Part 27 (1/2)
In the silence of the brilliant night I stood beneath those amazing relics of a forgotten civilisation and pictured the departed magnificence of the wonderful structure. There remained portions of an enormous gateway, with giant winged human figures carved out of huge blocks of stone; and on examining one of these I found a portion of an inscription, in long, thin lines of arrowheads, easily decipherable in the full light of the moon. After a little difficulty I succeeded in reading it as follows:--
”_In the beginning of my everlasting reign there was revealed to me a dream. Merodach, the Great Lord, and Sin, the Illuminator of Heaven and Earth, stood round about me. Merodach spake to me, `O Semiramis, Queen of Babylon, with the horses of thy chariot come, the bricks of the House of Light make, and the Moon, the Great Lord within it caused to be raised his dwelling.' Reverently I spake to the lord of the G.o.ds, Merodach, `This house, of which thou speakest, I will build, and the temple shall be the dwelling of the Moon-G.o.d in Ea_'.”
What a magnificent pile it must have been in those long-forgotten days when the legions of Semiramis marched, in glittering array, through the long colonnade to wors.h.i.+p the Moon-G.o.d, Sin, beneath the statues of ill.u.s.trious Babylonians! or when their luxurious ruler, enthroned a queen in the hearts of her people, and dowered with charms that inspired to heroism, flashed through those great corridors in her gilded chariot, surrounded by her crowd of martial courtiers and fair slaves! or when, with bare arms and golden helmet on her head, with all the pomp of war, she sallied forth on her fleet steed, caparisoned in crimson and gold, to review and harangue her warriors on the plain.
Allah had destroyed it because it was unG.o.dly.
No trace of the presence of living man had I discovered, and I began to wonder whether, after all, this Land of the No Return was uninhabited; for was it not likely that in the ages that had pa.s.sed since its discovery by Babylon's queen, the colony, like the once-powerful race beside the Euphrates, had dwindled away and become entirely extinct!
There were no signs of these ruins having been visited, no trace of any recent encampment, or the dead ashes of the fires of recent travellers.
Upon the stretch of bare, stony ground, before the half-ruined gateway which would have served as a good camping-ground, I searched diligently, but discovered nothing that proved the existence of inhabitants; therefore, wearied and footsore, I at length threw myself down at the base of one of the giant monoliths, and with part of my gandoura over my face to s.h.i.+eld it from the evil influence of the moonbeams, sank into heavy, dreamless slumber.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.
A VISITANT FROM THE MISTS.
Day had dawned fully three hours ere I arose. The great ruins, revealed by the brilliant morning sun, were much more extensive than I had at first believed. For fully half a mile mighty columns rose, here and there, like gigantic, moveless giants; many had fallen, and their walls of enormous blocks and their prostrate pillars looked up piteously to the day. Time alone had worn down their rigid strength, and swept the capstones from the towers. Time, too, had clad some of them in a disintegrating mantle of green.
There was not one of the hundred columns and monoliths in which did not lurk some tale, or many tales, of loyalty, or treason, or despair.
There was not one of the five great gates I could distinguish whose portal had not swung open wide for processions of triumphal pageantry, of exalted grief, of pagan pomp, or military expedition. Thick as the leaves of the climbing plants, festooning crevice, niche and broken parapet, must be the legends, traditions and true tales that enwrapped those walls if man still inhabited that land. Upon the stones, chipped with surprising neatness and regularity, were many uneffaced inscriptions; the pompous eulogies therein contained being the only epitaphs the long-dead founders of the Kingdom of Ea possessed. This prodigious pile, useless centuries ago, torn by earthquakes and half levelled by time, was indeed a fitting monument to the great Semiramis, the self-indulgent Queen, the conqueror of all lands from the Indus to the Mediterranean, and builder of Babylon, the most extensive and wonderful capital in the world.
At last, turning my back upon the desolate scene, I went forward and commenced to ascend the steep hillside. It was a stiff ascent, but, on gaining the summit, I looked down upon a panorama of beauty impossible to adequately describe. Streams, forests and verdant valleys stretched out below, bounded far away by a range of fantastic mountains rising in finger points in all directions. Proceeding in search of the mysterious, unknown city, which, according to the inscription, lay in the direction of prayer, I descended the steep hill, pa.s.sed through vast entanglements of jungle in the valleys, suddenly coming across a delightful stream watering a narrow valley with precipitous walls of rock on either side, and densely filled with all kinds of tropical vegetation. I ate some bananas, revelled in the luxury of a bath, and then continued my journey towards the sunrise by plunging into a forest of quol-quol trees, some of which reached to the height of sixty feet, stretching out their weird arms in every direction. The quol-quol is an uncanny-looking tree, exuding a poisonous, milky gum, which is exceedingly dangerous. The Dervishes, in making their roads around Khartoum and Omdurman, had much difficulty with this tree, for the milk from it, if it squirts into the eyes when the tree is cut, produces blindness. Beneath the trees were flowering, rich-coloured gladioli, long, hanging orchids, sugar plants, and many th.o.r.n.y trees of a species I had never before seen.
Lonely, and half convinced that I had entered a land uninhabited and forgotten, I threaded the mazes of this veritable poison forest, at length emerging into a clump of gigantic baobabs, and thence into a slightly undulating district, spa.r.s.ely clothed with thorns and euphorbia, and teeming with game. At last I found myself crossing a beautiful, park-like track where herds of buffalo grazed undisturbed, and at sundown came to a rich, fertile country, dotted with clumps of pine-trees and large patches of forest, abounding in pretty glades and glens of mimosa brush full of beautiful blue birds and monkeys.
That night I sought sleep under a huge sycamore, and next day continued my tramp towards the distant range of mountains, over the crests of which showed the first rosy tint of dawn. Compelled sometimes to wade streams, and often climbing and descending precipitous rocks, pa.s.sing through narrow, romantic gorges, and coming now and then upon beautiful and unexpected cascades, I toiled onward through that day, and although I pa.s.sed some ruins, apparently of a house, half hidden by wild vegetation, yet I discovered no trace of the existence of living man.
Never before had I experienced such a sense of utter loneliness. I had the bright sun and cloudless sky above. I was free to wander hither and thither, and around me grew fruits that were the necessaries of life; but I was alive in a region which, as far as I could observe, had remained untrodden for many centuries. Again I spent the night beneath a tree, my head pillowed on a fallen branch; and again I set forth to reach my goal, as recorded on the rock-tablet of Semiramis. Forward, ever in the direction of the Holy Ca'aba across gra.s.s plains, through rocky ravines and shady woods bright with flowers, and as sweetly-scented as the harem of a sultan, I trudged onward, in my hand a long, stout staff which I had broken from a tree, in my heart a feeling that I alone was monarch of this smiling, unknown Land of the No Return that I had discovered.
Yet I remembered that, after all, I had not yet elucidated the mystery of which I was in search--the reason of the Mark of the Asps; and although I had discovered it in the hand of the a.s.syrian G.o.ddess, yet such discovery only increased its mystery. So I kept on my toilsome path, stage by stage, still pious, still hopeful, still believing that the secret of the linked reptiles would eventually be explained.
Never swerving from the direction of the sunrise, and each day at the _maghrib_ making a mark upon my staff with the sharp stone I carried, I continued in search of the city of Semiramis. Up the almost inaccessible face of one of the great mountains of the range I had seen afar I toiled many hours, until, stepping from suns.h.i.+ne into mist and drizzle, my feet were upon the snow that covered their summits, and the intense cold chilled me to the bone. Higher yet was I compelled to climb, until, as if by magic, I pa.s.sed through the belt of mist into brilliant suns.h.i.+ne again. The effect was one of the most curious I had ever witnessed. Below was a sea of crumpled clouds, extending as far as the eye could reach, out of which peered high mountain peaks like islands in a sea of fleecy wool. During two whole days I clambered, half-starved and chilled, across this vast, towering range. The air was health-giving and invigorating. In the early morning everything was clear and bright; as the day advanced the clouds would gather from the plains and gradually roll up the mountain side, enveloping the lowlands and valleys in a dense mist; occasionally, towards sundown, this mist would roll over the edge and envelop a little of the high plateau in its clammy folds, but it quickly dispersed as the sun went down, and the morning would again break bright, with h.o.a.r frost sparkling everywhere.
At the foot of the mountains the ground was swampy and enveloped perpetually in a white mist, so dense that, for a further period of two days, I wandered over the marshes, not knowing the direction in which I was travelling, but trusting to the keen natural instinct with which men of my race are endowed. So dense was this mist hanging over the trackless, pestilential bog that I could distinguish nothing a leopard's leap distant, and my gandoura was as soaked with moisture as if I had waded a river. Judge my surprise, however, when suddenly I found that the vapours had veiled from my eager eyes another more inaccessible and still higher belt of mountain than the first.
Darkness was already creeping on when I made this discovery, therefore I resolved to rest and sleep before attempting to climb the rugged heights before me. It was necessary, in order to discover the direction of the mysterious city, that I should climb above the belt of impenetrable mist and take bearings in the clear atmosphere. Fortunately I had found a banana-tree a few hours previously and carried some of its fruit with me, therefore I ate my fill, and afterwards threw myself down to s.n.a.t.c.h a few hours' slumber.
How long I lay I know not, but I was startled by feeling a soft, clammy object steal slowly across my breast. It was as icy cold as the hand of a corpse. Opening my eyes quickly, I was dazzled by a brilliant light s.h.i.+ning into them, but in an instant the bright flash disappeared and an unearthly and demoniac yell sounded about me. In the impenetrable darkness, caused by night and the dense mist combined, I could distinguish nothing, but, starting up, held my breath in alarm, listening to the echoing yells receding in the distance. They sounded like three loud shouts in the same strain, followed by a long, plaintive wail.
At first I endeavoured to rea.s.sure myself that my breast had not been touched by the clammy snout of some wandering animal which had been startled by my sudden movement, but try how I would I could not convince myself that those yells proceeded from any but a human being. Again, as I felt my gandoura, I discovered that it had been unloosened with care, evidently for the purpose of closely examining the mark I bore upon my breast! The bright light, too, was an undeniable fact which pointed conclusively to the presence of human inhabitants of this mist-enveloped ravine.
Sleep came no more to my eyes, for through the long, dreary night I kept a watchful vigil. Strange noises, as if of some one moving cautiously in my vicinity, sounded about me, but in which direction I could never detect with certainty, for both shadows and sounds became distorted by the thick vapours by which I was surrounded. Several times I heard the same mysterious, mournful cry, now close to me, and again sounding afar, as if in answer to the plaintive call. Scarcely daring to move, I patiently awaited the light of day, which came at last, spreading gradually at first, but soon causing the darkness around me to fall, and the white, choking vapours to become more dense and bewildering. There was the same strange, sulphurous odour that I had experienced when swimming the Lake of the Accursed, and I began to fear that the poisonous gases exuded from the swamps would cause asphyxiation. As soon, therefore, as the light grew strong enough to enable me to see where I placed my feet, I started forward to face the huge mountain. I had not taken three paces before my eyes, keeping careful watch upon the ground, detected something which caused me to involuntarily utter a cry of surprise.
At my feet was lying a short, straight sword, in a scabbard of beautifully-chased gold, with a magnificently jewelled cross hilt. It was attached to a leather girdle, the buckle of which was thickly set with fine emeralds, and the bright condition of the scabbard, and the keen, unrusted appearance of the blued-steel blade told me that it had not remained there many hours. Then it occurred to me that the weapon was similar in design to the ancient one I had found in the Cavern of the Devourer, and that it must have been dropped by my mysterious visitant. It was plain that, after all, I was not the only human being in that mysterious Land of the No Return; equally certain, also, that my intrusion had been discovered.
Was this the Land of the Myriad Mysteries, that region dreaded by my clansmen of the deserts from the Atlas to the Niger? Was this weird, misty gorge, devoid of herbage, and exuding a death-dealing breath, the actual entrance of the territory of all-consuming terror?
I paused, examining the weapon curiously, wondering who might be its owner. Fearing, however, to remain there longer, I buckled the girdle about my waist, and aided by my staff, commenced the steep and toilsome ascent.
An hour's hard climbing took me above the heavy vapours into the brilliant light of day, and I then discovered that the mountain I was negotiating was of greater alt.i.tude than any of the peaks of my native Atlas. At first the slopes were gra.s.s-covered, and mimosa bushes grew plentifully, but as I went higher there were only patches of stunted herbage, and higher still no herbage grew. As hour by hour I toiled upward, in places so steep that I had to use both hands and knees, I gradually neared the region of eternal snow. Soon after noon I halted, seating myself upon a rock to rest. Gloomy thoughts oppressed me.