And Kerin would reply, “As you like, my dear.” So this young Saraide, whom many called a witch, had sought, night after night, for the desired knowledge, in widely various surroundings, from the clergy, from men of business, from poets, and from fiends; and had wakened in her talisman every color save only that golden shining which would proclaim her capture of the truth. This clear soft yellow ray, as she explained to Kerin, would have to be evoked, if ever, in the night season, because by day its radiance might pass unnoticed and her perception of the truth be lost.
Kerin could understand the common-sense of this, at any rate. And so young Saraide was unfailingly heartened in all such nocturnal experiments by the encouragement of her fond husband.
“And do not be discouraged, wife,” he would exhort her, as he was now exhorting upon this fine spring evening, “for women and their belongings are, beyond doubt, of some use or another, which by and by will be discovered. Meanwhile, my darling, what were you saying there is for supper? For that at least is a matter of real importance—”
But Saraide said only, in that quick, inconsequential childish way of hers, “O Kerin of my heart, I do so want to know the truth about this, and about all other matters!”
“Come, come, Saraide! let us not despair about the truth, either; for they tell me that truth lies somewhere at the bottom of a well, and at virtually the door of our home is a most notable if long dried well. Our location is thus quite favorable, if we but keep patience. And sooner or later the truth comes to light, they tell me, also,—out of, it may be, the darkness of this same abandoned Well of Ogde,—because truth is mighty and will prevail.”
“No doubt,” said Saraide: “but throughout all the long while between now and then, my Kerin, you will be voicing just such sentiments!”
“—For truth is stranger than fiction. Yes, and as Lactantius tells us, truth will sometimes come even out of the devil’s mouth.”
Saraide fidgeted. And what now came out of her own angelic mouth was a yawn.
“Truth is not easily found.” her Kerin continued. “The truth is hard to come to: roses and truth have thorns about them.”
“Perhaps,” said Saraide. “But against banalities a married woman has no protection whatever!”
“Yet truth,” now Kerin went on with his kindly encouragement, “may languish, but can never perish. Isidore of Seville records the fine saying that, though malice may darken truth, it cannot put it out.”
“Husband of mine,” said Saraide, “sometimes I find your wisdom such that I wonder how I ever came to marry you!”
But Kerin waved aside her tribute modestly. “It is merely that I, too, admire the truth. For truth is the best buckler. Truth never grows old. Truth, in the words of Tertullian, seeks no corners. Truth makes the devil blush.”
“Good Lord!” said Saraide. And for no reason at all she stamped her foot.
“—So everybody, in whatsoever surroundings, ought to be as truthful as I am now, my pet, in observing that this hour is considerably past our usual hour for supper, and I have had rather a hard day of it—”
But Saraide had gone from him, as if in meditation, toward the curbing about the great and bottomless Well of Ogde. “Among these general observations, about devils and bucklers and supper time, I find only one which may perhaps be helpful. Truth lies, you tell me, at the bottom of a well just such as this well.”
“That is the contention alike of Cleanthes and of Democritos the derider.”
“May the truth not lie indeed, then, just as you suggested, at the bottom of this identical well? For the Zhar-Ptitza alone knows the truth about all things, and I recall an old legend that the bird who has the true wisdom used to nest in this part of Poictesme.”
Kerin looked over the stone ledge about the great and bottomless Well of Ogde, peering downward as far as might be. “I consider it improbable, dear wife, that the Zhar-Ptitza, who is everywhere known to be the most wise and most ancient of birds and of all living creatures, would select such a cheerless looking hole to live in. Still, you never can telclass="underline" the wise affect profundity; and this well is known to be deep beyond the knowledge of man. Now nature, as Cicero informs us, in profundo veritatem penitus abstruserit—”
“Good Lord!” said Saraide again, but with more emphasis. “Do you slip down there, then, like a dear fellow, and find the truth for me.”
Saying this, she clapped both hands to his backside, and she pushed her husband into the great and bottomless Well of Ogde.
Chapter XLIII. Prayer And The Lizard Maids
The unexpectedness of it all, alike of Saraide’s assault and of the astonishing discovery that you could fall for hundreds after hundreds of feet, full upon your head, without getting even a bruise, a little bewildered Kerin when he first sat up at the bottom of the dry well. He shouted cheerily, “Wife, wife, I am not hurt a bit!” because the fact seemed so remarkably fortunate and so unaccountable.
But at once large stones began to fall everywhere about him, as though Sara’ide upon hearing his voice had begun desperately to heave these stones into the well. Kerin thought this an inordinate manner of spurring him onward in the quest of knowledge and truth, because the habitual impetuosity of Saraide, when thus expressed with cobblestones, would infallibly have been his death had he not sought shelter in the opening he very luckily found to the southwest side. There was really no understanding these women who married you, Kerin reflected, as, after crawling for a while upon hands and feet, he came to a yet larger opening, in which he could stand erect.
But this passage led Kerin presently to an underground lake, which filled all that part of the cavern, so that he could venture no farther. Instead, he sat down upon the borders of these gloomy and endless looking waters. He could see these waters because of the many ignes fatui, such as are called corpse candles, which flickered and danced above the dark lake’s surface everywhere.
Kerin in such dismal circumstances began to pray. He loyally gave precedence to his own faith, and said, first, all the prayers of his church that he could remember. He addressed such saints as seemed appropriate, and when, after the liveliest representation of Kerin’s plight, sixteen of them had failed in any visible way to intervene, then Kerin tried the Angels, Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, and Archangels.
Yet later, when no response whatever was vouchsafed by any member of this celestial hierarchy, Kerin inferred that he had, no doubt, in falling so far, descended into heretical regions and into the nefarious control of unchristian deities. So he now prayed to all the accursed gods of the heathen that he could remember as being most potent in dark places. He prayed to Aidoneus the Laughterless, the Much-Receiving, .the People-Collecting, the Invincible and the Hateful; to the implacable Keres, those most dreadful cave-dwellers who are nourished by the blood of slain warriors; to the gloom-roaming Erinnyes, to the Gray-Maids, to the Snatchers, and, most fervently, to Kore, that hidden and very lovely sable-vested Virgin to whom belonged, men said, all the dim underworld.
But nothing happened.
Then Kerin tried new targets for his praying. He addressed himself to Susanoo, that emperor of darkness who was used to beget children by chewing up a sword and spitting out the pieces; to Ekchuah, the Old Black One, who at least chewed nothing with his one tooth; to the red Maruts, patched together from the bits of a shattered divine embryo; to Onniont, the great, horned, brown and yellow serpent, whose lair might well be hereabouts; to Tethra, yet another master of underground places; to Apep also, and to Set, and to Uhat, the Chief of Scorpions; to Camazotz, the Ruler of Bats; to Fenris, the wolf who waited somewhere in a cave very like this cave, against the coming time when Fenris would overthrow and devour God the All-Mighty Father; and to Sraosha, who had charge of all worlds during the night season.