章节正文
captain's stuffs. It seemed as if here at last that I should find
a solution for many things. "You carry a name?" I asked.
"They call me Nais."
"Ah," I said, and signed to her to take the clothes that I had
sought out. She was curiously like, so both my eyes and hearing
said, to Ylga, the fan-girl of Phorenice, but as she had told me of
no parentage I asked for none then. Still her talk alone let me
know that she was bred of none of the common people, and I made up
my mind towards definite understanding. "Nais," I said, "you wish
to kill me. At the same time I have no doubt you wish to live on
yourself, if only to get credit from your people for what you have
done. So here I will make a contract with you. Prove to me that
my death is for Atlantis' good, and I swear by our Lord the Sun to
go out with you beyond the walls, where you can stab me and then
get you gone. Or the--"
"I will not be your slave."
"I do not ask you for service. Or else, I wished to say, I
shall live so long as the High Gods wish, and do my poor best for
this country. And for you--I shall set you free to do your best
also. So now, I pray you, speak."
7. THE BITERS OF THE WALLS
(FURTHER ACCOUNT)
"You will set me free," she said, regarding me from under her
brows, "without any further exactions or treaty?"
"I will set you free exactly on those terms," I answered,
"unless indeed we here decide that it is better for Atlantis that
I should die, in which case the freedom will be of your own
taking."
"My lord plays a bold game."
"Tut, tut," I said.
"But I shall not hesitate to take the full of my bond, unless
my theories are most clearly disproved to me."
"Tut," I said, "you women, how you can play out the time
needlessly. Show me sufficient cause, and you shall kill me where
and how you please. Come, begin the accusation."
"You are a tyrant."
"At least I have not paraded my tyrannies in Atlantis these
twenty years. Why, Nais, I did but land yesterday."
"You will not deny you came back from Yucatan for a purpose."
"I came back because I was sent for. The Empress gives no
reasons for her recalls. She states her will; and we who serve her
obey without question."
"Pah, I know that old dogma."
"If you discredit my poor honesty at the outset like this, I
fear we shall not get far with our unravelling."
"My lord must be indeed simple," said this strange woman
scornfully, "if he is ignorant of what all Atlantis knows."
"Then simple you must write me down. Over yonder in Yucatan
we were too well wrapped up in our own parochial needs and policies
to have leisure to ponder much over the slim news which drifted out
to us from Atlantis--and, in truth, little enough came. By
example, Phorenice (whose office be adored) is a great personage
here at home; but over there in the colony we barely knew so much
as her name. Here, since I have been ashore, I have seen many new
wonders; I have been carried by a riding mammoth; I have sat at a
banquet; but in what new policies there are afoot, I have yet to be
schooled."
"Then, if truly you do not know it, let me repeat to you the
common tale. Phorenice has tired of her unmated life."
"Stay there. I will hear no word against the Empress."
"Pah, my lord, your scruples are most decorous. But I did no
more than repeat what the Empress had made public by proclamation.
She is minded to take to herself a husband, and nothing short of
the best is good enough for Phorenice. One after another has been
put up in turn as favourite--and been found wanting. Oh, I tell
you, we here in Atlantis have watched her courtship with jumping
hearts. First it was this one here, then it was that one there;
now it was this general just returned from a victory, and a day
later he had been packed back to his camp, to give place to some
dashing governor who had squeezed increased revenues from his
province. But every ship that came from the West said that there
was a stronger man than any of these in Yucatan, and at last the
Empress changed the wording of her vow. 'I'll have Deucalion for
my husband,' said she, 'and then we will see who can stand against
my wishes.'"
"The Empress (whose name be adored) can do as she pleases in
such matters," I said guardedly; "but that is beside the argument.
I am here to know how it would be better for Atlantis that I should
die?"
"You know you are the strongest man in the kingdom."
"It pleases you to say so."
"And Phorenice is the strongest woman."
"That is beyond doubt."
"Why, then, if the Empress takes you in marriage, we shall be
under a double tyranny. And her rule alone is more cruelly heavy
than we can bear already."
"I pass no criticism on Phorenice's rule. I have not seen it.
But I crave your mercy, Nais, on the newcomer into this kingdom.
I am strong, say you, and therefore I am a tyrant, say you. Now to
me this sequence is faulty."
"Who should a strong man use strength for, if not for himself?
And if for himself, why that spells tyranny. You will get all your
heart's desires, my lord, and you will forget that many a thousand
of the common people will have to pay for them."
"And this is all your accusation?"
"It seems to be black enough. I am one that has a compassion
for my fellow-men, my lord, and because of that compassion you see
me what I am to-day. There was a time, not long passed, when I
slept as soft and ate as dainty as any in Atlantis."
I smiled. "Your speech told me that much from the first."
"Then I would I had cast the speech off, too, if that is also
a livery of the tyrant's class. But I tell you I saw all the
oppression myself from the oppressor's side. I was high in
Phorenice's favour then."
"That, too, is easy of credence. Ylga is the fan-girl to the
Empress now, and second lady in the kingdom, and those who have
seen Ylga could make an easy guess at the parentage of Nais."
"We were the daughters of one birth; but I do not count with
either Zaemon or Ylga now. Ylga is the creature of Phorenice, and
Phorenice would have all the people of Atlantis slaves and in
chains, so that she might crush them the easier. And as for
Zaemon, he is no friend of Phorenice's; he fights with brain and
soul to drag the old authority to those on the Sacred Mountain; and
that, if it come down on us again, would only be the exchange of
one form of slavery for another."
"It seems to me you bite at all authority."
"In fact," she said simply, "I do. I have seen too much of it."
"And so you think a rule of no-rule would be best for the
country?"
"You have put it plainly in words for me. That is my creed
to-day. That is the creed of all those yonder, who sit in the camp
and besiege this city. And we number on our side, now, all in
Atlantis save those in the city and a handful on the priests'
Mountain."
I shook my head. "A creed of desperation, if you like, Nais,
but, believe me, a silly creed. Since man was born out of the
quakings and the fevers of this earth, and picked his way amongst
the cooler-places, he has been dependent always on his fellow-men.
And where two are congregated together, one must be chief, and
order how matters are to be governed--at least, I speak of men who
have a wish to be higher than the beasts. Have you ever set foot
in Europe?"
"No."
"I have. Years back I sailed there, gathering slaves. What
did I see? A country without rule or order. Tyrants they were, to
be sure, but they were the beasts. The men and the women were the
rudest savages, knowing nothing of the arts, dressing in skins and
uncleanness, harbouring in caves and the tree-tops. The beasts
roamed about where they would, and hunted them unchecked."
"Still, they fought you for their liberty?"
"Never once. They knew how disastrous was their masterless
freedom. Even to their dull, savage brains it was a sure thing
that no slavery could be worse; and to that state you, and your
friends, and your theories, will reduce Atlantis, if you get the
upper hand. But, then, to argue in a circle, you will never get
it. For to conquer, you must set up leaders, and once you have set
them up, you will never pull them down again."
"Aye," she said with a sigh, "there is truth in that last."
The torch had filled the captain's room with a resinous smoke,
but the flame was growing pale. Dawn was coming in greyly through
a slender arrow-slit, and with it ever and again the glow from some
mountain out of sight, which was shooting forth spasmodic bursts of
fire. With it also were mutterings of distant falling rocks, and
sullen tremblings, which had endured all the night through, and I
judged that earth was in one of her quaking moods, and would
probably during the forthcoming day offer us some chastening
discomforts.
On this account, perhaps, my senses were stilled to certain
evidences which would otherwise have given me a suspicion; and
also, there is no denying that my general wakefulness was sapped by
another matter. This woman, Nais, interested me vastly out of the
common; the mere presence of her seemed to warm the organs of my
interior; and whilst she was there, all my thoughts and senses were
present in the room of the captain of the gate in which we sat.
But of a sudden the floor of the chamber rocked and fell away
beneath me, and in a tumult of dust, and litter, and bales of the
captain's plunder, I fell down (still seated on the flagstone) into
a pit which had been digged beneath it. With the violence of the
descent, and the flutter of all these articles about my head, I was
in no condition for immediate action; and whilst I was still
half-stunned by the shock, and long before I could get my eyes into
service again, I had been seized, and bound, and half-strangled
with a noose of hide. Voices were raised that I should be
despatched at once out of the way; but one in authority cried out
that, killing me at leisure, and as a prisoner, promised more
genteel sport; and so I was thrust down on the floor, whilst a
whole army of men trod in over me to the attack.
What had happened was clear to me now, though I was powerless
to do anything in hindrance. The rebels with more craft than any
one had credited to them, had driven a galley from their camp under
the ground, intending so to make an entrance into the heart of the
city. In their clumsyignorance, and having no one of sufficient
talent in mensuration, they had bungled sadly both in direction and
length, and so had ended their burrow under this chamber of the
captain of the gate. The great flagstone in its fall had, it
appeared, crushed four of them to death, but these were little
noticed or lamented. Life was to them a bauble of the slenderest
price, and a horde of others pressed through the opening, lusting
for the fight, and recking nothing of their risks and perils.
Half-choked by the foul air of the galley, and trodden on by
this great procession of feet, it was little enough I could do to
help my immediate self much less the more distant city. But when
the chief mass of the attackers had passed through, and there came
only here and there one eager to take his share at storming the
gate, a couple of fellows plucked me up out of the mud on the
floor, and began dragging me down through the stinking darkness of
the galley towards the pit that gave it entrance.
Twenty times we were jostled by others hastening to the
attack, either from hunger for fight, or from appetite for what
they could steal. But we came to the open at last, and
half-suffocated though I was, I contrived to do obeisance, and say
a solution for many things. "You carry a name?" I asked.
"They call me Nais."
"Ah," I said, and signed to her to take the clothes that I had
sought out. She was curiously like, so both my eyes and hearing
said, to Ylga, the fan-girl of Phorenice, but as she had told me of
no parentage I asked for none then. Still her talk alone let me
know that she was bred of none of the common people, and I made up
my mind towards definite understanding. "Nais," I said, "you wish
to kill me. At the same time I have no doubt you wish to live on
yourself, if only to get credit from your people for what you have
done. So here I will make a contract with you. Prove to me that
my death is for Atlantis' good, and I swear by our Lord the Sun to
go out with you beyond the walls, where you can stab me and then
get you gone. Or the--"
"I will not be your slave."
"I do not ask you for service. Or else, I wished to say, I
shall live so long as the High Gods wish, and do my poor best for
this country. And for you--I shall set you free to do your best
also. So now, I pray you, speak."
7. THE BITERS OF THE WALLS
(FURTHER ACCOUNT)
"You will set me free," she said, regarding me from under her
brows, "without any further exactions or treaty?"
"I will set you free exactly on those terms," I answered,
"unless indeed we here decide that it is better for Atlantis that
I should die, in which case the freedom will be of your own
taking."
"My lord plays a bold game."
"Tut, tut," I said.
"But I shall not hesitate to take the full of my bond, unless
my theories are most clearly disproved to me."
"Tut," I said, "you women, how you can play out the time
needlessly. Show me sufficient cause, and you shall kill me where
and how you please. Come, begin the accusation."
"You are a tyrant."
"At least I have not paraded my tyrannies in Atlantis these
twenty years. Why, Nais, I did but land yesterday."
"You will not deny you came back from Yucatan for a purpose."
"I came back because I was sent for. The Empress gives no
reasons for her recalls. She states her will; and we who serve her
obey without question."
"Pah, I know that old dogma."
"If you discredit my poor honesty at the outset like this, I
fear we shall not get far with our unravelling."
"My lord must be indeed simple," said this strange woman
scornfully, "if he is ignorant of what all Atlantis knows."
"Then simple you must write me down. Over yonder in Yucatan
we were too well wrapped up in our own parochial needs and policies
to have leisure to ponder much over the slim news which drifted out
to us from Atlantis--and, in truth, little enough came. By
example, Phorenice (whose office be adored) is a great personage
here at home; but over there in the colony we barely knew so much
as her name. Here, since I have been ashore, I have seen many new
wonders; I have been carried by a riding mammoth; I have sat at a
banquet; but in what new policies there are afoot, I have yet to be
schooled."
"Then, if truly you do not know it, let me repeat to you the
common tale. Phorenice has tired of her unmated life."
"Stay there. I will hear no word against the Empress."
"Pah, my lord, your scruples are most decorous. But I did no
more than repeat what the Empress had made public by proclamation.
She is minded to take to herself a husband, and nothing short of
the best is good enough for Phorenice. One after another has been
put up in turn as favourite--and been found wanting. Oh, I tell
you, we here in Atlantis have watched her courtship with jumping
hearts. First it was this one here, then it was that one there;
now it was this general just returned from a victory, and a day
later he had been packed back to his camp, to give place to some
dashing governor who had squeezed increased revenues from his
province. But every ship that came from the West said that there
was a stronger man than any of these in Yucatan, and at last the
Empress changed the wording of her vow. 'I'll have Deucalion for
my husband,' said she, 'and then we will see who can stand against
my wishes.'"
"The Empress (whose name be adored) can do as she pleases in
such matters," I said guardedly; "but that is beside the argument.
I am here to know how it would be better for Atlantis that I should
die?"
"You know you are the strongest man in the kingdom."
"It pleases you to say so."
"And Phorenice is the strongest woman."
"That is beyond doubt."
"Why, then, if the Empress takes you in marriage, we shall be
under a double tyranny. And her rule alone is more cruelly heavy
than we can bear already."
"I pass no criticism on Phorenice's rule. I have not seen it.
But I crave your mercy, Nais, on the newcomer into this kingdom.
I am strong, say you, and therefore I am a tyrant, say you. Now to
me this sequence is faulty."
"Who should a strong man use strength for, if not for himself?
And if for himself, why that spells tyranny. You will get all your
heart's desires, my lord, and you will forget that many a thousand
of the common people will have to pay for them."
"And this is all your accusation?"
"It seems to be black enough. I am one that has a compassion
for my fellow-men, my lord, and because of that compassion you see
me what I am to-day. There was a time, not long passed, when I
slept as soft and ate as dainty as any in Atlantis."
I smiled. "Your speech told me that much from the first."
"Then I would I had cast the speech off, too, if that is also
a livery of the tyrant's class. But I tell you I saw all the
oppression myself from the oppressor's side. I was high in
Phorenice's favour then."
"That, too, is easy of credence. Ylga is the fan-girl to the
Empress now, and second lady in the kingdom, and those who have
seen Ylga could make an easy guess at the parentage of Nais."
"We were the daughters of one birth; but I do not count with
either Zaemon or Ylga now. Ylga is the creature of Phorenice, and
Phorenice would have all the people of Atlantis slaves and in
chains, so that she might crush them the easier. And as for
Zaemon, he is no friend of Phorenice's; he fights with brain and
soul to drag the old authority to those on the Sacred Mountain; and
that, if it come down on us again, would only be the exchange of
one form of slavery for another."
"It seems to me you bite at all authority."
"In fact," she said simply, "I do. I have seen too much of it."
"And so you think a rule of no-rule would be best for the
country?"
"You have put it plainly in words for me. That is my creed
to-day. That is the creed of all those yonder, who sit in the camp
and besiege this city. And we number on our side, now, all in
Atlantis save those in the city and a handful on the priests'
Mountain."
I shook my head. "A creed of desperation, if you like, Nais,
but, believe me, a silly creed. Since man was born out of the
quakings and the fevers of this earth, and picked his way amongst
the cooler-places, he has been dependent always on his fellow-men.
And where two are congregated together, one must be chief, and
order how matters are to be governed--at least, I speak of men who
have a wish to be higher than the beasts. Have you ever set foot
in Europe?"
"No."
"I have. Years back I sailed there, gathering slaves. What
did I see? A country without rule or order. Tyrants they were, to
be sure, but they were the beasts. The men and the women were the
rudest savages, knowing nothing of the arts, dressing in skins and
uncleanness, harbouring in caves and the tree-tops. The beasts
roamed about where they would, and hunted them unchecked."
"Still, they fought you for their liberty?"
"Never once. They knew how disastrous was their masterless
freedom. Even to their dull, savage brains it was a sure thing
that no slavery could be worse; and to that state you, and your
friends, and your theories, will reduce Atlantis, if you get the
upper hand. But, then, to argue in a circle, you will never get
it. For to conquer, you must set up leaders, and once you have set
them up, you will never pull them down again."
"Aye," she said with a sigh, "there is truth in that last."
The torch had filled the captain's room with a resinous smoke,
but the flame was growing pale. Dawn was coming in greyly through
a slender arrow-slit, and with it ever and again the glow from some
mountain out of sight, which was shooting forth spasmodic bursts of
fire. With it also were mutterings of distant falling rocks, and
sullen tremblings, which had endured all the night through, and I
judged that earth was in one of her quaking moods, and would
probably during the forthcoming day offer us some chastening
discomforts.
On this account, perhaps, my senses were stilled to certain
evidences which would otherwise have given me a suspicion; and
also, there is no denying that my general wakefulness was sapped by
another matter. This woman, Nais, interested me vastly out of the
common; the mere presence of her seemed to warm the organs of my
interior; and whilst she was there, all my thoughts and senses were
present in the room of the captain of the gate in which we sat.
But of a sudden the floor of the chamber rocked and fell away
beneath me, and in a tumult of dust, and litter, and bales of the
captain's plunder, I fell down (still seated on the flagstone) into
a pit which had been digged beneath it. With the violence of the
descent, and the flutter of all these articles about my head, I was
in no condition for immediate action; and whilst I was still
half-stunned by the shock, and long before I could get my eyes into
service again, I had been seized, and bound, and half-strangled
with a noose of hide. Voices were raised that I should be
despatched at once out of the way; but one in authority cried out
that, killing me at leisure, and as a prisoner, promised more
genteel sport; and so I was thrust down on the floor, whilst a
whole army of men trod in over me to the attack.
What had happened was clear to me now, though I was powerless
to do anything in hindrance. The rebels with more craft than any
one had credited to them, had driven a galley from their camp under
the ground, intending so to make an entrance into the heart of the
city. In their clumsyignorance, and having no one of sufficient
talent in mensuration, they had bungled sadly both in direction and
length, and so had ended their burrow under this chamber of the
captain of the gate. The great flagstone in its fall had, it
appeared, crushed four of them to death, but these were little
noticed or lamented. Life was to them a bauble of the slenderest
price, and a horde of others pressed through the opening, lusting
for the fight, and recking nothing of their risks and perils.
Half-choked by the foul air of the galley, and trodden on by
this great procession of feet, it was little enough I could do to
help my immediate self much less the more distant city. But when
the chief mass of the attackers had passed through, and there came
only here and there one eager to take his share at storming the
gate, a couple of fellows plucked me up out of the mud on the
floor, and began dragging me down through the stinking darkness of
the galley towards the pit that gave it entrance.
Twenty times we were jostled by others hastening to the
attack, either from hunger for fight, or from appetite for what
they could steal. But we came to the open at last, and
half-suffocated though I was, I contrived to do obeisance, and say
- solution [sə´lu:ʃən]
n.解答；解决；溶解 (初中英语单词) - curiously [´kjuəriəsli] ad.好奇地；稀奇古怪地 (初中英语单词)
- definite [´definit] a.确定的，明确的 (初中英语单词)
- hesitate [´heziteit] vi.犹豫，踌躇 (初中英语单词)
- ignorant [´ignərənt] a.无知的，愚昧的 (初中英语单词)
- barely [´beəli] ad.公开地；仅仅 (初中英语单词)
- ashore [ə´ʃɔ:] ad.向岸上 (初中英语单词)
- victory [´viktəri] n.胜利，战胜 (初中英语单词)
- governor [´gʌvənə] n.总督；州长 (初中英语单词)
- criticism [´kritisizəm] n.批评；评论(文) (初中英语单词)
- therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
- sacred [´seikrid] a.神圣的；庄严的 (初中英语单词)
- slavery [´sleivəri] n.奴隶制；奴役 (初中英语单词)
- plainly [´pleinli] ad.平坦地；简单地 (初中英语单词)
- knowing [´nəuiŋ] a.会意的，心照不宣的 (初中英语单词)
- savage [´sævidʒ] a.野蛮的 n.蛮人 (初中英语单词)
- circle [´sə:kəl] n.圆圈 v.环绕；盘旋 (初中英语单词)
- conquer [´kɔŋkə] v.征服；克服；抑制 (初中英语单词)
- slender [´slendə] a.细长的；微薄的 (初中英语单词)
- account [ə´kaunt] vi.说明 vt.认为 n.帐目 (初中英语单词)
- otherwise [´ʌðəwaiz] ad.另外 conj.否则 (初中英语单词)
- suspicion [sə´spiʃən] n.怀(猜)疑；嫌疑 (初中英语单词)
- violence [´vaiələns] n.猛烈；暴力(行) (初中英语单词)
- flutter [´flʌtə] vi.飘扬；摆 n.拍动 (初中英语单词)
- thrust [θrʌst] v.&n.猛推；冲；刺；挤进 (初中英语单词)
- driven [´driv(ə)n] drive 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- ignorance [´ignərəns] n.无知，愚昧 (初中英语单词)
- opening [´əupəniŋ] n.开放；开端 a.开始的 (初中英语单词)
- procession [prə´seʃən] n.队伍 v.列队行进 (初中英语单词)
- hunger [´hʌŋgə] n.饥饿；渴望 (初中英语单词)
- appetite [´æpitait] n.欲望；食欲 (初中英语单词)
- regarding [ri´gɑ:diŋ] prep.关于 (高中英语单词)
- honesty [´ɔnisti] n.诚实，老实 (高中英语单词)
- leisure [´leʒə] n.空闲；悠闲；安定 (高中英语单词)
- ponder [´pɔndə] v.沉思；考虑；估量 (高中英语单词)
- tyranny [´tirəni] n.暴政；专制政治 (高中英语单词)
- newcomer [´nju:,kʌmə] n.新来的人；移民 (高中英语单词)
- tyrant [´taiərənt] n.暴君；霸主；专制君主 (高中英语单词)
- dainty [´deinti] a.秀丽的 n.美味 (高中英语单词)
- besiege [bi´si:dʒ] vt.包围，围攻 (高中英语单词)
- handful [hændful] n.一把，少数，一小撮 (高中英语单词)
- dependent [di´pendənt] a.依赖的；从属的 (高中英语单词)
- whilst [wailst] conj.当...时候；虽然 (高中英语单词)
- chamber [´tʃeimbə] n.房间；议院；会议室 (高中英语单词)
- tumult [´tju:mʌlt, ´tu:-] n.喧哗；激昂；烦乱 (高中英语单词)
- litter [´litə] n.杂乱 v.乱丢 (高中英语单词)
- plunder [´plʌndə] v.&n.掠夺；盗窃 (高中英语单词)
- clumsy [´klʌmzi] a.笨拙的；粗俗的 (高中英语单词)
- burrow [´bʌrəu] n.洞穴 v.(打)洞；查阅 (高中英语单词)
- empress [´empris] n.女皇；皇后 (英语四级单词)
- cruelly [´kruəli] ad.残酷地；极，非常 (英语四级单词)
- sequence [´si:kwəns] n.继续；顺序；程序 (英语四级单词)
- compassion [kəm´pæʃən] n.同情；怜悯 (英语四级单词)
- livery [´livəri] a.有肝病征象的 (英语四级单词)
- desperation [,despə´reiʃən] n.铤而走险，拼命 (英语四级单词)
- gathering [´gæðəriŋ] n.集会，聚集 (英语四级单词)
- disastrous [di´zɑ:strəs] a.招致灾祸的；不幸的 (英语四级单词)
- vastly [´vɑ:stli, ´væstli] ad.巨大地；广阔地 (英语四级单词)
- galley [´gæli] n.单层甲板大帆船 (英语四级单词)
- discredit [dis´kredit] n.&vt.不信任；丢(脸) (英语六级单词)
- mammoth [´mæməθ] a.庞大的 (英语六级单词)
- minded [´maindid] a.有...心的 (英语六级单词)
- wanting [´wɔntiŋ, wɑ:n-] a.短缺的；不足的 (英语六级单词)
- courtship [´kɔ:tʃip] n.求爱(时期) (英语六级单词)
- forthcoming [,fɔ:θ´kʌmiŋ] a.即将到来的 (英语六级单词)
- hindrance [´hindrəns] n.障碍，妨碍 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
京公网安备 11011202003401号
