That Hideous Strength

VI

In a great room at Belbury, where the fire blazed and wine and silver sparkled on side-tables, and a great bed occupied the centre of the floor, the Deputy Director watched in profound silence while four young men with reverential or medical heedfulness carried in a burden on a stretcher. As they removed the blankets and transferred the occupant of the stretcher to the bed, Wither’s mouth opened wider. His interest became so intense that for the moment the chaos of his face appeared ordered and he looked like an ordinary man. What he saw was a naked human body, alive, but apparently unconscious. He ordered the attendants to place hot-water bottles at its feet and raise the head with pillows; when they had done so and withdrawn he drew a chair to the foot of the bed and sat down to study the face of the sleeper. The head was very large, though perhaps it looked larger than it was because of the unkempt grey beard and the long and tangled grey hair. The face was weather-beaten in the extreme and the neck, where visible, already lean and scraggy with age. The eyes were shut and the lips wore a very slight smile. The total effect was ambiguous. Wither gazed at it for a long time and sometimes moved his head to see how it looked from a different angle-almost as if he searched for some trait he could not find and were disappointed. For nearly a quarter of an hour he sat thus: then the door opened and Professor Frost came softly into the room.

He walked to the bedside, bent down and looked closely into the stranger’s face. Then he walked round to the far side of the bed and did the same.

“Is he asleep?” whispered Wither.

“I think not. It is more like some kind of trance. What kind I don’t know.”

“You have no doubts, I trust?”

“Where did they find him?”

“In a dingle about quarter of a mile from the entrance to the souterrain. They had the track of bare feet almost all the way.”

“The souterrain itself was empty?”

“Yes. I had a report on that from Stone shortly after you left me.”

“You will make provision about Stone?”

“Yes. But what do you think? “-he pointed with his eyes to the bed.

“I think it is he,” said Frost. “The place is right. The nudity is hard to account for on any other hypothesis. The skull is the kind I expected.”

“But the face?”

“Yes. There are certain traits which are a little disquieting.”

“I could have sworn,” said Wither, “that I knew the look of a Master-even the look of one who could be made into a Master. You understand me . . . one sees at once that Straik or Studdock might do; that Miss Hardcastle, with all her excellent qualities, would not.”

“Yes. Perhaps we must be prepared for great crudities in . . . him. Who knows what the technique of the Atlantean Circle was really like?”

“Certainly, one must not be-ah-narrow-minded. One can suppose that the Masters of that age were not quite so sharply divided from the common people as we are. All sorts of emotional and even instinctive, elements were perhaps still tolerated in the Great Atlantean which we have had to discard.”

“One not only may suppose it, one must. We should not forget that the whole plan consists in the reunion of different kinds of the art.”

“Exactly. Perhaps one’s association with the Powers-their different time scale and all that-tends to make one forget how enormous the gap in time is by our human standards.”

“What we have here,” said Frost, pointing to the sleeper, “is not, you see, something from the fifth Century. It is the last vestige, surviving into the fifth Century, of something much more remote. Something that comes down from long before the Great Disaster, even from before primitive Druidism; something that takes us back to Numinor, to pre-glacial periods.”

“The whole experiment is perhaps more hazardous than we realised.”

“I have had occasion before,” said Frost, “to express the wish that you would not keep on introducing these emotional pseudo-statements into our scientific discussions.”

“My dear friend,” said Wither, without looking at him,

“I am quite aware that the subject you mention has been discussed between you and the Powers themselves. Quite aware. And I don’t doubt that you are equally well aware of certain discussions they have held with me about aspects of your own methods which are open to criticism. Nothing would be more futile-I might say more dangerous-than any attempt to introduce between ourselves those modes of oblique discipline which we properly apply to our inferiors. It is in your own interest that I venture to touch on this point.”

Instead of replying, Frost signalled to his companion. Both men became silent, their gaze fixed on the bed: for the Sleeper had opened his eyes.

The opening of the eyes flooded the whole face with meaning, but it was a meaning they could not interpret. The Sleeper seemed to be looking at them, but they were not quite sure that he saw them. As the seconds passed Wither’s main impression of the face was its caution. But there was nothing intense or uneasy about it. It was a habitual, unemphatic defensiveness which seemed to have behind it years of hard experience, quietly-perhaps even humorously-endured.

Wither rose to his feet, and cleared his throat.

“Magister Merline,” he said, “Sapientissime Britonum, secreti secretorum possessor, incredibili quodam gaudio affcimur quod te domum nostram accipere nobis-ah-contingit. Scito nos etiam haud imperito esse magnae artis-et-ut ita dicam . . .” (“Master Merlin, wisest of the Britons, possessor of the secret of secrets; it is with inexpressible pleasure that we embrace the opportunity of-ah-welcoming you in our house. You will understand that we also are not unskilled in the Great Art, and, if I may say so . . .”)

But his voice died away. It was too obvious that the Sleeper was taking no notice of what he said. It was impossible that a learned man of the sixth century should not know Latin. Was there, then, some error in his own pronunciation? But he felt by no means sure that this man could not understand him. The total lack of curiosity, or even interest, in his face, suggested rather that he was not listening.

Frost took a decanter from the table and poured out a glass of red wine. He then returned to the bedside, bowed deeply, and handed it to the stranger. The latter looked at it with an expression that might (or might not) be interpreted as one of cunning; then he suddenly sat up in bed, revealing a huge hairy chest and lean, muscular arms. His eyes turned to the table and he pointed. Frost went back to it and touched a different decanter. The stranger shook his head and pointed again.

“I think,” said Wither, “that our very distinguished guest is trying to indicate the jug. I don’t quite know what was provided. Perhaps-”

“It contains beer,” said Frost.

“Well, it is hardly appropriate-still, perhaps, we know so little of the customs of that age . . .”

While he was still speaking Frost had filled a pewter mug with beer and offered it to their guest. For the first time a gleam of interest came into that cryptic face. The man snatched the mug eagerly, pushed back his disorderly moustache from his lips, and began to drink. Back and back went the grey head: up and up went the bottom of the tankard: the moving muscles of the lean throat made the act of drinking visible. At last the man, having completely inverted the tankard, set it down, wiped his wet lips with the back of his hand, and heaved a long sigh-the first sound he had uttered since his arrival. Then he turned his attention once more to the table.

For about twenty minutes the two old men fed him-Wither with tremulous and courtly deference, Frost with the deft, noiseless movements of a trained servant. All sorts of delicacies had been provided, but the stranger devoted his attention entirely to cold beef, chicken, pickles, bread, cheese, and butter. The butter he ate neat, off the end of a knife. He was apparently unacquainted with forks, and took the chicken bones in both hands to gnaw them, placing them under the pillow when he had done. His eating was noisy and animal. When he had eaten, he signalled for a second pint of beer, drank it at two long draughts, wiped his mouth on the sheet and his nose on his hand, and seemed to be composing himself for further slumber.

“Ah-er-domine,” said Wither with deprecating urgency, “nihil magis mihi displiceret quam tibi ullo modo-ah-molestum esse. Attamen, venia tua . . .” (“Ah-er-sir-nothing would be further from my wish than to be in any way troublesome to you. At the same time, with your pardon . . .)

But the man was taking no notice at all. They could not tell whether his eyes were shut or whether he was still looking at them under half-closed lids; but clearly he was not intending to converse. Frost and Wither exchanged enquiring glances.

“There is no approach to this room, is there,” said Frost, “except through the next one?”

“No,” said Wither.

“Let us go out there and discuss the situation. We can leave the door ajar. We shall be able to hear if he stirs.”