The valley of eyes unseen
reason of my sudden release from the great mental anguish of last night?
Then, towards twilight, began again that terrible obsession. It came
more swiftly this time, was more intense and, I believe, lasted
longer. I will pass over the blinding, staggering horror of those
hours. The details, indeed, I but remember vaguely myself; but I will
say this much with assurance: the priests of the religions of this
world, when they represented eternal punishment as a thing of burning
fire and bodily torture, confessed themselves to be folk of a feeble,
half-formed imagination; for there are gulfs of spiritual anguish
into which humanity can be plunged more terrible by worlds than the
materialistic hells of theology. When the first waves of depression
swept over me I was taken with a mad desire to rush out into the open
and die there--but I found I couldn't make one step towards the door,
leave alone break it open. I screamed to the attendant to let me
out--but I never heard the scream.
When I came to myself I was lying on a couch, and I noticed immediately
that not only my robe but the lawn covering of the couch itself was
wringing wet--drenched with the cold sweat of terror. The first thing I
did on rising was to take off my sandal and with the buckle pin score
two deep scratches on the marble wall of the chamber. I did this under
a curious impulse to keep tally of the days of my captivity, and it is
that record alone which enables me to say how long I was imprisoned;
afterwards morning and evening became blurred in my memory in a sort
of incoherent jumble of horror. I made several attempts to escape
during what I will call the "lucid intervals," but the only escape
from that house was by way of death, and that I couldn't bring myself
to seek. Behind all the anguish and horror of those days there seemed
to gleam a small spark of hope, and though the "lucid intervals" grew
shorter and the attacks of mental anguish longer as time went on, I had
formed an idea, and clung desperately to it, that there was a mind--or
minds--fighting for me. And looking back over the ghastly episode now,
I consider this view to be the true one, for on no other supposition
can I explain the periodic respites from torment at all.
Thus far, I am aware, I shall have severely strained the credence of
any reader of this narrative, yet what follows is stranger still.
Those who have read what I have written of the strange spiritual power
possessed by the people of this valley may find an adequate explanation
there; others, having regard to the terrible experiences through
which I had passed during the last few days, may prefer to think my
overwrought brain was no longer capable of recording sane impressions.
I set down my account of the affair not in full confidence that it
will be accepted as truth, and I offer no explanation whatever, but
write what I solemnly believe to be the bare facts as they presented
themselves to my senses.
It was, by the scorings on the wall, the sixth night of my captivity.
That day I had been prey to the longest and severest attack of mental
anguish yet, but at what I take to have been about nine in the evening,
this had suddenly lifted, leaving me in a buoyancy of spirit likewise
more pronounced than I had known from the beginning. I had retired to
bed, and lay for a long time wondering whether this abrupt lightening
of the gloom meant that I was to be tortured no further, when a female
figure noiselessly entered my room. The bedchamber, I may say, was at
the side of the house, and was illuminated during daytime by a window
of open marble tracery built into the wall, through which the beams
of the moon, now nearing the full, eerily filtered. The woman glided
towards me, and stood so close that I had no difficulty in recognising
her as the maiden of Poyning's adventure on the last night we spent
together.
'Princess Helene!' I gasped.
Her wonderful features broke into a smile. 'You have mistaken me,
stranger,' she whispered. 'I am Euphrosune, wife of the Prince.
Hearken! You have been in great danger, and you are in great danger
still. You cannot fail to know that attempts have been made to kill
you?'
'Only too well,' I said. 'Tell me, was it Kalliboas?'
'We will speak no ill of Kalliboas,' she replied solemnly. 'Kalliboas
is dead. Seek not the manner of his death, for these are terrible
matters and not good to be spoken of.'
'And Poyning?'
'The little one lives. My sister loves the little one, and no harm will
befall him so long as we three, the Prince and my sister and I, live to
shield him. But there are grave perils that beset us all. Your coming
to the city from the great world without has set our rulers one against
the other: we are in the cross-currents of a stormy sea. It is well
that you should leave us, stranger.'
A tremendous new hope rose in me.
'You will help me to escape?' I cried in a hoarse whisper.
'There is one thing that can enable us to do that,' she said. 'My
husband has told me that among the race from whom you come, oaths are
sacred. If we contrive your escape, will you swear never by word or
deed, now or henceforth, to betray the existence of our country to any
man of the outer world?'
The words fell on my ears like a physical blow. My new-born hope was
dashed rudely to the ground. In a flash I saw all my ambition fail: all
the perils and hardships I had undergone in coming to this amazing land
were undergone in vain if I were debarred from making it known to the
world; never should I reap the rewards and fame of a discovery beside
which whatever of discoveries I had made before--I, who had given my
life to the making of discoveries in little-known lands--would seem
humdrum and small; never should I see my name on the title page of the
greatest book of exploration ever printed. I think she must have also
learned from the Prince what my life-work in the outer world had been,
and that she was aware of the struggle going on within me.
'Listen, stranger,' she said, speaking with an intensity of earnestness
and persuasion. 'From that far-off day when our Prince, in the life
that was before, bade us keep our land secret from the world, never
have we risked contamination with the outer peoples. Year after year,
century after century, have we reverenced this command, and taught
it to our children as soon as they were old enough to understand, so
that it has become the first law of our existence. You, stranger, have
learned how by the skill of our wise ones we know what passes in the
world without. You have seen, too, something of our life, and how wide
is the gulf, not yet to be bridged, between us and the outer world.
Our Prince came to this valley at the first fleeing from the brutish
intolerance of men. Has the world yet cleansed itself of that stain?
Well we know that it has not. Well we know that were our existence
known to the world, many are the things in this valley which the world
would look upon with covetousness and lust: those glinting pebbles
alone, which we give to our children to play with, would draw from the
very ends of the earth its lowest and worst. Terribly do our people not
less than our rulers fear that pollution. It must not be!'
'And if I swear the oath?'
'The Prince will contrive your flight. When you have gone, there will
be great tumult in this valley--it may even be that the Prince's own
life will be in danger. But he will quell that uprising. He will make
known to our rulers and if need be to our people that the secret of
this valley is safe with you for ever--he will pledge his own sacred
word.'
'And if I refuse to swear?'
'Can the Prince set at naught the command which he, in his former
coming, gave us? Can he imperil the existence of his own people?
Without an oath of secrecy, by all you hold most sacred, the Prince
will not, cannot, countenance your return to the world without. And
should you try to escape by your own devices, even though we will it,
we may be powerless to save you from swift destruction.'
I remained gripping the coverlet of my couch as if it were my great
chance slipping away from me. 'So be it,' I groaned at last. 'I swear
by all I hold most sacred, never by word or deed, now or henceforth, to
betray the existence of this country to any man of the outer world.'
'It is bravely said. At this time to-morrow, then, be ready to step
out of this house and leave the valley for ever. And now, stranger,
farewell. Only once again will you see me in this life, and then it may
be that you shall not know it is I.'
She made a queenly gesture, and I, stirred by a sudden impulse of
gratitude, had risen from my couch and stretched out my hand to take
hers and raise it to my lips. You who have read thus far will now
understand what I mean when I say I have set down this incident not in
confidence that it will be believed.
_My hand passed through hers, and through her body, and I stumbled
heavily against the marble wall of the room._
CHAPTER XIV
HOW I CROSSED THE MOUNTAINS
As I have already written, I offer no explanation of the incident with
which my last chapter closes, but whatever it was, it caused me to
do something I had certainly never done before over a mental shock.
I must have fainted. When I recovered consciousness I was lying on
the marble floor of my bedchamber, chilly and stiff, and with a very
palpable throbbing of my forehead, where, on examination, I discovered
a big bruise. So much for the outside of my head. Within, my brain was
also throbbing, partly with bewilderment, but a good deal more with
exultation. I might be the sport of an hallucination, but I flatly
refused to believe it had no foundation in fact. If I didn't know, I
_felt_ that help was coming.
I rose silently to my feet and stole across to the tracery-window.
From that spy-hole I could see two of the watchers standing at some
distance away, motionless but clearly awake, alert but seeming to have
no suspicion that anything out of the common had happened inside the
house. They could have heard neither my talk nor the thud I must have
made when I fell. I then crept back to my couch, and went carefully
over the events of the night. I wanted to fix them on my brain, for I
had a very pronounced impression they were going to be of use to me. I
determined, too, that to-morrow I would get ready to escape exactly as
if the chance were really on its way.
The day passed without much in the way of incident, but it was one of
the most exciting I ever spent, and long before nightfall I was in
a downright fever. I watched myself minutely for any recurrence of
the great depression, but there was no hint of it; my brain remained
clear, my spirits buoyant, and had it not been for the very noticeable
discoloration of my bruised knees, I should have found it difficult to
believe I'd been through the unspeakable tortures of the past week.
There was one fact that struck me at once as unusual--even significant.
My attendant, or gaoler as he was now become, had been accustomed to
occupy one of the servants' chambers at the back of the house; here he
took his meals and slept, entering the living rooms only to bring me my
food. To-day the fellow posted himself on a couch in the main hall and
remained there practically all the time. I pretended to take no notice
of his presence, but I couldn't fail to see the meaning of it; and the
thought raised my hopes still higher. It looked as if there _was_ a
plot on foot to further my escape, and my enemies, having got wind of
it, had ordered this fellow to remain where he would be in a better
position to raise an alarm.
The man said not a word to me all day, but sat for the most part still