Atlantis (46 page)

But it was at this moment that Odysseus himself appeared on the scene, emerging from his solitary cabin with bare feet, and entirely naked save for the blanket he had wrapped round him and the extraordinary Helmet of Proteus which he had just clapped on his head.

“I want one of you,” he whispered hoarsely, “to come here a second!”

“What in the name of Aidoneus,” thought Nisos, “is in the king’s mind?”

But Eione, who had already leapt from her couch so quickly that the imprint left by her head on the pillow contained a twisted couple of tiny fair hairs held together by an infinitesimal flake of cinder-dust that must have adhered to them when she was recently heating water for her bath, had not lived all her life with old Morus for nothing. She would naturally divine the sort of thing that the practical cunning of a wily old man would urge him to do at a crisis like this. She had therefore, in reading the mind of Odysseus, an advantage over both the daughter of a prophet and the young aspirant to be himself a prophet.

She therefore without a moment’s hesitation, and as if it were a dedicated dagger for some pontifical killing, offered her slender wrist to the old king; who proceeded at once, and with no more hesitation than she had shown, to make use of this small wrist. He led her after an imperative gesture to Pontopereia and Nisos to remain quiescent, to the drawn curtain that covered the threshold of the cabin occupied by Nausikaa and Okyrhöe; and the moment he got her there he made a mute sign to her to remain absolutely still, and then, drawing the curtain aside with an imperceptibly gentle movement he set himself to listen to what was going on between the two women.

“O for heaven’s sake don’t make me have to go over it all again, Princess,” Okyrhöe was saying. “I’m only telling you for the hundredth time that this whole mad voyage of this crazy old
king is ridiculous; and that you who pretend to be his friend, instead of helping him, are driving him faster to his ruin and destruction! Why, my good, silly woman, before we started on this crazy voyage I talked to several of the sailors who are running this ship and I soon found out how hopeless the whole thing is. They told me that the very figure-head of this ship is enough to damn the whole business by showing the ship’s destiny. They told me that the face of that Being at the prow is enough alone to prove to whom the vessel belongs! It belongs to the Ruler of Atlantis; for the face that looks out from that dreadful neck is the face of that Ruler himself!

“They
all
know that; yes! all the sailors on this ship know it. And they know too that it was because of the blasphemous inventions and impious intentions of this wicked magician that the divine Son of Kronos who wields the thunder plunged the whole continent of Atlantis into the depths of the ocean. You pretend that this ship is of your land and has inherited from the skill and the craft of your people its power of prevailing over disaster and of holding onto its strength. All this is false—in fact a lie! The ‘Teras’ with its officers and the best of its crew was a pirate-ship long before it fell into the skilled hands of your people and was converted into a vessel of the shape and style of your land.

“And now, my foolish woman, you must see how ridiculous it is to encourage Odysseus in this madness of his, when the truth is——”

At this point Nausikaa boldly interrupted her. “Come, come, my dear lady, why on earth should a couple of presentable females like you and me scold each other like a pair of fish-wives in the old ‘Net-Alley’ of the Piraeus?”

But once started in her torrent of vituperation it was impossible to silence Okyrhöe. “When I began”, the woman went on, “talking to these people just now I soon realized into what a desperate and tragic business you had, with all your good intentions, betrayed this unfortunate old king. Don’t you see bow infinitely pathetic it is to watch this aged impulsive fool
dressing himself up in this comical head-dress they call the Helmet of Proteus?

“What about all his fellow-countrymen who are now going to be led into such terrible peril by the pure chance that you came here with this ship? I’m not saying these things to you to torment you or to get any advantage over you. Do please, I beg you, lady, stop this vulgar abuse, and let us decide together how we can best help our mutual hero in this grand final adventure of his unequalled life!”

The two of them continued their word-battle for quite a number of minutes, though neither of them was unoccupied while their desperate dispute went on. They were both arranging their hair, their head-dresses, their robes, their jewels, and even smoothing out the creases in their soft leather sandals, to make which final adjustment they were forced to display to each other and of course, though unknown to themselves, to their three watchers, for, though the daughter of Teiresias still held herself proudly aloof, Nisos as it well may be believed, was unable to resist the temptation of joining in this espionage, the most intimate beauty of their figures.

Matters on board the “Teras” were further complicated at this critical point by the emergence from the ship’s hold, which was reached by a short ladder of no more than three rungs from the cabin occupied by Odysseus, of the two black Lybian cooks staggering under their first instalment of food and drink for everyone on board; and as this plenteous repast was to be swallowed in what was now the cabin of Odysseus it can be imagined with what rapidity these two imperious ladies of fashion hastened to complete their toilet.

Along with the two black Libyans there came up also from the hold of the good ship “Teras”, or “Prodigy”, a couple of Assyrian boys of about thirteen whose business it was to act as general scavengers and excrement-disposers for both crew and passengers. On every deck of the ship there were containers for excremental liquids and containers for excremental solids which it was the duty of these Assyrian boys to empty into the sea; and
for this purpose, each day of every voyage, they went the round of the ship at sunset.

Thus it was no haphazard or random coincidence but by one of those inevitable concentrations of the normal and natural forces of life that keep the world on the move that the whole crowd of human creatures, from the Old Odysseus to the young excrement disposers, who were divided from the waters of
drowning
by the planks of the “Teras” or “Prodigy”, were gathered together when a clamorous shout went up, a shout that came from the throats of the general crowd and not from any professional group or any especially nervous group, a shout that was soon repeated still louder and by this time came from the deck upon which any boat-load of people coming from any direction at all would of necessity scramble on board.

Nisos was at Odysseus’ side when the divine animal, Pegasos, flying with quite a company of people on his broad back, reached the “Teras” and therefore our young man had a unique
opportunity
of noting how the old king reacted to this impact. But he was so anxious to catch all the king’s feelings that he couldn’t help exaggerating much that he observed.

He exaggerated for instance many flickering changes of expression on the countenance of Odysseus. He exaggerated certain jerky and feverish gestures made by the King. The truth was that no one alive really understood the King except Eurycleia his old nurse. It was one of the results of Odysseus’ abnormal self-control that he could feel deep down in his blood and bones reactions quite different from those which he felt in his more superficial nerves or along the surface of his skin, and more different still from those expressed in his face.

The scene on the “Teras’” top deck when Pegasos arrived was indeed something that might have reduced to a wild state of hysterical excitement any traveller less self-controlled and less artful than Odysseus. The human creatures whom Pegasos now shook from his broad back and from between his wide-stretched wings were obviously so confused by the whole experience that, as the saying goes, they hardly “knew their heads from their tails”.

For the last couple of days a frantic longing to cling together like a frightened swarm of insects must have possessed them. But in spite of this they preserved their poise and endurance. Chief among these brave voyagers upon the winged horse was Zeuks the son of Arcadian Pan and along with him was none other than Spartika the Priestess of Athene’s Temple, and in addition to these and holding herself with proud dignity a little apart from the rest was none other than Arsinöe the bastard daughter of Hector, who in her childhood had been befriended by
Andromache
, Hector’s wife.

Nisos was astonished to see that it was not Zeuks but Spartika who held the proudest position on the back of the winged horse, nearest, that is to say, to his head, and he was still more surprised when instead of descending, as Zeuks and Arsinöe very speedily did, Spartika remained seated, and indeed began to caress the mane of Pegasos and to give that arching neck whose curves resembled a torrent of water released from rocks and roots and flowing at ease down a smooth declivity, a series of reassuring and yet authoritative pats.

Our friend Nisos, who still retained at the back of his
consciousness
an obstinate determination to be a real prophet before he died, and who was still alert to catch the most intimate ways of the mental rulers of our race, was deeply struck by the manner in which Spartika kept them all standing where they were, as if she had thrown a spell over each of them, while she delivered what evidently was a long-prepared and legally-involved
discourse
on the precise attitude she intended to take between the run-away goddess of that formidable “aegis”, whose very “tassels” could bring new life to the half-dead, and that Priest of the Mysteries who had so successfully usurped the position of Telemachos.

And suddenly Nisos noticed, and he felt that he had really made a step forward in his private self-education in the art of prophesying by having resisted Spartika’s priestess-spell
sufficiently
to be able to notice such a thing at all, that while with one hand she caressed Pegasos, preparatory to giving him the
recognizable signal that would make him shake out his eagle wings and gather up his equine hooves beneath him, with the other hand she was active in helping some quite carefully shrouded human figure to edge itself off the horse’s back on to the deck where the others were now standing.

Nisos alone among all the onlookers was therefore spared the shock of surprise when two startling events occurred
simultaneously
: Pegasos suddenly spread his wings and rose into the air with Spartika leaning forward, and clinging to his mane with both hands. And like a living bundle of villainously dirty rags the figure of Enorches rolled upon the deck, and after a minute or two of absolutely solitary twisting and turning, rose to its feet, took up its wrappings and conveyed them to the rail of the ship.

Here, with what struck Nisos as a deadly curse upon the whole gamut of existence, this destructive Priest of the Mysteries flung his bundle of filthy rags into the water; and then, leaning over the edge himself, just as if he were hugging the thought of following his garments—and how had he managed to make them heavy enough to sink?—he plunged his thought, if nothing else, after what he had thrown.

And while the Priest of Eros and Dionysos was staring blindly after his own imaginary corpse, that corpse of living thought which he evidently pretended to himself he could see sinking down and down and down, till it found the slit at the bottom of the ocean which led to the slit at the bottom of the world which led to the slit at the bottom of the universe, Odysseus, whose outward nerves, equally with the imperturbable recesses of his being, were totally unaffected by any of these mental horrors, addressed a quiet request to Zeuks that he relate to him what had actually happened in Ithaca since the “Teras” set sail.

Nisos never forgot the scene that followed this natural demand. All the living persons on board save Akron the Master of the ship were gathered round the mast from which that pair of perfect sailors, Pontos and Proros from Skandeia in Kythara, had wisely lowered all but a small fold of the great sail.

Thus the “Teras”, or “Prodigy”, was running lightly, easily, freely, but comparatively slowly before a gentle and cool easterly wind; while the full moon, which was now moving with that motionless movement which is unlike any other movement in the universe, over, under, and straight through cloud after cloud, after cloud, after cloud, flooded the whole of what was visible, as well as—at least that was what came suddenly into Nisos’ head—the whole of what was invisible, with an
enchantment
that separated the real life of each separate living thing from the life imagined as its life by all other living things.

Nisos noted very definitely the extraordinary manner in which this flood of moonlight, which was as spiritual and mental as it was physical and emotional, held everybody at that crisis under such a spell that when the quiet voice of Odysseus called upon Zeuks to speak there came a strangely universal sigh from all present. The thoughts and feelings of Odysseus himself as he made this quiet request were more direct and simple, as they were more massively impenetrable and impervious to influence of any sort or kind, than his young follower Nisos could have believed possible.

Odysseus was prepared to humour and indulge to the limit all those who needed humouring and indulging if they were to be useful to him in the fulfilment of his purpose. He was also prepared to obliterate totally from his consideration, leaving them to go their way just as they liked, as he intended to go his way just as he liked, all those persons, creatures, tendencies, and forces, over whom or over which he had no control.

Unlike Zeuks as a man, and unlike Pegasos as an animal, there was, in spite of all the rumours to the contrary, no
trustworthy
evidence that any seed save that from the loins of Laertes was responsible for his begetting. What separated him from other mortal men was the adamantine weight and solid mass of what might be called Being, or Existence, or Entity, thickening out his Personality, which he put behind the purpose, whatever purpose it might be, upon which at the moment he was engaged.