Electronic Bookshelf/Electronic Bookshelf.iso/stories/hashish.txt

Text File | 1994-12-22 | 11KB | 204 lines

                       The Hashish Man

                       by Lord Dunsany


I was at a dinner in London the other day.  The ladies had
gone upstairs, and no one sat on my right; on my left there
was a man I did not know, but he knew my name somehow
apparently, for he turned to me after a while, and said, "I
read a story of yours about Bethmoora in a review."
   Of course I remembered the tale.  It was about a
beautiful Oriental city that was suddenly deserted in a day
-- nobody quite knew why.  I said, "Oh, yes," and slowly
searched in my mind for some more fitting acknowledgment of
the compliment that his memory had paid me.
   I was greatly astonished when he said, "You were wrong
about the gnousar sickness; it was not that at all."
   I said, "Why!  Have you been there?"
   And he said, "Yes; I do it with hashish.  I know
Bethmoora well."  And he took out of his pocket a small box
full of some black stuff that looked like tar, but had a
stranger smell.  He warned me not to touch it with my
finger, as the stain remained for days.  "I got it from a
gipsy," he said.  "He had a lot of it, as it had killed his
father."  But I interrupted him, for I wanted to know for
certain what it was that had made desolate that beautiful
city, Bethmoora, and why they fled from it swiftly in a
day.  "Was it because of the Desert's curse?" I asked.  And
he said, "Partly it was the fury of the Desert and partly
the advice of the Emperor Thuba Mleen, for that fearful
beast is in some way connected with the Desert on his
mother's side."  And he told me this strange story: "You
remember the sailor with the black scar, who was there on
the day that you described when the messengers came on mules
to the gate of Bethmoora, and all the people fled.  I met
this man in a tavern, drinking rum, and he told me all about
the flight from Bethmoora, but knew no more than you did
what the message was, or who had sent it.  However, he said
he would see Bethmoora once more whenever he touched again
at an eastern port, even if he had to face the Devil.  He
often said that he would face the Devil to find out the
mystery of that message that emptied Bethmoora in a day.
And in the end he had to face Thuba Mleen, whose weak
ferocity he had not imagined.  For one day the sailor told
me he had found a ship, and I met him no more after that in
the tavern drinking rum.  It was about that time that I got
the hashish from the gipsy, who had a quantity that he did
not want.  It takes one literally out of oneself.  It is
like wings.  You swoop over distant countries and into other
worlds.  Once I found out the secret of the universe.  I
have forgotten what it was, but I know that the Creator does
not take Creation seriously, for I remember that He sat in
Space with all His work in front of Him and laughed.  I have
seen incredible things in fearful worlds.  As it is your
imagination that takes you there, so it is only by your
imagination that you can get back.  Once out in aether I met
a battered, prowling spirit, that had belonged to a man whom
drugs had killed a hundred years ago; and he led me to
regions that I had never imagined; and we parted in anger
beyond the Pleiades, and I could not imagine my way back.
And I met a huge grey shape that was the Spirit of some
great people, perhaps of a whole star, and I besought It to
show me my way home, and It halted beside me like a sudden
wind and pointed, and, speaking quite softly, asked me if I
discerned a certain tiny light, and I saw a far star
faintly, and then It said to me, `That is the Solar System,'
and strode tremendously on.  And somehow I imagined my way
back, and only just in time, for my body was already
stiffening in a chair in my room; and the fire had gone out
and everything was cold, and I had to move each finger one
by one, and there were pins and needles in them, and
dreadful pains in the nails, which began to thaw; and at
last I could move one arm, and reached a bell, and for a
long time no one came, because every one was in bed.  But at
last a man appeared, and they got a doctor; and HE said that
it was hashish poisoning, but it would have been all right
if I hadn't met that battered, prowling spirit.
   "I could tell you astounding things that I have seen, but
you want to know who sent that message to Bethmoora.  Well,
it was Thuba Mleen.  And this is how I know.  I often went
to the city after that day you wrote of (I used to take
hashish of an evening in my flat), and I always found it
uninhabited.  Sand had poured into it from the desert, and
the streets were yellow and smooth, and through open,
swinging doors the sand had drifted.
   "One evening I had put the guard in front of the fire,
and settled into a chair and eaten my hashish, and the first
thing that I saw when I came to Bethmoora was the sailor
with the black scar, strolling down the street, and making
footprints in the yellow sand.  And now I knew that I should
see what secret power it was that kept Bethmoora
uninhabited.
   "I saw that there was anger in the Desert, for there were
storm clouds heaving along the skyline, and I heard a
muttering amongst the sand.
   "The sailor strolled on down the street, looking into the
empty houses as he went; sometimes he shouted and sometimes
he sang, and sometimes he wrote his name on a marble wall.
Then he sat down on a step and ate his dinner.  After a
while he grew tired of the city, and came back up the
street.  As he reached the gate of green copper three men on
camels appeared.
   "I could do nothing.  I was only a consciousness,
invisible, wandering: my body was in Europe.  The sailor
fought well with his fists, but he was over-powered and
bound with ropes, and led away through the Desert.
   "I followed for as long as I could stay, and found that
they were going by the way of the Desert round the Hills of
Hap towards Utnar Vehi, and then I knew that the camel men
belonged to Thuba Mleen.
   "I work in an insurance office all day, and I hope you
won't forget me if ever you want to insure -- life, fire, or
motor -- but that's no part of my story.  I was desperately
anxious to get back to my flat, though it is not good to
take hashish two days running; but I wanted to see what they
would do to the poor fellow, for I had heard bad rumours
about Thuba Mleen.  When at last I got away I had a letter
to write; then I rang for my servant, and told him that I
must not be disturbed, though I left my door unlocked in
case of accidents.  After that I made up a good fire, and
sat down and partook of the pot of dreams.  I was going to
the palace of Thuba Mleen.
   "I was kept back longer than usual by noises in the
street, but suddenly I was up above the town; the European
countries rushed by beneath me, and there appeared the thin
white palace spires of horrible Thuba Mleen.  I found him
presently at the end of a little narrow room.  A curtain of
red leather hung behind him, on which all the names of God,
written in Yannish, were worked with a golden thread.  Three
windows were small and high.  The Emperor seemed no more
than about twenty, and looked small and weak.  No smiles
came on his nasty yellow face, though he tittered
continually.  As I looked from his low forehead to his
quivering under lip, I became aware that there was some
horror about him, though I was not able to perceive what it
was.  And then I saw it -- the man never blinked; and though
later on I watched those eyes for a blink, it never happened
once.
   "And then I followed the Emperor's rapt glance, and I saw
the sailor lying on the floor, alive but hideously rent, and
the royal torturers were at work all round him.  They had
torn long strips from him, but had not detached them, and
they were torturing the ends of them far away from the
sailor."  The man that I met at dinner told me many things
which I must omit.  "The sailor was groaning softly, and
every time he groaned Thuba Mleen tittered.  I had no sense
of smell, but I could hear and see, and I do not know which
was the most revolting -- the terrible condition of the
sailor or the happy unblinking face of horrible Thuba Mleen.
   "I wanted to go away, but the time was not yet come, and
I had to stay where I was.
   "Suddenly the Emperor's face began to twitch violently
and his under lip quivered faster, and he whimpered with
anger, and cried with a shrill voice, in Yannish, to the
captain of his torturers that there was a spirit in the
room.  I feared not, for living men cannot lay hands on a
spirit, but all the torturers were appalled at his anger,
and stopped their work, for their hands trembled in fear.
Then two men of the spear-guard slipped from the room, and
each of them brought back presently a golden bowl, with
knobs on it, full of hashish; and the bowls were large
enough for heads to have floated in had they been filled
with blood.  And the two men fell to rapidly, each eating
with two great spoons -- there was enough in each spoonful
to have given dreams to a hundred men.  And there came upon
them soon the hashish state, and their spirits hovered,
preparing to go free, while I feared horribly, but ever and
anon they fell back again to their bodies, recalled by some
noise in the room.  Still the men ate, but lazily now, and
without ferocity.  At last the great spoons dropped out of
their hands, and their spirits rose and left them.  I could
not flee.  And the spirits were more horrible than the men,
because they were young men, and not yet wholly moulded to
fit their fearful souls.  Still the sailor groaned softly,
evoking little titters from the Emperor Thuba Mleen.  Then
the two spirits rushed at me, and swept me thence as gusts
of wind sweep butterflies, and away we went from that small,
pale, heinous man.  There was no escaping from these
spirits' fierce insistence.  The energy in my minute lump of
the drug was overwhelmed by the huge spoonsful that these
men had eaten with both hands.  I was whirled over Arvle
Woondery, and brought to the lands of Snith, and swept on
still until I came to Kragua, and beyond this to those bleak
lands that are nearly unknown to fancy.  And we came at last
to those ivory hills that are named the Mountains of
Madness, and I tried to struggle against the spirits of that
frightful Emperor's men, for I heard on the other side of
the ivory hills the pittering of those beasts that prey on
the mad, as they prowled up and down.  It was no fault of
mine that my little lump of hashish could not fight with
their horrible spoonsful..."
   Some one was tugging at the hall-door bell.  Presently a
servant came and told our host that a policeman in the hall
wished to speak to him at once.  He apologised to us, and
went outside, and we heard a man in heavy boots, who spoke
in a low voice to him.  My friend got up and walked over to
the window, and opened it, and looked outside.  "I should
think it will be a fine night," he said.  Then he jumped
out.  When we put our astonished heads out of the window to
look for him, he was already out of sight.