As the Dweller stood thus, a feeling of desolation came upon me, settling into a dull despair, which I had no force to combat. It may have been the attitude in which she stood, solitary and silent, in that strange setting, the vacant beauty of the temple before, and the golden circle of the woods behind her, her arms lifted in dumb protest against the inexorable destiny which overshadowed her.
It may have been her attitude only, or it may have been more than that, as I realised later.
For when at last she cast down her arms with a gesture of impotence, and turned with bowed head, and descended into some cavity of the ground, my companion opened her mind toward me, and the shadow darkened as she did it. Then her thought grew clear to this issue,—“When you have shown me the dark things of the time from which you came, I have been curious, or repelled; or I have sympathised or marvelled only; yet it has been as unreal as is a reflection in water. But here I find it close, and very terrible. Its meaning is beyond me, but I had not imagined that the world could hold such sorrow.... It is strange that we could receive thoughts which were not directed to us, but it may be that when they are cast loose in such intensity of petition they may be received by all who are near them.”
I replied, “That is scarcely so, for I saw only, and her thoughts were hidden.”
She answered, “It may be that you do not receive the thoughts of the Dwellers as easily as we do, or as you receive ours, or there may be another cause, but to me her thought was clear and vivid, though it was formless, being a desire that was so strong that it could endure with little hope to support it. I do not know for what she asked, but I think she called for help which will not be given. I can show you her thought.”
Then she gave me the prayer which had gained so unexpected an audience, and my mind was filled at once with a sense of intolerable calamity, and with the cry of one who knew that the time for hope was over, and who struggled to reject a despair which would be beyond her endurance, so that her mind beat lamentably against the repulse of closed and indifferent doors.
I suppose it to have been because her trouble was of a nature more easily explicable to myself than to my companion that I found in the transmitted thought a more concrete quality than she had recognised as she received it.
I could not tell the cause of her calamity, or its incidence, but I became aware that it was the impending destruction of her race against which she pleaded, and that this was joined in some undisclosed manner with a personal grief, the larger shadow being a connected background to the more imminent catastrophe.
It was not evident that we were concerned in the troubles of any one of the Dwellers, or in their general welfare. Indeed, their perils or pre-occupations might contain our safety. They were alien from, and might be contemptuously hostile to, my own humanity. Yet the depression of that telepathy would not lift, and it was with a sense of overhanging tragedy, illogically enough, that we advanced to investigate the cavity by which she had descended.
The ground declined as we approached it, becoming a rounded channel or gutter, down which we moved, the temple on our right, and the surface soon above the level of our heads on the left. We must have descended thirty or forty feet when we came to the lowest point, the ground commencing to rise before us, and at the same time we became aware of the entrance to a tunnel on our right which sloped down and inward beneath the temple.
In dimensions it reminded me of the tunnels beside the opal path with which I was already familiar, but it was otherwise different. There was no vertical rod, such as that which had drawn the eyes, and stayed the pursuit of the Frog-Mouths. There was no difference between floor and walls, but all were marble-smooth, and hard, and cold. They were opalescent, but of a kind and colour which I had not seen previously. The sides and roof were of the dim green of the under-surface of an arching wave, and like a wave they curved over, differing from the upright walls and flat ceiling of the earlier tunnels. The floor gave an impression of dark green depths through which we could have seen to the remoteness of the earth’s interior, had the faint light allowed it.
We had ceased to think as we moved forward, so that I might once again give to my companion the benefit of the sight she lacked, and it must have been my own volition that caused us to take a few steps within the entrance of the cavity. But as we did so, her thought broke sharply across my own, “You need show no more: I can see here.” It was a relief that did not lessen the marvel. She showed me that the blackness still fell like a curtain over the very mouth of the cavity, where I looked out into sunlight, but the gloom within was alike to both of us, and in the relief of this renewed equality we sat down, not very prudently, against the wall of the passage, forgetting its potential dangers in the pleasure of needed rest, and in the necessity of reconsidering our position.
“The question is,” I began immediately, “shall we continue the plan we made before we knew that this tunnel existed, or shall we do better to attempt to descend it?”
“It is one question, among several,” my companion answered, “but it is hard to answer. We have some facts now of which we were ignorant when we decided two nights ago. If we exchange our thoughts at once, we shall make confusion only. Let us think separately till we have each resolved what is best, and have made our reasons clear to ourselves. Then, should we differ, and either prove unable to convince the other, I will give way very willingly.”
I assented to this, knowing it to be unlikely that such a difference would arise or continue, and we remained silent for a considerable time, for my own thoughts were chaotic, and I was anxious not to interrupt the exhaustive logic of the mind beside me.
My inclination was to explore the cavity to which we had now come, but when I attempted to formulate arguments in support of this preference, I knew that I could not do so conclusively. I was in a state of nervous exhaustion, and my courage sank at the thought of struggling outward through the belt of the resisting will, only to front the perils of the pathless hills, and the jaws of the waiting Frog Mouths. Though to descend to the Dwellers might mean destruction, I was in no mood to defer it, but rather to cast myself upon their mercy, with a feeling of indifference as to what the end might be. So that when my comrade indicated her willingness to converse again, I was quick to ask her opinion first, to which she assented with her usual equanimity.
“It is evident,” she began, “that though we know more than we did, we still know so little that all decision must be guessing, and each new fact, as we gain it, can only demonstrate how foolish may have been the choice we made before we perceived it. Yet, when the roads branch, a choice must be made.
“The Dwellers may have information by which they know of our movements, or they may be searching for us, in ignorance of where we are; or they may be entirely unaware or indifferent.
“In the first case, it seems clear that should we return we are adding useless dangers to a sufficient peril, for we must face them, first or last, and we can gain nothing by wandering upon the surface before we do so; in the second, we may be more likely to avoid them if we descend here, by an entrance which appears unwatched, and where they do not know us to be, than if we return to those with which they already know us to be familiar; in the third case, it may still be to our advantage to descend at once, rather than to wander farther upon the unfriendly surface of an unfamiliar world. I can see that there may be facts which would make folly of these conclusions. We are certainly distant from where my Leader’s body was left to their mercy. We have no reason to suppose, if it have been preserved at all, that it has been conveyed below the surface in this direction. We have no reason to suppose that we shall be able to penetrate under the surface toward the point from which our search should commence more easily than we can do above it. We have no certainty that there is any connection whatever between this passage and those of which we knew previously. Should we descend, and escape capture or destruction, it may still be that a later day will see us emerge with time lost, to no end but the experience of an abortive adventure. This is the more likely because there is no evidence of traffic to or from the entrance, but the whole aspect is of the reservation of a peculiar and sacred place. I cannot tell which may be best, but my inclination is to go down.”
I answered, “So is mine; and I can add to your reasons two at least which you have not mentioned. The one is that while within the tunnel you have lost the disability of the blindness which had hindered us in the surrounding area; the other, which is more serious (because I suppose that we could quickly reach the woods where you would presumably see as before) is that, after this delay, it is doubtful whether we could cross the hills before the night falls, and now that my last remnants of clothing have left me, my body is ill-adapted to meet either storm or frost, and I have less fear of the more even temperature of the subterranean places.
“It is true that this passage is not like the one which I first penetrated. Its slope is less. Its current of upward air is less evident. Its floor is less easy to tread. Its roof does not give the same measure of light. It may not be frequently used, and it may lack the stores of food and water on which I subsisted. But beyond this, all is conjecture. It is a choice of risks, and we agree as to the one to be chosen.”
So we rose, and went down together.
CHAPTER VI
THE DOWNWARD PATH
I have often speculated as to what might have happened had we decided differently, and had I survived the dangers of the surface world, and attempted the penetration of one of the seaward tunnels. Knowing what I do now, I suppose that it must have ended fatally for myself, if not for my companion also. But so much is still mystery, so much conjecture, that even that may not be certainly true.
As it was, we went on for some time in an eventless silence, the dark green shadowy smoothness of the surface on which we trod sloping gently downward, the glassy arch above us becoming gloomier as we left the daylight. The idea oppressed me that we were actually traversing a wave’s interior cavity. I think that I had been mentally exhausted by the prolonged effort of conveying the scene through which we had passed to my companion’s mind.
Once or twice I tried to establish connection with her, but her thoughts were closed against me, and I gained no more than a knowledge that she was abstracted and troubled, and indisposed for conversing. Then we came to a place where we must needs pause and consult, for the straight path ceased. The slope ceased. We stood on a level path that curved forward, right and left, with a blank wall before us. Either side we might turn, and the choice could scarcely be made in silence.
I questioned my companion with thought and eyes. It was too dark for me to see hers, but mine may have been visible to her better sight. She answered readily.
“Yes, we must choose; but I have been concerned with a greater urgency. As we entered the tunnel my mind inquired for my own people, with whom I had been disconnected since the encounter with the Dwellers which we witnessed together, and though I have learnt nothing of their welfare I found that an urgent message is being sent out to me continually,—‘Return at once. Further concealment useless. The animal must go to the Dwellers, who have already dealt suitably with those he Seeks. Do not reply.’
“That is the message, about which I am troubled. I cannot quickly tell what is right to do. I conclude that no reply is desired because there is either fear or certainty that it would be intercepted, and understood by the Dwellers, and might do harm in ways which I cannot know, and might not therefore avoid. It may be from the same cause that the message contains no mention of the body of my Leader, though that is the object for which I am here. It may be that this trouble is over; even that it is returned already. Yet the objection to any reply being sent indicates less than complete harmony, and there may be actual hostility between the Dwellers and ourselves.
“From these thoughts two questions follow.
“If there be dissension between the Dwellers and ourselves, and concealment be useless, how can I hope to return openly and in safety? Possibly they may have agreed that I shall not be hindered, if you remain, though there are some improbabilities in this supposition. So far, I have thought of no other.
“The second question, which is greatly the more important, is this. Am I right to leave you? Never, from the remotest memory, have I known such a doubt to rise, nor can I tell how to resolve it. Always we have acted together. Our Leaders have thought for all, and our will has been single.”
The news which she gave had disconcerted me sufficiently for my thoughts to be both confused and depressed at the first hearing, and I cannot say to what protest or reproach they might otherwise have led me, but to this appeal there could be only one answer possible.
“If you feel under the obligation of the promise that we should explore the tunnels of the Dwellers together, there is no need for concern on that point, for I release you from it. Even if I should not, I think that your first duty must be to your own kind, and that the news which your message gives has altered the whole position so radically that no arrangement could be binding which was made in ignorance of it.”
She answered, “You confuse me with vague thoughts. Let us be silent,” and for some minutes she closed her mind.
Then she continued, “Your thought is generous, and I should be unfair not to recognise it, but it is born of conditions which are as alien from ourselves as are the ways of the Frog-Mouths. If I be under obligation to keep an undertaking to you which may have already altered your course, and changed the experiences which you must now encounter, how can it affect what is right for me to do, that you should accept my desertion without protest? When you suppose that you can release me in such a way, you assume a position of Deity—and of a Deity who could alter the essentials of what is right and wrong. It is not your willingness that I should go which concerns me—it is the verdict of my own mind.”
I answered, “I have no doubt that you are right, and that you have rebuked me justly. Yet, no less, I should like to feel that you have decided with a mind untroubled by any thought of consequence to myself; for the event, whether you stay or go, is beyond forecasting. Either way may be the more dangerous for me. It is beyond knowing. But for yourself, it seems evident that should you stay you will incur a needless risk of the anger of the Dwellers, and must be troubled by the additional fear that you will have disobeyed your Leaders, and may have to face the consequences of their anger, should you escape the perils of our present enterprise. It seems to me that your position would then be worse even than my own, and I cannot willingly agree that you should incur such dangers to aid me.”
“You think,” she answered, “after your own kind, and suppose a fear which I could not feel, and a contingency which will not occur. If it be evil that there should be discord of thought between me and my people, is it reasonable that either side should desire to continue and perhaps increase it, in a vain quarrel concerning what will have happened?
“Should I finally return, I shall give my reasons, and, should they be found insufficient or otherwise, the event must be a source of wisdom for all of us. But that must wait its time. In which direction shall we go?”
We looked to right and left, along corridors that curved forward on either hand, and which were more nearly of the kind that I had first explored than was the tunnel behind us, excepting that they were level-floored, and were not lighted in the same way.
The walls were vertical: the ceiling flat: the flooring was of the material that looked like polished steel, and was soft to the feet, with which I was already familiar. But in place of the dove-gray walls, and the faint opalescence of the roof of my first experience, there was an intermittent darkness, broken by moving fires that glowed, as it seemed, deep within the substance of the walls, and changed, and faded, and revived elsewhere.
It shows how dulled we had become to unfamiliar wonder, or how concentrated our minds had been upon the new problem which had disturbed us, that we had not observed these shifting lights when first our eyes must have beheld them.
Now, as we gazed, the left-hand side of the leftward passage glowed with a sudden redness not twenty yards away. The light spread, and spread, along the glassy surface of the wall, until it had almost reached us. It rose up till it neared the gloom of the distant roof, of which the darkness was not pierced but was changed to a dusky red. The steel-gray floor was stained also with a faint reflected redness. The glowing colour showed the lofty passage before us till it curved out of view.
“Come,” she said, “while the light lasts,” and I knew that, with the decision made, her mind had recovered all its buoyant serenity.
As we left the light, it was already fading, but others showed ahead, and we went on in an ever-changing darkness, seldom far from some luminosity which was sufficient to guide us on a plain and unimpeded way.
The colours in the walls were various, not only in their kind, or in their intensity, area, or duration, but they had an appearance of being of varying distance from us, so that we would look at the dark wall, and see the transient motion of some glowing splendour, as it seemed, a mile within it, and then an interval of darkness and then a burst of light and colour, like an open rose, that seemed to be scarcely covered by the surface of the wall that held it.
So we went on until, in no great space of time, we came to an opening on the left hand, wide and high as the passage in which we were, and on the same level, but in an absolute blackness.
We were of one mind to explore it, for the thought had come to both of us that if we continued to traverse that in which we were, we must return to the point from which we started, should the curve continue. My companion, whose judgment was far more accurate than my own on such points, was definite that we had completed a quarter of the full circle when this side-corridor was reached. So we decided; not doubting that it would be lighted in the same manner, and foreseeing no obstacle. I have little doubt, from our later experiences, that we were right on the first point, as we were certainly wrong on the second, for we found at the first step that we were confronted by the same withstanding force that had obstructed our passage of the sleeping wood, but more instant and urgent in its application, so that we did not attempt to hold our ground, but fell back at the same impulse to consult whether we should again adventure against it.
Recalling our previous decision, and our successful effort, I was disposed to accept the challenge it gave us, but my companion differed. She pointed out that it had then resisted the straightforward path which we had resolved to take, but that now we should be turning aside to face a needless difficulty, without knowing that the passage we left might not be in every way the more direct to our purpose.
So we went on, and twice again, at similar intervals, did we come to such a passage, and each time we attempted it for a few paces, and recoiled from the resistance of the will that met us.
But the third time we did not accept defeat as we had done previously. We considered that these passages had appeared at similar intervals, and that it was probable that this was the last we should meet, the fourth quarter of the curving path returning us to the point from which we had started. Faced by this probability, we rested awhile, and then, hand in hand, that my companion’s vitality might give me the physical strength I needed, so that my will should be free for the nervous conflict before us, we went resolutely into the dark mouth of the cavity.
In the course of a few steps, taken with difficulty, as though our feet dragged in a heavy sand, and our limbs and bodies were pressed against a trammelling and resisting garment, we found that we were in an absolute blackness, so that we could not see our steps, and it is doubtful, indeed, whether we should not have retired at once from so menacing a prospect, had not my inferior power of progression caused us to bend our course somewhat to the right, on which side I was, and as we drew nearer to the wall we discovered that it was of a quality which I may best describe as having an interior luminosity. It gave no light to the passage at all, but standing closely to it we could look into it, as into a glass, yet seeing no reflection of ourselves, but a vision that held us absorbed and silent. At first we saw a dark pool, or it might be the shadowed space of a river, but it showed no current, nor any motion of wind. Strange, fronded trees grew beside it. At some distance, there was a touch of moonlight on the water, but it did not waver. We watched for some time, as though expecting something to happen, and yet I thought it to be nothing more than a picture of some primeval creation. Then it seemed that the dark surface of the water broke, and a long snout, as of an alligator, moved into the lighted space, and sank again very quietly. Nothing else. We watched a long time further, but nothing changed, unless, perhaps, the light on the water was slightly fainter. “Is it real?” I wondered. “No, surely,” she thought, “I suppose it to be a picture of things long past. I do not think it to be of the earth of this time. Shall we look at the other wall?”
I agreed, though I was reluctant to withdraw my gaze from that primeval night, where I might see I knew not what of mystery or of wonder if I should wait till its morning came. The pressure was more tolerable while we made no effort to move directly forward, and we crossed the interval of blackness quite easily, to find, as my companion had thought, that the opposite wall held a corresponding wonder. But it was not of any strange or terrible or momentous scene.
There was a faint light, as of the late evening, or the very early dawn of a winter day, and snow was falling thickly. Bare trees showed dimly, and one ivied trunk was close, as though we might have reached to touch it, and on the dark berries a pair of hawfinches were feeding. They were so real and close that it seemed strange that no sound came as they changed footing with a flutter of wings, or pulled the sprays apart.
That was all. It might have been a scene from winter of my own day, or of millenniums before or after.
And while we gazed, we became aware that something with a heavy tread had entered the passage. We thought it (and rightly) to be one of the Dwellers. The steps passed us, and went forward. We were of one mind to follow.
Returning to the centre of the tunnel, we were again in darkness, but the footsteps led us, and we found that the resistance against which we had fought had ceased to trouble us while we followed the unseen feet. Realising this, we increased our pace to a run, lest the dividing space should widen, so that we were but ten or fifteen yards behind—our feet making no sounds on the soft flooring—when our unseen guide turned sideways into a chamber on the right-hand side of the passage.
CHAPTER VII
THE LIVING BOOK
We stood at the entrance of a room of (to us) enormous proportions. It was filled with an equally-diffused light, of which I saw no origin.
Neither, when I considered it later, could I observe any appliances for the regulation of temperature or ventilation. Yet the warmth was such that I did not suffer from my lack of clothing; the air was fresh and exhilarating. The arched entrance to the room had no door, but the light stayed at the threshold. Standing on the outer side of the entrance, we supposed ourselves to be unobservable in the darkness.
The Dweller that we had followed was a woman, like the one that we had last seen, but her colouring was different. The hair on her head was short, curling, and glossy black. It extended down the spine in the same way. The body-colour varied from a dark bluish-black to the softest, palest greys. The effect was beautiful beyond describing.
Her form was as straight and graceful as had been that of the other, nor did it give an impression of great size in a room which was proportioned to it. It was not she that was large, but we that were small. Her body was slim and perfect in its proportions, and her face was flawless, yet where the other had given an impression of youth, there was here an atmosphere of age incalculable. I cannot say from what it came, unless from one thing only. Her eyes were intolerably tired.
As she entered the room she had an object about the size of a football perched on her left shoulder. There was a table in the centre, of a transparent blue substance. It had three legs which joined in a twisted knot, and then spread out. I noticed that these legs moved so that the table adjusted itself to her as she approached it, but whether this movement were sentient or mechanical I could not tell. She extended her left arm to the surface of the table, and the object on her shoulder rolled slowly down.
It was of the colour of a boiled lobster, with many bluish-white appendages hanging from its surface. They were about an inch in length, and of the shape to a dachshund’s ear. As it rolled forward they spread out like hands, to balance and control its motion, and when it rested those that were close to the ground would support it steadily.
It was evidently alive, but it had no other features that I could observe, and it appeared equally comfortable whatever part of its surface were uppermost.
The table was relatively higher than those to which we are accustomed, and there was no chair or other seat in the room.
The Dweller remained standing, as though her attention were fixed upon the red globule before her. I turned to my companion to convey my wonder, but she gave me a quick thought that she was trying to follow what was happening, and did not wish for distraction, so I looked quietly round the room while I waited.
The wall on the side on which we stood, and those to right and left, were blank of all but colour, which was blue, of a very delicately-beautiful tint, which I had not seen previously, evidently designed to harmonise with the colouring of its occupant.
The farther wall was of the same nature as those we had passed in the passage, having a living picture within it—if living it could be called, much was an epitome of desolation.
It showed far more plainly, or at least to a far greater distance, than did those into which we had looked before. It was a scene of a frozen river, which itself must have been half-a-mile in width, and of an endless solitary frozen plain beyond it. The sky was frosty blue and cloudless. There were no trees,—nothing but the frozen river, and the frozen snow.
I had a perception that it had lain thus for many centuries, lifeless, windless, and unchanging, and that it was in some inexplicable way akin to the one who appeared to have selected it to companion her, and that within it lay the explanation of the weariness in her eyes.
But its desolation was less than hers, for it must have ended at some time in the earth’s history. Though it might have endured for millenniums, yet the time had come when the earth again swung sunward, and the warmth found it. But for the weariness from which she suffered there was no hope at all.
Following this impression, it occurred to me as a natural thing that, if reflections of the earth’s changing past were used as mural decorations, such scenes and periods would be preferred as would show little or very gradual differences, or their suitability might be lost.
The articles in the room were few. There was a wide shelf at the centre of the left-hand wall, on which were stacked a number of flat boards which were probably pictures, or material for them, for, to the right of the table, there was an easel, such as would have looked natural enough, apart from its size, in a studio of our own day, with a similar board upon it, on which a picture of the frozen desolation was half completed.
There were various smaller articles ranged beneath the shelf, of which I could not understand the nature or utility.
I returned my attention to my companion, to find her ready for conversing. She said “I cannot learn much, as the thoughts which are passing are not meant for us, but it seems that there is something here similar to your own device, of which you have told me. I know that you have a method of recording ideas and facts by means of marks on retentive substances, so that the knowledge of them may remain, though the brain in which they originated be ended, and that, by this means, you have partly overcome one of the defects of your individual mortality. It seems to me that this method must be subject to great disadvantages, as it must be even easier for such as you are to make marks which will be false, or the record of foolish imaginations, than to be accurate in fact, and wise in deduction; and, as you have no authority to distinguish between them, your children must often be induced to foolishness, or misled to disaster. Possibly the confusion may be so great that they are distracted from any continuing path, and the result is the inconsequent and abortive activities of mind and body to which you are so largely accustomed.
“However that may be, it appears that the Dwellers have devised a somewhat similar method of recording the facts they accumulate, or the theories which they formulate, such as is more suited to their greater longevity, and their superior intelligence.
“This which we see is one of their books—a living creature of a kind, designed to store the thoughts that are given to it, and to convey them at later periods to any inquiring mind. She whom we now see is both the custodian and the compiler of these volumes, and I gather that she is now placing on record the events in which we have so lately participated.”
While I received this explanation, the Dweller had crossed the room, and picked up a metal article of a brass colour, and of the shape of a figure eight, which she laid flatly on the ground, and within one of the loops of which she placed the living ball, with which she had now apparently finished, and then stood for some time gazing at the half-painted picture, and at the scene from which it was taken. Her method of painting was different from our own in this particular, that one part of the picture was entirely finished, but ended abruptly at a blank which was not touched at all.
After a time, she resumed her work, and the reason of this became evident. She painted with a long pencil terminating in a small flat pad, of a surface of two or three square inches, and this she dipped into saucers of various semi-liquid colours which were arranged upon a wide ledge of the easel below the picture. There could only have been black and white and shades of blue and grey that were needed, but the pad was dipped many times, and touched lightly with a finely pointed instrument in her left hand, till at last she was satisfied, and it was pressed upon the surface of the picture, to which it added a further rectangle of finished work. The picture was then touched slightly with another pad, apparently to blend the added portion perfectly with the earlier work, and the same process was resumed.
It was slow to watch, but my companion was of an unhurried mind, and it is my own disposition to go cautiously when in doubt. I was neither willing to leave this scene for a further risk of the dark passage, nor to face a crisis by revealing ourselves in the room, and so we sat and watched in the outer darkness. It was not a very long vigil, for the artist appeared to weary, laid down her tools, hesitated, walked towards the scene which she had been painting, stood gazing at it for some time in silence, and then lay down beneath it, where it appeared that the floor rose in a smooth curve, a few feet above the surrounding level.
This surface gave way gently to the impression of her body, which sank down partly within it. She lay face forward, her head turned from us, her arms extended straightly above her head. Lying so, she stretched for half the length of the room. There was no sound of breathing, and we could not tell whether she slept, but after watching for some time longer we were of one mind to adventure a further investigation, and very quietly we entered the room together.
CHAPTER VIII
THE TREATY
It was with a common impulse of curiosity that we first went towards the living book which was resting motionless within the metal circle. It had no distinguishable features, and I cannot tell how it became aware of our existence, but it was its function to respond to the approach of any inquiring mind. It rebuffed any attempt to explain our own presence, or what we were, being evidently unable, or forbidden, to accept information except from the official librarian, but as we were more anxious to obtain information than to impart it, we had no objection to this, and, as we found it a cause of confusion to question it together, my companion generously gave the preference to my own curiosities, and composed her mind to receive the replies which it should give me.
We learnt at once that it was the last volume of the official History of the Dwellers, its record extending back for about two hundred years, and it would have been quite willing to begin at chapter one of that period, and go on for a week, had we been willing for it to do so. When it understood that it was required to select specific information in response to my questions, it assented, rather sulkily, though I soon realised that its function was limited to supplying the actual information which it possessed. It was unable to give any explanation or comment beyond anything which it had received with the facts. To any question which went outside its period, or beyond its province, it returned no answer. Even of the way to the library from which it had come it had no knowledge, though it wished to be returned to its accustomed shelf. It knew, however, that it must not venture to cross the metal circle which now confined it, under penalty of a swift destruction, should it touch it at any point.
My companion perceived the reason for this, as she was aware, without touching it, that the metal was heavily charged with some petrifying force having the vigour of electricity, and of a current sufficient to overcome a much larger creature than that which it now imprisoned.
“Are you impervious to electricity?” I was led to ask, as I perceived her indifference to this new danger.
“No,” she replied, “of course not. How could we live without it? But we can naturally control the quantity which we receive. Otherwise our bodies would be continually exposed to the risk of a sudden destruction. Are you so liable?”
I said that I was certainly not immune from such danger, and it added a new peril to our investigations if the Dwellers were accustomed to use it or other forces of unknown potentialities, in such a manner. She agreed, but assured me that she could give warning very easily, now that she knew of this additional infirmity of my body, as she could always tell the quantity and direction of any electric force which might be in her neighbourhood.
I was puzzled to think that the Dwellers should expose so valuable a record to the risk of destruction as a penalty for its own disobedience, and this made me somewhat sceptical of the accuracy of my companion’s explanation, but I learnt afterwards that the effect would merely have been that a new volume would have been commenced. These creatures are only kept alive until they have received as much information as they are capable of retaining, and are then slaughtered. The information which they contain being permanently available, as is that of a gramophone record, and the minds that hold it being more surely and easily stored when they are dead, than in a living state.
Having realised the character and limitations of the record at our disposal, I asked first concerning the safety of the two friends whom I had come to seek. I had to repeat the question in many forms before obtaining any response, but I finally obtained this information, which was obviously the only record which had been made, and the extent of the help which was here available.
Two Primitives of the False-Skin Age were captured by the 42nd Coast Patrol. One was of a venomous kind. They were received by the Bureau of Prehistoric Zoology. The body of one was found to be suffering from microbic disease beyond sterilisation, and was scraped by the Vivisection Department. The other was transferred to the Experimental Section, after the usual method.
That was all. The fate of one of those who had preceded me was sufficiently indicated, and that of the other was, at the best, enigmatic; but I could learn no more. Even of the place or nature of the Bureau it mentioned the living book was entirely ignorant.
Little as it was, it was sufficient to suggest that I should be very foolish to place myself in the hands of the Dwellers, unless I were compelled to do so. I realised, as I had not done previously, that my position was that to which, in my own time, the human race had reduced all the other living creatures on the earth’s surface, and that the Dwellers, however justly they might act to each other, would probably consider it an absolute duty to put me to death or torture if they could gain any knowledge, obtain any advantage to themselves, or even avert some trivial inconvenience, by so doing, as many men, and nearly all women, would subject a mouse to a violent or lingering death for no greater reason than that it had annoyed them by a sound in the night.
Having realised that I could obtain no further information on the subject of my own search, I remembered—none too soon—that my companion must be equally urgent to learn of the one for whom she was seeking, and of the events which had occasioned the recall which had reached her, and I inquired accordingly, and received this answer:
Article 5. In consideration of the foregoing, the body of the Amphibian will be delivered at the Fishgates, at once, and uninjured. The one who is seeking it will be allowed, and, if needful, assisted to return in safety, provided that such return be made before the third sunset, and that she shall not have entered the Sacred Places. The Primitive shall remain. He shall be treated with such kindness as circumstances admit, and, if healthy and quiet, shall be transferred to an appropriate Reservation. But if he be in any way diseased he may be dealt with according to the nature of his infirmity, and as the protection of the community may require. Otherwise, unless he be violent or intractable, he shall not be slaughtered, either for food or for any other purpose, except in the ordinary course, and at such period as is usual.
Certainly there was information here, and warning, and some mystery also. Our thought was single that this must be the purport of an agreement that must have been made between the Amphibians and the Dwellers since the commencement of our expedition, and we were alike in desiring to learn the other clauses of the treaty, before we considered our course of action.
These were very promptly given, for I believe that these living books were so constituted that they derived a positive physical pleasure from such thought-transference as would convey their contents to other minds, such as is commonly experienced in the exercise of the ordinary functions of the human body.
The treaty (omitting the fifth clause already given) was this:
Article 1. The Leaders of the Amphibians pledge themselves and their nation, without reservation or exception, that they will not henceforward, or any of them, invade the continent of the Dwellers, either above, at, or on the sea-level, unless or except as may be mutually agreed hereafter.
Article 2. The Leaders of the Amphibians shall appoint two of their number, and the Dwellers shall appoint two of their number, to confer and agree upon the times at and the conditions on if any which the Amphibians or any of them may enter or remain upon the surface of the territory of the Dwellers, or any part thereof.
Article 3. The Amphibians pledge themselves that they will not give any aid, assistance, or information, active or passive, to the Antipodeans or hold any communications with them, except, if at all, at the desire of the Dwellers, and to obtain information on their behalf.
Article 4. The Amphibians will forthwith institute and maintain a complete service of observation upon the coasts of the Antipodeans, and upon all aerial movements above or from their coasts, with such relays of communication as shall convey all such information to the Dwellers at the least possible intervals of time after the observation of such movements.
Article 5. (Already given).
Article 6. Should the Amphibian who is now landed have invaded, or invade, the Sacred Places, or should she remain hidden in the land until after the time of the third sunset, or should she neglect or refuse to return by or before the time stated, then the Dwellers shall be free to deal with her as may appear just to them, or as their safety or interests may require, and the Amphibians shall none the less carry out the first four Articles of this treaty, as though she should have returned safely.
Article 7. In the event of the successful resuscitation of the body of the Amphibian Leader and of her assent to this clause, and providing that the Amphibian now on the territory of the Dwellers shall have returned in safety whether within the period stated in Article 5, or later by the clemency of the Dwellers, then, and in these events, the Leaders of the Amphibians severally and on behalf of their nation and of every member thereof, do pledge themselves actively to assist the Dwellers against the Antipodeans, in the hostilities now impending, to the full extent of their national and individual capacities, according to their natures, and by such means as they are spiritually and physically qualified to do.
Article 8. The Amphibians are entitled to communicate with the member of their nation who is now on the territory of the Dwellers for the purpose of recalling her, but not otherwise, nor shall they invite or receive any communication from her while she remain upon any part of that territory or within it, nor with the Primitive who was her companion.
Article 9. This treaty is made in honour, verity, and goodwill, without guile and without duress, each nation contracting freely, and on its own territory, that which is past being forgotten as though it had not been; by the six acting Leaders of the Amphibians, and, on behalf of the Dwellers, by the High Council of Five, and by the device of the Aged Ones, all equally, severally, and unanimously assenting thereto, in the Audience of Space, and in the Light of the Perpetual Stars.
Had I been alone I might have delighted the source of this information by requiring its repetition several times, for it contained much which required exactness of memory for its consideration, and it suffered from the defect of all treaties since the world began, that the effort to avoid possibilities of ambiguity or evasion results in an added obscurity, so that they are much more vulnerable to misconstruction, as they are more difficult to readily comprehend, than are simpler and more straightforward documents. But my companion intimated at once that she could recall it as required, and she proposed that we should retire into the comparative security of the darkness while we considered it together.
This we did, and I opened my mind to her at once in this manner, “There is much in what we have heard which must be clearer to you than it is to me, but it is evident that some larger issue of impending warfare has assisted your nation to adjust their differences with the Dwellers, and that you have no further need for concealment, or cause to continue our enterprise. On the contrary, your safety lies in a prompt and open return to your own people.
“But my position is different. Your people have abandoned me to the Dwellers, and it appears that, if I fall into their hands, I shall lose my liberty at the least, and be exposed to death, or even torture, or the foulest outrage, as caprice, or self-interest, or curiosity may suggest.
“For though you appear to regard the Dwellers as of superior mentality to myself, they do not demonstrate this by brutalities, such as it appears may have been fatal to my friends already, and which can only regard a being whom they know to have reached them from an earlier age, as something to be killed and eaten. In some parts of my own world there are savages so degraded in type that they will eat the decrepit members of their own race, or strangers who wander into their territory, but they are regarded as the lowest specimens of their kind.
“In the experience of my own time it is not usual to find exceptional brutality such as this to be allied with any high level of intelligence, and it occurs to my mind that the Dwellers have not shown any conspicuous ability in discovering our movements, and that when I was actually captured by one of them, I escaped very easily.
“So far am I from deciding to place myself in their power that I am resolved to outwit them. I suppose from what we have heard that one of my friends has already become a victim of their cruelty. The other I am resolved to rescue, if he be still living. After that, I hope to find some means of concealment and sustenance on the surface, to which I shall return, until the time come when I shall be able to rejoin the civilisation that you deride, but which offers a peace and security which I am never likely to find among the barbarous cruelties which you esteem so lightly.”
My companion closed her mind from me when I had finished, but only for a short time, and then answered quietly. “I think I understand something of the feeling from which your thoughts had their origin, and at the injustice to myself and to my nation which you have implied I am not angered at all, but I think that our minds have never been so far apart since first I met you.
“There was not a single thought which you showed me which was not either false or foolish, and it is easy to believe that you come of a species which devour each other, though there are few created things so base as to do this, in all the seas that I have known until I came in contact with you.”
I was startled by the unexpectedness of this rebuke, the justice of which I did not easily realise, but my mind was cooled by contact with one which declined to rise to its temperature, and I replied in a somewhat different mood, “I should be sorry to be unfair to your nation, and especially to yourself, from whom I have had nothing but a loyal comradeship which I have done little to merit. I know that my mind was troubled and indignant, though it still seems to me that I had cause for such feelings. But if you think differently, can you not show me in what I have deserved your censure?”
“Yes,” she replied, “I think I can do that very easily, but it is the more interesting to me to observe how entirely the use of your reason ceases when you are moved by anger or fear, or, perhaps, by other feelings, for I can see that the thought that we were about to part was among the disturbances that suspended your capacity to think to any useful purpose.
“First, it is by no means clear that I can return in safety, or at all. How do you know that I have not invaded the Sacred Places, or even that we are not now within them? I think we may be.
“Second, there would, in any case, be no occasion for us to part immediately, should we remain undiscovered. The third sunset is still distant.
“Third, my people have done nothing to cause you to fall into the hands of the Dwellers, which you are still free to avoid if you are able. They have been careful to make a treaty which gives you a measure of protection which you could not otherwise have secured should you be captured. We have explained already that you could not come with us, being physically unfit to endure existence in the only territory we control, or in the waters to which we are native, were we willing to have you, and were we able to remove you from the place that you have chosen to enter.
“Fourth, you are unjust to the Dwellers, and forgetful of things which you have told me of your own kind.
“You have told me that your own race will destroy other creatures without shame, not only for their own food, or safety (in which you would not yourself say that they are wrong) but merely for the pleasure which they derive from inflicting misery upon those who have done them no injury, or for the gratification of curiosity, or in the hope of some material advantage resulting to themselves or their fellows.
“More than this, with an unnatural baseness, they will even accept service from, or make such professions of friendship as will gain the confidence of, other creatures, which they will not then hesitate to betray and murder, as caprice or self-interest may incline them. You have told me that you habitually destroy creatures whose affection and loyalty you have gained, when they become old and infirm, or are injured by accident, readily persuading yourselves that you do these things out of kindness, although you do not desire that you should be dealt with in a similar manner when your own body shall show evidence that its vigour is decreasing.
“You have shown me that you justify these things in your own minds by arguing that you are of such superior nature that the welfare, or existence of all other creatures is of comparative triviality.
“But even though such conduct could be condoned by a demonstration of superiority, or would be consistent therewith, it is difficult to understand by what arguments this asserted superiority could be maintained.
“Is it by your power to cause the deaths of others? Then a disease-germ (as you have yourself admitted) may be greater than you.
“Is it by conduct? But you have shown me that you work violence, fraud, and cruelty among yourselves, and against the creatures around you.
“Is it wisdom? Have you discovered a way of life which is more safe, more leisured, more healthy, more in harmony with your surrounding conditions, than that of the creatures which you despise and destroy? Are their conditions more abject than are those of the disordered and disastrous lives of which you have told me, where you crowd together in disease and dirt, inexplicably separated from the land which supplies you with the food which your bodies need so continually?
“As are the vermin which you trap and kill without mercy, so, and less than so, and rightly less than so, must you be to the Dwellers.
“You are not of their world. You came unasked. You may bring strange disease. You may produce discord in a thousand ways. Your mind is indignant and hostile, merely at the assurance that they will deal with you in patient justice, after inquiry has been held,—or, it may be, at the worst, with that expediency which is the basis of the civilisation from which you come.”
I answered quickly, for my mind responded to hers with more thoughts than I could easily control for transference, “I see that you have judged more reasonably than I was able to do. My mind was moved by fear, under which influence its reactions are instinctive rather than rational. There is much in your thoughts which is true, as it reflects upon my own kind, and there is much also that might be urged in defence or extenuation of conduct which appears to you so monstrous. But there are questions of practical urgency also which must be faced, and the occasion is scarcely one for explanation or argument concerning abstract or distant things.
“Yet one thing I should like to show you. You may reflect adversely upon our treatment of living creatures of other kinds than our own, and your thought may not be far from mine, but were you one of ourselves, you would be faced by issues which are not simple to decide, and by conditions which are not easy to alter.
“It is true, for the most part, of the domestic animals that we eat, that we work for them all their lives in a willing servitude, which is the price we pay for the right to kill them at last. We build their houses; we prepare their food; we heal their diseases: we wait upon them in the most menial ways. They are fed with regularity, and without their own exertion: they are protected from inclement weather. We may even risk our own lives to guard them from the murderous attacks of other beasts of prey. Finally, they probably die with less pain, and with far less of fear and foreboding, than will be the lot of those who minister to, and then destroy them.
“It is true that we do these things for our own ends, and they owe us no gratitude, but it is also true that, apart from these things, they would not exist at all, nor is it true that we are regardless of their well-being nor indifferent to their suffering. Some may be, but many are not.
“I am not sure but that the heavier indictment against us may be, not that we give them death at last, which comes to all, but that we deny them life while living. It is an inevitable result of their protected lives, that they have degenerated in intelligence and character, and compare very poorly with those of their kind that have retained their freedom in remoter places.
“Further, it appears evident that, with rare and doubtful exceptions, they have no understanding or premonition of death, and are in this respect happier than ourselves.
“You have asked why we should consider that we are greater than the other creatures around us. I agree that a superior capacity for successful violence is a poor argument in support of such a claim, nor should I urge it. Nor should I urge that our conduct of life is superior, for there is a barrier dividing their mentalities from ours that no man has been able to cross, and I should confuse assumption with evidence: nor can I, for the same reason, and for others also, claim that we are of greater wisdom than they. Greater knowledge we may have, but it is of the race rather than the individual, and it would be a poor ground for such a claim, at the best.
“If I should seek to support such a plea, I would rather urge the difficulty of the conditions against which we contend, than the extent to which we triumph.
“Our ancestors broke from their environment, and may have shown a doubtful wisdom in so doing. But having so broken, we are confronted with difficulties from which the rest of the creation is free. If our conduct be worse, our circumstances are more treacherous.
“But there is another difference. Most other creatures, though we may not prematurely destroy them, are even shorter-lived than we. They lack the assistance of our inventions for recording knowledge, and, to some extent, handing it down to our children. So far as we can judge, they have no substitute for these, and their individual ignorance of our purpose to destroy them, and of the methods we use, is a natural consequence.
“I am not sure that this thought does not bring us nearer to understanding the difference between my kind and other animals than would any of the three tests you proposed. All animals have an inherited fear of pain or damage to their bodies, and this leads them to such actions or reactions as will conserve their lives, but it is a curious thought that, since the hidden beginning of created things, no one can have had any inherited experiences of death, of which we know by observation only. Our parents were alive at our conceptions and births, as were all their ancestors before them, and our direct inherited experience could be no different were they all alive and immortal. But the accumulated observations and records of the race familiarise us with the nature of death—at least in its physical consequences,—and teach us its inevitability, from our earliest years. ‘In his eyes foreknowledge of death,’ that is the burden, and perhaps the glory, of our kind; and that which may divide us furthest from those who have been content to obey the laws of their creation. It is curious fact that such animals as we may allow to associate with us in any intimacy must share to some extent this difference, be it height or depth, which divides us from the rest of our creation. A lion cannot sin: but a dog can.
“—But perhaps I weary you with details which are beyond your interest?”
She answered, “No, for I would gladly know more of these things, were there time for the learning, though we must leave them now. For it seems that the more our thoughts exchange, the more nearly do our minds approach to a common point. It may be that we both see truly, though the same things may appear different. Looking from a distant point, I see the outlines of your existence as you cannot easily do. Knowing it more closely, you are aware of dangers and fertilities which I overlook, seeing only the contours of the mountain peaks, and of the depths which divide them.
“But there is one thought in which you may take some comfort. You have told me that your kind, or some of them, will eat their fellow-men when occasion offers. The Dwellers are, at the worst, so entirely incapable of such conduct, that you may reasonably hope that there will be a similar measure of difference between your own treatment of your domestic animals, and that which you will receive from them, should you be captured or surrender to them.”
I replied, “I should be glad to think so; but the fact is that the practice I mentioned is almost entirely confined to men with darker skins than mine. I have, as you observe, a light skin, tinged with pink. All men whose skins are of this kind believe it to be an evidence of every kind of superiority,—and how the darker cannibals may treat their domestic animals it is unfortunate that I do not know.”
Her mind replied with a sudden ripple of merriment. “I suppose you jest. But let us turn from these things, and consider what next we shall do, and how quickly. For time is short before I must take decision as to whether I shall return within the limit fixed. Yet much may be done, if we are fortunate, in the space remaining; and, as you said in your anger, the Dwellers are not quick to discover us. Yet I think you err when you make light of our peril. Are there no vermin in your own buildings, which you might disregard for more urgent matters, but which you would destroy very easily at the allotted time, or should occasion arise to do so?”
I said, “Yes, there are; yet some of them have found craft by which they continue, and so must we also. But, first, cannot we learn something more from this book which we have borrowed so easily? For myself, I am determined to seek my friend, till I know of his death, or have found him. He may be near us now, or he may be a thousand miles away, or in depths beyond our imaginations. What can we tell, with so little to guide our guessing? And for you, if we can discover whether we have yet intruded into one of the Sacred Places to which the treaty alludes, it may make a vital difference to the action which you should take for your own security.”
She answered “Let us try,” and we rose, and moved again as quietly as possible into the lighted room. I do not think that this was really necessary, but it gave us a sense of secrecy to interrogate the red globe from the shorter distance, and appeared to reduce the risk that our thoughts would disturb the mind of the sleeper.
CHAPTER IX
THE FLAME OF LIFE
For a long time we asked questions to which we could obtain no answer, or not such as conveyed any meaning to us.
We tried to learn the extent and depth of the domain of the Dwellers, and the location of the Reservations in which my friend might be confined. But the book was not a geography. Neither was it a first volume. Its records evidently assumed a mass of knowledge which we did not possess.
We made progress of a kind when it occurred to me that it would give us some indication of the probable extent of the subterranean world if we could learn its population.
“How many are there of the nation of the Dwellers?” I queried.
There was no answer.
“How many were there last year?”
No answer came.
“Have you any records of population?”
It seemed as though there were a mental impulse of hesitation, but still no answer came.
“How many children were born last year?” it occurred to me to ask.
The answer was immediate, “It was reported to the Council of Five that three boys had been born in the Great Nursery, and one in the Place of Renunciation.”
“And how many girls?” I replied, in a natural supposition that this information was incomplete, but there was no answer.
I then went back, querying from year to year, getting for each year a similar answer but with a total that increased as the years receded, and with a record of male births only, till, at ten years’ distance, the reply came—
It was reported to the Council of Five that eight boys had been born in the Great Nursery, and twenty-four boys and one girl in the Place of Twilight.
I would have asked further, but my companion interposed with reason. “I think that we are learning little. If it can tell how long they live, and how many are their deaths, (for as they are born, I suppose that they may die also), we can then judge how numerous they may be, but from their births only we cannot.” This we tried, but only to be met again with silence, or with baffling answers.
By persistence and variety in the form of queries we obtained allusion to “those of the Great Lethargy,” and to “The Desire of the Darkness,” but nothing more definite. In a final desperation I tried to obtain information by means of inquiry as to their customs of marriage, and at last obtained abstracts from the report of a very lengthy trial or debate, which threw a sombre and uncertain light upon the information which we had obtained already.
Mainly, it consisted of a duel of argument between The First, who was evidently male, and whom we supposed to be the head of the Council of Five,—and the Elected One, who was a woman.
It was evident from the moods of both that the matter with which they dealt was of a tragic and overwhelming importance, though there could hardly have been a greater contrast than was shown in the styles of their controversy.
The thoughts of The First were slow, deliberate, weighty, solemn, yet with an extremity of urging which almost amounted to supplication. Those of the Elected One were swift, insistent, passionate, crowding thought on thought, in protest, defiance, and vindication. They were impatient with the intolerance of youth, and bold with the assurance of immortality.
It appeared that the First One put forward a new method of life for the women of their kind, or for their descendants, pleading that its adoption was essential to the continuance of the race of the Dwellers.
But with a fierce scorn she repelled it—“Do you think that women will consent to be as uncoloured and alike as men? Or that they will conceal themselves in dead hangings, as in some savage infancy of the world?”
He answered slowly, “It is only this, that you will be alone if you will not. If you will not that your daughters do these things to save our race from extinction, then you will be alone in your own places. No man will come to you. It is already resolved that all shall take this vow, if you refuse to aid us.”
The reply came with a swift derision. “And would they keep it for a score of sunsets? Is there a man in the Lower Places that would not come if I should call him? But it is the thing which we have resolved also. It is no threat to us. Till we have the girl, there is no man shall come near us. There is no man shall cross the Blue Darkness, nor enter into the Place of Twilight. We will not appear at the Feasts of the Inner Moon, nor at the Mimes of the Recollections. Should we rejoice in our seats on the Upper Slopes, knowing that we had doomed our daughters to be less than we?”
The First One answered with the same deliberation as before, but with a cold finality, as one delivering a judgment from which no appeal could be made. “For six months’ time, unless you sooner yield, there is no man will come near you. If you are rebellious longer, we shall use such force as may be needed that our wills may conquer, and thereafter there will be nothing of the Place of Twilight, nor of the Blue Darkness, nor of the Place of Preparation.
“If your seats be in the Upper Slopes at the time of the Great Assembly, are not these seats made by the hands of men? Are they not known as the Given Places?
“That which we give we can take.
“If there be any wisdom among you, all these things may continue; but for your daughters is a different way.”
His thought smote the mind decisively, as a doom relentless and unescapable, but it did not daunt the courage nor abase the mockery of the thought that met it. “You threaten that which is beyond your power, nor do we fear, nor believe you. In six months’ time you will not waste the Blue Darkness nor the Place of Twilight, for if we do not have the girl by the next new moon, we will ourselves destroy them. Tell your young men that. Tell them that we shall uproot the Wilderness and the Five Approaches. You may counsel; but will they refrain? You may threaten; but will they act?
“You are old and weary of life, but we are not old, and we shall never weary. Life is ours, and we have learnt by your failure. But we will not resign our customs either in the Choosing of Males, or in the Rites of the Preparations. Shall our daughters be less than we? Or shall we degrade ourselves that others may come after us? We are ourselves the race, and it is in ourselves that it shall continue.”
At this point, as a book may be illustrated, so the thought changed to picture, and we had a moment’s sight of the protagonists as they had appeared as these thoughts were contended.
They were in a lighted space in a hall of vast and shadowy gloom, so that even their giant forms were dwarfed by its proportions. They were in the midst of a great assembly, through and over which there was a diffused light, coming from no visible source, so that the gloom deepened on every side towards the vaulted roof, and the invisible distance of the walls.
She stood forward from a group of women, vital as herself, multi-coloured in their nudity. But she stood out from them like a living flame, the ruddy orange of her hair continuing in a lengthened ridge along the spine, dividing the fire-hued back that softened forward to a paler gold.
There was no speech from her lips, for their thoughts leapt out too swiftly for words, but they were parted in mockery, and her eyes were alight with defiance, as The First leaned forward from his high throned seat, and threw out sudden hands of pleading as he increased the intensity of the thought with which he assailed her.
“You boast that you will not die, as we have boasted before you. You boast that you will not tire. Are there no women in the Place of Forgetting? Are there not those among them that are as vigorous as yourself, and with a beauty that may last for millenniums? Yet love cannot allure them. If those that have been dearest approach, they regard them with indifferent eyes. We show them birth, and they are not wakened: they see death, and have no care to avoid it.
“Look at myself!”—he rose up from the throne, and stood erect, strong, active, as though he were an ivory statue of perpetual youth,—“is there one of the young men who seek the Place of Twilight who is more strong or more graceful?—One whom I could not overcome with my hands in the Place of Trials? Will it not still be so for a millennium of the years to be.—And for another—and another?
“And yet I know. I have heard the call that will grow louder. I have felt the desire of the Silence,—and it will grow, though to-day it be powerless. It will conquer, though to-day it be impotent.
“As you boast to-day, have we not boasted before you?
“We think to last in the Perpetual Places, but the night will find us, even as it falls on the rain-drenched roof of the world, where our ancestors once crouched and shivered.
“We have conquered cold. We have defeated darkness. We have tamed heat till it licks our feet like a fawning dog. We have resisted corruption. But there is a night of the soul that falls across the procession of unending years, against which, one by one, we fight a battle that is always lost.
“... And every year our race declines, and our women-children are fewer.
“Therefore, each for each, shall you take the Males of our choosing, forgetting the Caprice of Choice, and the Seven Grounds of Rejection. Therefore shall the girl go not to the Place of Preparation, but to the toil of the fish-tanks, and so in turn shall the two that are younger——”
It was at this point that my comrade interrupted, not impatiently, but with a quick suggestion that the discussion to which we were attending was of no immediate assistance, and when I assented somewhat reluctantly,—for I had been more interested than she in the situation which was revealed by the disputation,—she went on to suggest that the book we were consulting so industriously was not likely to contain anything of a greater value.
She added, “I think that we are not merely wasting time, but incurring a needless peril. I think that there is little doubt that we have penetrated into the Sacred Places where the Dwellers did not wish us to enter, and it may be that we have already encountered the reason for this reluctance. It is not likely that they would wish this information as to the condition of their nation to be known, even to their friends, and still less that there should be any possibility that it might be carried farther to those who are at enmity with them. There may be other things which might be learnt which would be still more to their detriment. It might be fatal to both of us should we be discovered in this occupation, while we have little hope of any resulting gain, for it is not the history of past days which we need to know, but rather the place where your friend is confined, the means of secret approach, the method by which he may be freed, and the safest road of escape to the outer world when we have released him.”
I answered, “You are right, as you usually are. But we have a proverb that we may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, which appears applicable to our present circumstances. If our movements and occupation be within the knowledge of the Dwellers, our prospect of escape is already too small to be interesting. If they have no knowledge, as yet, of where we are, I suggest that we may do well to discover the library from which this volume had apparently been taken, where there may be other books of a more direct utility.”