CHAPTER IX

The Will of the Masters

“Lord have mercy on me, if it ain’t Harkness! And Rawson, too!” cried Stranahan, leaping to his feet, and seizing our hands in a hearty grip. “By all things holy, I thought I’d never see you again!”

For a moment we were unable to reply, so great was the confusion of shouts, greetings, and excited questionings from our four new-found companions. Though we were fully as delighted as they, our first words came in inchoate, mumbled phrases, for our surprise was apparently even greater than theirs.

“Well, and what are you doing in this part of the country?” Stranahan at length inquired, with a smile. “I thought you were safe in the old X-111.”

“Nothing is safe in the X-111,” I replied. “Captain Gavison sent us out after you when you didn’t come back.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” declared Stranahan, ruefully. “You know I hate to disobey orders, but I’m afraid I’ll have to. We won’t be coming back just yet.”

“What makes you think that?” I demanded, with sudden misgivings.

“I don’t think it--I know it,” he maintained, with an air of certainty. And, leaning on one foot against a marble column while his brawny hand stroked his chin, he continued, ruminatingly, “Suffering sea snakes, do you take me for a fool? Do you think I’d be here if I could find a way out?”

“But can’t you?” I questioned, innocently.

“No, by the devil, I can’t!” he swore. “Neither can you! We’re all prisoners here!”

“What? Prisoners in this building?” I gasped.

“No, not in this building! In this town!” corrected Stranahan.

“In this town?” Despite my agitation, I began to laugh. “This town makes a fair-sized jail.”

“You won’t think so for long!” warned Stranahan, with all the fury of conviction. “The Lord strike my heart from my breast if I ever saw a deader place--except maybe my own home town on Sunday afternoons!”

Following this outburst, Stranahan recounted his recent experiences, which were not altogether different from our own. Like us, he and Ripley had reached the city following an ambling excursion among the outlying colonnades and temples; but unlike us, they had not been so unfortunate as to be trapped in one of the buildings. In fact, they had suffered a different misfortune entirely. Upon entering the city, they had been confronted by several of the natives; and, surmising that these strange beings were hostilely disposed, the terrified Stranahan had whipped out his revolver and fired toward the crowd. So far as was known, no one had been injured, but all had been badly frightened by the report; and for a while, the two seamen had had the freedom of the town.

They were ultimately stopped, however, by a band of determined-looking natives. Though apparently unarmed, and though they used no violence, these men overpowered the intruders in some inexplicable way. Not only were Stranahan and Ripley deprived of their pistols, but they were rendered docile as children, and were conducted, as we had been, to the place of amber and sapphire, where a hundred pale-robed individuals debated and passed on their fate. Next they were brought to their present dwelling, where they were clothed and fed, and where they were reunited with Stangale and Howlett, who had preceded them to the city. They had now been living here for several days, and during that time had been treated with unexpected civility and kindness and even allowed to roam at will through the city; but whenever they had approached the boundaries of the town, they had encountered a band of citizens who, by shouts and gestures and a mysterious but irresistible power of suggestion, had given them to understand that they were not to leave.

Stranahan was approaching the end of his recital, and was telling us how he had been compelled to wear the native costume and how his meals had been brought to him regularly twice each day, when he was interrupted by the entrance of several natives, who had been looking for us in the adjoining room and seemed a little annoyed at our disappearance. Unceremoniously they led us back to the other apartment, where the half dozen robes were lying in wait for us; and, perceiving from their gestures that we would do well to don the native garb, I promptly arrayed myself in a gown of pale lavender, while Rawson exchanged his sailor’s suit for a costume of daintiest yellow. Both of us had difficulty in adjusting the garments, which were fastened at the shoulder by a fish-bone device resembling a safety-pin; and we had our hesitation about the sandals, which were slipped on at a stroke and yet were held firmly in place by inconspicuous cords. But though we puzzled over our new apparel for many minutes, Rawson found in the end that he had his on inside out, while the front of mine was where the rear should have been. Of course, we did not discover these mistakes for ourselves. Our attendants, on returning to see us fully attired, indicated the errors with smiles and suppressed laughter; and with their aid, we managed to array ourselves almost like self-respecting natives.

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Fortunately, we had little time just then to notice how ridiculous we looked in our colored gowns. As soon as the perplexing business of dressing was settled, one of the men motioned me to a sofa in a corner of the room, where he took a seat beside me as though for some important purpose; and a second similarly led Rawson to an opposite corner, while the other natives unceremoniously took their leave. My

## particular attendant, who was a tall man, neither young nor old, with

classic features and keen but kindly gray eyes peering from beneath a wide expanse of forehead, now began to go through a series of apparently meaningless gestures, accompanied by no less meaningless words. First he would tap his head while emitting a peculiar sound; then he would tap his breast while emitting another peculiar sound; then he would touch his arm, his knee, his foot, always slowly and carefully pronouncing one or two unintelligible syllables. In the beginning, I was inclined to wonder whether he was not mad, but this view was not furthered by the discovery that Rawson’s attendant was conducting a similar performance. It was doubtless only my own stupidity that prevented me from grasping the truth immediately. At length my companion drew a small pad of paper from his pocket and began to write upon it with an instrument resembling a fountain pen, and I understood clearly enough then that he was trying to teach me his language; so I gave him my undivided attention, noting carefully each object he touched and the corresponding sounds, and noted particularly the characters he jotted down upon the paper.

Then suddenly I saw light amid the darkness! Although this was but my first lesson, I was making faster progress than either of us could have anticipated--my knowledge of ancient Greek was proving invaluable! At the first glance, I observed the resemblance between the letters my instructor was inditing and those of the old Greek, even as I had noticed the resemblance on the stone inscriptions; and it was not many minutes before I discovered that some of the words, although not to be recognized when pronounced, were written in a style closely similar to the Greek, and were obviously built upon Greek roots. This was not true of all the words, but it was true of such a large percentage, that I had hopes of soon being able to speak the language and so to solve the mystery of this fantastic deep-sea people.

After about two hours, my instructor rose from his seat, shoved the pad of paper back into his pocket, and indicated that our lessons were over for the day. But he smiled upon me graciously, as though to indicate that I was a not unpromising pupil; and he spoke a word which I thought I recognized as “Tomorrow,” after which he saluted me with a courteous wave of the hand, and joining Rawson’s instructor, went ambling leisurely out of view.

It was with a wry smile that Rawson rejoined me. “Say, did you get anything out of it at all?” he inquired. “I just couldn’t make head or tail of it. Heavens, at this rate it would take me ten years to learn my A, B, C’s!”

I did not confide that I had private reasons for feeling more optimistic than my friend. But, after I had offered to help and was rejected, I was content to let the conversation drift to other subjects.

Rawson was now annoyingly given to useless lamentations. Hotly he deplored our plight; he declared that he no longer saw anything romantic about it, and least of all perceived anything romantic about being made to go to school again; and he reminded me time after time of Captain Gavison and the crew, whom we had last seen stranded in the wilderness with the disabled X-111, and who were no doubt awaiting our return in hope that was fast giving way to despair. Though I did not share in Rawson’s dislike of our present quarters, and though I was deterred from leaving, not only by hopes of learning the language but by thoughts of the nameless fair one, yet I had to listen when Rawson spoke of our duty to our waiting comrades; and, in spite of the forbidding precedent set by Stranahan and Ripley, I could not but consent to try to return to our shipmates.

As the doors of our dwelling were wide open and there was no one to interfere with us, we sauntered forthwith into the streets. As usual, we found them almost deserted, and so had no hesitation in proceeding along the winding walks and broad avenues and past the innumerable terraces, courts and temples in the direction from which we had entered the city. As the various distinctive gardens and palaces constituted unmistakable landmarks, we were seldom at a loss as to our route, and in little more than half an hour we found ourselves at the threshold of the town, before that odd statue-like edifice where we had been imprisoned. The path of escape now seemed open, and our flight appeared so easy that we paused momentarily, almost with misgivings at having encountered no obstacles. But not a person was in sight, and no sign of any impediment was visible, and so in surprise we started up that slope which led to the colonnades and outlying temples.

We had almost reached the top, and I was already deep in regrets at leaving this charming city just as it was becoming so interesting, when half a score of pale-gowned individuals suddenly appeared from above the ridge, their vociferous cries and commanding gestures warning us back. They carried no weapon, yet they could not have been more imperious had they borne loaded rifles; there seemed almost to be some hidden compulsion, some irresistible magnetism about them, so that our weak wills quailed and bowed to theirs, and we retreated before them as impulsively as a singed animal retreats before fire. I do not know why it was, for they surely would not have set violent hands upon us; but we no more thought of disobeying them than a trained dog thinks of disobeying its master; and back to the city we hastened, while they followed on our heels with faces stern and set; and, having re-entered the town, we made our way directly to the building we had just left, as though some superior mind controlled our movements and we were no longer free.

Upon our return, we met with another surprise. Naturally, we were prompted to seek Stranahan and our three other shipmates again; but we had expected that they would be occupied, as before, by cards or some other time-killing game. Instead, we found them seated in the four corners of the room, each with a companion (needless to say, a native); and from the peculiar gestures of those companions and their habit of writing occasionally on pads of paper, we recognized that they were giving instructions in the language of the land. But this in itself was not the surprising fact. Two of the four newcomers were ladies, one of them being of matronly years; but the other, who sat opposite Stranahan, smilingly making notes with her pen, was not only in the full bloom of youth, but had that singularly sweet cast of countenance, those singularly clear and magnetic large blue eyes, which could belong to only one woman in the world!

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[Illustration: ... Beneath us, at a distance that may have been five hundred feet and may have been a thousand, the vaults and domes and columns of innumerable stone edifices shone palely and with sallow luster. Surely, we thought, this was some unheard-of Athens, doomed long ago by tidal wave or volcano ... Palace after magnificent palace, many seemingly modelled by architects of old Greece, went gliding by beneath us; countless statues, tall as the buildings, pointed up at us with hands that were uncannily life-like; wide avenue after wide avenue flashed by, and one or two colossal theatres of Grecian design ...]

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