Prince Zaleski Part 5

I had asked for a date and an address: the reply came giving a date, and an address, too--but an address wrapped up in cypher, which, of course, I, as a supposed member of the society, was expected to be able to read. At any rate, I now knew the significance of the incongruous circ.u.mstance that the Latin proverb _mens sana etc._ should be adopted as the motto of a Greek society; the significance lay in this, that the motto _contained an address_--the address of their meeting-place, or at least, of their chief meeting-place. I was now confronted with the task of solving--and of solving quickly, without the loss of an hour--this enigma; and I confess that it was only by the most violent and extraordinary concentration of what I may call the dissecting faculty, that I was able to do so in good time. And yet there was no special difficulty in the matter. For looking at the motto as it stood in cypher, the first thing I perceived was that, in order to read the secret, the heart-shaped figure must be left out of consideration, if there was any _consistency_ in the system of cyphers at all, for it belonged to a cla.s.s of symbols quite distinct from that of all the others, not being, like them, a picture-letter. Omitting this, therefore, and taking all the other vowels and consonants whether actually represented in the device or not, I now got the proverb in the form _mens sana in ... pore sano._ I wrote this down, and what instantly struck me was the immense, the altogether unusual, number of _liquids_ in the motto--six in all, amounting to no less than one-third of the total number of letters! Putting these all together you get _mnnnnr_, and you can see that the very appearance of the "m's" and "n's" (especially when _written_) running into one another, of itself suggests a stream of water. Having previously arrived at the conclusion of London as the meeting-place, I could not now fail to go on to the inference of _the Thames_; there, or near there, would I find those whom I sought. The letters "mnnnnr," then, meant the Thames: what did the still remaining letters mean? I now took these remaining letters, placing them side by side: I got aaa, sss, ee, oo, p and i. Juxtaposing these nearly in the order indicated by the frequency of their occurrence, and their place in the Roman alphabet, you at once and inevitably get the word _Aesopi._ And now I was fairly startled by this symmetrical proof of the exactness of my own deductions in other respects, but, above all, far above all, by the occurrence of that word _"Aesopi."_ For who was Aesopus? He was a slave who was freed for his wise and witful sallies: he is therefore typical of the liberty of the wise--their moral manumission from temporary and narrow law; he was also a close friend of Croesus: he is typical, then, of the union of wisdom with wealth--true wisdom with real wealth; lastly, and above all, he was thrown by the Delphians from a rock on account of his wit: he is typical, therefore, of death--the shedding of blood--as a result of wisdom, this thought being an elaboration of Solomon's great maxim, "in much wisdom is much sorrow." But how accurately all this fitted in with what would naturally be the doctrines of the men on whose track I was! I could no longer doubt the justness of my reasonings, and immediately, while you slept, I set off for London.

'Of my haps in London I need not give you a very particular account.

The meeting was to be held on the 15th, and by the morning of the 13th I had reached a place called Wargrave, on the Thames. There I hired a light canoe, and thence proceeded down the river in a somewhat zig-zag manner, narrowly examining the banks on either side, and keeping a sharp out-look for some board, or sign, or house, that would seem to betoken any sort of connection with the word "Aesopi." In this way I pa.s.sed a fruitless day, and having reached the shipping region, made fast my craft, and in a spirit of _diablerie_ spent the night in a common lodging-house, in the company of the most remarkable human beings, characterised by an odour of alcohol, and a certain obtrusive _bonne camaraderie_ which the prevailing fear of death could not altogether repress. By dawn of the 14th I was on my journey again--on, and ever on. Eagerly I longed for a sight of the word I sought: but I had misjudged the men against whose cunning I had measured my own. I should have remembered more consistently that they were no ordinary men. As I was destined to find, there lay a deeper, more cabalistic meaning in the motto than any I had been able to dream of. I had proceeded on my pilgrimage down the river a long way past Greenwich, and had now reached a desolate and level reach of land stretching away on either hand. Paddling my boat from the right to the left bank, I came to a spot where a little arm of the river ran up some few yards into the land. The place wore a specially dreary and deserted aspect: the land was flat, and covered with low shrubs. I rowed into this arm of shallow water and rested on my oar, wearily bethinking myself what was next to be done. Looking round, however, I saw to my surprise that at the end of this arm there was a short narrow pathway--a winding road--leading from the river-bank. I stood up in the boat and followed its course with my eyes. It was met by another road also winding among the bushes, but in a slightly different direction. At the end of this was a little, low, high-roofed, round house, without doors or windows.

And then--and then--tingling now with a thousand raptures--I beheld a pool of water near this structure, and then another low house, a counterpart of the first--and then, still leading on in the same direction, another pool--and then a great rock, heart-shaped--and then another winding road--and then another pool of water. All was a model--_exact to the minutest particular_--of the device on the papyrus! The first long-waved line was the river itself; the three short-waved lines were the arm of the river and the two pools; the three snakes were the three winding roads; the two triangles representing the letter #A# were the two high-roofed round houses; the heart was the rock! I sprang, now thoroughly excited, from the boat, and ran in headlong haste to the end of the last lake. Here there was a rather thick and high growth of bushes, but peering among them, my eye at once caught a white oblong board supported on a stake: on this, in black letters, was marked the words, "DESCENSUS AESOPI." It was necessary, therefore, to go _down_: the meeting-place was subterranean.

It was without difficulty that I discovered a small opening in the ground, half hidden by the underwood; from the orifice I found that a series of wooden steps led directly downwards, and I at once boldly descended. No sooner, however, had I touched the bottom than I was confronted by an ancient man in h.e.l.lenic apparel, armed with the Greek _ziphos_ and _pelte_. His eyes, accustomed to the gloom, pierced me long with an earnest scrutiny.

'"You are a Spartan?" he asked at length.

'"Yes," I answered promptly.

'"Then how is it you do not know that I am stone deaf?"

'I shrugged, indicating that for the moment I had forgotten the fact.

'"You _are_ a Spartan?" he repeated.

'I nodded with emphasis.

'"Then, how is it you omit to make the sign?"

'Now, you must not suppose that at this point I was nonplussed, for in that case you would not give due weight to the strange inherent power of the mind to rise to the occasion of a sudden emergency--to stretch itself long to the length of an event; I do not hesitate to say that _no_ combination of circ.u.mstances can defeat a vigorous brain fully alert, and in possession of itself. With a quickness to which the lightning-flash is tardy, I remembered that this was a spot indicated by the symbols on the papyrus: I remembered that this same papyrus was always placed under the _tongue_ of the dead; I remembered, too, that among that very nation whose language had afforded the motto, to "turn up the _thumb_" (_pollicem vertere_) was a symbol significant of death.

I touched the under surface of my tongue with the tip of my thumb. The aged man was appeased. I pa.s.sed on, and examined the place.

'It was simply a vast circular hall, the arched roof of which was supported on colonnades of what I took to be pillars of porphyry. Down the middle and round the sides ran tables of the same material; the walls were clothed in hangings of sable velvet, on which, in infinite reproduction, was embroidered in cypher the motto of the society. The chairs were cushioned in the same stuff. Near the centre of the circle stood a huge statue, of what really seemed to me to be pure beaten gold. On the great ebon base was inscribed the word [Greek: LUKURGOS].

From the roof swung by brazen chains a single misty lamp.

'Having seen this much I reascended to the land of light, and being fully resolved on attending the meeting on the next day or night, and not knowing what my fate might then be, I wrote to inform you of the means by which my body might be traced. 'But on the next day a new thought occurred to me: I reasoned thus: "these men are not common a.s.sa.s.sins; they wage a too rash warfare against diseased life, but not against life in general. In all probability they have a quite immoderate, quite morbid reverence for the sanct.i.ty of healthy life.

They will not therefore take mine, _unless_ they suppose me to be the only living outsider who has a knowledge of their secret, and therefore think it absolutely necessary for the carrying out of their beneficent designs that my life should be sacrificed. I will therefore prevent such a motive from occurring to them by communicating to another their whole secret, and--if the necessity should arise--_letting them know_ that I have done so, without telling them who that other is. Thus my life will be a.s.sured." I therefore wrote to you on that day a full account of all I had discovered, giving you to understand, however, on the envelope, that you need not examine the contents for some little time.

'I waited in the subterranean vault during the greater part of the next day; but not till midnight did the confederates gather. What happened at that meeting I shall not disclose, even to you. All was sacred--solemn--full of awe. Of the choral hymns there sung, the hierophantic ritual, liturgies, paeans, the gorgeous symbolisms--of the wealth there represented, the culture, art, self-sacrifice--of the mingling of all the tongues of Europe--I shall not speak; nor shall I repeat names which you would at once recognise as familiar to you--though I may, perhaps, mention that the "Morris," whose name appears on the papyrus sent to me is a well-known _litterateur_ of that name. But this in confidence, for some years at least.

'Let me, however, hurry to a conclusion. My turn came to speak. I rose undaunted, and calmly disclosed myself; during the moment of hush, of wide-eyed paralysis that ensued, I declared that fully as I coincided with their views in general, I found myself unable to regard their methods with approval--these I could not but consider too rash, too harsh, too premature. My voice was suddenly drowned by one universal, earth-shaking roar of rage and contempt, during which I was surrounded on all sides, seized, pinioned, and dashed on the central table. All this time, in the hope and love of life, I pa.s.sionately shouted that I was not the only living being who shared in their secret. But my voice was drowned, and drowned again, in the whirling tumult. None heard me.

A powerful and little-known anaesthetic--the means by which all their murders have been accomplished--was now produced. A cloth, saturated with the fluid, was placed on my mouth and nostrils. I was stifled.

Sense failed. The incubus of the universe blackened down upon my brain.

How I tugged at the mandrakes of speech! was a locked pugilist with language! In the depth of my extremity the half-thought, I remember, floated, like a mist, through my fading consciousness, that now perhaps--now--there was silence around me; that _now,_ could my palsied lips find dialect, I should be heard, and understood. My whole soul rose focussed to the effort--my body jerked itself upwards. At that moment I knew my spirit truly great, genuinely sublime. For I _did_ utter something--my dead and shuddering tongue _did_ babble forth some coherency. Then I fell back, and all was once more the ancient Dark. On the next day when I woke, I was lying on my back in my little boat, placed there by G.o.d knows whose hands. At all events, one thing was clear--I _had_ uttered something--I was saved. With what of strength remained to me I reached the place where I had left your _caleche_, and started on my homeward way. The necessity to sleep was strong upon me, for the fumes of the anaesthetic still clung about my brain; hence, after my long journey, I fainted on my pa.s.sage through the house, and in this condition you found me.

'Such then is the history of my thinkings and doings in connection with this ill-advised confraternity: and now that their cabala is known to others--to how many others _they_ cannot guess--I think it is not unlikely that we shall hear little more of the Society of Sparta.'

THE END