Across the Zodiac (43 page)

After all, Eunané's girlhood, typical of the whole life of many
Martial women, had not, I suppose, been more dreary or confined than
that of children in London, Canton, or Calcutta. But this incident,
reminding me how dreary and limited that life was, served to excuse in
my eyes the pettiness and poverty of the characters it had produced. A
Martial woman's whole experience may well be confined within a few
acres, and from the cradle to the grave she may see no more of the
world than can be discerned from the roof of her school or her
husband's home.

Eunané, with the assistance of the ambau, busied herself in removing
the remains of the meal. The other five, putting on their veils,
scampered up the inclined plane to the roof, much like children
released from table or from tasks. Turning to Eveena, who still
remained beside me, I said—

"Get your veil, and come out with me; I have not yet an idea where we
are, and scarcely a notion what the grounds are like."

She followed me to my apartment, out of which, opened the one she had
chosen, and as the window closed behind us she spoke in a tone of
appeal—

"Do not insist on my accompanying you. As you bade me always speak my
thought, I had much rather you would take one of the others."

"You professed," I said, "to take especial pleasure in a walk with me,
and this time I will be careful that you are not overtired."

"Of course I should like it," she answered; "but it would not be just.
Please let me this time remain to take my part of the household
duties, and make myself acquainted with the house. Choose your
companion among the others, whom you have scarcely noticed yet."

Preferring not only Eveena's company, but even my own, to that of any
of the six, and feeling myself not a little dependent on her guidance
and explanations, I remonstrated. But finding that her sense of
justice and kindness would yield to nothing short of direct command, I
gave way.

"You forget
my
pleasure," I said at last. "But if you will not go,
you must at least tell me which I am to take. I will not pretend to
have a choice in the matter."

"Well, then," she answered, "I should be glad to see you take Eunané.
She is, I think, the eldest, apparently the most intelligent and
companionable, and she has had one mortification already she hardly
deserved."

"And is much the prettiest," I added maliciously. But Eveena was
incapable of even understanding so direct an appeal to feminine
jealousy.

"I think so," she said; "much the prettiest among us. But that will
make no difference under her veil."

"And must she keep down her veil," I asked, "in our own grounds?"

Eveena laughed. "Wherever she might be seen by any man but yourself."

"Call her then," I answered.

Eveena hesitated. But having successfully carried her own way on the
main question, she would not renew her remonstrances on a minor point;
and finding her about to join the rest, she drew Eunané apart. Eunané
came up to me alone, Eveena having busied herself in some other part
of the house. She approached slowly as if reluctant, and stood silent
before me, her manner by no means expressive of satisfaction.

"Eveena thought," I said, "that you would like to accompany me; but if
not, you may tell her so; and tell her in that case that she
must
come."

"But I shall be glad to go wherever you please," replied Eunané.
"Eveena did not tell me why you sent for me, and"—

"And you were afraid to be scolded for spoiling the breakfast? You
have heard quite enough of that."

"You dropped a word last night," she answered, "which made me think
you would keep your displeasure till you had me alone."

"Quite true," I said, "if I had any displeasure to keep. But you might
spoil a dozen meals, and not vex me half as much as the others did."

"Why?" she asked in surprise. "Girls and women always spite one
another if they have a chance, especially one who is in disfavour or
disgrace with authority."

"So much the worse," I answered. "And now—you know as much or as
little of the house as any of us; find the way into the grounds."

A narrow door, not of crystal as usual, but of metal painted to
resemble the walls, led directly from one corner of the peristyle into
the grounds outside. I had inferred on my arrival, by the distance
from the road to the house, that their extent was considerable, but I
was surprised alike by their size and arrangement. On two sides they
were bounded by a wall about four hundred yards in length—that
parting them from the road was about twice as long. They were laid out
with few of the usual orchard plots and beds of different fruits and
vegetables, but rather in the form of a small park, with trees of
various sorts, among which the fruit trees were a minority. The
surface was broken by natural rising grounds and artificial terraces;
the soil was turfed in the manner I have previously described, with
minute plants of different colours arranged in bands and patterns.
Here and there was a garden consisting of a variety of flower-beds and
flowering shrubs; broad concrete paths winding throughout, and a
beautiful silver stream meandering hither and thither, and filling
several small ponds and fountains. That the grounds immediately
appertaining to the house were not intended as usual for the purposes
of a farm or kitchen-garden was evident. The reason became equally
apparent when, looking towards the north, where no wall bounded them,
I saw—over a gate in the middle of a dense hedge of flowering shrubs,
which, with a ditch beyond it, formed the limit of the park in that
direction—an extensive farm divided by the usual ditches into some
twenty-five or thirty distinct fields, and more than a square mile in
extent. This, as Eunané's native inquisitiveness and quickness had
already learnt, formed part of the estate attached to the mansion and
bestowed upon me by the Camptâ. It was admirably cultivated,
containing orchards, fields rich with various thriving crops, and
pastures grazed by the Unicorn and other of the domestic birds and
beasts kept to supply Martial tables with milk, eggs, and meat;
producing nearly every commodity to which the climate was suited, and,
as a very short observation assured me, capable of yielding a far
greater income than would suffice to sustain in luxury and splendour a
household larger than that enforced upon me. We walked in this
direction, my companion talking fluently enough when once I had set
her at ease, and seemingly free from the shyness and timidity which
Eveena had at first displayed. She paused when we reached a bridge
that spanned the ditch dividing the grounds from the farm, aware that,
save on special invitation, she might not, even in my company, go
beyond the former. I led her on, however, till soon after we had
crossed the ditch I saw a man approaching us. On this, I desired
Eunané to remain where she was, seating her at the foot of a fruit
tree in one of the orchard plots, and proceeded to meet the stranger.
After exchanging the usual salute, he came immediately to the point.

"I thought," he said, "that you would not care yourself to undertake
the cultivation of so extensive an estate. Indeed, the mere
superintendence would occupy the whole of one man's attention, and its
proper cultivation would be the work of six or eight. I have had some
little experience in agriculture, and determined to ask for this
charge."

"And who has recommended you?" I said. "Or have you any sort of
introduction or credentials to me?"

He made a sign which I immediately recognised. Caution, however, was
imposed by the law to which that sign appealed.

"You can read," I said, "by starlight?"

"Better than by any other," he rejoined with a smile.

One or two more tokens interchanged left me no doubt that the claim
was genuine, and, of course, irresistible.

"Enough," I replied. "You may take entire charge on the usual terms,
which, doubtless, you know better than I."

"You trust me then, absolutely?" he said, in a tone of some little
surprise.

"In trusting you," I replied, "I trust the Zinta. I am tolerably sure
to be safe in hands recommended by them."

"You are right," he said, "and how right this will prove to you," and
he placed in my hand a small cake upon which was stamped an impression
of the signet that I had seen on Esmo's wrist. When he saw that I
recognised it, he took it back, and, breaking it into fragments,
chewed and swallowed it.

"This," he said, "was given me to avouch the following message:—Our
Chiefs are informed that the Order is threatened with a novel danger.
Systematic persecution by open force or by law has been attempted and
defeated ages ago, and will hardly be tried again. What seems to be
intended now is the destruction of our Chiefs, individually, by secret
means—means which it is supposed we shall not be able to trace to the
instigators, even if we should detect their instruments."

"But," I remarked, "those who have warned you of the danger must know
from whom it proceeds, and those who are employed in such an attack
must run not only the ordinary risk of assassins, but the further risk
entailed by the peculiar powers of those they assail."

"Those powers," he answered, "they do not understand or recognise. The
instruments, I presume, will be encouraged by an assurance that the
Courts are in their favour, and by a pledge in the last resort that
they shall be protected. The exceptional customs of our Order,
especially their refusal to send their children into the public
Nurseries, mark out and identify them; and though our places of
meeting are concealed and have never been invaded, the fact that we do
meet and the persons of those who attend can hardly be concealed."

"But," I asked, "if a charge of assassination is once made and proved,
how can the Courts refuse to do justice? Can the instigators protect
the culprit without committing themselves?"

"They would appeal, I do not doubt, to a law, passed many ages ago
with a special regard to ourselves, but which has not been applied for
a score of centuries, putting the members of a secret religious
society beyond the pale of legal protection. That we shall ultimately
find them out and avenge ourselves, you need not doubt. But in the
meantime every known dissentient from the customs of the majority is
in danger, and persons of note or prominence especially so. Next to
Esmo and his son, the husband of his daughter is, perhaps, in as much
peril as any one. No open attempt on your life will be adventured at
present, while you retain the favour of the Camptâ. But you have made
at least one mortal and powerful enemy, and you may possibly be the
object of well-considered and persistent schemes of assassination. On
the other hand, next to our Chief and his son, you have a paramount
claim on the protection of the Order; and those who with me will take
charge of your affairs have also charge to watch vigilantly over your
life. If you will trust me beforehand with knowledge of all your
movements, I think your chief peril will lie in the one sphere upon
which we cannot intrude—your own household; and Clavelta directs your
own special attention to this quarter. Immediate danger can scarcely
threaten you as yet, save from a woman's hand."

"Poison?"

"Probably," he returned coolly. "But of the details of the plot our
Council are, I believe, as absolutely ignorant as of the quarter from
which it proceeds."

"And how," I inquired, "can it be that the witness who has informed
you of the plot has withheld the names, without which his information
is so imperfect, and serves rather to alarm than to protect us?"

"You know," he replied, "the kind of mysterious perception to which we
can resort, and are probably aware how strangely lucid in some points,
how strangely darkened in others, is the vision that does not depend
on ordinary human senses?"

As we spoke we had passed Eunané once or twice, walking backwards and
forwards along the path near which she sat. As my companion was about
to continue, we were so certainly within her hearing that I checked
him.

"Take care," I said; "I know nothing of her except the Camptâ's
choice, and that she is not of us."

He visibly started.

"I thought," he said, "that the witness of our conversation was one at
least as reliable as yourself. I forgot how it happened that you have
diverged from the prudence which forbids our brethren to admit to
their households aliens from the Order and possible spies on its
secrets."

"Of whom do you speak as Clavelta?" I asked. "I was not even aware
that the Order had a single head."

"The Signet," replied my friend in evident surprise, "should have
distinguished the Arch-Enlightener to duller sight than yours."

We had not spoken, of course, till we were again beyond hearing; but
my companion looked round carefully before he proceeded—

"You will understand the better, then, how strong is your own claim
upon the care of your brethren, and how confidently you may rely upon
their vigilance and fidelity."

"I should regret," I answered, "that their lives should be risked for
mine. In dangers like those against which you could protect me, I have
been accustomed from boyhood to trust my own right hand. But the fear
of secret assassination has often unnerved the bravest men, and I will
not say that it may not disturb me."

"For you," he answered, "personally we should care as for one of our
brethren exposed to especial danger, For him who saved the descendant
of our Founder, and who in her right, after her father and brother,
would be the guardian, if not the head, of the only remaining family
of his lineage, one and all of us are at need bound to die."

After a few more words we parted, and I rejoined Eunané, and led her
back towards the house. I had learnt to consider taciturnity a matter
of course, except where there was actual occasion for speech; but
Eunané had chattered so fluently and frankly just before, that her
absolute silence might have suggested to me the possibility that she
had heard and was pondering things not intended for her knowledge, had
I been less preoccupied. Enured to the perils of war, of the chase, of
Eastern diplomacy, and of travel in the wildest parts of the Earth, I
do not pretend indifference to the fear of assassination, and
especially of poison. Cromwell, and other soldiers of equal nerve and
clearer conscience, have found their iron courage sorely shaken by a
peril against which no precautions were effective and from which they
could not enjoy an hour's security. The incessant continuous strain on
the nerves is, I suppose, the chief element in the peculiar dread with
which brave men have regarded this kind of peril; as the best troops
cannot endure to be under fire in their camp. Weighing, however, the
probability that girls who had been selected by the Sovereign, and had
left their Nursery only to pass directly into my house, could have
been already bribed or seduced to become the instruments of murderous
treachery, I found it but slight; and before we reached the house I
had made up my mind to discard the apprehensions or precautions
recommended to me on their account. Far better, if need be, to die by
poison than to live in hourly terror of it. Better to be murdered than
to suspect of secret treason those with whom I must maintain the most
intimate relations, and whose sex and years made it intolerable to
believe them criminal. I dismissed the thought, then; and believing
that I had probably wronged them in allowing it to dwell for a moment
in my mind, I felt perhaps more tenderly than before towards them, and
certainly indisposed to name to Eveena a suspicion of which I was
myself ashamed. Perhaps, too, youth and beauty weighed in my
conclusion more than cool reason would have allowed. A Martial proverb
says—