The Ghost Kings

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A hand took hers and drew her downwards, and up to meet her leapt myriads
of points of light, in every point a tiny face. They gazed at her with
their golden eyes; they whispered together concerning her, and the sound
of their whispering was the sound of a sea at peace. They accompanied her
to the very heart of the opal rose of life whence all these wonders
welled, they set her in a great grey hall roofed in with leaning cliffs,
and there they left her desolate.

Fear came upon her, the loneliness choked her, it held her by the throat
like a thing alive. She seemed about to die of it, when she became aware
that once more she was companioned. Shapes stood about her. She could not
see the shapes, save dimly now and again as they moved, but their eyes she
could see, their great calm, pitiful eyes, which looked down on her, as
the eye of a giant might look down upon a babe. They were terrible, but
she did not fear them so much as the loneliness, for at least they lived.

One of the shapes bent over her, for its holy eyes drew near to her, and
she heard a voice in her heart asking her for what great cause she had
dared to journey hither before the time. She answered, in her heart, not
with her lips, that she was bereaved of all she loved and came to seek
them. Then; still in her heart, she heard that voice command:

"Let all this Rachel's dead be brought before her."

Instantly doors swung open at the end of that grey hall, and through them
with noiseless steps, with shadowy wings, floated a being that bore in its
arms a child. Before her it stayed, and the light of its starry head
illumined the face of the child. She knew it at once--it was that baby
brother whose bones lay by the shore of the African sea. It awoke from its
sleep, it opened its eyes, it stretched out its arms and smiled at her.
Then it was gone.

Other Shapes appeared, each of them bearing its burden--a companion who
had died at school, friends of her youth and childhood whom she had
thought yet living, a young man who once had wished to marry her and who
was drowned, the soldier whom she had killed to save the life of Noie. At
the sight of him she shrank, for his blood was on her hands, but he only
smiled like the rest, and was borne away, to be followed by that
witch-doctoress whom the Zulus had slain because of her, who neither
smiled nor frowned but passed like one who wonders.

Then another shadow swept down the hall, and in its arms her mother--her
mother with joyful eyes, who held thin hands above her as though in
blessing, and to whom she strove to speak but strove in vain. She was
borne on still blessing her, and where she had been was her father, who
blessed her also, and whose presence seemed to shed peace upon her soul.
He pointed upwards and was gone, gazing at her earnestly, and lo! a form
of darkness cast something at her feet. It was Ishmael who knelt before
her, Ishmael whose tormented face gazed up at her as though imploring
pardon.

A struggle rent her heart. Could she forgive? Oh! could she forgive him
who had slain them all? Now she was aware that the place was filled with
the points of light that were Spirits, and that every one of them looked
at her awaiting the free verdict of her heart. Rank upon rank, also, the
mighty Shapes gathered about her, and in their arms her dead, and all of
them looked and looked, awaiting the free verdict of her heart. Then it
arose within her, drawn how she knew not from every fibre of her infinite
being, it arose within her, that spirit of pity and of pardon. As the dead
had stretched out their arms above her, so she stretched out her arms over
the head of that tortured soul, and for the first time her lips were given
power to speak.

"As I hope for pardon, so I pardon," she said. "Go in peace!"

Voices and trumpets caught up the words, and through the grey hall they
rang and echoed, proclaimed for ever and as they died away he too was
gone, and with him went the myriad points of flame, in each of which
gleamed a tiny face. She looked about her seeking another Spirit, that
Spirit she had, travelled so far and dared so much to find. But there came
only a little dwarf that shambled alone down the great hall. She knew him
at once for Pani, the priest, he who had been crushed in the tempest,
Pani, the brother of Eddo. No Shape bore him, for he who on earth had been
half a ghost, could walk this ghost-world on his mortal feet, or so her
mind conceived. Past her he shuffled shamefaced, and was gone.

Now the great doors at the end of the hall closed; from far away she could
see them roll together like lightning-severed clouds, and once more that
awful loneliness overcame her. Her knees gave way beneath her, she sank
down upon the floor, one little spot of white in its expanse, wishing that
the roof of rock would fall and hide her. She covered her face with her
golden hair, and wept behind its veil. She looked up and saw two great
eyes gazing at her--no face, only two great, steady eyes. Then a voice
speaking in her heart asked her why she wept, whose desire had been
fulfilled, and she answered that it was because she could not find him
whom she sought, Richard Darrien. Instantly the tongues and trumpets took
up the name.

"Richard Darrien!" they cried, "Richard Darrien!"

But no Shape swept in bearing the spirit of Richard in its arms.

"He is not here," said the voice in her heart. "Go, seek him in some other
world."

She grew angry.

"Thou mockest me," she answered, "He is dead, and this is the home of the
dead; therefore he must be here. Shadow, thou mockest me."

"I mock not," came the swift answer. "Mortal, look now and learn."

Again the doors burst open, and through them poured the infinite rout of
the dead. That hall would not hold them all, therefore it grew and grew
till her sight could scarcely reach from wall to wall. Shapes headed and
marshalled them by races and by generations, perhaps because thus only
could her human heart imagine them, but now none were borne in their arms.
They came in myriads and in millions, in billions and tens of billions,
men and women and children, kings and priests and beggars, all wearing the
garments of their age and country. They came like an ocean-tide, and their
floating hair was the foam on the tide, and their eyes gleamed like the
first shimmer of dawn above the snows. They came for hours and days and
years and centuries, they came eternally, and as they came every finger of
that host, compared to which all the sands of all the seas were but as a
handful, was pointed at her, and every mouth shaped the words:

"Is it I whom thou seekest?"

Million by million she scanned them all, but the face of Richard Darrien
was not there.

Now the dead Zulus were marching by. Down the stream of Time they marched
in their marshalled regiments. Chaka stood over her--she knew him by his
likeness to Dingaan--and threatened her with a little, red-handled spear,
asking her how she dared to sit upon the throne of the Spirit of his
nation. She began to tell him her story, but as she spoke the wide
receding walls of that grey hall fell apart and crumbled, and amidst a
mighty laughter the great-eyed Shapes rebuilt them to the fashion of the
cave in the mound beneath the tree of the dwarf-folk. The sound of the
trumpets died away, the shrill, sweet music of the spheres grew far and
faint.

Rachel opened her eyes. There in front of her sat Nya, crooning her low
song, and there, on either side crouched the mutes tapping upon their
little drums and gazing into their bowls of water, while against her
leaned Noie, who stirred like one awaking from sleep. Ages and ages ago
when she started on that dread journey, the dwarf to her left was
stretching out her hand to steady the bowl at her feet, and now it had but
just reached the bowl. A great moth had singed its wings in the lamp, and
was fluttering to the ground--it was still in mid-air. Noie was placing
her arm about her neck, and it had but begun to fall upon her shoulder!

CHAPTER XXII

IN THE SANCTUARY

Nya ceased her singing, and the dwarf women their beating on the drums.

"Hast thou been a journey, Maiden?" she asked, looking at Rachel
curiously.

"Aye, Mother," she answered in a faint voice, "and a journey far and
strange."

"And thou, Noie, my niece?"

"Aye, Mother," she answered, shivering as though with cold or fear, "but I
went not with my Sister here, I went alone--for years and years."

"A far journey thou sayest, Inkosazana, and one that was for years and
years, thou sayest, Noie, yet the eyes of both of you have been shut for
so long only as it takes a burnt moth to fall from the lamp flame to the
ground. I think that you slept and dreamed a moment, that is all."

"Mayhap, Mother," replied Rachel, "but if so mine was a most wondrous
dream, such as has never visited me before, and as I pray, never may
again. For I was borne beyond the stars into the glorious cities of the
dead, and I saw all the dead, and those that I had known in life were
brought to me by Shapes and Powers whereof I could only see the eyes."

"And didst thou find him whom thou soughtest most of all?"

"Nay," she answered, "him alone I did not find. I sought him, I prayed the
Guardians of the dead to show him to me, and they called up all the dead,
and I scanned them every one, and they summoned him by his name, but he
was not of their number, and he came not. Only they spoke in my heart,
bidding me to look for him in some other world."

"Ah!" exclaimed Nya starting a little, "they said that to thee, did they?
Well, worlds are many, and such a search would be long." Then as though to
turn the subject, she added, "And what sawest thou, Noie?"

"I, Mother? I went not beyond the stars, I climbed down endless ladders
into the centre of the earth, my feet are still sore with them. I reached
vast caves full of a blackness that shone, and there many dead folk were
walking, going nowhere, and coming back from nowhere. They seemed
strengthless but not unhappy, and they looked at me and asked me tidings
of the upper world, but I could not answer them, for whenever I opened my
lips to speak a cold hand was laid upon my mouth. I wandered among them
for many moons, only there was no moon, nothing but the blackness that
shone like polished coal, wandered from cave to cave. At length I came to
a cave in which sat my father, Seyapi, and near to him my mother, and my
other mothers, his wives, and my brothers and sisters, all of whom the
Zulus killed, as the wild beast, Ibubesi, told them to do."

"I saw Ibubesi, and he prayed me for my pardon, and I granted it to him,"
broke in Rachel.

"I did not see him," went on Noie fiercely, "nor would I have pardoned him
if I had. Nor do I think that my father and his family pardon him; I think
that they wait to bear testimony against him before the Lord of the dead."

"Did Seyapi tell you so?" asked Rachel.

"Nay, he sat there beneath a black tree whereof I could not see the top,
and gazed into a bowl of black water, and in that bowl he showed me many
pictures of things that have been and things that are to come, but they
are secret, I may say nothing of them."

"And what was the end of it, my niece?" asked Nya, bending forward
eagerly.

"Mother, the end of it was that the black tree which was shaped like the
tree of our tribe above us, took fire and went up in a fierce flame. Then
the roofs of the caves fell in and all the people of the dwarfs flew
through the roofs, singing and rejoicing, into a place of light; only,"
she added slowly, "it seemed to me that I was left alone amidst the ruins
of the caves, I and the white ghost of the tree. Then a voice cried to me
to make my heart bold, to bear all things with patience, since to those
who dare much for love's sake, much will be forgiven. So I woke, but what
those words mean I cannot guess, seeing that I love no man, and never
shall," and she rested her chin upon her hand and sat there musing.

"No," replied Nya, "thou lovest no man, and therefore the riddle is hard,"
but as she spoke her eyes fell upon Rachel.

"Mother," said Rachel presently, "my heart is the hungrier for all that it
has fed upon. Can thy magic send me back to that country of the dead that
I may search for him again? If so, for his sake I will dare the journey."

"Not so," answered Nya shaking her head; "it is a road that very few have
travelled, and none may travel twice and live."

Now Rachel began to weep.

"Weep not, Maiden, there are other roads and perchance to-morrow thou
shall walk them. Now lie down and sleep, both of you, and fear no dreams."

So they laid themselves down and slept, but the old witch-wife, Nya, sat
waiting and watched them.

"I think I understand," she murmured to herself, as She gazed at the
slumbering Rachel, "for to her who is so pure and good, and who has
suffered such cruel wrong, the Guardians would not lie. I think that I
understand and that I can find a path. Sleep on, sweet maiden, sleep on in
hope."

Then she looked at Noie and shook her grey head.

"I do not understand," she muttered. "The black tree shaped like the Tree
of our Tribe, and Seyapi of the old blood seated beneath it. The tree that
went up in fire, and the maid of the old blood left alone with the ghost
of it, while the dwarf people fled into light and freedom. What does it
mean? Ah! that picture in the bowl! Now I can guess. 'Those who dare much
for love.' It did not say for love of man, and woman can love woman. But
would she dare a deed that none of our race could even dream? Well, the
Zulu blood is bold. Perhaps, perhaps. Oh! Eddo, thou black sorcerer,
whither art thou leading the Children of the Tree? On thy head be it,
Eddo, not on mine; on thy head for ever and for ever."

When Rachel awoke, refreshed, on the following day, she lay a while
thinking. Every detail of her vision was perfectly clear in her mind, only
now she was sure that it had been but a dream. Yet what a wonderful dream!
How, even in her sleep, had she found the imagination to conceive
circumstances so inconceivable? That magic rush beyond the stars; that
mighty world set round with black cliffs against which rolled the waves of
space; that changeful, wondrous world which unfolded itself petal by petal
like a rose, every petal lovelier and different from the last; that grey
hall roofed with tilted precipices; and then those dead, those multitudes
of the dead!

What power had been born in her that she could imagine such things as
these? Vision she had, like her mother, but not after this sort. Perhaps
it was but an aftermath of her madness, for into the minds of the mad
creep strange sights and sounds, and this place, and the people amongst
whom she sojourned, the Ghost-people, the grey Dwarf-people, the Dealers
in dreams, the Dwellers in the sombre forest, might well open new doors in
such a soul as hers. Or perhaps she was still mad. She did not know, she
did not greatly care. All she knew was that her poor heart ached with love
for a man who was dead, and yet whom she could not find even among the
dead. She had wished to die, but now she longed for death no more, fearing
lest after all there should be something in that vision which the magic of
Nya had summoned up, and that when she reached the further shore she might
not find him who dwelt in a different world. Oh! if only she could find
him, then she would be glad enough to go wherever it was that he had gone.

Now Noie was awake at her side, and they talked together.

"We must have dreamt dreams, Noie," she said. "Perhaps the Mother mingled
some drug with our food."

"I do not know, Zoola," answered Noie; "but, if so, I want no more of
those dreams which bode no good to me. Besides, who can tell what is dream
and what is truth? Mayhap this world is the dream, and the truth is such
things as we saw last night," and she would say no more on the matter.

Nothing happened within the Wall that day--that is, nothing out of the
common. A certain number of the privileged, priestly caste of the dwarfs
were carried or conducted into the holy place, and up to the Fence of
Death that they might die there, and a certain number were brought out for
burial. Some of those who came in were folk weary of life, or, in other
words, suicides, and these walked; and some were sick of various diseases,
and these were carried. But the end was the same, they always died, though
whether this result was really brought about by some poison distilled from
the tree, as Nya alleged, or whether it was the effect of a physical
collapse induced by that inherited belief, Rachel never discovered.

At least they died, some almost at once, and some within a day or two of
entering that deadly shade, and were borne away to burial by the mutes who
spent their spare time in the digging of little graves which they must
fill. Indeed, these mutes either knew, or pretended that they knew who
would be the occupant of each grave. At least they intimated by signs that
this was revealed to them in their bowls, and when the victims appeared
within the Wall, took pleasure in leading them to the holes they had
prepared, and showing to them with what care these had been dug to suit
their stature. For this service they received a fee that such moribund
persons brought with them, either of finely woven robes, or of mats, or of
different sorts of food, or sometimes of gold and copper rings
manufactured by the Umkulu or other subject savages, which they wore upon
their wrists and ankles.

Certain of these doomed folk, however, went to their fate with no light
hearts, which was not wonderful, as it seemed that these were neither ill
nor sought a voluntary euthanasia. They were political victims sent
thither by Eddo as an alternative to the terror of the Red Death, whereby
according to their strange and ancient creed, they would have risked the
spilling of their souls. For the most part the crime of these poor people
was that they had been adherents and supporters of the old Mother of the
Tree, Nya, over whom Eddo was at last triumphant. On their way up to the
Fence such individuals would stop to exchange a last few, sad words with
their dethroned priestess.

Then without any resistance they went on with the rest, but from them the
mutes received scant offerings, or none at all, with the result that they
were cast into the worst situated and most inconvenient graves, or even
tumbled two or three together into some shapeless corner hole. But, after
all, that mattered nothing to them so long as they received sepulchre
within the Wall, which was their birth-or, rather, their death-right.

The priest-mutes themselves were a strange folk, and, oddly enough, Rachel
observed, by comparison, quite cheerful in their demeanour, for when off
duty they would smile and gibber at each other like monkeys, and carry on
a kind of market between themselves. They lived in that part of the
circumference of the Wall which was behind the hill whereon grew the
sacred tree. Here no burials took place, and instead of graves appeared
their tiny huts arranged in neat streets and squares. In these they and
their forefathers had dwelt from time immemorial; indeed, each little hut
with a few yards of fenced-in ground about it ornamented with dwarf trees,
was a freehold that descended from father to son. For the mutes married,
and were given in marriage, like other folk, though their children were
few, a family of three being considered very large, while many of the
couples had none at all. But those who were born to them were all
deaf-mutes, although their other senses seemed to be singularly acute.

These mutes had their virtues; thus some of them were very kind to each
other, and especially to those from the outer forest world who came hither
to bid farewell to that world, and others, renouncing marriage and all
earthly joys, devoted their lives, which appeared to be long, to the
worship of the Spirit of the Tree. Also they had their vices, such as
theft, and the seducing away of the betrothed of others, but the chief of
them was jealousy, which sometimes led to murder by poisoning, an art
whereof they were great masters.

When such a crime was discovered, and a case of it happened during the
first days of Rachel's sojourn among them, the accused was put upon his
trial before the chief of the mutes, evidence for and against him being
given by signs which they all understood. Then if a case were established
against him, he was forced to drink a bowl of medicine. If he did this
with impunity he was acquitted, but if it disagreed with him his guilt was
held to be established. Now came the strange part of the matter. All his
life the evil-doer had been accustomed to go within the Fence about his
business and take no harm, but after such condemnation he was conducted
there with the usual ceremonies and very shortly perished like any other
uninitiated person. Whether this issue was due to magic or to mental
collapse, or to the previous administration of poison, no one seemed to
know, not even Nya herself. So, at least, she declared to Rachel.

At each new moon these mutes celebrated what Rachel was informed they
looked upon as a festival. That is, they climbed the Tree of the Tribe and
scattered themselves among its enormous branches, where for several hours
they mumbled and gibbered in the dark like a troop of baboons. Then they
came down, and mounting the huge, surrounding wall, crept around its
circumference. Occasionally this journey resulted in an accident, as one
of them would fall from the wall and be dashed to pieces, although it was
noticed that the unfortunate was generally a person who, although guilty
of no actual crime, chanced to be out of favour with the other priests and
priestesses. After the circuit of the wall had been accomplished, with or
without accidents, the dwarfs feasted round a fire, drinking some spirit
that threw them into a sleep in which wonderful visions appeared to them.
Such was their only entertainment, if so it could be called, since
doubtless the ceremony was of a religious character. For the rest they
seldom if ever left the holy place, which was known as "Within the Wall,"
most of them never doing so in the course of a long life.

Beyond the burial of the dead they did no work, as their food was brought
to them daily by outside people, who were called "the slaves of the Wall."
Their only method of conversation was by signs, and they seemed to desire
no other. Indeed, if, as occasionally happened, a child was born to any of
them who could hear or speak like other human beings, it was either given
over to the other dwarfs, or if the discovery was not made until it was
old enough to observe, it was sacrificed by being bound to the trunk of
the tribal tree "lest it should tell the secret of the Tree."

Such were the weird, half-human folk among whom Rachel was destined to
dwell. The Zulus had been bad and bloodthirsty, but compared to these
little wizards they seemed to her as angels. The Zulus at any rate had
left her her thoughts, but these stunted wretches, she was sure, pried
into them and read them with the help of their bowls, for often she caught
sight of them signing to each other about her as she passed, and pointing
with grins to pictures which they saw in the water.

It was night again, still, silent night made odorous with the heavy cedar
scents of the huge tree upon the mound. Rachel and Noie sat before Nya in
the cave beneath the burning lamp about which fluttered the big-winged,
gilded moths.

"Thou didst not find him yonder among the Shades," said Nya suddenly, as
though she were continuing a conversation. "Say now, Maiden, art thou
satisfied, or wouldst thou seek for him again?"

"I would seek him through all the heavens and all the earths. Mother, my
soul burns for a sight of him, and if I cannot find him, then I must die,
and go perchance where he is not."

"Good," said Nya; "the effort wearies me, for I grow weak, yet for thy
sake I will try to help thee, who saved me from the Red Death."

Then the dwarf-women came in and beat upon their drums, and, as before,
the old Mother of the Trees began to sing, but Noie sat aside, for in this
night's play she would take no part. Again Rachel sank into sleep, and
again it seemed to her that she was swept from the earth into the region
of the stars and there searched world after world.

She saw many strange and marvellous things, things so wonderful that her
memory was buried beneath the mass of them, so that when she woke again
she could not recall their details. Only of Richard she saw nothing. Yet
as her life returned to her, it seemed to Rachel that for one brief moment
she was near to Richard. She could not see him, and she could not hear
him, yet certainly he was near her. Then her eyes opened, and Nya ceasing
from her song, asked:

"What tidings, Wanderer?"

"Little," she answered feebly, for she was very tired, and in a faint
voice she told her all.

"Good," said Nya, nodding her grey head. "This time he was not so far
away. To-morrow I will make thy spirit strong, and then perhaps he will
come to thee. Now rest."

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