XV. THE DREAM OF MACIAN
The system of espionage in the asylum was so effective and complete thatin practice the patients could often enjoy a sense of almost completesolitude. They could stray up so near to the wall in an apparentlyunwatched garden as to find it easy to jump over it. They would onlyhave found the error of their calculations if they had tried to jump.
Under this insulting liberty, in this artificial loneliness, Evan MacIanwas in the habit of creeping out into the garden after dark--especiallyupon moonlight nights. The moon, indeed, was for him always a positivemagnet in a manner somewhat hard to explain to those of a robusterattitude. Evidently, Apollo is to the full as poetical as Diana; but itis not a question of poetry in the matured and intellectual sense of theword. It is a question of a certain solid and childish fancy. The sun isin the strict and literal sense invisible; that is to say, that by ourbodily eyes it cannot properly be seen. But the moon is a much simplerthing; a naked and nursery sort of thing. It hangs in the sky quitesolid and quite silver and quite useless; it is one huge celestialsnowball. It was at least some such infantile facts and fancies whichled Evan again and again during his dehumanized imprisonment to go outas if to shoot the moon.
He was out in the garden on one such luminous and ghostly night, whenthe steady moonshine toned down all the colours of the garden untilalmost the strongest tints to be seen were the strong soft blue of thesky and the large lemon moon. He was walking with his face turned up toit in that rather half-witted fashion which might have excused the errorof his keepers; and as he gazed he became aware of something little andlustrous flying close to the lustrous orb, like a bright chip knockedoff the moon. At first he thought it was a mere sparkle or refractionin his own eyesight; he blinked and cleared his eyes. Then he thoughtit was a falling star; only it did not fall. It jerked awkwardly up anddown in a way unknown among meteors and strangely reminiscent of theworks of man. The next moment the thing drove right across the moon,and from being silver upon blue, suddenly became black upon silver;then although it passed the field of light in a flash its outline wasunmistakable though eccentric. It was a flying ship.
The vessel took one long and sweeping curve across the sky and camenearer and nearer to MacIan, like a steam-engine coming round a bend. Itwas of pure white steel, and in the moon it gleamed like the armour ofSir Galahad. The simile of such virginity is not inappropriate; for, asit grew larger and larger and lower and lower, Evan saw that the onlyfigure in it was robed in white from head to foot and crowned withsnow-white hair, on which the moonshine lay like a benediction. Thefigure stood so still that he could easily have supposed it to be astatue. Indeed, he thought it was until it spoke.
"Evan," said the voice, and it spoke with the simple authority of someforgotten father revisiting his children, "you have remained here longenough, and your sword is wanted elsewhere."
"Wanted for what?" asked the young man, accepting the monstrous eventwith a queer and clumsy naturalness; "what is my sword wanted for?"
"For all that you hold dear," said the man standing in the moonlight;"for the thrones of authority and for all ancient loyalty to law."
Evan looked up at the lunar orb again as if in irrational appeal--a mooncalf bleating to his mother the moon. But the face of Luna seemed aswitless as his own; there is no help in nature against the supernatural;and he looked again at the tall marble figure that might have been madeout of solid moonlight.
Then he said in a loud voice: "Who are you?" and the next moment wasseized by a sort of choking terror lest his question should be answered.But the unknown preserved an impenetrable silence for a long space andthen only answered: "I must not say who I am until the end of the world;but I may say what I am. I am the law."
And he lifted his head so that the moon smote full upon his beautifuland ancient face.
The face was the face of a Greek god grown old, but not grown eitherweak or ugly; there was nothing to break its regularity except a ratherlong chin with a cleft in it, and this rather added distinction thanlessened beauty. His strong, well-opened eyes were very brilliant butquite colourless like steel.
MacIan was one of those to whom a reverence and self-submission inritual come quite easy, and are ordinary things. It was not artificialin him to bend slightly to this solemn apparition or to lower his voicewhen he said: "Do you bring me some message?"
"I do bring you a message," answered the man of moon and marble. "Theking has returned."
Evan did not ask for or require any explanation. "I suppose you can takeme to the war," he said, and the silent silver figure only bowed itshead again. MacIan clambered into the silver boat, and it rose upward tothe stars.
To say that it rose to the stars is no mere metaphor, for the sky hadcleared to that occasional and astonishing transparency in which one cansee plainly both stars and moon.
As the white-robed figure went upward in his white chariot, he saidquite quietly to Evan: "There is an answer to all the folly talked aboutequality. Some stars are big and some small; some stand still and somecircle around them as they stand. They can be orderly, but they cannotbe equal."
"They are all very beautiful," said Evan, as if in doubt.
"They are all beautiful," answered the other, "because each is in hisplace and owns his superior. And now England will be beautiful after thesame fashion. The earth will be as beautiful as the heavens, because ourkings have come back to us."
"The Stuart----" began Evan, earnestly.
"Yes," answered the old man, "that which has returned is Stuart and yetolder than Stuart. It is Capet and Plantagenet and Pendragon. It is allthat good old time of which proverbs tell, that golden reign of Saturnagainst which gods and men were rebels. It is all that was ever lostby insolence and overwhelmed in rebellion. It is your own forefather,MacIan with the broken sword, bleeding without hope at Culloden. It isCharles refusing to answer the questions of the rebel court. It is Maryof the magic face confronting the gloomy and grasping peers and theboorish moralities of Knox. It is Richard, the last Plantagenet,giving his crown to Bolingbroke as to a common brigand. It is Arthur,overwhelmed in Lyonesse by heathen armies and dying in the mist,doubtful if ever he shall return."
"But now----" said Evan, in a low voice.
"But now!" said the old man; "he has returned."
"Is the war still raging?" asked MacIan.
"It rages like the pit itself beyond the sea whither I am taking you,"answered the other. "But in England the king enjoys his own again.The people are once more taught and ruled as is best; they are happyknights, happy squires, happy servants, happy serfs, if you will; butfree at last of that load of vexation and lonely vanity which was calledbeing a citizen."
"Is England, indeed, so secure?" asked Evan.
"Look out and see," said the guide. "I fancy you have seen this placebefore."
They were driving through the air towards one region of the sky wherethe hollow of night seemed darkest and which was quite without stars.But against this black background there sprang up, picked out inglittering silver, a dome and a cross. It seemed that it was reallynewly covered with silver, which in the strong moonlight was likewhite flame. But, however, covered or painted, Evan had no difficultin knowing the place again. He saw the great thoroughfare that slopedupward to the base of its huge pedestal of steps. And he wonderedwhether the little shop was still by the side of it and whether itswindow had been mended.
As the flying ship swept round the dome he observed other alterations.The dome had been redecorated so as to give it a more solemn andsomewhat more ecclesiastical note; the ball was draped or destroyed,and round the gallery, under the cross, ran what looked like a ring ofsilver statues, like the little leaden images that stood round the hatof Louis XI. Round the second gallery, at the base of the dome, ran asecond rank of such images, and Evan thought there was another roundthe steps below. When they came closer he saw that they were figuresin complete armour of steel or silver, each with a naked sword, pointupward; and then he saw one of
the swords move. These were not statuesbut an armed order of chivalry thrown in three circles round the cross.MacIan drew in his breath, as children do at anything they think utterlybeautiful. For he could imagine nothing that so echoed his own visionsof pontifical or chivalric art as this white dome sitting like a vastsilver tiara over London, ringed with a triple crown of swords.
As they went sailing down Ludgate Hill, Evan saw that the state of thestreets fully answered his companion's claim about the reintroductionof order. All the old blackcoated bustle with its cockney vivacityand vulgarity had disappeared. Groups of labourers, quietly butpicturesquely clad, were passing up and down in sufficiently largenumbers; but it required but a few mounted men to keep the streets inorder. The mounted men were not common policemen, but knights with spursand plume whose smooth and splendid armour glittered like diamond ratherthan steel. Only in one place--at the corner of Bouverie Street--didthere appear to be a moment's confusion, and that was due to hurryrather than resistance. But one old grumbling man did not get out ofthe way quick enough, and the man on horseback struck him, not severely,across the shoulders with the flat of his sword.
"The soldier had no business to do that," said MacIan, sharply. "The oldman was moving as quickly as he could."
"We attach great importance to discipline in the streets," said the manin white, with a slight smile.
"Discipline is not so important as justice," said MacIan.
The other did not answer.
Then after a swift silence that took them out across St. James's Park,he said: "The people must be taught to obey; they must learn their ownignorance. And I am not sure," he continued, turning his back on Evanand looking out of the prow of the ship into the darkness, "I am notsure that I agree with your little maxim about justice. Disciplinefor the whole society is surely more important than justice to anindividual."
Evan, who was also leaning over the edge, swung round with startlingsuddenness and stared at the other's back.
"Discipline for society----" he repeated, very staccato, "moreimportant--justice to individual?"
Then after a long silence he called out: "Who and what are you?"
"I am an angel," said the white-robed figure, without turning round.
"You are not a Catholic," said MacIan.
The other seemed to take no notice, but reverted to the main topic.
"In our armies up in heaven we learn to put a wholesome fear intosubordinates."
MacIan sat craning his neck forward with an extraordinary andunaccountable eagerness.
"Go on!" he cried, twisting and untwisting his long, bony fingers, "goon!"
"Besides," continued he, in the prow, "you must allow for a certain highspirit and haughtiness in the superior type."
"Go on!" said Evan, with burning eyes.
"Just as the sight of sin offends God," said the unknown, "so does thesight of ugliness offend Apollo. The beautiful and princely must, ofnecessity, be impatient with the squalid and----"
"Why, you great fool!" cried MacIan, rising to the top of his tremendousstature, "did you think I would have doubted only for that rap with asword? I know that noble orders have bad knights, that good knights havebad tempers, that the Church has rough priests and coarse cardinals;I have known it ever since I was born. You fool! you had only to say,'Yes, it is rather a shame,' and I should have forgotten the affair. ButI saw on your mouth the twitch of your infernal sophistry; I knew thatsomething was wrong with you and your cathedrals. Something is wrong;everything is wrong. You are not an angel. That is not a church. It isnot the rightful king who has come home."
"That is unfortunate," said the other, in a quiet but hard voice,"because you are going to see his Majesty."
"No," said MacIan, "I am going to jump over the side."
"Do you desire death?"
"No," said Evan, quite composedly, "I desire a miracle."
"From whom do you ask it? To whom do you appeal?" said his companion,sternly. "You have betrayed the king, renounced his cross on thecathedral, and insulted an archangel."
"I appeal to God," said Evan, and sprang up and stood upon the edge ofthe swaying ship.
The being in the prow turned slowly round; he looked at Evan with eyeswhich were like two suns, and put his hand to his mouth just too late tohide an awful smile.
"And how do you know," he said, "how do you know that I am not God?"
MacIan screamed. "Ah!" he cried. "Now I know who you really are. You arenot God. You are not one of God's angels. But you were once."
The being's hand dropped from his mouth and Evan dropped out of the car.