The Bondman: A New Saga

From these signs, taken together, the Captain had concluded that the life of the mines, the great infernal fire that raged beneath the surface, was changing ground, leaving the valley, where it had lived for ages, for the mountain heights, where the low grumblings were now heard to come from beneath the earth's crust of lava and basaltic rock.

So, taking counsel of his people, he decided to bore the ground in these new places in the hope of lighting on living solfataras that would stand to him against the loss of the dead ones. And it chanced that he was in the midst of many busy preparations for this work when the report of the warders reached him, and the boring was still uppermost in his mind when he sent back his answer as he came upon the flogging and stopped it.

Thus it happened that the first thought that came to the warders was to send their prisoners to one of the spots that had been marked on the hillside for the test of bore and spade.

So, in less than half-an-hour more, Jason and Sunlocks, lashed together, arm to arm and leg to leg, were being driven up the mountain to the place assigned to them. They found it a hideous and awesome spot. Within a circle of two yards across, the ground was white and yellow and scaly, like a scab on evil flesh. It was hot, so that the hand could not rest upon it, and hollow, so that the foot made it shake, and from unseen depths beneath it a dull thud came up at intervals like nothing else but the knocking of a man buried alive at the sealed door of his tomb.

Beneath this spot the heart of the solfatara was expected to lie, and Jason and Sunlocks were commanded to open it. Obeying gloomily, they took the bore first and pierced the scaly surface, and instantly a sizzling and bubbling sound came up from below. Then they followed with the spades, but scarcely had they lifted the top crust when twenty great fissures seemed to open under their feet, and they could see lurid flames rushing in wild confusion, like rivers of fire in the bowels of the earth.

It was a sight at which the stoutest heart might have quailed, and Jason leapt back to the bank and dragged Sunlocks after him.

"This is not safe," he said.

"In with you," shouted the warders from their own safe footing of four yards away. With a growl from between his clenched teeth, Jason stepped back into the hole, and Sunlocks followed him. But hardly had they got down to the fearsome spot again, when a layer of clay fell in from it, leaving a deep wide gully, and then scarcely a yard of secure footing remained.

"Let us stop while we are safe," Jason cried.

"Dig away," shouted the warders.

"If we do, we shall be digging our own graves," said Jason.

"Begin," shouted the warders.

"Listen to me," said Jason. "If we are to open this pit of fire and brimstone, at least let us be free of these ropes. That's but fair, that each man may have a chance of his life."

"Go on," shouted the warders.

"If we go on like this we shall be burnt and boiled alive," said Jason.

"Get along," shouted the warders with one voice, and then an awful light flashed in Jason's eyes, for he saw that out of revenge for their paltry fines they had resolved to drive two living men to their death.

"Now, listen again," said Jason, "and mark my words. We will do as you command us, and work in this pit of hell. I will not die in it – that I know. But this man beside me is weak and ill, heaven curse your inhumanity; and if anything happens to him, and I am alive to see it, as sure as there is strength left in my arms, and blood in my body, I will tear you limb from limb."

So saying, he plunged his spade into the ground beneath him, with an oath to drive it, and at the next instant there was a flash of blue flame, an avalanche of smoke, a hurricane of unearthly noises, a cry like that of a dying man, and then an awful silence.

When the air had cleared, Jason stood uninjured, but Michael Sunlocks hung by his side inert and quiet, and blinded by a jet of steam.

What happened to Jason thereafter no tongue of man could tell. All the fire of his spirit, and all the strength of all his days seemed to flow back upon him in that great moment. He parted the ropes that bound him as if they had been green withes that he snapped asunder. He took Sunlocks in his arms and lifted him up to his shoulder, and hung him across it, as if he had been a child that he placed there. He stepped out of the deadly pit, and strode along over the lava mountain as if he were the sole creature of the everlasting hills. His glance was terrific, his voice was the voice of a wounded beast. The warders dropped their muskets and fled before him like affrighted sheep.

CHAPTER IV.

Through the Chasm of All Men

It was still early morning; a soft gray mist lay over the moorlands, but the sun that had never set in that northern land was rising through clouds of pink and white over the bald crown of a mountain to the northeast. And towards the rising sun Jason made his way, striding on with the red glow on his own tanned and blackened face, and its ghastly mockery of the hues of life on the pallid cheeks and whitened lips of Sunlocks. From his right ankle and right wrist hung the rings of his broken fetters, and from the left ankle and left wrist of Sunlocks trailed the ropes that had bound them both. Never a moment did he pause to breathe or think or question himself. On and on he went, over lava blocks and lava dust, basaltic rock and heavy clay, and hot blue earth and scorched and withered moss. And still Sunlocks lay over his right side and shoulder, motionless and unconscious, hardly breathing, but alive, with his waist encircled by Jason's great right arm, and his waist-belt grasped tight as with the grip of a talon by Jason's hard right hand.

Before long, Sunlocks recovered some partial consciousness and cried in a faint voice for water. Jason glanced around on the arid plain as if his eyes would pierce the ground for a spring, but no water could he see on any side of him, and so without a word of answer he strode along.

"Water, water," cried Sunlocks again, and just then Jason caught the side-long glint of a river that ran like a pearl chain down the black breast of a mountain.

"Water," cried Sunlocks again and yet again, in a voice of pain and deep pleading, not rightly knowing yet where he was or what bad chance had befallen him.

"Yes, yes, one moment more, only a moment, there – there – there!" whispered Jason.

And muttering such words of comfort and cheer, he quickened his pace towards the river. But when he got near to it he stopped short with a cry of dismay. The river bubbled and smoked.

"Hot! It is hot," cried Jason. "And the land is accursed."

At that word, Sunlocks uttered a low groan, and his head, which had been partly lifted, fell heavily backwards, and his hair hung over Jason's shoulder. He was again unconscious.

Then more than ever like a wild beast ranging the hills with its prey, Jason strode along. And presently he saw a lake of blue water far away. He knew it for cold water, blessed, ice-cold water, water to bathe the hot forehead with, water to drink. With a cry of joy, which there was no human ear to hear, he turned and made towards it; but just as he did so, softening as he went, and muttering from his own parched throat words of hope and comfort to the unconscious man he carried, a gunshot echoed through the mountains above his head.

He knew what the shot was; it was the signal of his escape. And looking down to the valley, he saw that the guards of the settlement were gathering on their ponies in the very line of the plain that he must traverse to reach the water for which Sunlocks thirsted.

Then "Water, water," came again in the same faint voice as before, and whether with his actual ear he heard that cry, or in the torment of his distraught sense it only rang out in his empty heart, no man shall say. But all the same he answered it from his choking throat, "Patience, patience."

And then, with another look downward, the look of a human stag, at the cool water which he might not reach and live, he turned himself back to the mountains.

What happened to him then, and for many weary hours thereafter, it would weary the spirit to tell: what plains he crossed, what hills he climbed, and in what desolate wilderness he walked alone, with no one for company save the unconscious man across his shoulder, and no eye to look upon him save the eye of God.

And first he crossed a wide sea of lava dust, black as the ravens that flew in the air above it, and bounded by hills as dark as the earth that were themselves vast sand drifts blown up into strange and terrible shapes by mighty tempests. Then he came upon a plain strewn over with cinders, having a grim crag frowning upon it, like the bank of a smelting-house, with its screes of refuse rolling down. By this time the sun had risen high and grown hot, and the black ground under his feet began to send up the reflection of the sun's rays into his face to scorch it.

And still the cry of "water, water," rang in his ears, and his eyes ranged the desolate land to find it, but never a sign of it could he see, and his strong heart sank. Once, when he had mounted with great toil to the top of a hill, where all behind him had been black and burnt and blistered, he saw a wide valley stretching in front of him that was as green as the grass of spring. And he thought that where there was grass there would surely be water, streams of water, rivers of water, pools of water, sunny stretches of sweet water lying clear and quiet over amber pebbles and between soft brown banks of turf.

So at this sight his heart was lifted up, and bounding down the hillside, over the lava blocks, as fast as he could go for his burden, he began to sing from his cracked throat in his hoarse and quavery voice. But when he reached the valley his song stopped, and his heart sank afresh, for it was not grass, but moss that grew there, and it lay only on big blocks of lava, with never a drop of moisture or a handful of earth between them.

He was crushed, but he was strong of heart and would not despair. So he pushed on over this green plain, through a hundred thousand mossy mounds that looked like the graves of a world of dead men.

But when he came out of it his case seemed yet more forlorn, for leaving the soft valley behind he had come upon a lava stream, a sea of stones, not dust or cinders, but a bleached cake of lava rock, with never a soft place for the foot, and never a green spot for the eye. Not a leaf to rustle in the breeze, not a blade of grass to whisper to it, not a bird's sweet voice, or the song of running water. Nothing lived there but dead silence on earth and in air. Nothing but that, or in other hours the roar of wind, the rattle of rain, and the crash of thunder.

All this time Jason had walked on under the sweltering sun, never resting, never pausing, buoyed up with the hope of water – water for the fainting man that he might not die. But in the desolation of that moment he dropped Sunlocks from his shoulder, and threw himself down beside him.

And sitting there, with the head of his unconscious comrade upon his knees, he put it himself to say what had been the good of all that he had done, and if it would not have been better for both of them if he had submitted to base tyranny and remained at the Mines. Had he not brought this man out to his death? What else was before him in this waste wilderness, where there was no drop of water to cool his hot forehead or moisten his parched tongue? And thinking that his yoke-fellow might die, and die at his hands, and that he would then be alone, with the only man's face gone from him that had ever brightened life for him, his heart began to waver and to say, "Rise up, Jason, rise up and go back."

But just then he was conscious of the click-clack of horses' hoofs on the echoing face of the stony sea about him, and he shaded his eyes and looked around, and saw in the distance a line of men on ponies coming on in his direction. And though he thought of the guards that had been signalled to pursue him, he made no effort to escape. He did not stir or try to hide himself, but sat as before with the head of his comrade on his knees.

The men on the ponies came up and passed him closely by without seeing him. But he saw them clearly and heard their talk. They were not the guard from the settlement, but Thing-men bound for Thingvellir and the meeting of Althing there. And while they were going on before him in their laughter and high spirits, Jason could scarce resist the impulse to cry out on them to stop and take him along with them as their prisoner, for that he was an outlaw who had broken his outlawry, and carried away with him this fainting man at his knees.

But before the words would form themselves, and while his blistering lips were shaping to speak them, a great thought came to him, and struck him back to silence.

Why had he torn away from the Sulphur Mines? Only from a gloomy love of life, life for his comrade, and life for himself. And what life was there in this trackless waste, this mouldering dumb wilderness? None, none. Nothing but death lay here; death in these gaunt solitudes; death in these dry deserts; death amid these ghastly, haggard wrecks of inhuman things. What chance could there be of escape from Iceland? None, none, none.

But there was one hope yet. Who were these men that had passed him? They were Thing-men; they were the lawmakers. Where were they going? They were going to the Mount of Laws. Why were they going there? To hold their meeting of Althing. What was Althing? The highest power of the State; the supreme Court of legislature and law.

What did all this mean? It meant that Jason as an Icelander knew the laws of his country, and that one great law above all other laws he remembered at that instant. It concerned outlaws. And what were they but outlaws, both of them? It ordered that the condemned could appeal at Althing against the injustice of his sentence. If the ranks of the judges opened for his escape, then he was saved.

Jason leaped to his feet at the thought of it. That was what he would do for his comrade and for himself. He would push on to Thingvellir. It was five and thirty heavy miles away; but no matter for that. The angel of hope would walk with him. He would reach the Mount of Laws, carrying his comrade all the way. And when he got there, he would plead the cause of both of them. Then the judges would rise, and part, and make way for them, and they would be free men thereafter.

Life, life, life! There was life left for both of them, and very sweet it seemed after the shadow of death that had so nearly encompassed them. Only to live! Only to live! They were young yet and loved one another as brothers.

And while thinking so, in the whirl of his senses as he strode to and fro over the lava blocks, Jason heard what his ear had hitherto been too heavy to catch, the thin music of falling water near at hand. And, looking up, he saw a tiny rivulet like a lock of silken hair dropping over a round face of rock, and thanking God for it, he ran to it, and filled both hands with it, and brought it to Sunlocks and bathed his forehead with it, and his poor blinded eyes, and moistened his withered lips, whispering meantime words of hope and simple tender nothings, such as any woman might croon over her sick boy.

"Come, boy, come then, come, boy, come," he whispered, and clapped his moist hands together over the placid face to call it back to itself.

And while he did so, sure enough Sunlocks moved, his lips parted, his cheeks quivered, and he sighed. And seeing these signs of consciousness, Jason began to cry, for the great rude fellow who had not flinched before death was touched at the sight of life in that deep place where the strongest man is as a child.

But just then he heard once more the sound of horses' hoofs on the lava ground, and, looking up, he saw that there could be no error this time, and that the guards were surely coming. Ten or twelve of them there seemed to be, mounted on as many ponies, and they were driving on at a furious gallop over the stones. There was a dog racing in front of them, another dog was running at their heels, and with the barking of the dogs, the loud whoops of the men to urge the ponies along, and to the clatter of the ponies' hoofs, the plain rang and echoed.

Jason saw that the guards were coming on in their direction. In three minutes more they would be upon them. They were taking the line followed by the Thing-men. Would they pass them by unseen as the Thing-men had passed them? That was not to be expected, for they were there to look for them. What was to be done? Jason looked behind him. Nothing was there but an implacable wall of stone, rising sheer up into the sky, with never a bough, or tussock of grass to cling to that a man might climb. He looked around. The ground was covered with cracked domes like the arches of buried cities, but the caverns that lay beneath them were guarded by spiked jaws which only a man's foot could slip through. Not a gap, not a hole to creep into; not a stone to crouch under; not a bush to hide behind; nothing in sight on any side but the bare, hard face of the wide sea of stone.

There was not a moment to lose. Jason lifted Sunlocks to his shoulder and crept along, bent nearly double, as silently and swiftly as he could go. And still behind him was the whoop of the men, the barking of the dogs and the clatter of hoofs.

On and on he went, minute after precious minute. The ground became heavier at every stride with huge stones that tore his stockinged legs and mangled his feet in his thin skin shoes. But he recked nothing of this, or rejoiced in it, for the way was as rough for the guards behind him, and he could hear that the horses had been drawn up from their gallop to a slow-paced walk. At each step he scoured the bleak plain for shelter, and at length he saw among piles of vitreous snags a hummock of great slabs clashed together, with one side rent open. It was like nothing else on earth but a tomb in an old burial ground, where the vaults have fallen in and wrecked the monuments above them. Through the cankered lips of this hummock into its gaping throat, Jason pushed the unconscious body of Sunlocks, and crept in after it. And lying there in the gloom he waited for the guards to come on, and as they came he strained his ear to catch the sound of the words that passed between them.

"No, no, we're on the right course," said one voice. How hollow and far away it sounded! "You saw his footmarks on the moss that we've just crossed over, and you'll see them again on the clay we're coming to."

"You're wrong," said another voice, "we saw one man's footsteps only, and we are following two."

"Don't I tell you the red man is carrying the other."

"All these miles? Impossible! Anyhow that's their course, not this."

"Why so?"

"Because they're bound for Hafnafiord."

"Why Hafnafiord?"

"To take ship and clear away."

"Tut, man, they've got bigger game than that. They're going to Reykjavik."

"What! To run into the lion's mouth?"

"Yes, and to draw his teeth, too. What has the Captain always said? Why, that the red man has all along been spy for the fair one, and we know who he is. Let him once set foot in Reykjavik and he'll do over again what he did before."

Crouching over Sunlocks in the darkness of that grim vault, Jason heard these words as the guards rode past him in the glare of the hot sun, and not until they were gone did he draw his breath. But just as he lay back with a sigh of relief, thinking all danger over, suddenly he heard a sound that startled him. It was the sniffing of a dog outside his hiding place, and at the next instant two glittering eyes looked in upon him from the gap whereby he had entered.

The dog growled, and Jason tried to pacify it. It barked, and then Jason laid hold of it, and gripped it about the throat to silence it. It fumed and fought, but Jason held it like a vice, until there came a whistle and a call, and then it struggled afresh.

"Erik!" shouted a voice without. "Erik, Erik!" and then whistle followed whistle.

Thinking the creature would now follow its master, Jason was for releasing it, but before he had yet fully done so the dog growled and barked again.

"Erik! Erik!" shouted the voice outside, and from the click-clack of hoofs Jason judged that one of the men was returning.

Then Jason saw that there was nothing left to him but to quiet the dog, or it would betray them to their death; so, while the brute writhed in his great hands, struggling to tear the flesh from them, he laid hold of its gaping jaws and rived them apart and broke them. In a moment more the dog was dead.

In the silence that followed, a faint voice came from a distance, crying, "Sigurd, Sigurd, why are you waiting!"

And then another voice shouted back from near at hand – very near, so near as to seem to be on top of the hummock, "I've lost the dog; and I could swear I heard him growling somewhere hereabouts not a minute since."

Jason was holding his breath again, when suddenly a deep sigh came from Sunlocks; then another, and another, and then some rambling words that had no meaning, but made a dull hum in that hollow place. The man outside must have heard something, for he called his dog again.

At that Jason's heart fell low, and all he could do he did – he reached over the outstretched form of his comrade, and put his lips to the lips of Sunlocks, just that he might smother their deadly babble with noiseless kisses.

This must have served, for when the voice that was far away shouted again "Sigurd! Sigurd!" the voice that was near at hand answered, "Coming." And a moment later, Jason heard the sounds of hoofs going off from him as before.

Then Michael Sunlocks awoke to full consciousness, and realized his state, and what had befallen him, and where he was, and who was with him. And first he was overwhelmed by a tempest of agony at feeling that he was a lost and forlorn man, blind and maimed, as it seemed at that time, for all the rest of his life to come. After that he cried for water, saying that his throat was baked and his tongue cracked, and Jason replied that all the water they had found that day they had been forced to leave behind them where they could never return to it. Then he poured out a torrent of hot reproaches, calling on Jason to say why he had been brought out there to go mad of thirst; and Jason listened to all and made no answer, but stood with bent head, and quivering lips, and great tear-drops on his rugged cheeks.

The spasm of agony and anger soon passed, as Jason knew it must, and then, full of remorse, Sunlocks saw everything in a new light.

"What time of day is it?" he asked.

"Evening," said Jason.

"How many hours since we left Krisuvik?"

"Ten."

"How many miles from there!"

"Twenty."

"Have you carried me all the way?"

"Yes."

There was a moment's pause, then an audible sob, and then Sunlocks felt for Jason's hand and drew it down to his lips. That kiss was more than Jason could bear, though he bore the hot words well enough; so he made a brave show of unconcern, and rattled on with hopeful talk, saying where they were to go, and what he was to do for both of them, and how they would be free men to-morrow.

And as he talked of the great task that was before them, his heart grew strong again, and Sunlocks caught the contagion of his spirit and cried, "Yes, yes, let us set off. I can walk alone now. Come, let us go."

At that Jason drew Sunlocks out of the hummock, and helped him to his feet.

"You are weak still," he said. "Let me carry you again."

"No, no, I am strong. Give me your hand. That's enough," said Sunlocks.

"Come, then," said Jason, "the guards have gone that way to Reykjavik. It's this way to Thingvellir – over the hill yonder, and through the chasm of All Men, and down by the lake to the Mount of Laws."

Then Jason wound his right arm about the waist of Sunlocks, and Sunlocks rested his left hand on the shoulder of Jason, and so they started out again over that gaunt wilderness that was once a sea of living fire. Bravely they struggled along, with words of courage and good cheer passing between them, and Sunlocks tried to be strong for Jason's sake, and Jason tried to be blind for sake of Sunlocks. If Sunlocks stumbled, Jason pretended not to know it, though his strong arm bore him up, and when Jason spoke of water and said they would soon come to a whole lake of it, Sunlocks pretended that he was no longer thirsty. Thus, like little children playing at make-believe, they tottered on, side by side, arm through arm, yoked together by a bond far tighter than ever bound them before, for the love that was their weakness was God's own strength.