The Complete Works: Fantasy & Sci-Fi Novels, Religious Studies, Poetry & Autobiography. C. S. Lewis
and drink by his wife and Mrs. Maggs.
“Don’t stop to ask questions, dear,” said Mrs. Dimble. “Go on eating while they tell you. Make a good meal.”
“You have to go out again,” said Ivy Maggs.
“Yes,” said the Director. “We’re going into action at last. I’m sorry to send you out the moment you come in: but the battle has started.”
“I have already repeatedly urged,” said MacPhee, “the absurdity of sending out an older man like yourself, that’s done a day’s work forbye, when here am I, a great strapping fellow sitting doing nothing.”
“It’s no good, MacPhee,” said the Director, “you can’t go. For one thing you don’t know the language. And for another—it’s a time for frankness—you have never put yourself under the protection of Maleldil.”
“I am perfectly ready,” said MacPhee, “in and for this emergency, to allow the existence of these eldils of yours and of a being called Maleldil whom they regard as their king. And I——”
“You can’t go,” said the Director. “I will not send you. It would be like sending a three-year-old child to fight a tank. Put the other map on the table where Dimble can see it while he goes on with his meal. And now, silence. This is the situation, Dimble. What was under Bragdon was a living Merlin. Yes, asleep, if you like to call it sleep. And nothing has yet happened to show that the enemy have found him. Got that? No, don’t talk, go on eating. Last night Jane Studdock had the most important dream she’s had yet. You remember that in an earlier dream she saw (or so I thought) the very place where he lay under Bragdon. But—and this is the important thing—it’s not reached by a shaft and a stair. She dreamed of going through a long tunnel with a very gradual descent. Ah, you begin to see the point. You’re right. Jane thinks she can recognise the entrance to that tunnel: under a heap of stones at the end of a copse with—what was it, Jane?”
“A white gate, sir. An ordinary five-barred gate with a cross-piece. But the cross-piece was broken off about a foot from the top. I’d know it again.”
“You see, Dimble? There’s a very good chance that this tunnel comes up outside the area held by the N.I.C.E.”
“You mean,” said Dimble, “that we can now get under Bragdon without going into Bragdon.”
“Exactly. But that’s not all.”
Dimble, steadily munching, looked at him.
“Apparently,” said the Director, “we are almost too late. He has waked already.”
Dimble stopped eating.
“Jane found the place empty,” said Ransom.
“You mean the enemy have already found him?”
“No. Not quite as bad as that. The place had not been broken into. He seems to have waked of his own accord.”
“My God!” said Dimble.
“Try to eat, darling,” said his wife.
“But what does it mean?” he asked, covering her hand with his.
“I think it means that the whole thing has been planned and timed long, long ago,” said the Director. “That he went out of Time, into the parachronic state, for the very purpose of returning at this moment.”
“A sort of human time-bomb,” observed MacPhee, “which is why——”
“You can’t go, MacPhee,” said the Director.
“Is he out?” asked Dimble.
“He probably is by now,” said the Director. “Tell him what it was like, Jane.”
“It was the same place,” said Jane. “A dark place, all stone, like a cellar. I recognised it at once. And the slab of stone was there, but no one lying on it; and this time it wasn’t quite cold. Then I dreamed about this tunnel . . . gradually sloping up from the souterrain. And there was a man in the tunnel. Of course I couldn’t see him: it was pitch dark. But a great big man. Breathing heavily. At first I thought it was an animal. It got colder as we went up the tunnel. There was air—a little air—from outside. It seemed to end in a pile of loose stones. He was pulling them about just before the dream changed. Then I was outside, in the rain. That was when I saw the white gate.”
“It looks, you see,” said Ransom, “as if they had not yet—or not then—established contact with him. That is our only chance now. To meet this creature before they do.”
“You will all have observed that Bragdon is very nearly water-logged,” put in MacPhee. “Where exactly you’ll find a dry cavity in which a body could be preserved all these centuries is a question worth asking. That is, if any of you are still concerned with evidence.”
“That’s the point,” said the Director. “The chamber must be under the high ground—the gravelly ridge on the south of the wood where it slopes up to the Eaton Road. Near where Storey used to live. That’s where you’ll have to look first for Jane’s white gate. I suspect it opens on the Eaton Road. Or else that other road—look at the map—the yellow one that runs up into the Y of Cure Hardy.”
“We can be there in half an hour,” said Dimble, his hand still on his wife’s hand. To everyone in that room the sickening excitement of the last minutes before battle had come nearer.
“I suppose it must be to-night?” said Mrs. Dimble, rather shamefacedly.
“I am afraid it must, Margaret,” said the Director. “Every minute counts. We have practically lost the war if the enemy once make contact with him. Their whole plan probably turns on it.”
“Of course. I see. I’m sorry,” said Mrs. Dimble.
“And what is our procedure, sir?” said Dimble, pushing his plate away from him and beginning to fill his pipe.
“The first question is whether he’s out,” said the Director. “It doesn’t seem likely that the entrance to the tunnel has been hidden all these centuries by nothing but a heap of loose stones. And if it has, they wouldn’t be very loose by now. He may take hours getting out.”
“You’ll need at least two strong men with picks——” began MacPhee.
“It’s no good, MacPhee,” said the Director. “I’m not letting you go. If the mouth of the tunnel is still sealed, you must just wait there. But he may have powers we don’t know. If he’s out, you must look for tracks. Thank God it’s a muddy night. You must just hunt him.”
“If Jane is going, sir,” said Camilla, “couldn’t I go too? I’ve had more experience of this sort of thing than——”
“Jane has to go because she is the guide,” said Ransom. “I am afraid you must stay at home. We in this house are all that is left of Logres. You carry its future in your body. As I was saying, Dimble, you must hunt. I do not think he can get far. The country will, of course, be quite unrecognisable to him, even by daylight.”
“And . . . if we do find him, sir?”
“That is why it must be you, Dimble. Only you know the Great Tongue. If there was eldilic power behind the tradition he represented he may understand it. Even if he does not understand it he will, I think, recognise it. That will teach him he is dealing with Masters. There is a chance that he will think you are the Belbury people—his friends. In that case you will bring him here at once.”
“And if not?”
“Then you must show your hand. That is the moment when the danger comes. We do not know what the powers of the old Atlantean circle were: some kind of hypnotism probably covered most of it. Don’t be afraid: but don’t let him try any tricks. Keep your hand on your revolver. You too, Denniston.”
“I’m