“Will the Queen be pleased,” I said, bowing low before Sorais, “to sing unto her servants? Our hearts are heavy this night. Sing to us, O Lady of the Night” (Sorais’s favourite name among the people).
“My songs, Macumazahn, are not such as to lighten the heavy heart, yet will I sing if it pleases thee,” she answered, and she rose and went a few paces to a table, whereon lay an instrument not unlike a zither, and struck a few wandering chords.
Then suddenly, like the notes of some deep-throated bird, her rounded voice rang out in song so wildly sweet, and yet with so eerie and sad a refrain, that it made the very blood stand still. Up, up soared the golden notes, that seemed to melt far away, and then to grow again and travel on, laden with all the sorrow of the world and all the despair of the lost. It was a marvellous song, but I had not time to listen to it properly. However, I got the words of it afterwards, and here is a translation of its burden, so far as it admits of being translated at all:
Sorais’s Song
As a desolate bird that through darkness its lost way is winging,
As a hand that is helplessly raised when Death’s sickle is swinging,
So is life! ay, the life that lends passion and breath to my singing.As the nightingale’s song that is full of a sweetness unspoken,
As a spirit unbarring the gates of the skies for a token,
So is love! ay, the love that shall fall when his pinion is broken.As the tramp of the legions when trumpets their challenge are sending,
As the shout of the Storm-god when lightnings the black sky are rending,
So is power! ay, the power that shall lie in the dust at its ending.So short is our life; yet with space for all things to forsake us,
A bitter delusion, a dream from which nought can awake us,
Till Death’s dogging footsteps at morn or at eve shall o’ertake us.
Refrain
Oh, the world is fair at the dawning—dawning—dawning,
But the red sun sinks in blood—the red sun sinks in blood.
I only wish that I could write down the music too.
“Now, Curtis, now,” I whispered, when she began the second verse, and turned my back.
“Nyleptha,” he said—for my nerves were so much on the stretch that I could hear every word, low as it was spoken, even through Sorais’s divine notes—“Nyleptha, I must speak with thee this night; upon my life I must. Say me not nay, oh, say me not nay!”
“How can I speak with thee?” she answered, looking fixedly before her; “Queens are not like other people. I am surrounded and watched.”
“Listen, Nyleptha, thus: I will be before the statue of Rademas in the great hall at midnight. I have the countersign and can pass in. Macumazahn will be there to keep guard, and with him the Zulu. Oh come, my Queen; deny me not.”
“It is not seemly,” she murmured, “and tomorrow—”
Just then the music began to die in the last wail of the refrain, and Sorais slowly turned her round.
“I will be there,” said Nyleptha, hurriedly; “on thy life see that thou fail me not.”
XVI
Before the Statue
It was night—dead night—and the silence lay on the Frowning City like a cloud.
Secretly, as evildoers, Sir Henry Curtis, Umslopogaas, and myself threaded our way through the passages towards a by-entrance to the great Throne Chamber. Once we were met by the fierce, rattling challenge of the sentry. I gave the countersign, and the man grounded his spear and let us pass. Also, we were officers of the Queens’ bodyguard, and in that capacity had a right to come and go unquestioned.
We gained the hall in safety. So empty and so still was it that even when we had passed, the sound of our footsteps yet echoed up the lofty walls, vibrating faintly and still more faintly against the carven roof, like ghosts of the footsteps of dead men haunting the place that once they trod.
It was an eerie spot, and it oppressed me. The moon was full, and threw great pencils and patches of light through the high, windowless openings in the walls, that lay pure and beautiful upon the blackness of the marble floor, like white flowers on a coffin. One of these silver arrows fell upon the statue of the sleeping Rademas, and of the angel form bent over him, illumining it, and a small circle round it, with a soft clear light, reminding me of that with which Catholics illumine the altars of their cathedrals.
Here by the statue we took our stand, and waited—Sir Henry and I close together, Umslopogaas some paces off in the darkness, so that I could only just make out his towering outline leaning on the outline of an axe.
So long did we wait that I almost fell asleep resting against the cold marble, but was suddenly aroused by hearing Curtis give a quick, catching breath. Then from far, far away there came a little sound as though the statues that lined the walls were whispering to each other some message of the ages.
It was the faint sweep of a lady’s dress. Nearer it grew, and nearer yet. We could see a figure steal from patch to patch of moonlight, and even hear the soft fall of sandalled feet. Another second and I saw the black silhouette of the old Zulu raise its arm in mute salute, and Nyleptha was before us.
Oh, how beautiful she looked as she paused a moment just within the circle of the moonlight! Her hand was pressed upon her
