Chapter XXII: Wanda Tells Her Story

The eighth gallery in which they were now confined was a peculiar prison. It was a room about five or six yards long and not more than a yard and one-half broad--a sort of corridor, with a very lofty ceiling, its floor tiled with black and white mosaic ornamented with purple gold. Its strangeness consisted in a feature which gave it a disquieting and peculiar appearance of a combined cage and chapel. The one and the only wall was hollowed out into an apse, at the back of which an enormous idol in red metal smiled a beatific smile, seated in the hollow of a huge flower formed by the spreading of seven flattened heads of a gigantic Brahminic cobra. At the other end, opposite, was the door by which they had been forced to enter the room, and on both sides, arranged clusterwise, there rose a double row of columns almost touching each other and leaving between them space hardly large enough to slip one's arm through.

There was no furniture in the gallery; but on the floor, at the foot of the Buddhist statue, against the wall, there was stretched a bed of beasts' skins, with rough thick hair.

Pierre had set himself upon this, while the missionary, his face pressed between the pillars, watched everything within reach of his eyes.

The gallery in which they lay formed the short end of an enormous room. To right and left other halls, one leading into another, stretched away, separated by lofty arches. Here and there opened dark entries to semi-visible passages. A bluish-green daylight flowed between the gray walls from some source which they could not determine. A smell of stale incense and of mould was over everything. Striking down from some invisible opening in the roof a dazzling ray of sunlight fell obliquely on the tiling of the floor, making a broad splash of pale light. The priestesses came and went. They glided noiselessly from one hall to another, going about their customary duties, taking no notice of the two men, not even glancing at them. They simply appeared from some passage, crossed a hall and were swallowed up in the shadows of another passage; and sometimes they were accompanied by native warriors with bare breasts and legs and cloth kilts about their middles.

Somewhere a woman's voice chanted a canticle, a sort of hymn to death; and amid the vast silence this was the only sound that could be heard.

The minutes passed. Pierre, with his head between his hands, was lost in vague thought: an immense exhaustion had fallen upon him and bitter despair. He thought of Wanda: the image of the young woman haunted him and he was obsessed by the words which she had spoken out there in the middle of the strange tribunal which had condemned them to Slow Death. They went round and round in his brain which burned as with fever.

"Presently.... After the...."

His own fate did not disturb him. His nerves prostrated by fatigue and his will in abeyance, he was a prey to his physical weakness, and, in the dull stupefaction in his brain there floated only a single craving--to give up, to lie down on these warm furs and never move again, never think, and just forget everything.

"Lursac ... come! come quickly!..."

Pierre looked at the missionary with dull eyes, and getting up slowly and awkwardly he went to join him.

The priest, pointing out the series of rooms in front of him, said simply:

"Wanda!"

Pressing his face between two pillars, Pierre looked. She had just appeared at the bottom of the furthest hall. She was running. Under an arch she had to stop to let a procession of priestesses followed by a dozen warriors go by. Then she came on again. The long black tunic which she wore made the pale gold of her unbound hair all the more luminous by its contrast.

Pierre stretched his arms toward her:

"Wanda!... Wanda!..."

In a moment she was before them. A priestess accompanied her and opened the door for her, shutting it behind her, and then went off without a word. Standing in the middle of the gallery, the young woman now gave way and cried with convulsive spasms of silent weeping. Pierre had caught her hands and kissed them passionately one after the other. Words came to him, tumbling out confusedly:

"My dear one!... Wanda!... My love! ... you are here.... Lift up your head so that I may see your eyes ... yes, that's right.... Don't cry! I love you!..."

He pressed her to him passionately, stroking her hair, her shoulders. Then raising her face gently he drew her towards him and bent over her: their lips came together and clung.

Releasing herself, she saw the missionary who had sat himself down upon the heap of furs: she called to him:

"My Father!"

Then, running up to him, she knelt and stretched her hands, which he caught and held.

"My poor child!" said he, "how did you manage to get to us?"

He felt the long, cold fingers tremble in his.

"I am free," she said, "free to come and go throughout the temple. No one takes any notice of me since ... since I must live here henceforth until I die."

They were both silent, full of thoughts and conflicting feelings. It was the young woman who first broke the silence:

"And Michael?" she questioned anxiously, seizing the priest by the arm, "have you found him?"

The missionary confessed the truth, telling briefly the story of their descent into the ravine, the death of their guides, and how they made their way into the temple and had been captured.

She interrupted him, crying aloud again and yet again:

"All that has come about through my fault! Forgive me!... Forgive me!..."

* * * * *

Then in her turn she spoke:

"I wanted to save Michael! His disappearance, the terror which weighed on the whole region, the sorceresses, the pilgrimage for women, all that seemed to be part of a single whole.... I knew that Jieng must know all about this terrible occult system of which my brother was the prisoner, and that she must be a part of it...."

She turned to the missionary.

"You said: 'I cannot depend on starting in less than eight days? I was appalled.... I was afraid that we should arrive too late. When I left the Mission I went to find Jieng by myself in order to force information from her, but I got nothing ... nothing, except that if I accompanied the pilgrimage of the sixth month which was starting that evening, I should at any rate be able to see Michael.... I thought I should be able to join him and give you the time to arrive and rescue him, and perhaps that I could help him to escape. And then, you see, Jieng allowed me to send you a message. So I set out, one of the troop of Moï women. I walked with them all the way and arrived in front of the temple where they made us enter a court...."

"Yes," said Pierre, "we know all about that."

And he recounted the tale which Hmon had told them. She assented to it with nods of her head as he went along, and without speaking.

When he had finished, she looked at him.

"And then?" she asked.

"That's all," said Pierre. "She waked up at the feet of the idol. What had happened while she was asleep she knew nothing of...."

The young woman bent her head. Hiding her face between her hands, she whispered:

"I know.... I know.... When we arrived at the pagoda, Jieng said to me: 'Do you want to see your brother? Perhaps he is here ... mix with the priestesses and look....' So with the priestesses I made one of those who lined the passages through which the Moï women walked, and I saw everything. As soon as they were asleep, four priestesses picked them up. Behind the statue of the God there was a door through which they took them. And Jieng again said to me, 'Follow them.' Then immediately, seeing my movement of instinctive recoil, she said, 'Then stay behind;' but her scornful smile decided me to go on. I found myself in a subterranean passage: before me four priestesses were carrying a woman: behind me two others were walking, with torches in their hands. The passage came out on a high narrow gallery lighted with braziers set on tripods. On one side there was a clammy wall dripping with moisture, and on the other a row of columns close to each other, just like these of this gallery. Spaced among these pillars were doors,--I counted twelve of them. One of the priestesses opened one of them, the first. Leaning against the columns, I looked into a sort of rectangular cave."

The missionary watched Pierre with a sidelong glance:

"Yes, ..." he whispered, "it was through one of those that we got here...."

The young woman seemed not to hear him: she continued:

"Two doors opened out of it: one through which the sorceresses were already pushing the body of the woman, the other opposite. Behind this latter I thought I heard movements and hoarse whispering. I went a little further down the gallery, and I discovered that behind each of these twelve doors there was a similar cell, and that in each of those a sleeping woman was lying on the ground. When I returned to the first one, the woman that I had seen carried there was lying stretched out on the ground chained by the wrist. She was still asleep; and only a single sorceress was by her, who, approaching a tripod on which live coals were glowing, threw upon it a pinch of powder. A flame shot up, blinding and livid. Twice more she repeated her action, and then came back to me. Behind the second door the footsteps approached and became louder. At the same moment a sharp click made me jump. Behind me the door by which we had come in was shut. I was alone in the gallery. Lying along on the ground, the woman who was there moaned softly in her sleep. At the same time the second door was violently flung open ... and...."

She gasped. Through her fingers tears began to drip.

Pierre repeated:

"The door opened, and?"

In spite of himself the words sounded rough.

She sobbed more terribly.

"A man came in," said she, "a red man. He was very tall and clothed in a reddish fur; he looked round with a hard shining look and ran towards the woman. I cried out.... He stopped, and flung an enquiring glance around him; he saw me. He was some steps from me but quite near. I saw his eyes open wide with astonishment. He looked down at the woman lying at his feet and then quickly looked up again at me. Fear overcame me.... I ran along the gallery. From all the cells that I passed I heard cries and noises: I thought I understood, and an immense horror overcame me. Staggering, I came back and reached the first cell in which the man.... He was still there motionless in front of me. His mahogany-colored face took on an extraordinary expression of curiosity and respect, then suddenly it moved spasmodically and he ran at me. I felt his hand on my hair. Ghastly fear made my knees give way. Falling, I flung myself back with all my might and called out...."

She hesitated. Pierre saw her hands tremble and clench.

"And then? then?" he asked.

"I ... it is all confused in my brain. I had shrunk away ... yes ... as far as possible! I was afraid! afraid! But I continued to stare at him. I could neither turn my eyes away nor close them. I saw him standing against the columns, his closed fist held a lock of my hair and he was looking at it. He stayed like that for a long time, looking now at the woman sleeping on the earth and then at me. Finally he drew back slowly and went out."

She stopped speaking.

The missionary stretched his hand to her in a gentle gesture of pity and compassion, but Pierre, his face drawn and his teeth clenched, cried out:

"And then?"

She drew back her hands from her face and cast a gentle look upon him.

"After ... I do not know.... With my face in my arms I cried and cried. Time went by: silence was everywhere around me. I dragged myself to the door. I cried aloud and banged on it. Then suddenly, when I had given up hope, it opened, and Jieng appeared accompanied by two guards. She turned towards me and grinned. The warriors under her order held me up and helped me along: they took me back into the temple and conducted me into a long room with sculptured walls. After having laid me on a sleeping bench covered with furs they went out. Jieng remained alone with me. She looked me up and down.

"'This,' she said, 'will be your room. You are free to leave it if you wish. Do whatever you want. But I said to you one day, 'no harm will happen to you,' and I don't want a pig of a barbarian to be able to accuse me of having lied. The priestesses of the Red Gods do not lie. Go out of the temple if you wish, but do not forget this: Out there'--she pointed in one direction--'at the principal entrance by which you came in is the forest, and death for those who are not of our race. On this side'--and she pointed to the façade of the sanctuary on which the door and window of my room gave--'on this side dwells the clan of the Red Gods which you have just seen.' She paused, gave a short, strident laugh, and went on: 'Do, then, as you will. Whatever happens to you now it will be only your own wish which has brought you to it.'

"She went off before I could make even a movement. I remained on the sleeping-bench, overcome, and my mind empty. I felt incapable of moving. Affairs presented themselves to me in their true light. Making use of the disappearance of Michael, Jieng had inveigled me into an ambush, and from now on I was her prisoner. The words which she had just said to me echoed in my hollow brain. On one side the unknown mountain range, a desert which no man left to himself could manage to cross, on the other the ... the...."

Wanda was silent. Her look was full of a sort of horror. She raised dull eyes towards the two men and went on:

"When I recovered from my prostration I dragged myself to the window of my room, which was barred with small columns. The growing light of dawn showed me a wild landscape: a chaos of rocky blocks massed perpendicularly on the edge of a gentle slope, and beyond that the dark sea of the forest buried in a gorge of which the abrupt walls flung themselves up towards a livid sky and surrounded with their implacable ranks the entire temple."

"The ravine," murmured Pierre.

"Hush!" said the priest, "let her continue!"

The young woman, without looking at them, went on:

"I stayed there a long time. The sun rose and its light shone into my room. I was able to see every detail of it. The walls, from top to bottom, were graven with designs, lotus flowers, impossible animals, warriors and bonzes in attitudes of struggle or prayer. The sleeping-platform, two chests and two or three stools, crudely carved, made up the entire furnishings. The gate to the right of the window which opened on the façade of the temple fronting the ravine, was heavy and made of rough wood: a bar almost as big as a squared beam crossed it. I made sure that it was firmly shut, and then I left the room. I wandered through the halls of the temple. The priestesses and the warriors whom I met took no notice of me.... But I heard behind my back ironical laughs and sneers. I made my way back to my cell, and throwing myself on my bed I sobbed desperately until fatigue, stronger than suffering, brought me unconsciousness.

"A ringing cry awoke me suddenly. I got up and looked about me. Between the columns of my window I made out the face of a man. The face that I had seen the night before in the cell back there.... I cried out, and stood ready to run away....

"But he gave an uneasy smile, and lifting up his hands seemed to show me something which I could not make out properly: then he disappeared. I waited a few seconds, and carefully approaching the window I dared to look out. The sun was setting. On my window-sill I found a stag's head with its antlers. In the distance among the rocks the man was running away."

The young woman bent her head down and stopped speaking.

Pierre, tortured with doubt, did not dare to ask her any questions; while the missionary, remembering what he had seen that same morning at dawn, reflected deeply. Before his mind there came again the picture of the barbarian and his attitude of silent adoration; and suddenly he understood what they had taken for the ritual of an unknown worship was nothing but an expression of adoration--an outbreak of this eternal instinct of love which down through the ages from the earliest days of humanity to the present time has taught the males of the species the same thoughts and the same actions, of which accumulated centuries of civilization and of progress have only succeeded in reducing the primordial brutality ... nothing more than this! The silence grew longer and it was Wanda who of her own accord continued:

"How did he manage to discover which was my window? I do not know. But from that time on, every morning at dawn, and every evening at night-fall, he came up to my room and prowled about it. When he left, a new trophy was added to the others. When I wake in the morning I see his great face and his gray eyes, and in the evening I perceive his shadow flung across the window of my cell. For I do not sleep any more.... I do not sleep any more.... I am afraid.... Although I know I have nothing to fear; but from dread of feeling there, behind my door, this invisible presence, of being aware that I have been ceaselessly watched by this human beast for all of the eight days that I have been here.... Ah, the horror of it!..."

Her glance became fixed. In the depths of her eyes, grown large with fear and reddened by sleeplessness, a vision arose, the vision of a scene which had been enacted the evening before, and of which the memory, overshadowing her, still made her tremble. She lived again through those frightful minutes during which, pressed against the wall, her heart beating wildly, she had listened to the man scratching at her door, feeling it all over, trying his strength against it, endeavoring to enter into this room in which lay the female with the gold hair, the prey which he desired above all else. She recalled again his appearance at the window, his efforts to break through the columns, and his cry--this strange cry which had terrified her by the desire, the wrath, and the sadness which it expressed. Then, mad with terror, she had rushed at him armed with a torch. She saw again his face which the purple light of the firebrand had sharply lighted up--the face of a conquered wild beast, savage, humble, and grief-stricken all at the same time.

She shuddered.

"Ah! the horror of it! ... the horror of it! ..." she repeated in a low voice.

Pierre, who had been wildly striding up and down his narrow prison, came back to her. He seized the hand of the young woman on which still sparkled the signet ring which he had given her. He stroked it gently, and passionately kissed the fingers one by one. A great pity had taken possession of him: he tried to find soothing words:

"My loved one ... my darling ... you must not think of all that, you must not torture yourself like this ... I love you!..."

She raised her head suddenly. Her face, wet with tears, became illumined with an expression of longing and passionate love. She drew him to her.

"I love you!... I love you ..." she whispered, offering him her lips.

And once again their love made them regardless of everything but themselves.

The missionary, standing beside them, looked into the distance. Gradually the darkness stole in. The ray of sunlight had long gone from the furthest arch. Bluish shadows little by little invaded the temple. The night filtered softly into the halls; the further ones gradually melted into the obscurity and became invisible.

The priestesses, scarcely seen, continued to go back and forth through the sanctuary. In the distance the unknown voice continued to chant its song of death; and the darkness mingling with the sadness of the chant sung upon two minor tones gave it a peculiar sweetness.

Minutes passed, and then from the dark of a passage a procession of eight priestesses carrying torches appeared, accompanied by a dozen warriors, their lances in their hands. The troop, crossing the various rooms, advanced towards the prisoners.

Jieng was at their head.

The missionary followed their march with his eyes for a minute, then he murmured:

"_Let them be put in the eighth gallery until the setting of the sun._... And the sun is set!"

He called to Lursac:

"They are coming to fetch us," he said; and he walked towards the door.

The voice stopped him:

"No ... you will not be taken there for an hour."

Pierre, raising his head, perceived Jieng. Standing before the pillars she watched the three Europeans: a grin wreathed her face, twisting it into wrinkles. With a gesture she dismissed her escort; then she spoke in Banhar, addressing herself to Pierre and the girl.

"You came to see me down there in my village. I have not forgotten it."

And she bowed in an ironical salute:

"In my turn I come to see you.... Is not that the custom among you?"

The young people made no answer: they clung to each other. Jieng gave a little dry laugh.

"Aïa ... Aïa ..." said she. "Is your curiosity then dead? Has fear killed it?"

The missionary, as she looked at him, shrugged his shoulders.

"Hé!" he growled, "I wonder what there can be left for us to know now?"

Although he had spoken in a very low voice, the sorceress heard him.

She gave a short laugh.

"What there remains for you to know? Very nearly everything!..."

The three Europeans started violently. The answer had been spoken in French, slowly but almost without accent. The smile of the high-priestess became more marked and full of irony.

"Yes," she said, "first of all that: I speak your language."

She enjoyed their astonishment for the space of several seconds, then she continued:

"You could not imagine that!... And who could have supposed it?... Here, in the depths of the forest, an old woman shut up in her hut, leading the existence which animals lead in their lairs--a savage, brutalized by this primitive and bestial life, just a Moï beggar-woman--_speaking French_!... Incredible, isn't it? Yes ... I am beginning to interest you."

The missionary, taken unawares, had instinctively moved towards the columns.

Her glance settled on him.

"I was certain," said she, "that my visit would not displease you. The explanation?... How and where I learned your language? It is much simpler than you imagine. I suppose you know the orphanage of the Little Sisters of Saigon? I was there eight years, from the age of six to fourteen. Then suddenly I disappeared. They looked for me. I was taken away by a street-beggar and brought back among my own people to be made ready for my present rôle. Ten years of work and initiation, twenty more years during which I learned all the secrets of the Law of Gondwana; then at the death of my mother came my nomination as Bia-Bo-Jaou.[19] I have been that for eighteen years. I was forty-four at the time. And ever since then, every two years at least, I have been to Saigon. I was there when this man"--and she pointed to Lursac--"landed. I shall be there again four months from now. I go there to follow the course of your conquest, to watch the progress of your forward movements."

[Footnote 19: Chief of the sorceresses.]

She made a pause: her voice became stronger, and an extraordinary expression of hardness contracted her deformed face.

"Ah!" said she, "you are powerful: your spirit of order, your system of violence and persuasion by turns, this mixture of force and subtlety, of terrorization and of free infiltration, has given you unexpected results, as, little by little advancing, and settling yourselves as you penetrate, you have arrived at the very foot of our mountains...."

She made a movement of restrained rage.

"Yes ... you have arrived so far, but at the same time you have attained the limit which I had set to your encroachments...."

She noticed the somewhat disdainful smile with which Pierre received her declaration. All the hate in her showed in her face. She growled out:

"You may smile. I told you just now: you know nothing! Listen ... you are going to die in a few hours. She--"and her stretched-out finger pointed to Wanda--"she will never leave the temple again.... You wanted to find out, like the others--like Lieutenant Redeski and Lieutenant Longères whose corpses you found in the ravine--like Captain Dorcel, whom we allowed to return to Saigon because I knew he could never speak again, and because I thought thus to turn aside the suspicions which the disappearance of Lieutenant Longères had aroused. Like them you wanted to know; but also, like them, you will never be able to tell anybody what you do know."

She stopped to sneer. Father Ravennes mechanically enquired:

"Then ... it is you?..."

She did not allow him to go on; she swelled with pride.

"It is I! But there is more and better to come ... for this is only a minor issue, an unimportant detail of the contest which I am waging against you. Remember the rebellion of the Bolovens, a revolt at once religious and patriotic, the taking of the post of Psi, the putting to death of Robert, condemned by me because his curiosity began to be inconvenient! At the same time do not forget the death of Odend'hal who was too anxious to find out about it."

She stamped her foot and cried out:

"All that ... all that, is my work ... it is my will which has caused it ... it is my power which has commanded it and brought it about."

The missionary, standing upright before her, looked at her.

"Why?" he asked quietly. "Why? We have never sought to do you any harm!... We come to you...."

She spat on the ground and interrupted him:

"Done me harm?..." she repeated violently. "By what right do you set yourselves up as masters? This land is ours! However far you may search back into the Chinese historians you find that this soil was inhabited from the beginning by our race. Invasions occurred: the Kmers, the Chams, the Lao-ese, the Cambodians, the Annamese, all, all invaded us and fell upon our plateaus like swarms of hungry insects. We gave way as much as possible. We fled into the most inaccessible forests and on to the most precipitous mountains. We, formerly the masters of this country, we fled. The rich, fertile soil of the plains we abandoned to the greed of our invaders: we were condemned to a miserable life, the life of the beasts, hunted in the depths of their forests and pursued even to their lairs. But we remained free, we were always the Free People of the Mountain."

"Then, in your turn, you came. These fragments of our possessions, these last vestiges of our territory--even these--you wanted to take from us. And above all, above all, you wanted to rule us, to make us subservient to your laws ... to your customs ... to your religion; ... like those other peoples worn out with debauchery and weakened with opium, like the Lao-ese, the Cambodians, the Annamese, we were to have become your servants and the instruments of your greatness!... Ah! but we would not. And I, on the other hand, I, Jieng, less than anyone, because, while those others simply dislike you, I hate you.... I hate you because of your power and your civilization which make you so formidable. I hate you because, great and strong as you are, you are for ever thinking how to stretch out your hands over the miserable territories of a people that you think cannot resist you. I hate you because your domination would mean the annihilation of all that our race has done, the work of my people; our customs, our laws, our habits, our religion: because ten years of European influence is enough to wipe out the centuries of our history; this history that the members of my family have built up one after the other, down to me.... I hate you!... I hate you!..."

Little by little her voice had risen in tone, and she flung out her last words with a sort of furious violence. Then, suddenly, she was taken with a fit of coughing which bent her double.

Pierre and Wanda, motionless, watched her with immense surprise. The priest alone remained unimpressed. He listened with grave attention, and when once more the high priestess was silent he slowly stretched out his arm towards her:

"What does it matter?" said he. "As for me, I do not hate you: you serve your religion...."

Jieng lifted her head again.

"I serve my religion?" said she, "Ah! Ah! They think that! ... and after all that I have just said to them ... they have not even understood!... Dorcel even was more intelligent than you.... My religion? You are as simple as all my people.... For them there must be gods, divine beings whom they never see and whom terror makes them obey better than they do us plain mortals.... The Red Gods! ... yes, for them, for all of them, these are gods.... But for me ... for me ... they are the pure race, the strong race, which makes it possible for me to preserve in the people of the forest its hardiness, to infuse into it a new unfettered blood to fight against its bastardization, against its degradation. It is the giant tree from which I drain into the veins of the Moï people a new sap ... it is the life which I preserve for my people in order that the word of the law of Gondwana shall some day become the truth: _You shall be conquered throughout the centuries but you shall never be overcome, and everything which has been taken away from you, some day you shall retake_."

"But," said the priest, "what about them, the men of the tribe?"

The eyes of the priestess looked at him:

"They," said she, "they do not know. Life for them has always been there, and never anywhere else. The fathers of their fathers have lived there, and for them the world has no other features but those of this valley and the rear façade of the temple. Ten male children and ten girls are enough to assure their perpetuation. Is that what you wanted to know?"

The resonant note of a gong at the end of one of the halls filled the vaults with its call and vibrated long under the vaulted ceilings. Jieng, turning towards her escort, made a sign: the warriors got ready to march away. The high priestess cried in a loud voice:

"This is the hour!..."

Wanda had fallen on her knees. She sobbed.

Lursac, bending over her, said quickly:

"Follow us, and stay as near as you can to the hall into which they take us. Perhaps we can manage...."

She gave a cry of despair:

"No! No! They are too strong and there are too many of them!"

The priest in his turn said decidedly:

"Lursac is right. Anything may happen when God wills it."

And as they opened the door of the gallery he crossed the threshold and of his own accord placed himself between two of the warriors. Pierre did likewise. Wanda had pulled herself together and went out of the gallery, and when the priestesses started off she tried to follow them. Two men stopped her. She struggled and tried to pass in spite of them. They held her by force, and one of them explained to her with a high, almost feminine voice:

"Only those who are going to die are allowed to watch under the statue of the God."

She called out:

"Pierre! Pierre!..."

But the escort had disappeared, swallowed up in the dark mouth of one of the passages. The warriors had loosed her. They watched her. The one who had already spoken said baldly:

"Women and female beasts are just alike, they cry after the male...."

Then she fled, and the laughter of the two guards followed her.