Chapter XXVII: “A horror of outer darkness.”

A vast hall of darkness, so great that it seemed to have no end; a place blacker than the deepest night, with no glint of light or life. Yet life was there, for out of the gloomy depths came the buzz of a multitude, eager and suppressed, now nothing more than a sighing breath, again a loud excited whisper that rose and echoed away until space swallowed it up.

The sighing breath took an upward rush, resounding through the darkness like the thunder of surf, to die away again in whispering, waiting silence.

A speck of light appeared, a pin-prick in the vast gloom. Gradually it came closer, and halted, shining high above everything.

The light showed a girl with a tired, white face, clad in a robe of purple gauze that swathed her with the billowy softness of a cloud. Her bare arms and shoulders were loaded with barbaric jewels--a rainbow mass of glittering color, looking almost too heavy for her to carry.

Her appearance made a wild shout come up from beneath.

“Hail, Star, Bride of the Night. All darkness gives you welcome.”

Leslie had no idea what was said, only a roar of savage sound came from the depths her strained eyes were trying to fathom.

The noise died away, to be followed by a silence so still that it seemed to whisper.

Then from a long way off a voice spoke in cultured English.

“Come, dearest, there’s nothing to fear.”

Leslie came of a race that died fighting. Although the voice left her cold and shivering, it reminded her that a debt had to be paid.

She stepped forward into the gloom. Each step brought frantic, hysterical courage; a determination to wipe off, if possible, her father’s infamy; to give this big, strange cousin all he wanted; never to let him know the depths of her aversion.

She reached the bottom of the long flight of rude stone steps. The lantern she carried showed nothing but empty space, and from beyond came the murmur of thousands.

She went forward. Other steps appeared, leading upwards. When she reached the top of these, out of the gloom some one leant towards her, whispering to her not to be afraid.

As the two met, suddenly a thousand torches flared up at all points of the vast underground hall, and a minute later a hundred bonfires burst into life.

Leslie gazed around. It was darkness no longer, but yellow curling mist and smoke and flames. The flare revealed great arches stretching away on either side, until they looped out into a gigantic circle. In each a bonfire danced, lighting the enclosed ring, but accentuating the gloom beyond. There was an inner circle of men, five deep, with spears and shields, all holding torches--men with scarred black faces and fang-like teeth. In front of these again were shadowy figures draped from head to foot in black, with nothing but their rolling eyes to tell they were alive.

Behind them was a sea of faces, all black, all watching her, stretching away until they became nothing more than gleaming eyes.

Leslie’s gaze came back from the countless wild faces to her immediate surroundings.

She was standing on a square block of black rock. Close behind loomed what appeared to be a great night cloud spreading away until it was lost in the shadows. At the first glance it was nothing more than a cloud, cunningly represented by some sculptor of forgotten ages. As she gazed, out of the billowy mass form came. It held her fascinated. It was not a cloud banked up behind the place where she was standing, but a great shape, neither God, nor beast, nor devil, yet all three so blended that they were lost in one. A fearsome Thing, yet strangely human.

She closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at it once more. It was a cloud again, slowly taking shape as she gazed. Its face was bestial, devilish and divine, with eyes that glowed dully in the firelight. Eyes, which, on first inspection, appeared to be two stars peeping out from the night. Some long-dead artist’s conception of the darkness from which all life sprang.

Her eyes left the cloud and went back to Lebrassa. There they stayed, frightened and fascinated.

He was clad in a long, straight, black gown, his massive bare arms flashing with golden armlets. A worn circlet of gold, with strange signs and symbols, was on his crisp, wavy hair. The sight sent a chill through her. There was so little of the Englishman left. So much of the savage, negro Sultan.

His voice broke in on her thoughts.

“You mustn’t watch that beast, darling, or he’ll gather you into everlasting darkness.”

His voice brought back the knowledge of his English side, and her own determination.

“But it isn’t quite a beast. One way it looks almost god-like.”

“I’ve watched it for days on end, and seen nothing but the beast and devil.”

“Perhaps you haven’t looked at it in the right way.”

“Or with the right eyes, little rose.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“Doomana, the shadow of all things. The darkness from which all earth sprang, according to the legend of my mother’s people. A lowering mass of evil that has brooded over this temple since time past all memory. That gathered me into its clutches more than twenty years ago.”

Gently she touched his arm. At that moment the knowledge of her debt loomed large before her.

The light touch brought him bending over her, anxious and eager.

“Little cousin, if I’d come to you clean-handed, my father’s son, not the Sultan of Kallu, could you have overlooked the black if there had been no red of my own making?”

Bravely she answered, with no hint of the ice that seemed to freeze her heart and stop its beating.

“There would have been no red, Essel dear, but for my father.”

The endearment, the first that had passed her lips, brought a smile that took all the lines of cruelty from his mouth. He drew her arm through his, where it stayed, cold, but unresisting.

Leslie stood, staring straight in front of her, until a burst of wild music brought her mind back to earth again.

A procession was winding its way through the gloom beyond the arches, all wearing straight black gowns. Leslie guessed them to be priests. There were perhaps fifty of them, headed by an old man carrying a tray of carved ebony on which reposed a wreath of golden stars, a crown similar to the one worn by the girl-queen, Irena.

From the shadow a voice chanted some old, weird melody, wild and haunting. Now and again, thousands answered it in a chorus that was deafening.

As Leslie watched the approaching procession of priests, it seemed to her they looked at her in anything but a friendly manner--almost as if they hated her. Quite different from the way the black soldiers used to look at her when she went with her cousin among his people. She glanced up at him, wondering if he had noticed it. But he had eyes for her and nothing else.

“What is it, dearest?” he asked, when their eyes met.

“I shall be glad when it’s all over.”

“It will soon come to an end,” he whispered.

Leslie wondered whether it would be a month, a year, or whether old age would come before the debt was settled and a welcome death claimed her.

At the foot of the steps leading to the rocky throne where she and Lebrassa stood, the procession halted. Silence fell on the multitude. A silence broken only by the crackle of the flames as the assembly stood waiting for the high-priest to begin the ceremony.

Then Mhaki’s voice came.

“Hail, Essel, Sultan of Kallu. Lord of Doomana. Ruler of the Night. Heir of all Darkness. Hail, Star, Bride of the Night, set to shine high on the Throne of Night, a gift from the Sultan to his people.”

Leslie was aware that her cousin drew her in front of him, holding her close against him.

Over her head his voice came thundering.

“Hail, all Kallu. A Star has risen to shine in the Heart of Darkness.”

Next came Mhaki’s voice.

Mounting half-way up the steps, he stood facing the crowd, holding on high the glittering crown.

“See, all Kallu! What is set above the night, as night is set above the earth?”

“The stars. And a star was sent to earth to wed with the one who first ruled in Kallu, in the shadow of the Night, as Lord of Doomana. And to his heirs, forever, a star. Our Sultan has chosen, and we would see him crown her.”

Question and answer came like the repetition of some old formula.

The high-priest’s voice again wailed through the temple.

“The Sultan has chosen, and we would see him crown her.”

There was a touch of menace in Mhaki’s voice that made one or two of the dusky warriors glance at him sharply. But Lebrassa had eyes and ears only for the girl within his arms.

As the high-priest mounted higher, to bow before the Sultan and the Star of his choice, holding the crown on its ebony salver, there was a stir among the shrouded figures of the priests forming the circle immediately in front of the warriors.

When Lebrassa took the crown and placed it on Leslie’s head, a sort of sigh passed through them, like an indrawn, hissing breath. Then it died away, and all eyes were fixed on him as he stood proudly smiling over her small head where golden stars now glittered. Over the murmur of the seething crowd, above the crackle and roar of the bonfires, his voice came, loud, arrogant, and all-commanding.

“Is there no greeting for my Queen?”

Ten thousand voices answered him.

“We are star-worshipers, we spawn of the night. In Kallu there is always welcome for such as she.”

As the volume of sound died away, from one corner came a solitary burst of hyena’s laughter. Ten thousand took up the wild war cry. The great hall trembled as the roar thundered through it. Long after Lebrassa’s hand was raised for silence the sound came echoing up from the darkness, to die away in a feeble, jeering laugh and a final sobbing sigh.

There was silence again, a silence that hissed and whispered.

Then, once more, the high-priest spoke:

“In Kallu there is always welcome for such as she. Red welcome.”

It did not need the added phrase to bring Lebrassa’s eyes from Leslie to the black face watching him in fanatical hatred. The menace of the voice had reached him before the clause of Mhaki’s own adding.

Before he had time to say or do anything, almost before the words had left the high-priest’s lips, a hundred voices bellowed:

“Traitor!”

The word was one that raised all the wild beast in the Kalluians. Who and what the traitor was no one knew, save fifty priests and the same number of probationers attached to the temple. The word had come. It raised the blood-lust of a crowd already excited almost beyond bounds. A savage roar went up, demanding the name of the traitor, and his death for daring to desecrate the Sultan’s nuptials with his presence.

The mass surged up to Lebrassa as he stood with surprise, savage anger and a glint of uneasiness on his face.

They stopped at the foot of the throne, not aware the one they sought was there, demanding that the Sultan should deliver this traitor into their hands. Their sudden onward rush swallowed up the priests, who went through the seething crowd whispering, insinuating, hinting.

No name was said, only one sentence.

“The daughter of the murderer is here.”

In the writhing mist and smoke and darkness no one knew where the words came from. They were whispered from the shadows, murmured out of the blackness, echoed through the vaulted arches. From mouth to mouth the words went.

There were men among the soldiers who remembered an argument between the Sultan and his cousin, Nanza, more than eighteen months before, in a hut near Calabar, five hundred miles away: an argument concerning the identity of two white women. They numbered only twenty-eight of the warriors, but what they said was listened to and repeated again and again, till ten thousand heard it.

In less than a quarter of an hour what had been an orderly crowd was a wild pandemonium. Question and answer were hurled out of the mist and smoke and shadows.

Then an ominous lull fell on the surging mass. The wild shouts died down to thick, hoarse growls. All eyes were turned on Lebrassa. His voice came thundering through the vast hall.

“By all darkness! What madness has seized you?”

He stood a picture of unbridled savagery and arrogance, enraged beyond measure, conscious of Leslie’s heart thumping in wild terror beneath his hand. He realized that some inkling of who she really was had reached Kallu. He never doubted but what he could quell the riot. But he did not know the extent and completeness of the evidence against him.

As yet no one had set foot on the Throne of Night. Lebrassa’s voice and attitude held those immediately beneath in check.

Over the growl of the multitude Mhaki’s voice answered, coming from the crowd just below.

“What madness has seized _you_, Essel, Sultan of Kallu, that you would set the daughter of your mother’s murderer on the Throne of Night? A gift of the Sultan to his people. A gift you promised full twenty years ago. But a gift of vengeance, of blood, an offering to Doomana. Not a star to shine as Queen of Kallu. There is a law which says, ‘Death to all traitors.’”

No savage roar greeted the word now. The growl died away to a whispering hiss. The multitude stood with strained ears, awaiting their Sultan’s defense.

“What madness has seized you in your dotage, Mhaki, that you accuse _me_, your Sultan, of black treachery? Death to you that you should dare to foul the name of the Star now shining over Kallu. Say, dogs, do you stand quiet and hear your leader called a traitor? By Mhaki who, with his own eyes, saw the daughter of the murderer die. Shot by Cooper, her husband.”

Lebrassa’s appeal to the soldiers had its effect. A roar greeted him. With a wild rush the warriors swept toward the high-priest, who stood surrounded by his supporters. It was just as well Mhaki had retired beyond his master’s reach. After his accusations he had backed down the steps of the throne and a surge of his friends and followers had swallowed him up. Had he remained within the Sultan’s reach the royal hand might have choked him.

Until order was restored, Lebrassa dared not leave the high rock where he was standing. He did not know what the mob might do to Leslie if she were left alone. He did not think about his own danger. As once before all his wits were concentrated on saving the girl he held pressed close against him in fierce protection. He thought he could keep the surging mass immediately beneath in check until the soldiers cleared a way so that he could get her out of the temple and in some place of safety. Then he would return and pacify the mob.

As he watched, the oncoming soldiers wavered, hesitated, came on uncertainly and then stopped altogether.

Lebrassa had reckoned without the women who had been gathered in the shadows beyond the lights. Chaos had brought them out among the men. A fortnight of wild revelry had preceded the Sultan’s marriage. This had given the hearts of the dusky warriors very much into the keeping of their womenfolk. Black hands could cling and hinder and make their power felt just as easily as white ones on men who were husbands, sweethearts and would-be lovers. The women clustering around the soldiers had fathers and brothers among the priests, and they had no wish to see their relatives killed. They clung to the arms of the soldiers, pleading and imploring, whispering that what Mhaki said might be true, that love plays havoc with the hearts of men, and the Sultan was but human, begging them to talk matters out quietly, to have no bloodshed. And all the time the priests were talking, whispering no longer, but declaring plainly that Nanza had returned and had brought proof beyond all doubt of the Sultan Essel’s treachery.

The soldiers’ halt left Lebrassa aghast. Through the babel of sound separate voices reached him. He heard how the news had come to Kallu and who had brought it, and he realized how poor was his chance of quelling the riot.

There was but one way of saving Leslie.

He glanced round calculatingly, knowing he could keep the mob in check for a few moments, sufficiently long to carry out the plan of escape that had come to him.

But first he desired a personal interview with Mhaki--to get within touch of the high-priest and silence that worthy for ever. But before doing this, he wanted to have Leslie where she could not see him act according to the instincts of his savage ancestors.

He was a picture of sultanic fury as he stood thundering for the silence he was gradually obtaining.

Over the mad babel his voice was heard at last.

“Who is the cur that heads this rabble? Let him come forward and prove his statements. If what he says is true, then I have been deceived about this girl I would make my wife.”

At his words a listening silence fell on the horde. To Mhaki’s face there came an expression of relief. But Nanza, disguised as one of the shrouded temple probationers, shrank back into the shadows.

Breathless silence reigned as the Sultan’s defense went on.

“Mhaki saw the murderer’s daughter die. A woman who told me her father was the man who slew Irena. And I thought then that she did not know who I was. But if what Mhaki says is true, then she knew me, what my motive was, and misled me purposely. For the woman whom I thought to be the daughter of that foul murderer was smitten with a disease that made her days numbered. Moreover, she had a friend whom she loved beyond all else--the Star I would have set to shine over Kallu. If the news my cousin Nanza has brought is true, then the woman who is dead deceived me purposely, hoping to save her friend. If it can be proved that Bhessu’s wife was not the child of the murderer, but it is her friend whose blood is wanted, she who is with me now as my bride, say, all Kallu, would there be anything but hatred in my heart, and a desire to deal with her as her father dealt with my mother? I, also, would know the truth. If all Mhaki says is fair and just, proof past all doubting, no plot of his and Nanza’s, then there will be no love in my heart for the Star, but hatred. And I will give her over to you to do with as you please, and say I am a fool, I, the Sultan of Kallu, to be so deceived by a woman.”

The explanation sent the crowd surging over to Lebrassa’s side.

Even the high-priest’s fanatical old heart was eased. The son of his beloved Irena was no traitor after all! But a man deluded by a woman, ensnared by the beauty of another as is ever the lot of man, not knowing who and what she really was.

Lebrassa watched the effect of his words on the crowd surging beneath the rock where he stood alone with the girl he was endeavoring to save. As he watched he made a gradual backward movement toward the brooding shape that loomed behind him, so slowly that in the flickering shadows it was hardly noticeable.

Just as Mhaki reached the foot of the steps the mulatto touched some point in the carved mass behind him, at the same time assuming a stiff unnatural position as though both feet and one elbow were working for some desired effect. There was a heavy stealthy noise as of a great stone moving. Leslie felt herself being lowered with quick haste and a voice whispered:

“Have no fear, little cousin, go straight on and I’ll join you.”

By then the unsuspecting priest had reached the top of the steps. The mulatto sprang forward, seized him in the grip of a madman, swung him on high, then dashed him with all his giant strength down against the black rock.

The roar of ten thousand wild beasts greeted this action. But Mhaki lay quite still, his sharp old brains bespattered about the Throne of Night, the only person, besides Lebrassa, who knew how to open the entrance to the Chamber of Musing, or who knew where, in the forest, was the door of the secret way leading from it.

Lebrassa turned to join Leslie, his idea being to take her on through the passage, and out into the forest, trusting to his own great strength, skill, cunning and savage lore to make his way through the wilderness until he reached what would be a place of safety for her, the first British outpost more than two hundred miles away.

As he turned to open the rock again, which had swung to the moment his hand left it, Nanza drew a revolver from beneath his cloak and fired wildly.

One shot reached home. Just as Lebrassa was about to move the rock again and join Leslie in her temporary refuge, he reeled and fell, lamed by a bullet through his ankle. He was up again almost at once, but just too late. Before he could reach sanctuary fifty hands seized him and dragged him down as he fought with the strength of Samson and the fury of a mad elephant.

In spite of everything there was a small orderly section in the mob. The hands holding Lebrassa were mostly priestly ones; the probationers formed a circle around him, keeping off the herd bellowing for his life.

Over the pandemonium Nanza’s voice came thundering. The fact of his presence sent a further howl echoing through the vast hall--a howl of welcome. A call for silence went round. Gradually the wild babel died down and his voice was heard.

“Hail, all Kallu. The truth has come, and with it the death of a Sultan. My cousin would have us think he knew not that the Star was the daughter of Irena’s murderer. Are we fools to be beguiled by such a tale? If what he said was true, why did he hide the girl, and then kill the high-priest, Mhaki? He lied to you and killed Mhaki in order to save himself and her, for only he and Mhaki knew that beyond lies a secret passage leading to the heart of the forest. And only he and Mhaki knew the secret that moves the stone. Does not all this prove that he knew who and what the girl was, and that it was his intention to defraud you of the blood that is your due?”

This speech resulted in a further dash to reach Lebrassa who now lay, bound and helpless, surrounded by a guard sufficiently strong to keep the rabble at bay.

Over their fury Nanza’s voice came again.

“You would give him an easy death,” he cried. “Not one worthy of Kallu. Let me ask him if he is willing to give the Star back into our keeping, and we will deal with him according to his answer.”

Nanza turned to his prostrate cousin.

“Tell me, Essel, the secret that moves Doomana, that I may enter and bring back the Star to shine over Kallu. A gift from the Sultan to his people.”

There was no reply.

The mulatto’s eyes blazed back at his tormentor as he writhed in a giant effort to burst his bonds and reach the one responsible for his capture. He was in an agony of helplessness at the thought of Leslie alone in the rock chamber, yet he knew that death by slow starvation would be preferable to the one this mob would deal out to her if she fell into their hands.

“See, he will tell me nothing,” Nanza cried. “What shall we do? Shall we persuade him?”

There was order now, the order of a multitude all of one mind.

The throne was cleared of all except Nanza, half a dozen priests and the prisoner. Wild figures rushed round the circle, mending and poking fires the happenings of the last hour had allowed to smolder unattended. There must be light--light to show what was about to happen.

The fires blazed up on a mass of figures, all squatted on their haunches, with the lurid light playing on their black, shining skins and eyes that had an inward red gleam fixed on the square rock, high above, where another fire gleamed.

Through the waiting hall Nanza’s voice came, full of savagery and hate.

“Tell us, my cousin, how to reach the Star set to shine over Kallu? We would have her in our midst, this Light from the Skies.”

There was a long pause, but no reply.

The question came again, but it still met with no answer.

At a gesture from Nanza, one of the priests drew a red hot bar of iron from the fire.

A moment later there was a faint hissing sound, and with it came the smell of live flesh scorching. This was followed by a laugh, loud, arrogant and defiant. Nanza’s voice came again.

“Come, Essel, son of my mother’s sister. Give us the Star. We are anxious to welcome our Queen.”

Again there was no response. And again there came that sickly, scorching smell.

Another laugh followed, but it died away in a stifled groan.

A crowd sat and watched, but there was no laughter now, only the smell of scorching flesh and a sort of suppressed panting.