CHAPTER XXII. BULIKA

I had lost all notion of my position, and was walking about in pure,

helpless impatience, when suddenly I found myself in the path of the

leopardess, wading in the blood from her paw. It ran against my ankles

with the force of a small brook, and I got out of it the more quickly

because of an unshaped suspicion in my mind as to whose blood it might

be. But I kept close to the sound of it, walking up the side of the

stream, for it would guide me in the direction of Bulika.

I soon began to reflect, however, that no leopardess, no elephant, no

hugest animal that in our world preceded man, could keep such a torrent

flowing, except every artery in its body were open, and its huge system

went on filling its vessels from fields and lakes and forests as fast as

they emptied themselves: it could not be blood! I dipped a finger in it,

and at once satisfied myself that it was not. In truth, however it might

have come there, it was a softly murmuring rivulet of water that ran,

without channel, over the grass! But sweet as was its song, I dared not

drink of it; I kept walking on, hoping after the light, and listening to

the familiar sound so long unheard--for that of the hot stream was very

different. The mere wetting of my feet in it, however, had so refreshed

me, that I went on without fatigue till the darkness began to grow

thinner, and I knew the sun was drawing nigh. A few minutes more, and

I could discern, against the pale aurora, the wall-towers of a

city--seemingly old as time itself. Then I looked down to get a sight of

the brook.

It was gone. I had indeed for a long time noted its sound growing

fainter, but at last had ceased to attend to it. I looked back: the

grass in its course lay bent as it had flowed, and here and there

glimmered a small pool. Toward the city, there was no trace of it. Near

where I stood, the flow of its fountain must at least have paused!

Around the city were gardens, growing many sorts of vegetables, hardly

one of which I recognised. I saw no water, no flowers, no sign of

animals. The gardens came very near the walls, but were separated from

them by huge heaps of gravel and refuse thrown from the battlements.

I went up to the nearest gate, and found it but half-closed, nowise

secured, and without guard or sentinel. To judge by its hinges, it could

not be farther opened or shut closer. Passing through, I looked down

a long ancient street. It was utterly silent, and with scarce an

indication in it of life present. Had I come upon a dead city? I turned

and went out again, toiled a long way over the dust-heaps, and crossed

several roads, each leading up to a gate: I would not re-enter until

some of the inhabitants should be stirring.

What was I there for? what did I expect or hope to find? what did I mean

to do?

I must see, if but once more, the woman I had brought to life! I did

not desire her society: she had waked in me frightful suspicions; and

friendship, not to say love, was wildly impossible between us! But her

presence had had a strange influence upon me, and in her presence I

must resist, and at the same time analyse that influence! The seemingly

inscrutable in her I would fain penetrate: to understand something of

her mode of being would be to look into marvels such as imagination

could never have suggested! In this I was too daring: a man must not,

for knowledge, of his own will encounter temptation! On the other hand,

I had reinstated an evil force about to perish, and was, to the extent

of my opposing faculty, accountable for what mischief might ensue! I had

learned that she was the enemy of children: the Little Ones might be in

her danger! It was in the hope of finding out something of their history

that I had left them; on that I had received a little light: I must have

more; I must learn how to protect them!

Hearing at length a little stir in the place, I walked through the

next gate, and thence along a narrow street of tall houses to a little

square, where I sat down on the base of a pillar with a hideous bat-like

creature atop. Ere long, several of the inhabitants came sauntering

past. I spoke to one: he gave me a rude stare and ruder word, and went

on.

I got up and went through one narrow street after another, gradually

filling with idlers, and was not surprised to see no children. By

and by, near one of the gates, I encountered a group of young men who

reminded me not a little of the bad giants. They came about me staring,

and presently began to push and hustle me, then to throw things at me.

I bore it as well as I could, wishing not to provoke enmity where I

wanted to remain for a while. Oftener than once or twice I appealed to

passers-by whom I fancied more benevolent-looking, but none would halt

a moment to listen to me. I looked poor, and that was enough: to the

citizens of Bulika, as to house-dogs, poverty was an offence! Deformity

and sickness were taxed; and no legislation of their princess was more

heartily approved of than what tended to make poverty subserve wealth.

I took to my heels at last, and no one followed me beyond the gate. A

lumbering fellow, however, who sat by it eating a hunch of bread, picked

up a stone to throw after me, and happily, in his stupid eagerness,

threw, not the stone but the bread. I took it, and he did not dare

follow to reclaim it: beyond the walls they were cowards every one. I

went off a few hundred yards, threw myself down, ate the bread, fell

asleep, and slept soundly in the grass, where the hot sunlight renewed

my strength.

It was night when I woke. The moon looked down on me in friendly

fashion, seeming to claim with me old acquaintance. She was very bright,

and the same moon, I thought, that saw me through the terrors of my

first night in that strange world. A cold wind blew from the gate,

bringing with it an evil odour; but it did not chill me, for the sun had

plenished me with warmth. I crept again into the city. There I found the

few that were still in the open air crouched in corners to escape the

shivering blast.

I was walking slowly through the long narrow street, when, just before

me, a huge white thing bounded across it, with a single flash in the

moonlight, and disappeared. I turned down the next opening, eager to get

sight of it again.

It was a narrow lane, almost too narrow to pass through, but it led

me into a wider street. The moment I entered the latter, I saw on

the opposite side, in the shadow, the creature I had followed, itself

following like a dog what I took for a man. Over his shoulder, every

other moment, he glanced at the animal behind him, but neither spoke to

it, nor attempted to drive it away. At a place where he had to cross a

patch of moonlight, I saw that he cast no shadow, and was himself but

a flat superficial shadow, of two dimensions. He was, nevertheless, an

opaque shadow, for he not merely darkened any object on the other

side of him, but rendered it, in fact, invisible. In the shadow he was

blacker than the shadow; in the moonlight he looked like one who had

drawn his shadow up about him, for not a suspicion of it moved beside

or under him; while the gleaming animal, which followed so close at his

heels as to seem the white shadow of his blackness, and which I now saw

to be a leopardess, drew her own gliding shadow black over the ground by

her side. When they passed together from the shadow into the moonlight,

the Shadow deepened in blackness, the animal flashed into radiance. I

was at the moment walking abreast of them on the opposite side, my bare

feet sounding on the flat stones: the leopardess never turned head

or twitched ear; the shadow seemed once to look at me, for I lost his

profile, and saw for a second only a sharp upright line. That instant

the wind found me and blew through me: I shuddered from head to foot,

and my heart went from wall to wall of my bosom, like a pebble in a

child’s rattle.