She
to be, for of your own evil way had ye destroyed each other. And now,
because ye have done this thing, because ye have striven to put these
men, my guests, to death, and yet more because ye have dared to disobey
my word, this is the doom that I doom you to. That ye be taken to the
cave of torture,[1] and given over to the tormentors, and that on the
going down of to-morrow’s sun those of you who yet remain alive be
slain, even as ye would have slain the servant of this my guest.”
[1] “The cave of torture.” I afterwards saw this dreadful place, also
a legacy from the prehistoric people who lived in Kôr. The only
objects in the cave itself were slabs of rock arranged in various
positions to facilitate the operations of the torturers. Many of these
slabs, which were of a porous stone, were stained quite dark with the
blood of ancient victims that had soaked into them. Also in the centre
of the room was a place for a furnace, with a cavity wherein to heat
the historic pot. But the most dreadful thing about the cave was that
over each slab was a sculptured illustration of the appropriate
torture being applied. These sculptures were so awful that I will not
harrow the reader by attempting a description of them.—L. H. H.
She ceased, and a faint murmur of horror ran round the cave. As
for the victims, as soon as they realised the full hideousness of
their doom, their stoicism forsook them, and they flung
themselves down upon the ground, and wept and implored for mercy
in a way that was dreadful to behold. I, too, turned to Ayesha,
and begged her to spare them, or at least to mete out their fate
in some less awful way. But she was hard as adamant about it.
“My Holly,” she said, again speaking in Greek, which, to tell the
truth, although I have always been considered a better scholar of
the language than most men, I found it rather difficult to
follow, chiefly because of the change in the fall of the accent.
Ayesha, of course, talked with the accent of her contemporaries,
whereas we have only tradition and the modern accent to guide us
as to the exact pronunciation. “My Holly, it cannot be. Were I to
show mercy to those wolves, your lives would not be safe among
this people for a day. Thou knowest them not. They are tigers to
lap blood, and even now they hunger for your lives. How thinkest
thou that I rule this people? I have but a regiment of guards to
do my bidding, therefore it is not by force. It is by terror. My
empire is of the imagination. Once in a generation mayhap I do as
I have done but now, and slay a score by torture. Believe not
that I would be cruel, or take vengeance on anything so low. What
can it profit me to be avenged on such as these? Those who live
long, my Holly, have no passions, save where they have interests.
Though I may seem to slay in wrath, or because my mood is
crossed, it is not so. Thou hast seen how in the heavens the
little clouds blow this way and that without a cause, yet behind
them is the great wind sweeping on its path whither it listeth.
So it is with me, oh Holly. My moods and changes are the little
clouds, and fitfully these seem to turn; but behind them ever
blows the great wind of my purpose. Nay, the men must die; and
die as I have said.” Then, suddenly turning to the captain of the
guard:—
“As my word is, so be it!”
XVI.
THE TOMBS OF KÔR
After the prisoners had been removed Ayesha waved her hand, and
the spectators turned round, and began to crawl off down the cave
like a scattered flock of sheep. When they were a fair distance
from the daïs, however, they rose and walked away, leaving the
Queen and myself alone, with the exception of the mutes and the
few remaining guards, most of whom had departed with the doomed
men. Thinking this a good opportunity, I asked _She_ to come and
see Leo, telling her of his serious condition; but she would not,
saying that he certainly would not die before the night, as
people never died of that sort of fever except at nightfall or
dawn. Also she said that it would be better to let the sickness
spend its course as much as possible before she cured it.
Accordingly, I was rising to leave, when she bade me follow her,
as she would talk with me, and show me the wonders of the caves.
I was too much involved in the web of her fatal fascinations to
say her no, even if I had wished, which I did not. She rose from
her chair, and, making some signs to the mutes, descended from
the daïs. Thereon four of the girls took lamps, and ranged
themselves two in front and two behind us, but the others went
away, as also did the guards.
“Now,” she said, “wouldst thou see some of the wonders of this
place, oh Holly? Look upon this great cave. Sawest thou ever the
like? Yet was it, and many more like it, hollowed by the hands of
the dead race that once lived here in the city on the plain. A
great and wonderful people must they have been, those men of Kôr,
but, like the Egyptians, they thought more of the dead than of
the living. How many men, thinkest thou, working for how many
years, did it need to the hollowing out this cave and all the
galleries thereof?”
“Tens of thousands,” I answered.
“So, oh Holly. This people was an old people before the Egyptians
were. A little can I read of their inscriptions, having found the
key thereto—and see thou here, this was one of the last of the
caves that they hollowed,” and, turning to the rock behind her,
she motioned the mutes to hold up the lamps. Carven over the daïs
was the figure of an old man seated in a chair, with an ivory rod
in his hand. It struck me at once that his features were
exceedingly like those of the man who was represented as being
embalmed in the chamber where we took our meals. Beneath the
chair, which, by the way, was shaped exactly like the one in
which Ayesha had sat to give judgment, was a short inscription in
the extraordinary characters of which I have already spoken, but
which I do not remember sufficient of to illustrate. It looked
more like Chinese writing than any other that I am acquainted
with. This inscription Ayesha proceeded, with some difficulty and
hesitation, to read aloud and translate. It ran as follows:—
“In the year four thousand two hundred and fifty-nine from the founding
of the City of imperial Kôr was this cave (or burial place) completed
by Tisno, King of Kôr, the people thereof and their slaves having
laboured thereat for three generations, to be a tomb for their citizens
of rank who shall come after. May the blessings of the heaven above the
heaven rest upon their work, and make the sleep of Tisno, the mighty
monarch, the likeness of whose features is graven above, a sound and
happy sleep till the day of awakening,[1] and also the sleep of his
servants, and of those of his race who, rising up after him, shall yet
lay their heads as low.”
[1] This phrase is remarkable, as seeming to indicate a belief in a
future state.—Editor.
“Thou seest, oh Holly,” she said, “this people founded the city,
of which the ruins yet cumber the plain yonder, four thousand
years before this cave was finished. Yet, when first mine eyes
beheld it two thousand years ago, was it even as it is now.
Judge, therefore, how old must that city have been! And now,
follow thou me, and I will show thee after what fashion this
great people fell when the time was come for it to fall,” and she
led the way down to the centre of the cave, stopping at a spot
where a round rock had been let into a kind of large manhole in
the flooring, accurately filling it just as the iron plates fill
the spaces in the London pavements down which the coals are
thrown. “Thou seest,” she said. “Tell me, what is it?”
“Nay, I know not,” I answered; whereon she crossed to the
left-hand side of the cave (looking towards the entrance) and
signed to the mutes to hold up the lamps. On the wall was
something painted with a red pigment in similar characters to
those hewn beneath the sculpture of Tisno, King of Kôr. This
inscription she proceeded to translate to me, the pigment still
being fresh enough to show the form of the letters. It ran thus:
“I, Junis, a priest of the Great Temple of Kôr, write this upon
the rock of the burying-place in the year four thousand eight
hundred and three from the founding of Kôr. Kôr is fallen! No
more shall the mighty feast in her halls, no more shall she rule
the world, and her navies go out to commerce with the world. Kôr
is fallen! and her mighty works and all the cities of Kôr, and
all the harbours that she built and the canals that she made, are
for the wolf and the owl and the wild swan, and the barbarian who
comes after. Twenty and five moons ago did a cloud settle upon
Kôr, and the hundred cities of Kôr, and out of the cloud came a
pestilence that slew her people, old and young, one with another,
and spared not. One with another they turned black and died—the
young and the old, the rich and the poor, the man and the woman,
the prince and the slave. The pestilence slew and slew, and
ceased not by day or by night, and those who escaped from the
pestilence were slain of the famine. No longer could the bodies
of the children of Kôr be preserved according to the ancient
rites, because of the number of the dead, therefore were they
hurled into the great pit beneath the cave, through the hole in
the floor of the cave. Then, at last, a remnant of this the great
people, the light of the whole world, went down to the coast and
took ship and sailed northwards; and now am I, the Priest Junis,
who write this, the last man left alive of this great city of
men, but whether there be any yet left in the other cities I know
not. This do I write in misery of heart before I die, because Kôr
the Imperial is no more, and because there are none to worship in
her temple, and all her palaces are empty, and her princes and
her captains and her traders and her fair women have passed off
the face of the earth.”
I gave a sigh of astonishment—the utter desolation depicted in
this rude scrawl was so overpowering. It was terrible to think of
this solitary survivor of a mighty people recording its fate
before he too went down into darkness. What must the old man have
felt as, in ghastly terrifying solitude, by the light of one lamp
feebly illuminating a little space of gloom, he in a few brief
lines daubed the history of his nation’s death upon the cavern
wall? What a subject for the moralist, or the painter, or indeed
for any one who can think!
“Doth it not occur to thee, oh Holly,” said Ayesha, laying her
hand upon my shoulder, “that those men who sailed North may have
been the fathers of the first Egyptians?”
“Nay, I know not,” I said; “it seems that the world is very old.”
“Old? Yes, it is old indeed. Time after time have nations, ay, and rich
and strong nations, learned in the arts, been and passed away and been
forgotten, so that no memory of them remains. This is but one of