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Page 64
Slowly the penumbra, the shadow of a shadow, crept on over the bright
surface, and as it crept I heard deep gasps of fear rising from the
multitude around.
"Look, O king!" I cried; "look, Gagool! Look, chiefs and people and
women, and see if the white men from the Stars keep their word, or if
they be but empty liars!
"The moon grows black before your eyes; soon there will be darkness--
ay, darkness in the hour of the full moon. Ye have asked for a sign;
it is given to you. Grow dark, O Moon! withdraw thy light, thou pure
and holy One; bring the proud heart of usurping murderers to the dust,
and eat up the world with shadows."
A groan of terror burst from the onlookers. Some stood petrified with
dread, others threw themselves upon their knees and cried aloud. As
for the king, he sat still and turned pale beneath his dusky skin.
Only Gagool kept her courage.
"It will pass," she cried; "I have often seen the like before; no man
can put out the moon; lose not heart; sit still--the shadow will
pass."
"Wait, and ye shall see," I replied, hopping with excitement. "O Moon!
Moon! Moon! wherefore art thou so cold and fickle?" This appropriate
quotation was from the pages of a popular romance that I chanced to
have read recently, though now I come to think of it, it was
ungrateful of me to abuse the Lady of the Heavens, who was showing
herself to be the truest of friends to us, however she may have
behaved to the impassioned lover in the novel. Then I added: "Keep it
up, Good, I can't remember any more poetry. Curse away, there's a good
fellow."
Good responded nobly to this tax upon his inventive faculties. Never
before had I the faintest conception of the breadth and depth and
height of a naval officer's objurgatory powers. For ten minutes he
went on in several languages without stopping, and he scarcely ever
repeated himself.
Meanwhile the dark ring crept on, while all that great assembly fixed
their eyes upon the sky and stared and stared in fascinated silence.
Strange and unholy shadows encroached upon the moonlight, an ominous
quiet filled the place. Everything grew still as death. Slowly and in
the midst of this most solemn silence the minutes sped away, and while
they sped the full moon passed deeper and deeper into the shadow of
the earth, as the inky segment of its circle slid in awful majesty
across the lunar craters. The great pale orb seemed to draw near and
to grow in size. She turned a coppery hue, then that portion of her
surface which was unobscured as yet grew grey and ashen, and at
length, as totality approached, her mountains and her plains were to
be seen glowing luridly through a crimson gloom.
On, yet on, crept the ring of darkness; it was now more than half
across the blood-red orb. The air grew thick, and still more deeply
tinged with dusky crimson. On, yet on, till we could scarcely see the
fierce faces of the group before us. No sound rose now from the
spectators, and at last Good stopped swearing.
"The moon is dying--the white wizards have killed the moon," yelled
the prince Scragga at last. "We shall all perish in the dark," and
animated by fear or fury, or by both, he lifted his spear and drove it
with all his force at Sir Henry's breast. But he forgot the mail
shirts that the king had given us, and which we wore beneath our
clothing. The steel rebounded harmless, and before he could repeat the
blow Curtis had snatched the spear from his hand and sent it straight
through him.
Scragga dropped dead.
At the sight, and driven mad with fear of the gathering darkness, and
of the unholy shadow which, as they believed, was swallowing the moon,
the companies of girls broke up in wild confusion, and ran screeching
for the gateways. Nor did the panic stop there. The king himself,
followed by his guards, some of the chiefs, and Gagool, who hobbled
away after them with marvellous alacrity, fled for the huts, so that
in another minute we ourselves, the would-be victim Foulata, Infadoos,
and most of the chiefs who had interviewed us on the previous night,
were left alone upon the scene, together with the dead body of
Scragga, Twala's son.
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