Page 16 (1/2)

THE DESCENT OF THE GODS

ALL the house at St Anne&039;s was empty, but for two rooms In the kitchen, drawn a little closer than usual about the fire and with the shutters closed, sat Dimble and MacPhee and Denniston and the wo vacancy of stair and passage, the Pendragon and Merlin were together in the Blue Rooone up to the lobby outside the Blue Roo other than fear that barred his way-an al his way forward against it, he would have co sounds that were clearly not voices though they had articulation: and if the passage were quite dark he would probably have seen a faint light, not like fire or moon, under the Director&039;s door I do not think he could have reached the door itself unbidden Already the whole house would have see like a ship in a Bay of Biscay gale He would have been horribly compelled to feel this earth not as the base of the universe but as a ball spinning and rolling onwards, both at delirious speed, and not through eh some densely inhabited and intricately structured ed senses forsook him, that the visitants in that roolanced and wheeled through the packed reality of heaven (which men call e earth&039;s hide

The Druid and Ransoun to wait for these visitors soon after sundown Ransom was on his sofa Merlin sat beside him, his hands clasped, his body a little bent forward Sorey cheek He had at first addressed himself to kneel, but Ransom forbade hiotten that they are our fellow-servants?" The ere uncurtained, and all the light that there was in the roo, but later star-lit

Long before anything happened in the Blue Room the party in the kitchen had made their ten-o&039;clock tea It hile they sat drinking it that the change occurred Up till now they had instinctively been talking in subdued voices, as children talk in a rooust inco of a will Now of a sudden they all began talking loudly at once, each, not contentiously but delightedly, interrupting the others A stranger coht they were drunk, not soddenly but gaily drunk: would have seen heads bent close together, eyes dancing, an excited wealth of gesture What they said, none of the party could afterwards reed in ht, reed that they had been extraordinarily witty If not plays upon words, yet certainly plays upon thoughts, paradoxes, fancies, anecdotes, theories laughingly advanced, yet, on consideration, orth taking seriously, had flowed froot her great sorrow Mother Dimble always remembered Denniston and her husband as they had stood, one on each side of the fireplace, in a gay intellectual duel, each capping the other, each rising above the other, up and up, like birds or aeroplanes in combat Never in her life had she heard such talk-such eloquence, such toppling structures of double , such sky-rockets of metaphor and allusion

A moment after that and they were all silent Caloes out of the wind behind a wall They sat staring upon one another, tired and a little self-conscious

Upstairs this first change had had a different operation There caripped the side of his sofa: Merlin set his teeth A rod of coloured light, whose colour no man can name or picture, darted between the was the least part of their experience Quick agitation seized the in mind and heart which shook their bodies also It went to a rhythm of such fierce speed that they feared their sanity ments And then it seemed that this had actually happened But it did not ments -needle-pointed desires, brisk littering drops and reunited thee of poetry The doubling, splitting, and recohts which noent on in them would have been unendurable for one whom that art had not already instructed in the counterpoint of the mind, the mastery of doubled and trebled vision For Ransom, whose study had been for many years in the real within the very heart of language, in the white-hot furnace of essential speech All fact was broken, splashed into cataracts, caught, turned inside out, kneaded, and reborn ashius, ith theel that spins nearest the sun, Viritrilbia, whom men call Mercury and Thoth

Down in the kitchen drowsiness stole over the nearly fallen asleep, was startled by her book falling from her hand, and looked about her Hoarm it washow comfortable and faht the san to think it eeter than it could possibly be, that a s cedar or of incense pervaded the roorant names hovered in her mind- nard and cassia&039;s bal -why not forbidden?-but she kneas commanded She was too drowsy to think deeply how this could be The Diether, but in so low a voice that the rest could not hear Their faces appeared to her transfigured She could no longer see that they were old-only olden with the tranquillity of fulfilled desire On her other side, Arthur said so in Camilla&039;s ear There toobut as the warmth and sweetness of that rich air now fully mastered her brain, she could hardly bear to look on theht was far away) but because a sort of brightness flowed frooddess in theh their clothes and shone before her in a young double-natured nakedness of rose-red spirit that overcaross and ridiculous dwarfs which she had seen that afternoon but grave and ardent spirits, bright winged, their boyish shapes smooth and slender like ivory rods

In the Blue Room also Ransom and Merlin felt about this time that the temperature had risen The s, they did not see hohen, had swung open; but the temperature did not drop, for it was froh the bare branches, across the ground which was onceinto the rooland never has Laden like heavy barges that glide nearly gunwale under, laden so heavily you would have thought it could not ht-scented flowers, sticky guht fruit, it stirred the curtains, it lifted a letter that lay on the table, it lifted the hair which had a moment before been plastered on Merlin&039;s forehead The roo as of foa bubbles ran over their flesh Tears ran down Ransom&039;s cheeks He alone knew from what seas and what islands that breeze blew Merlin did not: but in him also the inconsolable wound hichLow syllables of prehistoric Celtic self-pity s were, however, only the forerunners of the goddess As the whole of her virtue seized, focused, and held that spot of the rolling earth in her long bea harder, shriller, more perilously ecstatic, came out of the centre of all the softness Both the hu, Ransoht, and ruthless, ready to kill, ready to die, outspeeding light: it was Charity, not as ine it, not even as it has been humanised for them since the Incarnation of the Word, but the trans-lunary virtue, fallen upon theated They were blinded, scorched They thought it would burn their bones They could not bear that it should continue They could not bear that it should cease So Perelandra, triu planets, whom men call Venus, came and ith them in the room

Down in the kitchen MacPhee sharply drew back his chair so that it grated on the tiled floor like a pencil squeaking on a slate "Man!" he exclai at the fire If the Director hadn&039;t got a ga himself, I&039;ll bet you he&039;d have found soo to work"

Cao on!"

"What do you ," said Camilla

"They&039;d be too many for us, I&039;m afraid," said Arthur Denniston

"Maybe so!" said MacPhee "But maybe they&039;ll be too o at them before the end To tell you the truth, I soreatly care what happens But I wouldn&039;t be easy in rave if I knew they&039;d won and I&039;d never had my hands on them"

"Oh," said Cae in the old style I don&039;tonce I&039;m on a horse"

"I can&039;t understand it," said Dimble "I&039;m not like you, MacPhee I&039; as you spoke that I don&039;t feel afraid of being killed and hurt as I used to do Not to-night"

"Weas we&039;re all together," said Mother Di heroicit ht be a nice way to die" And suddenly all their faces and voices were changed They were laughing again, but it was a different kind of laughter Their love for one another becaht, "I&039;m lucky to be here I could die with these "But MacPhee was hu William said Be not dismayed, for the loss of one commander"

Upstairs it was, at first, rass on Badon Hill, the long banner of the Virgin fluttering above the heavy British-Roman cataphracts, the yellow-haired barbarians He heard the snap of the bows, the click-clack of steel points in wooden shields, the cheers, the howling, the ringing of struckthe hill, frost ht on a pool fouled with blood, eagles crowding together in the pale sky And Ransole in the caves of Perelandra But all this passed So tonic and lusty and cheerily cold, like a sea-breeze, was co over them There was no fear anywhere: the blood inside the their places in the ordered rhythm of the universe, side by side with punctual seasons and patterned atoht of their obedience their wills stood up straight and untiring like caryatides Eased of all fickleness they stood; gay, light, nimble, and alert They had outlived all anxieties; care was a ithoutTo live was to share without effort this processional pomp Ransom knew, as a man knohen he touches iron, the clear, taut splendour of that celestial spirit who now flashed between theilant Malacandra, captain of a cold orb, whom men call Mars and Mavors, and Tyr who put his hand in the wolf-ue of heaven But he warned Merlin that now the tiods who had already met in the Blue Room were less unlike humanity than the thom they still awaited In Viritrilbia and Venus and Malacandra were represented those two of the Seven genders which bear a certain analogy to the biological sexes, and can therefore be in some measure understood byto descend These also doubtless had their genders, but we have no clue to theies: ancient eldils, steers been subdued to the sweet huanic life

"Stir the fire, Denniston, for any sake That&039;s a cold night," said MacPhee in the kitchen

"It ht of that; of stiff grass, hen-roosts, dark places in the , the earth gripped, suffocated, in airless cold, the black sky lit only with stars And then, not even stars: the heat-death of the universe, utter and final blackness of nonentity froht MacPhee "I believe," thought Denniston But the old life gone, all its ti back? Where do years go, and why? Man never would understand it

Saturn, whose naa, stood in the Blue Room His spirit lay upon the house, or even on the whole earth, with a cold pressure such as ainst the lead-like burden of his antiquity, the other gods the and ephehest antiquity we can conceive, up and up like a ht, not to eternity where the thought can rest, but intowastes and silence of unnae was no ination can sink in reverie, but a living, self-reences fros back waves, itself unwithered and undecayed, but able to wither any who approached it unadvised Ransom and Merlin suffered a sensation of unendurable cold: and all that was strength in Lurga becaa in that rooreater spirit came-one whose influence tempered and al Mercury, the clearness of Mars, the subtler vibration of Venus, and even the nu was felt No one afterwards kne it happened, but somehow the kettle was put on, the hot toddy was brewed Arthur-the only et out his fiddle The chairs were pushed back, the floor cleared They danced What they danced no one could re: it involved beating the floor, clapping of hands, leaping high And no one, while it lasted, thought himself or his fellows ridiculous It e measure, not ill-suited to the tiled kitchen: the spirit in which they danced it was not so It sees and queens, that the wildness of their dance expressed heroic energy, and its quieter movements had seized the very spirit behind all noble cerehty beahts Before the other angels a ht die, but if he lived at all he would laugh If you had caught one breath of the air that came froh you were a cripple, your ould have beconaniship and power and festal pomp and courtesy shot fro of bells, the blowing of tru out of banners are means used on earth tosunlit wave, creamy-crested and arched with e and with terror and unquenchable laughter It was like the first beginning of h and at soh young hearts when they hear it For this was great Glund-Oyarsa, King of Kings, through whom the joy of creation principally blows across these fields of Arbol, known to men in old times as Jove and under that name, by fatal but not inexplicable misprision, confused with his Maker-so little did they drea rises above hi there was holiday in the Blue Rooht up into the Gloria which those five excellent Natures perpetually sing, forgot for a ti Then they proceeded to operation Merlin received the powers into him

He looked different next day Partly because his beard had been shaved: but also, because he was no longer his own man No one doubted that his final severance from the body was near Later in the day MacPhee drove hihbourhood of Belbury

Mark had fallen into a doze in the tramp&039;s bedroom that day, when he was startled, and driven suddenly to collect himself, by the arrival of visitors Frost came in first Two others followed One was the Deputy Director: the other was a man whom Mark had not seen before

This person was dressed in a rusty cassock and carried in his hand a wide-brimmed black hat such as priests wear iner He was clean shaven, revealing a large face with heavy and complicated folds in it, and he walked with his head a little bowed Mark decided that he was a siious order who happened to be an authority on soe It was rather odious to see him between those two birds of prey-Withers effusive and flattering on his right and Frost, on his left, waiting with scientific attention but also, as Mark could see, with a certain cold dislike, for the result of the new experier for sonised as Latin "A priest, obviously," thought Mark "But I wonder where froes Would the old chap be a Greek?" The stranger took a step nearer to the bed and spoke two syllables in a low voice For a second or two the tra fit; then, slowly, but with continuous movement, as when the bows of a ship come round in obedience to the rudder, he rolled round and lay staring up into the other&039;s face Fros of his head and hands and fro to say so kind What next followed took his breath away The stranger spoke again: and then, with hs and sta and expectoration, there cah unnatural voice, syllables, words, a whole sentence, in solish All this tier kept his eyes fixed on &039; those of the traain This tith and seeh his voice re for the last few days At the end of his speech he sat up in bed and pointed to where Wither and Frost were standing The stranger appeared to ask him a question The tramp spoke for the third tier started back, crossed hin of terror He turned and spoke rapidly in Latin to the other two, caught up his skirts, and made a bolt for the door But the scientists were too quick for hi there, Frost&039;s teeth bared like an ani, for once, a quite una threatened Shaking his head and holding out his hands, he came ti the struggle at the door, suddenly stiffened again and fixed his eyes on this frightened oldorders

More words in the unknown language followed The traer turned and spoke to the Wither and Frost looked at one another as if each waited for his fellow to act What folloas pure lunacy With infinite caution, wheezing, and creaking, doent the whole shaky senility of the Deputy Director, down on to its knees: and half a second later with a jerky, ot down beside him When he was down he suddenly looked over his shoulder to where Mark was standing "Kneel," he cried, and instantly turned his head Mark never could reot to obey this order or whether his rebellion dated froain, alith his eyes fixed on those of the ain the latter translated, and then stood aside Wither and Frost began going forward on their knees till they reached the bedside The tramp&039;s hairy, dirty hand with its bitten nails was thrust out to them They kissed it Then it seeently expostulating in Latin against this order He kept on indicating Frost The words venia tua (each time emended to venia vestrd) recurred so often that Mark could pick them out But apparently the expostulation was unsuccessful: a few moments later Frost and Wither had both left the room

As the door shut, the tramp collapsed like a deflated balloon He rolled hi, "Gor&039;, blimey Couldn&039;t have believed it It&039;s a knock-out A fair knock-out"But Mark had little leisure to attend to this He found that the stranger was addressing hih he could not understand the words, he looked up Instantly he wished to look away again and found that he could not A moment later he fell into his chair and slept

"It iserprofoundly perplexing," said the Deputy Director, as soon as they found themselves outside the door

"It certainly looked," continued Frost, "as if thehypnotised and the Basque priest were in charge of the situation"

"And how on your hypothesis would a Basque priest couest was Merlinus Ambrosius?"

"That is the point If the man in the bed is not Merlinus, then someone else, someone quite outside our calculations, namely the priest, knows our whole plan"

"And that, my dear friend, is why the retention of both these persons and a certain extreme delicacy in our attitude to both is required"

"They must, of course, be detained"

"I would hardly say detained It has implicationsthe most cordial welcome, the most meticulous courtesy"

"Do I understand that you had always pictured Merlinus entering the Institute as a Dictator rather than a colleague?"

"As to that," said Wither, " my conception had always been elastic It would be a very real grief toany nityah, in short, provided he is Merlinus"

"Where are you taking us at the moment?"

"To my own apartuest with some clothes"

"There was no request We were ordered" The Deputy Director made no reply When both men were in his bedroom and the door was shut, Frost said, -"You do not seeers We must take into account the possibility that the man is not Merlinus And if he is not, then the priest knows things he ought not to know And where did you get the priest from?"

"I think that is the kind of shirt which would beit on the bed "The suits are in here Theahclerical personage said he had come in answer to our advertisement"

"What do you propose to do?"

"We will, of course, consult the Head at once I use that term, you understand, purely for convenience"

"But how can you? Have you forgotten that this is the night of the inaugural banquet, and that Jules is co attendance on hiotten But the realisation of this troubled him more than it would have troubled another It was like the first breath of winter-the first crack in that great secondary self which he had built up to carry on the business of living while he floated far away on the frontiers of ghosthood

"You have to consider at once," said Frost, " what to do with these two "

"Which reminds me that we have already left theo back"

"And without a plan?" enquired Frost

"We uided by circureeted on their return by a babble of io," he said; "I entreat you do not do violence to a harive me-but I cannot stay here This man who says he is Merlinus come back from the dead-he is a diabolist, a worker of infernalman" He pointed to where Mark lay unconscious in his chair

"Silence!" said Frost in the sae, "and listen If you do what you are told, no harm will come to you If you do not, you will be destroyed"

The man whimpered

Suddenly, not as if he wished to but as if he were a machine that had been worked, Frost kicked him "Get on," he said