Twilight Land
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Howard Pyle >> Twilight Land
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The six men took King Selim--who shuddered and shook with fear--by the arms, and marched him through
dark, gloomy entries and
passage-ways, until they came at last to the very heart of the
palace.
There was a great high-vaulted room all of black marble, and in
the middle of it was a pedestal with seven steps, all of black
marble; and on the pedestal stood a stone statue of a woman
looking as natural as life, only that her eyes were shut. The
statue was dressed like a queen: she wore a golden crown on her
head, and upon her body hung golden robes, set with diamonds and
emeralds and rubies and sapphires and pearls and all sorts of
precious stones.
As for the face of the statue, white paper and black ink could
not tell you how beautiful it was. When Selim looked at it, it
made his heart stand still in his breast, it was so beautiful.
The six men brought Selim up in front of the statue, and then a
voice came as though from the vaulted roof: "Selim! Selim!
Selim!" it said, "what are thou doing? To-day is feasting and
drinking and merry-making, but beware of tomorrow!"
As soon as these words were ended the six black men marched King
Selim back whence they had brought him; there they left him and
passed out one by one as they had first come in, and the door
shut to behind them.
Then in an instant the lights flashed out again, the music began
to play and the people began to talk and laugh, and King Selim
thought that maybe all that had just passed was only a bit of an
ugly dream after all.
So that is the way King Selim the Baker began to reign, and that
is the way he continued to reign. All day was feasting and
drinking and making merry and music and laughing and talking. But
every night at midnight the same thing happened: the lights went
out, all the people began wailing and crying, and the six tall,
terrible black men came with flashing torches and marched King
Selim away to the beautiful statue. And every night the same
voice said--"Selim! Selim! Selim! What art thou doing! To-day is
feasting and drinking and merry-making; but beware of tomorrow!"
So things went on for a twelvemonth, and at last came the end of
the year. That day and night the merry-making was merrier and
wilder and madder than it had ever been before, but the great
clock in the tower went on--tick, tock! tick, tock!--and by and
by it came midnight. Then, as it always happened before, the
lights went out, and all was as black as ink. But this time there
was no wailing and crying out, but everything was silent as
death; the door opened slowly, and in came, not six black men as
before, but nine men as silent as death, dressed all in flaming
red, and the torches they carried burned as red as blood. They
took King Selim by the arms, just as the six men had done, and
marched him through the same entries and passageways, and so came
at last to the same vaulted room. There stood the statue, but now
it was turned to flesh and blood, and the eyes were open and
looking straight at Selim the Baker.
"Art thou Selim?" said she; and she pointed her finger straight
at him.
"Yes, I am Selim," said he.
"And dost thou wear the gold ring with the red stone?" said she.
"Yes," said he; "I have it on my finger."
"And dost thou wear the iron ring?"
"No," said he; "I gave that to Selim the Fisherman."
The words had hardly left his lips when the statue gave a great
cry and clapped her hands together. In an instant an echoing cry
sounded all over the town--a shriek fit to split the ears.
The next moment there came another sound--a sound like thunder--above and below and everywhere. The
earth began to shake and to
rock, and the houses began to topple and fall, and the people
began to scream and to yell and to shout, and the waters of the
sea began to lash and to roar, and the wind began to bellow and
howl. Then it was a good thing for King Selim that he wore Luck's
Ring; for, though all the beautiful snow-white palace about him
and above him began to crumble to pieces like slaked lime, the
sticks and the stones and the beams to fall this side of him and
that, he crawled out from under it without a scratch or a bruise,
like a rat out of a cellar.
That is what Luck's Ring did for him.
But his troubles were not over yet; for, just as he came out from
under all the ruin, the island began to sink down into the water,
carrying everything along with it--that is, everything but him
and one thing else. That one other thing was an empty boat, and
King Selim climbed into it, and nothing else saved him from
drowning. It was Luck's Ring that did that for him also.
The boat floated on and on until it came to another island that
was just like the island he had left, only that there was neither
tree nor blade of grass nor hide nor hair nor living thing of any
kind. Nevertheless, it was an island just like the other: a high
mountain and nothing else. There Selim the Baker went ashore, and
there he would have starved to death only for Luck's Ring; for
one day a boat came sailing by, and when poor Selim shouted,
those aboard heard him and came and took him off. How they all
stared to see his golden crown--for he still wore it--and his
robes of silk and satin and the gold and jewels!
Before they would consent to carry him away, they made him give
up all the fine things he had. Then they took him home again to
the town whence he had first come, just as poor as when he had
started. Back he went to his bake-shop and his ovens, and the
first thing he did was to take off his gold ring and put it on
the shelf.
"If that is the ring of good luck," said he, "I do not want to
wear the like of it."
That is the way with mortal man: for one has to have the Ring of
Wisdom as well, to turn the Ring of Luck to good account.
And now for Selim the Fisherman.
Well, thus it happened to him. For a while he carried the iron
ring around in his pocket--just as so many of us do--without
thinking to put it on. But one day he slipped it on his finger--and that is what we do not all of us
do. After that he never took
it off again, and the world went smoothly with him. He was not
rich, but then he was not poor; he was not merry, neither was he
sad. He always had enough and was thankful for it, for I never
yet knew wisdom to go begging or crying.,
So he went his way and he fished his fish, and twelve months and
a week or more passed by. Then one day he went past the baker
shop and there sat Selim the Baker smoking his pipe of tobacco.
"So, friend," said Selim the Fisherman, "you are back again in
the old place, I see."
"Yes," said the other Selim; "awhile ago I was a king, and now I
am nothing but a baker again. As for that gold ring with the red
stone--they may say it is Luck's Ring if they choose, but when
next I wear it may I be hanged."
Thereupon he told Selim the Fisherman the story of what had
happened to him with all its ins and outs, just as I have told it
to you.
"Well!" said Selim the Fisherman, "I should like to have a sight
of that island myself. If you want the ring no longer, just let
me have it; for maybe if I wear it something of the kind will
happen to me."
"You may have it," said Selim the Baker. "Yonder it is, and you
are welcome to it."
So Selim the Fisherman put on the ring, and then went his way
about his own business.
That night, as he came home carrying his nets over his shoulder,
whom should he meet but the little old man in gray, with the
white beard and the black cap on his head and the long staff in
his hand.
"Is your name Selim?" said the little man, just as he had done to
Selim the Baker.
"Yes," said Selim; "it is."
"And do you wear a gold ring with a red stone?" said the little
old man, just as he had said before.
"Yes," said Selim; "I do."
"Then come with me," said the little old man, "and I will show
you the wonder of the world."
Selim the Fisherman remembered all that Selim the Baker had told
him, and he took no two thoughts as to what to do. Down he
tumbled his nets, and away he went after the other as fast as his
legs could carry him. Here they went and there they went, up
crooked streets and lanes and down by-ways and alley-ways, until
at last they came to the same garden to which Selim the Baker had
been brought. Then the old man knocked at the gate three times
and cried out in a loud voice, "Open! Open! Open to Selim who
wears the Ring of Luck!"
Then the gate opened, and in they went. Fine as it all was, Selim
the Fisherman cared to look neither to the right nor to the left,
but straight after the old man he went, until at last they came
to the seaside and the boat and the four-and-twenty oarsmen
dressed like princes and the black slaves with the perfumed
torches.
Here the old man entered the boat and Selim after him, and away
they sailed.
To make a long story short, everything happened to Selim the
Fisherman just as it had happened to Selim the Baker. At dawn of
day they came to the island and the city built on the mountain.
And the palaces were just as white and beautiful, and the gardens
and orchards just as fresh and blooming as though they had not
all tumbled down and sunk under the water a week before, almost
carrying poor Selim the Baker with them. There were the people
dressed in silks and satins and jewels, just as Selim the Baker
had found them, and they shouted and hurrahed for Selim the
Fisherman just as they had shouted and hurrahed for the other.
There were the princes and the nobles and the white horse, and
Selim the Fisherman got on his back and rode up to a dazzling
snow-white palace, and they put a crown on his head and made a
king of him, just as they had made a king of Selim the Baker.
That night, at midnight, it happened just as it had happened
before. Suddenly, as the hour struck, the lights all went out,
and there was a moaning and a crying enough to make the heart
curdle. Then the door flew open, and in came the six terrible
black men with torches. They led Selim the Fisherman through damp
and dismal entries and passage-ways until they came to the
vaulted room of black marble, and there stood the beautiful
statue on its black pedestal. Then came the voice from above--"Selim! Selim! Selim!" it cried, "what
art thou doing? To-day is
feasting and drinking and merry-making, but beware of to-morrow!"
But Selim the Fisherman did not stand still and listen, as Selim
the Baker had done. He called out, "I hear the words! I am
listening! I will beware to-day for the sake of to-morrow!"
I do not know what I should have done had I been king of that
island and had I known that in a twelve-month it would all come
tumbling down about my ears and sink into the sea, maybe carry me
along with it. This is what Selim the Fisherman did [but then he
wore the iron Ring of Wisdom on his finger, and I never had that
upon mine]:
First of all, he called the wisest men of the island to him, and
found from them just where the other desert island lay upon which
the boat with Selim the Baker in it had drifted.
Then, when he had learned where it was to be found, he sent
armies and armies of men and built on that island palaces and
houses, and planted there orchards and gardens, just like the
palaces and the orchards and the gardens about him--only a great
deal finer. Then he sent fleets and fleets of ships, and carried
everything away from the island where he lived to that other
island--all the men and the women and the children; all the
flocks and herds and every living thing; all the fowls and the
birds and everything that wore feathers; all the gold and the
silver and the jewels and the silks and the satins, and whatever
was of any good or of any use; and when all these things were
done, there were still two days left till the end of the year.
Upon the first of these two days he sent over the beautiful
statue and had it set up in the very midst of the splendid new
palace he had built.
Upon the second day he went over himself, leaving behind him
nothing but the dead mountain and the rocks and the empty houses.
So came the end of the twelve months.
So came midnight.
Out went all the lights in the new palace, and everything was as
silent as death and as black as ink. The door opened, and in came
the nine men in red, with torches burning as red as blood. They
took Selim the Fisherman by the arms and led him to the beautiful
statue, and there she was with her eyes open.
"Are you Selim?" said she.
"Yes, I am Selim," said he.
"And do you wear the iron Ring of Wisdom?" said she.
"Yes, I do," said he; and so he did.
There was no roaring and thundering, there was no shaking and
quaking, there was no toppling and tumbling, there was no
splashing and dashing: for this island was solid rock, and was
not all enchantment and hollow inside and underneath like the
other which he had left behind.
The beautiful statue smiled until the place lit up as though the
sun shone. Down she came from the pedestal where she stood and
kissed Selim the Fisherman on the lips.
Then instantly the lights blazed everywhere, and the people
shouted and cheered, and the music played. But neither Selim the
Fisherman nor the beautiful statue saw or heard anything.
"I have done all this for you!" said Selim the Fisherman.
"And I have been waiting for you a thousand years!" said the
beautiful statue--only she was not a statue any longer.
After that they were married, and Selim the Fisherman and the
enchanted statue became king and queen in real earnest.
I think Selim the Fisherman sent for Selim the Baker and made him
rich and happy--I hope he did--I am sure he did.
So, after all, it is not always the lucky one who gathers the
plums when wisdom is by to pick up what the other shakes down.
I could say more; for, O little children! little children! there
is more than meat in many an egg-shell; and many a fool tells a
story that joggles a wise man's wits, and many a man dances and
junkets in his fool's paradise till it comes tumbling down about
his ears some day; and there are few men who are like Selim the
Fisherman, who wear the Ring of Wisdom on their finger, and,
alack-a-day! I am not one of them, and that is the end of this
story.
Old Bidpai nodded his head. "Aye, aye," said he, "there is a very
good moral in that story, my friend. It is, as a certain
philosopher said, very true, that there is more in an egg than
the meat. And truly, methinks, there is more in thy story than
the story of itself." He nodded his head again and stroked his
beard slowly, puffing out as he did so as a great reflective
cloud of smoke, through which his eyes shone and twinkled mistily
like stars through a cloud.
"And whose turn is it now?" said Doctor Faustus.
"Methinks tis mine," said Boots--he who in fairy-tale always sat
in the ashes at home and yet married a princess after he had gone
out into the world awhile. "My story," said he, "hath no moral,
but, all the same, it is as true as that eggs hatch chickens."
Then, without waiting for any one to say another word, he began
it in these words. "I am going to tell you," said he, how--
All Things are as Fate wills.
Once upon a time, in the old, old days, there lived a king who
had a head upon his shoulders wiser than other folk, and this was
why: though he was richer and wiser and greater than most kings,
and had all that he wanted and more into the bargain, he was so
afraid of becoming proud of his own prosperity that he had these
words written in letters of gold upon the walls of each and every
room in his palace:
All Things are as Fate wills.
Now, by-and-by and after a while the king died; for when his time
comes, even the rich and the wise man must die, as well as the
poor and the simple man. So the king's son came, in turn, to be
king of that land; and, though he was not so bad as the world of
men goes, he was not the man that his father was, as this story
will show you.
One day, as he sat with his chief councillor, his eyes fell upon
the words written in letters of gold upon the wall--the words
that his father had written there in time gone by:
All Things are as Fate wills;
and the young king did not like the taste of them, for he was
very proud of his own greatness. "That is not so," said he,
pointing to the words on the wall. "Let them be painted out, and
these words written in their place:
All Things are as Man does."
Now, the chief councillor was a grave old man, and had been
councillor to the young king's father. "Do not be too hasty, my
lord king," said he. "Try first the truth of your own words
before you wipe out those that your father has written."
"Very well," said the young king, "so be it. I will approve the
truth of my words. Bring me hither some beggar from the town whom
Fate has made poor, and I will make him rich. So I will show you
that his life shall be as I will, and not as Fate wills."
Now, in that town there was a poor beggar-man who used to sit
every day beside the town gate, begging for something for
charity's sake. Sometimes people gave him a penny or two, but it
was little or nothing that he got, for Fate was against him.
The same day that the king and the chief councillor had had their
talk together, as the beggar sat holding up his wooden bowl and
asking charity of those who passed by, there suddenly came three
men who, without saying a word, clapped hold of him and marched
him off.
It was in vain that the beggar talked and questioned--in vain
that he begged and besought them to let him go. Not a word did
they say to him, either of good or bad. At last they came to a
gate that led through a high wall and into a garden, and there
the three stopped, and one of them knocked upon the gate. In
answer to his knocking it flew open. He thrust the beggar into
the garden neck and crop, and then the gate was banged to again.
But what a sight it was the beggar saw before his eyes!--flowers,
and fruit-trees, and marble walks, and a great fountain that shot
up a jet of water as white as snow. But he had not long to stand
gaping and staring around him, for in the garden were a great
number of people, who came hurrying to him, and who, without
speaking a word to him or answering a single question, or as much
as giving him time to think, led him to a marble bath of tepid
water. There he was stripped of his tattered clothes and washed
as clean as snow. Then, as some of the attendants dried him with
fine linen towels, others came carrying clothes fit for a prince
to wear, and clad the beggar in them from head to foot. After
that, still without saying a word, they let him out from the bath
again, and there he found still other attendants waiting for him--two of them holding a milk-white
horse, saddled and bridled, and
fit for an emperor to ride. These helped him to mount, and then,
leaping into their own saddles, rode away with the beggar in
their midst.
They rode of the garden and into the streets, and on and on they
went until they came to the king's palace, and there they
stopped. Courtiers and noblemen and great lords were waiting for
their coming, some of whom helped him to dismount from the horse,
for by this time the beggar was so overcome with wonder that he
stared like one moon-struck, and as though his wits were addled.
Then, leading the way up the palace steps, they conducted him
from room to room, until at last they came to one more grand and
splendid than all the rest, and there sat the king himself
waiting for the beggar's coming.
The beggar would have flung himself at the king's feet, but the
king would not let him; for he came down from the throne where he
sat, and, taking the beggar by the hand, led him up and sat him
alongside of him. Then the king gave orders to the attendants who
stood about, and a feast was served in plates of solid gold upon
a table-cloth of silver--a feast such as the beggar had never
dreamed of, and the poor man ate as he had never eaten in his
life before.
All the while that the king and the beggar were eating, musicians
played sweet music and dancers danced and singers sang.
Then when the feast was over there came ten young men, bringing
flasks and flagons of all kinds, full of the best wine in the
world; and the beggar drank as he had never drank in his life
before, and until his head spun like a top.
So the king and the beggar feasted and made merry, until at last
the clock struck twelve and the king arose from his seat. "My
friend," said he to the beggar, "all these things have been done
to show you that Luck and Fate, which have been against you for
all these years, are now for you. Hereafter, instead of being
poor you shall be the richest of the rich, for I will give you
the greatest thing that I have in my treasury," Then he called
the chief treasurer, who came forward with a golden tray in his
hand. Upon the tray was a purse of silk. "See," said the king,
"here is a purse, and in the purse are one hundred pieces of gold
money. But though that much may seem great to you, it is but
little of the true value of the purse. Its virtue lies in this:
that however much you may take from it, there will always be one
hundred pieces of gold money left in it. Now go; and while you
are enjoying the riches which I give you, I have only to ask you
to remember these are not the gifts of Fate, but of a mortal
man."
But all the while he was talking the beggar's head was spinning
and spinning, and buzzing and buzzing, so that he hardly heard a
word of what the king said.
Then when the king had ended his speech, the lords and gentlemen
who had brought the beggar in led him forth again. Out they went
through room after room--out through the courtyard, out through
the gate.
Bang!--it was shut to behind him, and he found himself standing
in the darkness of midnight, with the splendid clothes upon his
back, and the magic purse with its hundred pieces of gold money
in his pocket.
He stood looking about himself for a while, and then off he
started homeward, staggering and stumbling and shuffling, for the
wine that he had drank made him so light-headed that all the
world spun topsy-turvy around him.
His way led along by the river, and on he went stumbling and
staggering. All of a sudden--plump! splash!--he was in the water
over head and ears. Up he came, spitting out the water and
shouting for help, splashing and sputtering, and kicking and
swimming, knowing no more where he was than the man in the moon.
Sometimes his head was under water and sometimes it was up again.
At last, just as his strength was failing him, his feet struck
the bottom, and he crawled up on the shore more dead than alive.
Then, through fear and cold and wet, he swooned away, and lay for
a long time for all the world as though he were dead.
Now, it chanced that two fisherman were out with their nets that
night, and Luck or Fate led them by the way where the beggar lay
on the shore. "Halloa!" said one of the fishermen, "here is a
poor body drowned!" They turned him over, and then they saw what
rich clothes he wore, and felt that he had a purse in his pocket.
"Come," said the second fisherman, "he is dead, whoever he is.
His fine clothes and his purse of money can do him no good now,
and we might as well have them as anybody else." So between them
both they stripped the beggar of all that the king had given him,
and left him lying on the beach.
At daybreak the beggar awoke from the swoon, and there he found
himself lying without a stitch to his back, and half dead with
the cold and the water he had swallowed. Then, fearing lest
somebody might see him, he crawled away into the rushes that grew
beside the river, there to hide himself until night should come
again.
But as he went, crawling upon hands and knees, he suddenly came
upon a bundle that had been washed up by the water, and when he
laid eyes upon it his heart leaped within him, for what should
that bundle be but the patches and tatters which he had worn the
day before, and which the attendants had thrown over the garden
wall and into the river when they had dressed him in the fine
clothes the king gave him.
He spread his clothes out in the sun until they were dry, and
then he put them on and went back into the town again.
"Well," said the king, that morning, to his chief councillor,
"what do you think now? Am I not greater than Fate? Did I not
make the beggar rich? And shall I not paint my father's words out
from the wall, and put my own there instead?"
"I do not know," said the councillor, shaking his head. "Let us
first see what has become of the beggar."
"So be it," said the king; and he and the councillor set off to
see whether the beggar had done as he ought to do with the good
things that the king had given him. So they came to the towngate,
and there, lo and behold! the first thing that they saw was the
beggar with his wooden bowl in his hand asking those who passed
by for a stray penny or two.
When the king saw him he turned without a word, and rode back
home again. "Very well," said he to the chief councillor, "I have
tried to make the beggar rich and have failed; nevertheless, if I
cannot make him I can ruin him in spite of Fate, and that I will
show you."
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