 The Fortress Unvanquishable, Saved for Sakhnath, by Lord Dunceny. The Fortress Unvanquishable, Saved for Sakhnath, by Lord Dunceny. In a wood older than record, a foster-brother of the hills, stood the village of Alathurian, and there was peace between the people of that village and all the folk who walked in the dark ways of the wood, whether they were human or of the tribes of the beasts or of the race of the fairies and the elves and the little sacred spirits of trees and streams. Moreover, the village people had peace among themselves and between them and their lord, Lurendiak. In front of the village was a wide and grassy space, and beyond this the great wood again, but at the back the trees came right up to the houses which, with their great beams and wooden framework and thatched roofs green with moss, seemed almost to be a part of the forest. Now in the time I tell of there was trouble in Alathurian, for of an evening fell dreams where wants to come slipping through the tree trunks and into the peaceful village, and they assumed dominion of men's minds and led them in watches of the night through the cindery plains of hell. Then the magician of that village made spells against those fell dreams, yet still the dreams came flitting through the trees as soon as the dark had fallen, and led men's minds by night into terrible places and caused them to praise Satan openly with their lips. And men grew afraid of sleep in Alathurian, and they grew worn and pale, some through the want of rest and others from fear of the things they saw on the cindery plains of hell. Then the magician of the village went up into the tower of his house, and all night long those whom fear kept awake could see his window high up in the night glowing softly alone. The next day when the twilight was far gone and night was gathering fast, the magician went away to the forest's edge and uttered there the spell that he had made. And the spell was a compulsive, terrible thing, having a power over evil demons and over spirits of ill. For it was a verse of forty lines in many languages, both living and dead, and had in it the word wherewith the people of the plains are want to curse their camels, and the shout wherewith the whalers of the north lure the whales shoreward to be killed, and a word that causes elephants to trumpet, and every one of the forty lines closed with a rhyme for wasp. And still the dreams came flitting through the forest and led men's souls into the plains of hell. Then the magician knew that the dreams were from gas-neck. Therefore he gathered the people of the village and told them that he had uttered his mightiest spell, a spell having power over all that were human or of the tribes of the beasts, and that since it had not availed, the dreams must come from gas-neck, the greatest magician among the spaces of the stars. And he read to the people out of the book of magicians, which tells the comings of the comet and foretells his coming again. And he told them how gas-neck rides upon the comet and how he visits earth once in every two hundred and thirty years, and makes for himself a vast invincible fortress, and sends out dreams to feed on the minds of men, and may never be vanquished but by the sword Sacknoth. And a cold fear fell on the hearts of the villagers when they found that their magician had failed them. Then spake Leothric, son of the Lord Loren Diak, and twenty years old was he. Good Master, what is the sword of Sacknoth? And the village magician answered. Fair Lord, no such sword as yet is wrought, for it lies as yet in the hide of Tharagavurg, protecting his spine. Then said Leothric, who is Tharagavurg, and where may he be encountered? And the magician of Olothurion answered. He is the dragon Crocodile who wants the northern marshes and ravages the homesteads by their marge. And the hide of his back is of steel, and his underparts are of iron. But along the midst of his back, over his spine, there lies a narrow strip of unearthly steel. This strip of steel is Sacknoth, and it may be neither cleft nor molten, and there is nothing in the world that may avail to break it, nor even leave a scratch upon its surface. It is of the length of a good sword, and of the breadth thereof. Should thou prevail against Tharagavurg, his hide may be melted away from Sacknoth in a furnace, but there is only one thing that may sharpen Sacknoth's edge. And this is one of Tharagavurg's own steel eyes, and the other eye thou must fasten to Sacknoth's hilt, and it will watch for thee. But it is a hard task to vanquish Tharagavurg, for no sword can pierce his hide, his back cannot be broken, and he can neither burn nor drown. In one way only can Tharagavurg die, and that is by starving. Then sorrow fell upon Leothric, but the magician spoke on. If a man drive Tharagavurg away from his food with a stick for three days, he will starve, on the third day at sunset. And though he is not vulnerable yet in one spot he may take hurt, for his nose is only of lead. A sword would merely lay bare the uncleavable bronze beneath, but if his nose be smitten constantly with a stick he will always recoil from the pain, and thus may Tharagavurg to left and right be driven away from his food. Then Leothric said, What is Tharagavurg's food? And the magician of Olothurian said, His food is men. But Leothric went straight away dense, and cut a great staff from a hazel tree, and slept early that evening. But the next morning, awakening from troubled dreams, he arose before the dawn, and taking with him provisions for five days set out through the forest northwards towards the marshes. For some hours he moved through the gloom of the forest, and when he emerged from it the sun was above the horizon, shining on pools of water in the wasteland. Presently he saw the claw marks of Tharagavurg, deep in the soil, and the track of his tail between them like a pharaoh in a field. Then Leothric followed the tracks till he heard the bronze heart of Tharagavurg before him booming like a bell. And Tharagavurg, it being the hour when he took the first meal of the day, was moving towards a village with his heart tolling. And all the people of the village were come out to meet him, as it was their want to do, for they abode not the suspense of awaiting Tharagavurg and of hearing him sniffing brazenly as he went from door to door, pondering slowly in his metal mind what habitat he should choose. And none dared to flee, for in the days when the villagers fled from Tharagavurg he, having chosen his victim, would track him tirelessly, like a doom. Nothing availed them against Tharagavurg. Once they had climbed the trees when he came, but Tharagavurg went up to one, arching his back and leaning over slightly, and rasped against the trunk until it fell. And when Leothric came near, Tharagavurg saw him out of one of his small, steel eyes and came towards him leisurely, and the echoes of his heart swirled up through his open mouth. And Leothric stepped sideways from his onset and came between him and the village and smote him on the nose, and the blow of the stick made a dint in the soft lead. And Tharagavurg swung clumsily away, uttering one fearful cry like the sound of a great church bell that had become possessed of a soul that fluttered upward from the tombs at night. An evil soul, giving the bell a voice. Then he attacked Leothric, snarling, and again Leothric leapt aside and smote him on the nose with the stick. Tharagavurg uttered like a bell howling, and whenever the dragon crocodile attacked him or turned towards the village, Leothric smote him again. So all day long Leothric drove the monster with a stick, and he drove him farther and farther from his prey, with his heart tolling angrily and his voice crying out in pain. Towards evening Tharagavurg ceased to snap at Leothric, but ran before him to avoid the stick, for his nose was sore and shining, and in the gloaming the villagers came out and danced to symbol and sultry. When Tharagavurg heard the symbol and sultry, hunger and anger came upon him, and he felt as some lord might feel who was held by force from the banquet in his own castle, and heard the creaking spit go round and round, and the good meat crackling on it. And all that night he attacked Leothric fiercely, and off times nearly caught him in the darkness, for his gleaming eyes of steel could see as well by night as a day. And Leothric gave ground slowly till the dawn, and when the light came they were near the village again. Yet not so near to it as they had been when they encountered. For Leothric drove Tharagavurg farther in the day than Tharagavurg had forced him back in the night. Then Leothric drove him again with his stick till the hour came when it was the custom of the dragon crocodile to find his man. One third of his man he would eat at the time he found him, and the rest at noon and evening. But when the hour came for finding his man a great fierceness came on Tharagavurg, and he grabbed rapidly at Leothric, but could not seize him, and for a long while neither of them would retire. But at last the pain of the stick on his leaden nose overcame the hunger of the dragon crocodile, and he turned from it howling. From that moment Tharagavurg weakened. All that day Leothric drove him with his stick, and at night both held their ground, and when the dawn of the third day was come the heart of Tharagavurg beat slower and fainter. It was as though a tired man was ringing a bell. Once Tharagavurg nearly seized a frog, but Leothric snatched it away in time. Towards noon the dragon crocodile lay still for a long while, and Leothric stood near him and leaned on his trusty stick. He was very tired and sleepless, but had more leisure now for eating his provisions. With Tharagavurg the end was coming fast, and in the afternoon his breath came hoarsely, rasping in his throat. It was as the sound of many huntsmen blowing blasts on horns, and towards evening his breath came faster, but fainter, like the sound of a hunt going furious to the distance and dying away. And he made desperate rushes towards the village, but Leothric still leapt about him battering his leaden nose. Scarce audible now at all was the sound of his heart. It was like a church bell tolling beyond the hills for the death of someone unknown and far away. Then the sunset had flamed in the village windows and a chill went over the world, and in some small garden a woman sang, and Tharagavurg lifted up his head, and starved. And his life went from his invulnerable body, and Leothric lay down beside him and slept. And later, in the starlight the villagers came out and carried Leothric sleeping to the village, all praising him in whispers as they went. They laid him down upon a couch in a house and danced outside in silence, without sultry or cymbal. And the next day, rejoicing to Allothorian, they hauled the dragon crocodile. And Leothric went with him, holding his battered staff, and a tall broad man who was Smith of Allothorian made a great furnace and melted Tharagavurg away till only Sacknoth was left, gleaming among the ashes. Then he took one of the small eyes that had been chiseled out, and filed an edge on Sacknoth, and gradually the steel eye wore away, facet by facet. But ere it was quite gone it had sharpened redoubtably Sacknoth. But the other eye they set in the butt of the hilt, and it gleamed there bluely. And that night Leothric arose in the dark, and took the sword, and went westward to find Gasnek. And he went through the dark forest till the dawn, and all the morning and till the afternoon. But in the afternoon he came into the open and saw in the midst of the land where no man goeth, the fortress of Gasnek, mountainous before him, little more than a mile away. And Leothric saw that the land was marsh and desolate, and the fortress went up all white out of it with many buttresses, and was broad below, but narrowed higher up, and was full of gleaming windows with the light upon them. And near the top of it a few white clouds were floating, but above them some of its pinnacles reappeared. Then Leothric advanced into the marshes, and the eye of Tharagavurg looked out warily from the hilt of Sacknoth. For Tharagavurg had known the marshes well, and the sword nudged Leothric to the right or pulled him to the left away from the dangerous places, and so brought him safely to the fortress walls. And in the wall stood doors like precipices of steel all studded with boulders of iron, and above every window were terrible gargoyles of stone, and the name of the fortress shown on the wall writ large in letters of brass. The fortress, unvanquishable, saved for Sacknoth. Then Leothric drew and revealed Sacknoth, and all the gargoyles grinned, and the grin went flickering from face to face right up into the cloud-abiding gables. And when Sacknoth was revealed and all the gargoyles grinned, it was like the moonlight emerging from a cloud to look for the first time upon a field of blood, and passing swiftly over the wet faces of the slain that lie together in the horrible night. Then Leothric advanced towards a door, and it was mightier than the marble quarry Sacrimona, from which of old men cut enormous slabs to build the abbey of the holy tears. Day after day they wrenched out the very ribs of the hill until the abbey was built, and it was more beautiful than anything in stone. Then the priests blessed Sacrimona, and it had rest, and no more stone was ever taken from it to build the houses of men. And the hill stood looking southwards lonely in the sunlight, defaced by that mighty scar. So vast was the door of steel, and the name of the door was the Port Resonant, the Way of Egress for War. Then Leothric smote upon the Port Resonant with Sacknoth, and the echo of Sacknoth went ringing through the halls and all the dragons in the fortress barked. And when the baying of the remotest dragon had faintly joined in the tumult, a window opened far up among the clouds, below the twilight gables, and a woman screamed, and far away in hell her father heard her and knew that her doom was come. And Leothric went on smiting terribly with Sacknoth, and the gray steel of the Port Resonant, the Way of Egress for War, that was tempered to resist the swords of the world, came away in ringing slices. Then Leothric, holding Sacknoth in his hand, went in through the hole that he had hewn in the door, and came into the unlit Cavernous Hall. An elephant fled trumpeting, and Leothric stood still, holding Sacknoth. When the sound of the feet of the elephant had died away in the remote corridors, nothing more stirred, and the Cavernous Hall was still. Presently the darkness of the distant halls became musical with this sound of bells, all coming nearer and nearer. Still Leothric waited in the dark, and the bells rang louder and louder, echoing through the halls, and there appeared a procession of men on camels riding two by two from the interior of the fortress. And they were armed with cimetars of Assyrian make, and were all clad with mail, and chain mail hung from their helmets about their faces, and flapped as the camels moved. And they all halted before Leothric in the Cavernous Hall, and the camel bells clanged and stopped. And the leaders said to Leothric, The Lord Gaznak has desired to see you die before him. Be pleased to come with us, and we can discourse by the way of the manner in which the Lord Gaznak has desired to see you die. And as he said this he unwound a chain of iron that was coiled upon his saddle, and Leothric answered, I would fain go with you, for I am come to slay Gaznak. Then all the Camelguard of Gaznak laughed hideously, disturbing the vampires that were asleep in the measureless vault of the roof. And the leaders said, The Lord Gaznak is a mortal, save for Sacknoth, and weareth armor that is proof even against Sacknoth himself, and hath usured the second most terrible in the world. Then Leothric said, I am the Lord of the sword, Sacknoth. And he advanced toward the Camelguard of Gaznak, and Sacknoth lifted up and down in his hand as though stirred by an exultant pulse. Then the Camelguard of Gaznak fled, and the riders leaned forward and smote their camels with whips, and they went away with a great clamor of bells through colonnades and corridors and vaulted halls, and scattered into the inner darkness of the fortress. When the last sound of them had died away, Leothric was in doubt which way to go, for the Camelguard was dispersed in many directions. So he went straight on till he came to a great stairway in the midst of the hall. Then Leothric set his foot in the middle of a wide step and climbed steadily up the stairway for five minutes. Little light was there in the great hall through which Leothric ascended, for it only entered through arrow slits here and there, and in the world outside evening was waning fast. The stairway led up to two folding doors, and they stood a little ajar, and through the crack Leothric entered and tried to continue straight on, but could get no farther, for the whole rooms seemed to be full of festoons of ropes which swung from wall to wall, and were looped and draped from the ceiling. The whole chamber was thick and black with them. They were soft and light to the touch, like fine silk, but Leothric was unable to break any one of them. And though they swung away from him as he pressed forward, yet by the time he had gone three yards they were all about him like a heavy cloak. Then Leothric stepped back and drew Sacknoth, and Sacknoth divided the ropes without a sound, and without a sound the severed pieces fell to the floor. Leothric went forward slowly moving Sacknoth in front of him up and down as he went. When he was come into the middle of the chamber, suddenly, as he parted with Sacknoth a great hammock of strands, he saw a spider before him that was larger than a ram. And the spider looked at him with eyes that were little, but in which there was much sin, and said, Who are you that spoil the labour of years all done to the honour of Satan? And Leothric answered, I am Leothric, son of Lorin Dyak. And the spider said, I will make a rope at once to hang you with. Then Leothric parted another bunch of strands and came nearer to the spider as he sat making his rope. And the spider looked up from his work, said, What is that sword which is able to sever my ropes? And Leothric said, It is Sacknoth. There at the black hair that hung over the face of the spider parted to left and right, and the spider frowned. Then the hair fell back into place and hid everything except the sin of the little eyes, which went on gleaming lustfully in the dark. But before Leothric could reach him he climbed away with his hands going up by one of his ropes to a lofty rafter. And there sat growling. But clearing his way with Sacknoth, Leothric passed through the chamber and came to the farther door. And the door being shut and the handle far up out of his reach, he hewed his way through it with Sacknoth, in the same way as he had through the port resident the way of egress for war. And so Leothric came into a well-lit chamber, where queens and princes were banqueting together, all at a great table, and thousands of candles were glowing all about, and their light shone in the wine that the princes drank and on the huge gold candelabra and the royal faces were irradiant with the glow. And the white tablecloth and the silver plates and the jewels and the hair of the queens, each jewel having a historian all to itself, who wrote no other chronicles all his days. Between the table and the door there stood two hundred footmen in two rows of one hundred, facing one another. Nobody looked at Leothric as he entered through the hole in the door, but one of the princes asked a question of a footman, and the question was passed from mouth to mouth by all the hundred footmen till it came to the last one nearest Leothric, and he said to Leothric, without looking at him, What do you seek here? And Leothric answered, I seek to slay Gaznak. And footmen to footmen repeated all the way to the table, he seeks to slay Gaznak. And another question came down the line of footmen, what is your name? And the line that stood opposite took his answer back. Then one of the princes said, Take him away, where we shall not hear his screams. And footmen repeated it to footmen till it came to the last two, and they advanced to seize Leothric. Then Leothric showed to them his sword, saying, This is Saknoth. And both of them said to the man nearest, it is Saknoth, then screamed and fled away. And two by two all up the double line footmen to footmen repeated, it is Saknoth, then screamed and fled, till the last two gave the message to the table, and all the rest had gone. Herodli then arose the queens and princes and fled out of the chamber, and the goodly table, when they were all gone, looked small and disorderly and awry, and to Leothric pondering in the desolate chamber by what door he should pass onwards, there came from far away the sounds of music, and he knew that it was the magical musicians playing to Gaznak while he slept. Then Leothric, walking toward the distant music, passed out by the door opposite to the one through which he had cloven his entrance, and so passed into a chamber vast as the other, in which were many women, weirdly beautiful. And they all asked him of his quest, and when they heard that it was to slay Gaznak, they all besought him to tarry among them, saying that Gaznak was immortal save for Saknoth, and also that they had need of a knight to protect them from the wolves that rushed round and round the wainscot all the night, and sometimes broke in upon them through the mouldering oak. Perhaps Leothric had been tempted to tarry had they been human women, for theirs was a strange beauty, but he perceived that instead of eyes they had little flames that flickered in their sockets, and knew them to be the fevered dreams of Gaznak. Therefore he said, I have business with Gaznak and with Saknoth, and passed on through the chamber. And at the name of Saknoth those women screamed, and the flames of their eyes sank low and dwindled to sparks. And Leothric left them, and hewing with Saknoth passed through the farther door. Outside he felt the night air on his face, and found that he stood upon a narrow way between two abysses. To left and right of him, as far as he could see, the walls of the fortress ended in a profound precipice, though the roof still stretched above him. And before him lay the two abysses, full of stars, for they cut their way through the whole earth and revealed the under-sky. And threading its course between them went the way, and it sloped upward, and its sides were sheer, and beyond the abysses where the way led up to the farther chambers of the fortress, Leothric heard the musicians playing their magical tune. So he stepped on the way, which was scarcely a stride and width, and moved along it, holding Saknoth naked. And to and fro beneath him, in each abyss, were the wings of vampires passing up and down, all giving praise to Satan as they flew. Presently he perceived the dragon-thock lying upon the way, pretending to sleep, and his tail hung down into one of the abysses. And Leothric went toward him, and when he was quite close, Thok rushed at Leothric, and he smote deep with Saknoth, and Thok tumbled into the abyss, screaming, and his limbs made a whirring in the darkness as he fell, and he fell till his screams sounded no louder than a whistle, and then he could be heard no more. Once or twice Leothric saw a star blink for an instant and reappear again, and this momentary eclipse of a few stars was all that remained in the world of the body of Thok. And Lunk, the brother of Thok, who had lain a little behind him, saw that this must be Saknoth and fled lumbering away. And all the while that he walked between the abysses, the mighty vault of the roof of the fortress still stretched over Leothric's head, all filled with gloom. Now, when the further side of the abyss came into view, Leothric saw a chamber that opened with innumerable arches upon the twin abysses, and the pillars of the arches went away into the distance and vanished in the gloom to left and right. Far down, the dim precipice on which the pillars stood he could see windows, small and closely barred, and between the bars there showed at moments and disappeared again, things that I shall not speak of. There was no light here except for the great southern stars that shone below the abysses, and here and there in the chamber through the arches, lights that moved furtively without the sound of footfall. Then Leothric stepped from the way and entered the great chamber. Even to himself he seemed but a tiny dwarf as he walked under one of these colossal arches. The last faint light of evening flickered through a window painted in somber colors, commemorating the achievements of Satan upon earth. High up in the wall the window stood, and the streaming lights of candles lowered down moved stealthily away. Other light there was none, save for a faint blue glow from the steel eye of Therogavurg, that peered restlessly about it from the hilt of Sacknacht. Heavily in the chamber hung the clammy odor of a large and deadly beast. Leothric moved forward slowly, with the blade of Sacknacht in front of him feeling for a foe, and the eye in the hilt of it looking out behind. Nothing stirred. If anything lurked behind the pillars of the colonnade that held aloft the roof it neither breathed nor moved. The music of the magical musicians sounded from very near. Suddenly the great doors on the far side of the chamber opened to left and right. For some moments Leothric saw nothing move and waited clutching Sacknacht. Then Wang Bangorok came toward him breathing. This was the last and faithfulest guard of Gaznak, and came from slobbering just now his master's hand. More as a child than a dragon was Gaznak want to treat him, giving him often in his fingers tender pieces of man all smoking from his table. Long and low was Wang Bangorok, and subtle about the eyes, and he came breathing malice against Leothric out of his faithful breast. And behind him roared the armory of his tail, as when sailors dragged the cable of the anchor, all rattling down the deck. And well Wang Bangorok knew that he now faced Sacknacht, for it had been his want to prophecy quietly to himself for many years as he lay curled at the feet of Gaznak. And Leothric stepped forward into the blast of his breath and lifted Sacknacht to strike. But when Sacknacht was lifted up, the eye of Therogoverg in the butt of the hilt beheld the dragon and perceived his subtlety. For he opened his mouth wide and revealed to Leothric the ranks of his saber teeth and his leather gums flapped upwards. But while Leothric made too smite at his head, he shot forward scorpion-wise over his head the length of his armoured tail. All this the eye perceived in the hilt of Sacknacht, who smote suddenly sideways. Not with the edge, smote Sacknacht, for had he done so the severed end of the tail had still come hurtling on, as some pine tree that the avalanche has hurled point foremost from the cliff right through the broad breast of some mountaineer. So had Leothric bid transfixed, but Sacknacht smote sideways with the flat of his blade and sent the tail whizzing over Leothric's left shoulder, and it rasped upon his armour as it went and left a groove upon it. Sideways then at Leothric smote the foiled tail of Wong Bongarok. The Sacknacht parried and the tail went shrieking up the blade and over Leothric's head. Then Leothric and Wong Bongarok fought sword to tooth, and the sword smote as only Sacknacht can, and the evil, faithful life of Wong Bongarok, the dragon, went out through the wide wound. Then Leothric walked on past that dead monster and the armoured body still quivered a little, and for a while it was like all the plowshares in a county working together in one field behind tired and struggling horses. Then the quivering ceased, and Wong Bongarok lay still to rust. And Leothric went on to the open gates, and Sacknacht dripped quietly along the floor. By the open gates through which Wong Bongarok had entered, Leothric came into a corridor echoing with music. This was the first place from which Leothric could see anything above his head, for hitherto the roof had ascended to mountainous heights and had stretched indistinct in the gloom. But along the narrow corridor hung huge bells low and near to his head, and the width of each brazen bell was from wall to wall, and they were one behind the other. And as he passed under each the bell uttered, and its voice was mournful and deep, like to the voice of a bell speaking to a man for the last time when he is newly dead. Each bell uttered once as Leothric came under it, and their voices sounded solemnly and wide apart at ceremonious intervals, for if he walked slow these bells came closer together, and when he walked swiftly they moved farther apart, and the echoes of each bell tolling above his head went on before him whispering to the others. Once when he stopped, they all jangled angrily till he went on again. Between these slow and boating notes came the sound of the magical musicians. They were playing a dirge now, very mournfully. And at last Leothric came to the end of the corridor of the bells, and beheld there a small black door. And all the corridor behind him was full of the echoes of the tolling, and they all muttered to one another about the ceremony, and the dirge of the musicians came floating slowly through them like a procession of foreign elaborate guests. All of them boated ill to Leothric. The black door opened at once to the hand of Leothric, and he found himself in the open air in a wide court paved with marble. High over it shone the moon, summoned there by the hand of Gaznak. There Gaznak slept, and around him sat his magical musicians all playing upon strings, and even sleeping Gaznak was clad in armor, and only his wrists and face and neck were bare. But the marvel of that place was in the dreams of Gaznak. For beyond the wide court slept a dark abyss, and into the abyss there poured a white cascade of marble stairways, and widened out below into terraces and balconies with fair white statues on them, and descended again in a wide stairway and came to lower terraces in the dark, where swart uncertain shapes went to and fro. All these were the dreams of Gaznak, and issued from his mind, and becoming gleaming marble passed over the edge of the abyss as the musicians played. And all the while out of the mind of Gaznak, lulled by that strange music, went spires and pinnacles beautiful and slender, ever ascending skywards, and the marble dreams moved slow in time to the music. When the bells tolled and the musicians played their dirge, ugly gargoyles came out suddenly all over the spires and pinnacles, and great shadows passed swiftly down the steps and terraces, and there was hurried whispering in the abyss. When Leothric stepped from the black door, Gaznak opened his eyes. He looked neither to left nor right, but stood up at once facing Leothric. Then the magicians played a death spell on their strings, and there arose a humming along the blade of Saknoth as he turned the spell aside. When Leothric dropped not down and they heard the humming of Saknoth, the magicians arose and fled, all wailing as they went upon their strings. Then Gaznak drew out screaming from its chief the sword that was the mightiest in the world except for Saknoth, and slowly walked toward Leothric, and he smiled as he walked, although his own dreams had foretold his doom. And when Leothric and Gaznak came together, each looked at each and neither spoke a word, but they smote both at once, and their swords met, and each sword knew the other and from whence he came. And whenever the sword of Gaznak smote on the blade of Saknoth, it rebounded gleaming as hail from off slated roofs. But whenever it fell upon the armor of Leothric, it stripped it off in sheets. And upon Gaznak's armor Saknoth fell, off and furiously, but ever he came back snarling, leaving no mark behind. And as Gaznak fought, he held his left hand hovering close over his head. Presently Leothric smote fair and fiercely at his enemy's neck, but Gaznak, clutching his own head by the hair, lifted it high aloft, and Saknoth went cleaving through an empty space. Then Gaznak replaced his head upon his neck and all the while fought nimbly with his sword. And again and again Leothric swept with Saknoth at Gaznak's bearded neck, and ever the left hand of Gaznak was quicker than the stroke, and the head went up and the sword rushed vainly under it. And the ringing fight went on till Leothric's armor lay all round him on the floor, and the marble was splashed with his blood, and the sword of Gaznak was notched like a saw from meeting the blade of Saknoth. Still, Gaznak stood unwounded and smiling still. At last Leothric looked at the throat of Gaznak and aimed with Saknoth, and again Gaznak lifted his head by the hair, but not at his throat flew Saknoth, for Leothric struck instead at the lifted hand, and through the wrist of it went Saknoth, worrying as a scythe goes through the stem of a single flower. And bleeding the severed hand fell to the floor, and at once blood spurred from the shoulders of Gaznak and dripped from the fallen head, and the tall pinnacles went down into the earth and the wide fair terraces all rolled away, and the court was gone, like the dew, and the wind came and the colonnades drifted dense, and all the colossal halls of Gaznak fell, and the abysses closed up suddenly as the mouth of a man who, having told a tale, will forever speak no more. Then Leothric looked around him in the marshes where the night mist was passing away, and there was no fortress nor sound of dragon or mortal. Only beside him lay an old man, wisened and evil and dead, whose head and hand were severed from his body. And gradually over the wide lands the dawn was coming up, and ever growing in beauty as it came, like to the peal of an organ played by a master's hand, growing louder and lovelier as the soul of the master warms, and at last giving praise with all its mighty voice. Then the birds sang, and Leothric went homeward, and left the marshes and came to the dark wood, and the light of the dawn ascending lit him upon his way. And into Allathorion he came ere noon, and with him brought the evil, wisened head. And the people rejoiced, and their nights of trouble ceased. This is the tale of the vanquishing of the fortress unvanquishable save for Sacknoth, and of its passing away, as it is told and believed by those who loved the mystic days of old. Others have said and vainly claimed to prove that a fever came to Allathorion and went away, and that this same fever drove Leothric into the marshes by night and made him dream there and act violently with a sword. And others again say that there have been no town of Allathorion, and that Leothric never lived. Peace to them. The gardener hath gathered up this autumn's leaves. Who shall see them again, or who wot of them? And who shall say what hath be fallen in the days of long ago? End of The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacknoth, by Lord Dunceny. Gypsy, by Booth Tarkington On a fair Saturday afternoon, in November, Penrod's little old dog, Duke, returned to the ways of his youth, and had trouble with a strange cat on the back porch. This, in discretion, so uncharacteristic, was due to the agitation of a surprised moment, for Duke's experience had inclined him to a peaceful pessimism, and he had no ambition for hazardous undertakings of any sort. He was giving to musing but not to avoidable action, and he seemed habitually to hope for something which he was pretty sure would not happen. Even in his sleep, this gave him an air of wistfulness. Thus, being asleep in a nook behind the metal refuse-can, when the strange cat ventured to ascend the steps of the porch, his appearance was so unwarlike that the cat felt encouraged to extend its field of reconnaissance, for the cook had been careless, and the backbone of a three-pound whitefish lay at the foot of the refuse-can. The cat was, for a cat, needlessly tall, powerful, independent, and masculine. Once, long ago, he had been a roly-poly pepper-and-salt kitten. He had a home in those days, and a name, Gypsy, which he abundantly justified. He was precocious in dissipation. Long before his adolescence, his lack of domesticity was ominous, and he had formed bad companionships. Meanwhile, he grew so rangy, and developed such length and power of leg, and such traits of character, that the father of the little girl who owned him was almost convincing when he declared that the young cat was half Bronco and half Mele Pirate. Though, in light of Gypsy's later career, this seems bitterly unfair to even the lowest orders of Broncos and Mele Pirates. No, Gypsy was not the pet for a little girl. The rosy hearthstone and sheltered rug were too circumspect for him. Surrounded by the comforts of middle-class respectability, and profoundly oppressed, even in his youth, by the puritan ideals of the household, he sometimes experienced a sense of suffocation. He wanted free air, and he wanted free life. He wanted the lights, the lights, and the music. He abandoned the bourgeoisie irrevocably. He went forth in a May twilight, carrying the evening beefsteak with him, and joined the underworld. His extraordinary size, his daring, and his utter lack of sympathy soon made him the leader, and, at the same time, the terror of all the loose-lived cats in a wide neighborhood. He contracted no friendships and had no confidence. He seldom slept in the same place twice in succession, and though he was wanted by the police, he was not found. In appearance he did not lack distinction of an ominous sort. The slow, rhythmic, perfectly controlled mechanism of his tail, as he impressively walked abroad, was incomparably sinister. The stately and dangerous walk of his, his long, vibrant whiskers, his scars, his yellow eye, so ice-cold, so fire-hot, haughty as the eye of Satan, gave him the deadly air of a mosquitare duelist. His soul was in that walk and in that eye. It could be read, the soul of a bravo of fortune, living on his wits and his valor, asking no favors and granting no quarter. Intolerant, proud, sullen, yet watchful and constantly planning, purely a militarist, believing in slaughter as in a religion, and confident that art, science, poetry, and the good of the world were happily advanced thereby. Gypsy had become, though technically not a wild cat, undoubtedly the most untamed cat at large in the civilized world. Such, in brief, was the terrifying creature which now elongated its neck, and, over the top step of the porch, bent a calculating scrutiny upon the wispful and slumberous duke. The scrutiny was searching, but not prolonged. Gypsy muttered contemptuously to himself. Oh, Shal! I'm not afraid of that. And he approached the fish-bone, his padded feet making no noise upon the boards. It was a desirable fish-bone, large, with a considerable portion of the fish's tail still attached to it. It was about a foot from Duke's nose, and the little dog's dreams began to be troubled by his olfactory nerve. This faithful, sentinel, on guard, even while Duke slept, signaled that alarms and excursions by parties unknown were taking place, and suggested that attention might well be paid. Duke opened one drowsy eye. What the eye beheld was monstrous. Here was a strange experience. The horrific vision in the midst of things so accustomed. Sunshine fell sweetly upon porch and backyard. Yonder was the familiar stable, and from its interior came the busy hum of a carpenter's shop, established that morning by Duke's young master, in association with Samuel, Williams, and Herman. Here, close by, were the quiet refuse can and the wanted brooms and mops leaning against the lattice wall at the end of the porch. And there, by the foot of the steps, was the stone slab of the cistern, with the iron cover displaced and lying beside the round opening where the carpenter's had left it not half an hour ago, after lowering a stick of wood into the water to season it. All about Duke were these usual and reassuring environs of his daily life, and yet it was his fate, to behold, right in the midst of them, and in ghastly juxtaposition to his face, a thing of nightmare and lunacy. Gypsy head seized the fishbone by the middle. Out from one side of his head and mingling with his whiskers projected the long spiked spine of the big fish. Down from the other side of that ferocious head dangled the fish's tail, and from above the remarkable effect, thus produced, shot the intolerable glare of two yellow eyes. To the gaze of Duke, still blurred by slumber, this monstrosity was audible in peace. The bone seemed a living part of it. What he saw was like those interesting insect faces which the magnifying glass reveals to great Monsieur Fabre. It was impossible for Duke to maintain the philosophic calm of Monsieur Fabre. However, there was no magnifying glass between him and this spined and spiky face. Indeed, Duke was not in a position to thank the matter over quietly. If he had been able to do that, he would have said to himself, We have here an animal of most peculiar and unattractive appearance, though upon examination it seems to be only a cat stealing a fishbone. Nevertheless, as the thief is large beyond all my recollection of cats and has an unpleasant stare, I will leave the spot at once. On the contrary, Duke was so electrified by his horrid awakening that he completely lost his presence of mind. In the very instant of his first eyes opening, the other eye and his mouth behaved similarly, the latter loosing upon the quiet air one shriek of mental agony before the little dog scrambled to his feet and gave further employment to his voice in a frenze of profanity. At the same time, the subterranean diapason of a Demianic base vial was heard. It rose to a wail and rose and rose again until it screamed like a small siren. It was Gypsy's war cry, and, at the sound of it, Duke became a frothing maniac. He made a convulsive frontal attack upon the hobgoplin, and the massacre began. Never releasing the fishbone for an instant, Gypsy laid back his ears in a chilling way, beginning to shrink it into himself like a concertina, but rising a mentship so high that he appeared to be giving an imitation of that peaceful beast, the dromedary. Such was not his purpose, however, for, having attained his greatest possible altitude, he partially sat down and elevated his right arm after the manner of a semaphore. This semaphore arm remained rigid for a second, threatening. Then it vibrated with inconceivable rapidity, fainting. But it was the treacherous luft that did the work. Simingly this luft gave Duke three lightning little pats upon the right ear, but the change in his voice indicated that these were no luft taps. He yelled, Help! and Bloody Murder! Never had such a shattering uproar, all vocal, broken out upon a peaceful afternoon. Gypsy possessed a vocabulary for cat-swaring, certainly second to none, out of Italy, and probably equal to the best there, while Duke remembered and uttered things he had not thought of for years. The hum of the carpenter's shop ceased, and Sam Williams appeared in the stable doorway. He stared insanely. My gory! he shouted. Duke's having a fight with the biggest catch you ever saw in your life! Come on! His feet were already in motion toward the battlefield, with Penrod and Herman hurrying in his wake. Onward they sped, and Duke was encouraged by the sight and sound of these reinforcements to increase his own outrageous clamors and to press home his attack. But he was ill-advised. This time it was the right arm of the semaphore that dipped, and Duke's honest nose was but too conscious of what happened in consequence. A lump of dirt struck the refuse-can with violence, and Gypsy beheld the advance of overwhelming forces. They rushed upon him from two directions, cutting off the steps of the porch. Undaunted, the formidable cat raked Duke's nose again, somewhat more lingeringly, and prepared to depart with his fishbone. He had little fear for himself, because he was inclined to think that, unhampered, he could whip anything on earth. Still, things seemed to be growing rather warm, and he saw nothing to prevent his leaving. And though he could laugh in the face of so unequal an antagonist as Duke, Gypsy felt that he was never, at his best, or able to do himself full justice, until he could perform that feline operation inaccurately known as spitting. To his notion, this was an absolute essential to combat, but as all cats of the slightest pretensions to technique perfectly understand, it can neither be well done nor produce the best effects, unless the mouth be open to its utmost capacity, so as to expose the beginnings of the elementary canal, down which, at least, that is the intention of the threat, the opposing party will soon be passing. And Gypsy could not open his mouth without relinquishing his fishbone. Therefore, on small accounts, he decided to leave the field to his enemies, and to carry the fishbone elsewhere. He took two giant leaps. The first landed him on the edge of the porch. There, without an instant's pause, he gathered his fur-sheathed muscles, concentrated himself into one big still spring, and launched himself superbly into space. He made a stirring picture, however brief, as he left the solid porch behind him, and sailed upward on an ascending curve into the sunlit air. His head was proudly up. He was the incarnation of menacing power and of self-confidence. It is possible that the white fish's spinal column and flopping tail had interfered with his vision, and in launching himself he may have mistaken the dark round opening of the cistern for its dark round cover. In that case it was a leap calculated and executed with precision. For, as the boys clamored their pleased astonishment, Gypsy descended accurately into the orifice and passed majestically from public view, with the fishbone still in his mouth and his haughty head still high. There was a grand splash. End of Gypsy by Booth Tarkington. Mark Twain. The only true and reliable account of. The great prize fight. For $100,000 at Seal Rock Point on Sunday last, between his Excellency Governor Stanford and the Honorable F. F. Low, Governor-elect of California. For the past month, the sporting world has been in a state of feverish excitement on account of the grand prize fight set for last Sunday, between the two most distinguished citizens of California, for a purse of $100,000. The high social standing of the competitors, their exalted position in the arena of politics, together with the princely sum of money staked upon the issue of the combat, all conspired to render the proposed prize fight a subject of extraordinary importance, and to give it a claw never before vouchsafed to such a circumstance since the world began. Additional luster was shed upon the coming contest by the lofty character of the seconds, or bottle holders, chosen by the two champions. These being no other than Judge Field on the part of Governor Low, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Honorable William M. Stewart, commonly called Bill Stewart or bully ragging Bill Stewart of the city of Virginia, the most popular, as well as the most distinguished lawyer in Nevada Territory, member of the Constitutional Convention, and future U.S. Senator for the State of Washoo, as I hope and believe, on the part of Governor Stanford. Principles and seconds together it is fair to presume that such an array of talent was never entered for a combat of this description upon any previous occasion. Stewart and Field had their men in constant training at the mission during the six weeks preceding the contest, and such was the interest taken in the matter that thousands visited that sacred locality daily to pick up such morsels of information as they might, concerning the physical and scientific improvements being made by the gubernatorial acrobats. The anxiety manifested by the populace was intense. When it was learned that Stanford had smashed a barrel of flour to Adams with a single blow of his fist, the voice of the people was at his side. But when the news came that Low had caved in the head of a tubular boiler with one stroke of his powerful molly, which term is in strict accordance with the language of the ring, the tide of opinion changed again. These changes were frequent, and they kept the minds of the public in such a state of continual vibration that I fear the habit thus acquired is confirmed, and that they will never more cease to oscillate. The fight was to take place on last Sunday morning at ten o'clock. By nine every wheeled vehicle and every species of animal capable of bearing burdens were in active service, and the avenues leading to the seal rocks warmed with them in mighty processions whose numbers no man might hope to estimate. I determined to be upon the ground at an early hour. Now I disliked to be exploded as it were out of my balmy slumbers by a sudden stormy assault upon my door and an imperative order to get up. Wherefore, I requested one of the intelligent porters of the Lick House to call it my palatial apartments and murmur gently through the keyhole, the magic monosyllable hash that fetched me. The urbane livery stablekeeper furnished me with a solemn, short-bodied, long-legged animal, a sort of animated counting-house stool, as it were, which he called a Morgan horse. He told me who the brute was sired by and was proceeding to tell me who he was damned by, but I gave him to understand that I was competent to damn the horse myself, and should probably do it very effectually before I got to the battleground. I mentioned to him, however, that I was not proposing to attend a funeral. It was hardly necessary to furnish me an animal gifted with such oppressive solemnity of bearing as distinguished his Morgan. He said in reply that Morgan was only pensive when in the stable, but then on the road I would find him one of the liveliest horses in the world. He annunciated the truth. The brute bucked with me from the foot of Montgomery Street to the Occidental Hotel, the laughter which he provoked from the crowds of citizens along the sidewalks he took for applause, and honestly made every effort in his power to deserve it, regardless of consequences. He was very playful, but so suddenly were the creations of his fancy conceived and executed, and so much ground did he take up with them that it was safest to behold them from a distance. In the self-same moment of time he shot his heels through the side of a street car, and then backed himself into Barry and Patton's and sat down on the free lunch table. Such was the length of this Morgan's legs. Between the Occidental and the Lickhouse, having become thoroughly interested in his work, he planned and carried out a series of the most extraordinary maneuvers ever suggested by the brain of any horse. He arched his neck and went tripping daintily across the street sideways, raring up on his hind legs occasionally in a very disagreeable way, and looking into the second-story windows. He finally waltzed into the large ice-cream saloon opposite the Lickhouse, and—but the memory of that perilous voyage hath caused me to digress from the proper subject of this paper, which is the great prize fight between Governor's Lowe and Stanford. I will resume. After an infinitude of fearful adventures the history of which would fill many columns of this newspaper, I finally arrived at the Seal Rock Point at a quarter to ten, two hours and a half out from San Francisco, and not less gratified than surprised that I ever got there at all, and anchored my noble Morgan to a boulder on the hillside. I had to swath his head in blankets also, because while my back was turned for a single moment he developed another atrocious trait of his most remarkable character. He tried to eat little Augustus Maltravers Jackson, the humble but interesting offspring of the honorable J. Belvedere Jackson, a wealthy barber from San Jose. It would have been a comfort to me to leave the infant to his fate, but I did not feel able to pay for him. When I reached the battleground the great champions were already stripped and prepared for the mill. Both were in splendid condition and displayed a redundancy of muscle about the breast and arms which was delightful to the eye of the sportive connoisseur. They were well matched. Adepts said that Stanford's heft and tall stature were fairly offset by Lowe's superior lightness and activity. From their heads to the union collars around their waists their costumes were similar to that of the Greek slave. From thence down they were clad in flesh-colored tights and grenadier boots. The ring was formed upon the beautiful level sandy beach above the cliff house, and within twenty paces of the snowy surf of the broad Pacific Ocean, which was spotted here and there with monstrous sea lions attracted shorewards by curiosity concerning the vast multitude of people collected in the vicinity. At five minutes past ten Brigadier General Wright, the referee, notified the seconds to bring their men up to the scratch. They did so amid the shouts of the populace, the noise whereof rose high above the roar of the sea. First round. The pugilists advanced to the center of the ring, shook hands, retired to their respective corners, and at the call of the timekeeper came forward and went at it. Lowe dashed out handsomely with his left and gave Stanford a pastor in the eye, and at the same moment his adversary mashed him in the ear. These singular phrases are entirely proper, Mr. Editor. I find them in the copy of Bell's Life in London, now lying before me. After some beautiful sparring, both parties went down. That is to say, they went down to the bottle holders, steward and field, and took a drink. Second round. Stanford launched out a well-intended plunger, but Lowe parried it admirably and instantly busted him in the snoot. Cries of bully for the Marysville infant. After some lively fibbing, both of them are used to it in political life, the combatants went to grass, see Bell's Life. Third round. Both came up panting considerably. Lowe let go a terrific sidewinder, but Stanford stopped it handsomely and replied with an earthquake on Lowe's breadbasket. Enthusiastic shouts of Socket to him, my Sacramento pet. More fibbing. Both down. Fourth round. The men advanced and sparred warily for a few moments when Stanford exposed his coconut in instant, and Lowe struck out from the shoulder and split him in the mug. Cries of bully for the Fat Boy. Fifth round. Stanford came up looking wicked and let dry the heavy blow with his larbored flipper, which caved in the side of his adversary's head. Exclamation of high, Adam again, old rusty. From this time until the end of the conflict, there was nothing regular in the proceedings. The two champions got furiously angry and used up each other thus. No sooner did Lowe realize that the side of his head was crushed in like a dent in a plug hat than he went after Stanford in the most desperate manner. With one blow of his fist he mashed his nose so far into his face that a cavity was left in its place the size and shape of an ordinary soup bowl. It is scarcely necessary to mention that in making room for so much nose Governor Stanford's eyes were crowded to such a degree as to cause them to bug out like a grasshoppers. His face was so altered that he scarcely looked like himself at all. I never saw such a murderous expression as Stanford's countenance now assumed. You see it was so concentrated. It had such a small number of features to spread around over. He let fly one of his battering rams and caved in the other side of Lowe's head. Ah, me, the latter was a ghastly sight to contemplate after that. One of the boys said it looked like a beat which somebody had trod upon. Lowe was grit, though. He dashed out with his right and stove Stanford's chin clear back even with his ears. Ah, what a horrible sight he was, gasping and reaching after his tobacco, which was a way back among his under jaw teeth. Stanford was unsettled for a while, but he soon rallied and watching his chance aimed a tremendous blow at his favorite mark, which crushed in the rear of Governor Lowe's head in such a way that the crown thereof projected over his spinal column like a shed. He came up to the scratch like a man, though, and sent one of his ponderous fists crashing through his opponent's ribs and in among his vitals, and instantly afterward he hauled out poor Stanford's left lung and smacked him in the face with it. If I ever saw an angry man in my life, it was Leland Stanford. He fairly raved. He jumped at his old specialty, Governor Lowe's head. He tore it loose from his body and knocked him down with it, sensation in the crowd. Staggered by his extraordinary exertion, Governor Stanford reeled, and before he could recover himself, the headless but indomitable Lowe sprang forward, pulled one of his legs out by the roots, and dealt him a smashing pastor over the eye with the end of it. The ever-watchful Bill Stewart sallied out to the assistance of his crippled principal with a pair of crutches, and the battle went on again, as fiercely as ever. At this stage of the game, the battleground was strewn with a sufficiency of human remains to furnish material for the construction of three or four men of ordinary size, and goods sound brains enough to stock a whole country like the one I came from in the noble old state of Missouri. And so died were the combatants in their own core that they looked like shapeless, mutilated, red-shirted firemen. The moment a chance offered Lowe grabbed Stanford by the hair of the head, swung him thrice round and round in the air like a lasso, and then slammed him on the ground with such mighty force that he quivered all over, and squirmed painfully like a worm. And behold, his body and such of his limbs as he had left shortly assumed a swollen aspect like unto those of a ragdoll baby stuffed with sawdust. He rallied again, however, and the two desperados clenched and never led up until they had minced each other into such insignificant odds and ends that neither was able to distinguish his own remnants from those of his antagonist. It was awful. Bill Stewart and Judge Field issued from their corners and gazed upon the sanguinary reminiscences in silence during several minutes. At the end of that time, having failed to discover that either champion had got the best of the fight, they threw up their sponges simultaneously, and General Wright proclaimed in a loud voice that the battle was drawn. May my ears never again be rent asunder with a burst of sound similar to that which greeted this announcement from the multitudes. Amen. By order of General Wright, baskets were procured, and Bill Stewart and Judge Field proceeded to gather up the fragments of their late principles. While I gathered up my notes and went after my infernal horse, who had slipped his blankets and was foraging among the neighboring children, I, P. S., Messer's Editors, I have been the victim of an infamous hoax. I have been imposed upon by that ponderous, miscreant Mr. Frank Lawler of the Lick House. I left my room a moment ago, and the first man I met on the stairs was Governor Stanford, alive and well, and as free from mutilation as you or I. I was speechless. Before I reached the street, I actually met Governor Low also, with his own head on his own shoulders, his limbs intact, his inner mechanism in its proper place, and his cheeks blooming with gorgeous robustitude. I was amazed. But a word of explanation from him convinced me that I had been swindled by Mr. Lawler with a detailed account of a fight which had never occurred, and was never likely to occur. That I had believed him so implicitly as to sit down and write it out, as other reporters have done before me, in language calculated to deceive the public into conviction that I was present at it myself, and to establish it with a string of falsehoods intended to render that deception as plausible as possible. I ruminated upon my singular position for many minutes, arrived at no conclusion. That is to say, no satisfactory conclusion except that Lawler was an accomplished knave, and I was a consummate ass. I had suspected the first before, though, and been acquainted with the latter fact for nearly a quarter of a century. In conclusion, permit me to apologize in the most abject manner to the present Governor of California, to the honorable Mr. Low, the Governor-elect, to Judge Field, and to the honorable William M. Stewart, for the great wrong which my natural imbecility has impelled me to do them in penning and publishing the foregoing, sanguinary absurdity. If it were to do over again, I don't really know that I would do it. It is not possible for me to say how I ever managed to believe that refined and educated gentlemen like these could stoop to engage in the loathsome and degrading pastime of prize-fighting. It was just Lawler's work, you understand, the lubberly, swelled-up effigy of a nine-days-drowned man. But I shall get even with him for this. The only excuse he offers is that he got the story from John B. Winters, and though, of course, it must be just so, as if a future congressman for the state of Washu could by any possibility tell the truth. Do you know that if either of these miserable scoundrels were to cross my path while I am in this mood, I would scalp him in a minute? That's me. That's my style. End of The Great Prize-Fight by Mark Twain. Green Gardens by Francis Noise Hart. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Bologna Times. Green Gardens by Francis Noise Hart. Daphne was singing to herself when she came through the painted gate in the back wall. She was singing partly because it was June and Devon, and she was seventeen, and partly because she had caught a breathtaking glimpse of herself in the long mirror as she had flashed through the hall at home, and it seemed almost too good to be true that the radiant small person in the green muslin frock with the wreath of golden hair bound about her head and the sea blue eyes laughing back at her was really Miss Daphne's children. Incredible, incredible luck to look like that, half dryad, half Kate Greenaway. She danced down the turf path to the herb garden, swinging her great wicker basket and singing like a small mad thing. He promised to buy me a bunny blue ribbon. Carol Daphne, all her own ribbons flying. He promised to buy me a bunny blue ribbon. He promised to buy me a bunny blue ribbon to tie up. The song stopped as abruptly as though someone had struck it from her lips. A strange man was kneeling by the beehive in the herb garden. He was looking at her over his shoulder, at once startled and amused, and she saw that he was wearing a rather shabby tweed suit and that his face was oddly brown against his close cropped, tawny hair. He smiled, his teeth a strong flash of white. Hello! he greeted her, in a tone at once casual and friendly. Daphne returned the smile uncertainly. Hello! she replied gravely. The strange man rose easily to his feet, and she saw that he was very tall and carried his head rather splendidly like the young Bronze Greek in Uncle Roland's study at home. But his eyes, his eyes were strange, quite dark and burnt out. The rest of him looked young and vivid and adventurous, but his eyes looked as though the adventure were over, though they were still questing. Were you looking for anyone? she asked, and the man shook his head, laughing. Ha! no one in particular, unless it was you. Daphne's soft brow darkened. It couldn't possibly have been me, she said in a rather stately small voice. Because, you see, I don't know you. Perhaps you didn't know that there is no one living in green gardens now. Oh! yes, I knew. The fans have left for Ceylon, haven't they? Sir Harry left two weeks ago, because he had to see the old governor before he sailed. But Lady Audrey only left last week. She had to close the London house, too, so there was a great deal to do. I see. And so green gardens is deserted. It is sold, said Daphne, with a small quaver in her voice. Just this afternoon I came over to say goodbye to it, and to get some mint and lavender from the garden. Sold, repeated the man, and there was an agony of incredulity in the stunned whisper. He flung out his arm against the sun-warmed bricks of the high wall, as though to hold off some invader. No, no. They'd never dare to sell it. I'm glad you mind so much, said Daphne, softly. It's strange that nobody minds but us, isn't it? I cried at first, and then I thought that it would be happier if it wasn't lonely and empty, poor dear. And then it was such a beautiful day that I forgot to be unhappy. The man bestowed a wretched smile on her. You hardly conveyed the impression of unrelieved gloom as you came around that corner, he assured her. I—I haven't a very good memory for being unhappy, Daphne confessed, remorsefully, a lovely and guilty rose staining her to her brow at the memory of that exultant chant. He threw back his head with a sudden shout of laughter. These are glad tidings. I'd rather find a pagan than a puritan at Green Gardens any day. Let's both have a poor memory. Do you mind if I smoke? No, she replied, but do you mind if I ask you what you are doing here? Not a bit. He lit the stubby brown pipe, curving his hand dexterously to shelter it from the little breeze. He had the most beautiful hands that she had ever seen, slim and brown and fine. They looked as though they would be miraculously strong and miraculously gentle. I came to see whether there was honey still for tea, Mr. Stryad. Honey for tea, she echoed wonderingly. Was that why you were looking at the hive? He puffed meditatively. Well, partly. It's a quotation from a poem. Ever read Rupert Brooke? Oh, yes, yes. Her voice tripped in its eagerness. I know one by heart. If I should die, think only this of me, that there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England there shall be. He cut in on the magical little voice, roughly. Ah, what damn nonsense! Do you suppose he's happy in his foreign field, that golden lover? Why shouldn't even the dead be homesick? No, no. He was sick for home in Germany when he wrote that poem of mine. He's sicker for it in heaven, I'll warrant. He pulled himself up swiftly at the look of amazement in Daphne's eyes. I've clean forgotten my manners, he confessed, ruefully. No, don't get that flying look in your eyes. I swear that I'll be good. It's a long time. It's a long time since I've talked to anyone who needed gentleness. If he knew what need I had of it, you'd stay a little while, I think. Of course I'll stay, she said. I'd love to, if you want me to. I want you to more than I've ever wanted anything that I can remember. His tone was so matter of fact that Daphne thought that she must have imagined the words. Now can't we make ourselves comfortable for a little while? I'd feel safer if you weren't standing there ready for instant flight. Here's a nice bit of grass, and the wall for a back. Daphne glanced anxiously at the green muslin frock. It's pretty hard to be comfortable without cushions, she submitted diffidently. The man yielded again to laughter. Aren't even dryads afraid to spoil their frocks? Cushions it shall be. There are some extra ones in the chest in the East Indian Room, aren't there? Daphne let the basket slip through her fingers, her eyes black through sheer surprise. But how did you know? How did you know about the lack of chest? She whispered breathlessly. Oh, devil take me for a blundering ass! He stood considering her forlornly for a moment, and then shrugged his shoulders with a brilliant and disarming smile. The game's up, thanks to my inspired lunacy, but I'm going to trust you not to say that you've seen me. I know about the lack of chest, because I always kept my marbles there. Are you—are you Stephen Fain? At the odd whisper the man bowed low, all mocking grace, his hand on his heart, the sun burnishing his tawny head. Oh, breathe Daphne. She bent to pick up the wicker basket, her small face white and hard. Wait! said Stephen Fain. His face was white and hard too. You are right to go, entirely, absolutely right, but I am going to beg you to stay. I don't know what you've heard about me. However violent it is, it's less than the truth. I have heard nothing of you, said Daphne, holding her gold wreath head high. But five years ago I was not allowed to come to Green Gardens for weeks because I mentioned your name. I was told that it was not a name to pass decent lips. Something terrible leapt in those burned-out eyes and died. I had not thought they would use their hate to lash a child, he said. They were quite right. And you too. Good night. Good night, replied Daphne clearly. She started down the path, but at its bend she turned to look back, because she was seventeen, and it was Joan, and she remembered his laughter. He was standing quite still by the golden straw beehive, but he had thrown one arm across his eyes, as though to shut out some intolerable sight. And then, with a soft little rush, she was standing beside him. How—how do we get the cushions? she demanded, breathlessly. Stephen Finn dropped his arm, and Daphne drew back a little at the sudden blaze of wonder in his face. Oh, he whispered voicelessly. Oh, you loveliness! He took a step toward her, and then stood still, clenching his brown hands. Then he thrust them deep in his pockets, standing very straight. I do think, he said carefully, I do think you had better go. The fact that I have tried to make you stay simply proves the particular type of rotter that I am. Good-bye, I'll never forget that you came back. I am not going, said Daphne sternly, not if you beg me, not if you are a devil out of hell, because you need me. And no matter how many wicked things you have done, there can't be anything as wicked as going away when someone needs you. How do we get the cushions? Oh, my wise dryad, his voice broke on laughter, but Daphne saw that his lashes were suddenly bright with tears. Stay then. Why, even I cannot harm you. God himself can't grudge me this little space of wonder. He knows how far I've come for it, how I've fought and struggled and ate to win it. How in dirty lands and dirty places I've dreamt of summer twilight in a still garden, and England, England. Didn't you dream of me, said Daphne wistfully, with a little catch of reproach? He laughed again, unsteadily. Why, who could ever dream of you, my wonder? You are a thousand, thousand dreams come true. Daphne bestowed on him a tremulous and radiant smile. Please, let us get the cushions. I think I am a little tired. And I am a graceful fool. There used to be a pane of glass cut out in one of the south casement windows. Shall we try that? Please, yes. How did you find it, Stephen? She saw again that thrill of wonder on his face, but his voice was quite steady. I didn't find it. I did it. It was uncommonly useful, getting in that way sometimes, I can tell you. And by the Lord Harry, here it is. Wait a minute, loveliness. I'll get through and open the south door for you. No chance that way of spoiling the frock. He swung himself up with the swift, sure grace of a cat, smiled at her, vanished. It was hardly a minute later that she heard the bolts dragging back in the south door, and he flung it wide. The sunlight streamed into the deep hall and stretched hesitant fingers into the dusty quiet of the great East Indian Room, gilding the soft tones of the faded chants, touching very gently the polished furniture and the dim prints on the walls. He swung across the threshold without a word. Daphne tiptoeing behind him. How still it is, he said in a hushed voice, how sweet it smells. It's the potpourri in the Kenton Jards, she told him shyly. I always made it every summer for Lady Autry. She thought I did it better than anyone else. I think so too. She flushed at the mirth in his eyes, but held her ground sturdily. Flowers are sweeter for you if you'd love them, even dead ones, she explained bravely. They would be dead indeed if they were not sweet for you. Her cheeks burned bright at the low intensity of his voice, but he turned suddenly away. Oh, there she sails. There she sails still, my beauty. Isn't she the proud one, though? Straight into the wind. He hung over the little ship model, thrilled as any child. The flying lady. See where it's painted on her? Grandfather gave it to me when I was seven. He had it from his father when he was six. Lord, how proud I was! He stood back to see it better, frowning a little. One of those ropes is wrong. Any fool could tell that. His hands hovered over it for a moment, dropped. No matter, the new owners are probably not seafarers. The lacquer chest is at the far end, isn't it? Yes, here. Are three enough? Four? We're off. But still he lingered, sweeping the great room with his dark eyes. It's full of all kinds of junk. They never liked it. No period, you see. I had the run of it. I loved it as though it were alive. It was alive for me. From Elizabeth's day down all the family adventurers brought their treasures here, beaten gold and hammered silver, mother of pearl and peacock feathers, strange woods and stranger spices, porcelains and embroideries and blunt glass. There was always an adventurer somewhere in each generation, and however far he wandered he came back to Green Gardens to bring his treasures home. When I was a yellow-headed imp of Satan, hiding my marbles in the lacquer chest, I used to swear that when I grew up I would bring home the finest treasure of all, if I had to search the world from end to end. And now the last adventurer has come home to Green Gardens, and he has searched the world from end to end, and he is empty-handed. No, no, whispered Daphne. He has brought home the greatest treasure of all that adventurer. He has brought home the beaten gold of his love and the hammered silver of his dreams, and he has brought them for very far. He had brought greater treasures than those to you, lucky Rome, said the last of the adventurers. You can never be sad again. You will always be gay and proud, because for just one moment he brought you the gold of her hair and the silver of her voice. He is talking great nonsense, Rome, said a very small voice, but it is beautiful nonsense, and I am a wicked girl, and I hope that he will talk some more. And, please, I think we will go into the garden and see. All the way back down the flagged path to the herb garden they were quiet, even after he had arranged the cushions against the rose-red wall, even after he had stretched out at full length beside her and lighted another pipe. After a while he said, staring at the straw hive, there used to be a jolly little fat brown one that was a great pal of mine, how long to be his live. I don't know, she answered vaguely, and after a long pause, full of quiet, pleasant odours from the bee garden, and the sleepy happy noises of small things tucking themselves away for the night, and the faint but poignant drift of tobacco smoke, she asked. What was it about honey still for tea? Oh, that! He raised himself on one elbow so that he could see her better. It was a poem I came across while I was in East Africa. Someone sent a copy of Rupert Brooke's Things to a chap out there, and this one fastened itself around me like a voice. It starts where he is sitting in a café in Berlin, with a lot of German Jews around him, swallowing down their beer, and suddenly he remembers. All the lost, unforgettable beauty comes back to him in that dirty place. It gets him by the throat. It got me, too. Ah, God! To see the branches stir across the moon at Grandchester, to smell the thrilling, sweet, and rotten, unforgettable, unforgotten river smell, and hear the breeze sobbing in the little trees. Oh, is the water sweet and cool, gentle and brown above the pool, and laughs the immortal river still under the mill, under the mill. Say, is there beauty yet to find, and certainty and quiet kind, deep meadows yet for to forget, the lies and truths and pain? Oh, yet stands the church clock at ten to three, and is there honey still for tea? That's beautiful, she said, but it hurts. Thank God you'll never know how it hurts, little golden heart in quiet gardens. But for some of us, caught like rats in the trap of the ugly fever we call living, it was black torture, and yet our dear delight to remember the deep meadows we had lost, to wonder if there was honey still for tea. Stephen, won't you tell me about it? Won't that help? And suddenly, someone else looked at her, through those haunted eyes. A little boy, terrified and forsaken. Oh, I have no right to soil you with it. But I came back to tell someone about it. I had to. I had to. I had to wait until Father and Audrey went away. I knew they'd hate to see me. She was my stepmother, you know, and she always loathed me, and he never cared. In East Africa, I used to stay awake at night, thinking that I might die, and that no one in England would ever care. No one would know how I had loved her. It was worse than dying to think that. But why couldn't you come back to Green Gardens? Why couldn't you make them see, Stephen? Why, what was there to see? When they sent me down from Oxford for that dirty little affair, I was only nineteen, and they told me I had disgraced my name in Green Gardens and my country. And I went mad with pride and shame, and swore I'd drag their precious name through the dirt of every country in the world. And I did. And I did. His head was buried in his arms, but Daphne heard. It seemed strange indeed to her that she felt no shrinking, and no terror, only great pity for what he had lost, great grief for what he might have had. For a minute she forgot that she was Daphne, the heedless and gay-hearted, and that he was a broken and evil man. For a minute he was a little lad, and she was his lost mother. Don't mind, Stephen, she whispered to him. Don't mind. Now you have come home. Now it is all done with, that ugliness. Please, please, don't mind. No, no, said the stricken voice. You don't know, you don't know. Thank God. But I swear I've paid. I swear, I swear I have. When the others used to take their dirty drugs to make them forget, they would dream of strange paradises, unknown heavens, but through the haze and mist that they brought, I would remember, I would remember. The filth and the squalor and vileness would fade and dissolve, and I would see the sundial with the yellow roses on it, warm in the sun, and smell the clove-pinks and the kitchen-border, and touch the creses by the brook, cool and green and wet. All the sullen drums and whining flutes would sink to silence, and I would hear the little yellow headed cousin of the vickers singing in the twilight, singing, There is a lady, sweet and kind, and weep, you know more, sad fountains, and hark, hark, the lark, and the small painted yellow faces, and the little wicked hands, and perfume fans would vanish, and I would see again the gay beauty of the lady who hung above the mantle in the long drawing-room, the lady who laughed across the centuries in her white muslin frock, with eyes that matched the blue ribbon in her wind-blown curls, the lady who was as young and lovely as England for all the years. Oh, I would remember. I would remember. It was twilight, and I was hurrying home through the dusk after tennis at the rectory. There was a bell ringing quietly somewhere, and a moth flying by brushed against my face with velvet, and I could smell the hawthorne hedge, glimmering white, and see the first star swinging low above the trees, and lower still, and brighter still, the lights of home. And then before my very eyes they would fade, they would fade dimmer and dimmer, they would flicker and go out, and I would be back again, with todderness and shame and vileness fast about me, and I would pay. But now you have paid enough, Daphne told him. Oh, Shirley, Shirley, you have paid enough. Now you have come home. Now you can forget. No, said Stephen Fan. Now I must go. Go? At the small started echo he raised his head. What else, he asked. Did you think that I would stay? But I did not want you to go. Her lips were white, but she spoke very clearly. Stephen Fan never moved, but his eyes, dark and wandering, rested on her like a caress. Oh, my little loveliness, what dream is this? You must not go away again. You must not. I am baser than I thought, he said, very low. I have made you pity me. I who have forfeited your lovely pity this long time. It cannot even touch me now. I have sat here like a dark Othello, telling tales to a small white Desdemona. And you, God help me, have thought me tragic and abused. You shall not think that. In a few minutes I will be gone. I will not have you waste a dream on me. Listen, there is nothing vile that I have not done. Nothing do you hear. Not clean sin, like murder. I have cheated at cards, and played with loaded dice, and stolen the rings off the fingers of an Argentine Jewess, who his voice twisted and broke before the lovely mercy in the frightened eyes that still met him so bravely. But why, Stephen? So that I could buy my dreams. So that I could purchase peace with little dabs of brown in a pipe-ball, little puffs of white in the palm of my hand, little drops of liquid on a ball of cotton, so that I could drug myself with dirt, and forget the dirt and remember England. He rose to his feet, with that swift grace of his, and Daphne rose too, slowly. I am going now. Will you walk to the gate with me? He matched his long stuff to hers, watching the troubled wonder on her small white face intently. How old are you, my triad? I am seventeen. Seventeen? Oh, God, be good to us. I had forgotten that one could be seventeen. What's that? He paused, suddenly alert, listening to a distant whistle, sweet on the summer air. Oh, that! That is Robin. Ah! His smile flashed, tender and ironic. And who is Robin? He is just Robin. He is down from Cambridge for a week, and I told him that he might walk home with me. Then I must be off quickly. Is he coming to this gate? No, to the south one. Listen to me, my triad. Are you listening? For her face was turned away. Yes, said Daphne. You are going to forget me, to forget this afternoon, to forget everything, but Robin whistling through the summer twilight. No, said Daphne. Yes. Because you have a very poor memory about unhappy things, you told me so. But just for a minute, after I have gone, you will remember now all is very well with me. Because I have found the deep meadows and honey still for tea, and you. You are to remember that for just one minute, will you? And now, good-bye. She tried to say the words, but she could not. For a moment he stood staring down at the white pathos of the small face, and then he turned away. But when he came to the gate, he paused and put his arms about the wall, as though he would never let it go, laying his cheek against the sun-warmed bricks. His eyes fast closed. The whistling came nearer, and he stirred. Put his hand on the little painted gate, vaulted across it lightly, and was gone. She turned at Robin's quick step on the walk. Ready, dear? What are you staring at? Nothing. Robin? Robin, did you ever hear of Stephen Fang? He nodded grimly. Do you know—do you know what he is doing now? Doing now? He stared at her blankly. What on earth do you mean? Why, he's been dead for months. Killed in the campaign in East Africa. Only decent thing he ever did in his life. Why? Daphne never stirred. She stood quite still, staring at the painted gate. Then she said very carefully. Someone thought that they had seen him quite lately. Robin laughed comfortingly. No use looking so scared about it, my blessed child. Perhaps they did. The War Office made all kinds of ghastly blenders. It was a quick step from missing in action to killed. And he probably would have been jolly glad of a chance to drop out quietly and have everyone think he was done for. Daphne never took her eyes from the gate. Yes, she said quietly. I suppose he would. Will you get my basket, Robin? I left it by the Beehive. There are some cushions that belong in the East Indian Room too. The South Door is open. When he had gone, she stood shaking for a moment, listening to his footsteps die away. And then she flew to the gate, searching the twilight desperately with straining eyes. There was no one there. No one at all. But then the turn in the lane would have hidden him by now, and suddenly terror fell from her like a cloak. She turned swiftly to the brick wall, straining up, up on tiptoes, to lay her cheek against its roughened surface, to touch it very gently with her lips. She could hear Robin whistling down the path, but she did not turn. She was bidding farewell to Green Gardens and the last adventurer. End of Green Gardens by Francis Noyes Hart.