The Leithen Stories (58 page)

Then came the start, and the race which Janni and I watched from our hiding-place in the shadows under the wall. He got off the mark clumsily, and at first his limbs seemed heavy as lead. But the movement revived him and woke his old racing instinct. Though he had not run for years, he was in hard training, and towards the close of the first round his skill had come back to him and he was in the third place, going well within his powers. In the second round he felt that the thing was in his hands. He lay close to the first man, passed him before the final straight, and then forged ahead so that in the last hundred yards he was gaining ground with every stride. He seized the torch at the winning-post and raced to where in the centre of the upper glade a white figure stood alone. With the tossing of the flame into the well he straightened his body and looked round, a man restored to his old vigour and ready for swift action.

His account of the next stage was confused, for his mind was on Koré and he was going through a violent transformation of outlook. The old man was no longer repeating a rehearsed lesson, but speaking violently like one in a moment of crisis. He addressed Vernon as ‘You of the hills', and told him that God had placed the fate of Kynaetho in his hands – which God he did not particularise. But from his excited stammering something emerged that chilled Vernon's blood … He was to wait in the House till moonrise of the next night. The signal was to be the firing of the place. With the first flames he was to perform the deed to which he had been called. ‘Choose which way you please,' said the old man, ‘provided that they die.' Then he would leave the House by the main door and join the young men without. ‘They will be gathered there till they come who will come.' The door would be closed behind him
till it was opened by the fire … ‘They who will come are Immortals.'

The man's voice was high-pitched with passion, and his figure, solitary in the bright moonshine in that ring of silent folk, had something in it of the awful and the sacramental. But Vernon's thoughts were not on it, but on the news which meant the downfall of his plans. His mind worked now normally and sanely; he was again a man of the modern world. The young men – of course they would be there – the Kouretes to greet the Kouros. He might have known it, if he had only thought. But how was Koré to escape from those frenzied guardians? He had imagined that with the fire the vigilance of the watch would be relaxed and that it would be easy to join Black George and the boat. But with the fire there was to be a thronging of the hierophants towards the House, and what was inside would be kept inside till the place was a heap of ashes.

The man was speaking again. He had made some signal, for three figures had approached the well. ‘The woman is within,' he said, ‘and it is for you to choose the man. Your choice is free among the people of Plakos, but we have one here, a young man, a Greek, but a stranger. He would doubtless be acceptable.'

The half-clad Maris cut an odd figure as, in the grip of two stalwart peasants, he was led forward for inspection. His face was white and set, and his eyes were furious. ‘No willing victim this,' thought Vernon, ‘but so much the better, for he and I are in the same boat and I must make him an ally.' From the way he carried himself he saw that Maris had been drilled, and he considered that a soldier might be useful. ‘I choose this man,' he said.

A jar was given him, and he filled it from the spring and emptied it on Maris's head and shoulders. His own clothes were also brought, but he contented himself with Mitri's sash, of which he made a girdle and into which he stuck his own pistol and Mitri's knife. ‘I have no need of the rest,' he said, for he was beginning to enter into the spirit of the part. Then he knelt while the old man laid a hand on his head and pronounced some consecration. ‘Come,' he said to Maris, and the two moved up the slope of the Dancing Floor towards the breach in the wall.

He had almost forgotten his anxiety in the wonder of the scene. He seemed to be set on a stage in a great golden
amphitheatre, and Maris and the guards who accompanied him were no more than stage properties. All human life had for the moment gone, and he was faced with primordial elements – the scented shell of earth, the immense arch of the sky and the riding moon, and, as he climbed the slope, an infinity of shining waters. The magic weighed on him, a new magic, for the ruthlessness of man was submerged in the deeper ruthlessness of nature … And then, as he passed the fringe of the spectators and caught a glimpse of pallid strained faces, he got his bearings again. It was man he had to cope with, crazy, fallible, tormented man. He felt the pity and innocence of it behind the guilt, and in an instant he regained confidence … Maris was stumbling along, walking painfully like one unaccustomed to going on bare feet, casting fierce startled glances about him. As they approached the breach in the wall Vernon managed to whisper to him to cheer up, for no ill would befall him. ‘I am your friend,' he said; ‘together we will make an end of this folly,' and the man's face lightened.

It was this look on Maris's face which I saw from my hiding-place and which made me forbid Janni's pistol shot.

THE GREAT DOORS clanged behind them, and Vernon, who had been given the key by the guards, turned it in the lock. In spite of the reassuring words he had spoken to Maris he thought that his companion might attack him, so he steered wide of him and in the inky darkness fell over a basket of logs. The mishap wrung from him a very English expletive. Then he shouted on Mitri to bring a light.

He heard Maris's excited voice. ‘Who are you? Who in God's name are you? Are you English?'

‘Of course I am English. Confound it. I believe I have cracked my shin. Mitri, you idiot, where are you?'

The old man appeared from a corridor with a lantern shaking in his hand. He had no words, but stared at the two as if he were looking on men risen from the dead.

Where's your mistress? In her sitting-room? For God's sake get me some clothes – my old ones, and bring something for this gentleman to put on. Any old thing will do. Get us some food too, for we're starving. Quick, man. Leave the lantern here.'

By the slender light, set on a table in the great stone hall, the two men regarded each other.

You want to know who I am,' said Vernon. ‘I'm an Englishman who came here three nights ago in a yacht. I happened to have met Miss Arabin before. I found out what the people of Plakos were up to, and it seemed to me that the best thing I could do was to win the race tonight. I needn't tell you about that, for you saw it … Now for yourself. I gather that you also are unpopular in this island?'

Maris gave a short sketch of his career, and Vernon convinced himself by a few questions that he spoke the truth, for the Greek had served alongside the British at Salonika.

‘I came here to protect the lady,' Maris concluded.

‘Who sent you?'

‘Mr Ertzberger. I had a companion, an English colonel who is also in your Parliament, and a great milord. Leithen is his name.'

‘God bless my soul! Leithen! Oh, impossible! Quick! Tell me more. Where is he now?'

‘That I do not know. Yesterday evening we separated, each seeking to find some way of entering this House. I blundered badly, and was taken by the guards on the seaward front. My friend must also have failed, or he would be here, but I do not think he has been taken.'

The knowledge that I was somewhere in the island gave Vernon, as he told me, a sudden acute sense of comfort. I must have been the visitor to the yacht. He cross-examined Maris, who knew nothing of the boat's existence, and Maris agreed that the stranger who had gone aboard must have been myself. ‘The Greek who was with him,' he said, ‘was doubtless my corporal, Janni, the one man in my batch of fools who kept his head.'

Mitri returned with Vernon's clothes, and an ancient dressing-gown for Maris. He also brought a bowl of milk and some cakes and cheese. Questions trembled on his lips, but Vernon waved him off. ‘Go and tell your mistress that we will come to her in a quarter of an hour. And have a bed made ready for this gentleman.'

As Vernon dressed he had a look at his companion, now grotesquely robed in a gown too large for him, and dirty and scratched from his adventures. It was the mercy of Providence that had given him such a colleague, for he liked the man's bold hard-bitten face and honest eyes. Here was a practical fellow, and he wanted something exceedingly prosaic and practical to counteract the awe which still hovered about his mind. He fought to keep at a distance the memory of the silence and the torches and the shining spaces of the Dancing Floor. This man did not look susceptible.

‘I need not tell you that we are in the devil of a tight place, Captain Maris. Do you realise precisely the meaning of the performance we have just witnessed?'

Maris nodded. ‘Since yesterday. It has been most pointedly explained to me. I am one victim for the sacrifice, and the lady of this house is the other, and you are the priest.'

‘We have the better part of twenty-four hours' grace. After that?'

‘After that this House will be burned. You may go forth, if you have the nerve to play the part. The lady and I – no. We are supposed to die when the fire begins, but if we do not die by your hand we will die in the flames.'

‘There is no way of escape?'

‘None,' said Maris cheerfully. ‘But with your help I think we will do some mischief first. God's curse on the swine!'

‘And the lady?'

Maris shrugged his shoulders.

‘Till this evening,' said Vernon, ‘I thought I had a plan. I was pretty certain I could win the race, and I proposed to reason with the male victim who came back with me, or club him on the head. I thought that when the fire began there would be confusion and that the people would keep outside the wall. My boat is lying below the cliffs and I hoped to carry the lady there. But now I know that that is impossible. There will be a concourse of the young men outside the door at the moment of the burning, and the House will be watched more closely than ever. Do you know what the people expect?'

Maris spat contemptuously. ‘I heard some talk of the coming of Gods. The devil take all priests and their lying tales.'

‘They await the coming of Gods. You are not a classical scholar Captain Maris, so you cannot realise, perhaps, just what that means. We are dealing with stark madness. These peasants are keyed up to a tremendous expectation. A belief has come to life, a belief far older than Christianity. They expect salvation from the coming of two Gods, a youth and a maiden. If their hope is disappointed, they will be worse madmen than before. Tomorrow night nothing will go out from this place, unless it be Gods.'

‘That is true. The lady and I will without doubt die at the threshold, and you also, my friend. What arms have we?'

‘I have this revolver with six cartridges. The lady has a toy pistol, but, I think, no ammunition. The men without are armed with rifles.'

‘Ugly odds. It is infamous that honest folk and soldiers should perish at the hands of the half-witted.'

‘What about Leithen? He is outside and has come here expressly to save the lady.'

Maris shook his head. ‘He can do nothing. They have set up a cordon, a barrage, which he cannot penetrate. There is no
hope in the island, for every man and woman is under the Devil's spell. Also the telegraph has been cut these three days.'

‘Do you see any chance?'

Maris cogitated. ‘We have twenty-four hours. Some way of escape might be found by an active man at the risk of a bullet or two. We might reach your boat.'

‘But the lady?'

‘Why, no. Things look dark for the poor lady. We came here to protect her, and it seems as if we can do no more than die with her … I would like to speak with that old man about clothes. A soldier does not feel at his bravest when he is barefoot and unclad save for pants and a ragged shirt. I refuse to go to Paradise in this dressing-gown.'

Maris's cheerful fortitude was balm to Vernon's mind, for it seemed to strip the aura of mystery from the situation, and leave it a straight gamble of life and death. If Koré was to be saved it must be through Maris, for he himself was cast for another part.

‘Come and let me present you to the lady,' he said. ‘We must have some plan to sleep on.'

Koré was in her sitting-room, and as she rose to meet them he saw that her face was very white.

‘I heard nothing,' she said hoarsely, ‘though Mitri says that there are thousands in the glade beyond the wall. But I saw a red glow from the upper windows.'

‘That was the torches which lined the stadium. I have been running a race, Miss Arabin, and have been lucky enough to win. Therefore we have still twenty-four hours of peace. May I present Captain Maris of the Greek Army? He asked me to apologise for his clothes.'

The Greek bowed gallantly and kissed her hand.

‘Captain Maris came here to protect you. He came with a friend of ours, Sir Edward Leithen.'

‘Sir Edward Leithen?' the girl cried. ‘He is here?'

‘He is in the island, but he is unable to join us in the House. Captain Maris tried, and was unfortunately captured. He was handed over to me as the victor of the race, and that is why he is here. But Sir Edward must be still scouting around the outposts, and it is pretty certain that he won't find a way in. I'm afraid we must leave him out of account … Now I want you to listen to me very carefully, for I've a good deal to say to you. I'm going to be perfectly candid, for you're brave enough to hear the worst.'

Vernon constructed three cigarettes out of his pipe tobacco and tissue paper from the illustrations in Peter Beckford. Koré did not light hers, but sat waiting with her hands on her knees.

‘They think you a witch, because of the habits of your family. That you have long known. In the past they have burned witches in these islands, and Plakos remembers it. But it remembers another thing – the ancient ritual I told you of, and that memory which has been sleeping for centuries has come to violent life. Perhaps it would not have mastered them if the mind of the people had not been full of witch-burning. That, you see, gave them one victim already chosen, and in Captain Maris, who is of their own race and also a stranger, they have found the other.'

‘I see all that,' the girl said slowly. ‘Of course I did not know when I left London – I couldn't have guessed – I thought it was a simple business which only needed a bold front, and I was too vain to take advice … Oh, forgive me. My vanity has brought two innocent people into my miserable troubles …'

‘I told you yesterday that we were going to win. You must trust me, Miss Arabin. And, for Heaven's sake, don't imagine that I blame you. I think you are the bravest thing God ever made. I wouldn't be elsewhere for worlds.'

Her eyes searched his face closely, and then turned to Maris, who instantly adopted an air of bold insouciance.

‘You are good men … But what can you do? They will watch us like rats till the fire begins, and then – if we are not dead – they will kill us … They will let no one go from this House – except their Gods.'

These were the very words Vernon had used to Maris, and since they so wholly expressed his own belief, he had to repudiate them with a vehement confidence.

‘No,' he said, ‘you forget that there are two things on our side. One is that, as the winner of the race, I am one of the people of Plakos. I can safely go out at the last moment and join their young men. I speak their tongue and I understand this ritual better than they do themselves. Surely I can find some way of driving them farther from the House so that in the confusion Maris can get you and your maid off unobserved. Mitri, too—'

‘Mitri,' she broke in, ‘has permission from our enemies to go when he pleases. But he refuses to leave us.'

‘Well, Mitri also. The second thing is that I have found my
boat and got in touch with my man. He is lying in the bay below the cliffs, and I have arranged that on a certain signal he will meet you under the oliveyards. There is a gate in the wall there of which Mitri no doubt has the key. Once aboard, you are as safe as in London.'

‘And you?'

‘Oh, I will take my chance. I ama hillman from Akte and can keep up the part till I find some way of getting off.'

‘Impossible!' she cried. ‘When they find that their Gods have failed them they will certainly kill you. Perhaps it is because I was born here, but though I have only heard of this ritual from you, I feel somehow as if I had always known it. And I know that if the one sacrifice fails, there will be another.'

She rang the little silver bell for Mitri. ‘Show this gentleman his room,' she looked towards Maris. ‘You have already had food? Good night, Captain Maris. You must have had a wearing day, and I order you to bed.'

When they were alone she turned to Vernon. ‘Your plan will not work. I can make a picture of what will happen tomorrow night – I seem to see every detail clear, as if I had been through it all before – and your plan is hopeless. You cannot draw them away from the House. They will be watching like demented wolves … And if you did and we escaped, what on earth would become of you?'

‘I should be one of them – a sharer in their disappointment – probably forgotten.'

‘Not you. You are their high-priest, and an angry people always turns on their priest.'

‘There might be a bit of a row, but I dare say I could hold my own.'

‘Against thousands – mad thousands? You would be torn in pieces even though they still believed you were a hillman from Akte.'

‘I'll take the risk. It is no good making difficulties, Miss Arabin. I admit that the case is pretty desperate, but my plan has at any rate a chance.'

‘The case is utterly desperate, and that is why your plan is no good. Desperate cases need more desperate remedies.'

‘Well, what do you suggest?'

She smiled. ‘You are very tired and so am I. We have a day and a night left us and we can talk in the morning … I told
you when you first came here that I refused to run away. Well, I – don't – think – I have changed my mind …'

The difficulty of telling this part of the story (said Leithen) is that it must be largely guess-work. The main facts I know, but the affair had become so strange and intimate that neither Koré nor Vernon would speak of it, while Maris was only vaguely aware of what was happening. It must have been some time on the Friday morning that the two met again. I can picture Vernon racking his brains to supplement his fragile plan, turning sleeplessly in his bed, hunting out Maris in the early morn to go wearily over the slender chances. Koré, I imagine, slept dreamlessly. She had reached her decision, and to her strong and simple soul to be resolved was to be at peace. Vernon was a fine fellow – I have known few finer – but there were lumpish elements in him, while the girl was all pure spirit.

But I can reconstruct the meeting of the two in the bare little sitting-room – without Maris – for that much Vernon has told me. I can see Vernon's anxious face, and the girl's eyes bright with that innocent arrogance which once in my haste I had thought ill-breeding.