Across the Zodiac (54 page)

"Have
I
done wrong?" she said, in a tone half of confidence, half of
reproach. "Punish me, then, Clasfempta, as you please—with Eveena's
sandal."

The repartee delighted those who had reason to desire any diversion.
The appeal to Eveena disarmed my unwilling and momentary distrust.
Eveena, however, answered by neither word nor look, and the party
presently broke up. Eivé crept close to claim some silent atonement
for unspoken suspicion, and a few minutes had elapsed before, to the
evident alarm of several conscious culprits, I sought Eveena in her
own chamber.

In spite of all deprecation, I insisted on the explanation she had
evaded in public. "I guess," I said, "as much as you can tell me about
'the four.' I have borne too long with those who have made your life
that of a hunted therne, and rendered myself anxious and restless
every day and hour that I have left you alone. Unless you will deny
that they have done so— Well, then, I will have peace for you and
for myself. I cannot leave you to their mercy, nor can I remain at
home for the next twelve dozen days, like a chained watch-dragon. Pass
them over!" (as she strove to remonstrate); "there is something new
this time. You have been harassed and frightened as well as unhappy."

"Yes," she admitted, "but I can give nothing like a reason. I dare not
entreat you not to ask, and yet I am only like a child, that wakes
screaming by night, and cannot say of what she is afraid. Ought she
not to be whipped?"

"I can't say, bambina; but I should not advise Eivé to startle
you
in that way! But, seriously, I suppose fear is most painful when it
has no cause that can be removed. I have seen brave soldiers
panic-stricken in the dark, without well knowing why."

I watched her face as I spoke, and noted that while the pet name I had
used in the first days of our marriage, now recalled by her image,
elicited a faint smile, the mention of Eivé clouded it again. She was
so unwilling to speak, that I caught at the clue afforded by her
silence.

"It
is
Eivé then? The little hypocrite! She shall find your sandal
heavier than mine."

"No, no!" she pleaded eagerly. "You have seen what Eivé is in your
presence; and to me she is always the same. If she were not, could I
complain of her?"

"And why not, Eveena? Do you think I should hesitate between you?"

"No!" she answered, with unusual decision of tone. "I will tell you
exactly what you would do. You would take my word implicitly; you
would have made up your mind before you heard her; you would deal
harder measure to Eivé than to any one,
because
she is your pet; you
would think for once not of sparing the culprit, but of satisfying me;
and afterwards"—

She paused, and I saw that she would not conclude in words a sentence
I could perhaps have finished for myself.

"I see," I replied, "that Eivé is the source of your trouble, but not
what the trouble is. For her sake, do not force me to extort the truth
from her."

"I doubt whether she has guessed my misgiving," Eveena answered. "It
may be that you are right—that it is because she was so long the only
one you were fond of, that I cannot like and trust her as you do.
But ... you leave the telegraph in my charge, understanding, of course,
that it will be used as when you are at home. So, after Davilo's
warning, I have written their messages for Eunané and the others, but
I could not refuse Eivé's request to write her own, and, like you, I
have never read them."

"Why?" I asked. "Surely it is strange to give her, of all, a special
privilege and confidence?"

Eveena was silent. She could in no case have reproached me in words,
and even the reproach of silence was so unusual that I could not but
feel it keenly. I saw at that moment that for whatever had happened or
might happen I might thank myself; might thank the doubt I would not
avow to my own mind, but could not conceal from her, that Eveena had
condescended to something like jealousy of one whose childish
simplicity, real or affected, had strangely won my heart, as children
do win hearts hardened by experience of life's roughness and evil.

"I know nothing," Eveena said at last: "yet somehow, and wholly
without any reason I can explain, I fear. Eivé, you may remember, has,
as your companion, made acquaintance with many households whose heads
you do not believe friends to you or the Zinta. She is a diligent
correspondent. She never affects to conceal anything, and yet no one
of us has lately seen the contents of a note sent or received by her."

There was nothing tangible in Eveena's suspicion. It was most
repugnant to my own feelings, and yet it implanted, whether by force
of sympathy or of instinct, a misgiving that never left me again.

"My own," I answered, "I would trust your judgment, your observation
or feminine instinct and insight into character, far sooner than my
own conclusions upon solid facts. But instincts and presentiments,
though we are not scientifically ignorant enough to disregard them,
are not evidence on which we can act or even inquire."

"No," she said. "And yet it is hard to feel, as I cannot help feeling,
that the thunder-cloud is forming, that the bolt is almost ready to
strike, and that you are risking life, and perhaps more than life, out
of a delicacy no other man would show towards a child—since child you
will have her—who, I feel sure, deserves all she might receive from
the hands of one who would have the truth at any cost."

"You feel," I answered, "for me as I should feel for you. But is death
so terrible to
us
? It means leaving you—I wish we knew that it does
not mean losing for ever, after so brief an enjoyment, all that is
perishable in love like ours—or it would not be worth fearing. I
don't think I ever did fear it till you made my life so sweet. But
life is not worth an unkindness or injustice. Better die trusting to
the last than live in the misery and shame of suspecting one I love,
or dreading treacherous malice from any hand under my own roof."

When I met Davilo the next morning, the grave and anxious expression
of his face—usually calm and serene even in deepest thought, as are
those of the experienced members of an Order confident in the
consciousness of irresistible secret power—not a little disturbed me.
As Eveena had said, the thunder-cloud was forming; and a chill went to
my heart which in facing measurable and open peril it had never felt.

"I bring you," he said; "a message that will not, I am afraid, be
welcome. He whose guest you were at Serocasfe invites you to pay him
an immediate visit; and the invitation must be accepted at once."

I drew myself up with no little indignation at the imperative tone,
but feeling at least equal awe at the stern calmness with which the
mandate was spoken.

"And what compels me to such haste, or to compliance without
consideration?"

"That power," he returned, "which none can resist, and to which you
may not demur."

Seeing that I still hesitated—in truth, the summons had turned my
vague misgiving into intense though equally vague alarm and even
terror, which as unmanly and unworthy I strove to repress, but which
asserted its domination in a manner as unwonted as unwelcome—he drew
aside a fold of his robe, and showed within the silver Star of the
Order, supported by the golden sash, that marked a rank second only to
that of the wearer of the Signet itself. I understood too well by this
time, through conversations with him and other communications of which
it has been needless to speak, the significance of this revelation. I
knew the impossibility of questioning the authority to which I had
pledged obedience. I realised with great amazement the fact that a
secondary position on my own estate, and a personal charge of my own
safety, had been accepted by a Chief of the Zinta.

"There is, of course," I replied at last, "no answer to a mandate so
enforced. But, Chief, reluctant as I am to say it, I fear—fear as I
have never done before; and yet fear I cannot say, I cannot guess
what."

"There is no cause for alarm," he said somewhat contemptuously. "In
this journey, sudden, speedy, and made under our guard as on our
summons, there is little or none of that peril which has beset you so
long."

"You forget, Chief," I rejoined, "that you speak to a soldier, whose
chosen trade was to risk life at the word of a superior; to one whose
youth thought no smile so bright as that of naked steel, and had often
'kissed the lips of the lightning' ere the down darkened his own. At
any rate, you have told me daily for more than a year that I am living
under constant peril of assassination; have I seemed to quail thereat?
If, then, I am now terrified for the first time, that which I dread,
without knowing or dreaming what it is, is assuredly a peril worse
than any I have known, the shadow of a calamity against which I have
neither weapon nor courage. It cannot be for myself that I am thus
appalled," I continued, the thought flashing into my mind as I spoke
it, "and there is but one whose life is so closely bound with mine
that danger to her should bring such terror as this. I go at your
bidding, but I will not go alone."

He paused for some time, apparently in perplexity, certainly in deep
thought, before he replied.

"As you will. One thing more. The slips of tafroo with which you
furnished me have been under the eyes of which you have heard. This"
(handing me the one that bore no mark) "has passed, so far as the
highest powers of the sense that is not of the body can perceive,
through none but innocent hands. The hand from which you received
this" (the marked slip) "is spotted with treason, and may to-morrow be
red."

I was less impressed by this declaration than probably would have been
any other member of the Order. I had seen on Earth the most marvellous
perceptions of a perfectly lucid vision succeeded, sometimes within
the space of the same day, by dreams or hallucinations the most
absolutely deceptive. I felt, therefore, more satisfaction in the
acquittal of Eunané, whom I had never doubted, than trouble at the
grave suspicion suggested against Eivé—a suspicion I still refused to
entertain.

"You should enter your balloon as soon as the sunset mist will conceal
it," said Davilo. "By mid-day you may reach the deep bay on the mid
sea-belt of the North, where a swift vessel will meet you and convey
you in two or three days by a direct course through the canal and gulf
you have traversed already, to the port from which you commenced your
first submarine voyage."

"You had better," I said, "make your instruction a little more
particular, or I shall hardly know how to direct my course."

"Do not dream," he answered, "that you will be permitted to undertake
such a journey but under the safest guidance. At the time I have named
all will be ready for your departure, and you have simply to sleep or
read or meditate as you will, till you reach your destination."

Eveena was not a little startled when I informed her of the sudden
journey before me, and my determination that she should be my
companion. It was unquestionably a trying effort for her, especially
the balloon voyage, which would expose her to the cold of the mists
and of the night, and I feared to the intenser cold of the upper air.
But I dared not leave her, and she was pleased by a peremptory
decision which made her the companion of my absence, without leaving
room for discussion or question. The time for our departure was
drawing near when, followed by Eunané, she came into my chamber.

"If we are to be long away," she said, "you must say on whom my
charges are to devolve."

"As you please," I answered, sure of her choice, and well content to
see her hand over her cares to Eunané, who, if she lacked the wisdom
and forbearance of Eveena, could certainly hold the reins with a
stronger hand.

"Eivé," she said, "has asked the charge of my flowerbed; but I had
promised it, and"—

"And you would rather give it," I answered, "to Eunané? Naturally; and
I should not care to allow Eivé the chance of spoiling your work. I
think we may now trust whatever is yours in those once troublesome
hands," looking at Eunané, "with perfect assurance that they will do
their best."

I had never before parted even from Eunané with any feeling of regret;
but on this occasion an impulse I could not account for, but have ever
since been glad to remember, made me turn at the last moment and add
to Eveena's earnest embrace a few words of affection and confidence,
which evidently cheered and encouraged her deputy. The car that
awaited us was of the light tubular construction common here, formed
of the silvery metal
zorinta
. About eighteen feet in length and half
that breadth, it was divided into two compartments; each, with the aid
of canopy and curtains, forming at will a closed tent, and securing
almost as much privacy as an Arab family enjoys, or opening to the
sky. In that with which the sails and machinery were connected were
Davilo and two of his attendants. The other had been carefully lined
and covered with furs and wrappings, indicating an attention to my
companion which indeed is rarely shown to women by their own lords,
and which none but the daughter of Esmo would have received even among
the brethren of the Order. Ere we departed I had arranged her cushions
and wrapped her closely in the warmest coverings; and flinging over
her at last the kargynda skin received from the Camptâ, I bade her
sleep if possible during our aerial voyage. There was need to provide
as carefully as possible for her comfort. The balloon shot up at once
above the evening mists to a height at which the cold was intense, but
at which our voyage could be guided by the stars, invisible from
below, and at which we escaped the more dangerously chilling damp. The
wind that blew right in our teeth, caused by no atmospheric current
but by our own rapid passage, would in a few moments have frozen my
face, perhaps fatally, had not thick skins been arranged to screen us.
Even through these it blew with intense severity, and I was glad
indeed to cover myself from head to foot and lie down beside Eveena.
Her hand as she laid it on mine was painfully cold; but the shivering
I could hardly suppress made her anxious to part in my favour with
some at least of the many coverings that could hardly screen herself
from the searching blast. Not at the greatest height I reached among
the Himalayas, nor on the Steppes of Tartary, had I experienced a cold
severer than this. The Sun had just turned westward when we reached
the port at which we were to embark. Despite the cold, Eveena had
slept during the latter part of our voyage, and was still sleeping
when I placed her on the cushions in our cabin. The sudden and most
welcome change from bitter cold to comfortable warmth awakened her, as
it at last allowed me to sleep. Our journey was continued below the
surface at a rate of more than twelve hundred miles in the day, a
speed which made observation through the thick but perfectly
transparent side windows of our cabin impossible. I was indisposed for
meditation, which could have been directed to no other subject than
the mysterious purpose of our journey, and had not provided myself
with books. But in Eveena's company it was impossible that the time
should pass slowly or wearily.