“Fellow,” he said in Latin, “tell the Lord of this House that I am come.” As he spoke, the wind from behind him was whipping the coat about his legs and blowing his hair over his forehead: but his great mass stood as if it had been planted like a tree, and he seemed in no hurry. And the voice, too, was such as one might imagine to be the voice of a tree, large and slow and patient, drawn up through roots and clay and gravel from the depths of the Earth.
“I am the Master here,” said Ransom, in the same language.
“To be sure!” answered the Stranger. “And yonder whipper-snapper (mastigia) is without doubt your Bishop.” He did not exactly smile, but a look of disquieting amusement came into his keen eyes. Suddenly he poked his head forward so as to bring his face much nearer to the Director’s.
“Tell your master that I am come,” he repeated in the same voice as before.
Ransom looked at him without the flicker of an eyelid.
“Do you really wish,” he said at last, “that I call upon my Masters?”
“A daw that lives in a hermit’s cell has learned before now to chatter book-Latin,” said the other. “Let us hear your calling, mannikin (homuncio).”
“I must use another language for it,” said Ransom.
“A daw could have Greek also in its bill.”
“It is not Greek.”
“Let us hear your Hebrew, then.”
“It is not Hebrew.”
“Nay,” answered the other with something like a chuckle, a chuckle deep hidden in his enormous chest and betrayed only by a slight movement of his shoulders, “if you come to the gabble of barbarians, it will go hard but I shall out-chatter you. Here is excellent sport.”
“It may happen to seem to you the speech of barbarians,” said Ransom, “for it is long since it has been heard. Not even in Numinor was it heard in the streets.”
The Stranger gave no start and his face remained as quiet as before, if it did not become quieter; but he spoke with a new interest.
“Your Masters let you play with dangerous toys,” he said. “Tell me, slave, what is Numinor?”
“The true West,” said Ransom.
“Well . . .” said the other. Then, after a pause, he added, “You have little courtesy to guests in this house. It is a cold wind on my back, and I have been long in bed. You see, I have already crossed the threshold.”
“I value that at a straw,” said Ransom. “Shut the door, MacPhee,” he added in English. But there was no response; and looking round for the first time, he saw that MacPhee had sat down in the one chair which the scullery contained and was fast asleep.
“What is the meaning of this foolery?” said Ransom, looking sharply at the Stranger.
“If you are indeed the Master of this house, you have no need to be told. If not, why should I give account of myself to such as you? Do not fear; your horse-boy will be none the worse.”
“This shall be seen to shortly,” said Ransom. “In the meantime, I do not fear your entering the house. I have more cause to fear your escaping. Shut the door if you will, for you see my foot is hurt.”
The Stranger, without ever taking his eyes off Ransom, swept back his left hand behind him, found the door handle, and slammed the door to. MacPhee never stirred. “Now,” he said, “what of these Masters of yours?”
“My Masters are the Oyéresu.”
“Where did you hear that name?” asked the Stranger. “Or, if you are truly of the College, why do they dress you like a slave?”
“Your own garments,” said Ransom, “are not those of a druid.”
“That stroke was well put by,” answered the other. “Since you have knowledge, answer me three questions, if you dare.”
“I will answer them if I can. But as for daring, we shall see.”
The Stranger mused for a few seconds; then, speaking in a slightly sing-song voice, as though he repeated an old lesson, he asked, in two Latin hexameters, the following question:
“Who is called Sulva? What road does she walk? Why is the womb barren on one side? Where are the cold marriages?”
Ransom replied, “Sulva is she whom mortals call the Moon. She walks in the lowest sphere. The rim of the world that was wasted goes through her. Half of her orb is turned towards us and shares our curse. Her other half looks to Deep Heaven; happy would he be who could cross that frontier and see the fields on her farther side. On this side the womb is barren and the marriages cold. There dwell an accursed people, full of pride and lust. There when a young man takes a maiden in marriage they do not lie together, but each lies with a cunningly fashioned image of the other, made to move and to be warm by devilish arts, for real flesh will not please them, they are so dainty (delicati) in their dreams of lust. Their real children they fabricate by vile arts in a secret place.”
“You have answered well,” said the Stranger. “I thought there were but three men in the world that knew this question. But my second may be harder. Where is the ring of Arthur the King? What Lord has such a treasure in his house?”
“The ring of the King,” said Ransom, “is on Arthur’s finger where he sits in the House of Kings in the cup-shaped land of Abhalljin, beyond the seas of Lur in Perelandra. For Arthur did not die; but Our Lord took him to be in the body till the end of time and the shattering of Sulva, with Enoch and Elias and Moses and Melchisedec the King. Melchisedec is he in whose hall the steep-stoned ring sparkles on the forefinger of the Pendragon.”
“Well answered,” said the Stranger. “In my college it was thought that only two men in the world knew this. But as for my third question, no man knew the answer but myself. Who shall be Pendragon in the time when Saturn descends from his sphere? In what world did he learn war?”
“In the sphere of Venus I learned war,” said Ransom. “In this age Lurga shall descend. I am the Pendragon.”
When he had said this he took a step backwards, for the big man had begun to move and there was a new look in his eyes. Any who had seen them as they stood thus face to face would have thought that it might come to fighting at any moment. But the Stranger had not moved with hostile purpose. Slowly, ponderously, yet not awkwardly, as though a mountain sank like a wave, he sank on one knee; and still his face was almost on a level with the Director’s.
II
“This throws a quite unexpected burden on our resources,” said Wither to Frost, where they both sat in the outer room with the door ajar. “I must confess I had not anticipated any serious difficulty about language.”
“We must get a Celtic scholar at once,” said Frost. “We are regrettably weak on the philological side. I do not at the moment know who has discovered most about ancient British. Ransom would be the man to advise us if he were available. I suppose nothing has been heard of him by your department?”
“I need hardly point out,” said Wither, “that Dr. Ransom’s philological attainments are by no means the only ground on which we are anxious to find him. If the least trace had been discovered, you may rest assured that you would have long since had the—ah—gratification of seeing him here in person.”
“Of course. He may not be in the Earth at all.”
“I met him once,” said Wither, half closing his eyes. “He was a most brilliant man in his way. A man whose penetrations and intuitions might have been of infinite value, if he had not embraced the cause of reaction. It is a saddening