The City in the Clouds

One of those noiseless, toy, electric automobiles which I had already seen when Juanita first showed me the City, was waiting. We got in, and buzzed through the gardens, and down the tunnel which led to Grand Square. As we went, I saw shadowy figures patrolling everywhere. The whole place was alive with guards – my girl could sleep well this night!

As we came out of the tunnel I motioned to Bill to go slowly, and he pulled the lever, or whatever it was, that controlled the speed. In almost complete silence we began to circle the huge inclosure, the tires making no noise whatever upon the floor of wood blocks.

The air was keen, cold, and wonderfully pure. There was not a cloud in the heavens, and one looked up at a far-flung vault of black velvet spangled with gold. Never had I seen the stars so clear and brilliant in England, for the haze of smoke and the miasma of overbreathed air which is the natural atmosphere of London lay two thousand feet below. The Grand Square blazed with light. The buildings, with their spires, domes and cupolas, stood out with extraordinary clearness against the circumambient black of space. No outline was soft or blurred, everything was vividly, fantastically real. A veritable scene from the old Arabian Nights indeed! And something of the same thought must have come to my companion, for he looked up and said: "I once saw an extraordinary illustration by Willy Pogany of one of De Quincey's opium dreams – here it is, only a thousand times more marvelous!"

The fountain in the middle of the Square – a long distance away it seemed as we slowly skirted the buildings – made a ghostly laughter as it sprang from its dragon-supported basin of bronze. The gilded cupola of the observatory shone with a wan radiance, higher than all else, and a black triangle in the gold told me that the patient old Chinese astronomer surveyed the heavens, lost in a waking dream of the Infinite, probably loftily unconscious of all that had been going on in the magic city at his feet. I envied that serene, Oriental philosopher, Juanita's special friend and pet, who lived up there in his observatory, and, so I was told, hardly ever descended for any purpose at all. He was as inviolate a hermit as Saint Anthony. It was especially curious that I should have cast my glance heavenwards and have thought of that ancient sage at this moment. You will learn why afterwards.

We stopped at one of the white kiosks, from the interior of which the hydraulic lifts went down to the lower part of the City. It was in an upper story of that that the chief of the staff had his office, and, mounting a flight of steps, we entered, to find Pu-Yi sitting at a roll-top desk, scrutinizing a handful of paper reports.

"It is nearly over, Sir Thomas," he said, rising and placing chairs for us. "Almost every inch of the City has been searched, and but little remains to be done. There is not a single trace of the man, Midwinter."

I own that to hear this was a great relief. We were all of us fired with Rolston's plan of a trap down below in London. His theory seemed to be correct. Midwinter had somehow escaped, and we should meet him in due time – for I had never a doubt of that. Meanwhile, Juanita and her father were safe.

"It is only what I expected, though how on earth he managed to get away remains to be seen!"

"It will come to light in due course," Pu-Yi replied. "And now, Sir Thomas, are you prepared to accompany me and Mr. Rolston? There are certain things to be done, and I shall be glad to have you as a witness."

"Anything you like – but what is it?"

"You must remember that the bodies of three dead men await disposal," he replied. "What remains of Zorilla – he fell into the lake on the first stage, though of course he was dead, strangled in mid-air, long before the impact. Then there is Mulligan, who died in defense of the City; finally Sen, the boy from my own province in China, of whose terrible end you are aware."

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"We must keep to our policy of secrecy and noninterference by the outside world. The bodies must be destroyed, and by fire."

I gave a little inward shudder, but I don't think he noticed it, and in a minute more we were dropping to the lower City in a rapid lift.

It was in a furnace-room that provided some of the hot air for the conservatories on the stage above that I witnessed the ghastly and unceremonious finish of the mortal parts of the Spaniard and the Irishman, and it was cruel and sordid to a degree – or so it seemed to me. The long bundle of sacking which contained that which had housed the evil soul of Señor Don Zorilla y Toro – I resisted a bland invitation on the part of a stoker in a blue jumper and a pleased smile to examine the stiff horror – was slung through an iron door into a white and glowing core of flame. There was a clang as the long, steel rods of the firemen pushed it to, and I cannot say that I felt much regret, only a sort of shuddering sickness and relief that the door was closed so swiftly.

But it was different in the case of Mulligan. I blamed Morse in my heart. The man had been strangled when saying his prayers. He was of the millionaire's own religion, and there should have been a priest to assist at these fiery obsequies of a faithful servant. I learned afterwards, I am glad to say, that Morse had not been consulted, and knew nothing about the actual disposal of the bodies until afterwards. You see the shock came – Rolston felt it too – from the fact that these bland and silent Asiatics were utterly without any emotion as they performed their task. They were heathens, worshiping Heaven knows what in their tortuous and secret souls. As poor Mulligan – they had put the body in a coffin and it took eight struggling, sweating Orientals to hoist and slide it into the furnace – vanished from my eyes, I put my hands before my face and said such portions of the Protestant burial service as I remembered, and they were very few.

"They're nasty beasts, aren't they, Sir Thomas?" Rolston whispered, as we fled the furnace room. "Soulless, just like machines!"

We waited for Pu-Yi for a minute or two.

"I thank you, Sir Thomas, and Mr. Rolston," he said in his calm, silky voice. "It was as well that you saw the disposal of the dead, though it is only a remote contingency that there will ever be inquiry. And now, if you wish, I will send you up again. I, myself, must attend to the obsequies of my compatriot."

"Oh," I remarked, and I fear my tone was far from pleasant, "you propose to be rather more ceremonious in the case of the lad, Sen?"

For a single moment I saw that calm and gentle face disturbed. Something looked out of it that was not good to see, but it was gone in a flash. This was the first and last time that I had a shadow of disagreement with the man whose life I had saved and who saved mine in return. It was natural, I think – neither of us was to blame. "East is East and West is West," and there are some points at least at which they can never meet. Poor Pu-Yi! He had as fine an intellect as any man I ever met, and was a great gentleman. I wish I could look upon him once more as I write this, but, though I didn't know it, the sand in the glass was nearly out and our hours together dwindling fast.

We followed him through various twists and turns of the under City, among the huts and storehouses, thronged with silent people – it was like moving in the interior of a hive of bees – until, by means of an archway and a closed door, we emerged in a sort of courtyard surrounded on three sides by buildings. On the fourth was a rail, breast-high, and above and around was open night.

"We can't take his body to China," said our guide. "We must burn it here, and only the ashes will rest in the village of his ancestors. But it is well. Such cases are provided for in my religion."

We then saw that in the center of the yard there was a low funeral pile, apparently of wood. Two men in long, yellow gowns were pouring some liquid over it.

"If you will do me the honor to come this way," said Pu-Yi, and we entered a long, bare room. In the center of this place there was a large square box of painted wood, the lid of which was not yet in place. The body of the dead man was sitting in the box, the hands clasped round the knees. The nose, ears and mouth were filled with vermilion, which, to our Western eyes, gave a horrible, grotesque appearance to the brown, wrinkled mask of the face. Poor Sen's countenance was placid enough, but it was not like that of even a dead man, a fantastic image, rather.

A gong beat with a sudden hollow reverberation, and from another door a file of mourners entered.

At the far end of the room was a table upon which was a painted tablet. "It bears," whispered Pu-Yi, "the name under which Sen enters salvation."

Two men swinging censers stood by the table, and two others, a little nearer the corpse, held bronze bowls of water. First Pu-Yi, and then the other mourners, dipped their hands in the water to purify them, and then, producing paper packets of incense from their bosoms, they threw a pinch into the censers with the right hand and bowed low to the table, retiring backwards. It was all done with the precision of a drill and in absolute silence, and for my part I found it no less ghastly and unreal than the brutal scene in the furnace-room below.

"Come out," I whispered to Rolston, and we reëntered the pure air, walking to the rail at one side of the square.

We leant over. Far, far below, so far that it was sensation rather than vision, was a faint, full glow, the night lights of London, but of the city itself nothing could be seen whatever. Even the burnished ribbon of the Thames had disappeared, and no sound rose from the capital of the world. There was a thin whispering round us as the night breezes blew through steel stay and cantilever, a faint humming noise like that of some gigantic Æolian harp. And once, as we bathed ourselves in the cool, the immensity and the dark, there was a rush of whirring wings, and the "honk-konk" of the wild duck from the great lake fifteen hundred feet below, as they passed in wedge-shaped flight on some mysterious night errand. We leant and gazed, filled with awe and solemnity, until a low, wailing chant and the thin, piercing notes of single-wire-strung violins made us turn to see the square box hoisted on the bier, a torch applied, and a roaring spitting column of yellow flame towering up above the buildings and throwing a ghastly light on a hundred round, mask-like faces, indistinguishable one from the other by European eyes.

As I read now, ten years afterwards, that scene among so many others comes back to me with extraordinary vividness. And it seems to me as I live my English life in honor, tranquillity, and happiness, that it was all a monstrous dream.

Surely – yes, I think I am safe in saying this – there will never again be such a place of horror and fantasy as the City in the Clouds.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I slept that night like a log, untroubled by dreams, and woke late the next morning. It was then that, as the saying is, I got it in the neck. "Wow!" I half-shouted, half-groaned, as I turned to meet the Chinese valet with the morning cup of tea. My whole body seemed one bruise, my joints turned to pith, and, what was worse than all, my brain – a pretty active organ, take it all in all – seemed stuffed with wool.

It was the reaction, only to be expected, as the Richmond doctor said to me some three hours later. For the next two or three days I was to do nothing at all, after my "bad fall," which was the way my state had been explained to him. Whether he believed it or not, I cannot tell. It was certainly odd that Mr. Mendoza Morse, whom he also attended, should be in very much the same state of shock and semi-collapse. But he was a discreet, clean-shaven gentleman, with a comfortable manner, and in the seventh heaven at being admitted to the mysterious City in the Clouds, his eyes everywhere as he was being conducted through its wonders to our bedsides – so Rolston told me afterwards. At any rate, he was right. It was certainly necessary to go slow for a few days, and fortunately, now that the search was over and no trace of Midwinter discovered, we felt we could do this.

The preliminary arrangements for our final effort were left in Rolston's hands, who descended with the doctor, and I did not rise till mid-day.

I met Morse at lunch —piano, and distinctly under the weather from a physical point of view. We neither of us talked of important matters, but enjoyed a stroll round the City during a bright afternoon. At tea-time we met Juanita, and I had a long and happy talk with her. She knew, of course, that the search had proved satisfactory, and – as we had all agreed together – I led her to think that all danger was now practically over. Indeed, as far as Morse and she were concerned, I believed it myself. I knew that there was yet a grim tussle ahead for the rest of us, but that was all. I did not see her at dinner, but took the meal alone in my own house. Rolston was still absent, and as I did not want to talk to any one, failing Juanita, I was quite happy by myself.

About nine o'clock I was rung up on the telephone. Morse spoke. He said he was now thoroughly rested, and was ready for a chat. If I hadn't seen the treasures of the library yet, he and Pu-Yi would be pleased to show them to me. And so, slipping on a coat over my evening clothes, and taking a light cane in my hand, I started out for Grand Square. It was again, I may mention here, a fine and calm night.

My host and the Chinaman were waiting for me in the great, Gothic room, and we inspected the treasures in some of the glass-fronted shelves. I was surprised and delighted to find that my future father-in-law had a real love for, and a considerable knowledge of, books. It was a side of him I had not seen before. I had not connected him with the arts in any way, which, when you come to think of it, was rather foolish. Certainly he had the finest expert advice and help to be found in the whole world in the building of the City in the Clouds. But I should have remembered that the initial conception was his own and that many of the details also came entirely from his brain. Certainly, in his way, Mendoza Morse was a creative artist.

My own collection of books at Stax, my place in Hertfordshire, is, of course, well known, and always mentioned when English libraries are under discussion. But Morse could boast treasures far beyond me. During the last year or two I had been so busy in working up the Evening Special that I had quite neglected to follow the book sales, but I learned now that some of the rarest treasures obtainable had been quietly bought up on Morse's behalf. He had all the folios, and most of the quartos, of Shakespeare, a fine edition of Spenser's "Faërie Queene" with an inscription to Florio, the great Elizabethan scholar; there was Boswell's own copy of Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," with a ponderous Latin inscription in the sturdy old doctor's own hand, and many other treasures as rare, though not perhaps of such popular and general interest.

Pu-Yi made us some marvelous tea in the Chinese fashion, with a sort of ritual which was impressive as he moved about the table and waved his long pale hands. It was of a faint, straw color, with neither sugar, milk, or lemon, and he assured me that it came from the stores of the Forbidden City in Pekin. Certainly, it was nasty enough for anything, and I praised it as I had praised Morse's rose-colored champagne the night before – but with less sincerity.

I don't know if my friend had a touch of homesickness or not, but he began to tell us of his home by the waters of the Yang-Tse-Kiang. His precise and literary English rose and fell in that great room with a singular charm, and though I don't think Morse listened much, he smoked a cigar with great good-humor while Pu-Yi expounded his quaint, Eastern philosophy. We did not refer to the grim scenes of the night before, but something I said turned the conversation to the funeral customs of China.

"Indeed, Sir Thomas," said Pu-Yi, "the death of a man of my nation may be said to be the most important act of his whole life. For then only can his personal existence be properly considered to begin."

This seemed a somewhat startling proposition, and I said so, but he proceeded to explain. I shall not easily forget his little monologue, every word of which I remember for a very sad and poignant reason. Well, he knows all about it now, and I hope he is happy.

"It is in this way," he said. "By death a man joins the great company of ancestors who are, to us, people of almost more consequence than living folk, and of much more individual distinction. It is then at last," he continued, delicately sipping his tea, "that the individual receives that recognition which was denied him in the flesh. Our ancestors are given a dwelling of their own and devotedly reverenced. This, I know, will seem strange to Western ears, but believe me, honorable sir, the cult is anything but funereal. For the ancestral tombs are temples and pleasure pavilions at the same time, consecrated not simply to rites and ceremonies, but to family gatherings and general jollification."

This was quite a new view to me, and certainly interesting. I said so, and Pu-Yi smiled and bowed.

"And the fortunate defunct," he went on, "if he is still half as sentient as his dutiful descendants suppose, must feel that his earthly life, like other approved comedies, has ended well!"

His voice was sad, but there was a faint, malicious mockery in it also, and as I looked at him with an answering smile to his own, I wondered whether that keen and subtle brain really believed in the customs of his land. That he would be studious and rigid in their outward observance, I knew.

I never met, as I have said before, a more courteous gentleman than Pu-Yi.

"Ever been in South Germany?" said Morse suddenly – he had evidently been pursuing a train of his own thought while the Chinaman held forth.