Shadows of Ecstasy by Charles Williams (best books to read txt) 📖

show me the house?”

 

“Anything for a quiet life,” his friend answered. “Even to conducting

a Christian lion to a Zulu victim. What a world! And Rosenberg found

it uninteresting. But I dare say he didn’t know many Christians. I

warn you, Ian,” he went on as they left the room, “that if Considine’s

there I shall pretend I don’t know you, and that I’ve come back for a

cigarette case presented to me by grateful patients. Because if he

isn’t the High Executive-”

 

“And if he is?” Caithness asked. “If he is?”

 

“That,” Sir Bernard said, “is my only hope of an excuse for driving

you. O no, no taxis, thank you. If I have to help abduct a king, let

me do it in my own car, so as to have a right to put up a gold plate:

‘In this car His Majesty the King of the Zulus once fled from the

conquest of death.’ Why don’t you like the conquest of death, Ian?”

 

“That’s all been done,” Caithness said, and Sir Bernard, as they came

to the garage, gave a little moan. “Not in Considine’s sense it

hasn’t,” he said. “You’re just confused. O wel—but I think you’d

probably like Considine if you could ever get to know him. Get in, and

we’ll try.”

 

It was a little after midnight when they ran through Hampstead. Sir

Bernard stopped the car at the corner of the road, and the two of them

walked up it. There were more windows lit up than was usual, owing to

the raid, but Considine’s house was in darkness. They went up the

steps and Caithness rang. In a few minutes he rang again, and again.

 

“He’s probably directing the raid,” Sir Bernard said. “Or flying up to

meet the planes. Levitation, I think they call it; some of your saints

used to do it. Similar to the odour of sanctity.”

 

Caithness said: “We shall have to find a window.”

 

Sir Bernard sighed happily. “What a night we’re having!” he said,

following his friend. “No, Ian, not that one: it’s too near the road.

Somewhere away at the back. One takes off one’s coat, I believe, and

presses it against the glass before striking a sharp blow in the

centre. We ought really to have treacle and brown paper. You wouldn’t

care to wait while I went and knocked up the nearest grocer for some

golden syrup? We could use the rest of the tin as an excuse for

calling. I wonder if at his age Considine can eat golden syrup without

getting himself all sticky? That’d almost be worth living for.”

 

But since at the back of the house there was at least one window a

little open there was no need to resort to these more uncertain

methods. The two gentlemen pushed it up, very quietly, and entered.

Sir Bernard, scrambling in, thought to himself, “‘I will encounter

darkness as a bride,’ I hope she likes me.” Within all was silent.

They found their way cautiously along, and emerged at last in the

hall, where Sir Bernard assumed direction. Either the house was for

the time empty or everyone was asleep. The second alternative was so

unlikely that they permitted themselves to assume the first.

 

They did not, however, relax their caution until they came at last to

the room where they had heard the music and seen Nielsen, and left the

king in his sleep and Considine in his triumph. Sir Bernard felt that

they were not treading so delicately but that one heard them; he

seemed to see Considine standing far off, his head a little turned,

listening to them, and he wondered if there would be some sudden

interference in some unknown manner. But though the suspense endured

it did not increase, and in the light of the room they saw Inkamasi

still sitting in his chair.

 

Caithness went quietly across the room towards the Zulu, Sir Bernard

paused by the door, listening for footsteps, and watching what went

on. The priest kneeled down by the chair, and, after studying the

African’s face for a few minutes, said in a low voice of energy,

“Inkamasi, what are you doing here?”

 

The Zulu stirred under that intense regard and intense voice and

answered, “Inkamasi waits for him who caused sleep.”

 

Sir Bernard jerked suddenly, for the voice was more like Considine’s

own than the Zulu’s, yet fainter than either, as if from a distance

the master of substitution interposed between the priest and the

sleeper. Caithness said, “Do you sleep by your own will?”

 

“I watch by the will of him that rules me,” the other answered

monotonously. “Inkamasi is hidden within me. It’s I yet not I that

sleep.”

 

“In the name of the Maker of. Inkamasi,” Caithness said with superb

and deep confidence, “in the Name of the Eternal and Everlasting, in

the Name of Immanuel, I bid you awake.”

 

“I do not know them,” the sleeper answered, “and I keep their sound

from Inkamasi lest he hear.”

 

“By the virtue in created life, by the union of Man with God, by the

Mother of God in the world and in the soul, I command you to wake,”

Caithness said.

 

“I do not know them, and I keep their sound from Inkamasi lest he

hear,” the sleeper answered.

 

“In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be silent and

go out of him,” Caithness exclaimed, making the sign of the cross over

the Zulu. “Inkamasi, Inkamasi, by the faith you hold, by the baptism

and the Body of Christ, I bid you wake.”

 

The sleeper did not answer but he did not move. As if some closed

powers hung, poised and equal, over or within him he lay silent. Sir

Bernard remembered how, but a little before, he had seen Considine

standing in front of the azure profundity of the curtain, which still

hung there, as in the depth of space, and it seemed to him as if from

the spectral image of that figure and from the kneeling priest two

separate currents of command impinged upon the king and in the moment

of meeting neutralized their strength. The central heart of the Zulu

beat beyond those conflicting and equal intensities, in oblivion of

the outer world yet perhaps in liberty. He waited to see what more

Caithness could do. But though the priest concentrated his will and

intention, though he tried once or twice to speak, the stillness was

prolonged. He had silenced the speaker in Inkamasi, but the very

effort held him also silent. He strove to impose his determination

upon the Zulu, but he could not pass beyond the gate which he had

succeeded in reaching; he could not call the other back through it. He

knelt praying by the chair and the minutes went by.

 

Sir Bernard thought, “We can’t possibly stop here. We don’t know where

Considine’s gone, we don’t know whether he’s coming back, and I should

hate him to have to worry the exalted imagination with such a detail

as what to do with us. He might want us for some new experiment in the

conquest of death. I wonder whether-” He peered out through the door;

nothing was happening. He turned back into the room. “If Ian and

Considine are locked in a spiritual chest-to-chest wrestle,” he

thought, “perhaps it’s time for a mere intellectualist to have a word.

A timid tentative word.”

 

He went across the room and round the back of the chair. His eyes met

the priest, and by the force of old friendship communicated something

of his purpose. Caithness, still silent and intent, moved his hands

from where they rested on the Zulu’s shoulders. Sir Bernard put his

hand very gently under an arm, and as gently lifted it forward. It

yielded easily to his pressure and when that pressure was removed

dropped back again. Fearful of speaking lest some rash word should

bring down the balance against him, Sir Bernard went lightly to the

front of the chair, and picked up the Zulu’s hands. He drew them

gently, gently forward and upward, he pulled them towards him till the

arms were extended, he pulled with the least little extra firmness,

and easily as the hands moved the body moved also. The king rose to

his feet, following that physical direction, and Sir Bernard took a

step backward towards the door. Inkamasi followed him. Caithness,

still caught in spiritual combat, also rose, but he made no movement

to assist; he left that visible action to his ally. Sir Bernard,

taking another step backward, waited till the Zulu was in movement,

then he slipped to one side and, still holding the left hand in his

own left, put his right fingers on Inkamasi’s back. He pressed gently;

as if automatically the Zulu moved op. Slowly they passed to the door,

Sir Bernard on one side, Caithness on the other. They went in front of

that hanging curtain of blue, and for a moment Sir Bernard could have

believed that they were drawing Inkamasi out of its influence and

depth, could have wondered whether indeed he were doing well thus to

interfere on behalf of one magic against another. “What doest thou

here, Gehazi?” he said to himself. “Do I really want to save a

jungle-king for Ian’s passion? One religion or another, it’s all the

same—‘She comes, she comes, the sable throne behold, Of Night

primeval and of Chaos old.’ I suspect I’m just getting a little of my

own back on Considine. Never mind; it’s too late to change now. Round

the corner—so.”

 

They moved on, that curious mingling of intention directing the

passive African, through the still house, down the steps, to the

waiting car. Still in silence, Sir Bernard made the other two get in

at the back and himself returned to the driving wheel. Once more they

ran through London, and in the cold October night brought the sleeper

to Colindale Square. There at last, once in the library, Sir Bernard

turned to Caithness. “And now what?” he said. “Because I can’t

personally conduct this Christian of yours about the world for the

rest of my life. And I don’t, just at the moment, see what you propose

to do.”

 

“I know what I shall do,” Caithness said. “Do you notice he moves more

of his own will since we brought him out of the house?”

 

“I wouldn’t quite say that,” Sir Bernard said, “but he needs less

direction. It is a kind of hypnotism, I suppose.”

 

“It’s like a locking up of the outer faculties in his master’s will,”

Caithness said. “But the others are there, only they can’t hear us.

They may hear a greater than us. Tomorrow a voice shall call to him

that no tyrant shall silence.”

 

“Meaning-” Sir Bernard said. “My dear Ian, you’ve no idea of how like

Mr. Considine’s conversation yours is.”

 

“Tomorrow”, Caithness said, “I will offer the soul and mind of this

man to our Lord in the operation of the Mass. The Archbishop will let

us use the chapel at Lambeth.”

 

“And you think that will help him?” Sir Bernard asked with interest.

 

“Subject always to the will of God,” Caithness answered.

 

“O quite,” Sir Bernard assented. “The will of God, of course. Heads I

win, tails you lose. However—And now do you think we dare go to

bed?”

 

“I shan’t myself,” Caithness said. “I’ll watch by him tonight. But

you go on.”

 

Sir Bernard looked dubious. “I don’t think I should feel quite

comfortable,” he said. “Suppose the High Executive suggested to him a

little exalted imagination of freedom, I don’t know that you could

stop him. I think, Ian, we’ll both settle