Rudyard Kipling's Tales of Horror and Fantasy (43 page)

I got together and placed on one file all my notes; and the net result was not cheering. I read them a second time. There was nothing that might not have been compiled at second hand from other people's books – except, perhaps, the story of the fight in the harbour. The adventures of a Viking had been written many times before; the history of a Greek galley-slave was no new thing, and though I wrote both, who could challenge or confirm the accuracy of my details? I might as well tell a tale of two thousand years hence. The Lords of Life and Death were as cunning as Grish Chunder had hinted. They would allow nothing to escape that might trouble or make easy the minds of men. Though I was convinced of this, yet I could not leave the tale alone. Exaltation followed reaction not once, but twenty times in the next few weeks. My moods varied with the March sunlight and flying clouds. By night or in the beauty of a spring morning I perceived that I could write that tale and shift continents thereby. In the wet windy afternoons, I saw that the tale might indeed be written, but would be nothing more than a faked, false-varnished, sham-rusted piece of Wardour Street work in the end. Then I blessed Charlie in many ways – though it was no fault of his. He seemed to be busy with prize competitions, and I saw less and less of him as the weeks went by and the earth cracked and grew ripe to spring, and the buds swelled in their sheaths. He did not care to read or talk of what he had read, and there was a new ring of self-assertion in his voice. I hardly cared to remind him of the galley when we met; but Charlie alluded it on every occasion, always as a story from which money was to be made.

‘I think I deserve twenty-five per cent, don't I, at least?' hesaid, with beautiful frankness. ‘I supplied all the ideas, didn't I?'

This greediness for silver was a new side in his nature. I assumed that it had been developed in the City, where Charlie was picking up the curious nasal drawl of the underbred City man.

‘When the thing's done we'll talk about it. I can't make anything of it at present. Red-haired or black-haired heroes are equally difficult.'

He was sitting by the fire staring at the red coals. ‘
I
can't understand what you find so difficult. It's all as clear as mud to me,' he replied. A jet of gas puffed out between the bars, took light, and whistled softly. ‘Suppose we take the red-haired hero's adventures first, from the time that he came south to my galley and captured it and sailed to the Beaches.'

I knew better now than to interrupt Charlie. I was out of reach of pen and paper, and dared not move to get them lest I should break the current. The gas-jet puffed and whinnied, Charlie's voice dropped almost to a whisper, and he told a tale of the sailing of an open galley to Furdurstrandi, of sunsets on the open sea, seen under the curve of the one sail evening after evening when the galley's beak was notched into the centre of the sinking disc, and ‘we sailed by that, for we had no other guide,' quoth Charlie. He spoke of a landing on an island and explorations in its woods, where the crew killed three men whom they found asleep under the pines. Their ghosts, Charlie said, followed the galley, swimming and choking in the water, and the crew cast lots and threw one of their number overboard as a sacrifice to the strange gods whom they had offended. Then they ate sea-weed when their provisions failed, and their legs swelled, and their leader, the red-haired man, killed two rowers who mutinied, and after a year spent among the woods they set sail for their own country, and a wind that never failed carried them back so safely that they all slept at night. This and much more Charlie told. Sometimes the voice fell so low that I could not catch the words, though every nerve was on the strain. He spoke of their leader, the red-haired man, as a pagan speaks of his God; for it was hewho cheered them and slew them impartially as he thought best for their needs; and it was he who steered them for three days among floating ice, each floe crowded with strange beasts that ‘tried to sail with us,' said Charlie, ‘and we beat them back with the handles of the oars.'

The gas-jet went out, a burnt coal gave way, and the fire settled with a tiny crash to the bottom of the grate. Charlie ceased speaking, and I said no word.

‘By Jove!' he said at last, shaking his head. ‘I've been staring at the fire till I'm dizzy. What was I going to say?'

‘Something about the galley book.'

‘I remember now. It's twenty-five per cent of the profits, isn't it?'

‘It's anything you like when I've done the tale.'

‘I wanted to be sure of that. I must go now. I've – I've an appointment.' And he left me.

Had not my eyes been held I might have known that that broken muttering over the fire was the swan-song of Charlie Mears. But I thought it the prelude to fuller revelation. At last and at last I should cheat the Lords of Life and Death!

When next Charlie came to me I received him with rapture. He was nervous and embarrassed, but his eyes were very full of light, and his lips a little parted.

‘I've done a poem,' he said; and then, quickly: ‘It's the best I've ever done. Read it.' He thrust it into my hand and retreated to the window.

I groaned inwardly. It would be the work of half an hour to criticise – that is to say, praise – the poem sufficiently to please Charlie. Then I had good reason to groan, for Charlie, discarding his favourite centipede metres, had launched into shorter and choppier verse, and verse with a motive at the back of it. This is what I read:–

‘The day is most fair, the cheery wind

Halloos behind the hill,

Where he bends the wood as seemeth good.

And the sapling to his will!

Riot, O wind; there is that in my blood

That would not: have thee still!

‘She gave me herself, O Earth, O Sky;

Gray sea, she is mine alone!

Let the sullen boulders hear my cry,

And rejoice tho' they be but stone!

‘Mine! I have won her, O good brown earth,

Make merry! 'Tis hard on Spring;

Make merry; my love is doubly worth

All worship your fields can bring!

Let the hind that tills you feel my mirth

At the early harrowing!'

‘Yes, it's the early harrowing, past a doubt,' I said, with a dread at my heart. Charlie smiled, but did not answer.

‘Red cloud of the sunset, tell it abroad;

I am victor. Greet me, O Sun,

Dominant master and absolute lord

Over the soul of one!'

‘Well?' said Charlie, looking over my shoulder.

I thought it far from well, and very evil indeed, when he silently laid a photograph on the paper – the photograph of a girl with a curly head and a foolish slack mouth.

‘Isn't it – isn't it wonderful?' he whispered, pink to the tips of his ears, wrapped in the rosy mystery of first love. ‘I didn't know; I didn't think – it came like a thunderclap.'

‘Yes. It comes like a thunderclap. Are you very happy, Charlie?'

‘My God – she – she loves me!' He sat down repeating the last words to himself. I looked at the hairless face, the narrow shoulders already bowed by desk-work, and wondered when, where, and how he had loved in his past lives.

‘What will your mother say?' I asked cheerfully.

‘I don't care a damn what she says!'

At twenty the things for which one does not care a damnshould, properly, be many, but one must not include mothers in the list. I told him this gently; and he described Her, even as Adam must have described to the newly-named beasts the glory and tenderness and beauty of Eve. Incidentally I learned that She was a tobacconist's assistant with a weakness for pretty dress, and had told him four or five times already that She had never been kissed by a man before.

Charlie spoke on and on, and on; while I, separated from him by thousands of years, was considering the beginnings of things. Now I understood why the Lords of Life and Death shut the doors so carefully behind us. It is that we may not remember our first and most beautiful wooings. Were this not so, our world would be without inhabitants in a hundred years.

‘Now, about the galley-story,' I said still more cheerfully, in a pause in the rush of the speech.

Charlie looked up as though he had been hit. ‘The galley – what galley? Good heavens, don't joke, man! This is serious! You don't know how serious it is!'

Grish Chunder was right. Charlie had tasted the love of woman that kills remembrance, and the finest story in the world would never be written.

THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC

Though thou love her as thyself,

As a self of purer clay,

Though her parting dim the day,

Stealing grace from all alive,

Heartily know

When half Gods go

The Gods arrive.

Emerson

Thousands of years ago, when men were greater than they are to-day, the Children of the Zodiac lived in the world. There were six Children of the Zodiac – the Ram, the Bull, Leo, the Twins, and the Girl; and they were afraid of the Six Houses which belonged to the Scorpion, the Balance, the Crab, the Fishes, the Archer, and the Waterman. Even when they first stepped down upon the earth and knew that they were immortal Gods, they carried this fear with them; and the fear grew as they became better acquainted with mankind and heard stories of the Six Houses. Men treated the Children as Gods and came to them with prayers and long stories of wrong, while the Children of the Zodiac listened and could not understand.

A mother would fling herself before the feet of the Twins, or the Bull, crying: ‘My husband was at work in the fields and the Archer shot him and he died; and my son will also be killed by the Archer. Help me!' The Bull would lower his huge head and answer: ‘What is that to me?' Or the Twins would smile and continue their play, for they could not understand why the water ran out of people's eyes. At other times a man and a woman would come to Leo or the Girl crying: ‘We two are newly married and we are very happy. Take these flowers.' As they threw the flowers they would make mysterious sounds toshow that they were happy, and Leo and the Girl wondered even more than the Twins why people shouted ‘Ha! ha! ha!'for no cause.

This continued for thousands of years by human reckoning, till on a day, Leo met the Girl walking across the hills and saw that she had changed entirely since he had last seen her. The Girl, looking at Leo, saw that he too had changed altogether. Then they decided that it would be well never to separate again, in case even more startling changes should occur when the one was not at hand to help the other. Leo kissed the Girl and all Earth felt that kiss, and the Girl sat down on a hill and the water ran out of her eyes; and this had never happened before in the memory of the Children of the Zodiac.

As they sat together a man and a woman came by, and the man said to the woman:

‘What is the use of wasting flowers on those dull Gods? They will never understand, darling.'

The Girl jumped up and put her arms round the woman, crying, ‘I understand. Give me the flowers and I will give you a kiss.'

Leo said beneath his breath to the man ‘What was the new name that I heard you give to your woman just now?'

The man answered, ‘Darling, of course.'

‘Why “of course”?' said Leo; ‘and if of course, what does it mean?'

‘It means “very dear,” and you have only to look at your wife to see why.'

‘I see,' said Leo; ‘you are quite right'; and when the man and the woman had gone on he called the Girl ‘darling wife'; and the Girl wept again from sheer happiness.

‘I think,' she said at last, wiping her eyes, ‘I think that we two have neglected men and women too much. What did you do with the sacrifices they made to you, Leo?'

‘I let them burn,' said Leo; ‘I could not eat them. What did you do with the flowers?'

‘I let them wither. I could not wear them, I had so many of my own,' said the Girl, ‘and now I am sorry.'

‘There is nothing to grieve for,' said Leo; ‘we belong to each other.'

As they were talking the years of men's life slipped by unnoticed, and presently the man and the woman came back, both white-headed, the man carrying the woman.

‘We have come to the end of things,' said the man quietly. ‘This that was my wife—'

‘As I am Leo's wife,' said the Girl quickly, her eyes staring.

‘—was my wife, has been killed by one of your Houses.' The man set down his burden, and laughed.

‘Which House?' said Leo angrily, for he hated all the Houses equally.

‘You are Gods, you should know,' said the man. ‘We have lived together and loved one another, and I have left a good farm for my son. What have I to complain of except that I still live?'

As he was bending over his wife's body there came a whistling through the air, and he started and tried to run away, crying, ‘It is the arrow of the Archer. Let me live a little longer – only a little longer!' The arrow struck him and he died. Leo looked at the Girl and she looked at him, and both were puzzled.

‘He wished to die,' said Leo. ‘He said that he wished to die, and when Death came he tried to run away. He is a coward.'

‘No, he is not,' said the Girl; ‘I think I feel what he felt. Leo, we must learn more about this for their sakes.'

‘For
their
sakes,' said Leo, very loudly.

‘Because
we
are never going to die,' said the Girl and Leo together, still more loudly.

‘Now sit you still here, darling wife,' said Leo, ‘while I go to the Houses whom we hate, and learn how to make these men and women live as we do.'

‘And love as we do,' said the Girl.

‘I do not think they need to be taught that,' said Leo, and he strode away very angry, with his lion-skin swinging from his shoulder, till he came to the House where the Scorpion lives in the darkness, brandishing his tail over his back.