CHAPTER XII. "I WILL GIVE YOU PEACE"
In our concentration upon Ventnor none of us had given thought to thepassing of time, nor where we were going. We stripped him to the waist,and while Ruth massaged head and neck, Drake's strong fingers kneadedchest and abdomen. I had used to the utmost my somewhat limited medicalknowledge.
We had found no mark nor burn upon him, not even upon his hands overwhich had run the licking flame. The slightly purplish, cyanotictinge of his skin had given way to a clear pallor; the skin was itselfdisquietingly cold, the blood-pressure only slightly subnormal. Thepulse was more rapid, stronger; the breathing faint but regular, andwith no laboring. The pupils of his eyes were contracted almost to thepoint of invisibility.
I could get no nervous reactions whatever. I am familiar with theeffects of electric shock and know what to do in such cases, butVentnor's symptoms, while similar in part, presented other featuresunknown to me and most puzzling. There was a passive automatism, aperplexing muscular rigidity which caused arms and legs, hands and headto remain, doll-like, in any position placed.
Several times during my labors I had been aware of Norhala gazing downupon us; but she made no effort to help, nor did she speak.
Now, my strained attention relaxing, I began to receive and noteimpressions from without. There was a different feeling in the air,a diminution of the magnetic tension; I smelled the blessed breath oftrees and water.
The light about us was clear and pearly, about the intensity of the moonat full. Looking back along the way we had been traveling, I saw a halfmile away vertical, knife-sharp edges of two facing cliffs, the gapbetween them a mile or more wide.
Through them we must have passed, for beyond them were the radiant mistsof the pit of the city, and through this precipitous gateway filteredthe enveloping luminosity. On each side of us uprose graduallyconverging and perpendicular scarps along whose base huddled a sparsefoliage.
There came a low whistle of astonishment from Drake; I turned. We wereslowly gliding toward something that looked like nothing so much as ahuge and shimmering bubble of mingled sapphire and turquoise, swimmingup from and two-thirds above and the balance still hidden within earth.It seemed to draw to itself the light, sending it back with gleamingsof the gray-blue of the star sapphire, with pellucid azures and lazulislike clouded jades, with glistening peacock iridescences and tender,milky greens of tropic shallows.
Little turrets globular and topaz, yellow and pierced with tinyhexagonal openings clustered about it like baby bubbles just nestlingdown to rest.
Great trees shadowed it, unfamiliar trees among whose glossy leavesblossomed in wreaths flowers pink and white as apple-blossoms.From their graceful branches strange fruits, golden and scarlet andpear-shaped, hung pendulous.
It was an elfin palace; a goblin dwelling; such a bower as somemirthful, beauty-loving Jinn King of Jewels might have built fromenchanted hoards for some well-beloved daughter of earth.
All of fifty feet in height was the blue globe, and up to a wide andovaled entrance ran a broad and shining roadway. Along this the cubesswept and stopped.
"My house," murmured Norhala.
The attraction that had held us to the surface of the blocks relaxed,angled through changed and assisting lines of force; the hosts ofminute eyes sparkling quizzically, interestedly, at us, we gently slidVentnor's body; lifted down the pony.
"Enter," sighed Norhala, and waved a welcoming hand.
"Tell her to wait a minute," ordered Drake.
He slipped the bandage from off the pony's head, threw off thesaddlebags, and led it to the side of the roadway where thick, lushgrass was growing, spangled with flowerets. There he hobbled it andrejoined us. Together we picked up Ventnor and passed slowly through theportal.
We stood in a shadowed chamber. The light that filled it wastranslucent, and oddly enough with little of the bluish quality I hadexpected. Crystalline it was; the shadows crystalline, too, rigid--likethe facets of great crystals. And as my eyes accustomed themselves I sawthat what I had thought shadows actually were none.
They were slices of semitransparent stone like pale moonstones,springing from the curving walls and the high dome, and bisecting andintersecting the chamber. They were pierced with oval doorways overwhich fell glimmering metallic curtains--silk of silver and gold.
I glimpsed a pile of this silken stuff near by, and as we laid ourburden upon it Ruth caught my arm with a little frightened cry.
Through a curtained oval sidled a figure.
Black and tall, its long and gnarled arms swung apelike; its shoulderswere distorted, one so much longer than the other that the hand uponthat side hung far below the knee.
It walked with a curious, crablike motion. Upon its face were stampedcountless wrinkles and its blackness seemed less that of pigmentationthan the weathering of unbelievable years, the very stain ofancientness. And about neither face nor figure was there anything toshow whether it was man or woman.
From the twisted shoulders a short and sleeveless red tunic fell.Incredibly old the creature was--and by its corded muscles, its sinewytendons, as incredibly powerful. It raised within me a half sickrevulsion, loathing. But the eyes were not ancient, no. Irisless,lashless, black and brilliant, they blazed out of the face's carven webof wrinkles, intent upon Norhala and filled with a flame of worship.
It threw itself at her feet, prostrate, the inordinately long armsoutstretched.
"Mistress!" it whined in a high and curiously unpleasant falsetto."Great lady! Goddess!"
She stretched out a sandaled foot, touched one of the black talonedhands, and at the contact I saw a shiver of ecstasy run through the lankbody. "Yuruk--" she began, and paused, regarding us.
"The goddess speaks! Yuruk hears! The goddess speaks!" It was a chant ofadoration.
"Yuruk. Rise. Look upon the strangers."
The creature--and now I knew what it was--writhed, twisted, andhideously apelike crouched upon its haunches, hands knuckling the floor.
By the amazement in the unwinking eyes it was plain that not till nowhad the eunuch taken cognizance of us. The amazement fled, was replacedwith a black fire of malignancy, of hatred--jealousy.
"Augh!" he snarled; leaped to his feet; thrust an arm toward Ruth. Shegave a little cry, cowered against Drake.
"None of that!" He struck down the clutching arm.
"Yuruk!" There was a hint of anger in the bell-toned voice. "Yuruk,these belong to me. No harm must come to them. Yuruk--beware!"
"The goddess commands. Yuruk obeys." If fear quavered in the words,beneath was more than a trace of a sullenness, too, sinister enough.
"That's a nice little playmate for her new playthings," muttered Drake."If that bird gets the least bit gay--I shoot him pronto." He gave Rutha reassuring hug. "Cheer up, Ruth. Don't mind that thing. He's somethingwe can handle."
Norhala waved a white hand; Yuruk sidled over to one of the curtainedovals and through it, reappearing almost instantly with a huge platterupon which were fruits, and a curdly white liquid in bowls of thickporcelain.
"Eat," she said, as the gnarled black arms placed the platter at ourfeet.
"Hungry?" asked Drake. Ruth shook her head violently.
"I'm going out for the saddlebags," said Drake. "We'll use our ownstuff--while it lasts. I'm taking no chances on what the Yuruk ladbrings--with all due respect to Norhala's good intentions."
He started for the doorway; the eunuch blocked his way.
"We have with us food of our own, Norhala," I explained. "He goes to getit."
She nodded indifferently; clapped her hands. Yuruk shrank back, and outstrode Drake.
"I am weary," sighed Norhala. "The way was long. I will refreshmyself--"
She stretched out a foot toward Yuruk. He knelt, unlaced the turquoisebands, drew off the sandals. Her hands sought her breast, dwelt for aninstant there.
Down slipped her silken veils, clingingly, slowly, as though reluctantto unclasp her; whispering they fell from the high and
tender breasts,the delicate rounded hips, and clustered about her feet in softpetalings as of some flower of pale amber foam. Out of the calyx of thatflower arose the gleaming miracle of her body crowned with glowing gloryof her cloudy hair.
Naked she was, yet clothed with an unearthly purity, the purity of thefar-flung, serene stars, of the eternal snows upon some calm, high-flungpeak, the tranquil, silver dawns of spring; protected by some spell ofdivinity which chilled and slew the flame of desire. A maiden Ishtar, avirginal Isis; a woman--yet with no more of woman's lure than if she hadbeen some exquisite and breathing statue of mingled ivory and milk ofpearls.
So she stood, indifferent to us who gazed upon her, withdrawn, musing,as though she had forgotten us. And that serene indifference, with itsentire absence of what we term sex consciousness, revealed to me oncemore how great was the abyss between us and her.
Slowly she raised her arms, wound the floating tresses into a coronal.I saw Drake enter with the saddlebags; saw them drop from hands relaxingunder the shock of this amazing tableau; saw his eyes widen and fillwith wonder and half-awed admiration.
Now Norhala stepped out of her fallen robes and moved toward the furtherwall, Yuruk following. He stooped, raised an ewer of silver and begangently to pour over her shoulders its contents. Again and again he bentand filled the vessel, dipping it into a shallow basin from which camethe bubbling and chuckling of a little spring. And again I marveled atthe marble smoothness and fineness of her skin on which the caressingwater left tiny silvery globules, gemming it. The eunuch slithered toone side, drew from a quaint chest clothes of white floss; patted herdry with them; threw over her shoulders a silken robe of blue.
Back she floated to us; hovered over Ruth, crouching with her brother'shead upon her knees.
She made a motion as though to draw the girl to her; hesitated as Ruth'sface set in a passion of denial. A shadow of kindness drifted throughthe wide, mysterious eyes; a shadow of pity joined it as she lookedcuriously down on Ventnor.
"Bathe," she murmured, and pointed to the pool. "And rest. No harm shallcome to any of you here. And you--" A hand rested for a moment lightlyon the girl's curly head. "When you desire it--I will again giveyou--peace!"
She parted the curtains, and the eunuch still following, was hiddenbeyond them.