Meanwhile, Robert Oakley was reaching the Temple of Gold in response to the High Priest’s summons.
The High Priest’s appearance was quite as unpleasant as Oakley had depicted it to Ben. Although a white robe clothed most of his skin, and his skin clothed all of his skeleton, it was the skeleton that impressed itself upon the beholder of the outer casings. But as life is mainly what you make it, so people—and even skeletons—are largely what you make them, and it was many moons since the High Priest had struck terror into Oakley’s breast. He was to Oakley merely a flat picture on a canvas. Not a picture one would have chosen, perhaps, if one had been the artist, but still a picture. Two dimensional. Like everything else.
We shall presently see the High Priest through many eyes. Through Smith’s and Elsie Noyes’s as a nightmare to be fled from: through Ruth’s and Haines’s as a nightmare to be faced; through Medworth’s as a damned impossibility; through Cooling’s as an inconvenient reality that might be vastly entertaining in a cage; through Ben’s—well, let that reveal itself. Through Oakley’s he was a conception of the past. Already finished with. Poof!
It was not quite so easy to poof the High Priest on this particular morning, however, as he stood outside the Temple. His white robe glared like an evil wraith in the ruthless sunlight. His long, scraggy neck, looking somehow twisted, and partially concealed by wisps of beard (the beard’s one good office), rose out of the whiteness to form a channel that was surely choked between mind and heart. Above the neck was a head that should never have existed. A mother he must have had, but she had long departed this life in shame. His eyes burned with an inherent hatred of everything saving the tortured spark that was himself. They said, ‘I rule what I despise. When I am dead, my skull will be the skull of skulls.’ They spoke the truth.
All these things Oakley had learned and digested. They were the familiar accompaniment to his day. Yet now as he returned the High Priest’s gaze, with eyes as dull as the priest’s were live, he sensed a difference. Was it in the priest, or was it in himself? He did not know, and he tried hard not to care. His thoughts crystallised themselves into three words: ‘Poor old Ben!’
The High Priest made a sign of indignant impatience. Oakley pointed to the sun, not yet at its greatest elevation. The High Priest made a sign that his own height sufficed; that he, indeed, was higher than the sun, and had a greater power to burn and blast miserable mortals who kept him waiting. Oakley made a sign that, dash it all, he was a Low Priest, and that ought to count for something. The High Priest made a sign that it counted for nothing; less than nothing; that a Low Priest was as low as a High Priest was high. Oakley made a sign that he had been busy and that he could not possibly know that the High Priest was waiting if the High Priest did not stick to his arrangements. The High Priest made a sign that it was the duty of a Low Priest to interpret a High Priest, just as it was the duty of a High Priest to interpret Oomoo, Washa, Mung, and all the other inhabitants of the sky; further that Oakley was an earthy toad, a crawling slug, and a decaying worm. Oakley made a sign implying, ‘O.K., darling,’ lay on his stomach, touched the priest’s toes with his forehead, resisted an almost uncontrollable impulse to seize the toes and tip their owner over, and rose.
Then Oakley took a hand-gong from a niche in a rock by the entrance, turned, and began descending the steep hill towards the village, chanting:
‘Kooala—Kooala—Kooala.’
The kooala waited until Oakley was some fifty yards ahead, before slowly following, keeping the same distance between them.
The villagers heard them coming. So did the prisoners in the compound. So did Ben, on his throne in the Chief’s hut. Oakley had developed his chanting to a fine art, and was rather proud of the manner in which he could make the greatest noise with the least effort. His voice penetrated to the village long before he himself reached it. When he entered the village he sounded his gong, but this was mere form, for the villagers were already in their hovels and the roads were empty.
The single file, composed of two separated men and a voice, passed the Chief’s hut, but did not pause there. The Chief’s hut with its distinguished occupant was the pièce de resistance, reserved for end. There was no pause until the village had been left behind, the twisting road beyond had been covered, and the compound had been reached. Then, as he entered, Oakley stopped, and waited for the High Priest to draw up.
The native guards were on their faces. The six prisoners, however, were erect. Oakley smiled faintly.
‘Kooala coming, sweethearts,’ he said. ‘He won’t like seeing you in the perpendicular.’
‘I’m not going to lie on my face for anybody!’ chattered Elsie Noyes.
‘No, no, it wouldn’t be British,’ agreed Smith in a voice that was scarcely British.
‘But it might be wise?’ inquired Cooling cynically.
‘Wise be damned!’ muttered Medworth, and then suddenly changed his tone. ‘Yes, but after all, what about it? We want to put him off his guard, you know? Throw dust in his eyes?’
Ruth whispered to Haines, ‘I think Miss Noyes came out of that best!’
They remained standing, their eyes glued on the entrance. Only one more remark was made before the High Priest appeared. It was a characteristic one from Oakley.
‘Any good shows on in London?’ he asked.
Then the High Priest arrived.
Reaching the entrance he stopped, and regarded the prisoners; at first collectively, then separately, each in turn. It was the most unpleasant scrutiny they had ever endured. It beat Miss Noyes.
‘Don’t you look at me!’ she gasped ridiculously, with a little shriek.
The High Priest turned to Oakley. Oakley translated the remark. The High Priest advanced to Miss Noyes, who backed into Smith. Smith grasped her, and held her firmly in front of him.
The High Priest stopped again, then made a sign.
‘What does that mean?’ inquired Cooling.
‘It means, “Prostrate yourselves before the Chosen of the Gods, white spawn,”’ translated Oakley. ‘What do I tell him?’
‘I should say that what you tell him is obvious,’ answered Cooling. ‘A little sentence of three words, the last beginning with H.’
‘Weema nya stooka,’ said Oakley, gesticulating to the High Priest. ‘Stooka swarli.’
The High Priest’s eyes blazed.
‘Excuse me, but did you really tell him that?’ asked Cooling a little anxiously.
‘I softened the blow,’ replied Oakley. ‘I told him that white people never lie down unless it is to sleep.’
The High Chief was gesticulating again. He gesticulated for some while. Oakley translated:
‘The High Priest warns you that if you are disobedient you will soon lie down for your longest sleep, but, for the moment, he defers to your heathenish habits. He is now about to touch you, to make sure you are real, for he finds you as hard to believe as you doubtless find him. While he touches you, you will remain motionless, and you will not touch back.’
‘What would happen,’ asked Medworth as the High Priest advanced again, ‘if I boxed his ears?’
‘It would happen very quickly,’ answered Oakley.
No one boxed his ears. They submitted to the ordeal. Happily it did not take long. The High Priest only paused at Smith, whose fat flabby arm seemed to interest him, and at Ruth. That time he did nearly get his ears boxed.
‘Find me interesting?’ asked Ruth as he peered at her closely.
‘I’d hold on to that fist of yours, if I were you,’ Oakley murmured to Haines. ‘It won’t do any good.’
‘Yes, steady, Tom,’ said Ruth. ‘I can stand it.’
‘So can I, so long as he keeps his dirty hands off you!’ muttered Haines. ‘But if he starts pawing you again—’
‘Shut up, shut up!’ growled Medworth. ‘He’s getting ratty!’
Perhaps the High Priest gathered, without interpretation, the sultry undercurrent, and decided that it might be wiser to satisfy his curiosity more completely in the Temple, where he was on home ground. The natives obeyed him implicitly, but these white monstrosities were less trained. Whatever his reasoning, he suddenly withdrew, and beckoning Oakley to the entrance discoursed with him volubly by his peculiar method. The silent conversationalists were watched by the prisoners, who gathered that some little trouble was on. Oakley, for once, appeared to be objecting. At last, however, the High Priest made a gesture of finality, and Oakley shrugged his shoulders.
‘Well, what was all that about?’ asked Lord Cooling, admirably concealing a nasty flutter around his heart.
‘Oh—just that we’re going,’ answered Oakley.
‘Try again,’ suggested Cooling.
Oakley stared at the ground for a moment, then suddenly looked at Haines.
‘I still think Ben is your best chance,’ he said. ‘I’ll know whether the chance is scotched or not in a few minutes. But meanwhile I’m taking no responsibility, and if any of you want to try a spot of sauve qui peut, don’t say I’m stopping you.’
He swung round on his heel and vanished.
The High Priest did not follow him immediately. He stood in the entrance, with his back to them. Tom took a soft step forward. He felt Ruth’s detaining hand on his arm, and at the same moment the priest’s white sleeve fluttered slightly, and something long and thin it concealed slid down a little way. From below the folds protruded for an instant a sharp gleaming point.
Then the High Priest slipped out of the doorway, and vanished after Oakley.
‘Well?’ said Cooling. ‘Are we glad he called?’
‘What I want to know is what that fool Oakley meant,’ exclaimed Smith a little more loudly than was necessary. But one had to do something once in a while to show one had a house and paid rates.
‘Yes, and why did he look at you, Mr Haines, while he said—what he did?’ inquired Miss Noyes. ‘That seemed to me most odd!’
‘Bah, he was tipping us the wink!’ retorted Medworth. ‘And I’m going to take it—though not in the direction he meant!’
‘You’re going down the gold-mine, Daddy?’ inquired Cooling.
‘No, up into it!’ grinned Medworth. ‘Who’s climbing with me?’
Haines turned to Ruth, and asked her gravely:
‘What do you want to do, Ruth?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I’m still betting on Ben,’ she answered. ‘Let’s sit down and play noughts and crosses!’