Tales From Jókai

CHAPTER VII
NEMESIS

He had to bury his knowledge out of sight. Two or three pillules administered in homœopathic doses would immediately have cured the child's weakness, and he could not give them to him. He was not allowed to save his own child. He was obliged to look on while his colleagues experimented with, tortured, the child. He could not reveal to them that he was a physician. Ah, ah!—then where is your diploma? And his diploma was in the name of Heinrich Klausner.

And self love was stronger in him than paternal love. So he was silent, and looked on cold-bloodedly at the torments of his child.

And at last nature and a mother's prayers prevailed against the severity of the disease. Little Max, despite the united operations of three specialists, actually recovered. It was on his very birthday that he was permitted to leave his room.

That day was kept in the Castle as a joyful festival. The grandparents, the Prince of Sonnenburg and his wife, had come to the house. The feast had been a calm and quiet rejoicing from beginning to end. No guests outside the family had been invited.

At the end of the meal, just as the father, his face radiant with happiness, had risen with a glass of foaming champagne to propose the health of the grandparents, the Major Domo came in from the ante-chamber and whispered something in the ear of the young Princess.

For an instant, Ingola angrily contracted her brows, but the next moment a benevolent smile lit up her face.

"No. To-day I will be angry with no one. To-day I am ready to forgive my mortal foe. Let him come in."

But at the sight of the visitor, as he passed through the doorway, the champagne glass which had been raised for the toast fell from Heinrich's hand, and he himself collapsed into a chair.

The visitor was Gottlieb Klausner; he had entered the banqueting-room in his simple black cassock.

He made straight for his son, and, placing his muscular hand on his shoulder, shook him out of his benumbing stupefaction.

"What do you want with Prince Casimir Moskowski?" exclaimed old Prince Sonnenburg.

The clergyman, in a dry, scornful voice, replied: "This man is not Count Casimir Moskowski, but my son, Heinrich Klausner, betrayer, impostor, thief."

Then, scarcely audible, he murmured to his son: "Rise and follow me."

Heinrich rose mechanically from the table and allowed his father to seize his hand.

Then the Princess Ingola, full of fear, shrieked: "My husband! What are you doing with my husband?"

The clergyman turned round, and with his long, lean, extended arm indicated another visitor whom he had brought with him; and who, before he made his appearance, had been leaning against the lintel of the door.

"Your husband, Princess Sonnenburg, is standing there. That is Prince Casimir Moskowski, your lawful consort."

The creature standing against the door was the exile just returned from Siberia; a creature broken down by oppression and suffering, with a mop of tangled hair and a long beard prematurely grey; his face livid and sunken, and prematurely aged by a network of wrinkles; bentbacked, with hands purple, frost-bitten, and horny from hard labour. Six years in the school of Siberia had reduced the stately son of the Starosta to this. Just look at him!

At the sight of this spectre, Heinrich quickly snatched a knife from the table, but his father still more quickly wrenched it from his grasp before Heinrich could draw it across his throat.

"Oho! my son! You don't get out of it so easily. You must make an exchange. The convict's coarse sheepskin awaits you. Your name is '13579.' You can easily remember it; it is a perfectly straightforward series of odd numbers. Your predecessor bore it for six years."

And the exchange really took place. Both the Austrian and the Russian Governments agreed that this scandalous fraud must be kept a profound secret, which would have ruined two of the most illustrious families of both empires. They also compelled the party most interested in the affair, the clever impostor, to make a late reparation. Moreover, Casimir had his property returned to him on condition that he acknowledged the Princess Ingola to be his consort. The Princess was also obliged to take him for her husband in order to procure for her children the family name, and the right of succession to the property. They all went together to Bialystok, and there they lived, as well as they could, joyless, cut off from the world, with their doors closed against every one.

But Heinrich they sent to the banks of the Jenisei. They shoved him into the sheepskin which had been made expressly for convict No. 13579, and gave him his predecessor's digging implements, sledge—and Samoyede consort.

And the old Starosta lived for a long time after that. He lived long enough to see the death of the children bearing the name of Moskowski, both Maximilian and Stanislaus; he lived long enough to see the family name of the Moskowskis become extinct. No other offspring came to supply their place.

But the veritable offspring of his flesh and blood, the little Samoyedes, increased and multiplied like sparrows. Their descendants now people the plains of the Jenisei, and very careful and industrious peasants they are.

VII
THE CITY OF THE BEAST
A CHAPTER FROM THE HISTORY OF A VANISHED CONTINENT

CHAPTER I
THE TABLES OF HANNO

In those days the earth was still a divinity to whom man raised altars. In those days men had not arrived at the overpowering conviction that the whole globe was nothing more than a wretched mite of a ball, which the sun, out of regard for the equilibrium of the universe, or, perhaps for the mere fun of the thing, twirls round and round. They had no idea that you could sail completely round it; measure it; weigh it and calculate exactly how long it has lasted and how much longer it is likely to last. No! The Earth still retained the nimbus of divinity; was still regarded as immeasurable, infinite, incomprehensible; and the sun, moon, and stars were popularly supposed to be his vassals.

Above the earth was heaven; below the earth was the Styx, and the dwellers on the earth lived in intimate relations with them both. No one had an inkling that the blue expanse above was only the reflection of the sun's rays refracted through the vapours of the earth, and that neither the gods, nor the blessed, could endure to live up there for the intense cold. No one knew that only the upper rind of the earth was solid, and that in the depths below the heat was so intense that the devil himself could only exist there in a molten condition.

In those days the earth was still an unappropriated domain. The poet could picture to himself bright fairy worlds beyond the continents already known, and the popular imagination was free to people the uninhabited wilds with all manner of marvels and monsters.

The wondrous thoughts of a poetic spirit betray themselves in these ideas and guesses. The spirit of invention three thousand years ago spoke of two gates which the then known world was said to have. One of these gates lay in the far north-east, between the snow and ice-clad Altai mountains, which set bounds to the wanderings of the nations. Beyond this mountain chain it was said you could hear the din of Gog and Magog, whom the mighty conqueror Alexander had thrust out of the world behind gates of bronze, and who ever since have been baring and blasting rock and mountain, and digging subterraneous ways in order to escape from their prison. Woe betide the world and all that dwells therein if ever they succeed in forcing their way through the woody Imaus and appear, with their hairy faces, angular heads, unknown tongues, arms, and clothing, and deluge the world from end to end like the stroke of a great spirit paint-brush, which, after filling its canvas with mighty nations, splendid cities, and world-renowned conquerors, should suddenly wipe them off again at a single sweep in order to paint fresh subjects.

At the opposite end of the world, in the warm south-west, where the gaze of the dreamer loses itself in the endless blue mirror of ocean, the poet pictured to himself that happier world which sprang from the rapturous embrace of heaven and earth; a world where the air is balmier, where love is sweeter, where man is more valiant and woman more faithful; where the light knows no shadow, joy no grief, and the flower no fading; where everything—herbs, trees, and the hearts of men—rejoices in an eternal youth.

It is an odd phenomenon in the psychology of nations, that popular fancy should always have painted the North with the pale and sombre hues of fear and terror, whilst she looked for the fulfilment of her unattainable hopes to the equally dim and impenetrable South, and constantly sent her dreams and her sighs in that direction.

In the days when Rome, still in her first bloom, had begun to be the mistress of those regions which the geographers of antiquity called the known world, there arose another young city on the opposite seashore, almost over against that great boot which we call Italy, and which, when once it had a good strong foot inside it, was to conquer the world with such rapid strides.

The new metropolis sprang from the ground as rapidly as Rome herself. The legend still lives of its imperious foundress, who purchased from the strange king as much land for her fugitive people as could be covered with an oxhide, and now that plot of land, once meted out by a buffalo-skin cut into strips, was already the seat of a great empire, and of all the coast land round about, and might perhaps have won the dominion of the whole world besides—if Rome had not chanced to be in that very world at that very time. Two centres the world cannot have; round two axles the earth cannot revolve.

This young city was called Carthage.

Men counted 330 years from the foundation of Carthage, which time Christians call 550 B.C., when the following event took place in the city of Carthage.

The captain of a merchant vessel, who very often touched the African coasts in the way of business, had been absent from his native land so long that his funeral feast had been held; his wife had wedded a second time, and another had succeeded to his office. Suddenly, when no one ever expected to see him again, he reappeared at the entrance of the great double harbour, which shut out the sea by means of huge chains, and had not its equal in the whole world, not even in Tyre itself, the oldest of all trading cities.

The mariner's name was Hanno. The whole city knew all about him, and every one now said how wonderful it was that Hanno should have come back again, after remaining away so long.

And he brought back with him treasures and curiosities such as no man had ever seen before, not even in dreams.

It was the custom at Carthage for the merchants who traversed distant lands to record the sum and substance of their experiences on marble tables, which tables were then preserved in the Temple of Kronos, which was in the heart of the city, near to the circumvallated Byrza. That the God of Time also possessed a temple there proves that, even in those early days, the fact that time is the greatest of all treasures, that time is money, was generally recognized at Carthage.

So Hanno's tables were placed on the altar of Kronos. These tables the people were not allowed to see. The inspection thereof was solely reserved for the Council of Elders, the grey Senators whose business it was to calculate how the information thus acquired could be turned to the profit of the fatherland.

The very next day after Hanno's tables had been placed on the altar, he was summoned to the dwelling of the Governor, which stood on a little island, midway between the two havens, exactly opposite the Gate of Elephants. At that time Carthage had already 260 gates and 650,000 inhabitants. A wall 180 feet high encircled the city on the land side; the cupolas of her palaces sparkled with gold; and, high above all her palaces, towered a temple whose walls were of black marble, whose columns were of alabaster with silver capitals, and from the top of whose domed roof rose a huge golden cupola, surmounted by four silver wings.

The Archon led Hanno over the scarlet, asphalted bridge, and, stopping short midway in front of the huge statue of Baalti, bade him survey the streets and public places of the huge city, along which a motley tide of human beings was ebbing and flowing, while whole armies of elephants, with heavy loads and gaily painted towers on their backs, were striding along the thoroughfares.

"Look, Hanno! Dost thou not see how great the city hath grown during thy absence, and how the number of the people hath increased in like measure?"

"It hath indeed become as great again," replied the mariner.

"Wouldst thou not be sad at heart if these palaces were one day to fall to the ground, if nothing but bats and serpents were to dwell in the place of these busy crowds, so that the stranger who heard tell of Carthage must needs ask: 'But where, then, is this great city? Who is there that can tell me anything about it?'"

"God forbid."

"And if one were then to make answer to the stranger, and say: 'That city once ruled half the world, and her fall dates from the day when a certain seafarer, called Hanno, returned from a long voyage,' wouldst thou have that come to pass?"

"Astarte and all the good gods preserve me from such a thought."

"Then guard thy lips, and take heed to what thou sayest before the Council."

Soon afterwards Hanno stood in the council chamber. The elders of the city sat round about the walls, and Hierkas, the eldest of the Senators, with a white beard reaching down to his girdle, held in his lap the large stone tables on which Hanno's experiences were recorded.

"Hanno," said the eldest of the elders to the seafarer, "thou hast been absent for years from thy native land; we waited for thee and thou camest not. In thy native land palaces, treasures, beautiful gardens, fruitful fields were thine; at home thou hadst a lovely wife and beloved slaves, and yet thou couldst find it in thy heart to remain away so long. Are the things true which thou hast recorded on these marble tables?"

"True every whit, and nought added thereto."

"Is it true that thou wast tossed by tempests on to a great continent in the far west, a continent larger than all the rest of the known world put together?"

"It is even so as I have said."

"Is it true that the winter there is as warm as the summer here, the grass as high as trees are with us, and the beasts as wise as men?"

"So it is in very truth."

"Is it true that there the women are fairer and fonder, and the men braver and mightier than with us; that there the very air is a healing balm, which heals the sick and makes the coward valiant, and the ill-favoured comely?"

"I have said it."

"Is it true that gold abounds there like sand, that precious stones are to be found on the mountain-tops, and pearls and purple on the seashore?"

"So have I found it."

"Thou hast said that thou didst see a plant, the roots whereof yield fruit sweeter than bread; that thou didst find a reed which yields honey, bushes which furnish wool white as fallen snow, and a tree from the pierced bark whereof flows streams of wine, while vessels full of milk grow beneath its crown?"

"All this have I seen, and to prove it I have brought of them all back with me."

"Hast thou not also brought back with thee a wonder-working bird with human speech and man's understanding?"

"I have it on my ship."

"Hast thou spoken with others of these things?"

"Only on the marble tables are my secrets recorded."

"Thy sailors have not yet been in the town, then?"

"None of them have left the harbour."

"Then, Hanno, return to thy ship."

They led the mariner back to his ship. Late the same evening the vessel was escorted by four men-of-war into the open sea, where, after stripping her of boats, sails, and helm, they deluged her on all four sides with what was known long afterwards as Greek fire. In an instant the inextinguishable flames had ignited the planks, and there, on the open sea, Hanno's ship, with its owner, its crew, and the gold-dust, the bread-fruit, the sugar-canes, the cocoa-nuts, and the talking-bird which they had brought back with them, were utterly consumed. The fire burned everything down to the very water's edge.

And a proclamation went forth in the streets of Carthage, that whoever presumed to say a word about Hanno's happy land should be instantly offered up to the goddess Astarte, and if a Senator should dare to betray a word of what was written on Hanno's marble tables, he should be stoned at the entrance of the harbour, and his bones strewn in the sea.

For if the men of Carthage had but learned that such a happy land existed anywhere under the sun, they would have quitted their native land in troops, the palaces would have fallen to pieces from decay, bats and serpents would have dwelt within the gates, and thus the day would have come when the stranger, on hearing the name of Carthage mentioned, would have asked: "But where, then, is the site of that great city?"

CHAPTER II
BAR NOEMI, THE BENJAMINITE

His name tells us at once that he was a native of Palestine. He was, indeed, one of the few survivors of those Benjaminites who had been extirpated, together with their city, by the men of the other eleven tribes, to avenge the dishonour done to a single woman. And the punishment was certainly deserved—the men of Benjamin had dishonoured a woman who came to their city as a guest. It was a righteous deed to root out such men. Bar Noemi was still a mere child when he escaped from destruction; he had had no share, therefore, in the sins of his fathers, and he knew besides that they had been put to the edge of the sword by the Lord's command, the strong God, Jehova the avenger, who, midst the thunders of Sinai, had written on the tables of stone with His own hand: "The face of the strange woman shall be sacred to the strange man, and whosoever trespasses against her shall die the death!"

Bar Noemi knew very well that this sentence had been rigorously executed upon the inhabitants of a whole city, yet he never renounced the faith of his fathers on that account; but clave strictly to the traditions of Holy Zion even in the midst of the city of delights, and sacrificed continually to the strong avenging God who visits indeed the sins of the fathers upon the children even to the fourth generation, but also rewards their virtues down to the thousandth generation.

Yet the gods of Tyre and Sidon were ever so much more agreeable. They suffered the altar of Love to stand in their temples. Anybody was free to offer thereon doves or goats, according as his love was chaste or unchaste. No one was taken to task for the sins of love; on the contrary, mortals were initiated into mysteries which taught them how to approach, through insensible gradations of delight, the heaven of bliss—or hopeless damnation.

Bar Noemi neither visited Astarte's temple, nor allowed himself to be initiated into her magical mysteries. He was satisfied with observing his own religious feasts and fasts with prayer and thanksgiving, and every year scoured all the boards of his house at the Passover, and raised the green booths in his garden at the Feast of Tabernacles. And the inhabitants of Tyre let him do as he chose. A trading nation is wont to be tolerant in matters of religion. Besides, the religion of Israel was nothing new to the Tyrians. The two nations had often come into contact, sometimes with iron in their hands, but much more often with gold and silver. As Bar Noemi reached man's estate, he was reckoned among the richest merchants in Tyre. His fifty galleys conveyed purple stuffs, real pearls, and oriental spices from continent to continent.

He himself was the hardiest of mariners. He was frequently absent with his ship twelve months at a time. His sailors were all of them picked men of the tribe of Levi.

Bar Noemi was the first to discover how to sail from the Red Sea to Carthage without being obliged to transport one's wares on camels from one coast to the other, thus avoiding the grievous, exorbitant tolls imposed by the Egyptians upon the Phœnician merchants. None of the older mariners had found out the secret. The Cape of Good Hope was still an unknown point to the trading world, and men shrank back in terror from the hostile winds and tempests which environed it.

At Carthage, Bar Noemi had learnt to know the daughter of a merchant, one of those Punic beauties whom the Roman ladies loved so much to imitate. The fairest of complexions was made still more fair by wonderful saffron locks; the large blue eyes had long black lashes; the jet eyebrows were arched and bushy; the lips a deep purple, and the skin as soft as velvet, and as white as alabaster.

After the first Punic war, the Roman ladies, in order to win back their husbands and lovers from these fascinating foreign belles, did all in their power to make their own charms correspond with the charms of the Carthaginian beauties. They coloured their locks with saffron, tied raw flesh to their skins at night, and heightened the colour of their lips with red salve. But Nature had given all these things gratis to the Carthaginian beauties. Art could not supply those long golden locks from which they manufactured bow-strings in the hour of their country's mortal agony; or those voluptuous supple limbs which bled beneath the weapons of Rome in the last evil hour of Carthage.

Byssenia, Bar Noemi's bride, was one of these beauties. Her father was satisfied with the marriage gift which Bar Noemi brought his daughter; merchants always regard it as a great point to have the question of dower settled before the conclusion of the match.

And Bar Noemi was much more than a mere rich man. He was a handsome man, and valiant and haughty to boot, a man who never humbly bowed his head, and thought it a shame to cast down his eyes before any one. He was wont to say that no one had a keener glance than the lightning, or a more terrible manner of speech than the raging sea, and these he had long ago learnt to defy.

His acquaintances and all the great men of the city assembled on his wedding-day at the house of the bride's father, while the Carthaginian damsels led the bride into the grove of Astarte, that she might bathe for the first time in the sacred spring whence she was to be led to the altar of the goddess, there to be united to the bridegroom. When, however, it came to the bridegroom's turn, according to Phœnician custom, to offer to the gods of wood and stone the sacrifices which they demand from all men, Bar Noemi, to every one's astonishment, answered: "Our God is Jehovah," and refused to bring any offering to the idol.

The elders and high priests were much offended by these bold words, and conferred together in whispers as to what they should do with the audacious stranger.

First they led him into the halls of Astarte, whom the people adored in the shape of a beautiful woman in white marble. They showed him the mysteries of the ritual devoted to the Goddess of Love, the sweet, seductive secrets which confound the human soul, the sense-bereaving, voluptuous shapes which, under various names, have found worshippers in all ages down to the latest times.

Bar Noemi hastily turned away his eyes from the captivating sight, and stammered: "Jehovah is our God."

Shaking their heads, the elders and high priests proceeded further, and led Bar Noemi into the temple of the great and glistening god Dagon, resplendent with gold and silver, where the molten image of the God of Riches sits in a ship of mother-o'-pearl, laden with pearls and precious stones, and swimming in a basin of quicksilver instead of water. Then they represented to Bar Noemi that even if he would not bow before the magic of Love, he might well bend the knee before the terrible symbol of Riches, for the mighty Dagon grants wealth and dominion to them who honour him.

Bar Noemi looked contemptuously at the treasures lying at his feet, and answered boldly: "Our God is Jehovah."

The elders and high priests exchanged angry glances, and led him next to the temple of the war god Remphan, which rested on copper columns. The idol itself was of dark, molten bronze; at its feet lay heaps and heaps of broken weapons and armour, the trophies of battles won by the Carthaginians, as well as the prows of those ships which had been captured in naval victories.

"Since thou wilt bow down to neither Love nor Riches, at least do obeisance to the god in whose gift is Fame, the highest gift known to a true man."

But Bar Noemi gazed boldly into the hollow eyes of the molten idol, and cried defiantly: "There is but one God—Jehovah, the Almighty."

Last of all they brought him into the subterranean temple of Baal, the god of the strong hell, who has dominion over eternal fire, and distributes pains and torments both here and in the nether world. There they showed the stranger the red-hot body of the huge, shapeless idol which demanded a human victim every day, and they forced him to stay to see the sacrifice. Then they hurled a great, strong man into the idol's jaws, and the same instant a thick smoke gushed forth from Baal's eyes and nostrils, whilst the yells of the dying victim roared forth from the cavernous stomach like the laugh of a demon of hell, gradually growing fainter and fainter, as when a wild beast has satisfied his hunger, and settles quietly down to digest his food.

"Bar Noemi," cried the elders, "the gates of death are open before thee. Speak!"

Full of unshakable faith, the young man raised his eyes towards the invisible bright blue sky, the one thing pure enough to be imagined the dwelling-place of the eternal God, and spake unmoved: "Jehovah alone is God, the Ruler of earth and of the starry heavens, the Lord of life and death. All else is but dust and ashes."

The idol roared forth the death-agonies of a second victim, while the officiating priests sought to drown the sickening shrieks with the din of kettledrums and cymbals. In the midst of this hellish spectacle, Bar Noemi folded his hands across his breast and prayed in silence. He had quite made up his mind to breathe his last in the belly of the idol.

Again the elders and high priests whispered together, then, with smiling countenances, they spoke thus to Bar Noemi—

"Thou hast remained steadfast in thy faith. Cleave thereto henceforward also, and never forswear thyself. Wed thee with thy betrothed after the manner of thy nation, and take her with thee to thy distant dwelling; live as long as thy God wills it."

Bar Noemi obeyed their words, and secretly blessed Jehovah, who helps His true servants to victory, and strengthens the hearts of those who praise His Name. So he was married in the sight of all the people to the beautiful Byssenia, gave to the father of the bride the marriage gift he had brought with him in exchange for her, himself taking charge of his wife's paraphernalia, settled various outstanding matters of business, and embarking in his ship with his gallant crew, sailed out of the bay amid the cheers of the people assembled in the harbour, and the blare of the trumpets and clarions. An escort of four warships accompanied him into the open sea. The decks of the splendid Carthaginian vessels were hung with painted carpets, their prows were adorned with far-projecting golden monsters, behind were the movable bridges used in battle to grapple the enemy, amidships the high tower, whence stones and other missiles were wont to be hurled.

When the ocean was reached and land was no longer visible anywhere, the Carthaginians suddenly let down their bridges upon the bridal ship and held it fast.

The elders spake yet again to Bar Noemi.

"Bar Noemi, son of a strange land, below thee is the waste of waters, above thee is the waste of sky, answer now, who is the God that can help thee in this wilderness?"

"Jehovah!" answered Bar Noemi.

"Then Jehovah stand thee by," said the elders; whereupon they stripped Bar Noemi's ship of sails, helm, and every instrument which enables the mariner to find or make his way on the ocean. Then they bade the bride return to her father at Carthage. But, clinging to her husband's breast, Byssenia said she would liefer remain in the stormy sea, and would not forsake in the hour of danger him to whom she had plighted her troth.

"Then may Jehovah help thee," answered the elders; and with that they quitted Bar Noemi's vessel, and, drawing back the bridges, left the bridal ship there in the open sea, without sails or helm, devoted to the tempest, abandoned to the waves.

CHAPTER III
DERELICT

"A miracle!" cried the ship's company; but Bar Noemi said: "Ye now see that Jehovah has heard me, for He has sent His messenger from heaven as a sign that He will deliver us from this present distress. Let us, then, take our mantles, and whatever else can be spared from the ship, the garments of the women, the precious gold stuffs, the Phrygian velvets, and let us sew them together and make us a sail. A west wind is arising which will drive us upon some coast; there will we refit our ship and return to Tyre."

The ship's company obeyed and set to work. They made them a large sail of bright shreds and patches; they hoisted it up, not without sore labour; and scarcely had the sun sunk down and melted away in his own reflection at the extreme margin of the sky, when a light breeze arose in the east which at first but lightly curled the waves, but gradually made the whole sea heave and toss. The patched sail bulged out, the ship righted herself, stood firm amidst the waves, and began to glide along the watery mirror, and the ship's company, sinking on their knees, stammered: "Jehovah is our God."

All night long the wind blew in the same direction, and all night long Bar Noemi scrutinized the stars. The constellations with which he was so familiar, for he had diligently studied them during his long voyages, remained constant at the same height, in an unaltered arch, right above his head, a sign, he knew, that the ship was following a northerly course.

Three days and three nights the rudderless ship flew with a single sail over the surface of the ocean. On the fourth day there appeared very faintly on the distant horizon, like the forehead of some brown marine monster, the ridge of the world-supporting Atlas mountains, the rock of the unconquerable Gebel-al-Tarik, which we degenerate moderns call Gibraltar. This point was familiar to the mariners. They knew that the fortunate inhabitants of the golden apple-gardens of the Hesperides would certainly welcome them with joy, though it would have been more dangerous for the seafarers to have gazed into the eyes of the maidens of the Atlas mountains than to have listened to the songs of the Sirens or to have sailed between the coral-reefs of Scylla the accursed. The joys of this outermost African haven had torn more sailors from the rowing-benches than even famine or pestilence, the twin destroying angels of antiquity.

Shouting for joy, Bar Noemi's crew clambered up to the masthead, so as to better survey from thence the promised land, which drew nearer to them every moment. Already they began to make out the shadowy coastline; already they could distinguish the fresh green of the woods against the dark-blue mountain-side, the narrow strips of cornland, and the scarlet bloom of the almond woods on the shore below. Already they perceived the sky-blue enamel of the luxuriant sesame flowers in the meadows, and the inviting smoke-wreaths arising from the hospitable huts on the shore—when, suddenly, a small black cloud arose in the south-east, which, in a moment, darkened the sun and changed the complexion of the ocean. The waves took a murky, dark-green tinge, Atlas veiled himself in dusky grey, the shores became dark blue, and seemed to draw further and further away; and, all at once, as if fallen from the skies, the whole surface of the water was covered by those white birds with black wings whose vital element is the tempest, who live by the storm, and only come forth from their nooks and crannies as harbingers of evil to the mariner, circling round the ship with terrifying screams, as if only sent forth to bewail the crew.

Bar Noemi ordered the single sail to be furled, kissed first his lovely wife, and then his faithful comrades, one after the other, for whom there was no longer any hope of salvation save only in the mighty hand of the Lord, and, falling upon his knees, he began to sing the psalm: "In Thee, O Lord, do we put our trust," they all following his example.

The raging of the waves, the howling of the wind, grew ever louder, the song of the suppliants ever fainter; the awful crash of the thunder mingled with the concert of Death; the black clouds veiled the sun with an impenetrable veil, and only the lightning flashed out at intervals like a spectral torch. At every flash the black outlines of Atlas were visible like the terrible shape of a ghostly nightmare, and on the foaming crests of the lurid wave-mountains swept a tiny nutshell, a frail wooden pellet, the plaything of the storm, wherein some two hundred or so of that species of worm which calls itself Lord of the Universe were huddled together into a trembling, whining mass.

The fury of the storm kept steadily increasing, the sullen day became a yet more sullen night. Bar Noemi's crew saw the rocks of the Atlas range drawing nearer every moment, and they cursed Bar Noemi and the God to whom he prayed, without ceasing. Another instant and they will all be dashed to pieces.

Then the lightning flashes ceased, and long hours of gloom succeeded. The storm tossed the ship about in its mad frolic; the minutes passed in mortal anguish, and when, after many hours, a fresh lightning flash lights up the whole horizon, the astonished mariners no longer see the Atlas mountains. They have been driven far out into the Atlantic ocean.

"Jehovah is our God alone."

The Lord has saved His faithful ones from a terrible death, yet He has cast them upon the immeasurable deep, and abandoned them to fresh dangers.

The night passed away, but the sky was still covered with wild, hurrying clouds which seemed to be fighting among themselves so that their blood flowed down in streams. And nowhere was the sun to be seen, and the horizon had vanished in drifting clouds and floating vapours—and so they fared for four days. The tempest is never weary.

The ship was already a wreck, the masts were broken to pieces, the glistening dragons on the prow, which had made such a brave show a few days before, had been swept away by the waves; everything superfluous had already been cast overboard, and yet it was as much as they could do to keep the ship from sinking.

As now the fourth day was already closing in storm and stress, the eldest of the mariners stepped up to Bar Noemi, took him aside, and said—

"Dost thou not pray to Jehovah every day, Bar Noemi?"

"Every hour and with all my might!"

"In the stern of thy ship stands the Ark of thy Covenant before which thou dost kneel constantly. What does it contain? Jehovah dwells therein, does He not?"

"It contains the Commandments of the Lord engraved on stone, after the pattern of the tables of Jerusalem."

"Then thou prayest to Jehovah? It is well! But dost thou not know that at the self-same time thy crew in the hold of the ship bewail Thammus, kneeling beside the golden serpent which they have concealed there. Thus, either two Divinities, one of whom would save, the other destroy us, are striving above our heads for the mastery while we perish; or, there is but one God, even Jehovah, as thou sayest, who prolongs our days indeed out of compassion for thee—but who, in His wrath at the wickedness of these men, will not deliver us from the storm. Look now, this do! When, at night, the sound of wailing reaches thee through the deck, know that they are worshipping their idol, and either throw the Ark of the Covenant or the golden serpent into the sea, that at least one God may befriend us."

At these words Bar Noemi was very wrath, and did as the old mariner had counselled. For when at night time he heard the mysterious wailing below the deck, he went quickly down into the hold and there found his sailors on their knees, smiting their breasts and cutting their naked limbs with sharp knives, and in the midst stood a golden serpent, wound round a column, whose large eyes, made of carbuncle stones, gleamed brightly through the gloom.

Bar Noemi approached the idol and dashed his sword against its head, whereupon it broke into a thousand splinters which scattered in all directions.

"Behold now!" cried Bar Noemi, "how that magian lied who told you that this was a god, and how that goldsmith lied who said it was of gold! It was only so much gilded glass. He who wrought the thing was right in supposing that if you could take it for a god, it might also pass for gold!"

The astonished mariners felt deeply ashamed at these words. The material fraud was the strongest proof in their eyes of their spiritual aberration also. They kissed the hem of Bar Noemi's mantle, and collecting the splinters of the shattered idol, flung them into the sea.

CHAPTER IV
THE RAFT AND THE GREEN DOVE

"A miracle! a miracle!" cried the astonished crew; but as in the still night watches they raised their eyes to the cloudless sky, a fresh astonishment fell upon them. This starry heaven was not the heaven they were accustomed to. Those were other constellations. The seven stars of the Great Bear were no longer to be seen; the bright and constant polar star was no longer in its place; the mariner's guide, that double eye of heaven and all the other constellations of the Northern firmament, which the sailor regards in so poetic a light, whose going and coming he knows so well and whose position tells him in what part of the world he is—all these had vanished from the sky, and in their place were other stars, still more brilliant than they, which no man was able to call to mind. One of these stars shone with so intense a radiance that it cast shadows on the deck.

Amazed and anxious, the bewildered crew looked up into the unknown heaven which thus disturbed all their calculations, and turning to Bar Noemi, inquired timidly—

"Sir! where are we?"

Bar Noemi himself, not without secret horror, examined these stars of another world, and answered with a sigh—

"We are in God's hand!"

"We are beyond the limits of the world!" cried a despairing voice; "we are gliding into Nothingness!" Another maintained that they were approaching the land of the great Rok-rok, the home of serpents and amphibians, where beasts hunt men as men hunt beasts elsewhere. A third told of the Magnet-mountain of the Indians, which drew ships to destruction from afar, and all were terrified at finding themselves in a position so queer that not even a single legend had anticipated it.

For a while the crew whispered among themselves, then the boldest of them stepped defiantly up to Bar Noemi, and said—

"Listen to our words, Bar Noemi! All thy continuous praying to Jehovah has only brought trouble upon thyself and those who are with thee. Thou makest us to be tossed of tempests and suffer grievous perils; thou hast shattered the God Thammus; thou dost nought but praise and glorify Jehovah, and now we are in the midst of a strange sea. How we got hither we know not nor how we shall escape from thence; and what is the cause of all this but thou and the Ark of thy Covenant and the name of Jehovah that thou prayest to? So long as Thammus was with us, the storm howled, but since thou didst break him to pieces a calm more terrible than a storm has come upon us. Till then we at least moved along, but now we are fast bound to one spot as if with double anchors. The crew, therefore, will now abandon thee and the Ark of the Covenant to the ocean. Depart from us whithersoever thou camest. We are not angry with thee, but we fear thee. We will make thee a raft of planks; we will give it a rudder and steering gear; we will share our sail with thee, and give thee bread and water for six days. Be content, therefore, and in Jehovah's name depart, and we too will go whithersoever the good or evil humour of our devils may lead us."

Bar Noemi answered nothing. This people was hurrying to its doom. For the third time it denied its faith. The sea will surely swallow them up as the earth did Dathan and Abiram. When the sins of Sodom exhausted the patience of the Lord, He withdrew the one righteous man from the abandoned city. Even now the angels of the Lord are many.

When Byssenia, who had hitherto shared all the sufferings of the crew without a murmur, saw how they were making ready a raft for Bar Noemi, she embraced her sorrowing husband, and said, in an encouraging whisper—

"Be at ease, Bar Noemi. Here is not the limit of the world. The men of Carthage possess a secret which may not be named there, and yet is handed down from father to son and thus never forgotten. Tossed by storms, the courageous Hanno wandered once upon a time into these regions. His whole course is recorded on huge stone tables which are jealously preserved in the temple of the God of Death. For whoever betrays this secret is a dead man. I learnt it from my father, who is one of the guardians of this temple, and sits in the great council of merchants. In the quarter where that dazzling star goes to rest, there is a new continent much larger and more beautiful than ours. We shall find it if we follow the course of the star. Two mighty geniuses are with us and will help us: Jehovah is with thee and Love with me!"

Bar Noemi kissed and embraced her whom God had sent as His angel to save him in his extremity, and with that he himself helped his crew to make ready the frail bark on which, with God's covenant of peace and the love of his wife, he was to be committed to the ocean.

The raft was now ready. A single upright plank formed its mast, a piece of brocaded cloth, once the mantle of the bride, was fastened thereto by way of sail. A leather skin of water, a basket of coarse wheat cakes which the Carthaginians used for bread (and these much damaged by sea-water), were all the victuals which Bar Noemi received from his crew, and of all his countless treasures, he took with him but three: the Ark of the Covenant of his God; his beloved, the faithful Byssenia; and his good and trusty sword.

As Bar Noemi went on board the raft, the crew shouted after him: "Jehovah be with thee!" He gazed back sadly upon the forsaken ship from which the one righteous man had thus been driven, and as he withdrew further and further from it, and as the wilderness of water between them became greater and greater, and he still stood and gazed sorrowfully back upon his ship, lo! she suddenly began to settle down sideways, then, slowly turning round and round for some minutes, finally sank before his eyes. The breeze carried the last screams of the dying sailors to Bar Noemi's ears.

Thus he found himself quite alone in the midst of the unknown waters.

But he did not remain alone long. The flapping of wings resounded on high, and from the midst of the serene blue sky, descended that same wondrous dove which had visited his ship on Africa's coasts, and now lighted fearlessly on the top of his little mast.

She, too, had fled from the storm. Her gold glittering plumage was all rumpled and soiled, and she smoothed and composed it with her scarlet bill; then fluttering on to Bar Noemi's arm, as if he were an old acquaintance, she flew down from thence upon Byssenia's snowy shoulder with a loud cooing, and when they offered her of the wheaten cakes, she pecked at it but did not eat, and then flew away again with the gentle coo of the wild dove.

"I'll follow thee, thou heavenly messenger!" cried Bar Noemi, trustfully; and unfurling his little sail to the wind, he steered the raft in the direction taken by the dove.

The heavenly guide never disappeared from view. When the raft was becalmed, she flew down upon it and rested. At night she always roosted on the summit of the mast, and in the early morning departed again, flying constantly in one and the same direction.

Three days and three nights the dove and the mariner travelled together. On the morning of the fourth day, the dove flew joyously on to Byssenia's knee, ate heartily of the wheaten cakes, and thereupon flew so rapidly away that the eye could scarcely follow her: at last she quite disappeared from the horizon.

In the fourth night the ship sailed along alone, and the beloved, the loving wife, laid her head on her husband's bosom, as if she were resting on her bridal bed at home, so calmly did she sleep amidst the waste of waters.

But Bar Noemi could not sleep. There is a feeling in the sailor's breast, the vibration of some hidden chord, one of those myriad secret forebodings which the learned may perhaps deny, but can never explain, which expresses itself in a feverish unrest whenever he is approaching the green headland of his dreams, which he cannot yet see, and yet could point out with his finger and say, "There it is!" when all around him is nought but commingling sea and sky.—"There it is! There it must be!"

The morning twilight suffuses heaven and ocean with gold and purple, and, lo! where the gilded sky touches the water, a lofty rock stands out against the horizon, its bepurpled summits shimmering through the azure morning mists.

"The Lord He is God alone!" exclaims Bar Noemi, and raised thankful hands to heaven, while Byssenia sank down before the Ark of the Covenant, and covered its silver-studded corners and angles with her kisses.

A new world? No! It is an old world already hastening to the end of its history, just as the history of the known world has begun to take notice of it. Ye who have fixed the duration of the Ages, how know ye how many previous millenniums with a whole world of men, beasts, and plants have already vanished hopelessly from your ken? Those skeletons which are found in the beds of rivers, at the bottom of deep clefts; those remains of unknown animals never seen by European eyes; those relics of a primeval vegetation which amaze us in the coal layers, and the chalk strata,—speak of an older, perhaps of a better, in any case of a mightier, world than ours. And do not those gigantic ruined palaces, with their wondrous architecture which adventurous travellers have discovered in the land of the Incas, do not they point to a vanished people, the masters of power and glory who, once upon a time, filled half a world with their struggles and their joys; ruled the land and waxed great, seeming to the inhabitants of that trans-oceanic continent a race of very demigods, till their sins made them ripe for death, and the luxuriant vegetation of a savage Nature disputed the possession of the soil with the children of men? The calculations of the wise Plato about the "Fortunate Islands" may indeed have only been a poetic dream, perhaps the mere striving of an inspired philosophical soul to realize its own ideals; but so much is certain: the relics which have survived the ravages of centuries, relics which no sea can wear down, which no forest can overgrow, no tempest can wash away, testify to the fact that in the far distant ages before us, beings have existed who aimed at perfection, and only perished when their pride reached its summit, and they fancied in their insane presumption that there was no longer any God above them.

CHAPTER V
THE PRIEST OF THE MEGATHERIUM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And now the man approached Bar Noemi.

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

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

"Thou hast come from Carthage, eh?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The old young man looked at him with consternation.

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

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

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

Bar Noemi sighed.

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

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

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

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

And the old young man led them towards the city.