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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f57f44 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text +*.htm text +*.html text +*.png binary +*.jpg binary +*.svg text +*.pdf binary +*.bmp binary +*.zip binary +*.midi binary +*.mp3 binary diff --git a/79376-0.txt b/79376-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3514bb3 --- /dev/null +++ b/79376-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,970 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79376 *** + + + + + The Voice of El-Lil + + By ROBERT E. HOWARD + + _In the heart of African Somaliland was an Oriental + city transplanted from the Tigris-Euphrates + valley--a modern tale of ancient Sumeria._ + + [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from + Oriental Stories, October-November, 1930.] + + +Maskat, like many another port, is a haven for the drifters of many +nations who bring their tribal customs and peculiarities with them. +Turk rubs shoulders with Greek and Arab squabbles with Hindoo. The +tongues of half the Orient resound in the loud smelly bazar. Therefore +it did not seem particularly incongruous to hear, as I leaned on a +bar tended by a smirking Eurasian, the musical notes of a Chinese +gong sound clearly through the lazy hum of native traffic. There was +certainly nothing so startling in those mellow tones that the big +Englishman next me should start and swear and spill his whisky-and-soda +on my sleeve. + +He apologized and berated his clumsiness with honest profanity, but +I saw he was shaken. He interested me as his type always does--a +fine upstanding fellow he was, over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, +narrow-hipped, heavy-limbed, the perfect fighting man, brown-faced, +blue-eyed and tawny-haired. His breed is old as Europe, and the man +himself brought to mind vague legendary characters--Hengist, Hereward, +Cerdic--born rovers and fighters of the original Anglo-Saxon stock. + +I saw, furthermore, that he was in a mood to talk. I introduced myself, +ordered drinks and waited. My specimen thanked me, muttered to himself, +quaffed his liquor hastily and spoke abruptly: + +"You're wondering why a grown man should be so suddenly upset by such +a small thing--well, I admit that damned gong gave me a start. It's +that fool Yotai Lao, bringing his nasty joss sticks and Buddhas into a +decent town--for a half-penny I'd bribe some Moslem fanatic to cut his +yellow throat and sink his confounded gong into the gulf. And I'll tell +you why I hate the thing. + +"My name," said my Saxon, "is Bill Kirby. It was in Jibuti on the +Gulf of Aden that I met John Conrad. A slim, keen-eyed young New +Englander he was--professor too, for all his youth. Victim of obsession +also, like most of his kind. He was a student of bugs, and it was a +particular bug that had brought him to the East Coast; or rather, +the hope of the blooming beast, for he never found it. It was almost +uncanny to see the chap work himself into a blaze of enthusiasm when +speaking on his favorite subject. No doubt he could have taught me much +I should know, but insects are not among my enthusiasms, and he talked, +dreamed and thought of little else at first. . . + +"Well, we paired off well from the start. He had money and ambitions +and I had a bit of experience and a roving foot. We got together a +small, modest but efficient safari and wandered down into the back +country of Somaliland. Now you'll hear it spoken today that this +country has been exhaustively explored and I can prove that statement +to be a lie. We found things that no white man has ever dreamed of. + +"We had trekked for the best part of a month and had gotten into a part +of the country I knew was unknown to the average explorer. The veldt +and thorn forests gave way to what approached real jungle and what +natives we saw were a thick-lipped, low-browed, dog-toothed breed--not +like the Somali at all. We wandered on though, and our porters and +askari began muttering among themselves. Some of the black fellows had +been hobnobbing with them and telling them tales that frightened them +from going on. Our men wouldn't talk to me or Conrad about it, but we +had a camp servant, a half-caste named Selim, and I told him to see +what he could learn. That night he came to my tent. We had pitched camp +in a sort of big glade and had built a thorn boma; for the lions were +raising merry Cain in the bush. + +"'Master,' said he in the mongrel English he was so proud of, 'them +black fella he is scaring the porters and askari with bad ju-ju talk. +They be tell about a mighty ju-ju curse on the country in which we go +to, and----' + +"He stopped short, turned ashy, and my head jerked up. Out of the dim, +jungle-haunted mazes of the south whispered a haunting voice. Like +the echo of an echo it was, yet strangely distinct, deep, vibrant, +melodious. I stepped from my tent and saw Conrad standing before a +fire, taut and tense as a hunting hound. + +"'Did you hear that?' he asked. 'What was it?' + +"'A native drum,' I answered--but we both knew I lied. The noise and +chatter of our natives about their cooking-fires had ceased as if they +had all died suddenly. + +"We heard nothing more of it that night, but the next morning we found +ourselves deserted. The black boys had decamped with all the luggage +they could lay hand to. We held a council of war, Conrad, Selim and I. +The half-caste was scared pink, but the pride of his white blood kept +him carrying on. + +"'What now?' I asked Conrad. 'We've our guns and enough supplies to give +us a sporting chance of reaching the coast.' + +"'Listen!' he raised his hand. Out across the bush-country throbbed +again that haunting whisper. 'We'll go on. I'll never rest until I know +what makes that sound. I never heard anything like it in the world +before.' + +"'The jungle will pick our bally bones,' I said. He shook his head. + +"'Listen!' said he. + +"It was like a call. It got into your blood. It drew you as a fakir's +music draws a cobra. I knew it was madness. But I didn't argue. We +cached most of our duffle and started on. Each night we built a thorn +boma and sat inside it while the big cats yowled and grunted outside. +And ever clearer as we worked deeper and deeper in the jungle mazes, +we heard that voice. It was deep, mellow, musical. It made you dream +strange things; it was pregnant with vast age. The lost glories of +antiquity whispered in its booming. It centered in its resonance all +the yearning and mystery of life; all the magic soul of the East. I +awoke in the middle of night to listen to its whispering echoes, and +slept to dream of sky-towering minarets, of long ranks of bowing, +brown-skinned worshippers, of purple-canopied peacock thrones and +thundering golden chariots. + +"Conrad had found something at last that rivalled his infernal +bugs in his interest. He didn't talk much; he hunted insects in an +absent-minded way. All day he would seem to be in an attitude of +listening, and when the deep golden notes would roll out across the +jungle, he would tense like a hunting dog on the scent, while into his +eyes would steal a look strange for a civilized professor. By Jove, +it's curious to see some ancient primal influence steal through the +veneer of a cold-blooded scientist's soul and touch the red flow of +life beneath! It was new and strange to Conrad; here was something he +couldn't explain away with his new-fangled, bloodless psychology. + + * * * * * + +"Well, we wandered on in that mad search--for it's the white man's +curse to go into Hell to satisfy his curiosity. Then in the gray light +of an early dawn the camp was rushed. There was no fight. We were +simply flooded and submerged by numbers. They must have stolen up and +surrounded us on all sides; for the first thing I knew, the camp was +full of fantastic figures and there were half a dozen spears at my +throat. It rasped me terribly to give up without a shot fired, but +there was no bettering it, and I cursed myself for not having kept a +better lookout. We should have expected something of the kind, with +that devilish chiming in the south. + +"There were at least a hundred of them, and I got a chill when I looked +at them closely. They weren't black boys and they weren't Arabs. They +were lean men of middle height, light yellowish-brown, with dark eyes +and big noses. They wore no beards and their heads were close-shaven. +They were clad in a sort of tunic, belted at the waist with a wide +leather girdle, and sandals. They also wore a queer kind of iron +helmet, peaked at the top, open in front and coming down nearly to +their shoulders behind and at the sides. They carried big metal-braced +shields, nearly square, and were armed with narrow-bladed spears, +strangely made bows and arrows, and short straight swords such as I had +never seen before--or since. + +"They bound Conrad and me hand and foot and they butchered Selim then +and there--cut his throat like a pig while he kicked and howled. A +sickening sight--Conrad nearly fainted and I dare say I looked a bit +pale myself. Then they set out in the direction we had been heading, +making us walk between them, with our hands tied behind our backs and +their spears threatening us. They brought along our scanty dunnage, +but from the way they carried the guns I didn't believe they knew what +those were for. Scarcely a word had been spoken between them and when +I essayed various dialects I only got the prod of a spear-point. Their +silence was a bit ghostly and altogether ghastly. I felt as if we'd +been captured by a band of spooks. + +"I didn't know what to make of them. They had the look of the Orient +about them but not the Orient with which I was familiar, if you +understand me. Africa is of the East but not one with it. They looked +no more African than a Chinaman does. This is hard to explain. But +I'll say this: Tokyo is Eastern, and Benares is equally so, but +Benares symbolizes a different, older phase of the Orient, while Pekin +represents still another, and older one. These men were of an Orient +I had never known; they were part of an East older than Persia--older +than Assyria--older than Babylon! I felt it about them like an aura and +I shuddered from the gulfs of Time they symbolized. Yet it fascinated +me, too. Beneath the Gothic arches of an age-old jungle, speared +along by silent Orientals whose type has been forgotten for God knows +how many eons, a man can have fantastic thoughts. I almost wondered +if these fellows were real, or but the ghosts of warriors dead four +thousand years! + +"The trees began to thin and the ground sloped upward. At last we +came out upon a sort of cliff and saw a sight that made us gasp. We +were looking into a big valley surrounded entirely by high, steep +cliffs, through which various streams had cut narrow canyons to feed a +good-sized lake in the center of the valley. In the center of that lake +was an island and on that island was a temple and at the farther end of +the lake was a city! No native village of mud and bamboo, either. This +seemed to be of stone, yellowish-brown in color. + +"The city was walled and consisted of square-built, flat-topped houses, +some apparently three or four stories high. All the shores of the lake +were in cultivation and the fields were green and flourishing, fed by +artificial ditches. They had a system of irrigation that amazed me. But +the most astonishing thing was the temple on the island. + +"I gasped, gaped and blinked. It was the tower of Babel true to life! +Not as tall or as big as I'd imagined it, but some ten tiers high and +sullen and massive just like the pictures, with that same intangible +impression of evil hovering over it. + +"Then as we stood there, from that vast pile of masonry there +floated out across the lake that deep resonant booming--close and +clear now--and the very cliffs seemed to quiver with the vibrations +of that music-laden air. I stole a glance at Conrad; he looked all +at sea. He was of that class of scientists who have the universe +classified and pigeon-holed and everything in its proper little +nook. By Jove! It knocks them in a heap to be confronted with the +paradoxical-unexplainable-shouldn't-be more than it does common chaps +like you and me, who haven't much preconceived ideas of things in +general. + +"The soldiers took us down a stairway cut into the solid rock of the +cliffs and we went through irrigated fields where shaven-headed men +and dark-eyed women paused in their work to stare curiously at us. +They took us to a big, iron-braced gate where a small body of soldiers +equipped like our captors challenged them, and after a short parley +we were escorted into the city. It was much like any other Eastern +city--men, women and children going to and fro, arguing, buying and +selling. But all in all, it had that same effect of apartness--of vast +antiquity. I couldn't classify the architecture any more than I could +understand the language. The only thing I could think of as I stared at +those squat, square buildings was the huts certain low-caste, mongrel +peoples still build in the valley of the Euphrates in Mesopotamia. +Those huts might be a degraded evolution from the architecture in that +strange African city. + + * * * * * + +"Our captors took us straight to the largest building in the city, and +while we marched along the streets, we discovered that the houses and +walls were not of stone after all, but a sort of brick. We were taken +into a huge-columned hall before which stood ranks of silent soldiery, +and taken before a dais up which led broad steps. Armed warriors stood +behind and on either side of a throne, a scribe stood beside it, girls +glad in ostrich-plumes lounged on the broad steps, and on the throne +sat a grim-eyed devil who alone of all the men of that fantastic city +wore his hair long. He was black-bearded, wore a sort of crown and had +the haughtiest, cruelest face I ever saw on any man. An Arab sheikh or +Turkish shah was a lamb beside him. He reminded me of some artist's +conception of Belshazzar or the Pharaohs--a king who was more than a +king in his own mind and the eyes of his people--a king who was at once +king and high priest and god. + +"Our escort promptly prostrated themselves before him and knocked their +heads on the matting until he spoke a languid word to the scribe and +this personage signed for them to rise. They rose, and the leader began +a long rigmarole to the king, while the scribe scratched away like mad +on a clay tablet and Conrad and I stood there like a pair of blooming +gaping jackasses, wondering what it was all about. Then I heard a word +repeated continually, and each time he spoke it, he indicated us. The +word sounded like 'Akkaddian,' and suddenly my brain reeled with the +possibilities it betokened. It couldn't be--yet it had to be! + +"Not wanting to break in on the conversation and maybe lose my bally +head, I said nothing, and at last the king gestured and spoke, the +soldiers bowed again and seizing us, hustled us roughly from the royal +presence into a columned corridor, across a huge chamber and into a +small cell where they thrust us and locked the door. There was only a +heavy bench and one window, closely barred. + +"'My heavens, Bill,' exclaimed Conrad, 'who could have imagined +anything equal to this? It's like a nightmare--or a tale from _The +Arabian Nights_! Where are we? Who are these people?' + +"'You won't believe me,' I said, 'but--you've read of the ancient empire of +Sumeria?' + +"'Certainly; it flourished in Mesopotamia some four thousand years +ago. But what--by Jove!' he broke off, staring at me wide-eyed as the +connection struck him. + +"'I leave it to you what the descendants of an Asia-Minor kingdom +are doing in East Africa,' I said, feeling for my pipe, 'but it must +be--the Sumerians built their cities of sun-dried brick. I saw men +making bricks and stacking them up to dry along the lake shore. The mud +is remarkably like that you find in the Tigris and Euphrates valley. +Likely that's why these chaps settled here. The Sumerians wrote on clay +tablets by scratching the surface with a sharp point just as the chap +was doing in the throne room. + +"'Then look at their arms, dress and physiognomy. I've seen their art +carved on stone and pottery and wondered if those big noses were part +of their faces or part of their helmets. And look at that temple in the +lake! A small counterpart of the temple reared to the god El-lil in +Nippur--which probably started the myth of the tower of Babel. + +"'But the thing that clinches it is the fact that they referred to us +as Akkaddians. Their empire was conquered and subjugated by Sargon of +Akkad in 2750 B.C. If these are descendants of a band who fled their +conqueror, it's natural that, pent in these hinterlands and separated +from the rest of the world, they'd come to call all outlanders +Akkaddians, much as secluded Oriental nations call all Europeans Franks +in memory of Martel's warriors who scuttled them at Tours.' + +"'Why do you suppose they haven't been discovered before now?' + +"'Well, if any white man's been here before, they took good care he +didn't get out to tell his tale. I doubt if they wander much; probably +think the outside world's overrun with bloodthirsty Akkaddians.' + +"At this moment the door of our cell opened to admit a slim young girl, +clad only in a girdle of silk and golden breast-plates. She brought us +food and wine, and I noted how lingeringly she gazed at Conrad. And to +my surprize she spoke to us in fair Somali. + +"'Where are we?' I asked her. 'What are they going to do with us? Who +are you?' + +"'I am Naluna, the dancer of El-lil,' she answered--and she looked +it--lithe as a she-panther she was. 'I am sorry to see you in this +place; no Akkaddian goes forth from here alive.' + +"'Nice friendly sort of chaps,' I grunted, but glad to find some one I +could talk to and understand. 'And what's the name of this city?' + +"'This is Eridu,' said she. 'Our ancestors came here many ages ago from +ancient Sumer, many moons to the East. They were driven by a great and +cruel king, Sargon of the Akkaddians--desert people. But our ancestors +would not be slaves like their kin, so they fled, thousands of them in +one great band, and traversed many strange, savage countries before +they came to this land.' + +"Beyond that her knowledge was very vague and mixed up with myths and +improbable legends. Conrad and I discussed it afterward, wondering if +the old Sumerians came down the west coast of Arabia and crossed the +Red Sea about where Mocha is now, or if they went over the Isthmus +of Suez and came down on the African side. I'm inclined to the last +opinion. Likely the Egyptians met them as they came out of Asia Minor +and chased them south. Conrad thought they might have made most of the +trip by water, because, as he said, the Persian Gulf ran up something +like a hundred and thirty miles farther than it does now, and Old Eridu +was a seaport town. But just at the moment something else was on my +mind. + +"'Where did you learn to speak Somali?' I asked Naluna. + +"'When I was little,' she answered, 'I wandered out of the valley and +into the jungle where a band of raiding black men caught me. They sold +me to a tribe who lived near the coast and I spent my childhood among +them. But when I had grown into girlhood I remembered Eridu and one day +I stole a camel and rode across many leagues of veldt and jungle and +so came again to the city of my birth. In all Eridu I alone can speak +a tongue not mine own, except for the black slaves--and they speak not +all, for we cut out their tongues when we capture them. The people of +Eridu go not forth beyond the jungles and they traffic not with the +black peoples who sometimes come against us, except as they take a few +slaves.' + +"I asked her why they killed our camp servant and she said that it was +forbidden for blacks and whites to mate in Eridu and the offspring of +such union was not allowed to live. They didn't like the poor beggar's +color. + +"Naluna could tell us little of the history of the city since its +founding, outside the events that had happened in her own memory--which +dealt mainly with scattered raids by a cannibalistic tribe living in +the jungles to the south, petty intrigues of court and temple, crop +failures and the like--the scope of a woman's life in the East is much +the same, whether in the palace of Akbar, Cyrus or Asshurbanipal. But +I learned that the ruler's name was Sostoras and that he was both high +priest and king--just as the rulers were in old Sumer, four thousand +years ago. El-lil was their god, who abode in the temple in the lake, +and the deep booming we had heard was, Naluna said, the voice of the +god. + + * * * * * + +"At last she rose to go, casting a wistful look at Conrad, who sat like a +man in a trance--for once his confounded bugs were clean out of his mind. + +"'Well,' said I, 'what d'you think of it, young fella-me-lad?' + +"'It's incredible,' said he, shaking his head. 'It's absurd--an +intelligent tribe living here four thousand years and never advancing +beyond their ancestors.' + +"'You're stung with the bug of progress,' I told him cynically, +cramming my pipe bowl full of weed. 'You're thinking of the mushroom +growth of your own country. You can't generalize on an Oriental from a +Western viewpoint. What about China's famous long sleep? As for these +chaps, you forget they're no tribe but the tag-end of a civilization +that lasted longer than any has lasted since. They passed the peak of +their progress thousands of years ago. With no intercourse with the +outside world and no new blood to stir them up, these people are slowly +sinking in the scale. I'd wager their culture and art are far inferior +to that of their ancestors.' + +"'Then why haven't they lapsed into complete barbarism?' + +"'Maybe they have, to all practical purposes,' I answered, beginning +to draw on my old pipe. 'They don't strike me as being quite the +proper thing for off-springs of an ancient and honorable civilization. +But remember they grew slowly and their retrogression is bound to be +equally slow. Sumerian culture was unusually virile. Its influence +is felt in Asia Minor today. The Sumerians had their civilization +when our bloomin' ancestors were scrapping with cave bears and +saber-tooth tigers, so to speak. At least the Aryans hadn't passed +the first milestones on the road to progress, whoever their animal +neighbors were. Old Eridu was a seaport of consequence as early as +6500 B.C. From then to 2750 B.C. is a bit of time for any empire. What +other empire stood as long as the Sumerian? The Akkaddian dynasty +established by Sargon stood two hundred years before it was overthrown +by another Semitic people, the Babylonians, who borrowed their culture +from Akkaddian Sumer just as Rome later stole hers from Greece; the +Elamitish Kassite dynasty supplanted the original Babylonian, the +Assyrian and the Chaldean followed--well, you know the rapid succession +of dynasty on dynasty in Asia Minor, one Semitic people overthrowing +another, until the real conquerors hove in view on the Eastern +horizon--the Aryan Medes and Persians--who were destined to last +scarcely longer than their victims. + +"'Compare each fleeting kingdom with the long dreamy reign of the +ancient pre-Semitic Sumerians! We think the Minoan Age of Crete +is a long time back, but the Sumerian empire of Erech was already +beginning to decay before the rising power of Sumerian Nippur, before +the ancestors of the Cretans had emerged from the Neolithic Age. The +Sumerians had something the succeeding Hamites, Semites and Aryans +lacked. They were stable. They grew slowly and if left alone would have +decayed as slowly as these fellows are decaying. Still and all, I note +these chaps have made one advancement--notice their weapons? + +"'Old Sumer was in the Bronze Age. The Assyrians were the first to use +iron for anything besides ornaments. But these lads have learned to +work iron--probably a matter of necessity. No copper here-abouts but +plenty of iron ore, I daresay.' + +"'But the mystery of Sumer still remains,' Conrad broke in. 'Who are +they? Whence did they come? Some authorities maintain they were of +Dravidian origin, akin to the Basques----' + +"'It won't stick, me lad,' said I. 'Even allowing for possible +admixture of Aryan or Turanian blood in the Dravidian descendants, you +can see at a glance these people are not of the same race.' + +"'But their language,' Conrad began arguing, which is a fair way to +pass the time while you're waiting to be put in the cooking-pot, but +doesn't prove much except to strengthen your own original ideas. + + * * * * * + +"Naluna came again about sunset with food, and this time she sat down +by Conrad and watched him eat. Seeing her sitting thus, elbows on knees +and chin on hands, devouring him with her large, lustrous dark eyes, +I said to the professor in English, so she wouldn't understand: 'The +girl's badly smitten with you; play up to her. She's our only chance.' + +"He blushed like a blooming school girl. 'I've a fiancée back in the +States.' + +"'Blow your fiancée,' I said. 'Is it she that's going to keep the bally +heads on our blightin' shoulders? I tell you this girl's silly over +you. Ask her what they're going to do with us.' + +"He did so and Naluna said: 'Your fate lies in the lap of El-lil.' + +"'And the brain of Sostoras,' I muttered. 'Naluna, what was done with the +guns that were taken from us?' + +"She replied that they were hung in the temple of El-lil as trophies of +victory. None of the Sumerians was aware of their purpose. I asked her +if the natives they sometimes fought had never used guns and she said +no. I could easily believe that, seeing that there are many wild tribes +in those hinterlands who've scarcely seen a single white man. But it +seemed incredible that some of the Arabs who've raided back and forth +across Somaliland for a thousand years hadn't stumbled onto Eridu and +shot it up. But it turned out to be true--just one of those peculiar +quirks and back-eddies in events like the wolves and wildcats you still +find in New York state, or those queer pre-Aryan peoples you come onto +in small communities in the hills of Connaught and Galway. I'm certain +that big slave raids had passed within a few miles of Eridu, yet the +Arabs had never found it and impressed on them the meaning of firearms. + +"So I told Conrad: 'Play up to her, you chump! If you can persuade her +to slip us a gun, we've a sporting chance.' + +"So Conrad took heart and began talking to Naluna in a nervous sort of +manner. Just how he'd have come out, I can't say, for he was little of +the Don Juan, but Naluna snuggled up to him, much to his embarrassment, +listening to his stumbling Somali with her soul in her eyes. Love +blossoms suddenly and unexpectedly in the East. + +"However, a peremptory voice outside our cell made Naluna jump half +out of her skin and sent her scurrying, but as she went she pressed +Conrad's hand and whispered something in his ear that we couldn't +understand, but it sounded highly passionate. + +"Shortly after she had left, the cell opened again and there stood a +file of silent dark-skinned warriors. A sort of chief, whom the rest +addressed as Gorat, motioned us to come out. Then down a long, dim, +colonnaded corridor we went, in perfect silence except for the soft +scruff of their sandals and the tramp of our boots on the tiling. An +occasional torch flaring on the walls or in a niche of the columns +lighted the way vaguely. At last we came out into the empty streets of +the silent city. No sentry paced the streets or the walls, no lights +showed from inside the flat-topped houses. It was like walking a street +in a ghost city. Whether every night in Eridu was like that or whether +the people kept indoors because it was a special and awesome occasion, +I haven't an idea. + +"We went on down the streets toward the lake side of the town. There +we passed through a small gate in the wall--over which, I noted with +a slight shudder, a grinning skull was carved--and found ourselves +outside the city. A broad flight of steps led down to the water's edge +and the spears at our backs guided us down them. There a boat waited, a +strange high-prowed affair whose prototype must have plied the Persian +Gulf in the days or Old Eridu. + +"Four black men rested on their oars, and when they opened their +mouths I saw their tongues had been cut out. We were taken into the +boat, our guards got in and we started a strange journey. Out on the +silent lake we moved like a dream, whose silence was broken only by +the low rippling of the long, slim, golden-worked oars through the +water. The stars flecked the deep blue gulf of the lake with silver +points. I looked back and saw the silent city of Eridu sleeping beneath +the stars. I looked ahead and saw the great dark bulk of the temple +loom against the stars. The naked black mutes pulled the shining oars +and the silent warriors sat before and behind us with their spears, +helms and shields. It was like the dream of some fabulous city of +Haroun-al-Raschid's time, or of Sulieman-ben-Daoud's, and I thought +how blooming incongruous Conrad and I looked in that setting, with our +boots and dingy, tattered khakis. + + * * * * * + +"We landed on the island and I saw it was girdled with masonry--built +up from the water's edge in broad flights of steps which circled +the entire island. The whole seemed older, even, than the city--the +Sumerians must have built it when they first found the valley, before +they began on the city itself. + +"We went up the steps, that were worn deep by countless feet, to a huge +set of iron doors in the temple, and here Gorat laid down his spear +and shield, dropped on his belly and knocked his helmed head on the +great sill. Some one must have been watching from a loophole, for from +the top of the tower sounded one deep golden note and the doors swung +silently open to disclose a dim, torch-lighted entrance. Gorat rose and +led the way, we following with those confounded spears pricking our +backs. + +"We mounted a flight of stairs and came onto a series of galleries +built on the inside of each tier and winding around and up. Looking +up, it seemed much higher and bigger than it had seemed from without, +and the vague, half-lighted gloom, the silence and the mystery gave me +the shudders. Conrad's face gleamed white in the semi-darkness. The +shadows of past ages crowded in upon us, chaotic and horrific, and I +felt as though the ghosts of all the priests and victims who had walked +those galleries for four thousand years were keeping pace with us. The +vast wings of dark, forgotten gods hovered over that hideous pile of +antiquity. + +"We came out on the highest tier. There were three circles of tall +columns, one inside the other--and I want to say that for columns built +of sun-dried brick, these were curiously symmetrical. But there was +none of the grace and open beauty of, say, Greek architecture. This +was grim, sullen, monstrous--something like the Egyptian, not quite +so massive but even more formidable in starkness--an architecture +symbolizing an age when men were still in the dawn-shadows of Creation +and dreamed of monstrous gods. + +"Over the inner circle of columns was a curving roof--almost a dome. +How they built it, or how they came to anticipate the Roman builders +by so many ages, I can't say, for it was a startling departure from +the rest of their architectural style, but there it was. And from +this dome-like roof hung a great round shining thing that caught the +starlight in a silver net. I knew then what we had been following for +so many mad miles! It was a great gong--the voice of El-lil. It looked +like jade but I'm not sure to this day. But whatever it was, it was the +symbol on which the faith and cult of the Sumerians hung--the symbol +of the god-head itself. And I know Naluna was right when she told us +that her ancestors brought it with them on that long, grueling trek, +ages ago, when they fled before Sargon's wild riders. And how many eons +before that dim time must it have hung in El-lil's temple in Nippur, +Erech or Old Eridu, booming out its mellow threat or promise over the +dreamy valley of the Euphrates, or across the green foam of the Persian +Gulf! + +"They stood us just within the first ring of columns, and out of the +shadows somewhere, looking like a shadow from the past himself, came +old Sostoras, the priest-king of Eridu. He was clad in a long robe of +green, covered with scales like a snake's hide, and it rippled and +shimmered with every step he took. On his head he wore a head-piece of +waving plumes and in his hand he held a long-shafted golden mallet. + +"He tapped the gong lightly and golden waves of sound flowed over us +like a wave, suffocating us in its exotic sweetness. And then Naluna +came. I never knew if she came from behind the columns or up through +some trap floor. One instant the space before the gong was bare, the +next she was dancing like a moonbeam on a pool. She was clad in some +light, shimmery stuff that barely veiled her sinuous body and lithe +limbs. And she danced before Sostoras and the Voice of El-lil as women +of her breed had danced in old Sumer four thousand years ago. + +"I can't begin to describe that dance. It made me freeze and tremble +and burn inside. I heard Conrad's breath come in gasps and he shivered +like a reed in the wind. From somewhere sounded music, that was old +when Babylon was young, music as elemental as the fire in a tigress's +eyes, and as soulless as an African midnight. And Naluna danced. Her +dancing was a whirl of fire and wind and passion and all elemental +forces. From all basic, primal fundamentals she drew underlying +principles and combined them in one spin-wheel of motion. She narrowed +the universe to a dagger-point of meaning and her flying feet and +shimmering body wove out the mazes of that one central Thought. Her +dancing stunned, exalted, maddened and hypnotized. + +[Illustration: _"Her dancing was a whirl of fire and passion."_] + +"As she whirled and spun, she was the elemental Essence, one and a +part of all powerful impulses and moving or sleeping powers--the sun, +the moon, the stars, the blind groping of hidden roots to light, the +fire from the furnace, the sparks from the anvil, the breath of the +fawn, the talons of the eagle. Naluna danced, and her dancing was Time +and Eternity, the urge of Creation and the urge of Death; birth and +dissolution in one, age and infancy combined. + +"My dazed mind refused to retain more impressions; the girl merged +into a whirling flicker of white fire before my dizzy eyes; then +Sostoras struck one light note on the Voice and she fell at his feet, +a quivering white shadow. The moon was just beginning to glow over the +cliffs to the East. + +"The warriors seized Conrad and me, and bound me to one of the outer +columns. Him they dragged to the inner circle and bound to a column +directly in front of the great gong. And I saw Naluna, white in the +growing glow, gaze drawnly at him, then shoot a glance full of meaning +at me, as she faded from sight among the dark sullen columns. + +"Old Sostoras made a motion and from the shadows came a wizened black +slave who looked incredibly old. He had the withered features and +vacant stare of a deaf-mute, and the priest-king handed the golden +mallet to him. Then Sostoras fell back and stood beside me, while Gorat +bowed and stepped back a pace and the warriors likewise bowed and +backed still farther away. In fact they seemed most blooming anxious to +get as far away from that sinister ring of columns as they could. + +"There was a tense moment of waiting. I looked out across the lake at +the high, sullen cliffs that girt the valley, at the silent city lying +beneath the rising moon. It was like a dead city. The whole scene was +most unreal, as if Conrad and I had been transported to another planet +or back into a dead and forgotten age. Then the black mute struck the +gong. + +"At first it was a low, mellow whisper that flowed out from under +the black man's steady mallet. But it swiftly grew in intensity. The +sustained, increasing sound became nerve-racking--it grew unbearable. +It was more than mere sound. The mute evoked a quality of vibration +that entered into every nerve and racked it apart. It grew louder and +louder until I felt that the most desirable thing in the world was +complete deafness, to be like that blank-eyed mute who neither heard +nor felt the perdition of sound he was creating. And yet I saw sweat +beading his ape-like brow. Surely some thunder of that brain-shattering +cataclysm re-echoed in his own soul. El-lil spoke to us and death was +in his voice. Surely, if one of the terrible, black gods of past ages +could speak, he would speak in just such tongue! There was neither +mercy, pity nor weakness in its roar. It was the assurance of a +cannibal god to whom mankind was but a plaything and a puppet to dance +on his string. + +"Sound can grow too deep, too shrill or too loud for the human ear to +record. Not so with the Voice of El-lil, which had its creation in some +inhuman age when dark wizards knew how to rack brain, body and soul +apart. Its depth was unbearable, its volume was unbearable, yet ear and +soul were keenly alive to its resonance and did not grow mercifully +numb and dulled. And its terrible sweetness was beyond human endurance; +it suffocated us in a smothering wave of sound that yet was barbed with +golden fangs. I gasped and struggled in physical agony. Behind me I was +aware that even old Sostoras had his hands over his ears, and Gorat +groveled on the floor, grinding his face into the bricks. + +"And if it so affected me, who was just within the magic circle of +columns, and those Sumerians who were outside the circle, what was it +doing to Conrad, who was inside the inner ring and beneath that domed +roof that intensified every note? + +"Till the day he dies Conrad will never be closer to madness and death +than he was then. He writhed in his bonds like a snake with a broken +back; his face was horribly contorted, his eyes distended, and foam +flecked his livid lips. But in that hell of golden, agonizing sound I +could hear nothing--I could only see his gaping mouth and his frothy, +flaccid lips, loose and writhing like an imbecile's. But I sensed he +was howling like a dying dog. + +"Oh, the sacrificial dagger of the Semites was merciful. Even Moloch's +lurid furnace was easier than the death promised by this rending and +ripping vibration that armed sound-waves with venomed talons. I felt +my own brain was brittle as frozen glass. I knew that a few seconds +more of that torture and Conrad's brain would shatter like a crystal +goblet and he would die in the black raving of utter madness. And then +something snapped me back from the mazes I'd gotten into. It was the +fierce grasp of a small hand on mine, behind the column to which I was +bound. I felt a tug at my cords as if a knife edge was being passed +along them, and my hands were free. I felt something pressed into my +hand and a fierce exultation surged through me. I'd recognize the +familiar checkered grip of my Webley .44 in a thousand! + +"I acted in a flash that took the whole gang off guard. I lunged away +from the column and dropped the black mute with a bullet through his +brain, wheeled and shot old Sostoras through the belly. He went down, +spewing blood, and I crashed a volley square into the stunned ranks of +the soldiers. At that range I couldn't miss. Three of them dropped and +the rest woke up and scattered like a flock of birds. In a second the +place was empty except for Conrad, Naluna and me, and the men on the +floor. It was like a dream, the echoes from the shots still crashing, +and the acrid scent of powder and blood knifing the air. + + * * * * * + +"The girl cut Conrad loose and he fell on the floor and yammered like +a dying imbecile. I shook him but he had a wild glare in his eyes +and was frothing like a mad dog, so I dragged him up, shoved an arm +under him and started for the stair. We weren't out of the mess yet, +by a long shot. Down those wide, winding, dark galleries we went, +expecting any minute to be ambushed, but the chaps must have still been +in a bad funk, because we got out of that hellish temple without any +interference. Outside the iron portals Conrad collapsed and I tried to +talk to him, but he could neither hear nor speak. I turned to Naluna. + +"'Can you do anything for him?' + +"Her eyes flashed in the moonlight. 'I have not defied my people and my +god and betrayed my cult and my race for naught! I stole the weapon of +smoke and flame, and freed you, did I not? I love him and I will not +lose him now!' + +"She darted into the temple and was out almost instantly with a jug of +wine. She claimed it had magical powers. I don't believe it. I think +Conrad simply was suffering from a sort of shell-shock from close +proximity to that fearful noise and that lake water would have done +as well as the wine. But Naluna poured some wine between his lips and +emptied some over his head, and soon he groaned and cursed. + +"'See!' she cried triumphantly, 'the magic wine has lifted the spell +El-lil put on him!' And she flung her arms around his neck and kissed +him vigorously. + +"'My God, Bill,' he groaned, sitting up and holding his head, 'what +kind of a nightmare is this?' + +"'Can you walk, old chap?' I asked. 'I think we've stirred up a bloomin' +hornet's nest and we'd best leg it out of here.' + +"'I'll try.' He staggered up, Naluna helping him. I heard a sinister +rustle and whispering in the black mouth of the temple and I judged the +warriors and priests inside were working up their nerve to rush us. +We made it down the steps in a great hurry to where lay the boat that +had brought us to the island. Not even the black rowers were there. An +ax and shield lay in it and I seized the ax and knocked holes in the +bottoms of the other boars which were tied near it. + +"Meanwhile the big gong had begun to boom out again and Conrad groaned +and writhed as every intonation rasped his raw nerves. It was a warning +note this time and I saw lights flare up in the city and heard a sudden +hum of shouts float out across the lake. Something hissed softly by my +head and slashed into the water. A quick look showed me Gorat standing +in the door of the temple bending his heavy bow. I leaped in, Naluna +helped Conrad in, and we shoved off in a hurry to the accompaniment of +several more shafts from the charming Gorat, one of which took a lock +of hair from Naluna's pretty head. + +"I laid to the oars while Naluna steered and Conrad lay on the bottom +of the boat and was violently sick. We saw a fleet of boats put out +from the city, and as they saw us by the gleam of the moon, a yell of +concentrated rage went up that froze the blood in my veins. We were +heading for the opposite end of the lake and had a long start on them, +but in this way we were forced to round the island and we'd scarcely +left it astern when out of some nook leaped a long boat with six +warriors--I saw Gorat in the bows with that confounded bow of his. + +"I had no spare cartridges so I laid to it with all my might, and +Conrad, somewhat green in the face, took the shield and rigged it up +in the stern, which was the saving of us, because Gorat hung within +bowshot of us all the way across the lake and he filled that shield so +full of arrows it resembled a blooming porcupine. You'd have thought +they'd had plenty after the slaughter I made among them on the roof, +but they were after us like hounds after a hare. + +"We'd a fair start on them but Gorat's five rowers shot his boat +through the water like a race-horse, and when we grounded on the shore, +they weren't half a dozen jumps behind us. As we scrambled out I saw it +was either make a fight of it there and be cut down from the front, or +else be shot like rabbits as we ran. I called to Naluna to run but she +laughed and drew a dagger--she was a man's woman, that girl! + + * * * * * + +"Gorat and his merry men came surging up to the landing with a clamor +of yells and a swirl of oars--they swarmed over the side like a gang +of bloody pirates and the battle was on! Luck was with Gorat at the +first pass, for I missed him and killed the man behind him. The hammer +snapped on an empty shell and I dropped the Webley and snatched up the +ax just as they closed with us. By Jove! It stirs my blood now to think +of the touch-and-go fury of that fight! Knee-deep in water we met them, +hand to hand, chest to chest! + +"Conrad brained one with a stone he picked from the water, and out of +the tail of my eye, as I swung for Gorat's head, I saw Naluna spring +like a she-panther on another, and they went down together in a swirl +of limbs and a flash of steel. Gorat's sword was thrusting for my life, +but I knocked it aside with the ax and he lost his footing and went +down--for the lake bottom was solid stone there, and treacherous as sin. + +"One of the warriors lunged in with a spear, but he tripped over the +fellow Conrad had killed, his helmet fell off and I crushed his skull +before he could recover his balance. Gorat was up and coming for me, +and the other was swinging his sword in both hands for a death blow, +but he never struck, for Conrad caught up the spear that had been +dropped, and spitted him from behind, neat as a whistle. + +"Gorat's point raked my ribs as he thrust for my heart and I twisted +to one side, and his up-flung arm broke like a rotten stick beneath my +stroke but saved his life. He was game--they were all game or they'd +never have rushed my gun. He sprang in like a blood-mad tiger, hacking +for my head. I ducked and avoided the full force of the blow but +couldn't get away from it altogether and it laid my scalp open in a +three-inch gash, clear to the bone--here's the scar to prove it. Blood +blinded me and I struck back like a wounded lion, blind and terrible, +and by sheer chance I landed squarely. I felt the ax crunch through +metal and bone, the haft splintered in my hand, and there was Gorat +dead at my feet in a horrid welter of blood and brains. + +"I shook the blood out of my eyes and looked about for my companions. +Conrad was helping Naluna up and it seemed to me she swayed a little. +There was blood on her bosom but it might have come from the red +dagger she gripped in a hand stained to the wrist. God! it _was_ a bit +sickening, to think of it now. The water we stood in was choked with +corpses and ghastly red. Naluna pointed out across the lake and we saw +Eridu's boats sweeping down on us--a good way off as yet, but coming +swiftly. She led us at a run away from the lake's edge. My wound was +bleeding as only a scalp wound can bleed, but I wasn't weakened as yet. +I shook the blood out of my eyes, saw Naluna stagger as she ran and +tried to put my arm about her to steady her, but she shook me off. + +"She was making for the cliffs and we reached them out of breath. +Naluna leaned against Conrad and pointed upward with a shaky hand, +breathing in great, sobbing gasps. I caught her meaning. A rope ladder +led upward. I made her go first with Conrad following. I came after +him, drawing the ladder up behind me. We'd gotten some half-way up when +the boats landed and the warriors raced up the shore, loosing their +arrows as they ran. But we were in the shadow of the cliffs, which made +aim uncertain, and most of the shafts fell short or broke on the face +of the cliff. One stuck in my left arm, but I shook it out and didn't +stop to congratulate the marks-man on his eye. + +"Once over the cliff's edge, I jerked the ladder up and tore it loose, +and then turned to see Naluna sway and collapse in Conrad's arms. We +laid her gently on the grass, but a man with half an eye could tell she +was going fast. I wiped the blood from her bosom and stared aghast. +Only a woman with a great love could have made that run and that climb +with such a wound as that girl had under her heart. + +"Conrad cradled her head in his lap and tried to falter a few words, +but she weakly put her arms around his neck and drew his face down to +hers. + +"'Weep not for me, my lover,' she said, as her voice weakened to a +whisper. 'Thou hast been mine aforetime, as thou shall be again. In the +mud huts of the Old River, before Sumer was, when we tended the flocks, +we were as one. In the palaces of Old Eridu, before the barbarians came +out of the East, we loved each other. Aye, on this very lake have we +floated in past ages, living and loving, thou and I. So weep not, my +lover, for what is one little life when we have known so many and shall +know so many more? And in each of them, thou art mine and I am thine. + +"'But thou must not linger. Hark! they clamor for thy blood below. But +since the ladder is destroyed there is but one other way by which they +may come upon the cliffs--the place by which they brought thee into the +valley. Haste! They will return across the lake, scale the cliffs there +and pursue thee, but thou may'st escape them if thou be'st swift. And +when thou hearest the Voice of El-lil, remember, living or dead, Naluna +loves thee with a love greater than any god. + +"'But one boon I beg of thee,' she whispered, her heavy lids +drooping like a sleepy child's. 'Press, I beg thee, thy lips +on mine, my master, before the shadows utterly enfold me; then +leave me here and go, and weep not, oh my lover, for what +is--one--little--life--to--us--who--have--loved--in--so--many----' + +"Conrad wept like a blithering baby, and so did I, by Judas, and I'll +stamp the lousy brains out of the jackass who twits me for it! We left +her with her arms folded on her bosom and a smile on her lovely face, +and if there's a heaven for Christian folk, she's there with the best +of them, on my oath. + +"Well, we reeled away in the moonlight and my wounds were still +bleeding and I was about done in. All that kept me going was a sort +of wild beast instinct to live, I fancy, for if I was ever near to +lying down and dying, it was then. We'd gone perhaps a mile when the +Sumerians played their last ace. I think they'd realized we'd slipped +out of their grasp and had too much start to be caught. + +"At any rate, all at once that damnable gong began booming. I felt like +howling like a dog with rabies. This time it was a different sound. I +never saw or heard of a gong before or since whose notes could convey +so many different meanings. This was an insidious call--a luring urge, +yet a peremptory command for us to return. It threatened and promised; +if its attraction had been great before we stood on the tower of +El-lil and felt its full power, now it was almost irresistible. It was +hypnotic. I know now how a bird feels when charmed by a snake and how +the snake himself feels when the fakirs play on their pipes. I can't +begin to make you understand the overpowering magnetism of that call. +It made you want to writhe and tear at the air and run back, blind and +screaming, as a hare runs into a python's jaws. I had to fight it as a +man fights for his soul. + +"As for Conrad, it had him in its grip. He halted and rocked like a +drunken man. + +"'It's no use,' he mumbled thickly. 'It drags at my heart-strings; it's +fettered my brain and my soul; it embraces all the evil lure of all the +universes. I must go back.' + +"And he started staggering back the way we had come--toward that golden +lie floating to us over the jungle. But I thought of the girl Naluna +that had given up her life to save us from that abomination, and a +strange fury gripped me. + +"'See here!' I shouted. 'This won't do, you bloody fool! You're off +your bally bean! I won't have it, d'you hear?' + +"But he paid no heed, shoving by me with eyes like a man in a trance, +so I let him have it--an honest right hook to the jaw that stretched +him out dead to the world. I slung him over my shoulder and reeled on +my way, and it was nearly an hour before he came to, quite sane and +grateful to me. + +"Well, we saw no more of the people of Eridu. Whether they trailed us +at all or not, I haven't an idea. We could have fled no faster than we +did, for we were fleeing the haunting, horrible mellow whisper that +dogged us from the south. We finally made it back to the spot where +we'd cached our dunnage, and then, armed and scantily equipped, we +started the long trek for the coast. Maybe you read or heard something +about two emaciated wanderers being picked up by an elephant-hunting +expedition in the Somaliland back country, dazed and incoherent from +suffering. Well, we were about done for, I'll admit, but we were +perfectly sane. The incoherent part was when we tried to tell our tale +and the blasted idiots wouldn't believe it. They patted our backs and +talked in a soothing tone and poured whisky-and-sodas down us. We soon +shut up, seeing we'd only be branded as liars or lunatics. They got us +back to Jibuti, and both of us had had enough of Africa for a spell. I +took ship for India and Conrad went the other way--couldn't get back to +New England quick enough, where I hope he married that little American +girl and is living happily. A wonderful chap, for all his damnable bugs. + +"As for me, I can't hear any sort of a gong today without starting. On +that long, gruelling trek I never breathed easily until we were beyond +the sound of that ghastly Voice. You can't tell what a thing like that +may do to your mind. It plays the very deuce with all rational ideas. + +"I still hear that hellish gong in my dreams, sometimes, and see that +silent, hideously ancient city in that nightmare valley. Sometimes +I wonder if it's still calling to me across the years. But that's +nonsense. Anyway, there's the yarn as it stands and if you don't +believe me, I won't blame you at all." + +But I prefer to believe Bill Kirby, for I know his breed from Hengist +down, and know him to be like all the rest--truthful, aggressive, +profane, restless, sentimental and straightforward, a true brother of +the roving, fighting, adventuring Sons of Aryan. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79376 *** diff --git a/79376-h/79376-h.htm b/79376-h/79376-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3c8d3a3 --- /dev/null +++ b/79376-h/79376-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1074 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + The Voice of El-lil | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } +hr.full {width: 95%; margin-left: 2.5%; margin-right: 2.5%;} +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +x-ebookmaker-drop {display: none;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap { font-variant:small-caps; } + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +.caption p +{ + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; + margin: 0.25em 0; + font-weight: bold; +} + +div.titlepage { + text-align: center; + page-break-before: always; + page-break-after: always; +} + +div.titlepage p { + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + font-weight: bold; + line-height: 1.5; + margin-top: 3em; +} + +.ph1 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } +.ph1 { font-size: x-large; margin: .83em auto; } + +.ph2 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } +.ph2 { font-size: medium; margin: .83em auto; } + + </style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79376 ***</div> + + +<div class="titlepage"> + +<h1>The Voice of El-Lil</h1> + +<p class="ph1">By ROBERT E. HOWARD</p> + +<p><i>In the heart of African Somaliland was an Oriental<br> +city transplanted from the Tigris-Euphrates<br> +valley—a modern tale of ancient Sumeria.</i></p> + +<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br> +Oriental Stories, October-November, 1930.]</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<p>Maskat, like many another port, is a haven for the drifters of many +nations who bring their tribal customs and peculiarities with them. +Turk rubs shoulders with Greek and Arab squabbles with Hindoo. The +tongues of half the Orient resound in the loud smelly bazar. Therefore +it did not seem particularly incongruous to hear, as I leaned on a +bar tended by a smirking Eurasian, the musical notes of a Chinese +gong sound clearly through the lazy hum of native traffic. There was +certainly nothing so startling in those mellow tones that the big +Englishman next me should start and swear and spill his whisky-and-soda +on my sleeve.</p> + +<p>He apologized and berated his clumsiness with honest profanity, but +I saw he was shaken. He interested me as his type always does—a +fine upstanding fellow he was, over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, +narrow-hipped, heavy-limbed, the perfect fighting man, brown-faced, +blue-eyed and tawny-haired. His breed is old as Europe, and the man +himself brought to mind vague legendary characters—Hengist, Hereward, +Cerdic—born rovers and fighters of the original Anglo-Saxon stock.</p> + +<p>I saw, furthermore, that he was in a mood to talk. I introduced myself, +ordered drinks and waited. My specimen thanked me, muttered to himself, +quaffed his liquor hastily and spoke abruptly:</p> + +<p>"You're wondering why a grown man should be so suddenly upset by such +a small thing—well, I admit that damned gong gave me a start. It's +that fool Yotai Lao, bringing his nasty joss sticks and Buddhas into a +decent town—for a half-penny I'd bribe some Moslem fanatic to cut his +yellow throat and sink his confounded gong into the gulf. And I'll tell +you why I hate the thing.</p> + +<p>"My name," said my Saxon, "is Bill Kirby. It was in Jibuti on the +Gulf of Aden that I met John Conrad. A slim, keen-eyed young New +Englander he was—professor too, for all his youth. Victim of obsession +also, like most of his kind. He was a student of bugs, and it was a +particular bug that had brought him to the East Coast; or rather, +the hope of the blooming beast, for he never found it. It was almost +uncanny to see the chap work himself into a blaze of enthusiasm when +speaking on his favorite subject. No doubt he could have taught me much +I should know, but insects are not among my enthusiasms, and he talked, +dreamed and thought of little else at first. . .</p> + +<p>"Well, we paired off well from the start. He had money and ambitions +and I had a bit of experience and a roving foot. We got together a +small, modest but efficient safari and wandered down into the back +country of Somaliland. Now you'll hear it spoken today that this +country has been exhaustively explored and I can prove that statement +to be a lie. We found things that no white man has ever dreamed of.</p> + +<p>"We had trekked for the best part of a month and had gotten into a part +of the country I knew was unknown to the average explorer. The veldt +and thorn forests gave way to what approached real jungle and what +natives we saw were a thick-lipped, low-browed, dog-toothed breed—not +like the Somali at all. We wandered on though, and our porters and +askari began muttering among themselves. Some of the black fellows had +been hobnobbing with them and telling them tales that frightened them +from going on. Our men wouldn't talk to me or Conrad about it, but we +had a camp servant, a half-caste named Selim, and I told him to see +what he could learn. That night he came to my tent. We had pitched camp +in a sort of big glade and had built a thorn boma; for the lions were +raising merry Cain in the bush.</p> + +<p>"'Master,' said he in the mongrel English he was so proud of, 'them +black fella he is scaring the porters and askari with bad ju-ju talk. +They be tell about a mighty ju-ju curse on the country in which we go +to, and——'</p> + +<p>"He stopped short, turned ashy, and my head jerked up. Out of the dim, +jungle-haunted mazes of the south whispered a haunting voice. Like +the echo of an echo it was, yet strangely distinct, deep, vibrant, +melodious. I stepped from my tent and saw Conrad standing before a +fire, taut and tense as a hunting hound.</p> + +<p>"'Did you hear that?' he asked. 'What was it?'</p> + +<p>"'A native drum,' I answered—but we both knew I lied. The noise and +chatter of our natives about their cooking-fires had ceased as if they +had all died suddenly.</p> + +<p>"We heard nothing more of it that night, but the next morning we found +ourselves deserted. The black boys had decamped with all the luggage +they could lay hand to. We held a council of war, Conrad, Selim and I. +The half-caste was scared pink, but the pride of his white blood kept +him carrying on.</p> + +<p>"'What now?' I asked Conrad. 'We've our guns and enough supplies to give +us a sporting chance of reaching the coast.'</p> + +<p>"'Listen!' he raised his hand. Out across the bush-country throbbed +again that haunting whisper. 'We'll go on. I'll never rest until I know +what makes that sound. I never heard anything like it in the world +before.'</p> + +<p>"'The jungle will pick our bally bones,' I said. He shook his head.</p> + +<p>"'Listen!' said he.</p> + +<p>"It was like a call. It got into your blood. It drew you as a fakir's +music draws a cobra. I knew it was madness. But I didn't argue. We +cached most of our duffle and started on. Each night we built a thorn +boma and sat inside it while the big cats yowled and grunted outside. +And ever clearer as we worked deeper and deeper in the jungle mazes, +we heard that voice. It was deep, mellow, musical. It made you dream +strange things; it was pregnant with vast age. The lost glories of +antiquity whispered in its booming. It centered in its resonance all +the yearning and mystery of life; all the magic soul of the East. I +awoke in the middle of night to listen to its whispering echoes, and +slept to dream of sky-towering minarets, of long ranks of bowing, +brown-skinned worshippers, of purple-canopied peacock thrones and +thundering golden chariots.</p> + +<p>"Conrad had found something at last that rivalled his infernal +bugs in his interest. He didn't talk much; he hunted insects in an +absent-minded way. All day he would seem to be in an attitude of +listening, and when the deep golden notes would roll out across the +jungle, he would tense like a hunting dog on the scent, while into his +eyes would steal a look strange for a civilized professor. By Jove, +it's curious to see some ancient primal influence steal through the +veneer of a cold-blooded scientist's soul and touch the red flow of +life beneath! It was new and strange to Conrad; here was something he +couldn't explain away with his new-fangled, bloodless psychology.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>"Well, we wandered on in that mad search—for it's the white man's +curse to go into Hell to satisfy his curiosity. Then in the gray light +of an early dawn the camp was rushed. There was no fight. We were +simply flooded and submerged by numbers. They must have stolen up and +surrounded us on all sides; for the first thing I knew, the camp was +full of fantastic figures and there were half a dozen spears at my +throat. It rasped me terribly to give up without a shot fired, but +there was no bettering it, and I cursed myself for not having kept a +better lookout. We should have expected something of the kind, with +that devilish chiming in the south.</p> + +<p>"There were at least a hundred of them, and I got a chill when I looked +at them closely. They weren't black boys and they weren't Arabs. They +were lean men of middle height, light yellowish-brown, with dark eyes +and big noses. They wore no beards and their heads were close-shaven. +They were clad in a sort of tunic, belted at the waist with a wide +leather girdle, and sandals. They also wore a queer kind of iron +helmet, peaked at the top, open in front and coming down nearly to +their shoulders behind and at the sides. They carried big metal-braced +shields, nearly square, and were armed with narrow-bladed spears, +strangely made bows and arrows, and short straight swords such as I had +never seen before—or since.</p> + +<p>"They bound Conrad and me hand and foot and they butchered Selim then +and there—cut his throat like a pig while he kicked and howled. A +sickening sight—Conrad nearly fainted and I dare say I looked a bit +pale myself. Then they set out in the direction we had been heading, +making us walk between them, with our hands tied behind our backs and +their spears threatening us. They brought along our scanty dunnage, +but from the way they carried the guns I didn't believe they knew what +those were for. Scarcely a word had been spoken between them and when +I essayed various dialects I only got the prod of a spear-point. Their +silence was a bit ghostly and altogether ghastly. I felt as if we'd +been captured by a band of spooks.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know what to make of them. They had the look of the Orient +about them but not the Orient with which I was familiar, if you +understand me. Africa is of the East but not one with it. They looked +no more African than a Chinaman does. This is hard to explain. But +I'll say this: Tokyo is Eastern, and Benares is equally so, but +Benares symbolizes a different, older phase of the Orient, while Pekin +represents still another, and older one. These men were of an Orient +I had never known; they were part of an East older than Persia—older +than Assyria—older than Babylon! I felt it about them like an aura and +I shuddered from the gulfs of Time they symbolized. Yet it fascinated +me, too. Beneath the Gothic arches of an age-old jungle, speared +along by silent Orientals whose type has been forgotten for God knows +how many eons, a man can have fantastic thoughts. I almost wondered +if these fellows were real, or but the ghosts of warriors dead four +thousand years!</p> + +<p>"The trees began to thin and the ground sloped upward. At last we +came out upon a sort of cliff and saw a sight that made us gasp. We +were looking into a big valley surrounded entirely by high, steep +cliffs, through which various streams had cut narrow canyons to feed a +good-sized lake in the center of the valley. In the center of that lake +was an island and on that island was a temple and at the farther end of +the lake was a city! No native village of mud and bamboo, either. This +seemed to be of stone, yellowish-brown in color.</p> + +<p>"The city was walled and consisted of square-built, flat-topped houses, +some apparently three or four stories high. All the shores of the lake +were in cultivation and the fields were green and flourishing, fed by +artificial ditches. They had a system of irrigation that amazed me. But +the most astonishing thing was the temple on the island.</p> + +<p>"I gasped, gaped and blinked. It was the tower of Babel true to life! +Not as tall or as big as I'd imagined it, but some ten tiers high and +sullen and massive just like the pictures, with that same intangible +impression of evil hovering over it.</p> + +<p>"Then as we stood there, from that vast pile of masonry there +floated out across the lake that deep resonant booming—close and +clear now—and the very cliffs seemed to quiver with the vibrations +of that music-laden air. I stole a glance at Conrad; he looked all +at sea. He was of that class of scientists who have the universe +classified and pigeon-holed and everything in its proper little +nook. By Jove! It knocks them in a heap to be confronted with the +paradoxical-unexplainable-shouldn't-be more than it does common chaps +like you and me, who haven't much preconceived ideas of things in +general.</p> + +<p>"The soldiers took us down a stairway cut into the solid rock of the +cliffs and we went through irrigated fields where shaven-headed men +and dark-eyed women paused in their work to stare curiously at us. +They took us to a big, iron-braced gate where a small body of soldiers +equipped like our captors challenged them, and after a short parley +we were escorted into the city. It was much like any other Eastern +city—men, women and children going to and fro, arguing, buying and +selling. But all in all, it had that same effect of apartness—of vast +antiquity. I couldn't classify the architecture any more than I could +understand the language. The only thing I could think of as I stared at +those squat, square buildings was the huts certain low-caste, mongrel +peoples still build in the valley of the Euphrates in Mesopotamia. +Those huts might be a degraded evolution from the architecture in that +strange African city.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>"Our captors took us straight to the largest building in the city, and +while we marched along the streets, we discovered that the houses and +walls were not of stone after all, but a sort of brick. We were taken +into a huge-columned hall before which stood ranks of silent soldiery, +and taken before a dais up which led broad steps. Armed warriors stood +behind and on either side of a throne, a scribe stood beside it, girls +glad in ostrich-plumes lounged on the broad steps, and on the throne +sat a grim-eyed devil who alone of all the men of that fantastic city +wore his hair long. He was black-bearded, wore a sort of crown and had +the haughtiest, cruelest face I ever saw on any man. An Arab sheikh or +Turkish shah was a lamb beside him. He reminded me of some artist's +conception of Belshazzar or the Pharaohs—a king who was more than a +king in his own mind and the eyes of his people—a king who was at once +king and high priest and god.</p> + +<p>"Our escort promptly prostrated themselves before him and knocked their +heads on the matting until he spoke a languid word to the scribe and +this personage signed for them to rise. They rose, and the leader began +a long rigmarole to the king, while the scribe scratched away like mad +on a clay tablet and Conrad and I stood there like a pair of blooming +gaping jackasses, wondering what it was all about. Then I heard a word +repeated continually, and each time he spoke it, he indicated us. The +word sounded like 'Akkaddian,' and suddenly my brain reeled with the +possibilities it betokened. It couldn't be—yet it had to be!</p> + +<p>"Not wanting to break in on the conversation and maybe lose my bally +head, I said nothing, and at last the king gestured and spoke, the +soldiers bowed again and seizing us, hustled us roughly from the royal +presence into a columned corridor, across a huge chamber and into a +small cell where they thrust us and locked the door. There was only a +heavy bench and one window, closely barred.</p> + +<p>"'My heavens, Bill,' exclaimed Conrad, 'who could have imagined +anything equal to this? It's like a nightmare—or a tale from <i>The +Arabian Nights</i>! Where are we? Who are these people?'</p> + +<p>"'You won't believe me,' I said, 'but—you've read of the ancient empire of +Sumeria?'</p> + +<p>"'Certainly; it flourished in Mesopotamia some four thousand years +ago. But what—by Jove!' he broke off, staring at me wide-eyed as the +connection struck him.</p> + +<p>"'I leave it to you what the descendants of an Asia-Minor kingdom +are doing in East Africa,' I said, feeling for my pipe, 'but it must +be—the Sumerians built their cities of sun-dried brick. I saw men +making bricks and stacking them up to dry along the lake shore. The mud +is remarkably like that you find in the Tigris and Euphrates valley. +Likely that's why these chaps settled here. The Sumerians wrote on clay +tablets by scratching the surface with a sharp point just as the chap +was doing in the throne room.</p> + +<p>"'Then look at their arms, dress and physiognomy. I've seen their art +carved on stone and pottery and wondered if those big noses were part +of their faces or part of their helmets. And look at that temple in the +lake! A small counterpart of the temple reared to the god El-lil in +Nippur—which probably started the myth of the tower of Babel.</p> + +<p>"'But the thing that clinches it is the fact that they referred to us +as Akkaddians. Their empire was conquered and subjugated by Sargon of +Akkad in 2750 B.C. If these are descendants of a band who fled their +conqueror, it's natural that, pent in these hinterlands and separated +from the rest of the world, they'd come to call all outlanders +Akkaddians, much as secluded Oriental nations call all Europeans Franks +in memory of Martel's warriors who scuttled them at Tours.'</p> + +<p>"'Why do you suppose they haven't been discovered before now?'</p> + +<p>"'Well, if any white man's been here before, they took good care he +didn't get out to tell his tale. I doubt if they wander much; probably +think the outside world's overrun with bloodthirsty Akkaddians.'</p> + +<p>"At this moment the door of our cell opened to admit a slim young girl, +clad only in a girdle of silk and golden breast-plates. She brought us +food and wine, and I noted how lingeringly she gazed at Conrad. And to +my surprize she spoke to us in fair Somali.</p> + +<p>"'Where are we?' I asked her. 'What are they going to do with us? Who +are you?'</p> + +<p>"'I am Naluna, the dancer of El-lil,' she answered—and she looked +it—lithe as a she-panther she was. 'I am sorry to see you in this +place; no Akkaddian goes forth from here alive.'</p> + +<p>"'Nice friendly sort of chaps,' I grunted, but glad to find some one I +could talk to and understand. 'And what's the name of this city?'</p> + +<p>"'This is Eridu,' said she. 'Our ancestors came here many ages ago from +ancient Sumer, many moons to the East. They were driven by a great and +cruel king, Sargon of the Akkaddians—desert people. But our ancestors +would not be slaves like their kin, so they fled, thousands of them in +one great band, and traversed many strange, savage countries before +they came to this land.'</p> + +<p>"Beyond that her knowledge was very vague and mixed up with myths and +improbable legends. Conrad and I discussed it afterward, wondering if +the old Sumerians came down the west coast of Arabia and crossed the +Red Sea about where Mocha is now, or if they went over the Isthmus +of Suez and came down on the African side. I'm inclined to the last +opinion. Likely the Egyptians met them as they came out of Asia Minor +and chased them south. Conrad thought they might have made most of the +trip by water, because, as he said, the Persian Gulf ran up something +like a hundred and thirty miles farther than it does now, and Old Eridu +was a seaport town. But just at the moment something else was on my +mind.</p> + +<p>"'Where did you learn to speak Somali?' I asked Naluna.</p> + +<p>"'When I was little,' she answered, 'I wandered out of the valley and +into the jungle where a band of raiding black men caught me. They sold +me to a tribe who lived near the coast and I spent my childhood among +them. But when I had grown into girlhood I remembered Eridu and one day +I stole a camel and rode across many leagues of veldt and jungle and +so came again to the city of my birth. In all Eridu I alone can speak +a tongue not mine own, except for the black slaves—and they speak not +all, for we cut out their tongues when we capture them. The people of +Eridu go not forth beyond the jungles and they traffic not with the +black peoples who sometimes come against us, except as they take a few +slaves.'</p> + +<p>"I asked her why they killed our camp servant and she said that it was +forbidden for blacks and whites to mate in Eridu and the offspring of +such union was not allowed to live. They didn't like the poor beggar's +color.</p> + +<p>"Naluna could tell us little of the history of the city since its +founding, outside the events that had happened in her own memory—which +dealt mainly with scattered raids by a cannibalistic tribe living in +the jungles to the south, petty intrigues of court and temple, crop +failures and the like—the scope of a woman's life in the East is much +the same, whether in the palace of Akbar, Cyrus or Asshurbanipal. But +I learned that the ruler's name was Sostoras and that he was both high +priest and king—just as the rulers were in old Sumer, four thousand +years ago. El-lil was their god, who abode in the temple in the lake, +and the deep booming we had heard was, Naluna said, the voice of the +god.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>"At last she rose to go, casting a wistful look at Conrad, who sat like a +man in a trance—for once his confounded bugs were clean out of his mind.</p> + +<p>"'Well,' said I, 'what d'you think of it, young fella-me-lad?'</p> + +<p>"'It's incredible,' said he, shaking his head. 'It's absurd—an +intelligent tribe living here four thousand years and never advancing +beyond their ancestors.'</p> + +<p>"'You're stung with the bug of progress,' I told him cynically, +cramming my pipe bowl full of weed. 'You're thinking of the mushroom +growth of your own country. You can't generalize on an Oriental from a +Western viewpoint. What about China's famous long sleep? As for these +chaps, you forget they're no tribe but the tag-end of a civilization +that lasted longer than any has lasted since. They passed the peak of +their progress thousands of years ago. With no intercourse with the +outside world and no new blood to stir them up, these people are slowly +sinking in the scale. I'd wager their culture and art are far inferior +to that of their ancestors.'</p> + +<p>"'Then why haven't they lapsed into complete barbarism?'</p> + +<p>"'Maybe they have, to all practical purposes,' I answered, beginning +to draw on my old pipe. 'They don't strike me as being quite the +proper thing for off-springs of an ancient and honorable civilization. +But remember they grew slowly and their retrogression is bound to be +equally slow. Sumerian culture was unusually virile. Its influence +is felt in Asia Minor today. The Sumerians had their civilization +when our bloomin' ancestors were scrapping with cave bears and +saber-tooth tigers, so to speak. At least the Aryans hadn't passed +the first milestones on the road to progress, whoever their animal +neighbors were. Old Eridu was a seaport of consequence as early as +6500 B.C. From then to 2750 B.C. is a bit of time for any empire. What +other empire stood as long as the Sumerian? The Akkaddian dynasty +established by Sargon stood two hundred years before it was overthrown +by another Semitic people, the Babylonians, who borrowed their culture +from Akkaddian Sumer just as Rome later stole hers from Greece; the +Elamitish Kassite dynasty supplanted the original Babylonian, the +Assyrian and the Chaldean followed—well, you know the rapid succession +of dynasty on dynasty in Asia Minor, one Semitic people overthrowing +another, until the real conquerors hove in view on the Eastern +horizon—the Aryan Medes and Persians—who were destined to last +scarcely longer than their victims.</p> + +<p>"'Compare each fleeting kingdom with the long dreamy reign of the +ancient pre-Semitic Sumerians! We think the Minoan Age of Crete +is a long time back, but the Sumerian empire of Erech was already +beginning to decay before the rising power of Sumerian Nippur, before +the ancestors of the Cretans had emerged from the Neolithic Age. The +Sumerians had something the succeeding Hamites, Semites and Aryans +lacked. They were stable. They grew slowly and if left alone would have +decayed as slowly as these fellows are decaying. Still and all, I note +these chaps have made one advancement—notice their weapons?</p> + +<p>"'Old Sumer was in the Bronze Age. The Assyrians were the first to use +iron for anything besides ornaments. But these lads have learned to +work iron—probably a matter of necessity. No copper here-abouts but +plenty of iron ore, I daresay.'</p> + +<p>"'But the mystery of Sumer still remains,' Conrad broke in. 'Who are +they? Whence did they come? Some authorities maintain they were of +Dravidian origin, akin to the Basques——'</p> + +<p>"'It won't stick, me lad,' said I. 'Even allowing for possible +admixture of Aryan or Turanian blood in the Dravidian descendants, you +can see at a glance these people are not of the same race.'</p> + +<p>"'But their language,' Conrad began arguing, which is a fair way to +pass the time while you're waiting to be put in the cooking-pot, but +doesn't prove much except to strengthen your own original ideas.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>"Naluna came again about sunset with food, and this time she sat down +by Conrad and watched him eat. Seeing her sitting thus, elbows on knees +and chin on hands, devouring him with her large, lustrous dark eyes, +I said to the professor in English, so she wouldn't understand: 'The +girl's badly smitten with you; play up to her. She's our only chance.'</p> + +<p>"He blushed like a blooming school girl. 'I've a fiancée back in the +States.'</p> + +<p>"'Blow your fiancée,' I said. 'Is it she that's going to keep the bally +heads on our blightin' shoulders? I tell you this girl's silly over +you. Ask her what they're going to do with us.'</p> + +<p>"He did so and Naluna said: 'Your fate lies in the lap of El-lil.'</p> + +<p>"'And the brain of Sostoras,' I muttered. 'Naluna, what was done with the +guns that were taken from us?'</p> + +<p>"She replied that they were hung in the temple of El-lil as trophies of +victory. None of the Sumerians was aware of their purpose. I asked her +if the natives they sometimes fought had never used guns and she said +no. I could easily believe that, seeing that there are many wild tribes +in those hinterlands who've scarcely seen a single white man. But it +seemed incredible that some of the Arabs who've raided back and forth +across Somaliland for a thousand years hadn't stumbled onto Eridu and +shot it up. But it turned out to be true—just one of those peculiar +quirks and back-eddies in events like the wolves and wildcats you still +find in New York state, or those queer pre-Aryan peoples you come onto +in small communities in the hills of Connaught and Galway. I'm certain +that big slave raids had passed within a few miles of Eridu, yet the +Arabs had never found it and impressed on them the meaning of firearms.</p> + +<p>"So I told Conrad: 'Play up to her, you chump! If you can persuade her +to slip us a gun, we've a sporting chance.'</p> + +<p>"So Conrad took heart and began talking to Naluna in a nervous sort of +manner. Just how he'd have come out, I can't say, for he was little of +the Don Juan, but Naluna snuggled up to him, much to his embarrassment, +listening to his stumbling Somali with her soul in her eyes. Love +blossoms suddenly and unexpectedly in the East.</p> + +<p>"However, a peremptory voice outside our cell made Naluna jump half +out of her skin and sent her scurrying, but as she went she pressed +Conrad's hand and whispered something in his ear that we couldn't +understand, but it sounded highly passionate.</p> + +<p>"Shortly after she had left, the cell opened again and there stood a +file of silent dark-skinned warriors. A sort of chief, whom the rest +addressed as Gorat, motioned us to come out. Then down a long, dim, +colonnaded corridor we went, in perfect silence except for the soft +scruff of their sandals and the tramp of our boots on the tiling. An +occasional torch flaring on the walls or in a niche of the columns +lighted the way vaguely. At last we came out into the empty streets of +the silent city. No sentry paced the streets or the walls, no lights +showed from inside the flat-topped houses. It was like walking a street +in a ghost city. Whether every night in Eridu was like that or whether +the people kept indoors because it was a special and awesome occasion, +I haven't an idea.</p> + +<p>"We went on down the streets toward the lake side of the town. There +we passed through a small gate in the wall—over which, I noted with +a slight shudder, a grinning skull was carved—and found ourselves +outside the city. A broad flight of steps led down to the water's edge +and the spears at our backs guided us down them. There a boat waited, a +strange high-prowed affair whose prototype must have plied the Persian +Gulf in the days or Old Eridu.</p> + +<p>"Four black men rested on their oars, and when they opened their +mouths I saw their tongues had been cut out. We were taken into the +boat, our guards got in and we started a strange journey. Out on the +silent lake we moved like a dream, whose silence was broken only by +the low rippling of the long, slim, golden-worked oars through the +water. The stars flecked the deep blue gulf of the lake with silver +points. I looked back and saw the silent city of Eridu sleeping beneath +the stars. I looked ahead and saw the great dark bulk of the temple +loom against the stars. The naked black mutes pulled the shining oars +and the silent warriors sat before and behind us with their spears, +helms and shields. It was like the dream of some fabulous city of +Haroun-al-Raschid's time, or of Sulieman-ben-Daoud's, and I thought +how blooming incongruous Conrad and I looked in that setting, with our +boots and dingy, tattered khakis.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>"We landed on the island and I saw it was girdled with masonry—built +up from the water's edge in broad flights of steps which circled +the entire island. The whole seemed older, even, than the city—the +Sumerians must have built it when they first found the valley, before +they began on the city itself.</p> + +<p>"We went up the steps, that were worn deep by countless feet, to a huge +set of iron doors in the temple, and here Gorat laid down his spear +and shield, dropped on his belly and knocked his helmed head on the +great sill. Some one must have been watching from a loophole, for from +the top of the tower sounded one deep golden note and the doors swung +silently open to disclose a dim, torch-lighted entrance. Gorat rose and +led the way, we following with those confounded spears pricking our +backs.</p> + +<p>"We mounted a flight of stairs and came onto a series of galleries +built on the inside of each tier and winding around and up. Looking +up, it seemed much higher and bigger than it had seemed from without, +and the vague, half-lighted gloom, the silence and the mystery gave me +the shudders. Conrad's face gleamed white in the semi-darkness. The +shadows of past ages crowded in upon us, chaotic and horrific, and I +felt as though the ghosts of all the priests and victims who had walked +those galleries for four thousand years were keeping pace with us. The +vast wings of dark, forgotten gods hovered over that hideous pile of +antiquity.</p> + +<p>"We came out on the highest tier. There were three circles of tall +columns, one inside the other—and I want to say that for columns built +of sun-dried brick, these were curiously symmetrical. But there was +none of the grace and open beauty of, say, Greek architecture. This +was grim, sullen, monstrous—something like the Egyptian, not quite +so massive but even more formidable in starkness—an architecture +symbolizing an age when men were still in the dawn-shadows of Creation +and dreamed of monstrous gods.</p> + +<p>"Over the inner circle of columns was a curving roof—almost a dome. +How they built it, or how they came to anticipate the Roman builders +by so many ages, I can't say, for it was a startling departure from +the rest of their architectural style, but there it was. And from +this dome-like roof hung a great round shining thing that caught the +starlight in a silver net. I knew then what we had been following for +so many mad miles! It was a great gong—the voice of El-lil. It looked +like jade but I'm not sure to this day. But whatever it was, it was the +symbol on which the faith and cult of the Sumerians hung—the symbol +of the god-head itself. And I know Naluna was right when she told us +that her ancestors brought it with them on that long, grueling trek, +ages ago, when they fled before Sargon's wild riders. And how many eons +before that dim time must it have hung in El-lil's temple in Nippur, +Erech or Old Eridu, booming out its mellow threat or promise over the +dreamy valley of the Euphrates, or across the green foam of the Persian +Gulf!</p> + +<p>"They stood us just within the first ring of columns, and out of the +shadows somewhere, looking like a shadow from the past himself, came +old Sostoras, the priest-king of Eridu. He was clad in a long robe of +green, covered with scales like a snake's hide, and it rippled and +shimmered with every step he took. On his head he wore a head-piece of +waving plumes and in his hand he held a long-shafted golden mallet.</p> + +<p>"He tapped the gong lightly and golden waves of sound flowed over us +like a wave, suffocating us in its exotic sweetness. And then Naluna +came. I never knew if she came from behind the columns or up through +some trap floor. One instant the space before the gong was bare, the +next she was dancing like a moonbeam on a pool. She was clad in some +light, shimmery stuff that barely veiled her sinuous body and lithe +limbs. And she danced before Sostoras and the Voice of El-lil as women +of her breed had danced in old Sumer four thousand years ago.</p> + +<p>"I can't begin to describe that dance. It made me freeze and tremble +and burn inside. I heard Conrad's breath come in gasps and he shivered +like a reed in the wind. From somewhere sounded music, that was old +when Babylon was young, music as elemental as the fire in a tigress's +eyes, and as soulless as an African midnight. And Naluna danced. Her +dancing was a whirl of fire and wind and passion and all elemental +forces. From all basic, primal fundamentals she drew underlying +principles and combined them in one spin-wheel of motion. She narrowed +the universe to a dagger-point of meaning and her flying feet and +shimmering body wove out the mazes of that one central Thought. Her +dancing stunned, exalted, maddened and hypnotized.</p> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""> + <div class="caption"> + <p><i>"Her dancing was a whirl of fire and passion."</i></p> + </div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<p>"As she whirled and spun, she was the elemental Essence, one and a +part of all powerful impulses and moving or sleeping powers—the sun, +the moon, the stars, the blind groping of hidden roots to light, the +fire from the furnace, the sparks from the anvil, the breath of the +fawn, the talons of the eagle. Naluna danced, and her dancing was Time +and Eternity, the urge of Creation and the urge of Death; birth and +dissolution in one, age and infancy combined.</p> + +<p>"My dazed mind refused to retain more impressions; the girl merged +into a whirling flicker of white fire before my dizzy eyes; then +Sostoras struck one light note on the Voice and she fell at his feet, +a quivering white shadow. The moon was just beginning to glow over the +cliffs to the East.</p> + +<p>"The warriors seized Conrad and me, and bound me to one of the outer +columns. Him they dragged to the inner circle and bound to a column +directly in front of the great gong. And I saw Naluna, white in the +growing glow, gaze drawnly at him, then shoot a glance full of meaning +at me, as she faded from sight among the dark sullen columns.</p> + +<p>"Old Sostoras made a motion and from the shadows came a wizened black +slave who looked incredibly old. He had the withered features and +vacant stare of a deaf-mute, and the priest-king handed the golden +mallet to him. Then Sostoras fell back and stood beside me, while Gorat +bowed and stepped back a pace and the warriors likewise bowed and +backed still farther away. In fact they seemed most blooming anxious to +get as far away from that sinister ring of columns as they could.</p> + +<p>"There was a tense moment of waiting. I looked out across the lake at +the high, sullen cliffs that girt the valley, at the silent city lying +beneath the rising moon. It was like a dead city. The whole scene was +most unreal, as if Conrad and I had been transported to another planet +or back into a dead and forgotten age. Then the black mute struck the +gong.</p> + +<p>"At first it was a low, mellow whisper that flowed out from under +the black man's steady mallet. But it swiftly grew in intensity. The +sustained, increasing sound became nerve-racking—it grew unbearable. +It was more than mere sound. The mute evoked a quality of vibration +that entered into every nerve and racked it apart. It grew louder and +louder until I felt that the most desirable thing in the world was +complete deafness, to be like that blank-eyed mute who neither heard +nor felt the perdition of sound he was creating. And yet I saw sweat +beading his ape-like brow. Surely some thunder of that brain-shattering +cataclysm re-echoed in his own soul. El-lil spoke to us and death was +in his voice. Surely, if one of the terrible, black gods of past ages +could speak, he would speak in just such tongue! There was neither +mercy, pity nor weakness in its roar. It was the assurance of a +cannibal god to whom mankind was but a plaything and a puppet to dance +on his string.</p> + +<p>"Sound can grow too deep, too shrill or too loud for the human ear to +record. Not so with the Voice of El-lil, which had its creation in some +inhuman age when dark wizards knew how to rack brain, body and soul +apart. Its depth was unbearable, its volume was unbearable, yet ear and +soul were keenly alive to its resonance and did not grow mercifully +numb and dulled. And its terrible sweetness was beyond human endurance; +it suffocated us in a smothering wave of sound that yet was barbed with +golden fangs. I gasped and struggled in physical agony. Behind me I was +aware that even old Sostoras had his hands over his ears, and Gorat +groveled on the floor, grinding his face into the bricks.</p> + +<p>"And if it so affected me, who was just within the magic circle of +columns, and those Sumerians who were outside the circle, what was it +doing to Conrad, who was inside the inner ring and beneath that domed +roof that intensified every note?</p> + +<p>"Till the day he dies Conrad will never be closer to madness and death +than he was then. He writhed in his bonds like a snake with a broken +back; his face was horribly contorted, his eyes distended, and foam +flecked his livid lips. But in that hell of golden, agonizing sound I +could hear nothing—I could only see his gaping mouth and his frothy, +flaccid lips, loose and writhing like an imbecile's. But I sensed he +was howling like a dying dog.</p> + +<p>"Oh, the sacrificial dagger of the Semites was merciful. Even Moloch's +lurid furnace was easier than the death promised by this rending and +ripping vibration that armed sound-waves with venomed talons. I felt +my own brain was brittle as frozen glass. I knew that a few seconds +more of that torture and Conrad's brain would shatter like a crystal +goblet and he would die in the black raving of utter madness. And then +something snapped me back from the mazes I'd gotten into. It was the +fierce grasp of a small hand on mine, behind the column to which I was +bound. I felt a tug at my cords as if a knife edge was being passed +along them, and my hands were free. I felt something pressed into my +hand and a fierce exultation surged through me. I'd recognize the +familiar checkered grip of my Webley .44 in a thousand!</p> + +<p>"I acted in a flash that took the whole gang off guard. I lunged away +from the column and dropped the black mute with a bullet through his +brain, wheeled and shot old Sostoras through the belly. He went down, +spewing blood, and I crashed a volley square into the stunned ranks of +the soldiers. At that range I couldn't miss. Three of them dropped and +the rest woke up and scattered like a flock of birds. In a second the +place was empty except for Conrad, Naluna and me, and the men on the +floor. It was like a dream, the echoes from the shots still crashing, +and the acrid scent of powder and blood knifing the air.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>"The girl cut Conrad loose and he fell on the floor and yammered like +a dying imbecile. I shook him but he had a wild glare in his eyes +and was frothing like a mad dog, so I dragged him up, shoved an arm +under him and started for the stair. We weren't out of the mess yet, +by a long shot. Down those wide, winding, dark galleries we went, +expecting any minute to be ambushed, but the chaps must have still been +in a bad funk, because we got out of that hellish temple without any +interference. Outside the iron portals Conrad collapsed and I tried to +talk to him, but he could neither hear nor speak. I turned to Naluna.</p> + +<p>"'Can you do anything for him?'</p> + +<p>"Her eyes flashed in the moonlight. 'I have not defied my people and my +god and betrayed my cult and my race for naught! I stole the weapon of +smoke and flame, and freed you, did I not? I love him and I will not +lose him now!'</p> + +<p>"She darted into the temple and was out almost instantly with a jug of +wine. She claimed it had magical powers. I don't believe it. I think +Conrad simply was suffering from a sort of shell-shock from close +proximity to that fearful noise and that lake water would have done +as well as the wine. But Naluna poured some wine between his lips and +emptied some over his head, and soon he groaned and cursed.</p> + +<p>"'See!' she cried triumphantly, 'the magic wine has lifted the spell +El-lil put on him!' And she flung her arms around his neck and kissed +him vigorously.</p> + +<p>"'My God, Bill,' he groaned, sitting up and holding his head, 'what +kind of a nightmare is this?'</p> + +<p>"'Can you walk, old chap?' I asked. 'I think we've stirred up a bloomin' +hornet's nest and we'd best leg it out of here.'</p> + +<p>"'I'll try.' He staggered up, Naluna helping him. I heard a sinister +rustle and whispering in the black mouth of the temple and I judged the +warriors and priests inside were working up their nerve to rush us. +We made it down the steps in a great hurry to where lay the boat that +had brought us to the island. Not even the black rowers were there. An +ax and shield lay in it and I seized the ax and knocked holes in the +bottoms of the other boars which were tied near it.</p> + +<p>"Meanwhile the big gong had begun to boom out again and Conrad groaned +and writhed as every intonation rasped his raw nerves. It was a warning +note this time and I saw lights flare up in the city and heard a sudden +hum of shouts float out across the lake. Something hissed softly by my +head and slashed into the water. A quick look showed me Gorat standing +in the door of the temple bending his heavy bow. I leaped in, Naluna +helped Conrad in, and we shoved off in a hurry to the accompaniment of +several more shafts from the charming Gorat, one of which took a lock +of hair from Naluna's pretty head.</p> + +<p>"I laid to the oars while Naluna steered and Conrad lay on the bottom +of the boat and was violently sick. We saw a fleet of boats put out +from the city, and as they saw us by the gleam of the moon, a yell of +concentrated rage went up that froze the blood in my veins. We were +heading for the opposite end of the lake and had a long start on them, +but in this way we were forced to round the island and we'd scarcely +left it astern when out of some nook leaped a long boat with six +warriors—I saw Gorat in the bows with that confounded bow of his.</p> + +<p>"I had no spare cartridges so I laid to it with all my might, and +Conrad, somewhat green in the face, took the shield and rigged it up +in the stern, which was the saving of us, because Gorat hung within +bowshot of us all the way across the lake and he filled that shield so +full of arrows it resembled a blooming porcupine. You'd have thought +they'd had plenty after the slaughter I made among them on the roof, +but they were after us like hounds after a hare.</p> + +<p>"We'd a fair start on them but Gorat's five rowers shot his boat +through the water like a race-horse, and when we grounded on the shore, +they weren't half a dozen jumps behind us. As we scrambled out I saw it +was either make a fight of it there and be cut down from the front, or +else be shot like rabbits as we ran. I called to Naluna to run but she +laughed and drew a dagger—she was a man's woman, that girl!</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>"Gorat and his merry men came surging up to the landing with a clamor +of yells and a swirl of oars—they swarmed over the side like a gang +of bloody pirates and the battle was on! Luck was with Gorat at the +first pass, for I missed him and killed the man behind him. The hammer +snapped on an empty shell and I dropped the Webley and snatched up the +ax just as they closed with us. By Jove! It stirs my blood now to think +of the touch-and-go fury of that fight! Knee-deep in water we met them, +hand to hand, chest to chest!</p> + +<p>"Conrad brained one with a stone he picked from the water, and out of +the tail of my eye, as I swung for Gorat's head, I saw Naluna spring +like a she-panther on another, and they went down together in a swirl +of limbs and a flash of steel. Gorat's sword was thrusting for my life, +but I knocked it aside with the ax and he lost his footing and went +down—for the lake bottom was solid stone there, and treacherous as sin.</p> + +<p>"One of the warriors lunged in with a spear, but he tripped over the +fellow Conrad had killed, his helmet fell off and I crushed his skull +before he could recover his balance. Gorat was up and coming for me, +and the other was swinging his sword in both hands for a death blow, +but he never struck, for Conrad caught up the spear that had been +dropped, and spitted him from behind, neat as a whistle.</p> + +<p>"Gorat's point raked my ribs as he thrust for my heart and I twisted +to one side, and his up-flung arm broke like a rotten stick beneath my +stroke but saved his life. He was game—they were all game or they'd +never have rushed my gun. He sprang in like a blood-mad tiger, hacking +for my head. I ducked and avoided the full force of the blow but +couldn't get away from it altogether and it laid my scalp open in a +three-inch gash, clear to the bone—here's the scar to prove it. Blood +blinded me and I struck back like a wounded lion, blind and terrible, +and by sheer chance I landed squarely. I felt the ax crunch through +metal and bone, the haft splintered in my hand, and there was Gorat +dead at my feet in a horrid welter of blood and brains.</p> + +<p>"I shook the blood out of my eyes and looked about for my companions. +Conrad was helping Naluna up and it seemed to me she swayed a little. +There was blood on her bosom but it might have come from the red +dagger she gripped in a hand stained to the wrist. God! it <i>was</i> a bit +sickening, to think of it now. The water we stood in was choked with +corpses and ghastly red. Naluna pointed out across the lake and we saw +Eridu's boats sweeping down on us—a good way off as yet, but coming +swiftly. She led us at a run away from the lake's edge. My wound was +bleeding as only a scalp wound can bleed, but I wasn't weakened as yet. +I shook the blood out of my eyes, saw Naluna stagger as she ran and +tried to put my arm about her to steady her, but she shook me off.</p> + +<p>"She was making for the cliffs and we reached them out of breath. +Naluna leaned against Conrad and pointed upward with a shaky hand, +breathing in great, sobbing gasps. I caught her meaning. A rope ladder +led upward. I made her go first with Conrad following. I came after +him, drawing the ladder up behind me. We'd gotten some half-way up when +the boats landed and the warriors raced up the shore, loosing their +arrows as they ran. But we were in the shadow of the cliffs, which made +aim uncertain, and most of the shafts fell short or broke on the face +of the cliff. One stuck in my left arm, but I shook it out and didn't +stop to congratulate the marks-man on his eye.</p> + +<p>"Once over the cliff's edge, I jerked the ladder up and tore it loose, +and then turned to see Naluna sway and collapse in Conrad's arms. We +laid her gently on the grass, but a man with half an eye could tell she +was going fast. I wiped the blood from her bosom and stared aghast. +Only a woman with a great love could have made that run and that climb +with such a wound as that girl had under her heart.</p> + +<p>"Conrad cradled her head in his lap and tried to falter a few words, +but she weakly put her arms around his neck and drew his face down to +hers.</p> + +<p>"'Weep not for me, my lover,' she said, as her voice weakened to a +whisper. 'Thou hast been mine aforetime, as thou shall be again. In the +mud huts of the Old River, before Sumer was, when we tended the flocks, +we were as one. In the palaces of Old Eridu, before the barbarians came +out of the East, we loved each other. Aye, on this very lake have we +floated in past ages, living and loving, thou and I. So weep not, my +lover, for what is one little life when we have known so many and shall +know so many more? And in each of them, thou art mine and I am thine.</p> + +<p>"'But thou must not linger. Hark! they clamor for thy blood below. But +since the ladder is destroyed there is but one other way by which they +may come upon the cliffs—the place by which they brought thee into the +valley. Haste! They will return across the lake, scale the cliffs there +and pursue thee, but thou may'st escape them if thou be'st swift. And +when thou hearest the Voice of El-lil, remember, living or dead, Naluna +loves thee with a love greater than any god.</p> + +<p>"'But one boon I beg of thee,' she whispered, her heavy lids +drooping like a sleepy child's. 'Press, I beg thee, thy lips +on mine, my master, before the shadows utterly enfold me; then +leave me here and go, and weep not, oh my lover, for what +is—one—little—life—to—us—who—have—loved—in—so—many——'</p> + +<p>"Conrad wept like a blithering baby, and so did I, by Judas, and I'll +stamp the lousy brains out of the jackass who twits me for it! We left +her with her arms folded on her bosom and a smile on her lovely face, +and if there's a heaven for Christian folk, she's there with the best +of them, on my oath.</p> + +<p>"Well, we reeled away in the moonlight and my wounds were still +bleeding and I was about done in. All that kept me going was a sort +of wild beast instinct to live, I fancy, for if I was ever near to +lying down and dying, it was then. We'd gone perhaps a mile when the +Sumerians played their last ace. I think they'd realized we'd slipped +out of their grasp and had too much start to be caught.</p> + +<p>"At any rate, all at once that damnable gong began booming. I felt like +howling like a dog with rabies. This time it was a different sound. I +never saw or heard of a gong before or since whose notes could convey +so many different meanings. This was an insidious call—a luring urge, +yet a peremptory command for us to return. It threatened and promised; +if its attraction had been great before we stood on the tower of +El-lil and felt its full power, now it was almost irresistible. It was +hypnotic. I know now how a bird feels when charmed by a snake and how +the snake himself feels when the fakirs play on their pipes. I can't +begin to make you understand the overpowering magnetism of that call. +It made you want to writhe and tear at the air and run back, blind and +screaming, as a hare runs into a python's jaws. I had to fight it as a +man fights for his soul.</p> + +<p>"As for Conrad, it had him in its grip. He halted and rocked like a +drunken man.</p> + +<p>"'It's no use,' he mumbled thickly. 'It drags at my heart-strings; it's +fettered my brain and my soul; it embraces all the evil lure of all the +universes. I must go back.'</p> + +<p>"And he started staggering back the way we had come—toward that golden +lie floating to us over the jungle. But I thought of the girl Naluna +that had given up her life to save us from that abomination, and a +strange fury gripped me.</p> + +<p>"'See here!' I shouted. 'This won't do, you bloody fool! You're off +your bally bean! I won't have it, d'you hear?'</p> + +<p>"But he paid no heed, shoving by me with eyes like a man in a trance, +so I let him have it—an honest right hook to the jaw that stretched +him out dead to the world. I slung him over my shoulder and reeled on +my way, and it was nearly an hour before he came to, quite sane and +grateful to me.</p> + +<p>"Well, we saw no more of the people of Eridu. Whether they trailed us +at all or not, I haven't an idea. We could have fled no faster than we +did, for we were fleeing the haunting, horrible mellow whisper that +dogged us from the south. We finally made it back to the spot where +we'd cached our dunnage, and then, armed and scantily equipped, we +started the long trek for the coast. Maybe you read or heard something +about two emaciated wanderers being picked up by an elephant-hunting +expedition in the Somaliland back country, dazed and incoherent from +suffering. Well, we were about done for, I'll admit, but we were +perfectly sane. The incoherent part was when we tried to tell our tale +and the blasted idiots wouldn't believe it. They patted our backs and +talked in a soothing tone and poured whisky-and-sodas down us. We soon +shut up, seeing we'd only be branded as liars or lunatics. They got us +back to Jibuti, and both of us had had enough of Africa for a spell. I +took ship for India and Conrad went the other way—couldn't get back to +New England quick enough, where I hope he married that little American +girl and is living happily. A wonderful chap, for all his damnable bugs.</p> + +<p>"As for me, I can't hear any sort of a gong today without starting. On +that long, gruelling trek I never breathed easily until we were beyond +the sound of that ghastly Voice. You can't tell what a thing like that +may do to your mind. It plays the very deuce with all rational ideas.</p> + +<p>"I still hear that hellish gong in my dreams, sometimes, and see that +silent, hideously ancient city in that nightmare valley. Sometimes +I wonder if it's still calling to me across the years. But that's +nonsense. Anyway, there's the yarn as it stands and if you don't +believe me, I won't blame you at all."</p> + +<p>But I prefer to believe Bill Kirby, for I know his breed from Hengist +down, and know him to be like all the rest—truthful, aggressive, +profane, restless, sentimental and straightforward, a true brother of +the roving, fighting, adventuring Sons of Aryan. +</p> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79376 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/79376-h/images/cover.jpg b/79376-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e813fa2 --- /dev/null +++ b/79376-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/79376-h/images/illus.jpg b/79376-h/images/illus.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..587cd2e --- /dev/null +++ b/79376-h/images/illus.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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