The Lost Continent Part 20

"Nais, your sister is near us in the royal pyramid this minute, and under guard, though where I do not know." And with that I told her all that had pa.s.sed since the girl was brought up a prisoner in the galley of that foolish, fawning captain of the port. "The Empress has decreed that Nais shall be buried alive under a throne of granite which I am to build for her to-morrow, and buried she will a.s.suredly be. Yet I have a kindness for Nais, which you may guess at if you choose, and I am minded to send her into a sleep such as only we higher priests know of, from which at some future day she may possibly awaken."

"So it is Nais; and not Ph.o.r.enice, and not--not any other?"

"Yes; it is Nais. I marry the Empress because Zaemon, who is mouthpiece to the High Council of the Priests, has ordered it, for the good of Atlantis. But my inwards remain still cold towards her."

"Almost I hate poor Nais already."

"Your vengeance would be easy. Do not tell me where she is gaoled, and I shall not dare to ask. Even to give Nais a further span of life I cannot risk making inquiries for her cell, when there is a chance that those who tell me might carry news to the Empress, and so cause more trouble for this poor Atlantis."

"And why should I not carry the news, and so bring myself into favour again? I tell you that being fan-girl to Ph.o.r.enice and second woman in the kingdom is a thing that not many would cast lightly aside."

I looked her between eyes and smiled. "I have no fear there. You will not betray me, Ylga. Neither will you sell Nais."

"I seem to remember very small love for this same Nais just now," she said bitterly. "But you are right about that other matter. I shall not buy myself back at your expense. Oh, I am a fool, I know, and you can give me no thanks that I care about, but there is no other way I can act."

"Then let us fritter no more time. Go you out now and find where Nais is gaoled, and bring me news how I can say ten words to her, and press a certain matter into her clasp."

She bowed her head and left the chamber, and for long enough I was alone. I sat down on the couch, and rested wearily against the wall.

My bones ached, my eyes ached, and most of all, my inwards ached. I had thought to myself that a man who makes his life sufficiently busy will find no leisure for these pains which a.s.sault frailer folk; but a philosophy like this, which carried one well in Yucatan, showed poorly enough when one tried it here at home. But that there was duty ahead, and the order of the High Council to be carried into effect, the bleakness of the prospect would have daunted me, and I would have prayed the G.o.ds then to spare me further life, and take me unto Themselves.

Ylga came back at last, and I got up and went quickly after her as she led down a maze of pa.s.sages and alleyways. "There has been no care spared over her guarding," she whispered, as we halted once to move a stone. "The officer of the guard is an old lover of mine, and I raised his hopes to the burning point again by a dozen words. But when I wanted to see his prisoner, there he was as firm as bra.s.s. I told him she was my sister, but that did not move him. I offered him--oh, Deucalion, it makes me blush to think of the things I did offer to that man, but there was no stirring him. He has watched the tormentors so many times, that there is no tempting him into touch of their instruments."

"If you have failed, why bring me out here?"

"Oh, I am not inveigling you into a lover's walk with myself, sir. You tickle yourself when you think your society is so pleasant as that."

"Come, girl, tell me then what it is. If my temper is short, credit it against my weariness."

"I have carried out my lord's commands in part. I know the cell where Nais lives, and I have had speech with her, though not through the door.

And moreover, I have not seen her or touched her hand."

"Your riddles are beyond me, Ylga, but if there is a chance, let us get on and have this business done."

"We are at the place now," said she, with a hard little laugh, "and if you kneel on the floor, you will find an airshaft, and Nais will answer you from the lower end. For myself, I will leave you. I have a delicacy in hearing what you want to say to my sister, Deucalion."

"I thank you," I said. "I will not forget what you have done for me this night."

"You may keep your thanks," she said bitterly, and walked away into the shadows.

I knelt on the floor of the gallery, and found the air pa.s.sage with my hand, and then, putting my lips to it, whispered for Nais.

The answer came on the instant, m.u.f.fled and quiet. "I knew my lord would come for a farewell."

"What the Empress said, has to be. You understand, my dear? It is for Atlantis."

"Have I reproached my lord, by word or glance?"

"I myself am bidden to place you in the hollow between the stones, and I must do it."

"Then my last sleep will be a sweet one. I could not ask to be touched by pleasanter hands."

"But it mayhap that a day will come when she whom you know of will be suffered by the High G.o.ds to live on this land of Atlantis no longer."

"If my lord will cherish my poor memory when he is free again, I shall be grateful. He might, if he chose, write them on the stones: Here was buried a maid who died gladly for the good of Atlantis, even though she knew that the man she so dearly loved was husband to her murderess."

"You must not die," I whispered. "My breast is near broken at the very thought of it. And for respite, we must trust to the ancient knowledge, which in its day has been sent out from the Ark of the Mysteries."--I took the green waxy ball in my fingers, and stretched them down the crooked air-shaft to the full of my span.--"I have somewhat for you here. Reach up and try to catch it from me."

I heard the faint rustle of her arm as it swept against the masonry, and then the ball was taken over into her grasp. G.o.ds! what a thrill went through me when the fingers of Nais touched mine! I could not see her, because of the crookedness of the shaft, but that faint touch of her was exquisite.

"I have it," she whispered. "And what now, dear?"

"You will hide the thing in your garment, and when to-morrow the upper stone closes down upon you and the light is gone, then you will take it between your lips and let it dissolve as it will. Sleep will take you, my darling, then, and the High G.o.ds will watch over you, even though centuries pa.s.s before you are roused."

"If Deucalion does not wake me, I shall pray never again to open an eye.

And now go, my lord and my dear. They watch me here constantly, and I would not have you harmed by being brought to notice."

"Yes, I must go, my sweetheart. It will not do to have our scheme spoiled by a foolish loitering. May the most High G.o.ds attend your rest, and if the sacrifice we make finds favour, may They grant us meeting here again on earth before we meet--as we must--when our time is done, and They take us up to Their own place."

"Amen," she whispered back, and then: "Kiss your fingers, dear, and thrust them down to me."

I did that, and for an instant felt her fondle them down the crook of the airshaft out of sight, and then heard her withdraw her little hand and kiss it fondly. Then again she kissed her own fingers and stretched them up, and I took up the virtue of that parting kiss on my finger-tips and pressed it sacredly to my lips.

"Living, sleeping, or dead, always my darling," she whispered. And then, before I could answer, she whispered again: "Go, they are coming for me." And so I went, knowing that I could do no more to help her then, and knowing that all our schemes would be spilt if any eye spied upon me as I lay there beside the air shaft. But my chest was like to have split with the dull, helpless anguish that was in it, as I made my way back to my chamber through the mazy alleys of the pyramid.

"Do not look upon mine eyes, dear, when the time comes," had been her last command, "or they will tell a tale which Ph.o.r.enice, being a woman, would read. Remember, we make these small denials, not for our own likings, but for Atlantis, which is mother to us all."

13. THE BURYING ALIVE OF NAIS

There is no denying that the wishes of Ph.o.r.enice were carried into quick effect in the city of Atlantis. Her modern theory was that the country and all therein existed only for the good of the Empress, and when she had a desire, no cost could possibly be too great in its carrying out.

She had given forth her edict concerning the burying alive of Nais, and though the words were that I was to build the throne of stone, it was an understood thing that the manual labour was to be done for me by others.

Heralds made the proclamation in every ward of the city, and masons, labourers, stonecutters, sculptors, engineers, and architects took hands from whatever was occupying them for the moment, and hastened to the rendezvous. The architects chose a chief who gave directions, and the lesser architects and the engineers saw these carried into effect. Any material within the walls of the city on which they set their seal, was taken at once without payment or compensation; and as the blocks of stone they chose were the most monstrous that could be got, they were forced to demolish no few buildings to give them pa.s.sage.

I have before spoken of the modern rage for erecting new palaces and pyramids, and even though at the moment an army of rebels was battering with war engines at the city walls, the building guilds were steadily at work, and their skill (with Ph.o.r.enice's marvellous invention to aid them) was constantly on the increase. True, they could not move such ma.s.sive blocks of stone as those which the early G.o.ds planted for the sacred circle of our Lord the Sun, but they had got rams and trucks and cranes which could handle amazing bulks.

The throne was to be erected in the open square before the royal pyramid. Seven tiers of stone were there for a groundwork, each a knee-height deep, and each cut in the front with three steps. In the uppermost layer was a cavity made to hold the body of Nais, and above this was poised the vast block which formed the seat of the throne itself.

Throughout the night, to the light of torches, relay after relay of the stonecutters, and the masons, and the sweating labourers had toiled over bringing up the stone and dressing it into fit shape, and laying it in due position; and the engineers had built machines for lifting, and the architects had proved that each stone lay in its just and perfect place.

Whips cracked, and men fainted with the labour, but so soon as one was incapable another pressed forward into his place. No delay was brooked when Ph.o.r.enice had said her wish.

And finally, as the square began to fill with people come to gape at the pageant of to-day, the chippings and the scaffolding were cleared away, and with it the bodies of some half-score of workmen who had died from accidents or their exertions during the building, and there stood the throne, splendid in its carvings, and all ready for completion. The lower part stood more than two man-heights above the ground, and no stone of its courses weighed less than twenty men; the upper part was double the weight of any of these, and was carved so that the royal snake encircled the chair, and the great hooded head overshadowed it.

But at present the upper part was not on its bed, being held up high by lifting rams, for what purposes all men knew.

It was to face this scene, then, that I came out from the royal pyramid at the summons of the chamberlains in the cool of next morning. Each great man who had come there before me had banner-bearers and trumpeters to proclaim his presence; the middle cla.s.ses were in all their bravery of apparel; and even poor squalid creatures, with ribs of hunger showing through their dusty skins, had turbans and wisps of colour wrapped about their heads to mark the gaiety of the day.