The valley of eyes unseen
in mid-air. He was making some readjustment of the wings. These
immediately began to flap with swift sweeps, and the flier to hurtle
down wind at a prodigious speed. During the few short minutes we
watched him he must have traversed the whole width of the valley. He at
last re-approached, glided to within a few feet of us, gave the wings
that curious shake we had seen the student employ, and sank gently to
earth.
When the wings had been taken off him and laid on the ground I examined
that queer "carapace" at the hinges, but could come to no intelligent
conclusion about it. Two thin bars of metal the colour of aluminium
but, I imagine, much tougher, projected from the shallow carvel-sided
box and were hinged to the main ribs of the wings. It was through these
the power came, obviously, but whence that power arose in the first
place--
I turned to Kalliboas with an inquiry on my lips, but the look of him
froze me to silence.
'Come, let us go,' he said peremptorily, and led us back across the
plain. I was vividly conscious, as I had been conscious before, of
something in his manner warning me that it would not only be useless
but unwise to press him further. Clearly that strange force was a
secret we weren't to be allowed to penetrate. The visit had one
profitable sequel, however. Both Poyning and I extracted a promise from
Kalliboas that we should learn to fly ourselves, and learn we did,
making a beginning the very next day. But our experience in the air,
and the queer consequences that arose from it, I reserve for a later
chapter.
Such, then, was the mystery of the gigantic birds that had been seen in
the air over this land of secrets and possibly far away from it, for it
seemed likely from what Kalliboas told us that at one time and another
scouts had been sent beyond the confines of the valley. I fancied then
that this might account for the knowledge these people possessed of
outside countries, but I know now that they had other and stranger
resources.
We came in time to a neighbourhood near the middle of the city, which
we hadn't yet visited, and here Kalliboas led us into a great walled
courtyard, circular in shape, its centre an obelisk rising high out
of the marble floor. The monument was beautifully carven from top to
bottom in Greek character, so freshly preserved that I believe we could
have read it without the help of Kalliboas. The old man was looking at
the inscription with an expression of the profoundest reverence.
'On this stone, strangers,' he said, 'is recorded how our people first
came to the valley. It would take long to repeat all the tale as it is
written, so I will tell it you in my own words, more briefly. You are
perhaps familiar with the name of the great hero of old, Alexander of
Macedon?'
'He is known to us as the great Alexander,' replied Poyning.
'Mankind called him great, and with reason, for assuredly he was the
greatest man this world has produced. To us of the valley his memory
is a sacred thing. He was the founder of our race.'
Poyning's face was blank with incredulity. 'What you say is new to us,
Kalliboas,' he said. 'History as we know it records that Alexander came
far into the East, but never so far as this.'
'There is much in the life of our founder which your history does not
tell, I believe,' returned the old man, with a shade of irony. 'What is
the account your historians give you of his death?'
'He died at Babylon,' said Poyning, 'of a fever. This happened in the
three hundred and twenty-third year before what we call the Christian
era. Alexander of Macedon was never within a thousand miles of this
valley.'
The old man seemed more deeply moved than I had yet seen him. For a
moment the statuesque reserve was gone, his face flushed, his eyes
blazed, his usually suave gestures took on a sudden convulsive anger.
Then the mask had fallen again, but when he spoke it was still with a
stern conviction which proved beyond all doubt that whether we believed
his words or not, Kalliboas profoundly believed them himself.
'It is a lie,' he said. 'It is the greatest delusion in the history of
the world. Listen, strangers, and you shall know the truth, even as it
is written on this stone.
'In the year of which you speak, Alexander of Macedon was returning
from greater conquests than mankind had ever known, but it is not for
the magnitude of his victories this man should be revered. He was more
than conqueror. For years he had seen visions of a splendid future for
the world, of a uniting of its forces, of a fusion of the peoples of
the East whom he had conquered with the peoples of the West from whom
he sprang, a union without which the races of this earth would ever
remain in half-complete fruition. It was to the realisation of this
ideal that he devoted his life and his mighty spirit.
'What came of his projects, perhaps even your historians know.
Gradually, sorrowfully, our great founder saw that the world of his
day was not ripe for his ideas; his own people regarded them as fond
imaginings. They saw in him only the marvellous leader, the means to
certain victory and boundless plunder for themselves. Disillusionment
more and more bitter came upon him: the visions which had inspired his
vast conquests fell away one by one as he understood they could not be
carried into effect. Worse, his sympathy with the peoples of Asia led
to jealousy, discontent, then plots among his own followers. Their love
for him had waned, their faith given place to greedy ambition and lust.
At his bidding ten thousand of his men took wives from among the women
of the East, but to them it was still the light union of conqueror
with slave chosen from the conquered race. His best friend among the
generals of his army, Hephaistion, had died, leaving him almost alone
in the midst of a swarm of traitors awaiting only the moment to revolt.
'There had been many designs upon his life. At the city of Babylon a
plot was laid to slay him by secret poison, and when knowledge of
this came to him and he learned that the most fulsome among all his
courtiers, the infamous Antipater, was ring-leader in it, his mighty
heart broke. He determined to flee from this hotbed of treachery,
strike out into the unknown, and found a new kingdom where the
barbarian jealousy of Europe against Asia should not be. The plot gave
him an opportunity. The poisoned food was privily destroyed, but the
king feigned to have eaten of it and to be dying. His common soldiers,
loyal to him still but understanding the true greatness of his mind no
more than the generals, were admitted to the presence for a last view
of their commander, who simulated approaching death before them.
'Then came the end. One plot had been met by another. Secretly, the
King's place on the royal couch was filled by a youth like to him in
form and feature even as his own beloved Hephaistion had been, who
had died of a sickness two days before. The body of the dead youth
was shrouded with a pall, and it may be that your historians record
the truth, that no man ever saw the face of Alexander after his
death. The King himself lay hidden in the innermost apartments of the
palace, while the news of his death was noised abroad. There was, as
he had anticipated, small difficulty in withdrawing secretly from the
city. When asked who should succeed him he had answered, "The best
among you," well knowing that among those he left behind there was
none worthy to rule a satrapy, much less the empire; and he had truly
foreseen that in the confusion of the fight for pre-eminence which
would break out as soon as his death was announced, he might depart
without knowledge or suspicion.
'With a small faithful band the King left that polluted court of
Babylon and journeyed swiftly eastward. He had resolved to go beyond
the uttermost limits of his former campaigns, that no tidings of
him might reach back to the cities of Persia and give rise to fresh
plottings and strife, yet even so his passing was not wholly unknown.
The wild races which dwell to the west of us recognised him as the
great Grecian conqueror, and paid him divine honour, so that to this
day they call by the name of Alexander all things noble and great. So
much we know from our scouts, who have at rare intervals visited those
regions.
'The band, Grecians and their Asian wives, came at last to the great
mountains which encircle our city. They suffered grievous hardship and
peril, and their numbers were reduced by their sufferings, but there
was ever with them the leader whose mighty soul could sustain armies,
and in the end some fifty men and women reached this valley. Dreams had
told the King that there lay a fertile land beyond the great snows, and
this, it seemed to them all, was the land which the King had dreamed.
Here he built his city, and I tell you, strangers, that there stand
in the city to this day stones which the great King had touched with
his own hands. These names'--Kalliboas pointed to the marble pedestal
of the obelisk--'are the names of those devoted men and women who
followed him across the wilds. Here they settled and prospered, and we
who dwell in the valley to-day are their descendants.
'The King lived to see the young state multiplied far beyond the
numbers which had accompanied him, and when at a great age he died, he
left these words with his people.'
Kalliboas again pointed to the obelisk, and read, word for word, this
astounding passage:
'"Not until the world is ripe to hear shall the secret of this land
be made known to the world. In my life I have striven to unite the
races of Europe and Asia, but I have failed, for the world was not
ready. Barbarism and jealousy were too heavy upon it: the world has not
understood my thoughts. But there shall arise in the years to come a
generation more enlightened. Till then, I charge ye my people to hold
aloof from the world. I go now to the nether shades, but I shall come
again. Let you and your children's children remember."'
The old man shot a keen glance from one to the other of us. 'This is
strange hearing to you, doubtless?' he said.
'It is monstrous!' I cried. 'It is impossible! We have been taught--our
people have believed down through the ages that the man we call
Alexander the Great died in Babylon, and that his body was borne in an
alabaster coffin to his own city of Alexandria, which stands beside
the Nile. There, our historians say, it was laid with great pomp and
ceremony in the mausoleum called Sema.'
'That a coffin was carried from Babylon into Egypt on a car of gold
and that it was deposited in our King's own city,' said Kalliboas,
'we ourselves know. That it was the body of Alexander was universally
believed by his generals, and by his Baktrian wife Roxana, who at the
time of his supposed death lost no time in murdering her rival the
Persian Stateira, that her own son might succeed to the empire. Our
King thought well to leave the murderess to a vengeance which was not
long in overtaking her crime. He himself was already gone far eastward
when that funeral procession set forth from Babylon towards the west.
The body contained in the coffin was the body of a youth whose name,
Krantor, has perhaps never been heard by you.'
We were silent for fully a minute. It was staggering enough to have the
history I had believed as gospel thus torn to shreds; but when I came
to reflect that I, Ronald Mirlees, had stumbled into company with a man
who was not only to penetrate this mystery but seemed to be himself so
strangely involved in it, I had some difficulty in fetching a breath.
'Tell me, Kalliboas,' I said at length, 'what manner of man do you
conceive our comrade to be? To us he is known as a traveller in the
East--for my part I believe him to be of my own race, which the world