Part 3 (1/2)
”How strange! Do you never wash in your country?”
”Yes, but it is a matter left largely to our own discretion; so, my dear girl, if you will leave me for a minute or two in quest of that meal you have mentioned, I will guarantee to be ready when it comes.”
Away she slipped, with a shrug of her rosy shoulders, to return presently, carrying a tray covered with a white cloth, whereon were half a dozen glittering covers whence came most fragrant odours of cooked things.
”Why, comrade,” I said, sitting down and lifting lid by lid, for the cold, sweet air outside had made me hungry, ”this is better than was hoped for; I thought from what I saw down yonder I should have to trot behind a tumbril for my breakfast, and eat it on my heels amongst your sleepy friends below.”
An replied, ”The stranger is a prince, we take it, in his own country, and princes fare not quite like common people, even here.”
”So,” I said, my mouth full of a strange, unknown fish, and a cake soft as milk and white as cotton in the pod. ”Now that makes me feel at home!”
”Would you have had it otherwise with us?”
”No! now I come to think of it, it is most natural things should be much alike in all the corners of the universe; the splendid simplicity that rules the spheres, works much the same, no doubt, upon one side of the sun as upon the other. Yet, somehow--you can hardly wonder at it--yesterday I looked to find your world, when I realised where I had tumbled to, a world of djin and giants; of mad possibilities over realised, and here I see you dwellers by the utterly remote little more marvellous than if I had come amongst you on the introduction of a cheap tourist ticket, and round some neglected corner of my own distant world!”
”I hardly follow your meaning, sir.”
”No, no, of course you cannot. I was forgetting you did not know!
There, pa.s.s me the stuff on yonder platter that looks like caked mud from an anchor fluke, and swells like breath of paradise, and let me question you;” and while I sat and drank with that yellow servitor sitting in front of me, I plied her with questions, just as a baby might who had come into the world with a full-blown gift of speech.
But though she was ready and willing enough to answer, and laughed gaily at my quaint ignorance of simple things, yet there was little water in the well.
”Had they any kind of crafts or science; any cult of stars or figures?”
But again she shook her head, and said, ”Hath might know, Hath understood most things, but herself knew little of either.” ”Armies or navies?” and again the Martian shrugged her shoulders, questioning in turn--
”What for?”
”What for!” I cried, a little angry with her engaging dulness, ”Why, to keep that which the strong hand got, and to get more for those who come next; navies to sweep yonder blue seas, and armies to ward what they should bring home, or guard the city walls against all enemies,--for I suppose, An,” I said, putting down my knife as the cheering thought came on me,--”I suppose, An, you have some enemies? It is not like Providence to give such riches as you possess, such lands, such cities, and not to supply the antidote in some one poor enough to covet them.”
At once the girl's face clouded over, and it was obvious a tender subject had been chanced upon. She waved her hand impatiently as though to change the subject, but I would not be put off.
”Come,” I said, ”this is better than breakfast. It was the one thing--this unknown enemy of yours--wanting to lever the dull ma.s.s of your too peacefulness. What is he like? How strong? How stands the quarrel between you? I was a soldier myself before the sea allured me, and love horse and sword best of all things.”
”You would not jest if you knew our enemy!”
”That is as it may be. I have laughed in the face of many a stronger foe than yours is like to prove; but anyhow, give me a chance to judge.
Come, who is it that frightens all the blood out of your cheeks by a bare mention and may not be laughed at even behind these substantial walls?”
”First, then, you know, of course, that long ago this land of ours was harried from the West.”
”Not I.”
”No!” said An, with a little warmth. ”If it comes to that, you know nothing.”
Whereat I laughed, and, saying the reply was just, vowed I would not interrupt again; so she wont on saying how Hath--that interminable Hath!--would know it all better than she did, but long ago the land was overrun by a people from beyond the broad, blue waters outside; a people huge of person, hairy and savage, uncouth, unlettered, and poor An's voice trembled even to describe them; a people without mercy or compunction, dwellers in woods, eaters of flesh, who burnt, plundered, and destroyed all before them, and had toppled over this city along with many others in an ancient foray, the horrors of which, still burnt lurid in her people's minds.
”Ever since then,” went on the girl, ”these odious terrors of the outer land have been a nightmare to us, making hectic our pleasures, and filling our peace with horrid thoughts of what might be, should they chance to come again.”
”'Tis unfortunate, no doubt, lady,” I answered. ”Yet it was long ago, and the plunderers are far away. Why not rise and raid them in turn?
To live under such a nightmare is miserable, and a poet on my side of the ether has said--