Part 3 (1/2)
They will elect you honorary member. Take my advice. Avoid the whisky.”
Denis remarked, after a critical glance in the same direction:
”I notice that the Commissioner looks redder in the face than when I last saw him.”
”That,” said Keith, ”is one of Mr. Parker's characteristics.”
CHAPTER III
Concerning the life and martyrdom of Saint Dodeka.n.u.s, patron of Nepenthe, we possess hardly any information of a trustworthy nature. It is with his career as with that of other saints: they become overlaid--encrusted, as it were--with extraneous legendary material in the course of ages, even as a downward-rolling avalanche gathers snow.
The nucleus is hard to find. What is incontestably true may be summed up almost in one paragraph.
He was born in A.D. 450, or thereabouts, in the city of Kallisto, in Crete. He was an only child, a beautiful but unruly boy, the despair of his widowed mother. At the age of thirteen he encountered, one evening, an elderly man of thoughtful mien, who addressed him in familiar language. On several later occasions he discoursed with the same personage, in a grove of laurels and pines known as Alephane; but what pa.s.sed between them, and whether it was some divine apparition, or merely a man of flesh and blood, was never discovered, for he seems to have kept his mother in ignorance of the whole affair. From that time onward his conduct changed. He grew pensive, mild, and charitable. He entered, as youthful acolyte, a neighbouring Convent of Salacian monks, and quickly distinguished himself for piety and the gift of miracles.
In the short s.p.a.ce of three years, or thereabouts, he had healed eight lepers, caused the clouds to rain, walked dryshod over several rivers, and raised twenty-three persons from the dead.
At the age of eighteen he had a second vision. This time it was a young woman, of pleasing exterior. He discoursed with her, on several occasions, in the grove of laurels and pines known as Alephane; but what pa.s.sed between them, and whether it was a woman of flesh and blood, or merely an angel, was never discovered, for he seems to have kept his brother monks in ignorance of the whole affair. From that time onward his conduct changed. He grew restless and desirous of converting the heathen. He set sail for Lybia, suffered s.h.i.+pwreck in the Greater Syrtis, and narrowly escaped with his life. Thence he pa.s.sed onward, preaching to black nations as he moved along, and converting tribes innumerable. For three-and-thirty years he wandered till, one evening, he saw the moon rise on the right side of his face.
He had entered the land of the Crotalophoboi, cannibals and necromancers who dwelt in a region so hot, and with light so dazzling, that their eyes grew on the soles of their feet. Here he laboured for eighty years, redeeming them to Christianity from their magical and bloodthirsty practices. In recompense whereof they captured him at the patriarchal age of 132, or thereabouts, and bound him with ropes between two flat boards of palmwood. Thus they kept the prisoner, feeding him abundantly, until that old equinoctial feast drew near. On the evening of that day they sawed the whole, superst.i.tiously, into twelve separate pieces, one for each month of the year; and devoured of the saint what was to their liking.
During this horrid banquet a femur or thigh-bone was accidentally cast upon a millstone which lay by the sh.o.r.e, having been borrowed by the Crotalophoboi from the neighbouring tribe of Garimanes a good many years previously and never returned to them by reason, they declared, of its excessive weight. There it remained till, one day, during a potent sirocco tempest, the stone was uplifted by the force of the waters, and miraculously wafted over the sea to Nepenthe. Forthwith a chapel was built on the spot, to commemorate the event and preserve the sacred relic which soon began working wonders for the good of the island, such as warding off Saracenic invasions, procuring plentiful vintages, and causing sterile cattle to produce offspring.
In later years the main church was dedicated to Saint Dodeka.n.u.s and the relic moved thither and enclosed within that silver statue of the saint which is carried abroad in procession at his annual festival, or on any particular occasion when his help is to be invoked. And all through succeeding ages the cult of the saint waxed in pomp and splendour.
n.o.body, probably, has done more to foster pious feelings towards their island-patron than the Good Duke Alfred who, among other things, caused a stately frieze to be placed in the church, picturing in twelve marble tablets the twelve chief episodes in the life of the Saint--one for each month of the year. This frieze indeed was admired so unreservedly, so recklessly, that the Good Duke felt it his duty to remove the sculptor's eyes and (on second thoughts) his hands as well, in order that no other sovereign should possess works by so consummate a master of stonecraft. There the disciplinary measures ended. He did his best to console the gifted artist who was fed, henceforward, on lobsters, decorated with the order of the Golden Vine, and would doubtless have been enn.o.bled after death, had the Prince not predeceased the sculptor.
Such, briefly, is the history of Saint Dodeka.n.u.s, and the origin of his cult on Nepenthe.
Legends galore, often contradictory to this account and to one another, have cl.u.s.tered round his name, as was inevitable. He is supposed to have preached in Asia Minor; to have died as a young man, in his convent; to have become a hermit, a cobbler, a bishop (of Nicomedia), a eunuch, a politician. Two volumes of mediocre sermons in the Byzantine tongue have been ascribed to him. These and other crudities may be dismissed as apocryphal. Even his name has given rise to controversy, although its origin from the Greek word DODEKA, signifying twelve and alluding to the twelve morsels into which his body was superst.i.tiously divided, is as self-evident as well can be. Thus a worthy young canon of the church of Nepenthe, Giacinto Mellino, who has lately written a life of Saint Eulalia, the local patroness of sailors--her festival occurs twelve days after that of Saint Dodeka.n.u.s--takes occasion, in this otherwise commendable pamphlet, to scoff at the old-established derivation of the name and to propose an alternative etymology. He lays it down that then pagan inhabitants of the island, desirous of sharing in the benefits of Christianity which had already reached the mainland but left untouched their lonely rock, sent a missive to the bishop containing the two words DO DEKa.n.u.s: give us a deacon! The grammar is at fault, he explains, because of their rudimentary knowledge of the Latin tongue; they had only learnt, hitherto, the first person singular and the nominative case--so he says; and then proceeds to demonstrate, with unanswerable arguments, that Greek was the spoken language of Nepenthe at this period. Several scholars have been swayed by his specious logic to abandon the older and sounder interpretation. There are yet other conjectures about the word Dodeka.n.u.s, all more or less fanciful....
If the Crotalophoboi had not devoured the missionary Dodeka.n.u.s, we should a.s.suredly never have heard of Monsignor Perrelli, the learned and genial historian of Nepenthe. It was that story, he expressly tells us, which inflamed him, a mere visitor to the place, with a desire to know more about the island. A people like the Nepentheans, who could cherish in their hearts a tale of such beauty, must be worthy, he concluded, ”of the closest and most sympathetic scrutiny.” Thus, one thing leading to another, as always happens where local researches are concerned, he soon found himself collecting other legends, traditions, historical data, statistics of agriculture and natural productions, and so forth. The result of these labours was embodied in the renowned ANTIQUITIES OF NEPENTHE.
This book, a model of its kind, is written in Latin. It seems to have been the author's only work, and has gone through several editions; the last one--by no means the best as regards typography--being that of 1709.
The Crotalophoboi therefore, who procured the sanctification of Dodeka.n.u.s by methods hardly commendable to decent folks, can be said to have done some good in the world, if the creation of a literary masterpiece like these ANTIQUITIES, for which they are indirectly responsible, may be cla.s.sed under that head.
It is a pity we know so little of the life of this Monsignor Perrelli.
He is disappointingly reticent about himself. We learn that he was a native of the mainland; that he came here, as a youth, afflicted with rheumatic troubles; that these troubles were relived by an application of those health-giving waters which he lived to describe in one of the happiest sections of his work, and which were to become famous to the world at large through certain cla.s.sical experiments carried out under his contemporary, the Good Duke Alfred--a potentate who, by the way, does not seem to have behaved very prettily to our scholar. And that is absolutely all we know about him. The most painstaking enquiries on the part of Mr. Eames have failed to add a single item of positive information to our knowledge of the historian of Nepenthe. We cannot tell when, or where, he died. He seems to have ended in regarding himself as a native of the place. The wealth of material incorporated in the book leads to the supposition that he must have spent long years on the island. We may further presume, from his t.i.tle, that he belonged to the church; it was the surest path of advancement for a young man of quality in those days.
A perfunctory glance into his pages will suffice to prove that he lacked what is called the ecclesiastical bent of mind. Reading between the lines, one soon discovers that his is not so much a priest as a statesman and philosopher, a student curious in the lore of mankind and of nature--alert, sagacious, discriminating. He tells us, for example, that this legend of the visions and martyrdom of Saint Dodeka.n.u.s, which he was the first to disentangle from its heterogeneous accretions, was vastly to his liking. Why? Because of its churchly flavour? Not so; but because he detected therein ”truth and symbol. It is a tale of universal applicability; the type, as it were, of every great man's life, endeavour, and reward.” The introduction to these ANTIQUITIES, setting forth his maxims for the writing of history, might have been composed not three centuries ago, but yesterday--or even to-morrow; so modern is its note.
Hearken to these weighty words:
”Portraiture of characters and events should take the form of one gentleman conversing with another, in the easy tone of good society.
The author who sets out to address a crowd defeats his own object; he eliminates the essence of good writing--frankness. You cannot be frank with men of low condition. You must presuppose a refined and congenial listener, a man or woman whom you would not hesitate to take by the hand and lead into the circle of your own personal friends. If this applies to literature of every kind, it applies to history in a peculiar degree.
”History deals with situations and figures not imaginary but real. It demands therefore a combination of qualities unnecessary to the poet or writer of romance--glacial judgment coupled with fervent sympathy. The poet may be an inspired illiterate, the romance-writer an uninspired hack. Under no circ.u.mstances can either of them be accused of wronging or deceiving the public, however incongruous their efforts. They write well or badly, and there the matter ends. The historian, who fails in his duty, deceives the reader and wrongs the dead. A man weighted with such responsibilities is deserving of an audience more than usually select--an audience of his equals, men of the world. No vulgarian can be admitted to share those confidences....