Across the Zodiac (29 page)

"No, indeed," she urged, once more in earnest. "Girls so seldom pass
the gate, and men never walk where a carriage will go, or I should not
have been so stupid. But if I had blistered my feet, and the leveloo
had been a nut-vine, the fruit was worth the scratches."

"What do you know, my child, either of blisters or stripes?"

"You will teach me—No, you know I don't mean that! But you will
take me with you sometimes till I learn better! If you are going to
leave me at home in future "—

"My child, can you not trust me to take you for my own pleasure?"

The silvery tone of her low sweet laugh was truly perfectly musical.

"Forgive me," she said, nestling in the cushions at my knee, and
seeking with upturned eyes, like a child better assured of pardon than
of full reconciliation, to read my face, "it is very naughty to laugh,
and very ungrateful, when you speak to please me; but is it real
kindness to say what I should be very silly to believe?"

"You will believe whatever I tell you, child. If you wish to anger a
man, even with you, tell him that he is lying."

"I do nothing but misbehave," she said, in earnest despondency.
"I—" But I sealed her lips effectually for the moment.

"Why did you not speak as we came home?"

"You were tired, and I was thinking over all I had seen. Besides, who
talks air?"
(makes conversation)
.

"You always talk when you are pleased. The lip-sting (scolding) and
silence frightened me so, you nearly heard me crying."

"Crying for fear? You did well to break the leveloo!... And so you
think I must be tired of my bride, before the colours have gone round
on the dial?"

"Not tired of her. You will like a little longer to find her in the
cushions when you are vexed or idle; but you don't want her where her
ignorance wearies and her weakness hampers you."

"Are you an
esve
, to be caged at home, and played with for lack of
better employment? We shall never understand each other, child."

"What more can I be? But don't say we shall never understand each
other," she pleaded earnestly. "It took time and trouble to make my
pet understand and obey each word and sign. Zevle gave hers more slaps
and fewer sweets, and it learned sooner. But, like me, you want your
esve to be happy, not only to fly straight and play prettily. She will
try hard to learn if you will teach her, and not be so afraid of
hurting her, as if she expected sweets from both hands. It is easy for
you to see through her empty head: do cot give her up till she has had
time to look a little way into your eyes."

"Eveena," I answered, almost as much pained as touched by the
unaffected humility which had so accepted and carried out my ironical
comparison, "one simple magnet-key would unlock the breast whose
secrets seem so puzzling; but it has hardly a name in your tongue, and
cannot yet be in your hands."

"Ah, yes!" she said softly, "you gave it me; do you think I have lost
it in two nights? But the esve cannot be loved as she loves her
master. I could half understand the prodigal heart that would buy a
girl's life with yours, and all that is bound up in yours. No other
man
would have done it—in our world," she added, answering my
gesture of dissent; "but they say that the terrible
kargynda
will
stand by his dying mate till he is shot down. You bought my heart, my
love, all I am, when you bought my life, and never asked the cost."
She continued almost in a whisper, her rose-suffused cheeks and moist
eyes hidden from my sight as the lips murmured their loving words into
my ear,—"Though the nestling never looked from under the wing, do you
think she knows not what to expect when she is bought from the nest?
She dares not struggle in the hand that snatches her; much more did
she deserve to be rated and rapped for fluttering in that which saved
her life. Bought twice over, caged by right as by might—was her
thought midnight to your eyes, when she wondered at the look that
watched her so quietly, the hand that would not try to touch lest it
should scare her, the patience that soothed and coaxed her to perch on
the outstretched finger, like a flower-bird tamed at last? Do you
think that name, given her by lips which softened even their words of
fondness for her ear, did not go to her heart straight as the esve
flies home, or that it could ever be forgotten? There is a chant young
girls are fond of, which tells more than I can say."

Her tones fell so low that I should have lost them, had her lips not
actually touched my ear while she chanted the strange words in the
sweetest notes of her sweet voice:—

"Never yet hath single sun
Seen a flower-bird tamed and won;
Sun and stars shall quit the sky
Ere a bird so tamed shall fly.

"Never human lips have kissed
Flower-bird tamed 'twixt mist and mist;
Bird so tamed from tamer's heart
Night of death shall hardly part."

The next morning saw our journey commenced. Eveena's wardrobe, with my
own and my books, portfolios, models, and specimens of Terrestrial art
and mechanism, were packed in light metallic cases adapted to the
larger form of carriage whereof I have made mention. I was fortunate
in escaping the actual parting scene between Eveena and her family,
and my own leave-taking was hurried. Esmo and his son accompanied us,
leading the way in one carriage, while Eveena and myself occupied that
which we had used on our memorable trip to the Astronaut. Half an hour
brought us to the road beside the river, and a few minutes more to the
point at which a boat awaited us. The road being some eight or ten
feet above the level of the water, a light ladder not three feet long
was ready to assist our descent to the deck. The difference of size
between the Martial race and my own was forcibly impressed upon me, in
seeing that Esmo and his son found this assistance needful, or at
least convenient, while I simply stepped rather than jumped to the
deck, and lifted Eveena straight from her carriage to her seat under
the canopy that covered the stern of the vessel. Intended only for
river navigation, propelled by a small screw like two fishtails set at
right angles, working horizontally; the vessel had but two cabins, one
on either side of the central part occupied by the machinery. The
stern apartment was appropriated to myself and my bride, the
forecastle, if I may so call it, to our companions, the boatmen having
berths in the corners of the machine-room. The vessel was
flat-bottomed, drawing about eighteen inches of water and rising about
five feet from the surface, leaving an interior height which obliged
me to be cautious in order not to strike my head against every
projection or support of the cabin roof. We spent the whole of the
day, however, on deck, and purposely slackened the speed of the boat,
which usually travels some thirty miles an hour, in order to enjoy the
effect and observe the details of the landscape. For the first few
miles our voyage lay through the open plain. Then we passed, on the
left as we ascended the stream, the mountain on whose summit I tried
with my binocular to discern the Astronaut, but unsuccessfully, the
trees on the lower slopes intercepting the view. Eveena, seeing my
eyes fixed on that point, extended her hand and gently drew the glass
out of mine.

"Not yet," she said; which elicited from me the excuse—

"That mountain has for me remembrances more interesting than those of
my voyage, or even than the hopes of return."

Presently, as we followed the course of the stream, we lost sight
altogether of the rapidly dwindling patches of colour representing the
enclosures of Ecasfe. On our left, at a distance varying from three to
five miles, but constantly increasing as the stream bent to the
northward, was the mountain range I had scanned in my descent. On our
right the plain dipped below the horizon while still but a few feet
above the level of the river; but in the distant sky we discerned some
objects like white clouds, which from their immobility and fixedness
of outline I soon discovered to be snow-crowned hills, lower, however,
than those to the northward, and perhaps some forty miles distant. The
valley is one of the richest and most fertile portions of this
continent, and was consequently thoroughly cultivated and more densely
peopled than most parts even of the Equatorial zone. An immediate
river frontage being as convenient as agreeable, the enclosures on
either bank were continuous, and narrow in proportion to their depth;
the largest occupying no more than from one hundred and fifty to two
hundred yards of the bank, the smaller from half to one quarter of
that length. Most had a tunnel pierced under the road bordering the
river, through which the water was admitted to their grounds and
carried in a minute stream around and even through the house; for
ornament rather than for use, since every house in a district so
populous has a regular artificial water supply, and irrigation, as I
have explained, is not required. The river itself was embellished with
masses of water-flowers; and water-birds, the smallest scarcely larger
than a wagtail, the largest somewhat exceeding the size of a swan, of
a different form and dark grey plumage, but hardly less graceful,
seemed to be aware of the stringent protection they enjoyed from the
law. They came up to our boat and fed out of Eveena's hand with
perfect fearlessness. I could not induce any of them to be equally
familiar with myself, my size probably surprising them as much as
their masters, and leading them to the same doubt whether I were
really and wholly human. The lower slopes of the hills were covered
with orchards of every kind, each species occupying the level best
suited to it, from the reed-supported orange-like
alva
of the
lowlands to the tall
astyra
, above which stretched the timber
forests extending as high as trees could grow, while between these and
the permanent snow-line lay the yellowish herbage of extensive
pastures. A similar mountain range on earth would have presented a
greater variety of colouring and scenery, the total absence of
glaciers, even in the highest valleys, creating a notable difference.
The truth is that the snows of Mars are nowhere deep, and melt in the
summer to such an extent that that constant increase whose downward
tendency feeds Terrestrial glaciers cannot take place. Probably the
thin atmosphere above the snow-line can hold but little watery vapour.
Esmo was of opinion that the snow on the highest steeps, even on a
level plateau, was never more than two feet in depth; and in more than
one case a wind-swept peak or pinnacle was kept almost clear, and
presented in its grey, green, or vermilion rocks a striking contrast
to the masses of creamy white around it. This may explain the very
rapid diminution of the polar ice-caps in the summer of either, but
especially of the Southern hemisphere; and also the occasional
appearance of large dark spots in their midst, where the shallow snow
has probably been swept away by the rare storms of this planet from an
extensive land surface. It is supposed that no inconsiderable part of
the ice and snow immediately surrounding the poles covers land; but,
though balloon parties have of late occasionally reached the poles,
they have never ventured to remain there long enough to disembark and
ascertain the fact.

Towards evening the stream turned more decidedly to the north, and at
this point Esmo brought out an instrument constructed somewhat on the
principle of a sextant or quadrant, but without the mirror, by which
we were enabled to take reliable measures of the angles. By a process
which at that time I did not accurately follow, and which I had not
subsequently the means of verifying, the distance as well as the angle
subtended by the height was obtained. Kevimâ, after working out his
father's figures, informed me that the highest peak in view—the
highest in Mars—was not less than 44,000 feet. No Martial balloonist,
much less any Martial mountain-climber, has ever, save once, reached a
greater height than 16,000 feet—the air at the sea-level being
scarcely more dense than ours at 10,000 feet. Kevimâ indicated one
spot in the southern range of remarkable interest, associated with an
incident which forms an epoch in the records of Martial geography. A
sloping plateau, some 19,000 feet above the sea-level, is defined with
remarkable clearness in the direction from which we viewed it. The
forests appeared to hide, though they do not of course actually
approach, its lower edge. On one side and to the rear it is shut in by
precipices so abrupt that the snow fails to cling to them, while on
the remaining side it is separated by a deep, wide cleft from the
western portion of the range. Here for centuries were visible the
relics of an exploring party, which reached this plateau and never
returned. Attempts have, since the steering of balloons has become an
accomplished fact, been made to reach the point, but without success,
and those who have approached nearest have failed to find any of the
long-visible remains of an expedition which perished four or five
thousand years ago. Kevimâ thought it probable that the metallic poles
even then employed for tents and for climbing purposes might still be
intact; but if so, they were certainly buried in the snow, and Esmo
believed it more likely that even these had perished.

As the mists of evening fell we retreated to our cabin, which was
warmed by a current of heated air from the electric machinery. Here
our evening meal was served, at which Esmo and his son joined us,
Eveena resuming, even in their presence, the veil she had worn on deck
but had laid aside the moment we were alone. An hour or two after
sunset, the night (an unusual occurrence in Mars) was clear and fine,
and I took this opportunity of observing from a new standpoint the
familiar constellations. The scintillation so characteristic of the
fixed stars, especially in the temperate climates of the Earth, was
scarcely perceptible. Scattered once more over the surface of a
defined sky, it was much easier than in space to recognise the several
constellations; but their new and strange situations were not a little
surprising at first sight, some of those which, as seen on Earth
revolved slowly in the neighbourhood of the poles, being now not far
from the tropics, and some, which had their place within the tropics,
now lying far to north or south. Around the northern pole the Swan
swings by its tail, as in our skies the Lesser Bear; Arided being a
Pole-Star which needs no Pointers to indicate its position. Vega is
the only other brilliant star in the immediate neighbourhood; and,
save for the presence of the Milky Way directly crossing it, the
arctic circle is distinctly less bright than our own. The south pole
lies in one of the dullest regions of the heavens, near the chief star
of the Peacock. Arcturus, the Great Bear, the Twins, the Lion, the
Scorpion, and Fomalhaut are among the ornaments of the Equatorial
zone: the Cross, the Centaur, and the Ship of our antarctic
constellations, are visible far into the northern hemisphere. On the
present occasion the two Moons were both visible in the west, the
horns of both crescents pointing in the same direction, though the one
was in her last, the other in her first phase.