§ 3
When Sargon was informed that he was to be visited by Mr. Robin Goodchild he was in a depressed mood. He betrayed no surprise at the name. It seemed to him to be as good as any other name. It might be the name of some intelligent inquirer or possibly even some precursor of the release he still hoped for. His spirits rose. He submitted cheerfully to a searching examination of his personal tidiness, and he nodded acquiescently to a warning not to talk about “every blessed thing” he’d seen.
His spirits rose still more when he saw the dark kindliness of Bobby’s face. It was the one disciple who had ever seemed to believe. He held out both his hands in a little storm of emotion. Whatever sort of muddler Bobby might be to himself, to Sargon in that moment at least he was strength and hope.
The meeting occurred in the reception-room downstairs, for no one from the outside world may ever penetrate to the wards and the bleak realities of everyday asylum life. The reception-room had a baize-covered table in the middle, a black horsehair sofa and numerous chairs; it was totally devoid of small movables; there was an A B C time-table and one or two illustrated weeklies on the table, and the walls bore brown-spotted steel engravings of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria in the Highlands and of Windsor Castle from the Thames. There were three or four groups, each of two or three people, with their heads together conversing in tactful undertones; there were several women and one little girl; a tearful lady in profound mourning sat apart by the empty fire-place and no doubt awaited a patient; two attendants tried hard not to look as though they were listening as intently as possible to the conversations going on about them. The patients present were all in the sanest phase, “fit to be visited.” There was no madness visible; at most only a little nervous oddity. Bobby had been watching these other groups while he waited, and he had been impressed by a certain quality of furtiveness in their behaviour. The furtiveness he connected with the alertness of the attendants. One affected to look out of the window, the other half sat at a table holding an old Graphic, and ever and again there would be a quick glance at this patient or that. It had not occurred to Bobby that his talk to Sargon would be semi-public; it was a disconcerting interference that would greatly hamper him in giving his instructions.
Bobby saw at once that Sargon was very much thinner than when he had taken his room in Midgard Street. He looked ill and worn, an effect that was emphasized by the fact that he was badly shaven and wearing ill-fitting clothes. His eyes seemed larger and sunken under his brows and his forehead more definitely lined. Yet if he looked unhappier he also looked more intelligent. He seemed more aware of the things about him—less a man in a dream.
“I have come to see if I can be of service to you,” said Bobby, holding out his hands. “Your friends and disciples are anxious for your welfare.”
“You have come to see me,” he said, and glanced sideways at the listening attendant and dropped his voice; “me—Sargon?”
Bobby understood that note of doubt and it grieved him. “You, Sargon, the King out of the Past.”
“They would have me deny it,” whispered Sargon.
Bobby raised his eyebrows and nodded his head as who should say, “They’d do anything.”
The little man’s manner changed. “How is one to know?” he said. “How is one to know?”
He sighed. “Nothing seems certain any more.”
“Can we sit down and talk together?” said Bobby. “There is much to be said between us.”
Sargon glanced round. There were two chairs in a corner, and in that corner they might be a little beyond the eavesdropper’s range. “I cannot understand this madness,” said Sargon as they sat down. “I cannot understand this Riddle that has been set me. Why does the Power, why does God, permit men to be mad? When they are mad they are beyond good and evil. What are they? Men still? What becomes of justice, what becomes of righteousness—when men go mad?” His voice sank. His eyes became furtive. “Dreadful things happen here,” he whispered. “Dreadful things. Quite dreadful things.”
He ceased. For a little while neither he nor Bobby said a word.
“I want to get you out of this,” said Bobby.
“Are my friends doing anything?” asked Sargon. “What is Christina Alberta doing? Is she well?”
“She is splendid,” he said haphazard. No doubt she was one of this beastly family of Sargon’s that was content to leave him here. “I want you to listen to me,” he said.
But Sargon had things to tell. “Everyone in this place is always thinking about what their friends outside are doing for them. The poor souls come and talk to me. They know I am different from what they are. They write letters, petitions. I tell them that when God releases me I will bear them all in mind. Some mock at me. They have delusions. They think they are kings or emperors or rich men or great discoverers, and that the world has plotted against them.... Some are suspicious and cruel.... Darkened souls.... Some have dreadful habits. You cannot help but see.... Some are badly sunken—degraded—indescribably.... It is very painful, very painful.”
The blue eyes stared blankly at unpleasant memories.
“There can be no doubt that I am Sargon,” he said abruptly, and looked sharply at Bobby.
“I call you by no other name,” said Bobby.
The momentary acuteness faded again. “That man Preemby was unawakened. He was asleep—scarcely dreaming of life. But I have seen! I have looked at the world from high places. And from dark places too.... Sargon. Sargon is a different person.... But it is difficult.”
He became silent.
Bobby felt that they were getting nowhere. In his anticipations of this conversation he had talked and Sargon had listened. And there had been no one to overhear. But this was all unexpected. Anyhow, the plan had to be told; Sargon had to be instructed in his part. He glanced warily at the people nearest to them. “There are those among us,” he said quietly and quickly, “who would set you free. I want to tell you—” On the spur of the moment he attempted a code. “When I speak of a city in Central Asia it will mean this place, the Asylum. Do you understand?”
“This place—Central Asia. If I am Sargon.... Everything is possibly something else. But we are still in England nevertheless.”
“In reality. But I want to explain to you.”
“Yes, yes. Explain.”
“I shall speak of great discoveries in Central Asia. That will mean this.”
Did he understand?
“Rescue!” whispered Bobby in Sargon’s ear, and glanced at the attendant and met his eye and was discomposed.
“Tell me about the discoveries,” said Sargon after a little pause as though he had not heard that whispered word.
“It is a symbol for this place,” said Bobby.
Sargon looked puzzled. The attendant was watching their faces now. Perhaps he suspected already. Bobby flushed hotly and plunged abruptly into an account of the discoveries of an amazing Russian he called Bobinsky. Bobinsky had found a walled city with no way out. “Yes,” said Sargon, interested. The attendant was now looking away. “Like this place,” said Bobby, and more explicitly; “I mean this place.” There was a river ran through the city, the city of confinement, and went out by the lower part. There it was the helper waited. The rescuers. That was the place for them to wait. Did he understand? At that point where the trees grew and the river went out through the wall. They they waited. There they would wait until the captive king came to them.
“It is a curious story,” said Sargon. “What captive king do you mean?”
“It is meant for you.”
“The river you speak of may be the Euphrates,” said Sargon. “I dream of the Euphrates.”
He had missed it all! He was out upon some woolgathering of his own. Euphrates! What had the Euphrates to do with Central Asia? Or the Asylum?
“Bother!” said Bobby. “I say— It is a smaller river I mean, a streamlet—in the grounds here. Don’t you understand?”
A tall sharp-faced woman in a hat of hard black straw came near them and sat down. Bobby, as he talked, observed her out of the corner of his eye. Was she the friend of a patient or what was she doing here? “I speak in symbols,” said Bobby, still watching and thinking about this woman. “This city is your prison.” He caught the woman exchanging a glance of intelligence with the male attendant who had moved a couple of yards up the room. They knew each other. Then she must be another observer. “I want no other prison than this,” said Sargon, evidently quite at cross-purposes. “One prison is enough.”
“I don’t mean that,” said Bobby. “Can you walk about here pretty freely?”
“Not freely,” said Sargon. “No.”
“If you could come out into the grounds. To-morrow.”
The woman turned her long sharp foxy nose towards him, and stared at him with rather stupid green-blue eyes.
Bobby’s nerve was going to pieces altogether. He was always more afraid of women than men. This prim sharp-nosed figure so manifestly listening, and listening with a faint hostility to all he said, completed his discomfiture. He tried to improvise a story of lost and recovered cities that would be crystal clear to Sargon and yet incomprehensible to the listener. But his invention faltered at the difficult task. Where the river ran out of the city, he repeated; he harped upon that idea; where there were trees and ivy, there the faithful waited. When was the propitious hour for the Master to steal away to them? Everything was prepared. When could it be? When might it be? Fragmentally and mixed with many irrelevancies Bobby tried to get the import of these suggestions over to his hearer. Now he would be explicit; now as the fear of the listener returned, vague and misleading. He did convey a sense of mystery and intention to Sargon, that was plain; but he felt he conveyed nothing more. The time was slipping by. Bobby could have throttled that infernal woman. More and more did she become audience to his floundering efforts. He maundered back to his starting point about Bobinsky. “There is no such person as Bobinsky,” he threw in.
“Then how could he explore cities?” asked Sargon, manifestly more and more perplexed at Bobby’s rigmarole.
“He is dead,” said Bobby. “He was just a mask.”
“Some men are.”
“Don’t mind about Bobinsky. Could you slip away to that corner? No, no. She’s looking. Don’t answer.
“Now answer.”
“I don’t understand,” said Sargon.
Bobby felt that he was only puzzling Sargon. But what else was to be done? He could have kicked himself for not having brought a brief statement of his plan written plainly on a little piece of paper that he could have slipped into Sargon’s hand—or pocket. It would have been so simple. He could have made a map and a drawing. Too late to do that now.
Despair came upon Bobby. Everything had gone wrong. He got up to go and then sat down again to make another attempt. He felt murderous towards that woman, towards himself, even towards slow-witted little Sargon.
“It was very good of you to come and see me,” said Sargon.
“Why did you come?...
“Do you think anything will be done about me?...
“You will see Christina Alberta? When I saw you first I thought you had things to tell me—important things. One lives on such hopes here. Here—when there are no visitors—nothing happens, nothing pleasant. And one is distressed....
“I am interested to hear of those cities in Central Asia of course, but it is a little puzzling. Did you come specially about them? Or just to see me?
“You will come again. Even to come down here to this sitting-room is an event....”
Then in a swift whisper. “The food is frightful. So badly cooked. It disagrees with me....”
“That woman,” said Bobby as he went, “She has spoilt everything. I can’t stand her.”
“That woman?” said Sargon, and followed the direction of Bobby’s eyes. “Poor soul,” he said. “She’s a deaf mute. She comes to see her brother. The whole family is defective or insane.”
A maddened Bobby returned towards his little inn. Should he chuck the whole thing? Intolerable thought! He must make fresh plans—fresh plans altogether. He must begin all over again. The little man was evidently wretched. But it was going to be harder to get hold of him than Bobby had thought.
Bobby had no sleep that night.