Across the Zodiac Part 10

She did not answer; and finding that her strength was utterly exhausted, I carried her down the remainder of the hill and placed her in the carriage. During our return neither of us spoke. Ascribing her silence to habit or fatigue, perhaps to displeasure, and busied in recalling what I had seen and heard, I did not care to "make conversation," as I certainly should have done had I guessed what impression my taciturnity made on my companion's mind. I was heartily glad for her sake when we regained the gate of her father's garden.

Committing the carriage to the charge of an amba, I half led, half carried Eveena along the avenue, overhung with the grand conical bells--gold, crimson, scarlet, green, white, or striped or variegated with some or all these colours--of the glorious _leveloo_, the Martial convolvulus. Its light clinging stems and foliage hid the _astyra's_ arched branches overhead, and formed a screen on either side. From its bells flew at our approach a whole flock of the tiny and beautiful caree, which take the chief part in rendering to the flora of Mars such services as the flowers of Earth receive from bees and b.u.t.terflies. They feed on the nectar, farina, syrup, and other secretions, sweet or bitter, in which the artificial flowers of Mars are peculiarly abundant, and make their nests in the calyx or among the petals. These lovely little birds--about the size of a hornet, but perfect birds in miniature, with wings as large as those of the largest Levantine _papilio_, and feathery down equally fine and soft--are perhaps the most shy and timid of all creatures familiar with the presence of Martial humanity. The varied colours of their plumage, combined and intermingled in marvellously minute patterns, are all of those subdued or dead tints agreeable to the taste of j.a.panese artists, and perhaps to no other. They signally contrast the vivid and splendid colouring of objects created or developed by human genius and patience, from the exquisite decorations and jewel-like ma.s.ses of domestic and public architecture to the magnificent flowers and fruit produced, by the labour of countless generations, from originals so dissimilar that only the records of past ages can trace or the searching comparisons of science recognise them. I am told that the present race of flower-birds themselves are a sort of indirect creation of art. They certainly vary in size, shape, and colour according to the flower each exclusively frequents; and those which haunt the cultivated bells of the _leveloo_ present an amazing contrast to the far tinier and far less beautiful _caree_ which have not yet abandoned the wildflowers for those of the garden. Above two hundred varieties distinguished by ornithologists frequent only the domesticated flowers.

The flight of this swarm of various beauty recalled the conversation of last night; and breaking off un.o.bserved a long fine tendril of the leveloo, I said lightly--

"Flower-birds are not so well-trained as _esvee_, bambina."

Never forgetting a word of mine, and never failing to catch with quick intelligence the sense of the most epigrammatic or delicate metaphor, Eveena started and looked up, as if stung by a serious reproach.

Fancying that overpowering fatigue had so shaken her nerves, I would not allow her to speak. But I did not understand how much she had been distressed, till in her own chamber, cloak and veil thrown aside, she stood beside my seat, her sleeveless arms folded behind her, drooping like a lily beaten down by a thunderstorm. Then she murmured sadly--

"I did not think of offending. But you are quite right; disobedience should never pa.s.s."

"Certainly not," I replied, with a smile she did not see. Taking both the little hands in my left, I laid the tendril on her soft white shoulders, but so gently that in her real distress she did not feel the touch. "You see I can keep my word; but never let me tire you again. My flower-bird cannot take wing if she anger me in earnest."

"Are you not angered now?" she asked, glancing up in utter surprise.

My eyes, or the sight of the leveloo, answered her; and a sweet bright smile broke through her look of frightened, penitent submission, as she s.n.a.t.c.hed the tendril and snapped it in my hand.

"Cruel!" she said, with a pretty a.s.sumption of ill-usage, "to visit a first fault with the whip."

"You are hard to please, bambina! I knew no better. Seriously, until I can measure your strength more truly, never again let me feel that in inviting your company I have turned my pleasure into your pain."

"No, indeed," she urged, once more in earnest. "Girls so seldom pa.s.s the gate, and men never walk where a carriage will go, or I should not have been so stupid. But if I had blistered my feet, and the leveloo had been a nut-vine, the fruit was worth the scratches."

"What do you know, my child, either of blisters or stripes?"

"You will teach me----No, you know I don't mean that! But you will take me with you sometimes till I learn better! If you are going to leave me at home in future "----

"My child, can you not trust me to take you for my own pleasure?"

The silvery tone of her low sweet laugh was truly perfectly musical.

"Forgive me," she said, nestling in the cushions at my knee, and seeking with upturned eyes, like a child better a.s.sured of pardon than of full reconciliation, to read my face, "it is very naughty to laugh, and very ungrateful, when you speak to please me; but is it real kindness to say what I should be very silly to believe?"

"You will believe whatever I tell you, child. If you wish to anger a man, even with you, tell him that he is lying."

"I do nothing but misbehave," she said, in earnest despondency.

"I----" But I sealed her lips effectually for the moment.

"Why did you not speak as we came home?"

"You were tired, and I was thinking over all I had seen. Besides, who talks air?" [makes conversation].

"You always talk when you are pleased. The lip-sting (scolding) and silence frightened me so, you nearly heard me crying."

"Crying for fear? You did well to break the leveloo!... And so you think I must be tired of my bride, before the colours have gone round on the dial?"

"Not tired of her. You will like a little longer to find her in the cushions when you are vexed or idle; but you don't want her where her ignorance wearies and her weakness hampers you."

"Are you an _esve_, to be caged at home, and played with for lack of better employment? We shall never understand each other, child."

"What more can I be? But don't say we shall never understand each other," she pleaded earnestly. "It took time and trouble to make my pet understand and obey each word and sign. Zevle gave hers more slaps and fewer sweets, and it learned sooner. But, like me, you want your esve to be happy, not only to fly straight and play prettily. She will try hard to learn if you will teach her, and not be so afraid of hurting her, as if she expected sweets from both hands. It is easy for you to see through her empty head: do cot give her up till she has had time to look a little way into your eyes."

"Eveena," I answered, almost as much pained as touched by the unaffected humility which had so accepted and carried out my ironical comparison, "one simple magnet-key would unlock the breast whose secrets seem so puzzling; but it has hardly a name in your tongue, and cannot yet be in your hands."

"Ah, yes!" she said softly, "you gave it me; do you think I have lost it in two nights? But the esve cannot be loved as she loves her master. I could half understand the prodigal heart that would buy a girl's life with yours, and all that is bound up in yours. No other _man_ would have done it--in our world," she added, answering my gesture of dissent; "but they say that the terrible _kargynda_ will stand by his dying mate till he is shot down. You bought my heart, my love, all I am, when you bought my life, and never asked the cost."

She continued almost in a whisper, her rose-suffused cheeks and moist eyes hidden from my sight as the lips murmured their loving words into my ear,--"Though the nestling never looked from under the wing, do you think she knows not what to expect when she is bought from the nest?

She dares not struggle in the hand that s.n.a.t.c.hes her; much more did she deserve to be rated and rapped for fluttering in that which saved her life. Bought twice over, caged by right as by might--was her thought midnight to your eyes, when she wondered at the look that watched her so quietly, the hand that would not try to touch lest it should scare her, the patience that soothed and coaxed her to perch on the outstretched finger, like a flower-bird tamed at last? Do you think that name, given her by lips which softened even their words of fondness for her ear, did not go to her heart straight as the esve flies home, or that it could ever be forgotten? There is a chant young girls are fond of, which tells more than I can say."

Her tones fell so low that I should have lost them, had her lips not actually touched my ear while she chanted the strange words in the sweetest notes of her sweet voice:--

"Never yet hath single sun Seen a flower-bird tamed and won; Sun and stars shall quit the sky Ere a bird so tamed shall fly.

"Never human lips have kissed Flower-bird tamed 'twixt mist and mist; Bird so tamed from tamer's heart Night of death shall hardly part."

CHAPTER XII - ON THE RIVER.

The next morning saw our journey commenced. Eveena's wardrobe, with my own and my books, portfolios, models, and specimens of Terrestrial art and mechanism, were packed in light metallic cases adapted to the larger form of carriage whereof I have made mention. I was fortunate in escaping the actual parting scene between Eveena and her family, and my own leave-taking was hurried. Esmo and his son accompanied us, leading the way in one carriage, while Eveena and myself occupied that which we had used on our memorable trip to the Astronaut. Half an hour brought us to the road beside the river, and a few minutes more to the point at which a boat awaited us. The road being some eight or ten feet above the level of the water, a light ladder not three feet long was ready to a.s.sist our descent to the deck. The difference of size between the Martial race and my own was forcibly impressed upon me, in seeing that Esmo and his son found this a.s.sistance needful, or at least convenient, while I simply stepped rather than jumped to the deck, and lifted Eveena straight from her carriage to her seat under the canopy that covered the stern of the vessel. Intended only for river navigation, propelled by a small screw like two fishtails set at right angles, working horizontally; the vessel had but two cabins, one on either side of the central part occupied by the machinery. The stern apartment was appropriated to myself and my bride, the forecastle, if I may so call it, to our companions, the boatmen having berths in the corners of the machine-room. The vessel was flat-bottomed, drawing about eighteen inches of water and rising about five feet from the surface, leaving an interior height which obliged me to be cautious in order not to strike my head against every projection or support of the cabin roof. We spent the whole of the day, however, on deck, and purposely slackened the speed of the boat, which usually travels some thirty miles an hour, in order to enjoy the effect and observe the details of the landscape. For the first few miles our voyage lay through the open plain. Then we pa.s.sed, on the left as we ascended the stream, the mountain on whose summit I tried with my binocular to discern the Astronaut, but unsuccessfully, the trees on the lower slopes intercepting the view. Eveena, seeing my eyes fixed on that point, extended her hand and gently drew the gla.s.s out of mine.

"Not yet," she said; which elicited from me the excuse--

"That mountain has for me remembrances more interesting than those of my voyage, or even than the hopes of return."

Presently, as we followed the course of the stream, we lost sight altogether of the rapidly dwindling patches of colour representing the enclosures of Ecasfe. On our left, at a distance varying from three to five miles, but constantly increasing as the stream bent to the northward, was the mountain range I had scanned in my descent. On our right the plain dipped below the horizon while still but a few feet above the level of the river; but in the distant sky we discerned some objects like white clouds, which from their immobility and fixedness of outline I soon discovered to be snow-crowned hills, lower, however, than those to the northward, and perhaps some forty miles distant. The valley is one of the richest and most fertile portions of this continent, and was consequently thoroughly cultivated and more densely peopled than most parts even of the Equatorial zone. An immediate river frontage being as convenient as agreeable, the enclosures on either bank were continuous, and narrow in proportion to their depth; the largest occupying no more than from one hundred and fifty to two hundred yards of the bank, the smaller from half to one quarter of that length. Most had a tunnel pierced under the road bordering the river, through which the water was admitted to their grounds and carried in a minute stream around and even through the house; for ornament rather than for use, since every house in a district so populous has a regular artificial water supply, and irrigation, as I have explained, is not required. The river itself was embellished with ma.s.ses of water-flowers; and water-birds, the smallest scarcely larger than a wagtail, the largest somewhat exceeding the size of a swan, of a different form and dark grey plumage, but hardly less graceful, seemed to be aware of the stringent protection they enjoyed from the law. They came up to our boat and fed out of Eveena's hand with perfect fearlessness. I could not induce any of them to be equally familiar with myself, my size probably surprising them as much as their masters, and leading them to the same doubt whether I were really and wholly human. The lower slopes of the hills were covered with orchards of every kind, each species occupying the level best suited to it, from the reed-supported orange-like _alva_ of the lowlands to the tall _astyra_, above which stretched the timber forests extending as high as trees could grow, while between these and the permanent snow-line lay the yellowish herbage of extensive pastures. A similar mountain range on earth would have presented a greater variety of colouring and scenery, the total absence of glaciers, even in the highest valleys, creating a notable difference.

The truth is that the snows of Mars are nowhere deep, and melt in the summer to such an extent that that constant increase whose downward tendency feeds Terrestrial glaciers cannot take place. Probably the thin atmosphere above the snow-line can hold but little watery vapour.

Esmo was of opinion that the snow on the highest steeps, even on a level plateau, was never more than two feet in depth; and in more than one case a wind-swept peak or pinnacle was kept almost clear, and presented in its grey, green, or vermilion rocks a striking contrast to the ma.s.ses of creamy white around it. This may explain the very rapid diminution of the polar ice-caps in the summer of either, but especially of the Southern hemisphere; and also the occasional appearance of large dark spots in their midst, where the shallow snow has probably been swept away by the rare storms of this planet from an extensive land surface. It is supposed that no inconsiderable part of the ice and snow immediately surrounding the poles covers land; but, though balloon parties have of late occasionally reached the poles, they have never ventured to remain there long enough to disembark and ascertain the fact.

Towards evening the stream turned more decidedly to the north, and at this point Es...o...b..ought out an instrument constructed somewhat on the principle of a s.e.xtant or quadrant, but without the mirror, by which we were enabled to take reliable measures of the angles. By a process which at that time I did not accurately follow, and which I had not subsequently the means of verifying, the distance as well as the angle subtended by the height was obtained. Kevima, after working out his father's figures, informed me that the highest peak in view--the highest in Mars--was not less than 44,000 feet. No Martial balloonist, much less any Martial mountain-climber, has ever, save once, reached a greater height than 16,000 feet--the air at the sea-level being scarcely more dense than ours at 10,000 feet. Kevima indicated one spot in the southern range of remarkable interest, a.s.sociated with an incident which forms an epoch in the records of Martial geography. A sloping plateau, some 19,000 feet above the sea-level, is defined with remarkable clearness in the direction from which we viewed it. The forests appeared to hide, though they do not of course actually approach, its lower edge. On one side and to the rear it is shut in by precipices so abrupt that the snow fails to cling to them, while on the remaining side it is separated by a deep, wide cleft from the western portion of the range. Here for centuries were visible the relics of an exploring party, which reached this plateau and never returned. Attempts have, since the steering of balloons has become an accomplished fact, been made to reach the point, but without success, and those who have approached nearest have failed to find any of the long-visible remains of an expedition which perished four or five thousand years ago. Kevima thought it probable that the metallic poles even then employed for tents and for climbing purposes might still be intact; but if so, they were certainly buried in the snow, and Es...o...b..lieved it more likely that even these had perished.

As the mists of evening fell we retreated to our cabin, which was warmed by a current of heated air from the electric machinery. Here our evening meal was served, at which Esmo and his son joined us, Eveena resuming, even in their presence, the veil she had worn on deck but had laid aside the moment we were alone. An hour or two after sunset, the night (an unusual occurrence in Mars) was clear and fine, and I took this opportunity of observing from a new standpoint the familiar constellations. The scintillation so characteristic of the fixed stars, especially in the temperate climates of the Earth, was scarcely perceptible. Scattered once more over the surface of a defined sky, it was much easier than in s.p.a.ce to recognise the several constellations; but their new and strange situations were not a little surprising at first sight, some of those which, as seen on Earth revolved slowly in the neighbourhood of the poles, being now not far from the tropics, and some, which had their place within the tropics, now lying far to north or south. Around the northern pole the Swan swings by its tail, as in our skies the Lesser Bear; Arided being a Pole-Star which needs no Pointers to indicate its position. Vega is the only other brilliant star in the immediate neighbourhood; and, save for the presence of the Milky Way directly crossing it, the arctic circle is distinctly less bright than our own. The south pole lies in one of the dullest regions of the heavens, near the chief star of the Peac.o.c.k. Arcturus, the Great Bear, the Twins, the Lion, the Scorpion, and Fomalhaut are among the ornaments of the Equatorial zone: the Cross, the Centaur, and the Ship of our antarctic constellations, are visible far into the northern hemisphere. On the present occasion the two Moons were both visible in the west, the horns of both crescents pointing in the same direction, though the one was in her last, the other in her first phase.

As we were watching them, Eveena, wrapped in a cloak of fur not a little resembling that of the silver fox, but far softer, stole her hand into mine and whispered a request that I would lend her the instrument I was using. With some instruction and help she contrived to adjust it, her sight requiring a decided alteration of the focus and an approach of the two eye-pieces; the eyes of her race being set somewhat nearer than in an average Aryan countenance. She expressed no little surprise at the clearness of definition, and the marked enlargement of the discs of the two satellites, and would have used the instrument to scan the stars and visible planets had I not insisted on her retirement; the light atmosphere, as is always the case on clear nights, when no cloud-veil prevents rapid radiation from the surface, being bitterly cold, and her life not having accustomed her to the night air even in the most genial season.

As we could, of course, see nothing of the country through which we pa.s.sed during the night, and as Esmo informed me that little or nothing of special interest would occur during this part of our voyage, our vessel went at full speed, her pilot being thoroughly acquainted with the river, and an electric light in the bow enabling him to steer with perfect confidence and safety. When, therefore, we came on deck after the dissipation of the morning mist, we found ourselves in a scene very different from that which we had left. Our course was north by west. On either bank lay a country cultivated indeed, but chiefly pastoral, producing a rich herbage, grazed by innumerable herds, among which I observed with interest several flocks of large birds, kept, as Esmo informed me, partly for their plumage.

This presented remarkable combinations of colour, far surpa.s.sing in brilliancy and in variety of pattern the tail of the peac.o.c.k, and often rivalling in length and delicacy, while exceeding in beauty of colouring, the splendid feathers which must have embarra.s.sed the Bird of Paradise, even before they rendered him an object of pursuit by those who have learnt the vices and are eager to purchase the wares of civilised man. Immediately across our course, at a distance of some thirty miles, stretched a range of mountains. I inquired of Esmo how the river turned in order to avoid them, since no opening was visible even through my gla.s.s.

"The proper course of the river," he said, "lies at the foot of those hills. But this would take us out of our road, and, moreover, the stream is not navigable for many stoloi above the turning-point. We shall hold on nearly in the same direction as the present till we land at their foot."

"And how," I said, "are we to cross them?"

"At your choice, either by carriage or by balloon," he said. "There is at our landing-place a town in which we shall easily procure either."

"But," said I, "though our luggage is far less heavy than would be that of a bride on Earth, and Eveena's forms the smallest portion of it, I should fancy that it must be inconveniently heavy for a balloon."

"Certainly," he replied; "but we could send it by carriage even over the mountain roads. The boat, however, will go on, and will meet us some thirty miles beyond the point where we leave it."

"And how is the boat to pa.s.s over the hills?"