind Slid
there marched a million waves, all following Slid and tramping
up the twilight; and Slid touched Earth in one of her great green
valleys that divide the south, and here he encamped for the night
with all his waves about him. But to the gods as They sat upon
Their hilltops a new cry came crying over the green spaces that lay
below the hills, and the gods said:
“This is neither the cry of life nor yet the whisper of death. What
is this new cry that the gods have never commanded, yet which
comes to the ears of the gods?”
And the gods together shouting made the cry of the south, call-
ing the south wind to them. And again the gods shouted all to-
gether making the cry of the north, calling the north wind to Them;
and thus They gathered to Them all Their winds and sent these four
down into the low plains to find what thing it was that called with
the new cry, and to drive it away from the gods.
Then all the winds harnessed up their clouds and drave forth till
they came to the great green valley that divides the south in twain,
and there found Slid with all his waves about him. Then for a space
Slid and the four winds struggled with one another till the strength
of the winds was gone, and they limped back to the gods, their
52 Time And The Gods

masters, and said:

“We have met this new thing that has come upon the earth and
have striven against its armies, but could not drive them forth; and
the new thing is beautiful but very angry, and is creeping towards
the gods.”
But Slid advanced and led his armies up the valley, and inch by
inch and mile by mile he conquered the lands of the gods. Then
from Their hills the gods sent down a great array of cliffs against
hard, red rocks, and bade them march against Slid. And the cliffs
marched down till they came and stood before Slid and leaned their
heads forward and frowned and stood staunch to guard the lands
of the gods against the might of the sea, shutting Slid off from the
world. Then Slid sent some of his smaller waves to search out what
stood against him, and the cliffs shattered them. But Slid went back
and gathered together a hoard of his greatest waves and hurled
them against the cliffs, and the cliffs shattered them. And again
Slid called up out of his deep a mighty array of waves and sent
them roaring against the guardians of the gods, and the red rocks
frowned and smote them. And once again Slid gathered his greater
waves and hurled them against the cliffs; and when the waves were
scattered like those before them the feet of the cliffs were no longer
standing firm, and their faces were scarred and battered. Then into
every cleft that stood in the rocks Slid sent his hugest wave and
others followed behind it, and Slid himself seized hold of huge
rocks with his claws and tore them down and stamped them under
his feet. And when the tumult was over the sea had won, and over
the broken remnants of those red cliffs the armies of Slid marched
on and up the long green valley.
Then the gods heard Slid exulting far away and singing songs of
triumph over Their battered cliffs, and ever the tramp of his armies
sounded nearer and nearer in the listening ears of the gods.
Then the gods called to Their downlands to save Their world
from Slid, and the downlands gathered themselves and marched
away, a great white line of gleaming cliffs, and halted before Slid.
Then Slid advanced no more and lulled his legions, and while his
waves were low he softly crooned a song such as once long ago
 Time And The Gods 53

had troubled the stars and brought down tears out of the twilight.
Sternly the white cliffs stood on guard to save the world of the
gods, but the song that once had troubled the stars went moaning
on awaking pent desires, till full at the feet of the gods the melody
fell. Then the blue rivers that lay curled asleep opened their gleam-
ing eyes, uncurled themselves and shook their rushes, and, mak-
ing a stir among the hills, crept down to find the sea. And passing
across the world they came at last to where the white cliffs stood,
and, coming behind them, split them here and there and went
through their broken ranks to Slid at last. And the gods were angry
with Their traitorous streams.
Then Slid ceased from singing the song that lures the world, and
gathered up his legions, and the rivers lifted up their heads with
the waves, and all went marching on to assail the cliffs of the gods.
And wherever the rivers had broken the ranks of the cliffs, Slid’s
armies went surging in and broke them up into islands and shat-
tered the islands away. And the gods on Their hill-tops heard once
more the voice of Slid exulting over Their cliffs.
Already more than half the world lay subject to Slid, and still
his armies advanced; and the people of Slid, the fishes and the long
eels, went in and out of arbours that once were dear to the gods.
Then the gods feared for Their dominion, and to the innermost
sacred recesses of the mountains, to the very heart of the hills, the
gods trooped off together and there found Tintaggon, a mountain of
black marble, staring far over the earth, and spake thus to him with
the voices of the gods:
“O eldest born of our mountains, when first we devised the earth
we made thee, and thereafter fashioned fields and hollows, valleys
and other hills, to lie about thy feet. And now, Tintaggon, thine an-
cient lords, the gods, are facing a new thing which overthrows the
old. Go therefore, thou, Tintaggon, and stand up against Slid, that
the gods be still the gods and the earth still green.”
And hearing the voices of his sires, the elder gods, Tintaggon
strode down through the evening, leaving a wake of twilight broad
behind him as he strode: and going across the green earth came
down to Ambrady at the valley’s edge, and there met the foremost
54 Time And The Gods

of Slid’s fierce armies conquering the world.

And against him Slid hurled the force of a whole bay, which
lashed itself high over Tintaggon’s knees and streamed around his
flanks and then fell and was lost. Tintaggon still stood firm for the
honour and dominion of his lords, the elder gods. Then Slid went
to Tintaggon and said: “Let us now make a truce. Stand thou back
from Ambrady and let me pass through thy ranks that mine armies
may now pass up the valley which opens on the world, that the
green earth that dreams around the feet of older gods shall know
the new god Slid. Then shall mine armies strive with thee no more,
and thou and I shall be the equal lords of the whole earth when all
the world is singing the chaunt of Slid, and thy head alone shall
be lifted above mine armies when rival hills are dead. And I will
deck thee with all the robes of the sea, and all the plunder that I
have taken in rare cities shall be piled before thy feet. Tintaggon, I
have conquered all the stars, my song swells through all the space
besides, I come victorious from Mahn and Khanagat on the fur-
thest edge of the worlds, and thou and I are to be equal lords when
the old gods are gone and the green earth knoweth Slid. Behold
me gleaming azure and fair with a thousand smiles, and swayed by
a thousand moods.” And Tintaggon answered: “I am staunch and
black and have one mood, and this — to defend my masters and
their green earth.”
Then Slid went backward growling and summoned together the
waves of a whole sea and sent them singing full in Tintaggon’s
face. Then from Tintaggon’s marble front the sea fell backwards
crying on to a broken shore, and ripple by ripple straggled back to
Slid saying: “Tintaggon stands.”
Far out beyond the battered shore that lay at Tintaggon’s feet
Slid rested long and sent the nautilus to drift up and down before
Tintaggon’s eyes, and he and his armies sat singing idle songs of
dreamy islands far away to the south, and of the still stars whence
they had stolen forth, of twilight evenings and of long ago. Still
Tintaggon stood with his feet planted fair upon the valley’s edge
defending the gods and Their green earth against the sea.
And all the while that Slid sang his songs and played with the
 Time And The Gods 55

nautilus that sailed up and down he gathered his oceans together.

One morning as Slid sang of old outrageous wars and of most
enchanting peace and of dreamy islands and the south wind and the
sun, he suddenly launched five oceans out of the deep all to attack
Tintaggon. And the five oceans sprang upon Tintaggon and passed
above his head. One by one the grip of the oceans loosened, one by
one they fell back into the deep and still Tintaggon stood, and on
that morning the might of all five oceans lay dead at Tintaggon’s
feet. That which Slid had conquered he still held, and there is now
no longer a great green valley in the south, but all that Tintaggon
had guarded against Slid he gave back to the gods. Very calm the
sea lies now about Tintaggon’s feet, where he stands all black amid
crumbled cliffs of white, with red rocks piled about his feet. And
often the sea retreats far out along the shore, and often wave by
wave comes marching in with the sound of the tramping of armies,
that all may still remember the great fight that surged about Tintag-
gon once, when he guarded the gods and the green earth against
Slid.
Sometimes in their dreams the war-scarred warriors of Slid still
lift their heads and cry their battle cry; then do dark clouds gather
about Tintaggon’s swarthy brow and he stands out menacing, seen
afar by ships, where once he conquered Slid. And the gods know
well that while Tintaggon stands They and Their world are safe;
and whether Slid shall one day smite Tintaggon is hidden among
the secrets of the sea.

A Legend Of The Dawn

When the worlds and All began the gods were stern and old and
They saw the Beginning from under eyebrows hoar with years, all
but Inzana, Their child, who played with the golden ball. Inzana
was the child of all the gods. And the law before the Beginning and
thereafter was that all should obey the gods, yet hither and thither
went all Pegāna’s gods to obey the Dawnchild because she loved to
be obeyed.
56 Time And The Gods

It was dark all over the world and even in Pegāna, where dwell
the gods, it was dark when the child Inzana, the Dawn, first found
her golden ball. Then running down the stairway of the gods with
tripping feet, chalcedony, onyx, chalcedony, onyx, step by step, she
cast her golden ball across the sky. The golden ball went bounding
up the sky, and the Dawnchild with her flaring hair stood laughing
upon the stairway of the gods, and it was day. So gleaming fields
below saw the first of all the days that the gods have destined. But
towards evening certain mountains, afar and aloof, conspired to-
gether to stand between the world and the golden ball and to wrap
their crags about it and to shut it from the world, and all the world
was darkened with their plot. And the Dawnchild up in Pegāna
cried for her golden ball. Then all the gods came down the stairway
right to Pegāna’s gate to see what ailed the Dawnchild and to ask
her why she cried. Then Inzana said that her golden ball had been
taken away and hidden by mountains black and ugly, far away
from Pegāna, all in a world of rocks under the rim of the sky, and
she wanted her golden ball and could not love the dark.
Thereat Umborodom, whose hound was the thunder, took his
hound in leash, and strode away across the sky after the golden ball
until he came to the mountains afar and aloof. There did the thun-
der put his nose to the rocks and bay along the valleys, and fast
at his heels followed Umborodom. And the nearer the hound, the
thunder, came to the golden ball the louder did he bay, but haughty
and silent stood the mountains whose plot had darkened the world.
All in the dark among the crags in a mighty cavern, guarded by
two twin peaks, at last they found the golden ball for which the
Dawnchild wept. Then under the world went Umborodom with
his thunder panting behind him, and came in the dark before the
morning from underneath the world and gave the Dawnchild back
her golden ball. And Inzana laughed and took it in her hands, and
Umborodom went back into Pegāna, and at its threshold the thun-
der went to sleep.
Again the Dawnchild tossed the golden ball far up into the blue
across the sky, and the second morning shone upon the world, on
lakes and oceans, and on drops of dew. But as the ball went bound-
 Time And The Gods 57

ing on its way, the prowling mists and the rain conspired together
and took it and wrapped it in their tattered cloaks and carried it
away. And through the rents in their garments gleamed the golden
ball, but they held it fast and carried it right away and underneath
the world. Then on an onyx step Inzana sat down and wept, who
could no more be happy without her golden ball. And again the
gods were sorry, and the South Wind came to tell her tales of most
enchanted islands, to whom she listened not, nor yet to the tales of
temples in lone lands that the East Wind told her, who had stood
beside her when she flung her golden ball. But from far away the
West Wind came with news of three grey travellers wrapt round
with battered cloaks that carried away between them a golden ball.
Then up leapt the North Wind, he who guards the pole, and drew
his sword of ice out of his scabbard of snow and sped away along
the road that leads across the blue. And in the darkness underneath
the world he met the three grey travellers and rushed upon them
and drove them far before him, smiting them with his sword till
their grey cloaks streamed with blood. And out of the midst of
them, as they fled with flapping cloaks all red and grey and tat-
tered, he leapt up with the golden ball and gave it to the Dawn-
child.
Again Inzana tossed the ball into the sky, making the third day,
and up and up it went and fell towards the fields, and as Inzana
stooped to pick it up she suddenly heard the singing of all the birds
that were. All the birds in the world were singing all together and
also all the streams, and Inzana sat and listened and thought of no
golden ball, nor ever of chalcedony and onyx, nor of all her fathers
the gods, but only of all the birds. Then in the woods and mead-
ows where they had all suddenly sung, they suddenly ceased. And
Inzana, looking up, found that her ball was lost, and all alone in the
stillness one owl laughed. When the gods heard Inzana crying for
her ball They clustered together on the threshold and peered into
the dark, but saw no golden ball. And leaning forward They cried
out to the bat as he passed up and down: “Bat that seest all things,
where is the golden ball?”
And though the bat answered none heard. And none of the winds
58 Time And The Gods

had seen it nor any of the birds, and there were only the eyes of
the gods in the darkness peering for the golden ball. Then said the
gods: “Thou hast lost thy golden ball,” and They made her a moon
of silver to roll about the sky. And the child cried and threw it upon
the stairway and chipped and broke its edges and asked for the
golden ball. And Limpang Tung, the Lord of Music, who was least
of all the gods, because the child cried still for her golden ball,
stole out of Pegāna and crept across the sky, and found the birds
of all the world sitting in trees and ivy, and whispering in the dark.
He asked them one by one for news of the golden ball. Some had
last seen it on a neighbouring hill and others in trees, though none
knew where it was. A heron had seen it lying in a pond, but a wild
duck in some reeds had seen it last as she came home across the
hills, and then it was rolling very far away.
At last the cock cried out that he had seen it lying beneath the
world. There Limpang Tung sought it and the cock called to him
through the darkness as he went, until at last he found the golden
ball. Then Limpang Tung went up into Pegāna and gave it to the
Dawnchild, who played with the moon no more. And the cock and
all his tribe cried out: “We found it. We found the golden ball.”
Again Inzana tossed the ball afar, laughing with joy to see it, her
hands stretched upwards, her golden hair afloat, and carefully she
watched it as it fell. But alas! it fell with a splash into the great sea
and gleamed and shimmered as it fell till the waters became dark
above it and could be seen no more. And men on the world said:
“How the dew has fallen, and how the mists set in with breezes
from the streams.”
But the dew was the tears of the Dawnchild, and the mists were
her sighs when she said: “There will no more come a time when I
play with my ball again, for now it is lost for ever.”
And the gods tried to comfort Inzana as she played with her sil-
ver moon, but she would not hear Them, and went in tears to Slid,
where he played with gleaming sails, and in his mighty treasury
turned over gems and pearls and lorded it over the sea. And she
said: “O Slid, whose soul is in the sea, bring back my golden ball.”
And Slid stood up, swarthy, and clad in seaweed, and might-
 Time And The Gods 59

ily dived from the last chalcedony step out of Pegāna’s threshold
straight into ocean. There on the sand, among the battered navies
of the nautilus and broken weapons of the swordfish, hidden by
dark water, he found the golden ball. And coming up in the night,
all green and dripping, he carried it gleaming to the stairway of
the gods and brought it back to Inzana from the sea; and out of the
hands of Slid she took it and tossed it far and wide over his sails
and sea, and far away it shone on lands that knew not Slid, till it
came to its zenith and dropped towards the world.
But ere it fell the Eclipse dashed out from his hiding, and rushed
at the golden ball and seized it in his jaws. When Inzana saw the
Eclipse bearing her plaything away she cried aloud to the thunder,
who burst from Pegāna and fell howling upon the throat of the
Eclipse, who dropped the golden ball and let it fall towards earth.
But the black mountains disguised themselves with snow, and as
the golden ball fell down towards them they turned their peaks to
ruby crimson and their lakes to sapphires gleaming amongst silver,
and Inzana saw a jewelled casket into which her plaything fell. But
when she stooped to pick it up again she found no jewelled casket
with rubies, silver or sapphires, but only wicked mountains dis-
guised in snow that had trapped her golden ball. And then she cried
because there was none to find it, for the thunder was far away
chasing the Eclipse, and all the gods lamented when They saw her
sorrow. And Limpang Tung, who was least of all the gods, was yet
the saddest at the Dawnchild’s grief, and when the gods said: “Play
with your silver moon,” he stepped lightly from the rest, and com-
ing down the stairway of the gods, playing an instrument of music,
went out towards the world to find the golden ball because Inzana
wept.
And into the world he went till he came to the nether cliffs that
stand by the inner mountains in the soul and heart of the earth
where the Earthquake dwelleth alone, asleep but astir as he sleeps,
breathing and moving his legs, and grunting aloud in the dark.
Then in the ear of the Earthquake Limpang Tung said a word that
only the gods may say, and the Earthquake started to his feet and
flung the cave away, the cave wherein he slept between the cliffs,
60 Time And The Gods

and shook himself and went galloping abroad and overturned the
mountains that hid the golden ball, and bit the earth beneath them
and hurled their crags about and covered himself with rocks and
fallen hills, and went back ravening and growling into the soul of
the earth, and there lay down and slept again for a hundred years.
And the golden ball rolled free, passing under the shattered earth,
and so rolled back to Pegāna; and Limpang Tung came home to the
onyx step and took the Dawnchild by the hand and told not what
he had done but said it was the Earthquake, and went away to sit at
the feet of the gods. But Inzana went and patted the Earthquake on
the head, for she said it was dark and lonely in the soul of the earth.
Thereafter, returning step by step, chalcedony, onyx, chalcedony,
onyx, up the stairway of the gods, she cast again her golden ball
from the Threshold afar into the blue to gladden the world and the
sky, and laughed to see it go.
And far away Trogool upon the utter Rim turned a page that was
numbered six in a cipher that none might read. And as the golden
ball went through the sky to gleam on lands and cities, there came
the Fog towards it, stooping as he walked with his dark brown
cloak about him, and behind him slunk the Night. And as the gold-
en ball rolled past the Fog suddenly Night snarled and sprang upon
it and carried it away. Hastily Inzana gathered the gods and said:
“The Night hath seized my golden ball and no god alone can find it
now, for none can say how far the Night may roam, who prowls all
round us and out beyond the worlds.”
At the entreaty of Their Dawnchild all the gods made Them-
selves stars for torches, and far away through all the sky followed
the tracks of Night as far as he prowled abroad. And at one time
Slid, with the Pleiades in his hand, came nigh to the golden ball,
and at another Yoharneth-Lahai, holding Orion for a torch, but
lastly Limpang Tung, bearing the morning star, found the golden
ball far away under the world near to the lair of Night.
And all the gods together seized the ball, and Night turning
smote out the torches of the gods and thereafter slunk away; and all
the gods in triumph marched up the gleaming stairway of the gods,
all praising little Limpang Tung, who through the chase had fol-
 Time And The Gods 61

lowed Night so close in search of the golden ball. Then far below
on the world a human child cried out to the Dawnchild for the
golden ball, and Inzana ceased from her play that illumined world
and sky, and cast the ball from the Threshold of the gods to the lit-
tle human child that played in the fields below, and would one day
die. And the child played all day long with the golden ball down in
the little fields where the humans lived, and went to bed at evening
and put it beneath his pillow, and went to sleep, and no one worked
in all the world because the child was playing. And the light of the
golden ball streamed up from under the pillow and out through the
half shut door and shone in the western sky, and Yoharneth-Lahai
in the night time tip-toed into the room, and took the ball gently
(for he was a god) away from under the pillow and brought it back
to the Dawnchild to gleam on an onyx step.
But some day Night shall seize the golden ball and carry it right
away and drag it down to his lair, and Slid shall dive from the
Threshold into the sea to see if it be there, and coming up when
the fishermen draw their nets shall find it not, nor yet discover it
among the sails. Limpang Tung shall seek among the birds and
shall not find it when the cock is mute, and up the valleys shall go
Umborodom to seek among the crags. And the hound, the thunder,
shall chase the Eclipse and all the gods go seeking with Their stars,
but never find the ball. And men, no longer having light of the
golden ball, shall pray to the gods no more, who, having no wor-
ship, shall be no more the gods.
These things be hidden even from the gods.

The Vengeance Of Men

Ere the Beginning the gods divided earth into waste and pasture.
Pleasant pastures They made to be green over the face of earth,
orchards They made in valleys and heather upon hills, but Harza
They doomed, predestined and foreordained to be a waste for ever.
When the world prayed at evening to the gods and the gods
answered prayers They forgot the prayers of all the Tribes of Arim.
62 Time And The Gods

Therefore the men of Arim were assailed with wars and driven
from land to land and yet would not be crushed. And the men of
Arim made them gods for themselves, appointing men as gods
until the gods of Pegāna should remember them again. And their
leaders, Yoth and Haneth, played the part of gods and led their
people on though every tribe assailed them. At last they came to
Harza, where no tribes were, and at last had rest from war, and
Yoth and Haneth said: “The work is done, and surely now Pegāna’s
gods will remember.” And they built a city in Harza and tilled the
soil, and the green came over the waste as the wind comes over
the sea, and there were fruit and cattle in Harza and the sounds of
a million sheep. There they rested from their flight from all the
tribes, and builded fables out of all their sorrows till all men smiled
in Harza and children laughed.
Then said the gods, “Earth is no place for laughter.” Thereat
They strode to Pegāna’s outer gate, to where the Pestilence lay
curled asleep, and waking him up They pointed toward Harza, and
the Pestilence leapt forward howling across the sky.
That night he came to the fields near Harza, and stalking through
the grass sat down and glared at the lights, and licked his paws and
glared at the lights again.
But the next night, unseen, through laughing crowds, the Pesti-
lence crept into the city, and stealing into the houses one by one,
peered into the people’s eyes, looking even through their eyelids,
so that when morning came men stared before them crying out
that they saw the Pestilence whom others saw not, and thereafter
died, because the green eyes of the Pestilence had looked into their
souls. Chill and damp was he, yet there came heat from his eyes
that parched the souls of men. Then came the physicians and the
men learned in magic, and made the sign of the physicians and
the sign of the men of magic and cast blue water upon herbs and
chanted spells; but still the Pestilence crept from house to house
and still he looked into the souls of men. And the lives of the
people streamed away from Harza, and whither they went is set in
many books. But the Pestilence fed on the light that shines in the
eyes of men, which never appeased his hunger; chiller and damper
 Time And The Gods 63

he grew, and the heat from his eyes increased when night by night
he galloped through the city, going by stealth no more.
Then did men pray in Harza to the gods, saying:
“High gods! Show clemency to Harza.”
And the gods listened to their prayers, but as They listened They
pointed with their fingers and cheered the Pestilence on. And the
Pestilence grew bolder at his masters’ voices and thrust his face
close up before the eyes of men.
He could be seen by none saving those he smote. At first he
slept by day, lying in misty hollows, but as his hunger increased
he sprang up even in sunlight and clung to the chests of men and
looked down through their eyes into their souls that shrivelled,
until almost he could be dimly seen even by those he smote not.
Adro, the physician, sat in his chamber with one light burning,
making a mixing in a bowl that should drive the Pestilence away,
when through his door there blew a draught that set the light a-
flickering.
Then because the draught was cold the physician shivered and
went and closed the door, but as he turned again he saw the Pes-
tilence lapping at his mixing, who sprang and set one paw upon
Adro’s shoulder and another upon his cloak, while with two he
clung to his waist, and looked him in the eyes.
Two men were walking in the street; one said to the other:
“Upon the morrow I will sup with thee.”
And the Pestilence grinned a grin that none beheld, baring his
dripping teeth, and crept away to see whether upon the morrow
those men should sup together.
A traveller coming in said: “This is Harza. Here will I rest.”
But his life went further than Harza upon that day’s journey.
All feared the Pestilence, and those that he smote beheld him,
but none saw the great shapes of the gods by starlight as They
urged Their Pestilence on.
Then all men fled from Harza, and the Pestilence chased dogs
and rats and sprang upward at the bats as they sailed above him,
who died and lay in the streets. But soon he returned and pursued
the men of Harza where they fled, and sat by rivers where they
64 Time And The Gods

came to drink, away below the city. Then back to Harza went the
people of Harza pursued by the Pestilence still, and gathered in the
Temple of All the gods save One, and said to the High Prophet:
“What may now be done?” who answered:
“All the gods have mocked at prayer. This sin must now be pun-
ished by the vengeance of men.”
And the people stood in awe.
The High Prophet went up to the Tower beneath the sky where-
upon beat the eyes of all the gods by starlight. There in the sight
of the gods he spake in the ear of the gods, saying: “High gods! Ye
have made mock of men. Know therefore that it is writ in ancient
lore and found by prophecy that there is an End that waiteth for
the gods, who shall go down from Pegāna in galleons of gold all
down the Silent River and into the Silent Sea, and there Their
galleons shall go up in mist and They shall be gods no more. And
men shall gain harbour from the mocking of the gods at last in the
warm moist earth, but to the gods shall no ceasing ever come from
being the Things that were the gods. When Time and worlds and
death are gone away nought shall then remain but worn regrets and
Things that were once gods.
“In the sight of the gods.
“In the ear of the gods.”
Then the gods shouted all together and pointed with Their hands
at the High Prophet’s throat, and the Pestilence sprang.
Long since the High Prophet is dead and his words are forgotten
by men, but the gods know not yet whether it be true that The End
is waiting for the gods, and him who might have told Them They
have slain. And the gods of Pegāna are fearing the fear that hath
fallen upon the gods because of the vengeance of men, for They
know not when The End shall be, or whether it shall come.
 Time And The Gods 65

When The Gods Slept

All the gods were sitting in Pegāna, and Their slave, Time, lay
idle at Pegāna’s gate with nothing to destroy, when They thought
of worlds, worlds large and round and gleaming, and little sil-
ver moons. Then (who knoweth when?), as the gods raised Their
hands making the sign of the gods, the thoughts of the gods be-
came worlds and silver moons. And the worlds swam by Pegāna’s
gate to take their places in the sky, to ride at anchor for ever, each
where the gods had bidden. And because they were round and big
and gleamed all over the sky, the gods laughed and shouted and
all clapped Their hands. Then upon earth the gods played out the
game of the gods, the game of life and death, and on the other
worlds They did a secret thing, playing a game that is hidden.
At last They mocked no more at life and laughed at death no
more, and cried aloud in Pegāna: “Will no new thing be? Must
those four march for ever round the world till our eyes are wearied
with the treading of the feet of the Seasons that will not cease,
while Night and Day and Life and Death drearily rise and fall?”
And as a child stares at the bare walls of a narrow hut, so the
gods looked all listlessly upon the worlds, saying:
“Will no new thing be?”
And in Their weariness the gods said: “Ah! to be young again.
Ah! to be fresh once more from the brain of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ.”
And They turned away Their eyes in weariness from all the
gleaming worlds and laid Them down upon Pegāna’s floor, for
They said:
“It may be that the worlds shall pass and we would fain forget
them.”
Then the gods slept. Then did the comet break loose from his
moorings and the eclipse roamed about the sky, and down on
the earth did Death’s three children — Famine, Pestilence, and
Drought — come out to feed. The eyes of the Famine were green,
and the eyes of the Drought were red, but the Pestilence was blind
and smote about all round him with his claws among the cities.
But as the gods slept, there came from beyond the Rim, out of
66 Time And The Gods

the dark and unknown, three Yozis, spirits of ill, that sailed up the
river of Silence in galleons with silver sails. Far away they had
seen Yum and Gothum, the stars that stand sentinel over Pegāna’s
gate, blinking and falling asleep, and as they neared Pegāna they
found a hush wherein the gods slept heavily. Ya, Ha, and Snyrg
were these three Yozis, the lords of evil, madness, and of spite.
When they crept from their galleons and stole over Pegāna’s silent
threshold it boded ill for the gods. There in Pegāna lay the gods
asleep, and in a corner lay the Power of the gods alone upon the
floor, a thing wrought of black rock and four words graven upon
it, whereof I might not give thee any clue, if even I should find
it — four words of which none knoweth. Some say they tell of the
opening of a flower towards dawn, and others say they concern
earthquakes among hills, and others that they tell of the death of
fishes, and others that the words be these: Power, Knowledge,
Forgetting, and another word that not the gods themselves may
ever guess. These words the Yozis read, and sped away in dread
lest the gods should wake, and going aboard their galleons, bade
the rowers haste. Thus the Yozis became gods, having the power of
gods, and they sailed away to the earth, and came to a mountainous
island in the sea. There they sat upon the rocks, sitting as the gods
sit, with their right hands uplifted, and having the power of gods,
only none came to worship. Thither came no ships nigh them, nor
ever at evening came the prayers of men, nor smell of incense, nor
screams from the sacrifice. Then said the Yozis:
“Of what avails it that we be gods if no one worship us nor give
us sacrifice?”
And Ya, Ha, and Snyrg set sail in their silver galleons, and went
looming down the sea to come to the shores of men. And first they
came to an island where were fisher folk; and the folk of the island,
running down to the shore cried out to them:
“Who be ye?”
And the Yozis answered:
“We be three gods, and we would have your worship.”
But the fisher folk answered:
“Here we worship Rahm, the Thunder, and have no worship nor
 Time And The Gods 67

sacrifice for other gods.”

Then the Yozis snarled with anger and sailed away, and sailed
till they came to another shore, sandy and low and forsaken. And
at last they found an old man upon the shore, and they cried out to
him:
“Old man upon the shore! We be three gods that it were well to
worship, gods of great power and apt in the granting of prayer.”
The old man answered:
“We worship Pegāna’s gods, who have a fondness for our
incense and the sound of our sacrifice when it squeals upon the
altar.”
Then answered Snyrg:
“Asleep are Pegāna’s gods, nor will They wake for the humming
of thy prayers which lie in the dust upon Pegāna’s floor, and over
Them Sniracte, the spider of the worlds, hath woven a web of mist.
And the squealing of the sacrifice maketh no music in ears that are
closed in sleep.”
The old man answered, standing upon the shore:
“Though all the gods of old shall answer our prayers no longer,
yet still to the gods of old shall all men pray here in Syrinais.”
But the Yozis turned their ships about and angrily sailed away,
all cursing Syrinais and Syrinais’s gods, but most especially the old
man that stood upon the shore.
Still the three Yozis lusted for the worship of men, and came,
on the third night of their sailing, to a city’s lights; and nearing the
shore they found it a city of song wherein all folks rejoiced. Then
sat each Yozi on his galleon’s prow, and leered with his eyes upon
the city, so that the music stopped and the dancing ceased, and all
looked out to sea at the strange shapes of the Yozis beneath their
silver sails. Then Snyrg demanded their worship, promising in-
crease of joys, and swearing by the light of his eyes that he would
send little flames to leap over the grass, to pursue the enemies of
that city and to chase them about the world.
But the people answered that in that city men worshipped Agro-
daun, the mountain standing alone, and might not worship other
gods even though they came in galleons with silver sails, sailing
68 Time And The Gods

from over the sea. But Snyrg answered:

“Certainly Agrodaun is only a mountain, and in no manner a
god.”
But the priests of Agrodaun sang answer from the shore:
“If the sacrifice of men make not Agrodaun a god, nor blood still
young on his rocks, nor the little fluttering prayers of ten thousand
hearts, nor two thousands years of worship and all the hopes of the
people and the whole strength of our race, then are there no gods
and ye be common sailors, sailing from over the sea.”
Then said the Yozis:
“Hath Agrodaun answered prayer?” And the people heard the
words that the Yozis said.
Then went the priests of Agrodaun away from the shore and
up the steep streets of the city, the people following, and over the
moor beyond it to the foot of Agrodaun, and then said:
“Agrodaun, if thou art not our god, go back and herd with
yonder common hills, and put a cap of snow upon thy head and
crouch far off as they do beneath the sky; but if we have given thee
divinity in two thousand years, if our hopes are all about thee like a
cloak, then stand and look upon thy worshippers from over our city
for ever.” And the smoke that ascended from his feet stood still and
there fell a hush over great Agrodaun; and the priests went back to
the sea and said to the three Yozis:
“New gods shall have our worship when Agrodaun grows weary
of being our god, or when in some night-time he shall stride away,
leaving us nought to gaze at that is higher than our city.”
And the Yozis sailed away and cursed towards Agrodaun, but
could not hurt him, for he was but a mountain.
And the Yozis sailed along the coast till they came to a river run-
ning to the sea, and they sailed up the river till they came to a peo-
ple at work, who furrowed the soil and sowed, and strove against
the forest. Then the Yozis called to the people as they worked in
the fields:
“Give us your worship and ye shall have many joys.”
But the people answered:
“We may not worship you.”
 Time And The Gods 69

Then answered Snyrg:

“Ye also, have ye a god?”
And the people answered:
“We worship the years to come, and we set the world in order
for their coming, as one layeth raiment on the road before the ad-
vent of a King. And when those years shall come, they shall accept
the worship of a race they knew not, and their people shall make
their sacrifice to the years that follow them, who, in their turn, shall
minister to the End.”
Then answered Snyrg:
“Gods that shall recompense you not. Rather give us your
prayers and have our pleasures, the pleasures that we shall give
you, and when your gods shall come, let them be wroth — they
cannot punish you.”
But the people continued to sacrifice their labour to their gods,
the years to come, making the world a place for gods to dwell in,
and the Yozis cursed those gods and sailed away. And Ya, the Lord
of malice, swore that when those years should come, they should
see whether it were well for them to have snatched away the wor-
ship from three Yozis.
And still the Yozis sailed, for they said:
“It were better to be birds and have no air to fly in, than to be
gods having neither prayers nor worship.”
But where sky met with ocean, the Yozis saw land again, and
thither sailed; and there the Yozis saw men in strange old garments
performing ancient rites in a land of many temples. And the Yozis
called to the men as they performed their ancient rites and said:
“We be three gods well versed in the needs of men, to worship
whom were to obtain instant joy.”
But the men said:
“We have already gods.”
And Snyrg replied:
“Ye, too?”
The men answered:
“For we worship the things that have been and all the years that
were. Divinely have they helped us, therefore we give them wor-
70 Time And The Gods

ship that is their due.”

And the Yozis answered the people:
“We be gods of the present and return good things for worship.”
But the people answered, saying from the shore:
“Our gods have given us already the good things, and we return
Them the worship that is Their due.”
And the Yozis set their faces to landward, and cursed all things
that had been and all the years that were, and sailed in their galle-
ons away.
A rocky shore in an inhuman land stood up against the sea.
Thither the Yozis came and found no man, but out of the dark from
inland towards evening came a herd of great baboons and chattered
greatly when they saw the ships.
Then spake Snyrg to them:
“Have ye, too, a god?”
And the baboons spat.
Then said the Yozis:
“We be seductive gods, having a particular remembrance for lit-
tle prayers.”
But the baboons leered fiercely at the Yozis and would have
none of them for gods.
One said that prayers hindered the eating of nuts. But Snyrg
leaned forward and whispered, and the baboons went down upon
their knees and clasped their hands as men clasp, and chattered
prayer and said to one another that these were the gods of old, and
gave the Yozis their worship — for Snyrg had whispered in their
ears that, if they would worship the Yozis, he would make them
men. And the baboons arose from worshipping, smoother about the
face and a little shorter in the arms, and went away and hid their
bodies in clothing, and afterwards galloped away from the rocky
shore and went and herded with men. And men could not discern
what they were, for their bodies were bodies of men, though their
souls were still the souls of beasts and their worship went to the
Yozis, spirits of ill.
And the lords of malice, hatred and madness sailed back to their
island in the sea and sat upon the shore as gods sit, with right hand
 Time And The Gods 71

uplifted; and at evening foul prayers from the baboons gathered

about them and infested the rocks.
But in Pegāna the gods awoke with a start.

The King That Was Not

The land of Runazar hath no King nor ever had one; and this is
the law of the land of Runazar that, seeing that it hath never had
a King, it shall not have one for ever. Therefore in Runazar the
priests hold sway, who tell people that never in Runazar hath there
been a King.
Althazar, King of Runazar, and lord of all lands near by, com-
manded for the closer knowledge of the gods that Their images
should be carven in Runazar, and in all lands near by. And when
Althazar’s command, wafted abroad by trumpets, came tinkling
in the ear of all the gods, right glad were They at the sound of
it. Therefore men quarried marble from the earth, and sculptors
busied themselves in Runazar to obey the edict of the King. But
the gods stood by starlight on the hills where the sculptors might
see Them, and draped the clouds about Them, and put upon Them
Their divinest air, that sculptors might do justice to Pegāna’s gods.
Then the gods strode back into Pegāna and the sculptors hammered
and wrought, and there came a day when the Master of Sculptors
took audience of the King, saying:
“Althazar, King of Runazar, High Lord moreover of all the lands
near by, to whom be the gods benignant, humbly have we complet-
ed the images of all such gods as were in thine edict named.”
Then the King commanded a great space to be cleared among
the houses in his city, and there the images of all the gods were
borne and set before the King, and there were assembled the Mas-
ter of Sculptors and all his men; and before each stood a soldier
bearing a pile of gold upon a jewelled tray, and behind each stood
a soldier with a drawn sword pointing against their necks, and the
King looked upon the images. And lo! they stood as gods with the
clouds all draped about them, making the sign of the gods, but their
72 Time And The Gods

bodies were those of men, and lo! their faces were very like the
King’s, and their beards were as the King’s beard. And the King
said:
“These be indeed Pegāna’s gods.”
And the soldiers that stood before the sculptors were caused to
present to them the piles of gold, and the soldiers that stood behind
the sculptors were caused to sheath their swords. And the people
shouted:
“These be indeed Pegāna’s gods, whose faces we are permitted
to see by the will of Althazar the King, to whom be the gods benig-
nant.” And heralds were sent abroad through the cities of Runazar
and of all the lands near by, proclaiming of the images:
“These be Pegāna’s gods.”
But up in Pegāna the gods howled with wrath and Mung leant
forward to make the sign of Mung against Althazar the King. But
the gods laid Their hands upon his shoulder saying:
“Slay him not, for it is not enough that Althazar shall die, who
hath made the faces of the gods to be like the faces of men, but he
must not even have ever been.”
Then said the gods:
“Spake we of Althazar, a King?”
And the gods said:
“Nay, we spake not.” And the gods said:
“Dreamed we of one Althazar?” And the gods said:
“Nay, we dreamed not.”
But in the royal palace of Runazar, Althazar, passing suddenly
out of the remembrance of the gods, became no longer a thing that
was or had ever been.
And by the throne of Althazar lay a robe, and near it lay a
crown, and the priests of the gods entered his palace and made it a
temple of the gods. And the people coming to worship said:
“Whose was this robe and to what purpose is this crown?”
And the priests answered:
“The gods have cast away the fragment of a garment and lo!
from the fingers of the gods hath slipped one little ring.”
And the people said to the priests:
 Time And The Gods 73

“Seeing that Runazar hath never had a King, therefore be ye our

rulers, and make ye our laws in the sight of Pegāna’s gods.”

The Cave Of Kai

The pomp of crowning was ended, the rejoicings had died away,
and Khanazar, the new King, sat in the seat of the Kings of Averon
to do his work upon the destinies of men. His uncle, Khanazar the
Lone, had died, and he had come from a far castle to the south,
with a great procession, to Ilaun, the citadel of Averon; and there
they had crowned him King of Averon and of the mountains, and
Lord, if there be aught beyond those mountains, of all such lands
as are. But now the pomp of the crowning was gone away and
Khanazar sat afar off from his home, a very mighty King.
Then the King grew weary of the destinies of Averon and weary
of the making of commands. So Khanazar sent heralds through all
cities saying:
“Hear! The will of the King! Hear! The will of the King of
Averon and of the mountains and Lord, if there be aught beyond
those mountains, of all such lands as are. Let there come together
to Ilaun all such as have an art in secret matters. Hear!”
And there gathered together to Ilaun the wise men of all the
degrees of magic, even to the seventh, who had made spells be-
fore Khanazar the Lone; and they came before the new King in his
palace placing their hands upon his feet. Then said the King to the
magicians:
“I have a need.”
And they answered:
“The earth touches the feet of the King in token of submission.”
But the King answered:
“My need is not of the earth; but I would find certain of the
hours that have been, and sundry days that were.”
And all the wise folks were silent, till there spake out mourn-
fully the wisest of them all, who made spells in the seventh degree,
saying:
74 Time And The Gods

“The days that were, and the hours, have winged their way to
Mount Agdora’s summit, and there, dipping, have passed away
from sight, not ever to return, for haply they have not heard the
King’s command.”
Of these wise folks are many things chronicled. Moreover, it
is set in writing of the scribes how they had audience of King
Khanazar and of the words they spake, but of their further deeds
there is no legend. But it is told how the King sent men to run and
pass through all the cities till they should find one that was wiser
even than the magicians that had made spells before Khanazar the
Lone. Far up the mountains that limit Averon they found Syrahn,
the prophet, among the goats, who was of none of the degrees of
magic, and who had cast no spells before the former King. Him
they brought to Khanazar, and the King said unto him:
“I have a need.”
And Syrahn answered:
“Thou art a man.”
And the King said:
“Where lie the days that were and certain hours?”
And Syrahn answered:
“These things lie in a cave afar from here, and over the cave
stands sentinel one Kai, and this cave Kai hath guarded from the
gods and men since ever the Beginning was made. It may be that
he shall let Khanazar pass by.”
Then the King gathered elephants and camels that carried bur-
dens of gold, and trusty servants that carried precious gems, and
gathered an army to go before him and an army to follow behind,
and sent out horsemen to warn the dwellers of the plains that the
King of Averon was afoot.
And he bade Syrahn to lead to that place where the days of old
lie hid and all forgotten hours.
Across the plain and up Mount Agdora, and dipping beyond its
summit went Khanazar the King, and his two armies who followed
Syrahn. Eight times the purple tent with golden border had been
pitched for the King of Averon, and eight times it had been struck
ere the King and the King’s armies came to a dark cave in a val-
 Time And The Gods 75

ley dark, where Kai stood guard over the days that were. And the
face of Kai was as a warrior that vanquisheth cities and burdeneth
himself not with captives, and his form was as the forms of gods,
but his eyes were the eyes of beasts; before whom came the King
of Averon with elephants and camels bearing burdens of gold, and
trusty servants carrying precious gems.
Then said the King:
“Yonder behold my gifts. Give back to me my yesterday with its
waving banners, my yesterday with its music and blue sky and all
its cheering crowds that made me King, the yesterday that sailed
with gleaming wings over my Averon.”
And Kai answered, pointing to his cave:
“Thither, dishonoured and forgot, thy yesterday slunk away. And
who amid the dusty heap of the forgotten days shall grovel to find
thy yesterday?”
Then answered the King of Averon and of the mountains and
Lord, if there be aught beyond them, of all such lands as are:
“I will go down on my knees in yon dark cave and search with
my hands amid the dust, if so I may find my yesterday again and
certain hours that are gone.”
And the King pointed to his piles of gold that stood where el-
ephants were met together, and beyond them to the scornful cam-
els. And Kai answered:
“The gods have offered me the gleaming worlds and all as far
as the Rim, and whatever lies beyond it as far as the gods may
see — and thou comest to me with elephants and camels.”
Then said the King:
“Across the orchards of my home there hath passed one hour
whereof thou knowest well, and I pray to thee, who wilt take no
gifts borne upon elephants or camels, to give me of thy mercy one
second back, one grain of dust that clings to that hour in the heap
that lies within thy cave.”
And, at the word mercy, Kai laughed. And the King turned his
armies to the east. Therefore the armies returned to Averon and the
heralds before them cried:
“Here cometh Khanazar, King of Averon and of the mountains
76 Time And The Gods

and Lord, if there be aught beyond those mountains, of all such

lands as are.”
And the King said to them:
“Say rather that here comes one greatly wearied who, having ac-
complished nought, returneth from a quest forlorn.”
So the King came again to Averon.
But it is told how there came into Ilaun one evening as the sun
was setting a harper with a golden harp desiring audience of the
King.
And it is told how men led him to Khanazar, who sat frowning
alone upon his throne, to whom said the harper:
“I have a golden harp; and to its strings have clung like dust
some seconds out of the forgotten hours and little happenings of
the days that were.”
And Khanazar looked up and the harper touched the strings, and
the old forgotten things were stirring again, and there arose a sound
of songs that had passed away and long since voices. Then when
the harper saw that Khanazar looked not angrily upon him his
fingers tramped over the chords as the gods tramp down the sky,
and out of the golden harp arose a haze of memories; and the King
leaning forward and staring before him saw in the haze no more his
palace walls, but saw a valley with a stream that wandered through
it, and woods upon either hill, and an old castle standing lonely to
the south. And the harper, seeing a strange look upon the face of
Khanazar, said:
“Is the King pleased who lords it over Averon and the moun-
tains, and, if there be aught beyond them, over all such lands as
are?”
And the King said: —
“Seeing that I am a child again in a valley to the south, how may
I say what may be the will of the great King?”
When the stars shone high over Ilaun and still the King sat star-
ing straight before him, all the courtiers drew away from the great
palace, save one that stayed and kept one taper burning, and with
them went the harper.
And when the dawn came up through silent archways into the
 Time And The Gods 77

marble palace, making the taper pale, the King still stared before
him, and still he sat there when the stars shone again clearly and
high above Ilaun.
But on the second morning the King arose and sent for the
harper and said to him: —
“I am King again, and thou that hast a skill to stay the hours and
mayest may bring again to men their forgotten days, thou shalt
stand sentinel over my great to-morrow; and when I go forth to
conquer Ziman-ho and make my armies mighty thou shalt stand
between that morrow and the cave of Kai, and haply some deed
of mine and the battling of my armies shall cling to thy golden
harp and not go down dishonoured into the cave. For my to-mor-
row, who with such resounding stride goes trampling through my
dreams, is far too kingly to herd with forgotten days in the dust
of things that were. But on some future day, when Kings are dead
and all their deeds forgotten, some harper of that time shall come
and from those golden strings awake those deeds that echo in my
dreams, till my to-morrow shall stride forth among the lesser days
and tell the years that Khanazar was a King.”
And answered the harper:
“I will stand sentinel over thy great to-morrow, and when thou
goest forth to conquer Ziman-ho and make thine armies mighty I
will stand between thy morrow and the cave of Kai, till thy deeds
and the battling of thine armies shall cling to my golden harp and
not go down dishonoured into the cave. So that when Kings are
dead and all their deeds forgotten the harpers of the future time
shall awake from these golden chords those deeds of thine. This
will I do.”
Men of these days, that be skilled upon the harp, tell still of
Khanazar, how that he was King of Averon and of the mountains,
and claimed lordship of certain lands beyond, and how he went
with armies against Ziman-ho and fought great battles, and in the
last gained victory and was slain. But Kai, as he waited with his
claws to gather in the last days of Khanazar that they might loom
enormous in his cave, still found them not, and only gathered in
some meaner deeds and the days and hours of lesser men, and was
78 Time And The Gods

vexed by the shadow of a harper that stood between him and the
world.

The Sorrow Of Search

It is told also of King Khanazar how he bowed very low unto the
gods of Old. None bowed so low unto the gods of Old as did King
Khanazar.
One day the King returning from the worship of the gods of Old
and from bowing before them in the temple of the gods command-
ed their prophets to appear before him, saying:
“I would know somewhat concerning the gods.”
Then came the prophets before King Khanazar, burdened with
many books, to whom the King said:
“It is not in books.”
Thereat the prophets departed, bearing away with them a thou-
sand methods well devised in books whereby men may gain wis-
dom of the gods. One alone remained, a master prophet, who had
forgotten books, to whom the King said:
“The gods of Old are mighty.”
And answered the master prophet:
“Very mighty are the gods of Old.”
Then said the King:
“There are no gods but the gods of Old.”
And answered the prophet:
“There are none other.”
And they two being alone within the palace the King said:
“Tell me aught concerning gods or men if aught of the truth be
known.”
Then said the master prophet:
“Far and white and straight lieth the road to Knowing, and down
it in the heat and dust go all wise people of the earth, but in the
fields before they come to it the very wise lie down or pluck the
flowers. By the side of the road to Knowing — O King, it is hard
and hot — stand many temples, and in the doorway of every temple
 Time And The Gods 79

stand many priests, and they cry to the travellers that weary of the
road, crying to them:
“This is the End.”
And in the temples are the sounds of music, and from each roof
arises the savour of pleasant burning; and all that look at a cool
temple, whichever temple they look at, or hear the hidden music,
turn in to see whether it be indeed the End. And such as find that
their temple is not indeed the End set forth again upon the dusty
road, stopping at each temple as they pass for fear they miss the
End, or striving onwards on the road, and see nothing in the dust,
till they can walk no longer and are taken worn and weary of their
journey into some other temple by a kindly priest who shall tell
them that this also is the End. Neither on that road may a man gain
any guiding from his fellows, for only one thing that they say is
surely true, when they say:
“Friend, we can see nothing for the dust.”
And of the dust that hides the way much has been there since
ever that road began, and some is stirred up by the feet of all that
travel upon it, and more arises from the temple doors.
And, O King, it were better for thee, travelling upon that road,
to rest when thou hearest one calling: “This is the End,” with the
sounds of music behind him. And if in the dust and darkness thou
pass by Lo and Mush and the pleasant temple of Kynash, or Sheen-
ath with his opal smile, or Sho with his eyes of agate, yet Shilo and
Mynarthitep, Gazo and Amurund and Slig are still before thee and
the priests of their temples will not forget to call thee.
And, O King, it is told that only one discerned the end and
passed by three thousand temples, and the priests of the last were
like the priests of the first, and all said that their temple was at the
end of the road, and the dark of the dust lay over them all, and
all were very pleasant and only the road was weary. And in some
were many gods, and in a few only one, and in some the shrine
was empty, and all had many priests, and in all the travellers were
happy as they rested. And into some his fellow travellers tried to
force him, and when he said:
“I will travel further,” many said:
80 Time And The Gods

“This man lies, for the road ends here.”

And he that travelled to the End hath told that when the thunder
was heard upon the road there arose the sound of the voices of all
the priests as far as he could hear, crying:
“Hearken to Shilo” — “Hear Mush” — “Lo! Kynash” — “The
voice of Sho” — “Mynarthitep is angry” — “Hear the word of
Slig!”
And far away along the road one cried to the traveller that
Sheenath stirred in his sleep.
O King this is very doleful. It is told that that traveller came at
last to the utter End and there was a mighty gulf, and in the dark-
ness at the bottom of the gulf one small god crept, no bigger than a
hare, whose voice came crying in the cold:
“I know not.”
And beyond the gulf was nought, only the small god crying.
And he that travelled to the End fled backwards for a great dis-
tance till he came to temples again, and entering one where a priest
cried:
“This is the End,” lay down and rested on a couch. There Yush
sat silent, carved with an emerald tongue and two great eyes of
sapphire, and there many rested and were happy. And an old priest,
coming from comforting a child, came over to that traveller who
had seen the End and said to him:
“This is Yush and this is the End of wisdom.”
And the traveller answered:
“Yush is very peaceful and this indeed the End.”
“O King, wouldst thou hear more?”
And the King said:
“I would hear all.”
And the master prophet answered:
“There was also another prophet and his name was Shaun,
who had such reverence for the gods of Old that he became able
to discern their forms by starlight as they strode, unseen by oth-
ers, among men. Each night did Shaun discern the forms of the
gods and every day he taught concerning them, till men in Averon
knew how the gods appeared all grey against the mountains, and
 Time And The Gods 81

how Rhoog was higher than Mount Scagadon, and how Skun was
smaller, and how Asgool leaned forward as he strode, and how
Trodath peered about him with small eyes. But one night as Shaun
watched the gods of Old by starlight, he faintly discerned some
other gods that sat far up the slopes of the mountains in the still-
ness behind the gods of Old. And the next day he hurled his robe
away that he wore as Averon’s prophet and said to his people:
“There be gods greater than the gods of Old, three gods seen
faintly on the hills by starlight looking on Averon.”
And Shaun set out and travelled many days and many people
followed him. And every night he saw more clearly the shapes
of the three new gods who sat silent when the gods of Old were
striding among men. On the higher slopes of the mountain Shaun
stopped with all his people, and there they built a city and wor-
shipped the gods, whom only Shaun could see, seated above them
on the mountain. And Shaun taught how the gods were like grey
streaks of light seen before dawn, and how the god on the right
pointed upward toward the sky, and how the god on the left pointed
downward toward the ground, but the god in the middle slept.
And in the city Shaun’s followers built three temples. The one
on the right was a temple for the young, and the one on the left a
temple for the old, and the third was a temple for the old, and the
third was a temple with doors closed and barred — therein none
ever entered. One night as Shaun watched before the three gods
sitting like pale light against the mountain, he saw on the moun-
tain’s summit two gods that spake together and pointed, mocking
the gods of the hill, only he heard no sound. The next day Shaun
set out and a few followed him to climb to the mountain’s summit
in the cold, to find the gods who were so great that they mocked
at the silent three. And near the two gods they halted and built for
themselves huts. Also they built a temple wherein the Two were
carved by the hand of Shaun with their heads turned towards each
other, with mockery on Their faces and Their fingers pointing,
and beneath Them were carved the three gods of the hill as actors
making sport. None remembered now Asgool, Trodath, Skun, and
Rhoog, the gods of Old.
82 Time And The Gods

For many years Shaun and his few followers lived in their huts
upon the mountain’s summit worshipping gods that mocked, and
every night Shaun saw the two gods by starlight as they laughed to
one another in the silence. And Shaun grew old.
One night as his eyes were turned towards the Two, he saw
across the mountains in the distance a great god seated in the plain
and looming enormous to the sky, who looked with angry eyes
towards the Two as they sat and mocked. Then said Shaun to his
people, the few that had followed him thither:
“Alas that we may not rest, but beyond us in the plain sitteth the
one true god and he is wroth with mocking. Let us therefore leave
these two that sit and mock and let us find the truth in the worship
of that greater god, who even though he kill shall yet not mock us.”
But the people answered:
“Thou hast taken from us many gods and taught us now to wor-
ship gods that mock, and if there is laughter on their faces as we
die, lo! thou alone canst see it, and we would rest.”
But three men who had grown old with following followed still.
And down the steep mountain on the further side Shaun led
them, saying:
“Now we shall surely know.”
And the three old men answered:
“We shall know indeed, O last of all the prophets.”
That night the two gods mocking at their worshippers mocked
not at Shaun nor his three followers, who coming to the plain
still travelled on till they came at last to a place where the eyes of
Shaun at night could closely see the vast form of their god. And
beyond them as far as the sky there lay a marsh. There they rested,
building such shelters as they could, and said to one another:
“This is the End, for Shaun discerneth that there are no more
gods, and before us lieth the marsh and old age hath come upon
us.”
And since they could not labour to build a temple, Shaun carved
upon a rock all that he saw by starlight of the great god of the
plain; so that if ever others forsook the gods of Old because they
saw beyond them the Greater Three, and should thence come to
 Time And The Gods 83

knowledge of the Twain that mocked, and should yet persevere in

wisdom till they saw by starlight him whom Shaun named the Ul-
timate god, they should still find there upon the rock what one had
written concerning the end of search. For three years Shaun carved
upon the rock, and rising one night from carving, saying:
“Now is my labour done,” saw in the distance four greater gods
beyond the Ultimate god. Proudly in the distance beyond the marsh
these gods were tramping together, taking no heed of the god upon
the plain. Then said Shaun to his three followers:
“Alas that we know not yet, for there be gods beyond the
marsh.”
None would follow Shaun, for they said that old age must end
all quests, and that they would rather wait there in the plain for
Death than that he should pursue them across the marsh.
Then Shaun said farewell to his followers, saying:
“You have followed me well since ever we forsook the gods of
Old to worship greater gods. Farewell. It may be that your prayers
at evening shall avail when you pray to the god of the plain, but I
must go onward, for there be gods beyond.”
So Shaun went down into the marsh, and for three days strug-
gled through it, and on the third night saw the four gods not very
far away, yet could not discern Their faces. All the next day Shaun
toiled on to see Their faces by starlight, but ere the night came up
or one star shone, at set of sun, Shaun fell down before the feet of
his four gods. The stars came out, and the faces of the four shone
bright and clear, but Shaun saw them not, for the labour of toiling
and seeing was over for Shaun; and lo! They were Asgool, Trodath,
Skun, and Rhoog — The gods of Old.
Then said the King:
“It is well that the sorrow of search cometh only to the wise, for
the wise are very few.”
Also the King said:
“Tell me this thing, O prophet. Who are the true gods?”
The master prophet answered:
“Let the King command.”
84 Time And The Gods

The Men Of Yarnith

The men of Yarnith hold that nothing began until Yarni Zai
uplifted his hand. Yarni Zai, they say, has the form of a man but
is greater and is a thing of rock. When he uplifted his hand all the
rocks that wandered beneath the Dome, by which name they call
the sky, gathered together around Yarni Zai.
Of the other worlds they say nought, but hold that the stars are
the eyes of all the other gods that look on Yarni Zai and laugh, for
they are all greater than he, though they have gathered no worlds
around them.
Yet though they be greater than Yarni Zai, and though they laugh
at him when they speak together beneath the Dome, they all speak
of Yarni Zai.
Unheard is the speaking of the gods to all except the gods, but
the men of Yarnith tell of how their prophet Iraun lying in the sand
desert, Azrakhan, heard once their speaking and knew thereby how
Yarni Zai departed from all the other gods to clothe himself with
rocks and make a world.
Certain it is that every legend tells that at the end of the valley
of Yodeth, where it becomes lost among black cliffs, there sits a
figure colossal, against a mountain, whose form is the form of a
man with the right hand uplifted, but vaster than the hills. And in
the Book of Secret Things which the prophets keep in the Temple
that stands in Yarnith is writ the story of the gathering of the world
as Iraun heard it when the gods spake together, up in the stillness
above Azrakhan.
And all that read this may learn how Yarni Zai drew the moun-
tains about him like a cloak, and piled the world below him. It is
not set in writing for how many years Yarni Zai sat clothed with
rocks at the end of the Valley of Yodeth, while there was nought in
all the world save rocks and Yarni Zai.
But one day there came another god running over the rocks
across the world, and he ran as the clouds run upon days of storm,
and as he sped towards Yodeth, Yarni Zai, sitting against his moun-
tain with right hand uplifted, cried out:
 Time And The Gods 85

“What dost thou, running across my world, and whither art thou
going?”
And the new god answered never a word, but sped onwards, and
as he went to left of him and to right of him there sprang up green
things all over the rocks of the world of Yarni Zai.
So the new god ran round the world and made it green, saying
in the valley where Yarni Zai sat monstrous against his mountain
and certain lands wherein Cradoa, the drought, browsed horribly at
night.
Further, the writing in the book tells of how there came yet
another god running speedily out of the east, as swiftly as the first,
with his face set westward, and nought to stay his running; and
how he stretched both arms outward beside him, and to left of him
and to right of him as he ran the whole world whitened.
And Yarni Zai called out:
“What dost thou, running across my world?”
And the new god answered:
“I bring the snow for all the world — whiteness and resting and
stillness.”
And he stilled the running of streams and laid his hand even
upon the head of Yarni Zai and muffled the noises of the world, till
there was no sound in all lands, but the running of the new god that
brought the snow as he sped across the plains.
But the two new gods chased each other for ever round the
world, and every year they passed again, running down the valleys
and up the hills and away across the plains before Yarni Zai, whose
hand uplifted had gathered the world about him.
And, furthermore, the very devout may read how all the animals
came up the valley of Yodeth to the mountain whereon rested Yarni
Zai, saying:
“Give us leave to live, to be lions, rhinoceroses and rabbits, and
to go about the world.”
And Yarni Zai gave leave to the animals to be lions, rhinocer-
oses and rabbits, and all the other kinds of beasts, and to go about
the world. But when they all had gone he gave leave to the bird to
be a bird and to go about the sky.
86 Time And The Gods

And further there came a man into that valley who said:
“Yarni Zai, thou hast made animals into thy world. O Yarni Zai,
ordain that there be men.”
So Yarni Zai made men.
Then was there in the world Yarni Zai, and two strange gods that
brought the greenness and the growing and the whiteness and the
stillness, and animals and men.
And the god of the greenness pursued the god of the whiteness,
and the god of the whiteness pursued the god of the greenness, and
men pursued animals, and animals pursued men. But Yarni Zai sat
still against his mountain with his right hand uplifted. But the men
of Yarnith say that when the arm of Yarni Zai shall cease to be up-
lifted the world shall be flung behind him, as a man’s cloak is flung
away. And Yarni Zai, no longer clad with the world, shall go back
into the emptiness beneath the Dome among the stars, as a diver
seeking pearls goes down from the islands.
It is writ in Yarnith’s histories by scribes of old that there passed
a year over the valley of Yarnith that bore not with it any rain; and
the Famine from the wastes beyond, finding that it was dry and
pleasant in Yarnith, crept over the mountains and down their slopes
and sunned himself at the edge of Yarnith’s fields.
And men of Yarnith, labouring in the fields, found the Famine
as he nibbled at the corn and chased the cattle, and hastily they
drew water from deep wells and cast it over the Famine’s dry grey
fur and drove him back to the mountains. But the next day when
his fur was dry again the Famine returned and nibbled more of the
corn and chased the cattle further, and again men drove him back.
But again the Famine returned, and there came a time when there
was no more water in the wells to frighten the Famine with, and he
nibbled the corn till all of it was gone and the cattle that he chased
grew very lean. And the Famine drew nearer, even to the houses of
men and trampled on their gardens at night and ever came creeping
nearer to their doors. At last the cattle were able to run no more,
and one by one the Famine took them by their throats and dragged
them down, and at night he scratched in the ground, killing even
the roots of things, and came and peered in at the doorways and
 Time And The Gods 87

started back and peered in at the door again a little further, but yet
was not bold enough to enter altogether, for fear that men should
have water to throw over his dry grey fur.
Then did the men of Yarnith pray to Yarni Zai as he sat far off
beyond the valley, praying to him night and day to call his Fam-
ine back, but the Famine sat and purred and slew all the cattle and
dared at last to take men for his food.
And the histories tell how he slew children first and afterwards
grew bolder and tore down women, till at last he even sprang at the
throats of men as they laboured in the fields.
Then said the men of Yarnith:
“There must go one to take our prayers to the feet of Yarni Zai;
for the world at evening utters many prayers, and it may be that
Yarni Zai, as he hears all earth lamenting when the prayers at
evening flutter to his feet, may have missed among so many the
prayers of the men of Yarnith. But if one go and say to Yarni Zai:
‘There is a little crease in the outer skirts of thy cloak that men call
the valley of Yarnith, where the Famine is a greater lord than Yarni
Zai,’ it may be that he shall remember for an instant and call his
Famine back.”
Yet all men feared to go, seeing that they were but men and
Yarni Zai was Lord of the whole earth, and the journey was far
and rocky. But that night Hothrun Dath heard the Famine whining
outside his house and pawing at his door; therefore, it seemed to
him more meet to wither before the glance of Yarni Zai than that
the whining of that Famine should ever again fall upon his ears.
So about the dawn, Hothrun Dath crept away, fearing still to
hear behind him the breathing of the Famine, and set out upon his
journey whither pointed the graves of men. For men in Yarnith are
buried with their feet and faces turned toward Yarni Zai, lest he
might beckon to them in their night and call them to him.
So all day long did Hothrun Dath follow the way of the graves.
It is told that he even journeyed for three days and nights with
nought but the graves to guide him, as they pointed towards Yarni
Zai where all the world slopes upwards towards Yodeth, and the
great black rocks that are nearest to Yarni Zai lie gathered together
88 Time And The Gods

by clans, till he came to the two great black pillars of asdarinth

and saw the rocks beyond them piled in a dark valley, narrow and
aloof, and knew that this was Yodeth. Then did he haste no more,
but walked quietly up the valley, daring not to disturb the stillness,
for he said:
“Surely this is the stillness of Yarni Zai, which lay about him
before he clothed himself with rocks.”
Here among the rocks which first had gathered to the call of
Yarni Zai, Hothrun Dath felt a mighty fear, but yet went onwards
because of all his people and because he knew that thrice in every
hour in some dark chamber Death and Famine met to speak two
words together, “The End.”
But as dawn turned the darkness into grey, he came to the val-
ley’s end, and even touched the foot of Yarni Zai, but saw him not,
for he was all hidden in the mist. Then Hothrun Dath feared that
he might not behold him to look him in the eyes when he sent up
his prayer. But laying his forehead against the foot of Yarni Zai he
prayed for the men of Yarnith, saying:
“O Lord of Famine and Father of Death, there is a spot in the
world that thou hast cast about thee which men call Yarnith, and
there men die before the time thou hast apportioned, passing out of
Yarnith. Perchance the Famine hath rebelled against thee, or Death
exceeds his powers. O Master of the World, drive out the Famine
as a moth out of thy cloak, lest the gods beyond that regard thee
with their eyes say — there is Yarni Zai, and lo! his cloak is tat-
tered.”
And in the mist no sign made Yarni Zai. Then did Hothrun Dath
pray to Yarni Zai to make some sign with his uplifted hand that he
might know he heard him. In the awe and silence he waited, until
nigh the dawn the mist that hid the figure rolled upwards. Serene
above the mountains he brooded over the world, silent, with right
hand uplifted.
What Hothrun Dath saw there upon the face of Yarni Zai no his-
tory telleth, or how he came again alive to Yarnith, but this is writ
that he fled, and none hath since beheld the face of Yarni Zai. Some
say that he saw a look on the face of the image that set a horror
 Time And The Gods 89

tingling through his soul, but it is held in Yarnith that he found the
marks of instruments of carving about the figure’s feet, and dis-
cerning thereby that Yarni Zai was wrought by the hands of men,
he fled down the valley screaming:
“There are no gods, and all the world is lost.” And hope departed
from him and all the purposes of life. Motionless behind him, lit by
the rising sun, sat the colossal figure with right hand uplifted that
man had made in his own image.
But the men of Yarnith tell how Hothrun Dath came back again
panting to his own city, and told the people that there were no gods
and that Yarnith had no hope from Yarni Zai. Then the men of
Yarnith when they knew that the Famine came not from the gods,
arose and strove against him. They dug deep for wells, and slew
goats for food high up on Yarnith’s mountains and went afar and
gathered blades of grass, where yet it grew, that their cattle might
live. Thus they fought the Famine, for they said: “If Yarni Zai be
not a god, then is there nothing mightier in Yarnith than men, and
who is the Famine that he should bare his teeth against the lords of
Yarnith?”
And they said: “If no help cometh from Yarni Zai then is there
no help but from our own strength and might, and we be Yarnith’s
gods with the saving of Yarnith burning within us or its doom ac-
cording to our desire.”
And some more the Famine slew, but others raised their hands
saying: “These be the hands of gods,” and drave the Famine back
till he went from the houses of men and out among the cattle, and
still the men of Yarnith pursued him, till above the heat of the fight
came the million whispers of rain heard faintly far off towards
evening. Then the Famine fled away howling back to the moun-
tains and over the mountains’ crests, and became no more than a
thing that is told in Yarnith’s legends.
A thousand years have passed across the graves of those that
fell in Yarnith by the Famine. But the men of Yarnith still pray to
Yarni Zai, carved by men’s hands in the likeness of a man, for they
say — “It may be that the prayers we offer to Yarni Zai may roll
upwards from his image as do the mists at dawn, and somewhere
90 Time And The Gods

find at last the other gods or that God who sits behind the others of
whom our prophets know not.”

For The Honour Of The Gods

Of the great wars of the Three Islands are many histories writ
and of how the heroes of the olden time one by one were slain,
but nought is told of the days before the olden time, or ever the
people of the isles went forth to war, when each in his own land
tended cattle or sheep, and listless peace obscured those isles in
the days before the olden time. For then the people of the Islands
played like children about the feet of Chance and had no gods and
went not forth to war. But sailors, cast by strange winds upon those
shores which they named the Prosperous Isles, and finding a happy
people which had no gods, told how they should be happier still
and know the gods and fight for the honour of the gods and leave
their names writ large in histories and at the last die proclaiming
the names of the gods. And the people of the islands met and said:
“The beasts we know, but lo! these sailors tell of things beyond
that know us as we know the beasts and use us for their pleasure as
we use the beasts, but yet are apt to answer idle prayer flung up at
evening near the hearth, when a man returneth from the ploughing
of the fields. Shall we now seek these gods?” And some said:
“We are lords of the Three Islands and have none to trouble us,
and while we live we find prosperity, and when we die our bones
have ease in the quiet. Let us not therefore seek those who may
loom greater than we do in the Islands Three or haply harry our
bones when we be dead.”
But others said:
“The prayers that a man mutters, when the drought hath come
and all the cattle die, go up unheeded to the heedless clouds, and
if somewhere there be those that garner prayer let us send men to
seek them and to say: ‘There be men in the Isles called Three, or
sometimes named by sailors the Prosperous Isles (and they be in
the Central Sea), who ofttimes pray, and it hath been told us that
 Time And The Gods 91

ye love the worship of men, and for it answer prayer, and we be

travellers from the Islands Three.’”
And the people of the Islands were greatly allured by the thought
of strange things neither men nor beasts who at evening answered
prayer.
Therefore they sent men down in ships with sails to sail across
the sea, and in safety over the sea to a far shore Chance brought
the ships. Then over hill and valley three men set forth seeking to
find the gods, and their comrades beached the ships and waited on
the shore. And they that sought the gods followed for thirty nights
the lightnings in the sky over five mountains, and as they came to
the summit of the last, they saw a valley beneath them, and lo! the
gods. For there the gods sat, each on a marble hill, each sitting with
an elbow on his knee, and his chin upon his hand, and all the gods
were smiling about Their lips. And below them there were armies
of little men, and about the feet of the gods they fought against
each other and slew one another for the honour of the gods, and
for the glory of the name of the gods. And round them in the valley
their cities that they had builded with the toil of their hands, they
burned for the honour of the gods, where they died for the honour
of the gods, and the gods looked down and smiled. And up from
the valley fluttered the prayers of men and here and there the gods
did answer a prayer, but oftentimes They mocked them, and all the
while men died.
And they that had sought the gods from the Islands Three, hav-
ing seen what they had seen, lay down on the mountain summit lest
the gods should see them. Then they crept backward a little space,
still lying down, and whispered together and then stooped low and
ran, and travelled across the mountains in twenty days and came
again to their comrades by the shore. But their comrades asked
them if their quest had failed and the three men only answered:
“We have seen the gods.”
And setting sail the ships hove back across the Central Sea and
came again to the Islands Three, where rest the feet of Chance, and
said to the people:
“We have seen the gods.”
92 Time And The Gods

But to the rulers of the Islands they told how the gods drove
men in herds; and went back and tended their flocks again all in the
Prosperous Isles, and were kinder to their cattle after they had seen
how that the gods used men.
But the gods walking large about Their valley, and peering over
the great mountain’s rim, saw one morning the tracks of the three
men. Then the gods bent their faces low over the tracks and lean-
ing forward ran, and came before the evening of the day to the
shore where the men had set sail in ships, and saw the tracks of
ships upon the sand, and waded far out into the sea, and yet saw
nought. Still it had been well for the Islands Three had not certain
men that had heard the travellers’ tale sought also to see the gods
themselves. These in the night-time slipped away from the Isles in
ships, and ere the gods had retreated to the hills, They saw where
ocean meets with sky the full white sails of those that sought the
gods upon an evil day. Then for a while the people of those gods
had rest while the gods lurked behind the mountain, waiting for
the travellers from the Prosperous Isles. But the travellers came to
shore and beached their ships, and sent six of their number to the
mountain whereof they had been told. But they after many days re-
turned, having not seen the gods but only the smoke that went up-
ward from burned cities, and vultures that stood in the sky instead
of answered prayer. And they all ran down their ships again into
the sea, and set sail again and came to the Prosperous Isles. But
in the distance crouching behind the ships the gods came wading
through the sea that They might have the worship of the isles. And
to every isle of the three the gods showed themselves in different
garb and guise, and to all they said:
“Leave your flocks. Go forth and fight for the honour of the
gods.”
And from one of the isles all the folk came forth in ships to bat-
tle for gods that strode through the isle like kings. And from anoth-
er they came to fight for gods that walked like humble men upon
the earth in beggars’ rags; and the people of the other isle fought
for the honour of gods that were clothed in hair like beasts; and had
many gleaming eyes and claws upon their foreheads. But of how
 Time And The Gods 93

these people fought till the isles grew desolate but very glorious,
and all for the fame of the gods, are many histories writ.

Night And Morning

Once in an arbour of the gods above the fields of twilight Night
wandering alone came suddenly on Morning. Then Night drew
from his face his cloak of dark grey mists and said: “See, I am
Night,” and they two sitting in that arbour of the gods, Night told
wondrous stories of old mysterious happenings in the dark. And
Morning sat and wondered, gazing into the face of Night and at
his wreath of stars. And Morning told how the rains of Snamar-
this smoked in the plain, but Night told how Snamarthis held riot
in the dark, with revelry and drinking and tales told by kings, till
all the hosts of Meenath crept against it and the lights went out
and there arose the din of arms or ever Morning came. And Night
told how Sindana the beggar had dreamed that he was a King, and
Morning told how she had seen Sindana find suddenly an army in
the plain, and how he had gone to it thinking he was King and the
army had believed him, and Sindana now ruled over Marthis and
Targadrides, Dynath, Zahn, and Tumeida. And most Night loved to
tell of Assarnees, whose ruins are scant memories on the desert’s
edge, but Morning told of the twin cities of Nardis and Timaut that
lorded over the plain. And Night told terribly of what Mynandes
found when he walked through his own city in the dark. And ever
at the elbow of regal Night whispers arose saying: “Tell Morning
this.”
And ever Night told and ever Morning wondered. And Night
spake on, and told what the dead had done when they came in the
darkness on the King that had led them into battle once. And Night
knew who slew Darnex and how it was done. Moreover, he told
why the seven Kings tortured Sydatheris and what Sydatheris said
just at the last, and how the Kings went forth and took their lives.
And Night told whose blood had stained the marble steps that
lead to the temple in Ozahn, and why the skull within it wears a
94 Time And The Gods

golden crown, and whose soul is in the wolf that howls in the dark
against the city. And Night knew whither the tigers go out of the
Irasian desert and the place where they meet together, and who
speaks to them and what she says and why. And he told why hu-
man teeth had bitten the iron hinge in the great gate that swings in
the walls of Mondas, and who came up out of the marsh alone in
the darktime and demanded audience of the King and told the King
a lie, and how the King, believing it, went down into the vaults of
his palace and found only toads and snakes, who slew the King.
And he told of ventures in palace towers in the quiet, and knew the
spell whereby a man might send the light of the moon right into
the soul of his foe. And Night spoke of the forest and the stirring
of shadows and soft feet pattering and peering eyes, and of the fear
that sits behind the trees taking to itself the shape of something
crouched to spring.
But far under that arbour of the gods down on the earth the
mountain peak Mondana looked Morning in the eyes and forsook
his allegiance to Night, and one by one the lesser hills about Mon-
dana’s knees greeted the Morning. And all the while in the plains
the shapes of cities came looming out of the dusk. And Kongros
stood forth with all her pinnacles, and the winged figure of Poesy
carved upon the eastern portal of her gate, and the squat figure of
Avarice carved facing it upon the west; and the bat began to tire of
going up and down her streets, and already the owl was home. And
the dark lions went up out of the plain back to their caves again.
Not as yet shone any dew upon the spider’s snare nor came the
sound of any insects stirring or bird of the day, and full allegiance
all the valleys owned still to their Lord the Night. Yet earth was
preparing for another ruler, and kingdom by kingdom she stole
away from Night, and there marched through the dreams of men a
million heralds that cried with the voice of the cock: “Lo! Morning
come behind us.” But in that arbour of the gods above the fields
of twilight the star wreath was paling about the head of Night, and
ever more wonderful on Morning’s brow appeared the mark of
power. And at the moment when the camp fires pale and the smoke
goes grey to the sky, and camels sniff the dawn, suddenly Morn-
 Time And The Gods 95

ing forgot Night. And out of that arbour of the gods, and away to
the haunts of the dark, Night with his swart cloak slunk away; and
Morning placed her hand upon the mists and drew them upward
and revealed the earth, and drove the shadows before her, and they
followed Night. And suddenly the mystery quitted haunting shapes,
and an old glamour was gone, and far and wide over the fields of
earth a new splendour arose.

Usury
The men of Zonu hold that Yahn is God, who sits as a usurer
behind a heap of little lustrous gems and ever clutches at them with
both his arms. Scarce larger than a drop of water are the gleaming
jewels that lie under the grasping talons of Yahn, and every jewel
is a life. Men tell in Zonu that the earth was empty when Yahn
devised his plan, and on it no life stirred. Then Yahn lured to him
shadows whose home was beyond the Rim, who knew little of joys
and nought of any sorrow, whose place was beyond the Rim before
the birth of Time. These Yahn lured to him and showed them his
heap of gems; and in the jewels there was light, and green fields
glistened in them, and there were glimpses of blue sky and little
streams, and very faintly little gardens showed that flowered in
orchard lands. And some showed winds in the heaven, and some
showed the arch of the sky with a waste plain drawn across it,
with grasses bent in the wind and never aught but the plain. But
the gems that changed the most had in their centre the ever chang-
ing sea. Then the shadows gazed into the Lives and saw the green
fields and the sea and earth and the gardens of earth. And Yahn
said: “I will loan you each a Life, and you may do your work with
it upon the Scheme of Things, and have each a shadow for his
servant in green fields and in gardens, only for these things you
shall polish these Lives with experience and cut their edges with
your griefs, and in the end shall return them again to me.”
And thereto the shadows consented, that they might have gleam-
ing Lives and have shadows for their servants, and this thing
96 Time And The Gods

became the Law. But the shadows, each with his Life, departed
and came to Zonu and to other lands, and there with experience
they polished the Lives of Yahn, and cut them with human griefs
until they gleamed anew. And ever they found new scenes to gleam
within these Lives, and cities and sails and men shone in them
where there had been before only green fields and sea, and ever
Yahn the usurer cried out to remind them of their bargain. When
men added to their Lives scenes that were pleasant to Yahn, then
was Yahn silent, but when they added scenes that pleased not the
eyes of Yahn, then did he take a toll of sorrow from them because
it was the Law.
But men forgot the usurer, and there arose some claiming to
be wise in the Law, who said that after their labour, which they
wrought upon their Lives, was done, those Lives should be theirs
to possess; so men took comfort from their toil and labour and the
grinding and cutting of their griefs. But as their Lives began to
shine with experience of many things, the thumb and forefinger
of Yahn would suddenly close upon a Life, and the man became a
shadow. But away beyond the Rim the shadows say:
“We have greatly laboured for Yahn, and have gathered griefs in
the world, and caused his Lives to shine, and Yahn doeth nought
for us. Far better had we stayed where no cares are, floating be-
yond the Rim.”
And there the shadows fear lest ever again they be lured by
specious promises to suffer usury at the hands of Yahn, who is
overskilled in Law. Only Yahn sits and smiles, watching his hoard
increase in preciousness, and hath no pity for the poor shadows
whom he hath lured from their quiet to toil in the form of men.
And ever Yahn lures more shadows and sends them to brighten
his Lives, sending the old Lives out again to make them brighter
still; and sometimes he gives to a shadow a Life that was once a
king’s and sendeth him with it down to the earth to play the part of
a beggar, or sometimes he sendeth a beggar’s Life to play the part
of a king. What careth Yahn?
The men of Zonu have been promised by those that claim to be
wise in the Law that their Lives which they have toiled at shall be
 Time And The Gods 97

theirs to possess for ever, yet the men of Zonu fear that Yahn is
greater and overskilled in the Law. Moreover it hath been said that
Time will bring the hour when the wealth of Yahn shall be such as
his dreams have lusted for. Then shall Yahn leave the earth at rest
and trouble the shadows no more, but sit and gloat with his un-
seemly face over his hoard of Lives, for his soul is a usurer’s soul.
But others say, and they swear that this is true, that there are gods
of Old, who be far greater than Yahn, who made the Law wherein
Yahn is overskilled, and who will one day drive a bargain with
him that shall be too hard for Yahn. Then Yahn shall wander away,
a mean forgotten god, and perchance in some forsaken land shall
haggle with the rain for a drop of water to drink, for his soul is a
usurer’s soul. And the Lives — who knoweth the gods of Old or
what Their will shall be?

Mlideen
Upon an evening of the forgotten years the gods were seated
upon Mowrah Nawut above Mlideen holding the avalanche in
leash.
All in the Middle City stood the Temples of the city’s priests,
and hither came all the people of Mlideen to bring them gifts, and
there it was the wont of the City’s priests to carve them gods for
Mlideen. For in a room apart in the Temple of Eld in the midst of
the temples that stood in the Middle City of Mlideen there lay a
book called the Book of Beautiful Devices, writ in a language that
no man may read and writ long ago, telling how a man may make
for himself gods that shall neither rage nor seek revenge against a
little people. And ever the priests came forth from reading in the
Book of Beautiful Devices and ever they sought to make benignant
gods, and all the gods that they made were different from each
other, only their eyes turned all upon Mlideen.
But upon Mowrah Nawut for all of the forgotten years the gods
had waited and forborne until the people of Mlideen should have
carven one hundred gods. Never came lightnings from Mowrah
98 Time And The Gods

Nawut crashing upon Mlideen, nor blight on harvests nor pes-

tilence in the city, only upon Mowrah Nawut the gods sat and
smiled. The people of Mlideen had said: “Yoma is god.” And the
gods sat and smiled. And after the forgetting of Yoma and the pass-
ing of years the people had said: “Zungari is god.” And the gods
sat and smiled.
Then on the altar of Zungari a priest had set a figure squat, car-
ven in purple agate, saying: “Yazun is god.” Still the gods sat and
smiled.
About the feet of Yonu, Bazun, Nidish and Sundrao had gone the
worship of the people of Mlideen, and still the gods sat holding the
avalanche in leash above the city.
There set a great calm towards sunset over the heights, and
Mowrah Nawut stood up still with gleaming snow, and into the
hot city cool breezes blew from his benignant slopes as Tarsi Zalo,
high prophet of Mlideen, carved out of a great sapphire the city’s
hundredth god, and then upon Mowrah Nawut the gods turned
away saying: “One hundred infamies have now been wrought.”
And they looked no longer upon Mlideen and held the avalanche
no more in leash, and he leapt forward howling.
Over the Middle City of Mlideen now lies a mass of rocks, and
on the rocks a new city is builded wherein people dwell who know
not old Mlideen, and the gods are seated on Mowrah Nawut still.
And in the new city men worship carven gods, and the number of
the gods that they have carven is ninety and nine, and I, the proph-
et, have found a curious stone and go to carve it into the likeness of
a god for all Mlideen to worship.

The Secret Of The Gods

Zyni Moe, the small snake, saw the cool river gleaming before
him afar off and set out over the burning sand to reach it.
Uldoon, the prophet, came out of the desert and followed up the
bank of the river towards his old home. Thirty years since Uldoon
had left the city, where he was born, to live his life in a silent place
 Time And The Gods 99

where he might search for the secret of the gods. The name of his
home was the City by the River, and in that city many prophets
taught concerning many gods, and men made many secrets for
themselves, but all the while none knew the Secret of the gods. Nor
might any seek to find it, for if any sought men said of him:
“This man sins, for he giveth no worship to the gods that speak
to our prophets by starlight when none heareth.”
And Uldoon perceived that the mind of a man is as a garden, and
that his thoughts are as the flowers, and the prophets of a man’s
city are as many gardeners who weed and trim, and who have
made in the garden paths both smooth and straight, and only along
these paths is a man’s soul permitted to go lest the gardeners say,
“This soul transgresseth.” And from the paths the gardeners weed
out every flower that grows, and in the garden they cut off all flow-
ers that grow tall, saying:
“It is customary,” and “it is written,” and “this hath ever been,”
or “that hath not been before.”
Therefore Uldoon saw that not in that city might he discover the
Secret of the gods. And Uldoon said to the people:
“When the worlds began, the Secret of the gods lay written clear
over the whole earth, but the feet of many prophets have trampled
it out. Your prophets are all true men, but I go into the desert to
find a truth which is truer than your prophets.” Therefore Uldoon
went into the desert and in storm and still he sought for many
years. When the thunder roared over the mountains that limited the
desert he sought the Secret in the thunder, but the gods spake not
by the thunder. When the voices of the beasts disturbed the still-
ness under the stars he sought the secret there, but the gods spake
not by the beasts.
Uldoon grew old and all the voices of the desert had spoken to
Uldoon, but not the gods, when one night he heard Them whisper-
ing beyond the hills. And the gods whispered one to another, and
turning Their faces earthward They all wept. And Uldoon though
he saw not the gods yet saw Their shadows turn as They went back
to a great hollow in the hills; and there, all standing in the valley’s
mouth, They said:
100 Time And The Gods

“Oh, Morning Zai, oh, oldest of the gods, the faith of thee is
gone, and yesterday for the last time thy name was spoken upon
earth.” And turning earthward they all wept again. And the gods
tore white clouds out of the sky and draped them about the body
of Morning Zai and bore him forth from his valley behind the
hills, and muffled the mountain peaks with snow, and beat upon
their summits with drum sticks carved of ebony, playing the dirge
of the gods. And the echoes rolled about the passes and the winds
howled, because the faith of the olden days was gone, and with it
had sped the soul of Morning Zai. So through the mountain passes
the gods came at night bearing Their dead father. And Uldoon fol-
lowed. And the gods came to a great sepulchre of onyx that stood
upon four fluted pillars of white marble, each carved out of four
mountains, and therein the gods laid Morning Zai because the old
faith was fallen. And there at the tomb of Their father the gods
spake and Uldoon heard the Secret of the gods, and it became to
him a simple thing such as a man might well guess — yet hath not.
Then the soul of the desert arose and cast over the tomb its wreath
of forgetfulness devised of drifting sand, and the gods strode home
across the mountains to Their hollow land. But Uldoon left the
desert and travelled many days, and so came to the river where it
passes beyond the city to seek the sea, and following its bank came
near to his old home. And the people of the City by the River, see-
ing him far off, cried out:
“Hast thou found the Secret of the gods?”
And he answered:
“I have found it, and the Secret of the gods is this” — :
Zyni Moe, the small snake, seeing the figure and the shadow of
a man between him and the cool river, raised his head and struck
once. And the gods are pleased with Zyni Moe, and have called
him the protector of the Secret of the gods.
 Time And The Gods 101

The South Wind

Two players sat down to play a game together to while eternity
away, and they chose the gods as pieces wherewith to play their
game, and for their board of playing they chose the sky from rim to
rim, whereon lay a little dust; and every speck of dust was a world
upon the board of playing. And the players were robed and their
faces veiled, and the robes and veils were alike, and their names
were Fate and Chance. And as they played their game and moved
the gods hither and thither about the board, the dust arose, and
shone in the light from the players’ eyes that gleamed behind the
veils. Then said the gods: “See how We stir the dust.”
It chanced, or was ordained (who knoweth which?) that Ord, a
prophet, one night saw the gods as They strode knee deep among
the stars. But as he gave Them worship, he saw the hand of a play-
er, enormous over Their heads, stretched out to make his move.
Then Ord, the prophet, knew. Had he been silent it might have still
been well with Ord, but Ord went about the world crying out to all
men, “There is a power over the gods.”
This the gods heard. Then said They, “Ord hath seen.”
Terrible is the vengeance of the gods, and fierce were Their eyes
when They looked on the head of Ord and snatched out of his mind
all knowledge of Themselves. And that man’s soul went wandering
afield to find for itself gods, for ever finding them not. Then out of
Ord’s Dream of Life the gods plucked the moon and the stars, and
in the night-time he only saw black sky and saw the lights no more.
Next the gods took from him, for Their vengeance resteth not, the
birds and butterflies, flowers and leaves and insects and all small
things, and the prophet looked on the world that was strangely
altered, yet knew not of the anger of the gods. Then the gods sent
away his familiar hills, to be seen no more by him, and all the
pleasant woodlands on their summits and the further fields; and in
a narrower world Ord walked round and round, now seeing little,
and his soul still wandered searching for some gods and finding
none.
Lastly, the gods took away the fields and stream and left to the
102 Time And The Gods

prophet only his house and the larger things that were in it. Day
by day They crept about him drawing films of mist between him
and familiar things, till at last he beheld nought at all and was quite
blind and unaware of the anger of the gods. Then Ord’s world
became only a world of sound, and only by hearing he kept his
hold upon Things. All the profit that he had out of his days was
here some song from the hills or there the voice of the birds, and
sound of the stream, or the drip of the falling rain. But the anger of
the gods ceases not with the closing of flowers, nor is it assuaged
by all the winter’s snows, nor doth it rest in the full glare of sum-
mer, and They snatched away from Ord one night his world of
sound and he awoke deaf. But as a man may smite away the hive
of the bee, and the bee with all his fellows builds again, knowing
not what hath smitten his hive or that it shall smite again, so Ord
built for himself a world out of old memories and set it in the past.
There he builded himself cities out of former joys, and therein
built palaces of mighty things achieved, and with his memory as a
key he opened golden locks and had still a world to live in, though
the gods had taken from him the world of sound and all the world
of sight. But the gods tire not from pursuing, and They seized his
world of former things and took his memory away and covered
up the paths that led into the past, and left him blind and deaf and
forgetful among men, and caused all men to know that this was he
who once had said that the gods were little things.
And lastly the gods took his soul, and out of it They fashioned
the South Wind to roam the seas for ever and not have rest; and
well the South Wind knows that he hath once understood some-
where and long ago, and so he moans to the islands and cries along
southern shores, “I have known,” and “I have known.”
But all things sleep when the South Wind speaks to them and
none heed his cry that he hath known, but are rather content to
sleep. But still the South Wind, knowing that there is something
that he hath forgot, goes on crying, “I have known,” seeking to
urge men to arise and to discover it. But none heed the sorrows of
the South Wind even when he driveth his tears out of the South, so
that though the South Wind cries on and on and never findeth rest
 Time And The Gods 103

none heed that there is aught that may be known, and the Secret
of the gods is safe. But the business of the South Wind is with the
North, and it is said that the time will one day come when he shall
overcome the bergs and sink the seas of ice and come where the
Secret of the gods is graven upon the pole. And the game of Fate
and Chance shall suddenly cease and He that loses shall cease to be
or ever to have been, and from the board of playing Fate or Chance
(who knoweth which shall win?) shall sweep the gods away.

In The Land Of Time

Thus Karnith, King of Alatta, spake to his eldest son: “I be-
queath to thee my city of Zoon, with its golden eaves, whereunder
hum the bees. And I bequeath to thee also the land of Alatta, and
all such other lands as thou art worthy to possess, for my three
strong armies which I leave thee may well take Zindara and over-
run Istahn, and drive back Onin from his frontier, and leaguer the
walls of Yan, and beyond that spread conquest over the lesser lands
of Hebith, Ebnon, and Karida. Only lead not thine armies against
Zeenar, nor ever cross the Eidis.”
Thereat in the city of Zoon in the land of Alatta, under his gold-
en eaves, died King Karnith, and his soul went whither had gone
the souls of his sires the elder Kings, and the souls of their slaves.
Then Karnith Zo, the new King, took the iron crown of Alatta
and afterwards went down to the plains that encircle Zoon and
found his three strong armies clamouring to be led against Zeenar,
over the river Eidis.
But the new King came back from his armies, and all one night
in the great palace alone with his iron crown, pondered long upon
war; and a little before dawn he saw dimly through his palace
window, facing east over the city of Zoon and across the fields of
Alatta, to far off where a valley opened on Istahn. There, as he
pondered, he saw the smoke arising tall and straight over small
houses in the plain and the fields where the sheep fed. Later the sun
rose shining over Alatta as it shone over Istahn, and there arose a
104 Time And The Gods

stir about the houses both in Alatta and Istahn, and cocks crowded
in the city and men went out into the fields among the bleating
sheep; and the King wondered if men did otherwise in Istahn. And
men and women met as they went out to work and the sound of
laughter arose from streets and fields; the King’s eyes gazed into
the distance toward Istahn and still the smoke went upward tall and
straight from the small houses. And the sun rose higher that shone
upon Alatta and Istahn, causing the flowers to open wide in each,
and the birds to sing and the voices of men and women to arise.
And in the market place of Zoon caravans were astir that set out to
carry merchandise to Istahn, and afterwards passed camels coming
to Alatta with many tinkling bells. All this the King saw as he pon-
dered much, who had not pondered before. Westward the Agnid
mountains frowned in the distance guarding the river Eidis; behind
them the fierce people of Zeenar lived in a bleak land.
Later the King, going abroad through his new kingdom, came on
the Temple of the gods of Old. There he found the roof shattered
and the marble columns broken and tall weeds met together in the
inner shrine, and the gods of Old, bereft of worship or sacrifice, ne-
glected and forgotten. And the King asked of his councillors who it
was that had overturned this temple of the gods or caused the gods
Themselves to be thus forsaken. And they answered him:
“Time has done this.”
Next the King came upon a man bent and crippled, whose face
was furrowed and worn, and the King having seen no such sight
within the court of his father said to the man:
“Who hath done this thing to you?”
And the old man answered:
“Time hath ruthlessly done it.”
But the King and his councillors went on, and next they came
upon a body of men carrying among them a hearse. And the King
asked his councillors closely concerning death, for these things
had not before been expounded to the King. And the oldest of the
councillors answered:
“Death, O King, is a gift sent by the gods by the hand of their
servant Time, and some receive it gladly, and some are forced
 Time And The Gods 105

reluctantly to take it, and before others it is suddenly flung in the

middle of the day. And with this gift that Time hath brought him
from the gods a man must go forth into the dark to possess no other
thing for so long as the gods are willing.”
But the King went back to his palace and gathered the greatest
of his prophets and his councillors and asked them more particu-
larly concerning Time. And they told the King how that Time was
a great figure standing like a tall shadow in the dusk or striding,
unseen, across the world, and how that he was the slave of the gods
and did Their bidding, but ever chose new masters, and how all the
former masters of Time were dead and Their shrines forgotten. And
one said:
“I have seen him once when I went down to play again in the
garden of my childhood because of certain memories. And it was
towards evening and the light was pale, and I saw Time standing
over the little gate, pale like the light, and he stood between me and
that garden and had stolen my memories because he was mightier
than I.”
And another said:
“I, too, have seen the Enemy of my House. For I saw him when
he strode over the fields that I knew well and led a stranger by
the hand to place him in my home to sit where my forefathers sat.
And I saw him afterwards walk thrice round the house and stoop
and gather up the glamour from the lawns and brush aside the tall
poppies in the garden and spread weeds in his pathway where he
strode through the remembered nooks.”
And another said:
“He went one day into the desert and brought up life out of the
waste places, and made it cry bitterly and covered it with the desert
again.”
And another said:
“I too saw him once seated in the garden of a child tearing the
flowers, and afterwards he went away through many woodlands
and stooped down as he went, and picked the leaves one by one
from the trees.”
And another said:
106 Time And The Gods

“I saw him once by moonlight standing tall and black amidst the
ruins of a shrine in the old kingdom of Amarna, doing a deed by
night. And he wore a look on his face such as murderers wear as
he busied himself to cover over something with weeds and dust.
Thereafter in Amarna the people of that old Kingdom missed their
god, in whose shrine I saw Time crouching in the night, and they
have not since beheld him.”
And all the while from the distance at the city’s edge rose a hum
from the three armies of the King clamouring to be led against
Zeenar. Thereat the King went down to his three armies and speak-
ing to their chiefs said:
“I will not go down clad with murder to be King over other
lands. I have seen the same morning arising on Istahn that also
gladdened Alatta, and have heard Peace lowing among the flow-
ers. I will not desolate homes to rule over an orphaned land and a
land widowed. But I will lead you against the pledged enemy of
Alatta who shall crumble the towers of Zoon and hath gone far
to overthrow our gods. He is the foe of Zindara and Istahn and
many-citadeled Yan, Hebith and Ebnon may not overcome him nor
Karida be safe against him among her bleakest mountains. He is a
foe mightier than Zeenar with frontiers stronger than Eidis; he leers
at all the peoples of the earth and mocks their gods and covets their
builded cities. Therefore we will go forth and conquer Time and
save the gods of Alatta from his clutch, and coming back victorious
shall find that Death is gone and age and illness departed, and here
we shall live for ever by the golden eaves of Zoon, while the bees
hum among unrusted gables and never crumbling towers. There
shall be neither fading nor forgetting, nor ever dying nor sorrow,
when we shall have freed the people and pleasant fields of the earth
from inexorable Time.”
And the armies swore that they would follow the King to save
the world and the gods.
So the next day the King set forth with his three armies and
crossed many rivers and marched through many lands, and wher-
ever they went they asked for news of Time.
And the first day they met a woman with her face furrowed and
 Time And The Gods 107

lined, who told them that she had been beautiful and that Time had
smitten her in the face with his five claws.
Many an old man they met as they marched in search of Time.
All had seen him but none could tell them more, except that some
said he went that way and pointed to a ruined tower or to an old
and broken tree.
And day after day and month by month the King pushed on with
his armies, hoping to come at last on Time. Sometimes they en-
camped at night near palaces of beautiful design or beside gardens
of flowers, hoping to find their enemy when he came to desecrate
in the dark. Sometimes they came on cobwebs, sometimes on
rusted chains and houses with broken roofs or crumbling walls.
Then the armies would push on apace thinking that they were
closer upon the track of Time.
As the weeks passed by and weeks grew to months, and always
they heard reports and rumours of Time, but never found him, the
armies grew weary of the great march, but the King pushed on and
would let none turn back, saying always that the enemy was near at
hand.
Month in, month out, the King led on his now unwilling armies,
till at last they had marched for close upon a year and came to the
village of Astarma very far to the north. There many of the King’s
weary soldiers deserted from his armies and settled down in As-
tarma and married Astarmian girls. By these soldiers we have the
march of the armies clearly chronicled to the time when they came
to Astarma, having been nigh a year upon the march. And the army
left that village and the children cheered them as they went up the
street, and five miles distant they passed over a ridge of hills and
out of sight. Beyond this less is known, but the rest of this chroni-
cle is gathered from the tales that the veterans of the King’s armies
used to tell in the evenings about the fires in Zoon and remembered
afterwards by the men of Zeenar.
It is mostly credited in these days that such of the King’s armies
as went on past Astarma came at last (it is not known after how
long a time) over a crest of a slope where the whole earth slanted
green to the north. Below it lay green fields and beyond them
108 Time And The Gods

moaned the sea with never shore nor island so far as the eye could
reach. Among the green fields lay a village, and on this village the
eyes of the King and his armies were turned as they came down
the slope. It lay beneath them, grave with seared antiquity, with
old-world gables stained and bent by the lapse of frequent years,
with all its chimneys awry. Its roofs were tiled with antique stones
covered over deep with moss, each little window looked with a
myriad strange cut panes on the gardens shaped with quaint devic-
es and overrun with weeds. On rusted hinges the doors sung to and
fro and were fashioned of planks of immemorial oak with black
knots gaping from their sockets. Against it all there beat the this-
tle-down, about it clambered the ivy or swayed the weeds; tall and
straight out of the twisted chimneys arose blue columns of smoke,
and blades of grass peeped upward between the huge cobbles of
the unmolested street. Between the gardens and the cobbled streets
stood hedges higher than a horseman might look, of stalwart thorn,
and upward through it clambered the convolvulus to peer into the
garden from the top. Before each house there was cut a gap in the
hedge, and in it swung a wicket gate of timber soft with the rain
and years, and green like the moss. Over all of it there brooded age
and the full hush of things bygone and forgotten. Upon this derelict
that the years had cast up out of antiquity the King and his armies
gazed long. Then on the hill slope the King made his armies halt,
and went down alone with one of his chiefs into the village.
Presently there was a stir in one of the houses, and a bat flew out
of the door into the daylight, and three mice came running out of
the doorway down the step, an old stone cracked in two and held
together by moss; and there followed an old man bending on a
stick with a white beard coming to the ground, wearing clothes that
were glossed with use, and presently there came others out of the
other houses, all of them as old, and all hobbling on sticks. These
were the oldest people that the King had ever beheld, and he asked
them the name of the village and who they were; and one of them
answered, “This is the City of the Aged in the Territory of Time.”
And the King said, “Is Time then here?”
And one of the old men pointed to a great castle standing on a
 Time And The Gods 109

steep hill and said: “Therein dwells Time, and we are his people;”
and they all looked curiously at King Karnith Zo, and the eldest of
the villagers spoke again and said: “Whence do you come, you that
are so young?” and Karnith Zo told him how he had come to con-
quer Time to save the world and the gods, and asked them whence
they came.
And the villagers said:
“We are older than always, and know not whence we came, but
we are the people of Time, and here from the Edge of Everything
he sends out his hours to assail the world, and you may never
conquer Time.” But the King went back to his armies, and pointed
towards the castle on the hill and told them that at last they had
found the Enemy of the Earth; and they that were older than al-
ways went back slowly into their houses with the creaking of olden
doors. And there they went across the fields and passed the village.
From one of his towers Time eyed them all the while, and in battle
order they closed in on the steep hill as Time sat still in his great
tower and watched.
But as the feet of the foremost touched the edge of the hill Time
hurled five years against them, and the years passed over their
heads and the army still came on, an army of older men. But the
slope seemed steeper to the King and to every man in his army, and
they breathed more heavily. And Time summoned up more years,
and one by one he hurled them at Karnith Zo and at all his men.
And the knees of the army stiffened, and their beards grew and
turned grey, and the hours and days and the months went singing
over their heads, and their hair turned whiter and whiter, and the
conquering hours bore down, and the years rushed on and swept
the youth of that army clear away till they came face to face un-
der the walls of the castle of Time with a mass of howling years,
and found the top of the slope too steep for aged men. Slowly and
painfully, harassed with agues and chills, the King rallied his aged
army that tottered down the slope.
Slowly the King led back his warriors over whose heads had
shrieked the triumphant years. Year in, year out, they straggled
southwards, always towards Zoon; they came, with rust upon their
110 Time And The Gods

spears and long beards flowing, again into Astarma, and none knew
them there. They passed again by towns and villages where once
they had inquired curiously concerning Time, and none knew them
there either. They came again to the palaces and gardens where
they had waited for Time in the night, and found that Time had
been there. And all the while they set a hope before them that they
should come on Zoon again and see its golden eaves. And no one
knew that unperceived behind them there lurked and followed the
gaunt figure of Time cutting off stragglers one by one and over-
whelming them with his hours, only men were missed from the
army every day, and fewer and fewer grew the veterans of Karnith
Zo.
But at last after many a month, one night as they marched in the
dusk before the morning, dawn suddenly ascending shone on the
eaves of Zoon, and a great cry ran through the army:
“Alatta, Alatta!”
But drawing nearer they found that the gates were rusted and
weeds grew tall along the outer walls, many a roof had fallen,
gables were blackened and bent, and the golden eaves shone not as
heretofore. And the soldiers entering the city expecting to find their
sisters and sweethearts of a few years ago saw only old women
wrinkled with great age and knew not who they were.
Suddenly someone said:
“He has been here too.”
And then they knew that while they searched for Time, Time had
gone forth against their city and leaguered it with the years, and
had taken it while they were far away and enslaved their women
and children with the yoke of age. So all that remained of the three
armies of Karnith Zo settled in the conquered city. And presently
the men of Zeenar crossed over the river Eidis and easily conquer-
ing an army of aged men took all Alatta for themselves, and their
kings reigned thereafter in the city of Zoon. And sometimes the
men of Zeenar listened to the strange tales that the old Alattans told
of the years when they made battle against Time. Such of these
tales as the men of Zeenar remembered they afterwards set forth,
and this is all that may be told of those adventurous armies that
 Time And The Gods 111

went to war with Time to save the world and the gods, and were
overwhelmed by the hours and the years.

The Relenting Of Sarnidac

The lame boy Sarnidac tended sheep on a hill to the southward
of the city. Sarnidac was a dwarf and greatly derided in the city.
For the women said:
“It is very funny that Sarnidac is a dwarf,” and they would point
their fingers at him saying: — “This is Sarnidac, he is a dwarf; also
he is very lame.”
Once the doors of all the temples in the world swung open
to the morning, and Sarnidac with his sheep upon the hill saw
strange figures going down the white road, always southwards. All
the morning he saw the dust rising above the strange figures and
always they went southwards right as far as the rim of the Nydoon
hills where the white road could be seen no more. And the figures
stooped and seemed to be larger than men, but all men seemed
very large to Sarnidac, and he could not see clearly through the
dust. And Sarnidac shouted to them, as he hailed all people that
passed down the long white road, and none of the figures looked to
left or right and none of them turned to answer Sarnidac. But then
few people ever answered him because he was lame, and a small
dwarf.
Still the figures went striding swiftly, stooping forward through
the dust, till at last Sarnidac came running down his hill to watch
them closer. As he came to the white road the last of the figures
passed him, and Sarnidac ran limping behind him down the road.
For Sarnidac was weary of the city wherein all derided him, and
when he saw these figures all hurrying away he thought that they
went perhaps to some other city beyond the hills over which the
sun shone brighter, or where there was more food, for he was poor,
even perhaps where people had not the custom of laughing at Sar-
nidac. So this procession of figures that stooped and seemed larger
than men went southward down the road and a lame dwarf hobbled
112 Time And The Gods

behind them.
Khamazan, now called the City of the Last of Temples, lies
southward of the Nydoon hills. This is the story of Pompeides, now
chief prophet of the only temple in the world, and greatest of all
the prophets that have been:
On the slopes of Nydoon I was seated once above Khamazan.
There I saw figures in the morning striding through much dust
along the road that leads across the world. Striding up the hill they
came towards me, not with the gait of men, and soon the first one
came to the crest of the hill where the road dips to find the plains
again, where lies Khamazan. And now I swear by all the gods that
are gone that this thing happened as I shall say it, and was surely
so. When those that came striding up the hill came to its summit
they took not the road that goes down into the plains nor trod the
dust any longer, but went straight on and upwards, striding as they
strode before, as though the hill had not ended nor the road dipped.
And they strode as though they trod no yielding substance, yet they
stepped upwards through the air.
This the gods did, for They were not born men who strode that
day so strangely away from earth.
But I, when I saw this thing, when already three had passed me,
leaving earth, cried out before the fourth:
‘Gods of my childhood, guardians of little homes, whither are
ye going, leaving the round earth to swim alone and forgotten in so
great a waste of sky?’
And one answered:
‘Heresy apace shoots her fierce glare over the world and men’s
faith grows dim and the gods go. Men shall make iron gods and
gods of steel when the wind and the ivy meet within the shrines of
the temples of the gods of old.’
And I left that place as a man leaves fire by night, and going
plainwards down the white road that the gods spurned cried out
to all that I passed to follow me, and so crying came to the city’s
gates. And there I shouted to all near the gates:
‘From yonder hilltop the gods are leaving earth.’
Then I gathered many, and we all hastened to the hill to pray
 Time And The Gods 113

the gods to tarry, and there we cried out to the last of the departing
gods:
‘Gods of old prophecy and of men’s hopes, leave not the earth,
and all our worship shall hum about Your ears as never it hath be-
fore, and oft the sacrifice shall squeal upon Your altars.’
And I said: —
‘Gods of still evenings and quiet nights, go not from earth and
leave not Your carven shrines, and all men shall worship You still.
For between us and yonder still blue spaces oft roam the thunder
and the storms, there in his hiding lurks the dark eclipse, and there
are stored all snows and hails and lightnings that shall vex the earth
for a million years. Gods of our hopes, how shall men’s prayers
crying from empty shrines pass through such terrible spaces; how
shall they ever fare above the thunder and many storms to what-
ever place the gods may go in that blue waste beyond?’
But the gods bent straight forward, and trampled through the
sky and looked not to the right nor left nor downwards, nor ever
heeded my prayer.
And one cried out hoping yet to stay the gods, though nearly all
were gone, saying: —
‘O gods, rob not the earth of the dim hush that hangs round
all Your temples, bereave not all the world of old romance, take
not the glamour from the moonlight nor tear the wonder out of
the white mists in every land; for, O ye gods of the childhood of
the world, when You have left the earth you shall have taken the
mystery from the sea and all its glory from antiquity, and You shall
have wrenched out hope from the dim future. There shall be no
strange cries at night time half understood, nor songs in the twi-
light, and the whole of the wonder shall have died with last year’s
flowers in little gardens or hill-slopes leaning south; for with the
gods must go the enchantment of the plains and all the magic of
dark woods, and something shall be lacking from the quiet of early
dawn. For it would scarce befit the gods to leave the earth and not
take with Them that which They had given it. Out beyond the still
blue spaces Ye will need the holiness of sunset for Yourselves and
little sacred memories and the thrill that is in stories told by fire-
114 Time And The Gods

sides long ago. One strain of music, one song, one line of poetry
and one kiss, and a memory of one pool with rushes, and each one
the best, shall the gods take to whom the best belongs, when the
gods go.
‘Sing a lamentation, people of Khamazan, sing a lamentation
for all the children of earth at the feet of the departing gods. Sing
a lamentation for the children of earth who now must carry their
prayers to empty shrines and around empty shrines must rest at
last.’
Then when our prayers were ended and our tears shed, we be-
held the last and smallest of the gods halted upon the hilltop. Twice
he called to Them with a cry somewhat like the cry wherewith
our shepherds hail their brethren, and long gazed after Them, and
then deigned to look no longer and to tarry upon earth and turn his
eyes on men. Then a great shout went up when we saw that our
hopes were saved and that there was still on earth a haven for our
prayers. Smaller than men now seemed the figures that had loomed
so big, as one behind the other far over our heads They still strode
upwards. But the small god that had pitied the world came with us
down the hill, still deigning to tread the road, though strangely, not
as men tread, and into Khamazan. There we housed him in the pal-
ace of the King, for that was before the building of the temple of
gold, and the King made sacrifice before him with his own hands,
and he that had pitied the world did eat the flesh of the sacrifice.
And the Book of the Knowledge of the gods in Khamazan tells
how the small god that pitied the world told his prophets that his
name was Sarnidac and that he herded sheep, and that therefore
he is called the shepherd god, and sheep are sacrificed upon his
altars thrice a day, and the North, East, West and the South are the
four hurdles of Sarnidac and the white clouds are his sheep. And
the Book of the Knowledge of the gods tells further how the day
on which Pompeides found the gods shall be kept for ever as a
fast until the evening and called the Fast of the Departing, but in
the evening shall a feast be held which is named the Feast of the
Relenting, for on that evening Sarnidac pitied the whole world and
tarried.
 Time And The Gods 115

And the people of Khamazan all prayed to Sarnidac, and

dreamed their dreams and hoped their hopes because their temple
was not empty. Whether the gods that are departed be greater than
Sarnidac none know in Khamazan, but some believe that in their
azure windows They have set lights that lost prayers swarming
upwards may come to them like moths and at last find haven and
light far up above the evening and the stillness where sit the gods.
But Sarnidac wondered at the strange figures, at the people of
Khamazan, and at the palace of the King and the customs of the
prophets, but wondered not more greatly at aught in Khamazan
than he had wondered at the city which he had left. For Sarnidac,
who had not known why men were unkind to him, thought that
he had found at last the land for which the gods had let him hope,
where men should have the custom of being kind to Sarnidac.

The Jest Of The Gods

Once the Older gods had need of laughter. Therefore They made
the soul of a king, and set in it ambitions greater than kings should
have, and lust for territories beyond the lust of other kings, and in
this soul They set strength beyond the strength of others and fierce
desire for power and a strong pride. Then the gods pointed earth-
ward and sent that soul into the fields of men to live in the body of
a slave. And the slave grew, and the pride and lust for power began
to arise in his heart, and he wore shackles on his arms. Then in the
Fields of Twilight the gods prepared to laugh.
But the slave went down to the shore of the great sea, and cast
his body away and the shackles that were upon it, and strode back
to the Fields of Twilight and stood up before the gods and looked
Them in Their faces. This thing the gods, when They had prepared
to laugh, had not foreseen. Lust for power burned strong in that
King’s soul, and there was all the strength and pride in it that the
gods had placed therein, and he was too strong for the Older gods.
He whose body had borne the lashes of men could brook no longer
the dominion of the gods, and standing before Them he bade the
116 Time And The Gods

gods to go. Up to Their lips leapt all the anger of the Older gods,
being for the first time commanded, but the King’s soul faced
Them still, and Their anger died away and They averted Their
eyes. Then Their thrones became empty, and the Fields of Twilight
bare as the gods slunk far away. But the soul chose new compan-
ions.

The Dreams Of The Prophet

I
When the gods drave me forth to toil and assailed me with thirst
and beat me down with hunger, then I prayed to the gods. When
the gods smote the cities wherein I dwelt, and when Their anger
scorched me and Their eyes burned, then did I praise the gods and
offer sacrifice. But when I came again to my green land and found
that all was gone, and the old mysterious haunts wherein I prayed
as a child were gone, and when the gods tore up the dust and even
the spider’s web from the last remembered nook, then did I curse
the gods, speaking it to Their faces, saying: —
“Gods of my prayers! Gods of my sacrifice! because Ye have
forgotten the sacred places of my childhood, and they have there-
fore ceased to be, yet may I not forget. Because Ye have done
this thing, Ye shall see cold altars and shall lack both my fear and
praise. I shall not wince at Your lightnings, nor be awed when Ye
go by.”
Then looking seawards I stood and cursed the gods, and at this
moment there came to me one in the garb of a poet, who said: —
“Curse not the gods.”
And I said to him:
“Wherefore should I not curse Those that have stolen my sacred
places in the night, and trodden down the gardens of my child-
hood?”
And he said “Come, and I will show thee.” And I followed him
to where two camels stood with their faces towards the desert. And
 Time And The Gods 117

we set out and I travelled with him for a great space, he speaking
never a word, and so we came at last to a waste valley hid in the
desert’s midst. And herein, like fallen moons, I saw vast ribs that
stood up white out of the sand, higher than the hills of the desert.
And here and there lay the enormous shapes of skulls like the
white marble domes of palaces built for tyrannous kings a long
while since by armies of driven slaves. Also there lay in the desert
other bones, the bones of vast legs and arms, against which the
desert, like a besieging sea, ever advanced and already had half
drowned. And as I gazed in wonder at these colossal things the
poet said to me:
“The gods are dead.”
And I gazed long in silence, and I said:
“These fingers, that are now so dead and so very white and still,
tore once the flowers in gardens of my youth.”
But my companion said to me:
“I have brought thee here to ask of thee thy forgiveness of the
gods, for I, being a poet, knew the gods, and would fain drive off
the curses that hover above Their bones and bring Them men’s for-
giveness as an offering at the last, that the weeds and the ivy may
cover Their bones from the sun.”
And I said:
“They made Remorse with his fur grey like a rainy evening in
the autumn, with many rending claws, and Pain with his hot hands
and lingering feet, and Fear like a rat with two cold teeth carved
each out of the ice of either pole, and Anger with the swift flight
of the dragonfly in summer having burning eyes. I will not forgive
these gods.”
But the poet said:
“Canst thou be angry with these beautiful white bones?” And
I looked long at those curved and beautiful bones that were no
longer able to hurt the smallest creature in all the worlds that they
had made. And I thought long of the evil that they had done, and
also of the good. But when I thought of Their great hands coming
red and wet from battles to make a primrose for a child to pick,
then I forgave the gods.
118 Time And The Gods

And a gentle rain came falling out of heaven and stilled the rest-
less sand, and a soft green moss grew suddenly and covered the
bones till they looked like strange green hills, and I heard a cry and
awoke and found that I had dreamed, and looking out of my house
into the street I found that a flash of lightning had killed a child.
Then I knew that the gods still lived.
II
I lay asleep in the poppy fields of the gods in the valley of Al-
deron, where the gods come by night to meet together in council
when the moon is low. And I dreamed that this was the Secret.
Fate and Chance had played their game and ended, and all was
over, all the hopes and tears, regrets, desires and sorrows, things
that men wept for and unremembered things, and kingdoms and lit-
tle gardens and the sea, and the worlds and the moons and the suns;
and what remained was nothing, having neither colour nor sound.
Then said Fate to Chance: “Let us play our old game again.”
And they played it again together, using the gods as pieces, as they
had played it oft before. So that those things which have been shall
all be again, and under the same bank in the same land a sudden
glare of singlight on the same spring day shall bring the same daf-
fodil to bloom once more and the same child shall pick it, and not
regretted shall be the billion years that fell between. And the same
old faces shall be seen again, yet not bereaved of their familiar
haunts. And you and I shall in a garden meet again upon an after-
noon in summer when the sun stands midway between his zenith
and the sea, where we met oft before. For Fate and Chance play
but one game together with every move the same, and they play it
oft to while eternity away.
 Time And The Gods 119

PART II.

The Journey Of The King

I
One day the King turned to the women that danced and said to
them: “Dance no more,” and those that bore the wine in jewelled
cups he sent away. The palace of King Ebalon was emptied of
sound of song and there rose the voices of heralds crying in the
streets to find the prophets of the land.
Then went the dancers, the cupbearer and the singers down
into the hard streets among the houses, Pattering Leaves, Silvern
Fountain and Summer Lightning, the dancers whose feet the gods
had not devised for stony ways, which had only danced for princes.
And with them went the singer, Soul of the South, and the sweet
singer, Dream of the Sea, whose voices the gods had attuned to the
ears of kings, and old Istahn the cupbearer left his life’s work in the
palace to tread the common ways, he that had stood at the elbows
of three kings of Zarkandhu and had watched his ancient vintage
feeding their valour and mirth as the waters of Tondaris feed the
green plains to the south. Ever he had stood grave among their
jests, but his heart warmed itself solely by the fire of the mirth of
Kings. He too, with the singers and dancers, went out into the dark.
And throughout the land the heralds sought out the prophets
thereof. Then one evening as King Ebalon sat alone within his
palace there were brought before him all who had repute for wis-
dom and who wrote the histories of the times to be. Then the King
spake, saying: “The King goeth upon a journey with many horses,
yet riding upon none, when the pomp of travelling shall be heard
in the streets and the sound of the lute and the drum and the name
of the King. And I would know what princes and what people shall
greet me on the other shore in the land to which I travel.”
Then fell a hush upon the prophets for they murmured: “All
120 Time And The Gods

knowledge is with the King.”

Then said the King: “Thou first, Samahn, High Prophet of the
Temple of gold in Azinorn, answer or thou shalt write no more
the history of the times to be, but shalt toil with thy hand to make
record of the little happenings of the days that were, as do the com-
mon men.”
Then said Samahn: “All knowledge is with the King,” and when
the pomp of travelling shall be heard in the streets and the slow
horses whereon the King rideth not go behind lute and drum, then,
as the King well knoweth, thou shalt go down to the great white
house of Kings and, entering the portals where none are worthy to
follow, shalt make obeisance alone to all the elder Kings of Zar-
kandhu, whose bones are seated upon golden thrones grasping their
sceptres still. Therein thou shalt go with robes and sceptre through
the marble porch, but thou shalt leave behind thee thy gleaming
crown that others may wear it, and as the times go by come in
to swell the number of the thirty Kings that sit in the great white
house on golden thrones. There is one doorway in the great white
house, and it stands wide with marble portals yawning for kings,
but when it shall receive thee, and thine obeisance hath been made
because of thine obligation to the thirty Kings, thou shalt find at
the back of the house an unknown door through which the soul of
a King may just pass, and leaving thy bones upon a golden throne
thou shalt go unseen out of the great white house to tread the vel-
vet spaces that lie among the worlds. Then, O King, it were well to
travel fast and not to tarry about the houses of men as do the souls
of some who still bewail the sudden murder that sent them upon
the journey before their time, and who, being yet both to go, linger
in dark chambers all the night. These, setting forth to travel in
the dawn and travelling all the day, see earth behind them gleam-
ing when an evening falls, and again are loth to leave its pleasant
haunts, and come back again through dark woods and up into some
old loved chamber, and ever tarry between home and flight and
find no rest.
Thou wilt set forth at once because the journey is far and lasts
for many hours; but the hours on the velvet spaces are the hours
 Time And The Gods 121

of the gods, and we may not say what time such an hour may be if
reckoned in mortal years.
At last thou shalt come to a grey place filled with mist, with grey
shapes standing before it which are altars, and on the altars rise
small red flames from dying fires that scarce illumine the mist. And
in the mist it is dark and cold because the fires are low. These are
the altars of the people’s faiths, and the flames are the worship of
men, and through the mist the gods of Old go groping in the dark
and in the cold. There thou shalt hear a voice cry feebly: “Inyani,
Inyani, lord of the thunder, where art thou, for I cannot see?” And a
voice shall answer faintly in the cold: “O maker of many worlds, I
am here.” And in that place the gods of Old are nearly deaf for the
prayers of men grow few, they are nigh blind because the fires burn
low upon the altars of men’s faiths and they are very cold. And all
about the place of mist there lies a moaning sea which is called the
Sea of Souls. And behind the place of mist are the dim shapes of
mountains, and on the peak of one there glows a silvern light that
shines in the moaning sea; and ever as the flames on the altars die
before the gods of Old the light on the mountain increases, and the
light shines over the mist and never through it as the gods of Old
grow blind. It is said that the light on the mountain shall one day
become a new god who is not of the gods of Old.
There, O King, thou shalt enter the Sea of Souls by the shore
where the altars stand which are covered in mist. In that sea are
the souls of all that ever lived on the worlds and all that ever shall
live, all freed from earth and flesh. And all the souls in that sea
are aware of one another but more than with hearing or sight or
by taste or touch or smell, and they all speak to each other yet not
with lips, with voices which need no sound. And over the sea lies
music as winds o’er an ocean on earth, and there unfettered by
language great thoughts set outward through the souls as on earth
the currents go.
Once did I dream that in a mist-built ship I sailed upon that sea
and heard the music that is not of instruments, and voices not from
lips, and woke and found that I was upon the earth and that the
gods had lied to me in the night. Into this sea from fields of battle
122 Time And The Gods

and cities come down the rivers of lives, and ever the gods have
taken onyx cups and far and wide into the worlds again have flung
the souls out of the sea, that each soul may find a prison in the
body of a man with five small windows closely barred, and each
one shackled with forgetfulness.
But all the while the light on the mountain grows, and none may
say what work the god that shall be born of the silvern light shall
work on the Sea of Souls, when the gods of Old are dead and the
Sea is living still.
And answer made the King:
“Thou that art a prophet of the gods of Old, go back and see
that those red flames burn more brightly on the altars in the mist,
for the gods of Old are easy and pleasant gods, and thou canst not
say what toil shall vex our souls when the god of the light on the
mountain shall stride along the shore where bleach the huge bones
of the gods of Old.”
And Samahn answered: “All knowledge is with the King.”
II
Then the King called to Ynath bidding him speak concerning the
journey of the King. Ynath was the prophet that sat at the Eastern
gate of the Temple of Gorandhu. There Ynath prayed his prayers
to all the passers by lest ever the gods should go abroad, and one
should pass him dressed in mortal guise. And men are pleased as
they walk by that Eastern gate that Ynath should pray to them for
fear that they be gods, so men bring gifts to Ynath in the Eastern
gate.
And Ynath said: “All knowledge is with the King. When a
strange ship comes to anchor in the air outside thy chamber win-
dow, thou shalt leave thy well-kept garden and it shall become a
prey to the nights and days and be covered again with grass. But
going aboard thou shalt set sail over the Sea of Time and well
shall the ship steer through the many worlds and still sail on. If
other ships shall pass thee on the way and hail thee saying: ‘From
what port’ thou shalt answer them: ‘From Earth.’ And if they ask
thee ‘whither bound?’ then thou shalt answer: ‘The End.’ Or thou
 Time And The Gods 123

shalt hail them saying: ‘From what port?’ And they shall answer:
‘From The End called also The Beginning, and bound to Earth.’
And thou shalt sail away till like an old sorrow dimly felt by happy
men the worlds shall gleam in the distance like one star, and as
the star pales thou shalt come to the shore of space where aeons
rolling shorewards from Time’s sea shall lash up centuries to foam
away in years. There lies the Centre Garden of the gods, facing
full seawards. All around lie songs that on earth were never sung,
fair thoughts not heard among the worlds, dream pictures never
seen that drifted over Time without a home till at last the aeons
swept them on to the shore of space. And in the Centre Garden
of the gods bloom many fancies. Therein once some souls were
playing where the gods walked up and down and to and fro. And a
dream came in more beauteous than the rest on the crest of a wave
of Time, and one soul going downward to the shore clutched at
the dream and caught it. Then over the dreams and stories and old
songs that lay on the shore of space the hours came sweeping back,
and the centuries caught that soul and swirled him with his dream
far out to the Sea of Time, and the aeons swept him earthwards
and cast him into a palace with all the might of the sea and left him
there with his dream. The child grew to a King and still clutched
at his dream till the people wondered and laughed. Then, O King,
Thou didst cast thy dream back into the Sea, and Time drowned
it and men laughed no more, but thou didst forget that a certain
sea beat on a distant shore and that there was a garden and therein
souls. But at the end of the journey that thou shalt take, when thou
comest to the shore of space again thou shalt go up the beach, and
coming to a garden gate that stands in a garden wall shalt remem-
ber these things again, for it stands where the hours assail not
above the beating of Time, far up the shore, and nothing altereth
there. So thou shalt go through the garden gate and hear again the
whispering of the souls when they talk low where sing the voices
of the gods. There with kindred souls thou shalt speak as thou didst
of yore and tell them what befell thee beyond the tides of time
and how they took thee and made of thee a King so that thy soul
found no rest. There in the Centre Garden thou shalt sit at ease and
124 Time And The Gods

watch the gods all rainbow-clad go up and down and to and fro on
the paths of dreams and songs, and shalt not venture down to the
cheerless sea. For that which a man loves most is not on this side
of Time, and all which drifts on its aeons is a lure.
“All knowledge is with the King.”
Then said the King: “Ay, there was a dream once but Time hath
swept it away.”
III
Then spake Monith, Prophet of the Temple of Azure that stands
on the snow-peak of Ahmoon and said: “All knowledge is with the
King. Once thou didst set out upon a one day’s journey riding thy
horse and before thee had gone a beggar down the road, and his
name was Yeb. Him thou didst overtake and when he heeded not
thy coming thou didst ride over him.
“Upon the journey that thou shalt one day take riding upon no
horse, this beggar has set out before thee and is labouring up the
crystal steps towards the moon as a man goeth up the steps of a
high tower in the dark. On the moon’s edge beneath the shadow
of Mount Angises he shall rest awhile and then shall climb the
crystal steps again. Then a great journey lies before him before he
may rest again till he come to that star that is called the left eye
of Gundo. Then a journey of many crystal steps lieth before him
again with nought to guide him but the light of Omrazu. On the
edge of Omrazu shall Yeb tarry long, for the most dreadful part of
his journey lieth before him. Up the crystal steps that lie beyond
Omrazu he must go, and any that follow, though the howling of all
the meteors that ride the sky; for in that part of the crystal space go
many meteors up and down all squealing in the dark, which greatly
perplex all travellers. And, if he may see though the gleaming of
the meteors and in spite of their uproar come safely through, he
shall come to the star Omrund at the edge of the Track of Stars.
And from star to star along the Track of Stars the soul of a man
may travel with more ease, and there the journey lies no more
straight forward, but curves to the right.”
Then said King Ebalon:
 Time And The Gods 125

“Of this beggar whom my horse smote down thou hast spoken
much, but I sought to know by what road a King should go when
he taketh his last royal journey, and what princes and what people
should meet him upon another shore.”
Then answered Monith:
“All knowledge is with the King. It hath been doomed by the
gods, who speak not in jest, that thou shalt follow the soul that
thou didst send alone upon its journey, that that soul go not unat-
tended up the crystal steps.
“Moreover, as this beggar went upon his lonely journey he dared
to curse the King, and his curses lie like a red mist along the val-
leys and hollows wherever he uttered them. By these red mists, O
King, thou shalt track him as a man follows a river by night until
thou shalt fare at last to the land wherein he hath blessed thee (re-
penting of anger at last), and thou shalt see his blessing lie over the
land like a blaze of golden sunshine illumining fields and gardens.”
Then said the King:
“The gods have spoken hard above the snowy peak of this
mountain Ahmoon.”
And Monith said:
“How a man may come to the shore of space beyond the tides
of time I know not, but it is doomed that thou shalt certainly first
follow the beggar past the moon, Omrund and Omrazu till thou
comest to the Track of Stars, and up the Track of Stars coming
towards the right along the edge of it till thou comest to Ingazi.
There the soul of the beggar Yeb sat long, then, breathing deep, set
off on his great journey earthward adown the crystal steps. Straight
through the spaces where no stars are found to rest at, following
the dull gleam of earth and her fields till he come at last where
journeys end and start.”
Then said King Ebalon:
“If this hard tale be true, how shall I find the beggar that I must
follow when I come again to the earth?”
And the Prophet answered:
“Thou shalt know him by his name and find him in this place,
for that beggar shall be called King Ebalon and he shall be sitting
126 Time And The Gods

upon the throne of the Kings of Zarkandhu.”

And the King answered:
“If one sit upon this throne whom men call King Ebalon, who
then shall I be?”
And the Prophet answered:
“Thou shalt be a beggar and thy name shall be Yeb, and thou
shalt ever tread the road before the palace waiting for alms from
the King whom men shall call Ebalon.”
Then said the King:
“Hard gods indeed are those that tramp the snows of Ahmoon
about the temple of Azure, for if I sinned against this beggar called
Yeb, they too have sinned against him when they doomed him to
travel on this weary journey though he hath not offended.”
And Monith said:
“He too hath offended, for he was angry as thy horse struck him,
and the gods smite anger. And his anger and his curses doom him
to journey without rest as also they doom thee.”
Then said the King:
“Thou that sittest upon Ahmoon in the Temple of Azure, dream-
ing thy dreams and making prophecies, foresee the ending of this
weary quest and tell me where it shall be?”
And Monith answered:
“As a man looks across great lakes I have gazed into the days to
be, and as the great flies come upon four wings of gauze to skim
over blue waters, so have my dreams come sailing two by two out
of the days to be. And I dreamed that King Ebalon, whose soul was
not thy soul, stood in his palace in a time far hence, and beggars
thronged the street outside, and among them was Yeb, a beggar,
having thy soul. And it was on the morning of a festival and the
King came robed in white, with all his prophets and his seers and
magicians, all down the marble steps to bless the land and all that
stood therein as far as the purple hills, because it was the morning
of festival. And as the King raised up his hand over the beggars’
heads to bless the fields and rivers and all that stood therein, I
dreamed that the quest was ended.
“All knowledge is with the King.”
 Time And The Gods 127

IV
Evening darkened and above the palace domes gleamed out the
stars whereon haply others missed the secret too.
And outside the palace in the dark they that had borne the wine
in jewelled cups mocked in low voices at the King and at the wis-
dom of his prophets.
Then spake Ynar, called the prophet of the Crystal Peak; for
there rises Amanath above all that land, a mountain whose peak is
crystal, and Ynar beneath its summit hath his Temple, and when
day shines no longer on the world Amanath takes the sunlight and
gleams afar as a beacon in a bleak land lit at night. And at the hour
when all faces are turned on Amanath, Ynar comes forth beneath
the Crystal peak to weave strange spells and to make signs that
people say are surely for the gods. Therefore it is said in all those
lands that Ynar speaks at evening to the gods when all the world is
still.
And Ynar said:
“All knowledge is with the King, and without doubt it hath come
to the King’s ears how certain speech is held at evening on the
Peak of Amanath.
“They that speak to me at evening on the Peak are They that live
in a city through whose streets Death walketh not, and I have heard
it from Their Elders that the King shall take no journey; only from
thee the hills shall slip away, the dark woods, the sky and all the
gleaming worlds that fill the night, and the green fields shall go on
untrodden by thy feet and the blue sky ungazed at by thine eyes,
and still the rivers shall all run seaward but making no music in
thine ears. And all the old laments shall still be spoken, troubling
thee not, and to the earth shall fall the tears of the children of earth
and never grieving thee. Pestilence, heat and cold, ignorance, fam-
ine and anger, these things shall grip their claws upon all men as
heretofore in fields and roads and cities but shall not hold thee. But
from thy soul, sitting in the old worn track of the worlds when all
is gone away, shall fall off the shackles of circumstance and thou
shalt dream thy dreams alone.
128 Time And The Gods

“And thou shalt find that dreams are real where there is nought
as far as the Rim but only thy dreams and thee.
“With them thou shalt build palaces and cities resting upon noth-
ing and having no place in time, not to be assailed by the hours or
harmed by ivy or rust, not to be taken by conquerors, but destroyed
by thy fancy if thou dost wish it so or by thy fancy rebuilded. And
nought shall ever disturb these dreams of thine which here are trou-
bled and lost by all the happenings of earth, as the dreams of one
who sleeps in a tumultuous city. For these thy dreams shall sweep
outward like a strong river over a great waste plain wherein are
neither rocks nor hills to turn it, only in that place there shall be no
boundaries nor sea, neither hindrance nor end. And it were well for
thee that thou shouldst take few regrets into thy waste dominions
from the world wherein thou livest, for such regrets or any memory
of deeds ill done must sit beside thy soul forever in that waste,
singing one song always of forlorn remorse; and they too shall be
only dreams but very real.
“There nought shall hinder thee among thy dreams, for even
the gods may harass thee no more when flesh and earth and events
with which They bound thee shall have slipped away.”
Then said the King:
“I like not this grey doom, for dreams are empty. I would see ac-
tion roaring through the world, and men and deeds.”
Then answered the Prophet:
“Victory, jewels and dancing but please thy fancy. What is the
sparkle of the gem to thee without thy fancy which it allures, and
thy fancy is all a dream. Action and deeds and men are nought
without dreams and do but fetter them, and only dreams are real,
and where thou stayest when the worlds shall drift away there shall
be only dreams.”
And the King answered:
“A mad prophet.”
And Ynar said:
“A mad prophet, but believing that his soul possesseth all things
of which his soul may become aware and that he is master of that
soul, and thou a high-minded King believing only that thy soul
 Time And The Gods 129

possesseth such few countries as are leaguered by thine armies and

the sea, and that thy soul is possessed by certain strange gods of
whom thou knowest not, who shall deal with it in a way whereof
thou knowest not. Until a knowledge come to us that either is
wrong I have wider realms, I King, than thee and hold them be-
neath no overlords.”
Then said the King:
“Thou hast said no overlords! To whom then dost thou speak by
strange signs at evening above the world?”
And Ynar went forward and whispered to the King. And the
King shouted:
“Seize ye this prophet for he is a hypocrite and speaks to no
gods at evening above the world, but has deceived us with his
signs.”
And Ynar said:
“Come not near me or I shall point towards you when I speak at
evening upon the mountain with Those that ye know of.”
Then Ynar went away and the guards touched him not.
V
Then spake the prophet Thun, who was clad in seaweed and had
no Temple, but lived apart from men. All his life he had lived on a
lonely beach and had heard for ever the wailing of the sea and the
crying of the wind in hollows among the cliffs. Some said that hav-
ing lived so long by the full beating of the sea, and where always
the wind cries loudest, he could not feel the joys of other men, but
only felt the sorrow of the sea crying in his soul for ever.
“Long ago on the path of stars, midmost between the worlds,
there strode the gods of Old. In the bleak middle of the worlds
They sat and the worlds went round and round, like dead leaves in
the wind at Autumn’s end, with never a life on one, while the gods
went sighing for the things that might not be. And the centuries
went over the gods to go where the centuries go, toward the End
of Things, and with Them went the sighs of all the gods as They
longed for what might not be.
“One by one in the midst of the worlds, fell dead the gods of
130 Time And The Gods

Old, still sighing for the things that might not be, all slain by Their
own regrets. Only Shimono Kani, the youngest of the gods, made
him a harp out of the heart strings of all the elder gods, and, sit-
ting upon the Path of Stars in the Middle of Things, played upon
the harp a dirge for the gods of Old. And the song told of all vain
regrets and of unhappy loves of the gods in the olden time, and of
Their great deeds that were to adorn the future years. But into the
dirge of Shimono Kani came voices crying out of the heart strings
of the gods, all sighing still for the things that might not be. And
the dirge and the voices crying, go drifting away from the Path of
Stars, away from the Midst of Things, till they come twittering
among the Worlds, like a great host of birds that are lost by night.
And every note is a life, and many notes become caught up among
the worlds to be entangled with flesh for a little while before they
pass again on their journey to the great Anthem that roars at the
End of Time. Shimono Kani hath given a voice to the wind and
added a sorrow to the sea. But when in lighted chambers after
feasting there arises the voice of the singer to please the King, then
is the soul of that singer crying aloud to his fellows from where
he stands chained to earth. And when at the sound of the singing
the heart of the King grows sad and his princes lament then they
remember, though knowing not that, they remember it, the sad face
of Shimono Kani sitting by his dead brethren, the elder gods, play-
ing on the harp of crying heart strings whereby he sent their souls
among the worlds.
“And when the music of one lute is lonely on the hills at night,
then one soul calleth to his brother souls — the notes of Shimono
Kani’s dirge which have not been caught among the worlds — and
he knoweth not to whom he calls or why, but knoweth only that
minstrelsy is his only cry and sendeth it out into the dark.
“But although in the prison houses of earth all memories must
die, yet as there sometimes clings to a prisoner’s feet some dust
of the fields wherein he was captured, so sometimes fragments of
remembrance cling to a man’s soul after it hath been taken to earth.
Then a great minstrel arises, and, weaving together the shreds of
his memories, maketh some melody such as the hand of Shimono
 Time And The Gods 131

Kani smites out of his harp; and they that pass by say: ‘Hath there
not been some such melody before?’ and pass on sad at heart for
memories which are not.
“Therefore, O King, one day the great gates of thy palace shall
lie open for a procession wherein the King comes down to pass
through a people, lamenting with lute and drum; and on the same
day a prison door shall be opened by relenting hands, and one
more lost note of Shimono Kani’s dirge shall go back to swell his
melody again.
“The dirge of Shimono Kani shall roll on till one day it shall
come with all its notes complete to overwhelm the Silence that sits
at the End of Things. Then shall Shimono Kani say to his breth-
ren’s bones: The things that might not be have at last become.’
“But very quiet shall be the bones of the gods of Old, and only
Their voices shall live which cried from the harp of heart strings,
for the things which might not be.”
VI
When the caravans, saying farewell to Zandara, set out across
the waste northwards towards Einandhu, they follow the desert
track for seven days before they come to water where Shubah
Onath rises black out of the waste, with a well at its foot and herb-
age on its summit. On this rock a prophet hath his Temple and
is called the Prophet of Journeys, and hath carven in a southern
window smiling along the camel track all gods that are benignant
to caravans.
There a traveller may learn by prophecy whether he shall ac-
complish the ten days’ journey thence across the desert and so
come to the white city of Einandhu, or whether his bones shall lie
with the bones of old along the desert track.
No name hath the Prophet of Journeys, for none is needed in that
desert where no man calls nor ever a man answers.
Thus spake the Prophet of Journeys standing before the King:
“The journey of the King shall be an old journey pushed on
apace.
“Many a year before the making of the moon thou camest down
132 Time And The Gods

with dream camels from the City without a name that stands be-
yond all the stars. And then began thy journey over the Waste of
Nought, and thy dream camel bore thee well when those of certain
of thy fellow travellers fell down in the Waste and were covered
over by the silence and were turned again to nought; and those
travellers when their dream camels fell, having nothing to carry
them further over the Waste, were lost beyond and never found the
earth. These are those men that might have been but were not. And
all about thee fluttered the myriad hours travelling in great swarms
across the Waste of Nought.
“How many centuries passed across the cities while thou wast
making thy journey none may reckon, for there is no time in the
Waste of Nought, but only the hours fluttering earthwards from
beyond to do the work of Time. At last the dream-borne travellers
saw far off a green place gleaming and made haste towards it and
so came to Earth. And there, O King, ye rest for a little while, thou
and those that came with thee, making an encampment upon earth
before journeying on. There the swarming hours alight, settling on
every blade of grass and tree, and spreading over your tents and
devouring all things, and at last bending your very tent poles with
their weight and wearying you.
“Behind the encampment in the shadow of the tents lurks a dark
figure with a nimble sword, having the name of Time. This is he
that hath called the hours from beyond and he it is that is their
master, and it is his work that the hours do as they devour all green
things upon the earth and tatter the tents and weary all the travel-
lers. As each of the hours does the work of Time, Time smites him
with his nimble sword as soon as his work is done, and the hour
falls severed to the dust with his bright wings scattered, as a locust
cut asunder by the scimitar of a skillful swordsman.
“One by one, O King, with a stir in the camp, and the folding
up of the tents one by one, the travellers shall push on again on the
journey begun so long before out of the City without a name to the
place where dream camels go, striding free through the Waste. So
into the Waste, O King, thou shalt set forth ere long, perhaps to
renew friendships begun during thy short encampment upon earth.
 Time And The Gods 133

“Other green places thou shalt meet in the Waste and thereon
shalt encamp again until driven thence by the hours. What prophet
shall relate how many journeys thou shalt make or how many en-
campments? But at last thou shalt come to the place of The Resting
of Camels, and there shall gleaming cliffs that are named The End-
ing of Journeys lift up out of the Waste of Nought, Nought at their
feet, Nought laying wide before them, with only the glint of worlds
far off to illumine the Waste. One by one, on tired dream camels,
the travellers shall come in, and going up the pathway through the
cliff in that land of The Resting of Camels shall come on The City
of Ceasing. There, the dream-wrought pinnacles and the spires that
are builded of men’s hopes shall rise up real before thee, seen only
hitherto as a mirage in the Waste.
“So far the swarming hours may not come, and far away among
the tents shall stand the dark figure with the nimble sword. But in
the scintillant streets, under the song-built abodes of the last of cit-
ies, thy journey, O King, shall end.”
VII
In the valley beyond Sidono there lies a garden of poppies, and
where the poppies’ heads are all a-swing with summer breezes that
go up the valley there lies a path well strewn with ocean shells.
Over Sidono’s summit the birds come streaming to the lake that
lies in the valley of the garden, and behind them rises the sun
sending Sidono’s shadow as far as the edge of the lake. And down
the path of many ocean shells when they begin to gleam in the
sun, every morning walks an aged man clad in a silken robe with
strange devices woven. A little temple where the old man lives
stands at the edge of the path. None worship there, for Zornadhu,
the old prophet, hath forsaken men to walk among his poppies.
For Zornadhu hath failed to understand the purport of Kings
and cities and the moving up and down of many people to the tune
of the clinking of gold. Therefore hath Zornadhu gone far away
from the sound of cities and from those that are ensnared thereby,
and beyond Sidono’s mountain hath come to rest where there are
neither kings nor armies nor bartering for gold, but only the heads
134 Time And The Gods

of the poppies that sway in the wind together and the birds that
fly from Sidono to the lake, and then the sunrise over Sidono’s
summit; and afterwards the flight of birds out of the lake and over
Sidono again, and sunset behind the valley, and high over lake
and garden the stars that know not cities. There Zornadhu lives
in his garden of poppies with Sidono standing between him and
the whole world of men; and when the wind blowing athwart the
valley sways the heads of the tall poppies against the Temple wall,
the old prophet says: “The flowers are all praying, and lo! they be
nearer to the gods than men.”
But the heralds of the King coming after many days of travel
to Sidono perceived the garden valley. By the lake they saw the
poppy garden gleaming round and small like a sunrise over water
on a misty morning seen by some shepherd from the hills. And de-
scending the bare mountain for three days they came to the gaunt
pines, and ever between the tall trunks came the glare of the pop-
pies that shone from the garden valley. For a whole day they trav-
elled through the pines. That night a cold wind came up the garden
valley crying against the poppies. Low in his Temple, with a song
of exceeding grief, Zornadhu in the morning made a dirge for the
passing of poppies, because in the night time there had fallen petals
that might not return or ever come again into the garden valley.
Outside the Temple on the path of ocean shells the heralds halted,
and read the names and honours of the King; and from the Temple
came the voice of Zornadhu still singing his lament. But they took
him from his garden because of the King’s command, and down
his gleaming path of ocean shells and away up Sidono, and left the
Temple empty with none to lament when silken poppies died. And
the will of the wind of the autumn was wrought upon the poppies,
and the heads of the poppies that rose from the earth went down to
the earth again, as the plume of a warrior smitten in a heathen fight
far away, where there are none to lament him. Thus out of his land
of flowers went Zornadhu and came perforce into the lands of men,
and saw cities, and in the city’s midst stood up before the King.
And the King said:
“Zornadhu, what of the journey of the King and of the princes
 Time And The Gods 135

and the people that shall meet me?”

Zornadhu answered:
“I know nought of Kings, but in the night time the poppy made
his journey a little before dawn. Thereafter the wildfowl came as is
their wont over Sidono’s summit, and the sun rising behind them
gleamed upon Sidono, and all the flowers of the lake awoke. And
the bee passing up and down the garden went droning to other pop-
pies, and the flowers of the lake, they that had known the poppy,
knew him no more. And the sun’s rays slanting from Sidono’s crest
lit still a garden valley where one poppy waved his petals to the
dawn no more. And I, O King, that down a path of gleaming ocean
shells walk in the morning, found not, nor have since found, that
poppy again, that hath gone on the journey whence there is not
returning, out of my garden valley. And I, O King, made a dirge to
cry beyond that valley and the poppies bowed their heads; but there
is no cry nor no lament that may adjure the life to return again to a
flower that grew in a garden once and hereafter is not.
“Unto what place the lives of poppies have gone no man shall
truly say. Sure it is that to that place are only outward tracks. Only
it may be that when a man dreams at evening in a garden where
heavily the scent of poppies hangs in the air, when the winds have
sunk, and far away the sound of a lute is heard on lonely hills, as
he dreams of silken-scarlet poppies that once were a-swing to-
gether in the gardens of his youth, the lives of those old lost pop-
pies shall return, living again in his dream. So there may dream the
gods. And through the dreams of some divinity reclining in tinted
fields above the morning we may haply pass again, although our
bodies have long swirled up and down the world with other dust.
In these strange dreams our lives may be again, all in the centre
of our hopes, rejoicings and laments, until above the morning the
gods wake to go about their work, haply to remember still Their
idle dreams, haply to dream them all again in the stillness when
shines the starlight of the gods.”
136 Time And The Gods

VIII
Then said the King: “I like not these strange journeys nor this
faint wandering through the dreams of gods like the shadow of a
weary camel that may not rest when the sun is low. The gods that
have made me to love the earth’s cool woods and dancing streams
do ill to send me into the starry spaces that I love not, with my soul
still peering earthward through the eternal years, as a beggar who
once was noble staring from the street at lighted halls. For wher-
ever the gods may send me I shall be as the gods have made me, a
creature loving the green fields of earth.
“Now if there stand one prophet here that hath the ear of those
too splendid gods that stride above the glories of the orient sky, tell
them that there is on earth one King in the land called Zarkandhu
to the south of the opal mountains, who would fain tarry among the
many gardens of earth, and would leave to other men the splen-
dours that the gods shall give the dead above the twilight that sur-
rounds the stars.”
Then spake Yamen, prophet of the Temple of Obin that stands
on the shores of a great lake, facing east. Yamen said: “I pray oft
to the gods who sit above the twilight behind the east. When the
clouds are heavy and red at sunset, or when there is boding of
thunder or eclipse, then I pray not, lest my prayers be scattered
and beaten earthward. But when the sun sets in a tranquil sky, pale
green or azure, and the light of his farewells stays long upon lonely
hills, then I send forth my prayers to flutter upward to gods that
are surely smiling, and the gods hear my prayers. But, O King,
boons sought out of due time from the gods are never wholly to
be desired, and, if They should grant to thee to tarry on the earth,
old age would trouble thee with burdens more and more till thou
wouldst become the driven slave of the hours in fetters that none
may break.”
The King said: “They that have devised this burden of age may
surely stay it, pray therefore on the calmest evening of the year to
the gods above the twilight that I may tarry always on the earth and
always young, while over my head the scourges of the gods pass
 Time And The Gods 137

and alight not.”

Then answered Yamen: “The King hath commanded, yet among
the blessings of the gods there always cries a curse. The great
princes that make merry with the King, who tell of the great deeds
that the King wrought in the former time, shall one by one grow
old. And thou, O King, seated at the feast crying, ‘make merry’ and
extolling the former time shall find about thee white heads nodding
in sleep, and men that are forgetting the former time. Then one by
one the names of those that sported with thee once called by the
gods, one by one the names of the singers that sing the songs thou
lovest called by the gods, lastly of those that chased the grey boar
by night and took him in Orghoom river — only the King. Then
a new people that have not known the old deeds of the King nor
fought and chased with him, who dare not make merry with the
King as did his long dead princes. And all the while those princes
that are dead growing dearer and greater in thy memory, and all the
while the men that served thee then growing more small to thee.
And all the old things fading and new things arising which are not
as the old things were, the world changing yearly before thine eyes
and the gardens of thy childhood overgrown. Because thy child-
hood was in the olden years thou shalt love the olden years, but
ever the new years shall overthrow them and their customs, and not
the will of a King may stay the changes that the gods have planned
for all the customs of old. Ever thou shalt say ‘This was not so,’
and ever the new custom shall prevail even against a King. When
thou hast made merry a thousand times thou shalt grow tired of
making merry. At last thou shalt become weary of the chase, and
still old age shall not come near to thee to stifle desires that have
been too oft fulfilled; then, O King, thou shalt be a hunter yearn-
ing for the chase but with nought to pursue that hath not been oft
overcome. Old age shall come not to bury thine ambitions in a time
when there is nought for thee to aspire to any more. Experience of
many centuries shall make thee wise but hard and very sad, and
thou shalt be a mind apart from thy fellows and curse them all for
fools, and they shall not perceive thy wisdom because thy thoughts
are not their thoughts and the gods that they have made are not the
138 Time And The Gods

gods of the olden time. No solace shall thy wisdom bring thee but
only an increasing knowledge that thou knowest nought, and thou
shalt feel as a wise man in a world of fools, or else as a fool in a
world of wise men, when all men feel so sure and ever thy doubts
increase. When all that spake with thee of thine old deeds are dead,
those that saw them not shall speak of them again to thee; till one
speaking to thee of thy deeds of valour add more than even a man
should when speaking to a King, and thou shalt suddenly doubt
whether these great deeds were; and there shall be none to tell thee,
only the echoes of the voices of the gods still singing in thine ears
when long ago They called the princes that were thy friends. And
thou shalt hear the knowledge of the olden time most wrongly told
and afterwards forgotten. Then many prophets shall arise claiming
discovery of that old knowledge. Then thou shalt find that seeking
knowledge is vain, as the chase is vain, as making merry is vain,
as all things are vain. One day thou shalt find that it is vain to be a
King. Greatly then will the acclamations of the people weary thee,
till the time when people grow aweary of Kings. Then thou shalt
know that thou hast been uprooted from thine olden time and set to
live in uncongenial years, and jests all new to royal ears shall smite
thee on the head like hailstones, when thou hast lost thy crown,
when those to whose grandsires thou hadst granted to bring them
as children to kiss the feet of the King shall mock at thee because
thou hast not learnt to barter with gold.
“Not all the marvels of the future time shall atone to thee for
those old memories that glow warmer and brighter every year as
they recede into the ages that the gods have gathered. And always
dreaming of thy long dead princes and of the great Kings of other
kingdoms in the olden time thou shalt fail to see the grandeur to
which a hurrying jesting people shall attain in that kingless age.
Lastly, O King, thou shalt perceive men changing in a way that
thou shalt not comprehend, knowing what thou canst not know,
till thou shalt discover that these are men no more and a new race
holds dominion over the earth whose forefathers were men. These
shall speak to thee no more as they hurry upon a quest that thou
shalt never understand, and thou shalt know that thou canst no
 Time And The Gods 139

longer take thy part in shaping destinies, but in a world of cities

only pine for air and the waving grass again and the sound of a
wind in trees. Then even this shall end with the shapes of the gods
in the darkness gathering all lives but thine, when the hills shall
fling up earth’s long stored heat back to the heavens again, when
earth shall be old and cold, with nothing alive upon it but one
King.”
Then said the King: “Pray to those hard gods still, for those that
have loved the earth with all its gardens and woods and singing
streams will love earth still when it is old and cold and with all its
gardens gone and all the purport of its being failed and nought but
memories.”
IX
Then spake Paharn, a prophet of the land of Hurn.
And Paharn said:
“There was one man that knew, but he stands not here.”
And the King said:
“Is he further than my heralds might travel in the night if they
went upon fleet horses?”
And the prophet answered:
“He is no further than thy heralds may well travel in the night,
but further than they may return from in all the years. Out of
this city there goes a valley wandering through all the world and
opens out at last on the green land of Hurn. On the one side in the
distance gleams the sea, and on the other side a forest, black and
ancient, darkens the fields of Hurn; beyond the forest and the sea
there is no more, saving the twilight and beyond that the gods. In
the mouth of the valley sleeps the village of Rhistaun.
“Here I was born, and heard the murmur of the flocks and herds,
and saw the tall smoke standing between the sky and the still roofs
of Rhistaun, and learned that men might not go into the dark for-
est, and that beyond the forest and the sea was nought saving the
twilight, and beyond that the gods. Often there came travellers
from the world all down the winding valley, and spake with strange
speech in Rhistaun and returned again up the valley going back to
140 Time And The Gods

the world. Sometimes with bells and camels and men running on
foot, Kings came down the valley from the world, but always the
travellers returned by the valley again and none went further than
the land of Hurn.
“And Kithneb also was born in the land of Hurn and tended the
flocks with me, but Kithneb would not care to listen to the murmur
of the flocks and herds and see the tall smoke standing between the
roofs and the sky, but needed to know how far from Hurn it was
that the world met the twilight, and how far across the twilight sat
the gods.
“And often Kithneb dreamed as he tended the flocks and herds,
and when others slept he would wander near to the edge of the
forest wherein men might not go. And the elders of the land of
Hurn reproved Kithneb when he dreamed; yet Kithneb was still as
other men and mingled with his fellows until the day of which I
will tell thee, O King. For Kithneb was aged about a score of years,
and he and I were sitting near the flocks, and he gazed long at the
point where the dark forest met the sea at the end of the land of
Hurn. But when night drove the twilight down under the forest we
brought the flocks together to Rhistaun, and I went up the street
between the houses to see four princes that had come down the val-
ley from the world, and they were clad in blue and scarlet and wore
plumes upon their heads, and they gave us in exchange for our
sheep some gleaming stones which they told us were of great value
on the word of princes. And I sold them three sheep, and Darniag
sold them eight.
“But Kithneb came not with the others to the market place where
the four princes stood, but went alone across the fields to the edge
of the forest.
“And it was upon the next morning that the strange thing befell
Kithneb; for I saw him in the morning coming from the fields, and
I hailed him with the shepherd’s cry wherewith we shepherds call
to one another, and he answered not. Then I stopped and spake to
him, and Kithneb said not a word till I became angry and left him.
“Then we spake together concerning Kithneb, and others had
hailed him, and he had not answered them, but to one he had said
 Time And The Gods 141

that he had heard the voices of the gods speaking beyond the forest
and so would never listen more to the voices of men.
“Then we said: ‘Kithneb is mad,’ and none hindered him.
“Another took his place among the flocks, and Kithneb sat in the
evenings by the edge of the forest on the plain, alone.
“So Kithneb spake to none for many days, but when any forced
him to speak he said that every evening he heard the gods when
they came to sit in the forest from over the twilight and sea, and
that he would speak no more with men.
“But as the months went by, men in Rhistaun came to look on
Kithneb as a prophet, and we were wont to point to him when
strangers came down the valley from the world, saying:
“‘Here in the land of Hurn we have a prophet such as you have
not among your cities, for he speaks at evening with the gods.’
“A year had passed over the silence of Kithneb when he came to
me and spake. And I bowed before him because we believed that
he spake among the gods. And Kithneb said:
“‘I will speak to thee before the end because I am most lonely.
For how may I speak again with men and women in the little
streets of Rhistaun among the houses, when I have heard the voices
of the gods singing above the twilight? But I am more lonely than
ever Rhistaun wonts of, for this I tell thee, when I hear the gods I
know not what They say. Well indeed I know the voice of each, for
ever calling me away from contentment; well I know Their voices
as they call to my soul and trouble it; I know by Their tone when
They rejoice, and I know when They are sad, for even the gods feel
sadness. I know when over fallen cities of the past, and the curved
white bones of heroes They sing the dirges of the gods’ lament.
But alas! Their words I know not, and the wonderful strains of the
melody of Their speech beat on my soul and pass away unknown.
“‘Therefore I travelled from the land of Hurn till I came to the
house of the prophet Arnin-Yo, and told him that I sought to find
the meaning of the gods; and Arnin-Yo told me to ask the shep-
herds concerning all the gods, for what the shepherds knew it was
meet for a man to know, and, beyond that, knowledge turned into
trouble.
142 Time And The Gods

“‘But I told Arnin-Yo that I had heard myself the voices of the
gods and knew that They were there beyond the twilight and so
could never more bow down to the gods that the shepherds made
from the red clay which they scooped with their hands out of the
hillside.
“‘Then said Arnin-Yo to me:
“‘”Natheless forget that thou hast heard the gods and bow down
again to the gods of the red clay that the shepherds make, and find
thereby the ease that the shepherds find, and at last die, remember-
ing devoutly the gods of the red clay that the shepherds scooped
with their hands out of the hill. For the gifts of the gods that sit
beyond the twilight and smile at the gods of clay, are neither ease
nor contentment.”
“‘And I said:
“‘”The god that my mother made out of the red clay that she
had got from the hill, fashioning it with many arms and eyes as
she sang me songs of its power, and told me stories of its mystic
birth, this god is lost and broken; and ever in my ears is ringing the
melody of the gods.”
“‘And Arnin-Yo said:
“‘”If thou wouldst still seek knowledge know that only those
that come behind the gods may clearly know their meaning. And
this thou canst only do by taking ship and putting out to sea from
the land of Hurn and sailing up the coast towards the forest. There
the sea cliffs turn to the left or southward, and full upon them
beats the twilight from over the sea, and there thou mayest come
round behind the forest. Here where the world’s edge mingles with
the twilight the gods come in the evening, and if thou canst come
behind Them thou shalt hear Their voices clear, beating full sea-
ward and filling all the twilight with sound of song, and thou shalt
know the meaning of the gods. But where the cliffs turn southward
there sits behind the gods Brimdono, the oldest whirlpool in the
sea, roaring to guard his masters. Him the gods have chained for
ever to the floor of the twilit sea to guard the door of the forest that
lieth above the cliffs. Here, then, if thou canst hear the voices of
the gods as thou hast said, thou wilt know their meaning clear, but
 Time And The Gods 143

this will profit thee little when Brimdono drags thee down and all
thy ship.’”
“Thus spake Kithneb to me.
“But I said:
“‘O Kithneb, forget those whirlpool-guarded gods beyond the
forest, and if thy small god be lost thou shalt worship with me
the small god that my mother made. Thousands of years ago he
conquered cities but is not any longer an angry god. Pray to him,
Kithneb, and he shall bring thee comfort and increase to thy flocks
and a mild spring, and at the last a quiet ending for thy days.’
“But Kithneb heeded not, and only bade me find a fisher ship
and men to row it. So on the next day we put forth from the land
of Hurn in a boat that the fisher folk use. And with us came four
of the fisher folk who rowed the boat while I held the rudder, but
Kithneb sat and spake not in the prow. And we rowed westward up
the coast till we came at evening where the cliffs turned southward
and the twilight gleamed upon them and the sea.
“There we turned southwards and saw at once Brimdono. And
as a man tears the purple cloak of a king slain in battle to divide it
with other warriors, — Brimdono tore the sea. And ever around and
around him with a gnarled hand Brimdono whirled the sail of some
adventurous ship, the trophy of some calamity wrought in his greed
for shipwreck long ago where he sat to guard his masters from all
who fare on the sea. And ever one far-reaching empty hand swung
up and down so that we durst go no nearer.
“Only Kithneb neither saw Brimdono nor heard his roar, and
when we would go no further bade us lower a small boat with
oars out of the ship. Into this boat Kithneb descended, not heed-
ing words from us, and onward rowed alone. A cry of triumph
over ships and men Brimdono uttered before him, but Kithneb’s
eyes were turned toward the forest as he came behind the gods.
Upon his face the twilight beat full from the haunts of evening to
illumine the smiles that grew about his eyes as he came behind the
gods. Him that had found the gods above Their twilit cliffs, him
that had heard Their voices close at last and knew Their meaning
clear, him, from the cheerless world with its doubtings and proph-
144 Time And The Gods

ets that lie, from all hidden meanings, where truth rang clear at
last, Brimdono took.”
But when Paharn ceased to speak, in the King’s ears the roar
of Brimdono exulting over ancient triumphs and the whelming of
ships seemed still to ring.
X
Then Mohontis spake, the hermit prophet, who lived in the deep
untravelled woods that seclude Lake Ilana.
“I dreamed that to the west of all the seas I saw by vision the
mouth of Munra-O, guarded by golden gates, and through the bars
of the gates that guard the mysterious river of Munra-O I saw the
flashes of golden barques, wherein the gods went up and down, and
to and fro through the evening dusk. And I saw that Munra-O was
a river of dreams such as came through remembered gardens in the
night, to charm our infancy as we slept beneath the sloping gables
of the houses of long ago. And Munra-O rolled down her dreams
from the unknown inner land and slid them under the golden gates
and out into the waste, unheeding sea, till they beat far off upon
low-lying shores and murmured songs of long ago to the islands
of the south, or shouted tumultuous paeans to the Northern crags;
or cried forlornly against rocks where no one came, dreams that
might not be dreamed.
“Many gods there be, that through the dusk of an evening in the
summer go up and down this river. There I saw, in a high barque
all of gold, gods the of the pomp of cities; there I saw gods of
splendour, in boats bejewelled to the keels; gods of magnificence
and gods of power. I saw the dark ships and the glint of steel of
the gods whose trade was war, and I heard the melody of the bells
of silver arow in the rigging of harpstrings as the gods of melody
went sailing through the dusk on the river of Munra-O. Wonder-
ful river of Munra-O! I saw a grey ship with sails of the spider’s
web all lit with dewdrop lanterns, and on its prow was a scarlet
cock with its wings spread far and wide when the gods of the dawn
sailed also on Munra-O.
“Down this river it is the wont of the gods to carry the souls of
 Time And The Gods 145

men eastward to where the world in the distance faces on Munra-

O. Then I knew that when the gods of the Pride of Power and
gods of the Pomp of Cities went down the river in their tall gold
ships to take earthward other souls, swiftly adown the river and
between the ships had gone in this boat of birch bark the god Tarn,
the hunter, bearing my soul to the world. And I know now that
he came down the stream in the dusk keeping well to the middle,
and that he moved silently and swiftly among the ships, wielding
a twin-bladed oar. I remember, now, the yellow gleaming of the
great boats of the gods of the Pomp of Cities, and the huge prow
above me of the gods of the Pride of Power, when Tarn, dipping his
right blade into the river, lifted his left blade high, and the drops
gleamed and fell. Thus Tarn the hunter took me to the world that
faces across the sea of the west on the gate of Munra-O. And so
it was that there grew upon me the glamour of the hunt, though I
had forgotten Tarn, and took me into mossy places and into dark
woods, and I became the cousin of the wolf and looked into the
lynx’s eyes and knew the bear; and the birds called to me with half-
remembered notes, and there grew in me a deep love of great rivers
and of all western seas, and a distrust of cities, and all the while I
had forgotten Tarn.
“I know not what high galleon shall come for thee, O King, nor
what rowers, clad with purple, shall row at the bidding of gods
when thou goest back with pomp to the river of Munra-O. But
for me Tarn waits where the Seas of the West break over the edge
of the world, and, as the years pass over me and the love of the
chase sinks low, and as the glamour of the dark woods and mossy
places dies down in my soul, ever louder and louder lap the ripples
against the canoe of birch bark where, holding his twin-bladed oar,
Tarn waits.
“But when my soul hath no more knowledge of the woods nor
kindred any longer with the creatures of the dark, and when all
that Tarn hath given it shall be lost, then Tarn shall take me back
over the western seas, where all the remembered years lie floating
idly aswing with the ebb and flow, to bring me again to the river
of Munra-O. Far up that river we shall haply chase those crea-
146 Time And The Gods

tures whose eyes are peering in the night as they prowl around the
world, for Tarn was ever a hunter.”
XI
Then Ulf spake, the prophet who in Sistrameides lives in a tem-
ple anciently dedicated to the gods. Rumour hath guessed that there
the gods walked once some time towards evening. But Time whose
hand is against the temples of the gods hath dealt harshly with it
and overturned its pillars and set upon its ruins his sign and seal:
now Ulf dwells there alone. And Ulf said, “There sets, O King, a
river outward from earth which meets with a mighty sea whose
waters roll through space and fling their billows on the shores of
every star. These are the river and the sea of the Tears of Men.”
And the King said:
“Men have not written of this sea.”
And the prophet answered:
“Have not tears enough burst in the night time out of sleeping
cities? Have not the sorrows of 10,000 homes sent streams into
this river when twilight fell and it was still and there was none to
hear? Have there not been hopes, and were they all fulfilled? Have
there not been conquests and bitter defeats? And have not flow-
ers when spring was over died in the gardens of many children?
Tears enough, O King, tears enough have gone down out of earth
to make such a sea; and deep it is and wide and the gods know it
and it flings its spray on the shores of all the stars. Down this river
and across this sea thou shalt fare in a ship of sighs and all around
thee over the sea shall fly the prayers of men which rise on white
wings higher than their sorrows. Sometimes perched in the rigging,
sometimes crying around thee, shall go the prayers that availed not
to stay thee in Zarkandhu. Far over the waters, and on the wings
of the prayers beats the light of an inaccessible star. No hand hath
touched it, none hath journeyed to it, it hath no substance, it is
only a light, it is the star of Hope, and it shines far over the sea and
brightens the world. It is nought but a light, but the gods gave it.
“Led only by the light of this star the myriad prayers that thou
shalt see all around thee fly to the Hall of the gods.
 Time And The Gods 147

“Sighs shall waft thy ship of sighs over the sea of Tears. Thou
shalt pass by islands of laughter and lands of song lying low in the
sea, and all of them drenched with tears flung over their rocks by
the waves of the sea all driven by the sighs.
“But at last thou shalt come with the prayers of men to the great
Hall of the gods where the chairs of the gods are carved of onyx
grouped round the golden throne of the eldest of the gods. And
there, O King, hope not to find the gods, but reclining upon the
golden throne wearing a cloak of his master’s thou shalt see the
figure of Time with blood upon his hands, and loosely dangling
from his fingers a dripping sword, and spattered with blood but
empty shall stand the onyx chairs.
“There he sits on his master’s throne dangling idly his sword, or
with it flicking cruelly at the prayers of men that lie in a great heap
bleeding at his feet.
“For a while, O King, the gods had sought to solve the riddles
of Time, for a while They made him Their slave, and Time smiled
and obeyed his masters, for a while, O King, for a while. He that
hath spared nothing hath not spared the gods, nor yet shall he spare
thee.”
Then the King spake dolefully in the Hall of Kings, and said:
“May I not find at last the gods, and must it be that I may not
look in Their faces at the last to see whether They be kindly? They
that have sent me on my earthward journey I would greet on my
returning, if not as a King coming again to his own city, yet as
one who having been ordered had obeyed, and obeying had mer-
ited something of those for whom he toiled. I would look Them
in Their faces, O prophet, and ask Them concerning many things
and would know the wherefore of much. I had hoped, O prophet,
that those gods that had smiled upon my childhood, Whose voices
stirred at evening in gardens when I was young, would hold do-
minion still when at last I came to seek Them. O prophet, if this
is not to be, make you a great dirge for my childhood’s gods and
fashion silver bells and, setting them mostly a-swing amidst such
trees as grew in the garden of my childhood, sing you this dirge in
the dusk: and sing it when the low moth flies up and down and the
148 Time And The Gods

bat first comes peering from her home, sing it when white mists
come rising from the river, when smoke is pale and grey, while
flowers are yet closing, ere voices are yet hushed, sing it while all
things yet lament the day, or ever the great lights of heaven come
blazing forth and night with her splendours takes the place of day.
For, if the old gods die, let us lament Them or ever new knowledge
comes, while all the world still shudders at Their loss.
“For at the last, O prophet, what is left? Only the gods of my
childhood dead, and only Time striding large and lonely through
the spaces, chilling the moon and paling the light of stars and scat-
tering earthward out of both his hands the dust of forgetfulness
over the fields of heroes and smitten Temples of the older gods.”
But when the other prophets heard with what doleful words the
King spake in the Hall they all cried out:
“It is not as Ulf has said but as I have said — and I.”
Then the King pondered long, not speaking. But down in the
city in a street between the houses stood grouped together they
that were wont to dance before the King, and they that had borne
his wine in jewelled cups. Long they had tarried in the city hoping
that the King might relent, and once again regard them with kindly
faces calling for wine and song. The next morning they were all to
set out in search of some new Kingdom, and they were peering be-
tween the houses and up the long grey street to see for the last time
the palace of King Ebalon; and Pattering Leaves, the dancer, cried:
“Not any more, not any more at all shall we drift up the carven
hall to dance before the King. He that now watches the magic of
his prophets will behold no more the wonder of the dance, and
among ancient parchments, strange and wise, he shall forget the
swirl of drapery when we swing together through the Dance of the
Myriad Steps.”
And with her were Silvern Fountain and Summer Lightning and
Dream of the Sea, each lamenting that they should dance no more
to please the eyes of the King.
And Intahn who had carried at the banquet for fifty years the
goblet of the King set with its four sapphires each as large as an
eye, said as he spread his hands towards the palace making the sign
 Time And The Gods 149

of farewell:
“Not all the magic of prophecy nor yet foreseeing nor perceiving
may equal the power of wine. Through the small door in the King’s
Hall one goes by one hundred steps and many sloping corridors
into the cool of the earth where lies a cavern vaster than the Hall.
Therein, curtained by the spider, repose the casks of wine that are
wont to gladden the hearts of the Kings of Zarkandhu. In islands
far to the eastward the vine, from whose heart this wine was long
since wrung, hath climbed aloft with many a clutching finger and
beheld the sea and ships of the olden time and men since dead, and
gone down into the earth again and been covered over with weeds.
And green with the damp of years there lie three casks that a city
gave not up until all her defenders were slain and her houses fired;
and ever to the soul of that wine is added a more ardent fire as ever
the years go by. Thither it was my pride to go before a banquet in
the olden years, and coming up to bear in the sapphire goblet the
fire of the elder Kings and to watch the King’s eye flash and his
face grow nobler and more like his sires as he drank the gleaming
wine.
“And now the King seeks wisdom from his prophets while all
the glory of the past and all the clattering splendour of today grows
old, far down, forgotten beneath his feet.”
And when he ceased the cupbearers and the women that danced
looked long in silence at the palace. Then one by one all made the
farewell sign before they turned to go, and as they did this a herald
unseen in the dark was speeding towards them.
After a long silence the King spake:
“Prophets of my Kingdom,” he said, “you have not prophesied
alike, and the words of each prophet condemn his fellows’ words
so that wisdom may not be discovered among prophets. But I com-
mand that none in my Kingdom shall doubt that the earliest King
of Zarkandhu stored wine beneath this palace before the building
of the city or ever the palace arose, and I shall cause commands to
be uttered for the making of a banquet at once within this Hall, so
that ye shall perceive that the power of my wine is greater than all
your spells, and dancing more wondrous than prophecy.”
150 Time And The Gods

The dancers and the winebearers were summoned back, and as

the night wore on a banquet was spread and all the prophets bidden
to be seated, Samahn, Ynath, Monith, Ynar Thun, the prophet of
Journeys, Zornadhu, Yamen, Paharn, Ilana, Ulf, and one that had
not spoken nor yet revealed his name, and who wore his prophet’s
cloak across his face.
And the prophets feasted as they were commanded and spake
as other men spake, save he whose face was hidden, who neither
ate nor spake. Once he put out his hand from under his cloak and
touched a blossom among the flowers upon the table and the blos-
som fell.
And Pattering Leaves came in and danced again, and the King
smiled, and Pattering Leaves was happy though she had not the
wisdom of the prophets. And in and out, in and out, in and out
among the columns of the Hall went Summer Lightning in the
maze of the dance. And Silvern Fountain bowed before the King
and danced and danced and bowed again, and old Intahn went to
and fro from the cavern to the King gravely through the midst of
the dancers but with kindly eyes, and when the King had often
drunk of the old wine of the elder Kings he called for Dream of
the Sea and bade her sing. And Dream of the Sea came through
the arches and sang of an island builded by magic out of pearls,
that lay set in a ruby sea, and how it lay far off and under the
south, guarded by jagged reefs whereon the sorrows of the world
were wrecked and never came to the island. And how a low sunset
always reddened the sea and lit the magic isle and never turned
to night, and how someone sang always and endlessly to lure the
soul of a King who might by enchantment pass the guarding reefs
to find rest on the pearl island and not be troubled more, but only
see sorrows on the outer reef battered and broken. Then Soul of
the South rose up and sang a song of a fountain that ever sought to
reach the sky and was ever doomed to fall to the earth again until
at last….
Then whether it was the art of Pattering Leaves or the song of
Dream of the Sea, or whether it was the fire of the wine of the elder
Kings, Ebalon bade farewell kindly to the prophets when morning
 Time And The Gods 151

paled the stars. Then along the torchlit corridors the King went to
his chamber, and having shut the door in the empty room, beheld
suddenly a figure wearing the cloak of a prophet; and the King per-
ceived that it was he whose face was hidden at the banquet, who
had not revealed his name.
And the King said:
“Art thou, too, a prophet?”
And the figure answered:
“I am a prophet.”
And the King said: “Knowest thou aught concerning the journey
of the King?” And the figure answered: “I know, but have never
said.”
And the King said: “Who art thou that knowest so much and has
not told it?”
And he answered:
“I am The End.”
Then the cloaked figure strode away from the palace; and the
King, unseen by the guards, followed upon his journey.
 The Sword Of Welleran And
Other Stories
1908

Dedicated
with deep gratitude to those few, known to me or unknown, who
have cared for either of my former books, The Gods of Pegāna,
Time and the Gods.
 The Sword of Welleran 153

The Sword of Welleran

Where the great plain of Tarphet runs up, as the sea in estuaries,
among the Cyresian mountains, there stood long since the city of
Merimna well-nigh among the shadows of the crags. I have never
seen a city in the world so beautiful as Merimna seemed to me
when first I dreamed of it. It was a marvel of spires and figures of
bronze, and marble fountains, and trophies of fabulous wars, and
broad streets given over wholly to the Beautiful. Right through the
centre of the city there went an avenue fifty strides in width, and
along each side of it stood likenesses in bronze of the Kings of all
the countries that the people of Merimna had ever known. At the
end of that avenue was a colossal chariot with three bronze horses
driven by the winged figure of Fame, and behind her in the chariot
the huge form of Welleran, Merimna’s ancient hero, standing with
extended sword. So urgent was the mien and attitude of Fame, and
so swift the pose of the horses, that you had sworn that the chariot
was instantly upon you, and that its dust already veiled the faces of
the Kings. And in the city was a mighty hall wherein were stored
the trophies of Merimna’s heroes. Sculptured it was and domed,
the glory of the art of masons a long while dead, and on the summit
of the dome the image of Rollory sat gazing across the Cyresian
mountains towards the wide lands beyond, the lands that knew his
sword. And beside Rollory, like an old nurse, the figure of Vic-
tory sat, hammering into a golden wreath of laurels for his head the
crowns of fallen Kings.
Such was Merimna, a city of sculptured Victories and warriors
of bronze. Yet in the time of which I write the art of war had been
forgotten in Merimna, and the people almost slept. To and fro and
up and down they would walk through the marble streets, gazing at
memorials of the things achieved by their country’s swords in the
hands of those that long ago had loved Merimna well. Almost they
slept, and dreamed of Welleran, Soorenard, Mommolek, Rollory,
Akanax, and young Iraine. Of the lands beyond the mountains that
lay all round about them they knew nothing, save that they were
the theatre of the terrible deeds of Welleran, that he had done with
154 The Sword of Welleran

his sword. Long since these lands had fallen back into the posses-
sion of the nations that had been scourged by Merimna’s armies.
Nothing now remained to Merimna’s men save their inviolate city
and the glory of the remembrance of their ancient fame. At night
they would place sentinels far out in the desert, but these always
slept at their posts dreaming of Rollory, and three times every
night a guard would march around the city clad in purple, bear-
ing lights and singing songs of Welleran. Always the guard went
unarmed, but as the sound of their song went echoing across the
plain towards the looming mountains, the desert robbers would
hear the name of Welleran and steal away to their haunts. Often
dawn would come across the plain, shimmering marvellously upon
Merimna’s spires, abashing all the stars, and find the guard still
singing songs of Welleran, and would change the colour of their
purple robes and pale the lights they bore. But the guard would
go back leaving the ramparts safe, and one by one the sentinels in
the plain would awake from dreaming of Rollory and shuffle back
into the city quite cold. Then something of the menace would pass
away from the faces of the Cyresian mountains, that from the north
and the west and the south lowered upon Merimna, and clear in the
morning the statues and the pillars would arise in the old inviolate
city. You would wonder that an unarmed guard and sentinels that
slept could defend a city that was stored with all the glories of art,
that was rich in gold and bronze, a haughty city that had erst op-
pressed its neighbours, whose people had forgotten the art of war.
Now this is the reason that, though all her other lands had long
been taken from her, Merimna’s city was safe. A strange thing was
believed or feared by the fierce tribes beyond the mountains, and it
was credited among them that at certain stations round Merimna’s
ramparts there still rode Welleran, Soorenard, Mommolek, Rollory,
Akanax, and young Iraine. Yet it was close on a hundred years
since Iraine, the youngest of Merimna’s heroes, fought his last bat-
tle with the tribes.
Sometimes indeed there arose among the tribes young men who
doubted and said: ‘How may a man for ever escape death?’
But graver men answered them: ‘Hear us, ye whose wisdom
 The Sword of Welleran 155

has discerned so much, and discern for us how a man may escape
death when two score horsemen assail him with their swords, all of
them sworn to kill him, and all of them sworn upon their country’s
gods; as often Welleran hath. Or discern for us how two men alone
may enter a walled city by night, and bring away from it that city’s
king, as did Soorenard and Mommolek. Surely men that have es-
caped so many swords and so many sleety arrows shall escape the
years and Time.’
And the young men were humbled and became silent. Still, the
suspicion grew. And often when the sun set on the Cyresian moun-
tains, men in Merimna discerned the forms of savage tribesmen
black against the light, peering towards the city.
All knew in Merimna that the figures round the ramparts were
only statues of stone, yet even there a hope lingered among a few
that some day their old heroes would come again, for certainly
none had ever seen them die. Now it had been the wont of these
six warriors of old, as each received his last wound and knew it
to be mortal, to ride away to a certain deep ravine and cast his
body in, as somewhere I have read great elephants do, hiding their
bones away from lesser beasts. It was a ravine steep and narrow
even at the ends, a great cleft into which no man could come by
any path. There rode Welleran alone, panting hard; and there later
rode Soorenard and Mommolek, Mommolek with a mortal wound
upon him not to return, but Soorenard was unwounded and rode
back alone from leaving his dear friend resting among the mighty
bones of Welleran. And there rode Soorenard, when his day was
come, with Rollory and Akanax, and Rollory rode in the middle
and Soorenard and Akanax on either side. And the long ride was a
hard and weary thing for Soorenard and Akanax, for they both had
mortal wounds; but the long ride was easy for Rollory, for he was
dead. So the bones of these five heroes whitened in an enemy’s
land, and very still they were, though they had troubled cities, and
none knew where they lay saving only Iraine, the young captain,
who was but twenty-five when Mommolek, Rollory, and Akanax
rode away. And among them were strewn their saddles and their
bridles, and all the accoutrements of their horses, lest any man
156 The Sword of Welleran

should ever find them afterwards and say in some foreign city: ‘Lo!
the bridles or the saddles of Merimna’s captains, taken in war,’ but
their beloved trusty horses they turned free.
Forty years afterwards, in the hour of a great victory, his last
wound came upon Iraine, and the wound was terrible and would
not close. And Iraine was the last of the captains, and rode away
alone. It was a long way to the dark ravine, and Iraine feared that
he would never come to the resting-place of the old heroes, and
he urged his horse on swiftly, and clung to the saddle with his
hands. And often as he rode he fell asleep, and dreamed of earlier
days, and of the times when he first rode forth to the great wars of
Welleran, and of the time when Welleran first spake to him, and
of the faces of Welleran’s comrades when they led charges in the
battle. And ever as he awoke a great longing arose in his soul as
it hovered on his body’s brink, a longing to lie among the bones
of the old heroes. At last when he saw the dark ravine making
a scar across the plain, the soul of Iraine slipped out through his
great wound and spread its wings, and pain departed from the poor
hacked body, and, still urging his horse forward, Iraine died. But
the old true horse cantered on till suddenly he saw before him
the dark ravine and put his forefeet out on the very edge of it and
stopped. Then the body of Iraine came toppling forward over the
right shoulder of the horse, and his bones mingle and rest as the
years go by with the bones of Merimna’s heroes.
Now there was a little boy in Merimna named Rold. I saw him
first, I, the dreamer, that sit before my fire asleep, I saw him first as
his mother led him through the great hall where stand the trophies
of Merimna’s heroes. He was five years old, and they stood be-
fore the great glass casket wherein lay the sword of Welleran, and
his mother said: ‘The sword of Welleran.’ And Rold said: ‘What
should a man do with the sword of Welleran?’ And his mother
answered: ‘Men look at the sword and remember Welleran.’ And
they went on and stood before the great red cloak of Welleran, and
the child said: ‘Why did Welleran wear this great red cloak?’ And
his mother answered: ‘It was the way of Welleran.’
When Rold was a little older he stole out of his mother’s house
 The Sword of Welleran 157

quite in the middle of the night when all the world was still, and
Merimna asleep dreaming of Welleran, Soorenard, Mommolek,
Rollory, Akanax, and young Iraine. And he went down to the ram-
parts to hear the purple guard go by singing of Welleran. And the
purple guard came by with lights, all singing in the stillness, and
dark shapes out in the desert turned and fled. And Rold went back
again to his mother’s house with a great yearning towards the name
of Welleran, such as men feel for very holy things.
And in time Rold grew to know the pathway all round the
ramparts, and the six equestrian statues that were there guarding
Merimna still. These statues were not like other statues, they were
so cunningly wrought of many-coloured marbles that none might
be quite sure until very close that they were not living men. There
was a horse of dappled marble, the horse of Akanax. The horse of
Rollory was of alabaster, pure white, his armour was wrought out
of a stone that shone, and his horseman’s cloak was made of a blue
stone, very precious. He looked northwards.
But the marble horse of Welleran was pure black, and there sat
Welleran upon him looking solemnly westwards. His horse it was
whose cold neck Rold most loved to stroke, and it was Welleran
whom the watchers at sunset on the mountains the most clearly
saw as they peered towards the city. And Rold loved the red nos-
trils of the great black horse and his rider’s jasper cloak.
Now beyond the Cyresians the suspicion grew that Merimna’s
heroes were dead, and a plan was devised that a man should go
by night and come close to the figures upon the ramparts and see
whether they were Welleran, Soorenard, Mommolek, Rollory,
Akanax, and young Iraine. And all were agreed upon the plan, and
many names were mentioned of those who should go, and the plan
matured for many years. It was during these years that watchers
clustered often at sunset upon the mountains but came no nearer.
Finally, a better plan was made, and it was decided that two men
who had been by chance condemned to death should be given a
pardon if they went down into the plain by night and discovered
whether or not Merimna’s heroes lived. At first the two prison-
ers dared not go, but after a while one of them, Seejar, said to his
158 The Sword of Welleran

companion, Sajar-Ho: ‘See now, when the King’s axeman smites a

man upon the neck that man dies.’
And the other said that this was so. Then said Seejar: ‘And even
though Welleran smite a man with his sword no more befalleth him
than death.’
Then Sajar-Ho thought for a while. Presently he said: ‘Yet the
eye of the King’s axeman might err at the moment of his stroke or
his arm fail him, and the eye of Welleran hath never erred nor his
arm failed. It were better to bide here.’
Then said Seejar: ‘Maybe that Welleran is dead and that some
other holds his place upon the ramparts, or even a statue of stone.’
But Sajar-Ho made answer: ‘How can Welleran be dead when
he even escaped from two score horsemen with swords that were
sworn to slay him, and all sworn upon our country’s gods?’
And Seejar said: ‘This story his father told my grandfather con-
cerning Welleran. On the day that the fight was lost on the plains
of Kurlistan he saw a dying horse near to the river, and the horse
looked piteously towards the water but could not reach it. And the
father of my grandfather saw Welleran go down to the river’s brink
and bring water from it with his own hand and give it to the horse.
Now we are in as sore a plight as was that horse, and as near to
death; it may be that Welleran will pity us, while the King’s axe-
man cannot because of the commands of the King.’
Then said Sajar-Ho: ‘Thou wast ever a cunning arguer. Thou
broughtest us into this trouble with thy cunning and thy devices,
we will see if thou canst bring us out of it. We will go.’
So news was brought to the King that the two prisoners would
go down to Merimna.
That evening the watchers led them to the mountain’s edge, and
Seejar and Sajar-Ho went down towards the plain by the way of
a deep ravine, and the watchers watched them go. Presently their
figures were wholly hid in the dusk. Then night came up, huge
and holy, out of waste marshes to the eastwards and low lands
and the sea; and the angels that watched over all men through the
day closed their great eyes and slept, and the angels that watched
over all men through the night awoke and ruffled their deep blue
 The Sword of Welleran 159

feathers and stood up and watched. But the plain became a thing
of mystery filled with fears. So the two spies went down the deep
ravine, and coming to the plain sped stealthily across it. Soon they
came to the line of sentinels asleep upon the sand, and one stirred
in his sleep calling on Rollory, and a great dread seized upon the
spies and they whispered ‘Rollory lives,’ but they remembered
the King’s axeman and went on. And next they came to the great
bronze statue of Fear, carved by some sculptor of the old glorious
years in the attitude of flight towards the mountains, calling to her
children as she fled. And the children of Fear were carved in the
likeness of the armies of all the trans-Cyresian tribes with their
backs towards Merimna, flocking after Fear. And from where he
sat on his horse behind the ramparts the sword of Welleran was
stretched out over their heads as ever it was wont. And the two
spies kneeled down in the sand and kissed the huge bronze foot of
the statue of Fear, saying: ‘O Fear, Fear.’ And as they knelt they
saw lights far off along the ramparts coming nearer and nearer, and
heard men singing of Welleran. And the purple guard came nearer
and went by with their lights, and passed on into the distance
round the ramparts still singing of Welleran. And all the while
the two spies clung to the foot of the statue, muttering: ‘O Fear,
Fear.’ But when they could hear the name of Welleran no more
they arose and came to the ramparts and climbed over them and
came at once upon the figure of Welleran, and they bowed low to
the ground, and Seejar said: ‘O Welleran, we came to see whether
thou didst yet live.’ And for a long while they waited with their
faces to the earth. At last Seejar looked up towards Welleran’s
terrible sword, and it was still stretched out pointing to the carved
armies that followed after Fear. And Seejar bowed to the ground
again and touched the horse’s hoof, and it seemed cold to him.
And he moved his hand higher and touched the leg of the horse,
and it seemed quite cold. At last he touched Welleran’s foot, and
the armour on it seemed hard and stiff. Then as Welleran moved
not and spake not, Seejar climbed up at last and touched his hand,
the terrible hand of Welleran, and it was marble. Then Seejar
laughed aloud, and he and Sajar-Ho sped down the empty pathway
160 The Sword of Welleran

and found Rollory, and he was marble too. Then they climbed
down over the ramparts and went back across the plain, walking
contemptuously past the figure of Fear, and heard the guard return-
ing round the ramparts for the third time, singing of Welleran; and
Seejar said: ‘Ay, you may sing of Welleran, but Welleran is dead
and a doom is on your city.’
And they passed on and found the sentinel still restless in the
night and calling on Rollory. And Sajar-Ho muttered: ‘Ay, you
may call on Rollory, but Rollory is dead and naught can save your
city.’
And the two spies went back alive to their mountains again, and
as they reached them the first ray of the sun came up red over the
desert behind Merimna and lit Merimna’s spires. It was the hour
when the purple guard were wont to go back into the city with their
tapers pale and their robes a brighter colour, when the cold senti-
nels came shuffling in from dreaming in the desert; it was the hour
when the desert robbers hid themselves away, going back to their
mountain caves; it was the hour when gauze-winged insects are
born that only live for a day; it was the hour when men die that are
condemned to death; and in this hour a great peril, new and terri-
ble, arose for Merimna and Merimna knew it not.
Then Seejar turning said: ‘See how red the dawn is and how red
the spires of Merimna. They are angry with Merimna in Paradise
and they bode its doom.’
So the two spies went back and brought the news to their King,
and for a few days the Kings of those countries were gathering
their armies together; and one evening the armies of four Kings
were massed together at the top of the deep ravine, all crouching
below the summit waiting for the sun to set. All wore resolute and
fearless faces, yet inwardly every man was praying to his gods,
unto each one in turn.
Then the sun set, and it was the hour when the bats and the
dark creatures are abroad and the lions come down from their
lairs, and the desert robbers go into the plains again, and fevers
rise up winged and hot out of chill marshes, and it was the hour
when safety leaves the thrones of Kings, the hour when dynasties
 The Sword of Welleran 161

change. But in the desert the purple guard came swinging out of
Merimna with their lights to sing of Welleran, and the sentinels lay
down to sleep.
Now into Paradise no sorrow may ever come, but may only beat
like rain against its crystal walls, yet the souls of Merimna’s heroes
were half aware of some sorrow far away as some sleeper feels
that some one is chilled and cold yet knows not in his sleep that it
is he. And they fretted a little in their starry home. Then unseen
there drifted earthward across the setting sun the souls of Welleran,
Soorenard, Mommolek, Rollory, Akanax, and young Iraine. Al-
ready when they reached Merimna’s ramparts it was just dark,
already the armies of the four Kings had begun to move, jingling,
down the deep ravine. But when the six warriors saw their city
again, so little changed after so many years, they looked towards
her with a longing that was nearer to tears than any that their souls
had known before, crying to her:
‘O Merimna, our city: Merimna, our walled city.
‘How beautiful thou art with all thy spires, Merimna. For thee
we left the earth, its kingdoms and little flowers, for thee we have
come away for awhile from Paradise.
‘It is very difficult to draw away from the face of God — it is
like a warm fire, it is like dear sleep, it is like a great anthem, yet
there is a stillness all about it, a stillness full of lights.
‘We have left Paradise for awhile for thee, Merimna.
‘Many women have we loved, Merimna, but only one city.
‘Behold now all the people dream, all our loved people. How
beautiful are dreams! In dreams the dead may live, even the long
dead and the very silent. Thy lights are all sunk low, they have all
gone out, no sound is in thy streets. Hush! Thou art like a maiden
that shutteth up her eyes and is asleep, that draweth her breath
softly and is quite still, being at ease and untroubled.
‘Behold now the battlements, the old battlements. Do men
defend them still as we defended them? They are worn a little, the
battlements,’ and drifting nearer they peered anxiously. ‘It is not
by the hand of man that they are worn, our battlements. Only the
years have done it and indomitable Time. Thy battlements are like
162 The Sword of Welleran

the girdle of a maiden, a girdle that is round about her. See now
the dew upon them, they are like a jewelled girdle.
‘Thou art in great danger, Merimna, because thou art so beauti-
ful. Must thou perish tonight because we no more defend thee,
because we cry out and none hear us, as the bruised lilies cry out
and none have known their voices?’
Thus spake those strong-voiced, battle-ordering captains, calling
to their dear city, and their voices came no louder than the whis-
pers of little bats that drift across the twilight in the evening. Then
the purple guard came near, going round the ramparts for the first
time in the night, and the old warriors called to them, ‘Merimna is
in danger! Already her enemies gather in the darkness.’ But their
voices were never heard because they were only wandering ghosts.
And the guard went by and passed unheeding away, still singing of
Welleran.
Then said Welleran to his comrades: ‘Our hands can hold swords
no more, our voices cannot be heard, we are stalwart men no
longer. We are but dreams, let us go among dreams. Go all of you,
and thou too, young Iraine, and trouble the dreams of all the men
that sleep, and urge them to take the old swords of their grandsires
that hang upon the walls, and to gather at the mouth of the ravine;
and I will find a leader and make him take my sword.’
Then they passed up over the ramparts and into their dear city.
And the wind blew about, this way and that, as he went, the soul of
Welleran who had upon his day withstood the charges of tempestu-
ous armies. And the souls of his comrades, and with them young
Iraine, passed up into the city and troubled the dreams of every
man who slept, and to every man the souls said in their dreams: ‘It
is hot and still in the city. Go out now into the desert, into the cool
under the mountains, but take with thee the old sword that hangs
upon the wall for fear of the desert robbers.’
And the god of that city sent up a fever over it, and the fever
brooded over it and the streets were hot; and all that slept awoke
from dreaming that it would be cool and pleasant where the breez-
es came down the ravine out of the mountains; and they took the
old swords that their grandsires had, according to their dreams,
 The Sword of Welleran 163

for fear of the desert robbers. And in and out of dreams passed
the souls of Welleran’s comrades, and with them young Iraine, in
great haste as the night wore on; and one by one they troubled the
dreams of all Merimna’s men and caused them to arise and go out
armed, all save the purple guard who, heedless of danger, sang of
Welleran still, for waking men cannot hear the souls of the dead.
But Welleran drifted over the roofs of the city till he came to
the form of Rold lying fast asleep. Now Rold was grown strong
and was eighteen years of age, and he was fair of hair and tall like
Welleran, and the soul of Welleran hovered over him and went into
his dreams as a butterfly flits through trellis-work into a garden of
flowers, and the soul of Welleran said to Rold in his dreams: ‘Thou
wouldst go and see again the sword of Welleran, the great curved
sword of Welleran. Thou wouldst go and look at it in the night
with the moonlight shining upon it.’
And the longing of Rold in his dreams to see the sword caused
him to walk still sleeping from his mother’s house to the hall
wherein were the trophies of the heroes. And the soul of Welleran
urging the dreams of Rold caused him to pause before the great red
cloak, and there the soul said among the dreams: ‘Thou art cold in
the night; fling now a cloak around thee.’
And Rold drew round about him the huge red cloak of Welleran.
Then Rold’s dreams took him to the sword, and the soul said to the
dreams: ‘Thou hast a longing to hold the sword of Welleran: take
up the sword in thy hand.’
But Rold said: ‘What should a man do with the sword of Weller-
an?’
And the soul of the old captain said to the dreams: ‘It is a good
sword to hold: take up the sword of Welleran.’
And Rold, still sleeping and speaking aloud, said: ‘It is not law-
ful; none may touch the sword.’
And Rold turned to go. Then a great and terrible cry arose in
the soul of Welleran, all the more bitter for that he could not utter
it, and it went round and round his soul finding no utterance, like a
cry evoked long since by some murderous deed in some old haunt-
ed chamber that whispers through the ages heard by none.
164 The Sword of Welleran

And the soul of Welleran cried out to the dreams of Rold: ‘Thy
knees are tied! Thou art fallen in a marsh! Thou canst not move.’
And the dreams of Rold said to him: ‘Thy knees are tied, thou
art fallen in a marsh,’ and Rold stood still before the sword. Then
the soul of the warrior wailed among Rold’s dreams, as Rold stood
before the sword.
‘Welleran is crying for his sword, his wonderful curved sword.
Poor Welleran, that once fought for Merimna, is crying for his
sword in the night. Thou wouldst not keep Welleran without his
beautiful sword when he is dead and cannot come for it, poor
Welleran who fought for Merimna.’
And Rold broke the glass casket with his hand and took the
sword, the great curved sword of Welleran; and the soul of the war-
rior said among Rold’s dreams: ‘Welleran is waiting in the deep
ravine that runs into the mountains, crying for his sword.’
And Rold went down through the city and climbed over the ram-
parts, and walked with his eyes wide open but still sleeping over
the desert to the mountains.
Already a great multitude of Merimna’s citizens were gath-
ered in the desert before the deep ravine with old swords in their
hands, and Rold passed through them as he slept holding the sword
of Welleran, and the people cried in amaze to one another as he
passed: ‘Rold hath the sword of Welleran!’
And Rold came to the mouth of the ravine, and there the voices
of the people woke him. And Rold knew nothing that he had done
in his sleep, and looked in amazement at the sword in his hand and
said: ‘What art thou, thou beautiful thing? Lights shimmer in thee,
thou art restless. It is the sword of Welleran, the curved sword of
Welleran!’
And Rold kissed the hilt of it, and it was salt upon his lips with
the battle-sweat of Welleran. And Rold said: ‘What should a man
do with the sword of Welleran?’
And all the people wondered at Rold as he sat there with the
sword in his hand muttering, ‘What should a man do with the
sword of Welleran?’
Presently there came to the ears of Rold the noise of a jingling
 The Sword of Welleran 165

up in the ravine, and all the people, the people that knew naught
of war, heard the jingling coming nearer in the night; for the four
armies were moving on Merimna and not yet expecting an en-
emy. And Rold gripped upon the hilt of the great curved sword,
and the sword seemed to lift a little. And a new thought came into
the hearts of Merimna’s people as they gripped their grandsires’
swords. Nearer and nearer came the heedless armies of the four
Kings, and old ancestral memories began to arise in the minds of
Merimna’s people in the desert with their swords in their hands
sitting behind Rold. And all the sentinels were awake holding their
spears, for Rollory had put their dreams to flight, Rollory that once
could put to flight armies and now was but a dream struggling with
other dreams.
And now the armies had come very near. Suddenly Rold leaped
up, crying: ‘Welleran! And the sword of Welleran!’ And the sav-
age, lusting sword that had thirsted for a hundred years went up
with the hand of Rold and swept through a tribesman’s ribs. And
with the warm blood all about it there came a joy into the curved
soul of that mighty sword, like to the joy of a swimmer coming up
dripping out of warm seas after living for long in a dry land. When
they saw the red cloak and that terrible sword a cry ran through the
tribal armies, ‘Welleran lives!’ And there arose the sounds of the
exulting of victorious men, and the panting of those that fled, and
the sword singing softly to itself as it whirled dripping through the
air. And the last that I saw of the battle as it poured into the depth
and darkness of the ravine was the sword of Welleran sweeping up
and falling, gleaming blue in the moonlight whenever it arose and
afterwards gleaming red, and so disappearing into the darkness.
But in the dawn Merimna’s men came back, and the sun aris-
ing to give new life to the world, shone instead upon the hideous
things that the sword of Welleran had done. And Rold said: ‘O
sword, sword! How horrible thou art! Thou art a terrible thing to
have come among men. How many eyes shall look upon gardens
no more because of thee? How many fields must go empty that
might have been fair with cottages, white cottages with children
all about them? How many valleys must go desolate that might
166 The Sword of Welleran

have nursed warm hamlets, because thou hast slain long since the
men that might have built them? I hear the wind crying against
thee, thou sword! It comes from the empty valleys. It comes over
the bare fields. There are children’s voices in it. They were never
born. Death brings an end to crying for those that had life once,
but these must cry for ever. O sword! sword! why did the gods
send thee among men?’ And the tears of Rold fell down upon the
proud sword but could not wash it clean.
And now that the ardour of battle had passed away, the spirits of
Merimna’s people began to gloom a little, like their leader’s, with
their fatigue and with the cold of the morning; and they looked at
the sword of Welleran in Rold’s hand and said: ‘Not any more, not
any more for ever will Welleran now return, for his sword is in the
hand of another. Now we know indeed that he is dead. O Weller-
an, thou wast our sun and moon and all our stars. Now is the sun
fallen down and the moon broken, and all the stars are scattered as
the diamonds of a necklace that is snapped off one who is slain by
violence.’
Thus wept the people of Merimna in the hour of their great
victory, for men have strange moods, while beside them their old
inviolate city slumbered safe. But back from the ramparts and
beyond the mountains and over the lands that they had conquered
of old, beyond the world and back again to Paradise, went the souls
of Welleran, Soorenard, Mommolek, Rollory, Akanax, and young
Iraine.

The Fall of Babbulkund

I said: ‘I will arise now and see Babbulkund, City of Marvel.
She is of one age with the earth; the stars are her sisters. Phar-
aohs of the old time coming conquering from Araby first saw her,
a solitary mountain in the desert, and cut the mountain into tow-
ers and terraces. They destroyed one of the hills of God, but they
made Babbulkund. She is carven, not built; her palaces are one
with her terraces, there is neither join nor cleft. Hers is the beauty
 The Sword of Welleran 167

of the youth of the world. She deemeth herself to be the middle

of Earth, and hath four gates facing outward to the Nations. There
sits outside her eastern gate a colossal god of stone. His face
flushes with the lights of dawn. When the morning sunlight warms
his lips they part a little, and he giveth utterance to the words “Oon
Oom,” and the language is long since dead in which he speaks,
and all his worshippers are gathered to their tombs, so that none
knoweth what the words portend that he uttereth at dawn. Some
say that he greets the sun as one god greets another in the language
thereof, and others say that he proclaims the day, and others that he
uttereth warning. And at every gate is a marvel not credible until
beholden.’
And I gathered three friends and said to them: ‘We are what
we have seen and known. Let us journey now and behold Bab-
bulkund, that our minds may be beautified with it and our spirits
made holier.’
So we took ship and travelled over the lifting sea, and remem-
bered not things done in the towns we knew, but laid away the
thoughts of them like soiled linen and put them by, and dreamed of
Babbulkund.
But when we came to the land of which Babbulkund is the
abiding glory, we hired a caravan of camels and Arab guides, and
passed southwards in the afternoon on the three days’ journey
through the desert that should bring us to the white walls of Bab-
bulkund. And the heat of the sun shone upon us out of the bright
grey sky, and the heat of the desert beat up at us from below.
About sunset we halted and tethered our horses, while the Arabs
unloaded the provisions from the camels and prepared a fire out
of the dry scrub, for at sunset the heat of the desert departs from it
suddenly, like a bird. Then we saw a traveller approaching us on a
camel coming from the south. When he was come near we said to
him:
‘Come and encamp among us, for in the desert all men are
brothers, and we will give thee meat to eat and wine, or, if thou art
bound by thy faith, we will give thee some other drink that is not
accursed by the prophet.’
168 The Sword of Welleran

The traveller seated himself beside us on the sand, and crossed

his legs and answered:
‘Hearken, and I will tell you of Babbulkund, City of Marvel.
Babbulkund stands just below the meeting of the rivers, where
Oonrāna, River of Myth, flows into the Waters of Fable, even
the old stream Plegathanees. These, together, enter her northern
gate rejoicing. Of old they flowed in the dark through the Hill
that Nehemoth, the first of Pharaohs, carved into the City of Mar-
vel. Sterile and desolate they float far through the desert, each in
the appointed cleft, with life upon neither bank, but give birth in
Babbulkund to the sacred purple garden whereof all nations sing.
Thither all the bees come on a pilgrimage at evening by a secret
way of the air. Once, from his twilit kingdom, which he rules
equally with the sun, the moon saw and loved Babbulkund, clad
with her purple garden; and the moon wooed Babbulkund, and
she sent him weeping away, for she is more beautiful than all her
sisters the stars. Her sisters come to her at night into her maiden
chamber. Even the gods speak sometimes of Babbulkund, clad
with her purple garden. Listen, for I perceive by your eyes that ye
have not seen Babbulkund; there is a restlessness in them and an
unappeased wonder. Listen. In the garden whereof I spoke there is
a lake that hath no twin or fellow in the world; there is no compan-
ion for it among all the lakes. The shores of it are of glass, and the
bottom of it. In it are great fish having golden and scarlet scales,
and they swim to and fro. Here it is the wont of the eighty-second
Nehemoth (who rules in the city today) to come, after the dusk
has fallen, and sit by the lake alone, and at this hour eight hundred
slaves go down by steps through caverns into vaults beneath the
lake. Four hundred of them carrying purple lights march one be-
hind the other, from east to west, and four hundred carrying green
lights march one behind the other, from west to east. The two lines
cross and re-cross each other in and out as the slaves go round and
round, and the fearful fish flash up and down and to and fro.’
But upon that traveller speaking night descended, solemn and
cold, and we wrapped ourselves in our blankets and lay down upon
the sand in the sight of the astral sisters of Babbulkund. And all
 The Sword of Welleran 169

that night the desert said many things, softly and in a whisper, but
I knew not what he said. Only the sand knew and arose and was
troubled and lay down again, and the wind knew. Then, as the
hours of the night went by, these two discovered the foot-tracks
wherewith we had disturbed the holy desert, and they troubled over
them and covered them up; and then the wind lay down and the
sand rested. Then the wind arose again and the sand danced. This
they did many times. And all the while the desert whispered what I
shall not know.
Then I slept awhile and awoke just before sunrise, very cold.
Suddenly the sun leapt up and flamed upon our faces; we all threw
off our blankets and stood up. Then we took food, and afterwards
started southwards, and in the heat of the day rested, and after-
wards pushed on again. And all the while the desert remained the
same, like a dream that will not cease to trouble a tired sleeper.
And often travellers passed us in the desert, coming from the
City of Marvel, and there was a light and a glory in their eyes from
having seen Babbulkund.
That evening, at sunset, another traveller neared us, and we
hailed him, saying:
‘Wilt thou eat and drink with us, seeing that all men are brothers
in the desert?’
And he descended from his camel and sat by us and said:
‘When morning shines on the colossus Neb and Neb speaks, at
once the musicians of King Nehemoth in Babbulkund awake.
‘At first their fingers wander over their golden harps, or they
stroke idly their violins. Clearer and clearer the note of each in-
strument ascends like larks arising from the dew, till suddenly they
all blend together and a new melody is born. Thus, every morn-
ing, the musicians of King Nehemoth make a new marvel in the
City of Marvel; for these are no common musicians, but masters of
melody, raided by conquest long since, and carried away in ships
from the Isles of Song. And, at the sound of the music, Nehemoth
awakes in the eastern chamber of his palace, which is carved in the
form of a great crescent, four miles long, on the northern side of
the city. Full in the windows of its eastern chamber the sun rises,
170 The Sword of Welleran

and full in the windows of its western chamber the sun sets.
‘When Nehemoth awakes he summons slaves who bring a
palanquin with bells, which the King enters, having lightly robed.
Then the slaves run and bear him to the onyx Chamber of the
Bath, with the sound of small bells ringing as they run. And when
Nehemoth emerges thence, bathed and anointed, the slaves run on
with their ringing palanquin and bear him to the Orient Chamber of
Banquets, where the King takes the first meal of the day. Thence,
through the great white corridor whose windows all face sunwards,
Nehemoth, in his palanquin, passes on to the Audience Chamber
of Embassies from the North, which is all decked with Northern
wares.
‘All about it are ornaments of amber from the North and carven
chalices of the dark brown Northern crystal, and on its floors lie
furs from Baltic shores.
‘In adjoining chambers are stored the wonted food of the hardy
Northern men, and the strong wine of the North, pale but terrible.
Therein the King receives barbarian princes from the frigid lands.
Thence the slaves bear him swiftly to the Audience Chamber of
Embassies from the East, where the walls are of turquoise, studded
with the rubies of Ceylon, where the gods are the gods of the East,
where all the hangings have been devised in the gorgeous heart of
Ind, and where all the carvings have been wrought with the cun-
ning of the isles. Here, if a caravan hath chanced to have come in
from Ind or from Cathay, it is the King’s wont to converse awhile
with Moguls or Mandarins, for from the East come the arts and
knowledge of the world, and the converse of their people is polite.
Thus Nehemoth passes on through the other Audience Chambers
and receives, perhaps, some Sheikhs of the Arab folk who have
crossed the great desert from the West, or receives an embassy sent
to do him homage from the shy jungle people to the South. And
all the while the slaves with the ringing palanquin run westwards,
following the sun, and ever the sun shines straight into the chamber
where Nehemoth sits, and all the while the music from one or other
of his bands of musicians comes tinkling to his ears. But when
the middle of the day draws near, the slaves run to the cool groves
 The Sword of Welleran 171

that lie along the verandahs on the northern side of the palace,
forsaking the sun, and as the heat overcomes the genius of the
musicians, one by one their hands fall from their instruments, till
at last all melody ceases. At this moment Nehemoth falls asleep,
and the slaves put the palanquin down and lie down beside it. At
this hour the city becomes quite still, and the palace of Nehemoth
and the tombs of the Pharaohs of old face to the sunlight, all alike
in silence. Even the jewellers in the market-place, selling gems to
princes, cease from their bargaining and cease to sing; for in Bab-
bulkund the vendor of rubies sings the song of the ruby, and the
vendor of sapphires sings the song of the sapphire, and each stone
hath its song, so that a man, by his song, proclaims and makes
known his wares.
‘But all these sounds cease at the meridian hour, the jewellers
in the market-place lie down in what shadow they can find, and
the princes go back to the cool places in their palaces, and a great
hush in the gleaming air hangs over Babbulkund. But in the cool
of the late afternoon, one of the King’s musicians will awake from
dreaming of his home and will pass his fingers, perhaps, over the
strings of his harp and, with the music, some memory may arise
of the wind in the glens of the mountains that stand in the Isles of
Song. Then the musician will wrench great cries out of the soul
of his harp for the sake of the old memory, and his fellows will
awake and all make a song of home, woven of sayings told in the
harbour when the ships came in, and of tales in the cottages about
the people of old time. One by one the other bands of musicians
will take up the song, and Babbulkund, City of Marvel, will throb
with this marvel anew. Just now Nehemoth awakes, the slaves
leap to their feet and bear the palanquin to the outer side of the
great crescent palace between the south and the west, to behold the
sun again. The palanquin, with its ringing bells, goes round once
more; the voices of the jewellers sing again, in the market-place,
the song of the emerald, the song of the sapphire; men talk on the
housetops, beggars wail in the streets, the musicians bend to their
work, all the sounds blend together into one murmur, the voice
of Babbulkund speaking at evening. Lower and lower sinks the
172 The Sword of Welleran

sun, till Nehemoth, following it, comes with his panting slaves to
the great purple garden of which surely thine own country has its
songs, from wherever thou art come.
‘There he alights from his palanquin and goes up to a throne of
ivory set in the garden’s midst, facing full westwards, and sits there
alone, long regarding the sunlight until it is quite gone. At this
hour trouble comes into the face of Nehemoth. Men have heard
him muttering at the time of sunset: “Even I too, even I too.” Thus
do King Nehemoth and the sun make their glorious ambits about
Babbulkund.
‘A little later, when the stars come out to envy the beauty of the
City of Marvel, the King walks to another part of the garden and
sits in an alcove of opal all alone by the marge of the sacred lake.
This is the lake whose shores and floors are of glass, which is lit
from beneath by slaves with purple lights and with green lights
intermingling, and is one of the seven wonders of Babbulkund.
Three of the wonders are in the city’s midst and four are at her
gates. There is the lake, of which I tell thee, and the purple garden
of which I have told thee and which is a wonder even to the stars,
and there is Ong Zwarba, of which I shall tell thee also. And the
wonders at the gates are these. At the eastern gate Neb. And at the
northern gate the wonder of the river and the arches, for the River
of Myth, which becomes one with the Waters of Fable in the desert
outside the city, floats under a gate of pure gold, rejoicing, and un-
der many arches fantastically carven that are one with either bank.
The marvel at the western gate is the marvel of Annolith and the
dog Voth. Annolith sits outside the western gate facing towards the
city. He is higher than any of the towers or palaces, for his head
was carved from the summit of the old hill; he hath two eyes of
sapphire wherewith he regards Babbulkund, and the wonder of the
eyes is that they are today in the same sockets wherein they glowed
when first the world began, only the marble that covered them has
been carven away and the light of day let in and the sight of the
envious stars. Larger than a lion is the dog Voth beside him; every
hair is carven upon the back of Voth, his war hackles are erected
and his teeth are bared. All the Nehemoths have worshipped the
 The Sword of Welleran 173

god Annolith, but all their people pray to the dog Voth, for the law
of the land is that none but a Nehemoth may worship the god An-
nolith. The marvel at the southern gate is the marvel of the jungle,
for he comes with all his wild untravelled sea of darkness and trees
and tigers and sunward-aspiring orchids right through a marble
gate in the city wall and enters the city, and there widens and holds
a space in its midst of many miles across. Moreover, he is older
than the City of Marvel, for he dwelt long since in one of the val-
leys of the mountain which Nehemoth, first of Pharaohs, carved
into Babbulkund.
‘Now the opal alcove in which the King sits at evening by the
lake stands at the edge of the jungle, and the climbing orchids of
the jungle have long since crept from their homes through clefts
of the opal alcove, lured by the lights of the lake, and now bloom
there exultingly. Near to this alcove are the hareems of Nehemoth.
‘The King hath four hareems — one for the stalwart women
from the mountains to the north, one for the dark and furtive jungle
women, one for the desert women that have wandering souls and
pine in Babbulkund, and one for the princesses of his own kith,
whose brown cheeks blush with the blood of ancient Pharaohs and
who exult with Babbulkund in her surpassing beauty, and who
know nought of the desert or the jungle or the bleak hills to the
north. Quite unadorned and clad in simple garments go all the kith
of Nehemoth, for they know well that he grows weary of pomp.
Unadorned all save one, the Princess Linderith, who weareth Ong
Zwarba and the three lesser gems of the sea. Such a stone is Ong
Zwarba that there are none like it even in the turban of Nehemoth
nor in all the sanctuaries of the sea. The same god that made
Linderith made long ago Ong Zwarba; she and Ong Zwarba shine
together with one light, and beside this marvellous stone gleam the
three lesser ones of the sea.
‘Now when the King sitteth in his opal alcove by the sacred lake
with the orchids blooming around him all sounds are become still.
The sound of the tramping of the weary slaves as they go round
and round never comes to the surface. Long since the musicians
sleep, and their hands have fallen dumb upon their instruments,
174 The Sword of Welleran

and the voices in the city have died away. Perhaps a sigh of one of
the desert women has become half a song, or on a hot night in sum-
mer one of the women of the hills sings softly a song of snow; all
night long in the midst of the purple garden sings one nightingale;
all else is still; the stars that look on Babbulkund arise and set, the
cold unhappy moon drifts lonely through them, the night wears on;
at last the dark figure of Nehemoth, eighty-second of his line, rises
and moves stealthily away.’
The traveller ceased to speak. For a long time the clear stars,
sisters of Babbulkund, had shone upon him speaking, the desert
wind had arisen and whispered to the sand, and the sand had long
gone secretly to and fro; none of us had moved, none of us had
fallen asleep, not so much from wonder at his tale as from the
thought that we ourselves in two days’ time should see that won-
drous city. Then we wrapped our blankets around us and lay down
with our feet towards the embers of our fire and instantly were
asleep, and in our dreams we multiplied the fame of the City of
Marvel.
The sun arose and flamed upon our faces, and all the desert
glinted with its light. Then we stood up and prepared the morn-
ing meal, and, when we had eaten, the traveller departed. And we
commended his soul to the god of the land whereto he went, of the
land of his home to the northward, and he commended our souls to
the God of the people of the land wherefrom we had come. Then
a traveller overtook us going on foot; he wore a brown cloak that
was all in rags and he seemed to have been walking all night, and
he walked hurriedly but appeared weary, so we offered him food
and drink, of which he partook thankfully. When we asked him
where he was going, he answered ‘Babbulkund.’ Then we offered
him a camel upon which to ride, for we said, ‘We also go to Bab-
bulkund.’ But he answered strangely:
‘Nay, pass on before me, for it is a sore thing never to have seen
Babbulkund, having lived while yet she stood. Pass on before me
and behold her, and then flee away at once, returning northwards.’
Then, though we understood him not, we left him, for he was
insistent, and passed on our journey southwards through the desert,
 The Sword of Welleran 175

and we came before the middle of the day to an oasis of palm trees
standing by a well and there we gave water to the haughty cam-
els and replenished our water-bottles and soothed our eyes with
the sight of green things and tarried for many hours in the shade.
Some of the men slept, but of those that remained awake each man
sang softly the songs of his own country, telling of Babbulkund.
When the afternoon was far spent we travelled a little way south-
wards, and went on through the cool evening until the sun fell low
and we encamped, and as we sat in our encampment the man in
rags overtook us, having travelled all the day, and we gave him
food and drink again, and in the twilight he spoke, saying:
‘I am the servant of the Lord the God of my people, and I go to
do his work on Babbulkund. She is the most beautiful city in the
world; there hath been none like her, even the stars of God go envi-
ous of her beauty. She is all white, yet with streaks of pink that
pass through her streets and houses like flames in the white mind
of a sculptor, like desire in Paradise. She hath been carved of old
out of a holy hill, no slaves wrought the City of Marvel, but art-
ists toiling at the work they loved. They took no pattern from the
houses of men, but each man wrought what his inner eye had seen
and carved in marble the visions of his dream. All over the roof of
one of the palace chambers winged lions flit like bats, the size of
every one is the size of the lions of God, and the wings are larger
than any wing created; they are one above the other more than a
man can number, they are all carven out of one block of marble,
the chamber itself is hollowed from it, and it is borne aloft upon
the carven branches of a grove of clustered tree-ferns wrought by
the hand of some jungle mason that loved the tall fern well. Over
the River of Myth, which is one with the Waters of Fable, go bridg-
es, fashioned like the wisteria tree and like the drooping laburnum,
and a hundred others of wonderful devices, the desire of the souls
of masons a long while dead. Oh! very beautiful is white Bab-
bulkund, very beautiful she is, but proud; and the Lord the God of
my people hath seen her in her pride, and looking towards her hath
seen the prayers of Nehemoth going up to the abomination Anno-
lith and all the people following after Voth. She is very beautiful,
176 The Sword of Welleran

Babbulkund; alas that I may not bless her. I could live always on
one of her inner terraces looking on the mysterious jungle in her
midst and the heavenward faces of the orchids that, clambering
from the darkness, behold the sun. I could love Babbulkund with a
great love, yet am I the servant of the Lord the God of my people,
and the King hath sinned unto the abomination Annolith, and the
people lust exceedingly for Voth. Alas for thee, Babbulkund, alas
that I may not even now turn back, for tomorrow I must prophesy
against thee and cry out against thee, Babbulkund. But ye travel-
lers that have entreated me hospitably, rise and pass on with your
camels, for I can tarry no longer, and I go to do the work on Bab-
bulkund of the Lord the God of my people. Go now and see the
beauty of Babbulkund before I cry out against her, and then flee
swiftly northwards.’
A smouldering fragment fell in upon our camp fire and sent a
strange light into the eyes of the man in rags. He rose at once,
and his tattered cloak swirled up with him like a great wing; he
said no more, but turned round from us instantly southwards, and
strode away into the darkness towards Babbulkund. Then a hush
fell upon our encampment, and the smell of the tobacco of those
lands arose. When the last flame died down in our camp fire I fell
asleep, but my rest was troubled by shifting dreams of doom.
Morning came, and our guides told us that we should come to
the city ere nightfall. Again we passed southwards through the
changeless desert; sometimes we met travellers coming from Bab-
bulkund, with the beauty of its marvels still fresh in their eyes.
When we encamped near the middle of the day we saw a great
number of people on foot coming towards us running, from the
southwards. These we hailed when they were come near, saying,
‘What of Babbulkund?’
They answered: ‘We are not of the race of the people of Bab-
bulkund, but were captured in youth and taken away from the hills
that are to the northward. Now we have all seen in visions of the
stillness the Lord the God of our people calling to us from His
hills, and therefore we all flee northwards. But in Babbulkund
King Nehemoth hath been troubled in the nights by unkingly
 The Sword of Welleran 177

dreams of doom, and none may interpret what the dreams por-
tend. Now this is the dream that King Nehemoth dreamed on the
first night of his dreaming. He saw move through the stillness a
bird all black, and beneath the beatings of his wings Babbulkund
gloomed and darkened; and after him flew a bird all white, beneath
the beatings of whose wings Babbulkund gleamed and shone; and
there flew by four more birds alternately black and white. And, as
the black ones passed Babbulkund darkened, and when the white
ones appeared her streets and houses shone. But after the sixth
bird there came no more, and Babbulkund vanished from her place,
and there was only the empty desert where she had stood, and the
rivers Oonrāna and Plegathanees mourning alone. Next morning
all the prophets of the King gathered before their abominations and
questioned them of the dream, and the abominations spake not.
But when the second night stepped down from the halls of God,
dowered with many stars, King Nehemoth dreamed again; and in
this dream King Nehemoth saw four birds only, black and white
alternately as before. And Babbulkund darkened again as the black
ones passed, and shone when the white came by; only after the four
birds came no more, and Babbulkund vanished from her place,
leaving only the forgetful desert and the mourning rivers.
‘Still the abominations spake not, and none could interpret
the dream. And when the third night came forth from the divine
halls of her home dowered like her sisters, again King Nehemoth
dreamed. And he saw a bird all black go by again, beneath whom
Babbulkund darkened, and then a white bird and Babbulkund
shone; and after them came no more, and Babbulkund passed
away. And the golden day appeared, dispelling dreams, and still
the abominations were silent, and the King’s prophets answered
not to portend the omen of the dream. One prophet only spake be-
fore the King, saying: “The sable birds, O King, are the nights, and
the white birds are the days….” This thing the King had feared,
and he arose and smote the prophet with his sword, whose soul
went crying away and had to do no more with nights and days.
‘It was last night that the King dreamed his third dream, and this
morning we fled away from Babbulkund. A great heat lies over it,
178 The Sword of Welleran

and the orchids of the jungle droop their heads. All night long the
women in the hareem of the North have wailed horribly for their
hills. A fear hath fallen upon the city, and a boding. Twice hath
Nehemoth gone to worship Annolith, and all the people have pros-
trated themselves before Voth. Thrice the horologers have looked
into the great crystal globe wherein are foretold all happenings to
be, and thrice the globe was blank. Yea, though they went a fourth
time yet was no vision revealed; and the people’s voice is hushed
in Babbulkund.’
Soon the travellers arose and pushed on northwards again, leav-
ing us wondering. Through the heat of the day we rested as well
as we might, but the air was motionless and sultry and the camels
ill at ease. The Arabs said that it boded a desert storm, and that a
great wind would arise full of sand. So we arose in the afternoon,
and travelled swiftly, hoping to come to shelter before the storm.
And the air burned in the stillness between the baked desert and the
glaring sky.
Suddenly a wind arose out of the South, blowing from Bab-
bulkund, and the sand lifted and went by in great shapes, all whis-
pering. And the wind blew violently, and wailed as it blew, and
hundreds of sandy shapes went towering by, and there were little
cries among them and the sounds of a passing away. Soon the
wind sank quite suddenly, and its cries died, and the panic ceased
among the driven sands. And when the storm departed the air was
cool, and the terrible sultriness and the boding were passed away,
and the camels had ease among them. And the Arabs said that the
storm which was to be had been, as was willed of old by God.
The sun set and the gloaming came, and we neared the junc-
tion of Oonrāna and Plegathanees, but in the darkness discerned
not Babbulkund. We pushed on hurriedly to reach the city ere
nightfall, and came to the junction of the River of Myth where he
meets with the Waters of Fable, and still saw not Babbulkund. All
round us lay the sand and rocks of the unchanging desert, save
to the southwards where the jungle stood with its orchids facing
skywards. Then we perceived that we had arrived too late, and that
her doom had come to Babbulkund; and by the river in the empty
 The Sword of Welleran 179

desert on the sand the man in rags was seated, with his face hidden
in his hands, weeping bitterly.

Thus passed away in the hour of her iniquities before Annolith,

in the two thousand and thirty-second year of her being, in the
six thousand and fiftieth year of the building of the World, Bab-
bulkund, City of Marvel, sometime called by those that hated her
City of the Dog, but hourly mourned in Araby and Ind and wide
through jungle and desert; leaving no memorial in stone to show
that she had been, but remembered with an abiding love, in spite
of the anger of God, by all that knew her beauty, whereof still they
sing.

The Kith of the Elf Folk

Chapter I
The north wind was blowing, and red and golden the last days of
Autumn were streaming hence. Solemn and cold over the marshes
arose the evening.
It became very still.
Then the last pigeon went home to the trees on the dry land in
the distance, whose shapes already had taken upon themselves a
mystery in the haze.
Then all was still again.
As the light faded and the haze deepened, mystery crept nearer
from every side.
Then the green plover came in crying, and all alighted.
And again it became still, save when one of the plover arose and
flew a little way uttering the cry of the waste. And hushed and si-
lent became the earth, expecting the first star. Then the duck came
in, and the widgeon, company by company: and all the light of day
faded out of the sky saving one red band of light. Across the light
appeared, black and huge, the wings of a flock of geese beating up
wind to the marshes. These, too, went down among the rushes.
180 The Sword of Welleran

Then the stars appeared and shone in the stillness, and there was
silence in the great spaces of the night.
Suddenly the bells of the cathedral in the marshes broke out,
calling to evensong.
Eight centuries ago on the edge of the marsh men had built the
huge cathedral, or it may have been seven centuries ago, or perhaps
nine — it was all one to the Wild Things.
So evensong was held, and candles lighted, and the lights
through the windows shone red and green in the water, and the
sound of the organ went roaring over the marshes. But from the
deep and perilous places, edged with bright mosses, the Wild
Things came leaping up to dance on the reflection of the stars, and
over their heads as they danced the marsh-lights rose and fell.
The Wild Things are somewhat human in appearance, only all
brown of skin and barely two feet high. Their ears are pointed like
the squirrel’s, only far larger, and they leap to prodigious heights.
They live all day under deep pools in the loneliest marshes, but at
night they come up and dance. Each Wild Thing has over its head
a marsh-light, which moves as the Wild Thing moves; they have no
souls, and cannot die, and are of the kith of the Elf-folk.
All night they dance over the marshes, treading upon the reflec-
tion of the stars (for the bare surface of the water will not hold
them by itself); but when the stars begin to pale, they sink down
one by one into the pools of their home. Or if they tarry longer,
sitting upon the rushes, their bodies fade from view as the marsh-
fires pale in the light, and by daylight none may see the Wild
Things of the kith of the Elf-folk. Neither may any see them even
at night unless they were born, as I was, in the hour of dusk, just at
the moment when the first star appears.
Now, on the night that I tell of, a little Wild Thing had gone
drifting over the waste, till it came right up to the walls of the ca-
thedral and danced upon the images of the coloured saints as they
lay in the water among the reflection of the stars. And as it leaped
in its fantastic dance, it saw through the painted windows to where
the people prayed, and heard the organ roaring over the marshes.
The sound of the organ roared over the marshes, but the song and
 The Sword of Welleran 181

prayers of the people streamed up from the cathedral’s highest

tower like thin gold chains, and reached to Paradise, and up and
down them went the angels from Paradise to the people, and from
the people to Paradise again.
Then something akin to discontent troubled the Wild Thing for
the first time since the making of the marshes; and the soft grey
ooze and the chill of the deep water seemed to be not enough, nor
the first arrival from northwards of the tumultuous geese, nor the
wild rejoicing of the wings of the wildfowl when every feather
sings, nor the wonder of the calm ice that comes when the snipe
depart and beards the rushes with frost and clothes the hushed
waste with a mysterious haze where the sun goes red and low, nor
even the dance of the Wild Things in the marvellous night; and the
little Wild Thing longed to have a soul, and to go and worship God.
And when evensong was over and the lights were out, it went
back crying to its kith.
But on the next night, as soon as the images of the stars ap-
peared in the water, it went leaping away from star to star to the
farthest edge of the marshlands, where a great wood grew where
dwelt the Oldest of the Wild Things.
And it found the Oldest of Wild Things sitting under a tree, shel-
tering itself from the moon.
And the little Wild Thing said: ‘I want to have a soul to wor-
ship God, and to know the meaning of music, and to see the inner
beauty of the marshlands and to imagine Paradise.’
And the Oldest of the Wild Things said to it: ‘What have we to
do with God? We are only Wild Things, and of the kith of the Elf-
folk.’
But it only answered, ‘I want to have a soul.’
Then the Oldest of the Wild Things said: ‘I have no soul to give
you; but if you got a soul, one day you would have to die, and if
you knew the meaning of music you would learn the meaning of
sorrow, and it is better to be a Wild Thing and not to die.’
So it went weeping away.
But they that were kin to the Elf-folk were sorry for the lit-
tle Wild Thing; and though the Wild Things cannot sorrow long,
182 The Sword of Welleran

having no souls to sorrow with, yet they felt for awhile a soreness
where their souls should be, when they saw the grief of their com-
rade.
So the kith of the Elf-folk went abroad by night to make a soul
for the little Wild Thing. And they went over the marshes till they
came to the high fields among the flowers and grasses. And there
they gathered a large piece of gossamer that the spider had laid by
twilight; and the dew was on it.
Into this dew had shone all the lights of the long banks of the
ribbed sky, as all the colours changed in the restful spaces of
evening. And over it the marvellous night had gleamed with all its
stars.
Then the Wild Things went with their dew-bespangled gossamer
down to the edge of their home. And there they gathered a piece
of the grey mist that lies by night over the marshlands. And into
it they put the melody of the waste that is borne up and down the
marshes in the evening on the wings of the golden plover. And
they put into it, too, the mournful song that the reeds are compelled
to sing before the presence of the arrogant North Wind. Then each
of the Wild Things gave some treasured memory of the old marsh-
es, ‘For we can spare it,’ they said. And to all this they added a
few images of the stars that they gathered out of the water. Still
the soul that the kith of the Elf-folk were making had no life.
Then they put into it the low voices of two lovers that went
walking in the night, wandering late alone. And after that they
waited for the dawn. And the queenly dawn appeared, and the
marsh-lights of the Wild Things paled in the glare, and their bodies
faded from view; and still they waited by the marsh’s edge. And to
them waiting came over field and marsh, from the ground and out
of the sky, the myriad song of the birds.
This, too, the Wild Things put into the piece of haze that they
had gathered in the marshlands, and wrapped it all up in their dew-
bespangled gossamer. Then the soul lived.
And there it lay in the hands of the Wild Things no larger than
a hedgehog; and wonderful lights were in it, green and blue; and
they changed ceaselessly, going round and round, and in the grey
 The Sword of Welleran 183

midst of it was a purple flare.

And the next night they came to the little Wild Thing and
showed her the gleaming soul. And they said to her: ‘If you must
have a soul and go and worship God, and become a mortal and die,
place this to your left breast a little above the heart, and it will en-
ter and you will become a human. But if you take it you can never
be rid of it to become immortal again unless you pluck it out and
give it to another; and we will not take it, and most of the humans
have a soul already. And if you cannot find a human without a soul
you will one day die, and your soul cannot go to Paradise, because
it was only made in the marshes.’
Far away the little Wild Thing saw the cathedral windows alight
for evensong, and the song of the people mounting up to Paradise,
and all the angels going up and down. So it bid farewell with tears
and thanks to the Wild Things of the kith of Elf-folk, and went
leaping away towards the green dry land, holding the soul in its
hands.
And the Wild Things were sorry that it had gone, but could not
be sorry long, because they had no souls.
At the marsh’s edge the little Wild Thing gazed for some mo-
ments over the water to where the marsh-fires were leaping up and
down, and then pressed the soul against its left breast a little above
the heart.
Instantly it became a young and beautiful woman, who was cold
and frightened. She clad herself somehow with bundles of reeds,
and went towards the lights of a house that stood close by. And
she pushed open the door and entered, and found a farmer and a
farmer’s wife sitting over their supper.
And the farmer’s wife took the little Wild Thing with the soul of
the marshes up to her room, and clothed her and braided her hair,
and brought her down again, and gave her the first food that she
had ever eaten. Then the farmer’s wife asked many questions.
‘Where have you come from?’ she said.
‘Over the marshes.’
‘From what direction?’ said the farmer’s wife.
‘South,’ said the little Wild Thing with the new soul.
184 The Sword of Welleran

‘But none can come over the marshes from the south,’ said the
farmer’s wife.
‘No, they can’t do that,’ said the farmer.
‘I lived in the marshes.’
‘Who are you?’ asked the farmer’s wife.
‘I am a Wild Thing, and have found a soul in the marshes, and
we are kin to the Elf-folk.’
Talking it over afterwards, the farmer and his wife agreed that
she must be a gipsy who had been lost, and that she was queer with
hunger and exposure.
So that night the little Wild Thing slept in the farmer’s house,
but her new soul stayed awake the whole night long dreaming of
the beauty of the marshes.
As soon as dawn came over the waste and shone on the farmer’s
house, she looked from the window towards the glittering waters,
and saw the inner beauty of the marsh. For the Wild Things only
love the marsh and know its haunts, but now she perceived the
mystery of its distances and the glamour of its perilous pools, with
their fair and deadly mosses, and felt the marvel of the North Wind
who comes dominant out of unknown icy lands, and the wonder
of that ebb and flow of life when the wildfowl whirl in at evening
to the marshlands and at dawn pass out to sea. And she knew that
over her head above the farmer’s house stretched wide Paradise,
where perhaps God was now imagining a sunrise while angels
played low on lutes, and the sun came rising up on the world below
to gladden fields and marsh.
And all that heaven thought, the marsh thought too; for the blue
of the marsh was as the blue of heaven, and the great cloud shapes
in heaven became the shapes in the marsh, and through each ran
momentary rivers of purple, errant between banks of gold. And
the stalwart army of reeds appeared out of the gloom with all their
pennons waving as far as the eye could see. And from another
window she saw the vast cathedral gathering its ponderous strength
together, and lifting it up in towers out of the marshlands.
She said, ‘I will never, never leave the marsh.’
An hour later she dressed with great difficulty and went down
 The Sword of Welleran 185

to eat the second meal of her life. The farmer and his wife were
kindly folk, and taught her how to eat.
‘I suppose the gipsies don’t have knives and forks,’ one said to
the other afterwards.
After breakfast the farmer went and saw the Dean, who lived
near his cathedral, and presently returned and brought back to the
Dean’s house the little Wild Thing with the new soul.
‘This is the lady,’ said the farmer. ‘This is Dean Murnith.’ Then
he went away.
‘Ah,’ said the Dean, ‘I understand you were lost the other night
in the marshes. It was a terrible night to be lost in the marshes.’
‘I love the marshes,’ said the little Wild Thing with the new soul.
‘Indeed! How old are you?’ said the Dean.
‘I don’t know,’ she answered.
‘You must know about how old you are,’ he said.
‘Oh, about ninety,’ she said, ‘or more.’
‘Ninety years!’ exclaimed the Dean.
‘No, ninety centuries,’ she said; ‘I am as old as the marshes.’
Then she told her story — how she had longed to be a human
and go and worship God, and have a soul and see the beauty of the
world, and how all the Wild Things had made her a soul of gossa-
mer and mist and music and strange memories.
‘But if this is true,’ said Dean Murnith, ‘this is very wrong. God
cannot have intended you to have a soul.
‘What is your name?’
‘I have no name,’ she answered.
‘We must find a Christian name and a surname for you. What
would you like to be called?’
‘Song of the Rushes,’ she said.
‘That won’t do at all,’ said the Dean.
‘Then I would like to be called Terrible North Wind, or Star in
the Waters,’ she said.
‘No, no, no,’ said Dean Murnith; ‘that is quite impossible. We
could call you Miss Rush if you like. How would Mary Rush do?
Perhaps you had better have another name — say Mary Jane Rush.’
So the little Wild Thing with the soul of the marshes took the
186 The Sword of Welleran

names that were offered her, and became Mary Jane Rush.
‘And we must find something for you to do,’ said Dean Murnith.
‘Meanwhile we can give you a room here.’
‘I don’t want to do anything,’ replied Mary Jane; ‘I want to wor-
ship God in the cathedral and live beside the marshes.’
Then Mrs. Murnith came in, and for the rest of that day Mary
Jane stayed at the house of the Dean.
And there with her new soul she perceived the beauty of the
world; for it came grey and level out of misty distances, and wid-
ened into grassy fields and ploughlands right up to the edge of an
old gabled town; and solitary in the fields far off an ancient wind-
mill stood, and his honest hand-made sails went round and round
in the free East Anglian winds. Close by, the gabled houses leaned
out over the streets, planted fair upon sturdy timbers that grew in
the olden time, all glorying among themselves upon their beauty.
And out of them, buttress by buttress, growing and going upwards,
aspiring tower by tower, rose the cathedral.
And she saw the people moving in the streets all leisurely and
slow, and unseen among them, whispering to each other, unheard
by living men and concerned only with bygone things, drifted the
ghosts of very long ago. And wherever the streets ran eastwards,
wherever were gaps in the houses, always there broke into view
the sight of the great marshes, like to some bar of music weird and
strange that haunts a melody, arising again and again, played on
the violin by one musician only, who plays no other bar, and he is
swart and lank about the hair and bearded about the lips, and his
moustache droops long and low, and no one knows the land from
which he comes.
All these were good things for a new soul to see.
Then the sun set over green fields and ploughland and the night
came up. One by one the merry lights of cheery lamp-lit windows
took their stations in the solemn night.
Then the bells rang, far up in a cathedral tower, and their melody
fell on the roofs of the old houses and poured over their eaves until
the streets were full, and then flooded away over green fields and
plough, till it came to the sturdy mill and brought the miller trudg-
 The Sword of Welleran 187

ing to evensong, and far away eastwards and seawards the sound
rang out over the remoter marshes. And it was all as yesterday to
the old ghosts in the streets.
Then the Dean’s wife took Mary Jane to evening service, and
she saw three hundred candles filling all the aisle with light. But
sturdy pillars stood there in unlit vastnesses; great colonnades
going away into the gloom, where evening and morning, year in
year out, they did their work in the dark, holding the cathedral roof
aloft. And it was stiller than the marshes are still when the ice has
come and the wind that brought it has fallen.
Suddenly into this stillness rushed the sound of the organ, roar-
ing, and presently the people prayed and sang.
No longer could Mary Jane see their prayers ascending like thin
gold chains, for that was but an elfin fancy, but she imagined clear
in her new soul the seraphs passing in the ways of Paradise, and
the angels changing guard to watch the World by night.
When the Dean had finished service, a young curate, Mr. Mill-
ings, went up into the pulpit.
He spoke of Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus: and Mary
Jane was glad that there were rivers having such names, and heard
with wonder of Nineveh, that great city, and many things strange
and new.
And the light of the candles shone on the curate’s fair hair, and
his voice went ringing down the aisle, and Mary Jane rejoiced that
he was there.
But when his voice stopped she felt a sudden loneliness, such
as she had not felt since the making of the marshes; for the Wild
Things never are lonely and never unhappy, but dance all night
on the reflection of the stars, and having no souls, desire nothing
more.
After the collection was made, before anyone moved to go,
Mary Jane walked up the aisle to Mr. Millings.
‘I love you,’ she said.
Chapter II
Nobody sympathised with Mary Jane.
188 The Sword of Welleran

‘So unfortunate for Mr. Millings,’ every one said; ‘such a prom-
ising young man.’
Mary Jane was sent away to a great manufacturing city of the
Midlands, where work had been found for her in a cloth factory.
And there was nothing in that town that was good for a soul to
see. For it did not know that beauty was to be desired; so it made
many things by machinery, and became hurried in all its ways,
and boasted its superiority over other cities and became richer and
richer, and there was none to pity it.
In this city Mary Jane had had lodgings found for her near the
factory.
At six o’clock on those November mornings, about the time that,
far away from the city, the wildfowl rose up out of the calm marsh-
es and passed to the troubled spaces of the sea, at six o’clock the
factory uttered a prolonged howl and gathered the workers togeth-
er, and there they worked, saving two hours for food, the whole of
the daylit hours and into the dark till the bells tolled six again.
There Mary Jane worked with other girls in a long dreary room,
where giants sat pounding wool into a long thread-like strip with
iron, rasping hands. And all day long they roared as they sat at
their soulless work. But the work of Mary Jane was not with these,
only their roar was ever in her ears as their clattering iron limbs
went to and fro.
Her work was to tend a creature smaller, but infinitely more cun-
ning.
It took the strip of wool that the giants had threshed, and whirled
it round and round until it had twisted it into hard thin thread. Then
it would make a clutch with fingers of steel at the thread that it had
gathered, and waddle away about five yards and come back with
more.
It had mastered all the subtlety of skilled workers, and had
gradually displaced them; one thing only it could not do, it was
unable to pick up the ends if a piece of the thread broke, in order to
tie them together again. For this a human soul was required, and it
was Mary Jane’s business to pick up broken ends; and the moment
she placed them together the busy soulless creature tied them for
 The Sword of Welleran 189

itself.
All here was ugly; even the green wool as it whirled round and
round was neither the green of the grass nor yet the green of the
rushes, but a sorry muddy green that befitted a sullen city under a
murky sky.
When she looked out over the roofs of the town, there too was
ugliness; and well the houses knew it, for with hideous stucco they
aped in grotesque mimicry the pillars and temples of old Greece,
pretending to one another to be that which they were not. And
emerging from these houses and going in, and seeing the pretence
of paint and stucco year after year until it all peeled away, the souls
of the poor owners of those houses sought to be other souls until
they grew weary of it.
At evening Mary Jane went back to her lodgings. Only then,
after the dark had fallen, could the soul of Mary Jane perceive any
beauty in that city, when the lamps were lit and here and there a
star shone through the smoke. Then she would have gone abroad
and beheld the night, but this the old woman to whom she was
confided would not let her do. And the days multiplied themselves
by seven and became weeks, and the weeks passed by, and all days
were the same. And all the while the soul of Mary Jane was crying
for beautiful things, and found not one, saving on Sundays, when
she went to church, and left it to find the city greyer than before.
One day she decided that it was better to be a wild thing in the
lovely marshes, than to have a soul that cried for beautiful things
and found not one. From that day she determined to be rid of her
soul, so she told her story to one of the factory girls, and said to
her:
‘The other girls are poorly clad and they do soulless work;
surely some of them have no souls and would take mine.’
But the factory girl said to her: ‘All the poor have souls. It is all
they have.’
Then Mary Jane watched the rich whenever she saw them, and
vainly sought for some one without a soul.
One day at the hour when the machines rested and the human
beings that tended them rested too, the wind being at that time
190 The Sword of Welleran

from the direction of the marshlands, the soul of Mary Jane la-
mented bitterly. Then, as she stood outside the factory gates, the
soul irresistibly compelled her to sing, and a wild song came from
her lips, hymning the marshlands. And into her song came crying
her yearning for home, and for the sound of the shout of the North
Wind, masterful and proud, with his lovely lady the Snow; and she
sang of tales that the rushes murmured to one another, tales that the
teal knew and the watchful heron. And over the crowded streets
her song went crying away, the song of waste places and of wild
free lands, full of wonder and magic, for she had in her elf-made
soul the song of the birds and the roar of the organ in the marshes.
At this moment Signor Thompsoni, the well-known English
tenor, happened to go by with a friend. They stopped and listened;
everyone stopped and listened.
‘There has been nothing like this in Europe in my time,’ said
Signor Thompsoni.
So a change came into the life of Mary Jane.
People were written to, and finally it was arranged that she
should take a leading part in the Covent Garden Opera in a few
weeks.
So she went to London to learn.
London and singing lessons were better than the City of the
Midlands and those terrible machines. Yet still Mary Jane was not
free to go and live as she liked by the edge of the marshlands, and
she was still determined to be rid of her soul, but could find no one
that had not a soul of their own.
One day she was told that the English people would not listen
to her as Miss Rush, and was asked what more suitable name she
would like to be called by.
‘I would like to be called Terrible North Wind,’ said Mary Jane,
‘or Song of the Rushes.’
When she was told that this was impossible and Signorina Maria
Russiano was suggested, she acquiesced at once, as she had acqui-
esced when they took her away from her curate; she knew nothing
of the ways of humans.
At last the day of the Opera came round, and it was a cold day of
 The Sword of Welleran 191

the winter.
And Signorina Russiano appeared on the stage before a crowded
house.
And Signorina Russiano sang.
And into the song went all the longing of her soul, the soul that
could not go to Paradise, but could only worship God and know
the meaning of music, and the longing pervaded that Italian song
as the infinite mystery of the hills is borne along the sound of dis-
tant sheep-bells. Then in the souls that were in that crowded house
arose little memories of a great while since that were quite quite
dead, and lived awhile again during that marvellous song.
And a strange chill went into the blood of all that listened, as
though they stood on the border of bleak marshes and the North
Wind blew.
And some it moved to sorrow and some to regret, and some to
an unearthly joy, — then suddenly the song went wailing away like
the winds of the winter from the marshlands when Spring appears
from the South.
So it ended. And a great silence fell fog-like over all that house,
breaking in upon the end of a chatty conversation that Cecilia,
Countess of Birmingham, was enjoying with a friend.
In the dead hush Signorina Russiano rushed from the stage; she
appeared again running among the audience, and dashed up to
Lady Birmingham.
‘Take my soul,’ she said; ‘it is a beautiful soul. It can worship
God, and knows the meaning of music and can imagine Para-
dise. And if you go to the marshlands with it you will see beauti-
ful things; there is an old town there built of lovely timbers, with
ghosts in its streets.’
Lady Birmingham stared. Everyone was standing up. ‘See,’
said Signorina Russiano, ‘it is a beautiful soul.’
And she clutched at her left breast a little above the heart, and
there was the soul shining in her hand, with the green and blue
lights going round and round and the purple flare in the midst.
‘Take it,’ she said, ‘and you will love all that is beautiful, and
know the four winds, each one by his name, and the songs of the
192 The Sword of Welleran

birds at dawn. I do not want it, because I am not free. Put it to

your left breast a little above the heart.’
Still everybody was standing up, and Lady Birmingham felt
uncomfortable.
‘Please offer it to some one else,’ she said.
‘But they all have souls already,’ said Signorina Russiano.
And everybody went on standing up. And Lady Birmingham
took the soul in her hand.
‘Perhaps it is lucky,’ she said.
She felt that she wanted to pray.
She half-closed her eyes, and said ‘Unberufen’. Then she put the
soul to her left breast a little above the heart, and hoped that the
people would sit down and the singer go away.
Instantly a heap of clothes collapsed before her. For a moment,
in the shadow among the seats, those who were born in the dusk
hour might have seen a little brown thing leaping free from the
clothes, then it sprang into the bright light of the hall, and became
invisible to any human eye.
It dashed about for a little, then found the door, and presently
was in the lamplit streets.
To those that were born in the dusk hour it might have been seen
leaping rapidly wherever the streets ran northwards and eastwards,
disappearing from human sight as it passed under the lamps and
appearing again beyond them with a marsh-light over its head.
Once a dog perceived it and gave chase, and was left far behind.
The cats of London, who are all born in the dusk hour, howled
fearfully as it went by.
Presently it came to the meaner streets, where the houses are
smaller. Then it went due north-eastwards, leaping from roof to
roof. And so in a few minutes it came to more open spaces, and
then to the desolate lands, where market gardens grow, which are
neither town nor country. Till at last the good black trees came
into view, with their demoniac shapes in the night, and the grass
was cold and wet, and the night-mist floated over it. And a great
white owl came by, going up and down in the dark. And at all
these things the little Wild Thing rejoiced elvishly.
 The Sword of Welleran 193

And it left London far behind it, reddening the sky, and could
distinguish no longer its unlovely roar, but heard again the noises
of the night.
And now it would come through a hamlet glowing and comfort-
able in the night; and now to the dark, wet, open fields again; and
many an owl it overtook as they drifted through the night, a people
friendly to the Elf-folk. Sometimes it crossed wide rivers, leaping
from star to star; and, choosing its way as it went, to avoid the hard
rough roads, came before midnight to the East Anglian lands.
And it heard there the shout of the North Wind, who was domi-
nant and angry, as he drove southwards his adventurous geese;
while the rushes bent before him chaunting plaintively and low,
like enslaved rowers of some fabulous trireme, bending and swing-
ing under blows of the lash, and singing all the while a doleful
song.
And it felt the good dank air that clothes by night the broad East
Anglian lands, and came again to some old perilous pool where the
soft green mosses grew, and there plunged downward and down-
ward into the dear dark water till it felt the homely ooze once more
coming up between its toes. Thence, out of the lovely chill that
is in the heart of the ooze, it arose renewed and rejoicing to dance
upon the image of the stars.
I chanced to stand that night by the marsh’s edge, forgetting in
my mind the affairs of men; and I saw the marsh-fires come leap-
ing up from all the perilous places. And they came up by flocks the
whole night long to the number of a great multitude, and danced
away together over the marshes.
And I believe that there was a great rejoicing all that night
among the kith of the Elf-folk.
The Highwaymen
Tom o’ the Roads had ridden his last ride, and was now alone
in the night. From where he was, a man might see the white
recumbent sheep and the black outline of the lonely downs, and
the grey line of the farther and lonelier downs beyond them; or in
hollows far below him, out of the pitiless wind, he might see the
grey smoke of hamlets arising from black valleys. But all alike
194 The Sword of Welleran

was black to the eyes of Tom, and all the sounds were silence in his
ears; only his soul struggled to slip from the iron chains and to pass
southwards into Paradise. And the wind blew and blew.
For Tom tonight had nought but the wind to ride; they had taken
his true black horse on the day when they took from him the green
fields and the sky, men’s voices and the laughter of women, and
had left him alone with chains about his neck to swing in the wind
for ever. And the wind blew and blew.
But the soul of Tom o’ the Roads was nipped by the cruel chains,
and whenever it struggled to escape it was beaten backwards into
the iron collar by the wind that blows from Paradise from the
south. And swinging there by the neck, there fell away old sneers
from off his lips, and scoffs that he had long since scoffed at God
fell from his tongue, and there rotted old bad lusts out of his heart,
and from his fingers the stains of deeds that were evil; and they all
fell to the ground and grew there in pallid rings and clusters. And
when these ill things had all fallen away, Tom’s soul was clean
again, as his early love had found it, a long while since in spring;
and it swung up there in the wind with the bones of Tom, and with
his old torn coat and rusty chains.
And the wind blew and blew.
And ever and anon the souls of the sepultured, coming from
consecrated acres, would go by beating up wind to Paradise past
the Gallows Tree and past the soul of Tom, that might not go free.
Night after night Tom watched the sheep upon the downs with
empty hollow sockets, till his dead hair grew and covered his poor
dead face, and hid the shame of it from the sheep. And the wind
blew and blew.
Sometimes on gusts of the wind came someone’s tears, and beat
and beat against the iron chains, but could not rust them through.
And the wind blew and blew.
And every evening all the thoughts that Tom had ever uttered
came flocking in from doing their work in the world, the work that
may not cease, and sat along the gallows branches and chirrupped
to the soul of Tom, the soul that might not go free. All the thoughts
that he had ever uttered! And the evil thoughts rebuked the soul
 The Sword of Welleran 195

that bore them because they might not die. And all those that he
had uttered the most furtively, chirrupped the loudest and the shrill-
est in the branches all the night.
And all the thoughts that Tom had ever thought about himself
now pointed at the wet bones and mocked at the old torn coat.
But the thoughts that he had had of others were the only compan-
ions that his soul had to soothe it in the night as it swung to and
fro. And they twittered to the soul and cheered the poor dumb
thing that could have dreams no more, till there came a murderous
thought and drove them all away.
And the wind blew and blew.
Paul, Archbishop of Alois and Vayence, lay in his white sep-
ulchre of marble, facing full to the southwards towards Paradise.
And over his tomb was sculptured the Cross of Christ, that his soul
might have repose. No wind howled here as it howled in lonely
tree-tops up upon the downs, but came with gentle breezes, orchard
scented, over the low lands from Paradise from the southwards,
and played about forget-me-nots and grasses in the consecrated
land where lay the Reposeful round the sepulchre of Paul, Arch-
bishop of Alois and Vayence. Easy it was for a man’s soul to pass
from such a sepulchre, and, flitting low over remembered fields, to
come upon the garden lands of Paradise and find eternal ease.
And the wind blew and blew.
In a tavern of foul repute three men were lapping gin. Their
names were Joe and Will and the gypsy Puglioni; none other names
had they, for of whom their fathers were they had no knowledge,
but only dark suspicions.
Sin had caressed and stroked their faces often with its paws, but
the face of Puglioni Sin had kissed all over the mouth and chin.
Their food was robbery and their pastime murder. All of them had
incurred the sorrow of God and the enmity of man. They sat at a
table with a pack of cards before them, all greasy with the marks
of cheating thumbs. And they whispered to one another over their
gin, but so low that the landlord of the tavern at the other end of
the room could hear only muffled oaths, and knew not by Whom
they swore or what they said.
196 The Sword of Welleran

These three were the staunchest friends that ever God had given
unto a man. And he to whom their friendship had been given had
nothing else besides, saving some bones that swung in the wind
and rain, and an old torn coat and iron chains, and a soul that might
not go free.
But as the night wore on the three friends left their gin and stole
away, and crept down to that graveyard where rested in his sepul-
chre Paul, Archbishop of Alois and Vayence. At the edge of the
graveyard, but outside the consecrated ground, they dug a hasty
grave, two digging while one watched in the wind and rain. And
the worms that crept in the unhallowed ground wondered and
waited.
And the terrible hour of midnight came upon them with its fears,
and found them still beside the place of tombs. And the three
friends trembled at the horror of such an hour in such a place, and
shivered in the wind and drenching rain, but still worked on. And
the wind blew and blew.
Soon they had finished. And at once they left the hungry grave
with all its worms unfed, and went away over the wet fields
stealthily but in haste, leaving the place of tombs behind them in
the midnight. And as they went they shivered, and each man as he
shivered cursed the rain aloud. And so they came to the spot where
they had hidden a ladder and a lantern. There they held long de-
bate whether they should light the lantern, or whether they should
go without it for fear of the King’s men. But in the end it seemed
to them better that they should have the light of their lantern, and
risk being taken by the King’s men and hanged, than that they
should come suddenly face to face in the darkness with whatever
one might come face to face with a little after midnight about the
Gallows Tree.
On three roads in England whereon it was not the wont of folk to
go their ways in safety, travellers tonight went unmolested. But the
three friends, walking several paces wide of the King’s highway,
approached the Gallows Tree, and Will carried the lantern and Joe
the ladder, but Puglioni carried a great sword wherewith to do the
work which must be done. When they came close, they saw how
 The Sword of Welleran 197

bad was the case with Tom, for little remained of that fine figure
of a man and nothing at all of his great resolute spirit, only as they
came they thought they heard a whimpering cry like the sound of a
thing that was caged and unfree.
To and fro, to and fro in the winds swung the bones and the
soul of Tom, for the sins that he had sinned on the King’s high-
way against the laws of the King; and with shadows and a lantern
through the darkness, at the peril of their lives, came the three
friends that his soul had won before it swung in chains. Thus the
seeds of Tom’s own soul that he had sown all his life had grown
into a Gallows Tree that bore in season iron chains in clusters;
while the careless seeds that he had strewn here and there, a kindly
jest and a few merry words, had grown into the triple friendship
that would not desert his bones.
Then the three set the ladder against the tree, and Puglioni went
up with his sword in his right hand, and at the top of it he reached
up and began to hack at the neck below the iron collar. Presently,
the bones and the old coat and the soul of Tom fell down with a
rattle, and a moment afterwards his head that had watched so long
alone swung clear from the swinging chain. These things Will and
Joe gathered up, and Puglioni came running down his ladder, and
they heaped upon its rungs the terrible remains of their friend, and
hastened away wet through with the rain, with the fear of phantoms
in their hearts and horror lying before them on the ladder. By two
o’clock they were down again in the valley out of the bitter wind,
but they went on past the open grave into the graveyard all among
the tombs, with their lantern and their ladder and the terrible thing
upon it, which kept their friendship still. Then these three, that
had robbed the Law of its due and proper victim, still sinned on for
what was still their friend, and levered out the marble slabs from
the sacred sepulchre of Paul, Archbishop of Alois and Vayence.
And from it they took the very bones of the Archbishop himself,
and carried them away to the eager grave that they had left, and put
them in and shovelled back the earth. But all that lay on the lad-
der they placed, with a few tears, within the great white sepulchre
under the Cross of Christ, and put back the marble slabs.
198 The Sword of Welleran

Thence the soul of Tom, arising hallowed out of sacred ground,

went at dawn down the valley, and, lingering a little about his
mother’s cottage and old haunts of childhood, passed on and came
to the wide lands beyond the clustered homesteads. There, there
met with it all the kindly thoughts that the soul of Tom had ever
had, and they flew and sang beside it all the way southwards, until
at last, with singing all about it, it came to Paradise.
But Will and Joe and the gypsy Puglioni went back to their gin,
and robbed and cheated again in the tavern of foul repute, and
knew not that in their sinful lives they had sinned one sin at which
the Angels smiled.

In The Twilight
The lock was quite crowded with boats when we capsized. I
went down backwards for some few feet before I started to swim,
then I came spluttering upwards towards the light; but, instead of
reaching the surface, I hit my head against the keel of a boat and
went down again. I struck out almost at once and came up, but
before I reached the surface my head crashed against a boat for the
second time, and I went right to the bottom. I was confused and
thoroughly frightened. I was desperately in need of air, and knew
that if I hit a boat for the third time I should never see the surface
again. Drowning is a horrible death, notwithstanding all that has
been said to the contrary. My past life never occurred to my mind,
but I thought of many trivial things that I might not do or see again
if I were drowned. I swam up in a slanting direction, hoping to
avoid the boat that I had struck. Suddenly I saw all the boats in the
lock quite clearly just above me, and every one of their curved var-
nished planks and the scratches and chips upon their keels. I saw
several gaps among the boats where I might have swam up to the
surface, but it did not seem worthwhile to try and get there, and I
had forgotten why I wanted to. Then all the people leaned over the
sides of their boats: I saw the light flannel suits of the men and the
coloured flowers in the women’s hats, and I noticed details of their
 The Sword of Welleran 199

dresses quite distinctly. Everybody in the boats was looking down

at me; then they all said to one another, ‘We must leave him now,’
and they and the boats went away; and there was nothing above me
but the river and the sky, and on either side of me were the green
weeds that grew in the mud, for I had somehow sunk back to the
bottom again. The river as it flowed by murmured not unpleasant-
ly in my ears, and the rushes seemed to be whispering quite softly
among themselves. Presently the murmuring of the river took the
form of words, and I heard it say, ‘We must go on to the sea; we
must leave him now.’
Then the river went away, and both its banks; and the rushes
whispered, ‘Yes, we must leave him now.’ And they too departed,
and I was left in a great emptiness staring up at the blue sky. Then
the great sky bent over me, and spoke quite softly like a kindly
nurse soothing some little foolish child, and the sky said, ‘Good-
bye. All will be well. Goodbye.’ And I was sorry to lose the blue
sky, but the sky went away. Then I was alone, with nothing round
about me; I could see no light, but it was not dark — there was just
absolutely nothing, above me and below me and on every side. I
thought that perhaps I was dead, and that this might be eternity;
when suddenly some great southern hills rose up all round about
me, and I was lying on the warm, grassy slope of a valley in Eng-
land. It was a valley that I had known well when I was young,
but I had not seen it now for many years. Beside me stood the tall
flower of the mint; I saw the sweet-smelling thyme flower and one
or two wild strawberries. There came up to me from fields below
me the beautiful smell of hay, and there was a break in the voice of
the cuckoo. There was a feeling of summer and of evening and of
lateness and of Sabbath in the air; the sky was calm and full of a
strange colour, and the sun was low; the bells in the church in the
village were all a-ring, and the chimes went wandering with ech-
oes up the valley towards the sun, and whenever the echoes died
a new chime was born. And all the people of the village walked
up a stone-paved path under a black oak porch and went into the
church, and the chimes stopped and the people of the village began
to sing, and the level sunlight shone on the white tombstones that
200 The Sword of Welleran

stood all round the church. Then there was a stillness in the vil-
lage, and shouts and laughter came up from the valley no more,
only the occasional sound of the organ and of song. And the blue
butterflies, those that love the chalk, came and perched themselves
on the tall grasses, five or six sometimes on a single piece of grass,
and they closed their wings and slept, and the grass bent a little
beneath them. And from the woods along the tops of the hills the
rabbits came hopping out and nibbled the grass, and hopped a little
further and nibbled again, and the large daisies closed their petals
up and the birds began to sing.
Then the hills spoke, all the great chalk hills that I loved, and
with a deep and solemn voice they said, ‘We have come to you to
say Goodbye.’
Then they all went away, and there was nothing again all round
about me upon every side. I looked everywhere for something on
which to rest the eye. Nothing. Suddenly a low grey sky swept
over me and a moist air met my face; a great plain rushed up to me
from the edge of the clouds; on two sides it touched the sky, and
on two sides between it and the clouds a line of low hills lay. One
line of hills brooded grey in the distance, the other stood a patch-
work of little square green fields, with a few white cottages about
it. The plain was an archipelago of a million islands each about a
yard square or less, and everyone of them was red with heather. I
was back on the Bog of Allen again after many years, and it was
just the same as ever, though I had heard that they were draining it.
I was with an old friend whom I was glad to see again, for they had
told me that he died some years ago. He seemed strangely young,
but what surprised me most was that he stood upon a piece of
bright green moss which I had always learned to think would never
bear. I was glad, too, to see the old bog again, and all the lovely
things that grew there — the scarlet mosses and the green mosses
and the firm and friendly heather, and the deep silent water. I saw
a little stream that wandered vaguely through the bog, and little
white shells down in the clear depths of it; I saw, a little way off,
one of the great pools where no islands are, with rushes round its
borders, where the duck love to come. I looked long at that untrou-
 The Sword of Welleran 201

bled world of heather, and then I looked at the white cottages on

the hill, and saw the grey smoke curling from their chimneys and
knew that they burned turf there, and longed for the smell of burn-
ing turf again. And far away there arose and came nearer the weird
cry of wild and happy voices, and a flock of geese appeared that
was coming from the northward. Then their cries blended into one
great voice of exultation, the voice of freedom, the voice of Ire-
land, the voice of the Waste; and the voice said ‘Goodbye to you.
Goodbye!’ and passed away into the distance; and as it passed, the
tame geese on the farms cried out to their brothers up above them
that they were free. Then the hills went away, and the bog and the
sky went with them, and I was alone again, as lost souls are alone.
Then there grew up beside me the red brick buildings of my first
school and the chapel that adjoined it. The fields a little way off
were full of boys in white flannels playing cricket. On the asphalt
playing ground, just by the schoolroom windows, stood Agam-
emnon, Achilles, and Odysseus, with their Argives armed behind
them; but Hector stepped down out of a ground-floor window, and
in the schoolroom were all Priam’s sons and the AchÊans and fair
Helen; and a little farther away the Ten Thousand drifted across
the playground, going up into the heart of Persia to place Cyrus on
his brother’s throne. And the boys that I knew called to me from
the fields, and said ‘Goodbye,’ and they and the fields went away;
and the Ten Thousand said ‘Goodbye,’ each file as they passed
me marching swiftly, and they too disappeared. And Hector and
Agamemnon said ‘Goodbye,’ and the host of the Argives and of
the AchÊans; and they all went away and the old school with them,
and I was alone again.
The next scene that filled the emptiness was rather dim: I was
being led by my nurse along a little footpath over a common in
Surrey. She was quite young. Close by a band of gypsies had lit
their fire, near them their romantic caravan stood unhorsed, and the
horse cropped grass beside it. It was evening, and the gypsies mut-
tered round their fire in a tongue unknown and strange. Then they
all said in English, ‘Goodbye’. And the evening and the common
and the campfire went away. And instead of this a white highway
202 The Sword of Welleran

with darkness and stars below it that led into darkness and stars,
but at the near end of the road were common fields and gardens,
and there I stood close to a large number of people, men and
women. And I saw a man walking alone down the road away from
me towards the darkness and the stars, and all the people called
him by his name, and the man would not hear them, but walked on
down the road, and the people went on calling him by his name.
But I became irritated with the man because he would not stop
or turn round when so many people called him by his name, and
it was a very strange name. And I became weary of hearing the
strange name so very often repeated, so that I made a great effort to
call him, that he might listen and that the people might stop repeat-
ing this strange name. And with the effort I opened my eyes wide,
and the name that the people called was my own name, and I lay
on the river’s bank with men and women bending over me, and my
hair was wet.

The Ghosts
The argument that I had with my brother in his great lonely
house will scarcely interest my readers. Not those, at least, whom
I hope may be attracted by the experiment that I undertook, and
by the strange things that befell me in that hazardous region into
which so lightly and so ignorantly I allowed my fancy to enter. It
was at Oneleigh that I had visited him.
Now Oneleigh stands in a wide isolation, in the midst of a dark
gathering of old whispering cedars. They nod their heads together
when the North Wind comes, and nod again and agree, and fur-
tively grow still again, and say no more awhile. The North Wind
is to them like a nice problem among wise old men; they nod
their heads over it, and mutter about it all together. They know
much, those cedars, they have been there so long. Their grandsires
knew Lebanon, and the grandsires of these were the servants of
the King of Tyre and came to Solomon’s court. And amidst these
black-haired children of grey-headed Time stood the old house of
 The Sword of Welleran 203

Oneleigh. I know not how many centuries had lashed against it

their evanescent foam of years; but it was still unshattered, and all
about it were the things of long ago, as cling strange growths to
some sea-defying rock. Here, like the shells of long-dead limpets,
was armour that men encased themselves in long ago; here, too,
were tapestries of many colours, beautiful as seaweed; no modern
flotsam ever drifted hither, no early Victorian furniture, no electric
light. The great trade routes that littered the years with empty meat
tins and cheap novels were far from here. Well, well, the centuries
will shatter it and drive its fragments on to distant shores. Mean-
while, while it yet stood, I went on a visit there to my brother, and
we argued about ghosts. My brother’s intelligence on this sub-
ject seemed to me to be in need of correction. He mistook things
imagined for things having an actual existence; he argued that
second-hand evidence of persons having seen ghosts proved ghosts
to exist. I said that even if they had seen ghosts, this was no proof
at all; nobody believes that there are red rats, though there is plenty
of first-hand evidence of men having seen them in delirium. Final-
ly, I said I would see ghosts myself, and continue to argue against
their actual existence. So I collected a handful of cigars and drank
several cups of very strong tea, and went without my dinner, and
retired into a room where there was dark oak and all the chairs
were covered with tapestry; and my brother went to bed bored with
our argument, and trying hard to dissuade me from making my-
self uncomfortable. All the way up the old stairs as I stood at the
bottom of them, and as his candle went winding up and up, I heard
him still trying to persuade me to have supper and go to bed.
It was a windy winter, and outside the cedars were muttering I
know not what about; but I think that they were Tories of a school
long dead, and were troubled about something new. Within, a great
damp log upon the fireplace began to squeak and sing, and struck
up a whining tune, and a tall flame stood up over it and beat time,
and all the shadows crowded round and began to dance. In distant
corners old masses of darkness sat still like chaperones and never
moved. Over there, in the darkest part of the room, stood a door
that was always locked. It led into the hall, but no one ever used it;
204 The Sword of Welleran

near that door something had happened once of which the family
are not proud. We do not speak of it. There in the firelight stood
the venerable forms of the old chairs; the hands that had made
their tapestries lay far beneath the soil, the needles with which they
wrought were many separate flakes of rust. No one wove now
in that old room — no one but the assiduous ancient spiders who,
watching by the deathbed of the things of yore, worked shrouds to
hold their dust. In shrouds about the cornices already lay the heart
of the oak wainscot that the worm had eaten out.
Surely at such an hour, in such a room, a fancy already excited
by hunger and strong tea might see the ghosts of former occupants.
I expected nothing less. The fire flickered and the shadows danced,
memories of strange historic things rose vividly in my mind; but
midnight chimed solemnly from a seven-foot clock, and nothing
happened. My imagination would not be hurried, and the chill that
is with the small hours had come upon me, and I had nearly aban-
doned myself to sleep, when in the hall adjoining there arose the
rustling of silk dresses that I had waited for and expected. Then
there entered two by two the high-born ladies and their gallants of
Jacobean times. They were little more than shadows — very digni-
fied shadows, and almost indistinct; but you have all read ghost
stories before, you have all seen in museums the dresses of those
times — there is little need to describe them; they entered, several
of them, and sat down on the old chairs, perhaps a little carelessly
considering the value of the tapestries. Then the rustling of their
dresses ceased.
Well — I had seen ghosts, and was neither frightened nor con-
vinced that ghosts existed. I was about to get up out of my chair
and go to bed, when there came a sound of pattering in the hall, a
sound of bare feet coming over the polished floor, and every now
and then a foot would slip and I heard claws scratching along the
wood as some four-footed thing lost and regained its balance. I
was not frightened, but uneasy. The pattering came straight to-
wards the room that I was in, then I heard the sniffing of expectant
nostrils; perhaps ‘uneasy’ was not the most suitable word to de-
scribe my feelings then. Suddenly a herd of black creatures larger
 The Sword of Welleran 205

than bloodhounds came galloping in; they had large pendulous

ears, their noses were to the ground sniffing, they went up to the
lords and ladies of long ago and fawned about them disgustingly.
Their eyes were horribly bright, and ran down to great depths.
When I looked into them I knew suddenly what these creatures
were, and I was afraid. They were the sins, the filthy, immortal
sins of those courtly men and women.
How demure she was, the lady that sat near me on an old-world
chair — how demure she was, and how fair, to have beside her with
its jowl upon her lap a sin with such cavernous red eyes, a clear
case of murder. And you, yonder lady with the golden hair, surely
not you — and yet that fearful beast with the yellow eyes slinks
from you to yonder courtier there, and whenever one drives it away
it slinks back to the other. Over there a lady tries to smile as she
strokes the loathsome furry head of another’s sin, but one of her
own is jealous and intrudes itself under her hand. Here sits an old
nobleman with his grandson on his knee, and one of the great black
sins of the grandfather is licking the child’s face and has made the
child its own. Sometimes a ghost would move and seek another
chair, but always his pack of sins would move behind him. Poor
ghosts, poor ghosts! how many flights they must have attempted
for two hundred years from their hated sins, how many excuses
they must have given for their presence, and the sins were with
them still — and still unexplained. Suddenly one of them seemed
to scent my living blood, and bayed horribly, and all the others left
their ghosts at once and dashed up to the sin that had given tongue.
The brute had picked up my scent near the door by which I had en-
tered, and they moved slowly nearer to me sniffing along the floor,
and uttering every now and then their fearful cry. I saw that the
whole thing had gone too far. But now they had seen me, now they
were all about me, they sprang up trying to reach my throat; and
whenever their claws touched me, horrible thoughts came into my
mind and unutterable desires dominated my heart. I planned bes-
tial things as these creatures leaped around me, and planned them
with a masterly cunning. A great red-eyed murder was among the
foremost of those furry things from whom I feebly strove to de-
206 The Sword of Welleran

fend my throat. Suddenly it seemed to me good that I should kill

my brother. It seemed important to me that I should not risk being
punished. I knew where a revolver was kept; after I had shot him,
I would dress the body up and put flour on the face like a man that
had been acting as a ghost. It would be very simple. I would say
that he had frightened me — and the servants had heard us talking
about ghosts. There were one or two trivialities that would have
to be arranged, but nothing escaped my mind. Yes, it seemed to
me very good that I should kill my brother as I looked into the red
depths of this creature’s eyes. But one last effort as they dragged
me down — ‘If two straight lines cut one another,’ I said, ‘the op-
posite angles are equal. Let AB, CD, cut one another at E, then the
angles CEA, CEB equal two right angles (prop. xiii.). Also CEA,
AED equal two right angles.’
I moved towards the door to get the revolver; a hideous exul-
tation arose among the beasts. ‘But the angle CEA is common,
therefore AED equals CEB. In the same way CEA equals DEB.
QED.’ It was proved. Logic and reason re-established themselves
in my mind, there were no dark hounds of sin, the tapestried chairs
were empty. It seemed to me an inconceivable thought that a man
should murder his brother.

The Whirlpool
Once going down to the shore of the great sea I came upon the
Whirlpool lying prone upon the sand and stretching his huge limbs
in the sun.
I said to him: ‘Who art thou?’
And he said:
‘I am named Nooz Wana, the Whelmer of Ships, and from the
Straits of Pondar Obed I am come, wherein it is my wont to vex
the seas. There I chased Leviathan with my hands when he was
young and strong; often he slipped through my fingers, and away
into the weed forests that grow below the storms in the dusk on
the floor of the sea; but at last I caught and tamed him. For there
 The Sword of Welleran 207

I lurk upon the ocean’s floor, midway between the knees of either
cliff, to guard the passage of the Straits from all the ships that seek
the Further Seas; and whenever the white sails of the tall ships
come swelling round the corner of the crag out of the sunlit spaces
of the Known Sea and into the dark of the Straits, then standing
firm upon the ocean’s floor, with my knees a little bent, I take the
waters of the Straits in both my hands and whirl them round my
head. But the ship comes gliding on with the sound of the sailors
singing on her decks, all singing songs of the islands and carrying
the rumour of their cities to the lonely seas, till they see me sud-
denly astride athwart their course, and are caught in the waters as I
whirl them round my head. Then I draw in the waters of the Straits
towards me and downwards, nearer and nearer to my terrible feet,
and hear in my ears above the roar of my waters the ultimate cry of
the ship; for just before I drag them to the floor of ocean and stamp
them asunder with my wrecking feet, ships utter their ultimate cry,
and with it go the lives of all the sailors and passes the soul of the
ship. And in the ultimate cry of ships are the songs the sailors sing,
and their hopes and all their loves, and the song of the wind among
the masts and timbers when they stood in the forest long ago, and
the whisper of the rain that made them grow, and the soul of the
tall pine-tree or the oak. All this a ship gives up in one cry which
she makes at the last. And at that moment I would pity the tall
ship if I might; but a man may feel pity who sits in comfort by his
fireside telling tales in the winter — no pity are they permitted ever
to feel who do the work of the gods; and so when I have brought
her circling from round my shoulders to my waist and thence, with
her masts all sloping inwards, to my knees, and lower still and
downwards till her topmast pennants flutter against my ankles, then
I, Nooz Wana, Whelmer of Ships, lift up my feet and trample her
beams asunder, and there go up again to the surface of the Straits
only a few broken timbers and the memories of the sailors and of
their early loves to drift for ever down the empty seas.
‘Once in every hundred years, for one day only, I go to rest
myself along the shore and to sun my limbs on the sand, that the
tall ships may go through the unguarded Straits and find the Happy
208 The Sword of Welleran

Isles. And the Happy Isles stand midmost among the smiles of the
sunny Further Seas, and there the sailors may come upon content
and long for nothing; or if they long for aught, they shall possess it.
‘There comes not Time with his devouring hours; nor any of the
evils of the gods or men. These are the islands whereto the souls
of the sailors every night put in from all the world to rest from
going up and down the seas, to behold again the vision of far-off
intimate hills that lift their orchards high above the fields facing the
sunlight, and for a while again to speak with the souls of old. But
about the dawn dreams twitter and arise, and circling thrice around
the Happy Isles set out again to find the world of men, then follow
the souls of the sailors, as, at evening, with slow stroke of stately
wings the heron follows behind the flight of multitudinous rooks;
but the souls returning find awakening bodies and endure the toil of
the day. Such are the Happy Isles, whereunto few have come, save
but as roaming shadows in the night, and for only a little while.
‘But longer than is needed to make me strong and fierce again I
may not stay, and at set of sun, when my arms are strong again, and
when I feel in my legs that I can plant them fair and bent upon the
floor of ocean, then I go back to take a new grip upon the waters of
the Straits, and to guard the Further Seas again for a hundred years.
Because the gods are jealous, lest too many men shall pass to the
Happy Isles and find content. For the gods have not content.’

The Hurricane
One night I sat alone on the great down, looking over the edge
of it at a murky, sullen city. All day long with its smoke it had
troubled the holy sky, and now it sat there roaring in the distance
and glared at me with its furnaces and lighted factory windows.
Suddenly I became aware that I was not the only enemy of that
city, for I perceived the colossal form of the Hurricane walking
over the down towards me, playing idly with the flowers as he
passed, and near me he stopped and spake to the Earthquake, who
had come up mole-like but vast out of a cleft in the earth.
 The Sword of Welleran 209

‘Old friend,’ said the Hurricane, ‘rememberest when we wrecked

the nations and drave the herds of the sea into new pasturage?’
‘Yes,’ said the Earthquake, drowsily; ‘Yes, yes.’
‘Old friend,’ said the Hurricane, ‘there are cities everywhere.
Over thy head while thou didst sleep they have built them con-
stantly. My four children the Winds suffocate with the fumes of
them, the valleys are desolate of flowers, and the lovely forests are
cut down since last we went abroad together.’
The Earthquake lay there, with his snout towards the city, blink-
ing at the lights, while the tall Hurricane stood beside him pointing
fiercely at it.
‘Come,’ said the Hurricane, ‘let us fare forth again and destroy
them, that all the lovely forests may come back and the furry
creeping things. Thou shalt whelm these cities utterly and drive
the people forth, and I will smite them in the shelterless places and
sweep their desecrations from the sea. Wilt thou come forth with
me and do this thing for the glory of it? Wilt thou wreck the world
again as we did, thou and I, or ever Man had come? Wilt thou
come forth to this place at this hour tomorrow night?’
‘Yes,’ said the Earthquake, ‘Yes,’ and he crept to his cleft again,
and head foremost waddled down into the abysses.
When the Hurricane strode away, I got up quietly and departed,
but at that hour of the next night I came up cautiously to the same
spot. There I found the huge grey form of the Hurricane alone,
with his head bowed in his hands, weeping; for the Earthquake
sleeps long and heavily in the abysses, and he would not wake.

The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save For

Sacnoth
In a wood older than record, a foster brother of the hills, stood
the village of Allathurion; and there was peace between the people
of that village and all the folk who walked in the dark ways of the
wood, whether they were human or of the tribes of the beasts or of
210 The Sword of Welleran

the race of the fairies and the elves and the little sacred spirits of
trees and streams. Moreover, the village people had peace among
themselves and between them and their lord, Lorendiac. In front of
the village was a wide and grassy space, and beyond this the great
wood again, but at the back the trees came right up to the houses,
which, with their great beams and wooden framework and thatched
roofs, green with moss, seemed almost to be a part of the forest.
Now in the time I tell of, there was trouble in Allathurion, for
of an evening fell dreams were wont to come slipping through the
tree trunks and into the peaceful village; and they assumed domin-
ion of men’s minds and led them in watches of the night through
the cindery plains of Hell. Then the magician of that village made
spells against those fell dreams; yet still the dreams came flitting
through the trees as soon as the dark had fallen, and led men’s
minds by night into terrible places and caused them to praise Satan
openly with their lips.
And men grew afraid of sleep in Allathurion. And they grew
worn and pale, some through the want of rest, and others from fear
of the things they saw on the cindery plains of Hell.
Then the magician of the village went up into the tower of his
house, and all night long those whom fear kept awake could see
his window high up in the night glowing softly alone. The next
day, when the twilight was far gone and night was gathering fast,
the magician went away to the forest’s edge, and uttered there the
spell that he had made. And the spell was a compulsive, terrible
thing, having a power over evil dreams and over spirits of ill; for
it was a verse of forty lines in many languages, both living and
dead, and had in it the word wherewith the people of the plains are
wont to curse their camels, and the shout wherewith the whalers of
the north lure the whales shoreward to be killed, and a word that
causes elephants to trumpet; and every one of the forty lines closed
with a rhyme for ‘wasp’.
And still the dreams came flitting through the forest, and led
men’s souls into the plains of Hell. Then the magician knew that
the dreams were from Gaznak. Therefore he gathered the peo-
ple of the village, and told them that he had uttered his mightiest
 The Sword of Welleran 211

spell — a spell having power over all that were human or of the
tribes of the beasts; and that since it had not availed the dreams
must come from Gaznak, the greatest magician among the spaces
of the stars. And he read to the people out of the Book of Magi-
cians, which tells the comings of the comet and foretells his com-
ing again. And he told them how Gaznak rides upon the comet,
and how he visits Earth once in every two hundred and thirty years,
and makes for himself a vast, invincible fortress and sends out
dreams to feed on the minds of men, and may never be vanquished
but by the sword Sacnoth.
And a cold fear fell on the hearts of the villagers when they
found that their magician had failed them.
Then spake Leothric, son of the Lord Lorendiac, and twenty
years old was he: ‘Good Master, what of the sword Sacnoth?’
And the village magician answered: ‘Fair Lord, no such sword
as yet is wrought, for it lies as yet in the hide of Tharagavverug,
protecting his spine.’
Then said Leothric: ‘Who is Tharagavverug, and where may he
be encountered?’
And the magician of Allathurion answered: ‘He is the dragon-
crocodile who haunts the Northern marshes and ravages the home-
steads by their marge. And the hide of his back is of steel, and
his under parts are of iron; but along the midst of his back, over
his spine, there lies a narrow strip of unearthly steel. This strip of
steel is Sacnoth, and it may be neither cleft nor molten, and there
is nothing in the world that may avail to break it, nor even leave a
scratch upon its surface. It is of the length of a good sword, and of
the breadth thereof. Shouldst thou prevail against Tharagavverug,
his hide may be melted away from Sacnoth in a furnace; but there
is only one thing that may sharpen Sacnoth’s edge, and this is one
of Tharagavverug’s own steel eyes; and the other eye thou must
fasten to Sacnoth’s hilt, and it will watch for thee. But it is a hard
task to vanquish Tharagavverug, for no sword can pierce his hide;
his back cannot be broken, and he can neither burn nor drown. In
one way only can Tharagavverug die, and that is by starving.’
Then sorrow fell upon Leothric, but the magician spoke on:
212 The Sword of Welleran

‘If a man drive Tharagavverug away from his food with a stick
for three days, he will starve on the third day at sunset. And
though he is not vulnerable, yet in one spot he may take hurt, for
his nose is only of lead. A sword would merely lay bare the un-
cleavable bronze beneath, but if his nose be smitten constantly with
a stick he will always recoil from the pain, and thus may Tharaga-
vverug, to left and right, be driven away from his food.’
Then Leothric said: ‘What is Tharagavverug’s food?’
And the magician of Allathurion said: ‘His food is men.’
But Leothric went straightway thence, and cut a great staff from
a hazel tree, and slept early that evening. But the next morning,
awaking from troubled dreams, he arose before the dawn, and,
taking with him provisions for five days, set out through the for-
est northwards towards the marshes. For some hours he moved
through the gloom of the forest, and when he emerged from it the
sun was above the horizon shining on pools of water in the waste
land. Presently he saw the claw-marks of Tharagavverug deep in
the soil, and the track of his tail between them like a furrow in a
field. Then Leothric followed the tracks till he heard the bronze
heart of Tharagavverug before him, booming like a bell.
And Tharagavverug, it being the hour when he took the first
meal of the day, was moving towards a village with his heart
tolling. And all the people of the village were come out to meet
him, as it was their wont to do; for they abode not the suspense of
awaiting Tharagavverug and of hearing him sniffing brazenly as he
went from door to door, pondering slowly in his metal mind what
habitant he should choose. And none dared to flee, for in the days
when the villagers fled from Tharagavverug, he, having chosen his
victim, would track him tirelessly, like a doom. Nothing availed
them against Tharagavverug. Once they climbed the trees when
he came, but Tharagavverug went up to one, arching his back and
leaning over slightly, and rasped against the trunk until it fell. And
when Leothric came near, Tharagavverug saw him out of one of
his small steel eyes and came towards him leisurely, and the echoes
of his heart swirled up through his open mouth. And Leothric
stepped sideways from his onset, and came between him and the
 The Sword of Welleran 213

village and smote him on the nose, and the blow of the stick made
a dint in the soft lead. And Tharagavverug swung clumsily away,
uttering one fearful cry like the sound of a great church bell that
had become possessed of a soul that fluttered upward from the
tombs at night — an evil soul, giving the bell a voice. Then he
attacked Leothric, snarling, and again Leothric leapt aside, and
smote him on the nose with his stick. Tharagavverug uttered like a
bell howling. And whenever the dragon-crocodile attacked him, or
turned towards the village, Leothric smote him again.
So all day long Leothric drove the monster with a stick, and he
drove him farther and farther from his prey, with his heart tolling
angrily and his voice crying out for pain.
Towards evening Tharagavverug ceased to snap at Leothric, but
ran before him to avoid the stick, for his nose was sore and shining;
and in the gloaming the villagers came out and danced to cymbal
and psaltery. When Tharagavverug heard the cymbal and psaltery,
hunger and anger came upon him, and he felt as some lord might
feel who was held by force from the banquet in his own castle
and heard the creaking spit go round and round and the good meat
crackling on it. And all that night he attacked Leothric fiercely, and
oft-times nearly caught him in the darkness; for his gleaming eyes
of steel could see as well by night as by day. And Leothric gave
ground slowly till the dawn, and when the light came they were
near the village again; yet not so near to it as they had been when
they encountered, for Leothric drove Tharagavverug farther in the
day than Tharagavverug had forced him back in the night. Then
Leothric drove him again with his stick till the hour came when it
was the custom of the dragon-crocodile to find his man. One third
of his man he would eat at the time he found him, and the rest at
noon and evening. But when the hour came for finding his man a
great fierceness came on Tharagavverug, and he grabbed rapidly
at Leothric, but could not seize him, and for a long while neither
of them would retire. But at last the pain of the stick on his leaden
nose overcame the hunger of the dragon-crocodile, and he turned
from it howling. From that moment Tharagavverug weakened. All
that day Leothric drove him with his stick, and at night both held
214 The Sword of Welleran

their ground; and when the dawn of the third day was come the
heart of Tharagavverug beat slower and fainter. It was as though
a tired man was ringing a bell. Once Tharagavverug nearly seized
a frog, but Leothric snatched it away just in time. Towards noon
the dragon-crocodile lay still for a long while, and Leothric stood
near him and leaned on his trusty stick. He was very tired and
sleepless, but had more leisure now for eating his provisions. With
Tharagavverug the end was coming fast, and in the afternoon his
breath came hoarsely, rasping in his throat. It was as the sound of
many huntsmen blowing blasts on horns, and towards evening his
breath came faster but fainter, like the sound of a hunt going furi-
ous to the distance and dying away, and he made desperate rushes
towards the village; but Leothric still leapt about him, battering his
leaden nose. Scarce audible now at all was the sound of his heart:
it was like a church bell tolling beyond hills for the death of some
one unknown and far away. Then the sun set and flamed in the vil-
lage windows, and a chill went over the world, and in some small
garden a woman sang; and Tharagavverug lifted up his head and
starved, and his life went from his invulnerable body, and Leothric
lay down beside him and slept. And later in the starlight the vil-
lagers came out and carried Leothric, sleeping, to the village, all
praising him in whispers as they went. They laid him down upon
a couch in a house, and danced outside in silence, without psaltery
or cymbal. And the next day, rejoicing, to Allathurion they hauled
the dragon-crocodile. And Leothric went with them, holding his
battered staff; and a tall, broad man, who was smith of Allathurion,
made a great furnace, and melted Tharagavverug away till only
Sacnoth was left, gleaming among the ashes. Then he took one
of the small eyes that had been chiselled out, and filed an edge on
Sacnoth, and gradually the steel eye wore away facet by facet, but
ere it was quite gone it had sharpened redoubtably Sacnoth. But
the other eye they set in the butt of the hilt, and it gleamed there
bluely.
And that night Leothric arose in the dark and took the sword,
and went westwards to find Gaznak; and he went through the dark
forest till the dawn, and all the morning and till the afternoon. But
 The Sword of Welleran 215

in the afternoon he came into the open and saw in the midst of The
Land Where No Man Goeth the fortress of Gaznak, mountainous
before him, little more than a mile away.
And Leothric saw that the land was marsh and desolate. And
the fortress went up all white out of it, with many buttresses, and
was broad below but narrowed higher up, and was full of gleam-
ing windows with the light upon them. And near the top of it a few
white clouds were floating, but above them some of its pinnacles
reappeared. Then Leothric advanced into the marshes, and the eye
of Tharagavverug looked out warily from the hilt of Sacnoth; for
Tharagavverug had known the marshes well, and the sword nudged
Leothric to the right or pulled him to the left away from the dan-
gerous places, and so brought him safely to the fortress walls.
And in the wall stood doors like precipices of steel, all stud-
ded with boulders of iron, and above every window were terrible
gargoyles of stone; and the name of the fortress shone on the wall,
writ large in letters of brass: ‘The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save
For Sacnoth.’
Then Leothric drew and revealed Sacnoth, and all the gargoyles
grinned, and the grin went flickering from face to face right up into
the cloud-abiding gables.
And when Sacnoth was revealed and all the gargoyles grinned, it
was like the moonlight emerging from a cloud to look for the first
time upon a field of blood, and passing swiftly over the wet faces
of the slain that lie together in the horrible night. Then Leothric
advanced towards a door, and it was mightier than the marble
quarry, Sacremona, from which of old men cut enormous slabs to
build the Abbey of the Holy Tears. Day after day they wrenched
out the very ribs of the hill until the Abbey was builded, and it was
more beautiful than anything in stone. Then the priests blessed Sa-
cremona, and it had rest, and no more stone was ever taken from it
to build the houses of men. And the hill stood looking southwards
lonely in the sunlight, defaced by that mighty scar. So vast was the
door of steel. And the name of the door was The Porte Resonant,
the Way of Egress for War.
Then Leothric smote upon the Porte Resonant with Sacnoth,
216 The Sword of Welleran

and the echo of Sacnoth went ringing through the halls, and all the
dragons in the fortress barked. And when the baying of the remot-
est dragon had faintly joined in the tumult, a window opened far up
among the clouds below the twilit gables, and a woman screamed,
and far away in Hell her father heard her and knew that her doom
was come.
And Leothric went on smiting terribly with Sacnoth, and the
grey steel of the Porte Resonant, the Way of Egress for War, that
was tempered to resist the swords of the world, came away in ring-
ing slices.
Then Leothric, holding Sacnoth in his hand, went in through the
hole that he had hewn in the door, and came into the unlit, cavern-
ous hall.
An elephant fled trumpeting. And Leothric stood still, holding
Sacnoth. When the sound of the feet of the elephant had died away
in the remoter corridors, nothing more stirred, and the cavernous
hall was still.
Presently the darkness of the distant halls became musical with
the sound of bells, all coming nearer and nearer.
Still Leothric waited in the dark, and the bells rang louder and
louder, echoing through the halls, and there appeared a proces-
sion of men on camels riding two by two from the interior of the
fortress, and they were armed with scimitars of Assyrian make and
were all clad with mail, and chain-mail hung from their helmets
about their faces, and flapped as the camels moved. And they all
halted before Leothric in the cavernous hall, and the camel bells
clanged and stopped. And the leader said to Leothric:
‘The Lord Gaznak has desired to see you die before him. Be
pleased to come with us, and we can discourse by the way of the
manner in which the Lord Gaznak has desired to see you die.’
And as he said this he unwound a chain of iron that was coiled
upon his saddle, and Leothric answered:
‘I would fain go with you, for I am come to slay Gaznak.’
Then all the camel-guard of Gaznak laughed hideously, disturb-
ing the vampires that were asleep in the measureless vault of the
roof. And the leader said:
 The Sword of Welleran 217

‘The Lord Gaznak is immortal, save for Sacnoth, and weareth

armour that is proof even against Sacnoth himself, and hath a
sword the second most terrible in the world.’
Then Leothric said: ‘I am the Lord of the sword Sacnoth.’
And he advanced towards the camel-guard of Gaznak, and Sac-
noth lifted up and down in his hand as though stirred by an exult-
ant pulse. Then the camel-guard of Gaznak fled, and the riders
leaned forward and smote their camels with whips, and they went
away with a great clamour of bells through colonnades and cor-
ridors and vaulted halls, and scattered into the inner darknesses of
the fortress. When the last sound of them had died away, Leothric
was in doubt which way to go, for the camel-guard was dispersed
in many directions, so he went straight on till he came to a great
stairway in the midst of the hall. Then Leothric set his foot in
the middle of a wide step, and climbed steadily up the stairway
for five minutes. Little light was there in the great hall through
which Leothric ascended, for it only entered through arrow slits
here and there, and in the world outside evening was waning fast.
The stairway led up to two folding doors, and they stood a little
ajar, and through the crack Leothric entered and tried to continue
straight on, but could get no farther, for the whole room seemed
to be full of festoons of ropes which swung from wall to wall and
were looped and draped from the ceiling. The whole chamber was
thick and black with them. They were soft and light to the touch,
like fine silk, but Leothric was unable to break any one of them,
and though they swung away from him as he pressed forward, yet
by the time he had gone three yards they were all about him like a
heavy cloak. Then Leothric stepped back and drew Sacnoth, and
Sacnoth divided the ropes without a sound, and without a sound
the severed pieces fell to the floor. Leothric went forward slowly,
moving Sacnoth in front of him up and down as he went. When he
was come into the middle of the chamber, suddenly, as he parted
with Sacnoth a great hammock of strands, he saw a spider before
him that was larger than a ram, and the spider looked at him with
eyes that were little, but in which there was much sin, and said:
‘Who are you that spoil the labour of years all done to the hon-
218 The Sword of Welleran

our of Satan?’
And Leothric answered: ‘I am Leothric, son of Lorendiac.’
And the spider said: ‘I will make a rope at once to hang you
with.’
Then Leothric parted another bunch of strands, and came nearer
to the spider as he sat making his rope, and the spider, looking up
from his work, said: ‘What is that sword which is able to sever my
ropes?’
And Leothric said: ‘It is Sacnoth.’
Thereat the black hair that hung over the face of the spider part-
ed to left and right, and the spider frowned; then the hair fell back
into its place, and hid everything except the sin of the little eyes
which went on gleaming lustfully in the dark. But before Leothric
could reach him, he climbed away with his hands, going up by one
of his ropes to a lofty rafter, and there sat, growling. But clearing
his way with Sacnoth, Leothric passed through the chamber, and
came to the farther door; and the door being shut, and the handle
far up out of his reach, he hewed his way through it with Sacnoth
in the same way as he had through the Porte Resonant, the Way
of Egress for War. And so Leothric came into a well-lit chamber,
where Queens and Princes were banqueting together, all at a great
table; and thousands of candles were glowing all about, and their
light shone in the wine that the Princes drank and on the huge gold
candelabra, and the royal faces were irradiant with the glow, and
the white table-cloth and the silver plates and the jewels in the hair
of the Queens, each jewel having a historian all to itself, who wrote
no other chronicles all his days. Between the table and the door
there stood two hundred footmen in two rows of one hundred fac-
ing one another. Nobody looked at Leothric as he entered through
the hole in the door, but one of the Princes asked a question of a
footman, and the question was passed from mouth to mouth by all
the hundred footmen till it came to the last one nearest Leothric;
and he said to Leothric, without looking at him:
‘What do you seek here?’
And Leothric answered: ‘I seek to slay Gaznak.’
And footman to footman repeated all the way to the table: ‘He
 The Sword of Welleran 219

seeks to slay Gaznak.’

And another question came down the line of footmen: ‘What is
your name?’
And the line that stood opposite took his answer back.
Then one of the Princes said: ‘Take him away where we shall
not hear his screams.’
And footman repeated it to footman till it came to the last two,
and they advanced to seize Leothric.
Then Leothric showed to them his sword, saying, ‘This is Sac-
noth,’ and both of them said to the man nearest: ‘It is Sacnoth;’
then screamed and fled away.
And two by two, all up the double line, footman to footman re-
peated, ‘It is Sacnoth,’ then screamed and fled, till the last two gave
the message to the table, and all the rest had gone. Hurriedly then
arose the Queens and Princes, and fled out of the chamber. And the
goodly table, when they were all gone, looked small and disorderly
and awry. And to Leothric, pondering in the desolate chamber by
what door he should pass onwards, there came from far away the
sounds of music, and he knew that it was the magical musicians
playing to Gaznak while he slept.
Then Leothric, walking towards the distant music, passed out
by the door opposite to the one through which he had cloven his
entrance, and so passed into a chamber vast as the other, in which
were many women, weirdly beautiful. And they all asked him of
his quest, and when they heard that it was to slay Gaznak, they all
besought him to tarry among them, saying that Gaznak was im-
mortal, save for Sacnoth, and also that they had need of a knight
to protect them from the wolves that rushed round and round the
wainscot all the night and sometimes broke in upon them through
the mouldering oak. Perhaps Leothric had been tempted to tarry
had they been human women, for theirs was a strange beauty, but
he perceived that instead of eyes they had little flames that flick-
ered in their sockets, and knew them to be the fevered dreams of
Gaznak. Therefore he said:
‘I have a business with Gaznak and with Sacnoth,’ and passed
on through the chamber.
220 The Sword of Welleran

And at the name of Sacnoth those women screamed, and the

flames of their eyes sank low and dwindled to sparks.
And Leothric left them, and, hewing with Sacnoth, passed
through the farther door.
Outside he felt the night air on his face, and found that he stood
upon a narrow way between two abysses. To left and right of him,
as far as he could see, the walls of the fortress ended in a profound
precipice, though the roof still stretched above him; and before him
lay the two abysses full of stars, for they cut their way through the
whole Earth and revealed the under sky; and threading its course
between them went the way, and it sloped upward and its sides
were sheer. And beyond the abysses, where the way led up to the
farther chambers of the fortress, Leothric heard the musicians play-
ing their magical tune. So he stepped on to the way, which was
scarcely a stride in width, and moved along it holding Sacnoth na-
ked. And to and fro beneath him in each abyss whirred the wings
of vampires passing up and down, all giving praise to Satan as they
flew. Presently he perceived the dragon Thok lying upon the way,
pretending to sleep, and his tail hung down into one of the abysses.
And Leothric went towards him, and when he was quite close
Thok rushed at Leothric.
And he smote deep with Sacnoth, and Thok tumbled into the
abyss, screaming, and his limbs made a whirring in the darkness as
he fell, and he fell till his scream sounded no louder than a whistle
and then could be heard no more. Once or twice Leothric saw a
star blink for an instant and reappear again, and this momentary
eclipse of a few stars was all that remained in the world of the
body of Thok. And Lunk, the brother of Thok, who had lain a lit-
tle behind him, saw that this must be Sacnoth and fled lumbering
away. And all the while that he walked between the abysses, the
mighty vault of the roof of the fortress still stretched over Le-
othric’s head, all filled with gloom. Now, when the further side of
the abyss came into view, Leothric saw a chamber that opened with
innumerable arches upon the twin abysses, and the pillars of the
arches went away into the distance and vanished in the gloom to
left and right.
 The Sword of Welleran 221

Far down the dim precipice on which the pillars stood he could
see windows small and closely barred, and between the bars there
showed at moments, and disappeared again, things that I shall not
speak of.
There was no light here except for the great Southern stars
that shone below the abysses, and here and there in the chamber
through the arches lights that moved furtively without the sound of
footfall.
Then Leothric stepped from the way, and entered the great
chamber.
Even to himself he seemed but a tiny dwarf as he walked under
one of those colossal arches.
The last faint light of evening flickered through a window
painted in sombre colours commemorating the achievements of
Satan upon Earth. High up in the wall the window stood, and the
streaming lights of candles lower down moved stealthily away.
Other light there was none, save for a faint blue glow from the
steel eye of Tharagavverug that peered restlessly about it from the
hilt of Sacnoth. Heavily in the chamber hung the clammy odour of
a large and deadly beast.
Leothric moved forward slowly with the blade of Sacnoth in
front of him feeling for a foe, and the eye in the hilt of it looking
out behind.
Nothing stirred.
If anything lurked behind the pillars of the colonnade that held
aloft the roof, it neither breathed nor moved.
The music of the magical musicians sounded from very near.
Suddenly the great doors on the far side of the chamber opened
to left and right. For some moments Leothric saw nothing move,
and waited clutching Sacnoth. Then Wong Bongerok came to-
wards him, breathing.
This was the last and faithfullest guard of Gaznak, and came
from slobbering just now his master’s hand.
More as a child than a dragon was Gaznak wont to treat him,
giving him often in his fingers tender pieces of man all smoking
from his table.
222 The Sword of Welleran

Long and low was Wong Bongerok, and subtle about the eyes,
and he came breathing malice against Leothric out of his faithful
breast, and behind him roared the armoury of his tail, as when sail-
ors drag the cable of the anchor all rattling down the deck.
And well Wong Bongerok knew that he now faced Sacnoth, for
it had been his wont to prophesy quietly to himself for many years
as he lay curled at the feet of Gaznak.
And Leothric stepped forward into the blast of his breath, and
lifted Sacnoth to strike.
But when Sacnoth was lifted up, the eye of Tharagavverug in the
butt of the hilt beheld the dragon and perceived his subtlety.
For he opened his mouth wide, and revealed to Leothric the
ranks of his sabre teeth, and his leather gums flapped upwards.
But while Leothric made to smite at his head, he shot forward
scorpion-wise over his head the length of his armoured tail. All
this the eye perceived in the hilt of Sacnoth, who smote suddenly
sideways. Not with the edge smote Sacnoth, for, had he done so,
the severed end of the tail had still come hurtling on, as some pine
tree that the avalanche has hurled point foremost from the cliff
right through the broad breast of some mountaineer. So had Le-
othric been transfixed; but Sacnoth smote sideways with the flat of
his blade, and sent the tail whizzing over Leothric’s left shoulder;
and it rasped upon his armour as it went, and left a groove upon it.
Sideways then at Leothric smote the foiled tail of Wong Bongerok,
and Sacnoth parried, and the tail went shrieking up the blade and
over Leothric’s head. Then Leothric and Wong Bongerok fought
sword to tooth, and the sword smote as only Sacnoth can, and the
evil faithful life of Wong Bongerok the dragon went out through
the wide wound.
Then Leothric walked on past that dead monster, and the ar-
moured body still quivered a little. And for a while it was like all
the ploughshares in a county working together in one field behind
tired and struggling horses; then the quivering ceased, and Wong
Bongerok lay still to rust.
And Leothric went on to the open gates, and Sacnoth dripped
quietly along the floor.
 The Sword of Welleran 223

By the open gates through which Wong Bongerok had entered,

Leothric came into a corridor echoing with music. This was the
first place from which Leothric could see anything above his head,
for hitherto the roof had ascended to mountainous heights and had
stretched indistinct in the gloom. But along the narrow corridor
hung huge bells low and near to his head, and the width of each
brazen bell was from wall to wall, and they were one behind the
other. And as he passed under each the bell uttered, and its voice
was mournful and deep, like to the voice of a bell speaking to a
man for the last time when he is newly dead. Each bell uttered
once as Leothric came under it, and their voices sounded solemnly
and wide apart at ceremonious intervals. For if he walked slow,
these bells came closer together, and when he walked swiftly they
moved farther apart. And the echoes of each bell tolling above his
head went on before him whispering to the others. Once when he
stopped they all jangled angrily till he went on again.
Between these slow and boding notes came the sound of the
magical musicians. They were playing a dirge now very mourn-
fully.
And at last Leothric came to the end of the Corridor of the Bells,
and beheld there a small black door. And all the corridor behind
him was full of the echoes of the tolling, and they all muttered to
one another about the ceremony; and the dirge of the musicians
came floating slowly through them like a procession of foreign
elaborate guests, and all of them boded ill to Leothric.
The black door opened at once to the hand of Leothric, and he
found himself in the open air in a wide court paved with marble.
High over it shone the moon, summoned there by the hand of
Gaznak.
There Gaznak slept, and around him sat his magical musicians,
all playing upon strings. And, even sleeping, Gaznak was clad in
armour, and only his wrists and face and neck were bare.
But the marvel of that place was the dreams of Gaznak; for
beyond the wide court slept a dark abyss, and into the abyss there
poured a white cascade of marble stairways, and widened out be-
low into terraces and balconies with fair white statues on them, and
224 The Sword of Welleran

descended again in a wide stairway, and came to lower terraces in

the dark, where swart uncertain shapes went to and fro. All these
were the dreams of Gaznak, and issued from his mind, and, becom-
ing gleaming marble, passed over the edge of the abyss as the mu-
sicians played. And all the while out of the mind of Gaznak, lulled
by that strange music, went spires and pinnacles beautiful and
slender, ever ascending skywards. And the marble dreams moved
slow in time to the music. When the bells tolled and the musicians
played their dirge, ugly gargoyles came out suddenly all over the
spires and pinnacles, and great shadows passed swiftly down the
steps and terraces, and there was hurried whispering in the abyss.
When Leothric stepped from the black door, Gaznak opened his
eyes. He looked neither to left nor right, but stood up at once fac-
ing Leothric.
Then the magicians played a deathspell on their strings, and
there arose a humming along the blade of Sacnoth as he turned the
spell aside. When Leothric dropped not down, and they heard the
humming of Sacnoth, the magicians arose and fled, all wailing, as
they went, upon their strings.
Then Gaznak drew out screaming from its sheath the sword
that was the mightiest in the world except for Sacnoth, and slowly
walked towards Leothric; and he smiled as he walked, although
his own dreams had foretold his doom. And when Leothric and
Gaznak came together, each looked at each, and neither spoke a
word; but they smote both at once, and their swords met, and each
sword knew the other and from whence he came. And whenever
the sword of Gaznak smote on the blade of Sacnoth it rebounded
gleaming, as hail from off slated roofs; but whenever it fell upon
the armour of Leothric, it stripped it off in sheets. And upon
Gaznak’s armour Sacnoth fell oft and furiously, but ever he came
back snarling, leaving no mark behind, and as Gaznak fought he
held his left hand hovering close over his head. Presently Leothric
smote fair and fiercely at his enemy’s neck, but Gaznak, clutch-
ing his own head by the hair, lifted it high aloft, and Sacnoth went
cleaving through an empty space. Then Gaznak replaced his head
upon his neck, and all the while fought nimbly with his sword; and
 The Sword of Welleran 225

again and again Leothric swept with Sacnoth at Gaznak’s bearded

neck, and ever the left hand of Gaznak was quicker than the stroke,
and the head went up and the sword rushed vainly under it.
And the ringing fight went on till Leothric’s armour lay all round
him on the floor and the marble was splashed with his blood, and
the sword of Gaznak was notched like a saw from meeting the
blade of Sacnoth. Still Gaznak stood unwounded and smiling still.
At last Leothric looked at the throat of Gaznak and aimed with
Sacnoth, and again Gaznak lifted his head by the hair; but not at
his throat flew Sacnoth, for Leothric struck instead at the lifted
hand, and through the wrist of it went Sacnoth whirring, as a
scythe goes through the stem of a single flower.
And bleeding, the severed hand fell to the floor; and at once
blood spurted from the shoulders of Gaznak and dripped from the
fallen head, and the tall pinnacles went down into the earth, and the
wide fair terraces all rolled away, and the court was gone like the
dew, and a wind came and the colonnades drifted thence, and all
the colossal halls of Gaznak fell. And the abysses closed up sud-
denly as the mouth of a man who, having told a tale, will for ever
speak no more.
Then Leothric looked around him in the marshes where the
night mist was passing away, and there was no fortress nor sound
of dragon or mortal, only beside him lay an old man, wizened and
evil and dead, whose head and hand were severed from his body.
And gradually over the wide lands the dawn was coming up,
and ever growing in beauty as it came, like to the peal of an organ
played by a master’s hand, growing louder and lovelier as the soul
of the master warms, and at last giving praise with all its mighty
voice.
Then the birds sang, and Leothric went homeward, and left the
marshes and came to the dark wood, and the light of the dawn
ascending lit him upon his way. And into Allathurion he came ere
noon, and with him brought the evil wizened head, and the people
rejoiced, and their nights of trouble ceased.

This is the tale of the vanquishing of The Fortress Unvanquish-

226 The Sword of Welleran

able, Save For Sacnoth, and of its passing away, as it is told and
believed by those who love the mystic days of old.
Others have said, and vainly claim to prove, that a fever came to
Allathurion, and went away; and that this same fever drove Le-
othric into the marshes by night, and made him dream there and act
violently with a sword.
And others again say that there hath been no town of Allathu-
rion, and that Leothric never lived.
Peace to them. The gardener hath gathered up this autumn’s
leaves. Who shall see them again, or who wot of them? And who
shall say what hath befallen in the days of long ago?

The Lord of Cities

I came one day upon a road that wandered so aimlessly that it
was suited to my mood, so I followed it, and it led me presently
among deep woods. Somewhere in the midst of them Autumn
held his court, sitting wreathed with gorgeous garlands; and it
was the day before his annual festival of the Dance of Leaves, the
courtly festival upon which hungry Winter rushes mob-like, and
there arise the furious cries of the North Wind triumphing, and all
the splendour and grace of the woods is gone, and Autumn flees
away, discrowned and forgotten, and never again returns. Other
Autumns arise, other Autumns, and fall before other Winters. A
road led away to the left, but my road went straight on. The road
to the left had a trodden appearance; there were wheel tracks on it,
and it seemed the correct way to take. It looked as if no one could
have any business with the road that led straight on and up the hill.
Therefore I went straight on and up the hill; and here and there on
the road grew blades of grass undisturbed in the repose and hush
that the road had earned from going up and down the world; for
you can go by this road, as you can go by all roads, to London,
to Lincoln, to the North of Scotland, to the West of Wales, and to
Wrellisford where roads end. Presently the woods ended, and I
came to the open fields and at the same moment to the top of the
 The Sword of Welleran 227

hill, and saw the high places of Somerset and the downs of Wilts
spread out along the horizon. Suddenly I saw underneath me the
village of Wrellisford, with no sound in its street but the voice of
the Wrellis roaring as he tumbled over a weir above the village. So
I followed my road down over the crest of the hill, and the road
became more languid as I descended, and less and less concerned
with the cares of a highway. Here a spring broke out in the middle
of it, and here another. The road never heeded. A stream ran right
across it, still it straggled on. Suddenly it gave up the minimum
property that a road should possess, and, renouncing its connec-
tion with High Streets, its lineage of Piccadilly, shrank to one side
and became an unpretentious footpath. Then it led me to the old
bridge over the stream, and thus I came to Wrellisford, and found
after travelling in many lands a village with no wheel tracks in its
street. On the other side of the bridge, my friend the road strug-
gled a few yards up a grassy slope, and there ceased. Over all the
village hung a great stillness, with the roar of the Wrellis cutting
right across it, and there came occasionally the bark of a dog that
kept watch over the broken stillness and over the sanctity of that
untravelled road. That terrible and wasting fever that, unlike so
many plagues, comes not from the East but from the West, the
fever of hurry, had not come here — only the Wrellis hurried on his
eternal quest, but it was a calm and placid hurry that gave one time
for song. It was in the early afternoon, and nobody was about.
Either they worked beyond the mysterious valley that nursed Wrel-
lisford and hid it from the world, or else they secluded themselves
within their old-time houses that were roofed with tiles of stone. I
sat down upon the old stone bridge and watched the Wrellis, who
seemed to me to be the only traveller that came from far away into
this village where roads end, and passed on beyond it. And yet the
Wrellis comes singing out of eternity, and tarries for a very little
while in the village where roads end, and passes on into eternity
again; and so surely do all that dwell in Wrellisford. I wondered
as I leaned upon the bridge in what place the Wrellis would first
find the sea, whether as he wound idly through meadows on his
long quest he would suddenly behold him, and, leaping down over
228 The Sword of Welleran

some rocky cliff, take to him at once the message of the hills. Or
whether, widening slowly into some grand and tidal estuary, he
would take his waste of waters to the sea and the might of the river
should meet with the might of the waves, like to two Emperors
clad in gleaming mail meeting midway between two hosts of war;
and the little Wrellis would become a haven for returning ships and
a setting-out place for adventurous men.
A little beyond the bridge there stood an old mill with a ruined
roof, and a small branch of the Wrellis rushed through its emp-
tiness shouting, like a boy playing alone in a corridor of some
desolate house. The mill-wheel was gone, but there lay there still
great bars and wheels and cogs, the bones of some dead industry.
I know not what industry was once lord in that house, I know not
what retinue of workers mourns him now; I only know who is lord
there today in all those empty chambers. For as soon as I entered,
I saw a whole wall draped with his marvellous black tapestry,
without price because inimitable and too delicate to pass from hand
to hand among merchants. I looked at the wonderful complexity
of its infinite threads, my finger sank into it for more than an inch
without feeling the touch; so black it was and so carefully wrought,
sombrely covering the whole of the wall, that it might have been
worked to commemorate the deaths of all that ever lived there, as
indeed it was. I looked through a hole in the wall into an inner
chamber where a worn-out driving band went among many wheels,
and there this priceless inimitable stuff not merely clothed the
walls but hung from bars and ceiling in beautiful draperies, in mar-
vellous festoons. Nothing was ugly in this desolate house, for the
busy artist’s soul of its present lord had beautified everything in its
desolation. It was the unmistakable work of the spider, in whose
house I was, and the house was utterly desolate but for him, and si-
lent but for the roar of the Wrellis and the shout of the little stream.
Then I turned homewards; and as I went up and over the hill and
lost the sight of the village, I saw the road whiten and harden and
gradually broaden out till the tracks of wheels appeared; and it
went afar to take the young men of Wrellisford into the wide ways
of the earth — to the new West and the mysterious East, and into
 The Sword of Welleran 229

the troubled South.

And that night, when the house was still and sleep was far off,
hushing hamlets and giving ease to cities, my fancy wandered up
that aimless road and came suddenly to Wrellisford. And it seemed
to me that the travelling of so many people for so many years
between Wrellisford and John o’ Groat’s, talking to one another as
they went or muttering alone, had given the road a voice. And it
seemed to me that night that the road spoke to the river by Wrel-
lisford bridge, speaking with the voice of many pilgrims. And the
road said to the river: ‘I rest here. How is it with you?’
And the river, who is always speaking, said: ‘I rest nowhere
from doing the Work of the World. I carry the murmur of inner
lands to the sea, and to the abysses voices of the hills.’
‘It is I,’ said the road, ‘that do the Work of the World, and take
from city to city the rumour of each. There is nothing higher than
Man and the making of cities. What do you do for Man?’
And the river said: ‘Beauty and song are higher than Man. I
carry the news seaward of the first song of the thrush after the
furious retreat of winter northward, and the first timid anemone
learns from me that she is safe and that spring has truly come. Oh
but the song of all the birds in spring is more beautiful than Man,
and the first coming of the hyacinth more delectable than his face!
When spring is fallen upon the days of summer, I carry away with
mournful joy at night petal by petal the rhododendron’s bloom. No
lit procession of purple kings is nigh so fair as that. No beautiful
death of well-beloved men hath such a glory of forlornness. And
I bear far away the pink and white petals of the apple-blossom’s
youth when the laborious time comes for his work in the world
and for the bearing of apples. And I am robed each day and every
night anew with the beauty of heaven, and I make lovely visions
of the trees. But Man! What is Man? In the ancient parliament of
the elder hills, when the grey ones speak together, they say nought
of Man, but concern themselves only with their brethren the stars.
Or when they wrap themselves in purple cloaks at evening, they
lament some old irreparable wrong, or, uttering some mountain
hymn, all mourn the set of sun.’
230 The Sword of Welleran

‘Your beauty,’ said the road, ‘and the beauty of the sky, and of
the rhododendron blossom and of spring, live only in the mind of
Man, and except in the mind of Man the mountains have no voices.
Nothing is beautiful that has not been seen by Man’s eye. Or if
your rhododendron blossom was beautiful for a moment, it soon
withered and was drowned, and spring soon passes away; beauty
can only live on in the mind of Man. I bring thought into the mind
of Man swiftly from distant places every day. I know the Tele-
graph — I know him well; he and I have walked for hundreds of
miles together. There is no work in the world except for Man and
the making of his cities. I take wares to and fro from city to city.’
‘My little stream in the field there,’ said the river, ‘used to make
wares in that house for awhile once.’
‘Ah,’ said the road, ‘I remember, but I brought cheaper ones
from distant cities. Nothing is of any importance but making cities
for Man.’
‘I know so little about him,’ said the river, ‘but I have a great
deal of work to do — I have all this water to send down to the sea;
and then tomorrow or next day all the leaves of Autumn will be
coming this way. It will be very beautiful. The sea is a very, very
wonderful place. I know all about it; I have heard shepherd boys
singing of it, and sometimes before a storm the gulls come up. It
is a place all blue and shining and full of pearls, and has in it coral
islands and isles of spice, and storms and galleons and the bones
of Drake. The sea is much greater than Man. When I come to
the sea, he will know that I have worked well for him. But I must
hurry, for I have much to do. This bridge delays me a little; some
day I will carry it away.’
‘Oh, you must not do that,’ said the road.
‘Oh, not for a long time,’ said the river. ‘Some centuries per-
haps — and I have much to do besides. There is my song to sing,
for instance, and that alone is more beautiful than any noise that
Man makes.’
‘All work is for Man,’ said the road, ‘and for the building of
cities. There is no beauty or romance or mystery in the sea except
for the men that sail abroad upon it, and for those that stay at home
 The Sword of Welleran 231

and dream of them. As for your song, it rings night and morning,
year in, year out, in the ears of men that are born in Wrellisford;
at night it is part of their dreams, at morning it is the voice of day,
and so it becomes part of their souls. But the song is not beautiful
in itself. I take these men with your song in their souls up over the
edge of the valley and a long way off beyond, and I am a strong
and dusty road up there, and they go with your song in their souls
and turn it into music and gladden cities. But nothing is the Work
of the World except work for Man.’
‘I wish I was quite sure about the Work of the World,’ said the
stream; ‘I wish I knew for certain for whom we work. I feel almost
sure that it is for the sea. He is very great and beautiful. I think
that there can be no greater master than the sea. I think that some
day he may be so full of romance and mystery and sound of sheep
bells and murmur of mist-hidden hills, which we streams shall
have brought him, that there will be no more music or beauty left
in the world, and all the world will end; and perhaps the streams
shall gather at the last, we all together, to the sea. Or perhaps the
sea will give us at the last unto each one his own again, giving
back all that he has garnered in the years — the little petals of the
apple-blossom and the mourned ones of the rhododendron, and our
old visions of the trees and sky; so many memories have left the
hills. But who may say? For who knows the tides of the sea?’
‘Be sure that it is all for Man,’ said the road. ‘For Man and the
making of cities.’
Something had come near on utterly silent feet.
‘Peace, peace!’ it said. ‘You disturb the queenly night, who,
having come into this valley, is a guest in my dark halls. Let us
have an end to this discussion.’
It was the spider who spoke.
‘The Work of the World is the making of cities and palaces. But
it is not for Man. What is Man? He only prepares my cities for me,
and mellows them. All his works are ugly, his richest tapestries are
coarse and clumsy. He is a noisy idler. He only protects me from
mine enemy the wind; and the beautiful work in my cities, the
curving outlines and the delicate weavings, is all mine. Ten years
232 The Sword of Welleran

to a hundred it takes to build a city, for five or six hundred more it

mellows, and is prepared for me; then I inhabit it, and hide away
all that is ugly, and draw beautiful lines about it to and fro. There
is nothing so beautiful as cities and palaces; they are the loveliest
places in the world, because they are the stillest, and so most like
the stars. They are noisy at first, for a little, before I come to them;
they have ugly corners not yet rounded off, and coarse tapestries,
and then they become ready for me and my exquisite work, and
are quite silent and beautiful. And there I entertain the regal nights
when they come there jewelled with stars, and all their train of
silence, and regale them with costly dust. Already nods, in a city
that I wot of, a lonely sentinel whose lords are dead, who grows
too old and sleepy to drive away the gathering silence that infests
the streets; tomorrow I go to see if he be still at his post. For me
Babylon was built, and rocky Tyre; and still men build my cities!
All the Work of the World is the making of cities, and all of them I
inherit.’

The Doom of La Traviata

Evening stole up out of mysterious lands and came down on the
streets of Paris, and the things of the day withdrew themselves and
hid away, and the beautiful city was strangely altered, and with it
the hearts of men. And with lights and music, and in silence and in
the dark, the other life arose, the life that knows the night, and dark
cats crept from the houses and moved to silent places, and dim
streets became haunted with dusk shapes. At this hour in a mean
house, near to the Moulin Rouge, La Traviata died; and her death
was brought to her by her own sins, and not by the years of God.
But the soul of La Traviata drifted blindly about the streets where
she had sinned till it struck against the wall of Notre Dame de Par-
is. Thence it rushed upwards, as the sea mist when it beats against
a cliff, and streamed away to Paradise, and was there judged. And
it seemed to me, as I watched from my place of dreaming, when La
Traviata came and stood before the seat of judgment, that clouds
 The Sword of Welleran 233

came rushing up from the far Paradisal hills and gathered together
over the head of God, and became one black cloud; and the clouds
moved swiftly as shadows of the night when a lantern is swung in
the hand, and more and more clouds rushed up, and ever more and
more, and, as they gathered, the cloud a little above the head of
God became no larger, but only grew blacker and blacker. And the
halos of the saints settled lower upon their heads and narrowed and
became pale, and the singing of the choirs of the seraphim faltered
and sunk low, and the converse of the blessed suddenly ceased.
Then a stern look came into the face of God, so that the seraphim
turned away and left Him, and the saints. Then God commanded,
and seven great angels rose up slowly through the clouds that car-
pet Paradise, and there was pity on their faces, and their eyes were
closed. Then God pronounced judgment, and the lights of Para-
dise went out, and the azure crystal windows that look towards the
world, and the windows rouge and verd, became dark and colour-
less, and I saw no more. Presently the seven great angels came out
by one of Heaven’s gates and set their faces Hellwards, and four of
them carried the young soul of La Traviata, and one of them went
on before and one of them followed behind. These six trod with
mighty strides the long and dusty road that is named the Way of
the Damned. But the seventh flew above them all the way, and the
light of the fires of Hell that was hidden from the six by the dust of
that dreadful road flared on the feathers of his breast.
Presently the seven angels, as they swept Hellwards, uttered
speech.
‘She is very young,’ they said; and ‘She is very beautiful,’ they
said; and they looked long at the soul of La Traviata, looking not
at the stains of sin, but at that portion of her soul wherewith she
had loved her sister a long while dead, who flitted now about an
orchard on one of Heaven’s hills with a low sunlight ever on her
face, who communed daily with the saints when they passed that
way going to bless the dead from Heaven’s utmost edge. And as
they looked long at the beauty of all that remained beautiful in
her soul they said: ‘It is but a young soul;’ and they would have
taken her to one of Heaven’s hills, and would there have given her
234 The Sword of Welleran

a cymbal and a dulcimer, but they knew that the Paradisal gates
were clamped and barred against La Traviata. And they would
have taken her to a valley in the world where there were a great
many flowers and a loud sound of streams, where birds were sing-
ing always and church bells rang on Sabbaths, only this they durst
not do. So they swept onwards nearer and nearer Hell. But when
they were come quite close and the glare was on their faces, and
they saw the gates already divide and prepare to open outwards,
they said: ‘Hell is a terrible city, and she is tired of cities;’ then
suddenly they dropped her by the side of the road, and wheeled
and flew away. But into a great pink flower that was horrible and
lovely grew the soul of La Traviata; and it had in it two eyes but no
eyelids, and it stared constantly into the faces of all the passers-by
that went along the dusty road to Hell; and the flower grew in the
glare of the lights of Hell, and withered but could not die; only, one
petal turned back towards the heavenly hills as an ivy leaf turns
outwards to the day, and in the soft and silvery light of Paradise
it withered not nor faded, but heard at times the commune of the
saints coming murmuring from the distance, and sometimes caught
the scent of orchards wafted from the heavenly hills, and felt a
faint breeze cool it every evening at the hour when the saints to
Heaven’s edge went forth to bless the dead.
But the Lord arose with His sword, and scattered His disobedi-
ent angels as a thresher scatters chaff.

On The Dry Land

Over the marshes hung the gorgeous night with all his wander-
ing bands of nomad stars, and his whole host of still ones blinked
and watched.
Over the safe dry land to eastward, grey and cold, the first clear
pallor of dawn was coming up above the heads of the immortal
gods.
Then, as they neared at last the safety of the dry land, Love
looked at the man whom he had led for so long through the marsh-
 The Sword of Welleran 235

es, and saw that his hair was white, for it was shining in the pallor
of the dawn.
Then they stepped together on to the land, and the old man sat
down weary on the grass, for they had wandered in the marshes
for many years; and the light of the grey dawn widened above the
heads of the gods.
And Love said to the old man, ‘I will leave you now.’
And the old man made no answer, but wept softly.
Then Love was grieved in his little careless heart, and he said:
‘You must not be sorry that I go, nor yet regret me, nor care for me
at all.
‘I am a very foolish child, and was never kind to you, nor friend-
ly. I never cared for your great thoughts, or for what was good in
you, but perplexed you by leading you up and down the perilous
marshes. And I was so heartless that, had you perished where I led
you, it would have been nought to me, and I only stayed with you
because you were good to play with.
‘And I am cruel and altogether worthless and not such a one as
any should be sorry for when I go, or one to be regretted, or even
cared for at all.’
And still the old man spoke not, but wept softly; and Love
grieved bitterly in his kindly heart.
And Love said: ‘Because I am so small my strength has been
concealed from you, and the evil that I have done. But my strength
is great, and I have used it unjustly. Often I pushed you from the
causeway through the marshes, and cared not if you drowned. Of-
ten I mocked you, and caused others to mock you. And often I led
you among those that hated me, and laughed when they revenged
themselves upon you.
‘So weep not, for there is no kindness in my heart, but only
murder and foolishness, and I am no companion for one so wise
as you, but am so frivolous and silly that I laughed at your noble
dreams and hindered all your deeds. See now, you have found me
out, and now you will send me away, and here you will live at ease,
and, undisturbed, have noble dreams of the immortal gods.
‘See now, here is dawn and safety, and there is darkness and
236 The Sword of Welleran

peril.’
Still the old man wept softly.
Then Love said: ‘Is it thus with you?’ and his voice was grave
now and quiet. ‘Are you so troubled? Old friend of so many
years, there is grief in my heart for you. Old friend of perilous
ventures, I must leave you now. But I will send my brother soon
to you — my little brother Death. And he will come up out of the
marshes to you, and will not forsake you, but will be true to you as
I have not been true.’
And dawn grew brighter over the immortal gods, and the old
man smiled through his tears, which glistened wondrously in
the increasing light. But Love went down to the night and to the
marshes, looking backward over his shoulder as he went, and smil-
ing beautifully about his eyes. And in the marshes whereunto he
went, in the midst of the gorgeous night, and under the wandering
bands of nomad stars, rose shouts of laughter and the sounds of the
dance.
And after a while, with his face towards the morning, Death out
of the marshes came up tall and beautiful, and with a faint smile
shadowy on his lips, and lifted in his arms the lonely man, being
gentle with him, and, murmuring with his low deep voice an an-
cient song, carried him to the morning to the gods.
 A Dreamer’s Tales
1910

Preface
I hope for this book that it may come into the hands of those that
were kind to my others and that it may not disappoint them.
— Lord Dunsany
238 A Dreamer’s Tales

Poltarnees, Beholder Of Ocean

Toldees, Mondath, Arizim, these are the Inner Lands, the lands
whose sentinels upon their borders do not behold the sea. Beyond
them to the east there lies a desert, for ever untroubled by man: all
yellow it is, and spotted with shadows of stones, and Death is in
it, like a leopard lying in the sun. To the south they are bounded
by magic, to the west by a mountain, and to the north by the voice
and anger of the Polar wind. Like a great wall is the mountain to
the west. It comes up out of the distance and goes down into the
distance again, and it is named Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean. To
the northward red rocks, smooth and bare of soil, and without any
speck of moss or herbage, slope up to the very lips of the Polar
wind, and there is nothing else there by the noise of his anger.
Very peaceful are the Inner Lands, and very fair are their cities,
and there is no war among them, but quiet and ease. And they have
no enemy but age, for thirst and fever lie sunning themselves out
in the mid-desert, and never prowl into the Inner Lands. And the
ghouls and ghosts, whose highway is the night, are kept in the
south by the boundary of magic. And very small are all their pleas-
ant cities, and all men are known to one another therein, and bless
one another by name as they meet in the streets. And they have a
broad, green way in every city that comes in out of some vale or
wood or downland, and wanders in and out about the city between
the houses and across the streets, and the people walk along it
never at all, but every year at her appointed time Spring walks
along it from the flowery lands, causing the anemone to bloom
on the green way and all the early joys of hidden woods, or deep,
secluded vales, or triumphant downlands, whose heads lift up so
proudly, far up aloof from cities.
Sometimes waggoners or shepherds walk along this way, they
that have come into the city from over cloudy ridges, and the
townsmen hinder them not, for there is a tread that troubleth the
grass and a tread that troubleth it not, and each man in his own
heart knoweth which tread he hath. And in the sunlit spaces of the
weald and in the wold’s dark places, afar from the music of cities
 A Dreamer’s Tales 239

and from the dance of the cities afar, they make there the music
of the country places and dance the country dance. Amiable, near
and friendly appears to these men the sun, and as he is genial to
them and tends their younger vines, so they are kind to the little
woodland things and any rumour of the fairies or old legend. And
when the light of some little distant city makes a slight flush upon
the edge of the sky, and the happy golden windows of the home-
steads stare gleaming into the dark, then the old and holy figure
of Romance, cloaked even to the face, comes down out of hilly
woodlands and bids dark shadows to rise and dance, and sends the
forest creatures forth to prowl, and lights in a moment in her bower
of grass the little glowworm’s lamp, and brings a hush down over
the grey lands, and out of it rises faintly on far-off hills the voice of
a lute. There are not in the world lands more prosperous and happy
than Toldees, Mondath, Arizim.
From these three little kingdoms that are named the Inner Lands
the young men stole constantly away. One by one they went, and
no one knew why they went save that they had a longing to behold
the Sea. Of this longing they spoke little, but a young man would
become silent for a few days, and then, one morning very early, he
would slip away and slowly climb Poltarnee’s difficult slope, and
having attained the top pass over and never return. A few stayed
behind in the Inner Lands and became the old men, but none that
had ever climbed Poltarnees from the very earliest times had ever
come back again. Many had gone up Poltarnees sworn to return.
Once a king sent all his courtiers, one by one, to report the mystery
to him, and then went himself; none ever returned.
Now, it was the wont of the folk of the Inner Lands to worship
rumours and legends of the Sea, and all that their prophets discov-
ered of the Sea was writ in a sacred book, and with deep devotion
on days of festival or mourning read in the temples by the priests.
Now, all their temples lay open to the west, resting upon pillars,
that the breeze from the Sea might enter them, and they lay open
on pillars to the east that the breezes of the Sea might not be hin-
dered by pass onward wherever the Sea list. And this is the legend
that they had of the Sea, whom none in the Inner Lands had ever
240 A Dreamer’s Tales

beholden. They say that the Sea is a river heading towards Her-
cules, and they say that he touches against the edge of the world,
and that Poltarnees looks upon him. They say that all the worlds
of heaven go bobbing on this river and are swept down with the
stream, and that Infinity is thick and furry with forests through
which the river in his course sweeps on with all the worlds of
heaven. Among the colossal trunks of those dark trees, the small-
est fronds of whose branches are man nights, there walk the gods.
And whenever its thirst, glowing in space like a great sun, comes
upon the beast, the tiger of the gods creeps down to the river to
drink. And the tiger of the gods drinks his fill loudly, whelming
worlds the while, and the level of the river sinks between its banks
ere the beast’s thirst is quenched and ceases to glow like a sun. And
many worlds thereby are heaped up dry and stranded, and the gods
walk not among them evermore, because they are hard to their
feet. These are the worlds that have no destiny, whose people know
no god. And the river sweeps onwards ever. And the name of the
River is Oriathon, but men call it Ocean. This is the Lower Faith
of the Inner Lands. And there is a Higher Faith which is not told
to all. Oriathon sweeps on through the forests of Infinity and all at
once falls roaring over an Edge, whence Time has long ago re-
called his hours to fight in his war with the gods; and falls unlit by
the flash of nights and days, with his flood unmeasured by miles,
into the deeps of nothing.
Now as the centuries went by and the one way by which a man
could climb Poltarnees became worn with feet, more and more
men surmounted it, not to return. And still they knew not in the
Inner Lands upon what mystery Poltarnees looked. For on a still
day and windless, while men walked happily about their beauti-
ful streets or tended flocks in the country, suddenly the west wind
would bestir himself and come in from the Sea. And he would
come cloaked and grey and mournful and carry to someone the
hungry cry of the Sea calling out for bones of men. And he that
heard it would move restlessly for some hours, and at last would
rise suddenly, irresistibly up, setting his face to Poltarnees, and
would say, as is the custom of those lands when men part briefly,
 A Dreamer’s Tales 241

“Till a man’s heart remembereth,” which means “Farewell for a

while”; but those that loved him, seeing his eyes on Poltarnees,
would answer sadly, “Till the gods forget,” which means “Fare-
well.”
Now the king of Arizim had a daughter who played with the
wild wood flowers, and with the fountains in her father’s court,
and with the little blue heaven-birds that came to her doorway
in the winter to shelter from the snow. And she was more beauti-
ful than the wild wood flowers, or than all the fountains in her
father’s court, or than the blue heaven-birds in their full winter
plumage when they shelter from the snow. The old wise kings of
Mondath and of Toldees saw her once as she went lightly down
the little paths of her garden, and turning their gaze into the mists
of thought, pondered the destiny of their Inner Lands. And they
watched her closely by the stately flowers, and standing alone in
the sunlight, and passing and repassing the strutting purple birds
that the king’s fowlers had brought from Asagéhon. When she was
of the age of fifteen years the King of Mondath called a council of
kings. And there met with him the kings of Toldees and Arizim.
And the King of Mondath in his Council said:
“The call of the unappeased and hungry Sea (and at the word
‘Sea’ the three kings bowed their heads) lures every year out of
our happy kingdoms more and more of our men, and still we know
not the mystery of the Sea, and no devised oath has brought one
man back. Now thy daughter, Arizim, is lovelier than the sunlight,
and lovelier than those stately flowers of thine that stand so tall
in her garden, and hath more grace and beauty than those strange
birds that the venturous fowlers bring in creaking wagons out of
Asagéhon, whose feathers are alternate purple and white. Now, he
that shall love thy daughter, Hilnaric, whoever he shall be, is the
man to climb Poltarnees and return, as none hath ever before, and
tell us upon what Poltarnees looks; for it may be that they daughter
is more beautiful than the Sea.”
Then from his Seat of Council arose the King of Arizim. He
said: “I fear that thou hast spoken blasphemy against the Sea, and
I have a dread that ill will come of it. Indeed I had not thought she
242 A Dreamer’s Tales

was so fair. It is such a short while ago that she was quite a small
child with her hair still unkempt and not yet attired in the manner
of princesses, and she would go up into the wild woods unattended
and come back with her robes unseemly and all torn, and would
not take reproof with a humble spirit, but made grimaces even in
my marble court all set about with fountains.”
Then said the King of Toldees:
“Let us watch more closely and let us see the Princess Hilnaric
in the season of the orchard-bloom when the great birds go by
that know the Sea, to rest in our inland places; and if she be more
beautiful than the sunrise over our folded kingdoms when all the
orchards bloom, it may be that she is more beautiful than the Sea.”
And the King of Arizim said:
“I fear this is terrible blasphemy, yet will I do as you have de-
cided in council.”
And the season of the orchard-bloom appeared. One night the
King of Arizim called his daughter forth on his outer balcony of
marble. And the moon was rising huge and round and holy over
dark woods, and all the fountains were singing to the night. And
the moon touched the marble palace gables, and they glowed in the
land. And the moon touched the heads of all the fountains, and the
grey columns broke into fairy lights. And the moon left the dark
ways of the forest and lit the whole white palace and its fountains
and shone on the forehead of the Princess, and the palace of Arizim
glowed afar, and the fountains became columns of gleaming jewels
and song. And the moon made a music at its rising, but it fell a lit-
tle short of mortal ears. And Hilnaric stood there wondering, clad
in white, with the moonlight shining on her forehead; and watching
her from the shadows on the terrace stood the kings of Mondath
and Toldees. They said.
“She is more beautiful than the moonrise.” And the season of the
orchard-bloom appeared. One night the King of Arizim called his
daughter forth on his outer balcony of marble. And the moon was
rising huge and round and holy over dark woods, and all the foun-
tains were singing to the night. And the moon touched the marble
palace gables, and they glowed in the land. And the moon touched
 A Dreamer’s Tales 243

the heads of all the fountains, and the grey columns broke into
fairy lights. And the moon left the dark ways of the forest and lit
the whole white palace and its fountains and shone on the forehead
of the Princess, and the palace of Arizim glowed afar, and the foun-
tains became columns of gleaming jewels and song. And the moon
made a music at its rising, but it fell a little short of mortal ears.
And Hilnaric stood there wondering, clad in white, with the moon-
light shining on her forehead; and watching her from the shadows
on the terrace stood the kings of Mondath and Toldees. They said:
“She is more beautiful than the moonrise.” And on another day
the King of Arizim bade his daughter forth at dawn, and they stood
again upon the balcony. And the sun came up over a world of
orchards, and the sea-mists went back over Poltarnees to the Sea;
little wild voices arose in all the thickets, the voices of the foun-
tains began to die, and the song arose, in all the marble temples, of
the birds that are sacred to the Sea. And Hilnaric stood there, still
glowing with dreams of heaven.
“She is more beautiful,” said the kings, “than morning.”
Yet one more trial they made of Hilnaric’s beauty, for they
watched her on the terraces at sunset ere yet the petals of the
orchards had fallen, and all along the edge of neighbouring woods
the rhododendron was blooming with the azalea. And the sun
went down under craggy Poltarnees, and the sea-mist poured over
his summit inland. And the marble temples stood up clear in the
evening, but films of twilight were drawn between the mountain
and the city. Then from the Temple ledges and eaves of palaces
the bats fell headlong downwards, then spread their wings and
floated up and down through darkening ways; lights came blinking
out in golden windows, men cloaked themselves against the grey
sea-mist, the sound of small songs arose, and the face of Hilnaric
became a resting-place for mysteries and dreams.
“Than all these things,” said the kings, “she is more lovely: but
who can say whether she is lovelier than the Sea?”
Prone in a rhododendron thicket at the edge of the palace lawns
a hunter had waited since the sun went down. Near to him was a
deep pool where the hyacinths grew and strange flowers floated
244 A Dreamer’s Tales

upon it with broad leaves; and there the great bull gariachs came
down to drink by starlight; and, waiting there for the gariachs to
come, he saw the white form of the Princess leaning on her bal-
cony. Before the stars shone out or the bulls came down to drink he
left his lurking-place and moved closer to the palace to see more
nearly the Princess. The palace lawns were full of untrodden dew,
and everything was still when he came across them, holding his
great spear. In the farthest corner of the terraces the three old kings
were discussing the beauty of Hilnaric and the destiny of the Inner
Lands. Moving lightly, with a hunter’s tread, the watcher by the
pool came very near, even in the still evening, before the Princess
saw him. When he saw her closely he exclaimed suddenly:
“She must be more beautiful than the Sea.”
When the Princess turned and saw his garb and his great spear
she knew that he was a hunter of gariachs.
When the three kings heard the young man exclaim they said
softly to one another:
“This must be the man.”
Then they revealed themselves to him, and spoke to him to try
him. They said:
“Sir, you have spoken blasphemy against the Sea.”
And the young man muttered:
“She is more beautiful than the Sea.”
And the kings said:
“We are older than you and wiser, and know that nothing is more
beautiful than the Sea.”
And the young man took off the gear of his head, and became
downcast, and he knew that he spake with kings, yet he answered:
“By this spear, she is more beautiful than the Sea.”
And all the while the Princess stared at him, knowing him to be
a hunter of gariachs.
Then the king of Arizim said to the watcher by the pool:
“If thou wilt go up Poltarnees and come back, as none have
come, and report to us what lure or magic is in the Sea, we will
pardon thy blasphemy, and thou shalt have the Princess to wife and
sit among the Council of Kings.”
 A Dreamer’s Tales 245

And gladly thereunto the young man consented. And the Prin-
cess spoke to him, and asked him his name. And he told her that
his name was Athelvok, and great joy arose in him at the sound of
her voice. And to the three kings he promised to set out on the third
day to scale the slope of Poltarnees and to return again, and this
was the oath by which they bound him to return:
“I swear by the Sea that bears the worlds away, by the river of
Oriathon, which men call Ocean, and by the gods and their tiger,
and by the doom of the worlds, that I will return again to the Inner
Lands, having beheld the Sea.”
And that oath he swore with solemnity that very night in one
of the temples of the Sea, but the three kings trusted more to the
beauty of Hilnaric even than to the power of the oath.
The next day Athelvok came to the palace of Arizim with the
morning, over the fields to the East and out of the country of
Toldees, and Hilnaric came out along her balcony and met him on
the terraces. And she asked him if he had ever slain a gariach, and
he said that he had slain three, and then he told her how he had
killed his first down by the pool in the wood. For he had taken his
father’s spear and gone down to the edge of the pool, and had lain
under the azaleas there waiting for the stars to shine, by whose
first light the gariachs go to the pools to drink; and he had gone
too early and had had long to wait, and the passing hours seemed
longer than they were. And all the birds came in that home at
night, and the bat was abroad, and the hour of the duck went by,
and still no gariach came down to the pool; and Athelvok felt sure
that none would come. And just as this grew to a certainty in his
mind the thicket parted noiselessly and a huge bull gariach stood
facing him on the edge of the water, and his great horns swept out
sideways from his head, and at the ends curved upwards, and were
four strides in width from tip to tip. And he had not seen Athelvok,
for the great bull was on the far side of the little pool, and Athel-
vok could not creep round to him for fear of meeting the wind (for
the gariachs, who can see little in the dark forests, rely on hearing
and smell). But he devised swiftly in his mind while the bull stood
there with head erect just twenty strides from him across the water.
246 A Dreamer’s Tales

And the bull sniffed the wind cautiously and listened, then lowered
his great head down to the pool and drank. At that instant Athelvok
leapt into the water and shot forward through its weedy depths
among the stems of the strange flowers that floated upon broad
leaves on the surface. And Athelvok kept his spear out straight be-
fore him, and the fingers of his left hand he held rigid and straight,
not pointing upwards, and so did not come to the surface, but was
carried onward by the strength of his spring and passed unentan-
gled through the stems of the flowers. When Athelvok jumped into
the water the bull must have thrown his head up, startled at the
splash, then he would have listened and have sniffed the air, and
neither hearing nor scenting any danger he must have remained
rigid for some moments, for it was in that attitude that Athelvok
found him as he emerged breathless at his feet. And, striking at
once, Athelvok drove the spear into his throat before the head and
the terrible horns came down. But Athelvok had clung to one of
the great horns, and had been carried at terrible speed through the
rhododendron bushes until the gariach fell, but rose at once again,
and died standing up, still struggling, drowned in its own blood.
But to Hilnaric listening it was as though one of the heroes of
old time had come back again in the full glory of his legendary
youth.
And long time they went up and down the terraces, saying those
things which were said before and since, and which lips shall yet
be made to say again. And above them stood Poltarnees beholding
the Sea.
And the day came when Athelvok should go. And Hilnaric said
to him:
“Will you not indeed most surely come back again, having just
looked over the summit of Poltarnees?”
Athelvok answered: “I will indeed come back, for thy voice is
more beautiful than the hymn of the priests when they chant and
praise the Sea, and though many tributary seas ran down into Oria-
thon and he and all the others poured their beauty into one pool
below me, yet would I return swearing that thou were fairer than
they.”
 A Dreamer’s Tales 247

And Hilnaric answered:

“The wisdom of my heart tells me, or old knowledge or proph-
ecy, or some strange lore, that I shall never hear thy voice again.
And for this I give thee my forgiveness.”
But he, repeating the oath that he had sworn, set out, looking
often backwards until the slope became to step and his face was set
to the rock. It was in the morning that he started, and he climbed
all the day with little rest, where every foot-hole was smooth with
many feet. Before he reached the top the sun disappeared from
him, and darker and darker grew the Inner Lands. Then he pushed
on so as to see before dark whatever thing Poltarnees had to show.
The dusk was deep over the Inner Lands, and the lights of cities
twinkled through the sea-mist when he came to Poltarnees’s sum-
mit, and the sun before him was not yet gone from the sky.
And there below him was the old wrinkled Sea, smiling and
murmuring song. And he nursed little ships with gleaming sails,
and in his hands were old regretted wrecks, and mast all studded
over with golden nails that he had rent in anger out of beautiful
galleons. And the glory of the sun was among the surges as they
brought driftwood out of isles of spice, tossing their golden heads.
And the grey currents crept away to the south like companion-
less serpents that love something afar with a restless, deadly love.
And the whole plain of water glittering with late sunlight, and the
surges and the currents and the white sails of ships were all togeth-
er like the face of a strange new god that has looked at a man for
the first time in the eyes at the moment of his death; and Athelvok,
looking on the wonderful Sea, knew why it was that the dead never
return, for there is something that the dead feel and know, and the
living would never understand even though the dead should come
and speak to them about it. And there was the Sea smiling at him,
glad with the glory of the sun. And there was a haven there for
homing ships, and a sunlit city stood upon its marge, and people
walked about the streets of it clad in the unimagined merchandise
of far sea-bordering lands.
An easy slope of loose rock went from the top of Poltarnees to
the shore of the Sea.
248 A Dreamer’s Tales

For a long while Athelvok stood there regretfully, knowing that

there had come something into his soul that no one in the Inner
Lands could understand, where the thoughts of their minds had
gone no farther than the three little kingdoms. Then, looking long
upon the wandering ships, and the marvelous merchandise from
alien lands, and the unknown colour that wreathed the brows of the
Sea, he turned his face to the darkness and the Inner Lands.
At that moment the Sea sang a dirge at sunset for all the harm
that he had done in anger and all the ruin wrought on adventurous
ships; and there were tears in the voice of the tyrannous Sea, for
he had loved the galleons that he had overwhelmed, and he called
all men to him and all living things that he might make amends,
because he had loved the bones that he had strewn afar. And
Athelvok turned and set one foot upon the crumbled slope, and
then another, and walked a little way to be nearer to the Sea, and
then a dream came upon him and he felt that men had wronged the
lovely Sea because he had been angry a little, because he had been
sometimes cruel; he felt that there was trouble among the tides of
the Sea because he had loved the galleons who were dead. Still he
walked on and the crumbled stones rolled with him, and just as
the twilight faded and a star appeared he came to the golden shore,
and walked on till the surges were about his knees, and he heard
the prayer-like blessings of the Sea. Long he stood thus, while the
stars came out above him and shone again in the surges; more stars
came wheeling in their courses up from the Sea, lights twinkled out
through all the haven city, lanterns were slung from the ships, the
purple night burned on; and Earth, to the eyes of the gods as they
sat afar, glowed as with one flame. Then Athelvok went into the
haven city; there he met many who had left the Inner Lands before
him; none of them wished to return to the people who had not seen
the Sea; many of them had forgotten the three little kingdoms, and
it was rumoured that one man, who had once tried to return, had
found the shifting, crumbled slope impossible to climb.
Hilnaric never married. But her dowry was set aside to build a
temple wherein men curse the ocean.
Once every year, with solemn rite and ceremony, they curse the
 A Dreamer’s Tales 249

tides of the Sea; and the moon looks in and hates them.

Blagdaross
On a waste place strewn with bricks in the outskirts of a town
twilight was falling. A star or two appeared over the smoke, and
distant windows lit mysterious lights. The stillness deepened and
the loneliness. Then all the outcast things that are silent by day
found voices.
An old cork spoke first. He said: “I grew in Andalusian woods,
but never listened to the idle songs of Spain. I only grew strong in
the sunlight waiting for my destiny. One day the merchants came
and took us all away and carried us all along the shore of the sea,
piled high on the backs of donkeys, and in a town by the sea they
made me into the shape that I am now. One day they sent me north-
ward to Provence, and there I fulfilled my destiny. For they set me
as a guard over the bubbling wine, and I faithfully stood sentinel
for twenty years. For the first few years in the bottle that I guarded
the wine slept, dreaming of Provence; but as the years went on he
grew stronger and stronger, until at last whenever a man went by
the wind would put out all his might against me, saying, ‘Let me
go free; let me go free!’ And every year his strength increased, and
he grew more clamourous when men went by, but never availed
to hurl me from my post. But when I had powerfully held him
for twenty years they brought him to the banquet and took me
from my post, and the wine arose rejoicing and leapt through the
veins of men and exalted their souls within them till they stood
up in their places and sang Provencal songs. But me they cast
away — me that had been sentinel for twenty years, and was still as
strong and staunch as when first I went on guard. Now I am an out-
cast in a cold northern city, who once have known the Andalusian
skies and guarded long ago Provencal suns that swam in the heart
of the rejoicing wine.”
An unstruck match that somebody had dropped spoke next. “I
am a child of the sun,” he said, “and an enemy of cities; there is
250 A Dreamer’s Tales

more in my heart than you know of. I am a brother of Etna and

Stromboli; I have fires lurking in me that will one day rise up beau-
tiful and strong. We will not go into servitude on any hearth nor
work machines for our food, but we will take out own food where
we find it on that day when we are strong. There are wonderful
children in my heart whose faces shall be more lively than the rain-
bow; they shall make a compact with the North wind, and he shall
lead them forth; all shall be black behind them and black above
them, and there shall be nothing beautiful in the world but them;
they shall seize upon the earth and it shall be theirs, and nothing
shall stop them but our old enemy the sea.”
Then an old broken kettle spoke, and said: “I am the friend of
cities. I sit among the slaves upon the hearth, the little flames that
have been fed with coal. When the slaves dance behind the iron
bars I sit in the middle of the dance and sing and make our masters
glad. And I make songs about the comfort of the cat, and about the
malice that is towards her in the heart of the dog, and about the
crawling of the baby, and about the ease that is in the lord of the
house when we brew the good brown tea; and sometimes when the
house is very warm and slaves and masters are glad, I rebuke the
hostile winds that prowl about the world.”
And then there spoke the piece of an old cord. “I was made in a
place of doom, and doomed men made my fibres, working with-
out hope. Therefore there came a grimness into my heart, so that I
never let anything go free when once I was set to bind it. Many a
thing have I bound relentlessly for months and years; for I used to
come coiling into warehouses where the great boxes lay all open
to the air, and one of them would be suddenly closed up, and my
fearful strength would be set on him like accurse, and if his tim-
bers groaned when first I seized them, or if they creaked aloud in
the lonely night, thinking of woodlands out of which they came,
then I only gripped them tighter still, for the poor useless hate is
in my soul of those that made me in the place of doom. Yet, for all
the things that my prison-clutch has held, the last work that I did
was to set something free. I lay idle one night in the gloom on the
warehouse floor. Nothing stirred there, and even the spider slept.
 A Dreamer’s Tales 251

Towards midnight a great flock of echoes suddenly leapt up from

the wooden planks and circled round the roof. A man was coming
towards me all alone. And as he came his soul was reproaching
him, and I saw that there was a great trouble between the man and
his soul, for his soul would not let him be, but went on reproaching
him.
“Then the man saw me and said, ‘This at least will not fail me.’
When I heard him say this about me, I determined that whatever
he might require of me it should be done to the uttermost. And as
I made this determination in my unfaltering heart, he picked me
up and stood on an empty box that I should have bound on the
morrow, and tied one end of me to a dark rafter; and the knot was
carelessly tied, because his soul was reproaching him all the while
continually and giving him no ease. Then he made the other end
of me into a noose, but when the man’s soul saw this it stopped
reproaching the man, and cried out to him hurriedly, and besought
him to be at peace with it and to do nothing sudden; but the man
went on with his work, and put the noose down over his face and
underneath his chin, and the soul screamed horribly.
“Then the man kicked the box away with his foot, and the mo-
ment he did this I knew that my strength was not great enough to
hold him; but I remembered that he had said I would not fail him,
and I put all my grim vigour into my fibres and held by sheer will.
Then the soul shouted to me to give way, but I said:
“‘No; you vexed the man.’
“Then it screamed for me to leave go of the rafter, and already
I was slipping, for I only held on to it by a careless knot, but I
gripped with my prison grip and said:
“‘You vexed the man.’
“And very swiftly it said other things to me, but I answered not;
and at last the soul that vexed the man that had trusted me flew
away and left him at peace. I was never able to bind things any
more, for every one of my fibres was worn and wrenched, and even
my relentless heart was weakened by the struggle. Very soon after-
wards I was thrown out here. I have done my work.”
So they spoke among themselves, but all the while there loomed
252 A Dreamer’s Tales

above them the form of an old rocking-horse complaining bit-

terly. He said: “I am Blagdaross. Woe is me that I should lie now
an outcast among these worthy but little people. Alas! for the days
that are gathered, and alas for the Great One that was a master and
a soul to me, whose spirit is now shrunken and can never know me
again, and no more ride abroad on knightly quests. I was Bucepha-
lus when he was Alexander, and carried him victorious as far as
Ind. I encountered dragons with him when he was St. George, I
was the horse of Roland fighting for Christendom, and was often
Rosinante. I fought in tournays and went errant upon quests, and
met Ulysses and the heroes and the fairies. Or late in the evening,
just before the lamps in the nursery were put out, he would sud-
denly mount me, and we would gallop through Africa. There we
would pass by night through tropic forests, and come upon dark
rivers sweeping by, all gleaming with the eyes of crocodiles, where
the hippopotamus floated down with the stream, and mysterious
craft loomed suddenly out of the dark and furtively passed away.
And when we had passed through the forest lit by the fireflies we
would come to the open plains, and gallop onwards with scarlet
flamingoes flying along beside us through the lands of dusky kings,
with golden crowns upon their heads and scepters in their hands,
who came running out of their palaces to see us pass. Then I would
wheel suddenly, and the dust flew up from my four hooves as I
turned and we galloped home again, and my master was put to bed.
And again he would ride abroad on another day till we came to
magical fortresses guarded by wizardry and overthrew the dragons
at the gate, and ever came back with a princess fairer than the sea.
“But my master began to grow larger in his body and smaller in
his soul, and then he rode more seldom upon quests. At last he saw
gold and never came again, and I was cast out here among these
little people.”
But while the rocking-horse was speaking two boys stole away,
unnoticed by their parents, from a house on the edge of the waste
place, and were coming across it looking for adventures. One of
them carried a broom, and when he saw the rocking-horse he said
nothing, but broke off the handle from the broom and thrust it be-
 A Dreamer’s Tales 253

tween his braces and his shirt on the left side. Then he mounted the
rocking-horse, and drawing forth the broomstick, which was sharp
and spiky at the end, said, “Saladin is in this desert with all his py-
jamas, and I am Coeur de Lion.” After a while the other boy said:
“Now let me kill Saladin too.” But Blagdaross in his wooden heart,
that exulted with thoughts of battle, said: “I am Blagdaross yet!”

The Madness Of Andelsprutz

I first saw the city of Andelsprutz on an afternoon in spring. The
day was full of sunshine as I came by the way of the fields, and all
that morning I had said, “There will be sunlight on it when I see
for the first time the beautiful conquered city whose fame has so
often made for me lovely dreams.” Suddenly I saw its fortifications
lifting out of the fields, and behind them stood its belfries. I went
in by a gate and saw its houses and streets, and a great disappoint-
ment came upon me. For there is an air about a city, and it has a
way with it, whereby a man may recognized one from another at
once. There are cities full of happiness and cities full of pleasure,
and cities full of gloom. There are cities with their faces to heaven,
and some with their faces to earth; some have a way of looking at
the past and others look at the future; some notice you if you come
among them, others glance at you, others let you go by. Some love
the cities that are their neighbours, others are dear to the plains and
to the heath; some cities are bare to the wind, others have purple
cloaks and others brown cloaks, and some are clad in white. Some
tell the old tale of their infancy, with others it is secret; some cit-
ies sing and some mutter, some are angry, and some have broken
hearts, and each city has her way of greeting Time.
I had said: “I will see Andelsprutz arrogant with her beauty,” and
I had said: “I will see her weeping over her conquest.”
I had said: “She will sing songs to me,” and “she will be reti-
cent,” “she will be all robed,” and “she will be bare but splendid.”
But the windows of Andelsprutz in her houses looked vacantly
over the plains like the eyes of a dead madman. At the hour her
254 A Dreamer’s Tales

chimes sounded unlovely and discordant, some of them were out

of tune, and the bells of some were cracked, her roofs were bald
and without moss. At evening no pleasant rumour arose in her
streets. When the lamps were lit in the houses no mystical flood
of light stole out into the dusk, you merely saw that there were
lighted lamps; Andelsprutz had no way with her and no air about
her. When the night fell and the blinds were all drawn down, then
I perceived what I had not thought in the daylight. I knew then that
Andelsprutz was dead.
I saw a fair-haired man who drank beer in a café, and I said to
him:
“Why is the city of Andelsprutz quite dead, and her soul gone
hence?”
He answered: “Cities do not have souls and there is never any
life in bricks.”
And I said to him: “Sir, you have spoken truly.”
And I asked the same question of another man, and he gave me
the same answer, and I thanked him for his courtesy. And I saw a
man of a more slender build, who had black hair, and channels in
his cheeks for tears to run in, and I said to him:
“Why is Andelsprutz quite dead, and when did her soul go
hence?”
And he answered: “Andelsprutz hoped too much. For thirty
years would she stretch out her arms toward the land of Akla every
night, to Mother Akla from whom she had been stolen. Every night
she would be hoping and sighing, and stretching out her arms to
Mother Akla. At midnight, once a year, on the anniversary of the
terrible day, Akla would send spies to lay a wreath against the
walls of Andelsprutz. She could do no more. And on this night,
once in every year, I used to weep, for weeping was the mood of
the city that nursed me. Every night while other cities slept did
Andelsprutz sit brooding here and hoping, till thirty wreaths lay
mouldering by her walls, and still the armies of Akla could not
come.
“But after she had hoped so long, and on the night that faith-
ful spies had brought her thirtieth wreath, Andelsprutz went sud-
 A Dreamer’s Tales 255

denly mad. All the bells clanged hideously in the belfries, horses
bolted in the streets, the dogs all howled, the stolid conquerors
awoke and turned in their beds and slept again; and I saw the grey
shadowy form of Andelsprutz rise up, decking her hair with the
phantasms of cathedrals, and stride away from her city. And the
great shadowy form that was the soul of Andelsprutz went away
muttering to the mountains, and there I followed her — for had she
not been my nurse? Yes, I went away alone into the mountains,
and for three days, wrapped in a cloak, I slept in their misty soli-
tudes. I had no food to eat, and to drink I had only the water of the
mountain streams. By day no living thing was near to me, and I
heard nothing but the noise of the wind, and the mountain streams
roaring. But for three nights I heard all round me on the mountain
the sounds of a great city: I saw the lights of tall cathedral win-
dows flash momentarily on the peaks, and at times the glimmering
lantern of some fortress patrol. And I saw the huge misty outline
of the soul of Andelsprutz sitting decked with her ghostly cathe-
drals, speaking to herself, with her eyes fixed before her in a mad
stare, telling of ancient wars. And her confused speech for all those
nights upon the mountain was sometimes the voice of traffic, and
then of church bells, and then of bugles, but oftenest it was the
voice of red war; and it was all incoherent, and she was quite mad.
“The third night it rained heavily all night long, but I stayed up
there to watch the soul of my native city. And she still sat staring
straight before her, raving; but here voice was gentler now, there
were more chimes in it, and occasional song. Midnight passed, and
the rain still swept down on me, and still the solitudes of the moun-
tain were full of the mutterings of the poor mad city. And the hours
after midnight came, the cold hours wherein sick men die.
“Suddenly I was aware of great shapes moving in the rain, and
heard the sound of voices that were not of my city nor yet of any
that I ever knew. And presently I discerned, though faintly, the
souls of a great concourse of cities, all bending over Andelsprutz
and comforting her, and the ravines of the mountains roared that
night with the voices of cities that had lain still for centuries. For
there came the soul of Camelot that had so long ago forsaken Usk;
256 A Dreamer’s Tales

and there was Ilion, all girt with towers, still cursing the sweet
face of ruinous Helen; I saw there Babylon and Persepolis, and the
bearded face of bull-like Nineveh, and Athens mourning her im-
mortal gods.
“All these souls if cities that were dead spoke that night on the
mountain to my city and soothed her, until at last she muttered of
war no longer, and her eyes stared wildly no more, but she hid her
face in her hands and for some while wept softly. At last she arose,
and walking slowly and with bended head, and leaning upon Ilion
and Carthage, went mournfully eastwards; and the dust of her
highways swirled behind her as she went, a ghostly dust that never
turned to mud in all that drenching rain. And so the souls of the cit-
ies led her away, and gradually they disappeared from the moun-
tain, and the ancient voices died away in the distance.
“Now since then have I seen my city alive; but once I met with a
traveler who said that somewhere in the midst of a great desert are
gathered together the souls of all dead cities. He said that he was
lost once in a place where there was no water, and he heard their
voices speaking all the night.”
But I said: “I was once without water in a desert and heard a city
speaking to me, but knew not whether it really spoke to me or not,
for on that day I heard so many terrible things, and only some of
them were true.”
And the man with the black hair said: “I believe it to be true,
though whither she went I know not. I only know that a shepherd
found me in the morning faint with hunger and cold, and carried
me down here; and when I came to Andelsprutz it was, as you have
perceived it, dead.”

Where The Tides Ebb And Flow

I dreamt that I had done a horrible thing, so that burial was to be
denied me either in soil or sea, neither could there be any hell for
me.
I waited for some hours, knowing this. Then my friends came
 A Dreamer’s Tales 257

for me, and slew me secretly and with ancient rite, and lit great
tapers, and carried me away.
It was all in London that the thing was done, and they went fur-
tively at dead of night along grey streets and among mean houses
until they came to the river. And the river and the tide of the sea
were grappling with one another between the mud-banks, and both
of them were black and full of lights. A sudden wonder came in to
the eyes of each, as my friends came near to them with their glar-
ing tapers. All these things I saw as they carried me dead and stiff-
ening, for my soul was still among my bones, because there was no
hell for it, and because Christian burial was denied me.
They took me down a stairway that was green with slimy things,
and so came slowly to the terrible mud. There, in the territory of
forsaken things, they dug a shallow grave. When they had finished
they laid me in the grave, and suddenly they cast their tapers to
the river. And when the water had quenched the flaring lights the
tapers looked pale and small as they bobbed upon the tide, and at
once the glamour of the calamity was gone, and I noticed then the
approach of the huge dawn; and my friends cast their cloaks over
their faces, and the solemn procession was turned into many fugi-
tives that furtively stole away.
Then the mud came back wearily and covered all but my face.
There I lay alone with quite forgotten things, with drifting things
that the tides will take no farther, with useless things and lost
things, and with the horrible unnatural bricks that are neither stone
nor soil. I was rid of feeling, because I had been killed, but percep-
tion and thought were in my unhappy soul. The dawn widened,
and I saw the desolate houses that crowded the marge of the river,
and their dead windows peered into my dead eyes, windows with
bales behind them instead of human souls. I grew so weary look-
ing at these forlorn things that I wanted to cry out, but could not,
because I was dead. Then I knew, as I had never known before,
that for all the years that herd of desolate houses had wanted to cry
out too, but, being dead, were dumb. And I knew then that it had
yet been well with the forgotten drifting things if they had wept,
but they were eyeless and without life. And I, too, tried to weep,
258 A Dreamer’s Tales

but there were no tears in my dead eyes. And I knew then that the
river might have cared for us, might have caressed us, might have
sung to us, but he swept broadly onwards, thinking of nothing but
the princely ships. At last the tide did what the river would not,
and came and covered me over, and my soul had rest in the green
water, and rejoiced and believed that it had the Burial of the Sea.
But with the ebb the water fell again, and left me alone again with
the callous mud among the forgotten things that drift no more, and
with the sight of all those desolate houses, and with the knowledge
among all of us that each was dead.
In the mournful wall behind me, hung with green weeds, for-
saken of the sea, dark tunnels appeared, and secret narrow passages
that were clamped and barred. From these at last the stealthy rats
came down to nibble me away, and my soul rejoiced thereat and
believed that he would be free perforce from the accursed bones to
which burial was refused. Very soon the rats ran away a little space
and whispered among themselves. They never came any more.
When I found that I was accursed even among the rats I tried to
weep again.
Then the tide came swinging back and covered the dreadful
mud, and hid the desolate houses, and soothed the forgotten things,
and my soul had ease for a while in the sepulture of the sea. And
then the tide forsook me again.
To and fro it came about me for many years. Then the County
Council found me, and gave me decent burial. It was the first grave
that I had ever slept in. That very night my friends came for me.
They dug me up and put me back again in the shallow hold in the
mud.
Again and again through the years my bones found burial, but
always behind the funeral lurked one of those terrible men who,
as soon as night fell, came and dug them up and carried them back
again to the hole in the mud.
And then one day the last of those men died who once had done
to me this terrible thing. I heard his soul go over the river at sunset.
And again I hoped.
A few weeks afterwards I was found once more, and once more
 A Dreamer’s Tales 259

taken out of that restless place and given deep burial in sacred
ground, where my soul hoped that it should rest.
Almost at once men came with cloaks and tapers to give me
back to the mud, for the thing had become a tradition and a rite.
And all the forsaken things mocked me in their dumb hearts when
they saw me carried back, for they were jealous of me because I
had left the mud. It must be remembered that I could not weep.
And the years went by seawards where the black barges go, and
the great derelict centuries became lost at sea, and still I lay there
without any cause to hope, and daring not to hope without a cause,
because of the terrible envy and the anger of the things that could
drift no more.
Once a great storm rode up, even as far as London, out of the
sea from the South; and he came curving into the river with the
fierce East wind. And he was mightier than the dreary tides, and
went with great leaps over the listless mud. And all the sad forgot-
ten things rejoiced, and mingled with things that were haughtier
than they, and rode once more amongst the lordly shipping that
was driven up and down. And out of their hideous home he took
my bones, never again, I hoped, to be vexed with the ebb and flow.
And with the fall of the tide he went riding down the river and
turned to the southwards, and so went to his home. And my bones
he scattered among many isles and along the shores of happy alien
mainlands. And for a moment, while they were far asunder, my
soul was almost free.
Then there arose, at the will of the moon, the assiduous flow of
the tide, and it undid at once the work of the ebb, and gathered my
bones from the marge of sunny isles, and gleaned them all along
the mainland’s shores, and went rocking northwards till it came to
the mouth of the Thames, and there turned westwards its relent-
less face, and so went up the river and came to the hole in the mud,
and into it dropped my bones; and partly the mud covered them,
and partly it left them white, for the mud cares not for its forsaken
things.
Then the ebb came, and I saw the dead eyes of the houses and
the jealousy of the other forgotten things that the storm had not
260 A Dreamer’s Tales

carried thence.
And some more centuries passed over the ebb and flow and over
the loneliness of things for gotten. And I lay there all the while in
the careless grip of the mud, never wholly covered, yet never able
to go free, and I longed for the great caress of the warm Earth or
the comfortable lap of the Sea.
Sometimes men found my bones and buried them, but the tradi-
tion never died, and my friends’ successors always brought them
back. At last the barges went no more, and there were fewer lights;
shaped timbers no longer floated down the fairway, and there came
instead old wind-uprooted trees in all their natural simplicity.
At last I was aware that somewhere near me a blade of grass was
growing, and the moss began to appear all over the dead houses.
One day some thistledown went drifting over the river.
For some years I watched these signs attentively, until I became
certain that London was passing away. Then I hoped once more,
and all along both banks of the river there was anger among the
lost things that anything should dare to hope upon the forsaken
mud. Gradually the horrible houses crumbled, until the poor dead
things that never had had life got decent burial among the weeds
and moss. At last the may appeared and the convolvulus. Finally,
the wild rose stood up over mounds that had been wharves and
warehouses. Then I knew that the cause of Nature had triumphed,
and London had passed away.
The last man in London came to the wall by the river, in an
ancient cloak that was one of those that once my friends had worn,
and peered over the edge to see that I still was there. Then he went,
and I never saw men again: they had passed away with London.
A few days after the last man had gone the birds came into Lon-
don, all the birds that sing. When they first saws me they all looked
sideways at me, then they went away a little and spoke among
themselves.
“He only sinned against Man,” they said; “it is not our quarrel.”
“Let us be kind to him,” they said.
Then they hopped nearer me and began to sing. It was the time
of the rising of the dawn, and from both banks of the river, and
 A Dreamer’s Tales 261

from the sky, and from the thickets that were once the streets, hun-
dreds of birds were singing. As the light increased the birds sang
more and more; they grew thicker and thicker in the air above my
head, till there were thousands of them singing there, and then mil-
lions, and at last I could see nothing but a host of flickering wings
with the sunlight on them, and little gaps of sky. Then when there
was nothing to be heard in London but the myriad notes of that ex-
ultant song, my soul rose up from the bones in the hole in the mud
and began to climb heavenwards. And it seemed that a lane-way
opened amongst the wings of the birds, and it went up and up, and
one of the smaller gates of Paradise stood ajar at the end of it. And
then I knew by a sign that the mud should receive me no more, for
suddenly I found that I could weep.
At this moment I opened my eyes in bed in a house in London,
and outside some sparrows were twittering in a tree in the light
of the radiant morning; and there were tears still wet upon my
face, for one’s restraint is feeble while one sleeps. But I arose and
opened the window wide, and stretching my hands out over the lit-
tle garden, I blessed the birds whose song had woken me up from
the troubled and terrible centuries of my dream.

Bethmoora
There is a faint freshness in the London night as though some
strayed reveller of a breeze had left his comrades in the Kentish
uplands and had entered the town by stealth. The pavements are a
little damp and shiny. Upon one’s ears that at this late hour have
become very acute there hits the tap of a remote footfall. Louder
and louder grow the taps, filling the whole night. And a black
cloaked figure passes by, and goes tapping into the dark. One who
has danced goes homewards. Somewhere a ball has closed its
doors and ended. Its yellow lights are out, its musicians are silent,
its dancers have all gone into the night air, and Time has said of
it, “Let it be past and over, and among the things that I have put
away.”
262 A Dreamer’s Tales

Shadows begin to detach themselves from their great gathering

places. No less silently than those shadows that are thin and dead
move homewards the stealthy cats. Thus have we even in London
our faint forebodings of the dawn’s approach, which the birds and
the beasts and the stars are crying aloud to the untrammelled fields.
At what moment I know not I perceive that the night itself is
irrevocably overthrown. It is suddenly revealed to me by the weary
pallor of the street lamps that the streets are silent and nocturnal
still, not because there is any strength in night, but because men
have not yet arisen from sleep to defy him. So have I seen dejected
and untidy guards still bearing antique muskets in palatial gate-
ways, although the realms of the monarch that they guard have
shrunk to a single province which no enemy yet has troubled to
overrun.
And it is now manifest from the aspect of the street lamps, those
abashed dependants of night, that already English mountain peaks
have seen the dawn, that the cliffs of Dover are standing white to
the morning, that the sea-mist has lifted and is pouring inland.
And now men with a hose have come and are sluicing out the
streets.
Behold now night is dead.
What memories, what fancies throng one’s mind! A night but
just now gathered out of London by the horrific hand of Time. A
million common artificial things all cloaked for a while in mystery,
like beggars robed in purple, and seated on dread thrones. Four
million people asleep, dreaming perhaps. What worlds have they
gone into? Whom have they met? But my thoughts are far off with
Bethmoora in her loneliness, whose gates swing to and fro. To and
fro they swing, and creak and creak in the wind, but no one hears
them. They are of green copper, very lovely, but no one sees them
now. The desert wind pours sand into their hinges, no watchman
comes to ease them. No guard goes round Bethmoora’s battle-
ments, no enemy assails them. There are no lights in her houses, no
footfall on her streets, she stands there dead and lonely beyond the
Hills of Hap, and I would see Bethmoora once again, but dare not.
It is many a year, they tell me, since Bethmoora became deso-
 A Dreamer’s Tales 263

late.
Her desolation is spoken of in taverns where sailors meet, and
certain travellers have told me of it.
I had hoped to see Bethmoora once again. It is many a year ago,
they say, when the vintage was last gathered in from the vineyards
that I knew, where it is all desert now. It was a radiant day, and the
people of the city were dancing by the vineyards, while here and
there one played upon the kalipac. The purple flowering shrubs
were all in bloom, and the snow shone upon the Hills of Hap.
Outside the copper gates they crushed the grapes in vats to make
the syrabub. It had been a goodly vintage.
In the little gardens at the desert’s edge men beat the tambang
and the tittibuk, and blew melodiously the zootibar.
All there was mirth and song and dance, because the vintage
had been gathered in, and there would be ample syrabub for the
winter months, and much left over to exchange for turquoises and
emeralds with the merchants who come down from Oxuhahn.
Thus they rejoiced all day over their vintage on the narrow strip
of cultivated ground that lay between Bethmoora and the desert
which meets the sky to the South. And when the heat of the day
began to abate, and the sun drew near to the snows on the Hills of
Hap, the note of the zootibar still rose clear from the gardens, and
the brilliant dresses of the dancers still wound among the flowers.
All that day three men on mules had been noticed crossing the face
of the Hills of Hap. Backwards and forwards they moved as the
track wound lower and lower, three little specks of black against
the snow. They were seen first in the very early morning up near
the shoulder of Peol Jagganoth, and seemed to be coming out of
Utnar Véhi. All day they came. And in the evening, just before the
lights come out and colours change, they appeared before Beth-
moora’s copper gates. They carried staves, such as messengers
bear in those lands, and seemed sombrely clad when the dancers all
came round them with their green and lilac dresses. Those Europe-
ans who were present and heard the message given were ignorant
of the language, and only caught the name of Utnar Véhi. But it
was brief, and passed rapidly from mouth to mouth, and almost
264 A Dreamer’s Tales

at once the people burnt their vineyards and began to flee away
from Bethmoora, going for the most part northwards, though some
went to the East. They ran down out of their fair white houses, and
streamed through the copper gate; the throbbing of the tambang
and the tittibuk suddenly ceased with the note of the Zootibar, and
the clinking kalipac stopped a moment after. The three strange
travellers went back the way they came the instant their message
was given. It was the hour when a light would have appeared in
some high tower, and window after window would have poured
into the dusk its lion-frightening light, and the cooper gates would
have been fastened up. But no lights came out in windows there
that night and have not ever since, and those copper gates were left
wide and have never shut, and the sound arose of the red fire crack-
ling in the vineyards, and the pattering of feet fleeing softly. There
were no cries, no other sounds at all, only the rapid and determined
flight. They fled as swiftly and quietly as a herd of wild cattle flee
when they suddenly see a man. It was as though something had
befallen which had been feared for generations, which could only
be escaped by instant flight, which left no time for indecision.
Then fear took the Europeans also, and they too fled. And what
the message was I have never heard.
Many believe that it was a message from Thuba Mleen, the mys-
terious emperor of those lands, who is never seen by man, advising
that Bethmoora should be left desolate. Others say that the message
was one of warning from the gods, whether from friendly gods or
from adverse ones they know not.
And others hold that the Plague was ravaging a line of cities
over in Utnar Véhi, following the South-west wind which for many
weeks had been blowing across them towards Bethmoora.
Some say that the terrible gnousar sickness was upon the three
travellers, and that their very mules were dripping with it, and
suppose that they were driven to the city by hunger, but suggest no
better reason for so terrible a crime.
But most believe that it was a message from the desert himself,
who owns all the Earth to the southwards, spoken with his peculiar
cry to those three who knew his voice — men who had been out on
 A Dreamer’s Tales 265

the sand-wastes without tents by night, who had been by day with-
out water, men who had been out there where the desert mutters,
and had grown to know his needs and his malevolence. They say
that the desert had a need for Bethmoora, that he wished to come
into her lovely streets, and to send into her temples and her houses
his storm-winds draped with sand. For he hates the sound and the
sight of men in his old evil heart, and he would have Bethmoora
silent and undisturbed, save for the weird love he whispers to her
gates.
If I knew what that message was that the three men brought on
mules, and told in the copper gate, I think that I should go and see
Bethmoora once again. For a great longing comes on me here in
London to see once more that white and beautiful city, and yet I
dare not, for I know not the danger I should have to face, whether
I should risk the fury of unknown dreadful gods, or some disease
unspeakable and slow, or the desert’s curse or torture in some little
private room of the Emperor Thuba Mleen, or something that the
travellers have not told — perhaps more fearful still.

Idle Days On The Yann

So I came down through the wood on the bank of Yann and
found, as had been prophesied, the ship Bird of the River about to
loose her cable.
The captain sat cross-legged upon the white deck with his scimi-
tar lying beside him in its jewelled scabbard, and the sailors toiled
to spread the nimble sails to bring the ship into the central stream
of Yann, and all the while sang ancient soothing songs. And the
wind of the evening descending cool from the snowfields of some
mountainous abode of distant gods came suddenly, like glad tid-
ings to an anxious city, into the wing-like sails.
And so we came into the central stream, whereat the sailors
lowered the greater sails. But I had gone to bow before the captain,
and to inquire concerning the miracles, and appearances among
men, of the most holy gods of whatever land he had come from.
266 A Dreamer’s Tales

And the captain answered that he came from fair Belzoond, and
worshipped gods that were the least and humblest, who seldom
sent the famine or the thunder, and were easily appeased with little
battles. And I told how I came from Ireland, which is of Europe,
whereat the captain and all the sailors laughed, for they said,
“There are no such places in all the land of dreams.” When they
had ceased to mock me, I explained that my fancy mostly dwelt
in the desert of Cuppar-Nombo, about a beautiful blue city called
Golthoth the Damned, which was sentinelled all round by wolves
and their shadows, and had been utterly desolate for years and
years, because of a curse which the gods once spoke in anger and
could never since recall. And sometimes my dreams took me as far
as Pungar Vees, the red walled city where the fountains are, which
trades with the Isles and Thul. When I said this they complimented
me upon the abode of my fancy, saying that, though they had never
seen these cities, such places might well be imagined. For the rest
of that evening I bargained with the captain over the sum that I
should pay him for any fare if God and the tide of Yann should
bring us safely as far as the cliffs by the sea, which are named Bar-
Wul-Yann, the Gate of Yann.
And now the sun had set, and all the colours of the world and
heaven had held a festival with him, and slipped one by one away
before the imminent approach of night. The parrots had all flown
home to the jungle on either bank, the monkeys in rows in safety
on high branches of the trees were silent and asleep, the fireflies in
the deeps of the forest were going up and down, and the great stars
came gleaming out to look on the face of Yann. Then the sailors
lighted lanterns and hung them round the ship, and the light flashed
out on a sudden and dazzled Yann, and the ducks that fed along his
marshy banks all suddenly arose, and made wide circles in the up-
per air, and saw the distant reaches of the Yann and the white mist
that softly cloaked the jungle, before they returned again to their
marshes.
And then the sailors knelt on the decks and prayed, not all
together, but five or six at a time. Side by side there kneeled down
together five or six, for there only prayed at the same time men
 A Dreamer’s Tales 267

of different faiths, so that no god should hear two men praying to

him at once. As soon as any one had finished his prayer, another
of the same faith would take his place. Thus knelt the row of five
or six with bended heads under the fluttering sail, while the cen-
tral stream of the River Yann took them on towards the sea, and
their prayers rose up from among the lanterns and went towards
the stars. And behind them in the after end of the ship the helms-
man prayed aloud the helmsman’s prayer, which is prayed by all
who follow his trade upon the River Yann, of whatever faith they
be. And the captain prayed to his little lesser gods, to the gods that
bless Belzoond.
And I too felt that I would pray. Yet I liked not to pray to a jeal-
ous God there where the frail affectionate gods whom the heathen
love were being humbly invoked; so I bethought me, instead, of
Sheol Nugganoth, whom the men of the jungle have long since de-
serted, who is now unworshipped and alone; and to him I prayed.
And upon us praying the night came suddenly down, as it comes
upon all men who pray at evening and upon all men who do not;
yet our prayers comforted our own souls when we thought of the
Great Night to come.
And so Yann bore us magnificently onwards, for he was elate
with molten snow that the Poltiades had brought him from the
Hills of Hap, and the Marn and Migris were swollen with floods;
and he bore us in his full might past Kyph and Pir, and we saw the
lights of Goolunza.
Soon we all slept except the helmsman, who kept the ship in the
mid-stream of Yann.
When the sun rose the helmsman ceased to sing, for by song
he cheered himself in the lonely night. When the song ceased we
suddenly all awoke, and another took the helm, and the helmsman
slept.
We knew that soon we should come to Mandaroon. We made a
meal, and Mandaroon appeared. Then the captain commanded, and
the sailors loosed again the greater sails, and the ship turned and
left the stream of Yann and came into a harbour beneath the ruddy
walls of Mandaroon. Then while the sailors went and gathered
268 A Dreamer’s Tales

fruits I came alone to the gate of Mandaroon. A few huts were out-
side it, in which lived the guard. A sentinel with a long white beard
was standing in the gate, armed with a rusty pike. He wore large
spectacles, which were covered with dust. Through the gate I saw
the city. A deathly stillness was over all of it. The ways seemed
untrodden, and moss was thick on doorsteps; in the market-place
huddled figures lay asleep. A scent of incense came wafted through
the gateway, of incense and burned poppies, and there was a hum
of the echoes of distant bells. I said to the sentinel in the tongue of
the region of Yann, “Why are they all asleep in this still city?”
He answered: “None may ask questions in this gate for fear they
will wake the people of the city. For when the people of this city
wake the gods will die. And when the gods die men may dream no
more.” And I began to ask him what gods that city worshipped, but
he lifted his pike because none might ask questions there. So I left
him and went back to the Bird of the River.
Certainly Mandaroon was beautiful with her white pinnacles
peering over her ruddy walls and the green of her copper roofs.
When I came back again to the Bird of the River, I found the
sailors were returned to the ship. Soon we weighed anchor, and
sailed out again, and so came once more to the middle of the river.
And now the sun was moving toward his heights, and there had
reached us on the River Yann the song of those countless myriads
of choirs that attend him in his progress round the world. For the
little creatures that have many legs had spread their gauze wings
easily on the air, as a man rests his elbows on a balcony and gave
jubilant, ceremonial praises to the sun, or else they moved together
on the air in wavering dances intricate and swift, or turned aside to
avoid the onrush of some drop of water that a breeze had shaken
from a jungle orchid, chilling the air and driving it before it, as
it fell whirring in its rush to the earth; but all the while they sang
triumphantly. “For the day is for us,” they said, “whether our great
and sacred father the Sun shall bring up more life like us from the
marshes, or whether all the world shall end tonight.” And there
sang all those whose notes are known to human ears, as well as
those whose far more numerous notes have been never heard by
 A Dreamer’s Tales 269

man.
To these a rainy day had been as an era of war that should deso-
late continents during all the lifetime of a man.
And there came out also from the dark and steaming jungle to
behold and rejoice in the Sun the huge and lazy butterflies. And
they danced, but danced idly, on the ways of the air, as some
haughty queen of distant conquered lands might in her poverty and
exile dance, in some encampment of the gipsies, for the mere bread
to live by, but beyond that would never abate her pride to dance for
a fragment more.
And the butterflies sung of strange and painted things, of pur-
ple orchids and of lost pink cities and the monstrous colours of
the jungle’s decay. And they, too, were among those whose voices
are not discernible by human ears. And as they floated above the
river, going from forest to forest, their splendour was matched by
the inimical beauty of the birds who darted out to pursue them. Or
sometimes they settled on the white and wax-like blooms of the
plant that creeps and clambers about the trees of the forest; and
their purple wings flashed out on the great blossoms as, when the
caravans go from Nurl to Thace, the gleaming silks flash out upon
the snow, where the crafty merchants spread them one by one to
astonish the mountaineers of the Hills of Noor.
But upon men and beasts the sun sent drowsiness. The river
monsters along the river’s marge lay dormant in the slime. The
sailors pitched a pavilion, with golden tassels, for the captain
upon the deck, and then went, all but the helmsman, under a sail
that they had hung as an awning between two masts. Then they
told tales to one another, each of his own city or of the miracles
of his god, until all were fallen asleep. The captain offered me the
shade of his pavillion with the gold tassels, and there we talked
for a while, he telling me that he was taking merchandise to Per-
dóndaris, and that he would take back to fair Belzoond things
appertaining to the affairs of the sea. Then, as I watched through
the pavilion’s opening the brilliant birds and butterflies that crossed
and recrossed over the river, I fell asleep, and dreamed that I was
a monarch entering his capital underneath arches of flags, and all
270 A Dreamer’s Tales

the musicians of the world were there, playing melodiously their

instruments; but no one cheered.
In the afternoon, as the day grew cooler again, I awoke and
found the captain buckling on his scimitar, which he had taken off
him while he rested.
And now we were approaching the wide court of Astahahn,
which opens upon the river. Strange boats of antique design were
chained there to the steps. As we neared it we saw the open marble
court, on three sides of which stood the city fronting on colon-
nades. And in the court and along the colonnades the people of
that city walked with solemnity and care according to the rites
of ancient ceremony. All in that city was of ancient device; the
carving on the houses, which, when age had broken it, remained
unrepaired, was of the remotest times, and everywhere were
represented in stone beasts that have long since passed away from
Earth — the dragon, the griffin, the hippogriffin, and the different
species of gargoyle. Nothing was to be found, whether material or
custom, that was new in Astahahn. Now they took no notice at all
of us as we went by, but continued their processions and ceremo-
nies in the ancient city, and the sailors, knowing their custom, took
no notice of them. But I called, as we came near, to one who stood
beside the water’s edge, asking him what men did in Astahahn and
what their merchandise was, and with whom they traded. He said,
“Here we have fettered and manacled Time, who would otherwise
slay the gods.”
I asked him what gods they worshipped in that city, and he said,
“All those gods whom Time has not yet slain.” Then he turned
from me and would say no more, but busied himself in behaving
in accordance with ancient custom. And so, according to the will
of Yann, we drifted onwards and left Astahahn. The river widened
below Astahahn, and we found in greater quantities such birds as
prey on fishes. And they were very wonderful in their plumage,
and they came not out of the jungle, but flew, with their long necks
stretched out before them, and their legs lying on the wind behind,
straight up the river over the mid-stream.
And now the evening began to gather in. A thick white mist had
 A Dreamer’s Tales 271

appeared over the river, and was softly rising higher. It clutched
at the trees with long impalpable arms, it rose higher and higher,
chilling the air; and white shapes moved away into the jungle as
though the ghosts of shipwrecked mariners were searching stealth-
ily in the darkness for the spirits of evil that long ago had wrecked
them on the Yann.
As the sun sank behind the field of orchids that grew on the mat-
ted summit of the jungle, the river monsters came wallowing out of
the slime in which they had reclined during the heat of the day, and
the great beasts of the jungle came down to drink. The butterflies
a while since were gone to rest. In little narrow tributaries that we
passed night seemed already to have fallen, though the sun which
had disappeared from us had not yet set.
And now the birds of the jungle came flying home far over us,
with the sunlight glistening pink upon their breasts, and lowered
their pinions as soon as they saw the Yann, and dropped into the
trees. And the widgeon began to go up the river in great compa-
nies, all whistling, and then would suddenly wheel and all go down
again. And there shot by us the small and arrow-like teal; and
we heard the manifold cries of flocks of geese, which the sailors
told me had recently come in from crossing over the Lispasian
ranges; every year they come by the same way, close by the peak
of Mluna, leaving it to the left, and the mountain eagles know the
way they come and — men say — the very hour, and every year
they expect them by the same way as soon as the snows have fallen
upon the Northern Plains. But soon it grew so dark that we heard
those birds no more, and only heard the whirring of their wings,
and of countless others besides, until they all settled down along
the banks of the river, and it was the hour when the birds of the
night went forth. Then the sailors lit the lanterns for the night, and
huge moths appeared, flapping about the ship, and at moments
their gorgeous colours would be revealed by the lanterns, then they
would pass into the night again, where all was black. And again the
sailors prayed, and thereafter we supped and slept, and the helms-
man took our lives into his care.
When I awoke I found that we had indeed come to Perdóndaris,
272 A Dreamer’s Tales

that famous city. For there it stood upon the left of us, a city fair
and notable, and all the more pleasant for our eyes to see after the
jungle that was so long with us. And we were anchored by the
market-place, and the captain’s merchandise was all displayed, and
a merchant of Perdóndaris stood looking at it. And the captain had
his scimitar in his hand, and was beating with it in anger upon the
deck, and the splinters were flying up from the white planks; for
the merchant had offered him a price for his merchandise that the
captain declared to be an insult to himself and his country’s gods,
whom he now said to be great and terrible gods, whose curses were
to be dreaded. But the merchant waved his hands, which were of
great fatness, showing the pink palms, and swore that of himself he
thought not at all, but only of the poor folk in the huts beyond the
city to whom he wished to sell the merchandise for as low a price
as possible, leaving no remuneration for himself. For the merchan-
dise was mostly the thick toomarund carpets that in the winter
keep the wind from the floor, and tollub which the people smoke in
pipes. Therefore the merchant said if he offered a piffek more the
poor folk must go without their toomarunds when the winter came,
and without their tollub in the evenings, or else he and his aged
father must starve together. Thereat the captain lifted his scimitar
to his own throat, saying that he was now a ruined man, and that
nothing remained to him but death. And while he was carefully lift-
ing his beard with his left hand, the merchant eyed the merchandise
again, and said that rather than see so worthy a captain die, a man
for whom he had conceived an especial love when first he saw the
manner in which he handled his ship, he and his aged father should
starve together and therefore he offered fifteen piffeks more.
When he said this the captain prostrated himself and prayed
to his gods that they might yet sweeten this merchant’s bitter
heart — to his little lesser gods, to the gods that bless Belzoond.
At last the merchant offered yet five piffeks more. Then the
captain wept, for he said that he was deserted of his gods; and the
merchant also wept, for he said that he was thinking of his aged
father, and of how he soon would starve, and he hid his weeping
face with both his hands, and eyed the tollub again between his
 A Dreamer’s Tales 273

fingers. And so the bargain was concluded, and the merchant took
the toomarund and tollub, paying for them out of a great clinking
purse. And these were packed up into bales again, and three of the
merchant’s slaves carried them upon their heads into the city. And
all the while the sailors had sat silent, cross-legged in a crescent
upon the deck, eagerly watching the bargain, and now a murmur
of satisfaction arose among them, and they began to compare it
among themselves with other bargains that they had known. And I
found out from them that there are seven merchants in Perdóndaris,
and that they had all come to the captain one by one before the
bargaining began, and each had warned him privately against the
others. And to all the merchants the captain had offered the wine
of his own country, that they make in fair Belzoond, but could in
no wise persuade them to it. But now that the bargain was over,
and the sailors were seated at the first meal of the day, the captain
appeared among them with a cask of that wine, and we broached
it with care and all made merry together. And the captain was glad
in his heart because he knew that he had much honour in the eyes
of his men because of the bargain that he had made. So the sailors
drank the wine of their native land, and soon their thoughts were
back in fair Belzoond and the little neighbouring cities of Durl and
Duz.
But for me the captain poured into a little jar some heavy yel-
low wine from a small jar which he kept apart among his sacred
things. Thick and sweet it was, even like honey, yet there was in
its heart a mighty, ardent fire which had authority over souls of
men. It was made, the captain told me, with great subtlety by the
secret craft of a family of six who lived in a hut on the mountains
of Hian Min. Once in these mountains, he said, he followed the
spoor of a bear, and he came suddenly on a man of that family who
had hunted the same bear, and he was at the end of a narrow way
with precipice all about him, and his spear was sticking in the bear,
and the wound was not fatal, and he had no other weapon. And the
bear was walking towards the man, very slowly because his wound
irked him — yet he was now very close. And what he captain did
he would not say, but every year as soon as the snows are hard, and
274 A Dreamer’s Tales

travelling is easy on the Hian Min, that man comes down to the
market in the plains, and always leaves for the captain in the gate
of fair Belzoond a vessel of that priceless secret wine.
And as I sipped the wine and the captain talked, I remem-
bered me of stalwart noble things that I had long since resolutely
planned, and my soul seemed to grow mightier within me and to
dominate the whole tide of the Yann. It may be that I then slept.
Or, if I did not, I do not now minutely recollect every detail of that
morning’s occupations. Towards evening, I awoke and wishing to
see Perdóndaris before we left in the morning, and being unable to
wake the captain, I went ashore alone. Certainly Perdóndaris was
a powerful city; it was encompassed by a wall of great strength
and altitude, having in it hollow ways for troops to walk in, and
battlements along it all the way, and fifteen strong towers on it in
every mile, and copper plaques low down where men could read
them, telling in all the languages of those parts of the earth — one
language on each plaque — the tale of how an army once attacked
Perdóndaris and what befell that army. Then I entered Perdóndaris
and found all the people dancing, clad in brilliant silks, and play-
ing on the tambang as they danced. For a fearful thunderstorm had
terrified them while I slept, and the fires of death, they said, had
danced over Perdóndaris, and now the thunder had gone leaping
away large and black and hideous, they said, over the distant hills,
and had turned round snarling at them, shoving his gleaming teeth,
and had stamped, as he went, upon the hilltops until they rang as
though they had been bronze. And often and again they stopped in
their merry dances and prayed to the God they knew not, saying,
“O, God that we know not, we thank Thee for sending the thunder
back to his hills.” And I went on and came to the market-place,
and lying there upon the marble pavement I saw the merchant
fast asleep and breathing heavily, with his face and the palms of
his hands towards the sky, and slaves were fanning him to keep
away the flies. And from the market-place I came to a silver tem-
ple and then to a palace of onyx, and there were many wonders in
Perdóndaris, and I would have stayed and seen them all, but as I
came to the outer wall of the city I suddenly saw in it a huge ivory
 A Dreamer’s Tales 275

gate. For a while I paused and admired it, then I came nearer and
perceived the dreadful truth. The gate was carved out of one solid
piece!
I fled at once through the gateway and down to the ship, and
even as I ran I thought that I heard far off on the hills behind me
the tramp of the fearful beast by whom that mass of ivory was
shed, who was perhaps even then looking for his other tusk. When
I was on the ship again I felt safer, and I said nothing to the sailors
of what I had seen.
And now the captain was gradually awakening. Now night
was rolling up from the East and North, and only the pinnacles
of the towers of Perdóndaris still took the fallen sunlight. Then I
went to the captain and told him quietly of the thing I had seen.
And he questioned me at once about the gate, in a low voice, that
the sailors might not know; and I told him how the weight of the
thing was such that it could not have been brought from afar, and
the captain knew that it had not been there a year ago. We agreed
that such a beast could never have been killed by any assault of
man, and that the gate must have been a fallen tusk, and one fallen
near and recently. Therefore he decided that it were better to flee
at once; so he commanded, and the sailors went to the sails, and
others raised the anchor to the deck, and just as the highest pinna-
cle of marble lost the last rays of the sun we left Perdóndaris, that
famous city. And night came down and cloaked Perdóndaris and
hid it from our eyes, which as things have happened will never see
it again; for I have heard since that something swift and wonderful
has suddenly wrecked Perdóndaris in a day — towers, walls and
people.
And the night deepened over the River Yann, a night all white
with stars. And with the night there rose the helmsman’s song. As
soon as he had prayed he began to sing to cheer himself all through
the lonely night. But first he prayed, praying the helmsman’s
prayer. And this is what I remember of it, rendered into English
with a very feeble equivalent of the rhythm that seemed so reso-
nant in those tropic nights.
To whatever god may hear.
276 A Dreamer’s Tales

Wherever there be sailors whether of river or sea: whether their

way be dark or whether through storm: whether their peril be of
beast or of rock: or from enemy lurking on land or pursuing on sea:
wherever the tiller is cold or the helmsman stiff: wherever sailors
sleep or helmsmen watch: guard, guide and return us to the old
land, that has known us: to the far homes that we know.
To all the gods that are.
To whatever god may hear.
So he prayed, and there was silence. And the sailors laid them
down to rest for the night. The silence deepened, and was only
broken by the ripples of Yann that lightly touched our prow. Some-
times some monster of the river coughed.
Silence and ripples, ripples and silence again.
And then his loneliness came upon the helmsman, and he began
to sing. And he sang the market songs of Durl and Duz, and the old
dragon-legends of Belzoond.
Many a song he sang, telling to spacious and exotic Yann the
little tales and trifles of his city of Durl. And the songs welled up
over the black jungle and came into the clear cold air above, and
the great bands of stars that look on Yann began to know the af-
fairs of Durl and Duz, and of the shepherds that dwelt in the fields
between, and the flocks that they had, and the loves that they had
loved, and all the little things that they had hoped to do. And as I
lay wrapped up in skins and blankets, listening to those songs, and
watching the fantastic shapes of the great trees like to black giants
stalking through the night, I suddenly fell asleep.
When I awoke great mists were trailing away from the Yann.
And the flow of the river was tumbling now tumultuously, and
little waves appeared; for Yann had scented from afar the ancient
crags of Glorm, and knew that their ravines lay cool before him
wherein he should meet the merry wild Irillion rejoicing from
fields of snow. So he shook off from him the torpid sleep that had
come upon him in the hot and scented jungle, and forgot its or-
chids and its butterflies, and swept on turbulent, expectant, strong;
and soon the snowy peaks of the Hills of Glorm came glittering
into view. And now the sailors were waking up from sleep. Soon
 A Dreamer’s Tales 277

we all ate, and then the helmsman laid him down to sleep while a
comrade took his place, and they all spread over him their choicest
furs.
And in a while we heard the sound that the Irillion made as she
came down dancing from the fields of snow.
And then we saw the ravine in the Hills of Glorm lying pre-
cipitous and smooth before us, into which we were carried by the
leaps of Yann. And now we left the steamy jungle and breathed the
mountain air; the sailors stood up and took deep breaths of it, and
thought of their own far off Acroctian hills on which were Durl and
Duz — below them in the plains stands fair Belzoond.
A great shadow brooded between the cliffs of Glorm, but the
crags were shining above us like gnarled moons, and almost lit the
gloom. Louder and louder came the Irillion’s song, and the sound
of her dancing down from the fields of snow. And soon we saw her
white and full of mists, and wreathed with rainbows delicate and
small that she had plucked up near the mountain’s summit from
some celestial garden of the Sun. Then she went away seawards
with the huge grey Yann and the ravine widened, and opened upon
the world, and our rocking ship came through to the light of the
day.
And all that morning and all the afternoon we passed through
the marshes of Pondoovery; and Yann widened there, and flowed
solemnly and slowly, and the captain bade the sailors beat on bells
to overcome the dreariness of the marshes.
At last the Irusian mountains came in sight, nursing the villages
of Pen-Kai and Blut, and the wandering streets of Mlo, where
priests propitiate the avalanche with wine and maize. Then night
came down over the plains of Tlun, and we saw the lights of Cap-
padarnia. We heard the Pathnites beating upon drums as we passed
Imaut and Golzunda, then all but the helmsman slept. And vil-
lages scattered along the banks of the Yann heard all that night in
the helmsman’s unknown tongue the little songs of cities that they
knew not.
I awoke before dawn with a feeling that I was unhappy before I
remembered why. Then I recalled that by the evening of the ap-
278 A Dreamer’s Tales

proaching day, according to all foreseen probabilities, we should

come to Bar-Wul-Yann, and I should part from the captain and
his sailors. And I had liked the man because he had given me of
his yellow wine that was set apart among his sacred things, and
many a story he had told me about his fair Belzoond between the
Acroctian hills and the Hian Min. And I had liked the ways that
his sailors had, and the prayers that they prayed at evening side by
side, grudging not one another their alien gods. And I had a liking
too for the tender way in which they often spoke of Durl and Duz,
for it is good that men should love their native cities and the little
hills that hold those cities up.
And I had come to know who would meet them when they re-
turned to their homes, and where they thought the meetings would
take place, some in a valley of the Acroctian hills where the road
comes up from Yann, others in the gateway of one or another of the
three cities, and others by the fireside in the home. And I thought
of the danger that had menaced us all alike outside Perdóndaris, a
danger that, as things have happened, was very real.
And I thought too of the helmsman’s cheery song in the cold and
lonely night, and how he had held our lives in his careful hands.
And as I thought of this the helmsman ceased to sing, and I looked
up and saw a pale light had appeared in the sky, and the lonely
night had passed; and the dawn widened, and the sailors awoke.
And soon we saw the tide of the Sea himself advancing resolute
between Yann’s borders, and Yann sprang lithely at him and they
struggled awhile; then Yann and all that was his were pushed back
northward, so that the sailors had to hoist the sails and, the wind
being favorable, we still held onwards.
And we passed Góndara and Narl and Haz. And we saw memo-
rable, holy Golnuz, and heard the pilgrims praying.
When we awoke after the midday rest we were coming near to
Nen, the last of the cities on the River Yann. And the jungle was
all about us once again, and about Nen; but the great Mloon ranges
stood up over all things, and watched the city from beyond the
jungle.
Here we anchored, and the captain and I went up into the city
 A Dreamer’s Tales 279

and found that the Wanderers had come into Nen.

And the Wanderers were a weird, dark, tribe, that once in every
seven years came down from the peaks of Mloon, having crossed
by a pass that is known to them from some fantastic land that lies
beyond. And the people of Nen were all outside their houses, and
all stood wondering at their own streets. For the men and women
of the Wanderers had crowded all the ways, and every one was do-
ing some strange thing. Some danced astounding dances that they
had learned from the desert wind, rapidly curving and swirling till
the eye could follow no longer. Others played upon instruments
beautiful wailing tunes that were full of horror, which souls had
taught them lost by night in the desert, that strange far desert from
which the Wanderers came.
None of their instruments were such as were known in Nen nor
in any part of the region of the Yann; even the horns out of which
some were made were of beasts that none had seen along the river,
for they were barbed at the tips. And they sang, in the language of
none, songs that seemed to be akin to the mysteries of night and to
the unreasoned fear that haunts dark places.
Bitterly all the dogs of Nen distrusted them. And the Wanderers
told one another fearful tales, for though no one in Nen knew ought
of their language yet they could see the fear on the listeners’ faces,
and as the tale wound on the whites of their eyes showed vividly in
terror as the eyes of some little beast whom the hawk has seized.
Then the teller of the tale would smile and stop, and another would
tell his story, and the teller of the first tale’s lips would chatter with
fear. And if some deadly snake chanced to appear the Wanderers
would greet him as a brother, and the snake would seem to give his
greetings to them before he passed on again. Once that most fierce
and lethal of tropic snakes, the giant lythra, came out of the jungle
and all down the street, the central street of Nen, and none of the
Wanderers moved away from him, but they all played sonorously
on drums, as though he had been a person of much honour; and the
snake moved through the midst of them and smote none.
Even the Wanderers’ children could do strange things, for if any
one of them met with a child of Nen the two would stare at each
280 A Dreamer’s Tales

other in silence with large grave eyes; then the Wanderers’ child
would slowly draw from his turban a live fish or snake. And the
children of Nen could do nothing of that kind at all.
Much I should have wished to stay and hear the hymn with
which they greet the night, that is answered by the wolves on the
heights of Mloon, but it was now time to raise the anchor again
that the captain might return from Bar-Wul-Yann upon the land-
ward tide. So we went on board and continued down the Yann. And
the captain and I spoke little, for we were thinking of our parting,
which should be for long, and we watched instead the splendour of
the westerning sun. For the sun was a ruddy gold, but a faint mist
cloaked the jungle, lying low, and into it poured the smoke of the
little jungle cities, and the smoke of them met together in the mist
and joined into one haze, which became purple, and was lit by the
sun, as the thoughts of men become hallowed by some great and
sacred thing. Some times one column from a lonely house would
rise up higher than the cities’ smoke, and gleam by itself in the sun.
And now as the sun’s last rays were nearly level, we saw the
sight that I had come to see, for from two mountains that stood on
either shore two cliffs of pink marble came out into the river, all
glowing in the light of the low sun, and they were quite smooth
and of mountainous altitude, and they nearly met, and Yann went
tumbling between them and found the sea.
And this was Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate of Yann, and in the dis-
tance through that barrier’s gap I saw the azure indescribable sea,
where little fishing-boats went gleaming by.
And the sun set, and the brief twilight came, and the exultation
of the glory of Bar-Wul-Yann was gone, yet still the pink cliffs
glowed, the fairest marvel that the eye beheld — and this in a land
of wonders. And soon the twilight gave place to the coming out of
stars, and the colours of Bar-Wul-Yann went dwindling away. And
the sight of those cliffs was to me as some chord of music that a
master’s hand had launched from the violin, and which carries to
Heaven or Faëry the tremulous spirits of men.
And now by the shore they anchored and went no further, for
they were sailors of the river and not of the sea, and knew the Yann
 A Dreamer’s Tales 281

but not the tides beyond.

And the time was come when the captain and I must part, he
to go back to his fair Belzoond in sight of the distant peaks of the
Hian Min, and I to find my way by strange means back to those
hazy fields that all poets know, wherein stand small mysterious
cottages through whose windows, looking westwards, you may see
the fields of men, and looking eastwards see glittering elfin moun-
tains, tipped with snow, going range on range into the region of
Myth, and beyond it into the kingdom of Fantasy, which pertain to
the Lands of Dream. Long we regarded one another, knowing that
we should meet no more, for my fancy is weakening as the years
slip by, and I go ever more seldom into the Lands of Dream. Then
we clasped hands, uncouthly on his part, for it is not the method of
greeting in his country, and he commended my soul to the care of
his own gods, to his little lesser gods, the humble ones, to the gods
that bless Belzoond.

The Sword And The Idol

It was a cold winter’s evening late in the Stone Age; the sun had
gone down blazing over the plains of Thold; there were no clouds,
only the chill blue sky and the imminence of stars; and the surface
of the sleeping Earth began to harden against the cold of the night.
Presently from their lairs arose, and shook themselves and went
stealthily forth, those of Earth’s children to whom it is the law to
prowl abroad as soon as the dusk has fallen. And they went pat-
tering softly over the plain, and their eyes shone in the dark, and
crossed and recrossed one another in their courses. Suddenly there
became manifest in the midst of the plain that fearful portent of
the presence of Man — a little flickering fire. And the children of
Earth who prowl abroad by night looked sideways at it and snarled
and edged away; all but the wolves, who came a little nearer, for
it was winter and the wolves were hungry, and they had come in
thousands from the mountains, and they said in their hearts, “We
are strong.” Around the fire a little tribe was encamped. They, too,
282 A Dreamer’s Tales

had come from the mountains, and from lands beyond them, but
it was in the mountains that the wolves first winded them; they
picked up bones at first that the tribe had dropped, but they were
closer now and on all sides. It was Loz who had lit the fire. He
had killed a small furry beast, hurling his stone axe at it, and had
gathered a quantity of reddish-brown stones, and had laid them in
a long row, and placed bits of the small beast all along it; then he
lit a fire on each side, and the stones heated, and the bits began to
cook. It was at this time that the tribe noticed that the wolves who
had followed them so far were no longer content with the scraps
of deserted encampments. A line of yellow eyes surrounded them,
and when it moved it was to come nearer. So the men of the tribe
hastily tore up brushwood, and felled a small tree with their flint
axes, and heaped it all over the fire that Loz had made, and for a
while the great heap hid the flame, and the wolves came trotting
in and sat down again on their haunches much closer than before;
and the fierce and valiant dogs that belonged to the tribe believed
that their end was about to come while fighting, as they had long
since prophesied it would. Then the flame caught the lofty stack of
brushwood, and rushed out of it, and ran up the side of it, and stood
up haughtily far over the top, and the wolves seeing this terrible
ally of Man reveling there in his strength, and knowing nothing of
this frequent treachery to his masters, went slowly away as though
they had other purposes. And for the rest of that night the dogs
of the encampment cried out to them and besought them to come
back. But the tribe lay down all round the fire under thick furs and
slept. And a great wind arose and blew into the roaring heart of the
fire till it was red no longer, but all pallid with heat. With the dawn
the tribe awoke.
Loz might have known that after such a mighty conflagration
nothing could remain of his small furry beast, but there was hunger
in him and little reason as he searched among the ashes. What he
found there amazed him beyond measure; there was no meat, there
was not even his row of reddish-brown stones, but something long-
er than a man’s leg and narrower than his hand, was lying there
like a great flattened snake. When Loz looked at its thin edges and
 A Dreamer’s Tales 283

saw that it ran to a point, he picked up stones to chip it and make it

sharp. It was the instinct of Loz to sharpen things. When he found
that it could not be chipped his wonderment increased. It was many
hours before he discovered that he could sharpen the edges by rub-
bing them with a stone; but at last the point was sharp, and all one
side of it except near the end, where Loz held it in his hand. And
Loz lifted it and brandished it, and the Stone Age was over. That
afternoon in the little encampment, just as the tribe moved on, the
Stone Age passed away, which, for perhaps thirty or forty thousand
years, had slowly lifted Man from among the beasts and left him
with his supremacy beyond all hope of reconquest.
It was not for many days that any other man tried to make for
himself an iron sword by cooking the same kind of small furry
beast that Loz had tried to cook. It was not for many years that
any thought to lay the meat along stones as Loz had done; and
when they did, being no longer on the plains of Thold, they used
flints or chalk. It was not for many generations that another piece
of iron ore was melted and the secret slowly guessed. Neverthe-
less one of Earth’s many veils was torn aside by Loz to give us
ultimately the steel sword and the plough, machinery and factories;
let us not blame Loz if we think that he did wrong, for he did all
in ignorance. The tribe moved on until it came to water, and there
it settled down under a hill, and they built their huts there. Very
soon they had to fight with another tribe, a tribe that was stronger
than they; but the sword of Loz was terrible and his tribe slew their
foes. You might make one blow at Loz, but then would come one
thrust from that iron sword, and there was no way of surviving it.
No one could fight with Loz. And he became ruler of the tribe in
the place of Iz, who hitherto had ruled it with his sharp axe, as his
father had before him.
Now Loz begat Lo, and in his old age gave his sword to him,
and Lo ruled the tribe with it. And Lo called the name of the sword
Death, because it was so swift and terrible.
And Iz begat Ird, who was of no account. And Ird hated Lo be-
cause he was of no account by reason of the iron sword of Lo.
One night Ird stole down to the hut of Lo, carrying his sharp axe,
284 A Dreamer’s Tales

and he went very softly, but Lo’s dog, Warner, heard him coming,
and he growled softly by his master’s door. When Ird came to the
hut he heard Lo talking gently to his sword. And Lo was saying,
“Lie still, Death. Rest, rest, old sword,” and then, “What, again,
Death? Be still. Be still.”
And then again: “What, art thou hungry, Death? Or thirsty, poor
old sword? Soon, Death, soon. Be still only a little.”
But Ird fled, for he did not like the gentle tone of Lo as he spoke
to his sword.
And Lo begat Lod. And when Lo died Lod took the iron sword
and ruled the tribe.
And Ird begat Ith, who was of no account, like his father.
Now when Lod had smitten a man or killed a terrible beast,
Ith would go away for a while into the forest rather than hear the
praises that would be given to Lod.
And once, as Ith sat in the forest waiting for the day to pass, he
suddenly thought he saw a tree trunk looking at him as with a face.
And Ith was afraid, for trees should not look at men. But soon Ith
saw that it was only a tree and not a man, though it was like a man.
Ith used to speak to this tree, and tell it about Lod, for he dared not
speak to any one else about him. And Ith found comfort in speak-
ing about Lod.
One day Ith went with his stone axe into the forest, and stayed
there many days.
He came back by night, and the next morning when the tribe
awoke they saw something that was like a man and yet was not
a man. And it sat on the hill with its elbows pointing outwards
and was quite still. And Ith was crouching before it, and hurriedly
placing before it fruits and flesh, and then leaping away from it
and looking frightened. Presently all the tribe came out to see, but
dared not come quite close because of the fear that they saw on
the face of Ith. And Ith went to his hut, and came back again with
a hunting spear-head and valuable small stone knives, and reached
out and laid them before the thing that was like a man, and then
sprang away from it.
And some of the tribe questioned Ith about the still thing that
 A Dreamer’s Tales 285

was like a man, and Ith said, “This is Ged.” Then they asked,
“Who is Ged?” and Ith said, “Ged sends the crops and the rain; and
the sun and the moon are Ged’s.”
Then the tribe went back to their huts, but later in the day some
came again, and they said to Ith, “Ged is only as we are, having
hands and feet.” And Ith pointed to the right hand of Ged, which
was not as his left, but was shaped like the paw of a beast, and Ith
said, “By this ye may know that he is not as any man.”
Then they said, “He is indeed Ged.” But Lod said, “He speaketh
not, nor doth he eat,” and Ith answered, “The thunder is his voice
and the famine is his eating.”
After this the tribe copied Ith, and brought little gifts of meat
to Ged; and Ith cooked them before him that Ged might smell the
cooking.
One day a great thunderstorm came trampling up from the dis-
tance and raged among the hills, and the tribe all hid away from it
in their huts. And Ith appeared among the huts looking unafraid.
And Ith said little, but the tribe thought that he had expected the
terrible storm because the meat that they had laid before Ged had
been tough meat, and not the best parts of the beasts they slew.
And Ged grew to have more honour among the tribe than Lod.
And Lod was vexed.
One night Lod arose when all were asleep, and quieted his dog,
and took his iron sword and went away to the hill. And he came on
Ged in the starlight, sitting still, with his elbows pointing outwards,
and his beast’s paw, and the mark of the fire on the ground where
his food had been cooked.
And Lod stood there for a while in great fear, trying to keep to
his purpose. Suddenly he stepped up close to Ged and lifted his
iron sword, and Ged neither hit nor shrank. Then the thought came
into Lod’s mind, “Ged does not hit. What will Ged do instead?”
And Lod lowered his sword and struck not, and his imagination
began to work on that “What will Ged do instead?”
And the more Lod thought, the worse was his fear of Ged.
And Lod ran away and left him.
Lod still ruled the tribe in battle or in the hunt, but the chiefest
286 A Dreamer’s Tales

spoils of battle were given to Ged, and the beasts that they slew
were Ged’s; and all questions that concerned war or peace, and
questions of law and disputes, were always brought to him, and Ith
gave the answers after speaking to Ged by night.
At last Ith said, the day after an eclipse, that the gifts which they
brought to Ged were not enough, that some far greater sacrifice
was needed, that Ged was very angry even now, and not to be ap-
peased by any ordinary sacrifice.
And Ith said that to save the tribe from the anger of Ged he
would speak to Ged that night, and ask him what new sacrifice he
needed.
Deep in his heart Lod shuddered, for his instinct told him that
Ged wanted Lod’s only son, who should hold the iron sword when
Lod was gone.
No one would dare touch Lod because of the iron sword, but his
instinct said in his slow mind again and again, “Ged loves Ith. Ith
has said so. Ith hates the sword-holders.”
“Ith hates the sword-holders. Ged loves Ith.”
Evening fell and the night came when Ith should speak with
Ged, and Lod became ever surer of the doom of his race.
He lay down but could not sleep.
Midnight had barely come when Lod arose and went with his
iron sword again to the hill.
And there sat Ged. Had Ith been to him yet? Ith whom Ged
loved, who hated the sword-holders.
And Lod looked long at the old sword of iron that had come to
his grandfather on the plains of Thold.
Good-bye, old sword! And Lod laid it on the knees of Ged, then
went away.
And when Ith came, a little before dawn, the sacrifice was found
acceptable unto Ged.
 A Dreamer’s Tales 287

The Idle City

There was once a city which was an idle city, wherein men told
vain tales.
And it was that city’s custom to tax all men that would enter in,
with the toll of some idle story in the gate.
So all men paid to the watchers in the gate the toll of an idle sto-
ry, and passed into the city unhindered and unhurt. And in a certain
hour of the night when the king of that city arose and went pacing
swiftly up and down the chamber of his sleeping, and called upon
the name of the dead queen, then would the watchers fasten up the
gate and go into that chamber to the king, and, sitting on the floor,
would tell him all the tales that they had gathered. And listening
to them some calmer mood would come upon the king, and listen-
ing still he would lie down again and at last fall asleep, and all the
watchers silently would arise and steal away from the chamber.
A while ago wandering, I came to the gate of that city. And even
as I came a man stood up to pay his toll to the watchers. They were
seated cross-legged on the ground between him and the gate, and
each one held a spear. Near him two other travellers sat on the
warm sand waiting. And the man said:
“Now the city of Nombros forsook the worship of the gods and
turned towards God. So the gods threw their cloaks over their faces
and strode away from the city, and going into the haze among the
hills passed through the trunks of the olive groves into the sunset.
But when they had already left the Earth, they turned and looked
through the gleaming folds of the twilight for the last time at their
city; and they looked half in anger and half in regret, then turned
and went away for ever. But they sent back a Death, who bore a
scythe, saying to it: ’slay half in the city that forsook us, but half
of them spare alive that they may yet remember their old forsaken
gods.’
“But God sent a destroying angel to show that He was God, say-
ing unto him: ‘Go into that city and slay half of the dwellers there-
in, yet spare a half of them that they may know that I am God.’
“And at once the destroying angel put his hand to his sword,
288 A Dreamer’s Tales

and the sword came out of the scabbard with a deep breath, like
to the breath that a broad woodman takes before his first blow at
some giant oak. Thereat the angel pointed his arms downwards,
and bending his head between them, fell forward from Heaven’s
edge, and the spring of his ankles shot him downwards with his
wings furled behind him. So he went slanting earthward through
the evening with his sword stretched out before him, and he was
like a javelin that some hunter hath hurled that returneth again to
the earth: but just before he touched it he lifted his head and spread
his wings with the under feathers forward, and alighted by the bank
of the broad Flavro that divides the city of Nombros. And down the
bank of the Flavro he fluttered low, like to a hawk over a new-cut
cornfield when the little creatures of the corn are shelterless, and at
the same time down the other bank the Death from the gods went
mowing.
“At once they saw each other, and the angel glared at the Death,
and the Death leered back at him, and the flames in the eyes of the
angel illumined with a red glare the mist that lay in the hollows of
the sockets of the Death. Suddenly they fell on one another, sword
to scythe. And the angel captured the temples of the gods, and set
up over them the sign of God, and the Death captured the temples
of God, and led into them the ceremonies and sacrifices of the
gods; and all the while the centuries slipped quietly by, going down
the Flavro seawards.
“And now some worship God in the temple of the gods, and oth-
ers worship the gods in the temple of God, and still the angel hath
not returned again to the rejoicing choirs, and still the Death hath
not gone back to die with the dead gods; but all through Nombros
they fight up and down, and still on each side of the Flavro the city
lives.”
And the watchers in the gate said, “Enter in.”
Then another traveler rose up, and said:
“Solemnly between Huhenwazy and Nitcrana the huge grey
clouds came floating. And those great mountains, heavenly Huh-
enwazi and Nitcrana, the king of peaks, greeted them, calling them
brothers. And the clouds were glad of their greeting, for they meet
 A Dreamer’s Tales 289

with companions seldom in the lonely heights of the sky.

“But the vapours of evening said unto the earth-mist, ‘What are
those shapes that dare to move above us and to go where Nitcrana
is and Huhenwazi?’
“And the earth-mist said in answer unto the vapours of evening,
‘It is only an earth-mist that has become mad and has left the warm
and comfortable earth, and has in his madness thought that his
place is with Huhenwazi and Nitcrana.’
“‘Once,’ said the vapours of evening, ‘there were clouds, but
this was many and many a day ago, as our forefathers have said.
Perhaps the mad one thinks he is the clouds.’
“Then spake the earth-worms from the warm deeps of the mud,
saying ‘O earth-mist, thou art indeed the clouds, and there are no
clouds but thou. And as for Huhenwazi and Nitcrana, I cannot see
them, and therefore they are not high, and there are no mountains
in the world but those that I cast up every morning out of the deeps
of the mud.’
“And the earth-mist and the vapours of evening were glad at the
voice of the earth-worms, and looking earthward believed what
they had said.
“And indeed it is better to be as the earth-mist, and to keep close
to the warm mud at night, and to hear the earth-worm’s comfort-
able speech, and not to be a wanderer in the cheerless heights, but
to leave the mountains alone with their desolate snow, to draw
what comfort they can from their vast aspect over all the cities of
men, and from the whispers that they hear at evening of unknown
distant gods.”
And the watchers in the gate said, “Enter in.”
Then a man stood up who came out of the west, and told a west-
ern tale. He said:
“There is a road in Rome that runs through an ancient temple
that once the gods had loved; it runs along the top of a great wall,
and the floor of the temple lies far down beneath it, of marble, pink
and white.
“Upon the temple floor I counted to the number of thirteen hun-
gry cats.
290 A Dreamer’s Tales

“‘sometimes,’ they said among themselves, ‘it was the gods that
lived here, sometimes it was men, and now it’s cats. So let us enjoy
the sun on the hot marble before another people comes.’
“For it was at that hour of a warm afternoon when my fancy is
able to hear silent voices.
“And the awful leanness of all those thirteen cats moved me to
go into a neighbouring fish shop, and there to buy a quantity of
fishes. Then I returned and threw them all over the railing at the
top of the great wall, and they fell for thirty feet, and hit the sacred
marble with a smack.
“Now, in any other town but Rome, or in the minds of any other
cats, the sight of fishes falling out of heaven had surely excited
wonder. They rose slowly, and all stretched themselves, then they
came leisurely towards the fishes. ‘It is only a miracle,’ they said in
their hearts.”
And the watchers in the gate said, “Enter in.”
Proudly and slowly, as they spoke, drew up to them a camel,
whose rider sought entrance to the city. His face shone with the
sunset by which for long he had steered for the city’s gate. Of him
they demanded toll. Whereat he spoke to his camel, and the camel
roared and kneeled, and the man descended from him. And the
man unwrapped from many silks a box of divers metals wrought
by the Japanese, and on the lid of it were figures of men who gazed
from some shore at an isle of the Inland Sea. This he showed to the
watchers, and when they had seen it, said, “It has seemed to me
that these speak to each other thus:
“‘Behold now Oojni, the dear one of the sea, the little mother
sea that hath no storms. She goeth out from Oojni singing a song,
and she returneth singing over her sands. Little is Oojni in the lap
of the sea, and scarce to be perceived by wondering ships. White
sails have never wafted her legends afar, they are told not by
bearded wanderers of the sea. Her fireside tales are known not to
the North, the dragons of China have not heard of them, nor those
that ride on elephants through Ind.
“‘Men tell the tales and the smoke ariseth upwards; the smoke
departeth and the tales are told.
 A Dreamer’s Tales 291

“‘Oojni is not a name among the nations, she is not know of

where the merchants meet, she is not spoken of by alien lips.
“‘Indeed, but Oojni is a little among the isles, yet is she loved by
those that know her coasts and her inland places hidden from the
sea.
“Without glory, without fame, and without wealth, Oojni is
greatly loved by a little people, and by a few; yet not by few, for all
her dead still love her, and oft by night come whispering through
her woods. Who could forget Oojni even among the dead?
“For here in Oojni, wot you, are homes of men, and gardens, and
golden temples of the gods, and sacred places inshore from the sea,
and many murmurous woods. And there is a path that winds over
the hills to go into mysterious holy lands where dance by night
the spirits of the woods, or sing unseen in the sunlight; and no one
goes into these holy lands, for who that love Oojni could rob her of
her mysteries, and the curious aliens come not. Indeed, but we love
Oojni though she is so little; she is the little mother of our race, and
the kindly nurse of all seafaring birds.
“And behold, even now caressing her, the gentle fingers of the
mother sea, whose dreams are far with that old wanderer Ocean.
“And yet let us forget not Fuzi-Yama, for he stands manifest
over clouds and sea, misty below, and vague and indistinct, but
clear above for all the isles to watch. The ships make all their jour-
neys in his sight, the nights and the days go by him like a wind, the
summers and winters under him flicker and fade, the lives of men
pass quietly here and hence, and Fuzi-Yama watches there — and
knows.”
And the watchers in the gate said, “Enter in.”
And I, too, would have told them a tale, very wonderful and
very true; one that I had told in many cities, which as yet had no
believers. But now the sun had set, and the brief twilight gone, and
ghostly silences were rising from far and darkening hills. A still-
ness hung over that city’s gate. And the great silence of the solemn
night was more acceptable to the watchers in the gate than any
sound of man. Therefore they beckoned to us, and motioned with
their hands that we should pass untaxed into the city. And softly
292 A Dreamer’s Tales

we went up over the sand, and between the high rock pillars of the
gate, and a deep stillness settled among the watchers, and the stars
over them twinkled undisturbed.
For how short a while man speaks, and withal how vainly.
And for how long he is silent. Only the other day I met a king in
Thebes, who had been silent already for four thousand years.

The Hashish Man

I was at a dinner in London the other day. The ladies had gone
upstairs, and no one sat on my right; on my left there was a man I
did not know, but he knew my name somehow apparently, for he
turned to me after a while, and said, “I read a story of yours about
Bethmoora in a review.”
Of course I remembered the tale. It was about a beautiful Orien-
tal city that was suddenly deserted in a day — nobody quite knew
why. I said, “Oh, yes,” and slowly searched in my mind for some
more fitting acknowledgment of the compliment that his memory
had paid me.
I was greatly astonished when he said, “You were wrong about
the gnousar sickness; it was not that at all.”
I said, “Why! Have you been there?”
And he said, “Yes; I do it with hashish. I know Bethmoora
well.” And he took out of his pocket a small box full of some black
stuff that looked like tar, but had a stranger smell. He warned me
not to touch it with my finger, as the stain remained for days. “I
got it from a gipsy,” he said. “He had a lot of it, as it had killed
his father.” But I interrupted him, for I wanted to know for certain
what it was that had made desolate that beautiful city, Bethmoora,
and why they fled from it swiftly in a day. “Was it because of the
Desert’s curse?” I asked. And he said, “Partly it was the fury of
the Desert and partly the advice of the Emperor Thuba Mleen, for
that fearful beast is in some way connected with the Desert on his
mother’s side.” And he told me this strange story: “You remember
the sailor with the black scar, who was there on the day that you
 A Dreamer’s Tales 293

described when the messengers came on mules to the gate of Beth-

moora, and all the people fled. I met this man in a tavern, drinking
rum, and he told me all about the flight from Bethmoora, but knew
no more than you did what the message was, or who had sent it.
However, he said he would see Bethmoora once more whenever he
touched again at an eastern port, even if he had to face the Devil.
He often said that he would face the Devil to find out the mys-
tery of that message that emptied Bethmoora in a day. And in the
end he had to face Thuba Mleen, whose weak ferocity he had not
imagined. For one day the sailor told me he had found a ship, and I
met him no more after that in the tavern drinking rum. It was about
that time that I got the hashish from the gipsy, who had a quantity
that he did not want. It takes one literally out of oneself. It is like
wings. You swoop over distant countries and into other worlds.
Once I found out the secret of the universe. I have forgotten what it
was, but I know that the Creator does not take Creation seriously,
for I remember that He sat in Space with all His work in front of
Him and laughed. I have seen incredible things in fearful worlds.
As it is your imagination that takes you there, so it is only by your
imagination that you can get back. Once out in aether I met a bat-
tered, prowling spirit, that had belonged to a man whom drugs
had killed a hundred years ago; and he led me to regions that I had
never imagined; and we parted in anger beyond the Pleiades, and I
could not imagine my way back. And I met a huge grey shape that
was the Spirit of some great people, perhaps of a whole star, and I
besought It to show me my way home, and It halted beside me like
a sudden wind and pointed, and, speaking quite softly, asked me if
I discerned a certain tiny light, and I saw a far star faintly, and then
It said to me, ‘That is the Solar System,’ and strode tremendously
on. And somehow I imagined my way back, and only just in time,
for my body was already stiffening in a chair in my room; and
the fire had gone out and everything was cold, and I had to move
each finger one by one, and there were pins and needles in them,
and dreadful pains in the nails, which began to thaw; and at last I
could move one arm, and reached a bell, and for a long time no one
came, because every one was in bed. But at last a man appeared,
294 A Dreamer’s Tales

and they got a doctor; and HE said that it was hashish poisoning,
but it would have been all right if I hadn’t met that battered, prowl-
ing spirit.
“I could tell you astounding things that I have seen, but you
want to know who sent that message to Bethmoora. Well, it was
Thuba Mleen. And this is how I know. I often went to the city
after that day you wrote of (I used to take hashish of an evening in
my flat), and I always found it uninhabited. Sand had poured into
it from the desert, and the streets were yellow and smooth, and
through open, swinging doors the sand had drifted.
“One evening I had put the guard in front of the fire, and set-
tled into a chair and eaten my hashish, and the first thing that I
saw when I came to Bethmoora was the sailor with the black scar,
strolling down the street, and making footprints in the yellow sand.
And now I knew that I should see what secret power it was that
kept Bethmoora uninhabited.
“I saw that there was anger in the Desert, for there were storm
clouds heaving along the skyline, and I heard a muttering amongst
the sand.
“The sailor strolled on down the street, looking into the empty
houses as he went; sometimes he shouted and sometimes he sang,
and sometimes he wrote his name on a marble wall. Then he sat
down on a step and ate his dinner. After a while he grew tired of
the city, and came back up the street. As he reached the gate of
green copper three men on camels appeared.
“I could do nothing. I was only a consciousness, invisible, wan-
dering: my body was in Europe. The sailor fought well with his
fists, but he was over-powered and bound with ropes, and led away
through the Desert.
“I followed for as long as I could stay, and found that they were
going by the way of the Desert round the Hills of Hap towards
Utnar Véhi, and then I knew that the camel men belonged to Thuba
Mleen.
“I work in an insurance office all day, and I hope you won’t
forget me if ever you want to insure — life, fire, or motor — but
that’s no part of my story. I was desperately anxious to get back to
 A Dreamer’s Tales 295

my flat, though it is not good to take hashish two days running; but
I wanted to see what they would do to the poor fellow, for I had
heard bad rumours about Thuba Mleen. When at last I got away I
had a letter to write; then I rang for my servant, and told him that
I must not be disturbed, though I left my door unlocked in case
of accidents. After that I made up a good fire, and sat down and
partook of the pot of dreams. I was going to the palace of Thuba
Mleen.
“I was kept back longer than usual by noises in the street, but
suddenly I was up above the town; the European countries rushed
by beneath me, and there appeared the thin white palace spires of
horrible Thuba Mleen. I found him presently at the end of a little
narrow room. A curtain of red leather hung behind him, on which
all the names of God, written in Yannish, were worked with a
golden thread. Three windows were small and high. The Emperor
seemed no more than about twenty, and looked small and weak.
No smiles came on his nasty yellow face, though he tittered con-
tinually. As I looked from his low forehead to his quivering under
lip, I became aware that there was some horror about him, though
I was not able to perceive what it was. And then I saw it — the man
never blinked; and though later on I watched those eyes for a blink,
it never happened once.
“And then I followed the Emperor’s rapt glance, and I saw the
sailor lying on the floor, alive but hideously rent, and the royal tor-
turers were at work all round him. They had torn long strips from
him, but had not detached them, and they were torturing the ends
of them far away from the sailor.” The man that I met at dinner
told me many things which I must omit. “The sailor was groaning
softly, and every time he groaned Thuba Mleen tittered. I had no
sense of smell, but I could hear and see, and I do not know which
was the most revolting — the terrible condition of the sailor or the
happy unblinking face of horrible Thuba Mleen.
“I wanted to go away, but the time was not yet come, and I had
to stay where I was.
“Suddenly the Emperor’s face began to twitch violently and
his under lip quivered faster, and he whimpered with anger, and
296 A Dreamer’s Tales

cried with a shrill voice, in Yannish, to the captain of his tortur-

ers that there was a spirit in the room. I feared not, for living men
cannot lay hands on a spirit, but all the torturers were appalled at
his anger, and stopped their work, for their hands trembled in fear.
Then two men of the spear-guard slipped from the room, and each
of them brought back presently a golden bowl, with knobs on it,
full of hashish; and the bowls were large enough for heads to have
floated in had they been filled with blood. And the two men fell to
rapidly, each eating with two great spoons — there was enough in
each spoonful to have given dreams to a hundred men. And there
came upon them soon the hashish state, and their spirits hovered,
preparing to go free, while I feared horribly, but ever and anon
they fell back again to their bodies, recalled by some noise in the
room. Still the men ate, but lazily now, and without ferocity. At last
the great spoons dropped out of their hands, and their spirits rose
and left them. I could not flee. And the spirits were more horrible
than the men, because they were young men, and not yet wholly
moulded to fit their fearful souls. Still the sailor groaned softly,
evoking little titters from the Emperor Thuba Mleen. Then the two
spirits rushed at me, and swept me thence as gusts of wind sweep
butterflies, and away we went from that small, pale, heinous man.
There was no escaping from these spirits’ fierce insistence. The
energy in my minute lump of the drug was overwhelmed by the
huge spoonsful that these men had eaten with both hands. I was
whirled over Arvle Woondery, and brought to the lands of Snith,
and swept on still until I came to Kragua, and beyond this to those
bleak lands that are nearly unknown to fancy. And we came at last
to those ivory hills that are named the Mountains of Madness, and
I tried to struggle against the spirits of that frightful Emperor’s
men, for I heard on the other side of the ivory hills the pittering of
those beasts that prey on the mad, as they prowled up and down. It
was no fault of mine that my little lump of hashish could not fight
with their horrible spoonsful….”
Some one was tugging at the hall-door bell. Presently a serv-
ant came and told our host that a policeman in the hall wished to
speak to him at once. He apologised to us, and went outside, and
 A Dreamer’s Tales 297

we heard a man in heavy boots, who spoke in a low voice to him.

My friend got up and walked over to the window, and opened it,
and looked outside. “I should think it will be a fine night,” he said.
Then he jumped out. When we put our astonished heads out of the
window to look for him, he was already out of sight.

Poor Old Bill

On an antique haunt of sailors, a tavern of the sea, the light of
day was fading. For several evenings I had frequented this place,
in the hope of hearing something from the sailors, as they sat over
strange wines, about a rumour that had reached my ears of a certain
fleet of galleons of old Spain still said to be afloat in the South Seas
in some uncharted region.
In this I was again to be disappointed. Talk was low and seldom,
and I was about to leave, when a sailor, wearing ear-rings of pure
gold, lifted up his head from his wine, and looking straight before
him at the wall, told his tale loudly:
(When later on a storm of rain arose and thundered on the tav-
ern’s leaded panes, he raised his voice without effort and spoke on
still. The darker it got the clearer his wild eyes shone.)
“A ship with sails of the olden time was nearing fantastic isles.
We had never seen such isles.
“We all hated the captain, and he hated us. He hated us all alike,
there was no favouritism about him. And he never would talk a
word with any of us, except sometimes in the evening when it was
getting dark he would stop and look up and talk a bit to the men he
had hanged at the yard-arm.
“We were a mutinous crew. But Captain was the only man that
had pistols. He slept with one under his pillow and kept one close
beside him. There was a nasty look about the isles. They were
small and flat as though they had come up only recently from the
sea, and they had no sand or rocks like honest isles, but green grass
down to the water. And there were little cottages there whose looks
we did not like. Their thatches came almost down to the ground,
298 A Dreamer’s Tales

and were strangely turned up at the corners, and under the low
eaves were queer dark windows whose little leaded panes were too
thick to see through. And no one, man or beast, was walking about,
so that you could not know what kind of people lived there. But
Captain knew. And he went ashore and into one of the cottages,
and someone lit lights inside, and the little windows wore an evil
look.
“It was quite dark when he came aboard again, and he bade a
cheery good-night to the men that swung from the yard-arm and he
eyed us in a way that frightened poor old Bill.
“Next night we found that he had learned to curse, for he came
on a lot of us asleep in our bunks, and among them poor old Bill,
and he pointed at us with a finger, and made a curse that our souls
should stay all night at the top of the masts. And suddenly there
was the soul of poor old Bill sitting like a monkey at the top of the
mast, and looking at the stars, and freezing through and through.
“We got up a little mutiny after that, but Captain comes up and
points with his finger again, and this time poor old Bill and all the
rest are swimming behind the ship through the cold green water,
though their bodies remain on deck.
“It was the cabin-boy who found out that Captain couldn’t curse
when he was drunk, though he could shoot as well at one time as
another.
“After that it was only a matter of waiting, and of losing two
men when the time came. Some of us were murderous fellows, and
wanted to kill Captain, but poor old Bill was for finding a bit of
an island, out of the track of ships, and leaving him there with his
share of our year’s provisions. And everybody listened to poor old
Bill, and we decided to maroon Captain as soon as we caught him
when he couldn’t curse.
“It was three whole days before Captain got drunk again, and
poor old Bill and all had a dreadful time, for Captain invented new
curses every day, and wherever he pointed his finger our souls
had to go; and the fishes got to know us, and so did the stars, and
none of them pitied us when we froze on the masts or were hur-
ried through forests of seaweed and lost our way — both stars and
 A Dreamer’s Tales 299

fishes went about their businesses with cold, unastonished eyes.

Once when the sun had set and it was twilight, and the moon was
showing clearer and clearer in the sky, and we stopped our work
for a moment because Captain seemed to be looking away from
us at the colours in the sky, he suddenly turned and sent our souls
to the Moon. And it was colder there than ice at night; and there
were horrible mountains making shadows; and it was all as silent
as miles of tombs; and Earth was shining up in the sky as big as
the blade of a scythe, and we all got homesick for it, but could not
speak nor cry. It was quite dark when we got back, and we were
very respectful to Captain all the next day, but he cursed several
of us again very soon. What we all feared most was that he would
curse our souls to Hell, and none of us mentioned Hell above a
whisper for fear that it should remind him. But on the third evening
the cabin-boy came and told us that Captain was drunk. And we all
went to his cabin, and we found him lying there across his bunk,
and he shot as he had never shot before; but he had no more than
the two pistols, and he would only have killed two men if he hadn’t
caught Joe over the head with the end of one of his pistols. And
then we tied him up. And poor old Bill put the rum between the
Captain’s teeth, and kept him drunk for two days, so that he could
not curse, till we found a convenient rock. And before sunset of
the second day we found a nice bare island for Captain, out of the
track of ships, about a hundred yards long and about eighty wide;
and we rowed him along to it in a little boat, and gave him provi-
sions for a year, the same as we had ourselves, because poor old
Bill wanted to be fair. And we left him sitting comfortable with his
back to a rock singing a sailor’s song.
“When we could no longer hear Captain singing we all grew
very cheerful and made a banquet out of our year’s provisions, as
we all hoped to be home again in under three weeks. We had three
great banquets every day for a week — every man had more than
he could eat, and what was left over we threw on the floor like gen-
tlemen. And then one day, as we saw San Huëgédos, and wanted to
sail in to spend our money, the wind changed round from behind us
and beat us out to sea. There was no tacking against it, and no get-
300 A Dreamer’s Tales

ting into the harbour, though other ships sailed by us and anchored
there. Sometimes a dead calm would fall on us, while fishing boats
all around us flew before half a gale, and sometimes the wind
would beat us out to sea when nothing else was moving. All day
we tried, and at night we laid to and tried again the next day. And
all the sailors of the other ships were spending their money in San
Huëgédos and we could not come nigh it. Then we spoke horri-
ble things against the wind and against San Huëgédos, and sailed
away.
“It was just the same at Norenna.
“We kept close together now and talked in low voices. Suddenly
poor old Bill grew frightened. As we went all along the Siractic
coast-line, we tried again and again, and the wind was waiting for
us in every harbour and sent us out to sea. Even the little islands
would not have us. And then we knew that there was no landing
yet for poor old Bill, and every one upbraided his kind heart that
had made them maroon Captain on a rock, so as not to have his
blood upon their heads. There was nothing to do but to drift about
the seas. There were no banquets now, because we feared that Cap-
tain might live his year and keep us out to sea.
“At first we used to hail all passing ships, and used to try to
board them in the boats; but there was no towing against Captain’s
curse, and we had to give that up. So we played cards for a year
in Captain’s cabin, night and day, storm and fine, and every one
promised to pay poor old Bill when we got ashore.
“It was horrible to us to think what a frugal man Captain really
was, he that used to get drunk every other day whenever he was
at sea, and here he was still alive, and sober too, for his curse still
kept us out of every port, and our provisions were gone.
“Well, it came to drawing lots, and Jim was the unlucky one. Jim
only kept us about three days, and then we drew lots again, and
this time it was the nigger. The nigger didn’t keep us any longer,
and we drew again, and this time it was Charlie, and still Captain
was alive.
“As we got fewer one of us kept us longer. Longer and longer a
mate used to last us, and we all wondered how ever Captain did it.
 A Dreamer’s Tales 301

It was five weeks over the year when we drew Mike, and he kept
us for a week, and Captain was still alive. We wondered he didn’t
get tired of the same old curse; but we supposed things looked dif-
ferent when one is alone on an island.
“When there was only Jakes and poor old Bill and the cabin-boy
and Dick, we didn’t draw any longer. We said that the cabin-boy
had had all the luck, and he mustn’t expect any more. Then poor
old Bill was alone with Jakes and Dick, and Captain was still alive.
When there was no more boy, and the Captain still alive, Dick,
who was a huge strong man like poor old Bill, said that it was
Jakes’ turn, and he was very lucky to have lived as long as he had.
But poor old Bill talked it all over with Jakes, and they thought it
better than Dick should take his turn.
“Then there was Jakes and poor old Bill; and Captain would not
die.
“And these two used to watch one another night and day, when
Dick was gone and no one else was left to them. And at last poor
old Bill fell down in a faint and lay there for an hour. Then Jakes
came up to him slowly with his knife, and makes a stab at poor old
Bill as he lies there on the deck. And poor old Bill caught hold of
him by the wrist, and put his knife into him twice to make quite
sure, although it spoiled the best part of the meat. Then poor old
Bill was all alone at sea.
“And the very next week, before the food gave out, Captain
must have died on his bit of an island; for poor old Bill heard the
Captain’s soul going cursing over the sea, and the day after that the
ship was cast on a rocky coast.
“And Captain’s been dead now for over a hundred years, and
poor old Bill is safe ashore again. But it looks as if Captain hadn’t
done with him yet, for poor old Bill doesn’t ever get any older, and
somehow or other he doesn’t seem to die. Poor old Bill!”
When this was over the man’s fascination suddenly snapped, and
we all jumped up and left him.
It was not only his revolting story, but it was the fearful look in
the eyes of the man who told it, and the terrible ease with which his
voice surpassed the roar of the rain, that decided me never again to
302 A Dreamer’s Tales

enter that haunt of sailors — the tavern of the sea.

The Beggars
I was walking down Piccadilly not long ago, thinking of nursery
rhymes and regretting old romance.
As I saw the shopkeepers walk by in their black frock-coats and
their black hats, I thought of the old line in nursery annals: “The
merchants of London, they wear scarlet.”
The streets were all so unromantic, dreary. Nothing could be
done for them, I thought — nothing. And then my thoughts were
interrupted by barking dogs. Every dog in the street seemed to be
barking — every kind of dog, not only the little ones but the big
ones too. They were all facing East towards the way I was coming
by. Then I turned round to look and had this vision, in Piccadilly,
on the opposite side to the houses just after you pass the cab-rank.
Tall bent men were coming down the street arrayed in marve-
lous cloaks. All were sallow of skin and swarthy of hair, and most
of them wore strange beards. They were coming slowly, and they
walked with staves, and their hands were out for alms.
All the beggars had come to town.
I would have given them a gold doubloon engraven with the
towers of Castile, but I had no such coin. They did not seem the
people to who it were fitting to offer the same coin as one tendered
for the use of a taxicab (O marvelous, ill-made word, surely the
pass-word somewhere of some evil order). Some of them wore
purple cloaks with wide green borders, and the border of green was
a narrow strip with some, and some wore cloaks of old and faded
red, and some wore violet cloaks, and none wore black. And they
begged gracefully, as gods might beg for souls.
I stood by a lamp-post, and they came up to it, and one ad-
dressed it, calling the lamp-post brother, and said, “O lamp-post,
our brother of the dark, are there many wrecks by thee in the tides
of night? Sleep not, brother, sleep not. There were many wrecks an
it were not for thee.”
 A Dreamer’s Tales 303

It was strange: I had not thought of the majesty of the street

lamp and his long watching over drifting men. But he was not be-
neath the notice of these cloaked strangers.
And then one murmured to the street: “Art thou weary, street?
Yet a little longer they shall go up and down, and keep thee clad
with tar and wooden bricks. Be patient, street. In a while the earth-
quake cometh.”
“Who are you?” people said. “And where do you come from?”
“Who may tell what we are,” they answered, “or whence we
come?”
And one turned towards the smoke-stained houses, saying,
“Blessed be the houses, because men dream therein.”
Then I perceived, what I had never thought, that all these staring
houses were not alike, but different one from another, because they
held different dreams.
And another turned to a tree that stood by the Green Park rail-
ings, saying, “Take comfort, tree, for the fields shall come again.”
And all the while the ugly smoke went upwards, the smoke that
has stifled Romance and blackened the birds. This, I thought, they
can neither praise nor bless. And when they saw it they raised their
hands towards it, towards the thousand chimneys, saying, “Behold
the smoke. The old coal-forests that have lain so long in the dark,
and so long still, are dancing now and going back to the sun. For-
get not Earth, O our brother, and we wish thee joy of the sun.”
It had rained, and a cheerless stream dropped down a dirty gut-
ter. It had come from heaps of refuse, foul and forgotten; it had
gathered upon its way things that were derelict, and went to somb-
er drains unknown to man or the sun. It was this sullen stream as
much as all other causes that had made me say in my heart that the
town was vile, that Beauty was dead in it, and Romance fled.
Even this thing they blessed. And one that wore a purple cloak
with broad green border, said, “Brother, be hopeful yet, for thou
shalt surely come at last to the delectable Sea, and meet the heav-
ing, huge, and travelled ships, and rejoice by isles that know the
golden sun.” Even thus they blessed the gutter, and I felt no whim
to mock.
304 A Dreamer’s Tales

And the people that went by, in their black unseemly coats and
their misshapen, monstrous, shiny hats, the beggars also blessed.
And one of them said to one of these dark citizens: “O twin of
Night himself, with thy specks of white at wrist and neck like to
Night’s scattered stars. How fearfully thou dost veil with black thy
hid, unguessed desires. They are deep thoughts in thee that they
will not frolic with colour, that they say ‘No’ to purple, and to love-
ly green ‘Begone.’ Thou hast wild fancies that they must needs be
tamed with black, and terrible imaginings that they must be hidden
thus. Has thy soul dreams of the angels, and of the walls of Faëry
that thou hast guarded it so utterly, lest it dazzle astonished eyes?
Even so God hid the diamond deep down in miles of clay.
“The wonder of thee is not marred by mirth.
“Behold thou art very secret.
“Be wonderful. Be full of mystery.”
Silently the man in the black frock-coat passed on. And I came
to understand when the purple beggar had spoken, that the dark cit-
izen had trafficked perhaps with Ind, that in his heart were strange
and dumb ambitions; that his dumbness was founded by solemn
rite on the roots of ancient tradition; that it might be overcome one
day by a cheer in the street or by some one singing a song, and that
when this shopman spoke there might come clefts in the world and
people peering over at the abyss.
Then turning towards Green Park, where as yet Spring was not,
the beggars stretched out their hands, and looking at the frozen
grass and the yet unbudding trees they, chanting all together,
prophesied daffodils.
A motor omnibus came down the street, nearly running over
some of the dogs that were barking ferociously still. It was sound-
ing its horn noisily.
And the vision went then.
In a letter from a friend whom I have never seen, one of those
that read my books, this line was quoted — “But he, he never came
to Carcassonne.” I do not know the origin of the line, but I made
this tale about it.
 A Dreamer’s Tales 305

Carcassonne
When Camorak reigned at Arn, and the world was fairer, he
gave a festival to all the weald to commemorate the splendour of
his youth.
They say that his house at Arn was huge and high, and its ceiling
painted blue; and when evening fell men would climb up by lad-
ders and light the scores of candles hanging from slender chains.
And they say, too, that sometimes a cloud would come, and pour
in through the top of one of the oriel windows, and it would come
over the edge of the stonework as the sea-mist comes over a sheer
cliffs shaven lip where an old wind has blown for ever and ever
(he has swept away thousands of leaves and thousands of centu-
ries, they are all one to him, he owes no allegiance to Time). And
the cloud would re-shape itself in the hall’s lofty vault and drift
on through it slowly, and out to the sky again through another
window. And from its shape the knights in Camorak’s hall would
prophesy the battles and sieges of the next season of war. They say
of the hall of Camorak at Arn that there hath been none like it in
any land, and foretell that there will be never.
Hither had come in the folk of the Weald from sheepfold and
from forest, revolving slow thoughts of food, and shelter, and love,
and they sat down wondering in that famous hall; and therein also
were seated the men of Arn, the town that clustered round the
King’s high house, and all was roofed with red, maternal earth.
If old songs may be trusted, it was a marvelous hall.
Many who sat there could only have seen it distantly before,
a clear shape in the landscape, but smaller than a hill. Now they
beheld along the wall the weapons of Camorak’s men, of which
already the lute-players made songs, and tales were told at evening
in the byres. There they described the shield of Camorak that had
gone to and fro across so many battles, and the sharp but dinted
edges of his sword; there were the weapons of Gadriol the Leal,
and Norn, and Athoric of the Sleety Sword, Heriel the Wild,
Yarold, and Thanga of Esk, their arms hung evenly all round the
hall, low where a man could reach them; and in the place of hon-
306 A Dreamer’s Tales

our in the midst, between the arms of Camorak and of Gadriol the
Leal, hung the harp of Arleon. And of all the weapons hanging on
those walls none were more calamitous to Camorak’s foes than
was the harp of Arleon. For to a man that goes up against a strong
place on foot, pleasant indeed is the twang and jolt of some fear-
ful engine of war that his fellow-warriors are working behind him,
from which huge rocks go sighing over his head and plunge among
his foes; and pleasant to a warrior in the wavering light are the
swift commands of his King, and a joy to him are his comrades’
instant cheers exulting suddenly at a turn of the war. All this and
more was the harp to Camorak’s men; for not only would it cheer
his warriors on, but many a time would Arleon of the Harp strike
wild amazement into opposing hosts by some rapturous prophecy
suddenly shouted out while his hand swept over the roaring strings.
Moreover, no war was ever declared till Camorak and his men had
listened long to the harp, and were elate with the music and mad
against peace. Once Arleon, for the sake of a rhyme, had made war
upon Estabonn; and an evil king was overthrown, and honour and
glory won; from such queer motives does good sometimes accrue.
Above the shields and the harps all round the hall were the
painted figures of heroes of fabulous famous songs. Too trivial,
because too easily surpassed by Camorak’s men, seemed all the
victories that the earth had known; neither was any trophy dis-
played of Camorak’s seventy battles, for these were as nothing to
his warriors or him compared with those things that their youth had
dreamed and which they mightily purposed yet to do.
Above the painted pictures there was darkness, for evening was
closing in, and the candles swinging on their slender chain were
not yet lit in the roof; it was as though a piece of the night had
been builded into the edifice like a huge natural rock that juts into
a house. And there sat all the warriors of Arn and the Weald-folk
wondering at them; and none were more than thirty, and all were
skilled in war. And Camorak sat at the head of all, exulting in his
youth.
We must wrestle with Time for some seven decades, and he is a
weak and puny antagonist in the first three bouts.
 A Dreamer’s Tales 307

Now there was present at this feast a diviner, one who knew the
schemes of Fate, and he sat among the people of the Weald and had
no place of honour, for Camorak and his men had no fear of Fate.
And when the meat was eaten and the bones cast aside, the king
rose up from his chair, and having drunken wine, and being in the
glory of his youth and with all his knights about him, called to the
diviner, saying, “Prophesy.”
And the diviner rose up, stroking his grey beard, and spake
guardedly — “There are certain events,” he said, “upon the ways
of Fate that are veiled even from a diviner’s eyes, and many more
are clear to us that were better veiled from all; much I know that is
better unforetold, and some things that I may not foretell on pain
of centuries of punishment. But this I know and foretell — that you
will never come to Carcassonne.”
Instantly there was a buzz of talk telling of Carcassonne — some
had heard of it in speech or song, some had read of it, and some
had dreamed of it. And the king sent Arleon of the Harp down from
his right hand to mingle with the Weald-folk to hear aught that
any told of Carcassonne. But the warriors told of the places they
had won to — many a hard-held fortress, many a far-off land, and
swore that they would come to Carcassonne.
And in a while came Arleon back to the king’s right hand, and
raised his harp and chanted and told of Carcassonne. Far away it
was, and far and far away, a city of gleaming ramparts rising one
over other, and marble terraces behind the ramparts, and fountains
shimmering on the terraces. To Carcassonne the elf-kings with
their fairies had first retreated from men, and had built it on an
evening late in May by blowing their elfin horns. Carcassonne!
Carcassonne!
Travellers had seen it sometimes like a clear dream, with the sun
glittering on its citadel upon a far-off hilltop, and then the clouds
had come or a sudden mist; no one had seen it long or come quite
close to it; though once there were some men that came very near,
and the smoke from the houses blew into their faces, a sudden
gust — no more, and these declared that some one was burning
cedarwood there. Men had dreamed that there is a witch there,
308 A Dreamer’s Tales

walking alone through the cold courts and corridors of marmorean

palaces, fearfully beautiful and still for all her fourscore centu-
ries, singing the second oldest song, which was taught her by the
sea, shedding tears for loneliness from eyes that would madden
armies, yet will she not call her dragons home — Carcassonne is
terribly guarded. Sometimes she swims in a marble bath through
whose deeps a river tumbles, or lies all morning on the edge of it
to dry slowly in the sun, and watches the heaving river trouble the
deeps of the bath. It flows through the caverns of earth for further
than she knows, and coming to light in the witch’s bath goes down
through the earth again to its own peculiar sea.
In autumn sometimes it comes down black with snow that spring
has molten in unimagined mountains, or withered blooms of moun-
tain shrubs go beautifully by.
When there is blood in the bath she knows there is war in the
mountains; and yet she knows not where those mountains are.
When she sings the fountains dance up from the dark earth,
when she combs her hair they say there are storms at sea, when she
is angry the wolves grow brave and all come down to the byres,
when she is sad the sea is sad, and both are sad for ever. Carcas-
sonne! Carcassonne!
This city is the fairest of the wonders of Morning; the sun shouts
when he beholdeth it; for Carcassonne Evening weepeth when
Evening passeth away.
And Arleon told how many goodly perils were round about the
city, and how the way was unknown, and it was a knightly venture.
Then all the warriors stood up and sang of the splendour of the
venture. And Camorak swore by the gods that had builded Arn, and
by the honour of his warriors that, alive or dead, he would come to
Carcassonne.
But the diviner rose and passed out of the hall, brushing the
crumbs from him with his hands and smoothing his robe as he
went.
Then Camorak said, “There are many things to be planned, and
counsels to be taken, and provender to be gathered. Upon what day
shall we start?” And all the warriors answering shouted, “Now.”
 A Dreamer’s Tales 309

And Camorak smiled thereat, for he had but tried them. Down
then from the walls they took their weapons, Sikorix, Kelleron,
Aslof, Wole of the Axe; Huhenoth, Peace-breaker; Wolwuf, Father
of War; Tarion, Lurth of the Warcry and many another. Little then
dreamed the spiders that sat in that ringing hall of the unmolested
leisure they were soon to enjoy.
When they were armed they all formed up and marched out of
the hall, and Arleon strode before them singing of Carcassonne.
But the talk of the Weald arose and went back well fed to byres.
They had no need of wars or of rare perils. They were ever at war
with hunger. A long drought or hard winter were to them pitched
battles; if the wolves entered a sheep-fold it was like the loss of a
fortress, a thunder-storm on the harvest was like an ambuscade.
Well-fed, they went back slowly to their byres, being at truce with
hunger; and the night filled with stars.
And black against the starry sky appeared the round helms of
the warriors as they passed the tops of the ridges, but in the valleys
they sparkled now and then as the starlight flashed on steel.
They followed behind Arleon going south, whence rumours had
always come of Carcassonne: so they marched in the starlight, and
he before them singing.
When they had marched so far that they heard no sound from
Arn, and even inaudible were her swinging bells, when candles
burning late far up in towers no longer sent them their disconso-
late welcome; in the midst of the pleasant night that lulls the rural
spaces, weariness came upon Arleon and his inspiration failed. It
failed slowly. Gradually he grew less sure of the way to Carcas-
sonne. Awhile he stopped to think, and remembered the way again;
but his clear certainty was gone, and in its place were efforts in his
mind to recall old prophecies and shepherd’s songs that told of the
marvelous city. Then as he said over carefully to himself a song
that a wanderer had learnt from a goatherd’s boy far up the lower
slope of ultimate southern mountains, fatigue came down upon
his toiling mind like snow on the winding ways of a city noisy by
night, stilling all.
He stood, and the warriors closed up to him. For long they had
310 A Dreamer’s Tales

passed by great oaks standing solitary here and there, like giants
taking huge breaths of the night air before doing some furious
deed; now they had come to the verge of a black forest; the tree-
trunks stood like those great columns in an Egyptian hall whence
God in an older mood received the praise of men; the top of it
sloped the way of an ancient wind. Here they all halted and lighted
a fire of branches, striking sparks from flint into a heap of brack-
en. They eased them of their armour, and sat round the fire, and
Camorak stood up there and addressed them, and Camorak said:
“We go to war with Fate, who has doomed that I shall not come to
Carcassonne. And if we turn aside but one of the dooms of Fate,
then the whole future of the world is ours, and the future that Fate
has ordered is like the dry course of an averted river. But if such
men as we, such resolute conquerors, cannot prevent one doom
that Fate has planned, then is the race of man enslaved for ever to
do its petty and allotted task.”
Then they all drew their swords, and waved them high in the
firelight, and declared war on Fate.
Nothing in the somber forest stirred or made any sound.
Tired men do not dream of war. When morning came over the
gleaming fields a company that had set out from Arn discovered
the discovered the camping-place of the warriors, and brought
pavilions and provender. And the warriors feasted, and the birds in
the forest sang, and the inspiration of Arleon awoke.
Then they rose, and following Arleon, entered the forest, and
marched away to the South. And many a woman of Arn sent her
thoughts with them as they played alone some old monotonous
tune, but their own thoughts were far before them, skimming over
the bath through whose deeps the river tumbles in marble Carcas-
sonne.
When butterflies were dancing on the air, and the sun neared the
zenith, pavilions were pitched, and all the warriors rested; and then
they feasted again, and then played knightly games, and late in the
afternoon marched on once more, singing of Carcassonne.
And night came down with its mystery on the forest, and gave
their demoniac look again to the trees, and rolled up out of misty
 A Dreamer’s Tales 311

hollows a huge and yellow moon.

And the men of Arn lit fires, and sudden shadows arose and
leaped fantastically away. And the night-wind blew, arising like a
ghost, and passed between the tree trunks, and slipped down shim-
mering glades, and waked the prowling beasts still dreaming of
day, and drifted nocturnal birds afield to menace timorous things,
and beat the roses of the befriending night, and wafted to the ears
of wandering men the sound of a maiden’s song, and gave a glam-
our to the lutanist’s tune played in his loneliness on distant hills;
and the deep eyes of moths glowed like a galleon’s lamps, and they
spread their wings and sailed their familiar sea. Upon this night-
wind also the dreams of Camorak’s men floated to Carcassonne.
All the next morning they marched, and all the evening, and
knew they were nearing now the deeps of the forest. And the
citizens of Arn kept close together and close behind the warriors.
For the deeps of the forest were all unknown to travellers, but not
unknown to those tales of fear that men tell at evening to their
friends, in the comfort and the safety of their hearths. Then night
appeared, and an enormous moon. And the men of Camorak slept.
Sometimes they woke, and went to sleep again; and those that
stayed awake for long and listened heard heavy two-footed crea-
tures pad through the night on paws.
As soon as it was light the unarmed men of Arn began to slip
away, and went back by bands through the forest. When darkness
came they did not stop to sleep, but continued their flight straight
on until they came to Arn, and added there by the tales they told to
the terror of the forest.
But the warriors feasted, and afterwards Arleon rose, and played
his harp, and led them on again; and a few faithful servants stayed
with them still. And they marched all day through a gloom that was
as old as night, but Arleon’s inspiration burned in his mind like a
star. And he led them till the birds began to drop into the treetops,
and it was evening and they all encamped. They had only one
pavilion left to them now, and near it they lit a fire, and Camorak
posted a sentry with drawn sword just beyond the glow of the fire-
light. Some of the warriors slept in the pavilion and others round
312 A Dreamer’s Tales

about it.
When dawn came something terrible had killed and eaten the
sentry. But the splendour of the rumours of Carcassonne and Fate’s
decree that they should never come there, and the inspiration of
Arleon and his harp, all urged the warriors on; and they marched
deeper and deeper all day into the forest.
Once they saw a dragon that had caught a bear and was playing
with it, letting it run a little way and overtaking it with a paw.
They came at last to a clear space in the forest just before night-
fall. An odour of flowers arose from it like a mist, and every drop
of dew interpreted heaven unto itself.
It was the hour when twilight kisses Earth.
It was the hour when a meaning comes into senseless things,
and trees out-majesty the pomp of monarchs, and the timid crea-
tures steal abroad to feed, and as yet the beasts of prey harmlessly
dream, and Earth utters a sigh, and it is night.
In the midst of the wide clearing Camorak’s warriors camped,
and rejoiced to see stars again appearing one by one.
That night they ate the last of their provisions, and slept unmo-
lested by the prowling things that haunt the gloom of the forest.
On the next day some of the warriors hunted stags, and others
lay in rushes by a neighbouring lake and shot arrows at water-fowl.
One stag was killed, and some geese, and several teal.
Here the adventurers stayed, breathing the pure wild air that cit-
ies know not; by day they hunted, and lit fires by night, and sang
and feasted, and forgot Carcassonne. The terrible denizens of the
gloom never molested them, venison was plentiful, and all man-
ner of water-fowl: they loved the chase by day, and by night their
favourite songs. Thus day after day went by, thus week after week.
Time flung over this encampment a handful of moons, the gold and
silver moons that waste the year away; Autumn and Winter passed,
and Spring appeared; and still the warriors hunted and feasted
there.
One night of the springtide they were feasting about a fire and
telling tales of the chase, and the soft moths came out of the dark
and flaunted their colours in the firelight, and went out grey into
 A Dreamer’s Tales 313

the dark again; and the night wind was cool upon the warriors’
necks, and the camp-fire was warm in their faces, and a silence had
settled among them after some song, and Arleon all at once rose
suddenly up, remembering Carcassonne. And his hand swept over
the strings of his harp, awaking the deeper chords, like the sound
of a nimble people dancing their steps on bronze, and the music
rolled away into the night’s own silence, and the voice of Arleon
rose:
“When there is blood in the bath she knows there is war in the
mountains and longs for the battle-shout of kingly men.”
And suddenly all shouted, “Carcassonne!” And at that word their
idleness was gone as a dream is gone from a dreamer waked with
a shout. And soon the great march began that faltered no more nor
wavered. Unchecked by battles, undaunted in lonesome spaces,
ever unwearied by the vulturous years, the warriors of Camorak
held on; and Arleon’s inspiration led them still. They cleft with the
music of Arleon’s harp the gloom of ancient silences; they went
singing into battles with terrible wild men, and came out singing,
but with fewer voices; they came to villages in valleys full of the
music of bells, or saw the lights at dusk of cottages sheltering oth-
ers.
They became a proverb for wandering, and a legend arose of
strange, disconsolate men. Folks spoke of them at nightfall when
the fire was warm and rain slipped down the eaves; and when the
wind was high small children feared the Men Who Would Not
Rest were going clattering past. Strange tales were told of men in
old grey armour moving at twilight along the tops of the hills and
never asking shelter; and mothers told their boys who grew impa-
tient of home that the grey wanderers were once so impatient and
were now hopeless of rest, and were driven along with the rain
whenever the wind was angry.
But the wanderers were cheered in their wandering by the hope
of coming to Carcassonne, and later on by anger against Fate, and
at last they marched on still because it seemed better to march on
than to think.
For many years they had wandered and had fought with many
314 A Dreamer’s Tales

tribes; often they gathered legends in villages and listened to idle

singers singing songs; and all the rumours of Carcassonne still
came from the South.
And then one day they came to a hilly land with a legend in it
that only three valleys away a man might see, on clear days, Car-
cassonne. Tired though they were and few, and worn with the years
which had all brought them wars, they pushed on instantly, led still
by Arleon’s inspiration which dwindled in his age, though he made
music with his old harp still.
All day they climbed down into the first valley and for two days
ascended, and came to the Town That May Not Be Taken In War
below the top of the mountain, and its gates were shut against
them, and there was no way round. To left and right steep precipic-
es stood for as far as eye could see or legend tell of, and the pass
lay through the city. Therefore Camorak drew up his remaining
warriors in line of battle to wage their last war, and they stepped
forward over the crisp bones of old, unburied armies.
No sentinel defied them in the gate, no arrow flew from any
tower of war. One citizen climbed alone to the mountain’s top, and
the rest hid themselves in sheltered places.
Now, in the top of the mountain was a deep, bowl-like cavern
in the rock, in which fires bubbled softly. But if any cast a boulder
into the fires, as it was the custom for one of those citizens to do
when enemies approached them, the mountain hurled up intermit-
tent rocks for three days, and the rocks fell flaming all over the
town and all round about it. And just as Camorak’s men began to
batter the gate they heard a crash on the mountain, and a great rock
fell beyond them and rolled into the valley. The next two fell in
front of them on the iron roofs of the town. Just as they entered the
town a rock found them crowded in a narrow street, and shattered
two of them. The mountain smoked and panted; with every pant a
rock plunged into the streets or bounced along the heavy iron roof,
and the smoke went slowly up, and up, and up.
When they had come through the long town’s empty streets to
the locked gate at the end, only fifteen were left. When they had
broken down the gate there were only ten alive. Three more were
 A Dreamer’s Tales 315

killed as they went up the slope, and two as they passed near the
terrible cavern. Fate let the rest go some way down the mountain
upon the other side, and then took three of them. Camorak and
Arleon alone were left alive. And night came down on the valley to
which they had come, and was lit by flashes from the fatal moun-
tain; and the two mourned for their comrades all night long.
But when the morning came they remembered their war with
Fate, and their old resolve to come to Carcassonne, and the voice
of Arleon rose in a quavering song, and snatches of music from his
old harp, and he stood up and marched with his face southwards as
he had done for years, and behind him Camorak went. And when
at last they climbed from the third valley, and stood on the hill’s
summit in the golden sunlight of evening, their aged eyes saw only
miles of forest and the birds going to roost.
Their beards were white, and they had travelled very far and
hard; it was the time with them when a man rests from labours and
dreams in light sleep of the years that were and not of the years to
come.
Long they looked southwards; and the sun set over remoter for-
ests, and glow-worms lit their lamps, and the inspiration of Arleon
rose and flew away for ever, to gladden, perhaps, the dreams of
younger men.
And Arleon said: “My King, I know no longer the way to Car-
cassonne.”
And Camorak smiled, as the aged smile, with little cause for
mirth, and said: “The years are going by us like huge birds, whom
Doom and Destiny and the schemes of God have frightened up
out of some old grey marsh. And it may well be that against these
no warrior may avail, and that Fate has conquered us, and that our
quest has failed.”
And after this they were silent.
Then they drew their swords, and side by side went down into
the forest, still seeking Carcassonne.
I think they got not far; for there were deadly marshes in that
forest, and gloom that outlasted the nights, and fearful beasts ac-
customed to its ways. Neither is there any legend, either in verse or
316 A Dreamer’s Tales

among the songs of the people of the fields, of any having come to
Carcassonne.

In Zaccarath
“Come,” said the King in sacred Zaccarath, “and let our proph-
ets prophesy before us.”
A far-seen jewel of light was the holy palace, a wonder to the
nomads on the plains.
There was the King with all his underlords, and the lesser kings
that did him vassalage, and there were all his queens with all their
jewels upon them.
Who shall tell of the splendour in which they sat; of the thou-
sand lights and the answering emeralds; of the dangerous beauty of
that hoard of queens, or the flash of their laden necks?
There was a necklace there of rose-pink pearls beyond the art of
the dreamer to imagine. Who shall tell of the amethyst chandeliers,
where torches, soaked in rare Bhyrinian oils, burned and gave off a
scent of blethany?
(This herb marvellous, which, growing near the summit of
Mount Zaumnos, scents all the Zaumnian range, and is smelt far
out on the Kepuscran plains, and even, when the wind is from the
mountains, in the streets of the city of Ognoth. At night it closes its
petals and is heard to breathe, and its breath is a swift poison. This
it does even by day if the snows are disturbed about it. No plant of
this has ever been captured alive by a hunter.)
Enough to say that when the dawn came up it appeared by con-
trast pallid and unlovely and stripped bare of all its glory, so that it
hid itself with rolling clouds.
“Come,” said the King, “let our prophets prophesy.”
Then the heralds stepped through the ranks of the King’s silk-
clad warriors who lay oiled and scented upon velvet cloaks, with
a pleasant breeze among them caused by the fans of slaves; even
their casting-spears were set with jewels; through their ranks the
heralds went with mincing steps, and came to the prophets, clad in
 A Dreamer’s Tales 317

brown and black, and one of them they brought and set him before
the King. And the King looked at him and said, “Prophesy unto
us.”
And the prophet lifted his head, so that his beard came clear
from his brown cloak, and the fans of the slaves that fanned the
warriors wafted the tip of it a little awry. And he spake to the King,
and spake thus:
“Woe unto thee, King, and woe unto Zaccarath. Woe unto thee,
and woe unto thy women, for your fall shall be sore and soon.
Already in Heaven the gods shun thy god: they know his doom
and what is written of him: he sees oblivion before him like a mist.
Thou hast aroused the hate of the mountaineers. They hate thee
all along the crags of Droom. The evilness of thy days shall bring
down the Zeedians on thee as the suns of springtide bring the ava-
lanche down. They shall do unto Zaccarath as the avalanche doth
unto the hamlets of the valley.” When the queens chattered or tit-
tered among themselves, he merely raised his voice and still spake
on: “Woe to these walls and the carven things upon them. The
hunter shall know the camping-places of the nomads by the marks
of the camp-fires on the plain, but he shall not know the place of
Zaccarath.”
A few of the recumbent warriors turned their heads to glance at
the prophet when he ceased. Far overhead the echoes of his voice
hummed on awhile among the cedarn rafters.
“Is he not splendid?” said the King. And many of that assembly
beat with their palms upon the polished floor in token of applause.
Then the prophet was conducted back to his place at the far end
of that mighty hall, and for a while musicians played on marvel-
lous curved horns, while drums throbbed behind them hidden
in a recess. The musicians were sitting crosslegged on the floor,
all blowing their huge horns in the brilliant torchlight, but as the
drums throbbed louder in the dark they arose and moved slowly
nearer to the King. Louder and louder drummed the drums in the
dark, and nearer and nearer moved the men with the horns, so that
their music should not be drowned by the drums before it reached
the King.
318 A Dreamer’s Tales

A marvellous scene it was when the tempestuous horns were

halted before the King, and the drums in the dark were like the
thunder of God; and the queens were nodding their heads in time
to the music, with their diadems flashing like heavens of falling
stars; and the warriors lifted their heads and shook, as they lifted
them, the plumes of those golden birds which hunters wait for by
the Liddian lakes, in a whole lifetime killing scarcely six, to make
the crests that the warriors wore when they feasted in Zaccarath.
Then the King shouted and the warriors sang — almost they re-
membered then old battle-chants. And, as they sang, the sound of
the drums dwindled, and the musicians walked away backwards,
and the drumming became fainter and fainter as they walked, and
altogether ceased, and they blew no more on their fantastic horns.
Then the assemblage beat on the floor with their palms. And after-
wards the queens besought the King to send for another prophet.
And the heralds brought a singer, and placed him before the King;
and the singer was a young man with a harp. And he swept the
strings of it, and when there was silence he sang of the iniquity of
the King. And he foretold the onrush of the Zeedians, and the fall
and the forgetting of Zaccarath, and the coming again of the desert
to its own, and the playing about of little lion cubs where the courts
of the palace had stood.
“Of what is he singing?” said a queen to a queen.
“He is singing of everlasting Zaccarath.”
As the singer ceased the assemblage beat listlessly on the floor,
and the King nodded to him, and he departed.
When all the prophets had prophesied to them and all the singers
sung, that royal company arose and went to other chambers, leav-
ing the hall of festival to the pale and lonely dawn. And alone were
left the lion-headed gods that were carven out of the walls; silent
they stood, and their rocky arms were folded. And shadows over
their faces moved like curious thoughts as the torches flickered and
the dull dawn crossed the fields. And the colours began to change
in the chandeliers.
When the last lutanist fell asleep the birds began to sing.
Never was greater splendour or a more famous hall. When the
 A Dreamer’s Tales 319

queens went away through the curtained door with all their dia-
dems, it was as though the stars should arise in their stations and
troop together to the West at sunrise.
And only the other day I found a stone that had undoubtedly
been a part of Zaccarath, it was three inches long and an inch
broad; I saw the edge of it uncovered by the sand. I believe that
only three other pieces have been found like it.

The Field
When one has seen Spring’s blossom fall in London, and Sum-
mer appear and ripen and decay, as it does early in cities, and one
is in London still, then, at some moment or another, the country
places lift their flowery heads and call to one with an urgent, mas-
terful clearness, upland behind upland in the twilight like to some
heavenly choir arising rank on rank to call a drunkard from his
gambling-hell. No volume of traffic can drown the sound of it, no
lure of London can weaken its appeal. Having heard it one’s fancy
is gone, and evermore departed, to some coloured pebble agleam
in a rural brook, and all that London can offer is swept from one’s
mind like some suddenly smitten metropolitan Goliath.
The call is from afar both in leagues and years, for the hills that
call one are the hills that were, and their voices are the voices of
long ago, when the elf-kings still had horns.
I see them now, those hills of my infancy (for it is they that call),
with their faces upturned to the purple twilight, and the faint di-
aphanous figures of the fairies peering out from under the bracken
to see if evening is come. I do not see upon their regal summits
those desirable mansions, and highly desirable residences, which
have lately been built for gentlemen who would exchange custom-
ers for tenants.
When the hills called I used to go to them by road, riding a bicy-
cle. If you go by train you miss the gradual approach, you do not
cast off London like an old forgiven sin, nor pass by little villages
on the way that must have some rumour of the hills; nor, wonder-
320 A Dreamer’s Tales

ing if they are still the same, come at last upon the edge of their
far-spread robes, and so on to their feet, and see far off their holy,
welcoming faces. In the train you see them suddenly round a curve,
and there they all are sitting in the sun.
I imagine that as one penetrated out from some enormous for-
est of the tropics, the wild beasts would become fewer, the gloom
would lighten, and the horror of the place would slowly lift. Yet as
one emerges nearer to the edge of London, and nearer to the beau-
tiful influence of the hills, the houses become uglier, the streets
viler, the gloom deepens, the errors of civilisation stand bare to the
scorn of the fields.
Where ugliness reaches the height of its luxuriance, in the dense
misery of the place, where one imagines the builder saying, “Here I
culminate. Let us give thanks to Satan,” there is a bridge of yellow
brick, and through it, as through some gate of filigree silver open-
ing on fairyland, one passes into the country.
To left and right, as far as one can see, stretches that monstrous
city; before one are the fields like an old, old song.
There is a field there that is full of king-cups. A stream runs
through it, and along the stream is a little wood of osiers. There I
used often to rest at the streams edge before my long journey to the
hills.
There I used to forget London, street by street. Sometimes I
picked a bunch of king-cups to show them to the hills.
I often came there. At first I noticed nothing about the field ex-
cept its beauty and its peacefulness.
But the second time that I came I thought there was something
ominous about the field.
Down there among the king-cups by the little shallow stream I
felt that something terrible might happen in just such a place.
I did not stay long there, because I thought that too much time
spent in London had brought on these morbid fancies and I went
on to the hills as fast as I could.
I stayed for some days in the country air, and when I came back
I went to the field again to enjoy that peaceful spot before entering
London. But there was still something ominous among the osiers.
 A Dreamer’s Tales 321

A year elapsed before I went there again. I emerged from the

shadow of London into the gleaming sun; the bright green grass
and the king-cups were flaming in the light, and the little stream
was singing a happy song. But the moment I stepped into the
field my old uneasiness returned, and worse than before. It was
as though the shadow was brooding there of some dreadful future
thing and a year had brought it nearer.
I reasoned that the exertion of bicycling might be bad for one,
and that the moment one rested this uneasiness might result.
A little later I came back past the field by night, and the song of
the stream in the hush attracted me down to it. And there the fancy
came to me that it would be a terribly cold place to be in the star-
light, if for some reason one was hurt and could not get away.
I knew a man who was minutely acquainted with the past history
of that locality, and him I asked if anything historical had ever hap-
pened in that field. When he pressed me for my reason in asking
him this, I said that the field had seemed to me such a good place
to hold a pageant in. But he said that nothing of any interest had
ever occurred there, nothing at all.
So it was from the future that the field’s terrible trouble came.
For three years off and on I made visits to the field, and every
time more clearly it boded evil things, and my uneasiness grew
more acute every time that I was lured to go and rest among the
cool green grass under the beautiful osiers. Once to distract my
thoughts I tried to gauge how fast the stream was trickling, but I
found myself wondering if it flowed faster than blood.
I felt that it would be a terrible place to go mad in, one would
hear voices.
At last I went to a poet whom I knew, and woke him from huge
dreams, and put before him the whole case of the field. He had not
been out of London all that year, and he promised to come with me
and look at the field, and tell me what was going to happen there.
It was late in July when we went. The pavement, the air, the houses
and the dirt had been all baked dry by the summer, the weary
traffic dragged on, and on, and on, and Sleep spreading her wings
soared up and floated from London and went to walk beautifully in
322 A Dreamer’s Tales

rural places.
When the poet saw the field he was delighted, the flowers were
out in masses all along the stream, he went down to the little wood
rejoicing. By the side of the stream he stood and seemed very sad.
Once or twice he looked up and down it mournfully, then he bent
and looked at the king-cups, first one and then another, very close-
ly, and shaking his head.
For a long while he stood in silence, and all my old uneasiness
returned, and my bodings for the future.
And then I said, “What manner of field is it?”
And he shook his head sorrowfully.
“It is a battlefield,” he said.

The Day Of The Poll

In the town by the sea it was the day of the poll, and the poet
regarded it sadly when he woke and saw the light of it coming in
at his window between two small curtains of gauze. And the day of
the poll was beautifully bright; stray bird-songs came to the poet
at the window; the air was crisp and wintry, but it was the blaze
of sunlight that had deceived the birds. He heard the sound of the
sea that the moon led up the shore, dragging the months away over
the pebbles and shingles and piling them up with the years where
the worn-out centuries lay; he saw the majestic downs stand facing
mightily south-wards; saw the smoke of the town float up to their
heavenly faces — column after column rose calmly into the morn-
ing as house by house was waked by peering shafts of the sunlight
and lit its fires for the day; column by column went up toward the
serene downs’ faces, and failed before they came there and hung
all white over houses; and every one in the town was raving mad.
It was a strange thing that the poet did, for he hired the largest
motor in the town and covered it with all the flags he could find,
and set out to save an intelligence. And he presently found a man
whose face was hot, who shouted that the time was not far distant
when a candidate, whom he named, would be returned at the head
 A Dreamer’s Tales 323

of the poll by a thumping majority. And by him the poet stopped

and offered him a seat in the motor that was covered with flags.
When the man saw the flags that were on the motor, and that it was
the largest in the town, he got in. He said that his vote should be
given for that fiscal system that had made us what we are, in order
that the poor man’s food should not be taxed to make the rich man
richer. Or else it was that he would give his vote for that system of
tariff reform which should unite us closer to our colonies with ties
that should long endure, and give employment to all. But it was
not to the polling-booth that the motor went, it passed it and left
the town and came by a small white winding road to the very top
of the downs. There the poet dismissed the car and let that wonder-
ing voter on to the grass and seated himself on a rug. And for long
the voter talked of those imperial traditions that our forefathers
had made for us and which he should uphold with his vote, or else
it was of a people oppressed by a feudal system that was out of
date and effete, and that should be ended or mended. But the poet
pointed out to him small, distant, wandering ships on the sunlit
strip of sea, and the birds far down below them, and the houses
below the birds, with the little columns of smoke that could not
find the downs.
And at first the voter cried for his polling-booth like a child; but
after a while he grew calmer, save when faint bursts of cheering
came twittering up to the downs, when the voter would cry out
bitterly against the misgovernment of the Radical party, or else it
was — I forget what the poet told me — he extolled its splendid
record.
“See,” said the poet, “these ancient beautiful things, the downs
and the old-time houses and the morning, and the grey sea in the
sunlight going mumbling round the world. And this is the place
they have chosen to go man in!”
And standing there with all broad England behind him, rolling
northward, down after down, and before him the glittering sea too
far for the sound of the roar of it, there seemed to the voter to grow
less important the questions that troubled the town. Yet he was still
angry.
324 A Dreamer’s Tales

“Why did you bring me here?” he said again.

“Because I grew lonely,” said the poet, “when all the town went
mad.”
Then he pointed out to the voter some old bent thorns, and
showed him the way that a wind had blown for a million years,
coming up at dawn from the sea; and he told him of the storms
that visit the ships, and their names and whence they come, and
the currents they drive afield, and the way that the swallows go.
And he spoke of the down where they sat, when the summer came,
and the flowers that were not yet, and the different butterflies, and
about the bats and the swifts, and the thoughts in the heart of man.
He spoke of the aged windmill that stood on the down, and of how
to children it seemed a strange old man who was only dead by day.
And as he spoke, and as the sea-wind blew on that high and lonely
place, there began to slip away from the voter’s mind meaningless
phrases that had crowded it long — thumping majority — victory in
the fight — terminological inexactitudes — and the smell of paraf-
fin lamps dangling in heated schoolrooms, and quotations taken
from ancient speeches because the words were long. They fell
away, though slowly, and slowly the voter saw a wider world and
the wonder of the sea. And the afternoon wore on, and the winter
evening came, and the night fell, and all black grew the sea, and
about the time that the stars come blinking out to look upon our
littleness, the polling-booth closed in the town.
When they got back the turmoil was on the wane in the streets;
night hid the glare of the posters; and the tide, finding the noise
abated and being at the flow, told an old tale that he had learned in
his youth about the deeps of the sea, the same which he had told to
coastwise ships that brought it to Babylon by the way of Euphrates
before the doom of Troy.
I blame my friend the poet, however lonely he was, for prevent-
ing this man from registering his vote (the duty of every citizen);
but perhaps it matters less, as it was a foregone conclusion, be-
cause the losing candidate, either through poverty or sheer mad-
ness, had neglected to subscribe to a single football club.
 A Dreamer’s Tales 325

The Unhappy Body

“Why do you not dance with us and rejoice with us?” they said
to a certain body. And then that body made the confession of its
trouble. It said: “I am united with a fierce and violent soul, that
is altogether tyrannous and will not let me rest, and he drags me
away from the dances of my kin to make me toil at his detestable
work; and he will not let me do the little things, that would give
pleasure to the folk I love, but only cares to please posterity when
he has done with me and left me to the worms; and all the while
he makes absurd demands of affection from those that are near to
me, and is too proud even to notice any less than he demands, so
that those that should be kind to me all hate me.” And the unhappy
body burst into tears.
And they said: “No sensible body cares for its soul. A soul is
a little thing, and should not rule a body. You should drink and
smoke more till he ceases to trouble you.” But the body only wept,
and said, “Mine is a fearful soul. I have driven him away for a little
while with drink. But he will soon come back. Oh, he will soon
come back!”
And the body went to bed hoping to rest, for it was drowsy with
drink. But just as sleep was near it, it looked up, and there was its
soul sitting on the windowsill, a misty blaze of light, and looking
into the river.
“Come,” said the tyrannous soul, “and look into the street.”
“I have need of sleep,” said the body.
“But the street is a beautiful thing,” the soul said vehemently; “a
hundred of the people are dreaming there.”
“I am ill through want of rest,” the body said.
“That does not matter,” the soul said to it. “There are millions
like you in the earth, and millions more to go there. The people’s
dreams are wandering afield; they pass the seas and mountains of
Faëry, threading the intricate passes led by their souls; they come
to golden temples a-ring with a thousand bells; they pass up steep
streets lit by paper lanterns, where the doors are green and small;
they know their way to witches’ chambers and castles of enchant-
326 A Dreamer’s Tales

ment; they know the spell that brings them to the causeway along
the ivory mountains — on one side looking downward they behold
the fields of their youth and on the other lie the radiant plains of the
future. Arise and write down what the people dream.”
“What reward is there for me,” said the body, “if I write down
what you bid me?”
“There is no reward,” said the soul.
“Then I shall sleep,” said the body.
And the soul began to hum an idle song sung by a young man
in a fabulous land as he passed a golden city (where fiery sentinels
stood), and knew that his wife was within it, though as yet but a
little child, and knew by prophecy that furious wars, not yet arisen
in far and unknown mountains, should roll above him with their
dust and thirst before he ever came to that city again — the young
man sang it as he passed the gate, and was now dead with his wife
a thousand years.
“I cannot sleep for that abominable song,” the body cried to the
soul.
“Then do as you are commanded,” the soul replied. And wea-
rily the body took a pen again. Then the soul spoke merrily as he
looked through the window. “There is a mountain lifting sheer
above London, part crystal and part myst. Thither the dreamers
go when the sound of the traffic has fallen. At first they scarcely
dream because of the roar of it, but before midnight it stops, and
turns, and ebbs with all its wrecks. Then the dreamers arise and
scale the shimmering mountain, and at its summit find the galleons
of dream. Thence some sail East, some West, some into the Past
and some into the Future, for the galleons sail over the years as
well as over the spaces, but mostly they head for the Past and the
olden harbours, for thither the sighs of men are mostly turned, and
the dream-ships go before them, as the merchantmen before the
continual trade-winds go down the African coast. I see the galleons
even now raise anchor after anchor; the stars flash by them; they
slip out of the night; their prows go gleaming into the twilight of
memory, and night soon lies far off, a black cloud hanging low, and
faintly spangled with stars, like the harbour and shore of some low-
 A Dreamer’s Tales 327

lying land seen afar with its harbour lights.”

Dream after dream that soul related as he sat there by the win-
dow. He told of tropical forests seen by unhappy men who could
not escape from London, and never would — forests made sudden-
ly wondrous by the song of some passing bird flying to unknown
eyries and singing an unknown song. He saw the old men lightly
dancing to the tune of elfin pipes — beautiful dances with fantastic
maidens — all night on moonlit imaginary mountains; he heard far
off the music of glittering Springs; he saw the fairness of blossoms
of apple and may thirty years fallen; he heard old voices — old
tears came glistening back; Romance sat cloaked and crowned
upon southern hills, and the soul knew him.
One by one he told the dreams of all that slept in that street.
Sometimes he stopped to revile the body because it worked badly
and slowly. Its chill fingers wrote as fast as they could, but the
soul cared not for that. And so the night wore on till the soul heard
tinkling in Oriental skies far footfalls of the morning.
“See now,” said the soul, “the dawn that the dreamers dread.
The sails of light are paling on those unwreckable galleons; the
mariners that steer them slip back into fable and myth; that other
sea the traffic is turning now at its ebb, and is about to hide its
pallid wrecks, and to come swinging back, with its tumult, at the
flow. Already the sunlight flashes in the gulfs behind the east of
the world; the gods have seen it from their palace of twilight that
the built above the sunrise; they warm their hands at its glow as it
streams through their gleaming arches, before it reaches the world;
all the gods are there that have ever been, and all the gods that shall
be; they sit there in the morning, chanting and praising Man.”
“I am numb and very cold for want of sleep,” said the body.
“You shall have centuries of sleep,” said the soul, “but you must
not sleep now, for I have seen deep meadows with purple flowers
flaming tall and strange above the brilliant grass, and herds of pure
white unicorns that gambol there for joy, and a river running by
with a glittering galleon on it, all of gold, that goes from an un-
known inland to an unknown isle of the sea to take a song from the
King of Over-the-Hills to the Queen of Far-Away.
328 A Dreamer’s Tales

“I will sing that song to you, and you shall write it down.”
“I have toiled for you for years,” the body said. “Give me now
but one night’s rest, for I am exceeding weary.”
“Oh, go and rest. I am tired of you. I am off,” said the soul.
And he arose and went, we know not whither. But the body they
laid in the earth. And the next night at midnight the wraiths of the
dead came drifting from their tombs to felicitate that body.
“You are free here, you know,” they said to their new compan-
ion.
“Now I can rest,” said the body.
 The Book Of Wonder
1912

Preface
Come with me, ladies and gentlemen who are in any wise weary
of London: come with me: and those that tire at all of the world we
know: for we have new worlds here.
330 The Book Of Wonder

The Bride Of The Man-Horse

In the morning of his two hundred and fiftieth year Shepperalk
the centaur went to the golden coffer, wherein the treasure of the
centaurs was, and taking from it the hoarded amulet that his father,
Jyshak, in the year of his prime, had hammered from mountain
gold and set with opals bartered from the gnomes, he put it upon
his wrist, and said no word, but walked from his mother’s cavern.
And he took with him too that clarion of the centaurs, that famous
silver horn, that in its time had summoned to surrender seventeen
cities of Man, and for twenty years had brayed at star-girt walls
in the Siege of Tholdenblarna, the citadel of the gods, what time
the centaurs waged their fabulous war and were not broken by any
force of arms, but retreated slowly in a cloud of dust before the
final miracle of the gods that They brought in Their desperate need
from Their ultimate armoury. He took it and strode away, and his
mother only sighed and let him go.
She knew that today he would not drink at the stream coming
down from the terraces of Varpa Niger, the inner land of the moun-
tains, that today he would not wonder awhile at the sunset and af-
terwards trot back to the cavern again to sleep on rushes pulled by
rivers that know not Man. She knew that it was with him as it had
been of old with his father, and with Goom the father of Jyshak,
and long ago with the gods. Therefore she only sighed and let him
go.
But he, coming out from the cavern that was his home, went
for the first time over the little stream, and going round the corner
of the crags saw glittering beneath him the mundane plain. And
the wind of the autumn that was gilding the world, rushing up the
slopes of the mountain, beat cold on his naked flanks. He raised his
head and snorted.
“I am a man-horse now!” he shouted aloud; and leaping from
crag to crag he galloped by valley and chasm, by torrent-bed and
scar of avalanche, until he came to the wandering leagues of the
plain, and left behind him for ever the Athraminaurian mountains.
His goal was Zretazoola, the city of Sombelenë. What legend
 The Book Of Wonder 331

of Sombelenë’s inhuman beauty or of the wonder of her mystery

had ever floated over the mundane plain to the fabulous cradle of
the centaurs’ race, the Athraminaurian mountains, I do not know.
Yet in the blood of man there is a tide, an old sea-current, rather,
that is somehow akin to the twilight, which brings him rumours of
beauty from however far away, as driftwood is found at sea from
islands not yet discovered; and this springtide of current that visits
the blood of man comes from the fabulous quarter of his lineage,
from the legendary, of old; it takes him out to the woodlands, out to
the hills; he listens to ancient song. So it may be that Shepperalk’s
fabulous blood stirred in those lonely mountains away at the edge
of the world to rumours that only the airy twilight knew and only
confided secretly to the bat, for Shepperalk was more legendary
even than man. Certain it was that he headed from the first for the
city Zretazoola, where Sombelenë in her temple dwelt; though all
the mundane plain, its rivers and mountains, lay between Shepper-
alk’s home and the city he sought.
When first the feet of the centaur touched the grass of that soft
alluvial earth he blew for joy upon the silver horn, he pranced
and caracoled, he gambolled over the leagues; pace came to him
like a maiden with a lamp, a new and beautiful wonder; the wind
laughed as it passed him. He put his head down low to the scent of
the flower, he lifted it up to be nearer the unseen stars, he revelled
through kingdoms, took rivers in his stride; how shall I tell you, ye
that dwell in cities, how shall I tell you what he felt as he galloped?
He felt for strength like the towers of Bel-Narana; for lightness like
those gossamer palaces that the fairy-spider builds ’twixt heaven
and sea along the coasts of Zith; for swiftness like some bird racing
up from the morning to sing in some city’s spires before daylight
comes. He was the sworn companion of the wind. For joy he was
as a song; the lightnings of his legendary sires, the earlier gods,
began to mix with his blood; his hooves thundered. He came to
the cities of men, and all men trembled, for they remembered the
ancient mythical wars, and now they dreaded new battles and
feared for the race of man. Not by Clio are these wars recorded;
history does not know them, but what of that? Not all of us have
332 The Book Of Wonder

sat at historians’ feet, but all have learned fable and myth at their
mothers’ knees. And there were none that did not fear strange wars
when they saw Shepperalk swerve and leap along the public ways.
So he passed from city to city.
By night he lay down unpanting in the reeds of some marsh or
forest; before dawn he rose triumphant, and hugely drank of some
river in the dark, and splashing out of it would trot to some high
place to find the sunrise, and to send echoing eastwards the exult-
ant greetings of his jubilant horn. And lo! the sunrise coming up
from the echoes, and the plains new-lit by the day, and the leagues
spinning by like water flung from a top, and that gay companion,
the loudly laughing wind, and men and the fears of men and their
little cities; and, after that, great rivers and waste spaces and huge
new hills, and then new lands beyond them, and more cities of
men, and always the old companion, the glorious wind. Kingdom
by kingdom slipt by, and still his breath was even. “It is a golden
thing to gallop on good turf in one’s youth,” said the young man-
horse, the centaur. “Ha, ha,” said the wind of the hills, and the
winds of the plain answered.
Bells pealed in frantic towers, wise men consulted parchments,
astrologers sought of the portent from the stars, the aged made
subtle prophecies. “Is he not swift?” said the young. “How glad he
is,” said the children.
Night after night brought him sleep, and day after day lit his gal-
lop, till he came to the lands of the Athalonian men who live by the
edges of the mundane plain, and from them he came to the lands
of legend again such as those in which he was cradled on the other
side of the world, and which fringe the marge of the world and mix
with the twilight. And there a mighty thought came into his un-
tired heart, for he knew that he neared Zretazoola now, the city of
Sombelenë.
It was late in the day when he neared it, and clouds coloured
with evening rolled low on the plain before him; he galloped on
into their golden mist, and when it hid from his eyes the sight of
things, the dreams in his heart awoke and romantically he pon-
dered all those rumours that used to come to him from Sombel-
 The Book Of Wonder 333

enë, because of the fellowship of fabulous things. She dwelt (said

evening secretly to the bat) in a little temple by a lone lakeshore.
A grove of cypresses screened her from the city, from Zretazoola
of the climbing ways. And opposite her temple stood her tomb, her
sad lake-sepulchre with open door, lest her amazing beauty and the
centuries of her youth should ever give rise to the heresy among
men that lovely Sombelenë was immortal: for only her beauty and
her lineage were divine.
Her father had been half centaur and half god; her mother
was the child of a desert lion and that sphinx that watches the
pyramids; — she was more mystical than Woman.
Her beauty was as a dream, was as a song; the one dream of a
lifetime dreamed on enchanted dews, the one song sung to some
city by a deathless bird blown far from his native coasts by storm
in Paradise. Dawn after dawn on mountains of romance or twilight
after twilight could never equal her beauty; all the glow-worms
had not the secret among them nor all the stars of night; poets had
never sung it nor evening guessed its meaning; the morning envied
it, it was hidden from lovers.
She was unwed, unwooed.
The lions came not to woo her because they feared her strength,
and the gods dared not love her because they knew she must die.
This was what evening had whispered to the bat, this was the
dream in the heart of Shepperalk as he cantered blind through the
mist. And suddenly there at his hooves in the dark of the plain ap-
peared the cleft in the legendary lands, and Zretazoola sheltering in
the cleft, and sunning herself in the evening.
Swiftly and craftily he bounded down by the upper end of the
cleft, and entering Zretazoola by the outer gate which looks out
sheer on the stars, he galloped suddenly down the narrow streets.
Many that rushed out on to balconies as he went clattering by,
many that put their heads from glittering windows, are told of in
olden song. Shepperalk did not tarry to give greetings or to answer
challenges from martial towers, he was down through the earth-
ward gateway like the thunderbolt of his sires, and, like Leviathan
who has leapt at an eagle, he surged into the water between temple
334 The Book Of Wonder

and tomb.
He galloped with half-shut eyes up the temple-steps, and, only
seeing dimly through his lashes, seized Sombelenë by the hair, un-
dazzled as yet by her beauty, and so haled her away; and, leaping
with her over the floorless chasm where the waters of the lake fall
unremembered away into a hole in the world, took her we know
not where, to be her slave for all centuries that are allowed to his
race.
Three blasts he gave as he went upon that silver horn that is the
world-old treasure of the centaurs. These were his wedding bells.

Distressing Tale Of Thangobrind The

Jeweller
When Thangobrind the jeweller heard the ominous cough, he
turned at once upon that narrow way. A thief was he, of very high
repute, being patronized by the lofty and elect, for he stole nothing
smaller than the Moomoo’s egg, and in all his life stole only four
kinds of stone — the ruby, the diamond, the emerald, and the sap-
phire; and, as jewellers go, his honesty was great. Now there was
a Merchant Prince who had come to Thangobrind and had offered
his daughter’s soul for the diamond that is larger than the human
head and was to be found on the lap of the spider-idol, Hlo-hlo, in
his temple of Moung-ga-ling; for he had heard that Thangobrind
was a thief to be trusted.
Thangobrind oiled his body and slipped out of his shop, and
went secretly through byways, and got as far as Snarp, before any-
body knew that he was out on business again or missed his sword
from its place under the counter. Thence he moved only by night,
hiding by day and rubbing the edges of his sword, which he called
Mouse because it was swift and nimble. The jeweller had subtle
methods of travelling; nobody saw him cross the plains of Zid;
nobody saw him come to Mursk or Tlun. O, but he loved shad-
ows! Once the moon peeping out unexpectedly from a tempest had
 The Book Of Wonder 335

betrayed an ordinary jeweller; not so did it undo Thangobrind; the

watchman only saw a crouching shape that snarled and laughed:
“‘Tis but a hyena,” they said. Once in the city of Ag one of the
guardians seized him, but Thangobrind was oiled and slipped from
his hand; you scarcely heard his bare feet patter away. He knew
that the Merchant Prince awaited his return, his little eyes open
all night and glittering with greed; he knew how his daughter lay
chained up and screaming night and day. Ah, Thangobrind knew.
And had he not been out on business he had almost allowed him-
self one or two little laughs. But business was business, and the
diamond that he sought still lay on the lap of Hlo-hlo, where it had
been for the last two million years since Hlo-hlo created the world
and gave unto it all things except that precious stone called Dead
Man’s Diamond. The jewel was often stolen, but it had a knack of
coming back again to the lap of Hlo-hlo. Thangobrind knew this,
but he was no common jeweller and hoped to outwit Hlo-hlo, per-
ceiving not the trend of ambition and lust and that they are vanity.
How nimbly he threaded his way thought he pits of
Snood! — now like a botanist, scrutinising the ground; now like
a dancer, leaping from crumbling edges. It was quite dark when
he went by the towers of Tor, where archers shoot ivory arrows at
strangers lest any foreigner should alter their laws, which are bad,
but not to be altered by mere aliens. At night they shoot by the
sound of the strangers’ feet. O, Thangobrind, was ever a jeweller
like you! He dragged two stones behind him by long cords, and at
these the archers shot. Tempting indeed was the snare that they set
in Woth, the emeralds loose-set in the city’s gate; but Thangobrind
discerned the golden cord that climbed the wall from each and the
weights that would topple upon him if he touched one, and so he
left them, though he left them weeping, and at last came to Theth.
There all men worship Hlo-hlo; though they are willing to believe
in other gods, as missionaries attest, but only as creatures of the
chase for the hunting of Hlo-hlo, who wears Their halos, so these
people say, on golden hooks along his hunting-belt. And from
Theth he came to the city of Moung and the temple of Moung-ga-
ling, and entered and saw the spider-idol, Hlo-hlo, sitting there
336 The Book Of Wonder

with Dead Man’s Diamond glittering on his lap, and looking for all
the world like a full moon, but a full moon seen by a lunatic who
had slept too long in its rays, for there was in Dead Man’s Dia-
mond a certain sinister look and a boding of things to happen that
are better not mentioned here. The face of the spider-idol was lit
by that fatal gem; there was no other light. In spite of his shocking
limbs and that demoniac body, his face was serene and apparently
unconscious.
A little fear came into the mind of Thangobrind the jeweller, a
passing tremor — no more; business was business and he hoped
for the best. Thangobrind offered honey to Hlo-hlo and prostrated
himself before him. Oh, he was cunning! When the priests stole
out of the darkness to lap up the honey they were stretched sense-
less on the temple floor, for there was a drug in the honey that was
offered to Hlo-hlo. And Thangobrind the jeweller picked Dead
Man’s Diamond up and put it on his shoulder and trudged away
from the shrine; and Hlo-hlo the spider-idol said nothing at all, but
he laughed softly as the jeweller shut the door. When the priests
awoke out of the grip of the drug that was offered with the honey
to Hlo-hlo, they rushed to a little secret room with an outlet on the
stars and cast a horoscope of the thief. Something that they saw in
the horoscope seemed to satisfy the priests.
It was not like Thangobrind to go back by the road by which he
had come. No, he went by another road, even though it led to the
narrow way, night-house and spider-forest.
The city of Moung went towering by behind him, balcony above
balcony, eclipsing half the stars, as he trudged away. Though when
a soft pittering as of velvet feet arose behind him he refused to ac-
knowledge that it might be what he feared, yet the instincts of his
trade told him that it is not well when any noise whatever follows
a diamond by night, and this was one of the largest that had ever
come to him in the way of business. When he came to the narrow
way that leads to spider-forest, Dead Man’s Diamond feeling cold
and heavy, and the velvety footfall seeming fearfully close, the
jeweller stopped and almost hesitated. He looked behind him; there
was nothing there. He listened attentively; there was no sound now.
 The Book Of Wonder 337

Then he thought of the screams of the Merchant Prince’s daughter,

whose soul was the diamond’s price, and smiled and went stoutly
on. There watched him, apathetically, over the narrow way, that
grim and dubious woman whose house is Night. Thangobrind,
hearing no longer the sound of suspicious feet, felt easier now. He
was all but come to the end of the narrow way, when the woman
listlessly uttered that ominous cough.
The cough was too full of meaning to be disregarded. Thango-
brind turned round and saw at once what he feared. The spider-idol
had not stayed at home. The jeweller put his diamond gently upon
the ground and drew his sword called Mouse. And then began that
famous fight upon the narrow way in which the grim old woman
whose house was Night seemed to take so little interest. To the
spider-idol you saw at once it was all a horrible joke. To the jewel-
ler it was grim earnest. He fought and panted and was pushed back
slowly along the narrow way, but he wounded Hlo-hlo all the while
with terrible long gashes all over his deep, soft body till Mouse
was slimy with blood. But at last the persistent laughter of Hlo-hlo
was too much for the jeweller’s nerves, and, once more wounding
his demoniac foe, he sank aghast and exhausted by the door of the
house called Night at the feet of the grim old woman, who hav-
ing uttered once that ominous cough interfered no further with the
course of events. And there carried Thangobrind the jeweller away
those whose duty it was, to the house where the two men hang, and
taking down from his hook the left-hand of the two, they put that
venturous jeweller in his place; so that there fell on him the doom
that he feared, as all men know though it is so long since, and there
abated somewhat the ire of the envious gods.
And the only daughter of the Merchant Prince felt so little grati-
tude for this great deliverance that she took to respectability of the
militant kind, and became aggressively dull, and called her home
the English Riviera, and had platitudes worked in worsted upon her
tea-cosy, and in the end never died, but passed away in her resi-
dence.
338 The Book Of Wonder

The House Of The Sphinx

When I came to the House of the Sphinx it was already dark.
They made me eagerly welcome. And I, in spite of the deed, was
glad of any shelter from that ominous wood. I saw at once that
there had been a deed, although a cloak did all that a cloak may
do to conceal it. The mere uneasiness of the welcome made me
suspect that cloak.
The Sphinx was moody and silent. I had not come to pry into the
secrets of Eternity nor to investigate the Sphinx’s private life, and
so had little to say and few questions to ask; but to whatever I did
say she remained morosely indifferent. It was clear that either she
suspected me of being in search of the secrets of one of her gods,
or of being boldly inquisitive about her traffic with Time, or else
she was darkly absorbed with brooding upon the deed.
I saw soon enough that there was another than me to welcome; I
saw it from the hurried way that they glanced from the door to the
deed and back to the door again. And it was clear that the welcome
was to be a bolted door. But such bolts, and such a door! Rust and
decay and fungus had been there far too long, and it was not a bar-
rier any longer that would keep out even a determined wolf. And it
seemed to be something worse than a wolf that they feared.
A little later on I gathered from what they said that some imperi-
ous and ghastly thing was looking for the Sphinx, and that some-
thing that had happened had made its arrival certain. It appeared
that they had slapped the Sphinx to vex her out of her apathy in or-
der that she should pray to one of her gods, whom she had littered
in the house of Time; but her moody silence was invincible, and
her apathy Oriental, ever since the deed had happened. And when
they found that they could not make her pray, there was nothing for
them to do but to pay little useless attentions to the rusty lock of
the door, and to look at the deed and wonder, and even pretend to
hope, and to say that after all it might not bring that destined thing
from the forest, which no one named.
It may be said I had chosen a gruesome house, but not if I had
described the forest from which I came, and I was in need of any
 The Book Of Wonder 339

spot wherein I could rest my mind from the thought of it.

I wondered very much what thing would come from the forest
on account of the deed; and having seen that forest — as you, gen-
tle reader, have not — I had the advantage of knowing that anything
might come. It was useless to ask the Sphinx — she seldom reveals
things, like her paramour Time (the gods take after her), and while
this mood was on her, rebuff was certain. So I quietly began to
oil the lock of the door. And as soon as they saw this simple act I
won their confidence. It was not that my work was of any use — it
should have been done long before; but they saw that my interest
was given for the moment to the thing that they thought vital. They
clustered round me then. They asked me what I thought of the
door, and whether I had seen better, and whether I had seen worse;
and I told them about all the doors I knew, and said that he doors of
the baptistry in Florence were better doors, and the doors made by
a certain firm of builders in London were worse. And then I asked
them what it was that was coming after the Sphinx because of the
deed. And at first they would not say, and I stopped oiling the door;
and then they said that it was the arch-inquisitor of the forest, who
is investigator and avenger of all silverstrian things; and from that
they said about him it seemed to me that this person was quite
white, and was a kind of madness that would settle down quite
blankly upon a place, a kind of mist in which reason could not live;
and it was the fear of this that made them fumble nervously at the
lock of that rotten door; but with the Sphinx it was not so much
fear as sheer prophecy.
The hope that they tried to hope was well enough in its way, but
I did not share it; it was clear that the thing that they feared was the
corollary of the deed — one saw that more by the resignation upon
the face of the Sphinx than by their sorry anxiety for the door.
The wind soughed, and the great tapers flared, and their obvious
fear and the silence of the Sphinx grew more than ever a part of
the atmosphere, and bats went restlessly through the gloom of the
wind that beat the tapers low.
Then a few things screamed far off, then a little nearer, and
something was coming towards us, laughing hideously. I hastily
340 The Book Of Wonder

gave a prod to the door that they guarded; my finger sank right
into the mouldering wood — there was not a chance of holding it.
I had not leisure to observe their fright; I thought of the back-door,
for the forest was better than this; only the Sphinx was absolutely
calm, her prophecy was made and she seemed to have seen her
doom, so that no new thing could perturb her.
But by mouldering rungs of ladders as old as Man, by slippery
edges of the dreaded abyss, with an ominous dizziness about my
heart and a feeling of horror in the soles of my feet, I clambered
from tower to tower till I found the door that I sought; and it
opened on to one of the upper branches of a huge and sombre pine,
down which I climbed on to the floor of the forest. And I was glad
to be back again in the forest from which I had fled.
And the Sphinx in her menaced house — I know not how she
fared — whether she gazes for ever, disconsolate, at the deed,
remembering only in her smitten mind, at which the little boys
now leer, that she once knew well those things at which man stands
aghast; or whether in the end she crept away, and clambering hor-
ribly from abyss to abyss, came at last to higher things, and is wise
and eternal still. For who knows of madness whether it is divine or
whether it be of the pit?

Probable Adventure Of The Three Literary

Men
When the nomads came to El Lola they had no more songs, and
the question of stealing the golden box arose in all its magnitude.
On the one hand, many had sought the golden box, the receptacle
(as the Aethiopians know) of poems of fabulous value; and their
doom is still the common talk of Arabia. On the other hand, it was
lonely to sit around the camp-fire by night with no new songs.
It was the tribe of Heth that discussed these things one evening
upon the plains below the peak of Mluna. Their native land was
the track across the world of immemorial wanderers; and there was
 The Book Of Wonder 341

trouble among the elders of the nomads because there were no new
songs; while, untouched by human trouble, untouched as yet by
the night that was hiding the plains away, the peak of Mluna, calm
in the afterglow, looked on the Dubious Land. And it was there on
the plain upon the known side of Mluna, just as the evening star
came mouse-like into view and the flames of the camp-fire lifted
their lonely plumes uncheered by any song, that that rash scheme
was hastily planned by the nomads which the world has named The
Quest of the Golden Box.
No measure of wiser precaution could the elders of the nomads
have taken than to choose for their thief that very Slith, that identi-
cal thief that (even as I write) in how many school-rooms govern-
esses teach stole a march on the King of Westalia. Yet the weight
of the box was such that others had to accompany him, and Sippy
and Slorg were no more agile thieves than may be found today
among vendors of the antique.
So over the shoulder of Mluna these three climbed next day and
slept as well as they might among its snows rather than risk a night
in the woods of the Dubious Land. And the morning came up radi-
ant and the birds were full of song, but the forest underneath and
the waste beyond it and the bare and ominous crags all wore the
appearance of an unuttered threat.
Though Slith had an experience of twenty years of theft, yet he
said little; only if one of the others made a stone roll with his foot,
or, later on in the forest, if one of them stepped on a twig, he whis-
pered sharply to them always the same words: “That is not busi-
ness.” He knew that he could not make them better thieves during
a two-days’ journey, and whatever doubts he had he interfered no
further.
From the shoulder of Mluna they dropped into the clouds, and
from the clouds to the forest, to whose native beasts, as well the
three thieves knew, all flesh was meat, whether it were the flesh of
fish or man. There the thieves drew idolatrously from their pockets
each one a separate god and prayed for protection in the unfortu-
nate wood, and hoped therefrom for a threefold chance of escape,
since if anything should eat one of them it were certain to eat
342 The Book Of Wonder

them all, and they confided that the corollary might be true and all
should escape if one did. Whether one of these gods was propitious
and awake, or whether all of the three, or whether it was chance
that brought them through the forest unmouthed by detestable
beasts, none knoweth; but certainly neither the emissaries of the
god that most they feared, nor the wrath of the topical god of that
ominous place, brought their doom to the three adventurers there
or then. And so it was that they came to Rumbly Heath, in the heart
of the Dubious Land, whose stormy hillocks were the ground-swell
and the after-wash of the earthquake lulled for a while. Something
so huge that it seemed unfair to man that it should move so softly
stalked splendidly by them, and only so barely did they escape
its notice that one word ran and echoed through their three imag-
inations — “If — if — if.” And when this danger was at last gone
by they moved cautiously on again and presently saw the little
harmless mipt, half fairy and half gnome, giving shrill, contented
squeaks on the edge of the world. And they edged away unseen, for
they said that the inquisitiveness of the mipt had become fabulous,
and that, harmless as he was, he had a bad way with secrets; yet
they probably loathed the way that he nuzzles dead white bones,
and would not admit their loathing; for it does not become adven-
turers to care who eats their bones. Be this as it may, they edged
away from the mipt, and came almost at once to the wizened tree,
the goal-post of their adventure, and knew that beside them was
the crack in the world and the bridge from Bad to Worse, and that
underneath them stood the rocky house of the Owner of the Box.
This was their simple plan: to slip into the corridor in the upper
cliff; to run softly down it (of course with naked feet) under the
warning to travellers that is graven upon stone, which interpreters
take to be “It Is Better Not”; not to touch the berries that are there
for a purpose, on the right side going down; and so to come to the
guardian on his pedestal who had slept for a thousand years and
should be sleeping still; and go in through the open window. One
man was to wait outside by the crack in the World until the oth-
ers came out with the golden box, and, should they cry for help,
he was to threaten at once to unfasten the iron clamp that kept the
 The Book Of Wonder 343

crack together. When the box was secured they were to travel all
night and all the following day, until the cloud-banks that wrapped
the slopes of Mluna were well between them and the Owner of the
Box.
The door in the cliff was open. They passed without a murmur
down the cold steps, Slith leading them all the way. A glance of
longing, no more, each gave to the beautiful berries. The guard-
ian upon his pedestal was still asleep. Slorg climbed by a ladder,
that Slith knew where to find, to the iron clamp across the crack in
the World, and waited beside it with a chisel in his hand, listening
closely for anything untoward, while his friends slipped into the
house; and no sound came. And presently Slith and Sippy found
the golden box: everything seemed happening as they had planned,
it only remained to see if it was the right one and to escape with it
from that dreadful place. Under the shelter of the pedestal, so near
to the guardian that they could feel his warmth, which paradoxical-
ly had the effect of chilling the blood of the boldest of them, they
smashed the emerald hasp and opened the golden box; and there
they read by the light of ingenious sparks which Slith knew how to
contrive, and even this poor light they hid with their bodies. What
was their joy, even at that perilous moment, as they lurked between
the guardian and the abyss, to find that the box contained fifteen
peerless odes in the alcaic form, five sonnets that were by far the
most beautiful in the world, nine ballads in the manner of Provence
that had no equal in the treasuries of man, a poem addressed to a
moth in twenty-eight perfect stanzas, a piece of blank verse of over
a hundred lines on a level not yet known to have been attained by
man, as well as fifteen lyrics on which no merchant would dare to
set a price. They would have read them again, for they gave happy
tears to a man and memories of dear things done in infancy, and
brought sweet voices from far sepulchres; but Slith pointed impe-
riously to the way by which they had come, and extinguished the
light; and Slorg and Sippy sighed, then took the box.
The guardian still slept the sleep that survived a thousand years.
As they came away they saw that indulgent chair close by the
edge of the World in which the Owner of the Box had lately sat
344 The Book Of Wonder

reading selfishly and alone the most beautiful songs and verses that
poet ever dreamed.
They came in silence to the foot of the stairs; and then it befell
that as they drew nearer safely, in the night’s most secret hour,
some hand in an upper chamber lit a shocking light, lit it and made
no sound.
For a moment it might have been an ordinary light, fatal as even
that could very well be at such a moment as this; but when it began
to follow them like an eye and to grow redder and redder as it
watched them, then even optimism despaired.
And Sippy very unwisely attempted flight, and Slorg even as
unwisely tried to hide; but Slith, knowing well why that light was
lit in that secret chamber and who it was that lit it, leaped over the
edge of the World and is falling from us still through the unrever-
berate blackness of the abyss.

The Injudicious Prayers Of Pombo The

Idolater
Pombo the idolater had prayed to Ammuz a simple prayer, a nec-
essary prayer, such as even an idol of ivory could very easily grant,
and Ammuz has not immediately granted it. Pombo had therefore
prayed to Tharma for the overthrow of Ammuz, an idol friendly
to Tharma, and in doing this offended against the etiquette of the
gods. Tharma refused to grant the little prayer. Pombo prayed fran-
tically to all the gods of idolatry, for though it was a simple matter,
yet it was very necessary to a man. And gods that were older than
Ammuz rejected the prayers of Pombo, and even gods that were
younger and therefore of greater repute. He prayed to them one
by one, and they all refused to hear him; nor at first did he think at
all of the subtle, divine etiquette against which he had offended. It
occurred to him all at once as he prayed to his fiftieth idol, a little
green-jade god whom the Chinese know, that all the idols were in
league against him. When Pombo discovered this he resented his
 The Book Of Wonder 345

birth bitterly, and made lamentation and alleged that he was lost.
He might have been seen then in any part of London haunting cu-
riosity-shops and places where they sold idols of ivory or of stone,
for he dwelt in London with others of his race though he was born
in Burmah among those who hold Ganges holy. On drizzly eve-
nings of November’s worst his haggard face could be seen in the
glow of some shop pressed close against the glass, where he would
supplicate some calm, cross-legged idol till policemen moved him
on. And after closing hours back he would go to his dingy room, in
that part of our capital where English is seldom spoken, to suppli-
cate little idols of his own. And when Pombo’s simple, necessary
prayer was equally refused by the idols of museums, auction-
rooms, shops, then he took counsel with himself and purchased
incense and burned it in a brazier before his own cheap little idols,
and played the while upon an instrument such as that wherewith
men charm snakes. And still the idols clung to their etiquette.
Whether Pombo knew about this etiquette and considered it
frivolous in the face of his need, or whether his need, now grown
desperate, unhinged his mind, I know not, but Pombo the idolater
took a stick and suddenly turned iconoclast.
Pombo the iconoclast immediately left his house, leaving his
idols to be swept away with the dust and so to mingle with Man,
and went to an arch-idolater of repute who carved idols out of rare
stones, and put his case before him. The arch-idolater who made
idols of his own rebuked Pombo in the name of Man for having
broken his idols — “for hath not Man made them?” the arch-idola-
ter said; and concerning the idols themselves he spoke long and
learnedly, explaining divine etiquette, and how Pombo had offend-
ed, and how no idol in the world would listen to Pombo’s prayer.
When Pombo heard this he wept and made bitter outcry, and
cursed the gods of ivory and the gods of jade, and the hand of Man
that made them, but most of all he cursed their etiquette that had
undone, as he said, an innocent man; so that at last that arch-idola-
ter, who made idols of his own, stopped in his work upon an idol
of jasper for a king that was weary of Wosh, and took compassion
on Pombo, and told him that though no idol in the world would
346 The Book Of Wonder

listen to his prayer, yet only a little way over the edge of it a certain
disreputable idol sat who knew nothing of etiquette, and granted
prayers that no respectable god would ever consent to hear. When
Pombo heard this he took two handfuls of the arch-idolater’s beard
and kissed them joyfully, and dried his tears and became his old
impertinent self again. And he that carved from jasper the usurper
of Wosh explained how in the village of World’s End, at the fur-
thest end of Last Street, there is a hole that you take to be a well,
close by the garden wall, but that if you lower yourself by your
hands over the edge of the hole, and feel about with your feet till
they find a ledge, that is the top step of a flight of stairs that takes
you down over the edge of the World. “For all that men know,
those stairs may have a purpose and even a bottom step,” said the
arch-idolater, “but discussion about the lower flights is idle.” Then
the teeth of Pombo chattered, for he feared the darkness, but he
that made idols of his own explained that those stairs were always
lit by the faint blue gloaming in which the World spins. “Then,” he
said, “you will go by Lonely House and under the bridge that leads
from the House to Nowhere, and whose purpose is not guessed;
thence past Maharrion, the god of flowers, and his high-priest, who
is neither bird nor cat; and so you will come to the little idol Duth,
the disreputable god that will grant your prayer.” And he went on
carving again at his idol of jasper for the king who was weary of
Wosh; and Pombo thanked him and went singing away, for in his
vernacular mind he thought that “he had the gods.”
It is a long journey from London to World’s End, and Pombo
had no money left, and yet within five weeks he was strolling
along Last Street; but how he contrived to get there I will not say,
for it was not entirely honest. And Pombo found the well at the
end of the garden beyond the end house of Last Street, and many
thoughts ran through his mind as he hung by his hands from the
edge, but chiefest of all those thoughts was one that said the gods
were laughing at him through the mouth of the arch-idolater, their
prophet, and the thought beat in his head till it ached like his wrists
… and then he found the step.
And Pombo walked downstairs. There, sure enough, was the
 The Book Of Wonder 347

gloaming in which the world spins, and the stars shone far off in
it faintly; there was nothing before him as he went downstairs but
that strange blue waste of gloaming, with its multitude of stars, and
comets plunging through it on outward journeys and comets re-
turning home. And then he saw the lights of the bridge to Nowhere,
and all of a sudden he was in the glare of the shimmering parlour-
window of Lonely House; and he heard voices there pronouncing
words, and the voices were nowise human, and but for his bitter
need he had screamed and fled. Halfway between the voices and
Maharrion, whom he now saw standing out from the world, cov-
ered in rainbow halos, he perceived the weird grey beast that is
neither cat nor bird. As Pombo hesitated, chilly with fear, he heard
those voices grow louder in Lonely House, and at that he stealthily
moved a few steps lower, and then rushed past the beast. The beast
intently watched Maharrion hurling up bubbles that are every one
a season of spring in unknown constellations, calling the swallows
home to unimagined fields, watched him without even turning to
look at Pombo, and saw him drop into the Linlunlarna, the river
that rises at the edge of the World, the golden pollen that sweetens
the tide of the river and is carried away from the World to be a joy
to the Stars. And there before Pombo was the little disreputable
god who cares nothing for etiquette and will answer prayers that
are refused by all the respectable idols. And whether the view of
him, at last, excited Pombo’s eagerness, or whether his need was
greater than he could bear that it drove him so swiftly downstairs,
or whether as is most likely, he ran too fast past the beast, I do not
know, and it does not matter to Pombo; but at any rate he could not
stop, as he had designed, in attitude of prayer at the feet of Duth,
but ran on past him down the narrowing steps, clutching at smooth,
bare rocks till he fell from the World as, when our hearts miss a
beat, we fall in dreams and wake up with a dreadful jolt; but there
was no waking up for Pombo, who still fell on towards the incuri-
ous stars, and his fate is even one with the fate of Slith.
348 The Book Of Wonder

The Loot Of Bombasharna

Things had grown too hot for Shard, captain of pirates, on all
the seas that he knew. The ports of Spain were closed to him; they
knew him in San Domingo; men winked in Syracuse when he went
by; the two Kings of the Sicilies never smiled within an hour of
speaking of him; there were huge rewards for his head in every
capital city, with pictures of it for identification — and all the pic-
tures were unflattering. Therefore Captain Shard decided that the
time had come to tell his men the secret.
Riding off Teneriffe one night, he called them all together. He
generously admitted that there were things in the past that might
require explanation: the crowns that the Princes of Aragon had
sent to their nephews the Kings of the two Americas had certainly
never reached their Most Sacred Majesties. Where, men might ask,
were the eyes of Captain Stobbud? Who had been burning towns
on the Patagonian seaboard? Why should such a ship as theirs
choose pearls for cargo? Why so much blood on the decks and so
many guns? And where was the Nancy, the Lark, or the Margaret
Belle? Such questions as these, he urged, might be asked by the
inquisitive, and if counsel for the defence should happen to be a
fool, and unacquainted with the ways of the sea, they might be-
come involved in troublesome legal formulae. And Bloody Bill, as
they rudely called Mr. Gagg, a member of the crew, looked up at
the sky, and said that it was a windy night and looked like hang-
ing. And some of those present thoughtfully stroked their necks
while Captain Shard unfolded to them his plan. He said the time
was come to quit the Desperate Lark, for she was too well known
to the navies of four kingdoms, and a fifth was getting to know her,
and others had suspicions. (More cutters than even Captain Shard
suspected were already looking for her jolly black flag with its neat
skull-and-crossbones in yellow.) There was a little archipelago that
he knew of on the wrong side of the Sargasso Sea; there were but
thirty islands there, bare, ordinary islands, but one of them floated.
He had noticed it years ago, and had gone ashore and never told a
soul, but had quietly anchored it with the anchor of his ship to the
 The Book Of Wonder 349

bottom of the sea, which just there was profoundly deep, and had
made the thing the secret of his life, determining to marry and set-
tle down there if it ever became impossible to earn his livelihood
in the usual way at sea. When first he saw it, it was drifting slowly,
with the wind in the tops of the trees; but if the cable had not rusted
away, it should be still where he left it, and they would make a
rudder and hollow out cabins below, and at night they would hoist
sails to the trunks of the trees and sail wherever they liked.
And all the pirates cheered, for they wanted to set their feet on
land again somewhere where the hangman would not come and
jerk them off it at once; and bold men though they were, it was
a strain seeing so many lights coming their way at night. Even
then…! But it swerved away again and was lost in the mist.
And Captain Shard said that they would need to get provisions
first, and he, for one, intended to marry before he settled down; and
so they should have one more fight before they left the ship, and
sack the sea-coast city of Bombasharna and take from it provi-
sions for several years, while he himself would marry the Queen
of the South. And again the pirates cheered, for often they had seen
seacoast Bombasharna, and had always envied its opulence from
the sea.
So they set all sail, and often altered their course, and dodged
and fled from strange lights till dawn appeared, and all day long
fled southwards. And by evening they saw the silver spires of
slender Bombasharna, a city that was the glory of the coast. And in
the midst of it, far away though they were, they saw the palace of
the Queen of the South; and it was so full of windows all looking
toward the sea, and they were so full of light, both from the sunset
that was fading upon the water and from candles that maids were
lighting one by one, that it looked far off like a pearl, shimmering
still in its haliotis shell, still wet from the sea.
So Captain Shard and his pirates saw it, at evening over the
water, and thought of rumours that said that Bombasharna was the
loveliest city of the coasts of the world, and that its palace was
lovelier even than Bombasharna; but for the Queen of the South ru-
mour had no comparison. Then night came down and hid the silver
350 The Book Of Wonder

spires, and Shard slipped on through the gathering darkness until

by midnight the piratic ship lay under the seaward battlements.
And at the hour when sick men mostly die, and sentries on
lonely ramparts stand to arms, exactly half-an-hour before dawn,
Shard, with two rowing boats and half his crew, with craftily muf-
fled oars, landed below the battlements. They were through the
gateway of the palace itself before the alarm was sounded, and as
soon as they heard the alarm Shard’s gunners at sea opened upon
the town, and before the sleepy soldiery of Bombasharna knew
whether the danger was from the land or the sea, Shard had suc-
cessfully captured the Queen of the South. They would have looted
all day that silver sea-coast city, but there appeared with dawn sus-
picious topsails just along the horizon. Therefore the captain with
his Queen went down to the shore at once and hastily re-embarked
and sailed away with what loot they had hurridly got, and with
fewer men, for they had to fight a good deal to get back to the boat.
They cursed all day the interference of those ominous ships which
steadily grew nearer. There were six ships at first, and that night
they slipped away from all but two; but all the next day those two
were still in sight, and each of them had more guns than the Des-
perate Lark. All the next night Shard dodged about the sea, but the
two ships separated and one kept him in sight, and the next morn-
ing it was alone with Shard on the sea, and his archipelago was just
in sight, the secret of his life.
And Shard saw he must fight, and a bad fight it was, and yet it
suited Shard’s purpose, for he had more merry men when the fight
began than he needed for his island. And they got it over before
any other ship came up; and Shard put all adverse evidence out of
the way, and came that night to the islands near the Sargasso Sea.
Long before it was light the survivors of the crew were peering
at the sea, and when dawn came there was the island, no bigger
than two ships, straining hard at its anchor, with the wind in the
tops of the trees.
And then they landed and dug cabins below and raised the an-
chor out of the deep sea, and soon they made the island what they
called shipshape. But the Desperate Lark they sent away empty
 The Book Of Wonder 351

under full sail to sea, where more nations than Shard suspected
were watching for her, and where she was presently captured by an
admiral of Spain, who, when he found none of that infamous crew
on board to hang by the neck from the yard-arm, grew ill through
disappointment.
And Shard on his island offered the Queen of the South the
choicest of the old wines of Provence, and for adornment gave
her Indian jewels looted from galleons with treasure for Madrid,
and spread a table where she dined in the sun, while in some cabin
below he bade the least coarse of his mariners sing; yet always
she was morose and moody towards him, and often at evening he
was heard to say that he wished he knew more about the ways of
Queens. So they lived for years, the pirates mostly gambling and
drinking below, Captain Shard trying to please the Queen of the
South, and she never wholly forgetting Bombasharna. When they
needed new provisions they hoisted sails on the trees, and as long
as no ship came in sight they scudded before the wind, with the
water rippling over the beach of the island; but as soon as they
sighted a ship the sails came down, and they became an ordinary
uncharted rock.
They mostly moved by night; sometimes they hovered off sea-
coast towns as of old, sometimes they boldly entered river-mouths,
and even attached themselves for a while to the mainland, whence
they would plunder the neighbourhood and escape again to sea.
And if a ship was wrecked on their island of a night they said it
was all to the good. They grew very crafty in seamanship, and cun-
ning in what they did, for they knew that any news of the Desper-
ate Lark’s old crew would bring hangmen from the interior running
down to every port.
And no one is known to have found them out or to have an-
nexed their island; but a rumour arose and passed from port to port
and every place where sailors meet together, and even survives to
this day, of a dangerous uncharted rock anywhere between Ply-
mouth and the Horn, which would suddenly rise in the safest track
of ships, and upon which vessels were supposed to have been
wrecked, leaving, strangely enough, no evidence of their doom.
352 The Book Of Wonder

There was a little speculation about it at first, till it was silenced by

the chance remark of a man old with wandering: “It is one of the
mysteries that haunt the sea.”
And almost Captain Shard and the Queen of the South lived hap-
pily ever after, though still at evening those on watch in the trees
would see their captain sit with a puzzled air or hear him mutter
now and again in a discontented way: “I wish I knew more about
the ways of Queens.”

Miss Cubbidge And The Dragon Of

Romance
This tale is told in the balconies of Belgrave Square and among
the towers of Pont Street; men sing it at evening in the Brompton
Road.
Little upon her eighteenth birthday thought Miss Cubbidge, of
Number 12A Prince of Wales’ Square, that before another year had
gone its way she would lose the sight of that unshapely oblong that
was so long her home. And, had you told her further that within
that year all trace of that so-called square, and of the day when her
father was elected by a thumping majority to share in the guid-
ance of the destinies of the empire, should utterly fade from her
memory, she would merely have said in that affected voice of hers,
“Go to!”
There was nothing about it in the daily Press, the policy of her
father’s party had no provision for it, there was no hint of it in con-
versation at evening parties to which Miss Cubbidge went: there
was nothing to warn her at all that a loathsome dragon with golden
scales that rattled as he went would have come up clean out of the
prime of romance and gone by night (so far as we know) through
Hammersmith, and come to Ardle Mansion, and then had turned to
his left, which of course brought him to Miss Cubbidge’s father’s
house.
There sat Miss Cubbidge at evening on her balcony quite alone,
 The Book Of Wonder 353

waiting for her father to be made a baronet. She was wearing walk-
ing-boots and a hat and a lownecked evening dress; for a painter
was but just now painting her portrait and neither she nor the
painter saw anything odd in the strange combination. She did not
notice the roar of the dragon’s golden scales, nor distinguish above
the manifold lights of London the small, red glare of his eyes. He
suddenly lifted his head, a blaze of gold, over the balcony; he did
not appear a yellow dragon then, for his glistening scales reflected
the beauty that London puts upon her only at evening and night.
She screamed, but to no knight, nor knew what knight to call on,
nor guessed where were the dragons’ overthrowers of far, roman-
tic days, nor what mightier game they chased, or what wars they
waged; perchance they were busy even then arming for Armaged-
don.

Out of the balcony of her father’s house in Prince of Wales’

Square, the painted dark-green balcony that grew blacker every
year, the dragon lifted Miss Cubbidge and spread his rattling
wings, and London fell away like an old fashion. And England fell
away, and the smoke of its factories, and the round material world
that goes humming round the sun vexed and pursued by time, until
there appeared the eternal and ancient lands of Romance lying low
by mystical seas.
You had not pictured Miss Cubbidge stroking the golden head of
one of the dragons of song with one hand idly, while with the other
she sometime played with pearls brought up from lonely places of
the sea. They filled huge haliotis shells with pearls and laid them
there beside her, they brought her emeralds which she set to flash
among the tresses of her long black hair, they brought her threaded
sapphires for her cloak: all this the princes of fable did and the
elves and the gnomes of myth. And partly she still lived, and partly
she was one with long-ago and with those sacred tales that nurses
tell, when all their children are good, and evening has come, and
the fire is burning well, and the soft pat-pat of the snowflakes on
the pane is like the furtive tread of fearful things in old, enchanted
woods. If at first she missed those dainty novelties among which
354 The Book Of Wonder

she was reared, the old, sufficient song of the mystical sea sing-
ing of faery lore at first soothed and at last consoled her. Even, she
forgot those advertisements of pills that are so dear to England;
even, she forgot political cant and the things that one discusses and
the things that one does not, and had perforce to contend herself
with seeing sailing by huge golden-laden galleons with treasure for
Madrid, and the merry skull-and-cross-bones of the pirateers, and
the tiny nautilus setting out to sea, and ships of heroes trafficking
in romance or of princes seeking for enchanted isles.
It was not by chains that the dragon kept her there, but by one
of the spells of old. To one to whom the facilities of the daily Press
had for so long been accorded spells would have palled — you
would have said — and galleons after a time and all things out-of-
date. After a time. But whether the centuries passed her or whether
the years or whether no time at all, she did not know. If any thing
indicated the passing of time it was the rhythm of elfin horns blow-
ing upon the heights. If the centuries went by her the spell that
bound her gave her also perennial youth, and kept alight for ever
the lantern by her side, and saved from decay the marble palace
facing the mystical sea. And if no time went by her there at all, her
single moment on those marvellous coasts was turned as it were to
a crystal reflecting a thousand scenes. If it was all a dream, it was a
dream that knew no morning and no fading away. The tide roamed
on and whispered of master and of myth, while near that captive
lady, asleep in his marble tank the golden dragon dreamed: and a
little way out from the coast all that the dragon dreamed showed
faintly in the mist that lay over the sea. He never dreamed of any
rescuing knight. So long as he dreamed, it was twilight; but when
he came up nimbly out of his tank night fell and starlight glistened
on the dripping, golden scales.
There he and his captive either defeated Time or never encoun-
tered him at all; while, in the world we know, raged Roncesvalles
or battles yet to be — I know not to what part of the shore of Ro-
mance he bore her. Perhaps she became one of those princesses of
whom fable loves to tell, but let it suffice that there she lived by the
sea: and kings ruled, and Demons ruled, and kings came again, and
 The Book Of Wonder 355

many cities returned to their native dust, and still she abided there,
and still her marble palace passed not away nor the power that
there was in the dragon’s spell.
And only once did there ever come to her a message from the
world that of old she knew. It came in a pearly ship across the
mystical sea; it was from an old school-friend that she had had in
Putney, merely a note, no more, in a little, neat, round hand: it said,
“It is not Proper for you to be there alone.”

The Quest Of The Queen’s Tears

Sylvia, Queen of the Woods, in her woodland palace, held court,
and made a mockery of her suitors. She would sing to them, she
said, she would give them banquets, she would tell them tales of
legendary days, her jugglers should caper before them, her armies
salute them, her fools crack jests with them and make whimsical
quips, only she could not love them.
This was not the way, they said, to treat princes in their splendor
and mysterious troubadours concealing kingly names; it was not
in accordance with fable; myth had no precedent for it. She should
have thrown her glove, they said, into some lion’s den, she should
have asked for a score of venomous heads of the serpents of Li-
cantara, or demanded the death of any notable dragon, or sent them
all upon some deadly quest, but that she could not love them — ! It
was unheard of — it had no parallel in the annals of romance.
And then she said that if they must needs have a quest she would
offer her hand to him who first should move her to tears: and the
quest should be called, for reference in histories or song, the Quest
of the Queen’s Tears, and he that achieved them she would wed, be
he only a petty duke of lands unknown to romance.
And many were moved to anger, for they hoped for some bloody
quest; but the old lords chamberlain said, as they muttered among
themselves in a far, dark end of the chamber, that the quest was
hard and wise, for that if she could ever weep she might also love.
They had known her all her childhood; she had never sighed. Many
356 The Book Of Wonder

men had she seen, suitors and courtiers, and had never turned her
head after one went by. Her beauty was as still sunsets of bitter
evenings when all the world is frore, a wonder and a chill. She was
as a sun-stricken mountain uplifted alone, all beautiful with ice, a
desolate and lonely radiance late at evening far up beyond the com-
fortable world, not quite to be companioned by the stars, the doom
of the mountaineer.
If she could weep, they said, she could love, they said.
And she smiled pleasantly on those ardent princes, and trouba-
dours concealing kingly names.
Then one by one they told, each suitor prince the story of his
love, with outstretched hands and kneeling on the knee; and very
sorry and pitiful were the tales, so that often up in the galleries
some maid of the palace wept. And very graciously she nodded her
head like a listless magnolia in the deeps of the night moving idly
to all the breezes its glorious bloom.
And when the princes had told their desperate loves and had de-
parted away with no other spoil than of their own tears only, even
then there came the unknown troubadours and told their tales in
song, concealing their gracious names.
And there was one, Ackronnion, clothed with rags, on which
was the dust of roads, and underneath the rags was war-scarred
armour whereon were dints of blows; and when he stroked his harp
and sang his song, in the gallery above maidens wept, and even old
lords chamberlain whimpered among themselves and thereafter
laughed through their tears and said: “It is easy to make old people
weep and to bring idle tears from lazy girls; but he will not set a-
weeping the Queen of the Woods.”
And graciously she nodded, and he was the last. And disconso-
late went away those dukes and princes, and troubadours in dis-
guise. Yet Ackronnion pondered as he went away.
King he was of Afarmah, Lool and Haf, over-lord of Zeroora
and hilly Chang, and duke of the dukedoms of Molong and Mlash,
none of them unfamiliar with romance or unknown or overlooked
in the making of myth. He pondered as he went in his thin disguise.
Now by those that do not remember their childhood, having
 The Book Of Wonder 357

other things to do, be it understood that underneath fairyland,

which is, as all men know, at the edge of the world, there dwelleth
the Gladsome Beast. A synonym he for joy.
It is known how the lark in its zenith, children at play out-of-
doors, good witches and jolly old parents have all been com-
pared — how aptly! — with this very same Gladsome Beast. Only
one “crab” he has (if I may use slang for a moment to make myself
perfectly clear), only one drawback, and that is that in the glad-
ness of his heart he spoils the cabbages of the Old Man Who Looks
After Fairyland, — and of course he eats men.
It must further be understood that whoever may obtain the tears
of the Gladsome Beast in a bowl, and become drunken upon them,
may move all persons to shed tears of joy so long as he remains
inspired by the potion to sing or to make music.
Now Ackronnion pondered in this wise: that if he could obtain
the tears of the Gladsome Beast by means of his art, withholding
him from violence by the spell of music, and if a friend should slay
the Gladsome Beast before his weeping ceased — for an end must
come to weeping even with men — that so he might get safe away
with the tears, and drink them before the Queen of the Woods and
move her to tears of joy. He sought out therefore a humble knightly
man who cared not for the beauty of Sylvia, Queen of the Woods,
but had found a woodland maiden of his own once long ago in
summer. And the man’s name was Arrath, a subject of Ackron-
nion, a knight-at-arms of the spear-guard: and together they set out
through the fields of fable until they came to Fairyland, a kingdom
sunning itself (as all men know) for leagues along the edges of the
world. And by a strange old pathway they came to the land they
sought, through a wind blowing up the pathway sheer from space
with a kind of metallic taste from the roving stars. Even so they
came to the windy house of thatch where dwells the Old Man Who
Looks After Fairyland sitting by parlour windows that look away
from the world. He made them welcome in his star-ward parlour,
telling them tales of Space, and when they named to him their per-
ilous quest he said it would be a charity to kill the Gladsome Beast;
for he was clearly one of these that liked not its happy ways. And
358 The Book Of Wonder

then he took them out through his back door, for the front door had
no pathway nor even a step — from it the old man used to empty
his slops sheer on to the Southern Cross — and so they came to
the garden wherein his cabbages were, and those flowers that only
blow in Fairyland, turning their faces always towards the comet,
and he pointed them out the way to the place he called Underneath,
where the Gladsome Beast had his lair. Then they manoeuvered.
Ackronnion was to go by the way of the steps with his harp and an
agate bowl, while Arrath went round by a crag on the other side.
Then the Old Man Who Looks After Fairyland went back to his
windy house, muttering angrily as he passed his cabbages, for he
did not love the ways of the Gladsome Beast; and the two friends
parted on their separate ways.
Nothing perceived them but that ominous crow glutted overlong
already upon the flesh of man.
The wind blew bleak from the stars.
At first there was dangerous climbing, and then Ackronnion
gained the smooth, broad steps that led from the edge to the lair,
and at that moment heard at the top of the steps the continuous
chuckles of the Gladsome Beast.
He feared then that its mirth might be insuperable, not to be
saddened by the most grievous song; nevertheless he did not turn
back then, but softly climbed the stairs and, placing the agate
bowl upon a step, struck up the chaunt called Dolorous. It told of
desolate, regretted things befallen happy cities long since in the
prime of the world. It told of how the gods and beasts and men
had long ago loved beautiful companions, and long ago in vain.
It told of the golden host of happy hopes, but not of their achiev-
ing. It told how Love scorned Death, but told of Death’s laughter.
The contented chuckles of the Gladsome Beast suddenly ceased in
his lair. He rose and shook himself. He was still unhappy. Ackron-
nion still sang on the chaunt called Dolorous. The Gladsome Beast
came mournfully up to him. Ackronnion ceased not for the sake of
his panic, but still sang on. He sang of the malignity of time. Two
tears welled large in the eyes of the Gladsome Beast. Ackronnion
moved the agate bowl to a suitable spot with his foot. He sang of
 The Book Of Wonder 359

autumn and of passing away. The the beast wept as the frore hills
weep in the thaw, and the tears splashed big into the agate bowl.
Ackronnion desperately chaunted on; he told of the glad unnoticed
things men see and do not see again, of sunlight beheld unheeded
on faces now withered away. The bowl was full. Ackronnion was
desperate: the Beast was so close. Once he thought that its mouth
was watering! — but it was only the tears that had run on the lips of
the Beast. He felt as a morsel! The Beast was ceasing to weep! He
sang of worlds that had disappointed the gods. And all of a sud-
den, crash! and the staunch spear of Arrath went home behind the
shoulder, and the tears and the joyful ways of the Gladsome Beast
were ended and over for ever.
And carefully they carried the bowl of tears away leaving the
body of the Gladsome Beast as a change of diet for the ominous
crow; and going by the windy house of thatch they said farewell to
the Old Man Who Looks After Fairyland, who when he heard of
the deed rubbed his hands together and mumbled again and again,
“And a very good thing, too. My cabbages! My cabbages!”
And not long after Ackronnion sang again in the sylvan palace
of the Queen of the Woods, having first drunk all the tears in his
agate bowl. And it was a gala night, and all the court were there
and ambassadors from the lands of legend and myth, and even
some from Terra Cognita.
And Ackronnion sang as he never sang before, and will not sing
again. O, but dolorous, dolorous, are all the ways of man, few and
fierce are his days, and the end trouble, and vain, vain his endeav-
or: and woman — who shall tell of it? — her doom is written with
man’s by listless, careless gods with their faces to other spheres.
Somewhat thus he began, and then inspiration seized him, and
all the trouble in the beauty of his song may not be set down by
me: there was much of gladness in it, and all mingled with grief: it
was like the way of man: it was like our destiny.
Sobs arose at his song, sighs came back along echoes: sene-
schals, soldiers, sobbed, and a clear cry made the maidens; like
rain the tears came down from gallery to gallery.
All round the Queen of the Woods was a storm of sobbing and
360 The Book Of Wonder

sorrow.
But no, she would not weep.

The Hoard Of The Gibbelins

The Gibbelins eat, as is well known, nothing less good than
man. Their evil tower is joined to Terra Cognita, to the lands we
know, by a bridge. Their hoard is beyond reason; avarice has no
use for it; they have a separate cellar for emeralds and a separate
cellar for sapphires; they have filled a hole with gold and dig it up
when they need it. And the only use that is known for their ridicu-
lous wealth is to attract to their larder a continual supply of food.
In times of famine they have even been known to scatter rubies
abroad, a little trail of them to some city of Man, and sure enough
their larders would soon be full again.
Their tower stands on the other side of that river known to
Homer — ho rhoos okeanoio, as he called it — which surrounds the
world. And where the river is narrow and fordable the tower was
built by the Gibbelins’ gluttonous sires, for they liked to see bur-
glars rowing easily to their steps. Some nourishment that common
soil has not the huge trees drained there with their colossal roots
from both banks of the river.
There the Gibbelins lived and discreditably fed. Alderic, Knight
of the Order of the City and the Assault, hereditary Guardian of the
King’s Peace of Mind, a man not unremembered among makers
of myth, pondered so long upon the Gibbelins’ hoard that by now
he deemed it his. Alas that I should say of so perilous a venture,
undertaken at dead of night by a valourous man, that its motive
was sheer avarice! Yet upon avarice only the Gibbelins relied to
keep their larders full, and once in every hundred years sent spies
into the cities of men to see how avarice did, and always the spies
returned again to the tower saying that all was well.
It may be thought that, as the years went on and men came by
fearful ends on that tower’s wall, fewer and fewer would come to
the Gibbelins’ table: but the Gibbelins found otherwise.
 The Book Of Wonder 361

Not in the folly and frivolity of his youth did Alderic come to
the tower, but he studied carefully for several years the manner in
which burglars met their doom when they went in search of the
treasure that he considered his. In every case they had entered by
the door.
He consulted those who gave advice on this quest; he noted
every detail and cheerfully paid their fees, and determined to do
nothing that they advised, for what were their clients now? No
more than examples of the savoury art, and mere half-forgotten
memories of a meal; and many, perhaps, no longer even that.
These were the requisites for the quest that these men used to
advise: a horse, a boat, mail armour, and at least three men-at-
arms. Some said, “Blow the horn at the tower door”; others said,
“Do not touch it.”
Alderic thus decided: he would take no horse down to the river’s
edge, he would not row along it in a boat, and he would go alone
and by way of the Forest Unpassable.
How pass, you may say, the unpassable? This was his plan:
there was a dragon he knew of who if peasants’ prayers are heeded
deserved to die, not alone because of the number of maidens he
cruelly slew, but because he was bad for the crops; he ravaged the
very land and was the bane of a dukedom.
Now Alderic determined to go up against him. So he took
horse and spear and pricked till he met the dragon, and the dragon
came out against him breathing bitter smoke. And to him Alderic
shouted, “Hath foul dragon ever slain true knight?” And well the
dragon knew that this had never been, and he hung his head and
was silent, for he was glutted with blood. “Then,” said the knight,
“if thou would’st ever taste maiden’s blood again thou shalt be my
trusty steed, and if not, by this spear there shall befall thee all that
the troubadours tell of the dooms of thy breed.”
And the dragon did not open his ravening mouth, nor rush upon
the knight, breathing out fire; for well he knew the fate of those
that did these things, but he consented to the terms imposed, and
swore to the knight to become his trusty steed.
It was on a saddle upon this dragon’s back that Alderic after-
362 The Book Of Wonder

wards sailed above the unpassable forest, even above the tops of
those measureless trees, children of wonder. But first he pondered
that subtle plan of his which was more profound than merely to
avoid all that had been done before; and he commanded a black-
smith, and the blacksmith made him a pickaxe.
Now there was great rejoicing at the rumour of Alderic’s quest,
for all folk knew that he was a cautious man, and they deemed
that he would succeed and enrich the world, and they rubbed their
hands in the cities at the thought of largesse; and there was joy
among all men in Alderic’s country, except perchance among the
lenders of money, who feared they would soon be paid. And there
was rejoicing also because men hoped that when the Gibbelins
were robbed of their hoard, they would shatter their high-built
bridge and break the golden chains that bound them to the world,
and drift back, they and their tower, to the moon, from which they
had come and to which they rightly belonged. There was little love
for the Gibbelins, though all men envied their hoard.
So they all cheered, that day when he mounted his dragon, as
though he was already a conqueror, and what pleased them more
than the good that they hoped he would do to the world was that he
scattered gold as he rode away; for he would not need it, he said, if
he found the Gibbelins’ hoard, and he would not need it more if he
smoked on the Gibbelins’ table.
When they heard that he had rejected the advice of those that
gave it, some said that the knight was mad, and others said he was
greater than those what gave the advice, but none appreciated the
worth of his plan.
He reasoned thus: for centuries men had been well advised and
had gone by the cleverest way, while the Gibbelins came to expect
them to come by boat and to look for them at the door whenever
their larder was empty, even as a man looketh for a snipe in a
marsh; but how, said Alderic, if a snipe should sit in the top of a
tree, and would men find him there? Assuredly never! So Alderic
decided to swim the river and not to go by the door, but to pick his
way into the tower through the stone. Moreover, it was in his mind
to work below the level of the ocean, the river (as Homer knew)
 The Book Of Wonder 363

that girdles the world, so that as soon as he made a hole in the wall
the water should pour in, confounding the Gibbelins, and flood-
ing the cellars, rumoured to be twenty feet in depth, and therein he
would dive for emeralds as a diver dives for pearls.
And on the day that I tell of he galloped away from his home
scattering largesse of gold, as I have said, and passed through
many kingdoms, the dragon snapping at maidens as he went,
but being unable to eat them because of the bit in his mouth, and
earning no gentler reward than a spurthrust where he was softest.
And so they came to the swart arboreal precipice of the unpass-
able forest. The dragon rose at it with a rattle of wings. Many a
farmer near the edge of the worlds saw him up there where yet the
twilight lingered, a faint, black, wavering line; and mistaking him
for a row of geese going inland from the ocean, went into their
houses cheerily rubbing their hands and saying that winter was
coming, and that we should soon have snow. Soon even there the
twilight faded away, and when they descended at the edge of the
world it was night and the moon was shining. Ocean, the ancient
river, narrow and shallow there, flowed by and made no murmur.
Whether the Gibbelins banqueted or whether they watched by the
door, they also made no murmur. And Alderic dismounted and took
his armour off, and saying one prayer to his lady, swam with his
pickaxe. He did not part from his sword, for fear that he meet with
a Gibbelin. Landed the other side, he began to work at once, and
all went well with him. Nothing put out its head from any window,
and all were lighted so that nothing within could see him in the
dark. The blows of his pickaxe were dulled in the deep walls. All
night he worked, no sound came to molest him, and at dawn the
last rock swerved and tumbled inwards, and the river poured in
after. Then Alderic took a stone, and went to the bottom step, and
hurled the stone at the door; he heard the echoes roll into the tower,
then he ran back and dived through the hole in the wall.
He was in the emerald-cellar. There was no light in the lofty
vault above him, but, diving through twenty feet of water, he felt
the floor all rough with emeralds, and open coffers full of them. By
a faint ray of the moon he saw that the water was green with them,
364 The Book Of Wonder

and easily filling a satchel, he rose again to the surface; and there
were the Gibbelins waist-deep in the water, with torches in their
hands! And, without saying a word, or even smiling, they neatly
hanged him on the outer wall — and the tale is one of those that
have not a happy ending.

How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art

Upon The Gnoles
Despite the advertisements of rival firms, it is probable that
every tradesman knows that nobody in business at the present time
has a position equal to that of Mr. Nuth. To those outside the magic
circle of business, his name is scarcely known; he does not need
to advertise, he is consummate. He is superiour even to modern
competition, and, whatever claims they boast, his rivals know it.
His terms are moderate, so much cash down when when the goods
are delivered, so much in blackmail afterwards. He consults your
convenience. His skill may be counted upon; I have seen a shadow
on a windy night move more noisily than Nuth, for Nuth is a bur-
glar by trade. Men have been known to stay in country houses and
to send a dealer afterwards to bargain for a piece of tapestry that
they saw there — some article of furniture, some picture. This is
bad taste: but those whose culture is more elegant invariably send
Nuth a night or two after their visit. He has a way with tapestry;
you would scarcely notice that the edges had been cut. And often
when I see some huge, new house full of old furniture and portraits
from other ages, I say to myself, “These mouldering chairs, these
full-length ancestors and carved mahogany are the produce of the
incomparable Nuth.”
It may be urged against my use of the word incomparable that
in the burglary business the name of Slith stands paramount and
alone; and of this I am not ignorant; but Slith is a classic, and lived
long ago, and knew nothing at all of modern competition; besides
which the surprising nature of his doom has possibly cast a glam-
 The Book Of Wonder 365

our upon Slith that exaggerates in our eyes his undoubted merits.
It must not be thought that I am a friend of Nuth’s; on the con-
trary such politics as I have are on the side of Property; and he
needs no words from me, for his position is almost unique in trade,
being among the every few that do not need to advertise.
At the time that my story begins Nuth lived in a roomy house
in Belgrave Square: in his inimitable way he had made friends
with the caretaker. The place suited Nuth, and, whenever anyone
came to inspect it before purchase, the caretaker used to praise the
house in the words that Nuth had suggested. “If it wasn’t for the
drains,” she would say, “it’s the finest house in London,” and when
they pounced on this remark and asked questions about the drains,
she would answer them that the drains also were good, but not so
good as the house. They did not see Nuth when they went over the
rooms, but Nuth was there.
Here in a neat black dress on one spring morning came an old
woman whose bonnet was lined with red, asking for Mr. Nuth; and
with her came her large and awkward son. Mrs. Eggins, the care-
taker, glanced up the street, and then she let them in, and left them
to wait in the drawing-room amongst furniture all mysterious with
sheets. For a long while they waited, and then there was a smell of
pipe-tobacco, and there was Nuth standing quite close to them.
“Lord,” said the old woman whose bonnet was lined with red,
“you did make me start.” And then she saw by his eyes that that
was not the way to speak to Mr. Nuth.
And at last Nuth spoke, and very nervously the old woman
explained that her son was a likely lad, and had been in business
already but wanted to better himself, and she wanted Mr. Nuth to
teach him a livelihood.
First of all Nuth wanted to see a business reference, and when
he was shown one from a jeweller with whom he happened to be
hand-in-glove the upshot of it was that he agreed to take young
Tonker (for this was the surname of the likely lad) and to make him
his apprentice. And the old woman whose bonnet was lined with
red went back to her little cottage in the country, and every evening
said to her old man, “Tonker, we must fasten the shutters of a
366 The Book Of Wonder

night-time, for Tommy’s a burglar now.”

The details of the likely lad’s apprenticeship I do not propose to
give; for those that are in the business know those details already,
and those that are in other businesses care only for their own, while
men of leisure who have no trade at all would fail to appreciate the
gradual degrees by which Tommy Tonker came first to cross bare
boards, covered with little obstacles in the dark, without making
any sound, and then to go silently up creaky stairs, and then to
open doors, and lastly to climb.
Let it suffice that the business prospered greatly, while glowing
reports of Tommy Tonker’s progress were sent from time to time to
the old woman whose bonnet was lined with red in the labourious
handwriting of Nuth. Nuth had given up lessons in writing very
early, for he seemed to have some prejudice against forgery, and
therefore considered writing a waste of time. And then there came
the transaction with Lord Castlenorman at his Surrey residence.
Nuth selected a Saturday night, for it chanced that Saturday was
observed as Sabbath in the family of Lord Castlenorman, and by
eleven o’clock the whole house was quiet. Five minutes before
midnight Tommy Tonker, instructed by Mr. Nuth, who waited out-
side, came away with one pocketful of rings and shirt-studs. It was
quite a light pocketful, but the jewellers in Paris could not match it
without sending specially to Africa, so that Lord Castlenorman had
to borrow bone shirt-studs.
Not even rumour whispered the name of Nuth. Were I to say that
this turned his head, there are those to whom the assertion would
give pain, for his associates hold that his astute judgment was
unaffected by circumstance. I will say, therefore, that it spurred
his genius to plan what no burglar had ever planned before. It was
nothing less than to burgle the house of the gnoles. And this that
abstemious man unfolded to Tonker over a cup of tea. Had Tonker
not been nearly insane with pride over their recent transaction,
and had he not been blinded by a veneration for Nuth, he would
have — but I cry over spilt milk. He expostulated respectfully; he
said he would rather not go; he said it was not fair; he allowed
himself to argue; and in the end, one windy October morning with
 The Book Of Wonder 367

a menace in the air found him and Nuth drawing near to the dread-
ful wood.
Nuth, by weighing little emeralds against pieces of common
rock, had ascertained the probable weight of those house-orna-
ments that the gnoles are believed to possess in the narrow, lofty
house wherein they have dwelt from of old. They decided to steal
two emeralds and to carry them between them on a cloak; but
if they should be too heavy one must be dropped at once. Nuth
warned young Tonker against greed, and explained that the emer-
alds were worth less than cheese until they were safe away from
the dreadful wood.
Everything had been planned, and they walked now in silence.
No track led up to the sinister gloom of the trees, either of men
or cattle; not even a poacher had been there snaring elves for over
a hundred years. You did not trespass twice in the dells of the
gnoles. And, apart from the things that were done there, the trees
themselves were a warning, and did not wear the wholesome look
of those that we plant ourselves.
The nearest village was some miles away with the backs of all
its houses turned to the wood, and without one window at all fac-
ing in that direction. They did not speak of it there, and elsewhere
it is unheard of.
Into this wood stepped Nuth and Tommy Tonker. They had no
firearms. Tonker had asked for a pistol, but Nuth replied that the
sound of a shot “would bring everything down on us,” and no more
was said about it.
Into the wood they went all day, deeper and deeper. They saw
the skeleton of some early Georgian poacher nailed to a door in an
oak tree; sometimes they saw a fairy scuttle away from them; once
Tonker stepped heavily on a hard, dry stick, after which they both
lay still for twenty minutes. And the sunset flared full of omens
through the tree trunks, and night fell, and they came by fitful
starlight, as Nuth had foreseen, to that lean, high house where the
gnoles so secretly dwelt.
All was so silent by that unvalued house that the faded courage
of Tonker flickered up, but to Nuth’s experienced sense it seemed
368 The Book Of Wonder

too silent; and all the while there was that look in the sky that was
worse than a spoken doom, so that Nuth, as is often the case when
men are in doubt, had leisure to fear the worst. Nevertheless he did
not abandon the business, but sent the likely lad with the instru-
ments of his trade by means of the ladder to the old green case-
ment. And the moment that Tonker touched the withered boards,
the silence that, though ominous, was earthly, became unearthly
like the touch of a ghoul. And Tonker heard his breath offending
against that silence, and his heart was like mad drums in a night
attack, and a string of one of his sandals went tap on a rung of a
ladder, and the leaves of the forest were mute, and the breeze of the
night was still; and Tonker prayed that a mouse or a mole might
make any noise at all, but not a creature stirred, even Nuth was
still. And then and there, while yet he was undiscovered, the likely
lad made up his mind, as he should have done long before, to leave
those colossal emeralds where they were and have nothing further
to do with the lean, high house of the gnoles, but to quit this sinis-
ter wood in the nick of time and retire from business at once and
buy a place in the country. Then he descended softly and beckoned
to Nuth. But the gnoles had watched him though knavish holes
that they bore in trunks of the trees, and the unearthly silence gave
way, as it were with a grace, to the rapid screams of Tonker as they
picked him up from behind — screams that came faster and faster
until they were incoherent. And where they took him it is not good
to ask, and what they did with him I shall not say.
Nuth looked on for a while from the corner of the house with
a mild surprise on his face as he rubbed his chin, for the trick of
the holes in the trees was new to him; then he stole nimbly away
through the dreadful wood.
“And did they catch Nuth?” you ask me, gentle reader.
“Oh, no, my child” (for such a question is childish). “Nobody
ever catches Nuth.”
 The Book Of Wonder 369

How One Came, As Was Foretold, To The

City Of Never
The child that played about the terraces and gardens in sight
of the Surrey hills never knew that it was he that should come to
the Ultimate City, never knew that he should see the Under Pits,
the barbicans and the holy minarets of the mightiest city known.
I think of him now as a child with a little red watering-can go-
ing about the gardens on a summer’s day that lit the warm south
country, his imagination delighted with all tales of quite little
adventures, and all the while there was reserved for him that feat at
which men wonder.
Looking in other directions, away from the Surrey hills, through
all his infancy he saw that precipice that, wall above wall and
mountain above mountain, stands at the edge of the World, and in
perpetual twilight alone with the Moon and the Sun holds up the
inconceivable City of Never. To read its streets he was destined;
prophecy knew it. He had the magic halter, and a worn old rope it
was; an old wayfaring woman had given it to him: it had the power
to hold any animal whose race had never known captivity, such as
the unicorn, the hippogriff Pegasus, dragons and wyverns; but with
a lion, giraffe, camel or horse, it was useless.
How often we have seen that City of Never, that marvel of the
Nations! Not when it is night in the World, and we can see no
further than the stars; not when the sun is shining where we dwell,
dazzling our eyes; but when the sun has set on some stormy days,
all at once repentant at evening, and those glittering cliffs reveal
themselves which we almost take to be clouds, and it is twilight
with us as it is for ever with them, then on their gleaming sum-
mits we see those golden domes that overpeer the edges of the
World and seem to dance with dignity and calm in that gentle light
of evening that is Wonder’s native haunt. Then does the City of
Never, unvisited and afar, look long at her sister the World.
It had been prophecied that he should come there. They knew
it when the pebbles were being made and before the isles of coral
370 The Book Of Wonder

were given unto the sea. And thus the prophecy came unto fulfil-
ment and passed into history, and so at length to Oblivion, out of
which I drag it as it goes floating by, into which I shall one day
tumble. The hippogriffs dance before dawn in the upper air; long
before sunrise flashes upon our lawns they go to glitter in light that
has not yet come to the World, and as the dawn works up from the
ragged hills and the stars feel it they go slanting earthwards, till
sunlight touches the tops of the tallest trees, and the hippogriffs
alight with a rattle of quills and fold their wings and gallop and
gambol away till they come to some prosperous, wealthy, detesta-
ble town, and they leap at once from the fields and soar away from
the sight of it, pursued by the horrible smoke of it until they come
again to the pure blue air.
He whom prophecy had named from of old to come to the City
of Never, went down one midnight with his magic halter to a lake-
side where the hippogriffs alighted at dawn, for the turf was soft
there and they could gallop far before they came to a town, and
there he waited hidden near their hoofmarks. And the stars paled a
little and grew indistinct; but there was no other sign as yet of the
dawn, when there appeared far up in the deeps of the night two lit-
tle saffron specks, then four and five: it was the hippogriffs dancing
and twirling around in the sun. Another flock joined them, there
were twelve of them now; they danced there, flashing their colours
back to the sun, they descended in wide curves slowly; trees down
on earth revealed against the sky, jet-black each delicate twig; a
star disappeared from a cluster, now another; and dawn came on
like music, like a new song. Ducks shot by to the lake from still
dark fields of corn, far voices uttered, a colour grew upon water,
and still the hippogriffs gloried in the light, revelling up in the sky;
but when pigeons stirred on the branches and the first small bird
was abroad, and little coots from the rushes ventured to peer about,
then there came down on a sudden with a thunder of feathers the
hippogriffs, and, as they landed from their celestial heights all
bathed with the day’s first sunlight, the man whose destiny it was
as from of old to come to the City of Never, sprang up and caught
the last with the magic halter. It plunged, but could not escape it,
 The Book Of Wonder 371

for the hippogriffs are of the uncaptured races, and magic has pow-
er over the magical, so the man mounted it, and it soared again for
the heights whence it had come, as a wounded beast goes home.
But when they came to the heights that venturous rider saw huge
and fair to the left of him the destined City of Never, and he beheld
the towers of Lel and Lek, Neerid and Akathooma, and the cliffs
of Toldenarba a-glistening in the twilight like an alabaster statue of
the Evening. Towards them he wrenched the halter, towards Told-
enarba and the Under Pits; the wings of the hippogriff roared as the
halter turned him. Of the Under Pits who shall tell? Their mystery
is secret. It is held by some that they are the sources of night, and
that darkness pours from them at evening upon the world; while
others hint that knowledge of these might undo our civilization.
There watched him ceaselessly from the Under Pits those eyes
whose duty it is; from further within and deeper, the bats what
dwell there arose when they saw the surprise in the eyes; the
sentinels on the bulwarks beheld that stream of bats and lifted up
their spears as it were for war. Nevertheless when they perceived
that that war for which they watched was not now come upon
them, they lowered their spears and suffered him to enter, and he
passed whirring through the earthward gateway. Even so he came,
as foretold, to the City of Never perched upon Toldenarba, and saw
late twilight on those pinnacles that know no other light. All the
domes were of copper, but the spires on their summits were gold.
Little steps of onyx ran all this way and that. With cobbled agates
were its streets a glory. Through small square panes of rose-quartz
the citizens looked from their houses. To them as they looked
abroad the World far-off seemed happy. Clad though that city was
in one robe always, in twilight, yet was its beauty worthy of even
so lovely a wonder: city and twilight were both peerless but for
each other. Built of a stone unknown in the world we tread were its
bastions, quarried we known not where, but called by the gnomes
abyx, it so flashed back to the twilight its glories, colour for colour,
that none can say of them where their boundary is, and which the
eternal twilight, and which the City of Never; they are the twin-
born children, the fairest daughters of Wonder. Time had been
372 The Book Of Wonder

there, but not to the domes that were made of copper, the rest he
had left untouched, even he, the destroyer of cities, by what bribe
I know not averted. Nevertheless they often wept in Never for
change and passing away, mourning catastrophes in other worlds,
and they built temples sometimes to ruined stars that had fallen
flaming down from the Milky Way, giving them worship still when
by us long since forgotten. Other temples they have — who knows
to what divinities?
And he that was destined alone of men to come to the City of
Never was well content to behold it as he trotted down its agate
street, with the wings of his hippogriff furled, seeing at either side
of him marvel on marvel of which even China is ignorant. Then as
he neared the city’s further rampart by which no inhabitant stirred,
and looked in a direction to which no houses faced with any rose-
pink windows, he suddenly saw far-off, dwarfing the mountains,
an even greater city. Whether that city was built upon the twilight
or whether it rose from the coasts of some other world he did not
know. He saw it dominate the City of Never, and strove to reach
it; but at this unmeasured home of unknown colossi the hippogriff
shied frantically, and neither the magic halter nor anything that
he did could make the monster face it. At last, from the City of
Never’s lonely outskirts where no inhabitants walked, the rider
turned slowly earthward. He knew now why all the windows faced
this way — the denizens of the twilight gazed at the world and not
at a greater than them. Then from the last step of the earthward
stairway, like lead past the Under Pits and down the glittering face
of Toldenarba, down from the overshadowed glories of the gold-
tipped City of Never and out of perpetual twilight, swooped the
man on his winged monster: the wind that slept at the time leaped
up like a dog at their onrush, it uttered a cry and ran past them.
Down on the World it was morning; night was roaming away with
his cloak trailed behind him, with mists turned over and over as he
went, the orb was grey but it glittered, lights blinked surprisingly
in early windows, forth over wet, dim fields went cows from their
houses: even in this hour touched the fields again the feet of the
hippogriff. And the moment that the man dismounted and took off
 The Book Of Wonder 373

his magic halter the hippogriff flew slanting away with a whirr, go-
ing back to some airy dancing-place of his people.
And he that surmounted glittering Toldenarba and came alone of
men to the City of Never has his name and his fame among na-
tions; but he and the people of that twilit city well know two things
unguessed by other men, they that there is another city fairer than
theirs, and he — a deed unaccomplished.

The Coronation Of Mr. Thomas Shap

It was the occupation of Mr. Thomas Shap to persuade custom-
ers that the goods were genuine and of an excellent quality, and
that as regards the price their unspoken will was consulted. And in
order to carry on this occupation he went by train very early every
morning some few miles nearer to the City from the suburb in
which he slept. This was the use to which he put his life.
From the moment when he first perceived (not as one reads a
thing in a book, but as truths are revealed to one’s instinct) the very
beastliness of his occupation, and of the house that he slept in, its
shape, make and pretensions, and even the clothes that he wore;
from that moment he withdrew his dreams from it, his fancies, his
ambitions, everything in fact except that ponderable Mr. Shap that
dressed in a frock-coat, bought tickets and handled money and
could in turn be handled by the statistician. The priest’s share in
Mr. Shap, the share of the poet, never caught the early train to the
City at all.
He used to take little flights of fancy at first, dwelt all day in
his dreamy way on fields and rivers lying in the sunlight where it
strikes the world more brilliantly further South. And then he began
to imagine butterflies there; after that, silken people and the tem-
ples they built to their gods.
They noticed that he was silent, and even absent at times, but
they found no fault with his behaviour with customers, to whom he
remained as plausible as of old. So he dreamed for a year, and his
fancy gained strength as he dreamed. He still read halfpenny pa-
374 The Book Of Wonder

pers in the train, still discussed the passing day’s ephemeral topic,
still voted at elections, though he no longer did these things with
the whole Shap — his soul was no longer in them.
He had had a pleasant year, his imagination was all new to him
still, and it had often discovered beautiful things away where it
went, southeast at the edge of the twilight. And he had a matter-of-
fact and logical mind, so that he often said, “Why should I pay my
twopence at the electric theatre when I can see all sorts of things
quite easily without?” Whatever he did was logical before anything
else, and those that knew him always spoke of Shap as “a sound,
sane, level-headed man.”
On far the most important day of his life he went as usual to
town by the early train to sell plausible articles to customers, while
the spiritual Shap roamed off to fanciful lands. As he walked from
the station, dreamy but wide awake, it suddenly struck him that the
real Shap was not the one walking to Business in black and ugly
clothes, but he who roamed along a jungle’s edge near the ramparts
of an old and Eastern city that rose up sheer from the sand, and
against which the desert lapped with one eternal wave. He used
to fancy the name of that city was Larkar. “After all, the fancy is
as real as the body,” he said with perfect logic. It was a dangerous
theory.
For that other life that he led he realized, as in Business, the
importance and value of method. He did not let his fancy roam
too far until it perfectly knew its first surroundings. Particularly he
avoided the jungle — he was not afraid to meet a tiger there (after
all it was not real), but stranger things might crouch there. Slowly
he built up Larkar: rampart by rampart, towers for archers, gateway
of brass, and all. And then one day he argued, and quite rightly,
that all the silk-clad people in its streets, their camels, their wares
that come from Inkustahn, the city itself, were all the things of his
will — and then he made himself King. He smiled after that when
people did not raise their hats to him in the street, as he walked
from the station to Business; but he was sufficiently practical for
recognize that it was better not to talk of this to those that only
knew him as Mr. Shap.
 The Book Of Wonder 375

Now that he was King in the city of Larkar and in all the desert
that lay to the East and North he sent his fancy to wander further
afield. He took the regiments of his camel-guard and went jingling
out of Larkar, with little silver bells under the camels’ chins, and
came to other cities far-off on the yellow sand, with clear white
walls and towers, uplifting themselves in the sun. Through their
gates he passed with his three silken regiments, the light-blue
regiment of the camel-guards being upon his right and the green
regiment riding at his left, the lilac regiment going on before.
When he had gone through the streets of any city and observed the
ways of its people, and had seen the way that the sunlight struck
its towers, he would proclaim himself King there, and then ride
on in fancy. So he passed from city to city and from land to land.
Clear-sighted though Mr. Shap was, I think he overlooked the lust
of aggrandizement to which kings have so often been victims; and
so it was that when the first few cities had opened their gleaming
gates and he saw peoples prostrate before his camel, and spearmen
cheering along countless balconies, and priests come out to do him
reverence, he that had never had even the lowliest authority in the
familiar world became unwisely insatiate. He let his fancy ride at
inordinate speed, he forsook method, scarce was he king of a land
but he yearned to extend his borders; so he journeyed deeper and
deeper into the wholly unknown. The concentration that he gave
to this inordinate progress through countries of which history is
ignorant and cities so fantastic in their bulwarks that, though their
inhabitants were human, yet the foe that they feared seemed some-
thing less or more; the amazement with which he beheld gates and
towers unknown even to art, and furtive people thronging intricate
ways to acclaim him as their sovereign — all these things began to
affect his capacity for Business. He knew as well as any that his
fancy could not rule these beautiful lands unless that other Shap,
however unimportant, were well sheltered and fed: and shelter and
food meant money, and money, Business. His was more like the
mistake of some gambler with cunning schemes who overlooks
human greed. One day his fancy, riding in the morning, came to a
city gorgeous as the sunrise, in whose opalescent wall were gates
376 The Book Of Wonder

of gold, so huge that a river poured between the bars, floating in,
when the gates were opened, large galleons under sail. Thence
there came dancing out a company with instruments, and made
a melody all around the wall; that morning Mr. Shap, the bodily
Shap in London, forgot the train to town.
Until a year ago he had never imagined at all; it is not to be
wondered at that all these things now newly seen by his fancy
should play tricks at first with the memory of even so sane a man.
He gave up reading the papers altogether, he lost all interest in
politics, he cared less and less for things that were going on around
him. This unfortunate missing of the morning train even occurred
again, and the firm spoke to him severely about it. But he had his
consolation. Were not Arathrion and Argun Zeerith and all the level
coasts of Oora his? And even as the firm found fault with him his
fancy watched the yaks on weary journeys, slow specks against the
snow-fields, bringing tribute; and saw the green eyes of the moun-
tain men who had looked at him strangely in the city of Nith when
he had entered it by the desert door. Yet his logic did not forsake
him; he knew well that his strange subjects did not exist, but he
was prouder of having created them with his brain, than merely of
ruling them only; thus in his pride he felt himself something more
great than a king, he did not dare to think what! He went into the
temple of the city of Zorra and stood some time there alone: all the
priests kneeled to him when he came away.
He cared less and less for the things we care about, for the af-
fairs of Shap, the business-man in London. He began to despise the
man with a royal contempt.
One day when he sat in Sowla, the city of the Thuls, throned on
one amethyst, he decided, and it was proclaimed on the moment
by silver trumpets all along the land, that he would be crowned as
king over all the lands of Wonder.
By that old temple where the Thuls worshipped, year in, year
out, for over a thousand years, they pitched pavilions in the open
air. The trees that blew there threw out radiant scents unknown in
any countries that know the map; the stars blazed fiercely for that
famous occasion. A fountain hurled up, clattering, ceaselessly into
 The Book Of Wonder 377

the air armfuls on armfuls of diamonds. A deep hush waited for the
golden trumpets, the holy coronation night was come. At the top
of those old, worn steps, going down we know not whither, stood
the king in the emerald-and-amethyst cloak, the ancient garb of the
Thuls; beside him lay that Sphinx that for the last few weeks had
advised him in his affairs.
Slowly, with music when the trumpets sounded, came up to-
wards him from we know not where, one-hundred-and-twenty
archbishops, twenty angels and two archangels, with that terrific
crown, the diadem of the Thuls. They knew as they came up to
him that promotion awaited them all because of this night’s work.
Silent, majestic, the king awaited them.
The doctors downstairs were sitting over their supper, the ward-
ers softly slipped from room to room, and when in that cosy dormi-
tory of Hanwell they saw the king still standing erect and royal, his
face resolute, they came up to him and addressed him:
“Go to bed,” they said — “pretty bed.” So he lay down and soon
was fast asleep: the great day was over.

Chu-bu And Sheemish

It was the custom on Tuesdays in the temple of Chu-bu for the
priests to enter at evening and chant, “There is none but Chu-bu.”
And all the people rejoiced and cried out, “There is none but
Chu-bu.” And honey was offered to Chu-bu, and maize and fat.
Thus was he magnified.
Chu-bu was an idol of some antiquity, as may be seen from the
colour of the wood. He had been carved out of mahogany, and after
he was carved he had been polished. Then they had set him up on
the diorite pedestal with the brazier in front of it for burning spices
and the flat gold plates for fat. Thus they worshipped Chu-bu.
He must have been there for over a hundred years when one day
the priests came in with another idol into the temple of Chu-bu
and set it up on a pedestal near Chu-bu’s and sang, “There is also
Sheemish.”
378 The Book Of Wonder

And all the people rejoiced and cried out, “There is also
Sheemish.”
Sheemish was palpably a modern idol, and although the wood
was stained with a dark-red dye, you could see that he had only
just been carved. And honey was offered to Sheemish as well as
Chu-bu, and also maize and fat.
The fury of Chu-bu knew no time-limit: he was furious all that
night, and next day he was furious still. The situation called for
immediate miracles. To devastate the city with a pestilence and kill
all his priests was scarcely within his power, therefore he wisely
concentrated such divine powers as he had in commanding a little
earthquake. “Thus,” thought Chu-bu, “will I reassert myself as the
only god, and men shall spit upon Sheemish.”
Chu-bu willed it and willed it and still no earthquake came,
when suddenly he was aware that the hated Sheemish was dar-
ing to attempt a miracle too. He ceased to busy himself about the
earthquake and listened, or shall I say felt, for what Sheemish was
thinking; for gods are aware of what passes in the mind by a sense
that is other than any of our five. Sheemish was trying to make an
earthquake too.
The new god’s motive was probably to assert himself. I doubt
if Chu-bu understood or cared for his motive; it was sufficient for
an idol already aflame with jealousy that his detestable rival was
on the verge of a miracle. All the power of Chu-bu veered round at
once and set dead against an earthquake, even a little one. It was
thus in the temple of Chu-bu for some time, and then no earth-
quake came.
To be a god and to fail to achieve a miracle is a despairing
sensation; it is as though among men one should determine upon a
hearty sneeze and as though no sneeze should come; it is as though
one should try to swim in heavy boots or remember a name that is
utterly forgotten: all these pains were Sheemish’s.
And upon Tuesday the priests came in, and the people, and they
did worship Chu-bu and offered fat to him, saying, “O Chu-bu
who made everything,” and then the priests sang, “There is also
Sheemish”; and Chu-bu was put to shame and spake not for three
 The Book Of Wonder 379

days.
Now there were holy birds in the temple of Chu-bu, and when
the third day was come and the night thereof, it was as it were
revealed to the mind of Chu-bu, that there was dirt upon the head
of Sheemish.
And Chu-bu spake unto Sheemish as speak the gods, mov-
ing no lips nor yet disturbing the silence, saying, “There is dirt
upon thy head, O Sheemish.” All night long he muttered again
and again, “there is dirt upon Sheemish’s head.” And when it was
dawn and voices were heard far off, Chu-bu became exultant with
Earth’s awakening things, and cried out till the sun was high, “Dirt,
dirt, dirt, upon the head of Sheemish,” and at noon he said, “So
Sheemish would be a god.” Thus was Sheemish confounded.
And with Tuesday one came and washed his head with rose-wa-
ter, and he was worshipped again when they sang “There is also
Sheemish.” And yet was Chu-bu content, for he said, “The head of
Sheemish has been defiled,” and again, “His head was defiled, it is
enough.” And one evening lo! there was dirt on the head of Chu-bu
also, and the thing was perceived of Sheemish.
It is not with the gods as it is with men. We are angry one with
another and turn from our anger again, but the wrath of the gods is
enduring. Chu-bu remembered and Sheemish did not forget. They
spake as we do not speak, in silence yet heard of each other, nor
were their thoughts as our thoughts. We should not judge them
merely by human standards. All night long they spake and all night
said these words only: “Dirty Chu-bu,” “Dirty Sheemish.” “Dirty
Chu-bu,” “Dirty Sheemish,” all night long. Their wrath had not
tired at dawn, and neither had wearied of his accusation. And grad-
ually Chu-bu came to realize that he was nothing more than the
equal of Sheemish. All gods are jealous, but this equality with the
upstart Sheemish, a thing of painted wood a hundred years newer
than Chu-bu, and this worship given to Sheemish in Chu-bu’s own
temple, were particularly bitter. Chu-bu was jealous even for a god;
and when Tuesday came again, the third day of Sheemish’s wor-
ship, Chu-bu could bear it no longer. He felt that his anger must be
revealed at all costs, and he returned with all the vehemence of his
380 The Book Of Wonder

will to achieving a little earthquake. The worshippers had just gone

from his temple when Chu-bu settled his will to attain this miracle.
Now and then his meditations were disturbed by that now familiar
dictum, “Dirty Chu-bu,” but Chu-bu willed ferociously, not even
stopping to say what he longed to say and had already said nine
hundred times, and presently even these interruptions ceased.
They ceased because Sheemish had returned to a project that he
had never definitely abandoned, the desire to assert himself and
exalt himself over Chu-bu by performing a miracle, and the district
being volcanic he had chosen a little earthquake as the miracle
most easily accomplished by a small god.
Now an earthquake that is commanded by two gods has double
the chance of fulfilment than when it is willed by one, and an in-
calculably greater chance than when two gods are pulling different
ways; as, to take the case of older and greater gods, when the sun
and the moon pull in the same direction we have the biggest tides.
Chu-bu knew nothing of the theory of tides, and was too much
occupied with his miracle to notice what Sheemish was doing. And
suddenly the miracle was an accomplished thing.
It was a very local earthquake, for there are other gods than
Chu-bu or even Sheemish, and it was only a little one as the gods
had willed, but it loosened some monoliths in a colonnade that sup-
ported one side of the temple and the whole of one wall fell in, and
the low huts of the people of that city were shaken a little and some
of their doors were jammed so that they would not open; it was
enough, and for a moment it seemed that it was all; neither Chu-bu
nor Sheemish commanded there should be more, but they had set
in motion an old law older than Chu-bu, the law of gravity that that
colonnade had held back for a hundred years, and the temple of
Chu-bu quivered and then stood still, swayed once and was over-
thrown, on the heads of Chu-bu and Sheemish.
No one rebuilt it, for nobody dared to near such terrible gods.
Some said that Chu-bu wrought the miracle, but some said
Sheemish, and thereof schism was born. The weakly amiable,
alarmed by the bitterness of rival sects, sought compromise and
said that both had wrought it, but no one guessed the truth that the
 The Book Of Wonder 381

thing was done in rivalry.

And a saying arose, and both sects held this belief in common,
that whoso toucheth Chu-bu shall die or whoso looketh upon
Sheemish.
That is how Chu-bu came into my possession when I travelled
once beyond the hills of Ting. I found him in the fallen temple
of Chu-bu with his hands and toes sticking up out of the rubbish,
lying upon his back, and in that attitude just as I found him I keep
him to this day on my mantlepiece, as he is less liable to be upset
that way. Sheemish was broken, so I left him where he was.
And there is something so helpless about Chu-bu with his fat
hands stuck up in the air that sometimes I am moved out of com-
passion to bow down to him and pray, saying, “O Chu-bu, thou that
made everything, help thy servant.”
Chu-bu cannot do much, though once I am sure that at a game
of bridge he sent me the ace of trumps after I had not held a card
worth having for the whole of the evening. And chance alone could
have done as much as that for me. But I do not tell this to Chu-bu.

The Wonderful Window

The old man in the Oriental-looking robe was being moved on
by the police, and it was this that attracted to him and the parcel
under his arm the attention of Mr. Sladden, whose livelihood was
earned in the emporium of Messrs. Mergin and Chater, that is to
say in their establishment.
Mr. Sladden had the reputation of being the silliest young man
in Business; a touch of romance — a mere suggestion of it — would
send his eyes gazing away as though the walls of the emporium
were of gossamer and London itself a myth, instead of attending to
customers.
Merely the fact that the dirty piece of paper that wrapped the old
man’s parcel was covered with Arabic writing was enough to give
Mr. Sladden the ideas of romance, and he followed until the little
crowd fell off and the stranger stopped by the kerb and unwrapped
382 The Book Of Wonder

his parcel and prepared to sell the thing that was inside it. It was a
little window in old wood with small panes set in lead; it was not
much more than a foot in breadth and was under two feet long. Mr.
Sladden had never before seen a window sold in the street, so he
asked the price of it.
“Its price is all you possess,” said the old man.
“Where did you get it?” said Mr. Sladden, for it was a strange
window.
“I gave all that I possessed for it in the streets of Baghdad.”
“Did you possess much?” said Mr. Sladden.
“I had all that I wanted,” he said, “except this window.”
“It must be a good window,” said the young man.
“It is a magical window,” said the old one.
“I have only ten shillings on me, but I have fifteen-and-six at
home.”
The old man thought for a while.
“Then twenty-five-and-sixpence is the price of the window,” he
said.
It was only when the bargain was completed and the ten shil-
lings paid and the strange old man was coming for his fifteen-and-
six and to fit the magical window into his only room that it oc-
curred to Mr. Sladden’s mind that he did not want a window. And
then they were at the door of the house in which he rented a room,
and it seemed too late to explain.
The stranger demanded privacy when he fitted up the window,
so Mr. Sladden remained outside the door at the top of a little flight
of creaky stairs. He heard no sound of hammering.
And presently the strange old man came out with his faded yel-
low robe and his great beard, and his eyes on far-off places. “It is
finished,” he said, and he and the young man parted. And whether
he remained a spot of colour and an anachronism in London, or
whether he ever came again to Baghdad, and what dark hands kept
on the circulation of his twenty-five-and-six, Mr. Sladden never
knew.
Mr. Sladden entered the bare-boarded room in which he slept
and spent all his indoor hours between closing-time and the hour
 The Book Of Wonder 383

at which Messrs. Mergin and Chater commenced. To the Penates

of so dingy a room his neat frock-coat must have been a continual
wonder. Mr. Sladden took it off and folded it carefully; and there
was the old man’s window rather high up in the wall. There had
been no window in that wall hitherto, nor any ornament at all but a
small cupboard, so when Mr. Sladden had put his frock-coat safely
away he glanced through his new window. It was where his cup-
board had been in which he kept his tea-things: they were all stand-
ing on the table now. When Mr. Sladden glanced through his new
window it was late in a summer’s evening; the butterflies some
while ago would have closed their wings, though the bat would
scarcely yet be drifting abroad — but this was in London: the shops
were shut and street-lamps not yet lighted.
Mr. Sladden rubbed his eyes, then rubbed the window, and still
he saw a sky of blazing blue, and far, far down beneath him, so that
no sound came up from it or smoke of chimneys, a mediaeval city
set with towers; brown roofs and cobbled streets, and then white
walls and buttresses, and beyond them bright green fields and tiny
streams. On the towers archers lolled, and along the walls were
pikemen, and now and then a wagon went down some old-world
street and lumbered through the gateway and out to the country,
and now and then a wagon drew up to the city from the mist that
was rolling with evening over the fields. Sometimes folks put their
heads out of lattice windows, sometimes some idle troubadour
seemed to sing, and nobody hurried or troubled about anything.
Airy and dizzy though the distance was, for Mr. Sladden seemed
higher above the city than any cathedral gargoyle, yet one clear
detail he obtained as a clue: the banners floating from every tower
over the idle archers had little golden dragons all over a pure white
field.
He heard motor-buses roar by his other window, he heard the
newsboys howling.
Mr. Sladden grew dreamier than ever after that on the premises,
in the establishment of Messrs. Mergin and Chater. But in one
matter he was wise and wakeful: he made continuous and careful
inquiries about the golden dragons on a white flag, and talked to no
384 The Book Of Wonder

one of his wonderful window. He came to know the flags of every

king in Europe, he even dabbled in history, he made inquiries at
shops that understood heraldry, but nowhere could he learn any
trace of little dragons or on a field argent. And when it seemed that
for him alone those golden dragons had fluttered he came to love
them as an exile in some desert might love the lilies of his home or
as a sick man might love swallows when he cannot easily live to
another spring.
As soon as Messrs. Mergin and Chater closed, Mr. Sladden
used to go back to his dingy room and gaze though the wonderful
window until it grew dark in the city and the guard would go with
a lantern round the ramparts and the night came up like velvet, full
of strange stars. Another clue he tried to obtain one night by jotting
down the shapes of the constellations, but this led him no further,
for they were unlike any that shone upon either hemisphere.
Each day as soon as he woke he went first to the wonderful win-
dow, and there was the city, diminutive in the distance, all shining
in the morning, and the golden dragons dancing in the sun, and the
archers stretching themselves or swinging their arms on the tops
of the windy towers. The window would not open, so that he never
heard the songs that the troubadours sang down there beneath the
gilded balconies; he did not even hear the belfries’ chimes, though
he saw the jackdaws routed every hour from their homes. And the
first thing that he always did was to cast his eye round all the little
towers that rose up from the ramparts to see that the little golden
dragons were flying there on their flags. And when he saw them
flaunting themselves on white folds from every tower against the
marvelous deep blue of the sky he dressed contentedly, and, tak-
ing one last look, went off to his work with a glory in his mind. It
would have been difficult for the customers of Messrs. Mergin and
Chater to guess the precise ambition of Mr. Sladden as he walked
before them in his neat frock-coat: it was that he might be a man-
at-arms or an archer in order to fight for the little golden dragons
that flew on a white flag for an unknown king in an inaccessible
city. At first Mr. Sladden used to walk round and round the mean
street that he lived in, but he gained no clue from that; and soon he
 The Book Of Wonder 385

noticed that quite different winds blew below his wonderful win-
dow from those that blew on the other side of the house.
In August the evenings began to grow shorter: this was the very
remark that the other employees made to him at the emporium,
so that he almost feared that they suspected his secret, and he had
much less time for the wonderful window, for lights were few
down there and they blinked out early.
One morning late in August, just before he went to Business,
Mr. Sladden saw a company of pikemen running down the cobbled
road towards the gateway of the mediaeval city — Golden Dragon
City he used to call it alone in his own mind, but he never spoke
of it to anyone. The next thing that he noticed was that the archers
were handling round bundles of arrows in addition to the quivers
which they wore. Heads were thrust out of windows more than
usual, a woman ran out and called some children indoors, a knight
rode down the street, and then more pikemen appeared along the
walls, and all the jack-daws were in the air. In the street no trouba-
dour sang. Mr. Sladden took one look along the towers to see that
the flags were flying, and all the golden dragons were streaming
in the wind. Then he had to go to Business. He took a bus back
that evening and ran upstairs. Nothing seemed to be happening in
Golden Dragon City except a crowd in the cobbled street that led
down to the gateway; the archers seemed to be reclining as usual
lazily in their towers, and then a white flag went down with all
its golden dragons; he did not see at first that all the archers were
dead. The crowd was pouring towards him, towards the precipitous
wall from which he looked; men with a white flag covered with
golden dragons were moving backwards slowly, men with another
flag were pressing them, a flag on which there was one huge red
bear. Another banner went down upon a tower. Then he saw it all:
the golden dragons were being beaten — his little golden dragons.
The men of the bear were coming under the window; what ever
he threw from that height would fall with terrific force: fire-irons,
coal, his clock, whatever he had — he would fight for his little
golden dragons yet. A flame broke out from one of the towers and
licked the feet of a reclining archer; he did not stir. And now the
386 The Book Of Wonder

alien standard was out of sight directly underneath. Mr. Sladden

broke the panes of the wonderful window and wrenched away with
a poker the lead that held them. Just as the glass broke he saw a
banner covered with golden dragons fluttering still, and then as he
drew back to hurl the poker there came to him the scent of mysteri-
ous spices, and there was nothing there, not even the daylight, for
behind the fragments of the wonderful window was nothing but
that small cupboard in which he kept his tea-things.
And though Mr. Sladden is older now and knows more of the
world, and even has a Business of his own, he has never been able
to buy such another window, and has not ever since, either from
books or men, heard any rumour at all of Golden Dragon City.

Epilogue
Here the fourteenth Episode of the Book of Wonder endeth and
here the relating of the Chronicles of Little Adventures at the Edge
of the World. I take farewell of my readers. But it may be we shall
even meet again, for it is still to be told how the gnomes robbed the
fairies, and of the vengeance that the fairies took, and how even the
gods themselves were troubled thereby in their sleep; and how the
King of Ool insulted the troubadours, thinking himself safe among
his scores of archers and hundreds of halberdiers, and how the
troubadours stole to his towers by night, and under his battlements
by the light of the moon made that king ridiculous for ever in song.
But for this I must first return to the Edge of the World. Behold, the
caravans start.
Fifty-One Tales
1915
388 Fifty-One Tales

The Assignation
Fame singing in the highways, and trifling as she sang, with
sordid adventurers, passed the poet by.
And still the poet made for her little chaplets of song, to deck
her forehead in the courts of Time: and still she wore instead the
worthless garlands, that boisterous citizens flung to her in the
ways, made out of perishable things.
And after a while whenever these garlands died the poet came to
her with his chaplets of song; and still she laughed at him and wore
the worthless wreaths, though they always died at evening.
And one day in his bitterness the poet rebuked her, and said to
her: “Lovely Fame, even in the highways and the byways you have
not foreborne to laugh and shout and jest with worthless men, and I
have toiled for you and dreamed of you and you mock me and pass
me by.”
And Fame turned her back on him and walked away, but in de-
parting she looked over her shoulder and smiled at him as she had
not smiled before, and, almost speaking in a whisper, said:
“I will meet you in the graveyard at the back of the Workhouse
in a hundred years.”

Charon
Charon leaned forward and rowed. All things were one with his
weariness.
It was not with him a matter of years or of centuries, but of wide
floods of time, and an old heaviness and a pain in the arms that had
become for him part of the scheme that the gods had made and was
of a piece with Eternity.
If the gods had even sent him a contrary wind it would have
divided all time in his memory into two equal slabs.
So grey were all things always where he was that if any radiance
lingered a moment among the dead, on the face of such a queen
perhaps as Cleopatra, his eyes could not have perceived it.
 Fifty-One Tales 389

It was strange that the dead nowadays were coming in such

numbers. They were coming in thousands where they used to come
in fifties. It was neither Charon’s duty nor his wont to ponder in his
grey soul why these things might be. Charon leaned forward and
rowed.
Then no one came for a while. It was not usual for the gods to
send no one down from Earth for such a space. But the gods knew
best.
Then one man came alone. And the little shade sat shivering on
a lonely bench and the great boat pushed off. Only one passenger:
the gods knew best. And great and weary Charon rowed on and on
beside the little, silent, shivering ghost.
And the sound of the river was like a mighty sigh that Grief in
the beginning had sighed among her sisters, and that could not die
like the echoes of human sorrow failing on earthly hills, but was as
old as time and the pain in Charon’s arms.
Then the boat from the slow, grey river loomed up to the coast
of Dis and the little, silent shade still shivering stepped ashore, and
Charon turned the boat to go wearily back to the world. Then the
little shadow spoke, that had been a man.
“I am the last,” he said.
No one had ever made Charon smile before, no one before had
ever made him weep.

The Death Of Pan

When travellers from London entered Arcady they lamented one
to another the death of Pan.
And anon they saw him lying stiff and still.
Horned Pan was still and the dew was on his fur; he had not
the look of a live animal. And then they said, “It is true that Pan is
dead.”
And, standing melancholy by that huge prone body, they looked
for long at memorable Pan.
And evening came and a small star appeared.
390 Fifty-One Tales

And presently from a hamlet of some Arcadian valley, with a

sound of idle song, Arcadian maidens came.
And, when they saw there, suddenly in the twilight, that old re-
cumbent god, they stopped in their running and whispered among
themselves. “How silly he looks,” they said, and thereat they
laughed a little.
And at the sound of their laughter Pan leaped up and the gravel
flew from his hooves.
And, for as long as the travellers stood and listened, the crags
and the hill-tops of Arcady rang with the sounds of pursuit.

The Sphinx At Gizeh

I saw the other day the Sphinx’s painted face.
She had painted her face in order to ogle Time.
And he has spared no other painted face in all the world but
hers.
Delilah was younger than she, and Delilah is dust. Time hath
loved nothing but this worthless painted face.
I do not care that she is ugly, nor that she has painted her face, so
that she only lure his secret from Time.
Time dallies like a fool at her feet when he should be smiting
cities.
Time never wearies of her silly smile.
There are temples all about her that he has forgotten to spoil.
I saw an old man go by, and Time never touched him.
Time that has carried away the seven gates of Thebes!
She has tried to bind him with ropes of eternal sand, she had
hoped to oppress him with the Pyramids.
He lies there in the sand with his foolish hair all spread about
her paws.
If she ever finds his secret we will put out his eyes, so that he
shall find no more our beautiful things — there are lovely gates in
Florence that I fear he will carry away.
We have tried to bind him with song and with old customs, but
 Fifty-One Tales 391

they only held him for a little while, and he has always smitten us
and mocked us.
When he is blind he shall dance to us and make sport.
Great clumsy time shall stumble and dance, who liked to kill lit-
tle children, and can hurt even the daisies no longer.
Then shall our children laugh at him who slew Babylon’s
winged bulls, and smote great numbers of the gods and fair-
ies — when he is shorn of his hours and his years.
We will shut him up in the Pyramid of Cheops, in the great
chamber where the sarcophagus is. Thence we will lead him out
when we give our feasts. He shall ripen our corn for us and do
menial work.
We will kiss they painted face, O Sphinx, if thou wilt betray to
us Time.
And yet I fear that in his ultimate anguish he may take hold
blindly of the world and the moon, and slowly pull down upon him
the House of Man.

The Hen
All along the farmyard gables the swallows sat a-row, twittering
uneasily to one another, telling of many things, but thinking only
of Summer and the South, for Autumn was afoot and the North
wind waiting.
And suddenly one day they were all quite gone. And everyone
spoke of the swallows and the South.
“I think I shall go South myself next year,” said a hen.
And the year wore on and the swallows came again, and the
year wore on and they sat again on the gables, and all the poultry
discussed the departure of the hen.
And very early one morning, the wind being from the North,
the swallows all soared suddenly and felt the wind in their wings;
and a strength came upon them and a strange old knowledge and a
more than human faith, and flying high they left the smoke of our
cities and small remembered eaves, and saw at last the huge and
392 Fifty-One Tales

homeless sea, and steering by grey sea-currents went southward

with the wind. And going South they went by glittering fog-banks
and saw old islands lifting their heads above them; they saw the
slow quests of the wandering ships, and divers seeking pearls, and
lands at war, till there came in view the mountains that they sought
and the sight of the peaks they knew; and they descended into an
austral valley, and saw Summer sometimes sleeping and sometimes
singing song.
“I think the wind is about right,” said the hen; and she spread her
wings and ran out of the poultry-yard. And she ran fluttering out on
to the road and some way down it until she came to a garden.
At evening she came back panting.
And in the poultry-yard she told the poultry how she had gone
South as far as the high road, and saw the great world’s traffic
going by, and came to lands where the potato grew, and saw the
stubble upon which men live, and at the end of the road had found
a garden, and there were roses in it — beautiful roses! — and the
gardener himself was there with his braces on.
“How extremely interesting,” the poultry said, “and what a re-
ally beautiful description!”
And the Winter wore away, and the bitter months went by, and
the Spring of the year appeared, and the swallows came again.
“We have been to the South,” they said, “and the valleys beyond
the sea.”
But the poultry would not agree that there was a sea in the
South: “You should hear our hen,” they said.

Wind And Fog

“Way for us,” said the North Wind as he came down the sea on
an errand of old Winter.
And he saw before him the grey silent fog that lay along the
tides.
“Way for us,” said the North Wind, “O ineffectual fog, for I am
Winter’s leader in his age-old war with the ships. I overwhelm
 Fifty-One Tales 393

them suddenly in my strength, or drive upon them the huge seafar-

ing bergs. I cross an ocean while you move a mile. There is mourn-
ing in inland places when I have met the ships. I drive them upon
the rocks and feed the sea. Wherever I appear they bow to our lord
the Winter.”
And to his arrogant boasting nothing said the fog. Only he rose
up slowly and trailed away from the sea and, crawling up long
valleys, took refuge among the hills; and night came down and
everything was still, and the fog began to mumble in the stillness.
And I hear him telling infamously to himself the tale of his hor-
rible spoils. “A hundred and fifteen galleons of old Spain, a certain
argosy that went from Tyre, eight fisher-fleets and ninety ships of
the line, twelve warships under sail, with their carronades, three
hundred and eighty-seven river-craft, forty-two merchantmen that
carried spice, thirty yachts, twenty-one battleships of the modern
time, nine thousand admirals….” he mumbled and chuckled on, till
I suddenly rose and fled from his fearful contamination.

The Raft-builders
All we who write put me in mind of sailors hastily making rafts
upon doomed ships.
When we break up under the heavy years and go down into eter-
nity with all that is ours our thoughts like small lost rafts float on
awhile upon Oblivion’s sea. They will not carry much over those
tides, our names and a phrase or two and little else.
They that write as a trade to please the whim of the day, they are
like sailors that work at the rafts only to warm their hands and to
distract their thoughts from their certain doom; their rafts go all to
pieces before the ship breaks up.
See now Oblivion shimmering all around us, its very tranquil-
ity deadlier than tempest. How little all our keels have troubled it.
Time in its deeps swims like a monstrous whale; and, like a whale,
feeds on the littlest things — small tunes and little unskilled songs
of the olden, golden evenings — and anon turneth whale-like to
394 Fifty-One Tales

overthrow whole ships.

See now the wreckage of Babylon floating idly, and something
there that once was Nineveh; already their kings and queens are in
the deeps among the weedy masses of old centuries that hide the
sodden bulk of sunken Tyre and make a darkness round Persepolis.
For the rest I dimly see the forms of foundered ships on the sea-
floor strewn with crowns.
Our ships were all unseaworthy from the first.
There goes the raft that Homer made for Helen.

The Workman
I saw a workman fall with his scaffolding right from the sum-
mit of some vast hotel. And as he came down I saw him holding a
knife and trying to cut his name on the scaffolding. He had time to
try and do this for he must have had nearly three hundred feet to
fall. And I could think of nothing but his folly in doing this futile
thing, for not only would the man be unrecognizably dead in three
seconds, but the very pole on which he tried to scratch whatever of
his name he had time for was certain to be burnt in a few weeks for
firewood.
Then I went home for I had work to do. And all that evening I
thought of the man’s folly, till the thought hindered me from seri-
ous work.
And late that night while I was still at work, the ghost of the
workman floated through my wall and stood before me laughing.
I heard no sound until after I spoke to it; but I could see the grey
diaphanous form standing before me shuddering with laughter.
I spoke at last and asked what it was laughing at, and then the
ghost spoke. It said: “I’m a laughin’ at you sittin’ and workin’
there.”
“And why,” I asked, “do you laugh at serious work?”
“Why, yer bloomin’ life ’ull go by like a wind,” he said, “and
yer ’ole silly civilization ’ull be tidied up in a few centuries.”
Then he fell to laughing again and this time audibly; and, laugh-
 Fifty-One Tales 395

ing still, faded back through the wall again and into the eternity
from which he had come.

The Guest
A young man came into an ornate restaurant at eight o’clock in
London.
He was alone, but two places had been laid at the table which
was reserved for him. He had chosen the dinner very carefully, by
letter a week before.
A waiter asked him about the other guest.
“You probably won’t see him till the coffee comes,” the young
man told him; so he was served alone.
Those at adjacent tables might have noticed the young man con-
tinually addressing the empty chair and carrying on a monologue
with it throughout his elaborate dinner.
“I think you knew my father,” he said to it over the soup.
“I sent for you this evening,” he continued, “because I want you
to do me a good turn; in fact I must insist on it.”
There was nothing eccentric about the man except for this habit
of addressing an empty chair, certainly he was eating as good a
dinner as any sane man could wish for.
After the Burgundy had been served he became more voluble
in his monologue, not that he spoiled his wine by drinking exces-
sively.
“We have several acquaintances in common,” he said. “I met
King Seti a year ago in Thebes. I think he has altered very little
since you knew him. I thought his forehead a little low for a king’s.
Cheops has left the house that he built for your reception, he must
have prepared for you for years and years. I suppose you have
seldom been entertained like that. I ordered this dinner over a week
ago. I thought then that a lady might have come with me, but as
she wouldn’t I’ve asked you. She may not after all be as lovely as
Helen of Troy. Was Helen very lovely? Not when you knew her,
perhaps. You were lucky in Cleopatra, you must have known her
396 Fifty-One Tales

when she was in her prime.

“You never knew the mermaids nor the fairies nor the lovely
goddesses of long ago, that’s where we have the best of you.”
He was silent when the waiters came to his table, but rambled
merrily on as soon as they left, still turned to the empty chair.
“You know I saw you here in London only the other day. You
were on a motor bus going down Ludgate Hill. It was going much
too fast. London is a good place. But I shall be glad enough to
leave it. It was in London that I met the lady I that was speaking
about. If it hadn’t been for London I probably shouldn’t have met
her, and if it hadn’t been for London she probably wouldn’t have
had so much besides me to amuse her. It cuts both ways.”
He paused once to order coffee, gazing earnestly at the waiter
and putting a sovereign in his hand. “Don’t let it be chicory,” said
he.
The waiter brought the coffee, and the young man dropped a
tabloid of some sort into his cup.
“I don’t suppose you come here very often,” he went on. “Well,
you probably want to be going. I haven’t taken you much out of
your way, there is plenty for you to do in London.”
Then having drunk his coffee he fell on the floor by a foot of the
empty chair, and a doctor who was dining in the room bent over
him and announced to the anxious manager the visible presence of
the young man’s guest.

Death And Odysseus

In the Olympian courts Love laughed at Death, because he was
unsightly, and because She couldn’t help it, and because he never
did anything worth doing, and because She would.
And Death hated being laughed at, and used to brood apart
thinking only of his wrongs and of what he could do to end this
intolerable treatment.
But one day Death appeared in the courts with an air and They
all noticed it. “What are you up to now?” said Love. And Death
 Fifty-One Tales 397

with some solemnity said to Her: “I am going to frighten Odys-

seus“; and drawing about him his grey traveller’s cloak went out
through the windy door with his jowl turned earthwards.
And he came soon to Ithaca and the hall that Athene knew, and
opened the door and saw there famous Odysseus, with his white
locks bending close over the fire, trying to warm his hands.
And the wind through the open door blew bitterly on Odysseus.
And Death came up behind him, and suddenly shouted.
And Odysseus went on warming his pale hands.
Then Death came close and began to mouth at him. And after
a while Odysseus turned and spoke. And “Well, old servant,” he
said, “have your masters been kind to you since I made you work
for me round Ilion?”
And Death for some while stood mute, for the thought of the
laughter of Love.
Then “Come now,” said Odysseus, “lend me your shoulder,” and
he leaning heavily on that bony joint, they went together through
the open door.

Death And The Orange

Two dark young men in a foreign southern land sat at a restau-
rant table with one woman.
And on the woman’s plate was a small orange which had an evil
laughter in its heart.
And both of the men would be looking at the woman all the
time, and they ate little and they drank much.
And the woman was smiling equally at each.
Then the small orange that had the laughter in its heart rolled
slowly off the plate on to the floor. And the dark young men both
sought for it at once, and they met suddenly beneath the table, and
soon they were speaking swift words to one another, and a horror
and an impotence came over the Reason of each as she sat helpless
at the back of the mind, and the heart of the orange laughed and
the woman went on smiling; and Death, who was sitting at another
398 Fifty-One Tales

table, tête-à-tête with an old man, rose and came over to listen to
the quarrel.

The Prayer Of The Flowers

It was the voice of the flowers on the West wind, the lovable,
the old, the lazy West wind, blowing ceaselessly, blowing sleepily,
going Greecewards.
“The woods have gone away, they have fallen and left us; men
love us no longer, we are lonely by moonlight. Great engines rush
over the beautiful fields, their ways lie hard and terrible up and
down the land.
“The cancrous cities spread over the grass, they clatter in their
lairs continually, they glitter about us blemishing the night.
“The woods are gone, O Pan, the woods, the woods. And thou
art far, O Pan, and far away.”
I was standing by night between two railway embankments on
the edge of a Midland city. On one of them I saw the trains go by,
once in every two minutes, and on the other, the trains went by
twice in every five.
Quite close were the glaring factories, and the sky above them
wore the fearful look that it wears in dreams of fever.
The flowers were right in the stride of that advancing city, and
thence I heard them sending up their cry. And then I heard, beat-
ing musically up wind, the voice of Pan reproving them from
Arcady —
“Be patient a little, these things are not for long.”

Time And The Tradesman

Once Time as he prowled the world, his hair grey not with weak-
ness but with dust of the ruin of cities, came to a furniture shop and
entered the Antique department. And there he saw a man darkening
the wood of a chair with dye and beating it with chains and making
 Fifty-One Tales 399

imitation wormholes in it.

And when Time saw another doing his work he stood by him
awhile and looked on critically.
And at last he said: “That is not how I work,” and he turned the
man’s hair white and bent his back and put some furrows in his
little cunning face; then turned and strode away, for a mighty city
that was weary and sick and too long had troubled the fields was
sore in need of him.

The Little City

I was in the pre-destined 11.8 from Goraghwood to Drogheda,
when I suddenly saw the city. It was a little city in a valley, and
only seemed to have a little smoke, and the sun caught the smoke
and turned it golden, so that it looked like an old Italian picture
where angels walk in the foreground and the rest is a blaze of gold.
And beyond, as one could tell by the lie of land although one could
not see through the golden smoke, I knew that there lay the paths
of the roving ships.
All round there lay a patchwork of small fields all over the
slopes of the hills, and the snow had come upon them tentatively,
but already the birds of the waste had moved to the sheltered
places for every omen boded more to fall. Far away some little
hills blazed like an aureate bulwark broken off by age and fallen
from the earthward rampart of Paradise. And aloof and dark the
mountains stared unconcernedly seawards.
And when I saw those grey and watchful mountains sitting
where they sat while the cities of the civilization of Araby and Asia
arose like crocuses, and like crocuses fell, I wondered for how long
there would be smoke in the valley and little fields on the hills.
400 Fifty-One Tales

The Unpasturable Fields

Thus spake the mountains: “Behold us, even us; the old ones,
the grey ones, that wear the feet of Time. Time on our rocks shall
break his staff and stumble: and still we shall sit majestic, even as
now, hearing the sound of the sea, our old coeval sister, who nurses
the bones of her children and weeps for the things she has done.
“Far, far, we stand above all things; befriending the little cities
until they grow old and leave us to go among the myths.
“We are the most imperishable mountains.”
And softly the clouds foregathered from far places, and crag
on crag and mountain upon mountain in the likeness of Caucasus
upon Himalaya came riding past the sunlight upon the backs of
storms and looked down idly from their golden heights upon the
crests of the mountains.
“Ye pass away,” said the mountains.
And the clouds answered, as I dreamed or fancied,
“We pass away, indeed we pass away, but upon our unpasturable
fields Pegasus prances. Here Pegasus gallops and browses upon
song which the larks bring to him every morning from far terres-
trial fields. His hoof-beats ring upon our slopes at sunrise as though
our fields were of silver. And breathing the dawn-wind in dilated
nostrils, with head tossed upwards and with quivering wings, he
stands and stares from our tremendous heights, and snorts and sees
far-future wonderful wars rage in the creases and the folds of the
togas that cover the knees of the gods.”

The Worm And The Angel

As he crawled from the tombs of the fallen a worm met with an
angel.
And together they looked upon the kings and kingdoms, and
youths and maidens and the cities of men. They saw the old men
heavy in their chairs and heard the children singing in the fields.
They saw far wars and warriors and walled towns, wisdom and
 Fifty-One Tales 401

wickedness, and the pomp of kings, and the people of all the lands
that the sunlight knew.
And the worm spake to the angel saying: “Behold my food.”
“Be dakeon para Thina poluphloisboio Thalassaes,” murmured
the angel, for they walked by the sea, “and can you destroy that
too?”
And the worm paled in his anger to a greyness ill to behold, for
for three thousand years he had tried to destroy that line and still its
melody was ringing in his head.

The Songless Country

The poet came unto a great country in which there were no
songs. And he lamented gently for the nation that had not any little
foolish songs to sing to itself at evening.
And at last he said: “I will make for them myself some little
foolish songs so that they may be merry in the lanes and happy by
the fireside.” And for some days he made for them aimless songs
such as maidens sing on the hills in the older happier countries.
Then he went to some of that nation as they sat weary with the
work of the day and said to them: “I have made you some aimless
songs out of the small unreasonable legends, that are somewhat
akin to the wind in the vales of my childhood; and you may care to
sing them in your disconsolate evenings.”
And they said to him:
“If you think we have time for that sort of nonsense nowadays
you cannot know much of the progress of modern commerce.”
And the poet wept for he said: “Alas! They are damned.”

The Latest Thing

I saw an unclean-feeder by the banks of the river of Time. He
crouched by orchards numerous with apples in a happy land of
flowers; colossal barns stood near which the ancients had stored
402 Fifty-One Tales

with grain, and the sun was golden on serene far hills behind the
level lands. But his back was to all these things. He crouched and
watched the river. And whatever the river chanced to send him
down the unclean-feeder clutched at greedily with his arms, wad-
ing out into the water.
Now there were in those days, and indeed still are, certain
uncleanly cities upon the river of Time; and from them fearfully
nameless things came floating shapelessly by. And whenever the
odor of these came down the river before them the unclean-feeder
plunged into the dirty water and stood far out, expectant. And if he
opened his mouth one saw these things on his lips.
Indeed from the upper reaches there came down sometimes the
fallen rhododendron’s petal, sometimes a rose; but they were use-
less to the unclean-feeder, and when he saw them he growled.
A poet walked beside the river’s bank; his head was lifted and
his look was afar; I think he saw the sea, and the hills of Fate from
which the river ran. I saw the unclean-feeder standing voracious,
up to his waist in that evil-smelling river.
“Look,” I said to the poet.
“The current will sweep him away,” the poet said.
“But those cities that poison the river,” I said to him.
He answered: “Whenever the centuries melt on the hills of Fate
the river terribly floods.”

The Demagogue And The Demi-monde

A demagogue and a demi-mondaine chanced to arrive together
at the gate of Paradise. And the Saint looked sorrowfully at them
both.
“Why were you a demagogue?” he said to the first.
“Because,” said the demagogue, “I stood for those principles
that have made us what we are and have endeared our Party to the
great heart of the people. In a word I stood unflinchingly on the
plank of popular representation.”
“And you?” said the Saint to her of the demi-monde.
 Fifty-One Tales 403

“I wanted money,” said the demi-mondaine.

And after some moments’ thought the Saint said: “Well, come
in; though you don’t deserve to.”
But to the demagogue he said: “We genuinely regret that the
limited space at our disposal and our unfortunate lack of interest in
those Questions that you have gone so far to inculate and have so
ably upheld in the past, prevent us from giving you the support for
which you seek.”
And he shut the golden door.

The Giant Poppy

I dreamt that I went back to the hills I knew, whence on a clear
day you can see the walls of Ilion and the plains of Roncesvalles.
There used to be woods along the tops of those hills with clearings
in them where the moonlight fell, and there when no one watched
the fairies danced.
But there were no woods when I went back, no fairies nor
distant glimpse of Ilion or plains of Roncesvalles, only one giant
poppy waved in the wind, and as it waved it hummed “Remember
not.” And by its oak-like stem a poet sat, dressed like a shepherd
and playing an ancient tune softly upon a pipe. I asked him if the
fairies had passed that way or anything olden.
He said: “The poppy has grown apace and is killing gods and
fairies. Its fumes are suffocating the world, and its roots drain it of
its beautiful strength.” And I asked him why he sat on the hills I
knew, playing an olden tune.
And he answered: “Because the tune is bad for the poppy, which
would otherwise grow more swiftly; and because if the brother-
hood of which I am one were to cease to pipe on the hills men
would stray over the world and be lost or come to terrible ends. We
think we have saved Agamemnon.”
Then he fell to piping again that olden tune, while the wind
among the poppy’s sleepy petals murmured “Remember not. Re-
member not.”
404 Fifty-One Tales

Roses
I know a roadside where the wild rose blooms with a strange
abundance. There is a beauty in the blossoms too of an almost
exotic kind, a taint of deeper pink that shocks the Puritan flowers.
Two hundred generations ago (generations, I mean, of roses) this
was a village street; there was a floral decadence when they left
their simple life and the roses came from the wilderness to clamber
round houses of men.
Of all the memories of that little village, of all the cottages that
stood there, of all the men and women whose homes they were,
nothing remains but a more beautiful blush on the faces of the
roses.
I hope that when London is clean passed away and the defeated
fields come back again, like an exiled people returning after a war,
they may find some beautiful thing to remind them of it all; be-
cause we have loved a little that swart old city.

The Man With The Golden Ear-rings

It may be that I dreamed this. So much at least is certain — that I
turned one day from the traffic of a city, and came to its docks and
saw its slimy wharves going down green and steep into the water,
and saw the huge grey river slipping by and the lost things that
went with it turning over and over, and I thought of the nations and
unpitying Time, and saw and marvelled at the queenly ships come
newly from the sea.
It was then, if I mistake not, that I saw leaning against a wall,
with his face to the ships, a man with golden ear-rings. His skin
had the dark tint of the southern men: the deep black hairs of his
moustache were whitened a little with salt; he wore a dark blue
jacket such as sailors wear, and the long boots of seafarers, but the
look in his eyes was further afield than the ships, he seemed to be
beholding the farthest things.
Even when I spoke to him he did not call home that look, but
 Fifty-One Tales 405

answered me dreamily with that same fixed stare as though his

thoughts were heaving on far and lonely seas. I asked him what
ship he had come by, for there were many there. The sailing ships
were there with their sails all furled and their masts straight and
still like a wintry forest; the steamers were there, and great liners,
puffing up idle smoke into the twilight. He answered he had come
by none of them. I asked him what line he worked on, for he was
clearly a sailor; I mentioned well-known lines, but he did not know
them. Then I asked him where he worked and what he was. And he
said: “I work in the Sargasso Sea, and I am the last of the pirates,
the last left alive.” And I shook him by the hand I do not know how
many times. I said: “We feared you were dead. We feared you were
dead.” And he answered sadly: “No. No. I have sinned too deeply
on the Spanish seas: I am not allowed to die.”

The Dream Of King Karna-Vootra

King Karna-Vootra sitting on his throne commanding all things
said: “I very clearly saw last night the queenly Vava-Nyria. Though
partly she was hidden by great clouds that swept continually by
her, rolling over and over, yet her face was unhidden and shone,
being full of moonlight.
“I said to her:
“‘Walk with me by the great pools in many-gardened, beauti-
ful Istrakhan where the lilies float that give delectable dreams;
or, drawing aside the curtain of hanging orchids, pass with me
thence from the pools by a secret path through the else impassable
jungle that fills the only way between the mountains that shut in
Istrakhan. They shut it in and look on it with joy at morning and
at evening when the pools are strange with light, till in their glad-
ness sometimes there melts the deadly snow that kills upon lonely
heights the mountaineer. They have valleys among them older than
the wrinkles in the moon.
“‘Come with me thence or linger with me there and either we
shall come to romantic lands which the men of the caravans only
406 Fifty-One Tales

speak of in song; or else we shall listlessly walk in a land so lovely

that even the butterflies that float about it when they see their im-
ages flash in the sacred pools are terrified by their beauty, and each
night we shall hear the myriad nightingales all in one chorus sing
the stars to death. Do this and I will send heralds far from here with
tidings of thy beauty; and they shall run and come to Séndara and
men shall know it there who herd brown sheep; and from Séndara
the rumour shall spread on, down either bank of the holy river of
Zoth, till the people that make wattles in the plains shall hear of it
and sing; but the heralds shall go northward along the hills until
they come to Sooma. And in that golden city they shall tell the
kings, that sit in their lofty alabaster house, of thy strange and sud-
den smiles. And often in distant markets shall thy story be told by
merchants out from Sooma as they sit telling careless tales to lure
men to their wares.
“‘And the heralds passing thence shall come even to Ingra, to
Ingra where they dance. And there they shall tell of thee, so that
thy name long hence shall be sung in that joyous city. And there
they shall borrow camels and pass over the sands and go by desert
ways to distant Nirid to tell of thee to the lonely men in the moun-
tain monasteries.
“‘Come with me even now for it is Spring.’”
“And as I said this she faintly yet perceptibly shook her head.
And it was only then I remembered my youth was gone, and she
dead forty years.”

The Storm
They saw a little ship that was far at sea and that went by the
name of the Petite Espérance. And because of its uncouth rig and
its lonely air and the look that it had of coming from strangers’
lands they said: “It is neither a ship to greet nor desire, nor yet to
succor when in the hands of the sea.”
And the sea rose up as is the wont of the sea and the little ship
from afar was in his hands, and frailer than ever seemed its feeble
 Fifty-One Tales 407

masts with their sails of fantastic cut and their alien flags. And the
sea made a great and very triumphing voice, as the sea doth. And
then there arose a wave that was very strong, even the ninth-born
son of the hurricane and the tide, and hid the little ship and hid the
whole of the far parts of the sea. Thereat said those who stood on
the good dry land:
“‘Twas but a little, worthless alien ship and it is sunk at sea, and
it is good and right that the storm have spoil.” And they turned and
watched the course of the merchant-men, laden with silver and
appeasing spice; year after year they cheered them into port and
praised their goods and their familiar sails. And many years went
by.
And at last with decks and bulwarks covered with cloth of gold;
with age-old parrots that had known the troubadours, singing illus-
trious songs and preening their feathers of gold; with a hold full of
emeralds and rubies; all silken with Indian loot; furling as it came
in its way-worn alien sails, a galleon glided into port, shutting the
sunlight from the merchantmen: and lo! it loomed the equal of the
cliffs.
“Who are you?” they asked, “far-travelled wonderful ship?”
And they said: “The Petite Espérance.”
“Oh,” said the people on shore. “We thought you were sunk at
sea.”
“Sunk at sea?” sang the sailors. “We could not be sunk at
sea — we had the gods on board.”

A Mistaken Identity
Fame as she walked at evening in a city saw the painted face of
Notoriety flaunting beneath a gas-lamp, and many kneeled unto her
in the dirt of the road.
“Who are you?” Fame said to her.
“I am Fame,” said Notoriety.
Then Fame stole softly away so that no one knew she had gone.
And Notoriety presently went forth and all her worshippers rose
408 Fifty-One Tales

and followed after, and she led them, as was most meet, to her na-
tive Pit.

The True History Of The Hare And The

Tortoise
For a long time there was doubt with acrimony among the beasts
as to whether the Hare or the Tortoise could run the swifter. Some
said the Hare was the swifter of the two because he had such long
ears, and others said the Tortoise was the swifter because anyone
whose shell was so hard as that should be able to run hard too. And
lo, the forces of estrangement and disorder perpetually postponed a
decisive contest.
But when there was nearly war among the beasts, at last an ar-
rangement was come to and it was decided that the Hare and the
Tortoise should run a race of five hundred yards so that all should
see who was right.
“Ridiculous nonsense!” said the Hare, and it was all his backers
could do to get him to run.
“The contest is most welcome to me,” said the Tortoise, “I shall
not shirk it.”
O, how his backers cheered.
Feeling ran high on the day of the race; the goose rushed at the
fox and nearly pecked him. Both sides spoke loudly of the ap-
proaching victory up to the very moment of the race.
“I am absolutely confident of success,” said the Tortoise. But the
Hare said nothing, he looked bored and cross. Some of his support-
ers deserted him then and went to the other side, who were loudly
cheering the Tortoise’s inspiriting words. But many remained with
the Hare. “We shall not be disappointed in him,” they said. “A
beast with such long ears is bound to win.”
“Run hard,” said the supporters of the Tortoise.
And “run hard“ became a kind of catch-phrase which everybody
repeated to one another. “Hard shell and hard living. That’s what
 Fifty-One Tales 409

the country wants. Run hard,” they said. And these words were
never uttered but multitudes cheered from their hearts.
Then they were off, and suddenly there was a hush.
The Hare dashed off for about a hundred yards, then he looked
round to see where his rival was.
“It is rather absurd,” he said, “to race with a Tortoise.” And he
sat down and scratched himself. “Run hard! Run hard!” shouted
some.
“Let him rest,” shouted others. And “let him rest“ became a
catch-phrase too.
And after a while his rival drew near to him.
“There comes that damned Tortoise,” said the Hare, and he got
up and ran as hard as could be so that he should not let the Tortoise
beat him.
“Those ears will win,” said his friends. “Those ears will win;
and establish upon an incontestable footing the truth of what we
have said.” And some of them turned to the backers of the Tortoise
and said: “What about your beast now?”
“Run hard,” they replied. “Run hard.”
The Hare ran on for nearly three hundred yards, nearly in fact as
far as the winning-post, when it suddenly struck him what a fool
he looked running races with a Tortoise who was nowhere in sight,
and he sat down again and scratched.
“Run hard. Run hard,” said the crowd, and “Let him rest.”
“Whatever is the use of it?” said the Hare, and this time he
stopped for good. Some say he slept.
There was desperate excitement for an hour or two, and then the
Tortoise won.
“Run hard. Run hard,” shouted his backers. “Hard shell and hard
living: that’s what has done it.” And then they asked the Tortoise
what his achievement signified, and he went and asked the Turtle.
And the Turtle said, “It is a glorious victory for the forces of swift-
ness.” And then the Tortoise repeated it to his friends. And all the
beasts said nothing else for years. And even to this day, “a glorious
victory for the forces of swiftness” is a catch-phrase in the house of
the snail.
410 Fifty-One Tales

And the reason that this version of the race is not widely known
is that very few of those that witnessed it survived the great forest-
fire that happened shortly after. It came up over the weald by night
with a great wind. The Hare and the Tortoise and a very few of the
beasts saw it far off from a high bare hill that was at the edge of the
trees, and they hurriedly called a meeting to decide what messen-
ger they should send to warn the beasts in the forest.
They sent the Tortoise.

Alone The Immortals

I heard it said that very far away from here, on the wrong side
of the deserts of Cathay and in a country dedicate to winter, are all
the years that are dead. And there a certain valley shuts them in and
hides them, as rumor has it, from the world, but not from the sight
of the moon nor from those that dream in his rays.
And I said: I will go from here by ways of dream and I will
come to that valley and enter in and mourn there for the good years
that are dead. And I said: I will take a wreath, a wreath of mourn-
ing, and lay it at their feet in token of my sorrow for their dooms.
And when I sought about among the flowers, among the flowers
for my wreath of mourning, the lily looked too large and the laurel
looked too solemn and I found nothing frail enough nor slender to
serve as an offering to the years that were dead. And at last I made
a slender wreath of daisies in the manner that I had seen them
made in one of the years that is dead.
“This,” said I, “is scarce less fragile or less frail than one of
those delicate forgotten years.” Then I took my wreath in my hand
and went from here. And when I had come by paths of mystery to
that romantic land, where the valley that rumour told of lies close
to the mountainous moon, I searched among the grass for those
poor slight years for whom I bought my sorrow and my wreath.
And when I found there nothing in the grass I said: “Time has
shattered them and swept them away and left not even any faint
remains.”
 Fifty-One Tales 411

But looking upwards in the blaze of the moon I suddenly saw

colossi sitting near, and towering up and blotting out the stars
and filling the night with blackness; and at those idols’ feet I saw
praying and making obeisance kings and the days that are and all
times and all cities and all nations and all their gods. Neither the
smoke of incense nor of the sacrifice burning reached those colos-
sal heads, they sat there not to be measured, not to be over-thrown,
not to be worn away.
I said: “Who are those?”
One answered: “Alone the Immortals.”
And I said sadly: “I came not to see dread gods, but I came to
shed my tears and to offer flowers at the feet of certain little years
that are dead and may not come again.”
He answered me: “These are the years that are dead, alone
the immortals; all years to be are Their children — They fash-
ioned their smiles and their laughter; all earthly kings They have
crowned, all gods They have created; all the events to be flow
down from their feet like a river, the worlds are flying pebbles that
They have already thrown, and Time and all his centuries behind
him kneel there with bended crests in token of vassalage at Their
potent feet.”
And when I heard this I turned away with my wreath, and went
back to my own land comforted.

A Moral Little Tale

There was once an earnest Puritan who held it wrong to dance.
And for his principles he labored hard, his was a zealous life. And
there loved him all of those who hated the dance; and those that
loved the dance respected him too; they said “He is a pure, good
man and acts according to his lights.”
He did much to discourage dancing and helped to close several
Sunday entertainments. Some kinds of poetry, he said, he liked, but
not the fanciful kind as that might corrupt the thoughts of the very
young. He always dressed in black.
412 Fifty-One Tales

He was quite interested in morality and was quite sincere and

there grew to be much respect on Earth for his honest face and his
flowing pure-white beard.
One night the Devil appeared unto him in a dream and said
“Well done.”
“Avaunt,” said that earnest man.
“No, no, friend,” said the Devil.
“Dare not to call me ‘friend,’” he answered bravely.
“Come, come, friend,” said the Devil. “Have you not put apart
the couples that would dance? Have you not checked their laughter
and their accursed mirth? Have you not worn my livery of black?
O friend, friend, you do not know what a detestable thing it is to
sit in hell and hear people being happy, and singing in theatres and
singing in the fields, and whispering after dances under the moon,”
and he fell to cursing fearfully.
“It is you,” said the Puritan, “that put into their hearts the evil
desire to dance; and black is God’s own livery, not yours.”
And the Devil laughed contemptuously and spoke.
“He only made the silly colors,” he said, “and useless dawns
on hill-slopes facing South, and butterflies flapping along them
as soon as the sun rose high, and foolish maidens coming out to
dance, and the warm mad West wind, and worst of all that perni-
cious influence Love.”
And when the Devil said that God made Love that earnest man
sat up in bed and shouted “Blasphemy! Blasphemy!”
“It’s true,” said the Devil. “It isn’t I that send the village fools
muttering and whispering two by two in the woods when the
harvest moon is high, it’s as much as I can bear even to see them
dancing.”
“Then,” said the man, “I have mistaken right for wrong; but as
soon as I wake I will fight you yet.”
“O, no you don’t,” said the Devil. “You don’t wake up out of
this sleep.”
And somewhere far away Hell’s black steel doors were opened,
and arm in arm those two were drawn within, and the doors shut
behind them and still they went arm in arm, trudging further and
 Fifty-One Tales 413

further into the deeps of Hell, and it was that Puritan’s punishment
to know that those that he cared for on Earth would do evil as he
had done.

The Return Of Song

“The swans are singing again,” said to one another the gods.
And looking downwards, for my dreams had taken me to some fair
and far Valhalla, I saw below me an iridescent bubble not greatly
larger than a star shine beautifully but faintly, and up and up from
it looking larger and larger came a flock of white, innumerable
swans, singing and singing and singing, till it seemed as though
even the gods were wild ships swimming in music.
“What is it?” I said to one that was humble among the gods.
“Only a world has ended,” he said to me, “and the swans are
coming back to the gods returning the gift of song.”
“A whole world dead!” I said.
“Dead,” said he that was humble among the gods. “The worlds
are not for ever; only song is immortal.”
“Look! Look!” he said. “There will be a new one soon.”
And I looked and saw the larks, going down from the gods.

Spring In Town
At a street corner sat, and played with a wind, Winter disconso-
late.
Still tingled the fingers of the passers-by and still their breath
was visible, and still they huddled their chins into their coats when
turning a corner they met with a new wind, still windows lighted
sent out into the street the thought of romantic comfort by evening
fires; these things still were, yet the throne of Winter tottered, and
every breeze brought tidings of further fortresses lost on lakes or
boreal hill-slopes. And not any longer as a king did Winter appear
in those streets, as when the city was decked with gleaming white
414 Fifty-One Tales

to greet him as a conqueror and he rode in with his glittering icicles

and haughty retinue of prancing winds, but he sat there with a little
wind at the corner of the street like some old blind beggar with his
hungry dog. And as to some old blind beggar Death approaches,
and the alert ears of the sightless man prophetically hear his far-off
footfall, so there came suddenly to Winter’s ears the sound, from
some neighbouring garden, of Spring approaching as she walked
on daisies. And Spring approaching looked at huddled inglorious
Winter.
“Begone,” said Spring.
“There is nothing for you to do here,” said Winter to her. Never-
theless he drew about him his grey and battered cloak and rose and
called to his little bitter wind and up a side street that led northward
strode away.
Pieces of paper and tall clouds of dust went with him as far as
the city’s outer gate. He turned then and called to Spring: “You can
do nothing in this city,” he said; then he marched homeward over
plains and sea and heard his old winds howling as he marched. The
ice broke up behind him and foundered like navies. To left and to
right of him flew the flocks of the sea-birds, and far before him
the geese’s triumphant cry went like a clarion. Greater and greater
grew his stature as he went northwards and ever more kingly his
mien. Now he took baronies at a stride and now counties and came
again to the snow-white frozen lands where the wolves came out to
meet him and, draping himself anew with old grey clouds, strode
through the gates of his invincible home, two old ice barriers
swinging on pillars of ice that had never known the sun.
So the town was left to Spring. And she peered about to see
what she could do with it. Presently she saw a dejected dog com-
ing prowling down the road, so she sang to him and he gambolled.
I saw him next day strutting by with something of an air. Where
there were trees she went to them and whispered, and they sang
the arboreal song that only trees can hear, and the green buds came
peeping out as stars while yet it is twilight, secretly one by one.
She went to gardens and awaked from dreaming the warm ma-
ternal earth. In little patches bare and desolate she called up like
 Fifty-One Tales 415

a flame the golden crocus, or its purple brother like an emperor’s

ghost. She gladdened the graceless backs of untidy houses, here
with a weed, there with a little grass. She said to the air, “Be joy-
ous.”
Children began to know that daisies blew in unfrequented cor-
ners. Buttonholes began to appear in the coats of the young men.
The work of Spring was accomplished.

How The Enemy Came To Thlunrana

It had been prophesied of old and foreseen from the ancient days
that its enemy would come upon Thlunrana. And the date of its
doom was known and the gate by which it would enter, yet none
had prophesied of the enemy who he was save that he was of the
gods though he dwelt with men. Meanwhile Thlunrana, that secret
lamaserai, that chief cathedral of wizardry, was the terror of the
valley in which it stood and of all lands round about it. So narrow
and high were the windows and so strange when lighted at night
that they seemed to regard men with the demoniac leer of some-
thing that had a secret in the dark. Who were the magicians and the
deputy-magicians and the great arch-wizard of that furtive place
nobody knew, for they went veiled and hooded and cloaked com-
pletely in black.
Though her doom was close upon her and the enemy of proph-
ecy should come that very night through the open, southward
door that was named the Gate of the Doom, yet that rocky edifice
Thlunrana remained mysterious still, venerable, terrible, dark, and
dreadfully crowned with her doom. It was not often that anyone
dared wander near to Thlunrana by night when the moan of the
magicians invoking we know not Whom rose faintly from inner
chambers, scaring the drifting bats: but on the last night of all the
man from the black-thatched cottage by the five pine-trees came,
because he would see Thlunrana once again before the enemy that
was divine, but that dwelt with men, should come against it and it
should be no more. Up the dark valley he went like a bold man, but
416 Fifty-One Tales

his fears were thick upon him; his bravery bore their weight but
stooped a little beneath them. He went in at the southward gate that
is named the Gate of the Doom. He came into a dark hall, and up
a marble stairway passed to see the last of Thlunrana. At the top a
curtain of black velvet hung and he passed into a chamber heavily
hung with curtains, with a gloom in it that was blacker than any-
thing they could account for. In a sombre chamber beyond, seen
through a vacant archway, magicians with lighted tapers plied their
wizardry and whispered incantations. All the rats in the place were
passing away, going whimpering down the stairway. The man from
the black-thatched cottage passed through that second chamber:
the magicians did not look at him and did not cease to whisper. He
passed from them through heavy curtains still of black velvet and
came into a chamber of black marble where nothing stirred. Only
one taper burned in the third chamber; there were no windows. On
the smooth floor and under the smooth wall a silk pavilion stood
with its curtains drawn close together: this was the holy of holies
of that ominous place, its inner mystery. One on each side of it
dark figures crouched, either of men or women or cloaked stone, or
of beasts trained to be silent. When the awful stillness of the mys-
tery was more than he could bear the man from the black-thatched
cottage by the five pine-trees went up to the silk pavilion, and with
a bold and nervous clutch of the hand drew one of the curtains
aside, and saw the inner mystery, and laughed. And the prophecy
was fulfilled, and Thlunrana was never more a terror to the val-
ley, but the magicians passed away from their terrific halls and
fled through the open fields wailing and beating their breasts, for
laughter was the enemy that was doomed to come against Thlun-
rana through her southward gate (that was named the Gate of the
Doom), and it is of the gods but dwells with man.
 Fifty-One Tales 417

A Losing Game
Once in a tavern Man met face to skull with Death. Man entered
gaily but Death gave no greeting, he sat with his jowl morosely
over an ominous wine.
“Come, come,” said Man, “we have been antagonists long, and
if I were losing yet I should not be surly.”
But Death remained unfriendly watching his bowl of wine and
gave no word in answer.
Then Man solicitously moved nearer to him and, speaking
cheerily still, “Come, come,” he said again, “you must not resent
defeat.”
And still Death was gloomy and cross and sipped at his infa-
mous wine and would not look up at Man and would not be com-
panionable.
But Man hated gloom either in beast or god, and it made him
unhappy to see his adversary’s discomfort, all the more because he
was the cause, and still he tried to cheer him.
“Have you not slain the Dinatherium?” he said. “Have you not
put out the Moon? Why! you will beat me yet.”
And with a dry and barking sound Death wept and nothing said;
and presently Man arose and went wondering away; for he knew
not if Death wept out of pity for his opponent, or because he knew
that he should not have such sport again when the old game was
over and Man was gone, or whether because perhaps, for some
hidden reason, he could never repeat on Earth his triumph over the
Moon.

Taking Up Picadilly
Going down Picadilly one day and nearing Grosvenor Place I
saw, if my memory is not at fault, some workmen with their coats
off — or so they seemed. They had pickaxes in their hands and
wore corduroy trousers and that little leather band below the knee
that goes by the astonishing name of “York-to-London.”
418 Fifty-One Tales

They seemed to be working with peculiar vehemence, so that I

stopped and asked one what they were doing.
“We are taking up Picadilly,” he said to me.
“But at this time of year?” I said. “Is it usual in June?”
“We are not what we seem,” said he.
“Oh, I see,” I said, “you are doing it for a joke.”
“Well, not exactly that,” he answered me.
“For a bet?” I said.
“Not precisely,” said he.
And then I looked at the bit that they had already picked, and
though it was broad daylight over my head it was darkness down
there, all full of the southern stars.
“It was noisy and bad and we grew aweary of it,” said he that
wore corduroy trousers. “We are not what we appear.”
They were taking up Picadilly altogether.

After The Fire

When that happened which had been so long in happening and
the world hit a black, uncharted star, certain tremendous creatures
out of some other world came peering among the cinders to see if
there were anything there that it were worth while to remember.
They spoke of the great things that the world was known to have
had; they mentioned the mammoth. And presently they saw man’s
temples, silent and windowless, staring like empty skulls.
“Some great thing has been here,” one said, “in these huge
places.” “It was the mammoth,” said one. “Something greater than
he,” said another.
And then they found that the greatest thing in the world had
been the dreams of man.
 Fifty-One Tales 419

The City
In time as well as space my fancy roams far from here. It led me
once to the edge of certain cliffs that were low and red and rose up
out of a desert: a little way off in the desert there was a city. It was
evening, and I sat and watched the city.
Presently I saw men by threes and fours come softly stealing out
of that city’s gate to the number of about twenty. I heard the hum
of men’s voices speaking at evening.
“It is well they are gone,” they said. “It is well they are gone. We
can do business now. It is well they are gone.” And the men that
had left the city sped away over the sand and so passed into the
twilight.
“Who are these men?” I said to my glittering leader.
“The poets,” my fancy answered. “The poets and artists.”
“Why do they steal away?” I said to him. “And why are the peo-
ple glad that they have gone?”
He said: “It must be some doom that is going to fall on the city,
something has warned them and they have stolen away. Nothing
may warn the people.”
I heard the wrangling voices, glad with commerce, rise up from
the city. And then I also departed, for there was an ominous look
on the face of the sky.
And only a thousand years later I passed that way, and there was
nothing, even among the weeds, of what had been that city.

The Food Of Death

Death was sick. But they brought him bread that the modern
bakers make, whitened with alum, and the tinned meats of Chi-
cago, with a pinch of our modern substitute for salt. They carried
him into the dining-room of a great hotel (in that close atmosphere
Death breathed more freely), and there they gave him their cheap
Indian tea. They brought him a bottle of wine that they called
champagne. Death drank it up. They brought a newspaper and
420 Fifty-One Tales

looked up the patent medicines; they gave him the foods that it
recommended for invalids, and a little medicine as prescribed in
the paper. They gave him some milk and borax, such as children
drink in England.
Death arose ravening, strong, and strode again through the cities.

The Lonely Idol

I had from a friend an old outlandish stone, a little swine-faced
idol to whom no one prayed.
And when I saw his melancholy case as he sat cross-legged at
receipt of prayer, holding a little scourge that the years had broken
(and no one heeded the scourge and no one prayed and no one
came with squealing sacrifice; and he had been a god), then I took
pity on the little forgotten thing and prayed to it as perhaps they
prayed long since, before the coming of the strange dark ships, and
humbled myself and said:
“O idol, idol of the hard pale stone, invincible to the years, O
scourge-holder, give ear for behold I pray.
“O little pale-green image whose wanderings are from far, know
thou that here in Europe and in other lands near by, too soon there
pass from us the sweets and song and the lion strength of youth:
too soon do their cheeks fade, their hair grow grey and our beloved
die; too brittle is beauty, too far off is fame and the years are gath-
ered too soon; there are leaves, leaves falling, everywhere falling;
there is autumn among men, autumn and reaping; failure there
is, struggle, dying and weeping, and all that is beautiful hath not
remained but is even as the glory of morning upon the water.
“Even our memories are gathered too with the sound of the
ancient voices, the pleasant ancient voices that come to our ears no
more; the very gardens of our childhood fade, and there dims with
the speed of the years even the mind’s own eye.
“O be not any more the friend of Time, for the silent hurry of his
malevolent feet have trodden down what’s fairest; I almost hear the
whimper of the years running behind him hound-like, and it takes
 Fifty-One Tales 421

few to tear us.

“All that is beautiful he crushes down as a big man tramples da-
ises, all that is fairest. How very fair are the little children of men.
It is autumn with all the world, and the stars weep to see it.
“Therefore no longer be the friend of Time, who will not let us
be, and be not good to him but pity us, and let lovely things live on
for the sake of our tears.”
Thus prayed I out of compassion one windy day to the snout-
faced idol to whom no one kneeled.

The Sphinx In Thebes (Massachusetts)

There was a woman in a steel-built city who had all that money
could buy, she had gold and dividends and trains and houses, and
she had pets to play with, but she had no sphinx.
So she besought them to bring her a live sphinx; and therefore
they went to the menageries, and then to the forests and the desert
places, and yet could find no sphinx.
And she would have been content with a little lion but that one
was already owned by a woman she knew; so they had to search
the world again for a sphinx.
And still there was none.
But they were not men that it is easy to baffle, and at last they
found a sphinx in a desert at evening watching a ruined temple
whose gods she had eaten hundreds of years ago when her hun-
ger was on her. And they cast chains on her, who was still with an
ominous stillness, and took her westwards with them and brought
her home.
And so the sphinx came to the steel-built city.
And the woman was very glad that she owned a sphinx: but the
sphinx stared long into her eyes one day, and softly asked a riddle
of the woman.
And the woman could not answer, and she died.
And the sphinx is silent again and none knows what she will do.
422 Fifty-One Tales

The Reward
One’s spirit goes further in dreams than it does by day. Wander-
ing once by night from a factory city I came to the edge of Hell.
The place was foul with cinders and cast-off things, and jag-
ged, half-buried things with shapeless edges, and there was a huge
angel with a hammer building in plaster and steel. I wondered what
he did in that dreadful place. I hesitated, then asked him what he
was building. “We are adding to Hell,” he said, “to keep pace with
the times.” “Don’t be too hard on them,” I said, for I had just come
out of a compromising age and a weakening country. The angel
did not answer. “It won’t be as bad as the old hell, will it?” I said.
“Worse,” said the angel.
“How can you reconcile it with your conscience as a Minister
of Grace,” I said, “to inflict such a punishment?” (They talked like
this in the city whence I had come and I could not avoid the habit
of it.)
“They have invented a new cheap yeast,” said the angel.
I looked at the legend on the walls of the hell that the angel was
building, the words were written in flame, every fifteen seconds
they changed their color, “Yeasto, the great new yeast, it builds up
body and brain, and something more.”
“They shall look at it for ever,” the angel said.
“But they drove a perfectly legitimate trade,” I said, “the law
allowed it.”
The angel went on hammering into place the huge steel uprights.
“You are very revengeful,” I said. “Do you never rest from do-
ing this terrible work?”
“I rested one Christmas Day,” the angel said, “and looked and
saw little children dying of cancer. I shall go on now until the fires
are lit.”
“It is very hard to prove,” I said, “that the yeast is as bad as you
think.”
“After all,” I said, “they must live.”
And the angel made no answer but went on building his hell.
 Fifty-One Tales 423

The Trouble In Leafy Green Street

She went to the idol-shop in Moleshill Street, where the old man
mumbles, and said: “I want a god to worship when it is wet.”
The old man reminded her of the heavy penalties that rightly
attach to idolatry and, when he had enumerated all, she answered
him as was meet: “Give me a god to worship when it is wet.”
And he went to the back places of his shop and sought out and
brought her a god. The same was carved of grey stone and wore a
propitious look and was named, as the old man mumbled, The God
of Rainy Cheerfulness.
Now it may be that long confinement to the house affects ad-
versely the liver, or these things may be of the soul, but certain it is
that on a rainy day her spirits so far descended that those cheerful
creatures came within sight of the Pit, and, having tried cigarettes
to no good end, she bethought her of Moleshill Street and the
mumbling man.
He brought the grey idol forth and mumbled of guarantees,
although he put nothing on paper, and she paid him there and then
his preposterous price and took the idol away.
And on the next wet day that there ever was she prayed to the
grey-stone idol that she had bought, the God of Rainy Cheerful-
ness (who knows with what ceremony or what lack of it?), and so
brought down on her in Leafy Green Street, in the preposterous
house at the corner, that doom of which all men speak.

The Mist
The mist said unto the mist: “Let us go up into the Downs.” And
the mist came up weeping.
And the mist went into the high places and the hollows.
And clumps of trees in the distance stood ghostly in the haze.
But I went to a prophet, one who loved the Downs, and I said to
him: “Why does the mist come up weeping into the Downs when it
goes into the high places and the hollows?”
424 Fifty-One Tales

And he answered: “The mist is the company of a multitude of

souls who never saw the Downs, and now are dead. Therefore they
come up weeping into the Downs, who are dead and never saw
them.”

Furrow-maker
He was all in black, but his friend was dressed in brown, mem-
bers of two old families.
“Is there any change in the way you build your houses?” said he
in black.
“No change,” said the other. “And you?”
“We change not,” he said.
A man went by in the distance riding a bicycle.
“He is always changing,” said the one in black, “of late almost
every century. He is uneasy. Always changing.”
“He changes the way he builds his house, does he not?” said the
brown one.
“So my family say,” said the other. “They say he has changed of
late.”
“They say he takes much to cities?” the brown one said.
“My cousin who lives in belfries tells me so,” said the black one.
“He says he is much in cities.”
“And there he grows lean?” said the brown one.
“Yes, he grows lean.”
“Is it true what they say?” said the brown one.
“Caw,” said the black one.
“Is it true that he cannot live many centuries?”
“No, no,” said the black one. “Furrow-maker will not die. We
must not lose furrow-maker. He has been foolish of late, he has
played with smoke and is sick. His engines have wearied him and
his cities are evil. Yes, he is very sick. But in a few centuries he
will forget his folly and we shall not lose furrow-maker. Time out
of mind he has delved and my family have got their food from the
raw earth behind him. He will not die.”
 Fifty-One Tales 425

“But they say, do they not?” said the brown one, “his cities are
noisome, and that he grows sick in them and can run no longer, and
that it is with him as it is with us when we grow too many, and the
grass has the bitter taste in the rainy season, and our young grow
bloated and die.”
“Who says it?” replied the black one.
“Pigeon,” the brown one answered. “He came back all dirty. And
Hare went down to the edge of the cities once. He says it too. Man
was too sick to chase him. He thinks that Man will die, and his
wicked friend Dog with him. Dog, he will die. That nasty fellow
Dog. He will die too, the dirty fellow!”
“Pigeon and Hare!” said the black one. “We shall not lose fur-
row-maker.”
“Who told you he will not die?” his brown friend said.
“Who told me!” the black one said. “My family and his have un-
derstood each other times out of mind. We know what follies will
kill each other and what each may survive, and I say that furrow-
maker will not die.”
“He will die,” said the brown one.
“Caw,” said the other.
And Man said in his heart: “Just one invention more. There is
something I want to do with petrol yet, and then I will give it all up
and go back to the woods.”

Lobster Salad
I was climbing round the perilous outside of the Palace of
Colquonhombros. So far below me that in the tranquil twilight and
clear air of those lands I could only barely see them lay the craggy
tops of the mountains.
It was along no battlements or terrace edge I was climbing, but
on the sheer face of the wall itself, getting what foothold I could
where the boulders joined.
Had my feet been bare I was done, but though I was in my night-
shirt I had on stout leather boots, and their edges somehow held in
426 Fifty-One Tales

those narrow cracks. My fingers and wrists were aching.

Had it been possible to stop for a moment I might have been
lured to give a second look at the fearful peaks of the mountains
down there in the twilight, and this must have been fatal.
That the thing was all a dream is beside the point. We have
fallen in dreams before, but it is well known that if in one of those
falls you ever hit the ground — you die: I had looked at those
menacing mountaintops and knew well that such a fall as the one I
feared must have such a termination. Then I went on.
It is strange what different sensations there can be in differ-
ent boulders — every one gleaming with the same white light
and every one chosen to match the rest by minions of ancient
kings — when your life depends on the edges of every one you
come to. Those edges seemed strangely different. It was of no avail
to overcome the terror of one, for the next would give you a hold
in quite a different way or hand you over to death in a different
manner. Some were too sharp to hold and some too flush with the
wall, those whose hold was the best crumbled the soonest; each
rock had its different terror: and then there were those things that
followed behind me.
And at last I came to a breach made long ago by earthquake,
lightning or war: I should have had to go down a thousand feet to
get round it and they would come up with me while I was do-
ing that, for certain sable apes that I have not mentioned as yet,
things that had tigerish teeth and were born and bred on that wall,
had pursued me all the evening. In any case I could have gone no
farther, nor did I know what the king would do along whose wall I
was climbing. It was time to drop and be done with it or stop and
await those apes.
And then it was that I remembered a pin, thrown carelessly
down out of an evening-tie in another world to the one where grew
that glittering wall, and lying now if no evil chance had removed
it on a chest of drawers by my bed. The apes were very close, and
hurrying, for they knew my fingers were slipping, and the cruel
peaks of those infernal mountains seemed surer of me than the
apes. I reached out with a desperate effort of will towards where
 Fifty-One Tales 427

the pin lay on the chest of drawers. I groped about. I found it! I ran
it into my arm. Saved!

The Return Of The Exiles

The old man with a hammer and the one-eyed man with a spear
were seated by the roadside talking as I came up the hill.
“It isn’t as though they hadn’t asked us,” the one with the ham-
mer said.
“There ain’t no more than twenty as knows about it,” said the
other.
“Twenty’s twenty,” said the first.
“After all these years,” said the one-eyed man with the spear.
“After all these years. We might go back just once.”
“O’course we might,” said the other.
Their clothes were old even for laborers, the one with the ham-
mer had a leather apron full of holes and blackened, and their
hands looked like leather. But whatever they were they were
English, and this was pleasant to see after all the motors that had
passed me that day with their burden of mixed and doubtful nation-
alities.
When they saw me the one with the hammer touched his greasy
cap.
“Might we make so bold, sir,” he said, “as the ask the way to
Stonehenge?”
“We never ought to go,” mumbled the other plaintively. “There’s
not more than twenty as knows, but….”
I was bicycling there myself to see the place so I pointed out
the way and rode on at once, for there was something so utterly
servile about them both that I did not care for their company. They
seemed by their wretched mien to have been persecuted or utterly
neglected for many years, I thought that very likely they had done
long terms of penal servitude.
When I came to Stonehenge I saw a group of about a score of
men standing among the stones. They asked me with some solem-
428 Fifty-One Tales

nity if I was expecting anyone, and when I said No they spoke to

me no more. It was three miles back where I left those strange old
men, but I had not been in the stone circle long when they ap-
peared, coming with great strides along the road. When they saw
them all the people took off their hats and acted very strangely, and
I saw that they had a goat which they led up then to the old altar
stone. And the two old men came up with their hammer and spear
and began apologizing plaintively for the liberty they had taken
in coming back to that place, and all the people knelt on the grass
before them. And then still kneeling they killed the goat by the
altar, and when the two old men saw this they came up with many
excuses and eagerly sniffed the blood. And at first this made them
happy. But soon the one with the spear began to whimper. “It used
to be men,” he lamented. “It used to be men.”
And the twenty men began looking uneasily at each other, and
the plaint of the one-eyed man went on in that tearful voice, and all
of a sudden they all looked at me. I do not know who the two old
men were or what any of them were doing, but there are moments
when it is clearly time to go, and I left them there and then. And
just as I got up on to my bicycle I heard the plaintive voice of the
one with the hammer apologizing for the liberty he had taken in
coming back to Stonehenge.
“But after all these years,” I heard him crying, “After all these
years….”
And the one with the spear said: “Yes, after three thousand
years….”

Nature And Time

Through the streets of Coventry one winter’s night strode a
triumphant spirit. Behind him stooping, unkempt, utterly ragged,
wearing the clothes and look that outcasts have, whining, weeping,
reproaching, an ill-used spirit tried to keep pace with him. Con-
tinually she plucked him by the sleeve and cried out to him as she
panted after and he strode resolute on.
 Fifty-One Tales 429

It was a bitter night, yet it did not seem to be the cold that she
feared, ill-clad though she was, but the trams and the ugly shops
and the glare of the factories, from which she continually winced
as she hobbled on, and the pavement hurt her feet.
He that strode on in front seemed to care for nothing, it might be
hot or cold, silent or noisy, pavement or open fields, he merely had
the air of striding on.
And she caught up and clutched him by the elbow. I heard her
speak in her unhappy voice, you scarcely heard it for the noise of
the traffic.
“You have forgotten me,” she complained to him. “You have
forsaken me here.”
She pointed to Coventry with a wide wave of her arm and
seemed to indicate other cities beyond. And he gruffly told her to
keep pace with him and that he did not forsake her. And she went
on with her pitiful lamentation.
“My anemones are dead for miles,” she said, “all my woods are
fallen and still the cities grow. My child Man is unhappy and my
other children are dying, and still the cities grow and you have
forgotten me!”
And then he turned angrily on her, almost stopping in that stride
of his that began when the stars were made.
“When have I ever forgotten you?” he said, “or when forsaken
you ever? Did I not throw down Babylon for you? And is not Nin-
eveh gone? Where is Persepolis that troubled you? Where Tarshish
and Tyre? And you have said I forget you.”
And at this she seemed to take a little comfort. I heard her speak
once more, looking wistfully at her companion. “When will the
fields come back and the grass for my children?”
“Soon, soon,” he said: then they were silent. And he strode
away, she limping along behind him, and all the clocks in the tow-
ers chimed as he passed.
430 Fifty-One Tales

The Song Of The Blackbird

As the poet passed the thorn-tree the blackbird sang.
“How ever do you do it?” the poet said, for he knew bird lan-
guage.
“It was like this,” said the blackbird. “It really was the most
extraordinary thing. I made that song last Spring, it came to me all
of a sudden. There was the most beautiful she-blackbird that the
world has ever seen. Her eyes were blacker than lakes are at night,
her feathers were blacker than the night itself, and nothing was as
yellow as her beak; she could fly much faster than the lightning.
She was not an ordinary she-blackbird, there has never been any
other like her at all. I did not dare go near her because she was so
wonderful. One day last Spring when it got warm again — it had
been cold, we ate berries, things were quite different then, but
Spring came and it got warm — one day I was thinking how won-
derful she was and it seemed so extraordinary to think that I should
ever have seen her, the only really wonderful she-blackbird in the
world, that I opened my beak to give a shout, and then this song
came, and there had never been anything like it before, and luck-
ily I remembered it, the very song that I sang just now. But what is
so extraordinary, the most amazing occurence of that marvellous
day, was that no sooner had I sung the song than that very bird,
the most wonderful she-blackbird in the world, flew right up to me
and sat quite close to me on the same tree. I never remember such
wonderful times as those.
“Yes, the song came in a moment, and as I was saying….”
And an old wanderer walking with a stick came by and the
blackbird flew away, and the poet told the old man the blackbird’s
wonderful story.
“That song new?” said the wanderer. “Not a bit of it. God made
it years ago. All the blackbirds used to sing it when I was young. It
was new then.”
 Fifty-One Tales 431

The Messengers
One wandering nigh Parnassus chasing hares heard the high
Muses.
“Take us a message to the Golden Town.”
Thus sang the Muses.
But the man said: “They do not call to me. Not to such as me
speak the Muses.”
And the Muses called him by name.
“Take us a message,” they said, “to the Golden Town.”
And the man was downcast for he would have chased hares.
And the Muses called again.
And when whether in valleys or on high crags of the hills he still
heard the Muses he went at last to them and heard their message,
though he would fain have left it to other men and chased the fleet
hares still in happy valleys.
And they gave him a wreath of laurels carved out of emeralds as
only the Muses can carve. “By this,” they said, “they shall know
that you come from the Muses.”
And the man went from that place and dressed in scarlet silks
as befitted one that came from the high Muses. And through the
gateway of the Golden Town he ran and cried his message, and his
cloak floated behind him. All silent sat the wise men and the aged,
they of the Golden Town; cross-legged they sat before their houses
reading from parchments a message of the Muses that they sent
long before.
And the young man cried his message from the Muses.
And they rose up and said: “Thou art not from the Muses. Other-
wise spake they.” And they stoned him and he died.
And afterwards they carved his message upon gold; and read it
in their temples on holy days.
When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? They sent an-
other messenger to the Golden Town. And they gave him a wand of
ivory to carry in his hand with all the beautiful stories of the world
wondrously carved thereon. And only the Muses could have carved
it. “By this,” they said, “they shall know that you come from the
432 Fifty-One Tales

Muses.”
And he came through the gateway of the Golden Town with
the message he had for its people. And they rose up at once in the
Golden street, they rose from reading the message that they had
carved upon gold. “The last who came,” they said, “came with a
wreath of laurels carved out of emeralds, as only the Muses can
carve. You are not from the Muses.” And even as they had stoned
the last so also they stoned him. And afterwards they carved his
message on gold and laid it up in their temples.
When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? Even yet once
again they sent a messenger under the gateway into the Golden
Town. And for all that he wore a garland of gold that the high
Muses gave him, a garland of kingcups soft and yellow on his
head, yet fashioned of pure gold and by whom but the Muses, yet
did they stone him in the Golden Town. But they had the message,
and what care the Muses?
And yet they will not rest, for some while since I heard them call
to me.
“Go take our message,” they said, “unto the Golden Town.”
But I would not go. And they spake a second time. “Go take our
message,” they said.
And still I would not go, and they cried out a third time: “Go
take our message.”
And though they cried a third time I would not go. But morning
and night they cried and through long evenings.
When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? And when
they would not cease to call to me I went to them and I said: “The
Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their
pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins
out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble,
there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are
gone.”
“Go take our message,” they cried.
And I said to the high Muses: “You do not understand. You have
no message for the Golden Town, the holy city no longer.”
“Go take our message,” they cried.
 Fifty-One Tales 433

“What is your message?” I said to the high Muses.

And when I heard their message I made excuses, dreading to
speak such things in the Golden Town; and again they bade me go.
And I said: “I will not go. None will believe me.”
And still the Muses cry to me all night long.
They do not understand. How should they know?

The Three Tall Sons

And at last Man raised on high the final glory of his civilization,
the towering edifice of the ultimate city.
Softly beneath him in the deeps of the earth purred his machin-
ery fulfilling all his needs, there was no more toil for man. There
he sat at ease discussing the Sex Problem.
And sometimes painfully out of forgotten fields, there came
to his outer door, came to the furthest rampart of the final glory
of Man, a poor old woman begging. And always they turned her
away. This glory of Man’s achievement, this city was not for her.
It was Nature that came thus begging in from the fields, whom
they always turned away.
And away she went again alone to her fields.
And one day she came again, and again they sent her hence. But
her three tall sons came too.
“These shall go in,” she said. “Even these my sons to your city.”
And the three tall sons went in.
And these are Nature’s sons, the forlorn one’s terrible children,
War, Famine and Plague.
Yea and they went in there and found Man unawares in his city
still poring over his Problems, obsessed with his civilization, and
never hearing their tread as those three came up behind.
434 Fifty-One Tales

Compromise
They built their gorgeous home, their city of glory, above the
lair of the earthquake. They built it of marble and gold in the shin-
ing youth of the world. There they feasted and fought and called
their city immortal, and danced and sang songs to the gods. None
heeded the earthquake in all those joyous streets. And down in the
deeps of the earth, on the black feet of the abyss, they that would
conquer Man mumbled long in the darkness, mumbled and goaded
the earthquake to try his strength with that city, to go forth blithely
at night and to gnaw its pillars like bones. And down in those
grimy deeps the earthquake answered them, and would not do their
pleasure and would not stir from thence, for who knew who they
were who danced all day where he rumbled, and what if the lords
of that city that had no fear of his anger were haply even the gods!
And the centuries plodded by, on and on round the world, and
one day they that had danced, they that had sung in that city,
remembered the lair of the earthquake in the deeps down under
their feet, and made plans one with another and sought to avert the
danger, sought to appease the earthquake and turn his anger away.
They sent down singing girls, and priests with oats and wine,
they sent down garlands and propitious berries, down by dark steps
to the black depths of the earth, they sent peacocks newly slain,
and boys with burning spices, and their thin white sacred cats with
collars of pearls all newly drawn from sea, they sent huge dia-
monds down in coffers of teak, and ointment and strange oriental
dyes, arrows and armour and the rings of their queen.
“Oho,” said the earthquake in the coolth of the earth, “so they
are not the gods.”

What We Have Come To

When the advertiser saw the cathedral spires over the downs in
the distance, he looked at them and wept.
“If only,” he said, “this were an advertisement of Beefo, so nice,
 Fifty-One Tales 435

so nutritious, try it in your soup, ladies like it.”

The Tomb Of Pan

“Seeing,” they said, “that old-time Pan is dead, let us now make
a tomb for him and a monument, that the dreadful worship of long
ago may be remembered and avoided by all.”
So said the people of the enlightened lands. And they built a
white and mighty tomb of marble. Slowly it rose under the hands
of the builders and longer every evening after sunset it gleamed
with rays of the departed sun.
And many mourned for Pan while the builders built; many
reviled him. Some called the builders to cease and to weep for Pan
and others called them to leave no memorial at all of so infamous a
god. But the builders built on steadily.
And one day all was finished, and the tomb stood there like a
steep sea-cliff. And Pan was carved thereon with humbled head
and the feet of angels pressed upon his neck. And when the tomb
was finished the sun had already set, but the afterglow was rosy on
the huge bulk of Pan.
And presently all the enlightened people came, and saw the
tomb and remembered Pan who was dead, and all deplored him
and his wicked age. But a few wept apart because of the death of
Pan.
But at evening as he stole out of the forest, and slipped like a
shadow softly along the hills, Pan saw the tomb and laughed.
 Tales Of Wonder
1916

Preface
Ebrington Barracks
Aug. 16th 1916.
I do not know where I may be when this preface is read. As I
write it in August 1916, I am at Ebrington Barracks, Londonderry,
recovering from a slight wound. But it does not greatly matter
where I am; my dreams are here before you amongst the following
pages; and writing in a day when life is cheap, dreams seem to me
all the dearer, the only things that survive.
Just now the civilization of Europe seems almost to have ceased,
and nothing seems to grow in her torn fields but death, yet this is
only for a while and dreams will come back again and bloom as of
old, all the more radiantly for this terrible ploughing, as the flowers
will bloom again where the trenches are and the primroses shelter
in shell-holes for many seasons, when weeping Liberty has come
home to Flanders.
To some of you in America this may seem an unnecessary and
wasteful quarrel, as other people’s quarrels often are; but it comes
to this that though we are all killed there will be songs again, but if
we were to submit and so survive there could be neither songs nor
dreams, nor any joyous free things any more.
And do not regret the lives that are wasted amongst us, or the
work that the dead would have done, for war is no accident that
man’s care could have averted, but is as natural, though not as reg-
ular, as the tides; as well regret the things that the tide has washed
away, which destroys and cleanses and crumbles, and spares the
minutest shells.
And now I will write nothing further about our war, but offer you
these books of dreams from Europe as one throws things of value, if
only to oneself, at the last moment out of a burning house.
DUNSANY.
 Tales Of Wonder 437

A Tale of London
“Come,” said the Sultan to his hashish-eater in the very furthest
lands that know Bagdad, “dream to me now of London.”
And the hashish-eater made a low obeisance and seated himself
cross-legged upon a purple cushion broidered with golden pop-
pies, on the floor, beside an ivory bowl where the hashish was, and
having eaten liberally of the hashish blinked seven times and spoke
thus:
“O Friend of God, know then that London is the desiderate town
even of all Earth’s cities. Its houses are of ebony and cedar which
they roof with thin copper plates that the hand of Time turns green.
They have golden balconies in which amethysts are where they sit
and watch the sunset. Musicians in the gloaming steal softly along
the ways; unheard their feet fall on the white sea-sand with which
those ways are strewn, and in the darkness suddenly they play on
dulcimers and instruments with strings. Then are there murmurs in
the balconies praising their skill, then are there bracelets cast down
to them for reward and golden necklaces and even pearls.
“Indeed but the city is fair; there is by the sandy ways a pav-
ing all alabaster, and the lanterns along it are of chrysoprase, all
night long they shine green, but of amethyst are the lanterns of the
balconies.
“As the musicians go along the ways dancers gather about them
and dance upon the alabaster pavings, for joy and not for hire.
Sometimes a window opens far up in an ebony palace and a wreath
is cast down to a dancer or orchids showered upon them.
“Indeed of many cities have I dreamt but of none fairer, through
many marble metropolitan gates hashish has led me, but London
is its secret, the last gate of all; the ivory bowl has nothing more
to show. And indeed even now the imps that crawl behind me and
that will not let me be are plucking me by the elbow and bidding
my spirit return, for well they know that I have seen too much.
‘No, not London,’ they say; and therefore I will speak of some
other city, a city of some less mysterious land, and anger not the
imps with forbidden things. I will speak of Persepolis or famous
438 Tales Of Wonder

Thebes.”
A shade of annoyance crossed the Sultan’s face, a look of thun-
der that you had scarcely seen, but in those lands they watched his
visage well, and though his spirit was wandering far away and his
eyes were bleared with hashish yet that storyteller there and then
perceived the look that was death, and sent his spirit back at once
to London as a man runs into his house when the thunder comes.
“And therefore,” he continued, “in the desiderate city, in Lon-
don, all their camels are pure white. Remarkable is the swiftness
of their horses, that draw their chariots that are of ivory along
those sandy ways and that are of surpassing lightness, they have
little bells of silver upon their horses’ heads. O Friend of God, if
you perceived their merchants! The glory of their dresses in the
noonday! They are no less gorgeous than those butterflies that float
about their streets. They have overcloaks of green and vestments
of azure, huge purple flowers blaze on their overcloaks, the work
of cunning needles, the centres of the flowers are of gold and the
petals of purple. All their hats are black —” (“No, no,” said the
Sultan) — “but irises are set about the brims, and green plumes
float above the crowns of them.
“They have a river that is named the Thames, on it their ships go
up with violet sails bringing incense for the braziers that perfume
the streets, new songs exchanged for gold with alien tribes, raw
silver for the statues of their heroes, gold to make balconies where
the women sit, great sapphires to reward their poets with, the se-
crets of old cities and strange lands, the earning of the dwellers in
far isles, emeralds, diamonds, and the hoards of the sea. And when-
ever a ship comes into port and furls its violet sails and the news
spreads through London that she has come, then all the merchants
go down to the river to barter, and all day long the chariots whirl
through the streets, and the sound of their going is a mighty roar all
day until evening, their roar is even like —”
“Not so,” said the Sultan.
“Truth is not hidden from the Friend of God,” replied the hash-
ish-eater, “I have erred being drunken with the hashish, for in the
desiderate city, even in London, so thick upon the ways is the
 Tales Of Wonder 439

white sea-sand with which the city glimmers that no sound comes
from the path of the charioteers, but they go softly like a light sea-
wind.” (“It is well,” said the Sultan.) “They go softly down to the
port where the vessels are, and the merchandise in from the sea,
amongst the wonders that the sailors show, on land by the high
ships, and softly they go though swiftly at evening back to their
homes.
“O would that the Munificent, the Illustrious, the Friend of
God, had even seen these things, had seen the jewellers with their
empty baskets, bargaining there by the ships, when the barrels of
emeralds came up from the hold. Or would that he had seen the
fountains there in silver basins in the midst of the ways. I have
seen small spires upon their ebony houses and the spires were all
of gold, birds strutted there upon the copper roofs from golden
spire to spire that have no equal for splendour in all the woods of
the world. And over London the desiderate city the sky is so deep a
blue that by this alone the traveller may know where he has come,
and may end his fortunate journey. Nor yet for any colour of the
sky is there too great heat in London, for along its ways a wind
blows always from the South gently and cools the city.
“Such, O Friend of God, is indeed the city of London, lying very
far off on the yonder side of Bagdad, without a peer for beauty or
excellence of its ways among the towns of the earth or cities of
song; and even so, as I have told, its fortunate citizens dwell, with
their hearts ever devising beautiful things and from the beauty of
their own fair work that is more abundant around them every year,
receiving new inspirations to work things more beautiful yet.”
“And is their government good?” the Sultan said.
“It is most good,” said the hashish-eater, and fell backwards
upon the floor.
He lay thus and was silent. And when the Sultan perceived he
would speak no more that night he smiled and lightly applauded.
And there was envy in that palace, in lands beyond Bagdad, of
all that dwell in London.
440 Tales Of Wonder

Thirteen at Table
In front of a spacious fireplace of the old kind, when the logs
were well alight, and men with pipes and glasses were gathered
before it in great easeful chairs, and the wild weather outside and
the comfort that was within, and the season of the year — for it was
Christmas — and the hour of the night, all called for the weird or
uncanny, then out spoke the ex-master of foxhounds and told this
tale.
I once had an odd experience too. It was when I had the Brom-
ley and Sydenham, the year I gave them up — as a matter of fact
it was the last day of the season. It was no use going on because
there were no foxes left in the county, and London was sweeping
down on us. You could see it from the kennels all along the skyline
like a terrible army in grey, and masses of villas every year came
skirmishing down our valleys. Our coverts were mostly on the
hills, and as the town came down upon the valleys the foxes used
to leave them and go right away out of the county and they never
returned. I think they went by night and moved great distances.
Well it was early April and we had drawn blank all day, and at the
last draw of all, the very last of the season, we found a fox. He left
the covert with his back to London and its railways and villas and
wire and slipped away towards the chalk country and open Kent.
I felt as I once felt as a child on one summer’s day when I found
a door in a garden where I played left luckily ajar, and I pushed it
open and the wide lands were before me and waving fields of corn.
We settled down into a steady gallop and the fields began to
drift by under us, and a great wind arose full of fresh breath. We
left the clay lands where the bracken grows and came to a valley at
the edge of the chalk. As we went down into it we saw the fox go
up the other side like a shadow that crosses the evening, and glide
into a wood that stood on the top. We saw a flash of primroses in
the wood and we were out the other side, hounds hunting perfectly
and the fox still going absolutely straight. It began to dawn on me
then that we were in for a great hunt, I took a deep breath when I
thought of it; the taste of the air of that perfect Spring afternoon
 Tales Of Wonder 441

as it came to one galloping, and the thought of a great run, were

together like some old rare wine. Our faces now were to another
valley, large fields led down to it, with easy hedges, at the bot-
tom of it a bright blue stream went singing and a rambling village
smoked, the sunlight on the opposite slopes danced like a fairy;
and all along the top old woods were frowning, but they dreamed
of Spring. The “field“ had fallen of and were far behind and my
only human companion was James, my old first whip, who had a
hound’s instinct, and a personal animosity against a fox that even
embittered his speech.
Across the valley the fox went as straight as a railway line, and
again we went without a check straight through the woods at the
top. I remember hearing men sing or shout as they walked home
from work, and sometimes children whistled; the sounds came up
from the village to the woods at the top of the valley. After that we
saw no more villages, but valley after valley arose and fell before
us as though we were voyaging some strange and stormy sea, and
all the way before us the fox went dead up-wind like the fabulous
Flying Dutchman. There was no one in sight now but my first whip
and me, we had both of us got on to our second horses as we drew
the last covert.
Two or three times we checked in those great lonely valleys
beyond the village, but I began to have inspirations, I felt a strange
certainty within me that this fox was going on straight up-wind
till he died or until night came and we could hunt no longer, so I
reversed ordinary methods and only cast straight ahead and always
we picked up the scent again at once. I believe that this fox was the
last one left in the villa-haunted lands and that he was prepared to
leave them for remote uplands far from men, that if we had come
the following day he would not have been there, and that we just
happened to hit off his journey.
Evening began to descend upon the valleys, still the hounds
drifted on, like the lazy but unresting shadows of clouds upon a
summer’s day, we heard a shepherd calling to his dog, we saw two
maidens move towards a hidden farm, one of them singing softly;
no other sounds, but ours, disturbed the leisure and the loneli-
442 Tales Of Wonder

ness of haunts that seemed not yet to have known the inventions
of steam and gun-powder (even as China, they say, in some of her
further mountains does not yet know that she has fought Japan).
And now the day and our horses were wearing out, but that reso-
lute fox held on. I began to work out the run and to wonder where
we were. The last landmark I had ever seen before must have been
over five miles back and from there to the start was at least ten
miles more. If only we could kill! Then the sun set. I wondered
what chance we had of killing our fox. I looked at James’ face as
he rode beside me. He did not seem to have lost any confidence yet
his horse was as tired as mine. It was a good clear twilight and the
scent was as strong as ever, and the fences were easy enough, but
those valleys were terribly trying and they still rolled on and on.
It looked as if the light would outlast all possible endurance both
of the fox and the horses, if the scent held good and he did not go
to ground, otherwise night would end it. For long we had seen no
houses and no roads, only chalk slopes with the twilight on them,
and here and there some sheep, and scattered copses darkening
in the evening. At some moment I seemed to realise all at once
that the light was spent and that darkness was hovering, I looked
at James, he was solemnly shaking his head. Suddenly in a little
wooded valley we saw climb over the oaks the red-brown gables
of a queer old house, at that instant I saw the fox scarcely head-
ing by fifty yards. We blundered through a wood into full sight of
the house, but no avenue led up to it or even a path nor were there
any signs of wheel-marks anywhere. Already lights shone here and
there in windows. We were in a park, and a fine park, but unkempt
beyond credibility; brambles grew everywhere. It was too dark to
see the fox any more but we knew he was dead beat, the hounds
were just before us, — and a four-foot railing of oak. I shouldn’t
have tried it on a fresh horse the beginning of a run, and here was
a horse near his last gasp. But what a run! an event standing out
in a lifetime, and the hounds close up on their fox, slipping into
the darkness as I hesitated. I decided to try it. My horse rose about
eight inches and took it fair with his breast, and the oak log flew
into handfuls of wet decay — it rotten with years. And then we
 Tales Of Wonder 443

were on a lawn and at the far end of it the hounds were tumbling
over their fox. Fox, hounds and light were all done together at the
of a twenty-mile point. We made some noise then, but nobody
came out of the queer old house.
I felt pretty stiff as I walked round to the hall door with the mask
and the brush while James went with the hounds and the two hors-
es to look for the stables. I rang a bell marvellously encrusted with
rust, and after a long while the door opened a little way revealing a
hall with much old armour in it and the shabbiest butler that I have
ever known.
I asked him who lived there. Sir Richard Arlen. I explained that
my horse could go no further that night and that I wished to ask Sir
Richard Arlen for a bed for the night.
“O, no one ever comes here, sir,” said the butler.
I pointed out that I had come.
“I don’t think it would be possible, sir,” he said.
This annoyed me and I asked to see Sir Richard, and insisted
until he came. Then I apologised and explained the situation. He
looked only fifty, but a ‘Varsity oar on the wall with the date of the
early seventies, made him older than that; his face had something
of the shy look of the hermit; he regretted that he had not room to
put me up. I was sure that this was untrue, also I had to be put up
there, there was nowhere else within miles, so I almost insisted.
Then to my astonishment he turned to the butler and they talked it
over in an undertone. At last they seemed to think that they could
manage it, though clearly with reluctance. It was by now seven o’
clock and Sir Richard told me he dined at half past seven. There
was no question of clothes for me other than those I stood in, as
my host was shorter and broader. He showed me presently to the
drawing-room and there he reappeared before half past seven in
evening dress and a white waistcoat. The drawing-room was large
and contained old furniture but it was rather worn than vener-
able, an Aubusson carpet flapped about the floor, the wind seemed
momently to enter the room, and old draughts haunted corners; the
stealthy feet of rats that were never at rest indicated the extent of
the ruin that time had wrought in the wainscot; somewhere far off
444 Tales Of Wonder

a shutter flapped to and fro, the guttering candles were insufficient

to light so large a room. The gloom that these things suggested
was quite in keeping with Sir Richard’s first remark to me after he
entered the room: “I must tell you, sir, that I have led a wicked life.
O, a very wicked life.”
Such confidences from a man much older than oneself after
one has known him for half an hour are so rare that any possible
answer merely does not suggest itself. I said rather slowly, “Oh,
really,” and chiefly to forestall another such remark I said “What a
charming house you have.”
“Yes,” he said, “I have not left it for nearly forty years. Since I
left the ‘Varsity. One is young there, you know, and one has oppor-
tunities; but I make no excuses, no excuses.” And the door slipping
its rusty latch, came drifting on the draught into the room, and
the long carpet flapped and the hangings upon the walls, then the
draught fell rustling away and the door slammed to again.
“Ah, Marianne,” he said, “we have a guest to-night. Mr. Lin-
ton. This is Marianne Gib.” And everything became clear to me.
“Mad,” I said to myself, for no one had entered the room.
The rats ran up the length of the room behind the wainscot
ceaselessly, and the wind unlatched the door again and the folds of
the carpet fluttered up to our feet and stopped there, for our weight
held it down.
“Let me introduce Mr. Linton,” said my host — “Lady Mary
Errinjer.”
The door slammed back again. I bowed politely. Even had I been
invited I should have humoured him, but it was the very least that
an uninvited guest could do.
This kind of thing happened eleven times, the rustling, and the
fluttering of the carpet and the footsteps of the rats, and the restless
door, and then the sad voice of my host introducing me to phan-
toms. Then for some while we waited while I struggled with the
situation; conversation flowed slowly. And again the draught came
trailing up the room, while the flaring candles filled it with hur-
rying shadows. “Ah, late again, Cicely,” said my host in his soft,
mournful way. “Always late, Cicely.” Then I went down to dinner
 Tales Of Wonder 445

with that man and his mind and the twelve phantoms that haunted
it. I found a long table with fine old silver on it and places laid for
fourteen. The butler was now in evening dress, there were fewer
draughts in the dining-room, the scene was less gloomy there.
“Will you sit next to Rosalind at the other end,” Richard said to
me. “She always takes the head of the table, I wronged her most of
all.” I said, “I shall be delighted.”
I looked at the butler closely, but never did I see by any expres-
sion of his face or by anything that he did any suggestion that he
waited upon less than fourteen people in the complete possession
of all their faculties. Perhaps a dish appeared to be refused more
often than taken but every glass was equally filled with cham-
pagne. At first I found little to say, but when Sir Richard speaking
from the far end of the table said, “You are tired, Mr. Linton,” I
was reminded that I owed something to a host upon whom I had
forced myself. It was excellent champagne and with the help of
a second glass I made the effort to begin a conversation with a
Miss Helen Errold for whom the place upon one side of me was
laid. It came more easy to me very soon, I frequently paused in
my monologue, like Mark Anthony, for a reply, and sometimes I
turned and spoke to Miss Rosalind Smith. Sir Richard at the other
end talked sorrowfully on, he spoke as a condemned man might
speak to his judge, and yet somewhat as a judge might speak to
one that he once condemned wrongly. My own mind began to turn
to mournful things. I drank another glass of champagne, but I was
still thirsty. I felt as if all the moisture in my body had been blown
away over the downs of Kent by the wind up which we had gal-
loped. Still I was not talking enough; my host was looking at me.
I made another effort, after all I had something to talk about, a
twenty-mile point is not often seen in a lifetime, especially south of
the Thames. I began to describe the run to Rosalind Smith. I could
see then that my host was pleased, the sad look in his face gave a
kind of a flicker, like mist upon the mountains on a miserable day
when a faint puff comes from the sea and the mist would lift if it
could. And the butler refilled my glass very attentively. I asked her
first if she hunted, and paused and began my story. I told her where
446 Tales Of Wonder

we had found the fox and how fast and straight he had gone, and
how I had got through the village by keeping to the road, while the
little gardens and wire, and then the river, had stopped the rest of
the field. I told her the kind of country that we crossed and how
splendid it looked in the Spring, and how mysterious the valleys
were as soon as the twilight came, and what a glorious horse I had
and how wonderfully he went. I was so fearfully thirsty after the
great hunt that I had to stop for a moment now and then, but I went
on with my description of that famous run, for I had warmed to the
subject, and after all there was nobody to tell of it but me except
my old whipper-in, and “the old fellow’s probably drunk by now,”
I thought. I described to her minutely the exact spot in the run at
which it had come to me clearly that this was going to be the great-
est hunt in the whole history of Kent. Sometimes I forgot incidents
that had happened as one well may in a run of twenty miles, and
then I had to fill in the gaps by inventing. I was pleased to be able
to make the party go off well by means of my conversation, and
besides that the lady to whom I was speaking was extremely pretty:
I do not mean in a flesh and blood kind of way but there were little
shadowy lines about the chair beside me that hinted at an unusually
graceful figure when Miss Rosalind Smith was alive; and I began
to perceive that what I first mistook for the smoke of guttering
candles and a table-cloth waving in the draught was in reality an
extremely animated company who listened, and not without inter-
est, to my story of by far the greatest hunt that the world had ever
known: indeed I told them that I would confidently go further and
predict that never in the history of the world would there be such a
run again. Only my throat was terribly dry. And then as it seemed
they wanted to hear more about my horse. I had forgotten that I
had come there on a horse, but when they reminded me it all came
back; they looked so charming leaning over the table intent upon
what I said, that I told them everything they wanted to know. Eve-
rything was going so pleasantly if only Sir Richard would cheer
up. I heard his mournful voice every now and then — these were
very pleasant people if only he would take them the right way. I
could understand that he regretted his past, but the early seventies
 Tales Of Wonder 447

seemed centuries away and I felt sure that he misunderstood these

ladies, they were not revengeful as he seemed to suppose. I wanted
to show him how cheerful they really were, and so I made a joke
and they an laughed at it, and then I chaffed them a bit, especially
Rosalind, and nobody resented it in the very least. And still Sir
Richard sat there with that unhappy look, like one that has ended
weeping because it is vain and has not the consolation even of
tears.
We had been a long time there and many of the candles had
burned out, but there was light enough. I was glad to have an audi-
ence for my exploit, and being happy myself I was determined Sir
Richard should be. I made more jokes and they still laughed good-
naturedly; some of the jokes were a little broad perhaps but no
harm was meant. And then — I do not wish to excuse myself — but
I had had a harder day than I ever had had before and without
knowing it I must have been completely exhausted; in this state the
champagne had found me, and what would have been harmless at
any other time must somehow have got the better of me when quite
tired out — anyhow I went too far, I made some joke — I cannot in
the least remember what — that suddenly seemed to offend them.
I felt all at once a commotion in the air, I looked up and saw that
they had all arisen from the table and were sweeping towards the
door: I had not time to open it but it blew open on a wind, I could
scarcely see what Sir Richard was doing because only two candles
were left, I think the rest blew out when the ladies suddenly rose.
I sprang up to apologise, to assure them — and then fatigue over-
came me as it had overcome my horse at the last fence, I clutched
at the table but the cloth came away and then I fell. The fall, and
the darkness on the floor and the pent up fatigue of the day over-
came me all three together.
The sun shone over glittering fields and in at a bedroom window
and thousands of birds were chanting to the Spring, and there I was
in an old four-poster bed in a quaint old panelled bedroom, fully
dressed and wearing long muddy boots; someone had taken my
spurs and that was all. For a moment I failed to realise and then
it all came back, my enormity and the pressing need of an abject
448 Tales Of Wonder

apology to Sir Richard. I pulled an embroidered bell rope until the

butler came. He came in perfectly cheerful and indescribably shab-
by. I asked him if Sir Richard was up, and he said he had just gone
down, and told me to my amazement that it was twelve o’clock. I
asked to be shown in to Sir Richard at once. He was in his smok-
ing-room. “Good morning,” he said cheerfully the moment I went
in. I went directly to the matter in hand. “I fear that I insulted some
ladies in your house — “ I began.
“You did indeed,” he said, “You did indeed.” And then he burst
into tears and took me by the hand. “How can I ever thank you?”
he said to me then. “We have been thirteen at table for thirty years
and I never dared to insult them because I had wronged them all,
and now you have done it and I know they will never dine here
again.” And for a long time he still held my hand, and then he
gave it a grip and a kind of a shake which I took to mean “Good-
bye“ and I drew my hand away then and left the house. And I
found James in the stables with the hounds and asked him how
he had fared, and James, who is a man of very few words, said he
could not rightly remember, and I got my spurs from the butler
and climbed on to my horse and slowly we rode away from that
queer old house, and slowly we wended home, for the hounds were
footsore but happy and the horses were tired still. And when we
recalled that the hunting season was ended we turned our faces to
Spring and thought of the new things that try to replace the old.
And that very year I heard, and have often heard since, of dances
and happier dinners at Sir Richard Arlen’s house.

The City on Mallington Moor

Besides the old shepherd at Lingwold whose habits render him
unreliable I am probably the only person that has ever seen the city
on Mallington Moor.
I had decided one year to do no London season; partly because
of the ugliness of the things in the shops, partly because of the
unresisted invasions of German bands, partly perhaps because
 Tales Of Wonder 449

some pet parrots in the oblong where I lived had learned to imitate
cab-whistles; but chiefly because of late there had seized me in
London a quite unreasonable longing for large woods and waste
spaces, while the very thought of little valleys underneath copses
full of bracken and foxgloves was a torment to me and every sum-
mer in London the longing grew worse till the thing was becoming
intolerable. So I took a stick and a knapsack and began walking
northwards, starting at Tetherington and sleeping at inns, where
one could get real salt, and the waiter spoke English and where one
had a name instead of a number; and though the tablecloth might
be dirty the windows opened so that the air was clean, where one
had the excellent company of farmers and men of the wold, who
could not be thoroughly vulgar, because they had not the money to
be so even if they had wished it. At first the novelty was delight-
ful, and then one day in a queer old inn up Uthering way, beyond
Lingwold, I heard for the first time the rumour of the city said to
be on Mallington Moor. They spoke of it quite casually over their
glasses of beer, two farmers at the inn. “They say the queer folk
be at Mallington with their city,” one farmer said. “Travelling they
seem to be,” said the other. And more came in then and the rumour
spread. And then, such are the contradictions of our little likes and
dislikes and all the whims that drive us, that I, who had come so far
to avoid cities, had a great longing all of a sudden for throngs again
and the great hives of Man, and then and there determined on that
bright Sunday morning to come to Mallington and there search for
the city that rumour spoke of so strangely.
Mallington Moor, from all that they said of it, was hardly a
likely place to find a thing by searching. It was a huge high moor,
very bleak and desolate and altogether trackless. It seemed a lonely
place from what they said. The Normans when they came had
called it Mal Lieu and afterwards Mallintown and so it changed to
Mallington. Though what a town can ever have had to do with a
place so utterly desolate I do not know. And before that some say
that the Saxons called it Baplas, which I believe to be a corruption
of Bad Place.
And beyond the mere rumour of a beautiful city all of white
450 Tales Of Wonder

marble and with a foreign look up on Mallington Moor, beyond

this I could not get. None of them had seen it himself, “only heard
of it like,” and my questions, rather than stimulating conversation,
would always stop it abruptly. I was no more fortunate on the road
to Mallington until the Tuesday, when I was quite near it; I had
been walking two days from the inn where I had heard the rumour
and could see the great hill steep as a headland on which Malling-
ton lay, standing up on the skyline: the hill was covered with grass,
where anything grew at all, but Mallington Moor is all heather; it
is just marked Moor on the map; nobody goes there and they do
not trouble to name it. It was there where the gaunt hill first came
into sight, by the roadside as I enquired for the marble city of some
labourers by the way, that I was directed, partly I think in derision,
to the old shepherd of Lingwold. It appeared that he, following
sometimes sheep that had strayed, and wandering far from Ling-
wold, came sometimes up to the edge of Mallington Moor, and that
he would come back from these excursions and shout through the
villages, raving of a city of white marble and gold-tipped minarets.
And hearing me asking questions of this city they had laughed and
directed me to the shepherd of Lingwold. One well-meant warning
they gave me as I went — the old man was not reliable.
And late that evening I saw the thatches of Lingwold sheltering
under the edge of that huge hill that Atlas-like held up those miles
of moor to the great winds and heaven.
They knew less of the city in Lingwold than elsewhere but they
knew the whereabouts of the man I wanted, though they seemed a
little ashamed of him. There was an inn in Lingwold that gave me
shelter, whence in the morning, equipped with purchases, I set out
to find their shepherd. And there he was on the edge of Mallington
Moor standing motionless, gazing stupidly at his sheep; his hands
trembled continually and his eyes had a blear look, but he was
quite sober, wherein all Lingwold had wronged him.
And then and there I asked him of the city and he said he had
never heard tell of any such place. And I said, “Come, come, you
must pull yourself together.” And he looked angrily at me; but
when he saw me draw from amongst my purchases a full bottle of
 Tales Of Wonder 451

whiskey and a big glass he became more friendly. As I poured out

the whiskey I asked him again about the marble city on Mallington
Moor but he seemed quite honestly to know nothing about it. The
amount of whiskey he drank was quite incredible, but I seldom
express surprise and once more I asked him the way to the wonder-
ful city. His hand was steadier now and his eyes more intelligent
and he said that he had heard something of some such city, but his
memory was evidently blurred and he was still unable to give me
useful directions. I consequently gave him another tumbler, which
he drank off like the first without any water, and almost at once he
was a different man. The trembling in his hands stopped altogether,
his eye became as quick as a younger man’s, he answered my ques-
tions readily and frankly, and, what was more important to me still,
his old memory became alert and clear for even minutest details.
His gratitude to myself I need not mention, for I make no pretence
that I bought the bottle of whiskey that the old shepherd enjoyed
so much without at least some thought of my own advantage. Yet it
was pleasant to reflect that it was due to me that he had pulled him-
self together and steadied his shaking hand and cleared his mind,
recovered his memory and his self-respect. He spoke to me quite
clearly, no longer slurring his words; he had seen the city first one
moonlight night when he was lost in the mist on the big moor, he
had wandered far in the mist, and when it lifted he saw the city by
moonlight. He had no food, but luckily had his flask. There never
was such a city, not even in books. Travellers talked sometimes
of Venice seen from the sea, there might be such a place or there
might not, but, whether or no, it was nothing to the city on Mal-
lington Moor. Men who read books had talked to him in his time,
hundreds of books, but they never could tell of any city like this.
Why, the place was all of marble, roads, walls and palaces, all pure
white marble, and the tops of the tall thin spires were entirely of
gold. And they were queer folk in the city even for foreigners. And
there were camels, but I cut him short for I thought I could judge
for myself, if there was such a place, and, if not, I was wasting my
time as well as a pint of good whiskey. So I got him to speak of the
way, and after more circumlocution than I needed and more talk of
452 Tales Of Wonder

the city he pointed to a tiny track on the black earth just beside us,
a little twisty way you could hardly see.
I said the moor was trackless; untrodden of man or dog it cer-
tainly was and seemed to have less to do with the ways of man
than any waste I have seen, but the track the old shepherd showed
me, if track it was, was no more than the track of a hare — an
elf-path the old man called it, Heaven knows what he meant. And
then before I left him he insisted on giving me his flask with the
queer strong rum it contained. Whiskey brings out in some men
melancholy, in some rejoicing, with him it was clearly generosity
and he insisted until I took his rum, though I did not mean to drink
it. It was lonely up there, he said, and bitter cold and the city hard
to find, being set in a hollow, and I should need the rum, and he
had never seen the marble city except on days when he had had his
flask: he seemed to regard that rusted iron flask as a sort of mascot,
and in the end I took it.
I followed that odd, faint track on the black earth under the
heather till I came to the big grey stone beyond the horizon, where
the track divides into two, and I took the one to the left as the old
man told me. I knew by another stone that I saw far off that I had
not lost my way, nor the old man lied.
And just as I hoped to see the city’s ramparts before the gloam-
ing fell on that desolate place, I suddenly saw a long high wall of
whiteness with pinnacles here and there thrown up above it, float-
ing towards me silent and grim as a secret, and knew it for that evil
thing the mist. The sun, though low, was shining on every sprig
of heather, the green and scarlet mosses were shining with it too,
it seemed incredible that in three minutes’ time all those colours
would be gone and nothing left all round but a grey darkness. I
gave up hope of finding the city that day, a broader path than mine
could have been quite easily lost. I hastily chose for my bed a thick
patch of heather, wrapped myself in a waterproof cloak, and lay
down and made myself comfortable. And then the mist came. It
came like the careful pulling of lace curtains, then like the drawing
of grey blinds; it shut out the horizon to the north, then to the east
and west; it turned the whole sky white and hid the moor; it came
 Tales Of Wonder 453

down on it like a metropolis, only utterly silent, silent and white as

tombstones.
And then I was glad of that strange strong rum, or whatever it
was in the flask that the shepherd gave me, for I did not think that
the mist would clear till night, and I feared the night would be cold.
So I nearly emptied the flask; and, sooner than I expected, I fell
asleep, for the first night out as a rule one does not sleep at once
but is kept awake some while by the little winds and the unfamiliar
sound of the things that wander at night, and that cry to one anoth-
er far-off with their queer, faint voices; one misses them afterwards
when one gets to houses again. But I heard none of these sounds in
the mist that evening.
And then I woke and found that the mist was gone and the sun
was just disappearing under the moor, and I knew that I had not
slept for as long as I thought. And I decided to go on while I could,
for I thought that I was not very far from the city.
I went on and on along the twisty track, bits of the mist came
down and filled the hollows but lifted again at once so that I saw
my way. The twilight faded as I went, a star appeared, and I was
able to see the track no longer. I could go no further that night,
yet before I lay down to sleep I decided to go and look over the
edge of a wide depression in the moor that I saw a little way off.
So I left the track and walked a few hundred yards, and when I got
to the edge the hollow was full of mist all white underneath me.
Another star appeared and a cold wind arose, and with the wind the
mist flapped away like a curtain. And there was the city.
Nothing the shepherd had said was the least untrue or even
exaggerated. The poor old man had told the simple truth, there is
not a city like it in the world. What he had called thin spires were
minarets, but the little domes on the top were clearly pure gold as
he said. There were the marble terraces he described and the pure
white palaces covered with carving and hundreds of minarets. The
city was obviously of the East and yet where there should have
been crescents on the domes of the minarets there were golden
suns with rays, and wherever one looked one saw things that ob-
scured its origin. I walked down to it, and, passing through a wick-
454 Tales Of Wonder

et gate of gold in a low wall of white marble, I entered the city. The
heather went right up to the city’s edge and beat against the marble
wall whenever the wind blew it. Lights began to twinkle from high
windows of blue glass as I walked up the white street, beautiful
copper lanterns were lit up and let down from balconies by silver
chains, from doors ajar came the sound of voices singing, and then
I saw the men. Their faces were rather grey than black, and they
wore beautiful robes of coloured silk with hems embroidered with
gold and some with copper, and sometimes pacing down the mar-
ble ways with golden baskets hung on each side of them I saw the
camels of which the old shepherd spoke.
The people had kindly faces, but, though they were evidently
friendly to strangers, I could not speak with them being ignorant of
their language, nor were the sounds of the syllables they used like
any language I had ever heard: they sounded more like grouse.
When I tried to ask them by signs whence they had come with
their city they would only point to the moon, which was bright
and full and was shining fiercely on those marble ways till the
city danced in light. And now there began appearing one by one,
slipping softly out through windows, men with stringed instru-
ments in the balconies. They were strange instruments with huge
bulbs of wood, and they played softly on them and very beauti-
fully, and their queer voices softly sang to the music weird dirges
of the griefs of their native land wherever that may be. And far
off in the heart of the city others were singing too, the sound of
it came to me wherever I roamed, not loud enough to disturb my
thoughts, but gently turning the mind to pleasant things. Slender
carved arches of marble, as delicate almost as lace, crossed and
re-crossed the ways wherever I went. There was none of that hurry
of which foolish cities boast, nothing ugly or sordid so far as I
could see. I saw that it was a city of beauty and song. I wondered
how they had travelled with all that marble, how they had laid it
down on Mallington Moor, whence they had come and what their
resources were, and determined to investigate closely next morn-
ing, for the old shepherd had not troubled his head to think how the
city came, he had only noted that the city was there (and of course
 Tales Of Wonder 455

no one believed him, though that is partly his fault for his dissolute
ways). But at night one can see little and I had walked all day, so
I determined to find a place to rest in. And just as I was wonder-
ing whether to ask for shelter of those silk-robed men by signs or
whether to sleep outside the walls and enter again in the morning,
I came to a great archway in one of the marble houses with two
black curtains, embroidered below with gold, hanging across it.
Over the archway were carved apparently in many tongues the
words: “Here strangers rest.” In Greek, Latin and Spanish the sen-
tence was repeated and there was writing also in the language that
you see on the walls of the great temples of Egypt, and Arabic and
what I took to be early Assyrian and one or two languages I had
never seen. I entered through the curtains and found a tesselated
marble court with golden braziers burning sleepy incense swing-
ing by chains from the roof, all round the walls were comfortable
mattresses lying upon the floor covered with cloths and silks. It
must have been ten o’clock and I was tired. Outside the music still
softly filled the streets, a man had set a lantern down on the marble
way, five or six sat down round him, and he was sonorously telling
them a story. Inside there were some already asleep on the beds, in
the middle of the wide court under the braziers a woman dressed
in blue was singing very gently, she did not move, but sung on and
on, I never heard a song that was so soothing. I lay down on one of
the mattresses by the wall, which was all inlaid with mosaics, and
pulled over me some of the cloths with their beautiful alien work,
and almost immediately my thoughts seemed part of the song that
the woman was singing in the midst of the court under the golden
braziers that hung from the high roof, and the song turned them to
dreams, and so I fell asleep.
A small wind having arisen, I was awakened by a sprig of
heather that beat continually against my face. It was morning on
Mallington Moor, and the city was quite gone.
456 Tales Of Wonder

Why the Milkman Shudders When He

Perceives the Dawn
In the Hall of the Ancient Company of Milkmen round the great
fireplace at the end, when the winter logs are burning and all the
craft are assembled they tell to-day, as their grandfathers told be-
fore them, why the milkman shudders when he perceives the dawn.
When dawn comes creeping over the edges of hills, peers
through the tree-trunks making wonderful shadows, touches the
tops of tall columns of smoke going up from awakening cottages in
the valleys, and breaks all golden over Kentish fields, when go-
ing on tip-toe thence it comes to the walls of London and slips all
shyly up those gloomy streets the milkman perceives it and shud-
ders.
A man may be a Milkman’s Working Apprentice, may know
what borax is and how to mix it, yet not for that is the story told to
him. There are five men alone that tell that story, five men appoint-
ed by the Master of the Company, by whom each place is filled as
it falls vacant, and if you do not hear it from one of them you hear
the story from no one and so can never know why the milkman
shudders when he perceives the dawn.
It is the way of one of these five men, greybeards all and milk-
men from infancy, to rub his hands by the fire when the great logs
burn, and to settle himself more easily in his chair, perhaps to sip
some drink far other than milk, then to look round to see that none
are there to whom it would not be fitting the tale should be told
and, looking from face to face and seeing none but the men of the
Ancient Company, and questioning mutely the rest of the five with
his eyes, if some of the five be there, and receiving their permis-
sion, to cough and to tell the tale. And a great hush falls in the Hall
of the Ancient Company, and something about the shape of the
roof and the rafters makes the tale resonant all down the hall so
that the youngest hears it far away from the fire and knows, and
dreams of the day when perhaps he will tell himself why the milk-
man shudders when he perceives the dawn.
 Tales Of Wonder 457

Not as one tells some casual fact is it told, nor is it commented

on from man to man, but it is told by that great fire only and when
the occasion and the stillness of the room and the merit of the wine
and the profit of all seem to warrant it in the opinion of the five
deputed men: then does one of them tell it, as I have said, not her-
alded by any master of ceremonies but as though it arose out of the
warmth of the fire before which his knotted hands would chance to
be; not a thing learned by rote, but told differently by each teller,
and differently according to his mood, yet never has one of them
dared to alter its salient points, there is none so base among the
Company of Milkmen. The Company of Powderers for the Face
know of this story and have envied it, the Worthy Company of
Chin-Barbers, and the Company of Whiskerers; but none have
heard it in the Milkmen’s Hall, through whose wall no rumour of
the secret goes, and though they have invented tales of their own
Antiquity mocks them.
This mellow story was ripe with honourable years when milk-
men wore beaver hats, its origin was still mysterious when smocks
were the vogue, men asked one another when Stuarts were on the
throne (and only the Ancient Company knew the answer) why the
milkman shudders when he perceives the dawn. It is all for envy
of this tale’s reputation that the Company of Powderers for the
Face have invented the tale that they too tell of an evening, “Why
the Dog Barks when he hears the step of the Baker“; and because
probably all men know that tale the Company of the Powderers for
the Face have dared to consider it famous. Yet it lacks mystery and
is not ancient, is not fortified with classical allusion, has no secret
lore, is common to all who care for an idle tale, and shares with
“The Wars of the Elves,” the Calf-butcher’s tale, and “The Story
of the Unicorn and the Rose,” which is the tale of the Company of
Horse-drivers, their obvious inferiority.
But unlike all these tales so new to time, and many another that
the last two centuries tell, the tale that the milkmen tell ripples
wisely on, so full of quotation from the profoundest writers, so full
of recondite allusion, so deeply tinged with all the wisdom of man
and instructive with the experience of all times that they that hear
458 Tales Of Wonder

it in the Milkmen’s Hall as they interpret allusion after allusion and

trace obscure quotation lose idle curiosity and forget to question
why the milkman shudders when he perceives the dawn.
You also, O my reader, give not yourself up to curiosity. Con-
sider of how many it is the bane. Would you to gratify this tear
away the mystery from the Milkmen’s Hall and wrong the Ancient
Company of Milkmen? Would they if all the world knew it and it
became a common thing to tell that tale any more that they have
told for the last four hundred years? Rather a silence would set-
tle upon their hall and a universal regret for the ancient tale and
the ancient winter evenings. And though curiosity were a proper
consideration yet even then this is not the proper place nor this
the proper occasion for the Tale. For the proper place is only the
Milkmen’s Hall and the proper occasion only when logs burn well
and when wine has been deeply drunken, then when the candles
were burning well in long rows down to the dimness, down to the
darkness and mystery that lie at the end of the hall, then were you
one of the Company, and were I one of the five, would I rise from
my seat by the fireside and tell you with all the embellishments
that it has gleaned from the ages that story that is the heirloom of
the milkmen. And the long candles would burn lower and lower
and gutter and gutter away till they liquefied in their sockets, and
draughts would blow from the shadowy end of the hall stronger
and stronger till the shadows came after them, and still I would
hold you with that treasured story, not by any wit of mine but all
for the sake of its glamour and the times out of which it came; one
by one the candles would flare and die and, when all were gone,
by the light of ominous sparks when each milkman’s face looks
fearful to his fellow, you would know, as now you cannot, why the
milkman shudders when he perceives the dawn.

The Bad Old Woman in Black

The bad old woman in black ran down the street of the ox-butch-
ers.
 Tales Of Wonder 459

Windows at once were opened high up in those crazy gables;

heads were thrust out: it was she. Then there arose the counsel
of anxious voices, calling sideways from window to window or
across to opposite houses. Why was she there with her sequins and
bugles and old black gown? Why had she left her dreaded house?
On what fell errand she hasted?
They watched her lean, lithe figure, and the wind in that old
black dress, and soon she was gone from the cobbled street and
under the town’s high gateway. She turned at once to her right and
was hid from the view of the houses. Then they all ran down to
their doors, and small groups formed on the pavement; there they
took counsel together, the eldest speaking first. Of what they had
seen they said nothing, for there was no doubt it was she; it was of
the future they spoke, and the future only.
In what notorious thing would her errand end? What gains had
tempted her out from her fearful home? What brilliant but sinful
scheme had her genius planned? Above all, what future evil did
this portend? Thus at first it was only questions. And then the old
grey-beards spoke, each one to a little group; they had seen her out
before, had known her when she was younger, and had noted the
evil things that had followed her goings: the small groups listened
well to their low and earnest voices. No one asked questions now
or guessed at her infamous errand, but listened only to the wise old
men who knew the things that had been, and who told the younger
men of the dooms that had come before.
Nobody knew how many times she had left her dreaded house;
but the oldest recounted all the times that they knew, and the way
she had gone each time, and the doom that had followed her going;
and two could remember the earthquake that there was in the street
of the shearers.
So were there many tales of the times that were, told on the
pavement near the old green doors by the edge of the cobbled
street, and the experience that the aged men had bought with their
white hairs might be had cheap by the young. But from all their
experience only this was clear, that never twice in their lives had
she done the same infamous thing, and that the same calamity
460 Tales Of Wonder

twice had never followed her goings. Therefore it seemed that

means were doubtful and few for finding out what thing was about
to befall; and an ominous feeling of gloom came down on the
street of the ox-butchers. And in the gloom grew fears of the very
worst. This comfort they only had when they put their fear into
words — that the doom that followed her goings had never yet been
anticipated. One feared that with magic she meant to move the
moon; and he would have dammed the high tide on the neighbour-
ing coast, knowing that as the moon attracted the sea the sea must
attract the moon, and hoping by his device to humble her spells.
Another would have fetched iron bars and clamped them across the
street, remembering the earthquake there was in the street of the
shearers. Another would have honoured his household gods, the
little cat-faced idols seated above his hearth, gods to whom magic
was no unusual thing, and, having paid their fees and honoured
them well, would have put the whole case before them. His scheme
found favour with many, and yet at last was rejected, for others ran
indoors and brought out their gods, too, to be honoured, till there
was a herd of gods all seated there on the pavement; yet would
they have honoured them and put their case before them but that
a fat man ran up last of all, carefully holding under a reverent arm
his own two hound-faced gods, though he knew well — as, indeed,
all men must — that they were notoriously at war with the little
cat-faced idols. And although the animosities natural to faith had
all been lulled by the crisis, yet a look of anger had come into the
cat-like faces that no one dared disregard, and all perceived that if
they stayed a moment longer there would be flaming around them
the jealousy of the gods; so each man hastily took his idols home,
leaving the fat man insisting that his hound-faced gods should be
honoured.
Then there were schemes again and voices raised in debate, and
many new dangers feared and new plans made.
But in the end they made no defence against danger, for they
knew not what it would be, but wrote upon parchment as a warn-
ing, and in order that all might know: “The bad old woman in black
ran down the street of the ox-butchers.”
 Tales Of Wonder 461

The Bird of the Difficult Eye

Observant men and women that know their Bond Street well
will appreciate my astonishment when in a jewellers’ shop I per-
ceived that nobody was furtively watching me. Not only this but
when I even picked up a little carved crystal to examine it no shop-
assistants crowded round me. I walked the whole length of the
shop, still no one politely followed.
Seeing from this that some extraordinary revolution had oc-
curred in the jewelry business I went with my curiosity well
aroused to a queer old person half demon and half man who has an
idol-shop in a byway of the City and who keeps me informed of af-
fairs at the Edge of the World. And briefly over a pinch of heather
incense that he takes by way of snuff he gave me this tremendous
information: that Mr. Neepy Thang the son of Thangobrind had
returned from the Edge of the World and was even now in London.
The information may not appear tremendous to those unac-
quainted with the source of jewelry; but when I say that the only
thief employed by any West-end jeweller since famous Thango-
brind’s distressing doom is this same Neepy Thang, and that for
lightness of fingers and swiftness of stockinged foot they have
none better in Paris, it will be understood why the Bond Street jew-
ellers no longer cared what became of their old stock.
There were big diamonds in London that summer and a few
considerable sapphires. In certain astounding kingdoms behind the
East strange sovereigns missed from their turbans the heirlooms of
ancient wars, and here and there the keepers of crown jewels who
had not heard the stockinged feet of Thang, were questioned and
died slowly.
And the jewellers gave a little dinner to Thang at the Hotel Great
Magnificent; the windows had not been opened for five years and
there was wine at a guinea a bottle that you could not tell from
champagne and cigars at half a crown with a Havana label. Alto-
gether it was a splendid evening for Thang.
But I have to tell of a far sadder thing than a dinner at a hotel.
The public require jewelry and jewelry must be obtained. I have to
462 Tales Of Wonder

tell of Neepy Thang’s last journey.

That year the fashion was emeralds. A man named Green had re-
cently crossed the Channel on a bicycle and the jewellers said that
a green stone would be particularly appropriate to commemorate
the event and recommended emeralds.
Now a certain money-lender of Cheapside who had just been
made a peer had divided his gains into three equal parts; one for
the purchase of the peerage, country house and park, and the twen-
ty thousand pheasants that are absolutely essential, and one for the
upkeep of the position, while the third he banked abroad, partly to
cheat the native tax-gatherer and partly because it seemed to him
that the days of the Peerage were few and that he might at any mo-
ment be called upon to start afresh elsewhere. In the upkeep of the
position he included jewelry for his wife and so it came about that
Lord Castlenorman placed an order with two well-known Bond-
street jewellers named Messrs. Grosvenor and Campbell to the
extent of £100,000 for a few reliable emeralds.
But the emeralds in stock were mostly small and shop-soiled and
Neepy Thang had to set out at once before he had had as much as
a week in London. I will briefly sketch his project. Not many knew
it, for where the form of business is blackmail the fewer creditors
you have the better (which of course in various degrees applies at
all times).
On the shores of the risky seas of Shiroora Shan grows one tree
only so that upon its branches if anywhere in the world there must
build its nest the Bird of the Difficult Eye. Neepy Thang had come
by this information, which was indeed the truth, that if the bird
migrated to Fairyland before the three eggs hatched out they would
undoubtedly all turn into emeralds, while if they hatched out first it
would be a bad business.
When he had mentioned these eggs to Messrs. Grosvenor and
Campbell they had said, “The very thing”: they were men of few
words, in English, for it was not their native tongue.
So Neepy Thang set out. He bought the purple ticket at Victoria
Station. He went by Herne Hill, Bromley and Bickley and passed
St. Mary Cray. At Eynsford he changed and taking a footpath along
 Tales Of Wonder 463

a winding valley went wandering into the hills. And at the top of a
hill in a little wood, where all the anemones long since were over
and the perfume of mint and thyme from outside came drifting in
with Thang, he found once more the familiar path, age-old and fair
as wonder, that leads to the Edge of the World. Little to him were
its sacred memories that are one with the secret of earth, for he
was on business, and little would they be to me if I ever put them
on paper. Let it suffice that he went down that path going further
and further from the fields we know, and all the way he muttered
to himself, “What if the eggs hatch out and it be a bad business!”
The glamour that is at all times upon those lonely lands that lie at
the back of the chalky hills of Kent intensified as he went upon his
journeys. Queerer and queerer grew the things that he saw by little
World-End Path. Many a twilight descended upon that journey
with all their mysteries, many a blaze of stars; many a morning
came flaming up to a tinkle of silvern horns; till the outpost elves
of Fairyland came in sight and the glittering crests of Fairyland’s
three mountains betokened the journey’s end. And so with painful
steps (for the shores of the world are covered with huge crystals)
he came to the risky seas of Shiroora Shan and saw them pound-
ing to gravel the wreckage of fallen stars, saw them and heard their
roar, those shipless seas that between earth and the fairies’ homes
heave beneath some huge wind that is none of our four. And there
in the darkness on the grizzly coast, for darkness was swooping
slantwise down the sky as though with some evil purpose, there
stood that lonely, gnarled and deciduous tree. It was a bad place
to be found in after dark, and night descended with multitudes of
stars, beasts prowling in the blackness gluttered [See any diction-
ary, but in vain.] at Neepy Thang. And there on a lower branch
within easy reach he clearly saw the Bird of the Difficult Eye sit-
ting upon the nest for which she is famous. Her face was towards
those three inscrutable mountains, far-off on the other side of the
risky seas, whose hidden valleys are Fairyland. Though not yet
autumn in the fields we know, it was close on midwinter here, the
moment as Thang knew when those eggs hatch out. Had he miscal-
culated and arrived a minute too late? Yet the bird was even now
464 Tales Of Wonder

about to migrate, her pinions fluttered and her gaze was toward
Fairyland. Thang hoped and muttered a prayer to those pagan gods
whose spite and vengeance he had most reason to fear. It seems
that it was too late or a prayer too small to placate them, for there
and then the stroke of midwinter came and the eggs hatched out
in the roar of Shiroora Shan or ever the bird was gone with her
difficult eye and it was a bad business indeed for Neepy Thang; I
haven’t the heart to tell you any more.
“’Ere,” said Lord Castlenorman some few weeks later to Messrs.
Grosvenor and Campbell, “you aren’t ’arf taking your time about
those emeralds.”

The Long Porter’s Tale

There are things that are known only to the long porter of Tong
Tong Tarrup as he sits and mumbles memories to himself in the
little bastion gateway.
He remembers the war there was in the halls of the gnomes; and
how the fairies came for the opals once, which Tong Tong Tarrup
has; and the way that the giants went through the fields below, he
watching from his gateway: he remembers quests that are even
yet a wonder to the gods. Who dwells in those frozen houses on
the high bare brink of the world not even he has told me, and he is
held to be garrulous. Among the elves, the only living things ever
seen moving at that awful altitude where they quarry turquoise on
Earth’s highest crag, his name is a byword for loquacity wherewith
they mock the talkative.
His favourite story if you offer him bash — the drug of which
he is fondest, and for which he will give his service in war to the
elves against the goblins, or vice-versa if the goblins bring him
more — his favourite story, when bodily soothed by the drug and
mentally fiercely excited, tells of a quest undertaken ever so long
ago for nothing more marketable than an old woman’s song.
Picture him telling it. An old man, lean and bearded, and almost
monstrously long, that lolled in a city’s gateway on a crag perhaps
 Tales Of Wonder 465

ten miles high; the houses for the most part facing eastward, lit by
the sun and moon and the constellations we know, but one house
on the pinnacle looking over the edge of the world and lit by the
glimmer of those unearthly spaces where one long evening wears
away the stars: my little offering of bash; a long forefinger that
nipped it at once on a stained and greedy thumb — all these are in
the foreground of the picture. In the background, the mystery of
those silent houses and of not knowing who their denizens were, or
what service they had at the hands of the long porter and what pay-
ment he had in return, and whether he was mortal.
Picture him in the gateway of this incredible town, having swal-
lowed my bash in silence, stretch his great length, lean back, and
begin to speak.
It seems that one clear morning a hundred years ago, a visitor to
Tong Tong Tarrup was climbing up from the world. He had already
passed above the snow and had set his foot on a step of the earth-
ward stairway that goes down from Tong Tong Tarrup on to the
rocks, when the long porter saw him. And so painfully did he climb
those easy steps that the grizzled man on watch had long to wonder
whether or not the stranger brought him bash, the drug that gives a
meaning to the stars and seems to explain the twilight. And in the
end there was not a scrap of bash, and the stranger had nothing bet-
ter to offer that grizzled man than his mere story only.
It seems that the stranger’s name was Gerald Jones, and he al-
ways lived in London; but once as a child he had been on a North-
ern moor. It was so long ago that he did not remember how, only
somehow or other he walked alone on the moor, and all the ling
was in flower. There was nothing in sight but ling and heather and
bracken, except, far off near the sunset, on indistinct hills, there
were little vague patches that looked like the fields of men. With
evening a mist crept up and hid the hills, and still he went walking
on over the moor. And then he came to the valley, a tiny valley in
the midst of the moor, whose sides were incredibly steep. He lay
down and looked at it through the roots of the ling. And a long,
long way below him, in a garden by a cottage, with hollyhocks all
round her that were taller than herself, there sat an old woman on a
466 Tales Of Wonder

wooden chair, singing in the evening. And the man had taken a fan-
cy to the song and remembered it after in London, and whenever
it came to his mind it made him think of evenings — the kind you
don’t get in London — and he heard a soft wind going idly over
the moor and the bumble-bees in a hurry, and forgot the noise of
the traffic. And always, whenever he heard men speak of Time, he
grudged to Time most this song. Once afterwards he went to that
Northern moor again and found the tiny valley, but there was no
old woman in the garden, and no one was singing a song. And ei-
ther regret for the song that the old woman had sung, on a summer
evening twenty years away and daily receding, troubled his mind,
or else the wearisome work that he did in London, for he worked
for a great firm that was perfectly useless; and he grew old early, as
men do in cities. And at last, when melancholy brought only regret
and the uselessness of his work gained round him with age, he
decided to consult a magician. So to a magician he went and told
him his troubles, and particularly he told him how he had heard the
song. “And now,” he said, “it is nowhere in the world.”
“Of course it is not in the world,” the magician said, “but over
the Edge of the World you may easily find it.” And he told the man
that he was suffering from flux of time and recommended a day at
the Edge of the World. Jones asked what part of the Edge of the
World he should go to, and the magician had heard Tong Tong Tar-
rup well spoken of; so he paid him, as is usual, in opals, and started
at once on the journey. The ways to that town are winding; he took
the ticket at Victoria Station that they only give if they know you:
he went past Bleth: he went along the Hills of Neol-Hungar and
came to the Gap of Poy. All these are in that part of the world that
pertains to the fields we know; but beyond the Gap of Poy on those
ordinary plains, that so closely resemble Sussex, one first meets
the unlikely. A line of common grey hills, the Hills of Sneg, may
be seen at the edge of the plain from the Gap of Poy; it is there that
the incredible begins, infrequently at first, but happening more and
more as you go up the hills. For instance, descending once into Poy
Plains, the first thing that I saw was an ordinary shepherd watching
a flock of ordinary sheep. I looked at them for some time and noth-
 Tales Of Wonder 467

ing happened, when, without a word, one of the sheep walked up

to the shepherd and borrowed his pipe and smoked it — an incident
that struck me as unlikely; but in the Hills of Sneg I met an honest
politician. Over these plains went Jones and over the Hills of Sneg,
meeting at first unlikely things, and then incredible things, till he
came to the long slope beyond the hills that leads up to the Edge of
the World, and where, as all guidebooks tell, anything may hap-
pen. You might at the foot of this slope see here and there things
that could conceivably occur in the fields we know; but soon these
disappeared, and the traveller saw nothing but fabulous beasts,
browsing on flowers as astounding as themselves, and rocks so dis-
torted that their shapes had clearly a meaning, being too startling to
be accidental. Even the trees were shockingly unfamiliar, they had
so much to say, and they leant over to one another whenever they
spoke and struck grotesque attitudes and leered. Jones saw two
fir-trees fighting. The effect of these scenes on his nerves was very
severe; still he climbed on, and was much cheered at last by the
sight of a primrose, the only familiar thing he had seen for hours,
but it whistled and skipped away. He saw the unicorns in their
secret valley. Then night in a sinister way slipped over the sky, and
there shone not only the stars, but lesser and greater moons, and he
heard dragons rattling in the dark.
With dawn there appeared above him among its amazing crags
the town of Tong Tong Tarrup, with the light on its frozen stairs, a
tiny cluster of houses far up in the sky. He was on the steep moun-
tain now: great mists were leaving it slowly, and revealing, as they
trailed away, more and more astonishing things. Before the mist
had all gone he heard quite near him, on what he had thought was
bare mountain, the sound of a heavy galloping on turf. He had
come to the plateau of the centaurs. And all at once he saw them
in the mist: there they were, the children of fable, five enormous
centaurs. Had he paused on account of any astonishment he had
not come so far: he strode on over the plateau, and came quite near
to the centaurs. It is never the centaurs’ wont to notice men; they
pawed the ground and shouted to one another in Greek, but they
said no word to him. Nevertheless they turned and stared at him
468 Tales Of Wonder

when he left them, and when he had crossed the plateau and still
went on, all five of them cantered after to the edge of their green
land; for above the high green plateau of the centaurs is nothing
but naked mountains, and the last green thing that is seen by the
mountaineer as he travels to Tong Tong Tarrup is the grass that the
centaurs trample. He came into the snow fields that the mountain
wears like a cape, its head being bare above it, and still climbed on.
The centaurs watched him with increasing wonder.
Not even fabulous beasts were near him now, nor strange de-
moniac trees — nothing but snow and the clean bare crag above it
on which was Tong Tong Tarrup. All day he climbed and evening
found him above the snow-line; and soon he came to the stairway
cut in the rock and in sight of that grizzled man, the long porter of
Tong Tong Tarrup, sitting mumbling amazing memories to himself
and expecting in vain from the stranger a gift of bash.
It seems that as soon as the stranger arrived at the bastion gate-
way, tired though he was, he demanded lodgings at once that
commanded a good view of the Edge of the World. But the long
porter, that grizzled man, disappointed of his bash, demanded the
stranger’s story to add to his memories before he would show him
the way. And this is the story, if the long porter has told me the
truth and if his memory is still what it was. And when the story was
told, the grizzled man arose, and, dangling his musical keys, went
up through door after door and by many stairs and led the stranger
to the top-most house, the highest roof in the world, and in its par-
lour showed him the parlour window. There the tired stranger sat
down in a chair and gazed out of the window sheer over the Edge
of the World. The window was shut, and in its glittering panes the
twilight of the World’s Edge blazed and danced, partly like glow-
worms’ lamps and partly like the sea; it went by rippling, full of
wonderful moons. But the traveller did not look at the wonderful
moons. For from the abyss there grew with their roots in far con-
stellations a row of hollyhocks, and amongst them a small green
garden quivered and trembled as scenes tremble in water; higher
up, ling in bloom was floating upon the twilight, more and more
floated up till all the twilight was purple; the little green garden
 Tales Of Wonder 469

low down was hung in the midst of it. And the garden down below,
and the ling all round it, seemed all to be trembling and drifting on
a song. For the twilight was full of a song that sang and rang along
the edges of the World, and the green garden and the ling seemed
to flicker and ripple with it as the song rose and fell, and an old
woman was singing it down in the garden. A bumble-bee sailed
across from over the Edge of the World. And the song that was
lapping there against the coasts of the World, and to which the stars
were dancing, was the same that he had heard the old woman sing
long since down in the valley in the midst of the Northern moor.
But that grizzled man, the long porter, would not let the stranger
stay, because he brought him no bash, and impatiently he shoul-
dered him away, himself not troubling to glance through the
World’s outermost window, for the lands that Time afflicts and the
spaces that Time knows not are all one to that grizzled man, and
the bash that he eats more profoundly astounds his mind than any-
thing man can show him either in the World we know or over the
Edge. And, bitterly protesting, the traveller went back and down
again to the World.

Accustomed as I am to the incredible from knowing the Edge of

the World, the story presents difficulties to me. Yet it may be that
the devastation wrought by Time is merely local, and that outside
the scope of his destruction old songs are still being sung by those
that we deem dead. I try to hope so. And yet the more I investigate
the story that the long porter told me in the town of Tong Tong
Tarrup the more plausible the alternative theory appears — that that
grizzled man is a liar.

The Loot of Loma

Coming back laden with the loot of Loma, the four tall men
looked earnestly to the right; to the left they durst not, for the
precipice there that had been with them so long went sickly down
on to a bank of clouds, and how much further below that only their
470 Tales Of Wonder

fears could say.

Loma lay smoking, a city of ruin, behind them, all its defend-
ers dead; there was no one left to pursue them, and yet their Indian
instincts told them that all was scarcely well. They had gone three
days along that narrow ledge: mountain quite smooth, incredible,
above them, and precipice as smooth and as far below. It was chilly
there in the mountains; at night a stream or a wind in the gloom
of the chasm below them went like a whisper; the stillness of all
things else began to wear the nerve — an enemy’s howl would have
braced them; they began to wish their perilous path were wider,
they began to wish that they had not sacked Loma.
Had that path been any wider the sacking of Loma must indeed
have been harder for them, for the citizens must have fortified the
city but that the awful narrowness of that ten-league pass of the
hills had made their crag-surrounded city secure. And at last an
Indian had said, “Come, let us sack it.” Grimly they laughed in the
wigwams. Only the eagles, they said, had ever seen it, its hoard of
emeralds and its golden gods; and one had said he would reach it,
and they answered, “Only the eagles.”
It was Laughing Face who said it, and who gathered thirty
braves and led them into Loma with their tomahawks and their
bows; there were only four left now, but they had the loot of Loma
on a mule. They had four golden gods, a hundred emeralds, fifty-
two rubies, a large silver gong, two sticks of malachite with am-
ethyst handles for holding incense at religious feasts, four beakers
one foot high, each carved from a rose-quartz crystal; a little coffer
carved out of two diamonds, and (had they but known it) the writ-
ten curse of a priest. It was written on parchment in an unknown
tongue, and had been slipped in with the loot by a dying hand.
From either end of that narrow, terrible ledge the third night was
closing in; it was dropping down on them from the heights of the
mountain and slipping up to them out of the abyss, the third night
since Loma blazed and they had left it. Three more days of tramp-
ing should bring them in triumph home, and yet their instincts said
that all was scarcely well. We who sit at home and draw the blinds
and shut the shutters as soon as night appears, who gather round
 Tales Of Wonder 471

the fire when the wind is wild, who pray at regular seasons and in
familiar shrines, know little of the demoniac look of night when it
is filled with curses of false, infuriated gods. Such a night was this.
Though in the heights the fleecy clouds were idle, yet the wind was
stirring mournfully in the abyss and moaning as it stirred, unhap-
pily at first and full of sorrow; but as day turned away from that
awful path a very definite menace entered its voice which fast grew
louder and louder, and night came on with a long howl. Shadows
repeatedly passed over the stars, and then a mist fell swiftly, as
though there were something suddenly to be done and utterly to be
hidden, as in very truth there was.
And in the chill of that mist the four tall men prayed to their to-
tems, the whimsical wooden figures that stood so far away, watch-
ing the pleasant wigwams; the firelight even now would be dancing
over their faces, while there would come to their ears delectable
tales of war. They halted upon the pass and prayed, and waited
for any sign. For a man’s totem may be in the likeness perhaps
of an otter, and a man may pray, and if his totem be placable and
watching over his man a noise may be heard at once like the noise
that the otter makes, though it be but a stone that falls on another
stone; and the noise is a sign. The four men’s totems that stood so
far away were in the likeness of the coney, the bear, the heron, and
the lizard. They waited, and no sign came. With all the noises of
the wind in the abyss, no noise was like the thump that the coney
makes, nor the bear’s growl, nor the heron’s screech, nor the rustle
of the lizard in the reeds.
It seemed that the wind was saying something over and over
again, and that that thing was evil. They prayed again to their
totems, and no sign came. And then they knew that there was some
power that night that was prevailing against the pleasant carvings
on painted poles of wood with the firelight on their faces so far
away. Now it was clear that the wind was saying something, some
very, very dreadful thing in a tongue that they did not know. They
listened, but they could not tell what it said. Nobody could have
said from seeing their faces how much the four tall men desired
the wigwams again, desired the camp-fire and the tales of war and
472 Tales Of Wonder

the benignant totems that listened and smiled in the dusk: nobody
could have seen how well they knew that this was no common
night or wholesome mist.
When at last no answer came nor any sign from their totems,
they pulled out of the bag those golden gods that Loma gave not up
except in flames and when all her men were dead. They had large
ruby eyes and emerald tongues. They set them down upon that
mountain pass, the cross-legged idols with their emerald tongues;
and having placed between them a few decent yards, as it seemed
meet there should be between gods and men, they bowed them
down and prayed in their desperate straits in that dank, ominous
night to the gods they had wronged, for it seemed that there was a
vengeance upon the hills and that they would scarce escape, as the
wind knew well. And the gods laughed, all four, and wagged their
emerald tongues; the Indians saw them, though the night had fallen
and though the mist was low. The four tall men leaped up at once
from their knees and would have left the gods upon the pass but
that they feared some hunter of their tribe might one day find them
and say of Laughing Face, “He fled and left behind his golden
gods,” and sell the gold and come with his wealth to the wigwams
and be greater than Laughing Face and his three men. And then
they would have cast the gods away, down the abyss, with their
eyes and their emerald tongues, but they knew that enough already
they had wronged Loma’s gods, and feared that vengeance enough
was waiting them on the hills. So they packed them back in the bag
on the frightened mule, the bag that held the curse they knew noth-
ing of, and so pushed on into the menacing night. Till midnight
they plodded on and would not sleep; grimmer and grimmer grew
the look of the night, and the wind more full of meaning, and the
mule knew and trembled, and it seemed that the wind knew, too,
as did the instincts of those four tall men, though they could not
reason it out, try how they would.
And though the squaws waited long where the pass winds out
of the mountains, near where the wigwams are upon the plains, the
wigwams and the totems and the fire, and though they watched by
day, and for many nights uttered familiar calls, still did they never
 Tales Of Wonder 473

see those four tall men emerge out of the mountains any more,
even though they prayed to their totems upon their painted poles;
but the curse in the mystical writing that they had unknown in their
bag worked there on that lonely pass six leagues from the ruins of
Loma, and nobody can tell us what it was.

The Secret of the Sea

In an ill-lit ancient tavern that I know, are many tales of the sea;
but not without the wine of Gorgondy, that I had of a private bar-
gain from the gnomes, was the tale laid bare for which I had waited
of an evening for the greater part of a year.
I knew my man and listened to his stories, sitting amid the
bluster of his oaths; I plied him with rum and whiskey and mixed
drinks, but there never came the tale for which I sought, and as a
last resort I went to the Huthneth Mountains and bargained there
all night with the chiefs of the gnomes.
When I came to the ancient tavern and entered the low-roofed
room, bringing the hoard of the gnomes in a bottle of hammered
iron, my man had not yet arrived. The sailors laughed at my old
iron bottle, but I sat down and waited; had I opened it then they
would have wept and sung. I was well content to wait, for I knew
my man had the story, and it was such a one as had profoundly
stirred the incredulity of the faithless.
He entered and greeted me, and sat down and called for brandy.
He was a hard man to turn from his purpose, and, uncorking my
iron bottle, I sought to dissuade him from brandy for fear that when
the brandy, bit his throat he should refuse to leave it for any other
wine. He lifted his head and said deep and dreadful things of any
man that should dare to speak against brandy.
I swore that I said nothing against brandy but added that it was
often given to children, while Gorgondy was only drunk by men of
such depravity that they had abandoned sin because all the usual
vices had come to seem genteel. When he asked if Gorgondy was
a bad wine to drink I said that it was so bad that if a man sipped it
474 Tales Of Wonder

that was the one touch that made damnation certain. Then he asked
me what I had in the iron bottle, and I said it was Gorgondy; and
then he shouted for the largest tumbler in that ill-lit ancient tavern,
and stood up and shook his fist at me when it came, and swore, and
told me to fill it with the wine that I got on that bitter night from
the treasure house of the gnomes.
As he drank it he told me that he had met men who had spoken
against wine, and that they had mentioned Heaven; and therefore
he would not go there — no, not he; and that once he had sent one
of them to Hell, but when he got there he would turn him out, and
he had no use for milksops.
Over the second tumbler he was thoughtful, but still he said
no word of the tale he knew, until I feared that it would never be
heard. But when the third glass of that terrific wine had burned its
way down his gullet, and vindicated the wickedness of the gnomes,
his reticence withered like a leaf in the fire, and he bellowed out
the secret.
I had long known that there is in ships a will or way of their
own, and had even suspected that when sailors die or abandon their
ships at sea, a derelict, being left to her own devices, may seek
her own ends; but I had never dreamed by night, or fancied during
the day, that the ships had a god that they worshipped, or that they
secretly slipped away to a temple in the sea.
Over the fourth glass of the wine that the gnomes so sinfully
brew but have kept so wisely from man, until the bargain that I had
with their elders all through that autumn night, the sailor told me
the story. I do not tell it as he told it to me because of the oaths that
were in it; nor is it from delicacy that I refrain from writing these
oaths verbatim, but merely because the horror they caused in me
at the time troubles me still whenever I put them on paper, and I
continue to shudder until I have blotted them out. Therefore, I tell
the story in my own words, which, if they possess a certain de-
cency that was not in the mouth of that sailor, unfortunately do not
smack, as his did, of rum and blood and the sea.
You would take a ship to be a dead thing like a table, as dead as
bits of iron and canvas and wood. That is because you always live
 Tales Of Wonder 475

on shore, and have never seen the sea, and drink milk. Milk is a
more accursed drink than water.
What with the captain and what with the man at the wheel, and
what with the crew, a ship has no fair chance of showing a will of
her own.
There is only one moment in the history of ships, that carry
crews on board, when they act by their own free will. This moment
comes when all the crew are drunk. As the last man falls drunk on
to the deck, the ship is free of man, and immediately slips away.
She slips away at once on a new course and is never one yard out
in a hundred miles.
It was like this one night with the Sea-Fancy. Bill Smiles was
there himself, and can vouch for it. Bill Smiles has never told this
tale before for fear that anyone should call him a liar. Nobody
dislikes being hung as much as Bill Smiles would, but he won’t be
called a liar. I tell the tale as I heard it, relevancies and irrelevan-
cies, though in my more decent words; and as I made no doubts of
the truth of it then, I hardly like to now; others can please them-
selves.
It is not often that the whole of a crew is drunk. The crew of the
Sea-Fancy was no drunkener than others. It happened like this.
The captain was always drunk. One day a fancy he had that
some spiders were plotting against him, or a sudden bleeding he
had from both his ears, made him think that drinking might be bad
for his health. Next day he signed the pledge. He was sober all that
morning and all the afternoon, but at evening he saw a sailor drink-
ing a a glass of beer, and a fit of madness seized him, and he said
things that seemed bad to Bill Smiles. And next morning he made
all of them take the pledge.
For two days nobody had a drop to drink, unless you count
water, and on the third morning the captain was quite drunk It
stood to reason they all had a glass or two then, except the man at
the wheel; and towards evening the man at the wheel could bear it
no longer, and seems to have had his glass like all the rest, for the
ship’s course wobbled a bit and made a circle or two. Then all of a
sudden she went off south by east under full canvas till midnight,
476 Tales Of Wonder

and never altered her course. And at midnight she came to the wide
wet courts of the Temple in the Sea.
People who think that Mr. Smiles is drunk often make a great
mistake. And people are not the only ones that have made that mis-
take. Once a ship made it, and a lot of ships. It’s a mistake to think
that old Bill Smiles is drunk just because he can’t move.
Midnight and moonlight and the Temple in the Sea Bill Smiles
clearly remembers, and all the derelicts in the world were there, the
old abandoned ships. The figureheads were nodding to themselves
and blinking at the image. The image was a woman of white mar-
ble on a pedestal in the outer court of the Temple of the Sea: she
was clearly the love of all the man-deserted ships, or the goddess
to whom they prayed their heathen prayers. And as Bill Smiles was
watching them, the lips of the figureheads moved; they all began to
pray. But all at once their lips were closed with a snap when they
saw that there were men on the Sea-Fancy. They all came crowd-
ing up and nodded and nodded and nodded to see if all were drunk,
and that’s when they made their mistake about old Bill Smiles, al-
though he couldn’t move. They would have given up the treasuries
of the gulfs sooner than let men hear the prayers they said or guess
their love for the goddess. It is the intimate secret of the sea.
The sailor paused. And, in my eagerness to hear what lyrical
or blasphemous thing those figureheads prayed by moonlight at
midnight in the sea to the woman of marble who was a goddess to
ships, I pressed on the sailor more of my Gorgondy wine that the
gnomes so wickedly brew.
I should never have done it; but there he was sitting silent while
the secret was almost mine. He took it moodily and drank a glass;
and with the other glasses that he had had he fell a prey to the vil-
lainy of the gnomes who brew this unbridled wine to no good end.
His body leaned forward slowly, then fell on to the table, his face
being sideways and full of a wicked smile, and, saying very clearly
the one word, “Hell,” he became silent for ever with the secret he
had from the sea.
 Tales Of Wonder 477

How Ali Came to the Black Country

Shooshan the barber went to Shep the maker of teeth to discuss
the state of England. They agreed that it was time to send for Ali.
So Shooshan stepped late that night from the little shop near
Fleet Street and made his way back again to his house in the ends
of London and sent at once the message that brought Ali.
And Ali came, mostly on foot, from the country of Persia, and it
took him a year to come; but when he came he was welcome.
And Shep told Ali what was the matter with England and Shoos-
han swore that it was so, and Ali looking out of the window of the
little shop near Fleet Street beheld the ways of London and audibly
blessed King Solomon and his seal.
When Shep and Shooshan heard the names of King Solomon
and his seal both asked, as they had scarcely dared before, if Ali
had it. Ali patted a little bundle of silks that he drew from his inner
raiment. It was there.
Now concerning the movements and courses of the stars and
the influence on them of spirits of Earth and devils this age has
been rightly named by some The Second Age of Ignorance. But
Ali knew. And by watching nightly, for seven nights in Bagdad, the
way of certain stars he had found out the dwelling place of Him
they Needed.
Guided by Ali all three set forth for the Midlands. And by the
reverence that was manifest in the faces of Shep and Shooshan to-
wards the person of Ali, some knew what Ali carried, while others
said that it was the tablets of the Law, others the name of God, and
others that he must have a lot of money about him. So they passed
Slod and Apton.
And at last they came to the town for which Ali sought, that
spot over which he had seen the shy stars wheel and swerve away
from their orbits, being troubled. Verily when they came there
were no stars, though it was midnight. And Ali said that it was the
appointed place. In harems in Persia in the evening when the tales
go round it is still told how Ali and Shep and Shooshan came to the
Black country.
478 Tales Of Wonder

When it was dawn they looked upon the country and saw how
it was without doubt the appointed place, even as Ali had said, for
the earth had been taken out of pits and burned and left lying in
heaps, and there were many factories, and they stood over the town
and as it were rejoiced. And with one voice Shep and Shooshan
gave praise to Ali.
And Ali said that the great ones of the place must needs be
gathered together, and to this end Shep and Shooshan went into
the town and there spoke craftily. For they said that Ali had of his
wisdom contrived as it were a patent and a novelty which should
greatly benefit England. And when they heard how he sought noth-
ing for his novelty save only to benefit mankind they consented to
speak with Ali and see his novelty. And they came forth and met
Ali.
And Ali spake and said unto them: “O lords of this place; in the
book that all men know it is written how that a fisherman casting
his net into the sea drew up a bottle of brass, and when he took
the stopper from the bottle a dreadful genie of horrible aspect rose
from the bottle, as it were like a smoke, even to darkening the sky,
whereat the fisherman…” And the great ones of that place said:
“We have heard the story.” And Ali said: “What became of that
genie after he was safely thrown back into the sea is not properly
spoken of by any save those that pursue the study of demons and
not with certainty by any man, but that the stopper that bore the
ineffable seal and bears it to this day became separate from the
bottle is among those things that man may know.” And when there
was doubt among the great ones Ali drew forth his bundle and one
by one removed those many silks till the seal stood revealed; and
some of them knew it for the seal and others knew it not.
And they looked curiously at it and listened to Ali, and Ali said:
“Having heard how evil is the case of England, how a smoke has
darkened the country, and in places (as men say) the grass is black,
and how even yet your factories multiply, and haste and noise have
become such that men have no time for song, I have therefore
come at the bidding of my good friend Shooshan, barber of Lon-
don, and of Shep, a maker of teeth, to make things well with you.”
 Tales Of Wonder 479

And they said: “But where is your patent and your novelty?”
And Ali said: “Have I not here the stopper and on it, as good
men know, the ineffable seal? Now I have learned in Persia how
that your trains that make the haste, and hurry men to and fro, and
your factories and the digging of your pits and all the things that
are evil are everyone of them caused and brought about by steam.”
“Is it not so?” said Shooshan.
“It is even so,” said Shep.
“Now it is clear,” said Ali, “that the chief devil that vexes Eng-
land and has done all this harm, who herds men into cities and will
not let them rest, is even the devil Steam.”
Then the great ones would have rebuked him but one said: “No,
let us hear him, perhaps his patent may improve on steam.”
And to them hearkening Ali went on thus: “O Lords of this
place, let there be made a bottle of strong steel, for I have no
bottle with my stopper, and this being done let all the factories,
trains, digging of pits, and all evil things soever that may be done
by steam be stopped for seven days, and the men that tend them
shall go free, but the steel bottle for my stopper I will leave open
in a likely place. Now that chief devil, Steam, finding no factories
to enter into, nor no trains, sirens nor pits prepared for him, and
being curious and accustomed to steel pots, will verily enter one
night into the bottle that you shall make for my stopper, and I shall
spring forth from my hiding with my stopper and fasten him down
with the ineffable seal which is the seal of King Solomon and de-
liver him up to you that you cast him into the sea.”
And the great ones answered Ali and they said: “But what
should we gain if we lose our prosperity and be no longer rich?”
And Ali said: “When we have cast this devil into the sea there
will come back again the woods and ferns and all the beautiful
things that the world hath, the little leaping hares shall be seen at
play, there shall be music on the hills again, and at twilight ease
and quiet and after the twilight stars.”
And “Verily,” said Shooshan, “there shall be the dance again.”
“Aye,” said Shep, “there shall be the country dance.”
But the great ones spake and said, denying Ali: “We will make
480 Tales Of Wonder

no such bottle for your stopper nor stop our healthy factories or
good trains, nor cease from our digging of pits nor do anything that
you desire, for an interference with steam would strike at the roots
of that prosperity that you see so plentifully all around us.”
Thus they dismissed Ali there and then from that place where
the earth was torn up and burnt, being taken out of pits, and where
factories blazed all night with a demoniac glare; and they dis-
missed with him both Shooshan, the barber, and Shep, the maker of
teeth: so that a week later Ali started from Calais on his long walk
back to Persia.
And all this happened thirty years ago, and Shep is an old man
now and Shooshan older, and many mouths have bit with the teeth
of Shep (for he has a knack of getting them back whenever his cus-
tomers die), and they have written again to Ali away in the country
of Persia with these words, saying:
“O Ali. The devil has indeed begotten a devil, even that spirit
Petrol. And the young devil waxeth, and increaseth in lustihood
and is ten years old and becoming like to his father. Come there-
fore and help us with the ineffable seal. For there is none like Ali.”
And Ali turns where his slaves scatter rose-leaves, letting the
letter fall, and deeply draws from his hookah a puff of the scented
smoke, right down into his lungs, and sighs it forth and smiles, and
lolling round on to his other elbow speaks comfortably and says,
“And shall a man go twice to the help of a dog?”
And with these words he thinks no more of England but ponders
again the inscrutable ways of God.

The Bureau d’Échange de Maux

I often think of the Bureau d’Échange de Maux and the won-
drously evil old man that sate therein. It stood in a little street that
there is in Paris, its doorway made of three brown beams of wood,
the top one overlapping the others like the Greek letter pi, all the
rest painted green, a house far lower and narrower than its neigh-
bours and infinitely stranger, a thing to take one’s fancy. And over
 Tales Of Wonder 481

the doorway on the old brown beam in faded yellow letters this
legend ran, Bureau Universel d’Échanges de Maux.
I entered at once and accosted the listless man that lolled on a
stool by his counter. I demanded the wherefore of his wonderful
house, what evil wares he exchanged, with many other things that
I wished to know, for curiosity led me; and indeed had it not I had
gone at once from that shop, for there was so evil a look in that fat-
tened man, in the hang of his fallen cheeks and his sinful eye, that
you would have said he had had dealings with Hell and won the
advantage by sheer wickedness.
Such a man was mine host; but above all the evil of him lay
in his eyes, which lay so still, so apathetic, that you would have
sworn that he was drugged or dead; like lizards motionless on a
wall they lay, then suddenly they darted, and all his cunning flamed
up and revealed itself in what one moment before seemed no more
than a sleepy and ordinary wicked old man. And this was the object
and trade of that peculiar shop, the Bureau Universel d’Échange
de Maux: you paid twenty francs, which the old man proceeded to
take from me, for admission to the bureau and then had the right to
exchange any evil or misfortune with anyone on the premises for
some evil or misfortune that he “could afford,” as the old man put
it.
There were four or five men in the dingy ends of that low-
ceilinged room who gesticulated and muttered softly in twos as
men who make a bargain, and now and then more came in, and the
eyes of the flabby owner of the house leaped up at them as they en-
tered, seemed to know their errands at once and each one’s peculiar
need, and fell back again into somnolence, receiving his twenty
francs in an almost lifeless hand and biting the coin as though in
pure absence of mind.
“Some of my clients,” he told me. So amazing to me was the
trade of this extraordinary shop that I engaged the old man in
conversation, repulsive though he was, and from his garrulity I
gathered these facts. He spoke in perfect English though his utter-
ance was somewhat thick and heavy; no language seemed to come
amiss to him. He had been in business a great many years, how
482 Tales Of Wonder

many he would not say, and was far older than he looked. All kinds
of people did business in his shop. What they exchanged with each
other he did not care except that it had to be evils, he was not em-
powered to carry on any other kind of business.
There was no evil, he told me, that was not negotiable there; no
evil the old man knew had ever been taken away in despair from
his shop. A man might have to wait and come back again next day,
and next day and the day after, paying twenty francs each time, but
the old man had the addresses of all his clients and shrewdly knew
their needs, and soon the right two met and eagerly exchanged
their commodities. “Commodities“ was the old man’s terrible
word, said with a gruesome smack of his heavy lips, for he took a
pride in his business and evils to him were goods.
I learned from him in ten minutes very much of human nature,
more than I have ever learned from any other man; I learned from
him that a man’s own evil is to him the worst thing there is or ever
could be, and that an evil so unbalances all men’s minds that they
always seek for extremes in that small grim shop. A woman that
had no children had exchanged with an impoverished half-mad-
dened creature with twelve. On one occasion a man had exchanged
wisdom for folly.
“Why on earth did he do that?” I said.
“None of my business,” the old man answered in his heavy
indolent way. He merely took his twenty francs from each and rati-
fied the agreement in the little room at the back opening out of the
shop where his clients do business. Apparently the man that had
parted with wisdom had left the shop upon the tips of his toes with
a happy though foolish expression all over his face, but the other
went thoughtfully away wearing a troubled and very puzzled look.
Almost always it seemed they did business in opposite evils.
But the thing that puzzled me most in all my talks with that
unwieldy man, the thing that puzzles me still, is that none that had
once done business in that shop ever returned again; a man might
come day after day for many weeks, but once do business and he
never returned; so much the old man told me, but when I asked
him why, he only muttered that he did not know.
 Tales Of Wonder 483

It was to discover the wherefore of this strange thing and for no

other reason at all that I determined myself to do business sooner
or later in the little room at the back of that mysterious shop. I de-
termined to exchange some very trivial evil for some evil equally
slight, to seek for myself an advantage so very small as scarcely to
give Fate as it were a grip, for I deeply distrusted these bargains,
knowing well that man has never yet benefited by the marvellous
and that the more miraculous his advantage appears to be the more
securely and tightly do the gods or the witches catch him. In a few
days more I was going back to England and I was beginning to fear
that I should be sea-sick: this fear of sea-sickness, not the actual
malady but only the mere fear of it, I decided to exchange for a
suitably little evil. I did not know with whom I should be dealing,
who in reality was the head of the firm (one never does when shop-
ping) but I decided that neither Jew nor Devil could make very
much on so small a bargain as that.
I told the old man my project, and he scoffed at the smallness of
my commodity trying to urge me to some darker bargain, but could
not move me from my purpose. And then he told me tales with a
somewhat boastful air of the big business, the great bargains that
had passed through his hands. A man had once run in there to try
and exchange death, he had swallowed poison by accident and had
only twelve hours to live. That sinister old man had been able to
oblige him. A client was willing to exchange the commodity.
“But what did he give in exchange for death?” I said.
“Life,” said that grim old man with a furtive chuckle.
“It must have been a horrible life,” I said.
“That was not my affair,” the proprietor said, lazily rattling to-
gether as he spoke a little pocketful of twenty-franc pieces.
Strange business I watched in that shop for the next few days,
the exchange of odd commodities, and heard strange mutterings in
corners amongst couples who presently rose and went to the back
room, the old man following to ratify.
Twice a day for a week I paid my twenty francs, watching life
with its great needs and its little needs morning and afternoon
spread out before me in all its wonderful variety.
484 Tales Of Wonder

And one day I met a comfortable man with only a little need, he
seemed to have the very evil I wanted. He always feared the lift
was going to break. I knew too much of hydraulics to fear things
as silly as that, but it was not my business to cure his ridiculous
fear. Very few words were needed to convince him that mine was
the evil for him, he never crossed the sea, and I on the other hand
could always walk upstairs, and I also felt at the time, as many
must feel in that shop, that so absurd a fear could never trouble
me. And yet at times it is almost the curse of my life. When we
both had signed the parchment in the spidery back room and the
old man had signed and ratified (for which we had to pay him fifty
francs each) I went back to my hotel, and there I saw the deadly
thing in the basement. They asked me if I would go upstairs in
the lift, from force of habit I risked it, and I held my breath all the
way and clenched my hands. Nothing will induce me to try such a
journey again. I would sooner go up to my room in a balloon. And
why? Because if a balloon goes wrong you have a chance, it may
spread out into a parachute after it has burst, it may catch in a tree,
a hundred and one things may happen, but if the lift falls down its
shaft you are done. As for sea-sickness I shall never be sick again,
I cannot tell you why except that I know that it is so.
And the shop in which I made this remarkable bargain, the shop
to which none return when their business is done: I set out for it
next day. Blindfold I could have found my way to the unfashion-
able quarter out of which a mean street runs, where you take the
alley at the end, whence runs the cul de sac where the queer shop
stood. A shop with pillars, fluted and painted red, stands on its near
side, its other neighbour is a low-class jeweller’s with little silver
brooches in the window. In such incongruous company stood the
shop with beams with its walls painted green.
In half an hour I found the cul de sac to which I had gone twice
a day for the last week, I found the shop with the ugly painted pil-
lars and the jeweller that sold brooches, but the green house with
the three beams was gone.
Pulled down, you will say, although in a single night. That can
never be the answer to the mystery, for the house of the fluted
 Tales Of Wonder 485

pillars painted on plaster and the low-class jeweller’s shop with

its silver brooches (all of which I could identify one by one) were
standing side by side.

A Story of Land and Sea

It is written in the first Book of Wonder how Captain Shard of
the bad ship Desperate Lark, having looted the sea-coast city Bom-
basharna, retired from active life; and resigning piracy to younger
men, with the good will of the North and South Atlantic, settled
down with a captured queen on his floating island.
Sometimes he sank a ship for the sake of old times but he
no longer hovered along the trade-routes; and timid merchants
watched for other men.
It was not age that caused him to leave his romantic profession;
nor unworthiness of its traditions, nor gun-shot wound, nor drink;
but grim necessity and force majeure. Five navies were after him.
How he gave them the slip one day in the Mediterranean, how he
fought with the Arabs, how a ship’s broadside was heard in Lat.
23 N. Long. 4 E. for the first time and the last, with other things
unknown to Admiralties, I shall proceed to tell.
He had had his fling, had Shard, captain of pirates, and all his
merry men wore pearls in their ear-rings; and now the English fleet
was after him under full sail along the coast of Spain with a good
North wind behind them. They were not gaining much on Shard’s
rakish craft, the bad ship Desperate Lark, yet they were closer than
was to his liking, and they interfered with business.
For a day and a night they had chased him, when off Cape St.
Vincent at about six a.m. Shard took that step that decided his re-
tirement from active life, he turned for the Mediterranean. Had he
held on Southwards down the African coast it is doubtful whether
in face of the interference of England, Russia, France, Denmark
and Spain, he could have made piracy pay; but in turning for the
Mediterranean he took what we may call the penultimate step of
his life which meant for him settling down. There were three great
486 Tales Of Wonder

courses of action invented by Shard in his youth, upon which he

pondered by day and brooded by night, consolations in all his dan-
gers, secret even from his men, three means of escape as he hoped
from any peril that might meet him on the sea. One of these was
the floating island that the Book of Wonder tells of, another was so
fantastic that we may doubt if even the brilliant audacity of Shard
could ever have found it practicable, at least he never tried it so far
as is known in that tavern by the sea in which I glean my news, and
the third he determined on carrying out as he turned that morning
for the Mediterranean. True he might yet have practised piracy in
spite of the step that he took, a little later when the seas grew quiet,
but that penultimate step was like that small house in the country
that the business man has his eye on, like some snug investment
put away for old age, there are certain final courses in men’s lives
which after taking they never go back to business.
He turned then for the Mediterranean with the English fleet be-
hind him, and his men wondered.
What madness was this, — muttered Bill the Boatswain in Old
Frank’s only ear, with the French fleet waiting in the Gulf of Lyons
and the Spaniards all the way between Sardinia and Tunis: for they
knew the Spaniards’ ways. And they made a deputation and waited
upon Captain Shard, all of them sober and wearing their costly
clothes, and they said that the Mediterranean was a trap, and all he
said was that the North wind should hold. And the crew said they
were done.
So they entered the Mediterranean and the English fleet came up
and closed the straits. And Shard went tacking along the Moroccan
coast with a dozen frigates behind him. And the North wind grew
in strength. And not till evening did he speak to his crew, and then
he gathered them all together except the man at the helm, and po-
litely asked them to come down to the hold. And there he showed
them six immense steel axles and a dozen low iron wheels of
enormous width which none had seen before; and he told his crew
how all unknown to the world his keel had been specially fitted for
these same axles and wheels, and how he meant soon to sail to the
wide Atlantic again, though not by the way of the straits. And when
 Tales Of Wonder 487

they heard the name of the Atlantic all his merry men cheered, for
they looked on the Atlantic as a wide safe sea.
And night came down and Captain Shard sent for his diver. With
the sea getting up it was hard work for the diver, but by midnight
things were done to Shard’s satisfaction, and the diver said that
of all the jobs he had done — but finding no apt comparison, and
being in need of a drink, silence fell on him and soon sleep, and
his comrades carried him away to his hammock. All the next day
the chase went on with the English well in sight, for Shard had lost
time overnight with his wheels and axles, and the danger of meet-
ing the Spaniards increased every hour; and evening came when
every minute seemed dangerous, yet they still went tacking on
towards the East where they knew the Spaniards must be.
And at last they sighted their topsails right ahead, and still Shard
went on. It was a close thing, but night was coming on, and the
Union Jack which he hoisted helped Shard with the Spaniards for
the last few anxious minutes, though it seemed to anger the Eng-
lish, but as Shard said, “There’s no pleasing everyone,” and then
the twilight shivered into darkness.
“Hard to starboard,” said Captain Shard.
The North wind which had risen all day was now blowing a
gale. I do not know what part of the coast Shard steered for, but
Shard knew, for the coasts of the world were to him what Margate
is to some of us.
At a place where the desert rolling up from mystery and from
death, yea, from the heart of Africa, emerges upon the sea, no less
grand than her, no less terrible, even there they sighted the land
quite close, almost in darkness. Shard ordered every man to the
hinder part of the ship and all the ballast too; and soon the Desper-
ate Lark, her prow a little high out of the water, doing her eighteen
knots before the wind, struck a sandy beach and shuddered, she
heeled over a little, then righted herself, and slowly headed into the
interior of Africa.
The men would have given three cheers, but after the first Shard
silenced them and, steering the ship himself, he made them a short
speech while the broad wheels pounded slowly over the African
488 Tales Of Wonder

sand, doing barely five knots in a gale. The perils of the sea he
said had been greatly exaggerated. Ships had been sailing the sea
for hundreds of years and at sea you knew what to do, but on land
this was different. They were on land now and they were not to
forget it. At sea you might make as much noise as you pleased and
no harm was done, but on land anything might happen. One of the
perils of the land that he instanced was that of hanging. For every
hundred men that they hung on land, he said, not more than twenty
would be hung at sea. The men were to sleep at their guns. They
would not go far that night; for the risk of being wrecked at night
was another danger peculiar to the land, while at sea you might
sail from set of sun till dawn: yet it was essential to get out of sight
of the sea for if anyone knew they were there they’d have cavalry
after them. And he had sent back Smerdrak (a young lieutenant of
pirates) to cover their tracks where they came up from the sea. And
the merry men vigorously nodded their heads though they did not
dare to cheer, and presently Smerdrak came running up and they
threw him a rope by the stern. And when they had done fifteen
knots they anchored, and Captain Shard gathered his men about
him and, standing by the land-wheel in the bows, under the large
and clear Algerian stars, he explained his system of steering. There
was not much to be said for it, he had with considerable ingenuity
detached and pivoted the portion of the keel that held the leading
axle and could move it by chains which were controlled from the
land-wheel, thus the front pair of wheels could be deflected at will,
but only very slightly, and they afterwards found that in a hundred
yards they could only turn their ship four yards from her course.
But let not captains of comfortable battleships, or owners even of
yachts, criticise too harshly a man who was not of their time and
who knew not modern contrivances; it should be remembered also
that Shard was no longer at sea. His steering may have been clum-
sy but he did what he could.
When the use and limitations of his land-wheel had been made
clear to his men, Shard bade them all turn in except those on
watch. Long before dawn he woke them and by the very first gleam
of light they got their ship under way, so that when those two fleets
 Tales Of Wonder 489

that had made so sure of Shard closed in like a great crescent on

the Algerian coast there was no sign to see of the Desperate Lark
either on sea or land; and the flags of the Admiral’s ship broke out
into a hearty English oath.
The gale blew for three days and, Shard using more sail by
daylight, they scudded over the sands at little less than ten knots,
though on the report of rough water ahead (as the lookout man
called rocks, low hills or uneven surface before he adapted himself
to his new surroundings) the rate was much decreased. Those were
long summer days and Shard who was anxious while the wind
held good to outpace the rumour of his own appearance sailed for
nineteen hours a day, lying to at ten in the evening and hoisting sail
again at three a.m. when it first began to be light.
In those three days he did five hundred miles; then the wind
dropped to a breeze though it still blew from the North, and for
a week they did no more than two knots an hour. The merry men
began to murmur then. Luck had distinctly favoured Shard at first
for it sent him at ten knots through the only populous districts well
ahead of crowds except those who chose to run, and the cavalry
were away on a local raid. As for the runners they soon dropped off
when Shard pointed his cannon though he did not dare to fire, up
there near the coast; for much as he jeered at the intelligence of the
English and Spanish Admirals in not suspecting his manoeuvre, the
only one as he said that was possible in the circumstances, yet he
knew that cannon had an obvious sound which would give his se-
cret away to the weakest mind. Certainly luck had befriended him,
and when it did so no longer he made out of the occasion all that
could be made; for instance while the wind held good he had never
missed opportunities to revictual, if he passed by a village its pigs
and poultry were his, and whenever he passed by water he filled
his tanks to the brim, and now that he could only do two knots he
sailed all night with a man and a lantern before him: thus in that
week he did close on four hundred miles while another man would
have anchored at night and have missed five or six hours out of the
twenty-four. Yet his men murmured. Did he think the wind would
last for ever, they said. And Shard only smoked. It was clear that he
490 Tales Of Wonder

was thinking, and thinking hard. “But what is he thinking about?”

said Bill to Bad Jack. And Bad Jack answered: “He may think as
hard as he likes but thinking won’t get us out of the Sahara if this
wind were to drop.”
And towards the end of that week Shard went to his chart-room
and laid a new course for his ship a little to the East and towards
cultivation. And one day towards evening they sighted a village,
and twilight came and the wind dropped altogether. Then the mur-
murs of the merry men grew to oaths and nearly to mutiny. “Where
were they now?” they asked, and were they being treated like poor
honest men?
Shard quieted them by asking what they wished to do them-
selves and when no one had any better plan than going to the vil-
lagers and saying that they had been blown out of their course by a
storm, Shard unfolded his scheme to them. Long ago he had heard
how they drove carts with oxen in Africa, oxen were very numer-
ous in these parts wherever there was any cultivation, and for this
reason when the wind had begun to drop he had laid his course for
the village: that night the moment it was dark they were to drive
off fifty yoke of oxen; by midnight they must all be yoked to the
bows and then away they would go at a good round gallop.
So fine a plan as this astonished the men and they all apologised
for their want of faith in Shard, shaking hands with him every one
and spitting on their hands before they did so in token of good will.
The raid that night succeeded admirably, but ingenious as Shard
was on land, and a past-master at sea, yet it must be admitted that
lack of experience in this class of seamanship led him to make a
mistake, a slight one it is true, and one that a little practice would
have prevented altogether: the oxen could not gallop. Shard swore
at them, threatened them with his pistol, said they should have no
food, and all to no avail: that night and as long as they pulled the
bad ship Desperate Lark they did one knot an hour and no more.
Shard’s failures like everything that came his way were used as
stones in the edifice of his future success, he went at once to his
chart-room and worked out all his calculations anew.
The matter of the oxen’s pace made pursuit impossible to avoid.
 Tales Of Wonder 491

Shard therefore countermanded his order to his lieutenant to cover

the tracks in the sand, and the Desperate Lark plodded on into the
Sahara on her new course trusting to her guns.
The village was not a large one and the little crowd that was
sighted astern next morning disappeared after the first shot from
the cannon in the stern. At first Shard made the oxen wear rough
iron bits, another of his mistakes, and strong bits too. “For if they
run away,” he had said, “we might as well be driving before a gale
and there’s no saying where we’d find ourselves,” but after a day
or two he found that the bits were no good and, like the practical
man he was, immediately corrected his mistake.
And now the crew sang merry songs all day bringing out man-
dolins and clarionets and cheering Captain Shard. All were jolly
except the captain himself whose face was moody and perplexed;
he alone expected to hear more of those villagers; and the oxen
were drinking up the water every day, he alone feared that there
was no more to be had, and a very unpleasant fear that is when
your ship is becalmed in a desert. For over a week they went on
like this doing ten knots a day and the music and singing got on
the captain’s nerves, but he dared not tell his men what the trouble
was. And then one day the oxen drank up the last of the water. And
Lieutenant Smerdrak came and reported the fact.
“Give them rum,” said Shard, and he cursed the oxen. “What is
good enough for me,” he said, “should be good enough for them,”
and he swore that they should have rum.
“Aye, aye, sir,” said the young lieutenant of pirates.
Shard should not be judged by the orders he gave that day,
for nearly a fortnight he had watched the doom that was coming
slowly towards him, discipline cut him off from anyone that might
have shared his fear and discussed it, and all the while he had had
to navigate his ship, which even at sea is an arduous responsibility.
These things had fretted the calm of that clear judgment that had
once baffled five navies. Therefore he cursed the oxen and ordered
them rum, and Smerdrak had said “Aye, aye, sir,” and gone below.
Towards sunset Shard was standing on the poop, thinking of
death; it would not come to him by thirst; mutiny first, he thought.
492 Tales Of Wonder

The oxen were refusing rum for the last time, and the men were
beginning to eye Captain Shard in a very ominous way, not mut-
tering, but each man looking at him with a sidelong look of the eye
as though there were only one thought among them all that had no
need of words. A score of geese like a long letter “V“ were cross-
ing the evening sky, they slanted their necks and all went twisting
downwards somewhere about the horizon. Captain Shard rushed to
his chart-room, and presently the men came in at the door with Old
Frank in front looking awkward and twisting his cap in his hand.
“What is it?” said Shard as though nothing were wrong.
Then Old Frank said what he had come to say: “We want to
know what you be going to do.”
And the men nodded grimly.
“Get water for the oxen,” said Captain Shard, “as the swine
won’t have rum, and they’ll have to work for it, the lazy beasts. Up
anchor!”
And at the word water a look came into their faces like when
some wanderer suddenly thinks of home.
“Water!” they said.
“Why not?” said Captain Shard. And none of them ever knew
that but for those geese, that slanted their necks and suddenly
twisted downwards, they would have found no water that night nor
ever after, and the Sahara would have taken them as she has taken
so many and shall take so many more. All that night they followed
their new course: at dawn they found an oasis and the oxen drank.
And here, on this green acre or so with its palm-trees and its
well, beleaguered by thousands of miles of desert and holding out
through the ages, here they decided to stay: for those who have
been without water for a while in one of Africa’s deserts come to
have for that simple fluid such a regard as you, O reader, might not
easily credit. And here each man chose a site where he would build
his hut, and settle down, and marry perhaps, and even forget the
sea; when Captain Shard having filled his tanks and barrels per-
emptorily ordered them to weigh anchor. There was much dissatis-
faction, even some grumbling, but when a man has twice saved his
fellows from death by the sheer freshness of his mind they come
 Tales Of Wonder 493

to have a respect for his judgment that is not shaken by trifles. It

must be remembered that in the affair of the dropping of the wind
and again when they ran out of water these men were at their wits’
end: so was Shard on the last occasion, but that they did not know.
All this Shard knew, and he chose this occasion to strengthen the
reputation that he had in the minds of the men of that bad ship
by explaining to them his motives, which usually he kept secret.
The oasis he said must be a port of call for all the travellers within
hundreds of miles: how many men did you see gathered together in
any part of the world where there was a drop of whiskey to be had!
And water here was rarer than whiskey in decent countries and,
such was the peculiarity of the Arabs, even more precious. Another
thing he pointed out to them, the Arabs were a singularly inquisi-
tive people and if they came upon a ship in the desert they would
probably talk about it; and the world having a wickedly malicious
tongue would never construe in its proper light their difference
with the English and Spanish fleets, but would merely side with the
strong against the weak.
And the men sighed, and sang the capstan song and hoisted the
anchor and yoked the oxen up, and away they went doing their
steady knot, which nothing could increase. It may be thought
strange that with all sail furled in dead calm and while the oxen
rested they should have cast anchor at all. But custom is not easily
overcome and long survives its use. Rather enquire how many such
useless customs we ourselves preserve: the flaps for instance to
pull up the tops of hunting-boots though the tops no longer pull up,
the bows on our evening shoes that neither tie nor untie. They said
they felt safer that way and there was an end of it.
Shard lay a course of South by West and they did ten knots that
day, the next day they did seven or eight and Shard hove to. Here
he intended to stop, they had huge supplies of fodder on board for
the oxen, for his men he had a pig or so, plenty of poultry, sev-
eral sacks of biscuits and ninety-eight oxen (for two were already
eaten), and they were only twenty miles from water. Here he said
they would stay till folks forgot their past, someone would invent
something or some new thing would turn up to take folks’ minds
494 Tales Of Wonder

off them and the ships he had sunk: he forgot that there are men
who are well paid to remember.
Half way between him and the oasis he established a little depot
where he buried his water-barrels. As soon as a barrel was empty
he sent half a dozen men to roll it by turns to the depot. This they
would do at night, keeping hid by day, and next night they would
push on to the oasis, fill the barrel and roll it back. Thus only ten
miles away he soon had a store of water, unknown to the thirstiest
native of Africa, from which he could safely replenish his tanks at
will. He allowed his men to sing and even within reason to light
fires. Those were jolly nights while the rum held out; sometimes
they saw gazelles watching them curiously, sometimes a lion went
by over the sand, the sound of his roar added to their sense of the
security of their ship; all round them level, immense lay the Sa-
hara: “This is better than an English prison,” said Captain Shard.
And still the dead calm lasted, not even the sand whispered at
night to little winds; and when the rum gave out and it looked like
trouble, Shard reminded them what little use it had been to them
when it was all they had and the oxen wouldn’t look at it.
And the days wore on with singing, and even dancing at times,
and at nights round a cautious fire in a hollow of sand with only
one man on watch they told tales of the sea. It was all a relief after
arduous watches and sleeping by the guns, a rest to strained nerves
and eyes; and all agreed, for all that they missed their rum, that the
best place for a ship like theirs was the land.
This was in Latitude 23 North, Longitude 4 East, where, as I
have said, a ship’s broadside was heard for the first time and the
last. It happened this way.
They had been there several weeks and had eaten perhaps ten or
a dozen oxen and all that while there had been no breath of wind
and they had seen no one: when one morning about two bells when
the crew were at breakfast the lookout man reported cavalry on the
port side. Shard who had already surrounded his ship with sharp-
ened stakes ordered all his men on board, the young trumpeter who
prided himself on having picked up the ways of the land, sounded
“Prepare to receive cavalry“. Shard sent a few men below with
 Tales Of Wonder 495

pikes to the lower port-holes, two more aloft with muskets, the rest
to the guns, he changed the “grape“ or “canister“ with which the
guns were loaded in case of surprise, for shot, cleared the decks,
drew in ladders, and before the cavalry came within range every-
thing was ready for them. The oxen were always yoked in order
that Shard could manoeuvre his ship at a moment’s notice.
When first sighted the cavalry were trotting but they were com-
ing on now at a slow canter. Arabs in white robes on good horses.
Shard estimated that there were two or three hundred of them. At
sixty yards Shard opened with one gun, he had had the distance
measured, but had never practised for fear of being heard at the
oasis: the shot went high. The next one fell short and ricochetted
over the Arabs’ heads. Shard had the range then and by the time the
ten remaining guns of his broadside were given the same elevation
as that of his second gun the Arabs had come to the spot where
the last shot pitched. The broadside hit the horses, mostly low, and
ricochetted on amongst them; one cannon-ball striking a rock at the
horses’ feet shattered it and sent fragments flying amongst the Ar-
abs with the peculiar scream of things set free by projectiles from
their motionless harmless state, and the cannon-ball went on with
them with a great howl, this shot alone killed three men.
“Very satisfactory,” said Shard rubbing his chin. “Load with
grape,” he added sharply.
The broadside did not stop the Arabs nor even reduce their
speed but they crowded in closer together as though for company
in their time of danger, which they should not have done. They
were four hundred yards off now, three hundred and fifty; and then
the muskets began, for the two men in the crow’s-nest had thirty
loaded muskets besides a few pistols, the muskets all stood round
them leaning against the rail; they picked them up and fired them
one by one. Every shot told, but still the Arabs came on. They were
galloping now. It took some time to load the guns in those days.
Three hundred yards, two hundred and fifty, men dropping all the
way, two hundred yards; Old Frank for all his one ear had terrible
eyes; it was pistols now, they had fired all their muskets; a hundred
and fifty; Shard had marked the fifties with little white stones. Old
496 Tales Of Wonder

Frank and Bad Jack up aloft felt pretty uneasy when they saw the
Arabs had come to that little white stone, they both missed their
shots.
“All ready?” said Captain Shard.
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Smerdrak.
“Right,” said Captain Shard raising a finger.
A hundred and fifty yards is a bad range at which to be caught
by grape (or “case“ as we call it now), the gunners can hardly miss
and the charge has time to spread. Shard estimated afterwards that
he got thirty Arabs by that broadside alone and as many horses.
There were close on two hundred of them still on their horses,
yet the broadside of grape had unsettled them, they surged round
the ship but seemed doubtful what to do. They carried swords and
scimitars in their hands, though most had strange long muskets
slung behind them, a few unslung them and began firing wildly.
They could not reach Shard’s merry men with their swords. Had it
not been for that broadside that took them when it did they might
have climbed up from their horses and carried the bad ship by
sheer force of numbers, but they would have had to have been very
steady, and the broadside spoiled all that. Their best course was
to have concentrated all their efforts in setting fire to the ship but
this they did not attempt. Part of them swarmed all round the ship
brandishing their swords and looking vainly for an easy entrance;
perhaps they expected a door, they were not sea-faring people; but
their leaders were evidently set on driving off the oxen not dream-
ing that the Desperate Lark had other means of travelling. And this
to some extent they succeeded in doing. Thirty they drove off, cut-
ting the traces, twenty they killed on the spot with their scimitars
though the bow gun caught them twice as they did their work, and
ten more were unluckily killed by Shard’s bow gun. Before they
could fire a third time from the bows they all galloped away, firing
back at the oxen with their muskets and killing three more, and
what troubled Shard more than the loss of his oxen was the way
that they manoeuvred, galloping off just when the bow gun was
ready and riding off by the port bow where the broadside could
not get them, which seemed to him to show more knowledge of
 Tales Of Wonder 497

guns than they could have learned on that bright morning. What,
thought Shard to himself, if they should bring big guns against
the Desperate Lark! And the mere thought of it made him rail at
Fate. But the merry men all cheered when they rode away. Shard
had only twenty-two oxen left, and then a score or so of the Arabs
dismounted while the rest rode further on leading their horses. And
the dismounted men lay down on the port bow behind some rocks
two hundred yards away and began to shoot at the oxen. Shard
had just enough of them left to manoeuvre his ship with an effort
and he turned his ship a few points to the starboard so as to get a
broadside at the rocks. But grape was of no use here as the only
way he could get an Arab was by hitting one of the rocks with shot
behind which an Arab was lying, and the rocks were not easy to hit
except by chance, and as often as he manoeuvred his ship the Ar-
abs changed their ground. This went on all day while the mounted
Arabs hovered out of range watching what Shard would do; and all
the while the oxen were growing fewer, so good a mark were they,
until only ten were left, and the ship could manoeuvre no longer.
But then they all rode off.
The merry men were delighted, they calculated that one way and
another they had unhorsed a hundred Arabs and on board there had
been no more than one man wounded: Bad Jack had been hit in the
wrist; probably by a bullet meant for the men at the guns, for the
Arabs were firing high. They had captured a horse and had found
quaint weapons on the bodies of the dead Arabs and an interesting
kind of tobacco. It was evening now and they talked over the fight,
made jokes about their luckier shots, smoked their new tobacco
and sang; altogether it was the jolliest evening they’d had. But
Shard alone on the quarter-deck paced to and fro pondering, brood-
ing and wondering. He had chopped off Bad Jack’s wounded hand
and given him a hook out of store, for captain does doctor upon
these occasions and Shard, who was ready for most things, kept
half a dozen or so of neat new limbs, and of course a chopper. Bad
Jack had gone below swearing a little and said he’d lie down for a
bit, the men were smoking and singing on the sand, and Shard was
there alone. The thought that troubled Shard was: what would the
498 Tales Of Wonder

Arabs do? They did not look like men to go away for nothing. And
at back of all his thoughts was one that reiterated guns, guns, guns.
He argued with himself that they could not drag them all that way
on the sand, that the Desperate Lark was not worth it, that they
had given it up. Yet he knew in his heart that that was what they
would do. He knew there were fortified towns in Africa, and as
for its being worth it, he knew that there was no pleasant thing left
now to those defeated men except revenge, and if the Desperate
Lark had come over the sand why not guns? He knew that the ship
could never hold out against guns and cavalry, a week perhaps, two
weeks, even three: what difference did it make how long it was,
and the men sang:
Away we go, Oho, Oho, Oho, A drop of rum for you and
me And the world’s as round as the letter O And round it runs
the sea.
A melancholy settled down on Shard.
About sunset Lieutenant Smerdrak came up for orders. Shard
ordered a trench to be dug along the port side of the ship. The men
wanted to sing and grumbled at having to dig, especially as Shard
never mentioned his fear of guns, but he fingered his pistols and
in the end Shard had his way. No one on board could shoot like
Captain Shard. That is often the way with captains of pirate ships,
it is a difficult position to hold. Discipline is essential to those that
have the right to fly the skull-and-cross-bones, and Shard was the
man to enforce it. It was starlight by the time the trench was dug to
the captain’s satisfaction and the men that it was to protect when
the worst came to the worst swore all the time as they dug. And
when it was finished they clamoured to make a feast on some of
the killed oxen, and this Shard let them do. And they lit a huge fire
for the first time, burning abundant scrub, they thinking that Arabs
daren’t return, Shard knowing that concealment was now useless.
All that night they feasted and sang, and Shard sat up in his chart-
room making his plans.
When morning came they rigged up the cutter as they called the
captured horse and told off her crew. As there were only two men
that could ride at all these became the crew of the cutter. Spanish
 Tales Of Wonder 499

Dick and Bill the Boatswain were the two.

Shard’s orders were that turn and turn about they should take
command of the cutter and cruise about five miles off to the North
East all the day but at night they were to come in. And they fit-
ted the horse up with a flagstaff in front of the saddle so that they
could signal from her, and carried an anchor behind for fear she
should run away.
And as soon as Spanish Dick had ridden off Shard sent some
men to roll all the barrels back from the depot where they were
buried in the sand, with orders to watch the cutter all the time and,
if she signalled, to return as fast as they could.
They buried the Arabs that day, removing their water-bottles and
any provisions they had, and that night they got all the water-bar-
rels in, and for days nothing happened. One event of extraordinary
importance did indeed occur, the wind got up one day, but it was
due South, and as the oasis lay to the North of them and beyond
that they might pick up the camel track Shard decided to stay
where he was. If it had looked to him like lasting Shard might have
hoisted sail but it it dropped at evening as he knew it would, and in
any case it was not the wind he wanted. And more days went by,
two weeks without a breeze. The dead oxen would not keep and
they had had to kill three more, there were only seven left now.
Never before had the men been so long without rum. And Cap-
tain Shard had doubled the watch besides making two more men
sleep at the guns. They had tired of their simple games, and most
of their songs, and their tales that were never true were no longer
new. And then one day the monotony of the desert came down
upon them.
There is a fascination in the Sahara, a day there is delightful,
a week is pleasant, a fortnight is a matter of opinion, but it was
running into months. The men were perfectly polite but the boat-
swain wanted to know when Shard thought of moving on. It was
an unreasonable question to ask of the captain of any ship in a dead
calm in a desert, but Shard said he would set a course and let him
know in a day or two. And a day or two went by over the monoto-
ny of the Sahara, who for monotony is unequalled by all the parts
500 Tales Of Wonder

of the earth. Great marshes cannot equal it, nor plains of grass nor
the sea, the Sahara alone lies unaltered by the seasons, she has no
altering surface, no flowers to fade or grow, year in year out she is
changeless for hundreds and hundreds of miles. And the boatswain
came again and took off his cap and asked Captain Shard to be so
kind as to tell them about his new course. Shard said he meant to
stay until they had eaten three more of the oxen as they could only
take three of them in the hold, there were only six left now. But
what if there was no wind, the boatswain said. And at that moment
the faintest breeze from the North ruffled the boatswain’s forelock
as he stood with his cap in his hand.
“Don’t talk about the wind to me,” said Captain Shard: and Bill
was a little frightened for Shard’s mother had been a gipsy.
But it was only a breeze astray, a trick of the Sahara. And an-
other week went by and they ate two more oxen.
They obeyed Captain Shard ostentatiously now but they wore
ominous looks. Bill came again and Shard answered him in Roma-
ny.
Things were like this one hot Sahara morning when the cutter
signalled. The lookout man told Shard and Shard read the message,
“Cavalry astern“ it read, and then a little later she signalled, “With
guns.”
“Ah,” said Captain Shard.
One ray of hope Shard had; the flags on the cutter fluttered. For
the first time for five weeks a light breeze blew from the North,
very light, you hardly felt it. Spanish Dick rode in and anchored his
horse to starboard and the cavalry came on slowly from the port.
Not till the afternoon did they come in sight, and all the while
that little breeze was blowing.
“One knot,” said Shard at noon. “Two knots,” he said at six bells
and still it grew and the Arabs trotted nearer. By five o’clock the
merry men of the bad ship Desperate Lark could make out twelve
long old-fashioned guns on low wheeled carts dragged by horses
and what looked like lighter guns carried on camels. The wind was
blowing a little stronger now. “Shall we hoist sail, sir?” said Bill.
“Not yet,” said Shard.
 Tales Of Wonder 501

By six o’clock the Arabs were just outside the range of cannon
and there they halted. Then followed an anxious hour or so, but
the Arabs came no nearer. They evidently meant to wait till dark to
bring their guns up. Probably they intended to dig a gun epaulment
from which they could safely pound away at the ship.
“We could do three knots,” said Shard half to himself as he was
walking up and down his quarter-deck with very fast short paces.
And then the sun set and they heard the Arabs praying and Shard’s
merry men cursed at the top of their voices to show that they were
as good men as they.
The Arabs had come no nearer, waiting for night. They did not
know how Shard was longing for it too, he was gritting his teeth
and sighing for it, he even would have prayed, but that he feared
that it might remind Heaven of him and his merry men.
Night came and the stars. “Hoist sail,” said Shard. The men
sprang to their places, they had had enough of that silent lonely
spot. They took the oxen on board and let the great sails down, and
like a lover coming from over sea, long dreamed of, long expected,
like a lost friend seen again after many years, the North wind came
into the pirates’ sails. And before Shard could stop it a ringing Eng-
lish cheer went away to the wondering Arabs.
They started off at three knots and soon they might have done
four but Shard would not risk it at night. All night the wind held
good, and doing three knots from ten to four they were far out of
sight of the Arabs when daylight came. And then Shard hoisted
more sail and they did four knots and by eight bells they were do-
ing four and a half. The spirits of those volatile men rose high, and
discipline became perfect. So long as there was wind in the sails
and water in the tanks Captain Shard felt safe at least from mutiny.
Great men can only be overthrown while their fortunes are at their
lowest. Having failed to depose Shard when his plans were open to
criticism and he himself scarce knew what to do next it was hardly
likely they could do it now; and whatever we think of his past and
his way of living we cannot deny that Shard was among the great
men of the world.
Of defeat by the Arabs he did not feel so sure. It was useless to
502 Tales Of Wonder

try to cover his tracks even if he had had time, the Arab cavalry
could have picked them up anywhere. And he was afraid of their
camels with those light guns on board, he had heard they could do
seven knots and keep it up most of the day and if as much as one
shot struck the mainmast… and Shard taking his mind off useless
fears worked out on his chart when the Arabs were likely to over-
take them. He told his men that the wind would hold good for a
week, and, gipsy or no, he certainly knew as much about the wind
as is good for a sailor to know.
Alone in his chart-room he worked it out like this, mark two
hours to the good for surprise and finding the tracks and delay in
starting, say three hours if the guns were mounted in their epaul-
ments, then the Arabs should start at seven. Supposing the camels
go twelve hours a day at seven knots they would do eighty-four
knots a day, while Shard doing three knots from ten to four, and
four knots the rest of the time, was doing ninety and actually gain-
ing. But when it came to it he wouldn’t risk more than two knots
at night while the enemy were out of sight, for he rightly regarded
anything more than that as dangerous when sailing on land at
night, so he too did eighty-four knots a day. It was a pretty race. I
have not troubled to see if Shard added up his figures wrongly or
if he under-rated the pace of camels, but whatever it was the Arabs
gained slightly, for on the fourth day Spanish Jack, five knots
astern on what they called the cutter, sighted the camels a very long
way off and signalled the fact to Shard. They had left their cavalry
behind as Shard supposed they would. The wind held good, they
had still two oxen left and could always eat their “cutter“, and they
had a fair, though not ample, supply of water, but the appearance
of the Arabs was a blow to Shard for it showed him that there was
no getting away from them, and of all things he dreaded guns. He
made light of it to the men: said they would sink the lot before they
had been in action half an hour: yet he feared that once the guns
came up it was only a question of time before his rigging was cut
or his steering gear disabled.
One point the Desperate Lark scored over the Arabs and a very
good one too, darkness fell just before they could have sighted her
 Tales Of Wonder 503

and now Shard used the lantern ahead as he dared not do on the
first night when the Arabs were close, and with the help of it man-
aged to do three knots. The Arabs encamped in the evening and the
Desperate Lark gained twenty knots. But the next evening they ap-
peared again and this time they saw the sails of the Desperate Lark.
On the sixth day they were close. On the seventh they were
closer. And then, a line of verdure across their bows, Shard saw the
Niger River.
Whether he knew that for a thousand miles it rolled its course
through forest, whether he even knew that it was there at all; what
his plans were, or whether he lived from day to day like a man
whose days are numbered he never told his men. Nor can I get
an indication on this point from the talk that I hear from sailors
in their cups in a certain tavern I know of. His face was expres-
sionless, his mouth shut, and he held his ship to her course. That
evening they were up to the edge of the tree trunks and the Arabs
camped and waited ten knots astern and the wind had sunk a little.
There Shard anchored a little before sunset and landed at once.
At first he explored the forest a little on foot. Then he sent for
Spanish Dick. They had slung the cutter on board some days ago
when they found she could not keep up. Shard could not ride
but he sent for Spanish Dick and told him he must take him as a
passenger. So Spanish Dick slung him in front of the saddle “be-
fore the mast“ as Shard called it, for they still carried a mast on
the front of the saddle, and away they galloped together. “Rough
weather,” said Shard, but he surveyed the forest as he went and the
long and short of it was he found a place where the forest was less
than half a mile thick and the Desperate Lark might get through:
but twenty trees must be cut. Shard marked the trees himself, sent
Spanish Dick right back to watch the Arabs and turned the whole
of his crew on to those twenty trees. It was a frightful risk, the
Desperate Lark was empty, with an enemy no more than ten knots
astern, but it was a moment for bold measures and Shard took the
chance of being left without his ship in the heart of Africa in the
hope of being repaid by escaping altogether.
The men worked all night on those twenty trees, those that had
504 Tales Of Wonder

no axes bored with bradawls and blasted, and then relieved those
that had.
Shard was indefatigable, he went from tree to tree showing
exactly what way every one was to fall, and what was to be done
with them when they were down. Some had to be cut down be-
cause their branches would get in the way of the masts, others
because their trunks would be in the way of the wheels; in the case
of the last the stumps had to be made smooth and low with saws
and perhaps a bit of the trunk sawn off and rolled away. This was
the hardest work they had. And they were all large trees, on the
other hand had they been small there would have been many more
of them and they could not have sailed in and out, sometimes for
hundreds of yards, without cutting any at all: and all this Shard
calculated on doing if only there was time.
The light before dawn came and it looked as if they would never
do it at all. And then dawn came and it was all done but one tree,
the hard part of the work had all been done in the night and a sort
of final rush cleared everything up except that one huge tree. And
then the cutter signalled the Arabs were moving. At dawn they had
prayed, and now they had struck their camp. Shard at once ordered
all his men to the ship except ten whom he left at the tree, they had
some way to go and the Arabs had been moving some ten minutes
before they got there. Shard took in the cutter which wasted five
minutes, hoisted sail short-handed and that took five minutes more,
and slowly got under way.
The wind was dropping still and by the time the Desperate
Lark had come to the edge of that part of the forest through which
Shard had laid his course the Arabs were no more than five knots
away. He had sailed East half a mile, which he ought to have done
overnight so as to be ready, but he could not spare time or thought
or men away from those twenty trees. Then Shard turned into the
forest and the Arabs were dead astern. They hurried when they saw
the Desperate Lark enter the forest.
“Doing ten knots,” said Shard as he watched them from the
deck. The Desperate Lark was doing no more than a knot and a
half for the wind was weak under the lee of the trees. Yet all went
 Tales Of Wonder 505

well for a while. The big tree had just come down some way ahead,
and the ten men were sawing bits off the trunk.
And then Shard saw a branch that he had not marked on the
chart, it would just catch the top of the mainmast. He anchored
at once and sent a hand aloft who sawed it half way through and
did the rest with a pistol, and now the Arabs were only three knots
astern. For a quarter of a mile Shard steered them through the
forest till they came to the ten men and that bad big tree, another
foot had yet to come off one corner of the stump for the wheels
had to pass over it. Shard turned all hands on to the stump and it
was then that the Arabs came within shot. But they had to unpack
their gun. And before they had it mounted Shard was away. If they
had charged things might have been different. When they saw the
Desperate Lark under way again the Arabs came on to within three
hundred yards and there they mounted two guns. Shard watched
them along his stern gun but would not fire. They were six hundred
yards away before the Arabs could fire and then they fired too soon
and both guns missed. And Shard and his merry men saw clear wa-
ter only ten fathoms ahead. Then Shard loaded his stern gun with
canister instead of shot and at the same moment the Arabs charged
on their camels; they came galloping down through the forest wav-
ing long lances. Shard left the steering to Smerdrak and stood by
the stern gun, the Arabs were within fifty yards and still Shard did
not fire; he had most of his men in the stern with muskets beside
him. Those lances carried on camels were altogether different from
swords in the hands of horsemen, they could reach the men on
deck. The men could see the horrible barbs on the lanceheads, they
were almost at their faces when Shard fired, and at the same mo-
ment the Desperate Lark with her dry and suncracked keel in air on
the high bank of the Niger fell forward like a diver. The gun went
off through the tree-tops, a wave came over the bows and swept
the stern, the Desperate Lark wriggled and righted herself, she was
back in her element.
The merry men looked at the wet decks and at their dripping
clothes. “Water,” they said almost wonderingly.
The Arabs followed a little way through the forest but when they
506 Tales Of Wonder

saw that they had to face a broadside instead of one stern gun and
perceived that a ship afloat is less vulnerable to cavalry even than
when on shore, they abandoned ideas of revenge, and comforted
themselves with a text out of their sacred book which tells how in
other days and other places our enemies shall suffer even as we
desire.
For a thousand miles with the flow of the Niger and the help of
occasional winds, the Desperate Lark moved seawards. At first he
sweeps East a little and then Southwards, till you come to Akassa
and the open sea.
I will not tell you how they caught fish and ducks, raided a
village here and there and at last came to Akassa, for I have said
much already of Captain Shard. Imagine them drawing nearer and
nearer the sea, bad men all, and yet with a feeling for something
where we feel for our king, our country or our home, a feeling for
something that burned in them not less ardently than our feelings
in us, and that something the sea. Imagine them nearing it till sea
birds appeared and they fancied they felt sea breezes and all sang
songs again that they had not sung for weeks. Imagine them heav-
ing at last on the salt Atlantic again.
I have said much already of Captain Shard and I fear lest I shall
weary you, O my reader, if I tell you any more of so bad a man. I
too at the top of a tower all alone am weary.
And yet it is right that such a tale should be told. A journey
almost due South from near Algiers to Akassa in a ship that we
should call no more than a yacht. Let it be a stimulus to younger
men.
Guarantee To The Reader
Since writing down for your benefit, O my reader, all this long
tale that I heard in the tavern by the sea I have travelled in Alge-
ria and Tunisia as well as in the Desert. Much that I saw in those
countries seems to throw doubt on the tale that the sailor told me.
To begin with the Desert does not come within hundreds of miles
of the coast and there are more mountains to cross than you would
suppose, the Atlas mountains in particular. It is just possible Shard
 Tales Of Wonder 507

might have got through by El Cantara, following the camel road

which is many centuries old; or he may have gone by Algiers and
Bou Saada and through the mountain pass El Finita Dem, though
that is a bad enough way for camels to go (let alone bullocks with
a ship) for which reason the Arabs call it Finita Dem — the Path of
Blood.
I should not have ventured to give this story the publicity of
print had the sailor been sober when he told it, for fear that he I
should have deceived you, O my reader; but this was never the
case with him as I took good care to ensure: “in vino veritas“ is a
sound old proverb, and I never had cause to doubt his word unless
that proverb lies.
If it should prove that he has deceived me, let it pass; but if he
has been the means of deceiving you there are little things about
him that I know, the common gossip of that ancient tavern whose
leaded bottle-glass windows watch the sea, which I will tell at once
to every judge of my acquaintance, and it will be a pretty race to
see which of them will hang him.
Meanwhile, O my reader, believe the story, resting assured that
if you are taken in the thing shall be a matter for the hangman.

A Tale of the Equator

He who is Sultan so remote to the East that his dominions were
deemed fabulous in Babylon, whose name is a by-word for dis-
tance today in the streets of Bagdad, whose capital bearded trav-
ellers invoke by name in the gate at evening to gather hearers to
their tales when the smoke of tobacco arises, dice rattle and taverns
shine; even he in that very city made mandate, and said: “Let there
be brought hither all my learned men that they may come before
me and rejoice my heart with learning.”
Men ran and clarions sounded, and it was so that there came be-
fore the Sultan all of his learned men. And many were found want-
ing. But of those that were able to say acceptable things, ever after
to be named The Fortunate, one said that to the South of the Earth
508 Tales Of Wonder

lay a Land — said Land was crowned with lotus — where it was
summer in our winter days and where it was winter in summer.
And when the Sultan of those most distant lands knew that the
Creator of All had contrived a device so vastly to his delight his
merriment knew no bounds. On a sudden he spake and said, and
this was the gist of his saying, that upon that line of boundary
or limit that divided the North from the South a palace be made,
where in the Northern courts should summer be, while in the South
was winter; so should he move from court to court according to
his mood, and dally with the summer in the morning and spend the
noon with snow. So the Sultan’s poets were sent for and bade to
tell of that city, foreseeing its splendour far away to the South and
in the future of time; and some were found fortunate. And of those
that were found fortunate and were crowned with flowers none
earned more easily the Sultan’s smile (on which long days depend-
ed) than he that foreseeing the city spake of it thus:
“In seven years and seven days, O Prop of Heaven, shall thy
builders build it, thy palace that is neither North nor South, where
neither summer nor winter is sole lord of the hours. White I see
it, very vast, as a city, very fair, as a woman, Earth’s wonder, with
many windows, with thy princesses peering out at twilight; yea,
I behold the bliss of the gold balconies, and hear a rustling down
long galleries and the doves’ coo upon its sculptured eaves. O Prop
of Heaven, would that so fair a city were built by thine ancient
sires, the children of the sun, that so might all men see it even to-
day, and not the poets only, whose vision sees it so far away to the
South and in the future of time.
“O King of the Years, it shall stand midmost on that line that
divideth equally the North from the South and that parteth the
seasons asunder as with a screen. On the Northern side when sum-
mer is in the North thy silken guards shall pace by dazzling walls
while thy spearsmen clad in furs go round the South. But at the
hour of noon in the midmost day of the year thy chamberlain shall
go down from his high place and into the midmost court, and men
with trumpets shall go down behind him, and he shall utter a great
cry at noon, and the men with trumpets shall cause their trumpets
 Tales Of Wonder 509

to blare, and the spearsmen clad in furs shall march to the North
and thy silken guard shall take their place in the South, and sum-
mer shall leave the North and go to the South, and all the swallows
shall rise and follow after. And alone in thine inner courts shall no
change be, for they shall lie narrowly along that line that parteth
the seasons in sunder and divideth the North from the South, and
thy long gardens shall lie under them.
“And in thy gardens shall spring always be, for spring lies ever
at the marge of summer; and autumn also shall always tint thy
gardens, for autumn always flares at winter’s edge, and those gar-
dens shall lie apart between winter and summer. And there shall be
orchards in thy garden, too, with all the burden of autumn on their
boughs and all the blossom of spring.
“Yea, I behold this palace, for we see future things; I see its
white wall shine in the huge glare of midsummer, and the lizards
lying along it motionless in the sun, and men asleep in the noon-
day, and the butterflies floating by, and birds of radiant plumage
chasing marvellous moths; far off the forest and great orchids
glorying there, and iridescent insects dancing round in the light. I
see the wall upon the other side; the snow has come upon the bat-
tlements, the icicles have fringed them like frozen beards, a wild
wind blowing out of lonely places and crying to the cold fields as
it blows has sent the snowdrifts higher than the buttresses; they
that look out through windows on that side of thy palace see the
wild geese flying low and all the birds of the winter, going by swift
in packs beat low by the bitter wind, and the clouds above them
are black, for it is midwinter there; while in thine other courts the
fountains tinkle, falling on marble warmed by the fire of the sum-
mer sun.
“Such, O King of the Years, shall thy palace be, and its name
shall be Erlathdronion, Earth’s Wonder; and thy wisdom shall bid
thine architects build at once, that all may see what as yet the poets
see only, and that prophecy be fulfilled.”
And when the poet ceased the Sultan spake, and said, as all men
hearkened with bent heads: “It will be unnecessary for my builders
to build this palace, Erlathdronion, Earth’s Wonder, for in hearing
510 Tales Of Wonder

thee we have drunk already its pleasures.”

And the poet went forth from the Presence and dreamed a new
thing.

A Narrow Escape
It was underground.
In that dank cavern down below Belgrave Square the walls were
dripping. But what was that to the magician? It was secrecy that he
needed, not dryness. There he pondered upon the trend of events,
shaped destinies and concocted magical brews.
For the last few years the serenity of his ponderings had been
disturbed by the noise of the motor-bus; while to his keen ears
there came the earthquake-rumble, far off, of the train in the tube,
going down Sloane Street; and when he heard of the world above
his head was not to its credit.
He decided one evening over his evil pipe, down there in his
dank chamber, that London had lived long enough, had abused its
opportunities, had gone too far, in fine, with its civilisation. And so
he decided to wreck it.
Therefore he beckoned up his acolyte from the weedy end of
the cavern, and, “Bring me,” he said, “the heart of the toad that
dwelleth in Arabia and by the mountains of Bethany.” The acolyte
slipped away by the hidden door, leaving that grim old man with
his frightful pipe, and whither he went who knows but the gipsy
people, or by what path he returned; but within a year he stood in
the cavern again, slipping secretly in by the trap while the old man
smoked, and he brought with him a little fleshy thing that rotted in
a casket of pure gold.
“What is it?” the old man croaked.
“It is,” said the acolyte, “the heart of the toad that dwelt once in
Arabia and by the mountains of Bethany.”
The old man’s crooked fingers closed on it, and he blessed the
acolyte with his rasping voice and claw-like hand uplifted; the
motor-bus rumbled above on its endless journey; far off the train
 Tales Of Wonder 511

shook Sloane Street.

“Come,” said the old magician, “it is time.” And there and then
they left the weedy cavern, the acolyte carrying cauldron, gold
poker and all things needful, and went abroad in the light. And
very wonderful the old man looked in his silks.
Their goal was the outskirts of London; the old man strode in
front and the acolyte ran behind him, and there was something
magical in the old man’s stride alone, without his wonderful dress,
the cauldron and wand, the hurrying acolyte and the small gold
poker.
Little boys jeered till they caught the old man’s eye. So there
went on through London this strange procession of two, too swift
for any to follow. Things seemed worse up there than they did in
the cavern, and the further they got on their way towards London’s
outskirts the worse London got. “It is time,” said the old man,
“surely.”
And so they came at last to London’s edge and a small hill
watching it with a mournful look. It was so mean that the acolyte
longed for the cavern, dank though it was and full of terrible say-
ings that the old man said when he slept.
They climbed the hill and put the cauldron down, and put there
in the necessary things, and lit a fire of herbs that no chemist will
sell nor decent gardener grow, and stirred the cauldron with the
golden poker. The magician retired a little apart and muttered,
then he strode back to the cauldron and, all being ready, suddenly
opened the casket and let the fleshy thing fall in to boil.
Then he made spells, then he flung up his arms; the fumes from
the cauldron entering in at his mind he said raging things that he
had not known before and runes that were dreadful (the acolyte
screamed); there he cursed London from fog to loam-pit, from
zenith to the abyss, motor-bus, factory, shop, parliament, people.
“Let them all perish,” he said, “and London pass away, tram lines
and bricks and pavement, the usurpers too long of the fields, let
them all pass away and the wild hares come back, blackberry and
briar-rose.”
“Let it pass,” he said, “pass now, pass utterly.”
512 Tales Of Wonder

In the momentary silence the old man coughed, then waited with
eager eyes; and the long long hum of London hummed as it always
has since first the reed-huts were set up by the river, changing its
note at times but always humming, louder now than it was in years
gone by, but humming night and day though its voice be cracked
with age; so it hummed on.
And the old man turned him round to his trembling aco-
lyte and terribly said as he sank into the earth: “YOU HAVE
NOT BROUGHT ME THE HEART OF THE TOAD THAT
DWELLETH IN ARABIA NOR BY THE MOUNTAINS OF
BETHANY!”

The Watch-tower
I sat one April in Provence on a small hill above an ancient town
that Goth and Vandal as yet have forborne to “bring up to date.”
On the hill was an old worn castle with a watch-tower, and a
well with narrow steps and water in it still.
The watch-tower, staring South with neglected windows, faced
a broad valley full of the pleasant twilight and the hum of evening
things: it saw the fires of wanderers blink from the hills, beyond
them the long forest black with pines, one star appearing, and dark-
ness settling slowly down on Var.
Sitting there listening to the green frogs croaking, hearing far
voices clearly but all transmuted by evening, watching the win-
dows in the little town glimmering one by one, and seeing the
gloaming dwindle solemnly into night, a great many things fell
from mind that seem important by day, and evening in their place
planted strange fancies.
Little winds had arisen and were whispering to and fro, it grew
cold, and I was about to descend the hill, when I heard a voice
behind me saying, “Beware, beware.”
So much the voice appeared a part of the evening that I did not
turn round at first; it was like voices that one hears in sleep and
thinks to be of one’s dream. And the word was monotonously re-
 Tales Of Wonder 513

peated, in French.
When I turned round I saw an old man with a horn. He had a
white beard marvellously long, and still went on saying slowly,
“Beware, beware.” He had clearly just come from the tower by
which he stood, though I had heard no footfall. Had a man come
stealthily upon me at such an hour and in so lonesome a place I
had certainly felt surprised; but I saw almost at once that he was
a spirit, and he seemed with his uncouth horn and his long white
beard and that noiseless step of his to be so native to that time and
place that I spoke to him as one does to some fellow-traveller who
asks you if you mind having the window up.
I asked him what there was to beware of.
“Of what should a town beware,” he said, “but the Saracens?”
“Saracens?” I said.
“Yes, Saracens, Saracens,” he answered and brandished his horn.
“And who are you?” I said.
“I, I am the spirit of the tower,” he said.
When I asked him how he came by so human an aspect and was
so unlike the material tower beside him he told me that the lives of
all the watchers who had ever held the horn in the tower there had
gone to make the spirit of the tower. “It takes a hundred lives,” he
said. “None hold the horn of late and men neglect the tower. When
the walls are in ill repair the Saracens come: it was ever so.”
“The Saracens don’t come nowadays,” I said.
But he was gazing past me watching, and did not seem to heed
me.
“They will run down those hills,” he said, pointing away to the
South, “out of the woods about nightfall, and I shall blow my horn.
The people will all come up from the town to the tower again; but
the loopholes are in very ill repair.”
“We never hear of the Saracens now,” I said.
“Hear of the Saracens!” the old spirit said. “Hear of the Sara-
cens! They slip one evening out of that forest, in the long white
robes that they wear, and I blow my horn. That is the first that
anyone ever hears of the Saracens.”
“I mean,” I said, “that they never come at all. They cannot come
514 Tales Of Wonder

and men fear other things.” For I thought the old spirit might rest
if he knew that the Saracens can never come again. But he said,
“There is nothing in the world to fear but the Saracens. Nothing
else matters. How can men fear other things?”
Then I explained, so that he might have rest, and told him how
all Europe, and in particular France, had terrible engines of war,
both on land and sea; and how the Saracens had not these terrible
engines either on sea or land, and so could by no means cross the
Mediterranean or escape destruction on shore even though they
should come there. I alluded to the European railways that could
move armies night and day faster than horses could gallop. And
when as well as I could I had explained all, he answered, “In time
all these things pass away and then there will still be the Saracens.”
And then I said, “There has not been a Saracen either in France
or Spain for over four hundred years.”
And he said, “The Saracens! You do not know their cunning.
That was ever the way of the Saracens. They do not come for a
while, no not they, for a long while, and then one day they come.”
And peering southwards, but not seeing clearly because of the
rising mist, he silently moved to his tower and up its broken steps.

How Plash-Goo Came to the Land of None’s

Desire
In a thatched cottage of enormous size, so vast that we might
consider it a palace, but only a cottage in the style of its building,
its timbers and the nature of its interior, there lived Plash-Goo.
Plash-Goo was of the children of the giants, whose sire was
Uph. And the lineage of Uph had dwindled in bulk for the last five
hundred years, till the giants were now no more than fifteen foot
high; but Uph ate elephants which he caught with his hands.
Now on the tops of the mountains above the house of Plash-
Goo, for Plash-Goo lived in the plains, there dwelt the dwarf
whose name was Lrippity-Kang. And the dwarf used to walk at
 Tales Of Wonder 515

evening on the edge of the tops of the mountains, and would walk
up and down along it, and was squat and ugly and hairy, and was
plainly seen of Plash-Goo.
And for many weeks the giant had suffered the sight of him, but
at length grew irked at the sight (as men are by little things), and
could not sleep of a night and lost his taste for pigs. And at last
there came the day, as anyone might have known, when Plash-Goo
shouldered his club and went up to look for the dwarf.
And the dwarf though briefly squat was broader than may be
dreamed, beyond all breadth of man, and stronger than men may
know; strength in its very essence dwelt in that little frame, as a
spark in the heart of a flint: but to Plash-Goo he was no more than
mis-shapen, bearded and squat, a thing that dared to defy all natu-
ral laws by being more broad than long.
When Plash-Goo came to the mountain he cast his chimahalk
down (for so he named the club of his heart’s desire) lest the dwarf
should defy him with nimbleness; and stepped towards Lrippity-
Kang with gripping hands, who stopped in his mountainous walk
without a word, and swung round his hideous breadth to confront
Plash-Goo. Already then Plash-Goo in the deeps of his mind had
seen himself seize the dwarf in one large hand and hurl him with
his beard and his hated breadth sheer down the precipice that
dropped away from that very place to the land of None’s Desire.
Yet it was otherwise that Fate would have it. For the dwarf par-
ried with his little arms the grip of those monstrous hands, and
gradually working along the enormous limbs came at length to the
giant’s body where by dwarfish cunning he obtained a grip; and
turning Plash-Goo about, as a spider does some great fly, till his
little grip was suitable to his purpose, he suddenly lifted the giant
over his head. Slowly at first, by the edge of that precipice whose
base sheer distance hid, he swung his giant victim round his head,
but soon faster and faster; and at last when Plash-Goo was stream-
ing round the hated breadth of the dwarf and the no less hated
beard was flapping in the wind, Lrippity-Kang let go. Plash-Goo
shot over the edge and for some way further, out towards Space,
like a stone; then he began to fall. It was long before he believed
516 Tales Of Wonder

and truly knew that this was really he that fell from this mountain,
for we do not associate such dooms with ourselves; but when he
had fallen for some while through the evening and saw below him,
where there had been nothing to see, or began to see, the glim-
mer of tiny fields, then his optimism departed; till later on when
the fields were greener and larger he saw that this was indeed (and
growing now terribly nearer) that very land to which he had des-
tined the dwarf.
At last he saw it unmistakable, close, with its grim houses and
its dreadful ways, and its green fields shining in the light of the
evening. His cloak was streaming from him in whistling shreds.
So Plash-Goo came to the Land of None’s Desire.

The Three Sailors’ Gambit

Sitting some years ago in the ancient tavern at Over, one after-
noon in Spring, I was waiting, as was my custom, for something
strange to happen. In this I was not always disappointed for the
very curious leaded panes of that tavern, facing the sea, let a light
into the low-ceilinged room so mysterious, particularly at evening,
that it somehow seemed to affect the events within. Be that as it
may, I have seen strange things in that tavern and heard stranger
things told.
And as I sat there three sailors entered the tavern, just back, as
they said, from sea, and come with sunburned skins from a very
long voyage to the South; and one of them had a board and chess-
men under his arm, and they were complaining that they could find
no one who knew how to play chess. This was the year that the
Tournament was in England. And a little dark man at a table in a
corner of the room, drinking sugar and water, asked them why they
wished to play chess; and they said they would play any man for a
pound. They opened their box of chessmen then, a cheap and nasty
set, and the man refused to play with such uncouth pieces, and the
sailors suggested that perhaps he could find better ones; and in the
end he went round to his lodgings near by and brought his own,
 Tales Of Wonder 517

and then they sat down to play for a pound a side. It was a consul-
tation game on the part of the sailors, they said that all three must
play.
Well, the little dark man turned out to be Stavlokratz.
Of course he was fabulously poor, and the sovereign meant more
to him than it did to the sailors, but he didn’t seem keen to play, it
was the sailors that insisted; he had made the badness of the sail-
ors’ chessmen an excuse for not playing at all, but the sailors had
overruled that, and then he told them straight out who he was, and
the sailors had never heard of Stavlokratz.
Well, no more was said after that. Stavlokratz said no more, ei-
ther because he did not wish to boast or because he was huffed that
they did not know who he was. And I saw no reason to enlighten
the sailors about him; if he took their pound they had brought it
upon themselves, and my boundless admiration for his genius
made me feel that he deserved whatever might come his way. He
had not asked to play, they had named the stakes, he had warned
them, and gave them the first move; there was nothing unfair about
Stavlokratz.
I had never seen Stavlokratz before, but I had played over nearly
every one of his games in the World Championship for the last
three or four years; he was always of course the model chosen by
students. Only young chess-players can appreciate my delight at
seeing him play first hand.
Well, the sailors used to lower their heads almost as low as the
table and mutter together before every move, but they muttered so
low that you could not hear what they planned.
They lost three pawns almost straight off, then a knight, and
shortly after a bishop; they were playing in fact the famous Three
Sailors’ Gambit.
Stavlokratz was playing with the easy confidence that they say
was usual with him, when suddenly at about the thirteenth move I
saw him look surprised; he leaned forward and looked at the board
and then at the sailors, but he learned nothing from their vacant
faces; he looked back at the board again.
He moved more deliberately after that; the sailors lost two more
518 Tales Of Wonder

pawns, Stavlokratz had lost nothing as yet. He looked at me I

thought almost irritably, as though something would happen that
he wished I was not there to see. I believed at first that he had
qualms about taking the sailors’ pound, until it dawned on me that
he might lose the game; I saw that possibility in his face, not on the
board, for the game had become almost incomprehensible to me.
I cannot describe my astonishment. And a few moves later Stav-
lokratz resigned.
The sailors showed no more elation than if they had won some
game with greasy cards, playing amongst themselves.
Stavlokratz asked them where they got their opening. “We kind
of thought of it,” said one. “It just come into our heads like,” said
another. He asked them questions about the ports they had touched
at. He evidently thought as I did myself that they had learned their
extraordinary gambit, perhaps in some old dependancy of Spain,
from some young master of chess whose fame had not reached
Europe. He was very eager to find out who this man could be, for
neither of us imagined that those sailors had invented it, nor would
anyone who had seen them. But he got no information from the
sailors.
Stavlokratz could very ill afford the loss of a pound. He offered
to play them again for the same stakes. The sailors began to set up
the white pieces. Stavlokratz pointed out that it was his turn for
the first move. The sailors agreed but continued to set up the white
pieces and sat with the white before them waiting for him to move.
It was a trivial incident, but it revealed to Stavlokratz and myself
that none of these sailors was aware that white always moves first.
Stavlokratz played them on his own opening, reasoning of
course that as they had never heard of Stavlokratz they would
not know of his opening; and with probably a very good hope of
getting back his pound he played the fifth variation with its tricky
seventh move, at least so he intended, but it turned to a variation
unknown to the students of Stavlokratz.
Throughout this game I watched the sailors closely, and I be-
came sure, as only an attentive watcher can be, that the one on their
left, Jim Bunion, did not even know the moves.
 Tales Of Wonder 519

When I had made up my mind about this I watched only the

other two, Adam Bailey and Bill Sloggs, trying to make out which
was the master mind; and for a long while I could not. And then
I heard Adam Bailey mutter six words, the only words I heard
throughout the game, of all their consultations, “No, him with the
horse’s head.” And I decided that Adam Bailey did not know what
a knight was, though of course he might have been explaining
things to Bill Sloggs, but it did not sound like that; so that left Bill
Sloggs. I watched Bill Sloggs after that with a certain wonder; he
was no more intellectual than the others to look at, though rather
more forceful perhaps. Poor old Stavlokratz was beaten again.
Well, in the end I paid for Stavlokratz, and tried to get a game
with Bill Sloggs alone, but this he would not agree to, it must be all
three or none: and then I went back with Stavlokratz to his lodg-
ings. He very kindly gave me a game: of course it did not last long
but I am prouder of having been beaten by Stavlokratz than of any
game that I have ever won. And then we talked for an hour about
the sailors, and neither of us could make head or tail of them. I told
him what I had noticed about Jim Bunion and Adam Bailey, and
he agreed with me that Bill Sloggs was the man, though as to how
he had come by that gambit or that variation of Stavlokratz’s own
opening he had no theory.
I had the sailors’ address which was that tavern as much as any-
where, and they were to be there all evening. As evening drew in I
went back to the tavern, and found there still the three sailors. And
I offered Bill Sloggs two pounds for a game with him alone and he
refused, but in the end he played me for a drink. And then I found
that he had not heard of the “en passant“ rule, and believed that
the fact of checking the king prevented him from castling, and did
not know that a player can have two or more queens on the board
at the same time if he queens his pawns, or that a pawn could ever
become a knight; and he made as many of the stock mistakes as he
had time for in a short game, which I won. I thought that I should
have got at the secret then, but his mates who had sat scowling all
the while in the corner came up and interfered. It was a breach of
their compact apparently for one to play by himself, at any rate
520 Tales Of Wonder

they seemed angry. So I left the tavern then and came back again
next day, and the next day and the day after, and often saw the
sailors, but none were in a communicative mood. I had got Stav-
lokratz to keep away, and they could get no one to play chess with
at a pound a side, and I would not play with them unless they told
me the secret.
And then one evening I found Jim Bunion drunk, yet not so
drunk as he wished, for the two pounds were spent; and I gave him
very nearly a tumbler of whiskey, or what passed for whiskey in
that tavern at Over, and he told me the secret at once. I had given
the others some whiskey to keep them quiet, and later on in the
evening they must have gone out, but Jim Bunion stayed with me
by a little table leaning across it and talking low, right into my face,
his breath smelling all the while of what passed for whiskey.
The wind was blowing outside as it does on bad nights in No-
vember, coming up with moans from the South, towards which the
tavern faced with all its leaded panes, so that none but I was able
to hear his voice as Jim Bunion gave up his secret. They had sailed
for years, he told me, with Bill Snyth; and on their last voyage
home Bill Snyth had died. And he was buried at sea. Just the other
side of the line they buried him, and his pals divided his kit, and
these three got his crystal that only they knew he had, which Bill
got one night in Cuba. They played chess with the crystal.
And he was going on to tell me about that night in Cuba when
Bill had bought the crystal from the stranger, how some folks
might think they had seen thunderstorms, but let them go and listen
to that one that thundered in Cuba when Bill was buying his crystal
and they’d find that they didn’t know what thunder was. But then
I interrupted him, unfortunately perhaps, for it broke the thread of
his tale and set him rambling a while, and cursing other people and
talking of other lands, China, Port Said and Spain: but I brought
him back to Cuba again in the end. I asked him how they could
play chess with a crystal; and he said that you looked at the board
and looked at the crystal, and there was the game in the crystal the
same as it was on the board, with all the odd little pieces looking
just the same though smaller, horses’ heads and whatnots; and as
 Tales Of Wonder 521

soon as the other man moved the move came out in the crystal,
and then your move appeared after it, and all you had to do was to
make it on the board. If you didn’t make the move that you saw in
the crystal things got very bad in it, everything horribly mixed and
moving about rapidly, and scowling and making the same move
over and over again, and the crystal getting cloudier and cloudier;
it was best to take one’s eyes away from it then, or one dreamt
about it afterwards, and the foul little pieces came and cursed you
in your sleep and moved about all night with their crooked moves.
I thought then that, drunk though he was, he was not telling the
truth, and I promised to show him to people who played chess all
their lives so that he and his mates could get a pound whenever
they liked, and I promised not to reveal his secret even to Stav-
lokratz, if only he would tell me all the truth; and this promise I
have kept till long after the three sailors have lost their secret. I
told him straight out that I did not believe in the crystal. Well, Jim
Bunion leaned forward then, even further across the table, and
swore he had seen the man from whom Bill had bought the crystal
and that he was one to whom anything was possible. To begin with
his hair was villainously dark, and his features were unmistakable
even down there in the South, and he could play chess with his
eyes shut, and even then he could beat anyone in Cuba. But there
was more than this, there was the bargain he made with Bill that
told one who he was. He sold that crystal for Bill Snyth’s soul.
Jim Bunion leaning over the table with his breath in my face
nodded his head several times and was silent.
I began to question him then. Did they play chess as far away as
Cuba? He said they all did. Was it conceivable that any man would
make such a bargain as Snyth made? Wasn’t the trick well known?
Wasn’t it in hundreds of books? And if he couldn’t read books
mustn’t he have heard from sailors that it is the Devil’s commonest
dodge to get souls from silly people?
Jim Bunion had leant back in his own chair quietly smiling at
my questions but when I mentioned silly people he leaned for-
ward again, and thrust his face close to mine and asked me several
times if I called Bill Snyth silly. It seemed that these three sailors
522 Tales Of Wonder

thought a great deal of Bill Snyth and it made Jim Bunion angry to
hear anything said against him. I hastened to say that the bargain
seemed silly though not of course the man who made it; for the
sailor was almost threatening, and no wonder for the whiskey in
that dim tavern would madden a nun.
When I said that the bargain seemed silly he smiled again, and
then he thundered his fist down on the table and said that no one
had ever yet got the best of Bill Snyth and that that was the worst
bargain for himself that the Devil ever made, and that from all
he had read or heard of the Devil he had never been so badly had
before as the night when he met Bill Snyth at the inn in the thun-
derstorm in Cuba, for Bill Snyth already had the damndest soul at
sea; Bill was a good fellow, but his soul was damned right enough,
so he got the crystal for nothing.
Yes, he was there and saw it all himself, Bill Snyth in the Span-
ish inn and the candles flaring, and the Devil walking in and out of
the rain, and then the bargain between those two old hands, and the
Devil going out into the lightning, and the thunderstorm raging on,
and Bill Snyth sitting chuckling to himself between the bursts of
the thunder.
But I had more questions to ask and interrupted this reminis-
cence. Why did they all three always play together? And a look of
something like fear came over Jim Bunion’s face; and at first he
would not speak. And then he said to me that it was like this; they
had not paid for that crystal, but got it as their share of Bill Snyth’s
kit. If they had paid for it or given something in exchange to Bill
Snyth that would have been all right, but they couldn’t do that now
because Bill was dead, and they were not sure if the old bargain
might not hold good. And Hell must be a large and lonely place,
and to go there alone must be bad, and so the three agreed that they
would all stick together, and use the crystal all three or not at all,
unless one died, and then the two would use it and the one that was
gone would wait for them. And the last of the three to go would
take the crystal with him, or maybe the crystal would bring him.
They didn’t think, they said, they were the kind of men for Heaven,
and he hoped they knew their place better than that, but they didn’t
 Tales Of Wonder 523

fancy the notion of Hell alone, if Hell it had to be. It was all right
for Bill Snyth, he was afraid of nothing. He had known perhaps
five men that were not afraid of death, but Bill Snyth was not
afraid of Hell. He died with a smile on his face like a child in its
sleep; it was drink killed poor Bill Snyth.
This was why I had beaten Bill Sloggs; Sloggs had the crystal on
him while we played, but would not use it; these sailors seemed to
fear loneliness as some people fear being hurt; he was the only one
of the three who could play chess at all, he had learnt it in order
to be able to answer questions and keep up their pretence, but he
had learnt it badly, as I found. I never saw the crystal, they never
showed it to anyone; but Jim Bunion told me that night that it was
about the size that the thick end of a hen’s egg would be if it were
round. And then he fell asleep.
There were many more questions that I would have asked him
but I could not wake him up. I even pulled the table away so that
he fell to the floor, but he slept on, and all the tavern was dark but
for one candle burning; and it was then that I noticed for the first
time that the other two sailors had gone, no one remained at all but
Jim Bunion and I and the sinister barman of that curious inn, and
he too was asleep.
When I saw that it was impossible to wake the sailor I went out
into the night. Next day Jim Bunion would talk of it no more; and
when I went back to Stavlokratz I found him already putting on pa-
per his theory about the sailors, which became accepted by chess-
players, that one of them had been taught their curious gambit and
that the other two between them had learnt all the defensive open-
ings as well as general play. Though who taught them no one could
say, in spite of enquiries made afterwards all along the Southern
Pacific.
I never learnt any more details from any of the three sailors, they
were always too drunk to speak or else not drunk enough to be
communicative. I seem just to have taken Jim Bunion at the flood.
But I kept my promise, it was I that introduced them to the Tour-
nament, and a pretty mess they made of established reputations.
And so they kept on for months, never losing a game and always
524 Tales Of Wonder

playing for their pound a side. I used to follow them wherever they
went merely to watch their play. They were more marvellous than
Stavlokratz even in his youth.
But then they took to liberties such as giving their queen when
playing first-class players. And in the end one day when all three
were drunk they played the best player in England with only a
row of pawns. They won the game all right. But the ball broke to
pieces. I never smelt such a stench in all my life.
The three sailors took it stoically enough, they signed on to dif-
ferent ships and went back again to the sea, and the world of chess
lost sight, for ever I trust, of the most remarkable players it ever
knew, who would have altogether spoiled the game.

The Exiles Club

It was an evening party; and something someone had said to me
had started me talking about a subject that to me is full of fascina-
tion, the subject of old religions, forsaken gods. The truth (for all
religions have some of it), the wisdom, the beauty, of the religions
of countries to which I travel have not the same appeal for me;
for one only notices in them their tyranny and intolerance and the
abject servitude that they claim from thought; but when a dynasty
has been dethroned in heaven and goes forgotten and outcast even
among men, one’s eyes no longer dazzled by its power find some-
thing very wistful in the faces of fallen gods suppliant to be re-
membered, something almost tearfully beautiful, like a long warm
summer twilight fading gently away after some day memorable
in the story of earthly wars. Between what Zeus, for instance, has
been once and the half-remembered tale he is today there lies a
space so great that there is no change of fortune known to man
whereby we may measure the height down which he has fallen.
And it is the same with many another god at whom once the ages
trembled and the twentieth century treats as an old wives’ tale. The
fortitude that such a fall demands is surely more than human.
Some such things as these I was saying, and being upon a sub-
 Tales Of Wonder 525

ject that much attracts me I possibly spoke too loudly, certainly I

was not aware that standing close behind me was no less a person
than the ex-King of Eritivaria, the thirty islands of the East, or I
would have moderated my voice and moved away a little to give
him more room. I was not aware of his presence until his satellite,
one who had fallen with him into exile but still revolved about
him, told me that his master desired to know me; and so to my sur-
prise I was presented though neither of them even knew my name.
And that was how I came to be invited by the ex-King to dine at
his club.
At the time I could only account for his wishing to know me by
supposing that he found in his own exiled condition some likeness
to the fallen fortunes of the gods of whom I talked unwitting of his
presence; but now I know that it was not of himself he was think-
ing when he asked me to dine at that club.
The club would have been the most imposing building in any
street in London, but in that obscure mean quarter of London in
which they had built it it appeared unduly enormous. Lifting right
up above those grotesque houses and built in that Greek style that
we call Georgian, there was something Olympian about it. To my
host an unfashionable street could have meant nothing, through
all his youth wherever he had gone had become fashionable the
moment he went there; words like the East End could have had no
meaning to him.
Whoever built that house had enormous wealth and cared noth-
ing for fashion, perhaps despised it. As I stood gazing at the mag-
nificent upper windows draped with great curtains, indistinct in the
evening, on which huge shadows flickered my host attracted my at-
tention from the doorway, and so I went in and met for the second
time the ex-King of Eritivaria.
In front of us a stairway of rare marble led upwards, he took me
through a side-door and downstairs and we came to a banqueting-
hall of great magnificence. A long table ran up the middle of it, laid
for quite twenty people, and I noticed the peculiarity that instead
of chairs there were thrones for everyone except me, who was the
only guest and for whom there was an ordinary chair. My host
526 Tales Of Wonder

explained to me when we all sat down that everyone who belonged

to that club was by rights a king.
In fact none was permitted, he told me, to belong to the club un-
til his claim to a kingdom made out in writing had been examined
and allowed by those whose duty it was. The whim of a popu-
lace or the candidate’s own misrule were never considered by the
investigators, nothing counted with them but heredity and lawful
descent from kings, all else was ignored. At that table there were
those who had once reigned themselves, others lawfully claimed
descent from kings that the world had forgotten, the kingdoms
claimed by some had even changed their names. Hatzgurh, the
mountain kingdom, is almost regarded as mythical.
I have seldom seen greater splendour than that long hall pro-
vided below the level of the street. No doubt by day it was a little
sombre, as all basements are, but at night with its great crystal
chandeliers, and the glitter of heirlooms that had gone into exile, it
surpassed the splendour of palaces that have only one king. They
had come to London suddenly most of those kings, or their fathers
before them, or forefathers; some had come away from their king-
doms by night, in a light sleigh, flogging the horses, or had gal-
loped clear with morning over the border, some had trudged roads
for days from their capital in disguise, yet many had had time just
as they left to snatch up some small thing without price in markets,
for the sake of old times as they said, but quite as much, I thought,
with an eye to the future. And there these treasures glittered on that
long table in the banqueting-hall of the basement of that strange
club. Merely to see them was much, but to hear their story that
their owners told was to go back in fancy to epic times on the ro-
mantic border of fable and fact, where the heroes of history fought
with the gods of myth. The famous silver horses of Gilgianza were
there climbing their sheer mountain, which they did by miraculous
means before the time of the Goths. It was not a large piece of
silver but its workmanship outrivalled the skill of the bees.
A yellow Emperor had brought out of the East a piece of that in-
comparable porcelain that had made his dynasty famous though all
their deeds are forgotten, it had the exact shade of the right purple.
 Tales Of Wonder 527

And there was a little golden statuette of a dragon stealing a dia-

mond from a lady, the dragon had the diamond in his claws, large
and of the first water. There had been a kingdom whose whole
constitution and history were founded on the legend, from which
alone its kings had claimed their right to the scepter, that a dragon
stole a diamond from a lady. When its last king left that country,
because his favorite general used a peculiar formation under the
fire of artillery, he brought with him the little ancient image that no
longer proved him a king outside that singular club.
There was the pair of amethyst cups of the turbaned King of
Foo, the one that he drank from himself, and the one that he gave
to his enemies, eye could not tell which was which.
All these things the ex-King of Eritivaria showed me, telling
me a marvelous tale of each; of his own he had brought nothing,
except the mascot that used once to sit on the top of the water tube
of his favorite motor.
I have not outlined a tenth of the splendour of that table, I had
meant to come again and examine each piece of plate and make
notes of its history; had I known that this was the last time I should
wish to enter that club I should have looked at its treasures more
attentively, but now as the wine went round and the exiles began to
talk I took my eyes from the table and listened to strange tales of
their former state.
He that has seen better times has usually a poor tale to tell, some
mean and trivial thing has been his undoing, but they that dined in
that basement had mostly fallen like oaks on nights of abnormal
tempest, had fallen mightily and shaken a nation. Those who had
not been kings themselves, but claimed through an exiled ancestor,
had stories to tell of even grander disaster, history seeming to have
mellowed their dynasty’s fate as moss grows over an oak a great
while fallen. There were no jealousies there as so often there are
among kings, rivalry must have ceased with the loss of their navies
and armies, and they showed no bitterness against those that had
turned them out, one speaking of the error of his Prime Minister by
which he had lost his throne as “poor old Friedrich’s Heaven-sent
gift of tactlessness.”
528 Tales Of Wonder

They gossiped pleasantly of many things, the tittle-tattle we all

had to know when we were learning history, and many a wonderful
story I might have heard, many a side light on mysterious wars had
I not made use of one unfortunate word. That word was “upstairs.”
The ex-King of Eritivaria having pointed out to me those unpar-
alleled heirlooms to which I have alluded, and many more besides,
hospitably asked me if there was anything else that I would care
to see, he meant the pieces of plate that they had in the cupboards,
the curiously graven swords of other princes, historic jewels,
legendary seals, but I who had had a glimpse of their marvelous
staircase, whose balustrade I believed to be solid gold and wonder-
ing why in such a stately house they chose to dine in the basement,
mentioned the word “upstairs.” A profound hush came down on the
whole assembly, the hush that might greet levity in a cathedral.
“Upstairs!” he gasped. “We cannot go upstairs.”
I perceived that what I had said was an ill-chosen thing. I tried to
excuse myself but knew not how.
“Of course,” I muttered, “members may not take guests up-
stairs.”
“Members!” he said to me. “We are not the members!”
There was such reproof in his voice that I said no more, I looked
at him questioningly, perhaps my lips moved, I may have said
“What are you?” A great surprise had come on me at their attitude.
“We are the waiters,” he said.
That I could not have known, here at last was honest ignorance
that I had no need to be ashamed of, the very opulence of their
table denied it.
“Then who are the members?” I asked.
Such a hush fell at that question, such a hush of genuine awe,
that all of a sudden a wild thought entered my head, a thought
strange and fantastic and terrible. I gripped my host by the wrist
and hushed my voice.
“Are they too exiles?” I asked.
Twice as he looked in my face he gravely nodded his head.
I left that club very swiftly indeed, never to see it again, scarcely
pausing to say farewell to those menial kings, and as I left the door
 Tales Of Wonder 529

a great window opened far up at the top of the house and a flash of
lightning streamed from it and killed a dog.

The Three Infernal Jokes

This is the story that the desolate man told to me on the lonely
Highland road one autumn evening with winter coming on and the
stags roaring.
The saddening twilight, the mountain already black, the dread-
ful melancholy of the stags’ voices, his friendless mournful face,
all seemed to be of some most sorrowful play staged in that valley
by an outcast god, a lonely play of which the hills were part and he
the only actor.
For long we watched each other drawing out of the solitudes of
those forsaken spaces. Then when we met he spoke.
“I will tell you a thing that will make you die of laughter. I will
keep it to myself no longer. But first I must tell you how I came by
it.”
I do not give the story in his words with all his woeful interjec-
tions and the misery of his frantic self-reproaches for I would not
convey unnecessarily to my readers that atmosphere of sadness
that was about all he said and that seemed to go with him where-
ever he moved.
It seems that he had been a member of a club, a West-end club
he called it, a respectable but quite inferior affair, probably in the
City: agents belonged to it, fire insurance mostly, but life insurance
and motor-agents too, it was in fact a touts’ club. It seems that a
few of them one evening, forgetting for a moment their encyclope-
dias and non-stop tyres, were talking loudly over a card-table when
the game had ended about their personal virtues, and a very little
man with waxed moustaches who disliked the taste of wine was
boasting heartily of his temperance. It was then that he who told
this mournful story, drawn on by the boasts of others, leaned for-
ward a little over the green baize into the light of the two guttering
candles and revealed, no doubt a little shyly, his own extraordinary
530 Tales Of Wonder

virtue. One woman was to him as ugly as another.

And the silenced boasters rose and went home to bed leaving
him all alone, as he supposed, with his unequalled virtue. And yet
he was not alone, for when the rest had gone there arose a member
out of a deep arm-chair at the dark end of the room and walked
across to him, a man whose occupation he did not know and only
now suspects.
“You have,” said the stranger, “a surpassing virtue.”
“I have no possible use for it,” my poor friend replied.
“Then doubtless you would sell it cheap,” said the stranger.
Something in the man’s manner or appearance made the desolate
teller of this mournful tale feel his own inferiority, which prob-
ably made him feel acutely shy, so that his mind abased itself as
an Oriental does his body in the presence of a superior, or perhaps
he was sleepy, or merely a little drunk. Whatever it was he only
mumbled, “O yes,” instead of contradicting so mad a remark. And
the stranger led the way to the room where the telephone was.
“I think you will find my firm will give a good price for it,” he
said: and without more ado he began with a pair of pincers to cut
the wire of the telephone and the receiver. The old waiter who
looked after the club they had left shuffling round the other room
putting things away for the night.
“Whatever are you doing of?” said my friend.
“This way,” said the stranger. Along a passage they went and
away to the back of the club and there the stranger leaned out of a
window and fastened the severed wires to the lightning conductor.
My friend has no doubt of that, a broad ribbon of copper, half an
inch wide, perhaps wider, running down from the roof to the earth.
“Hell,” said the stranger with his mouth to the telephone; then
silence for a while with his ear to the receiver, leaning out of the
window. And then my friend heard his poor virtue being several
times repeated, and then words like Yes and No.
“They offer you three jokes,” said the stranger, “which shall
make all who hear them simply die of laughter.”
I think my friend was reluctant then to have anything more to do
with it, he wanted to go home; he said he didn’t want jokes.
 Tales Of Wonder 531

“They think very highly of your virtue,” I said the stranger. And
at that, odd as it seems, my friend wavered, for logically if they
thought highly of the goods they should have paid a higher price.
“O all right,” he said. The extraordinary document that the agent
drew from his pocket ran something like this:
“I … in consideration of three new jokes received from Mr.
Montagu-Montague, hereinafter to be called the agent, and war-
ranted to be as by him stated and described, do assign to him,
yield, abrogate and give up all recognitions, emoluments, perqui-
sites or rewards due to me Here or Elsewhere on account of the
following virtue, to wit and that is to say … that all women are to
me equally ugly.” The last eight words being filled in in ink by Mr.
Montagu-Montague.
My poor friend duly signed it. “These are the jokes,” said the
agent. They were boldly written on three slips of paper. “They
don’t seem very funny,” said the other when he had read them.
“You are immune,” said Mr. Montagu-Montague, “but anyone else
who hears them will simply die of laughter: that we guarantee.”
An American firm had bought at the price of waste paper a
hundred thousand copies of The Dictionary of Electricity written
when electricity was new, — and it had turned out that even at the
time its author had not rightly grasped his subject, — the firm had
paid £10,000 to a respectable English paper (no other in fact than
the Briton) for the use of its name, and to obtain orders for The
Briton Dictionary of Electricity was the occupation of my unfortu-
nate friend. He seems to have had a way with him. Apparently he
knew by a glance at a man, or a look round at his garden, whether
to recommend the book as “an absolutely up-to-date achievement,
the finest thing of its kind in the world of modern science“ or as “at
once quaint and imperfect, a thing to buy and to keep as a tribute to
those dear old times that are gone.” So he went on with this quaint
though usual business, putting aside the memory of that night as
an occasion on which he had “somewhat exceeded“ as they say
in circles where a spade is called neither a spade nor an agricul-
tural implement but is never mentioned at all, being altogether too
vulgar. And then one night he put on his suit of dress clothes and
532 Tales Of Wonder

found the three jokes in the pocket. That was perhaps a shock. He
seems to have thought it over carefully then, and the end of it was
he gave a dinner at the club to twenty of the members. The dinner
would do no harm he thought — might even help the business, and
if the joke came off he would be a witty fellow, and two jokes still
up his sleeve.
Whom he invited or how the dinner went I do not know for he
began to speak rapidly and came straight to the point, as a stick
that nears a cataract suddenly goes faster and faster. The din-
ner was duly served, the port went round, the twenty men were
smoking, two waiters loitered, when he after carefully reading
the best of the jokes told it down the table. They laughed. One
man accidentally inhaled his cigar smoke and spluttered, the two
waiters overheard and tittered behind their hands, one man, a bit
of a raconteur himself, quite clearly wished not to laugh, but his
veins swelled dangerously in trying to keep it back, and in the end
he laughed too. The joke had succeeded; my friend smiled at the
thought; he wished to say little deprecating things to the man on
his right; but the laughter did not stop and the waiters would not
be silent. He waited, and waited wondering; the laughter went
roaring on, distinctly louder now, and the waiters as loud as any. It
had gone on for three or four minutes when this frightful thought
leaped up all at once in his mind: it was forced laughter! However
could anything have induced him to tell so foolish a joke? He saw
its absurdity as in revelation; and the more he thought of it as these
people laughed at him, even the waiters too, the more he felt that
he could never lift up his head with his brother touts again. And
still the laughter went roaring and choking on. He was very angry.
There was not much use in having a friend, he thought, if one silly
joke could not be overlooked; he had fed them too. And then he
felt that he had no friends at all, and his anger faded away, and a
great unhappiness came down on him, and he got quietly up and
slunk from the room and slipped away from the club. Poor man, he
scarcely had the heart next morning even to glance at the papers,
but you did not need to glance at them, big type was bandied about
that day as though it were common type, the words of the headlines
 Tales Of Wonder 533

stared at you; and the headlines said: — Twenty-Two Dead Men at

a Club.
Yes, he saw it then: the laughter had not stopped, some had
probably burst blood vessels, some must have choked, some suc-
cumbed to nausea, heart-failure must have mercifully taken some,
and they were his friends after all, and none had escaped, not I
even the waiters. It was that infernal joke.
He thought out swiftly, and remembers clear as a nightmare,
the drive to Victoria Station, the boat-train to Dover and going
disguised to the boat: and on the boat pleasantly smiling, almost
obsequious, two constables that wished to speak for a moment with
Mr. Watkyn-Jones. That was his name.
In a third-class carriage with handcuffs on his wrists, with forced
conversation when any, he returned between his captors to Victoria
to be tried for murder at the High Court of Bow.
At the trial he was defended by a young barrister of consider-
able ability who had gone into the Cabinet in order to enhance his
forensic reputation. And he was ably defended. It is no exaggera-
tion to say that the speech for the defence showed it to be usual,
even natural and right, to give a dinner to twenty men and to slip
away without ever saying a word, leaving all, with the waiters,
dead. That was the impression left in the minds of the jury. And
Mr. Watkyn-Jones felt himself practically free, with all the advan-
tages of his awful experience, and his two jokes intact. But lawyers
are still experimenting with the new act which allows a prisoner to
give evidence. They do not like to make no use of it for fear they
may be thought not to know of the act, and a lawyer who is not in
touch with the very latest laws is soon regarded as not being up
to date and he may drop as much as £50,000 a year in fees. And
therefore though it always hangs their clients they hardly like to
neglect it.
Mr. Watkyn-Jones was put in the witness box. There he told
the simple truth, and a very poor affair it seemed after the impas-
sioned and beautiful things that were uttered by the counsel for the
defence. Men and women had wept when they heard that. They
did not weep when they heard Watkyn-Jones. Some tittered. It
534 Tales Of Wonder

no longer seemed a right and natural thing to leave one’s guests

all dead and to fly the country. Where was Justice, they asked, if
anyone could do that? And when his story was told the judge rather
happily asked if he could make him die of laughter too. And what
was the joke? For in so grave a place as a Court of Justice no fatal
effects need be feared. And hesitatingly the prisoner pulled from
his pocket the three slips of paper: and perceived for the first time
that the one on which the first and best joke had been written had
become quite blank. Yet he could remember it, and only too clear-
ly. And he told it from memory to the Court.
“An Irishman once on being asked by his master to buy a morn-
ing paper said in his usual witty way, ‘Arrah and begorrah and I
will be after wishing you the top of the morning.’”
No joke sounds quite so good the second time it is told, it seems
to lose something of its essence, but Watkyn-Jones was not pre-
pared for the awful stillness with which this one was received; no-
body smiled; and it had killed twenty-two men. The joke was bad,
devilish bad; counsel for the defence was frowning, and an usher
was looking in a little bag for something the judge wanted. And at
this moment, as though from far away, without his wishing it, there
entered the prisoner’s head, and shone there and would not go, this
old bad proverb: “As well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.” The
jury seemed to be just about to retire. “I have another joke,” said
Watkyn-Jones, and then and there he read from the second slip of
paper. He watched the paper curiously to see if it would go blank,
occupying his mind with so slight a thing as men in dire distress
very often do, and the words were almost immediately expunged,
swept swiftly as if by a hand, and he saw the paper before him as
blank as the first. And they were laughing this time, judge, jury,
counsel for the prosecution, audience and all, and the grim men
that watched him upon either side. There was no mistake about this
joke.
He did not stay to see the end, and walked out with his eyes
fixed on the ground, unable to bear a glance to the right or left. And
since then he has wandered, avoiding ports and roaming lonely
places. Two years have known him on the Highland roads, often
 Tales Of Wonder 535

hungry, always friendless, always changing his district, wandering

lonely on with his deadly joke.
Sometimes for a moment he will enter inns, driven by cold and
hunger, and hear men in the evening telling jokes and even chal-
lenging him; but he sits desolate and silent, lest his only weapon
should escape from him and his last joke spread mourning in a
hundred cots. His beard has grown and turned grey and is mixed
with moss and weeds, so that no one, I think, not even the police,
would recognise him now for that dapper tout that sold The Briton
Dictionary of Electricity in such a different land.
He paused, his story told, and then his lip quivered as though he
would say more, and I believe he intended then and there to yield
up his deadly joke on that Highland road and to go forth then with
his three blank slips of paper, perhaps to a felon’s cell, with one
more murder added to his crimes, but harmless at last to man. I
therefore hurried on, and only heard him mumbling sadly behind
me, standing bowed and broken, all alone in the twilight, perhaps
telling over and over even then the last infernal joke.
Tales Of Three Hemispheres
1919
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 537

The Last Dream Of Bwona Khubla

From steaming lowlands down by the equator, where monstrous
orchids blow, where beetles big as mice sit on the tent-ropes, and
fireflies glide about by night like little moving stars, the travelers
went three days through forests of cactus till they came to the open
plains where the oryx are.
And glad they were when they came to the water-hole, where
only one white man had gone before, which the natives know as
the camp of Bwona Khubla, and found the water there.
It lies three days from the nearest other water, and when Bwona
Khubla had gone there three years ago, what with malaria with
which he was shaking all over, and what with disgust at finding the
water-hole dry, he had decided to die there, and in that part of the
world such decisions are always fatal. In any case he was overdue
to die, but hitherto his amazing resolution, and that terrible strength
of character that so astounded his porters, had kept him alive and
moved his safari on.
He had had a name no doubt, some common name such as hangs
as likely as not over scores of shops in London; but that had gone
long ago, and nothing identified his memory now to distinguish it
from the memories of all the other dead but “Bwona Khubla,” the
name the Kikuyus gave him.
There is not doubt that he was a fearful man, a man that was
dreaded still for his personal force when his arm was no longer
able to lift the kiboko, when all his men knew he was dying, and to
this day though he is dead.
Though his temper was embittered by malaria and the equatorial
sun, nothing impaired his will, which remained a compulsive force
to the very last, impressing itself upon all, and after the last, from
what the Kikuyus say. The country must have had powerful laws
that drove Bwona Khubla out, whatever country it was.
On the morning of the day that they were to come to the camp
of Bwona Khubla all the porters came to the travelers’ tents asking
for dow. Dow is the white man’s medicine, that cures all evils; the
nastier it tastes, the better it is. They wanted down this morning
538 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

to keep away devils, for they were near the place where Bwona
Khubla died.
The travelers gave them quinine.
By sunset the came to Campini Bwona Khubla and found water
there. Had they not found water many of them must have died, yet
none felt any gratitude to the place, it seemed too ominous, too full
of doom, too much harassed almost by unseen, irresistible things.
And all the natives came again for dow as soon as the tents were
pitched, to protect them from the last dreams of Bwona Khubla,
which they say had stayed behind when the last safari left taking
Bwona Khubla’s body back to the edge of civilization to show to
the white men there that they had not killed him, for the white men
might not know that they durst not kill Bwona Khubla.
And the travelers gave them more quinine, so much being bad
for the nerves, and that night by the camp-fires there was no pleas-
ant talk; all talking at once of meat they had eaten and cattle that
each one owned, but a gloomy silence hung by every fire and the
little canvas shelters. They told the white men that Bwona Khub-
la’s city, of which he had thought at the last (and where the natives
believed he was once a king), of which he had raved till the loneli-
ness rang with his raving, had settled down all about them; and
they were afraid, for it was so strange a city, and wanted more dow.
And the two travelers gave them more quinine, for they saw real
fear in their faces, and knew they might run away and leave them
alone in that place, that they, too, had come to fear with an almost
equal dread, though they knew not why. And as the night wore on
their feeling of boding deepened, although they had shared three
bottles or so of champagne that they meant to keep for days when
they killed a lion.
This is the story that each of those two men tell, and which their
porters corroborate, but then a Kikuyu will always say whatever he
thinks is expected of him.
The travelers were both in bed and trying to sleep but not able
to do so because of an ominous feeling. That mournfullest of all
the cries of the wild, the hyÊna like a damned soul lamenting,
strangely enough had ceased. The night wore on to the hour when
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 539

Bwona Khubla had died three or four years ago, dreaming and rav-
ing of “his city“; and in the hush a sound softly arose, like a wind
at first, then like the roar of beasts, then unmistakably the sound of
motors — motors and motor busses.
And then they saw, clearly and unmistakably they say, in that
lonely desolation where the equator comes up out of the forest and
climbs over jagged hills, — they say they saw London.
There could have been no moon that night, but they say there
was a multitude of stars. Mists had come rolling up at evening
about the pinnacles of unexplored red peaks that clustered round
the camp. But they say the mist must have cleared later on; at any
rate they swear they could see London, see it and hear the roar of
it. Both say they saw it not as they knew it at all, not debased by
hundreds of thousands of lying advertisements, but transfigured, all
its houses magnificent, its chimneys rising grandly into pinnacles,
its vast squares full of the most gorgeous trees, transfigured and yet
London.
Its windows were warm and happy, shining at night, the lamps
in their long rows welcomed you, the public-houses were gracious
jovial places; yet it was London.
They could smell the smells of London, hear London songs,
and yet it was never the London that they knew; it was as though
they had looked on some strange woman’s face with the eyes of
her lover. For of all the towns of the earth or cities of song; of
all the spots there be, unhallowed or hallowed, it seemed to those
two men then that the city they saw was of all places the most to
be desired by far. They say a barrel organ played quite near them,
they say a coster was singing, they admit that he was singing out of
tune, they admit a cockney accent, and yet they say that that song
had in it something that no earthly song had ever had before, and
both men say that they would have wept but that there was a feel-
ing about their heartstrings that was far too deep for tears. They
believe that the longing of this masterful man, that was able to rule
a safari by raising a hand, had been so strong at the last that it had
impressed itself deeply upon nature and had caused a mirage that
may not fade wholly away, perhaps for several years.
540 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

I tried to establish by questions the truth or reverse of this story,

but the two men’s tempers had been so spoiled by Africa that they
were not up to cross-examination. They would not even say if
their camp-fires were still burning. They say that they saw the
London lights all round them from eleven o’clock till midnight,
they could hear London voices and the sound of the traffic clearly,
and over all, a little misty perhaps, but unmistakably London, arose
the great metropolis.
After midnight London quivered a little and grew more in-
distinct, the sound of the traffic began to dwindle away, voices
seemed farther off, ceased altogether, and all was quiet once more
where the mirage shimmered and faded, and a bull rhinoceros com-
ing down through the stillness snorted, and watered at the Carlton
Club.

How The Office Of Postman Fell Vacant In

Otford-Under-The-Wold
The duties of postman at Otford-under-the-Wold carried Amuel
Sleggins farther afield than the village, farther afield than the last
house in the lane, right up to the big bare wold and the house
where no one went, no one that is but the three grim men that
dwelt there and the secretive wife of one, and, once a year when
the queer green letter came, Amuel Sleggins the postman.
The green letter always came just as the leaves were turning,
addressed to the eldest of the three grim men, with a wonderful
Chinese stamp and the Otford post-mark, and Amuel Sleggins car-
ried it up to the house.
He was not afraid to go, for he always took the letter, had done
so for seven years, yet whenever summer began to draw to a close,
Amuel Sleggins was ill at ease, and if there was a touch of autumn
about shivered unduly so that all folk wondered.
And then one day a wind would blow from the East, and the
wild geese would appear, having left the sea, flying high and cry-
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 541

ing strangely, and pass till they were no more than a thin black line
in the sky like a magical stick flung up by a doer of magic, twisting
and twirling away; and the leaves would turn on the trees and the
mists be white on the marshes and the sun set large and red and
autumn would step down quietly that night from the wold; and the
next day the strange green letter would come from China.
His fear of the three grim men and that secretive woman and
their lonely, secluded house, or else the cadaverous cold of the
dying season, rather braced Amuel when the time was come and
he would step out bolder upon the day that he feared than he had
perhaps for weeks. He longed on that day for a letter for the last
house in the lane, there he would dally and talk awhile and look on
church-going faces before his last tramp over the lonely wold to
end at the dreaded door of the queer grey house called wold-hut.
When he came to the door of wold-hut he would give the post-
man’s knock as though he came on ordinary rounds to a house
of every day, although no path led up to it, although the skins of
weasels hung thickly from upper windows.
And scarcely had his postman’s knock rung through the dark of
the house when the eldest of the three grim men would always run
to the door. O, what a face had he. There was more slyness in it
than ever his beard could hide. He would put out a gristly hand;
and into it Amuel Sleggins would put the letter from China, and re-
joice that his duty was done, and would turn and stride away. And
the fields lit up before him, but, ominous, eager and low murmur-
ing arose in the wold-hut.
For seven years this was so and no harm had come to Sleggins,
seven times he had gone to wold-hut and as often come safely
away; and then he needs must marry. Perhaps because she was
young, perhaps because she was fair or because she had shapely
ankles as she came one day through the marshes among the
milkmaid flowers shoeless in spring. Less things than these have
brought men to their ends and been the nooses with which Fate
snared them running. With marriage curiosity entered his house,
and one day as they walked with evening through the meadows,
one summer evening, she asked him of wold-hut where he only
542 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

went, and what the folks were like that no one else had seen. All
this he told her; and then she asked him of the green letter from
China, that came with autumn, and what the letter contained. He
read to her all the rules of the Inland Revenue, he told her he did
not know, that it was not right that he should know, he lectured her
on the sin of inquisitiveness, he quoted Parson, and in the end she
said that she must know. They argued concerning this for many
days, days of the ending of summer, of shortening evenings, and
as they argued autumn grew nearer and nearer and the green letter
from China.
And at last he promised that when the green letter came he
would take it as usual to the lonely house and then hide somewhere
near and creep to the window at nightfall and hear what the grim
folk said; perhaps they might read aloud the letter from China.
And before he had time to repent of that promise a cold wind came
one night and the woods turned golden, the plover went in bands at
evening over the marshes, the year had turned, and there came the
letter from China. Never before had Amuel felt such misgivings as
he went his postman’s rounds, never before had he so much feared
the day that took him up to the wold and the lonely house, while
snug by the fire his wife looked pleasurably forward to curiosity’s
gratification and hoped to have news ere nightfall that all the gos-
sips of the village would envy. One consolation only had Amuel
as he set out with a shiver, there was a letter that day for the last
house in the lane. Long did he tarry there to look at their cheery
faces, to hear the sound of their laughter — you did not hear laugh-
ter in wold-hut — and when the last topic had been utterly talked
out and no excuse for lingering remained he heaved a heavy sigh
and plodded grimly away and so came late to wold-hut.
He gave his postman’s knock on the shut oak door, heard it re-
verberate through the silent house, saw the grim elder man and his
gristly hand, gave up the green letter from China, and strode away.
There is a clump of trees growing all alone in the wold, desolate,
mournful, by day, by night full of ill omen, far off from all other
trees as wold-hut from other houses. Near it stands wold-hut. Not
today did Amuel stride briskly on with all the new winds of au-
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 543

tumn blowing cheerily past him till he saw the village before him
and broke into song; but as soon as he was out of sight of the house
he turned and stooping behind a fold of the ground ran back to the
desolate wood. There he waited watching the evil house, just too
far to hear voices. The sun was low already. He chose the window
at which he meant to eavesdrop, a little barred one at the back,
close to the ground. And then the pigeons came in; for a great
distance there was no other wood, so numbers shelter there, though
the clump is small and of so evil a look (if they notice that); the
first one frightened Amuel, he felt that it might be a spirit escaped
from torture in some dim parlour of the house that he watched, his
nerves were strained and he feared foolish fears. Then he grew
used to them and the sun set then and the aspect of everything
altered and he felt strange fears again. Behind him was a hollow
in the wold, he watched it darkening; and before him he saw the
house through the trunks of the trees. He waited for them to light
their lamps so that they could not see, when he would steal up
softly and crouch by the little back window. But though every bird
was home, though the night grew chilly as tombs, though a star
was out, still there shone no yellow light from any window. Amuel
waited and shuddered. He did not dare to move till they lit their
lamps, they might be watching. The damp and the cold so strange-
ly affected him that autumn evening and the remnants of sunset,
the stars and the wold and the whole vault of the sky seemed like
a hall that they had prepared for Fear. He began to feel a dread
of prodigious things, and still no light shone in the evil house. It
grew so dark that he decided to move and make his way to the
window in spite of the stillness and though the house was dark. He
rose and while standing arrested by pains that cramped his limbs,
he heard the door swing open on the far side of the house. He had
just time to hide behind the trunk of a pine when the three grim
men approached him and the woman hobbled behind. Right to
the ominous clump of trees they came as though they loved their
blackness, passed through within a yard or two of the postman and
squatted down on their haunches in a ring in the hollow behind the
trees. They lit a fire in the hollow and laid a kid on the fire and by
544 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

the light of it Amuel saw brought forth from an untanned pouch the
letter that came from China. The elder opened it with his gristly
hand and intoning words that Amuel did not know, drew out from
it a green powder and sprinkled it on the fire. At once a flame
arose and a wonderful savour, the flames rose higher and flickered
turning the trees all green; and Amuel saw the gods coming to
snuff the savour. While the three grim men prostrated themselves
by their fire, and the horrible woman that was the spouse of one,
he saw the gods coming gauntly over the wold, beheld the gods
of Old England hungrily snuffing the savour, Odin, Balder, and
Thor, the gods of the ancient people, beheld them eye to eye clear
and close in the twilight, and the office of postman fell vacant in
Otford-under-the-Wold.

The Prayer Of Boob Aheera

In the harbour, between the liner and the palms, as the huge
ship’s passengers came up from dinner, at moonrise, each in his
canoe, Ali Kareeb Ahash and Boob Aheera passed within knife
thrust.
So urgent was the purpose of Ali Kareeb Ahash that he did not
lean over as his enemy slid by, did not tarry then to settle that long
account; but that Boob Aheera made no attempt to reach him was
a source of wonder to Ali. He pondered it till the liner’s electric
lights shone far away behind him with one blaze and the canoe
was near to his destination, and pondered it in vain, for all that the
eastern subtlety of his mind was able to tell him clearly was that it
was not like Boob Aheera to pass him like that.
That Boob Aheera could have dared to lay such a cause as his
before the Diamond Idol Ali had not conceived, yet as he drew
near to the golden shrine in the palms, that none that come by the
great ships ever found, he began to see more clearly in his mind
that this was where Boob had gone on that hot night. And when he
beached his canoe his fears departed, giving place to the resigna-
tion with which he always viewed Destiny; for there on the white
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 545

sea sand were the tracks of another canoe, the edges all fresh and
ragged. Boob Aheera had been before him. Ali did not blame him-
self for being late, the thing had been planned before the beginning
of time, by gods that knew their business; only his hate of Boob
Aheera increased, his enemy against whom he had come to pray.
And the more his hate increased the more clearly he saw him, until
nothing else could be seen by the eye of his mind but the dark lean
figure, the little lean legs, the grey beard and neat loin-cloth of
Boob Aheera, his enemy.
That the Diamond Idol should have granted the prayers of such
a one he did not as yet imagine, he hated him merely for his pre-
sumptuousness in approaching the shrine at all, for approaching
it before him whose cause was righteous, for many an old past
wrong, but most of all for the expression of his face and the gener-
al look of the man as he has swept by in his canoe with his double
paddle going in the moonlight.
Ali pushed through the steaming vegetation. The place smelt
of orchids. There is no track to the shrine though many go. If
there were a track the white man would one day find it, and par-
ties would row to see it whenever a liner came in; and photographs
would appear in weekly papers with accounts of it underneath by
men who had never left London, and all the mystery would be
gone away and there would be nothing novel in this story.
Ali had scarcely gone a hundred yards through cactus and
creeper underneath the palms when he came to the golden shrine
that nothing guards except the deeps of the forest, and found the
Diamond Idol. The Diamond Idol is five inches high and its base
a good inch square, and it has a greater lustre than those diamonds
that Mr. Moses bought last year for his wife, when he offered her
an earldom or the diamonds, and Jael his wife had answered, “Buy
the diamonds and be just plain Mr. Fortescue.”
Purer than those was its luster and carved as they carve not in
Europe, and the men thereby are poor and held to be fearless — yet
they do not sell that idol. And I may say here that if any one of my
readers should ever come by ship to the winding harbour where
the forts of the Portuguese crumble in infinite greenery, where the
546 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

baobab stands like a corpse here and there in the palms, if he goes
ashore where no one has any business to go, and where no one so
far as I know has gone from a liner before (though it’s little more
than a mile or so from the pier), and if he finds a golden shrine,
which is near enough to the shore, and a five-inch diamond in it
carved in the shape of a god, it is better to leave it alone and get
back safe to the ship than to sell that diamond idol for any price in
the world.
Ali Kareeb Ahash went into the golden shrine, and when he
raised his head from the seven obeisances that are the due of the
idol, behold! it glowed with such a lustre as only it wears after an-
swering recent prayer. No native of those parts mistakes the tone
of the idol, they know its varying shades as a tracker knows blood;
the moon was streaming in through the open door and Ali saw it
clearly.
No one had been that night but Boob Aheera.
The fury of Ali rose and surged to his heart, he clutched his knife
till the hilt of it bruised his hand, yet he did not utter the prayer
that he had made ready about Boob Aheera’s liver, for he saw that
Boob Aheera’s prayers were acceptable to the idol and knew that
divine protection was over his enemy.
What Boob Aheera’s prayer was he did not know, but he went
back to the beach as fast as one can go through cacti and creepers
that climb to the tops of the palms; and as fast as his canoe could
carry him he went down the winding harbour, till the liner shone
beside him as he passed, and he heard the sound of its band rise
up and die, and he landed and came that night into Boob Aheera’s
hut. And there he offered himself as his enemy’s slave, and Boob
Aheera’s slave he is to this day, and his master has protection from
the idol. And Ali rows to the liners and goes on board to sell rubies
made of glass, and thin suits for the tropics and ivory napkin rings,
and Manchester kimonos, and little lovely shells; and the passen-
gers abuse him because of his prices; and yet they should not, for
all the money cheated by Ali Kareeb Ahash goes to Boob Aheera,
his master.
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 547

East And West

It was dead of night and midwinter. A frightful wind was bring-
ing sleet from the East. The long sere grasses were wailing. Two
specks of light appeared on the desolate plain; a man in a hansom
cab was driving alone in North China.
Alone with the driver and the dejected horse. The driver wore a
good waterproof cape, and of course an oiled silk hat, but the man
in the cab wore nothing but evening dress. He did not have the
glass door down because the horse fell so frequently, the sleet had
put his cigar out and it was too cold to sleep; the two lamps flared
in the wind. By the uncertain light of a candle lamp that flickered
inside the cab, a Manchu shepherd that saw the vehicle pass, where
he watched his sheep on the plain in fear of the wolves, for the first
time saw evening dress. And though he saw if dimly, and what he
saw was wet, it was like a backward glance of a thousand years,
for as his civilization is so much older than ours they have presum-
ably passed through all that kind of thing.
He watched it stoically, not wondering at a new thing, if indeed
it be new to China, meditated on it awhile in a manner strange to
us, and when he had added to his philosophy what little could be
derived from the sight of this hansom cab, returned to his contem-
plation of that night’s chances of wolves and to such occasional
thoughts as he drew at times for his comfort out of the legends
of China, that have been preserved for such uses. And on such a
night their comfort was greatly needed. He thought of the legend
of a dragon-lady, more fair than the flowers are, without an equal
amongst daughters of men, humanly lovely to look on although her
sire was a dragon, yet one who traced his descent from gods of the
elder days, and so it was that she went in all her ways divine, like
the earliest ones of her race, who were holier than the emperor.
She had come down one day out of her little land, a grassy val-
ley hidden amongst the mountains; by the way of the mountain
passes she came down, and the rocks of the rugged pass rang like
little bells about her, as her bare feet went by, like silver bells to
please her; and the sound was like the sound of the dromedaries of
548 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

a prince when they come home at evening — their silver bells are
ringing and the village-folk are glad. She had come down to pick
the enchanted poppy that grew, and grows to this day — if only
men might find it — in a field at the feet of the mountains; if one
should pick it happiness would come to all yellow men, victory
without fighting, good wages, and ceaseless ease. She came down
all fair from the mountains; and as the legend pleasantly passed
through his mind in the bitterest hour of the night, which comes
before dawn, two lights appeared and another hansom went by.
The man in the second cab was dressed the same as the first,
he was wetter than the first, for the sleet had fallen all night, but
evening dress is evening dress all the world over. The driver wore
the same oiled hat, the same waterproof cape as the other. And
when the cab had passed the darkness swirled back where the two
small lamps had been, and the slush poured into the wheel-tracks
and nothing remained but the speculations of the shepherd to tell
that a hansom cab had been in that part of China; presently even
these ceased, and he was back with the early legends again in con-
templation of serener things.
And the storm and the cold and the darkness made one last ef-
fort, and shook the bones of that shepherd, and rattled the teeth
in the head that mused on the flowery fables, and suddenly it was
morning. You saw the outlines of the sheep all of a sudden, the
shepherd counted them, no wolf had come, you could see them all
quite clearly. And in the pale light of the earliest morning the third
hansom appeared, with its lamps still burning, looking ridiculous
in the daylight. They came out of the East with the sleet and were
all going due westwards, and the occupant of the third cab also
wore evening dress.
Calmly that Manchu shepherd, without curiosity, still less with
wonder, but as one who would see whatever life has to show him,
stood for four hours to see if another would come. The sleet and
the East wind continued. And at the end of four hours another
came. The driver was urging it on as fast as he could, as though he
were making the most of the daylight, his cabby’s cape was flap-
ping wildly about him; inside the cab a man in evening dress was
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 549

being jolted up and down by the unevenness of the plain.

This was of course that famous race from Pittsburg to Piccadilly,
going round by the long way, that started one night after dinner
from Mr. Flagdrop’s house, and was won by Mr. Kagg, driving the
Honourable Alfred Fortescue, whose father it will be remembered
was Hagar Dermstein, and became (by Letters Patent) Sir Edgar
Fortescue, and finally Lord St. George.
The Manchu shepherd stood there till evening, and when he saw
that no more cabs would come, turned homeward in search of food.
And the rice prepared for him was hot and good, all the more
after the bitter coldness of that sleet. And when he had consumed
it her perused his experience, turning over again in his mind each
detail of the cabs he had seen; and from that his thoughts slipped
calmly to the glorious history of China, going back to the indeco-
rous times before calmness came, and beyond those times to the
happy days of the earth when the gods and dragons were here and
China was young; and lighting his opium pipe and casting his
thoughts easily forward he looked to the time when the dragons
shall come again.
And for a long while then his mind reposed itself in such a
dignified calm that no thought stirred there at all, from which when
he was aroused he cast off his lethargy as a man emerges from the
baths, refreshed, cleansed and contented, and put away from his
musings the things he had seen on the plain as being evil and of
the nature of dreams, or futile illusion, the results of activity which
troubleth calm. And then he turned his mind toward the shape of
God, the One, the Ineffable, who sits by the lotus lily, whose shape
is the shape of peace, and denieth activity, and went out his thanks
to him that he had cast all bad customs westward out of China as a
woman throws household dirt out of her basket far out into neigh-
bouring gardens.
From thankfulness he turned to calm again, and out of calm to
sleep.
550 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

A Pretty Quarrel
On one of those unattained, and unattainable pinnacles that are
known as the Bleaks of Eerie, an eagle was looking East with a
hopeful presage of blood.
For he knew, and rejoiced in the knowledge, that eastward over
the dells the dwarfs were risen in Ulk, and gone to war with the
demi-gods.
The demi-gods are they that were born of earthly women, but
their sires are the elder gods who walked of old among men. Dis-
guised they would go through the villages sometimes in summer
evenings, cloaked and unknown of men; but the younger maidens
knew them and always ran to them singing, for all that their elders
said: in evenings long ago they had danced to the woods of the
oak-trees. Their children dwelt out-of-doors beyond the dells of
the bracken, in the cool and heathery lands, and were now at war
with the dwarfs.
Dour and grim were the demi-gods and had the faults of both
parents, and would not mix with men but claimed the right of their
fathers, and would not play human games but forever were prophe-
sying, and yet were more frivolous than their mothers were, whom
the fairies had long since buried in wild wood gardens with more
than human rites.
And being irked at their lack of rights and ill content with the
land, and having no power at all over the wind and snow, and
caring little for the powers they had, the demi-gods became idle,
greasy, and slow; and the contemptuous dwarfs despised them ever.
The dwarfs were contemptuous of all things savouring of heav-
en, and of everything that was even partly divine. They were, so it
has been said, of the seed of man; but, being squat and hairy like to
the beasts; they praised all beastly things, and bestiality was shown
reverence among them, so far as reverence was theirs to show. So
most of all they despised the discontent of the demi-gods, who
dreamed of the courts of heaven and power over wind and snow;
for what better, said the dwarfs, could demi-gods do than nose in
the earth for roots and cover their faces with mire, and run with the
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 551

cheerful goats and be even as they?

Now in their idleness caused by their discontent, the seed of the
gods and the maidens grew more discontented still, and only spake
of or cared for heavenly things; until the contempt of the dwarfs,
who heard of all these doings, was bridled no longer and it must
needs be war. They burned spice, dipped in blood and dried, before
the chief of their witches, sharpening their axes, and made war on
the demi-gods.
They passed by night over the Oolnar Mountains, each dwarf
with his good axe, the old flint war-axe of his fathers, a night when
no moon shone, and they went unshod, and swiftly, to come on the
demi-gods in the darkness beyond the dells of Ulk, lying fat and
idle and contemptible.
And before it was light they found the heathery lands, and the
demi-gods lying lazy all over the side of a hill. The dwarfs stole
towards them warily in the darkness.
Now the art that the gods love most is the art of war: and when
the seed of the gods and those nimble maidens awoke and found
it was war it was almost as much to them as the godlike pursuits
of heaven, enjoyed in the marble courts; or power over wind and
snow. They all drew out at once their swords of tempered bronze,
cast down to them centuries since on stormy nights when their
fathers, drew them and faced the dwarfs, and casting their idleness
from them, fell on them, sword to axe. And the dwarfs fought hard
that night, and bruised the demi-gods sorely, hacking with those
huge axes that had not spared the oaks. Yet for all the weight of
their blows and the cunning of their adventure, one point they had
overlooked: the demi-gods were immortal.
As the fight rolled on towards morning the fighters were fewer
and fewer, yet for all the blows of the dwarfs men fell upon one
side only.
Dawn came and the demi-gods were fighting against no more
than six, and the hour that follows dawn, and the last of the dwarfs
was gone.
And when the light was clear on that peak of the Bleaks of Eerie
the eagle left his crag and flew grimly East, and found it was as he
552 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

had hoped in the matter of blood.

But the demi-gods lay down in their heathery lands, for once
content though so far from the courts of heaven, and even half for-
got their heavenly rights, and sighed no more for power over wind
and snow.

How The Gods Avenged Meoul Ki Ning

Meoul Ki Ning was on his way with a lily from the lotus ponds
of Esh to offer it to the Goddess of Abundance in her temple Aoul
Keroon. And on the road from the pond to the little hill and the
temple Aoul Keroon, Ap Ariph, his enemy, shot him with an arrow
from a bow that he had made out of bamboo, and took his pretty
lily up the hill and offered it to the Goddess of Abundance in her
temple Aoul Keroon. And the Goddess was pleased with the gift,
as all women are, and sent pleasant dreams to Ap Ariph for seven
nights straight from the moon.
And on the seventh night the gods held conclave together, on
the cloudy peaks they held it, above Narn, Ktoon, and Pti. So high
their peak arises that no man heard their voices. They spake on
that cloudy mountain (not the highest hamlet heard them). “What
doth the Goddess of Abundance,” (but naming her Lling, as they
name her), “what doth she sending sweet dreams for seven nights
to Ap Ariph?”
And the gods sent for their seer who is all eyes and feet, running
to and fro on the Earth, observing the ways of men, seeing even
their littlest doings, never deeming a doing too little, but knowing
the web of the gods is woven of littlest things. He it is that sees
the cat in the garden of parakeets, the thief in the upper chamber,
the sin of the child with the honey, the women talking indoors and
the small hut’s innermost things. Standing before the gods he told
them the case of Ap Ariph and the wrongs of Meoul Ki Ning and
the rape of the lotus lily; he told of the cutting and making of Ap
Ariph’s bamboo bow, of the shooting of Meoul Ki Ning, and of
how the arrow hit him, and the smile on the face of Lling when she
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 553

came by the lotus bloom.

And the gods were wroth with Ap Ariph and swore to avenge Ki
Ning.
And the ancient one of the gods, he that is older than Earth,
called up the thunder at once, and raised his arms and cried out
on the gods’ high windy mountain, and prophesied on those rocks
with runes that were older than speech, and sang in his wrath old
songs that he had learned in storm from the sea, when only that
peak of the gods in the whole of the earth was dry; and he swore
that Ap Ariph should die that night, and the thunder raged about
him, and the tears of Lling were vain.
The lightning stroke of the gods leaping earthward seeking Ap
Ariph passed near to his house but missed him. A certain vaga-
bond was down from the hills, singing songs in the street near by
the house of Ap Ariph, songs of a former folk that dwelt once, they
say, in those valleys, and begging for rice and curds; it was him the
lightning hit.
And the gods were satisfied, and their wrath abated, and their
thunder rolled away and the great black clouds dissolved, and the
ancient one of the gods went back to his age-old sleep, and morn-
ing came, and the birds and the light shone on the mountain, and
the peak stood clear to see, the serene home of the gods.

The Gift Of The Gods

There was once a man who sought a boon of the gods. For
peace was over the world and all things savoured of sameness, and
the man was weary at heart and sighed for the tents and the warf-
ields. Therefore he sought a boon of the ancient gods. And ap-
pearing before them he said to them, “Ancient gods; there is peace
in the land where I dwell, and indeed to the uttermost parts, and we
are full weary of peace. O ancient gods, grant us war!”
And the ancient gods made him a war.
And the man went forth with his sword, and behold it was even
war. And the man remembered the little things that he knew, and
554 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

thought of the quiet days that there used to be, and at night on
the hard ground dreamed of the things of peace. And dearer and
dearer grew the wonted things, the dull but easeful things of the
days of peace, and remembering these he began to regret the war,
and sought once more a boon of the ancient gods, and appearing
before them he said: “O ancient gods, indeed but a man loves best
the days of peace. Therefore take back your war and give us peace,
for indeed of all your blessedness peace is best.”
And the man returned again to the haunts of peace.
But in a while the man grew weary of peace, of the things that
he used to know, and the savour of sameness again; and sighing
again for the tents, and appearing once more to the gods, he said
to them: “Ancient gods; we do not love your peace, for indeed the
days are dull, and a man is best at war.”
And the gods made him a war.
And there were drums again, the smoke of campfires again,
wind in the waste again, the sound of horses of war, burning cities
again, and the things that wanderers know; and the thoughts of that
man went home to the ways of peace; moss upon lawns again, light
in old spires again, sun upon gardens again, flowers in pleasant
woods and sleep and the paths of peace.
And once more the man appeared to the ancient gods and sought
from them one more boon, and said to them: “Ancient gods; indeed
but the world and we are a-weary of war and long for the ancient
ways and the paths of peace.”
So the gods took back their war and gave him peace.
But the man took counsel one day and communed long with
himself and said to himself: “Behold, the wishes I wish, which the
gods grant, are not to be much desired; and if the gods should one
day grant a wish and never revoke it, which is a way of the gods, I
should be sorely tried because of my wish; my wishes are danger-
ous wishes and not to be desired.”
And therefore he wrote an anonymous letter to the gods, writing:
“O ancient gods; this man that hath four times troubled you with
his wishes, wishing for peace and war, is a man that hath no rever-
ence for the gods, speaking ill of them on days when they do not
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 555

hear, and speaking well of them on holy days and at the appointed
hours when the gods are hearkening to prayer. Therefore grant no
more wishes to this impious man.”
And the days of peace wore on and there arose again from the
earth, like mist in the autumn from the fields that generations have
ploughed, the savour of sameness again. And the man went forth
one morning and appeared once more to the gods, and cried: “O
ancient gods; give us but one war again, for I would be back to the
camps and debateable borders of lands.”
And the gods said: “We hear not well of your way of life, yea
ill things have come to our hearing, so that we grant no more the
wishes you wish.”

The Sack Of Emeralds

One bad October night in the high wolds beyond Wiltshire, with
a north wind chaunting of winter, with the old leaves letting go
their hold one by one from branches and dropping down to decay,
with a mournful sound of owls, and in fearsome loneliness, there
trudged in broken boots and in wet and windy rags an old man,
stooping low under a sack of emeralds. It were easy to see had you
been travelling late on that inauspicious night, that the burden of
the sack was far too great for the poor old man that bore it. And
had you flashed a lantern in his face there was a look there of hope-
lessness and fatigue that would have told you it was no wish of his
that kept him tottering on under that bloated sack.
When the menacing look of the night and its cheerless sounds,
and the cold, and the weight of the sack, had all but brought him to
the door of death, and he had dropped his sack onto the road and
was dragging it on behind him, just as he felt that his final hour
was come, and come (which was worse) as he held the accursed
sack, just then he saw the bulk and the black shape of the Sign of
the Lost Shepherd loom up by the ragged way. He opened the door
and staggered into the light and sank on a bench with his huge sack
beside him.
556 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

All this you had seen had you been on that lonely road, so late
on those bitter wolds, with their outlines vast and mournful in the
dark, and their little clumps of trees sad with October. But neither
you nor I were out that night. I did not see the poor old man and
his sack until he sank down all of a heap in the lighted inn.
And Yon the blacksmith was there; and the carpenter, Willie
Losh; and Jackers, the postman’s son. And they gave him a glass
of beer. And the old man drank it up, still hugging his emeralds.
And at last they asked him what he had in his sack, the question
he clearly dreaded; and he only clasped yet tighter the sodden sack
and mumbled he had potatoes.
“Potatoes,” said Yon the blacksmith.
“Potatoes,” said Willie Losh.
And when he heard the doubt that was in their voices the old
man shivered and moaned.
“Potatoes, did you say?” said the postman’s son. And they all
three rose and tried to peer at the sack that the rain-soaked way-
farer so zealously sheltered.
And from the old man’s fierceness I had said that, had it not
been for that foul night on the roads and the weight he had carried
so far and the fearful winds of October, he had fought with the
blacksmith, the carpenter and the postman’s son, all three, till he
beat them away from his sack. And weary and wet as he was he
fought them hard.
I should no doubt have interfered; and yet the three men meant
no harm to the wayfarer, but resented the reticence that he dis-
played to them though they had given him beer; it was to them as
though a master key had failed to open a cupboard. And, as for
me, curiosity held me down to my chair and forbade me to inter-
fere on behalf of the sack; for the old man’s furtive ways, and the
night out of which he came, and the hour of his coming, and the
look of his sack, all made me long as much to know what he had,
as even the blacksmith, the carpenter and the postman’s son.
And then they found the emeralds. They were all bigger than
hazel nuts, hundreds and hundreds of them: and the old man
screamed.
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 557

“Come, come, we’re not thieves,” said the blacksmith.

“We’re not thieves,” said the carpenter.
“We’re not thieves,” said the postman’s son.
And with awful fear on his face the wayfarer closed his sack,
whimpering over his emeralds and furtively glancing round as
though the loss of his secret were and utterly deadly thing. And
then they asked him to give them just one each, just one huge
emerald each, because they had given him a glass of beer. Then to
see the wayfarer shrink against his sack and guard it with clutch-
ing fingers one would have said that he was a selfish man, were it
not for the terror that was freezing his face. I have seen men look
sheer at Death with far less fear.
And they took their emerald all three, one enormous emerald
each, while the old man hopelessly struggled till he saw his three
emeralds go, and fell to the floor and wept, a pitiable, sodden heap.
And about that time I began to hear far off down the windy road,
by which that sack had come, faintly at first and slowly louder and
louder, the click clack clop of a lame horse coming nearer. Click
clack clop and a loose shoe rattling, the sound of a horse too weary
to be out upon such a night, too lame to be out at all.
Click clack clop. And all of a sudden the old wayfarer heard
it; heard it above the sound of his won sobbing, and at once went
white to the lips. Such sudden fear as blanched him in a moment
struck right to the hearts of all there. They muttered to him that
it was only their play, they hastily whispered excuses, they asked
him what was wrong, but seemed scarcely to hope for an answer,
nor did he speak, but sat with a frozen stare, all at once dry-eyed, a
monument to terror.
Nearer and nearer came the click clack clop.
And when I saw the expression of that man’s face and how its
horror deepened as the ominous sound drew nearer, then I knew
that something was wrong. And looking for the last time upon
all four I saw the wayfarer horror-struck by his sack and the other
three crowding round to put their huge emeralds back then, even
on such a night, I slipped away from the inn.
Outside the bitter wind roared in my ears, and close in the dark-
558 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

ness the horse went click clack clop.

And as soon as my eyes could see at all in the night I saw a man
in a huge hat looped up in front, wearing a sword in a scabbard
shabby and huge, and looking blacker than the darkness, riding on
a lean horse slowly up to the inn. Whether his were the emeralds,
or who he was, or why he rode a lame horse on such a night, I did
not stop to discover, but went at once from the inn as he strode in
his great black riding coat up to the door.
And that was the last that was ever seen of the wayfarer; the
blacksmith, the carpenter or the postman’s son.

The Old Brown Coat

My friend, Mr. Douglas Ainslie, tells me that Sir James Barrie
once told him this story. The story, or rather the fragment, was as
follows.
A man strolling into an auction somewhere abroad, I think it
must have been France, for they bid in francs, found they were
selling old clothes. And following some idle whim he soon found
himself bidding for an old coat. A man bid against him, he bid
against the man. Up and up went the price till the old coat was
knocked down to him for twenty pounds. As he went away with
the coat he saw the other bidder looking at him with an expression
of fury.
That’s as far as the story goes. But how, Mr. Ainslie asked me,
did the matter develop, and why that furious look? I at once made
enquiries at a reliable source and have ascertained that the man’s
name was Peters, who thus oddly purchased a coat, and that he
took it to the Rue de Rivoli, to a hotel where he lodged, from the
little low, dark auction room by the Seine in which he concluded
the bargain. There he examined it, off and on, all day and much
of the next morning, a light brown overcoat with tails, without
discovering any excuse, far less a reason, for having spent twenty
pounds on so worn a thing. And late next morning to his sitting
room looking out on the Gardens of the Tuileries the man with the
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 559

furious look was ushered in.

Grim he stood, silent and angry, till the guiding waiter went.
Not till then did he speak, and his words came clear and brief,
welling up from deep emotions.
“How did you dare to bid against me?”
His name was Santiago. And for many moments Peters found
no excuse to offer, no apology, nothing in extenuation. Lamely at
last, weakly, knowing his argument to be of no avail, he muttered
something to the intent that Mr. Santiago could have outbid him.
“No,” said the stranger. “We don’t want all the town in this.
This is a matter between you and me.” He paused, then added in
his fierce, curt way: “A thousand pounds, no more.”
Almost dumbly Peters accepted the offer and, pocketing the
thousand pounds that was paid him, and apologizing for the incon-
venience he had unwittingly caused, tried to show the stranger out.
But Santiago strode swiftly on before him, taking the coat, and was
gone.
There followed between Peters and his second thoughts an-
other long afternoon of bitter reproaches. Why ever had he let go
so thoughtlessly of a garment that so easily fetched a thousand
pounds? And the more he brooded on this the more clearly did he
perceive that he had lost an unusual opportunity of a first class in-
vestment of a speculative kind. He knew men perhaps better than
he knew materials; and, though he could not see in that old brown
coat the value of so much as a thousand pounds, he saw far more
than that in the man’s eager need for it. An afternoon of brooding
over lost opportunities led to a night of remorse, and scarcely had
day dawned when he ran to his sitting-room to see if he still had
safe the card of Santiago. And there was the neat and perfumed
carte de visite with Santiago’s Parisian address in the corner.
That morning he sought him out, and found Santiago seated at
a table with chemicals and magnifying glasses beside him exam-
ining, as it lay spread wide before him, the old brown coat. And
Peters fancied he wore a puzzled air.
They came at once to business. Peters was rich and asked San-
tiago to name his price, and that small dark man admitted financial
560 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

straits, and so was willing to sell for thirty thousand pounds. A

little bargaining followed, the price came down and the old brown
coat changed hands once more, for twenty thousand pounds.
Let any who may be inclined to doubt my story understand that
in the City, as any respectable company promoter will tell them,
twenty thousand pounds is invested almost daily with less return
for it than an old tail coat. And, whatever doubts Mr. Peters felt
that day about the wisdom of his investment, there before him lay
that tangible return, that something that may be actually fingered
and seen, which is so often denied to the investor in gold mines
and other Selected Investments. Yet as the days wore on and the
old coat grew no younger, nor any more wonderful, nor the least
useful, but more and more like an ordinary old coat, Peters be-
gan once more to doubt his astuteness. Before the week was out
his doubts had grown acute. And then one morning, Santiago
returned. A man, he said, had just arrived from Spain, a friend
unexpected all of a sudden in Paris, from whom he might bor-
row money: and would Peters resell the coat for thirty thousand
pounds?
It was then that Peters, seeing his opportunity, cast aside the
pretence that he had maintained for so long of knowing something
about the mysterious coat, and demanded to know its properties.
Santiago swore that he knew not, and repeatedly swore the same
by many sacred names; but when Peters as often threatened not to
sell, Santiago at last drew out a thin cigar and, lighting it and set-
tling himself in a chair, told all he knew of the coat.
He had been on its tracks for weeks with suspicions growing
all the time that it was no ordinary coat, and at last he had run it
to earth in that auction room but would not bid for it more than
twenty pounds for fear of letting every one into the secret. What
the secret was he swore he did not know, but this much he knew
all along, that the weight of the coat was absolutely nothing; and
he had discovered by testing it with acids that the brown stuff of
which the coat was made was neither cloth nor silk nor any known
material, and would neither burn nor tear. He believed it to be
some undiscovered element. And the properties of the coat which
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 561

he was convinced were marvellous he felt sure of discovering

within another week by means of experiments with his chemicals.
Again he offered thirty thousand pounds, to be paid within two or
three days if all went well. And then they started haggling together
as business men will.
And all the morning went by over the gardens of the Tuileries
and the afternoons came on, and only by two o’clock they arrived
at an understanding, on a basis, as they called it, of thirty thou-
sand guineas. And the old tail coat was brought out and spread
on the table, and they examined it together and chatted about its
properties, all the more friendly for their strenuous argument. And
Santiago was rising up to go, and Peters pleasantly holding out his
hand, when a step was heard on the stair. It echoed up to the room,
the door opened. And an elderly labouring man came stumping
in. He walked with difficulty, almost like a bather who has been
swimming and floating all morning and misses the buoyancy of the
water when he has come to land. He stumped up to the table with-
out speaking and there at once caught sight of the old brown coat.
“Why,” he said, “that be my old coat.”
And without another word he put it on. In the fierce glare of his
eyes as he fitted on that coat, carefully fastening the buttons, but-
toning up the flap of a pocket here, unbuttoning one there, neither
Peters nor Santiago found a word to say. They sat there wonder-
ing how they had dared to bid for that brown tail coat, how they
had dared to buy it, even to touch it, they sat there silent without a
single excuse. And with no word more the old labourer stumped
across the room, opened wide the double window that looked on
the Tuileries gardens and, flashing back over his shoulder one look
that was full of scorn, stumped away up through the air at an angle
of forty degrees.
Peters and Santiago saw him bear to his left from the window;
passing diagonally over the Rue de Rivoli and over a corner of
the Tuileries gardens; they saw him clear the Louvre, and thence
they dumbly watched him still slanting upwards, stepping out with
a firmer and more confident stride as he dwindled and dwindled
away with his old brown coat.
562 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

Neither spoke till he was no more than a speck in the sky far
away over Paris going South Eastwards.
“Well I am blowed,” said Peters.
But Santiago sadly shook his head. “I knew it was a good coat,”
he said. “I knew it was a good coat.”

An Archive Of The Older Mysteries

It is told in the Archive of the Older Mysteries of China that one
of the house of Tlang was cunning with sharpened iron and went
to the green jade mountains and carved a green jade god. And this
was in the cycle of the Dragon, the seventy-eighth year.
And for nearly a hundred years men doubted the green jade god,
and then they worshipped him for a thousand years; and after that
they doubted him again, and the green jade god made a miracle
and whelmed the green jade mountains, sinking them down one
evening at sunset into the earth so that there is only a marsh where
the green jade mountains were. And the marsh is full of the lotus.
By the side of this lotus marsh, just as it glitters at evening,
walks Li La Ting, the Chinese girl, to bring the cows home; she
goes behind them singing of the river Lo Lang Ho. And thus she
sings of the river, even of Lo Lang Ho: she sings that he is indeed
of all rivers the greatest, born of more ancient mountains than even
the wise men know, swifter than hares, more deep than the sea, the
master of other rivers perfumed even as roses and fairer than the
sapphires around the neck of a prince. And then she would pray
to the river Lo Lang Ho, master of rivers and rival of the heaven at
dawn, to bring her down in a boat of light bamboo a lover rowing
out of the inner land in a garment of yellow silk with turquoises at
his waist, young and merry and idle, with a face as yellow as gold
and a ruby in his cap with lanterns shining at dusk.
Thus she would pray of an evening to the river Lo Lang Ho as
she went behind the cows at the edge of the lotus marshes and the
green jade god under the lotus marshes was jealous of the lover
that the maiden Li La Ting would pray for of an evening to the
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 563

river Lo Lang Ho, and he cursed the river after the manner of gods
and turned it into a narrow and evil smelling stream.
And all this happened a thousand years ago, and Lo Lang Ho is
but a reproach among travelers and the story of that great river is
forgotten, and what became of the maiden no tale saith though all
men think she became a goddess of jade to sit and smile at a lotus
on a lotus carven of stone by the side of the green jade god far un-
der the marshes upon the peaks of the mountains, but women know
that her ghost still haunts the lotus marshes on glittering evenings,
singing of Lo Lang Ho.

A City Of Wonder
Past the upper corner of a precipice the moon rode into view.
Night had for some while now hooded the marvelous city. They
had planned it to be symmetrical, its maps were orderly, near;
in two dimensions, that is length and breadth, its streets met and
crossed each other with regular exactitude, with all the dullness
of the science of man. The city had laughed as it were and shaken
itself free and in the third dimension had soared away to consort
with all the careless, irregular things that know not man for their
master.
Yet even there, even at those altitudes, man had still clung to
his symmetry, still claimed that these mountains were houses; in
orderly rows the thousand windows stood watching each other pre-
cisely, all orderly, all alike, lest any should guess by day that there
might be mystery here. So they stood in the daylight. The sun set,
still they were orderly, as scientific and regular as the labour of
only man and the bees. The mists darken at evening. And first the
Woolworth Building goes away, sheer home and away from any al-
legiance to man, to take his place among mountains; for I saw him
stand with the lower slopes invisible in the gloaming, while only
his pinnacles showed up in the clearer sky. Thus only mountains
stand.
Still all the windows of the other buildings stood in their regular
564 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

rows — all side by side in silence, not yet changed, as though wait-
ing one furtive moment to step from the schemes of man, to slip
back to mystery and romance again as cats do when they steal on
velvet feet away from familiar hearths in the dark of the moon.
Night fell, and the moment came. Someone lit a window, far up
another shone with its orange glow. Window by window, and yet
not nearly all. Surely if modern man with his clever schemes held
any sway here still he would have turned one switch and lit them
all together; but we are back with the older man of whom far songs
tell, he whose spirit is kin to strange romances and mountains.
One by one the windows shine from the precipices; some twin-
kle, some are dark; man’s orderly schemes have gone, and we are
amongst vast heights lit by inscrutable beacons.
I have seen such cities before, and I have told of them in The
Book of Wonder.
Here in New York a poet met a welcome.

A Shop In Go-by Street

I said I must go back to Yann again and see if Bird of the River
still plies up and down and whether her bearded captain commands
her still or whether he sits in the gate of fair Belzoond drinking at
evening the marvellous yellow wine that the mountaineer brings
down from the Hian Min. And I wanted to see the sailors again
who came from Durl and Duz and to hear from their lips what
befell Perdóndaris when its doom came up without warning from
the hills and fell on that famous city. And I wanted to hear the
sailors pray at night each to his own god, and to feel the wind of
the evening coolly arise when the sun went flaming away from
that exotic river. For I thought never again to see the tide of Yann,
but when I gave up politics not long ago the wings of my fancy
strengthened, though they had erstwhile drooped, and I had hopes
of coming behind the East once more where Yann like a proud
white war-horse goes through the Lands of Dream.
Yet I had forgotten the way to those little cottages on the edge
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 565

of the fields we know whose upper windows, though dim with

antique cobwebs, look out on the fields we know not and are the
starting-point of all adventure in all the Lands of Dream.
I therefore made enquiries. And so I came to be directed to the
shop of a dreamer who lives not far from the Embankment in the
City. Among so many streets as there are in the city it is little won-
der that there is one that has never been seen before; it is named
Go-by Street and runs out of the Strand if you look very closely.
Now when you enter this man’s shop you do not go straight to the
point but you ask him to sell you something, and if it is anything
with which he can supply you he hands it you and wishes you
good-morning. It is his way. And many have been deceived by
asking for some unlikely thing, such as the oyster-shell from which
was taken one of those single pearls that made the gates of Heaven
in Revelations, and finding that the old man had it in stock.
He was comatose when I went into the shop, his heavy lids
almost covered his little eyes; he sat, and his mouth was open. I
said, “I want some of Abama and Pharpah, rivers of Damascus.”
“How much?” he said. “Two and a half yards of each, to be
delivered to my flat.” “That is very tiresome,” he muttered, “very
tiresome. We do not stock it in that quantity.” “Then I will take all
you have,” I said.
He rose laboriously and looked among some bottles. I saw one
labelled: Nilos, river of ∆gyptos; and others Holy Ganges, Phlege-
thon, Jordan; I was almost afraid he had it, when I heard him mut-
ter again, “This is very tiresome,” and presently he said, “We are
out of it.” “Then,” I said, “I wish you to tell me the way to those
little cottages in whose upper chambers poets look out upon the
fields we know not, for I wish to go into the Land of Dream and to
sail once more upon mighty, sea-like Yann.”
At that he moved heavily and slowly in way-worn carpet slip-
pers, panting as he went, to the back part of his shop, and I went
with him. This was a dingy lumber-room full of idols: the near
end was dingy and dark but at the far end was a blue cÊrulean
glow in which stars seemed to be shining and the heads of the
idols glowed. “This,” said the fat old man in carpet slippers, “is
566 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

the heaven of the gods who sleep.” I asked him what gods slept
and he mentioned names that I had never heard as well as names
that I knew. “All those,” he said, “that are not worshipped now are
asleep.”
“Then does Time not kill the gods?” I said to him and he an-
swered, “No. But for three or four thousand years a god is wor-
shipped and for three or four he sleeps. Only Time is wakeful
always.”
“But they that teach us of new gods“ — I said to him, “are they
not new?”
“They hear the old ones stirring in their sleep being about to
wake, because the dawn is breaking and the priests crow. These
are the happy prophets: unhappy are they that hear some old god
speak while he sleeps still being deep in slumber, and prophesy and
prophesy and no dawn comes, they are those that men stone say-
ing, ‘Prophesy where this stone shall hit you, and this.’”
“Then shall Time never slay the gods,” I said. And he answered,
“They shall die by the bedside of the last man. Then Time shall go
mad in his solitude and shall not know his hours from his centuries
of years and they shall clamour round him crying for recognition
and he shall lay his stricken hands on their heads and stare at them
blindly and say, ‘My children, I do not know you one from anoth-
er,’ and at these words of Time empty worlds shall reel.”
And for some while then I was silent, for my imagination went
out into those far years and looked back at me and mocked me
because I was the creature of a day.
Suddenly I was aware by the old man’s heavy breathing that he
had gone to sleep. It was not an ordinary shop: I feared lest one of
his gods should wake and call for him: I feared many things, it was
so dark, and one or two of those idols were something more than
grotesque. I shook the old man hard by one of his arms.
“Tell me the way to the cottages,” I said, “on the edge of the
fields we know.”
“I don’t think we can do that,” he said.
“Then supply me,” I said, “with the goods.”
That brought him to his senses. He said, “You go out by the
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 567

back door and turn to the right“; and he opened a little, old, dark
door in the wall through which I went, and he wheezed and shut
the door. The back of the shop was of incredible age. I saw in
antique characters upon a mouldering board, “Licensed to sell
weasels and jade earrings.” The sun was setting now and shone on
little golden spires that gleamed along the roof which had long ago
been thatched and with a wonderful straw. I saw that the whole
of Go-by Street had the same strange appearance when looked
at from behind. The pavement was the same as the pavement of
which I was weary and of which so many thousand miles lay the
other side of those houses, but the street was of most pure untram-
pled grass with such marvellous flowers in it that they lured down-
ward from great heights the flocks of butterflies as they traveled
by, going I know not whence. The other side of the street there
was pavement again but no houses of any kind, and what there
was in place of them I did not stop to see, for I turned to my right
and walked along the back of Go-by Street till I came to the open
fields and the gardens of the cottages that I sought. Huge flow-
ers went up out of these gardens like slow rockets and burst into
purple blooms and stood there huge and radiant on six-foot stalks
and softly sang strange songs. Others came up beside them and
bloomed and began singing too. A very old witch came out of her
cottage by the back door and into the garden in which I stood.
“What are these wonderful flowers?” I said to her.
“Hush! Hush!” she said, “I am putting the poets to bed. These
flowers are their dreams.”
And in a lower voice I said: “What wonderful songs are they
singing?” and she said, “Be still and listen.”
And I listened and found they were singing of my own child-
hood and of things that happened there so far away that I had quite
forgotten them till I heard the wonderful song.
“Why is the song so faint?” I said to her.
“Dead voices,” she said, “Dead voices,” and turned back again
to her cottage saying: “Dead voices“ still, but softly for fear that
she should wake the poets. “They sleep so badly while they live,”
she said.
568 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

I stole on tiptoe upstairs to the little room from whose windows,

looking one way, we see the fields we know and, looking another,
those hilly lands that I sought — almost I feared not to find them.
I looked at once toward the mountains of Faëry; the afterglow of
the sunset flamed on them, their avalanches flashed on their violet
slopes coming down tremendous from emerald peaks of ice; and
there was the old gap in the blue-grey hills above the precipice of
amethyst whence one sees the Lands of Dream.
All was still in the room where the poets slept when I came
quietly down. The old witch sat by a table with a lamp, knitting a
splendid cloak of gold and green for a king that had been dead a
thousand years.
“Is it any use,” I said, “to the king that is dead that you sit and
knit him a cloak of gold and green?”
“Who knows?” she said.
“What a silly question to ask,” said her old black cat who lay
curled by the fluttering fire.
Already the stars were shining on that romantic land when I
closed the witch’s door; already the glow-worms were mounting
guard for the night around those magical cottages. I turned and
trudged for the gap in the blue-grey mountains.
Already when I arrived some colour began to show in the am-
ethyst precipice below the gap although it was not yet morning. I
heard a rattling and sometimes caught a flash from those golden
dragons far away below me that are the triumph of the goldsmiths
of Sirdoo and were given life by the ritual incantations of the
conjurer Amargrarn. On the edge of the opposite cliff, too near I
thought for safety, I saw the ivory palace of Singanee that mighty
elephant-hunter; small lights appeared in windows, the slaves were
awake, and beginning with heavy eyelids the work of the day.
And now a ray of sunlight topped the world. Others than I must
describe how it swept from the amethyst cliff the shadow of the
black one that opposed it, how that one shaft of sunlight pierced
the amethyst for leagues, and how the rejoicing colour leaped up
to welcome the light and shot back a purple glow on the walls of
the palace of ivory while down in that incredible ravine the golden
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 569

dragons still played in the darkness.

At this moment a female slave came out by a door of the palace
and tossed a basket-full of sapphires over the edge. And when
day was manifest on those marvellous heights and the flare of the
amethyst precipice filled the abyss, then the elephant-hunter arose
in his ivory palace and took his terrific spear and going out by a
landward door went forth to avenge Perdóndaris
I turned then and looked upon the lands of Dream, and the thin
white mist that never rolls quite away was shifting in the morn-
ing. Rising like isles above it I saw the Hills of Hap and the city
of copper, old, deserted Bethmoora, and Utnar Véhi and Kyph
and Mandaroon and the wandering leagues of Yann. Rather I
guessed than saw the Hian Min whose imperturbable and aged
heads scarce recognize for more than clustered mounds the round
Acroctian hills, that are heaped about their feet and that shelter,
as I remembered, Durl and Duz. But most clearly I discerned that
ancient wood through which one going down to the bank of Yann
whenever the moon is old may come on Bird of the River anchored
there, waiting three days for travellers, as has been prophesied of
her. And as it was now that season I hurried down from the gap in
the blue-grey hills by an elfin path that was coeval with fable, and
came by means of it to the edge of the wood. Black though the
darkness was in that ancient wood the beasts that moved in it were
blacker still. It is very seldom that any dreamer travelling in Lands
of Dream is ever seized by these beasts, and yet I ran; for if a
man’s spirit is seized in the Lands of Dream his body may survive
it for many years and well know the beasts that mouthed him far
away and the look in their little eyes and the smell of their breath;
that is why the recreation field at Hanwell is so dreadfully trodden
into restless paths.
And so I came at last to the sea-like flood of proud, tremen-
dous Yann, with whom there tumbled streams from incredible
lands — with these he went by singing. Singing he carried drift-
wood and whole trees, fallen in far-away, unvisited forests, and
swept them mightily by, but no sign was there either out in the
river or in the olden anchorage near by of the ship I came to see.
570 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

And I built myself a hut and roofed it over with the huge abun-
dant leaves of a marvellous weed and ate the meat that grows on
the targar-tree and waited there three days. And all day long the
river tumbled by and all night long the tolulu-bird sang on and
the huge fireflies had no other care than to pour past in torrents of
dancing sparks, and nothing rippled the surface of the Yann by day
and nothing disturbed the tolulu-bird by night. I know not what I
feared for the ship I sought and its friendly captain who came from
fair Belzoond and its cheery sailors out of Durl and Duz; all day
long I looked for it on the river and listened for it by night until
the dancing fireflies danced me to sleep. Three times only in those
three nights the tolulu-bird was scared and stopped his song, and
each time I awoke with a start and found no ship and saw that he
was only scared by the dawn. Those indescribable dawns upon
the Yann came up like flames in some land over the hills where a
magician burns by secret means enormous amethysts in a copper
pot. I used to watch them in wonder while no bird sang — till all of
a sudden the sun came over a hill and every bird but one began to
sing, and the tolulu-bird slept fast, till out of an opening eye he saw
the stars.
I would have waited three more days, but on the third day I had
gone in my loneliness to see the very spot where first I met Bird of
the River at her anchorage with her bearded captain sitting on the
deck. And as I looked at the black mud of the harbour and pictured
in my mind that band of sailors whom I had not seen for two years,
I saw an old hulk peeping from the mud. The lapse of centuries
seemed partly to have rotted and partly to have buried in the mud
all but the prow of the boat and on the prow I faintly saw a name.
I read it slowly — it was Bird of the River. And then I knew that,
while in Ireland and London two years had barely passed over
my head, ages had gone over the region of Yann and wrecked and
rotted that once familiar ship, and buried years ago the bones of
the youngest of my friends, who so often sang to me of Durl and
Duz or told the dragon-legends of Belzoond. For beyond the world
we know there roars a hurricane of centuries whose echo only
troubles — though sorely — our fields; while elsewhere there is
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 571

calm. I stayed a moment by that battered hulk and said a prayer for
whatever may be immortal of those who were wont to sail it down
the Yann, and I prayed for them to the gods to whom they loved
to pray, to the little lesser gods that bless Belzoond. Then leav-
ing the hut that I built to those ravenous years I turned my back
to the Yann and entering the forest at evening just as its orchids
were opening their petals to perfume the night came out of it in the
morning, and passed that day along the amethyst gulf by the gap
in the blue-grey mountains. I wondered if Singanee, that mighty
elephant-hunter, had returned again with his spear to his lofty ivory
palace or if his doom had been one with that of Perdóndaris. I saw
a merchant at a small back door selling new sapphires as I passed
the palace, then I went on and came as twilight fell to those small
cottages where the elfin mountains are in sight of the fields we
know. And I went to the old witch that I had seen before and she
sat in her parlour with a red shawl round her shoulders still knitting
the golden cloak, and faintly through one of her windows the elfin
mountains shone and I saw again through another the fields we
know.
“Tell me something,” I said, “of this strange land!”
“How much do you know?” she said. “Do you know that
dreams are illusion?”
“Of course I do,” I said. “Every one knows that.”
“Oh no they don’t,” she said, “the mad don’t know it.”
“That is true,” I said.
“And do you know,” she said, “that Life is illusion?”
“Of course it is not,” I said. “Life is real, Life is earnest — — .”
At that the witch and her cat (who had not moved from her old
place by the hearth) burst into laughter. I stayed some time, for
there was much that I wished to ask, but when I saw that the laugh-
ter would not stop I turned and went away.
572 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

The Avenger Of Perdóndaris

I was rowing on the Thames not many days after my return from
the Yann and drifting eastwards with the fall of the tide away from
Westminster Bridge, near which I had hired my boat. All kinds
of things were on the water with me — sticks drifting, and huge
boats — and I was watching, so absorbed the traffic of that great
river that I did not notice I had come to the City until I looked
up and saw that part of the Embankment that is nearest to Go-by
Street. And then I suddenly wondered what befell Singanee, for
there was a stillness about his ivory palace when I passed it by,
which made me think that he had not then returned. And though I
had seen him go forth with his terrific spear, and mighty elephant-
hunter though he was, yet his was a fearful quest for I knew that it
was none other than to avenge Perdóndaris by slaying that mon-
ster with the single tusk who had overthrown it suddenly in a day.
So I tied up my boat as soon as I came to some steps, and landed
and left the Embankment, and about the third street I came to I
began to look for the opening of Go-by Street; it is very narrow,
you hardly notice it at first, but there it was, and soon I was in the
old man’s shop. But a young man leaned over the counter. He had
no information to give me about the old man — he was sufficient
in himself. As to the little old door in the back of the shop, “We
know nothing about that, sir.” So I had to talk to him and humour
him. He had for sale on the counter an instrument for picking up
a lump of sugar in a new way. He was pleased when I looked at it
and he began to praise it. I asked him what was the use of it, and
he said that it was of no use but that it had only been invented a
week ago and was quite new and was made of real silver and was
being very much bought. But all the while I was straying towards
the back of the shop. When I enquired about the idols there he said
that they were some of the season’s novelties and were a choice se-
lection of mascots; and while I made a pretence of selecting one I
suddenly saw the wonderful old door. I was through it at once and
the young shop-keeper after me. No one was more surprised than
he when he saw the street of grass and the purple flowers on it; he
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 573

ran across in his frock-coat on to the opposite pavement and only

just stopped in time, for the world ended there. Looking downward
over the pavement’s edge he saw, instead of accustomed kitchen-
windows, white clouds and a wide, blue sky. I led him to the old
back door of the shop, looking pale and in need of air, and pushed
him lightly and he went limply through, for I thought the air was
better for him on the side of the street that he knew. As soon as the
door was shut on that astonished man I turned to the right and went
along the street till I saw the gardens and the cottages, and a little
red patch moving in a garden, which I knew to be the old witch
wearing her shawl.
“Come for a change of illusion again?” she said.
“I have come from London,” I said. “And I want to see Sin-
ganee. I want to go to his ivory palace over the elfin mountains
where the amethyst precipice is.”
“Nothing like changing your illusions,” she said, “or you grow
tired. London’s a fine place but one wants to see the elfin moun-
tains sometimes.”
“Then you know London?” I said.
“Of course I do,” she said. “I can dream as well as you. You
are not the only person that can imagine London.” Men were toil-
ing dreadfully in her garden; it was in the heat of the day and they
were digging with spades; she suddenly turned from me to beat
one of them over the back with a long black stick that she carried.
“Even my poets go to London sometimes,” she said to me.
“Why did you beat that man?” I said.
“To make him work,” she answered.
“But he is tired,” I said.
“Of course he is,” said she.
And I looked and saw that the earth was difficult and dry and
that every spadeful that the tired men lifted was full of pearls;
but some men sat quite still and watched the butterflies that flit-
ted about the garden and the old witch did not beat them with her
stick. And when I asked her who the diggers were she said, “These
are my poets, they are digging for pearls.” And when I asked her
what so many pearls were for she said to me: “To feed the pigs of
574 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

course.”
“But do the pigs like pearls?” I said to her.
“Of course they don’t,” she said. And I would have pressed the
matter further but the old black cat had come out of the cottage and
was looking at me whimsically and saying nothing so that I knew
I was asking silly questions. And I asked instead why some of the
poets were idle and were watching butterflies without being beaten.
And she said: “The butterflies know where the pearls are hidden
and they are waiting for one to alight above the buried treasure.
They cannot dig until they know where to dig.” And all of a sud-
den a faun came out of a rhododendron forest and began to dance
upon a disk of bronze in which a fountain was set; and the sound of
his two hooves dancing on the bronze was beautiful as bells.
“Tea-bell,” said the witch; and all the poets threw down their
spades and followed her into the house, and I followed them; but
the witch and all of us followed the black cat, who arched his
back and lifted his tail and walked along the garden-path of blue
enamelled tiles and through the black-thatched porch and the open,
oaken door and into a little room where tea was ready. And in
the garden the flowers began to sing and the fountain tinkled on
the disk of bronze. And I learned that the fountain came from an
otherwise unknown sea, and sometimes it threw gilded fragments
up from the wrecks of unheard-of galleons, foundered in storms
of some sea that was nowhere in the world; or battered to bits in
wars waged with we know not whom. Some said that it was salt
because of the sea and others that it was salt with mariners’ tears.
And some of the poets took large flowers out of vases and threw
their petals all about the room, and others talked two at a time and
other sang. “Why they are only children after all,” I said.
“Only children!” repeated the old witch who was pouring out
cowslip wine.
“Only children,” said the old black cat. And every one laughed
at me.
“I sincerely apologize,” I said. “I did not mean to say it. I did
not intend to insult any one.”
“Why he knows nothing at all,” said the old black cat. And eve-
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 575

rybody laughed till the poets were put to bed.

And then I took one look at the fields we know, and turned to the
other window that looks on the elfin mountains. And the evening
looked like a sapphire. And I saw my way though the fields were
growing dim, and when I found it I went downstairs and through
the witch’s parlour, and out of doors and came that night to the
palace of Singanee.
Lights glittered through every crystal slab — and all were uncur-
tained — in the palace of ivory. The sounds were those of a trium-
phant dance. Very haunting indeed was the booming of a bassoon,
and like the dangerous advance of some galloping beast were the
blows wielded by a powerful man on the huge, sonourous drum.
It seemed to me as I listened that the contest of Singanee with
the more than elephantine destroyer of Perdóndaris had already
been set to music. And as I walked in the dark along the amethyst
precipice I suddenly saw across it a curved white bridge. It was
one ivory tusk. And I knew it for the triumph of Singanee. I knew
at once that this curved mass of ivory that had been dragged by
ropes to bridge the abyss was the twin of the ivory gate that once
Perdóndaris had, and had itself been the destruction of that once fa-
mous city — towers and walls and people. Already men had begun
to hollow it and to carve human figures life-size along its sides. I
walked across it; and half way across, at the bottom of the curve,
I met a few of the carvers fast asleep. On the opposite cliff by the
palace lay the thickest end of the tusk and I came down a ladder
which leaned against the tusk for they had not yet carved steps.
Outside the ivory palace it was as I had supposed and the sentry
at the gate slept heavily; and though I asked of him permission to
enter the palace he only muttered a blessing on Singanee and fell
asleep again. It was evident that he had been drinking bak. Inside
the ivory hall I met with servitors who told me that any stranger
was welcome there that night, because they extolled the triumph
of Singanee. And they offered me bak to drink to commemorate
the splendour but I did not know its power nor whether a little or
much prevailed over a man so I said that I was under an oath to a
god to drink nothing beautiful; and they asked me if he could not
576 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

be appeased by a prayer, and I said, “In nowise,” and went towards

the dance; and they commiserated me and abused that god bitterly,
thinking to please me thereby, and then they fell to drinking bak
to the glory of Singanee. Outside the curtains that hung before the
dance there stood a chamberlain and when I told him that though a
stranger there, yet I was well known to Mung and Sish and Kib, the
gods of Pegāna, whose signs I made, he bade me ample welcome.
Therefore I questioned him about my clothes asking if they were
not unsuitable to so august an occasion and he swore by the spear
that had slain the destroyer of Perdóndaris that Singanee would
think it a shameful thing that any stranger not unknown to the gods
should enter the dancing hall unsuitably clad; and therefore he led
me to another room and took silken robes out of an old sea-chest
of black and seamy oak with green copper hasps that were set with
a few pale sapphires, and requested me to choose a suitable robe.
And I chose a bright green robe, with an under-robe of light blue
which was seen here and there, and a light blue sword-belt. I also
wore a cloak that was dark purple with two thin strips of dark-blue
along the border and a row of large dark sapphires sewn along the
purple between them; it hung down from my shoulders behind me.
Nor would the chamberlain of Singanee let me take any less than
this, for he said that not even a stranger, on that night, could be
allowed to stand in the way of his master’s munificence which he
was pleased to exercise in honour of his victory. As soon as I was
attired we went to the dancing hall and the first thing that I saw in
that tall, scintillant chamber was the huge form of Singanee stand-
ing among the dancers and the heads of the men no higher than
his waist. Bare were the huge arms that had held the spear that
had avenged Perdóndaris. The chamberlain led me to him and I
bowed, and said that I gave thanks to the gods to whom he looked
for protection; and he said that he had heard my gods well spoken
of by those accustomed to pray but this he said only of courtesy,
for he knew not whom they were.
Singanee was simply dressed and only wore on his head a plain
gold band to keep his hair from falling over his forehead, the ends
of the gold were tied in the back with a bow of purple silk. But
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 577

all his queens wore crowns of great magnificence, though whether

they were crowned as the queens of Singanee or whether queens
were attracted there from the thrones of distant lands by the won-
der of him and the splendour I did not know.
All there wore silken robes of brilliant colours and the feet of all
were bare and very shapely for the custom of boots was unknown
in those regions. And when they saw that my big toes were de-
formed in the manner of Europeans, turning inwards towards the
others instead of being straight, one or two asked sympathetically
if an accident had befallen me. And rather than tell them truly
that deforming out big toes was our custom and our pleasure I told
them that I was under the curse of a malignant god at whose feet I
had neglected to offer berries in infancy. And to some extent I jus-
tified myself, for Convention is a god though his ways are evil; and
had I told them the truth I would not have been understood. They
gave me a lady to dance with who was of marvellous beauty, she
gold me that her name was Saranoora, a princess from the North,
who had been sent as tribute to the palace of Singanee. And partly
she danced as Europeans dance and partly as the fairies of the
waste who lure, as legend has it, lost travellers to their doom. And
if I could get thirty heathen men out of fantastic lands, with their
long black hair and little elfin eyes and instruments of music even
unknown to Nebuchadnezzar the King; and if I could make them
play those tunes that I heard in the ivory palace on some lawn, gen-
tle reader, at evening near your house then you would understand
the beauty of Saranoora and the blaze of light and colour in that
stupendous hall and the lithesome movement of those mysterious
queens that danced round Singanee. Then gentle reader you would
be gentle no more but the thoughts that run like leopards over the
far free lands would come leaping into your head even were it Lon-
don, yes, even in London: you would rise up then and beat your
hands on the wall with its pretty pattern of flowers, in the hope that
the bricks might break and reveal the way to that palace of ivory
by the amethyst gulf where the golden dragons are. For there have
been men who have burned prisons down that the prisoners might
escape, and even such incendiaries those dark musicians are who
578 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

dangerously burn down custom that the pining thoughts may go

free. Let your elders have no fear, have no fear. I will not play
those tunes in any streets we know. I will not bring those strange
musicians here, I will only whisper the way to the Lands of Dream,
and only a few frail feet shall find the way, and I shall dream alone
of the beauty of Saranoora and sometimes sigh. We danced on
and on at the will of the thirty musicians, but when the stars were
paling and the wind that knew the dawn was ruffling up the edge
of the skirts of night, then Saranoora the princess of the North
led me out into a garden. Dark groves of trees were there which
filled the night with perfume and guarded night’s mysteries from
the arising dawn. There floated over us, wandering in that garden,
the triumphant melody of those dark musicians, whose origin was
unguessed even by those that dwelt there and knew the Lands
of Dream. For only a moment once sang the tolulu-bird, for the
festival of that night had scared him and he was silent. For only a
moment once we heard him singing in some far grove because the
musicians rested and our bare feet made no sound; for a moment
we heard that bird of which once our nightingale dreamed and
handed on the tradition to his children. And Saranoora told me that
they have named the bird the Sister of Song; but for the musicians,
who presently played again, she said they had no name, for no one
knew who they were or from what country. Then some one sang
quite near us in the darkness to an instrument of strings telling of
Singanee and his battle against the monster. And soon we saw him
sitting on the ground and singing to the night of that spear-thrust
that had found the thumping heart of the destroyer of Perdóndaris;
and we stopped awhile and asked him who had seen so memorable
a struggle and he answered none but Singanee and he whose tusk
had scattered Perdóndaris, and now the last was dead. And when
we asked him if Singanee had told him of the struggle he said that
that proud hunter would say no word about it and that therefore his
mighty deed was given to the poets and become their trust forever,
and he struck again his instrument of strings and sang on.
When the strings of pearls that hung down from her neck began
to gleam all over Saranoora I knew that dawn was near and that
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 579

that memorable night was all but gone. And at last we left the gar-
den and came to the abyss to see the sunrise shine on the amethyst
cliff. And at first it lit up the beauty of Saranoora and then it topped
the world and blazed upon those cliffs of amethyst until it dazzled
our eyes, and we turned from it and saw the workman going out
along the tusk to hollow it and to carve a balustrade of fair profes-
sional figures. And those who had drunken bak began to awake
and to open their dazzled eyes at the amethyst precipice and to rub
them and turn them away. And now those wonderful kingdoms
of song that the dark musicians established all night by magical
chords dropped back again to the sway of that ancient silence who
ruled before the gods, and the musicians wrapped their cloaks
about them and covered up their marvellous instruments and stole
away to the plains; and no one dared ask them whither they went
or why they dwelt there, or what god they served. And the dance
stopped and all the queens departed. And then the female slave
came out again by a door and emptied her basket of sapphires
down the abyss as I saw her do before. Beautiful Saranoora said
that those great queens would never wear their sapphires more than
once and that every day at noon a merchant from the mountains
sold new ones for that evening. Yet I suspected that something
more than extravagance lay at the back of that seemingly wasteful
act of tossing sapphires into an abyss, for thee were in the depths
of it those two dragons of gold of whom nothing seemed to be
known. And I thought, and I think so still, that Singanee, terrific
though he was in war with the elephants, from whose tusks he
had built his palace, well knew and even feared those dragons in
the abyss, and perhaps valued those priceless jewels less than he
valued his queens, and that he to whom so many lands paid beauti-
ful tribute out of their dread of his spear, himself paid tribute to
the golden dragons. Whether those dragons had wings I could not
see; nor, if they had, could I tell if they could bear that weight of
solid gold from the abyss; nor by what paths they could crawl from
it did I know. And I know not what use to a golden dragon should
sapphires be or a queen. Only it seemed strange to me that so much
wealth of jewels should be thrown by command of a man who
580 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

had nothing to fear — to fall flashing and changing their colours at

dawn into an abyss.
I do not know how long we lingered there watching the sunrise
on those miles of amethyst. And it is strange that that great and
famous wonder did not move me more than it did, but my mind
was dazzled by the fame of it and my eyes were actually dazzled
by the blaze, and as often happens I thought more of little things
and remember watching the daylight in the solitary sapphire that
Saranoora had and that she wore upon her finger in a ring. Then,
the dawn wind being all about her, she said that she was cold and
turned back into the ivory palace. And I feared that we might never
meet again, for time moves differently over the Lands of Dream
than over the fields we know; like ocean-currents going differ-
ent ways and bearing drifting ships. And at the doorway of the
ivory palace I turned to say farewell and yet I found no words that
were suitable to say. And often now when I stand in other lands
I stop and think of many things to have said; yet all I said was
“Perhaps we shall meet again.” And she said that it was likely that
we should often meet for that this was a little thing for the gods
to permit not knowing that the gods of the Lands of Dream have
little power upon the fields we know. Then she went in through
the doorway. And having exchanged for my own clothes again
the raiment that the chamberlain had given me I turned from the
hospitality of mighty Singanee and set my face towards the fields
we know. I crossed that enormous tusk that had been the end of
Perdóndaris and met the artists carving it as I went; and some by
way of greeting as I passed extolled Singanee, and in answer I gave
honour to his name. Daylight had not yet penetrated wholly to the
bottom of the abyss but the darkness was giving place to a purple
haze and I could faintly see one golden dragon there. Then look-
ing once towards the ivory palace, and seeing no one at the win-
dows, I turned sorrowfully away, and going by the way that I knew
passed through the gap in the mountains and down their slopes till
I came again in sight of the witch’s cottage. And as I went to the
upper window to look for the fields we know, the witch spoke to
me; but I was cross, as one newly waked from sleep, and I would
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 581

not answer her. Then the cat questioned me as to whom I had met,
and I answered him that in the fields we know cats kept their place
and did not speak to man. And then I came downstairs and walked
straight out of the door, heading for Go-by Street. “You are going
the wrong way,” the witch called through the window; and indeed
I had sooner gone back to the ivory palace again, but I had no right
to trespass any further on the hospitality of Singanee and one can-
not stay always in the Lands of Dream, and what knowledge had
that old witch of the call of the fields we know or the little though
many snares that bind our feet therein? So I paid no heed to her,
but kept on, and came to Go-by Street. I saw the house with the
green door some way up the street but thinking that the near end of
the street was closer to the Embankment where I had left my boat
I tried the first door I came to, a cottage thatched like the rest, with
little golden spires along the roof-ridge, and strange birds sitting
there and preening marvellous feathers. The door opened, and to
my surprise I found myself in what seemed like a shepherd’s cot-
tage; a man who was sitting on a log of wood in a little low dark
room said something to me in an alien language. I muttered some-
thing and hurried through to the street. The house was thatched in
front as well as behind. There were not golden spires in front, no
marvellous birds; but there was no pavement. There was a row of
houses, byres, and barns but no other sign of a town. Far off I saw
one or two little villages. Yet there was the river — and no doubt
the Thames, for it was the width of the Thames and had the curves
of it, if you can imagine the Thames in that particular spot without
a city around it, without any bridges, and the Embankment fallen
in. I saw that there had happened to me permanently and in the
light of day some such thing as happens to a man, but to a child
more often, when he awakes before morning in some strange room
and sees a high, grey window where the door ought to be and unfa-
miliar objects in wrong places and though knowing where he is yet
knows not how it can be that the place should look like that.
A flock of sheep came by me presently looking the same as
ever, but the man who led them had a wild, strange look. I spoke
to him and he did not understand me. Then I went down to the
582 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

river to see if my boat was there and at the very spot where I had
left it, in the mud (for the tide was low) I saw a half-buried piece
of blackened wood that might have been part of a boat, but I could
not tell. I began to feel that I had missed the world. It would be a
strange thing to travel from far away to see London and not be able
to find it among all the roads that lead there, but I seemed to have
travelled in Time and to have missed it among the centuries. And
when as I wandered over the grassy hills I came on a wattled shrine
that was thatched with straw and saw a lion in it more worn with
time than even the Sphinx at Gizeh and when I knew it for one of
the four in Trafalgar Square then I saw that I was stranded far away
in the future with many centuries of treacherous years between me
and anything that I had known. And then I sat on the grass by the
worn paws of the lion to think out what to do. And I decided to go
back through Go-by Street and, since there was nothing left to keep
me any more to the fields we know, to offer myself as a servant
in the palace of Singanee, and to see again the face of Saranoora
and those famous, wonderful, amethystine dawns upon the abyss
where the golden dragons play. And I stayed no longer to look for
remains of the ruins of London; for there is little pleasure in see-
ing wonderful things if there is no one at all to hear of them and
to wonder. So I returned at once to Go-by Street, the little row of
huts, and saw no other record that London had been except that one
stone lion. I went to the right house this time. It was very much
altered and more like one of those huts that one sees on Salisbury
plain than a shop in the city of London, but I found it by counting
the houses in the street for it was still a row of houses though pave-
ment and city were gone. And it was still a shop. A very different
shop to the one I knew, but things were for sale there — shepherd’s
crooks, food, and rude axes. And a man with long hair was there
who was clad in skins. I did not speak to him for I did not know his
language. He said to me something that sounded like “Everkike.”
It conveyed no meaning to me; but when he looked towards one of
his buns, light suddenly dawned in my mind, and I knew that Eng-
land was even England still and that still she was not conquered,
and that though they had tired of London they still held to their
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 583

land; for the words that the man had said were, “Av er kike,” and
then I knew that that very language that was carried to distant lands
by the old, triumphant cockney was spoken still in his birthplace
and that neither his politics nor his enemies had destroyed him af-
ter all these thousand years. I had always disliked the Cockney di-
alect — and with the arrogance of the Irishman who hears from rich
and poor the English of the splendour of Elizabeth; and yet when
I heard those words my eyes felt sore as with impending tears — it
should be remembered how far away I was. I think I was silent for
a little while. Suddenly I saw that the man who kept the shop was
asleep. That habit was strangely like the ways of a man who if he
were then alive would be (if I could judge from the time-worn look
of the lion) over a thousand years old. But then how old was I? It
is perfectly clear that Time moves over the Lands of Dream swifter
or slower than over the fields we know. For the dead, and the long
dead, live again in our dreams; and a dreamer passes through the
events of days in a single moment of the Town-Hall’s clock. Yet
logic did not aid me and my mind was puzzled. While the old
man slept — and strangely like in face he was to the old man who
had shown me first the little, old backdoor — I went to the far end
of his wattled shop. There was a door of a sort on leather hinges.
I pushed it open and there I was again under the notice-board at
the back of the shop, at least the back of Go-by Street had not
changed. Fantastic and remote though this grass street was with its
purple flowers and the golden spires, and the world ending at its
opposite pavement, yet I breathed more happily to see something
again that I had seen before. I thought I had lost forever the world
I knew, and now that I was at the back of Go-by Street again I felt
the loss less than when I was standing where familiar things ought
to be; and I turned my mind to what was left me in the vast Lands
of Dream and thought of Saranoora. And when I saw the cot-
tages again I felt less lonely even at the thought of the cat though
he generally laughed at the things I said. And the first thing that
I saw when I saw the witch was that I had lost the world and was
going back for the rest of my days to the palace of Singanee. And
the first thing that she said was: “Why! You’ve been through the
584 Tales Of Three Hemispheres

wrong door,” quite kindly for she saw how unhappy I looked. And
I said, “Yes, but it’s all the same street. The whole street’s altered
and London’s gone and the people I used to know and the houses I
used to rest in, and everything; and I’m tired.”
“What did you want to go through the wrong door for?” she
said.
“O, that made no difference,” I said.
“O, didn’t it?” she said in a contradictory way.
“Well I wanted to get to the near end of the street so as to find
my boat quickly by the Embankment. And now my boat, and the
Embankment and — and — — .”
“Some people are always in such a hurry,” said the old black cat.
And I felt too unhappy to be angry and I said nothing more.
And the old witch said, “Now which way do you want to go?”
and she was talking rather like a nurse to a small child. And I said,
“I have nowhere to go.”
And she said, “Would you rather go home or go to the ivory
palace of Singanee.” And I said, “I’ve got a headache, and I don’t
want to go anywhere, and I’m tired of the Lands of Dream.”
“Then suppose you try going in through the right door,” she
said.
“That’s no good,” I said. “Everyone’s dead and gone, and
they’re selling buns there.”
“What do you know about Time?” she said.
“Nothing,” answered the old, black cat, though nobody spoke to
him.
“Run along,” said the old witch.
So I turned and trudged away to Go-by Street again. I was very
tired. “What does he know about anything?” said the old black cat
behind me. I knew what he was going to say next. He waited a
moment and then said, “Nothing.” When I looked over my shoul-
der he was strutting back to the cottage. And when I got to Go-by
Street I listlessly opened the door through which I had just now
come. I saw no use in doing it, I just did wearily as I was told.
And the moment I got inside I saw it was just the same as of old,
and the sleepy old man was there who sold idols. And I bought a
 Tales Of Three Hemispheres 585

vulgar thing that I did not want, for the sheer joy of seeing accus-
tomed things. And when I turned from Go-by Street which was
just the same as ever, the first thing that I saw was a taximeter run-
ning into a hansom cab. And I took off my hat and cheered. And
I went to the Embankment and there was my boat, and the stately
river full of dirty, accustomed things. And I rowed back and bought
a penny paper, (I had been away it seemed for one day) and I read
it from cover to cover — patent remedies for incurable illnesses and
all — and I determined to walk, as soon as I was rested, in all the
streets that I knew and to call on all the people that I had ever met,
and to be content for long with the fields we know.