|
|
|
Prev
| Next
| Contents
IDLE DAYS ON THE YANN
So I came down through the wood on the bank of Yann and found, as had been
prophesied, the ship Bird of the River about to loose her cable.
The captain sat cross-legged upon the white deck with his scimitar lying
beside him in its jeweled scabbard, and the sailors toiled to spread the
nimble sails to bring the ship into the central stream of Yann, and all
the while sang ancient soothing songs. And the wind of the evening
descending cool from the snowfields of some mountainous abode of distant
gods came suddenly, like glad tidings to an anxious city, into the
wing-like sails.
And so we came into the central stream, whereat the sailors lowered the
greater sails. But I had gone to bow before the captain, and to inquire
concerning the miracles, and appearances among men, of the most holy gods
of whatever land he had come from. And the captain answered that he came
from fair Belzoond, and worshipped gods that were the least and humblest,
who seldom sent the famine or the thunder, and were easily appeased with
little battles. And I told how I came from Ireland, which is of Europe,
whereat the captain and all the sailors laughed, for they said, "There are
no such places in all the land of dreams." When they had ceased to mock
me, I explained that my fancy mostly dwelt in the desert of Cuppar-Nombo,
about a beautiful blue city called Golthoth the Damned, which was
sentinelled all round by wolves and their shadows, and had been utterly
desolate for years and years, because of a curse which the gods once spoke
in anger and could never since recall. And sometimes my dreams took me as
far as Pungar Vees, the red walled city where the fountains are, which
trades with the Isles and Thul. When I said this they complimented me upon
the abode of my fancy, saying that, though they had never seen these
cities, such places might well be imagined. For the rest of that evening I
bargained with the captain over the sum that I should pay him for any fare
if God and the tide of Yann should bring us safely as far as the cliffs by
the sea, which are named Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate of Yann.
And now the sun had set, and all the colours of the world and heaven had
held a festival with him, and slipped one by one away before the imminent
approach of night. The parrots had all flown home to the jungle on either
bank, the monkeys in rows in safety on high branches of the trees were
silent and asleep, the fireflies in the deeps of the forest were going up
and down, and the great stars came gleaming out to look on the face of
Yann. Then the sailors lighted lanterns and hung them round the ship, and
the light flashed out on a sudden and dazzled Yann, and the ducks that fed
along his marshy banks all suddenly arose, and made wide circles in the
upper air, and saw the distant reaches of the Yann and the white mist that
softly cloaked the jungle, before they returned again to their marshes.
And then the sailors knelt on the decks and prayed, not all together, but
five or six at a time. Side by side there kneeled down together five or
six, for there only prayed at the same time men of different faiths, so
that no god should hear two men praying to him at once. As soon as any one
had finished his prayer, another of the same faith would take his place.
Thus knelt the row of five or six with bended heads under the fluttering
sail, while the central stream of the River Yann took them on towards the
sea, and their prayers rose up from among the lanterns and went towards
the stars. And behind them in the after end of the ship the helmsman
prayed aloud the helmsman's prayer, which is prayed by all who follow his
trade upon the River Yann, of whatever faith they be. And the captain
prayed to his little lesser gods, to the gods that bless Belzoond.
And I too felt that I would pray. Yet I liked not to pray to a jealous God
there where the frail affectionate gods whom the heathen love were being
humbly invoked; so I bethought me, instead, of Sheol Nugganoth, whom the
men of the jungle have long since deserted, who is now unworshipped and
alone; and to him I prayed.
And upon us praying the night came suddenly down, as it comes upon all men
who pray at evening and upon all men who do not; yet our prayers comforted
our own souls when we thought of the Great Night to come.
And so Yann bore us magnificently onwards, for he was elate with molten
snow that the Poltiades had brought him from the Hills of Hap, and the
Marn and Migris were swollen with floods; and he bore us in his full might
past Kyph and Pir, and we saw the lights of Goolunza.
Soon we all slept except the helmsman, who kept the ship in the mid-stream
of Yann.
When the sun rose the helmsman ceased to sing, for by song he cheered
himself in the lonely night. When the song ceased we suddenly all awoke,
and another took the helm, and the helmsman slept.
We knew that soon we should come to Mandaroon. We made a meal, and
Mandaroon appeared. Then the captain commanded, and the sailors loosed
again the greater sails, and the ship turned and left the stream of Yann
and came into a harbour beneath the ruddy walls of Mandaroon. Then while
the sailors went and gathered fruits I came alone to the gate of
Mandaroon. A few huts were outside it, in which lived the guard. A
sentinel with a long white beard was standing in the gate, armed with a
rusty pike. He wore large spectacles, which were covered with dust.
Through the gate I saw the city. A deathly stillness was over all of it.
The ways seemed untrodden, and moss was thick on doorsteps; in the
market-place huddled figures lay asleep. A scent of incense came wafted
through the gateway, of incense and burned poppies, and there was a hum of
the echoes of distant bells. I said to the sentinel in the tongue of the
region of Yann, "Why are they all asleep in this still city?"
- He answered
- "None may ask questions in this gate for fear they will wake
the people of the city. For when the people of this city wake the gods
will die. And when the gods die men may dream no more." And I began to ask
him what gods that city worshipped, but he lifted his pike because none
might ask questions there. So I left him and went back to the _Bird of the
River_.
Certainly Mandaroon was beautiful with her white pinnacles peering over
her ruddy walls and the green of her copper roofs.
When I came back again to the Bird of the River, I found the sailors
were returned to the ship. Soon we weighed anchor, and sailed out again,
and so came once more to the middle of the river. And now the sun was
moving toward his heights, and there had reached us on the River Yann the
song of those countless myriads of choirs that attend him in his progress
round the world. For the little creatures that have many legs had spread
their gauze wings easily on the air, as a man rests his elbows on a
balcony and gave jubilant, ceremonial praises to the sun, or else they
moved together on the air in wavering dances intricate and swift, or
turned aside to avoid the onrush of some drop of water that a breeze had
shaken from a jungle orchid, chilling the air and driving it before it, as
it fell whirring in its rush to the earth; but all the while they sang
triumphantly. "For the day is for us," they said, "whether our great and
sacred father the Sun shall bring up more life like us from the marshes,
or whether all the world shall end tonight." And there sang all those
whose notes are known to human ears, as well as those whose far more
numerous notes have been never heard by man.
To these a rainy day had been as an era of war that should desolate
continents during all the lifetime of a man.
And there came out also from the dark and steaming jungle to behold and
rejoice in the Sun the huge and lazy butterflies. And they danced, but
danced idly, on the ways of the air, as some haughty queen of distant
conquered lands might in her poverty and exile dance, in some encampment
of the gipsies, for the mere bread to live by, but beyond that would never
abate her pride to dance for a fragment more.
And the butterflies sung of strange and painted things, of purple orchids
and of lost pink cities and the monstrous colours of the jungle's decay.
And they, too, were among those whose voices are not discernible by human
ears. And as they floated above the river, going from forest to forest,
their splendour was matched by the inimical beauty of the birds who darted
out to pursue them. Or sometimes they settled on the white and wax-like
blooms of the plant that creeps and clambers about the trees of the
forest; and their purple wings flashed out on the great blossoms as, when
the caravans go from Nurl to Thace, the gleaming silks flash out upon the
snow, where the crafty merchants spread them one by one to astonish the
mountaineers of the Hills of Noor.
But upon men and beasts the sun sent drowsiness. The river monsters along
the river's marge lay dormant in the slime. The sailors pitched a
pavilion, with golden tassels, for the captain upon the deck, and then
went, all but the helmsman, under a sail that they had hung as an awning
between two masts. Then they told tales to one another, each of his own
city or of the miracles of his god, until all were fallen asleep. The
captain offered me the shade of his pavillion with the gold tassels, and
there we talked for a while, he telling me that he was taking merchandise
to Perdóndaris, and that he would take back to fair Belzoond things
appertaining to the affairs of the sea. Then, as I watched through the
pavilion's opening the brilliant birds and butterflies that crossed and
recrossed over the river, I fell asleep, and dreamed that I was a monarch
entering his capital underneath arches of flags, and all the musicians of
the world were there, playing melodiously their instruments; but no one
cheered.
In the afternoon, as the day grew cooler again, I awoke and found the
captain buckling on his scimitar, which he had taken off him while he
rested.
And now we were approaching the wide court of Astahahn, which opens upon
the river. Strange boats of antique design were chained there to the
steps. As we neared it we saw the open marble court, on three sides of
which stood the city fronting on colonnades. And in the court and along
the colonnades the people of that city walked with solemnity and care
according to the rites of ancient ceremony. All in that city was of
ancient device; the carving on the houses, which, when age had broken it,
remained unrepaired, was of the remotest times, and everywhere were
represented in stone beasts that have long since passed away from
Earth--the dragon, the griffin, the hippogriffin, and the different
species of gargoyle. Nothing was to be found, whether material or custom,
that was new in Astahahn. Now they took no notice at all of us as we went
by, but continued their processions and ceremonies in the ancient city,
and the sailors, knowing their custom, took no notice of them. But I
called, as we came near, to one who stood beside the water's edge, asking
him what men did in Astahahn and what their merchandise was, and with whom
they traded. He said, "Here we have fettered and manacled Time, who would
otherwise slay the gods."
I asked him what gods they worshipped in that city, and he said, "All
those gods whom Time has not yet slain." Then he turned from me and would
say no more, but busied himself in behaving in accordance with ancient
custom. And so, according to the will of Yann, we drifted onwards and left
Astahahn. The river widened below Astahahn, and we found in greater
quantities such birds as prey on fishes. And they were very wonderful in
their plumage, and they came not out of the jungle, but flew, with their
long necks stretched out before them, and their legs lying on the wind
behind, straight up the river over the mid-stream.
And now the evening began to gather in. A thick white mist had appeared
over the river, and was softly rising higher. It clutched at the trees
with long impalpable arms, it rose higher and higher, chilling the air;
and white shapes moved away into the jungle as though the ghosts of
shipwrecked mariners were searching stealthily in the darkness for the
spirits of evil that long ago had wrecked them on the Yann.
As the sun sank behind the field of orchids that grew on the matted summit
of the jungle, the river monsters came wallowing out of the slime in which
they had reclined during the heat of the day, and the great beasts of the
jungle came down to drink. The butterflies a while since were gone to
rest. In little narrow tributaries that we passed night seemed already to
have fallen, though the sun which had disappeared from us had not yet set.
And now the birds of the jungle came flying home far over us, with the
sunlight glistening pink upon their breasts, and lowered their pinions as
soon as they saw the Yann, and dropped into the trees. And the widgeon
began to go up the river in great companies, all whistling, and then would
suddenly wheel and all go down again. And there shot by us the small and
arrow-like teal; and we heard the manifold cries of flocks of geese, which
the sailors told me had recently come in from crossing over the Lispasian
ranges; every year they come by the same way, close by the peak of Mluna,
leaving it to the left, and the mountain eagles know the way they come
and--men say--the very hour, and every year they expect them by the same
way as soon as the snows have fallen upon the Northern Plains. But soon it
grew so dark that we heard those birds no more, and only heard the
whirring of their wings, and of countless others besides, until they all
settled down along the banks of the river, and it was the hour when the
birds of the night went forth. Then the sailors lit the lanterns for the
night, and huge moths appeared, flapping about the ship, and at moments
their gorgeous colours would be revealed by the lanterns, then they would
pass into the night again, where all was black. And again the sailors
prayed, and thereafter we supped and slept, and the helmsman took our
lives into his care.
When I awoke I found that we had indeed come to Perdóndaris, that famous
city. For there it stood upon the left of us, a city fair and notable, and
all the more pleasant for our eyes to see after the jungle that was so
long with us. And we were anchored by the market-place, and the captain's
merchandise was all displayed, and a merchant of Perdóndaris stood looking
at it. And the captain had his scimitar in his hand, and was beating with
it in anger upon the deck, and the splinters were flying up from the white
planks; for the merchant had offered him a price for his merchandise that
the captain declared to be an insult to himself and his country's gods,
whom he now said to be great and terrible gods, whose curses were to be
dreaded. But the merchant waved his hands, which were of great fatness,
showing the pink palms, and swore that of himself he thought not at all,
but only of the poor folk in the huts beyond the city to whom he wished to
sell the merchandise for as low a price as possible, leaving no
remuneration for himself. For the merchandise was mostly the thick
toomarund carpets that in the winter keep the wind from the floor, and
tollub which the people smoke in pipes. Therefore the merchant said if he
offered a piffek more the poor folk must go without their toomarunds when
the winter came, and without their tollub in the evenings, or else he and
his aged father must starve together. Thereat the captain lifted his
scimitar to his own throat, saying that he was now a ruined man, and that
nothing remained to him but death. And while he was carefully lifting his
beard with his left hand, the merchant eyed the merchandise again, and
said that rather than see so worthy a captain die, a man for whom he had
conceived an especial love when first he saw the manner in which he
handled his ship, he and his aged father should starve together and
therefore he offered fifteen piffeks more.
When he said this the captain prostrated himself and prayed to his gods
that they might yet sweeten this merchant's bitter heart--to his little
lesser gods, to the gods that bless Belzoond.
At last the merchant offered yet five piffeks more. Then the captain wept,
for he said that he was deserted of his gods; and the merchant also wept,
for he said that he was thinking of his aged father, and of how he soon
would starve, and he hid his weeping face with both his hands, and eyed
the tollub again between his fingers. And so the bargain was concluded,
and the merchant took the toomarund and tollub, paying for them out of a
great clinking purse. And these were packed up into bales again, and three
of the merchant's slaves carried them upon their heads into the city. And
all the while the sailors had sat silent, cross-legged in a crescent upon
the deck, eagerly watching the bargain, and now a murmur of satisfaction
arose among them, and they began to compare it among themselves with other
bargains that they had known. And I found out from them that there are
seven merchants in Perdóndaris, and that they had all come to the captain
one by one before the bargaining began, and each had warned him privately
against the others. And to all the merchants the captain had offered the
wine of his own country, that they make in fair Belzoond, but could in no
wise persuade them to it. But now that the bargain was over, and the
sailors were seated at the first meal of the day, the captain appeared
among them with a cask of that wine, and we broached it with care and all
made merry together. And the captain was glad in his heart because he knew
that he had much honour in the eyes of his men because of the bargain that
he had made. So the sailors drank the wine of their native land, and soon
their thoughts were back in fair Belzoond and the little neighbouring
cities of Durl and Duz.
But for me the captain poured into a little jar some heavy yellow wine
from a small jar which he kept apart among his sacred things. Thick and
sweet it was, even like honey, yet there was in its heart a mighty, ardent
fire which had authority over souls of men. It was made, the captain told
me, with great subtlety by the secret craft of a family of six who lived
in a hut on the mountains of Hian Min. Once in these mountains, he said,
he followed the spoor of a bear, and he came suddenly on a man of that
family who had hunted the same bear, and he was at the end of a narrow way
with precipice all about him, and his spear was sticking in the bear, and
the wound was not fatal, and he had no other weapon. And the bear was
walking towards the man, very slowly because his wound irked him--yet he
was now very close. And what he captain did he would not say, but every
year as soon as the snows are hard, and travelling is easy on the Hian
Min, that man comes down to the market in the plains, and always leaves
for the captain in the gate of fair Belzoond a vessel of that priceless
secret wine.
And as I sipped the wine and the captain talked, I remembered me of
stalwart noble things that I had long since resolutely planned, and my
soul seemed to grow mightier within me and to dominate the whole tide of
the Yann. It may be that I then slept. Or, if I did not, I do not now
minutely recollect every detail of that morning's occupations. Towards
evening, I awoke and wishing to see Perdóndaris before we left in the
morning, and being unable to wake the captain, I went ashore alone.
Certainly Perdóndaris was a powerful city; it was encompassed by a wall of
great strength and altitude, having in it hollow ways for troops to walk
in, and battlements along it all the way, and fifteen strong towers on it
in every mile, and copper plaques low down where men could read them,
telling in all the languages of those parts of the earth--one language on
each plaque--the tale of how an army once attacked Perdóndaris and what
befell that army. Then I entered Perdóndaris and found all the people
dancing, clad in brilliant silks, and playing on the tambang as they
danced. For a fearful thunderstorm had terrified them while I slept, and
the fires of death, they said, had danced over Perdóndaris, and now the
thunder had gone leaping away large and black and hideous, they said, over
the distant hills, and had turned round snarling at them, shoving his
gleaming teeth, and had stamped, as he went, upon the hilltops until they
rang as though they had been bronze. And often and again they stopped in
their merry dances and prayed to the God they knew not, saying, "O, God
that we know not, we thank Thee for sending the thunder back to his
hills." And I went on and came to the market-place, and lying there upon
the marble pavement I saw the merchant fast asleep and breathing heavily,
with his face and the palms of his hands towards the sky, and slaves were
fanning him to keep away the flies. And from the market-place I came to a
silver temple and then to a palace of onyx, and there were many wonders in
Perdóndaris, and I would have stayed and seen them all, but as I came to
the outer wall of the city I suddenly saw in it a huge ivory gate. For a
while I paused and admired it, then I came nearer and perceived the
dreadful truth. The gate was carved out of one solid piece!
I fled at once through the gateway and down to the ship, and even as I ran
I thought that I heard far off on the hills behind me the tramp of the
fearful beast by whom that mass of ivory was shed, who was perhaps even
then looking for his other tusk. When I was on the ship again I felt
safer, and I said nothing to the sailors of what I had seen.
And now the captain was gradually awakening. Now night was rolling up from
the East and North, and only the pinnacles of the towers of Perdóndaris
still took the fallen sunlight. Then I went to the captain and told him
quietly of the thing I had seen. And he questioned me at once about the
gate, in a low voice, that the sailors might not know; and I told him how
the weight of the thing was such that it could not have been brought from
afar, and the captain knew that it had not been there a year ago. We
agreed that such a beast could never have been killed by any assault of
man, and that the gate must have been a fallen tusk, and one fallen near
and recently. Therefore he decided that it were better to flee at once; so
he commanded, and the sailors went to the sails, and others raised the
anchor to the deck, and just as the highest pinnacle of marble lost the
last rays of the sun we left Perdóndaris, that famous city. And night came
down and cloaked Perdóndaris and hid it from our eyes, which as things
have happened will never see it again; for I have heard since that
something swift and wonderful has suddenly wrecked Perdóndaris in a
day--towers, walls and people.
And the night deepened over the River Yann, a night all white with stars.
And with the night there rose the helmsman's song. As soon as he had
prayed he began to sing to cheer himself all through the lonely night. But
first he prayed, praying the helmsman's prayer. And this is what I
remember of it, rendered into English with a very feeble equivalent of the
rhythm that seemed so resonant in those tropic nights.
To whatever god may hear.
Wherever there be sailors whether of river or sea: whether their way be
dark or whether through storm: whether their peril be of beast or of rock:
or from enemy lurking on land or pursuing on sea: wherever the tiller is
cold or the helmsman stiff: wherever sailors sleep or helmsmen watch:
guard, guide and return us to the old land, that has known us: to the far
homes that we know.
To all the gods that are.
To whatever god may hear.
So he prayed, and there was silence. And the sailors laid them down to
rest for the night. The silence deepened, and was only broken by the
ripples of Yann that lightly touched our prow. Sometimes some monster of
the river coughed.
Silence and ripples, ripples and silence again.
And then his loneliness came upon the helmsman, and he began to sing. And
he sang the market songs of Durl and Duz, and the old dragon-legends of
Belzoond.
Many a song he sang, telling to spacious and exotic Yann the little tales
and trifles of his city of Durl. And the songs welled up over the black
jungle and came into the clear cold air above, and the great bands of
stars that look on Yann began to know the affairs of Durl and Duz, and of
the shepherds that dwelt in the fields between, and the flocks that they
had, and the loves that they had loved, and all the little things that
they had hoped to do. And as I lay wrapped up in skins and blankets,
listening to those songs, and watching the fantastic shapes of the great
trees like to black giants stalking through the night, I suddenly fell
asleep.
When I awoke great mists were trailing away from the Yann. And the flow of
the river was tumbling now tumultuously, and little waves appeared; for
Yann had scented from afar the ancient crags of Glorm, and knew that their
ravines lay cool before him wherein he should meet the merry wild Irillion
rejoicing from fields of snow. So he shook off from him the torpid sleep
that had come upon him in the hot and scented jungle, and forgot its
orchids and its butterflies, and swept on turbulent, expectant, strong;
and soon the snowy peaks of the Hills of Glorm came glittering into view.
And now the sailors were waking up from sleep. Soon we all ate, and then
the helmsman laid him down to sleep while a comrade took his place, and
they all spread over him their choicest furs.
And in a while we heard the sound that the Irillion made as she came down
dancing from the fields of snow.
And then we saw the ravine in the Hills of Glorm lying precipitous and
smooth before us, into which we were carried by the leaps of Yann. And now
we left the steamy jungle and breathed the mountain air; the sailors stood
up and took deep breaths of it, and thought of their own far off Acroctian
hills on which were Durl and Duz--below them in the plains stands fair
Belzoond.
A great shadow brooded between the cliffs of Glorm, but the crags were
shining above us like gnarled moons, and almost lit the gloom. Louder and
louder came the Irillion's song, and the sound of her dancing down from
the fields of snow. And soon we saw her white and full of mists, and
wreathed with rainbows delicate and small that she had plucked up near the
mountain's summit from some celestial garden of the Sun. Then she went
away seawards with the huge grey Yann and the ravine widened, and opened
upon the world, and our rocking ship came through to the light of the day.
And all that morning and all the afternoon we passed through the marshes
of Pondoovery; and Yann widened there, and flowed solemnly and slowly, and
the captain bade the sailors beat on bells to overcome the dreariness of
the marshes.
At last the Irusian mountains came in sight, nursing the villages of
Pen-Kai and Blut, and the wandering streets of Mlo, where priests
propitiate the avalanche with wine and maize. Then night came down over
the plains of Tlun, and we saw the lights of Cappadarnia. We heard the
Pathnites beating upon drums as we passed Imaut and Golzunda, then all but
the helmsman slept. And villages scattered along the banks of the Yann
heard all that night in the helmsman's unknown tongue the little songs of
cities that they knew not.
I awoke before dawn with a feeling that I was unhappy before I remembered
why. Then I recalled that by the evening of the approaching day, according
to all foreseen probabilities, we should come to Bar-Wul-Yann, and I
should part from the captain and his sailors. And I had liked the man
because he had given me of his yellow wine that was set apart among his
sacred things, and many a story he had told me about his fair Belzoond
between the Acroctian hills and the Hian Min. And I had liked the ways
that his sailors had, and the prayers that they prayed at evening side by
side, grudging not one another their alien gods. And I had a liking too
for the tender way in which they often spoke of Durl and Duz, for it is
good that men should love their native cities and the little hills that
hold those cities up.
And I had come to know who would meet them when they returned to their
homes, and where they thought the meetings would take place, some in a
valley of the Acroctian hills where the road comes up from Yann, others in
the gateway of one or another of the three cities, and others by the
fireside in the home. And I thought of the danger that had menaced us all
alike outside Perdóndaris, a danger that, as things have happened, was
very real.
And I thought too of the helmsman's cheery song in the cold and lonely
night, and how he had held our lives in his careful hands. And as I
thought of this the helmsman ceased to sing, and I looked up and saw a
pale light had appeared in the sky, and the lonely night had passed; and
the dawn widened, and the sailors awoke.
And soon we saw the tide of the Sea himself advancing resolute between
Yann's borders, and Yann sprang lithely at him and they struggled awhile;
then Yann and all that was his were pushed back northward, so that the
sailors had to hoist the sails and, the wind being favorable, we still
held onwards.
And we passed Gondara and Narl and Haz. And we saw memorable, holy Golnuz,
and heard the pilgrims praying.
When we awoke after the midday rest we were coming near to Nen, the last
of the cities on the River Yann. And the jungle was all about us once
again, and about Nen; but the great Mloon ranges stood up over all things,
and watched the city from beyond the jungle.
Here we anchored, and the captain and I went up into the city and found
that the Wanderers had come into Nen.
And the Wanderers were a weird, dark, tribe, that once in every seven
years came down from the peaks of Mloon, having crossed by a pass that is
known to them from some fantastic land that lies beyond. And the people of
Nen were all outside their houses, and all stood wondering at their own
streets. For the men and women of the Wanderers had crowded all the ways,
and every one was doing some strange thing. Some danced astounding dances
that they had learned from the desert wind, rapidly curving and swirling
till the eye could follow no longer. Others played upon instruments
beautiful wailing tunes that were full of horror, which souls had taught
them lost by night in the desert, that strange far desert from which the
Wanderers came.
None of their instruments were such as were known in Nen nor in any part
of the region of the Yann; even the horns out of which some were made were
of beasts that none had seen along the river, for they were barbed at the
tips. And they sang, in the language of none, songs that seemed to be akin
to the mysteries of night and to the unreasoned fear that haunts dark
places.
Bitterly all the dogs of Nen distrusted them. And the Wanderers told one
another fearful tales, for though no one in Nen knew ought of their
language yet they could see the fear on the listeners' faces, and as the
tale wound on the whites of their eyes showed vividly in terror as the
eyes of some little beast whom the hawk has seized. Then the teller of the
tale would smile and stop, and another would tell his story, and the
teller of the first tale's lips would chatter with fear. And if some
deadly snake chanced to appear the Wanderers would greet him as a brother,
and the snake would seem to give his greetings to them before he passed on
again. Once that most fierce and lethal of tropic snakes, the giant
lythra, came out of the jungle and all down the street, the central street
of Nen, and none of the Wanderers moved away from him, but they all played
sonorously on drums, as though he had been a person of much honour; and
the snake moved through the midst of them and smote none.
Even the Wanderers' children could do strange things, for if any one of
them met with a child of Nen the two would stare at each other in silence
with large grave eyes; then the Wanderers' child would slowly draw from
his turban a live fish or snake. And the children of Nen could do nothing
of that kind at all.
Much I should have wished to stay and hear the hymn with which they greet
the night, that is answered by the wolves on the heights of Mloon, but it
was now time to raise the anchor again that the captain might return from
Bar-Wul-Yann upon the landward tide. So we went on board and continued
down the Yann. And the captain and I spoke little, for we were thinking of
our parting, which should be for long, and we watched instead the
splendour of the westerning sun. For the sun was a ruddy gold, but a faint
mist cloaked the jungle, lying low, and into it poured the smoke of the
little jungle cities, and the smoke of them met together in the mist and
joined into one haze, which became purple, and was lit by the sun, as the
thoughts of men become hallowed by some great and sacred thing. Some times
one column from a lonely house would rise up higher than the cities'
smoke, and gleam by itself in the sun.
And now as the sun's last rays were nearly level, we saw the sight that I
had come to see, for from two mountains that stood on either shore two
cliffs of pink marble came out into the river, all glowing in the light of
the low sun, and they were quite smooth and of mountainous altitude, and
they nearly met, and Yann went tumbling between them and found the sea.
And this was Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate of Yann, and in the distance through
that barrier's gap I saw the azure indescribable sea, where little
fishing-boats went gleaming by.
And the sun set, and the brief twilight came, and the exultation of the
glory of Bar-Wul-Yann was gone, yet still the pink cliffs glowed, the
fairest marvel that the eye beheld--and this in a land of wonders. And
soon the twilight gave place to the coming out of stars, and the colours
of Bar-Wul-Yann went dwindling away. And the sight of those cliffs was to
me as some chord of music that a master's hand had launched from the
violin, and which carries to Heaven or Faëry the tremulous spirits of men.
And now by the shore they anchored and went no further, for they were
sailors of the river and not of the sea, and knew the Yann but not the
tides beyond.
And the time was come when the captain and I must part, he to go back to
his fair Belzoond in sight of the distant peaks of the Hian Min, and I to
find my way by strange means back to those hazy fields that all poets
know, wherein stand small mysterious cottages through whose windows,
looking westwards, you may see the fields of men, and looking eastwards
see glittering elfin mountains, tipped with snow, going range on range
into the region of Myth, and beyond it into the kingdom of Fantasy, which
pertain to the Lands of Dream. Long we regarded one another, knowing that
we should meet no more, for my fancy is weakening as the years slip by,
and I go ever more seldom into the Lands of Dream. Then we clasped hands,
uncouthly on his part, for it is not the method of greeting in his
country, and he commended my soul to the care of his own gods, to his
little lesser gods, the humble ones, to the gods that bless Belzoond.
Prev
| Next
| Contents
|
|
|