CHAPTER XXV. THE PRINCESS
Making a circuit of the castle, I came again to the open gates, crossedthe ravine-like moat, and found myself in a paved court, planted atregular intervals with towering trees like poplars. In the centre wasone taller than the rest, whose branches, near the top, spread a littleand gave it some resemblance to a palm. Between their great stems Igot glimpses of the palace, which was of a style strange to me, butsuggested Indian origin. It was long and low, with lofty towers at thecorners, and one huge dome in the middle, rising from the roof to halfthe height of the towers. The main entrance was in the centre of thefront--a low arch that seemed half an ellipse. No one was visible, thedoors stood wide open, and I went unchallenged into a large hall, inthe form of a longish ellipse. Toward one side stood a cage, in whichcouched, its head on its paws, a huge leopardess, chained by a steelcollar, with its mouth muzzled and its paws muffled. It was whitewith dark oval spots, and lay staring out of wide-open eyes, withcanoe-shaped pupils, and great green irids. It appeared to watch me, butnot an eyeball, not a foot, not a whisker moved, and its tail stretchedout behind it rigid as an iron bar. I could not tell whether it was alive thing or not.
From this vestibule two low passages led; I took one of them, andfound it branch into many, all narrow and irregular. At a spot where wasscarce room for two to pass, a page ran against me. He started back interror, but having scanned me, gathered impudence, puffed himself out,and asked my business.
"To see the princess," I answered.
"A likely thing!" he returned. "I have not seen her highness thismorning myself!"
I caught him by the back of the neck, shook him, and said, "Take me toher at once, or I will drag you with me till I find her. She shall knowhow her servants receive her visitors."
He gave a look at me, and began to pull like a blind man's dog, leadingme thus to a large kitchen, where were many servants, feebly busy, andhardly awake. I expected them to fall upon me and drive me out, but theystared instead, with wide eyes--not at me, but at something behind me,and grew more ghastly as they stared. I turned my head, and saw thewhite leopardess, regarding them in a way that might have feared stouterhearts.
Presently, however, one of them, seeing, I suppose, that attack was notimminent, began to recover himself; I turned to him, and let the boy go.
"Take me to the princess," I said.
"She has not yet left her room, your lordship," he replied.
"Let her know that I am here, waiting audience of her."
"Will your lordship please to give me your name?"
"Tell her that one who knows the white leech desires to see her."
"She will kill me if I take such a message: I must not. I dare not."
"You refuse?"
He cast a glance at my attendant, and went.
The others continued staring--too much afraid of her to take their eyesoff her. I turned to the graceful creature, where she stood, her muzzledropped to my heel, white as milk, a warm splendour in the gloomy place,and stooped and patted her. She looked up at me; the mere movement ofher head was enough to scatter them in all directions. She rose on herhind legs, and put her paws on my shoulders; I threw my arms round her.She pricked her ears, broke from me, and was out of sight in a moment.
The man I had sent to the princess entered.
"Please to come this way, my lord," he said.
My heart gave a throb, as if bracing itself to the encounter. I followedhim through many passages, and was at last shown into a room so largeand so dark that its walls were invisible. A single spot on the floorreflected a little light, but around that spot all was black. I lookedup, and saw at a great height an oval aperture in the roof, on theperiphery of which appeared the joints between blocks of black marble.The light on the floor showed close fitting slabs of the same material.I found afterward that the elliptical wall as well was of black marble,absorbing the little light that reached it. The roof was the long halfof an ellipsoid, and the opening in it was over one of the foci of theellipse of the floor. I fancied I caught sight of reddish lines, butwhen I would have examined them, they were gone.
All at once, a radiant form stood in the centre of the darkness,flashing a splendour on every side. Over a robe of soft white, her hairstreamed in a cataract, black as the marble on which it fell. Hereyes were a luminous blackness; her arms and feet like warm ivory. Shegreeted me with the innocent smile of a girl--and in face, figure, andmotion seemed but now to have stepped over the threshold of womanhood."Alas," thought I, "ill did I reckon my danger! Can this be the woman Irescued--she who struck me, scorned me, left me?" I stood gazing at herout of the darkness; she stood gazing into it, as if searching for me.
She disappeared. "She will not acknowledge me!" I thought. But the nextinstant her eyes flashed out of the dark straight into mine. She haddescried me and come to me!
"You have found me at last!" she said, laying her hand on my shoulder."I knew you would!"
My frame quivered with conflicting consciousnesses, to analyse whichI had no power. I was simultaneously attracted and repelled: eachsensation seemed either.
"You shiver!" she said. "This place is cold for you! Come."
I stood silent: she had struck me dumb with beauty; she held me dumbwith sweetness.
Taking me by the hand, she drew me to the spot of light, and againflashed upon me. An instant she stood there.
"You have grown brown since last I saw you," she said.
"This is almost the first roof I have been under since you left me," Ireplied.
"Whose was the other?" she rejoined.
"I do not know the woman's name."
"I would gladly learn it! The instinct of hospitality is not strongin my people!" She took me again by the hand, and led me through thedarkness many steps to a curtain of black. Beyond it was a white stair,up which she conducted me to a beautiful chamber.
"How you must miss the hot flowing river!" she said. "But there is abath in the corner with no white leeches in it! At the foot of yourcouch you will find a garment. When you come down, I shall be in theroom to your left at the foot of the stair."
I stood as she left me, accusing my presumption: how was I to treatthis lovely woman as a thing of evil, who behaved to me like asister?--Whence the marvellous change in her? She left me with a blow;she received me almost with an embrace! She had reviled me; she saidshe knew I would follow and find her! Did she know my doubts concerningher--how much I should want explained? COULD she explain all? Could Ibelieve her if she did? As to her hospitality, I had surely earnedand might accept that--at least until I came to a definite judgmentconcerning her!
Could such beauty as I saw, and such wickedness as I suspected, existin the same person? If they could, HOW was it possible? Unable to answerthe former question, I must let the latter wait!
Clear as crystal, the water in the great white bath sent a sparklingflash from the corner where it lay sunk in the marble floor, and seemedto invite me to its embrace. Except the hot stream, two draughts in thecottage of the veiled woman, and the pools in the track of the woundedleopardess, I had not seen water since leaving home: it looked a thingcelestial. I plunged in.
Immediately my brain was filled with an odour strange and delicate,which yet I did not altogether like. It made me doubt the princessafresh: had she medicated it? had she enchanted it? was she in any wayworking on me unlawfully? And how was there water in the palace, and nota drop in the city? I remembered the crushed paw of the leopardess, andsprang from the bath.
What had I been bathing in? Again I saw the fleeing mother, again Iheard the howl, again I saw the limping beast. But what matter whence itflowed? was not the water sweet? Was it not very water the pitcher-plantsecreted from its heart, and stored for the weary traveller? Water camefrom heaven: what mattered the well where it gathered, or the springwhence it burst? But I did not re-enter the bath.
I put on the robe of white wool, embroidered on the neck and hem, thatlay ready for me, and went down the stair to the r
oom whither my hostesshad directed me. It was round, all of alabaster, and without a singlewindow: the light came through everywhere, a soft, pearly shimmer ratherthan shine. Vague shadowy forms went flitting about over the walls andlow dome, like loose rain-clouds over a grey-blue sky.
The princess stood waiting me, in a robe embroidered with argentinerings and discs, rectangles and lozenges, close together--a silvermail. It fell unbroken from her neck and hid her feet, but its long opensleeves left her arms bare.
In the room was a table of ivory, bearing cakes and fruit, an ivory jugof milk, a crystal jug of wine of a pale rose-colour, and a white loaf.
"Here we do not kill to eat," she said; "but I think you will like whatI can give you."
I told her I could desire nothing better than what I saw. She seatedherself on a couch by the table, and made me a sign to sit by her.
She poured me out a bowlful of milk, and, handing me the loaf, beggedme to break from it such a piece as I liked. Then she filled from thewine-jug two silver goblets of grotesquely graceful workmanship.
"You have never drunk wine like this!" she said.
I drank, and wondered: every flower of Hybla and Hymettus must have sentits ghost to swell the soul of that wine!
"And now that you will be able to listen," she went on, "I must do whatI can to make myself intelligible to you. Our natures, however, are sodifferent, that this may not be easy. Men and women live but to die; we,that is such as I--we are but a few--live to live on. Old age is to youa horror; to me it is a dear desire: the older we grow, the nearer weare to our perfection. Your perfection is a poor thing, comes soon, andlasts but a little while; ours is a ceaseless ripening. I am not yetripe, and have lived thousands of your years--how many, I never cared tonote. The everlasting will not be measured.
"Many lovers have sought me; I have loved none of them: they sought butto enslave me; they sought me but as the men of my city seek gems ofprice.--When you found me, I found a man! I put you to the test; youstood it; your love was genuine!--It was, however, far from ideal--farfrom such love as I would have. You loved me truly, but not with truelove. Pity has, but is not love. What woman of any world would returnlove for pity? Such love as yours was then, is hateful to me. I knewthat, if you saw me as I am, you would love me--like the rest ofthem--to have and to hold: I would none of that either! I would beotherwise loved! I would have a love that outlived hopelessness,outmeasured indifference, hate, scorn! Therefore did I put on cruelty,despite, ingratitude. When I left you, I had shown myself such as youcould at least no longer follow from pity: I was no longer in needof you! But you must satisfy my desire or set me free--prove yourselfpriceless or worthless! To satisfy the hunger of my love, you mustfollow me, looking for nothing, not gratitude, not even pity inreturn!--follow and find me, and be content with merest presence, withscantest forbearance!--I, not you, have failed; I yield the contest."
She looked at me tenderly, and hid her face in her hands. But I hadcaught a flash and a sparkle behind the tenderness, and did not believeher. She laid herself out to secure and enslave me; she only fascinatedme!
"Beautiful princess," I said, "let me understand how you came to befound in such evil plight."
"There are things I cannot explain," she replied, "until you have becomecapable of understanding them--which can only be when love is grownperfect. There are many things so hidden from you that you cannot evenwish to know them; but any question you can put, I can in some measureanswer.
"I had set out to visit a part of my dominions occupied by a savagedwarf-people, strong and fierce, enemies to law and order, opposed toevery kind of progress--an evil race. I went alone, fearing nothing,unaware of the least necessity for precaution. I did not know that uponthe hot stream beside which you found me, a certain woman, by no meansso powerful as myself, not being immortal, had cast what you call aspell--which is merely the setting in motion of a force as natural asany other, but operating primarily in a region beyond the ken of themortal who makes use of the force.
"I set out on my journey, reached the stream, bounded across it,----"
A shadow of embarrassment darkened her cheek: I understood it, butshowed no sign. Checked for the merest moment, she went on:
"--you know what a step it is in parts!--But in the very act, anindescribable cold invaded me. I recognised at once the nature of theassault, and knew it could affect me but temporarily. By sheer force ofwill I dragged myself to the wood--nor knew anything more until I sawyou asleep, and the horrible worm at your neck. I crept out, dragged themonster from you, and laid my lips to the wound. You began to wake; Iburied myself among the leaves."
She rose, her eyes flashing as never human eyes flashed, and threw herarms high over her head.
"What you have made me is yours!" she cried. "I will repay you as neveryet did woman! My power, my beauty, my love are your own: take them."
She dropt kneeling beside me, laid her arms across my knees, and lookedup in my face.
Then first I noted on her left hand a large clumsy glove. In my mind'seye I saw hair and claws under it, but I knew it was a hand shuthard--perhaps badly bruised. I glanced at the other: it was lovely ashand could be, and I felt that, if I did less than loathe her, I shouldlove her. Not to dally with usurping emotions, I turned my eyes aside.
She started to her feet. I sat motionless, looking down.
"To me she may be true!" said my vanity. For a moment I was tempted tolove a lie.
An odour, rather than the gentlest of airy pulses, was fanning me.I glanced up. She stood erect before me, waving her lovely arms inseemingly mystic fashion.
A frightful roar made my heart rebound against the walls of its cage.The alabaster trembled as if it would shake into shivers. The princessshuddered visibly.
"My wine was too strong for you!" she said, in a quavering voice; "Iought not to have let you take a full draught! Go and sleep now, andwhen you wake ask me what you please.--I will go with you: come."
As she preceded me up the stair,--
"I do not wonder that roar startled you!" she said. "It startled me, Iconfess: for a moment I feared she had escaped. But that is impossible."
The roar seemed to me, however--I could not tell why--to come from theWHITE leopardess, and to be meant for me, not the princess.
With a smile she left me at the door of my room, but as she turned Iread anxiety on her beautiful face.