A long silence followed his outburst. All of us shared his gloom. Barring an unexpected smile of fortune, there was no reason to believe the usurpers would not remain the inheritors of the labor and the brilliance of the past. The Director had let slip enough of the tale of his informer—his secret agent just arrived from Ozar—for us to understand the depth of the disaster.
The shadow line of barbarism had engulfed the world, taken civilization in captivity. What had seemed just another outburst in Grotum—cursed Grotum, the nature of a crime itself; age-old nursery of the craft of treason—had spread like wildfire around the whole of Joe’s Sea—to Ozar itself! Madness; vile, unreasoning madness; so complete the victory of lawlessness that there was no longer any suspense in our hearts. We, once rulers of east and west, had lost our grip of the land. The heroic age was over—naught left of it but tales of hearsay, cobwebs and gossamer.
The weight of the burden lay heaviest on the Director’s heart. He had lost his entire fortune—but it was not because of the dollars that the Director’s every waking hour was an endless torment of recrimination; and—yes—self-recrimination. It was the warrior’s soul of the man that shriveled, not the merchant’s brain. He had told us, with a false smile on his face, and an empty laugh, of his plans for a peaceful old age. “What matters it in the end?” he had asked. We said nothing; he went on, “I shall forego the active life; after all, I’m getting on in years. Let savagery reign! I did my best. Here, in this far-off corner of the world, I shall maintain a little outpost of progress, a small beacon—no, no, dear friends, let us not fool ourselves still; not a beacon, a dim lamp, an ember—let those who come after us, those who will—someday—turn back the foul tide, let them perhaps take a little heart, a small sum of fortitude, from our efforts here—our last essays, you might say. I shall write some reminiscences—my notes on life and letters; a personal record, to give what help it may to others.” He lapsed into silence and it burned me to see him so; he was not a man of letters; could not hope to turn his mind in that direction.
Remembering that conversation, I looked across the little lagoon where we anchored; looked to the dim dusk-shrouded huts of the native village. I thought of exile—degeneration among the savages.
“I met him once,” said Barley suddenly. “The Rebel, I mean. It was long ago—as I was returning from my first expedition into the Sssuj.”
The Director’s face turned partly; pain filled it; suddenly I wished Barley had remained silent, much though I found myself filled with curiosity. The Director had enough anguish as it was, without being reminded of the Sssuj.
“Perhaps”—interrupted the accountant—”No,” said the Director, “I want to hear the tale. It could hardly bother me now—for years I was tormented by—ah! that brave soul alone amidst the savagery—how much I would have—”
He fell silent, but he hadn’t needed to continue; for all his fortune, we knew well he would have given up a considerable portion for the widow’s hand in marriage. To him, she was the secret sharer of his fortune—the real partner of his fate beside whom the myriad commercial co-venturers paled into mist. But she felt otherwise—her sense of duty; that sense of duty which had taken her so many years before into the wilds of the Sssuj; to bring godliness into the hearts of the savages—none could dissuade her from her course, fraught though it was with unspeakable peril. No pleas, no entreaties, could stop her; she left that cold morning long ago, never to return—overdue and missing; in all the years since, no word of her had been heard. Thrice had the Director sent Barley into the Sssuj to seek her out; thrice had Barley returned with nought but tales of the endless reaches of the swamp—the swamp, the swamp, the great morass of the world, graveyard of so many brave missions and gallant armies.
“What can it matter now?” demanded the Director. “Can Ozar be any better today than the heart of the Sssuj?” He fell silent for a moment, then turned from the rail and sat himself in our circle.