University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

(A chamber in the great rock temple at Bimini.)
High Priest.
This is the Feast of Arrows, and the walls
Of this huge fane of beauty and destruction
Have disappeared, with all their painted demons,
Beneath the dewy tapestry of blossoms
Bright in their transient patterns, while the pillars
Conceal the scars of their forgotten ages
Beneath the garb of odoriferous palms,
And hold each other, like colossal captives,
With Spring's ephemeral chains. Upon the pavement
The stains of human sacrifice are hidden
With fresh-strewn litter of uncounted roses.
The troops of garland girls have done their work,
And all have left. And now for seven days
The countless warriors of this warlike nation,
In silent companies will bring their quivers,
To the slow booming of the gong of gongs,
That every long and copper-headed shaft
May be baptized with poison. Never yet,
Since these stupendous columns first were carved
Out of the living granite by our fathers,
Innumerable centuries ago,
Has venom of such potency been needed,
To stem the growing tide of an invasion;
And never has the yearly Feast of Arrows
Been full of such solemnity as now.
The white invaders, with the impious help
Of the rebellious tribes, have reached our gates
And battle nears. Is all prepared and ready?
Where rise the perilous vapours of thy cauldron?

Indian Sorceress.
The white invaders will not long be white
If they give battle; for the faintest scratch
With arrow or with javelin of my steeping
Will make their pale and leprous bodies blacken,
And fit them for the burial-ground of dogs.
Oh, trust my brew. Have I not worked in poison
Until the very flies that sting me drop
Dead on the floor? The art which we possess,
And have developed since primeval times,
Of feeding snakes on juice of deadly plants,
And then inoculating with their venom,
Increased in strength, the deadly plant itself,
And so augmenting, in a ceaseless circle
The potency of poision, has now reached
Incredible perfection. One black drop
Of our unmixed and last-developed death-juice.
Were it to fall into the mightiest river,
Would poison all the nations on its banks,
And curdle Ocean's self.

High Priest.
What demon shapes
Have risen in thy fumes?

Indian Sorceress.
Three gods of terror
Familiar to my visions, and one new.
First, Eyes-of-Madness, with the scarlet bat-wings;
Then Ice-of-Fear, the god with lidless eye-bails;
And Wince-of-Agony, the great tormentor.
The unknown spirit had a tiger's head,
With human limbs all of the fairest shape,
And ceaselessly he ate them—every limb
Growing again the while he ate the others.
It was a wondrous and terrific vision;
And never since the god of Silent Horror
Placed, years ago, upon my novice head
The cold and restless wreath of living vipers,
Which turned my black hair white, have I beheld
So dread a deity.

High Priest.
I know him well;
He is the great and all-pervading god
Of Cosmic Cruelty, named Ataflis;
And it is owing to his boundless power
That Nature preys for ever on herself,
And that the earth and air and sea are filled with millions
Who feed on others and themselves are eaten.
Is that the singing of thy venom-girls
Which echoes through these temple vaults?

Indian Sorceress.
It is;
And if thou listen, thou wilt hear the words
Of a new song, which I have taught them sing
For this our Feast of Arrows, while we mix
The perilous essence with the vitreous gums
Which serve to glue it to the arrow's head.

High Priest.
Thy maids sing well, and I approve the words.
Thy arrow song is worthy of the temple
Of that gigantic man-devouring Flower—
Goddess at once of Murder and of Beauty—
Whose ever-hungry tentacles can grasp
The living human limbs—whose awful bosom
Is even as ready to engulf a slave
As the small sun-dew to engulf an insect.
The Flower of Cruelty, the lonely Empress
Of virgin forests, whom our sires enshrined
In this rock temple, and who there has grown
In beauty and in appetite, is symbol
Of what pervades the universe itself.
The two great ruling principles of Nature
Are Cruelty and Beauty—Pain and Sunshine.
And even as her iron tendrils grasp
The monthly wretch we give her to devour,
So Nature in her placid beauty murders,
Through sea, and air, and earth. The world is like
The walls in which we stand: Above, the flowers;
And catacombs of dungeons underneath,
All choking full. But, hark! I hear the sound
Of steps approaching: doubtless they are coming
To tell me that the Monarch is in sight.
Atalpa comes to see how we have wreathed
Our walls and columns. Othoxa, get thee gone.

[Exit Indian Sorceress.
(Enter Atalpa, accompanied by two tame panthers and followed by an escort of warriors.)
High Priest.
Lord of the Panthers, ever-young Atalpa!
I bid thee welcome to these sacred caves,
To-day as ever.

Atalpa.
For a thousand years
Have these old columns, on the Feast of Arrows,
Put on their garb of aromatic green,
As regularly bursting into leaf
As if they teemed with sap; and never yet
Has the King failed to come and praise the flowers.
But I, for once, have neither eyes nor nostrils
For wreaths, however sweet; and I have come
With care-o'erclouded forehead, to consult
Upon the means which our religion offers
To stem the white invasion.

High Priest.
My own thoughts
Have not been idle since the news grew darker:
I have gone over all the great invasions
Which we have baffled in the course of ages;
And in each case I find that we have owed
Eventual triumph to one single cause—
Our policy of friendship with the gods.
The gods, remember, are destructive forces;
They act from appetite, and not from justice—
If they were just, there were no need of prayer.
Naught is so mercenary as a god
In man's necessity.

Atalpa.
The whites are few,
Compared with our great legions; but they carry
The bolt of Heaven with them, and their thunder
Shakes the great forest; every echoing peal
Means scores of dead. Their heads are capp'd with steel,
Their breasts with plates which not a shaft can pierce—
Their very fingers are encased in iron.
Had I not seen the corpses of their slain
I still should think them gods; besides, they have
The tribes as their allies.

High Priest.
Now, let me know
What presents thou art bringing to the temple.
Much will depend on that.

Atalpa.
Eleven targes
Of beaten gold, wrought round with figures showing
The war between the leopards and the gods.
Then I have brought thee, in a precious casket,
The famous ruby, called the Eye of Wrath,
And twelve great barrels full of minted gold.

High Priest.
I think the Goddess will accept the gift.

Atalpa.
In presence of the ever-growing peril
There is a thought which haunts me night and day.
Dost thou remember, from remotest ages
The prophecy which says: ‘The day will come
On which this prosperous and victorious state
Will wholly perish, if a white-skinned virgin
Shall not be offered up in sacrifice
To the great goddess?’

High Priest.
Yes, I recollect it;
But it has been interpreted to mean
That she would be miraculously born
With a white skin among us.

Atalpa.
Ay, and rightly;
So long we knew not that a white-skinn'd race
Existed in the world. But now we know it;
And seems it not as if the day were come
For the fulfilment, now that the invaders
Have raised the tribes against us and are marching
Straight on the capital?

High Priest.
Have the white invaders
Their women with them?

Atalpa.
That I cannot answer,
But I intend to ask them for a truce
And send an embassy, and so gain time
To get to know them better. Who comes here?

(Enter the Master of the Sacrifices.)
Master of the Sacrifices.
I come with consternation in my soul
And staggering feet, that scarce can bear my weight
To bring most monstrous news.

Atalpa.
Quick, speak, what is it?
Keep us not in suspense.

Master of the Sacrifices.
A fearful portent,
Big with catastrophe to king and people:
The ever-hungry Goddess of this temple
For the first time in history, has spurned
Her monthly victim.

High Priest.
Spurned her monthly victim?
It cannot be—the omen were too monstrous.

Master of the Sacrifices.
I have just seen it with these very eyes.
Scarce had we placed the gagged and writhing slave—
A virgin of the ebon race of Xu—
In the great Flower's lap, when a convulsion
Shook her prodigious petals. She relaxed
The feelers which had grasped the victim's body
And cast it out alive. We tried again
A second time: again she cast it out,
Alive just as before. And when we made
A third attempt, the miracle took place
Even again, except that then the slave
Was cast out dead.

High Priest.
No such tremendous portent
Has ever tuned man's spirit to disaster,
Since the great star, which trailed a fan of fire
Depopulating Heaven, and the earthquake
Which shook the figures of the gods to pieces,
Gave warning of the most disastrous battle
Which history records.

Atalpa.
Thou sayest well,
Priest of the Scented Murderess; such omen
Has not prepared the minds of men for evil
Since these three hundred years. But in this thing
I see not only presage of disaster,
But something more distinct. When I consider
The peril which surrounds us, and remember
The prophecy of old, the thing assumes
Another shape. I see a thought, a meaning,
A purpose, a command. The tongueless goddess,
In spurning thus the victim that we offer,
Means that she wants another—something new
For her terrific maw; and I can read
Her wish as clear as if she spoke in words.
She wants white flesh; and if we give it not,
The pillars of this state will split and stagger;
And with a crash which will outpeal the thunder
With which the white men's engines shake the air,
The edifice of ages will come down
Upon our heads, and bury us in its fall.

[Exeunt omnes.