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Page 53
Suddenly I looked up, and saw Lucius approaching, evidently in a very
angry mood.
"So this is the end of all our amusement?" he said, as he came near.
"You bring Cynthia here in your tiresome, condescending way, you live
among us like an almighty prig, smiling gravely at our fun, and then you
go off when it is convenient to yourself; and then, when you want a
little recreation, you come and sit here in a corner and hug your
darling, when you have never given her a thought of late. You _know_
that is true," he added menacingly.
"Yes," I said, "it is true! I went of my own will, and I have come back
of my own will; and you have all been out of my thoughts, because I have
had much work to do. But what of that? Cynthia wants me and I have come
back to her, and I will do whatever she desires. It is no good
threatening me, Lucius--there is nothing you can do or say that will
have the smallest effect on me."
"We will see about that," said Lucius. "None of your airs here! We are
peaceful enough when we are respectfully and fairly treated, but we have
our own laws, and no one shall break them with impunity. We will have no
half-hearted fools here. If you come among us with your damned
missionary airs, you shall have what I expect you call the crown of
martyrdom."
He whistled loud and shrill. Half-a-dozen men sprang from the bushes and
flung themselves upon me. I struggled, but was overpowered, and dragged
away. The last sight I had was of Lucius standing with a disdainful
smile, with Cynthia clinging to his arm; and to my horror and disgust
she was smiling too.
XXVII
I had somehow never expected to be used with positive violence in the
world of spirits, and least of all in that lazy and good-natured place.
Considering, too, the errand on which I had come, not for my own
convenience but for the sake of another, my treatment seemed to me very
hard. What was still more humiliating was the fact that my spirit seemed
just as powerless in the hands of these ruffians as my body would have
been on earth. I was pushed, hustled, insulted, hurt. I could have
summoned Amroth to my aid, but I felt too proud for that; yet the
thought of the cragmen, and the possibility of the second death, did
visit my mind with dismal iteration. I did not at all desire a further
death; I felt very much alive, and full of interest and energy. Worst
of all was my sense that Cynthia had gone over to the enemy. I had been
so loftily kind with her, that I much resented having appeared in her
sight as feeble and ridiculous. It is difficult to preserve any dignity
of demeanour or thought, with a man's hand at one's neck and his knee in
one's back: and I felt that Lucius had displayed a really Satanical
malignity in using this particular means of degrading me in Cynthia's
sight, and of regaining his own lost influence.
I was thrust and driven before my captors along an alley in the garden,
and what added to my discomfiture was that a good many people ran
together to see us pass, and watched me with decided amusement. I was
taken finally to a little pavilion of stone, with heavily barred
windows, and a flagged marble floor. The room was absolutely bare, and
contained neither seat nor table. Into this I was thrust, with some
obscene jesting, and the door was locked upon me.
The time passed very heavily. At intervals I heard music burst out
among the alleys, and a good many people came to peep in upon me
with an amused curiosity. I was entirely bewildered by my position,
and did not see what I could have done to have incurred my punishment.
But in the solitary hours that followed I began to have a suspicion
of my fault. I had found myself hitherto the object of so much attention
and praise, that I had developed a strong sense of complacency and
self-satisfaction. I had an uncomfortable suspicion that there was even
more behind, but I could not, by interrogating my mind and searching out
my spirits, make out clearly what it was; yet I felt I was having a
sharp lesson; and this made me resolve that I would ask for no kind of
assistance from Amroth or any other power, but that I would try to meet
whatever fell upon me with patience, and extract the full savour of my
experience.
I do not know how long I spent in the dismal cell. I was in some
discomfort from the handling I had received, and in still greater
dejection of mind. Suddenly I heard footsteps approaching. Three of my
captors appeared, and told me roughly to go with them. So, a pitiable
figure, I limped along between two of them, the third following behind,
and was conducted through the central piazza of the place, between two
lines of people who gave way to the most undisguised merriment, and even
shouted opprobrious remarks at me, calling me spy and traitor and other
unpleasant names. I could not have believed that these kind-mannered and
courteous persons could have exhibited, all of a sudden, such frank
brutality, and I saw many of my own acquaintance among them, who
regarded me with obvious derision.
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