CHAPTER NINETEEN
AKAZA KEEPS HIS VOW AND IS FINALLY FREE
As he passed out of the temple, Akaza turned again to look at Yermah whose face was illumined, serene and calm. With his hands clasped before him, the Dorado stood as if in a dream, taking into the inner recesses of his heart the comforting assurance of immortality and of final union with the Divine, in which Kerœcia was a part.
“Farewell, beloved!” said the old man, as his eyes filled. “Thou hast passed the Gates of Light, and art come into thine own. Amenti, thou unknown, receive thy son! Amrah, King of the Brotherhood, give back my vow! I have kept the faith!”
He stood with bowed figure, and seemed to be communing with the Unseen. Presently he lifted his head, and the crowning white hair haloed a dazzling countenance. His lips were parted in a pleased expectancy.
“I am free to go hence,” he said, as he turned and walked out with renewed vigor.
Akaza bent his steps toward Ingharep, and when he reached the cave, he went in and made ready for a journey. The blurred, reddened and obscure sun shed but fitful light over the still agitated waters of the Pacific.
The hierophant went out on the rocks jutting into the sea, remnants of which are still visible below the Cliff House of to-day, where he sat gazing long into space. When his strength was fully regained, he hailed the officer on watch in the tower-house of the hill overlooking the point, and was soon swallowed up in the night.
Crossing the bay, he came upon a few refugees from the far north, led by Cezardis, who cried childishly when he encountered for the first time in many days this evidence of any living thing. Running toward Akaza, he kissed and fondled him in his excitement, while the others gave every evidence of thankfulness and joy.
“Tell me all that has befallen thee,” said Akaza, holding him at arm’s length.
“It would need more than man’s allotted time to convey all,” answered Cezardis. “Death and destruction are everywhere. A puny chain stands between the main land of the Ians and my country. The peak next the shore opposite, and over which the priestess Kerœcia passed, has fallen into the sea,[12] and all the high mountains are putting forth smoke, ashes and melted rocks. In some places the earth heaves and groans continuously; in other spots, water pours all the time; while hot air makes man and beast labor for breath.”
“Ben Hu Barabe and Alcyesta are in Tlamco,” said Akaza. “They alone of all the Monbas survived the visitation of the fire-spirits.”
“We knew as much from the terrible rocking still going on in their country. The water has deserted the rivers everywhere, and is making new places where it has not sunk into the earth. Didst thou see the dread messenger in the heavens near the place of Venus?”
“Yes; and it will soon make the house of Mars, and then there will be contention in Tlamco.”
“How fares Yermah, the beloved of Kerœcia?”
“Thy heart will be wrung by sight of him. Reason fled for many days. But it is decreed otherwise, and he will soon find peace. Farewell! I go to fulfill an obligation,” said Akaza, embracing the weary travelers. “Commiseration and surcease of care be thy portion.”
“May the Divine bring thee speedily on thy journey!” they said with one accord. “We will pray the Azes to afford us shelter.”
“Thy petition will be quickly answered. Thou wilt find them altered and distraught, but in bodily health.”
They crowded into the boats kept on the Oakland shores for such emergencies, but in their half-famished condition they made poor headway against the choppy sea.
Akaza went back over much of the same ground traversed in visiting the Yo-Semite Valley. Where possible, he went due east, facing the rising place of the sun. A less stout heart would have been appalled by the devastation and ruin all around him.
The rivers in many places had been lifted out of their courses, and changed about in an almost incomprehensible manner. Mountains and forests no longer afforded shelter to the huge animals of that time.
On his way into Calaveras County, Akaza saw herds of mastodons with their tongues lolled out, in company with elephants and elk huddled together around a spring of fresh water.
He encountered many a fierce grizzly bear so nearly famished as to be unable to harm him. Wolves and panthers were dead and dying by the hundreds, and the rhinoceros and hippopotami had great raw cracks in their backs because of the extreme heat and the dryness of the atmosphere.
No tongue can picture the thrilling and inspiring condition of the heavens. The mountain peaks continued to send up streams of hot air, which mingling with the cool breezes from the sea, brought about gales and storms of incalculable velocity, with all the drying capacity of a furnace blast. The upper air was an amphitheater of gorgeous electric effects. Streaks of lightning as big as the body of a tree licked out their long tongues, or darted with deadly effect among the ashes and smoke, which rolled in and out over the crest of the Sierras, scattering a sediment broadcast for miles. The heavy cannonading of the upper strata of air could never be compared to the weak peals and crashes of a thunderstorm, and yet not a drop of water fell to ease the sufferings of the creatures who still lived.
“Yermah’s prayers have been answered literally,” said the old man, as he trudged along, upheld by some hidden force—carried forward by an indomitable purpose. “The gold is being vaporized and brought to the surface in the upheaved quartz and gravel. It has tried to come south toward him, but it cannot escape the rigors of the ice, soon to overtop this region.”
He passed close to the great “mother lode,” and not far from the mysterious “blue lead,” the wonder and admiration of our pioneer days. But there was no detritus then, no decomposed quartz, no auriferous gravel-beds.
“There will be no faults in these veins,” he said, “because the uplifting is simultaneous. And in aftertime the deposits will be accessible to another race of men. They will find our copper mines, but will lose the secret of amalgamation. The first overflow of mud and water has hardened into cement,” he continued, examining the deposit critically.
“It is indeed time I were here. Rivers of basaltic lava will follow this, and I must be prepared. Four successive strata will pour over me, and still my grinning skull will be preserved to confound and astonish. The very name of the monastery, Guatavita, the Gate of Life, will incite men to deeds of blood. But thy will be done! I thank Thee that Thou hast given me the power to endure.”
Akaza turned to the east, and made a low salaam, and then went into the entrance, now covered over and known as the Natural Bridges of Calaveras County. He performed ablutions in the two rock basins still sitting under the stalactites and arches of the upper bridge and then passed to the lower entrance, a few yards away.
On the east is a high mountain which for a quarter of a mile is supposed to contain innumerable caves. In reality, it is a natural rock temple, very like the Elephantine Caves, and it was here that the American lodge of the Brotherhood kept a record of the entire time man had existed on the earth.
“Twice already has the face of the globe changed by fire, and twice by water,” said Akaza; “and each time has a new race been born. The Aryan comes into leadership by the joint action of both elements.”
The hierophant carried a little copper hammer, which he used to tap the various squares of solid masonry closing the entrance, listening each time a stone was struck. Finally a peculiar singing noise reached him, and he reversed the hammer, springing from its side a sharp, dagger-like point of hardened copper. With this he began patiently to pick the glaze which held the blocks of granite in place.
He worked all day taking out the exact squares marked on a curious diagram held in his hand. As night fell, he found himself through the entrance, and inside the temple and monastery.
The incomparable odor of jasmine greeted him, and a light flickered in the distance.
Akaza’s heart stood still.
Here for a hundred years no intruding footsteps had entered! The man who lighted the perfumed lamp was long since in spirit life. The hierophant never doubted his ability to accomplish the task imposed upon him, but he trembled with the knowledge that it was so nearly finished.
“Refreshment awaits thee on the right,” he read from an inscription on the wall.
Following the direction given, he found an abundance of hulled corn, rice, dried fruits and nuts securely sealed in earthen jars, and there was also one containing garments and other things.
He took the edibles and came back to the arched entrance, where he lighted a fire, and prepared a meal.
“The elements have made my bath ready,” he said, dipping his hand into one of the larger basins. “The water is warm, and I am not insensible to its charms.”
When he came out of it he clothed himself in spotless linen, embroidered with orange-colored silk. Around his neck was a collarette of diamonds and black onyx set in gold, from which hung a leaden medal cast in the sign of Saturn, and about his waist was a yellow silk girdle. After he had anointed his hair with an unguent, he gathered some cypress and crowned himself with it.
He was careful to perform every rite before and after eating, and as a sacrifice to fire piled up copal in one of the small basins, and ignited it by the friction of two hardwood sticks. While it burned he smoked; after which he allowed tired nature to drift into a short but deep sleep.
Roused by an extra heavy shock of earthquake, he gathered up the remnants of food, his discarded garments and prayer-rug, and threw them into the burning basin piece by piece, until all were in ashes.
Wherever possible, the firelight cast weird shadows against the beautiful stalactites still hanging.
These novel instruments responded in sweetest melodies to Akaza’s magical touch.
The hierophant used a rod made from a perfectly straight almond branch, just before the tree was in blossom. It was hollowed and filled with a needle of iron, which was magnetized. A many-sided prism cut into a triangle was fastened to one end, with a black resin figure of the same at the other. In the middle of the rod, which was the length of the arm, and wrapped in silk, were two rings—one of red copper, the other of zinc.
On the extremity which ended in the resin triangle, the rod was gilded; the other end was silvered to the central rings. On the copper ring was a mystical word, and another also on the one made of zinc. This rod had been consecrated by the last initiate at Guatavita, and had not been seen by any one since.
The sounds evoked grew more and more weird and peculiar, and Akaza’s exertions became more and more violent, until he dropped exhausted near the basin, where only a few sparks smoldered.
From a chamois wallet he took bits of assafœtida, alum, and sulphur, and threw them on the heated coals. As their combined fumes permeated the air, he touched a spring in the side of one of the marble basins, and a thin, smooth slab slipped out.
Hastily covering it with a chamois skin, he produced writing materials from the jar which had contained the robe he wore, and prepared to write. He had scarcely seated himself on an overturned stone before he was entranced.
“Thy Brother in Lassa, on the Brahmaputra, sends thee greeting!
“All save the high regions of the Himalayas, where our monastery is situated, are sorely pressed by raging flood.
“The heavens have opened. The plains with their chains of mountains, rivers, lakes and inland seas, have been suddenly heaved up.
“Fire lurks in the hidden depths, and the beds of the sea vibrate and tremble. Its waves hide islands and continents in its abysses.
“The sun’s rays drink up the scattered waters, and pour them down again, mingling with the rivers and the ocean.
“They cover the plains, filling the valleys, roaring around the fire mountains, hollowing out the slopes, and surging up to their summits. In it are swallowed flocks and pasturage, forests and wild beasts, fields and crops, towns and hamlets, with myriads of mortals.”
Akaza held the rod to his forehead, and sent an answering message, detailing fully all that had happened here.
“Sign and seal thy parchment, and restore to its hidden place. The spirit of fire hovers near thee. Prepare to go out in peace. Thy pilgrimage is at an end.
“Thou art in the place of destruction, and Truth will hide her face there until thou art again incarnate. May thy birth into light be speedy and joyful.
“Accept the love of thy brother and servant,
“Kadmon the Patriarch.”
Akaza put the manuscript into a jar and sealed it, and with infinite pains closed the steplike opening through which he had entered Gautavita. Then, realizing that he had received his last summons, he laid him down peacefully to sleep.[13]