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Page 38
"One morning early, there was excitement in the ducal palace. Lilama was
missing. Search was diligently made. Pym was wild with excitement; and
as the morning wore on Peters grew almost mad. (I shall speak of
morning, afternoon, evening, and night. The degree of light in Hili-li
did not now vary in the twenty-four hours; but it is necessary that I
should in some manner divide the day, and our usual method seems the
best.) The Duke himself arrived at about ten o'clock, by which time the
search had ceased, and what to do next had become the question. The Duke
appeared surprised at something, and spoke a few words to his son, a
young man of twenty-two or twenty-three, by name Diregus, who thereupon
looked slightly foolish, as one does who has made some puerile mistake.
The Duke appeared to feel a real touch of pity for Pym, who sat
dejected, a picture of intense anguish, now and then casting a
beseeching look at the Duke--the only person who, to his mind, might be
able to assist him to regain his sweetheart. The Duke again spoke to his
son, who, turning to Pym, motioned him to accompany them. Then, followed
by Peters, they walked down to the shore, and entered a boat.
"From the moment of starting, every movement of the Hili-lites seemed as
if prearranged. It was a peculiarity of this people that a number of
them acting together talked very little, each of the party appearing to
know the wishes and intentions of the others, without a word spoken. And
so was it on this occasion. Scarcely a word was uttered, and each seemed
to comprehend the wishes of the others, mainly by glances and by
semi-involuntary movements. In the present instance, father and son did
not once glance at each other, yet the son was evidently aware of each
wish of the father. They finally came to a landing, across the bay, in
the suburbs of the city most distant from the locality in which stood
the ducal palace. There, some four hundred feet from the shore, amid
giant trees, in spacious and seemingly neglected grounds, stood a very
large residence, evidently many centuries old, and of a style of
architecture not seen by the Americans elsewhere in Hili-li. The
building had an eerie look, and as the party drew near to it Peters
observed that but one of its wings was inhabited, the remainder of the
mansion being in a state of almost complete decay. They all entered by a
side doorway into the inhabited wing. Pym and Peters were motioned to
seats in the hallway, the Duke remarking, in hushed tones, 'The home of
Masus�lili,' as he and Diregus passed through a broken and decaying
doorway into apartments beyond. Soon Diregus returned, and, escorting
Pym and Peters through several disordered rooms, finally paused before a
large curtained doorway. Then Diregus spoke, but in a hushed voice, and
with an awed solemnity that chilled his hearers through and through.
"'Fear not,' he said; 'no harm will befall you. If the benign Fate is to
smile--well; if the Furies are to rage, we can but bow to the Will that
has held in its hand for countless cycles this petty planet--a grain in
the wastes of Eternity. Come!'
"He passed through the doorway, and the two followed him. The room they
entered was spacious--almost thirty feet square. It was crowded with
strange devices, and was lighted by six colored swinging globes. A
strange odor filled the atmosphere of the apartment. The room was
brilliantly enough illuminated, though the light was variously colored
and its shades and blendings were confusing; whilst the strange,
intoxicating perfume also helped to perplex the senses. If the apartment
had contained not more than several objects, the visitors might soon
have detected and observed all of them; but, as it was, Pym and Peters
stood gazing confusedly about them, momentarily beholding fresh objects,
all of them strange, many of them bizarre, some of them frightful. It
was apparently at the same instant of time that the sight of Pym and
Peters fell upon an object so awesome that their hearts almost ceased to
beat, and then bounded on with throbs that sent the cold blood leaping
down their spines and to their scalps in chilling waves that ceased only
when their terror reached the numbing stage. There before them, not six
feet away, among great cubes of crystal, and vast retorts, and enormous
vase-like objects on the floor, stood an aged man. How aged? He was old
when the antarctic barbarians were slain, and their remnant sent back to
its home on those dreary islands to live forever in blackness. None knew
how old he was--they, the rulers, knew not; or if they did, on that
subject they were silent. Some said that on the ship which brought the
nucleus of their race from Rome, came Masus�lili with the others--an
aged man, the oldest on the vessel. There he stood before the visitors,
his white beard trailing on the tiling at his feet, his shrunken form
erect. But, whence the terror? Three times ere I could learn this fact
(and even then I learned it more by inference than by words) did Peters
sink into delirium, muttering, 'Oh, those eyes--the eyes of a god--of a
god of gods.' The aged man seated himself at a small Roman table, and,
turning to the Duke without a question, said in a voice unlike any other
voice in all the world--steady, but thin, high-pitched, sharp,
penetrating and agitating depths within the hearer never reached before,
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