The Whispering Mountain Read online

  Now they left the river and entered a narrow dark opening concealed among rocks where they came to a halt. The guide made signs that Arabis must dismount here. She was not sorry to do so. No sooner had she slid stiffly down than yet another small dark figure appeared and led the camels away into the shadows while her companion, again respectfully taking her hand, drew her along a narrow track, which, climbing at a steeper and steeper angle, presently changed to a flight of rude stairs cut in the thickness of the rock. One thing soon began to puzzle Arabis very much and alarm her a little: the rock here seemed to vibrate, as if constantly battered by some powerful force, and she could hear a sort of booming hum, which sometimes became very loud.

  This noise abated slightly as they climbed and presently a little daylight could be seen ahead; after several turns in the stair they came to a cleft in the rock wall. Arabis stood on tiptoe and looked through this hole, in the hope of discovering where she was.

  “Wchw!” she exclaimed in utter astonishment. “No wonder I was thinking it a long way. Fast goers those camels of yours are, indeed to goodness!”

  Straight ahead, nothing could be seen but greenish dawn sky, with a couple of silvery seagulls floating across it. But when Arabis craned far out and looked down she could see, at a giddy depth below, great breakers crashing over jagged rocks at the foot of a cliff. And if she turned to look up she could see that the cliff continued towards the sky for many hundreds of feet.

  “There’s only one place I know of where the cliffs are as high as this,” Arabis muttered, “and that’s south of Port Malyn, where the castle stands. But, Dewi Sant, who’d have thought we had come so far!”

  There was no doubt of their location, though, for when she leaned out farther still and looked to her left she could see a slender black-and-white finger thrusting from the waves, the Shambles Lighthouse, set there to warn shipping of dangerous shoals.

  A gentle tug on her hand reminded her that her own position was none too safe, and also that a patient was waiting; she withdrew cautiously from the window-slit and followed up the stair once more.

  They had not much farther to go.

  The staircase here branched and divided into many narrow passages running hither and thither inside the cliff; each led to half a dozen or so cell-like chambers. Some of these were fairly large, some very small, but they all resembled one another in three respects; they were not natural caves, but had been quarried out not long ago by the tools of men; each had a tiny window-hole, looking out to sea; and each was furnished simply but with a richness that made Arabis gasp. Jugs, basins, and pails, the commonest utensils, were made, without exception, of pure, shining gold, beautifully worked. But there were no tables or chairs, no cupboards, no doors; the curtains and bedding were all made of thick, black, coarse material—Arabis guessed it to be woven camels’ fur. In another sad particular all the dwellings were alike also—each contained one or two sick people, sometimes three or four. Arabis was touched to the heart by the uncomplaining patience of these sufferers as they lay, wracked with coughing, feverish and heavy-eyed on their camel-fur pallets, men, women, and tiny children; their eyes followed her trustfully as she passed from cave to cave, dispensing medicines, pastilles, and powders, rubbing their chests with wintergreen, bathing their foreheads with essence of mint and balm. They were all very alike—small, dark, hairy people, pale-skinned, with lustrous flashing black eyes; very few seemed to have escaped the sickness, but those who were still able eagerly helped Arabis tend the others.

  All too soon, of course, her stock of medicines began to run low; she had not brought nearly enough for so many patients.

  “What is to be done now, just?” she considered. “If I go home for more, that wastes a terrible deal of time, and I am afeared some of them will die if they do not get help soon. I wonder if someone would take a message back to Dada, and then I could stay here looking after the rest.

  “Can any of you understand me?” she asked the three or four who were assisting her, and tried to explain what she wanted. They shook their heads doubtfully; although they seemed to understand a word here and there, they could not grasp the whole message. Stepping aside they conferred together; she caught the name Yehimelek repeated several times. Then her original guide (she distinguished him by his cap) seized her hand again and led her along another passage to a cave she had not visited yet. This was larger than the rest, screened off by a camel-fur curtain, and occupied by one man only. He was plainly very old—his long beard and thick bushy hair and whiskers were perfectly white; he looked frail beyond belief, leaning back on a pile of camel-fur cushions. But the eyes in the wasted face were deep and dark and full of intelligence; his tone when he addressed Arabis was faint and hoarse but authoritative.

  “On behalf of my people I, Tabut Elulaios Yehimelek, Architect, Engineer, and Hereditary Foreman of the Children of the Pit, do thank you, lady, for your goodness in coming here to help us. I fear we can give you little in return except gold; of that, useles though it be, as much as our last seven camels can bear, you shall carry away if you wish.”

  Here he was interrupted by a terrible fit of coughing, which made his slight body shake like a cobweb in the wind.

  “There is glad I am to be able to help, sir,” Arabis said when he had recovered a little. “Indeed I am not wanting your gold, I thank you, but only to do a bit more. If I do write a message to my da at Nant Agerddau, could one of your people take it back to him? Then he could be bringing our wagon over to Port Malyn, and no need to go all that way for medicines, see?”

  “Shishak!” the man on the couch called. The guide, who had waited outside, came in and bowed respectfully.

  “Write your message,” Yehimelek told Arabis, “and Shishak will ride back with it. But, I beg you, ask your father to be secret, and not to mention this matter, or we shall be in danger of slavery and death.”

  “No need to worry,” Arabis assured him, scribbling a note on the paper that had held a powder of foxgloves. “Not a one to gossip, my dada.” But she added the warning, folded the paper, and gave it to Shishak, who bowed again and departed at speed. “I have asked him to give Shishak as much medicine as he can carry, and to start himself for Port Malyn directly. Now, can I be doing something to relieve your worship?” Arabis said.

  “Not until you have helped every last one of my people,” Yehimelek answered proudly, through another fit of coughing. “Shall it be said that the leader accepted relief while others were in need? Never!”

  So Arabis returned to the other sufferers, and had soon exhausted her entire stock of medicine on them.

  She had noticed, as she went from one sick-bed to another, that there was pitifully little food in the caves: a small quantity of dried fish, a few gulls eggs, nothing more; plainly, since most of the able-bodied men had fallen ill, stocks had run low; it seemed to her that part of the people’s trouble might come simply from starvation and a lack of greenstuff. Struck by an idea she returned to Yehimelek.

  “Sir,” she said, “do any of your tunnels lead down to the foot of the cliff?”

  “Assuredly. How else would my people catch the fish needed to support us and our camels?”

  “Could somebody show me the way down?”

  “Strato! Tennes!” he called, and when two of the helpers came in he gave them orders to take Arabis where she wanted to go. They led her down hundreds of steps, the noise of the sea outside becoming louder as they went, and finally emerged, through an entrance cunningly masked with seaweed, on to an outcrop of rock at the base of the cliff. There was no beach, and little danger of being seen; the tide, as it fell, merely exposed more and more dangerous rocks; all fishing craft kept well away. The ebbing tide had also left behind great swags and piles of seaweed; this Arabis proceeded to collect, and the two men helped her. They rinsed it in a trickle of fresh water which ran down the cliff, and took it to an empty cave where Arabis kindled a driftwood fire and made signs that she wanted a large pot A gold one was fetched,
large enough to contain a whole sheep. Half filling this with fresh water she boiled up the seaweed into nourishing broth which, when thick and succulent, was distributed in gold cups, gold mugs, and gold pipkins to the entire community. Arabis took a bowlful to Yehimelek who accepted it gratefully when he had made certain that everyone else had some too.

  “Ah,” the Hereditary Foreman sighed when he had drunk his soup. “I was angry when I discovered that Shishak and Ahiram had gone to seek help without asking my permission (they knew I would never have given it). But I believe they made a wise choice. With the help of this excellent broth, and your good medicines, lady, my people may be saved yet.”

  “May I ask a question, sir, if it will not trouble you?” Arabis asked, taking the bowl from him.

  “Surely.”

  “Why do you, only, of all your people, speak my language?”

  “It has been a rule with us,” he said, “ever since we were brought to this country by force a hundred and two generations ago. To prevent our being absorbed into the conquering race and forgetting our ancestry, only one man in each generation is allowed to learn the outlandish tongue.”

  “A hundred generations! Does dim dwywaith!” Arabis said to herself in amazement. “Even if each man lived only till he was twenty, that is two thousand years!”

  “But who brought your excellency’s people over here, then?” she asked. “Was it the old Romans, maybe? And where did you come from? And why did they bring you, in the name of goodness?”

  “They brought us as slaves, to mine gold for them out of these hills,” he said. “They brought us because above all other races we were skilled in the crafts of mining and working gold. And then, when our conquerors went away, we were left behind. So we hid ourselves in the mines that we had dug and resolved that never again would we let ourselves be enslaved. As to the land we came from, it is very beautiful, with blue sky and green trees, and golden sands, and white cities; it lies many months’ journey to the south. Alas, alas, for Sa’ir and Taidon, for Jyblos and Zibach and Kashin, and the beautiful mountains of Sur! One day, one day we shall return to them! We lead our lives in darkness and fear, coming out only at night to catch fish and pick the herbs of the hillside; our people dwindle at each new generation and pine in this damp northern climate; even our camels grow small and infirm. But one day a ship will come to carry us nack to the land of our fathers. One day, one day, it will happen.”

  His voice had fallen into a sort of dreamy chant. Arabis wondered if he really believed it.

  “Eh, dear to goodness,” she said. “there’s sad. Living underground, so damp and nasty, for thousands of years! No wonder you have all got such terrible coughs with you. But,” she went on reasonably, after thinking the matter over, “why didn’t you all pack up and return home—I mean, why didn’t your great-great-great-grandfathers do so—when the old Romans (if it was that trouble-making lot) left this country? Why didn’t you do that, then?”

  “Because,” Yehimelek said simply, “we did not know which way to go.”

  Pondering this problem, Arabis fell silent. Her eyes wandered round the room for inspiration, and then remained fixed. For embroidered in gold thread on the inside of the door-curtain, where she had not noticed it before, was a beautiful life-sized representation of a golden harp.

  7

  As Owen moved towards his grandfather a stone whistled past his head and smashed one of the museum windows. Owen, turning swiftly, was just in time to see Hwfa Morgan stoop and pull a cobble out of the ground.

  “Stop that!” he shouted indignantly.

  “Where’s our harp? How much money did Lord Malyn give you for it?” somebody shouted back. Another stone flew, narrowly missing old Mr. Hughes.

  Owen was desperate. “Listen, all of you!” he shouted. “Listen!”

  To make his voice carry farther he scrambled on to the mounting-block at one side of the museum-porch. Ignoring a rotten leek which came sailing through the air and struck him on the arm, he bawled out at the full pitch of his lungs:

  “The harp was not sold to the Marquess of Malyn. It was stolen.”

  “Get down, boy!” hissed old Mr. Hughes, close beside him. “Must you shame me worse that I am shamed already? I know you stole the harp—I have already received your abominably spelt and ill-written letter. But not a penny need you expect to receive for it—be sure of that. wretched, abandoned lad—I do not know how you have the face to return to the scene of your crime?”

  “I did not steal the harp!” Owen declared. “It was taken by two men called Bilk and Prigman, who forced me to go with them.

  “All in it together, like as not,” somebody commented.

  “Do not attempt to deceive me, boy; I know your writing,” Mr. Hughes said.

  “Of course it was my writing—they made me write at the point of a knife! It is Bilk and Prigman who have the harp, and I believe they stole it for the Marquess of Malyn, because my grandfather would not give it to him.”

  This last was plainly news to the crowd.

  Mr. Morgan the innkeeper said thoughtfully,

  “Well now, there is maybe a grain of truth in what the boy tell us. Certain it is that those two were very thick with his lordship when he stayed at the Dragon, and why would that be, I am wondering? Jailbirds they were, for sure.”

  “Parcel of thieves, the whole crew of them,” called Mrs. Evans the grocery. “Duck these two in the river now, just, and the others when we lay hands on them is it?”

  The section of the crowd who wanted action muttered agreement. More missiles were flung. One of them—a rotten apple—struck Owen and spattered him with cider-smelling mush.

  “My grandfather has nothing to do with it!” he shouted. “Listen—you must listen to me. Grandfather refused to let Lord Malyn have the harp—those two men said so. That was why they stole it!”

  “Lies! Lies! Tell to the marines!” somebody shouted.

  “Quiet, neighbours! Give the boy a fair hearing, I say!” the burly Mr. Morgan called out. “Courage he has at least, no denying. Not sorry I’d be to see the day when you spoke up so bold,” he added sharply to his son Hwfa, who laid down the cobble he had been about to hurl, and looked sheepish.

  “Right, boy! Tell your story, then, is it? And if anyone care to interrupt, he have me to deal with!”

  Mr. Morgan stepped forward to the mounting-block and turned to face his neighbours, who muttered and grumbled, but forbore to throw any more stones or vegetables.

  As briefly as possible, Owen related how he had been overpowered and kidnapped by Bilk and Prigman, how he had been taken to Nant Agerddau and imprisoned, how he had escaped, only to find that the men had left the place, presumably taking the harp with them. His vehement, earnest manner began to convince the crowd.

  “Would you believe it, then?”

  “There’s scandalous—imagine a great, rich lord hiring two scoundrels like that to make off with our precious harp! Or maybe it was that foreign fellow that was staying at Mr. Morgan’s—I wouldn’t trust him further than the length of his moustaches!”

  “And planning to murder the poor boy—it do make your blood run cold!”

  Only Mr. Hughes refused to be persuaded; he listened to Owen’s tale with his face set like flint; at the end he declared loudly,

  “I do not believe a word of it. Never in my life did I hear such a pack of lies!”

  Owen turned even paler than he was already.

  “But Grandfather—” he began.

  “Do not address me as Grandfather, boy! I disown you! Understand me clearly—from now on I will have no more dealings with you! I will not feed you or house you—I do not acknowledge you as my flesh and blood. You have put shame on the ancient name of Hughes!”

  “Shame yourself, old man!” shouted Dai, the potman from the Dragon of Gwaun. “The boy have done his best, isn’t it? There’s nasty, casting off your own kin!”

  “Yes!”

  “Hear, hear!”

  �
��Heart of granite, the old ceidwad do have!”

  Exasperated, Mr. Hughes turned to face the accusing crowd. “Clear off, every one of you!” he shouted. “I’ve no patience with you. For the last three years, since I retired from active service, I’ve tried to run your museum in a decent, shipshape manner, and what thanks do I get for it? First you accuse me of stealing the harp, now you call me names and interfere in my family affairs. Well, from tomorrow you can look after your own museum, because I am resigning my post; some other fool can have your ten shillings a year! Now, kindly take yourselves off, because I wish to go to bed.”

  He moved back towards the porch.

  “Grandfather—” Owen began again. But the old man, stonily ignoring him, stepped inside and slammed the museum door.

  There was a moment’s shocked silence. Then, soberly, the crowd began to disperse.

  “Duw!” Luggins Cadwaller said in an awestruck tone. “There is an old tartar you have for a granda, Owen Hughes! Sorry I am if ever I was a bit nasty to you—reckon you had enough at home to put up with.”

  In spite of an angry glance thrown at him by Hwfa Morgan, the large, good-natured Luggins ambled over to where Owen stood, still numbed by his grandfather’s rejection of him, and thumped him on the back.

  “Cheer up, boy! Lot of silly fuss, I say, over an old harp with one string, eh, Mog?”

  Mog nodded. He was eating a large handful of laverbread, but stopped chewing long enough to say,

  “Glad I am my granda hasn’t thrown me out of doors! What’ll you do now, Owen Hughes?”