# Drome/Chapter 40

Chapter 40
Before Lepraylya
One by one, in twos and threes and then in a body, the small craft had dropped behind, and now we were alone on the black waters.
​"It must have been the eclipse," said Rhodes. "It is plain, Bill, that there is something about this darkness that is mysterious and awful to the Dromans. It must be in some way a most extraordinary eclipse."
There was something awful—something more awful than we thought. And what troubled me the most was this: they seemed to think that we men from the world above had something to do with this dread darkness—already one of far longer duration than any eclipse any living Droman had ever known. Indeed, none such had been recorded for what we would call centuries, and the last had been the harbinger of the most fearful calamities.
We knew full well that some superstition was pointing a fell finger in our direction; but through the mind of neither flickered the thought that this eclipse might, so to speak, be metamorphosed into a death-charge against us.
As we were drawing in to the palace, a heavy voice came across the water. On the instant the rowers rested on their oars. Our commander answered the hail, the heavy voice came again, whereupon the oars were dipped and our craft glided in toward the landing place.
Like a great lovely water-bird, our boat swung in to the landing place, where she was at once made fast.
And then a strange thing happened.
Rhodes and I stepped from the boat together. Since the light had gone out in that fierce and terrible flash, not the faintest glimmer had shone overhead—anywhere. But, at that very instant in which we set foot on the island, there came a flash wrathful and awful.
For a few seconds the palace, the water, the city, the distant walls of rock stood out in bold relief, as though in the glare of leprous fire. Then utter darkness again. It was like (and yet very unlike, too) a lightning flash; but no thunder roared, not the faintest sound was heard. Again that leprous light, and this time cries broke out—cries that fear and horror wrung from the Dromans. It was, indeed, an awful moment and an awful scene.
"It looks," said Rhodes, "as though the world is coming to an end."
"Certainly," I told him, "it seems as though the Dromans think so. Look at Drorathusa!"
Again she was standing with arms extended upward, and once more that strange, eery voice of hers came sounding. Everyone there, save Rhodes and myself, was kneeling. Little wonder that, as I looked upon that fearful scene, with the leprous light flashing and quivering through the darkness, I thought it must all be a dream.
The flashes became more frequent. The light began to turn opalescent and to shoot and quiver and shake along the roof. Then of a sudden the eclipse—what other word is there to use?—had passed and all was bright once more.
We at once quitted the landing place, ascended a short flight of steps, passed through a most beautiful court and then, having ascended more steps, entered the palace itself.
Our little party was conducted straight to the throne-room. And straight down the great central aisle we went and stood at last before the queen herself.
There is nothing, as we then saw, servile, debasing in Droman court ceremonial. The meanest Droman, indeed, would never dream of kneeling before his queen. A Droman kneels to no man or woman, but to ​God only. The sovereign does not owe her queendom to birth; but to merit, or to that which the Dromans deem as such. She is chosen, and she is chosen queen for life. I say she, and I mean she. The Salic law excluded a woman from the throne of France; the Salic law of Drome excludes the man—or, as the Dromans are wont to put it, "no man may be queen"—a proposition that even the most Socratical Droman philosopher has never been known to dispute!
As to the choosing of the Droman sovereign, I should perhaps explain that not everyone has a voice in this. Beggars, prodigals, sociophagites, dunces, nincompoops, fuddle-caps, half-wits, no-wit-at-alls, sharpers, crooks, bunko-men, paupers, thieves, robbers, highwaymen, burglars, madmen and murderers, and some others, are all (I know that this is perfectly incredible and awful, but I solemnly assure you that it is a fact) interdicted the ballot.
Alas, it grieves me more than I could ever express to record so sad an instance of benightment in a people in so many ways so truly enlightened and broad-minded. But I take pride in saying that (when I had attained to something like a real knowledge of the Droman tongue) I described to Lepraylya herself, at the very first opportunity and in the most glowing and eulogistical language at my command, how beautifully we did these things in the world above.
I had (yes, I confess it) flattered myself that I would thus be instrumental in bringing about a great reform, in righting a cruel injustice. Vain vision—vain, alluring dream! As I went on with my panegyric, I saw wonder and amazement gathering in the beautiful eyes of Lepraylya. When I had finished, she sat for some moments like one dumfound-ed. And, when at last she spoke, it was, as old Rabelais has it, as though her tongue was walking on crutches. What she said was: "My Lord Bill Carter!"
And again after a pause: "My Lord Bill Carter!
"But, then," she added, "it must be an allegory. I confess, however, that the meaning, to my poor intellect at any rate, is involved in the deepest obscurity. Yes, allegory it must be. Surely this world you have described to me exists only in the imagination—is an imaginary world inhabited by imaginary sane people that are in reality lunatics."
But this is anticipating.
There we stood before the Queen of Drome.
And what a vision of loveliness was that upon which we stood gazing! Strange, too, was the beauty of Lathendra Lepraylya, what with her snow-white hair. (Her age I put at about thirty.) The eyes, large and lustrous, were of the lighest gray, the pallid color enhancing the weird loveliness of her. Her dress was of the palest blue; on her brow, in a bejeweled golden diadem, was a large brilliant of pale green, flashing when she moved her look with prismatic hues and fires.
But this woman before whom we stood was no mere beauty. That one saw at the first glance. Wonderful, splendid, one felt, was the mind of her, the soul of Lathendra Lepraylya. And not only that, but it was as though there was something uncanny in those pale gray eyes when she turned them to mine. That look of Lepraylya seemed to go right into my very brain, search out its thoughts and its secret places.
At the time it seemed long, but I suppose that no more than a couple of seconds had passed before she had turned her eyes to Milton Rhodes, upon whom they seemed to linger.
​Her snowy face was cold, impassive. Even when she slightly raised her right hand to us in salutation, not the slightest change was perceptible upon it.
The next moment, however, there was a change—when she addressed Drorathusa. For each of the others Lepraylya had a kind word, and then we all moved back a few steps to the seats which had been reserved for us—all save Drorathusa. She, we at once perceived, was about to give an account of the journey up to the mysterious, the awful world above. There was not a vacant seat in all that great room, save one—that for Drorathusa. This was to the left of the throne, as one faces it, together with a dozen or so others, all occupied by persons whom I at once, and rightly, set down as priests and priestesses.
Of this small group (small but most powerful) every member save one was dressed in a robe of snowy white. As for the individual in question, his robe was of the deepest purple, and he had round his head a deep-blue fillet, in which was set a large gem, a diamond, as we afterward learned, of a red so strange and somber that one could not help thinking of blood and weird, dreadful things. We thought that this personage was the high priest, and in this we were not mistaken. He was about sixty years of age, lean to emaciation and with the cold, hard look of the fanatic in his eyes and, indeed, in his every lineament. His face, smooth-shaven, as is the Droman custom, was like that of some cruel bird of prey. Coldly had he received, and returned, the salutation of Drorathusa, and dark with malevolence had been the look which he had fixed upon Rhodes and me.
There could not be the slightest doubt that this human raptor purposed to rend us beak and talon.