On The Knees Of The Gods
by J. Allan Dunn
Illustrated by Manuel Rey Isip
Originally published in Unknown, January 1940
Part 1
Peter Brent, American, steps through a laurel ... hedge in modern Greece--and is in the days of the gods! First of a three-part serial.
PETER BRENT of Brooklyn, New York, stood upon the left bank of the Eurotas River and looked across the dawn-tinted stream to Sparta.
He gazed at the modern city, but in his soul and mind he visioned the ancient one, founded by Lacedaemon, son of Zeus and Taygete, the home of the warrior race that exposed all weakly, children to the elements at birth:
Peter was gypsying through Greece, a born rover, with archaeology as his hobby, a song in his heart, and an especial yen for the glory that had once been Greece.
He had vagabonded to Athens on shoestring, working as under steward on a freighter, going ashore at Peiraeeus, and forgetting to return aboard. He missed little in Athens, either in the relics of its ancient splendor or in certain adventures encountered, because Peter, both by choice and necessity, was not living in hotel luxury, but much closer to the lower order of the town, studying its ways, picking up a smattering of the language.
Of ancient Greek he knew little. His high-school education had been supplemented by Columbia. But his main knowledge of the classics was through translations of Homer.
Now he was actually in the land of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and his spirit sang within him.
Peter's "shoestring" was lengthened occasionally by payment for travel articles. He had actually made some discoveries that ranked high for an amateur archaeologist as he styled himself. There was, or there should be, a check waiting for him at Sparta. He hoped it would be around sixty dollars, but knew it more likely to be forty.
Forty dollars went a long way with a chap who lived frugally. Right now he had about a hundred drachmas, currently supposed to be worth nineteen-odd dollars-gold standard. It was what was left of his pay from the freighter, less the passage charged him by the skipper of the trading felucca, in which he had traveled from Peiraeeus to Gythium-ancient and modern port of Sparta-at the head of the Laconian Gulf.
It was rated twenty-seven miles from Gythium to Sparta. Peter had made it between dawn and twilight, camped on the left bank amid the ruined foundations and potsherds of the original. Sparta—the once compact, triangular, fortified city of the Mycenean Period.
He had been tired, but he had rested well, stirred rather than destroyed by his dreams of the Arcadia he meant to visit after he had looked Cover Sparta and seen the statue of the warrior of the fifth century before Christ, when Sparta was at the height of its power. The statue had not long been unearthed in the discovery of the theater built around the altar, and before the temple, of Artemis Orthia.
Such things, to Peter, were not museum relics; they were symbols of the Golden Age, imbued with a virility that brought him in actual contact with the days when gods walked with men--media through which he seemed to live in the past so vividly that, at times, he felt certain he had been here before.
Nobody was about. He was hungry and he made his breakfast of cheese and ham and oaten cakes, washed down with light wine that was stimulating and a bit heady.
Peter did not call himself a poet. His verses were unpublished like the tunes he played on the whistle he always carried in his pack. The air he played fitted the words he carried in his head. They made up Peter's philosophy:
I encounter my life as I find it,
Accepting the right with the wrong,
If trouble comes, little mind it,
But whittle it down with a song.
It was a lively little tune, and the girl who was coming from the vineyard close by with a basket of ripe grapes, paused to listen, and approve, both of the air and the whistler.
PETER was tall and lean and redheaded. His features were not classic, according to the Greek ideal, but they pleased the girl, as they had pleased others before her-and would again.
Calixta, herself, was good to look at-and she knew it—though she was not immodest. She went barefoot, but she was above the rank of peasant.
She was a smart girl, and she picked Peter, first for a foreigner, and then for an American. She had heard talk of Americans from relatives and friends who had other friends and relatives in the United States, which was to Calixta a land of vast wonders and wealth.
This was the first American she had seen in the flesh. She liked him. Peter looked her way and smiled at the picture she made. Calixta smiled back. Youth called to youth, blue eyes met the glance of brown, a bridge was set up between them, on which they met, without speaking.
Until Peter said, in Greek she understood, though she crinkled her nose in mirth at his accent:
"Good morning." He caught most of her return greeting. She offered him a bunch of grapes, pointed to his whistle, chattered too fast for him to follow. But he got the idea.
He ate a few of the luscious grapes, cool and sweet. Then he played her a tune. Not one of his own, but a favorite. "Kerry Dance." It made a hit with her. She said so. Peter put a grape between her lips.
She did not swallow it but held up her mouth, and they shared the grape--and the kiss-between them.. Peter considered it a most satisfactory combination that had come about quite naturally.
A call came from the vineyard. A small urchin, herding two milch goats, appeared. There was a jeer in his voice that Peter recognized as the international jibe of the "younger brother." The girl flushed redder than the dawn had shown, her eyes snapped.
"That is my brother," she said. "I must go. He talks too much of what he does not understand. Perhaps I shall see you again."
Peter got the gist of what she said.
He knew the Greek word for perhaps, and repeated it.
She went off with the boy, with plenty to say to him. The boy was not backward with teasing retort. They disappeared in the vines and Peter began to pack his duffel, preparatory to crossing the bridge into the city.
Sparta was beginning to awaken. He passed several men on the bridge who looked at him curiously and incuriously. Some of them looked like laborers, some like brigands. There was a certain swank and swagger to their port that made Peter think that Roman rule and Turkish ruin had not yet adulterated or downed the fighting spirit and the pride of the warrior race.
The water of the Eurotas ran swiftly toward the sea. Peter lit a cigarette, leaned upon the parapet, gazing north to Arcadia, land of his dreams, land of the fig and olive, of golden asphodel and sacred laurel groves. Land of Hermes and Artemis, and of Pan!
Pan was Peter's favorite among the old Greek gods. He felt an affinity for him. He and Pan, he thought, in American slang, would have "talked the same language.” Pan seemed to have gone along much as Peter did, without worry of the future or care for what might lie at the end of the road.
Farther north, Mount Olympus lifted ten thousand feet above the sea, rock-ribbed and helmeted with snow. Not far away was Thermopylae, where Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans had held off Xerxes and his army of seven thousand. This was the land of heroes, where the gods were not forgotten, where, in some dimension of their own to which in these delinquent days mortals were not admitted, they still lived.
He tossed the butt of the cigarette into the churning current and went on to Sparta.
HERE in the suburbs, the poorer quarter, women looked out of windows or stood in doorways, gossiping before they started their daily tasks. A boy came along leading a mouse-colored donkey that had a strip of blue cloth tied in its halter Peter knew that meant it was for sale.
A man, lounging outside a tavern, called to the boy who stopped and held the halter rope as the man strode across. The man snatched the rope out of the boy's hand, talking roughly. Peter's knowledge of Greek vernacular did not include many oaths, but he could tell the man was using them.
The boy protested, clinging to the halter with one hand, the other about the donkey's neck. A small crowd began to gather from no where, looking on, amused, with no attempt to interfere. Peter joined them.
He did not like the look of the man who had grabbed the rope. He was tall and fierce-looking, with a
long scar that sloped back under a black skullcap. He roared at the boy, who stood his ground, fearful i but resolute. The man had handlebar mustachios, a mean mouth.
"What is it?" Peter asked the man next to him.
"He claims the boy stole the donkey from him. He is no doubt a liar as well as a drunkard. It is he who wishes to steal the donkey."
Peter felt a tickling of his scalp under the red, crisp hair.
The kid was being bullied and bilked. Never long on discretion when roused by any sort of tyranny, Peter forgot he was a stranger in a strange land, and that the crowd, so apathetic interfere now about the rights of the youngster, would surely join against the foreigner if he mixed in.
The kid was scared' but plucky, He looked at the tall alien with appeal and a glint of hope. Peter mustered up his phrase-book Greek. He had picked up some more from the sailors on the felucca.
“This is your donkey?” he asked.
"It belongs to my mother. I must sell it, for we are poor. There is no food in the house."...
"Let go that rope," Peter said to the man, who bellowed at him. The scar went livid. He called Peter something that needed no translation. He tore at the boy's grip on the halter, and when the boy, tears on his grimy but determined face, resisted, he struck him hard with the back of his hand.
Peter went into action, forsaking uncertain words. He hooked the mustachioed. Spartan on his unshaven jaw and sent him staggering back, letting go of the rope. Hoarse murmurs came from the crowd. The Spartan snarled, mustachios bristling. He came out of a crouch in a lithe leap, a knife gleaming in his hand.
Peter side-stepped. As the other passed, Peter vised his wrist, forcing his arm back and up, bent at the elbow, twisted it between his shoulder blades, in a hammerlock that made the man yell with pain and rage. He was helpless, his arm in danger of being broken. The knife fell to the rough paving of the street and Peter kicked it away.
He let the man's arm go with a shove and kicked him so that he fell sprawling on hands and knees, and Peter kicked him again.
Now he saw the faces all about him, ringing him in, angry. The Spartan got up and flung himself at Peter, arms circling, knee ready to drive into Peter. He was a big man, active as a cat, but a bit flabby. Peter got inside the arms, put him off balance with a straight left full on the mouth, crossed with his right and knocked him down again. The mob closed in, shoving at him.
A stocky man came pushing through the crowd, talking fast and authoritatively. He stood beside Peter, between him and the Spartan, who was being helped to his feet, his squashed lips dripping blood, spitting out a broken tooth. The stocky man spoke too fast for Peter to more than guess that here was an unexpected champion, with a gift for words, an air of authority.
He had a short beard, well trimmed, a slim mustache. He was wearing an almost sleeveless' shirt, drill pants, and sandals. He pointed an imperative finger at the Spartan, then at others he selected, who shrank away from his tirade, slinking off. Finally he settled down to ticking off Peter's adversary, who shrugged his shoulders and walked off, back to the tavern, which he entered, three or four following him.
The bearded man spoke to Peter in good American.
"Better clear out of here." Come into the café. You trimmed that skunk, but he's got friends. I know a thing or two about him. Plucky of you, but damn foolish in this end of town."
Peter blew on his knuckles. He had cut them against the Spartan's teeth. He was glad over what he had done but he saw the wisdom of the other's talk, now that his righteous indignation began to cool off.
"Wait a minute,” he said. "How much does the kid want for the donkey?"
The other spoke to the boy: "He asks fifty drachmas. It's too much."
Peter counted out half his store, gave it to the boy, who raced off, voluble with thanks, leaving Peter standing in the middle of the street with the tie rope in his hand, feeling a little foolish.
"What are you going to do with it," the other asked.
Peter grinned. "I don't know."
“Might be able to help you out with it. There's a yard back of the café. We can tie it up while we eat."
PETER took coffee while they talked. The name of the stocky man. was Burton. He was an artist, commissioned by a Greek owner of a chain of restaurants in New York and other cities to decorate the walls of the cafés with murals.
"I'm here to make the sketches," he said. "Lycurgus is doing well and he is remodeling. He wants the paintings to be of certain views he's chosen, wants 'em right. I'm half Greek myself, on my mother's side. She was born in Sparta. They know me here. That's why they listened to me. That loafer you laid out is a no-good. The police have their eyes on him. Mixed up in smuggling-probably dope. He may try to gang up on you. Where are you staying?”
"Nowhere.” Peter went on to tell about himself. Burton was a good egg. He listened attentively.
"If you want to go up into Arcadia," he said, "we might go together. Take along a tent and camp truck-on your donkey. There's a place from which I want to paint Olympus. And there's something up there in your line. A shrine of Hermes, ruined, of course, but the statue of the god is there, fallen, holding a lyre."
"A lyre?” Peter's voice was eager. Almost every statue of Hermes either held the infant Dionysus on one arm, or grasped the staff of office that proclaimed him herald to the gods. This sounded worth while.
A shrine of Hermes, dedicated to him as the inventor of the cithara, the seven-stringed lyre made from the shell of a tortoise, was something to write home about. More than that, Peter wanted to see it for himself, for something within him tugged.
· "That suits me fine," he said. "When would you start?”
"Tomorrow, if it's all right with you. We'll get our stuff together today. We'll camp out, but we can get supplies here and there as we go along. You don't mind walking? Takes longer."
"I'm a born tramp, and I love to camp," Peter told him.
"I've my rooms upstairs. Let's go up. You'll stay here with me tonight-and stay indoors after dark. That smuggler, Tatanis, might be hanging round with some of his pals. Knives in the dark are hard to dodge."
Peter said: "I've got to go to the post office."
"Then I'll go with you. And we can buy what we want to take along."
There was no mail for Peter at the Poste Restante. It did not bother him. It would be there when they got back. Should be, anyway. His only fear was that he could not hold up his share of the camping trip's expense.
"I have the tent. You've furnished the donkey," Burton said. “We won't have to spend more than a few dollars apiece. What shall we call the jackass? What's its name?"
"The jackass! Oh, call it Ajax." Peter was primed with good will, looking forward to the jaunt, the shrine of Hermes.
Back in Burton's rooms over the café, Peter smoked while he watched - the artist going over canvases, preparing his kit. Peter did not consider himself an--art critic, but he saw that Burton could paint with excellent color, drawing and fidelity.
They had the noon meal together, the food good, the owner of the place more than friendly to Peter when he heard of the trip. He toasted them in Greek absinthe he produced for the occasion. It seemed that Peter's encounter with the smuggling Tatanis was the talk of the quarter. .
The owner tapped Peter on the chest impressively. “Make an early start do not go out after dark, my friend. This Tatanis is a brigand.
To do this”—he swept his finger across his throat—"he would think nothing."
Peter laughed. He did not expect to let Tatanis dictate his movements. The greatest stretch of his imagination did not reach to the event that was to spur their departure.
THAT happened after supper. Like all cafés in Sparta, the place was as much club as restaurant. Men sat about and talked politics and war, sipping absinthe or coffee, smoking until the room was pokey.
Burton and Peter, with the owner and a crony of the latter—some vague relative of Burton's mother —were in a corner, facing the door when a small boy looked in. Peter vaguely thought he had seen him before but did not place him until the boy pointed directly at him. That prompted his memory. It was the boy with the two goats, the brother of the girl who had given him the grapes.
Even then he had no idea of what was in the wind.
It all proceeded with a sort of “ ceremony that was pompous, ridiculous, but clearly in earnest. One elderly man, bald, flanked by two younger ones with their, black hair slicked back like polished leather, ranged themselves solemnly in front of the table, bowed and then stiffened. .
They were all dressed in blue serge, they had yellow shoes with pointed toes, and red neckties. Two had mustaches they stroked with an air that Peter thought they fancied arrogant, fixing their eyes upon him.
The bald man made him an harangue of which Peter understood less than a quarter.
"If he's talking to me," he said to Burton, "you'd better act as interpreter. Does Tatanis want to fight a duel?"
"It's worse than that. At least I'd think so. He says that you can speak Greek, Peter-enough, it appears, to have compromised his daughter-”
"To have what?”
"Tell me your end of it later. He is here to demand that you marry the girl, Calixta. He regrets that he cannot give her much dowry save her beauty and her virtue—which he hints you have cast a slight upon-but he feels that you; as an American, and therefore a man of wealth, will not mind that. He honestly believes you've got plenty of money, Peter, or that you have a family that can supply it. Just what did happen?"
Peter and Burton, with their swift American talk, were as much aloof from the crowd as if they had been apart-and-Peter was glad of it. He wanted to laugh, but he saw that all the rest in the room were taking the matter very seriously. Burton had a twinkle growing in his eyes as he listened.
"Didn't you know that to share a grape, with its wine juice, like that, is practically a betrothal, Peter. Custom of the country, at least in these parts. And when you did it, the fair Calixta naturally thought you meant it."
"I don't believe she thinks any thing of the kind. It—it just happened naturally—"
"Such things do," said Burton dryly.
"It was that brat of a brother of hers who spilled it. What do I do now? I'm not going to marry her, or any other girl. Hang it all, Burton, she's a sweet kid, but—"
Burton winked at him. “Keep your shirt on. I shall tell them that you will consider the matter, especially the lack of dowry.
And they shall come for their answer at this time tomorrow. I will tell the i straight of it to the owner. He will explain that you are miserably poor. When you come back you can make her-or them-a gift. In the meantime an early start is indicated.”
AT DAWN, Burton, Peter, and Ajax, the jackass, were well into the hills.
"It's your red hair, Peter. Do you often get into scrapes like that?”
Peter reddened. He knew Burton was kidding. There had been other girls, there would probably be more. Peter's private creed was a belief in getting all he could out of life—without harming anybody.
"She isn't really compromised, is she?” he asked.
"Not a bit. Her old man thought you might have some money. Her elder brothers were being dramatic. You were just a bit too much of a public figure for the time being. Now you retire into private life"
"I hope," grinned Peter, unable to read the future, save in certain hunches, that did not serve him now.
"All will be forgiven and forgotten," Burton said. “How's for breakfast?"
They had left too early for anything but a cup of coffee laced with absinthe. Their appetites were mounting. They ate heartily while Ajax grazed and larks, sang above them.
Peter leaned back against a rock and took out his whistle.
“Good tune, that,” said Burton.
“I've heard it before. What is it?”
Peter sang a few words in a husky but true and tuneful baritone:
"Oh the days of the Kerry dancin', Oh the croon of the piper's tune. Oh the sheen of the bright eyes glancin'—"
"Irish, are you?” asked Brent. "On my mother's side.”
"That accounts for it.” Burton did not particularize. He lit his pipe and Peter a cigarette as they got to their feet, bound for Arcadia.
II.
THE green-and-gold-enameled head of a lizard thrust itself out from a crevice of the ancient, crumbled shrine. Its bright eyes glittered. It leered out a flickering tongue at Peter before it raced with flirting tail to the mutilated statue of Hermes that lay prone in the long grass and leafy herbage.
Peter had à curious feeling that he had been in this spot before. The lizard seemed to wink at him as if they shared a secret. And Peter sensed some sort of vague kinship with the cheeky little saurian. In them both flowed the mysteries of life and time. Their beginnings, after all, were not so very far apart.
He regarded the fallen statue with something stirring within him, like water in a spring. It was not hard for him to imagine that Zeus still held court of high Olympus, that Pan might be rousing from his noonday siesta in some nearby thicket.
He heard, or thought he heard, faint music, infinitely sweet and mellow.
You have been here before, Peter. Don't you remember?
He tried to remember, to answer the prompting of the inner voice. The air was sweet with the balm of basil and bay. Time seemed to stand still. What was Time?—he asked himself. A man-made term
Creeping shadows slowly shifted, sunshine gilded the rim of the crevice where the lizard had appeared. It was still watching him from the shoulder of Hermes. It seemed to regard him cynically, almost as if it pitied him for his denseness, his inability to understand something the lizard was trying to get across to him as if the lizard were the guardian spirit of the shrine.
Then, as the sunshine dropped deeper into the crevice, he saw something gleaming there, creamy-white, polished-like the process of a bone, a knuckle, or it might be marble.
Peter took the pocket flash, that was part of his equipment in his research prowlings, and switched it on. It had a powerful, adjustable lens, triple batteries that were practically new. The white ray dived deeper than the sunbeam. The object was not a bone
He fished his hand carefully into the narrow rift and brought out the ivory carving of a horse. It was about seven inches in height, almost as long. The body was merely a cylinder, the rest of it amazingly modernistic. It would have been hailed as very "neo" by the surrealists. Peter knew it was all of twenty-five hundred years old, more likely twenty-seven.
It had been placed upon this shrine of Hermes as an offering by someone craving the favor of the Ready Helper. Back in the days when Homer smote his lyre and told of deeds: by land and sea.
Hermes had toppled, the altar of the shrine had weathered, cracked. This little ivory hippos had fallen into the crack.
And Peter, standing there, gazing at it, was smitten with the thought or was it a memory?—that it was he who had once placed it there.
It was evasive, that memory, evasive as the tie-up with the fluty music that came again, blithe and uplifting.
Remembrance failed to click. Peter forgot the music as he took' a camel's-hair brush from his pocket and delicately, tenderly dusted off the ivory figurine. It might, he thought, have been made in Sparta, Crete, or Delos. Someone had seen it displayed on a stand in the agora and bought it for an offering.
It might have been he. It seemed a talisman, but the vibrations that made it part of past and present did not erect any bridge upon which Peter's memory could cross.
It's a shame I can't rub you, like Aladdin and his lamp, and get transported back to those days, little horse! So Peter apostrophized the hippos as it lay in the palm of his hand. He did not speak aloud..
To get back to the glory that was Greece. That was the age in which to live, little horse. Not these days of war and greed, of the destruction of cities, of wanton slaughter. That was the age—the Golden Age of women and fair combat, of wine and song, of love and bold adventure.
He thought of gracious gods and goddesses who held the affairs of men upon their knees, like 'playthings. He remembered lines, from Byron. In general he thought Byron a bit-sappy, but the poet had lived in and loved this land.
The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
There came a sudden flourish of the haunting music close by. A hearty voice said.
“Well thought, mortal. Well thought, indeed!”
Thought? Peter had said nothing aloud. Who-what-had read his thoughts?
· He, hadn't seen the laurel hedge before. Now he saw it was of great height and density; it had evidently been planted-rather than grown naturally-a long, long time ago, though its glossy leaves and twining boughs had been kept clipped. He couldn't see. over or through it.
"Who is there?” he asked. The voice broke into jocund laughter.
If you would know, if you will seek without fear, and with belief—come through the laurel.”
"I have no fear, I do believe." Peter was not sure whether he made this credo to himself, or to the Voice, whose owner claimed to read his thoughts.
The thick growth began to shrink upon itself, left and right, until there was revealed a bowery archway, just high enough and wide enough to admit him-a short tunnel of laurel, the mystic, sacred shrub, symbol of protection and purification.
Beyond the archway there shone a rosy radiance, like that of dawn. Peter put 'the brush, the light and the ivory horse in his pockets.
He went through the laurel.
As he went the laurel rustled back like a folding screen, impenetrable.
And there was Pan-in person!
PAN sat on a rock the elements had rudely fashioned to a throne, padded with deep mosses. The god was at his ease, hospitable. His bronzed, muscular torso was draped with a fine sheepskin about his loins, blending with the shagginess of his goatish legs and hoofs. His ears were sharp, his horns curved above them, flat to his head."
He was bearded like the chief of all the satyrs that he was. His eyes were yellow iris, large and intensely black of pupil. A god who liked his roguery, fond of his nectar, his ambrosia, and his amours. Kindly and not unhandsome, with a winning smile as he bade Peter be seated.
Peter took the stone that was pointed out. He was not feeling awed. More as if Pan and he were old acquaintances.
"Your name, mortal?"
"Peter Brent." Peter reflected that it would be Petros in Greek, but he did not know if they were speaking Greek or not. Certainly they understood each other. It must be Pan, speaking good English. Naturally the gods understood all mortal languages. He let it go at that.
"I heard your apostrophe, Peter. I cannot say I admired the verse so greatly. The meter lacked the swing of Homer. But the thought was there, and the wish. There are fairer isles than Delos.
As for Sappho of Lesbos, to me, she writes jerkily and of foolish matters. But the word 'burning' strikes the mark. As for selecting Phoebus, my mighty uncle has too many names. He lets those nine wenches who style themselves the Muses trail him around. He thinks he is the only one who ever made music. Did he not flay Marsyas alive for presuming to. compete with him? I, Pan, am a far better musician than Apollo, even as is my father, Hermes.”
Pan picked up his pipes.
"I heard you playing just now, I think," said Peter. "Upon your pipes."
"My pipes? "Tis' true they are reeds, plucked-where Syrinx, the coy nymph, called to the gods for help, fleeing from my arms, who would have honored her. It was a rare joke on Syrinx.
They took her at her word and changed her to a reed. I have been told that the music. I thus make is sweeter than that of the lyre of my uncle, Phoebus—Apollo."
"I am sure it is," said Peter politely.
"I call this after her, Syrinx." Pan held out the instrument.
"In my country they call it Panpipes,” Peter said.
"They do? Now, by my sheep-hook, that sounds well! So, I am not forgotten? The great Pan is not dead.”
"That tune you were playing just now. That also is immortal. It is a great favorite with us." Peter had just remembered the name of the melody. "No doubt it is your composition?”
"Without doubt. Aeolus, or his four airy children, sometimes give me inspiration, as they fly to do the bidding of the gods. I hear them in the rustling of the reeds, the leaves.
I am composing a tune to Pitys, a dryad who lives in a pine tree. When the air is completed I shall play it to her and she will come out of the tree. But you say you 'know the tune I just now played. Let me hear it."
PETER took out his whistle and played the tune with gusto. It all came back to him. It was merely the strangeness of the surroundings that had thrown him off at first. For the tune that was immortal was also known to modern mortals as “The Kerry Dance." Peter gave it a sprightly rendition while Pan looked first amazed, then delighted.
"It is true that the tune is a good one,” said the goat god complacently. "No wonder it has lasted. It has not been changed a note. Can't you see the reeds shaking and dancing in the wind? You have a good ear."
The god stood up, -inflating his muscular chest. He set the syrinx to his bearded lips and breathed across the reeds, not blowing into them.
The result was pure genius, inspiration derived from the natural harmonies of the terrestrial sphere. The croon of wind, the patter of rain, flow of water, bird calls; blended into perfect rendition.
Pan piped like a true artist, oblivious to all but his music. Peter found the masterpiece vaguely familiar also. Gradually he identified the interwoven theme as identical with that of Debussy's “Afternoon of a Faun."
Who gets the real credit?-he asked himself. Were such melodies public domain these days? Had Debussy's kin genius picked it out of the cycled ether through which it vibrated eternally, in accord with Einstein's theory of the bent rays, that made all time relative?
Pan, intent upon his playing, was not reading Peter's thoughts. The trend of them was confusing. It suggested that both Pan and Peter might be existent, simultaneously. Peter felt they had much in common. He slid off into mental chaos, speculating whether their meeting—even the combination of the names, Peter and Pan, of Peter Pan—was—more than a coincidence. Providing anything was as it now seemed.
This gave him a headache, and he dismissed the problem, praising the masterpiece with sincerity.
"Why did you invite me through the laurel?” he asked.
Pan stretched himself at length; scratching the back of an ear with a hoof. He looked at Peter whimsically.
"Why did you come to Peloponessus?" he countered.
"I was born with what we call a roving foot, I suppose.”
"And I with a roving hoof. I remember, when I was much younger, a mere kid, so to speak, I wandered far. You and I have much in common, I think. Your dress is strange to me. Doubtless you come from a far-off land. Tell me, is there war or peace with you?”
"Peace at present, great Pan." Peter saw the adjective was acceptable: "That is in my own country. But there is war among others. And we never know when we may get mixed up in trouble ourselves. There is always war going on some place."
"There must be. Otherwise, you mortals would become too numerous to exist. Tell me of the trouble that is brewing. Are men good fighters nowadays? Do they have strange machines? Our Greeks and Romans were mighty warriors, but their weapons were simple."
"Save for the Trojan horse," said Peter, and saw he had scored. "With us there are now two men, one a Goth, the other a Roman, who esteem themselves highly, and who use strange devices, such as poison gas.”
"A foul way to fight, to my mind."
“Both of these men seem to be somewhat mad, Pan."
"Ha! 'Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad!' You seem well informed for a stripling and a mortal. They tell me you have learned the art of Daedalus, and made machines in which to fly. I have seen such machines in the sky. Sometimes Zeuz brings them down when he is in the mood for flinging thunderbolts. For myself, I do not bother with these matters. They are on the knees of the high gods, and while it is true that I am in high favor upon Olympus, I am but a demigod at best."
His humility was plainly assumed. Peter sought for a fitting response, but Pan spared him.
"It will be well if you appear before Zeus before he thinks of you. He is, of course, aware of your arrival, knowing all things, but you may not have entered actively into his thoughts. He is, I fear, somewhat distraught at present with all—Pan grinned and winked—"a temporary domestic disturbance."
I hope, thought Peter, Zeus does not chuck a thunderbolt at me, just to keep his hand in.
Then he realized he had to be careful about his thinking. It was plain that Pan could read his mind.
"Have no fear, Peter. I myself will present you, and speak well of you. He will, of course, set you a task.”
Peter felt his lower jaw sag. “A task?"
"It is his custom. It has always been his custom to set tasks to test both immortals and mortals. All mortals are the playthings of the gods but, if you acquit yourself well, you will be rewarded. Otherwise
"Otherwise?” Peter did not like the "otherwise."
"No doubt you will die. I trust a swift death and an easy one. The punishment of mortals is brief. It may be that I shall be able to aid you, though not too openly,'nor too much. I have taken a fancy to you, Peter."
“Thanks, great Pan.”
One paid a price for going through the laurel. Peter hoped it would be worth the cost of admission, and that the cost would not be too dear. He wondered how he was going to get to Olympus. Transportation methods were likely to be novel, to say the least of it.
Pan considered him with a little frown puckering between his horns.
"I am weighing the proper dose," he said. "Nectar and ambrosia are drink and food to the gods. If Zeus chooses to give them to you, and thus bestow immortality, that is his privilege. There have been times when even I, the great god Pan, have wished I were mortal. But it will be necessary for you to partake of small quantities, and even I would not dare to usurp the privilege of Zeus..
"They are potent. When Themis, the mother of my uncle, Apollo who also styles himself Phoebus and Helios-gave him his first taste of them, he burst his swaddling clothes and stood up full-grown, already demanding his lyre and bow. I must be careful with you. It will be in the nature of an experiment." The god frowned-more deeply, went into a deep study, scratching his fleecy flank.
"I have it,” he said at last. "I shall anoint you with ambrosia, rather than let you eat it. A mere : lap of nectar will be sufficient, I hope."
FROM back of his rocky chair Pan brought a chalice of bright metal, on which a design of grapes and vine leaves and tendrils was chased in high relief. Next an urn with a lid, and two handles representing dolphins. Then a jar, on which fauns and nymphs were dancing, painted on what seemed opaque glass.
He held up the urn.
"A gift to me, from Amphitrite, wife to Poseidon," he said with a smirk that brought to Peter's mind tales of the love life of the gods, with Zeus the past master of such affairs. "We are good friends," Pan went on. "It may be that that will help in the task Zeus sets you. One never knows when a woman will come in useful. Have you much acquaintance with women, Peter?”
"I've never made a habit of it." Peter remembered Calixta. "I roam too much, I suppose. I've had my fun and try not to give anybody the worst of it. We have a saying that a sailor has a girl in every port—"
"Good! I must tell Odysseus."
"I don't take them too seriously," Peter went on.
"I'm not ready to choose one and settle down. Most of them are either too frivolous or too much the other way. I suppose I'll get tied up some day. But I'm in no hurry to be moored to any woman's apron strings."
"That is an apt expression. But if one must wed, it may well be wiser to have only one. True, the consorts of Zeus do not all have the jealousy of Hera, who esteems herself the first of them. His dalliance with earth brides are of slight consequence to them. For myself, I. love and leave. Once in a while one gets away from me. That may be a blessing in disguise." He picked up his syrinx, sighed and set it down.
Carefully he poured out his idea of a “lap" of nectar. “This will tinge your mortal blood with ichor, Peter. Don't let it go to your head."
Peter took the chalice, downed the sup of golden liquid.
Instantly he seemed to lose all sense of gravity. It was as if he soared high in the ether, while his veins throbbed with ecstasy. A myriad suns appeared to revolve about him in a celestial saraband. There was the mighty strain of some Aeolian organ pealing through space. Slowly the glory died down. He was on the ground once more, tingling with vigor in body, mind and spirit.
Pan was looking anxious but suddenly grinned. "I was afraid I might have overdone it, Peter. Now for the unguent. Take off your clothing."
He opened the box, and a fragrance that was nothing but divine stole upon Peter's senses, drugging him so that he was barely conscious of Pan commencing to anoint him. The rosy glow faded out. He sank into a blissful oblivion.
III
PETER roused as Pan shook him by the shoulder. He looked up and saw the steady, golden stars in a sky of purple, soft as velvet. Pan's breath came to him, laden with the fumes of wine.
Peter sat up and looked about him. They were in a tiny alpine valley—a green-bottomed cup of the mountains. Its sides reared up to great masses of granite, high scarps and frowning buttresses, soaring cliffs that were riven and pitted.
Steep slopes were clothed with trees in serried ranks. There were canyons and chasms, overhanging walls of twisted strata, rough and uneven.
He lifted his eyes to the glory of a dazzling crest. Light seemed to come through the crystal cape of snow that ermined the high shoulders of Olympus. All about it luminous mists trailed in strange shapes, that now, and then seemed to hold definite form and then dissolved again in glinting vapors.
There was one majestic, brooding shape that appeared to be seated upon the very summit of the sacred mount. It blotted out the stars,cosmic. Every little while lightning fulminated behind the mysterious bulk, livid flares of levin, through which shot forked javelins of dazzling flame, while thunder boomed and rolled like the discharge of celestial artillery.
Peter got to his feet, awed and fearful. The air seemed dynamic, the great rocks pulsing with the power that emanated from the dread figure that, must be Zeus.
"How big is he?" he asked Pan.
Pan chuckled. The sound was comforting. Again Peter caught the heavy fragrance of wine, of crushed grapes. Pan had been imbibing something beside nectar. He hiccuped slightly as he answered.
"Just as big as you think he is, Peter. As big as your courage.”
Now, as Peter gazed, his eyes seemed to gain a better focus. He felt the strength of the lap of nectar still sustaining him. Now the luminous, swirling shapes took plainer form, the figures of women clad in iridescent robes. "
His will seemed turning the screw that adjusted the lenses of powerful binoculars. The form of Zeus compacted, lessened. The lightning paled, the flaming javelins ceased their jagged radiation.
He saw Zeus. Pan laid a hand on Peter's shoulder.
“He is peevish,” said Pan, “but the mood passes."
A wind rushed down the mountain like the expulsion of a mighty breath. The dark woods bowed before it and it passed on. An eagle came out of the starry void and circled above the oak-crowned head of the overlord of Olympus—Zeus the Thunderer.
He looked to Peter like Michael Angelo's statue of Moses, come to life. His hair was long and curly, so was the beard he plucked as he gave a sidelong glance at the nearest of the female figures, standing with folded arms, her face beautiful but severe, her black brows frowning.
Zeus was majestic, but into Peter's head there came the thought that he was uneasy, as if he might be a henpecked monarch, fearful of his consort's displeasure. For all his stately port there seemed at this moment something of the small boy about him, a child that sulked-a pout behind the curving mustache.
Pan's fingers-closed on his shoulder. Pan chuckled again. Peter realized that his thoughts had been read again. He had to be careful, to set a guard on them. This time it was all right. Pan was not offended. . .
“You are right, Peter, but be careful. Hera is in a sour mood. I fear me Zeus has been playing truant. He has shown his fiery temper and now he is cooling down, knowing he is in the wrong. Now he will be thinking how to appease Hera. After all he has to live with her."
"Don't you think it would be better if I came back some other time, great Pan?”
"You might not get far. Zeus I could bring you down with a thunderbolt quicker than he did Phaethon when he tried to drive the chariot of Phoebus. There would be nothing left of you but a cinder, Peter, perhaps not that. He knows we are here. To leave would make you an excuse, a target, for his anger
to vent itself upon. Fear not, I will i mediate for thee, Peter."
Peter trusted Pan was a good mediator. But he was in for it. He wished he had another lap of nectar.
Here was adventure indeed.
A SHINING being leaped into the air from beside the throne of Zeus. It wore winged sandals, a wide rimmed-hat, also winged, and bore a staff wreathed with serpents. Peter knew it must be Hermes. He was naked save for a narrow girdle. He landed on the rimrock of a cliff that towered above the little dell.
"Who comes to high Olympus? What mortal approaches?”
"It is my honored parent," Pan said. "He knows I'm with you, but he likes to go through the forms and ceremonies. Stay where you are."
Pan lifted his syrinx and breathed a flourish through the reeds.
"It is I, Pan, thy son. I come.”
Peter stayed where he was very willingly. He had no desire to get closer to Zeus or Hera, who probably thought less of the life of a mortal than Peter would of that of an ant.
He was a bit worried about Pan. Pan might not be drunk, but he had a bit more than he could handle.
He lurched as he started away; playing on his pipes: His wind was good. Peter saw him go in prodigious leaps, bounding among the crags, making his way to where the herald of the gods awaited him.
Peter began to feel the glow of. the nectar dying down. Again the shapes lost definite outline, the form of Zeus became amorphous.
Peter felt hungry. He began to wonder what he would do for nourishment, in this bourn where nectar and ambrosia fed the gods but were save in Pan's laps and unguent, denied him.
It grew cold and he huddled up, wishing with all his heart for a cigarette. He remembered leaving his tobacco pouch and papers on the broken slab of the altar beside "his lunch box. He remembered with a pang that he had not eaten all that lunch. Now it was all on the far side of the laurel.
How he had got to Olympus he could not tell.
Perhaps Pan had transported him, perhaps the ambrosial ointment had given him some power of levitation. It did not matter. Nothing mattered very much at the moment, except the craving for a cigarette that swamped everything else as he dwelled upon it.
With faint hope, that proved fruitless, he felt through his pockets for a fag, for half a one, for some crumbs of tobacco. He found keys, money, the camel's—hair brush, the flashlight and-bitter irony--his cigarette lighter.
It was the friction type, in a closed tube, with plenty of fuse, useful for exploration trips. Peter took off the cap and snapped the wheel against the flint, blowing gently. A flame that seemed pretty feeble on Olympus, responded. He put it away, felt the little ivory horse.
His stomach was shrunken, his belly getting flat. And he was getting sleepy again. If he dropped off he could forget his hunger for tobacco and a meal. He might wake up and find it all a dream.
But he could not remember having gone to sleep on the other side of the laurel.
THEY were back again, by Pan's stone chair. Peter yawned, stretched, opened his eyes to the ambient air, roseate as if he saw through tinted glasses.
Pan was on his back, snoring. It did not seem godlike, but it did make Pan more companionable, alcost human.
A bronze beetle ran across Pan's hairy chest, over his beard, tickled his nose. Great Pan sneezed, rose, rubbing his knuckles into his eyes.
"My mouth tastes as if a toad had slept there," he exclaimed.
He reached down and produced the urn and the chalice, poured some of the golden, liquor.
He looked doubtfully at Peter. "A lap of nectar, Peter? You look wan.
"I think not, great Pan. It is powerful stuff—and, on an empty stomach "
Peter wanted to know what Zeus had said, but most of all he had to eat. He let his thoughts rove freely on that idea as Pan slapped his thigh.
"Ha! I had forgot you were but mortal. Would ripe, 'olives and figs , stay you?"
"I do not see any,” said Peter.
"Ha!" Pan swigged off the nectar, set down the chalice. He sat hunched on the stone and scratched his elbow with his hoof.
“Now, this is magic, Peter," he said. "I will tell you the secret.
You have only to think hard enough, to wish hard enough, for anything. To concentrate long enough—and it is. Think of figs, ripe figs, Peter. I will help you. Gaze on that bush."
It was an ilex, a species of holly, with prickly leaves. It did not seem likely to bear figs, any more than a thistle might.
“Think of—figs."
Pan's face was set. It was evident he was putting out a tremendous effort. And Peter thought about figs until he was dizzy. Pan clapped his hands.
"Pluck, and eat, Peter.”
It was no longer an ilex. It was a fig tree. The purple fruit grew thickly, ripe, odorous. They were real figs. Peter bit into the sweet, pink pulp with gusto. Pan did not join him but grinned.
"I am not very good at this materializing," Pan confessed. “It takes much practice and it is hard for me to think long of one thing. And when you stop the thought, the spell is broken. While you ate, you knew those were figs, but I did not, because to me the fig tree is now an ilex once again."
Peter nodded, eating his last fig. The thread had been broken for him also, and the ilex showed its glossy, prickly leaves and small white blossoms. It had seemed very simple magic, but it had worked.
"Zeus is wonderful,” Pan said. "He can think of many things at once, but sometimes even he nods, and loses interest, and things get mixed.”
Peter could imagine that. Zeus playing with magic, amused with the way it worked out, until he grew weary, and then the things he had started fell apart, incomplete, like the scraps of a jigsaw puzzle fallen from his lap. The caprices of the gods were too often the disasters of men. That was borne in upon him as Pan went on.
"Now I will tell you of the task Zeus has set you. It is but a small affair to the labors of, Heracles—"
The labors of Heracles! Peter groped in his memory of Greek mythology, trying to recall those labors. There had been ten of them, and two had been thrown out to be done over. Cleaning the Augean stables, slaying and taming wild beasts and monsters, stealing golden apples from the Garden of the Hesperides, bringing back three-headed Cerberus from Hades
"I see what you are thinking' about," Pan told him. "Your task is comparatively simple. This is it:
"PYTHON, the serpent, who lives near Delphi, has hidden because of the threat of Phoebus—Apollo and his sister, my aunt, Artemis, to destroy him. My brilliant uncle claims that Python annoyed Leto, his mother, when she was carrying him and Artemis, who was born one day ahead of Apollo. But I think that Apollo wishes to show off, or perhaps Artemis desires the same thing that Hera has asked from Zeus to patch up this present quarrel.
“For myself, I have never liked serpents," Pan continued, "and Python is very wily. Especially is he versed in the ways of mortals, He has lived in gloomy caverns for so long that his sight is poor, and he carries in his mouth a great jewel. This he lets roll upon the ground as a lantern when he wishes to see plainly. It is this gem, Peter, that you must obtain, as the first part of your task.”
The first part—there was a catch in it, just as with Heracles.
“Python is a large serpent?" Peter hazarded.
“I would not say how many fathoms make up his length, Peter.
It is said that he devours three oxen at one meal. You must match your wits against his. If you can catch him asleep, or drowsy after eating, it would be well."
Peter did not too much like the "if” part of it. He visioned deep, dank caverns through which Python dragged or coiled his scaly fathoms, nosing the glowing jewel before him, seeking his prey, to throw his frightful coils about it, reduce it to a pulp, slick it with saliva, and then
“This was Hera's idea," Pan explained. "If you obtain the jewel for Zeus, and Zeus gives it to her, she will forgive him. Or, says she will. She would do that eventually, in any case, whether you return or not, of course."
“Of course," Peter said. "Go on.”
"Good lad!” Pan slapped him on the back. "Now this is somewhat confidential, Peter. When the others heard of the jewel, Leto thrust her oar into the galley: She demanded that, since you were going to find Python, you should bring back Ephryne, the daughter of Artemis, whom Python has captured and is holding as hostage for his own safety.”
"The daughter of Artemis?
I thought that she—Didn't she kill Actaeon for merely looking at her when she was in bathing?”
Pan winked, chuckled. "Perhaps it was less because he looked, than because of his looks, Peter, that did not appeal to her. It may be true that she found Ephryne, abandoned in the reeds by the river, and adopted the child. Who knows? Such tales have been spread. elsewhere and believed. It may all be rumor. Of course there have been rumors that Artemis was quite fond of Orion. These matters are gossip, and confidential, as I have said. The point is for you to rescue the maid."
“What about Apollo?” Peter asked.
"He is away on his yearly trip to the Hyperborean regions. Python may be off guard. Or he may not, because of Artemis. But, if you succeed, Zeus will reward you greatly. Buck up, lad, you have only to find Python, and then devise a plan to secure the gem and release the maiden. She also may be grateful."
"I am no Heracles," Peter demurred. "He killed two snakes in his cradle. And was he not a god?”
“There was some trouble at the time of his birth between Hera and Zeus, concerning Alcmene, the mother of Heracles, the wife of Amphitryon."
"At any rate he would be better at handling Python. I suppose I can't get out of this, great Pan?”
Pan scratched himself back of one horn.
"I'm afraid not, Peter. After all, you did come through the laurel."
"You asked me.”
"I know I did. And I am willing to help you. I feel sure that Cheiron can direct you— No, Peter, you are thinking of the wrong person. This is not. Charon, the ferryman of the Styx, but Cheiron, chief of the centaurs."
Peter felt slightly relieved.
"Of course the centaurs are a rough, wild lot. They are always out on a foray with their double-headed broad-axes, or with limbs of trees, for those who do not possess an ax. They are apt to slay a stranger first and inquire about him afterward, if they bother to remember him. But Cheiron, their chief, is kind and very wise. Kings and heroes send their sons to him to be educated and trained in the manly arts. Heracles was his pupil, also Jason, favorite of Hera, who brought back the Golden Fleece from Colchis. And Jason was a mortal."
"I'm neither king's son or a favorite of Hera, great—Pan. How do I find Cheiron?" asked Peter.
"I will set you down on the Erymanthian ridge, Peter. That is where the centaurs dwell. It may be that they are busy raiding the Lapithae, with whom they are always at war, and you will get through them to Cheiron's cave. I will show you where it lies. I cannot take you there. I had a slight misunderstanding with the old gentleman. Once, long ago, the hoofs of the hippos were like mine, split. Now they are single. The centaur being half hippo and half man. I was a little graped at the time, and I made some jest to Cheiron, lamenting that his feet were so clumsy, compared to those of satyrs. He took it amiss. I have heard he still bears the grudge."
Pan dug into his hairy ear for something that annoyed him, inspected it and threw it away. It went of its own slow motion. Peter saw it was a wood tick.
"But because of this difference, Peter, I can give you one thing that may stand you in good stead with the centaurs, and with Cheiron. I will give you a salve that is a sure cure for sore frogs."
Pan burst out laughing at the look in Peter's face.
"I mean the soft part of the hoof of a centaur that makes his foot inferior to mine-" Pan stretched out his legs and proudly surveyed his polished hoofs. “The frogs bruise from stones and they go lame, I have no such trouble. And this salve will ease and cure them. They will surely be favorable to you, if you can get them to listen."
There were getting to be entirely too many "ifs" about this task he could not get out of. First it had been Python and Ephryne, now there were centaurs. And this was but the entry to what Peter felt was going to be an unknown and precarious trail. But it gripped him. There was adventure in his blood, harking down, perhaps from some Viking forebear. Excitement, the pitting of his wits against largely unknown odds. A man—a mortal—lived once, died once. Love of life was all right, if one really lived while life lasted. Here was a challenge, a chance to prove himself to himself. Peter accepted it.
“The centaurs—Cheiron—are they vegetarians?” he asked.
"Always thinking of your belly.”
Pan laughed until his own quivered.
"If Cheiron takes you as guest, he will feed you well with meat and fruit and wine.”
There was still another of those ifs
Pan got up, stretching. The odor of wine blended with the musky smell of goat. There was no doubt that Pan had B. O. Peter fancied that might have had something to do with why Syrinx ran from him and Pytis stayed inside her pine tree.
Then he noticed, for the first time, that Pan cast no shadow. He felt a little delicate about mentioning it. He did not want to get in wrong. with Pan, his only friend in Peloponessus.
As usual, when Pan was near him, words were not needed.
"That, Peter, is because we gods have ichor in our veins, not blood, as with mortals. There is a true saying—false gods shun the sun.” That is how you may surely tell mortals from immortals, Peter. Gods cast no shadows. I will fetch the salve. Then you shall have a lap of nectar, and I will anoint you with ambrosia.”
He turned away. Peter, watched his shadeless figure as it leaped a. fallen log like a deer.
Peter muttered beneath his breath. “Gods have no shadows, huh? Neither have ghosts. They technically call you a shade when Hermes personally conducts a oneway tour to Hades, via Charon's
ferry. I'm glad it's Cheiron I'm seeing this trip. It's a good thing I was brought up with horses. I may managed to get along with the centaurs."
IV
PETER BRENT was on his own. Pan had departed after giving him a present and a warning-apart from the salve that was for sore frogs.
The present was a single-mouthed, double-tubed shepherd's pipe, on which Peter was to practice.
The warning was emphatic. "Remember, Peter my lad, that you must not-set your will against the will of Zeus. That will be instantly detected. If you persist you will be punished. You may be warned first. It depends upon the mood of Zeus at the time he receives the impulse, that will come to him as the slightest tap upon a drum-head transmits its impact. I tell you this, lest you be tempted to give up this quest and leave the pale of Olympus."
It was a cursedly awkward thing, Pan reading his thoughts this way. It was almost impossible to control them. Pete looked forward, in that way, to being alone.
One thing was very plain, that Pan did not care for the company. of centaurs. As a god; they could not do much more than annoy Pan, Peter thought. But he had offended their chief. They might tease him, as small boys bait a superior, and Pan did not like to lose face. He was a whimsical mixture of wisdom and boastfulness, of brag and ability to make good.
"I have occasions. of my own, Peter." Pan winked. "We shall get in touch later. Make the most of the wits the gods bestowed upon you, remember my warning, avoid the centaurs if possible, placate Cheiron, admire his wisdom. It may well be that you will have many adventures to tell me when next we meet again."
It struck Peter that Pan spoke slyly. A mortal could never wholly trust the gods. They held your affairs on their knees as one holds a game, and often left you to finish it, when they found it tiring-a problem requiring too much effort.
Sometimes, perhaps, a god would come from the mechanism and untangle things, but the Olympians were prone to start you off, and leave you to shift for yourself. They liked to be regarded as benignant beings, but they were often cruel. They made a jest of Hephaestus, one of themselves, whenever he stumbled or was awkward. As for mortals, they acted too often like a boy who plays with a cat and winds up by putting walnut shells on its feet.
Yet the last sup of nectar Pan had given him flowed strongly in Peter's veins, invigorating alike to body and spirit.
"I may be able to tell, another Odyssey," said Peter. “Though I don't expect to equal him, or to take so long about it, I hope—I hope, I hope, I hope." He thought the last six words. Pan chuckled, picked his nose, scratched his left flank.
"Twenty years in Olympus means little," he said sententiously. "Ten years of Odysseus' absence from Penelope were spent at the wars. As for his travels, when a man takes ten years more to get home to his wife on top of the first ten, it is best to have a good tale to tell. If indeed he did tell all. I doubt if Penelope was ever entirely satisfied.”
Pan sat back, scratching his ribs, pleased with himself.
"Surely Penelope was faithful, great Pan?"
"No doubt, Peter, no doubt. Antinous and the other suitors may not have appealed to her, my lad. The matter of faithfulness, after all, is relative, as are all things.”
Every now and then Peter heard such scraps of wisdom from Pan that made him feel that there was nothing new under the sun. And now he strove to conceal a fleeting memory that linked the names of Hermes, Pan's father, with a Penelope, whom some said was a nymph, others—that was doubtless a relative matter. The word had many meanings.
Pan paid no attention to that thought. He was up, shouldering the looped bag in which he carried his nectar, ambrosia, and the magic salve, their containers carefully packed in fine lamb's wool. He gave a flourish on his pipes and went bounding off, soon out of sight, his music growing fainter and fainter.
Peter was alone, in a wild glen of the Erymanthian Ridge, the country of the centaurs. For a while he lay on his back among the wild, sweet-smelling asphodel, that seemed to him the same as daffodils.
PETER sprang to his feet. He looked south, over ridge after ridge. Beyond them lay Sparta, beyond Sparta the Mediterranean,
Why stay here for centaurs to ax and bludgeon him, why, at a whim of Zeus and his consorts, face Python? The way was open, surely, to return.
"I'm a chump,” he said aloud. "It's time you awakened; Peter. And got back to earth."
Peter headed east. Pan had gone west. But there must be a way out of the glen. A brook was flowing in his direction. The brook must join a river, and the river find the sea.
He saw the outlet, gated with. columnar rocks, a narrow portal, but beyond it was liberty and mortality.
Suddenly he became aware that it was hard to breathe. He seemed
to be in a vacuum, his lungs struggling to fill with the rare atmosphere. And then he was stopped, arrested as a man may be held-back by some mighty wind. But no breeze stirred the yellow asphodels.
Their golden heads barely nodded.
He thought of Jim Bridger's story of the cliff of obsidian, through which he could see the elk he shot at, and could not hit. Vision was clear enough. It was to Peter as if he looked through a vast sheet of glass, slightly plastic but impenetrable, an atmospheric barrier that barred his way, held him in this land of enchantment. He thrust against it until the sweat broke out on him, but could not advance an inch.
Was this the will of Zeus, sealing him in this bourn until his task was won—or lost, and he with it?
He retreated to a little knoll and sat down, weak in soul, of will and body. He sat with his aching head bowed to his knees, held in his trembling hands, exhausted and demoralized.
Gradually he felt restored. He summoned his reason to face the situation. He had merely encountered some alpine phenomenon, he strove to assure himself.
Pan had said if you thought long enough, and hard enough, about a thing—it was. Peter set himself to think hard enough to prove a thing was not.
"It's all rot,” he declared aloud. "I'm going to try some other route out of this. I'm going to get down where I can get tobacco and a good earth-bound shot of liquor."
He saw a gap in the escarpment to his right. Nothing hindered him as he neared it. About him were rock fragments eroded from the ridge. On one of them a dwarf cedar, gnarled and twisted but with a sturdy trunk and leafy crown, flourished in the scanty soil it had found. It was a symbol of fortitude, of success over difficulties.
"What a tree can do, I can do," said Peter to the cedar. “Not that I want to remain rooted here, but I—"
A brazen, terrific clamor smote the air. It sounded as if the dome of heaven had been split from zenith to nadir. It deafened him, it changed all the light into a lilac glare, out of which there shot a flaming bolt of fire.
That struck the cedar, left it a shriveled stump, while beneath it the rock was riven to its base in a gaping cleft.
The air stank of brimstone. The flavor of it was brassy to his tongue and palate. The earth trembled and seemed to run beneath his feet in fluid waves, so that Peter was thrown to his knees—to all fours.
Zeus, evidently enough, had spoken—with a bolt from the blue.
The tremors ceased. Now Peter could smell the charred pungency of the cedar. He got to his feet gingerly, marveling that he was able to function.
Peter looked up the glen and saw a troop of wild horsemen coming at a gallop. They, thundered on at high speed in phalanx formation that suddenly shifted to a crescent, with two horns, that started curving inward.
He stared at them and knew they were not a horde of riders, but centaurs. They had sighted him and they meant to ride him down.
They came on with harsh cries that were only half human. He saw the gleam of their eyes, he saw their beards flowing back to mingle with their mane-like hair. He saw the glitter of double-headed axes swung high above their heads, while others flourished limbs of trees, clubs that Heracles might have chosen.
The clamor of their voices in the view-halloo drowned out the thudding of their hoofs.
PETER broke the spell that seemed to bind him, sprinted to the cleft in. the rock. He reached it as the horns closed in like nippers. It narrowed rapidly and he thrust the container with the salve in it into the wedge of the ragged walls as the centaurs checked and circled round the crag. The sight of its changed aspect, of the destroyed cedar that must have been a landmark for them disconcerted them.
Their quarry had bolted to earth. Peter climbed for his life up the split with hands and knees, elbows and feet forging upward in frog-like movements like a mountain climber in a natural chimney.
He reached the summit of the rock and lay there panting at the base of the half-consumed cedar, his heart-going like a drum in a swing orchestra.
He was safe for the time. Centaurs could not climb.
One came charging into the rift and had to back out. Peter stood up, and hoarse shouts of rage and hate greeted him. The creatures-half man, half horse--careered about the rock, shaking their weapons at him, uttering their uncouth, incoherent sounds. Peter felt they were unpleasantly single-minded.
Their faces were long and narrow. There was a certain horsiness about them as they looked up at Peter, halting at last in front of the cleft and pawing at the turf and the yellow asphodels, swishing their tails and sometimes letting out high, whinnying noises.
They seemed in good condition, though some of their hides were shaggy and less glossy than others.
That might be age, Peter thought.
Most of them were scarred and several of them were lame. He wondered if it was because of their frogs. Then he saw that their hoofs were quite badly chipped, worn unevenly, as if by too much galloping over and amid rocks.
They seemed intelligent for animals—not over—bright for men. Apparently there were few Cheirons among the centaurs. Peter saw one who seemed the leader of the troop. He had lustrous eyes, and the flowing mustachios, beard and hair were tawny. His body was compact and strong, a dappled gray.
Peter held up his hand and they grouped with the gray in front.
"I am on a mission for Zeus," he cried, not sure they would understand him. But it was plain that they did.
They laughed, and Peter could not help the thought-uncertain though he was that his bluff, if it were to be styled a bluff, would go over—that they were giving him the horse laugh.
The leader spoke.
"If you are on a mission for Zeus, why did he fling a bolt at you?"
Peter managed a laugh in his turn. "Does Zeus miss his aim? He flung the bolt to make me a refuge from you mad ones."
After all he was a messenger in a liberal sense. He heard a low growl of thunder and looked north to where the snowy crest of Olympus was hidden by dark clouds, in which lightning played. Peter fancied that this was not on his account, that it was more likely to be Zeus displaying his private spleen in a family quarrel, but he took advantage of it. He pointed to the mountain.
“Be it on your own heads if you delay me,” he cried. “I am seeking Cheiron, bearing a gift.”
The centaurs bunched, consulting The leader said:
"I will bear you to Cheiron. He will know if you are what you claim."
Peter looked at the rounded barrel of the leader. He had ridden horses bareback before now. And there seemed nothing else to do. Since he was committed to his task. since it had been made plain to him that forces, whether. natural or supernatural, were leagued against his present escape, he must make the best of it, play his cards as if he held the trumps.
The clouds had shifted on Olympus. The dazzling crest showed radiant once again. It might not be an augury, but he could make use of it.
"Zeus has heard you," he said. “Behold!"
THEY were impressed. Some of them seemed surly but the leader had accepted him, at least for the time. Peter slid down, got his salve, walked out and faced them.
The leader pawed the ground three times, bowed his neck. Suddenly they seemed impressed, if not awed.
"Why did you not tell us you were a god?” said the dappled leader, looking at Peter's feet.
Peter looked, too. The sun was back of him. The shadows of the centaurs were stout upon the ground. But Peter, like Pan, cast no shadow.
It must be the temporary effect of the ambrosial anointing, he thought. The unguent had some mysterious faculty of rendering his body capable of arresting actinic rays, or perhaps translucent to them. It would wear off after a time.
"It is not always meet to declare such matters," he said. "Nor did I know that you were capable of such discernment."
“We are not altogether ignorant. Now, if you will mount?”
The leader held back a cupped hand and Peter set his foot in it, caught at the top of the bare withers where they sprang from the back loins of the creature, straddled him, got a grip with his knees.
Short hairs grew down the centaur's back but they were a poor excuse for a true mane. Peter trusted that he could ride well enough not to have to clutch at the centaur's human torso. It blocked his view forward.
The leader gave an order Peter could not understand. The troop formed about the leader and they were off, up the glen. The centaur's gait was easy and springy. Peter found he was enjoying the ride. His wits rose to the occasion, and his spirits matched them.
The cavalcade swung off into a gorge that rapidly narrowed and deepened between steep cliffs. The ground was broken, and Peter found the going more difficult. The leader spoke to him, with respect in his voice.
"This is the shortest way. Usually we would not take it because of the Lapithae, who are ever trying to waylay us. They have never forgotten the time their king, Pirithous; invited us to his wedding feast. The wine was strong and plentiful: "it went to our heads. Also there were many maidens present. We tried to carry them off, together with the bride. We should have succeeded, had it not been for Theseus, who took their side. But this is no news to you."
“Those matters are known to the gods," Peter admitted.
He saw that they went warily, watching the cliffs, the detritus of fallen rimrock
“But now that you are with us, there is naught to fear."
Peter hoped that the leader's optimism would turn out true.
"If you fight," he said, “I cannot prevent you from being wounded. Blood may flow."
"But not from you. As for ourselves, we also can wound."
They went on a little farther. It seemed to Peter that if they were ambushed in this place their best course was flight. He trusted he could make the leader see it that way, in case of trouble. He formulated his mode of counsel, should it be needed. As a god, with ichor in his veins, he would hardly be deemed a coward. "Discretion is the better part of valor." That would be appropriate.
The canyon ran north and south. It was a dusky place, into which little sun ever shone.
Suddenly a battle cry rang out, coming from both sides, echoing back and forth amid the cliffs as men rose, clad in skin tunics. A level hail of arrows, discharged with incredible rapidity, came from the half-concealed Lapithae.
The shafts were well and strongly aimed. The centaur on Peter's right ! and a little ahead went to his knees and fell over, an arrow buried to the feathers in his side. Another was pierced through the neck. More were hit, and the Thessalian assailants shouted in triumph. They had let the centaurs ride well into their trap.
It was useless to charge, to try s to come to close combat where the axes and clubs could get into play. They would be shot down before they reached the fallen masses i through which they could not go.
The long lances would reach them before their blows could fall. The wind of an arrow ruffled the hair of the leader. Another scored his back with a red gouge, from which blood-streamed. Peter felt the wind of a third.
Their safely entrenched, foes howled taunts at them. The arrows came too fast for eye to follow. They sounded like great swarms of bees above the twanging of the bowstrings, the yells of the Lapithae.
"Turn back," Peter cried. “Back to the gully we passed just now on the left. Get to the ridge above them. It is your only chance."
The leader bellowed an order, whirled so swiftly that Peter was almost unhorsed—uncentaured. The dappled gray led what was left of his troop in a race for the gully. The Lapithae rushed from their rocks and started lancing the fallen.
The leader galloped fast. Peter felt his mighty muscles flex and reflex as he went up the gully in great bounds, reached the ridge. His survivors followed, few of them unscathed, their sides heaving
Peter trusted they would not turn on him. He wiped off the blood on his face as well as he could with a not perfectly clean, but useful, handkerchief. So long as they thought him a god, this was no time to disabuse them.
He was lucky, he thought, not to have been wounded, and so revealed that his veins leaked sanguine blood instead of ichor. If ichor ever leaked?
"My name is Pyloetius," said the leader. “It is well you were with us. We are grateful, and Cheiron will be also."
My name is Petros," Peter told him, thinking it wiser to give it the Greek equivalent. "I am glad to have been along.
"This ridge leads to another," said Pyloetius. "It will take longer, and many of us are lame.”
"For your sore frogs I will give Cheiron a cure," Peter told him. "And it may be I can do something for your hoofs, to prevent them cracking and chipping." He had an idea about that but was not sure how practical it might be.
Far to the north, Olympus lifted a vague mass of purple helmeted with crystal, serene against the wheeling constellations.
Peter wondered what the gods were up to? Reveling, perhaps, quaffing chalices of nectar, eating ambrosia, which he vaguely imagined as some sort of jam or jelly. Pan was wooing his dryad maid, trying to coax her into the open with the magic of his pipes.
He could have used a lap of nectar himself, and a bellyful of something substantial. He hoped Cheiron would come across with a meal.
They came to a plateau, crossed it. A pile of great rocks rose before them. Peter saw a winking light, ruddy, cheerful.
"That is the fire of Cheiron. It burns within his cavern,” said Pyloetius. It will be best if I announce you."
They halted outside the mouth of the cave, its entry the shape of an inverted V. Peter slipped off the leader's back, a little stiffy. He told himself he would be sore tomorrow. He watched Pyloetius go into the cavern.
TO BE CONTINUED.
