The weird of the wanderer Being the papyrus records of some incidents in one of the previous lives of Mr. Nicholas Crabbe
Thus, indeed, were the champions placed: at my side, I had
great-hearted Akhilleys on my left, and well-thewed Diomedes on the
right: but at the other side, renowned Theseys faced me, and keen
Hektor faced Akhilleys, and sacrilegious Aias faced Diomedes. And we
were to fight with spears and swords. But my wily revolver was ready to
my hand; and long-robed Helen held my black bow, which sang of war and
the slaughter of heroes till King Hades gave signal for the onset.
Theseys thrust his spear straight at my best eyelid, terribly shouting:
but I raised my shining shield like a flash of white thunder, taking
his point full on the god-made boss of it. And the heavenly silver rang
true as a bell. But I, stooping, drove up with my own spear, which he
(also) took on his shield. But, so mightily had I thrust it, that
the head stuck fast in the metal: nor could I tear it again from the
grip of his shield. He, then, noisily swang his targe aside, snatching
away my weapon. But I dashed in, battering him with my own shield,
till he was beaten to his knee. And, while he recollected himself, I
drew my sword and lopped off his spear-head, pressing hard with my
shield against his, and hewing at his head. But he, cunning, took my
strokes on his well-crested helmet, while he fumbled for his sword.
Nevertheless, his head must have hummed, for sparks fell thickly on all
sides from every blow, as they fall from a red-hot horse-shoe smitten
upon an anvil in a winter’s night. And, when once more we were equally
armed, we fell to fighting very seriously; and, for a time, neither of
us gained an advantage.
But, suddenly, I heard a great sob on my right hand. For well-thewed
Diomedes crashed to the ground; and all the netherworld shook at his
fall, as a citadel shakes when thumped by a battering-ram. And, at the
same time, Aias son of Telamon leaped upon me, masked in blood, and
bellowing like a hamstrung bull.
Now, hitherto, notwithstanding the gravity of our combat, neither I nor
Theseys had let blood. But, when I saw scarlet Aias coming ravening
upon me, and, when I sniffed the delicious odour of a hero’s blood,
then, indeed, I accomplished a certain wile. For I feinted downward,
to draw the sword of Aias; and, lightening my guard before his eye
(half-dimmed with streaming gore) could follow, I lunged upward,
plunging my blade like an onion into the bellowing mouth of him, where
a wound is particularly painful to a miserable mortal; and awfully my
hilt thudded on the bones behind his face, passing right through his
head under the brain and bruising the white bones at the back. And his
teeth were shivered to splinters; and his two eyes gushed with gore,
which he (gaping) made violently to spout also with a bubbling noise
from his mouth and from both his ears and nostrils, drenching me with
five purple fountains. But his knees relaxed; and he sat down suddenly
backward, stretching out his two hands; and Death enveloped him in a
pale cloud. In this manner, I lost my sword as well as my spear, being
too much occupied to retrieve it from the badly-wrecked face of Aias.
And now one would have said that I was at the mercy of my own enemy:
for Theseys all the time did not omit to hack at my head. But I caught
his strokes on my shield till it was split in twain, and then upon my
crested helmet studded with adamantine crystals and blue moonstones;
and his blows were like the blows of a poleaxe wielded by a blooming
butcher, or of a sledge-hammer wielded by a lusty smith. But, because I
was unarmed and liable to reel giddily under the hero’s onslaught, my
noble mind contrived a new wile. And, diving upward under his shield
(lest he should wound me in the back), I caught him round the ribs with
my long arms, and began to crumple him up. He, indeed, having dropped
his shield, smote once on my back: but it was only a half-cut, for my
shoulder filled the sweet pit of his sword-arm, preventing him from
giving either force or weight unto his effort. Meanwhile, I splintered
his crackling ribs one by one, pinching him as ferociously as possible,
and wrenching him hither and thither, with a heart full of pure joy,
when I felt so renowned a hero as Theseys becoming like a broken basket
of entrails in my arms. He, indeed, tried to stab me with his bitter
steel, in the intervals when he was neither screeching nor gasping for
breath with much hiccoughing. And, anon, having heaved him high above
my head, (for he tired me), then I dashed him to the ground, snapping
his big backbone with a noise like the quick tearing of linen. But
he lapsed limply into a shapeless bundle of broken man; and his last
breath shot out with a wet squeak, moistly whistling; and renowned
Theseys was once more a shade.
But I sidled away from the carcase, looking toward my left hand, where
the two great heroes and masters of perfect swordsmanship were fighting
valiantly. And crest-tossing Hektor feigned to slip, half exposing
his head: but implacable Akhilleys, for the nonce unwary, brandished
his blade for a last terrific blow which should end the battle. But
him Hektor overcame, eluding the shield which swang away to the left,
and thrusting his own sword through the taslets of the breast-plate
deep into the beautiful groin. Nevertheless, the end was not yet. For
fierce Akhilleys, though wounded to death, finished the stroke which
he had begun. And his sword came down irresistibly on Hektor’s crested
helm; and the horse-hair floated away on this side and on that; and the
whole casque fell in two halves here and there, like the split shells
of a walnut; and the head within, being divided in twain right down
to the roots of the throat, flapped upon the shoulders like a halved
pomegranate on a sliced stem. In this manner, fell together the two
greatest warriors and the two most glorious heroes who ever stamped on
the wide-bosomed earth.
But all voices were hushed at the splendour of the sight, grieving that
the five famous sons of kings should so soon have ceased from sweet
life, again becoming shades. And I, also, stood in silence: for I was
still rather dizzy. But, all at once, shady Hades shouted from his
throne: “This much-contriving Odysseys again hath tricked us by some
magic wile. Ha, Titans, hold him!”
And, on the word, the enormous monsters lumbered in my direction. But
all the shades began to gibber like bats, moaning with fear; and the
shade of great-hearted Akhilleys became paler with horror, because of
King Hades’ treachery. But Thalos, my foot-boy, lithely leaped from
crouching at the feet of Golden Helen; and, having snatched my black
bow from her (but she gave it willingly), he thrust it into my hand,
standing alertly close behind me with my quiver, ready to feed me with
arrows. And, in an instant, I bent the great bow to the string, while
it sang shrilly with joy, loosing the well-feathered shafts which
swiftly hissed down the long hall; and they bit the eyeballs of the
titans so that they yelped like whipped whelps in their displeasure,
falling as great oaks crash earthward in storms, littering considerable
areas.
But, as I sped the winged deaths on their way, I heard a terrible cry
from the queen. But I, without turning round to her, was suddenly
aware that I was seeing on all sides, both before and behind: for the
eyes in my face, fearfully rolling, gazed in front; and, when I drew
the string of the bent-back bow to my ear with my right hand, the two
eye-chalcedonyxes in the magic ring which Hermes, my grandsire, had
placed on my third finger looked out over my shoulder in the rear,
warning me of danger from that quarter. And I saw shady King Hades, the
most righteous of gods, about to dash out my brain with the gigantic
key which fits the locks of hell.
But, leaping aside, I evaded the blameless coward’s blow: but, in
escaping from the god, I became far away from Thalos who bore my
arrows; and my bow shrieked because I could not use it. Once more,
King Hades struck at me; and, once more mightily leaping, I eluded
the danger. Moreover, I saw, from the bewildered gestures of the
shades, that they understood neither what was going on nor the reason
of my marvellous agility. And, then, I perceived that the shady one
had donned his cyclopean helmet of invisibility, whereby none but a
god’s eyes could see him. But I, being hard pressed, determined to use
magic of another kind, such as I had found very efficacious against
shady hustlers and bullies when I was a subject of Victory queen of
the stalwart stately Anglicans. And, first, I praised rustic Pan and
wing-footed Hermes, with wildly joyful acclamations: the one for his
gift in the touch of fennel on the seashore by Tainaron, whereby I was
able to see with the eyes of a god as well as with the eyes of a man,
and the other (my grandsire) for his gift of two eyes more than the
number allotted to olympians, to say nothing of miserable mortals: for,
without these extraordinary faculties, shady Hades would certainly have
gotten me again, and for good, and I should have lost Golden Helen for
the third and last time.
Wherefore, I plucked out my revolver, as blameless Hades came upon me.
He, indeed, had the air of being dreadfully worried, believing himself
to be invisible, and yet finding that I was able to dodge him quite
successfully. And, having pressed the well-made spring of my weapon
with my palm, I pulled the beautiful trigger six times, afflicting the
Shady One with a dumdum[49] in each nostril and two in the belly and
one in each knee. But he, being a god, was unable to die, even though
he had lost his ugly face: but all the same, he was extremely capable
of feeling pain; and dreadful pain he felt. Now, as everyone knows,
when lordly Ares was wounded by well-thewed Diomedes at the siege of
windy Ilion, he hullabalooed (as it is chanted in the canticle) like an
army of ten thousand men all mad-drunk with beer. But, King Hades being
of the elder generation of the gods, and (therefore) of far vaster bulk
than his lusty nephew, the bellowing of nineteen such armies would
have been (to the outpouring of his godly griefs and pains) but as the
wheezy puling of an infant to the thunder of immeasurable Ocean on a
rock-bound coast. For, indeed, the very firmament of the netherworld
was riven and cleft asunder by the thuds of his high-stepped capers and
contortions, and the bombilation of his vibrant vociferatings to my
address.
But I, looking upward through the grateful fissure, saw clear heaven
again, and the serenely-sailing Moon, and the glittering constellation
of the Crab, and all the holy stars which kindly gaze upon
earth-trampling men.
After this manner, did I work notable wiles in the house of blameless
Hades.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] This might, perhaps, almost strike some persons as being just a
little “thin.” A. H.
[49] I find several English words in this papyrus, written in what we
will agree to call Mr. C.’s own hand. A. H.
THE TWENTY-FIRST PAPYRUS
Then, the gods, divine ones inhabiting olympian palaces, whom I had
summoned to see how a master-mage under-goes that he may overcome,
intervened to protect me from further annoyance. For unspeakable
confusion buzzed and boomed throughout all the house of Hades.
For the shades of well-born Theseys and of sandy-haired old Menelaos
and of woman-mad Paris were gibbering with rage, seeing that I was free
to depart with Golden Helen, the Treasure of Hades, as my spoil. And
they shook their angry fingers at me, like fringes in a wind, being
quite impotent: but Paris, unable to contain what there was of himself
(so abounding was his ire), burst, over and over again, like a bad
bubble in my vicinity. And he suddenly frittered away.
But, as I walked with the blessed gods, having Helen the Treasure