It was in the darkest hour just before morning when the Shaman began his great prophecies about the young child, Temujin. One mighty central fire had been piled high with dried animal-droppings and gnarled wood of the desert pines. Around this fire gathered all the people, to listen to the prophecies, and to see the strange things which the Shaman would conjure into their vision. Kokchu was reputed to be a remarkable wizard, but so far few had witnessed his marvels, and there had even been some scepticism about him. Now that the dark dawn was approaching, the rumor had spread that Kokchu would conjure mightily, and every one from all the other fires came, so that one by one the deserted fires flickered slowly out, like red stars, and there was just this fire.
Kurelen had drunk more deeply than ever before in his life, but he could not retain his drunkenness. Finally, the more rice wine he drank the more his mind cleared, until he was afflicted by a sharp clarity of perception which rapidly became agony. Sound impinged on him physically, as though he had been flayed, and hot irons applied to raw nerves and bleeding tendons. Sight became unendurable. He dropped his forehead to his knees and closed his eyes. But he had no desire to rise and go away. Inertia had him in numb chains, and besides, he was very cold, colder than he had ever been before. He did not know that the monk, Jelmi, had removed his own felt coat, and had thrown it over his shoulders. The priest, Seljuken, had begun to stir in his sodden drunken sleep, and was now sitting upright, blinking, rubbing his beard and his eyes, beginning to eat again.
Now a deep silence fell about the smoldering and leaping fire. Kokchu, the Chief Shaman, had arisen. He was standing in the crimson circle of light, and had fixed his eyes on the lightless heavens. His father had been a great Mongol chieftain, of noble family and passionate pride; Kokchu, himself, was a handsome, and even magnificent, man. He was very tall and thin, and had burning black eyes, large and compelling and ferocious. His face was long and brown, his nose beaklike, with flaring nostrils, which gave him a savage look. His large mouth, heavy and drooping, was possessed of a cruel, stubborn and melancholy expression, the mouth of the barbarian. His thick black eyebrows sprang from the inner corner of his eyes upward, like wings, so that his whole face took on a wild ferocity at once intimidating and beautiful. Yet, for all this, he had a subtle and crafty look, as though decadence had come on him before his savagery had been dissolved. On his head he wore a high pointed hood, very narrow and stiff; the scarflike ends framed his face and lay on his shoulders, as did the two thick braids of his black hair. His body, to the waist, was clad in a short coat of creamy woolen, elaborately embroidered in blue and red and yellow in esoteric symbols; the sleeves were long and full, and he kept his hands folded in them. From the waist down he wore a voluminous skirt of blue wool, the folds heavy and dragging. They hid his felt boots, which some enamored woman had richly embroidered. When he removed his hands from his sleeves, his thin dark wrists jangled with gold bangles set with turquoises.
Kurelen opened his eyes and studied the Shaman with interest. He smiled. There, he thought, with admiration, is I, under more fortunate circumstances. At times he enjoyed conversing with Kokchu, who had a mind like glittering jet, and no compunctions whatsoever. Had Kurelen not laughed at the spirits (in which Kokchu had absolutely no belief), the two would have been the most genial of friends. But when Kurelen laughed, the Shaman felt himself endangered. Nevertheless, at intervals, they enjoyed each other, for all their instinctive hatred. For, as Kurelen said, they were the only two men of sense in Yesukai’s ordu. Kurelen said openly, to the Shaman, that he had no objection if Kokchu made swines of men with his conjurings. But he reserved to himself, he announced, the right to laugh both at the Shaman and his believers. The laughter was the eternal sword of enmity between them.
Tonight, Kokchu determined that he would silence Kurelen’s laughter forever, if not with his conjurings, then with another method. He felt very gloomy, for Kurelen, watching him in the firelight, had begun to smile and look interested.
Kokchu placed the palms of his hands piously together, and regarded the sky solemnly. His lips moved; his expression became one of intense awe. All the watchers fell into awe, also, except Kurelen and Jelmi. Eyes were raised so high that the foreheads over them wrinkled like crushed parchment, and fur hats fell far back on skulls. Between parted lips, teeth glistened like the teeth of beasts of prey.
Kurelen bent towards Jelmi, chuckling: “Thou hast never seen the like! Observe closely.”
Jelmi smiled with his perfect gentle courtesy, and fixed his eyes on the Shaman, ringed about with scores of glittering eyes and entranced faces. He held his prayer-wheel in his hands, and spun it absently. He whispered: “God appears in many forms, and whatsoever this man produces is part of the eternal manifestation.”
Kurelen pursed his lips, but did not answer. He watched Kokchu with enjoyment, proof against any witchery or magic. Yet he was not insensible to the mysterious silence that stood over everything, as though the universe held its breath and waited.
Kokchu lifted his arms slowly; his dark face had turned the color of lead, and upon it lay drops of quicksilver, starting from every pore. The cords of his throat rose like ropes under his skin. There was no sign of physical struggle about him, yet every one was aware of enormous strain and conflict within the Shaman. He began to pray, first in a whisper, then in a mounting voice, high and hysterical:
“O ye Spirits of the Eternal Blue Sky! I call upon ye; I command ye! Ye have given unto us a man-child of great beauty and strength, and have put in his hand an omen. It is not always given unto men to see the future, but because we desire to accord this child his proper honors, we pray that ye give us a sign of his greatness and his mystery!”
The quicksilver drops slowly moved down his face; red veins sprang out in the whites of his eyes. He shuddered; his fists clenched. He fixed his unblinking and somehow terrible gaze unmovingly on the heavens. Now he was silent, but the struggle within him flowed out to infect the watchers with an eerie restlessness and vague fright. The huge fire had suddenly died down, so that only a vast ring of fiery shifting coals lay on the earth. These coals threw out a blood-red light, a ring in which the Shaman seemed to stand, the upper part of his body in semidarkness, his feet and knees seemingly burning.
All at once a faint groaning came from the watchers. Kurelen leaned forward, and gazed at the fire, which the warriors were watching with expression of fixed horror and fear and superstition. He saw nothing, nothing but the red, radiant coals. He glanced humorously at Jelmi, but to his surprise Jelmi was looking at the coals solemnly, his face pale and transfixed. The priest, Seljuken, was staring, too, mouth and eyes agape. His hair was slowly rising.
“It is impossible,” Kurelen muttered, shrugging. And then he was silent. For in the falling ring of coals something was taking shape. A cool thrill ran down Kurelen’s twisted spine; a tingling invaded his hands and feet. Slowly the Things within the fire brightened into outline. Slowly the form of a mountain lion, crouching on his belly, manifested itself. It was an enormous lion; its head was lifted with pride and courage and ferocity; its red eyes glittered in the incandescent light. Kurelen could see its flexed paws, its white fangs and white claws. About its rippling body was coiled a thick scarlet serpent; Kurelen could see the markings on the serpent’s scaly skin. But it was not crushing the lion; rather, its coils were quiet, its long flat head resting on the head of the beast. Its evil eyes, green and opalescent, shone; between its jaws a tongue flickered incessantly. Beast and serpent lay together in peace, frightful eyes full of mystery and unearthly meditation. They appeared to breathe together, coils and body rising together in unison. And near them, looking only at the sky, stood the Shaman, the leaden tint of his flesh deepening, the sweat coursing down his face, his lips open and gaping.
Kurelen felt his hair rising. His body, affrighted, recoiled. But his mind repudiated what he saw. “It is not possible,” he said aloud, enraged. He leaned forward, the better to see the beast and the serpent. And slowly, as if they felt the infuriated impact of his eyes, the Things turned their heads together in unison in the fire and gazed at him. He saw the pointed slash of their dilated pupils; he heard their hissing breath; he saw their wet fangs. His heart began to beat like a struck cymbal with terror and anger.
The Shaman began to speak in a low droning voice, broken by gasps.
“O ye Spirits, eternal and terrible, ye have answered my prayers, and have given us a sign! Strong and fierce as the mountain lion is this child, and wise and all-embracing as the serpent! What man shall withstand him? What creature of air and earth and mountain shall defy him?”
Kurelen’s body was running with ice-cold sweat. He was leaning forward farther than ever. He was looking directly into the eyes of the awful Things that regarded him so steadfastly from the fire. He felt that they saw him and understood him, yet they saw and understood with a horrible indifference, with a supernatural awareness which was yet as aloof and impersonal as death. He felt himself face to face with monstrous things beyond the pale rim of reality and sanity, things of madness before which men were impotent and threatened and which, once seen, would drive them to madness, also.
Every one else vanished from Kurelen’s consciousness. There were only himself and these ghastly visitants that had moved from nightmare into reality. Dimly, in the background, he heard the Shaman’s droning voice, his weird incantations. But he looked only into the shimmering incandescent eyes of the Things and they looked back only at him, breathing steadily, the coals faintly seen through their transparent bodies. He thought to himself, numbly: I must defy them, and declare they do not exist, that they are foul emanations from the Shaman’s own soul. And as he thought this thought, the Things seemed to gaze at him the more intensely, and now with enmity and fearful menace.
Slowly, with an almost superhuman effort, he turned his eyes from the fire and glanced at the Shaman. His heart plunged foolishly, for he saw that Kokchu was watching him obliquely, and that the Shaman was smiling as though with gloating irony.
Kurelen’s pale lips twisted into a faint grin. He turned to Jelmi, who was watching the Things with profound gravity. “They do not exist,” he made himself say. But Jelmi did not turn his head. An expression of deep sorrow and despair moved like a cloud over his yellowed features.
“Yes,” he whispered, “they do exist, it is true they come from the soul of an evil man. But evil lives apart and in men, and can be conjured into the eye. ’Tis only goodness which is a dream.”
The Shaman was exhausted; he was trembling visibly. He said faintly : “We have seen, O ye Spirits!” His hands fell to his sides; his head dropped on his chest.
Slowly, before Kurelen’s incredulous gaze, the Things stirred a little, then began to pale. Their outlines dimmed; lion and serpent dissolved again to red coals. But to the last their incandescent eyes were fixed on Kurelen in an obscene but awful warning, and long after the coals were black he felt their influence in his soul.
A deep subterranean groan burst from the warriors. Superstitious terror filled them. They emitted hysterical cries and incoherent words. Kokchu smiled. He sat down on the other side of the fire, folded his hands in his sleeves, seemed to give himself up to meditation. But he met Kurelen’s eyes, and again he smiled, subtly. Thou art a fraud, said Kurelen to him, in his mind, and his own eyes flashed with the message. He had no doubt that the Shaman read the message, and was maddened by the other’s answering the contemptuous look.
Yesukai was beside himself with joy. He wept and beamed. The cups of wine were handed about, again. The fiddlers played hysterically, their fingers flashing up and down the strings in an ecstasy of rejoicing. Then some one suggested that the captive monk and priest be induced to prophesy in behalf of the child, Temujin. The drunken Nestorian priest, full of wine, meat and bombast, was only too willing. His inflamed mind was intoxicated by what he had seen. Verily, he had witnessed a holy miracle! His mind became confused; legends and strange tales, gleaned from his own faith, swam through his chaotic consciousness. He was helped to his feet. His bearded face shone with exaltation, though he swayed in the arms of those who held him upright. He flung out his own arms, and so violent was the gesture that he would have fallen into the fire but for the firm grip of the two Mongol warriors who held him.
He began to shout. He had seen a vision in his soul! God had vouchsafed to him the sight of wonders and miracles! What glories had he seen, what secrets of past and future! His protruding eyes gleamed like wet stones in the firelight: froth appeared on his bearded lips. His chest heaved and shuddered, and sweat ran down from his forehead. He panted. Every one regarded him with awe and fear, except the Shaman, who had begun to frown, and Kurelen, who was laughing silently.
The priest flung up his arms and now his whole expression took on the aspect of madness. He stood rigid, unmoving, like a statue, or rather like a tree that had been stricken with lightning, and now vibrated. His voice, when it emerged again from his foam-lined lips, was shrill and broken.
“What a vision is this! Darkly through the mists do I see a virgin, clothed in garments of the moon, standing on a red star! Upon her head is a crown of fire, and in her hands she holdeth a sphere of flame! The sphere bursts into fragments, and behold! they form into seven stars! But one of these stars is the largest, and it too bursts, and forms itself into glowing letters! What is that sacred name, that terrible name, that most dreadful and holy name!”
The crowding warriors leaned forward, lips dropping, eyes glazed with terror and joy. A mad and frenetic ecstasy lit up the priest’s ghastly face. He seemed to be regarding something wondrous written in the sky. Slowly, one by one, the warriors followed his fixed gaze, as if they, too, might see something there, some wonder written by the finger of a god.
The priest, in that pent silence, suddenly howled, and every man jumped violently. He howled again. The Shaman and Kurelen winced, and then exchanged a wry glance.
“I see the name!” shrieked the priest. “It is the name of the Child which was born before the rising of the sun! It is the name of Temujin!”
The warriors groaned joyfully. Many wept, wiping away their tears with the backs of their hands. Yesukai was white and stricken with emotion.
The priest’s madness increased. He leaped into the air in his drunken rapture. He clapped his hands with a sharp sound. His beard and hair flew together.
“The Child born of a Virgin!” he screamed. “Seven generations have passed, but it is as only yesterday! Seven stars and seven generations, and this Child is born! This is he, the Conqueror, the King of all men, the sword and the whip of God!”
Kurelen leaned towards Jelmi, and whispered: “I have heard this tale before, in Cathay, from the Christians. But the name they named was not Temujin!”
Jelmi, without looking at Kurelen, smiled faintly. He seemed painfully intent upon the priest.
The priest was shouting again, but incoherently now, and all at once he pitched towards the fire, and would have fallen in it but for the alert hands of the warriors. But he was unconscious, from wine and emotion. They laid him down, carefully, and some one threw a blanket over him. He began to snore. But the warriors were full of excitement. The seventh generation rising from a virgin! No wonder such signs and portents had surrounded the birth of this child! Each warrior began to relate, in turn, several curious things he had observed lately, which he had been at a loss to explain. The more imaginative had strange tales. A hawk had been observed scattering eagles. The sun had stood still in the heavens a day or two ago, far beyond his sojourn. Flowers, far out of season, had been seen growing along the river, whose edge had been frozen hard in the morning. Others had seen red shadows drifting across the moon. The excitement became more vociferous and incoherent
Jelmi whispered to Kurelen, with his slight smile: “It is a strange story, but an old one. It is said even of the Lord Buddha, by some of his worshippers, that he is descended from a virgin. It was suggested for Lao-Tse, but he repudiated it, angrily. I have heard that our present emperor regarded it kindly, for himself, but my father and others laughed him out of it. It is a very unwholesome idea, but there are some, perverted and unclean, who admire it.”
Kurelen shrugged. “It will do no harm, and may insure their loyalty to my sister’s child. But I can see that our Shaman is green with envy. He wishes he had thought of it first.”
But Jelmi now observed that many of the warriors were looking and pointing at him eagerly. Then all at once a concerned shout arose that this holy man must prophesy also. Jelmi paled and tried to shrink back from the firelight. But hands were already seizing him, thrusting him to the front.
“Prophesy! Prophesy!” cried the warriors, and many of them struck their lacquered shields with the hilts of their daggers.
The poor monk stood, uncertain and bewildered, before the fire. He looked at all the wild dark faces ringed about him. Kurelen tugged the hem of his yellow robe and urged, with a laugh: “Thou surely hast as much imagination as that foul priest!”
Jelmi regarded the warriors humbly. He said, in his soft and gentle voice: “I am only the lowliest of the lowliest. Who am I, that God should speak unto me? I dare not even pray; I must only stand in His presence, like a worm deserving of a crushing foot. How will the Lord see me, who am smaller than a grain of sand, of less worth than a drop of water?”
Each ferocious face wrinkled in perplexity, not comprehending. A low muttering rose from the warriors. “Prophesy!” they shouted again, impatiently.
Jelmi hesitated, his expression becoming more sad than ever. He folded his hands together, with great humility. His face emerged from the shadow of his hood like a delicately carved image of the most fragile ivory. He closed his eyes, and whispered: “I can only wait.”
Kurelen was alarmed. The warriors were in no mood to be balked. He felt some anger against Jelmi. Surely the man was not a fool; he was not without wit. A few shouts, a few disordered gestures, a scream or two, some idiot extravagance, and the warriors would be satisfied. It was necessary for holy men to treat others like imbeciles, otherwise of what use were they? If they could not excite the people with happy and delirious lies, they might as well go back to labor and sheep-herding. Priests and philosophers were buffoons, but like buffoons, they must mystify and terrify and entrance, to earn the bread for which they had not honestly worked.
But Jelmi stood in humble silence, his head bent, his eyes closed, his hands clasped, his lips moving. All at once he seemed to become rigid; his lips stopped their silent movements. He turned as pale as death. He seemed to be listening to some frightful and portentous message. His head fell on his chest, as though he had been mortally struck. Kurelen smiled, relieved. The warriors leaned forward again, waiting for the words of mystery and prophecy.
Then very slowly, Jelmi lifted his head, opened his eyes, and gazed at the sky. He seemed to have aged; his yellowed skin was taut and dry as bleached sheepskin. In his eyes stood an awesome expression, horrified and stricken and appalled, as though he were seeing a vision too terrible for the mind to endure. He began to speak in so low a voice that it was almost a whisper:
“It is not possible that I have seen so awful a vision, and it is not possible that it is true! Who could endure such a sight, or such knowledge, and not die at the contemplation? Who can contemplate such agony and such despair, such fire and such ravishment, and hear such cries, without madness! Why hast thou afflicted me so, Lord Buddha? Why hast thou given me such a vision?”
Kurelen’s smile widened. Jelmi was a clever man after all. But surely he hardly needed such extravagance—At this, some thought wiped the smile abruptly from Kurelen’s face. This was a strange prophecy, indeed, spoken of in such a despairing and agonized voice! He stared at Jelmi, piercingly. The monk’s face was wet with tears; he was wringing his hands as though overcome with frantic sorrow. It is not possible! thought Kurelen, amazed. The man believes he has seen a vision!
Jelmi wept; the warriors gazed at him, wetting their lips, glancing at each other, alarmed and mystified. The Shaman spat contemptuously at the fire, and subsided into gloom.
In a broken voice, the monk resumed: “Better had it been for me to have died, then to see this. Better had I never issued from the womb and drawn breath. For who can contemplate the monstrous soul of man, and live again? Who can endure the light of the sun. with this knowledge? What days remain to me must be days of grief and torment, and unending suffering.”
The warriors muttered; the muttering increased to a dull roar. Every man turned to his neighbor, with an astounded question in his eyes. Face after face began to scowl. Kurelen, greatly alarmed, tugged urgently at the monk’s hem. The Shaman brightened; his smile was a smile of intense amusement. Yesukai, whose simple soul was bewildered, stood in silence, grimacing, plucking at his lip.
But Jelmi paid no heed to any one. His weeping became more violent; he wrung his hands over and over as though in the utmost extremity of despair.
“For what has God given His sons to the earth? For what have they died? Their voices are lost in the winds; their footsteps are covered over with sand. The streams lose the mark of their passing; the rocks reveal no sign. Over their dust move the bloody legions of the mad and the wicked, the haters of men and the destroyers of men. Where they have trod are planted the banners of the damned; where they have spoken is the screech of the vulture, seeking for the dead. The fires of hatred have destroyed the harvests they have planted. The iron foot has trod out the grapes they tended, and has squeezed forth a poisonous brew. For what is good is dissolved in the earth, but what is evil is an immortal sword.”
His voice, sorrowful and passionate, and full of grief, rose stronger and stronger upon the suddenly quiet air, like a lamentation addressed only to the ear of God. He raised his face; he flung out his arms as though he saw the face of the Inscrutable One, who listened.
“Why hast Thou given us Thy sons, O Master of Chaos? We have destroyed them, and have poured out their blood, and have given adulation to monsters and worshipped them because they have willed us death and agony! Thy sons gave us love, and we have cried out that we hate love, and desire hatred, which delivereth our helpless brother into our murderous hands! We are an abomination unto Thine eyes, and a foul noise unto Thine ears. We are the breeders of the cursed, the lovers of the despoilers, the adorers of madmen and mountebanks. Generation after generation, we spew forth a fiend, each fouler than the last, until all reason and all love and goodness are stamped into the dust, and the bones of innocent men lie crumbling in the sun. Generation after generation, the bloody dream is born again, until the skies are reddened, and the convulsed earth groans in her loathing!”
His voice dropped to a deep mourning sound. And from the mountains the sound seemed to echo until all the universe lamented dimly with this man. No one appeared to breathe about the fire. Every hand was stilled. Bodies were lost in shadow, but each face was crimson with light. Every eye gleamed steadfastly, like the eye of an enchanted wild animal.
Jelmi’s head dropped upon his breast; he sobbed aloud. And then he was silent, as though exhausted. After a long moment, he began to speak again, very softly.
“I hear Thy holy voice, O Lord, but it is just a murmur in my ears, like the sound of distant wind in the forests—”
Suddenly he flung up his head, and an expression of unearthly joy blazed on his yellowed features. His eyes flashed with supernatural ecstasy; his mouth opened in an ineffable smile.
“I hear Thee, O Lord! I hear Thy words! O beautiful words of hope and love! For Thou dost say that though evil liveth, and the monster doth flourish, and the lamentations of the helpless resound from every mountain and every hill, Thou shalt forever prevail! The madmen come and go, but to the end the Earth is the Lord God’s, the Earth is still the Lord’s, the Earth is eternally the Lord’s!”
His voice was like a trumpet, sonorous and triumphant. His frail body appeared to expand, to swell, to vibrate with an inner power and rapture. He seemed to grow taller. Even when he no longer spoke, the air was filled with the echo of his words, so that every man shivered without knowing why.
Kurelen did not move. He stared steadily at the fire. His thin dark face wore a cryptic expression.
Neither did the Shaman move. He sat like a graven image, but in his eyes, as he regarded Jelmi, was the most baleful light.
The warriors were stupefied. Slowly, after a long time, they looked questioningly at each other. Yesukai was completely bewildered. He fixed his eyes hopefully upon the Shaman, awaiting an interpretation of this extraordinary prophecy. And then, smiling, the Shaman stood up, full of dignity and portentousness. He bowed to the oblivious monk, with great and ironic ceremony.
“He sayeth that he hath heard the words of the Great Spirit who lives in the Blue Sky. He who heareth the words of the Great Spirit standeth on the threshold of death. The Great Spirit hath indicated that He desireth that this holy man enter His presence, otherwise He would not have allowed His servant to hear His voice.”
Kurelen had been only half listening, but all at once the meaning of the Shaman struck him like a physical impact. He paled. His lips dried. His brows wrinkled, and drew together, alertly.
“It is true!” cried the warriors, vociferously.
The Shaman smiled sweetly.
“And as for the Christian priest, he, too, hath had a vision which we have not seen, and hath heard a voice we did not hear ”
“It is true!” shouted the warriors, full of ferocious delight.
The Shaman carefully and delicately put his fingers together. He lifted his eyes piously.
“Shall we bring down the wrath of the Great Spirit upon us and upon the child who was born today, by refusing to dispatch to Him the servants He desireth? Shall we refuse Him this sacrifice?”
“No!” roared the warriors. They began to struggle to their feet. They exhaled an odor like wild beasts about to kill, an odor so strong that it was a stench. They struck their shields. Their eyes had a phosphorescent glow of lust and madness. The Christian priest snored blissfully on, his feet to the fire. But Jelmi did not move. He seemed lost in a profound meditation, his head on his breast.
Then Kurelen, misshapen and bent, got to his feet, his face ghastly. He regarded the Shaman with a sick rage. “O thou stinking priest!” he cried. “Thou wouldst destroy this holy man in thy envy and littleness—”
“What holy man?” asked the Shaman, with mild wonder. “This?—” and he touched the Christian disdainfully with the tip of his sandal, “or this?—” and he pointed derisively at Jelmi. The warriors muttered ominously.
Kurelen was beside himself with fear. “Thou knowest it is forbidden to harm holy men—”
“Harm them?” repeated the Shaman, raising his eyebrows in gentle rebuke. “I have not suggested they be harmed. Holy men are sacred. And what could be more appropriate, on this auspicious occasion, than sacrificing these holy ones to the Great Spirit? Besides, hath He not indicated He desireth such a sacrifice?”
Without waiting for Kurelen’s answer, he turned to the warriors and Yesukai. “But after all, I am only a meek and priestly man. I can only interpret according to the wisdom which has been mysteriously given me. What is finally ordained must come from the Khan, himself.”
Kurelen looked despairingly from one fierce and sanguinary face to another; he saw the cruel and animal-like eyes, the untamed and barbarous wrinkling of foreheads. Once he had heard the phrase, in Cathay:—“beyond good and evil.” His lightninglike thought was that these creatures, lusting for blood, were truly beyond good and evil, and any appeal for mercy to them would have a meaningless sound. He became frantic. He turned impetuously to his sister’s husband, and cried:
“I have served thee well, Yesukai! But I have been lonely, for I have longed for no wife, and have none. Neither shall I have children, such as thou shalt have, to comfort me. But in this holy man, Jelmi, I have found a friend, and one with whom I can converse. Give me his life, as a gift!”
The Shaman’s smile became gloating. He radiated his glee. But he addressed Kurelen in a stern voice:
“And for thy small and selfish pleasure, thou wouldst sacrifice the good fortune, and perhaps the line, of the son of the Khan?”
The warriors shouted their anger at Kurelen, and brandished their weapons almost in his face. Yesukai stood in silence, doubt, uncertainty, the desire to accord Kurelen this favor, and superstition, all mingling on his handsome and simple countenance. He looked at the Shaman, and looked at Kurelen, and sank deeper into perplexity. Kurelen seized his arm, and cried pleadingly:
“Yesukai! I have never asked a favor of thee, but this—!”
Yesukai regarded the Shaman pleadingly.
“It is not possible, Kokchu?”
The Shaman shrugged. He replied respectfully, but with sorrow: “It is not possible, my lord.”
Yesukai sighed. He put his hand on Kurelen’s misshapen shoulder. He smiled placatingly. “Look thee, Kurelen, thou shalt have whatever else thou dost desire. I have a sable cape, which I took today, and new silver. If the girl I gave thee doth not please thee, thou shalt have the pick of any of them, save one. Thou shalt have the best mare, the finest silks and jade—”
Kurelen shook off his hand. “I want nothing but this man, Jelmi!” He threw himself at the feet of his brother-in-law; he embraced his knees. Tears ran down his face. “I desire nothing but this man!”
He felt a touch on his shoulder. He turned his head and looked up. Jelmi was smiling down at him, tenderly and sadly.
“It, too, is my wish, that I die, Kurelen,” he said, very gently. “I am tired. Life hath become insupportable to me. I desire to rest.”
“Thou seest, my lord,” said the Shaman to Yesukai. “The holy man, himself, hath heard his own summons.”
“No!” cried Kurelen, in despair, seizing the monk by his robe. The warriors, diverted from their desire, regarded the crippled man in astonishment. The ribald and mocking Kurelen was lost in this weeping wretch. They could scarce believe it. Deep satisfaction finally pervaded them, and they grinned.
“Let me go in peace,” said Jelmi, in his gentle and pleading voice.
Kurelen got to his feet. He put his hand on the hilt of his dagger, which was thrust through his belt. But even as he did so, he thought bitterly to himself: I would not die, even for him. Nothing, at the end, is valuable to me but myself. This is only a gesture, fit for laughter.
The Shaman saw the movement, and subtle man that he was, he saw the thoughts running through Kurelen’s dark mind. He was quick to take advantage, however, and cried loudly: “Strike him down! He would murder the Khan!”
One of the warriors leaped upon Kurelen with a growl like the growl of a beast. He struck him full in the face with his fist, and Kurelen went down like an ox under a hammer. Blood spurted from his nose and lips, and seeing this the warriors burst into shouts of laughter and ridicule. They kicked the fallen man, crowding about him for the pleasure. But Kurelen, as though insensible to his bodily anguish, groped for the robe of the monk. His fingers twined themselves in it. He saw only Jelmi’s face, looking down at him with tender compassion. And then, like water, the robe slipped through his fingers, and blackness fell over his eyes.