Part 39

XXII

YET THREE DAYS

Esmay sat in the gardens at Arcadia House. It was the loveliest of spring days, and there were blossoms everywhere--the vivid pink of the Judas-tree, the white glory of the dogwood, and each Forsythia bush a cascade of golden foam. It was all so beautiful, and in that same measure it hurt so keenly. The girl flung herself face downward in the grass, seeking to shut out from sight and hearing the world that mocked her.

That same night Esmay went to Nanna and announced her intention of paying another visit to the "House of Power."

"Our lord cannot be wholly unmindful of his children," she said, "and light may come to us from the Shining One. Besides," and here her color deepened, "it is where he lived, he who was my friend. If I could but find some little thing that had been his--a glove or one of his books! Now do be a good Nanna and help me in this."

But the practical Nanna shook her head. "That mad, old graybeard, who considers it a contamination to even look upon a woman, is it likely that he will invite you into his sanctuary and set himself to answer your foolish questions? It is supposed to be sufficient grace for a woman if the Shining One deigns to accept the gifts that she lays upon his altar."

"Then we will go dressed as men. There is everything we can want in the presses up-stairs, and I can steal the key of the wicket gate from out of Kurt's very pocket. Now, Nanna, dear----"

And of course Nanna yielded, for she saw that her darling's heart was set upon this thing. Quinton Edge was still absent in the Black Swan, and it would be an easy matter to hoodwink old Kurt; he was always fuddled with ale nowadays. To-morrow would be Friday, the day of the weekly sacrifice; they could make the trial then.

It was hard upon noon of the following day when the two women drew near to the temple of the Shining One. Nanna, clad in doublet and small-clothes, swung jauntily along, one hand on dagger-hilt and careless challenge in her snapping, black eyes, the picture of a swaggering younker. But Esmay, at the last moment, could not bring herself to don habiliments exclusively masculine. So she compromised by wearing a round jacket with a rolling collar and tucking away her hair under a boy's cap. A long rain-coat, for which the showery morning was an excuse, completed her outward attire and concealed her petticoats from casual view. Yet in any case her blushes had been spared, for they met nobody on their way, and the open space in front of the temple was deserted. Not a single worshiper had come to pay honor and tithe to the Shining One; the altar was empty of offerings, and the priest himself was absent from his accustomed post. Yet upon the ear fell the rumble and clang of moving machinery, and the eye, piercing through the half-lights of the archway, caught indefinite glimpses of the pulsing mysteries of wheel and piston-rod that lay within the shadows.

"He must be within," said Nanna, leading the way. "Don't stumble around like that. Here, take my hand."

Prostrate in front of the switch-board they found the priest, a mere anatomy of a man, with his checks shrunken to the jaw, and his wasted limbs no larger than those of a child. Yet he was alive and conscious, the deep-set eyes glowing with suspicious fire as they turned upon his unexpected guests.

"Starving," said Nanna, briefly, and proceeded to force a few drops of wine from a pocket-flask between his lips, while Esmay ran for the basket of food which had been brought along as an offertory in their assumed character of worshippers. The stimulant acted powerfully, and within the hour Prosper was so far restored as to be able to partake of some solid food. Then he insisted upon getting to his feet, a gaunt and terrible figure in his rusty cassock.

"I have my work to do," he reiterated, stubbornly. "I must be preparing the harvest field for my lord's sickle, and already the time is ripe for his appearing. Behold and believe!"

With a firm step he approached the switch-board and turned one of the controlling levers. A flash of light, succeeded by a stream of crackling sparks, leaped from the free end of a broken wire at the other end of the building, and a pile of straw lying near it burst into flame. An expert in electrical engineering would have understood that the broken wire must be in proximity to a mass of metal, and that the powerful current was being visibly hurled across the gap. Esmay uttered a cry, and even Nanna shrank back. Prosper smiled.

"Who can abide the displeasure of the Shining One? Who can stand before the flame of his wrath? A mighty and a terrible god, yet he would have left his servant to starve before his altar--you have seen that for yourselves. It is ten days now since even a woman has condescended to kneel at his shrine and make her offerings of meat and drink. I, his high-priest, may eat no common food, but how should the lord of heaven and earth keep such trivial circumstances in mind? He had forgotten, and so I must have died but for your opportune coming and pious gifts.

"One might argue that our lord employed you as the instruments of my deliverance," continued the priest, musingly. "I might think it, but that I know the Shining One of old. It is his pleasure to punish, not to help; to slay and not to make alive. Never has he given aught of grace to me who have served him faithfully for these threescore years. And to-day, if I should sit with him upon the death-chair, he would consume me as utterly as though I were the foulest-mouthed blasphemer in all Doom. What think ye, in all honesty, of the Shining One? Is he a god to be propitiated by sacrifice and offering, to be worshipped and adored--supreme, almighty, everlasting? Or are we but blind fools, trembling before a blind force that knows and sees and is nothing, except as we, its lords and masters, may compel it to work our will?"

The muttering of thunder broke in upon the priest's last words. A storm-cloud was driving in from the west, low-hanging and menacing. The priest's face changed.

"He comes! he comes!" he continued, with fanatic intensity. "This is our lord, in very truth, who now stands before us, calling upon his people to turn to him ere it be too late. Yet three days, and Doom, Doom the Mighty, is fallen, is fallen! He has said it--yet three days."

The two women stayed neither to see nor to listen further. Hand-in-hand they gained the street and ran in the direction of the Citadel Square, heedless of the rain that was now beginning to fall. Several blocks away they paused, exhausted, compelled to seek shelter in a doorway from the fury of the storm. Some one was already there--a man. He turned as they entered, and Esmay saw that it was Ulick.

For several moments they stood side by side without exchanging a word, and, indeed, no speech would have been audible amid the almost continuous crashing of the thunder-peals. Then, as the first violence of the storm expended itself, Esmay heard her name uttered, and realized that Ulick was holding her hand in both his own.

"Don't!" she pleaded, and drew her hand away.

Ulick's face hardened. "I might have known it," he said, bitterly. "Yet he who has been false to friendship may betray love as well."

"He is dead," she said, and Ulick started.

"Constans--dead!" he stammered.

"Hanged at the yard-arm of the Black Swan. But Quinton Edge still lives."

"You loved him?" persisted Ulick, the sense of his injury still strong within him.

The girl drew herself up proudly. "Yes, I loved him--that is for you and all the world to know. But be comforted; he cared not a whit for me. That, in the end, was made plain enough."

Ulick's fare was pale. "But he still stands between us?" he said.