The world below
whom we recognise to have lived through some unusual tragedy, beyond the
common experience of mankind. Then there was a desire to see for herself
the strange and alien life which I showed her, and I knew that, were it
not an impossibility for her to enter a past to which she did not
belong, she would gladly have adventured it with me. I thought, with
curiosity, of how she would encounter such an existence, could I have
translated her to a mortal body and the conditions of life with which I
was myself familiar, and I had a moment’s doubt of one who, I felt, had
experienced only the pleasures of existence without its pain, but my
final thought was that the serenity of her mind was a spiritual quality
too fundamental for any servitude to subdue it.
She asked me whether our world had always lacked a leader to propose any
rule of life other than this state which lacked either individual
freedom or a rational mutuality, and I replied that there had been an
event of two millenniums earlier than my own life, which was commonly
regarded as a revelation from Heaven. Its Exponent had announced a
series of paradoxical aphorisms for the conduct of life, which were of
an unforgettable kind, and were still highly respected. If they were
obeyed, life would be fundamentally different, but the common opinion
was that they were quite impracticable. Each of these aphorisms
prescribed a line of conduct and foretold its result. It might seem
difficult to honour the Teacher, and reject His wisdom so absolutely.
But it was contrived very simply. The consequences which had been
ascribed to the course of life which He taught were allocated to a vague
existence which was to follow at a distant time, and in another sphere.
Meanwhile, if they were obeyed at all, it was regarded as an act of
self-sacrifice, no one supposing for a moment that the results which He
foretold would actually follow. I admitted that I knew of no
authenticated instance of anyone obeying these precepts with results
unsatisfactory to himself or others.
As the long night passed I went on, in response to a curiosity which
seemed insatiable in its desire of exploration, to describe many phases
of the social and economic chaos which we call civilisation, often
illuminating my own mind as I did so.
I noticed that she was particularly impressed by the precarious tenure
on which we hold the houses which our defective bodies require, and the
uncertainty of many of us in obtaining a regular and sufficient supply
of the very necessities of life itself and the consequent bitterness
with which we regard a stranger who lays hands on anything to which we
consider we have a prior claim.
Realising this, she began to understand how those among us of the baser
sort, who have more than sufficient for their own comfort, may yet
persecute any who attempt to share it, without incurring the contempt or
punishment of their fellows.
Joined to this bitter resentment at any private theft, I had to exhibit
the docility with which we allow ourselves to be robbed by legal
process, and the immunity and respect enjoyed by those who are the
instruments and beneficiaries of these extortions; and, as I showed it,
I had to realise the fantastic inequity with which these impositions are
levied, as, for instance, that a man who prefers salt shall pay less
than one who eats sugar, or that one who keeps a dog shall pay more than
one who keeps a pet of another species, or--an idea almost devilish in
its lunacy--that a man shall pay more heavily because he provides a
larger home, with the increase of young children who are dependent upon
him.
I reverted to the explanation that, while no king could have imposed
this burden of taxation upon us, we were bewildered by the belief that
it was of our own doing, and that this conviction acted as a
paralysis....
The shaft struck the wall sharply, and rebounded to the floor beside us.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE ESCAPE
It is the habit of mankind to depreciate the appliances of its
ancestors, when it has superseded them with other contrivances. In our
time, bows and arrows have become symbolic of futility among engines of
war. Yet, before the introduction of gunpowder, the longbow was
considered a weapon sufficiently formidable to threaten the whole order
of feudalism, and it is at least doubtful whether stupidity alone, or a
deliberate purpose, exposed the archers at Bannockburn, without the
usual support of pikemen, to the charge of the Scottish horse.
It is certainly true that a company of Crécy archers would have quickly
cleared more than one of the Flanders trenches, which were too near for
comfort, yet too far for a grenade to reach them, and too deep for the
trajectory of a bullet.
We had talked and slept and talked again as the long night continued,
and had not noticed the first faint light that came slowly from a sun
that rose to so prolonged a dawn, till the arrow fell rattling on the
floor beside us.
My companion laughed as it fell--not with her lips, that only opening
slightly for a breathing which it seemed no haste could quicken, nor
with her eyes, to my knowing, for it was too dark to see them, though
they must have been alight with the joy of unfamiliar action, but with
her mind, through which the laughter and its cause were conveyed
together, and by which means mirth, though amid a crowd of others, could
be private to those who shared it.
Our thought was single that we should go back to our first station
beneath the door, where we supposed we should be safe from the arrows.
She rose lightly--another shaft striking the place where she had lain,
as she left it--and slowly and stiffly, from my long vigil, I followed
her. She was becoming used to the frequent evidences of the
imperfections of my physical existence, but this exhibition stirred her
to a fresh wonder. “Didn’t it know,” she asked, “that you wanted to get
up quickly? Is it insubordinate, or entirely stupid?” I defended it as I
could, “I think it does its best for me, in its own way. I have used it
very hardly of late, and it needs repair; within a few minutes, when it
understands that it must work again, it will be ready. Did it never
protest, I should use it beyond its capacity, and soon destroy it. But
perhaps if you had come to my world, you would have found your own body
less perfectly adapted to more strange conditions than you find here.”
She answered frankly, “It is likely enough. Though I should at least
know what was happening. You seem to me to live in yours like a
stranger, without control or confidence, and not knowing what goes on
within it.
“But I agree with you the more easily because I am already feeling the
need of the water in which I most naturally live, and I am also
conscious of the loss of the energy I have given you, which, in about
two months from now, should it continue at the same rate, would exhaust
me entirely.”
As this thought reached me, we were moving down the centre of the hall,
she in front, because she was confident that her will could turn a shaft
if it were coming directly at her. Suddenly I saw her bulk more broadly
in the dim light, and was sharply startled, till her thought assisted my
eyes to explain it. She had lifted and shaken loose her fur, which was
of a surprising length, and then drawn it down again more closely than
ever, so that its surface was as smooth and shining as a serpent’s skin.
I had an impulse to lay my hand on the glossy back, but dare not break
the barrier of her physical difference and aloofness. It was as though
an unapproachable virginity surrounded her. I vaguely realised the power
by which she could control the fiercest creatures of the deep, and how
they felt as they cowered before her.
If she understood my thought, she gave no sign, but went on to tell me,
“In the ocean are many springs, some that are hot, and some that are
very cold, where we can lie with lifted fur, and let the water go
through it. Here I can only shake it loose, and every hair is too
sensitive to rest content if any speck of dust be upon it, especially of
organic origin, for they dread corruption in any form.”
We were two-thirds down the floor by now, and she was stepping
delicately to avoid the body of the Killer, which had spilled across it,
when an arrow passed us, and the next moment I was struck sharply behind
the shoulder so that I staggered and recovered myself with difficulty.
“I’ve got it now,” I thought, for there was a dull pain under my
shoulder-blade, and I was aware of a feathered shaft that projected
behind me, but her mind only laughed in answer.
“It isn’t easy to tell where your body begins or ends, but I don’t think
that arrow’s hurt you.”
She was right. It had entered the knapsack in a downward direction,
pierced a variety of its contents, and then been deflected by a
burning-glass which I had brought in case my small stock of matches
should be exhausted--but so far I had had no occasion to use it. Now it
projected three inches from the lower corner of the knapsack, a narrow,
steel-like, unbarbed head, of razor sharpness.
But how had it struck me there?
We crouched with our backs to the barred door, and watched and
understood.
The walls and ceiling were of the same substance as the door that had
turned my axe-edge, and the shafts that struck them fairly rebounded,
but they were shooting now so that the shafts glanced from the roof, and
then did diabolic turns, like the wizardry of billiard balls when a
master guides them. Whether there were any quality of an unfamiliar kind
in shaft or ceiling I cannot say, but such shooting I had never seen, or
imagined.
Fortunately for us the side walls were still hung with enough weapons to
make such jugglery difficult upon them--(the end was bare like the
ceiling)--and the floor was scattered with those I had brought down in
my chase of the Killer.
“Unless you have something better to suggest than sitting here, we shall
probably be in the stewing-vats before sunset,” my comrade considered
judicially, as a shaft slanted across us at about two feet distance.
“I am of the same mind,” I answered amiably, “but what can we do? I
might send one arrow from the window. I should probably aim too hastily
to hit anyone. I should not be likely to send a second. We can unbar the
door, but we cannot open it. We could ask your Leader to do so, if she
can escape from her present confinement, but the moment seems
inopportune. Can you get in touch with her, and learn what is happening
outside?”
In response to this suggestion she established communication almost at
once, and was soon passing on the report to me.
“There are two archers shooting. The one you hit is hurt in the head,
but only slightly. The smaller Killers have gone to the farther side,
and are out of view. The very old, the diseased, and the young, are
congregated together at the far end of the enclosure. The infirm archer
is with them, but he was consulted by the others, and it seemed that he
gave them the plan of attack which they are following.
“There is a young one of the larger kind who is turning somersaults in
excitement, because he hopes that the older may be killed, and he will
be able to obtain a bow.
“They suppose that the arrows have destroyed you already, but they are
cautious, and will continue to shoot till their ammunition is ended. The
smaller Killers, who have gone round to the side, are well provided with
strangling-cords, and have also many javelins. They have fetched a
quantity from one of the other buildings. They are elaborately made, and
have red shafts. Probably they were of a sacred or ornamental character,
and have been acquired for fighting purposes only in this emergency.